If you’re like me, you’ve participated in dozens if not hundreds of
bull-sessions, electronic or otherwise, on the topic of “What constitutes
good literature?” The presence of the book in the “Literary Fiction”
section is no clear guide; the “Literary Fiction” section is mostly
filled with pretentious tripe. The popularity of the book is no clear
guide; people will read the most appalling trash in large quantities.
And the book I revere might well revulse you. It can be tempting to cut the
Gordian knot of aesthetics by claiming that aesthetic values are merely
subjective. “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” you might cry.

And yet, that’s not a particularly satisfying answer. It’s clear to me–in
fact, it’s clear to everyone–that some books are better than others. I
might not be able to say precisely why in every case, and yet the fact
remains. Some books are better than others.

Part of the problem, of course, is that there is no single measure of
literary value–there are dozens of axes on which a work can be said to
succeed or fail. Literary value is complicated–as complicated as people
are complicated–and to say that literary value is merely subjective
isn’t a solution, it’s an abdication.

A similar muddle exists in the realm of moral value. The modern relativist
says, “Act A is forbidden in culture B, but compulsory in culture C;
therefore the immorality of act A is culturally-defined rather than
absolute.” Reduced to simplest form, this statement generally turns out
to mean “It’s not wrong when the So-and-so’s do it, and therefore it’s not
wrong if I do it, no matter what Mrs. Grundy says.”

And indeed, faced with the varied customs and ethos of the cultures of
the world, it’s easy to cut the Gordian knot of moral value by taking up
a relativist position–especially if we’re looking for reasons why it
isn’t sinful to sin.

And that brings me to Lewis’ book The Abolition of Man, which
is outstanding and which I highly recommend. Lewis begins with a
discussion of a schoolbook whose authors appear to espouse the notion
that aesthetic and moral values are subjective. He points out that such
people don’t usually hold that all value is subjective–just the ones
they want to belittle. Their own values, of course, are objectively
good, as they will hasten to prove from first principles.

Except that they can’t. You can’t prove that a value is objectively good
except in terms of another value. Consider the following dialog:

A: We must feed the poor!

B: Why?

A: Because if we don’t do something, many of the poor will starve.

B: Oh. That’s bad, is it?

A: Of course it’s bad. If they starve, they will die.

B: Oh. But won’t that leave more food for the rest of the poor?

A: You don’t get it. If we don’t do something, people will die. Some of
them will be children!

B: And it’s bad for children to starve?

A: Well, naturally!

B: Why?

Speaker A has a number of options here. He might conclude that B is
yanking his chain and tell B to go to hell; he might (if he’s unwise) try
to argue the point further–for no matter what value A invokes, B can
simply say, “Oh, that’s good, is it? Why?”

A’s best answer is simply that it’s wrong to allow children to die of
starvation if we can prevent it. Allowing them to starve is objectively,
self-evidently, axiomatically wrong.

According to Lewis (and I have no reason to doubt him), the word “reason”
has been redefined in the last hundred or hundred-and-fifty years. For
the ancients and medievals alike, “reason” included not only logical
thinking but also what we call common sense–and that, in turn, included
the recognition that the value of bravery, charity, and other virtues are
self-evident. Some things simply don’t need to be proved.

This, of course, gets us back to our moral muddle. If moral values are
self-evident, then why don’t all cultures agree on them?

The astonishing fact is that for the most part they do, as Lewis amply
illustrates in the Appendix to his book. Every culture in the world
shares in what Lewis calls, for lack of a better word, the Tao. Taken
as a whole, the agreement is remarkable. And taken as as a whole
it becomes clear that the exceptions, so far from proving that value is
relative, are simply culture-specific kinks, the besetting sins of each
nation.

Moreover, although the Tao is the common heritage of all mankind it still
needs to be taught; even Aristotle recognized that if virtue is not
taught to a child, the child will never recognize virtue as an adult.

Thus, it’s more true to say that there’s no accounting for taste than
that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. For what is bad taste but
attributing value to objects which don’t deserve it? And what is virtue
but attributing value to actions which do deserve it (and acting
accordingly)?

I generally buy my daughter the trade books she reads for school so she can
write in them. It’s easier for her if she underlines the vocabulary words
she has to define or scenes she has to discuss as she’s reading them. It’s a
simple enough adjustment for her learning difficulties and since schools
really don’t teach more than one or two non-text books a semester, it’s not
a huge budget issue either. This book is taught in, I think, 7th grade.
Maybe 6th. I do remember trying to help her decipher the idiomatic
vocabulary and probing her for a little more depth on her critical thinking
questions. It’s too bad I hadn’t read it at the time. Our chats about it
would have been much more productive because it’s really a very good book.
Amazingly so.

