ESSAY: BAH HUMBUG!

ESSAY:  BAH HUMBUG!

From this Jew looking for holiday spirit, I just don’t feel it this year.  First, there is my landsman, Joe Lieberman, bringing sleaze and dissention in what might have been meaningful reform to health care.  Apparently, he got his goodie bag from the Hartford insurance giants, probably containing lots of Channukah ’gelt’ to brighten his season.  This attention-seeking politician changes with the wind, holding America hostage as a sometimes Democrat, recently Independent and probably future Republican.  Despite his religious orthodoxy, he seems amoral and increasingly obnoxious.  He is an embarrassment to his fellow Jews, I think.

Then there’s Obama.  I had such high hopes for change, but realize he was ‘produced’ like any other celebrity.  He was a tabula rasa and we projected our own hopes and dreams onto the manufactured illusion.  When we needed a giant push for jobs, a la FDR, we got first a bank bailout, then a car bailout, then his REAL priority for himself, the guy who is pushing through health care ‘reform,’ totally compromised into uselessness for most of us.  Can someone answer this?  If every American is going to be legally responsible to carry health insurance, what happens to those in the middle class with pre-existing conditions who are obligated to carry this without limits on premiums?  Will they be forced by law to pay four times the going premiums?  Will they go to the government guidelines and find they are too financially viable for subsidies?  But Obama needs a ’success’ for his legacy.  He will go down in history for passage of health care reform, albeit flawed beyond words. 

Then there’s Afghanistan.  MORE troops?  What insanity!  At least in the days of empire we would have gotten some resources and real estate.  If we could tap into the poppy crop, we’d have SOMETHING for our occupation.  Ditto Iraq, substituting oil for drugs.

Obama is a sellout, dedicated, like his predecessors, to corporate profits and war profiteering. 

So, despite our Democratic majorities in the House and Senate and the Presidency, this is as good as it is going to get.

The vast majority of the population is suffering mightily with job losses, home losses and scrounging around for food in this land of plenty.

The progressives are getting nowhere, being thwarted at every turn by the lobbyists who control our politicians.

We’ve been fed a steady diet of garbage and I’m so saddened as I realize there is no way out, despite our high hopes.  Is the notion of AMERICA just an illusion, after all?

THE DISAGREEMENT

HISTORICAL FICTION:  THE DISAGREEMENT/NICK TAYLOR/SIMON & SCHUSTER – 2008

Even people who are not Civil War buffs will find THE DISAGREEMENT quite interesting for its setting in Virginia and its protagonist, John Muro, introduced to us on his sixteenth birthday, which coincides with the date of his state’s secession from the Union.  Young Muro has dreams of going to Philadelphia to study medicine.  Despite his jubilation over the secession, his mood is diminished when he realizes that Philly is “Yankee” country and  off limits.  Since he is eligible for the draft, his father urges him to go to the University of Virginia to avoid combat.  He arrives on campus and finds that he has been paired with the son of a plantation owner, Braxton Baucom III.  B.B. is gregarious and generous and Muro finds that both his transportation possibilities and his wardrobe have expanded.  Muro meets an intelligent, playful young lady named Lorrie in the dining hall.  We learn that she is from Texas and the niece of John’s professor and mentor, Dr. Cabell.  Their relationship intensifies throughout Muro’s medical education.  Dr. Cabell soon assigns the student to a hospital in Charlottesville, where the war wounded are brought.  This trial by fire brings some maturity to the boy as he tries to make do with the supplies on hand, which are rapidly dwindling.  Although an avowed son of the Confederacy, he treats a Union soldier and discovers that the man is also a doctor.  They become friends and Muro is disappointed when he learns that his friend is no longer there due to a prisoner swap.  John gains a good deal of grim experience as the war progresses and the Union army advances.  It is soon evident that his side will lose.  There is much privation for the wealthy and the poor.  The young doctor has cut ties with his family and has little income.  Yet, since love conquers all, he marries the unpredictable Lorrie and regrets it almost instantly and plots his escape north.

I enjoyed reading about Virginia during the Civil War and the bird’s-eye view of a medic.  I was disappointed that although Muro could befriend a Yankee, he never questioned the slavery issue.  Perhaps this is typical of the time and place, but I expected more character growth.

This was a really good read, though, and I recommend it if you enjoy learning some history via fiction.

