What Are You Reading

I'm not reading it anymore, but I just recently finished reading Scott Pilgrim. It's a lot of fun if you enjoyed the movie adaptation.

Tried to read “Munich” by Robert Harris, but couldn’t build up enough care for the characters to finish it.

Tiki Tom said:

Tried to read “Munich” by Robert Harris, but couldn’t build up enough care for the characters to finish it.

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Had you finished it, I doubt our opinions would have been very far apart. My comments on it:

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-are-you-reading.10557/page-396#post-2421492

"The Broadcast 41: Women and the Anti-Communist Blacklist," by Carol A. Stabile.

This is a new, just-out study of how forty-one female radio and television performers, writers, and directors experienced political oppression in the United States during the early 1950s. They were the forty-one women listed in "Red Channels: Communist Infiltration of Radio and Television", published by a privately-funded, privately-run organization calling itself Counter-Attack, a group established by three former FBI agents who nevertheless maintained close contact with the Bureau thruout their operations. Stabile's thesis is that these women were treated with greater harshness by those promulgating the blacklist and by those in the broadcasting and advertising industries who enforced it because, not only were they women, but most of them were, in one way or another, unconventional women who fell outside the accepted boundaries of postwar white Anglo-Saxon-Protestant femininity.

It's an interesting thesis, and I agree with it at the basic level. Of the forty-one women targeted in "Red Channels," the majority were from non-middle-class backgrounds, with several of them first-generation immigrants, more than thirty percent were Jewish -- at a time when Jews constituted less than 2 percent of the US population -- and more than half were either unmarried, divorced, or childless. There were four African-American women in the group -- one of whom, Lena Horne, was married to a white man -- and according to Stabile's research at least three women of the 41 were lesbians. There were no DAR members in the group. Stabile demonstrates thru extensive research in FBI files that the backgrounds and personal lives of these women were of great interest to the FBI, above and beyond their politics, and makes a convincing case for her argument that they were being persecuted as much for their unconventionality as for their left-wing opinions. Some really appalling attitudes come to light in the FBI documents, in which these women are repeatedly demeaned and dehumanized above and beyond anything you find in similar documents concerning male "persons of interest." Even such pettiness as J. Edgar requiring agents to refer to married women by the names of their husbands -- "Mrs. Joseph Blow, alias Sally Unionscale" -- is a sign of the contemptuous disrespect with which these non-conforming women were viewed by their inquisitors.

But I think she goes off the rails a bit in her attempts to characterize "The Broadcast 41," as she repeatedly calls them, as any kind of a cohesive entity -- generalizations like "The Broadcast 41 believed that..." occur much too often for my taste. In fact there was a great deal of diversity among these women, not just in their backgrounds, but in their perspectives and in their work. If you got them all together in a room, you'd probably get some pretty lively arguments. Some were actual Communists, some were anti-Communist socialists, some were New Dealers, some were union activists, some were pacifists, some were civil-rights activists, some were advocates of Republican Spain in the 1930s, and some simply thought opening a second front was a good idea in 1943. They were all leftists, certainly, but how they defined leftism varied greatly. And class differences bore heavily upon them. Literary figures like Dorothy Parker and Lillian Hellman did not experience the world -- or the consequences of political oppression -- in the same manner as jobbing actresses like Lesley Woods or Minerva Pious. The latter performers did not spend their free time lounging in literary salons reflecting on matters of political philosophy, they were, essentially, broadcasting's working class -- scrabbling for jobs to keep the buck on the table, and the consequences of their persecution were far more severe than those of greater fame and greater fortune. Lillian Hellman's class privilege allowed her to very easily declare that she wouldn't cut her conscience to fit the fashions of the time, but it wasn't so simple for Louise Fitch, who had a rat husband and three kids to support. Lumping them all together in the way that she does suggests that Stabile's class-consciousness needs a bit more development.

"Time on My Hands" by Peter Delecorte (recommended by LizzieMaine)

If you enjoyed Jack Finney's classic time-travel novel, "Time and Again," then this one should work for you as it follows a similar pattern and story arc.

The novel's three elements - time-travel science, politics and a fictional story are all handled with different levels of intensity and clarity.

