The Picture of Dorian Gray - Book 45

I read this book as part of the booktuber world's Victober, when you read lots of Victorian writing during October.  I had actually read this book back a long, long time ago but had been wanting to reread it anyway, so Victober provided a good excuse. 

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde is a richly written, clever and well paced novel about three friends, Dorian Gray, a young,handsome innocent, Basil Hallwood, a painter, and Lord Henry Wooten, who basically plays a debonair Mephistopheles who lures Dorian into a life of evil.  Lord Henry is extremely witty and always turns everything on its head, morally speaking, through his entertaining play with paradoxes.  He confuses most people who laugh at him and consider him a good guest at a dinner party, but to impressionable Dorian he is wise and wonderful.  Dorian falls under his spell.  Lord Wooten grooms him and slowly seduces him into a life that thinks only of pursuing pleasure.   We then witness Dorian sinking further and further into a life of selfishness and sin.

Wilde's own life is reflected in this book.  Both Dorian Gray and Lord Wooten portray aspects of things characteristic of Wilde's own trajectory towards a sordid end.  Dorian Gray has been influenced by Lord Wooten and by a book that Wooten gives him.  Wilde had also been influenced by certain literary celebrities in the decadence movement of the Fin de Siecle era.  The book that had so much further influence on Wilde was by a Frenchman Huymans, who wrote A Rebours, which basically touted that living a life of pleasure and sensation was the only way to live a life of beauty. 

Wilde is also Wooten though as well.  Wilde loved to groom and collect beautiful young adoring men around him to worship his wit and style.  Wootens clever party repartee directly echoes Wilde's ability to be brilliantly witty.

The whole story is a morality tale that pretty much parallels Wilde's own life.  He sort of predicts his own end.  Dorian Gray, his conscience numbed by Wooten's influence and by years of doing selfish, sordid things, begins to realize that this is the path to ugliness and not beauty.  He tries to turn his life around but he is so steeped in his own narcissism, he can't really do it.  That part really reminded me of the Flannery O'Conner short story A Good Man Is Hard To Find, in that just as a character thinks they realize the true nature of evil, their completely inadequate grasp knocks them dead. 

Wilde was a gifted author.  His prose is gorgeous and flows like honey and is smooth as silk.  But ultimately it is about bored rich people's self-indulgence that spread harm and grief to many.  Poor Oscar Wilde, he gave us a lot but he has a lot to answer for as well.

In spite of the troubling nature of this book, there's a reason it is so well respected.  It is a morality tale that has so many different levels to it, one could read it over and over and discover more nuance. 

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks. 

Callista - Book 44

I stumbled upon this book while learning more about St. John Henry Newman who was canonized on October 13th (last Sunday).  I didn't know he had written novels!  This one was published in 1855 and was actually well received.  He's fallen out of favor now, probably due to his heavily religious content. 

St. John Henry Newman was a well respected Anglican priest and theologian who lead the Oxford Movement, a movement that wanted Anglicanism to grew closer to its Christian roots.  Newman was an expert on the early church fathers.  One famous quote from him was "To be steeped in history is to cease to be protestant."  He swam the Tiber and became Catholic causing quite the stir.  He became quite influential in the Catholic church as well, though for a while he was kind of left in obscurity until his new church fellows grew to trust him and recognize his genius.  Many people say he is the greatest theologian since Aquinas.

Callista is set in the 3rd century near Carthage, but out in the boonies where Christianity has sort of faded for the most part due to early times of persecution.  The persecutions were fairly sporadic and had much to do with who the emperor (and if he had an ax to grind against the Christians) and also on local politics and power struggles. 

The main characters are Agellius, a young man who was baptized as a young child but has had not support and knows of no other Christians now that his father has passed away.  His brother who also had been baptized has come under the influence of their evil step mother.  His uncle, Jocundus, is a kind man who wants to do right but is very much of the Roman mindset and is very prejudiced against the Christians.  Jocundus employs two Greeks, Aristo and Callista.  Callista is beautiful, intelligent, spunky, clever, affectionate, witty.  Agellius wants to marry her and Jocundus thinks this will help steer Agellius further from Christianity so he facilitates the match.  But Callista has a mind of her own.

The story is set during the Plague of Cyprian.  A terrible plague of locusts that brought on much pestilence and death hit that area while Cyprian was bishop.  The people blamed the Christians and went on a rampage of persecution.  Callista gets caught up in this.