DERAILED

FICTION:  DERAILED – James Siegel/Warner Books – 2003

I have to say that DERAILED was worth the 48 cents I paid for it.  I got really sucked in by the easy-to-relate to tale of an advertising executive commuting on the Long Island Rail Road and hooking up with a beautiful woman, eventually winding up in bed in a cheap hotel.  As a New Yorker, I could relish the depiction of some local landmarks, making it even more believable (except for his identifying a street in Forest Hills, Queens, as Continental Boulevard when it’s actually Continental Avenue.  That’s a glaring error for Queens residents as this is not only a major thoroughfare but an express stop on the subway.  Well, Perhaps Mr. Siegel never got off the railroad between Merrick and Penn Station.)

Although I was actually kept awake one night, sorting out what was going on and succeeding early in my reading, I kept going to prove myself correct.

This “New York Times Bestseller” got really silly really fast.  I think of BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES and DERAILED comes off badly in comparison, with its same ordinary and adulterous man caught in crisis.

I think Siegel did his “what if…,” starting with the conclusion and weaving in plot details to get there.  He’s thrown in a daughter with Juvenile Diabetes to bring urgency and a sense of betrayal and danger throughout the book.

I don’t want to be a spoiler, but Siegel’s protagonist finds himself up against embezzlement, murderers and fantastical occurences that seem contrived to get Charles Schine where Siegel wants him to be at the conclusion of the novel. 

I was unaware of this book and the film version, but can see that it could translate well to film of the action/adventure type.

Once it stopped being believable for me and I kept reading anyway, I felt as duped as the main character.

TWISTED BRANCH

FICTION:  TWISTED BRANCH – Chris Blaine/Berkley/Penguin – 2005

Even though I usually stay away from the horror genre, I enjoyed this scary tale of a haunted inn in Cape May, New Jersey.  After almost completing the book I peeked online to learn something about the author.  I was chagrined to learn that Chris Blaine is a pseudonym for a trio of writers (male and female) who authored three books about the Abbadon Inn.  It was all the brainchild of someone from the publishing house named Ginjer Buchanan who threw out the horror series idea to several writers.

This particular novel takes place in 1978 and features Sam Ford, a black middle-school teacher who is fleeing his Virginia Home and winding up in Cape May with a dead car, a girlfriend and a reason he can’t apply as a teacher.  He must find some work and a place to live and walking around town he sees a huge Victorian inn being renovated.  He is not especially handy but he inquires anyway.  To his advantage (and later to his horror) the new owners, newly arrived from Connecticut, he is offered a job as a private teacher for their 13-year-old son, Carl.  The parents acknowledge that Carl has some adjustment difficulties and peculiarities, but they offer $500 a week, plus board.  The unemployed teacher accepts the offer, relying on an old friend as a reference.  He and his girlfriend, Dani, move in to a dilapidated part of the building and are quite uncomfortable.  Carl takes an immediate dislike to both Sam and Dani and he targets them, practicing his self-proclaimed magic skills to scare them away.  Within days, Dani is gone.  Surprisingly, she doesn’t reappear.  It is soon apparent that Carl’s parents are completely disinterested in their peculiar son and are glad that he is being taken care of for most of the day.  It is very rough sledding with Carl.  Although Sam can tell that he is intelligent, he is very resistant.  Sam breaks through somewhat but starts to experience strange happenings at the inn.  He attributes the them to Carl and is particularly disturbed that Carl has been snooping in his room.  Sam has secrets.

The teacher becomes fascinated by the history of the inn and discovers, to his surprise, that the Abbadon was a stop on the Underground Railroad and that its owner back in the day was considered an abolitionist.  Sam experiences some very weird phenomena at the Victorian hostelry:  putrid smells, freezing cold spots in heated rooms, and most disturbing, leg irons.

Ford’s dreams are the most interesting part of the book, giving insight into slavery and slave masters (one bearing his last name) and an antecedent of his also bearing the name of Sam Ford.

Teacher and student are experiencing the haunting.  Carl feels that it was his magic that is causing the problems and he blames himself, desperate to undo what he feels he has brought into his home.  When his mother is found dead in the bedroom, he is devastated.  Sam calms him down.  Together they explore the history of the town and Carl becomes quite interested in some of their lessons and projects.  Still, even though Sam has padlocked his room and his closet, the curious, spiteful boy finds a way in and discovers his secret.  He reveals it to his father and Sam is promptly fired.