As a coming of age story, the plot is fairly simple. Rob Peck is a young boy
skipping school one day and wandering the woods brooding when he happens
upon a neighbor’s cow calving and in distress. He’s small, the cow is huge
and it’s a fierce struggle to help the calf out but he does it and he goes
on to save her from choking to death on ruptured goiter by reaching in and
ripping it out of her throat. He’s bitten and unconscious when he’s found by
the neighbor and carried home to be stitched up on the kitchen table by his
mother. And in payment for saving his prize cow and her twin matched bull
calves, the neighbor gives Rob a young piglet of his very own to raise.

That’s the first couple of chapters. After that it’s the story of Rob
raising his pig, living during the Depression on a farm that is barely
making it, watching his parents struggle and finally accepting some of the
harsher realities of adulthood. It’s not a happy story, though there are
light hearted moments in it, particularly when a prissy friend of his mother
learns he is nearly failing English in school and decides it’s due to not
learning to diagram a sentence. His description of his diagramming lesson
was so funny I had tears in my eyes reading it. And if you are not of a
farm background or don’t understand the earthy way that farmers approach the
breeding of animals, some of the scenes in it may be a little surprising. It
adds rather than detracts from the book.

His parents are deeply proud, plain people and Shakers, although what that
means is unclear to me since Shakers were a sect that believed in communal
living and a celibate lifestyle. His parents seemed more along the lines of
devout Quakers. No matter. The point is that he does not fit in. His clothes
are different, he doesn’t own a bike etc. And they are poor. His father must
work off farm as a pig killer at a slaughter house to pay the mortgage. They
have next to nothing and the only real thing he has of his own is the little
pig he has been given. He plans on breeding her and making money from
selling the stock.

The real joy of reading this book is the language. Peck plays with idiom in
a way that enchanted me. It’s almost poetic. I had to read slowly and listen
to the words to hear it. The descriptions at the end had me in tears. The
story was sad and the telling was sad. I am so glad my daughter had the
opportunity to read this one. It’s a jewel.

In which Will feels heroic for doing the things Jane usually does every day.

It’s common to lampoon a husband’s feelings of achievement in the area of childcare at a time like this (in the movies, at least, and on TV), and I think that’s wrong. I’ve gotten the kids up, fed, dressed, and in David’s case off to school; I’ve washed the dishes; I’ve gotten the carseat ready to bring Mary home from the hospital; and I don’t usually do these things.

What’s not to be proud of?

But then, I’ve always found it remarkably unperceptive to say that “so-and-so is just a housewife….” Keeping a household running smoothly is a lot of work, and a valuable skill.

…unto us a daughter is given!

Mary Suzanne Duquette was born today (8.5 lbs, 20″), and Jane and I are exceedingly grateful.

As you can read on her blog.

Ian Hamet has become well known for his essays on the great movie directors; today he’s branched out a bit, and posted a lengthy and informative disquisition about the early 20th century drama critic and cultural observer Mortimer Brewster, whom he touts as a forerunner of our own Terry Teachout.

Much of Hamet’s essay is taken up with the disturbing scandals that plagued Brewster’s life, including his 1940 conviction for serial murder. Brewster never confessed to the crimes, and indeed was supported in his claims by his wife of two years, Elaine Harper. He was eventually released from prison in 1946, and disappeared–with Elaine–to lead a quiet life in the Far East.

I’m less interested in the various Brewster scandals, however, than in Hamet’s disturbing misrepresentation of Elaine Harper. As is well-known (he published no less than five books on the subject), Mortimer Brewster was no friend to matrimony; indeed, Elaine Harper was clearly an exceptional woman to not only catch such a confirmed bachelor and man-about-town, but also to keep him. Hamet says of her,

One gets the impression that she actually accepted Mortimer’s views and would have lived with him under any arrangement he demanded.

Now, I must say that this seems highly unlikely. For Brewster to marry, given his published views, was to expose himself to public ridicule. Surely if Elaine Harper had been willing to enter into some less formal arrangement, Brewster would have taken advantage of it?