The dialogue is too formal and too expository to be natural.  The language is erudite.  Many Latin references throughout.  However the characters are surprisingly well developed, the dilemma is compellingly developed, the action keeps things moving and the theological conclusions are moving and inspiring. 

I am so glad I read this novel.  It is part of my #Victober line up.  I am enjoying becoming more familiar with the wonderful mind and soul of St. John Henry Newman.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde - Book 43

I got this book by Joseph Pearce on my kindle to go along with my 'Victober" read of The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Victober is a booktuber thing where people read lots of Victorian literature in October.  I'm not doing that much because I'm too caught up in other things, but I thought I could re-read The Picture of Dorian Gray which I've had in mind to do for a while now.  I had to get the book on hold at the library because for some reason I wanted to read it via a real book instead of via kindle or audio.  So while I waited I got The Unmasking of Oscar Wilde.

Poor Oscar Wilde.  He really was of two minds and he never successfully (understatement!) integrated them.  Most of his writing has a high moral tone, fairy tales full of wisdom, plays that explore right and wrong and yet, he at the same time, was living a life that descended more and more into reckless depravity.  Until he was finally caught and ruined.

Wilde was a brilliant scholar and literary man.  His first written work was in poetry and art criticism.  His poetry, while popular, was not particularly original.  He really gained celebrity via his witty bon mots and his outlandish, dandy style of dressing.  He became the guest to have when high society was having dinner parties.  He worked hard on this persona.  He loved attention and notoriety.  Before he ever wrote the works that he is really known for now, he was asked to give a speaking tour of the USA which he did.  He traveled all over the U.S. as well as up into Canada for over a year.  In fact his first play debuted in New York, however, it fell flat.  He hadn't gotten into the play writing groove yet.

Weirdly, Wilde's descent into decadence began on his honeymoon.  He had already been influenced by the likes of Baudelaire and now with his brand new, innocent and adoring wife, he read a book by a French author, Huysmans, who led the decadent movement in France.  This book entitled A Rebours (Against the Grain) advocated for abandoning moral principles in pursuit of sensation and pleasure.  This book inspired The Picture of Dorian Gray.  After this Wilde seems to have had his first homosexual encounter with a Canadian, Robert Ross, a man who became an English publisher (I think, if I am recalling correctly).  This man actually became a life long friend and was at Wilde's side when he died.  After this introduction into this lifestyle, Wilde became hooked and by degrees became more and more addicted to sex.  He befriended a handsome young man named John Gray who became the model for Dorian Gray.  His affair with Gray lasted a while but then Gray began to become unhappy and disillusioned.  Wilde began to neglect his wife and two sons.  He loved gathering disciples of young men around him who looked up to him as their mentor in all matters artistic and 'edgy.'  During this time though, strangely, Wilde, was writing very moralistic stuff that people couldn't really understand because it contrasted so with his lifestyle.  The Picture of Dorian Gray, The Selfish Giant, The Happy Prince, Lady Windemere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance and much poetry were rife with Christian imagery and moral lessons.  He finally was introduced to Lord Alfred Douglas who was Wilde's undoing.   A very handsome and unstable homosexual, Douglas became Wilde's obsession.  They would solicit young boys as prostitutes, often sharing them.  They traveled to Algeria to partake of the 'exotic' boys there.  Wilde was becoming more and more reckless and degenerate.

Douglas' father, Marquess Queensbury, was a volatile man who grew to hate the relationship between Wilde and Douglas.  He and Douglas' mother saw Wilde as corrupting Alfred, whereas Joseph Pearce really wonders if it wasn't more the other way around. Father and son hated each other and came to blows legally when Wilde was urged by Douglas to sue the Marquess Queensbury for libel.  This was not smart as the Marquess had plenty of evidence of Wilde's soliciting young boys.  Wilde lost the suit and then was arrested and tried, found guilty and sentenced to two years hard labor.  May I just interject here that in our day and age which is seen as less prudish than the Victorian Era, Wilde would have gotten a much harsher sentence?  He was kind of like the Jeffrey Epstein of his day, except with boys. Now we realize just how much harm seducing young men does to them. I wonder and grieve for the male prostitutes and young boys Wilde and his set preyed upon.  What damage they must have done!

Wilde suffered much during his imprisonment.  He read lots of Christian texts and Dante was the most comforting to him.  He wrote his great opus De Profundis which was a long letter to Douglas explaining everything and renouncing him.  This was published after Wilde's death.