But Sam knows that he is needed, that the house’s mysteries involve him by way of his family history.

Despite the horror aspects, this is a pretty good book and it held my attention and I was sorry it ended.

ELEGY

FILM:  Elegy – 2009

Adaptation from THE DYING ANIMAL/Philip Roth novella

The fabulous Ben Kingsley is stunning as an emotionally limited aging professor and sometimes theater critic in this riveting film.  He makes no bones about his long string of affairs and detachment from serious relationships and his own emotions.

Enter a beautiful student (Penelope Cruz) and he is thrown into turmoil.  He worships her beauty and can’t get enough of her.  She is sensitive and wants more from the relationship.  He cites their 30-year age difference as he becomes possessive.  He is the last to know that he has fallen in love with her.

There is an impressive performance here by Dennis Hopper, a colleague, as well as by Ms. Cruz.

There is a somber, aching quality to this film, leading to a believable conclusion.

Thumbs up to those who love character driven stories with raw emotional examination.

A SHADE OF DIFFERENCE

FICTION:  A Shade of Difference – Alan Drury/Avon – 1962

This political novel follows ADVISE AND CONSENT in Drury’s trilogy.  I just finished this 800+page saga in paperback and although it was quite absorbing, it was murder on the eyes.

It’s fascinating to read this over-forty-year-old book and compare it to contemporary political life and world problems.  Drury’s plot is quite interesting, involving the U.N., the U.S. administration, emerging African nations and our own racial strife in America.  Set in the height of Cold War tensions, we meet His Royal Highness Terence Wolowo Ajkaje, the M’Bulu of Mbeuele (Terrible Terry), who has come to power by suspicious circumstances.  He and the Panamanian Ambassador to the U.N., Felix Labaiya (driven by his own ambitions and hatred of the United States, conspire to propose a U.N. resolution granting immediate independence to Terry’s homeland, Gorotoland, in Africa.  This British colony has already been slated for self rule in another year.  The pair want to force the issue in the midst of the other emerging African nations.  There is a lot of support for this at the U.N., especially from the non-white countries.

The very colorful Terry arrives at the U.N. and makes quite a splash.  He has been schooled in England and at Harvard.  He is arrogant.  Once he hits the headlines, he is helped along by another political aspirant here and is scheduled to be honored in South Carolina.  He invites himself to the White House but learns that the president will be away.  He considers this a terrible affront and much is made of this in the press.

Enter Rep. Cullee Hamilton, a black man representing his California district.  He is part of the U.N. delegation and is recruited for damage control.  He is to accompany His Highness to South Carolina, a hotbed in the beginning of the civil rights era.  When a desegregation order is being carried out in South Carolina, Terrible Terry jumps in and walks a black girl into the school building.  He is pelted with rotten fruit and eggs and his traditional robes are ruined.  Cullee Hamilton, a man of reason, patience and abiding patriotism is mortified.  He is torn by impatient fellow Black people, his own wife included and by his moderate position in the unfolding civil rights saga.  The administration decides that Cullee should be in the forefront of what is becoming a worldwide scandal, accusing the United States of hypocrisy and centuries of racism.

The book goes on, including many colorful characters.

I found this work to be compelling and I learned a lot about both our Congress and the United Nations.

It is clear that Drury was a conservative and opted for moving carefully in race relations and matters played out on the world stage.  He did paint a wonderful portrait of the tug-of-war in the black community and the resistence to change in the country.  Looking back at the state of affairs in 1962, it is at least rewarding that we currently have a black president, although we’re still far apart on race relations. 

I think this book is worth reading.  You may be disappointed by its conclusion, depending on your political stance, but you won’t be sorry you read it.

The 13th Juror

FICTION:  The 13th Juror – John Lescroart – Island Books/Dell – 1995

We are plunged into this legal thriller by sharing an afternoon with a young married woman and mother of a small boy.  She is highly agitated about preparing her husband’s dinner to his liking.  Her detailed planning, to exactly coincide with his arrival, with everything absolutely perfect,starts to verge on hysteria.  We realize she is a battered wife.

Set in San Francisco, we are introduced to Dismas Hardy, a former prosecutor, now beginning  on the other side.  He has been asked to help represent Jennifer, at the behest of veteran criminal attorney David Freeman. 

