Mythology is a fascinating subject. The elders of every culture create stories that explains their view of the world to themselves. They pass those views and stories on to their descendents and the children incorporate or revise those stories to suit their own world view. An observant human can trace the changes of a civilization by reviewing the variations in a myth. As cultures go, the American one is still fairly young and versatile but there are a few stories that have lodged in our national psyche and show signs of becoming a cultural touchstone. One of the strongest is the children’s classic, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. The Wonderful Wizard is about 114 years old now and has attained a level of popularity that Harry Potter only dreams about. Between the author and his publishers, more than 40 sequels of the original story were published and another fifty or so accompanying and revisionist novels or comic books have been added to that list. There are a dozen and a half movie adaptations, about two dozen stage productions and enough material referencing Dorothy Gale’s adventures to sink the Emerald City. Every generation since its birth has reviewed, amended, attacked and…
There is something special about a Southern Mama. I used to explain it by saying I moved to Alabama because, “I married a Southern Boy. And Southern Boys don’t get too far away from their mamas.” That usually got a laugh because, on one level, it’s true. Southern mothers are strong women and their children respond to that strength. These women have raised generations of kids who know Mama is stronger than anyone except Grandma or God Almighty. Dads are dads and everyone should have a good one but no one’s more certain than Mom. That standard was true of my southern mother-in-law and it is certainly true about Rick Bragg’s mother. In All Over But the Shoutin‘, his mom is the heroine of the story and the center of his life. To hear Rick tell it, life should have been nicer to Margaret Marie Bundrum. Although she was born into a large family in one of the poorer areas of the United States, the country was beautiful, her family was loving and her father provided for them all by building houses and making moonshine. It was a reasonable childhood for that area and at seventeen, Margaret Marie had the…
Writers steal, that’s a fact. You can call it an homage, revisionism or Fried Wild Peacock, but the fact is the roots of almost every popular written work can be traced to some other writer’s creation or an event the writer experienced. What makes the work interesting is what happens to the source material once the writer pushes it through the filter of his or her imagination. That’s when you get parodies, like Bored of the Rings or revisions like Wicked or Wide Sargasso Sea. With Robert Heilein’s The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, you get a recounting of what the American Revolution could have been like, if America had been in outer space. It goes like this: after creating a life-sustaining habitat on the moon, mankind initially developed the sphere as a planetary sized Alcatraz for its criminals and political malcontents. No guards or monitoring are needed since the prisoners cannot escape and Earthlings enjoy a serene existence with their agitators gone. Decades after transportation been halted, the descendents of the original settlers (Lunar colonists or “Loonies”) now supply Earth’s population with food. Of course a lot of technology is used to run the colony and one of…
Some books are like a vacation. Open the covers, look at the first paragraph and you’re on your way to some exotic location, away from the everyday grind. You can go hunting with Hemingway, rafting with Twain or sailing with Thor Heyerdahl. Those vacations are wonderful, but come along with me to the South of France. You won’t have to pack a bag or learn the language but you must bring along your sense of humor. It’s required when you check in to The Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle Peter Mayle made enough wealth and fame in advertising to retire early to a farmhouse in France. Then he became internationally rich and famous writing about his retired life. The Hotel Pastis is a novel but there’s enough about advertising and the South of France there to suggest it’s a thinly disguised memoir with just enough fiction in it to keep people from suing. Truth or libel, the book is a treat. The hero, Simon Shaw, is a man in need of an interest. His work life doesn’t fascinate him any more: the ad agency he helped build is so successful that all he does is butter up clients, cash the…
There are a lot of genres in crime fiction. There are cozy mysteries and hard-boiled detective tales, capers and whodunits. There are police procedurals, legal thrillers, psychological suspense books and we’ll have some more genres next Tuesday. In the meantime, one of my current favorite writers is Val McDermid, the journalist who created what she calls “Scottish Noir”. This means her characters have the uncompromising, tough and amoral personalities the frequented Dashiell Hammett’s novels but McDermid’s stories are settled in the cold, bleak areas of Scotland. Add to this mix a set of villains so strange that Thomas Harris could have invented them and you’ve got Scottish Noir. These books aren’t for everyone but, boy, are they good. McDermid is best known for her Carol Jordan/Tony Hill series but if you want an introduction to her work, I’d start off with the thriller, A Place of Execution. A Place of Execution is about the twin investigations into the disappearance of Alison Carter, an adolescent that disappeared one night in December of 1963. Allison’s home was Scardale, a one-road village where half a dozen families have lived since the world began. The young Detective Inspector, George Bennett, has to figure…