All his life Wilde had been intrigued by Catholicism.  He had flirted with it heavily while at Oxford.  But his father threatened him with disinheritance and in fact an older half brother who pre-deceased Wilde, basically cut him out of his will because he was afraid he'd become Catholic.  So Wilde drifted away from Catholicism, even though its ethos and symbolism populated his writing.  He turned instead into a pathological sex addict bringing ruin and heartbreak to his loving wife and two children.

After prison, Wilde wound up living in France where he was a social pariah.  Some friends still were loyal but he had a lonely existence where he drank too much and wound up occasionally soliciting male prostitutes.  He literally was reduced to begging because he could not stay within his limited income.  His wife died, he never saw his children again. and then all his decadent literary circle of friends began to die.  John Gray who had been the model for Dorian Gray became a priest!  The man who wrote the book that inspired Wilde to indulge in decadence, converted to Catholicism!  In fact all those fin de seicle decadent artistes, like Aubrey Beardsley converted and then died tragically.  Wilde's own mother, whom he always loved, died a broken woman while he was in prison.

Wilde didn't last long as a has-been.  His health broke down (some say syphilis, a theory Pearce rejects, and others say meningitis).  He lingered for a bit but then fearing death he summoned his old friend Robert Ross, who had also become Catholic(!) to send for a priest and at the last minute, actually on his death bed, he converted to Catholicism finally.

This book disturbed me.  I can't say it was a pleasant read.  It is hard to read about a person embracing depravity compulsively when he ought to have known better.  His selfish obsession and narcissism wreaked pain on all close to him.  He was a very bad man who so obviously could have been a good man.  All his life he struggled with his contradictory character.   And yet people forgave him.  There was something likable about him.  He was incredibly witty and entertaining and he could tell a good story.  He was a very complex, brilliant, selfish, confused and witty man.  The best thing about Wilde was his artistic work and at least he left that to the world.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

The Nourishing Homestead - Book 42

The Nourishing Homestead:  One Back-To-The-Land Family's Plan for Cultivating Soil, Skills and Spirit by Ben Hewitt 

This was a really interesting read.  My daydream is to be a homesteader which will never happen as I am too old and so coming to it too late.  But I deeply admire those who turn their back on the shallow, consumeristic, rat race world and take the path less traveled (in modern times; it used to be the more traditional way of life!).   This book is part memoir and part practical guide.  Ben Hewitt and his wife Penney have been homesteading for 18 years on a 40 acre farm in Vermont.  They have two boys they are raising on their farm (and unschooling!).  He traces their beginnings and their initial vision through how it is has evolved and shifted.  They started out wanting a simple, counter culture life who didn't really know what they were doing,  but have found their methods and vision have changed over the years.  They have moved to a more permaculture, regenerative style of agriculture with a focus on soil health and perennial planting.  When they started they were both vegetarians but  now raise and harvest their own meat.  For many years they were entirely off grid until they realized they could actually be a bit more self-sufficient if they could use a little bit of electricity from the grid (with back ups!).  However compared to the average household in America, they use an absolute pittance because they only use it in areas where it is absolutely necessary.  They went from being those who just didn't 'do' guns to gun owners who see them as necessary to their homestead. 

I enjoyed reading about the evolution of their homestead and the principles they embrace and want to live out in their lives.  Hewitt doesn't dismiss the physical labor aspect of it, how much is trial and error, how little disposable income they have and how finances are always looming as a consideration. But he wouldn't trade it for all the world.  He makes some income writing and otherwise they are mostly self sufficient.  It seems to be a deeply satisfying, family-centered, nourishing and beautiful way to live.

After introducing us to their story and their philosophy of life, Hewitt gets practical.  The various chapters cover homestead design, growing nutrient dense food, soil science, raising healthy livestock, animal slaughter and processing, infrastructure, skills and tools, dealing with financial limitations, and finally raising children on a homestead.  The chapter on skills and tools I found especially interesting.  He talks about learning to use a chain saw, how they got and use their tractor, etc.  Just lots of insider tips on how to manage things.  I read this book on my Kindle but I think if I really needed to use it as a reference if I ever did get a homestead, I'd want it in book form. 

If you like reading about life in the country, this book is for you!  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

The Dry Divide - Book 41

The seventh book in the Little Britches series by Ralph Moody, The Dry Divide begins right where the previous book let off.  I highly suspect that these two books were once one but maybe some publisher decided to break them up.  In fact, unless I am recalling wrong, Moody explains what the phrase ' shaking the nickel bush' means in the beginning of The Dry Divide (but maybe I am muddling the two books together). 