Jennifer is accused of killing not only her husband and her son.  She loudly proclaims her innocence.  Freeman will handle her defense and Hardy will handle the penalty phase of this capital murder case with special circumstances.  This is not an easy case because Jennifer is very uncooperative and unpleasant.  In addition, it has always been felt in the law enforcement community that her first husband did not die accidentally.  She will not allow a defense of Battered Women’s Syndrome.  During the course of this case, his body is exhumed and his death is considered suspicious.  The District Attorney has included this possible crime to the list of charges.  Through some fancy legal footwork, that aspect of her trial is declared a mistrial.

It’s Hardy’s job to find evidence that will support her ‘not guilty’ plea.  She refuses to plea bargain,  which would spare her life.

Hardy embarks on some very slim leads, most proving false.  He becomes obsessed with saving Jennifer’s life.  While Freeman scores some points with the jury and the judge, he ultimately fails and Jennifer gets a death sentence.

Now it is entirely up to Hardy to prevent Jennifer’s execution.  He thinks Jennifer’s second husband, a doctor, might have uncovered a health care scam, he follows that thread at great length, only to be stopped by what seems to be a coverup by the police.  Lead after lead dries up.  The dedicated attorney never gives up, even when he has the flu.  Hardy’s wife, Frannie, is a little concerned about her husband’s persistence and asks to meet Jennifer in prison.  Hardy reluctantly agrees.  The women form a bond and Frannie is convinced that while Jennifer might be able to kill her husband, she could never kill her little boy.

The lawyers aren’t so sure, but they are there to defend her.  Hardy has trouble throughout, with the credo of a defense attorney:  everyone is entitled to a defense.  This conundrum is not resolved at the book’s conclusion.

The 13th Juror has a compelling plot with a great surprise ending.  It flows really well and the characters are very human.  I enjoyed it.

REVOLUTIONARY ROAD

Commentary on Film: Revolutionary Road Stumbling upon a film review for “Revolutionary Road,” I was intrigued by the subject matter, suburban life in 1955 Connecticut, and looked forward to seeing it as soon as I could. I had never heard of the novel by Richard Yates, published in 1961and was happy to find the book, newly available due to a promotional tie-in to the film, and I devoured the book and pondered its meaning for days. It had tremendous impact on me, based on my own experiences and the searing insights of the author. It amazed me that Yates could have such clarity on the subject matter in the brief span between 1955 and 1961. When I finished the book I was sorry to have to put it down; I rushed, at that point, to read everything I could about the author and the book, and by this past Sunday, I made it my business to see the film. Yates had been anxious to bring his novel to the screen and was disappointed that it never happened during his lifetime. He was invariably turned down because the ending involves a botched abortion – a taboo subject forty-plus years ago. I doubt that the strange treatment that finally made it to the screen would have thrilled him, even though it was produced as a major motion picture with two of Hollywood’s leading luminaries and a solid-gold director. I know that most novels suffer somewhat when translated to the silver screen, but this one became incomprehensible and purposeless in my estimation. The foremost difficulty is that the viewer is given no context for Franklin and April Wheeler. They are introduced an attractive thirty-ish couple being shown a home in what had rapidly become a sprawling haven for commuters. Not having a view into what has led them to this moment obliterates the necessary foreshadowing of the catastrophes to follow. Where we should see character flaws, immaturity and neuroses and a thoroughly mismatched couple, we see rather bland but stylish New York City transplants. Given this lack of information, it is hard to care about them as they stumble in what is this artificial and contrived living environment with its new rules and mores, based on a shallow conformity galloping toward what was then perceived as beautiful and ideal. The troubled couple tried to play by the rules of post-World War II America. They got married because everyone was getting married and Frank took a job to earn a living, she got pregnant with a child she didn’t want and so they did what was expected of them, they bought a home, and had yet another child. They became more and more troubled behind their suburban picture window and often turned on each other. Desperate, but not knowing exactly why, April came up with a plan for the emptiness. They would run away to Paris. She would become a secretary and support Frank while he ‘found’ himself. To her surprise, he accepted the plan and they started to act on it, until she found herself pregnant again. Her hopes were dashed but some strange twist of fate, he had the opportunity to advance in his career, despite his lack of real talent or interest. He shrugged it off as a postponement; she crashed and burned. In this environment of manufactured beauty and idealism, these jagged, ugly problems could only be swept under the rug. If one couldn’t get with the program, that person would be shunned and if difficulties persisted, that person would be institutionalized. This is a very important part of the book. The son of the most influential real estate agent and gatekeeper in the area, Mrs. Givings, is just such an individual. Although he is in a mental hospital, he has earned the privilege of weekend passes. Mrs. Givings, seeing only the idealized Franklin and April, feels that her son would benefit from meeting them. As the only truth-teller in the book, John calls things as he sees them and quickens the downward spiral into the abyss for all concerned. It is my understanding that Kate Winslet read the book, fell in love with it and campaigned for a screen treatment directed by her husband, Sam Mendes. Is it possible that both Winslet and company missed the point of this excellent novel? Or did I?