The time-travel science of "Time on My Hands" is fun but surfacey with any long-form news article on the theoretical physics of time travel providing more insight. Also, the author subscribes to the multiple-time-line view - that there are an endless number of timelines in play simultaneously (potentially bleeding into one another - he's very squishy about this) - which is fine, but then makes it all seem unimportant.

To wit, if Hitler is killed before WWII in one timeline, but lives on in an infinite number of others, did killing him in one really accomplish anything? If there are infinite timelines, does anything really matter or is each timeline - each of our lives - just one out of millions of insignificant lab rats in a big cosmic experiment?

As to the politics, we need to touch on Ronald Reagan. If your view is that he was a stupid man who was propelled to the presidency by a cabal of venal conservatives with his presidency being one of lies and arrant corruption that all but ruined the country while preventing what would have been a successful second term for Jimmy Carter - then you'll be fully sympathetic to the book's view.

If conversely, you see Reagan as an intelligent, sui generis politician whose varied life experiences created the perfect man, moment and machine to pull American out of the malaise of the '70s and restore its original and special economic, political and foreign policy successes and values - then the book's view will be a reoccurring, but not experience-ruining, irritant.

Last point on Reagan's treatment in the book: there is a very bourgeoisie / class superiority attitude put down of 1930's Reagan's life and tastes as his Midwest roots, no-name college ("not East Coast Ivy after all"), not-sophisticated taste in food, wine and clothing, outwardly acknowledged plans to better himself and lack of the "right" manners are all held up to ridicule by his "betters" (his modest apartment is straight-faced described as "déclassé" by the novel's "well-bred" heroine).

But if you accept the seat-of-your-pants science and re-occurring sharp elbow to Reagan, the third element - the fictional story itself - makes for a fun romp through, mainly, late 1930s Hollywood and the Warner Brothers studio system with some famous personalities, like Howard Hawks and Jack Warner, popping up.

And that story begins when a brilliant, but elderly, scientist from the 1990s finds a from-his-future time machine and enlists a travel writer to go back to the 1930s to kill Ronald Reagan - when he was just a B-list actor at Warner Brothers - to save the world from his future Presidency. Yup, that is the plot catalyst.

Once there, the writer is aggressively pursued by the real 22nd Century owners of the time machine (who might actually have stolen it in their time), falls in love with an aborning starlet, befriends Reagan, uses his knowledge of the future to both win at the racetrack to seed his new life and to write successful scripts to advance his career so that he can stay employed at the studio and involved with Reagan. As expected, not all goes smoothly, necessitating several trips back and forth in, as noted, not clear timelines and with a machine he doesn't really understand.

To tell more would be to spoil the plot, but the real joy of the novel is its feel of 1930s Hollywood - from not busy two-lane highways to engaged cabbies, underdeveloped Malibu and spring-training baseball games - and insight into the workings of the studio system - hint, it's a brutal business, not Golden Era fun.

Overall, a flawed book, but an engaging time-travel story especially for Fedora Lounge members.

Glad you had fun with it. I thought the class attitudes toward Reagan on the part of some of the other characters were pretty much to be expected -- East Coast money transplanted to the West never thought much of corn-fed Midwestern types, and Ivy League types were rampant in Hollywood after the dawn of the talkies, especially among screenwriters. Class remained a blind spot to many of these people, even many who claimed to be class-conscious, and it often showed in the scripts they produced.

I would, however, have loved to see a picture about the Spanish Civil War starring Ronald Ree-gan as directed by Howard Hawks.

Another element in the book, the idea of a time-traveler mining the creative products of "the future" for ideas in the past, was also a plot peg in the BBC sitcom "Goodnight, Sweetheart," which was running contemporaneously with the writing of this book. I don't know if Delacorte ever saw the show, which only had limited exposure in the US in the '90s, but it was the first thing I thought of when our hero started his screenwriting career.

LizzieMaine said:

Glad you had fun with it. I thought the class attitudes toward Reagan on the part of some of the other characters were pretty much to be expected -- East Coast money transplanted to the West never thought much of corn-fed Midwestern types, and Ivy League types were rampant in Hollywood after the dawn of the talkies, especially among screenwriters. Class remained a blind spot to many of these people, even many who claimed to be class-conscious, and it often showed in the scripts they produced.