Anyway, this is the book in which Ralph, now called Bud, finally makes it.   At the beginning he is destitute.  He hopped a freight train with only a dime in his pocket, trying to get to friends in Littleton, CO for the 4th of July rodeo, but the train conductors discover him and boot him off in a tiny railroad depot on the border of Kansas and Nebraska.  Things are desperate.

Luckily almost at once he gets swept up in a crew to work on wheat harvesting with a bunch of other down on their luck men.  The farmer's name is Hudson and Bud and the others soon discover that Hudson is a brutal man on the verge of insanity.  Everyone's terrified of him, including his pregnant wife, 5 children and his younger sister in law, Judy, who helps out.  

Judy and Ralph are drawn to each other and July confesses to him that Hudson is trying to harvest this failing farm he's received from the bank which has pretty much a lien on everything he owns.  Bud realizes the likelihood of actually getting paid for any work is nil, especially since Hudson is crazy and is going about the work in a driven, destructive way that will guarantee failure.  Because he's so violent no one can give him advice. He hates Bud who stands up to him.  All the men are about to flee (two of them do) so Bud gets the idea to go talk to the banker in town and get the lien put in his own name.  He thinks he can get the men to join him in harvesting the wheat, enough that the banker would at least get some money back and the men would get some pay.

But just as Bud is trying to put this dangerous plan into action (Hudson seems likely to try to kill him), Hudson beats his horse (he's extremely cruel to the animals) so much the horse falls on him and crushes him to death.  Everyone breathes a sigh of relief, including his poor stunned wife.  So now Bud takes over the operation.  The men, all colorful characters, and Judy, become a team.  When Bud realizes that they actually will be getting some money for the harvest and that the banker trusts him, he comes up with another scheme, to becomes a hauling business for the other farms to get their wheat to the silo at the train depot.  

Much of the book is highly technical.  The various deals with the bankers, how they budgeted things out, how they acquired horses and trained them, how they finesse their operation so as get enough wagons, how they got contracts with the neighboring farmers, etc.  Bud, even though the youngest, is the brains behind it all.  He and Judy are the main team, Judy has an old car, knows the local people and the area and is the bookkeeper.  But Bud has to deal with the quirks of the men in his team.  Doc is a colorful medicine salesmen who tends to go on benders whenever he gets some money.  Paco doesn't speak English but is great with horses, two Swedish brothers who don't talk much turn out to be blacksmiths who are extremely helpful in the enterprise, there's an old man from Ireland who can't help much but needs employment anyway, and another guy named Bill who turns out to be a steady worker.  Bud figures out the best way to use each man.  

Through much backbreaking work and lots of planning, fast talking and tirelessly pushing things along, Bud makes it work.  If Bud and Judy aren't married in the next and last book in the series, I'm going to be really mad.

Even though so much of this was too detailed and technical about things I have no clue about, like training horses to drive in and out of gulches, and the design of the machinery for threshing wheat, etc I really think that this book might be really valuable in that it gives us a peek into how people did things back in the day.  All the skills they needed just to get by is amazing.  We've lost all that.  They had so much knowledge about weather, farmings and animals that the regular person today knows nothing about.  How the bankers and small town economy worked and just a myriad of details in this book evoke a forgotten time.  

I am really enjoying this series, as I've said again and again!  So glad I finally got around to reading it.  For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

Shaking the Nickel Bush - Book 40

Shaking the Nickel Bush is the next novel in the Little Britches series.  It's quite a story and while I feel some of the novels in this series are a bit too drawn out in relating what's going on, this one didn't have that feel.   This is dramatic story of a 19 year old young man who is in dire straits and struggles, using all the ingenuity he has to try to pull himself up by his own boot straps.  It's arduous, and must have been scary. But Ralph always recounts his adventures in a stoical way.   The book starts with a diagnosis of diabetes which in 1918 was pretty much a death sentence and it ends with hopping a freight car with bullets whistling past his ears.

Ralph didn't get into the military for World War 1 but he wanted to be part of the war effort so he leaves MA and goes to Delaware to work at a munitions plant.  While there he meets a talented sculptor and informally apprentices with him.  This talent is crucial for the second half of Shaking the Nickel Bush.