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DIZZY CITY

HISTORICAL FICTION:  DIZZY CITY – Nicholas Griffin/Steerforth Press - 2007

For those with an interest in New York City just prior to the United States’ involvement in WWI, this book will be fascinating.

We encounter an Englishman, Ben Cramb, in the thick of battle in France.  He was forced to enlist, along with his three best friends, instead of being jailed for petty crimes. Experiencing trench warfare, the death of his only friends and his almost inevitable demise, he deserts and makes for Liverpool.  There, under cover of darkness,  he stows away on the first vessel he sees, hiding out in the coal bin.  When the boat docks, he finds himself in New York.  He evades the customs official and strolls into his new world.  He is constantly worried about detection, because he would surely be sent back for court martial and most likely, hanging.

He utilizes his talent for picking pockets but can only subsist.  In his walks he discovers the Bowery and a soup kitchen.  He knows he must get a paying job while on the lam.  Cramb falls back on his prior skills.  He had learned to play the piano at his father’s knee.  He goes into an Irish-owned theater on the Bowery and plays well enough to be hired.  While he is there, he meets the man who will take him on as an assistant.  Julius McAteer is a veteran con man and would like to hire Ben as a ‘roper.’  As an inducement, McAteer offers Ben a room in his home in Greenwich Village at a very nominal rent.  Ben jumps at the opportunity.  The sharp-eyed McAteer realizes that this bruised young man has deserted from the British Army.  He knows that this knowledge will keep Ben in line.

McAteer has targeted a wealthy businessman in the Midwest.  He has snared him with a little research of the society columns of various cities and towns, placing ads in local newspapers with an investment opportunity.  Henry Jergens replies.  He is invited to come to New York at his own expense to meet with McAteer.  Ben is given money and train tickets and is dispatched to Chicago.  He watches Jergens and follows him to the railroad station. The ‘mark’ encounters Ben on the train.  During the course of the trip, Ben develops a relationship with Jergins that continues throughout Jergins’s New York visit.  He confides in Ben about his possible business venture, an investment in the music business.  Ben steers him to a Harlem club to hear some authentic rag music and with his musical knowledge, he copies down the melodies note for note.  Prearranged, the author of this tune catches Ben writing down his music and demands thirty dollars as payment.  Ben complies.  By this time both are quite drunk and as they walk downtown, Jergins drunkenly comes up with words for the tune.  Ben leads him to a music publisher (as played by McAteer) and the song is purchased.  The next day, they put lyrics to another tune.  The country bumpkin Jergins is again rewarded by a sale.  Now the con is in play.

Griffen’s creativity is evident.  Jergins turns out to be a con artist of equal merit.  He has been hoping to get revenge on McAteer for years.  The man had conned his now-dead mentor.  All of their ill-gotten gains had been stolen by a younger McAteer.

The book is broken into sections, first involving Ben and McAteer, then Henry Jergins and finally, Jergins’s beautiful young wife.  Katherine is part of the counter-scheme.

Griffen has done an amazing job with this novel.  Not only does he present an amazingly complicated plot with ease, but he sets the backdrop of early 20th Century New York in great detail.  As an almost life-long New Yorker, I had no idea of what occurred on Black Tom Island in New York Harbor.  It was the site of major sabotage by Germany and even damaged parts of the Statue of Liberty.  No one I’ve spoken to has ever heard of Black Tom Island or what amounted to an explosion of the intensity of a 5.5 magnitude earthquake. 

Thumbs up!

THE STREET PHILOSOPHER

HISTORICAL FICTION: THE STREET PHILOSOPHER – Matthew Plampin/Harper Collins (London) – 2009

This thoroughly engrossing historical novel ultimately turned out to disappoint. 