It is true, I grant you, that the young Mrs. Brewster completed the unfinished manuscript of her husband’s fifth book on marriage, Mind over Matrimony, and saw it into publication; but what else could she do, with her husband being in prison at the time for a string of murders he may not have committed, and all the legal expenses to pay?

In short, I simply cannot buy Hamet’s portrayal of this loving, loyal minister’s daughter as some kind of potential libertine-in-waiting. Rather, I would prefer to think of her as an old-fashioned girl who stood by her man, right or wrong.

Beyond that, I found Hamet’s narrative to be both informative and compelling, and I commend it to anyone with an interest in the dramatic scandals of the 1930’s and ’40’s.

When you’re scheduled to have a new baby in the house in two days, one of the last things you want to hear your wife say is, “Honey, I think we have a plumbing problem.”

I came rattling downstairs with visions of the kitchen sink backing up, or perhaps water covering the floor, and was quite relieved when Jane led me outside; I figured it was some problem with the sprinkler system. We’ve had a lot of rain recently; I’d just turn off the water to the yard, and we’d get the plumber in some time in the next week. No big deal.

Once we were outside, Jane pointed at some water running down the steps from the back yard; the water proved to be coming out from under the doors of a storage wall we’ve got under an overhang back there. Not, oddly enough, from under the door of the cupboard that contains the hot water heater, but from under the door next to that.

The problem turned out to be a big old one-inch galvanized pipe that runs the full length of the storage wall up under the roof. It had developed a couple of pinhole leaks and was spraying water all over the gardening tools and bags of fertilizer and assorted scraps of plywood. Joy! Something would clearly have to be done, and soon.

I called up my dad and asked him to come over and show me where the nearest shutoff was (Jane and I about our house from my parents about seven years ago; they’d lived there for the previous thirty-five years). I had fond hopes that we might not have to shut off the water to the house to fix the problem.

No such luck–that big old one-inch galvanized pipe, which had been there since at least 1965 and possibly longer, is the line that feeds all of the indoor plumbing. Double-joy!

Fortunately our plumber was available this morning, and was able to stop the leaking with a couple of pipe-clamps. But we’re looking at a complete repiping (and a new water heater), and it needs to be done sooner rather than later.

Triple-joy!

I can only imagine what wonders tomorrow will bring.

As I’ve hinted upon occasion, our favorite TV show at the moment is
Good Eats, which airs on the Food Network. It’s not so much that
we’re foodies (we’re not) as that Alton Brown is both funny and
informative. He doesn’t just show you how to cook something; he also goes
into the chemistry and physics of it. And he goes about it in a suitably
whimsical way. Anyway, in Alton Brown’s cookbook he references McGee’s
On Food and Cooking as one of his major sources–indeed, as
a source that often goes a good bit beyond what he needs to know.

Well, Jane was looking for a present for me this past Christmas; she was
ordering me some books through Amazon and wanted to get me just one more.
I’m not sure just what prompted her to add this one to the list, but I
don’t regret it. I’ve been reading it in small dribs and drabs ever
since, and finally finished it up this morning.

It’s fascinating stuff. He covers the characteristics of the major foods
(the different kinds of fruits, vegetables, grain, meat, nuts, and so
forth); the different methods of cooking, and how they work; how the body
digests food; it’s fairly comprehensive and very detailed.

For example, were you aware that fatty acids have a chemical structure
very similar to that of octane and other hydrocarbon fuels? Octane
is a chain of eight carbon atoms; each carbon atom has two hydrogen atoms
attached to it on either side. The carbon atoms at the end have an extra
hydrogen each. Octane reacts nicely with oxygen to give you carbon
dioxide, water, and heat; it’s a lot of energy stored in a compact space. Fatty
acids typically consist of longer chains of carbon and hydrogen atoms,
very similar to octane’s longer cousins, with a carboxyl group at one
end. And just like octane, fatty acids react nicely with oxygen.

The single neatest thing I learned from the book, though, is the secret
of modern beekeeping: five-sixteenths of an inch, the so-called “bee space”.
In the old days, it wasn’t possible to remove honey from a beehive
without destroying the hive. A beekeeper harvested honey at the end of the
season by destroying all but a few of his hives. In modern beehives, the
honeycomb is built on to removeable racks which slide out the top of the
hive. There’s a wire mesh below the racks that prevents the queen bee
from getting up into that part of the hive; consequently, only honey is
store there.