But Ralph keeps getting skinnier and skinnier and something is not right.  He winds up in a hospital in Boston where they diagnose him with diabetes.  This is devastating but his family physician isn't 100% convinced by the specialists.  He advises Ralph to go west, maybe to CO or better yet, AZ where he can be in a warm climate, soaking up lots of sunshine.  He knows Ralph loves horses, so he advises him to go live a outdoors life doing something he loves.  He does put him on a strict diet avoiding starches and sugar except for 'gluten' bread.  This was some special bread which I've tried to research but can't.  But mostly he's to eat lots of chicken and fish and fresh vegetables.  The diet is very hard to follow in the land of corn bread, biscuits and beans.

When Ralph arrives out west he realizes three things:  he didn't bring enough money, there aren't enough jobs and he is rusty anyway in working with cattle since he hasn't really done it since he was 10.  He can't get a job and for a while is reduced to hobo status.  But he hears about a job being a stunt cowboy for the silent westerns Hollywood is churning out.  They film in AZ which just became a state because they don't have to follow the animal welfare laws of CA.  The stunt riding is horribly dangerous to both the men and the horses.  They use completely destitute drunks mainly as the men.  Ralph however is in luck.  The guy running the operation knows some folks that Ralph knew back in CO.  They strike up a friendship. This allows Ralph, who had been a trick horse rider in his childhood, to observe the safest ways to do stunts on horses.  He winds up being able to make lots of money in just a few days and he is one of the few that makes it out of there without any broken bones or permanent damage.

Now he's got money.  He meets up with another down on his luck young man, Lonnie.  They team up in a hilarious but also pathetic way.  Ralph thinks he is going to die in six months anyway and his biggest concern is getting money back to his mother until his younger brother finishes an apprenticeship and can begin to earn money for the family.  He and Lonnie get the idea of buying an old car and driving the back roads of Arizona and the adjacent states to hire out as cowhands.  But the car eats up all their money and they can't get far without it breaking down.  Back to impoverishment. 

During his down times, Ralph likes to sculpt horses.  He gets the bright idea of going into these small towns and targeting the local bankers to make busts of them.  Word gets around and he and Lonnie (though Lonnie never does much except sponge off Ralph) become the Cowboy Artists of the West.  Ralph works hard to drum up business and spends lots of time sculpting.  He gets some real money saved up.  He and Lonnie's plan are to separate just before the 4th of July.  Ralph plans to go back to Littleton, CO for the 4th of July rodeo.  Lonnie is heading home to Wyoming.  But Lonnie has become a real problem.  He is an immature, impulsive kid who likes to blow through Ralph's money.  Ralph hides his money but he's too clever by half and things don't end well.  At the end, Ralph is destitute once again.

I am really enjoying this whole series, but I think this particular story might be my favorite. 

For more book reviews, go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.

The Three Taps - Book 39

Somebody needs to republish this book!

The Three Taps is a mystery novel published in 1927 by Father Ronald Knox.  He wrote several popular mysteries back in the day and even was included in some collaborative detective novels written by many popular authors at the time, including Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers.

The Three Taps is oop except you can get in on Kindle.  But if you want a real book, you have to buy it used somewhere.  This mystery introduced Father Knox's recurring detective, Miles Bredon of the Indescribable Insurance Company.  In this case a wealthy man name Mottram dies at an inn out in the country where he liked to stay on fishing holidays.  The man died of asphyxiation from a gas tap left on in his room.  Suicide by gas, or accidental death because of gas had become a trope.  I didn't really understand everything about the three taps in the room and quite how they worked.  Another trope is the locked room mystery.  The room was locked so it must be a suicide except somehow the tap got turned off in the locked room, yet the man still died?  Neither suicide nor murder seem to fit.  And with each uncovered clue, things get even murkier.

Converging at this Inn is an old war colleague of Miles', now Scotland Yard detective, Leyland (can't remember his first name).  Miles wants to find the death a suicide so his company doesn't have to pay out, but Leyland thinks it's a murder.  We also get to know Miles' wife Angela.  Miles and Angela have lots of witty repartee.  Angela is a hoot.  We also have another witty gentleman in Mr. Pulteney, an older man who frequently stays at the Inn to fish in the river gorge nearby and knew Mottram.  And we have the two main suspects, Mottram's alienated nephew who runs a shop in the town and Mottran's secretary, Brinkman. 

Lots of twists and turns and very British all around.  An enjoyable mystery with lots of clever charm.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.