I would, however, have loved to see a picture about the Spanish Civil War starring Ronald Ree-gan as directed by Howard Hawks.

Another element in the book, the idea of a time-traveler mining the creative products of "the future" for ideas in the past, was also a plot peg in the BBC sitcom "Goodnight, Sweetheart," which was running contemporaneously with the writing of this book. I don't know if Delacorte ever saw the show, which only had limited exposure in the US in the '90s, but it was the first thing I thought of when our hero started his screenwriting career.

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Watching the time-traveler try to create and sell a script we know was / would be an Oscar winner to an always-skeptical studio was creative and thought provoking as winning ideas - smart scripts - are turned down all the time. Heck, we are all familiar with the story of the hit show or movie that was rejected by several studios / producers / etc., before getting made.

Thank you again for the recommendation. Do you know if Reagan change the pronunciation of his name on his own or was it studio or politically driven as I had no idea it had been changed?

I've never found out for sure where the change in pronunciation came from -- it was still "Ree-gan" as late as 1942 -- there's a Kraft Music Hall broadcast from that year where he does a guest shot with Bing Crosby, and is introduced by Ken Carpenter as "that Warner Brothers star Ronald Ree-gan," without any attempt to correct it. He made many radio appearances into the early fifties, and just from memory I think the pronunciation had changed for good by the end of the 1940s. That was around the time he was getting seriously active in the SAG, but I can't imagine any serious political advantage would come from changing the pronunciation of his name. "Ray-gun" does sound less working-class than "Ree-gan," and less ethnically Irish, I suppose, but that's about it.

Peter Delacorte has spoken of writing a sequel from time to time over the years, and I wouldn't mind seeing one. I wasn't satisfied by the inconclusive ending, as I wasn't by the ending of "Time after Time," so I think a sequel is callef for.

LizzieMaine said:

I've never found out for sure where the change in pronunciation came from -- it was still "Ree-gan" as late as 1942 -- there's a Kraft Music Hall broadcast from that year where he does a guest shot with Bing Crosby, and is introduced by Ken Carpenter as "that Warner Brothers star Ronald Ree-gan," without any attempt to correct it. He made many radio appearances into the early fifties, and just from memory I think the pronunciation had changed for good by the end of the 1940s. That was around the time he was getting seriously active in the SAG, but I can't imagine any serious political advantage would come from changing the pronunciation of his name. "Ray-gun" does sound less working-class than "Ree-gan," and less ethnically Irish, I suppose, but that's about it.

Peter Delacorte has spoken of writing a sequel from time to time over the years, and I wouldn't mind seeing one. I wasn't satisfied by the inconclusive ending, as I wasn't by the ending of "Time after Time," so I think a sequel is callef for.

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Agreed, the ending was meh. The entire last few chapters felt rushed as if he had a deadline for the book and had to get his manuscript finished.

What surprised me about the condescension toward Reagan's implied lack of sophistication was that it came from a good liberal author and good liberal characters - characters the author clearly wants you to like.

Maybe the pronunciation change was nothing more than, "I wan't to 'change' something / shake things up / make a fresh start," and, while a bit odd in the real world - if I started pronouncing my name differently, my friends an co-workers would think I'd gone off my rocker - in Hollywood, it probably felt like "no big deal."

Oh, and based on the okay, but a clear step down in quality of Finney's sequel, maybe we're better off if Delecorte just leaves it alone.

Fading Fast said:

Had you finished it, I doubt our opinions would have been very far apart. My comments on it:

https://www.thefedoralounge.com/threads/what-are-you-reading.10557/page-396#post-2421492

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Thanks, FF. I wish I had read your analysis before I picked it up. Yes, I agree. It was useful in its pointing out that Neville Chamberlain was a complex person playing a weak hand, rather than the cardboard cut-out of a loser that he is normally painted to be. Other than that, too bad the plot and the main protagonists were rather weak. Oh, well. Thanks again.

Settled down last eve with Twinings Earl Grey tea, a tin of Danish butter cookies,
Alexander McCall Smith's The Sunday Philosophy Club, and the World Series fiver, won by the Red Sox.
Smith's soft boiled sleuth script features an Edinburgh lady amateur detective whom had read philosophy
at Cambridge and her musing factors prominently in the story of an accidental; or perhaps not so accidental
death at the opera.