And the bee space? That’s the required distance between the edge of the
racks and the wall of the hive. If the gap is any smaller, the worker
bees will seal it with wax; if it’s any larger, they’ll fill it with
honey comb. But if it’s just five-sixteenths of an inch, they leave it open
and use it as a highway.

Apparently the fellow who discovered this (a pastor and school principal
turned beekeeper named Lorenzo Lorraine Langstroth–and didn’t his
parents have a fine time rolling out that name when they were angry at
him)–I say, the fellow who discovered this patented his discovery, but
it didn’t do him much good; infringement was too easy once the secret of
the bee space was generally known.

So, if you like to cook and what to know just what’s going on in your
oven or stewpot, or you’re just generally curious about how things work,
On Food and Cooking is well worth your time.

I like Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr stories. They amuse me. I have found that I
need to space them out and not read them back to back, however, since he
tends to repeat details from one book to another. It can get annoying if you
don’t give yourself enough space between them. But it’s been awhile since I
last read one and I found this one on my shelf one night as I was prowling around
looking for something to read so I gave it a go.

One thing you have to know is that this series is fairly formulaic.
Bernie is going to burgle, is in the process of burgling, or has just burgled
some place, and someone shows up dead there. Bernie then has to find the murderer or
he’s going to end up taking the blame. That has been the essential plot line of
every book in this series that I’ve read so far. But this one is very
different, enjoyably so.

Bernie has a hot weekend planned with his latest flame in a quiet country
inn in upstate New York. Unfortunately, she cancels on him a couple days
before because she’s, yikes, about to get married. Bernie was not aware of
the other guy in her life and he is understandably bummed out. But he’s not
so bummed that he cancels the trip. Rather, he invites his extremely
short friend the lesbian dog groomer along instead. Not exactly the romantic
weekend he had planned but then the owner of the inn stocks a particularly
fine brand of whiskey which at least makes up for it a little. And there is
this book in the library of the inn that he’s kind of interested in finding.
It’s a book by Raymond Chandler, inscribed to Dashiell Hammett, that may
have been given to Hammett during a weekend they may have spent together
that Hammett may have left at the inn. Maybe. He’s just going to take a
little looksee around.

Things get interesting when they get there. They have to share a room and a
bed. The inn is snowed in and the snowstorm is predicted to last all
weekend. There is an extremely precocious kid that Bernie jokingly tells
he’s a burglar, which she blabs all over the place. Fortunately, it’s such
an absurd statement that no one believes it. Ha! And amazingly enough, his
ex-girlfriend and her groom show up for a quiet honeymoon weekend. Awkward
isn’t strong enough. And then, he finds a body in the library when he’s out
cruising in the middle of the night for the book. No phone, no one in or out
because of the snow and no way to call for help.

I enjoyed this one more than the others. Block is playing around with some
of the basic conventions of mysteries and mystery writers here and still
telling a funny whodunit. And the ending with it’s nod to the deus ex
machina strategy to save the hero is hilarious, especially when you realize
who the deus is in the machina. If you like Block, get it and read.

Memoirs and diaries are an interesting genre to read but especially so when
written by non-professional writers who are merely telling a story.
Polishing thoughts can be a good thing but it can also knock some of the
edges off that give power and sharpness to the true story.

This book was written by a woman who lived thru the Nazi occupation of
Norway, grew up and wrote this book as a response to her grandchildren’s
request for stories about her childhood. She tells of having to abruptly
flee inland away from the bombing of the fjord they lived near and in the
process leaving her toys and pet dog behind. For a time her older sister is
working in a hospital directly in line of the bombs treating German and
Norwegian injured, unable to communicate with the family and in serious
danger. She, her mother and siblings travel to refugee sites inland without
her father who works in the harbor, living in cramped quarters with
strangers and struggling to find food. The stories go on of atrocities
committed in concentration camps in Norway, of kids teasing the German
soldiers and of adults trying to keep a sense of pride in a situation
purposely designed to demoralize.

It’s a story of hardship and uncertainty and, above all, trauma. It’s not
polished writing. There are no elegant phrases or images. It’s rough and
untidy and at times hard to read. But it gave me a clear picture of what
her childhood was like and what her family had to do to survive. And if it
seemed chaotic at times, that only reflected the uncertainties a little girl
had to live with every day. It’s something that should be written down and
should be remembered so that I and my kids and the rest of the folks who
read this book understand what it is that war does to the people living
around the battlefields. I’d recommend it for that alone.