THE STREET PHILOSOPHER begins at the dawn of the Crimean War with the arrival of illustrator Robert Styles, dispatched from London’s Courier publication.  He is to round out a press trio comprised of the veteran correspondent,  Richard Cracknell and his associate, Thomas Kitson. Kitson is new to the post of war correspondent, having previously handled art criticism in London.  He was selected for his descriptive style.  He had great admiration for his senior’s aggressive style in obtaining information.  The Irishman Cracknell was a colorful character: rotund, fond of drink, women and good at obtaining information at the camp and on the battlefield.

Styles arrived at the preparing battlefield on a steamer, along with Mrs. Madeleine Boyce, the wife of Lt. Commander Boyce.  It was obvious that Styles was quite taken with the beautiful young Madeleine.  It was also obvious that Cracknell had taken an immediate dislike of Styles, wondering why his publication had picked this rather delicate artist to help cover the war.  We soon learn that Cracknell is having a passionate affair with Mrs. Boyce.  While Kitson was busy describing the gory details of the war and Styles depicted the gruesome scenes, Cracknell brazenly wrote pieces meant to discredit the pompous, egotistical and incompetent officers and demeaning the dreamy Styles.  As Cracknell’s pieces became more and more controversial, the Courier sold more copies.  He was becoming a celebrity.  The muckraking Cracknell was particularly anxious to discredit Boyce and Capt. Wray, both proving to be scoundrels.  It was most helpful that Cracknell was bedding Mrs. Boyce.  Not only did she detest her husband for his abuse, but was willing to share any information she could with her lover.  She’d only stayed in the Crimea because she was desperately in love with Cracknell and he fed that romance for his own purposes.

We are taken through horrendous battlefield injuries, poor decision making and the spread of cholera.  Kitson is increasingly alarmed about the mental state of Styles.  He is totally fixated on his gory  drawings and Madeleine Boyce.  He tries to convince Cracknell to send the troubled young man back to England.  Instead, Cracknell continues ignore him.  As the British and French armies progress in the direction of Sebastopol, the ever-vigilent Cracknell looks for ways to uncover the evil deeds of Wray and Boyce.  He notices that in the midst of battle, that Wray is given a note, summons Boyce and he leaves  in the opposite direction of the battlefield with two soldiers in tow.  Cracknell gathers Kitson and Styles and they follow him.  They arrive at  what is the country home of the Tsar.  It seems unoccupied.  They wind up in the kitchen and find they are not alone.  An obvious Russian accent is heard.  He is in the company of Boyce,  and the two soldiers who are standing guard.  Hiding, the journalistic trio listens carefully.  The Russian is unlocking a cabinet and heading to the basement.  He comes back with what appears to be a painting.  Kitson, the former art critic recognizes the painting as Raphael’s Pilate Washing His Hands,considered lost for centuries.  This is a priceless treasure!  Boyce kills the Russian and one of his soldiers.  He keeps the other one,  who is rather feeble-brained, as his personal assistant.  He leaves the scene with the treasure hidden in a cart.  He doesn’t realize there are further witness, the most prominent of which is just aching to exact monumental revenge.

Using Madeleine and other intelligence, Cracknell knows that Boyce will need an intermediary to get the art treasure back to England.  As predicted, Boyce summons rising industrialist Charles Norton to the Crimea.  He knows he can turn the greedy Norton into a war profiteer for his purpose of smuggling.  Norton is given lucrative contracts and tasked with carrying out the art.  He readily agrees.

As the battles drag on, the three employees of the magazine follow the campaign.  Styles is far gone.  He has beaten off a Russian soldier by shooting him.  Kitson again asks that Styles be sent home, to no avail.  At this point, Cracknell exposes Boyce and Wray in print.  This creates a scandal at home and with a letter to the editor anonymously written by Boyce, Cracknell is fired and Boyce is promoted.  The fires of revenge are burning in Cracknell. 

 

In a particularly difficult battle all three are cornered injured.  Cracknell wanders off with his injury but Kitson and Styles are dispatched to the makeshift army hospital.  Cracknell is now on a freelance campaign against his enemies.  He lingers in the Crimea as the war winds down but keeps away from the battlefield.  Kitson, thinking that Styles has been sent home, stays near a port city to heal his wounds.  He works as a nurse there and is happy in his new role.