And the Dodger defeat added savor to the tale.

A couple of chapters to go - review to follow then.

Quick and dirty: Classic English murder mystery / not a complex tome, just a quick by-the-numbers story. More after I finish.

Rereading "The Autobiography of Malcolm X," which fell off the bookshelf and landed on my head while I was sitting in front of the TV the other night watching the news. Yeah, I thought so too.

A Long Way from Chicago by Richard Peck. It's young adult fiction, but it's so well-written we enjoyed it as grown-ups. Subtitled A Novel in Chapters, it's several loosely connected stories about a brother and sister from Chicago who spend part of their summer vacation with quirky Grandma in rural Illinois from 1933 to about 1937. An epilogue of sorts set in 1942 rounds out the events. Laugh out loud funny in parts.

Finished "An English Murder" by Cyril Hare" first published in 1954.

Some books are great, some are terrible and some are just good, solid, better-than-average examples of their genre, like this one.

It's a quick 200 pages - it's one of those books you read while you're deciding what you want to read next.

Think of it as a short escape to an English country house at Christmas in the '50s. The setting - a grand old house, rolling fields, snow gently falling (at first), roaring fireplaces and cocktails in the library - has a "Downton Abbey" ambience. That said, this is not a mawkish "Christmas" book at all; it's almost the opposite with a quite-quickly-leans-dark mood as frenemies and enemies gather for Christmas in the past-its-prime country estate of the on-his-deathbed Lord.

It reads (calling Lizzie) like a very well done radio mystery play of the 1940s. After the characters - - The Lord's brother - Chancellor of the Exchequer - his son - the leader of a neo-fascist group - the wife of the Exchequer's political rival, the son's on-again-off-again girlfriend, a research professor working at the estate, the Exchequer's security man and the estate's skeleton staff - - are quickly assembled, murder ensues while a snow storm locks everyone in the house for the weekend leading to an awkward mix of continued surface festivities, suspicions, recriminations and family secrets being revealed amidst an ad-hoc murder investigation by the Exchequer's security man.

The story is good, not great; the characters, good, not great, but the book has its moments of seeing deeper or providing a perfect detail like this description of how the butler - like all good butlers of the day, he is more devoted to proper protocol and manners than the classes he serves - expresses his displeasure when a social "inferior" is asked by "a Lady" to join the main party for drinks:

It is in passages like that where the real charm of the book lies. That's it - it's a good, fast read, a better-than-average example of its genre and a book that would be perfect for our Lizzie to adapt to a radio mystery play.

Lizzie, I'm not kidding, this book is all but structured to be turned into one heck of a radio mystery play. If there was a market for it, it would have already happened. With you taking the lead with all your radio-writing experience, I'd love to take on writing it with you as it would be an outstanding and fun-as-heck project. But of course, there's no market for it and neither you nor I need unpaid work. Alas, it would have been a hoot to do.

Picked up the New York Times to read on the train and its coverage of acting Atty Gen Whitaker is a tad
more than skewered in perspective; particularly the proper constitutional role of
the Supreme Court so as not to usurp either the Executive nor Legislative branches, the Times turning the
verb to noun as the "lifeblood of its existence as a coequal branch of government."
Marbury vs. Madison gets honorable mention in the piece since Whitaker apparently differs with
the Court's declared power of judicial review and its subsequent growth. All too predictable Times.

Fading Fast said:

Lizzie, I'm not kidding, this book is all but structured to be turned into one heck of a radio mystery play. If there was a market for it, it would have already happened. With you taking the lead with all your radio-writing experience, I'd love to take on writing it with you as it would be an outstanding and fun-as-heck project. But of course, there's no market for it and neither you nor I need unpaid work. Alas, it would have been a hoot to do.

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"Veddy good, sir," pronounced in a withering Arthur Treacher voice. Yes indeed, that'd be a lot of fun to do.

"Witness", by Whittaker Chambers. I listened to the unabridged audio recording from Audible. The reader came close to the sound of Chamber's voice (here is a clip of Chambers' testimony before the HUAC).

"The Last angry Man" by Gerald Green.