When Kitson gets word that Styles is still in the Crimea, he knows the erratic young illustrator is in grave danger.  He is no longer afraid of killing or even dying.  Kitson goes back to the field in search of Styles on the front lines.  He finds him there.  What he doesn’t know is that Styles was in what was Cracknell’s former tent and viewed and illustrated what was clearly Cracknell and Madeleine having sex.  Styles died in the battle and Kitson’s dislike of Cracknell turned to hatred.  A soldier who hated Boyce circulated the drawings around the camp.  Cracknell got wind of this and seized the illustrations.  He enlisted the soldier who hated Boyce the most virulently and made sure that they got to Boyce.  Boyce more than suspected the affair, but when he saw the very detailed drawings, he went into a rage and killed his wife, blaming it on a Russian intruder.

Kitson returned to England, but knowing he was a witness to Boyce’s crimes, settled in Manchester.  He took a job on a minor publication, he kept a low profile as a gossip columnist.  Therein comes the title.  This position was called Street Philosopher in that era.  He prayed that he would just be left alone.

All characters came together in Manchester, including Norton.  The plot thickens as Kitson falls in love with Norton’s rebellious daughter.  Cracknell is driven by revenge and hires thugs to kill both Wray and Boyce and to undermine the wealthy and criminal Norton.

Plampin has a fine writing style interspersing the Crimea and Manchester and brings his experience as an art and culture expert of 19th Century England.  He engages the reader by making him or her weigh the motivations for truthtelling.  One has to evaluate whether the better man is Cracknell for getting the back story out or Kitson in his artistic verbiage but not engaging the powers that were as Cracknell did for his own purposes.

My major criticism of the book is that Plampin didn’t take a moment, prior to the story, to explain the factors leading to this war.  All we really learn is that there is an alliance between England and France to fight Russia.  We aren’t even told who won this war.  I was not happy to have to research this on my own.  Here’s what I was able to glean from a history professor who wishes to remain anonymous:

“The Crimean War grows out of the Great Power Game and the balance of powers established after the Napoleonic wars.  Within that game, as one power ‘grew’, the configuration became ‘unstable’–it’s kind of a plate tectonics theory of what foreign affairs are about.  The ‘growing’ power was Prussia.  And others were declining–most notably Austria/Hungary.  Then there was all kinds of debate over what made a country ’strong’–population?  economic development? getting colonies?  foreign trade?  And how did you assess your power and the power of others?  The site hints at some of the considerations–Russia wanted access to the Mediterranean and was viewed as a potential ‘threat’.  I think the whole game was dangerous, and eventually came crashing down in World War I.  I don’t know anything about why Britain and France decided on such a pre-emptive strike, what they hoped to gain from it, and I haven’t followed the literature–I’m sure there are people making careers out of exploring the diplomacy.  

“As now, diplomacy has very limited use, and distracts from real things (water, pollution, starvation) but elites go on playing these games.  (And is it possible to stay out of them?  That was/is the issue of ‘isolationism’)  The Great Power Game is often called ‘realism’, as played by Bismarck and Kissinger and Brzezinsky.  I think A.J.P. Taylor wrote the old classic book on the diplomacy up to world war I, but could be wrong on that too.  I guess Plampin doesn’t have diplomats as characters; maybe he thinks the game is absurd, or maybe he thinks that his audience would know what it was ostensibly about.”

 

 It could be that Plampin wanted to keep this as vague as possible so we would apply this appalling war to an overall observation of the futility of war.  I think this missing information is really necessary (and I’ve written to the publisher to convey my message to Mr. Plampin);  otherwise, this is just another compelling story which happens to be set in war and you can fill in the blanks.  Plampin DOES inform via an end note that there is no such painting as Pilate Washing His Hands.

It’s  sad that Plampin didn’t incorporate Tennyson’s “Charge of the Light Brigade”, written in 1854:

The Charge Of The Light Brigade

 By Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

 

Memorializing Events in the Battle of Balaclava, October 25, 1854
Written 1854

 

Half a league half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred:
‘Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns’ he said:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

‘Forward, the Light Brigade!’
Was there a man dismay’d ?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do & die,
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d & thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army while
All the world wonder’d:
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack & Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke,
Shatter’d & sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse & hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honour the charge they made!
Honour the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred!