I Curse the River of Time by Per Petterson ( 2008. Translated 2010. Picador. ISBN 978-0-312-42953-9)

I got into Petterson’s prose ( I like how that phrase flows off the tongue) due to my pal, Dave Michelson’s insistence that I read Out Stealing Horses, Petterson’s best known novel. I fell for the Nordic vibe of Petterson’s writing style, a style that, in some subtle ways, reminds me of Icelandic legendary author, Harold Laxness. Though Petterson’s work tends to be more limited in terms of scope than say, Laxness’s iconic masterpiece, Independent People, there are similarities between the writers in terms of style and the Nordic poetry their writing evokes.

I Curse the River of Time is, however, to my mind, the least satisfying of the three Petterson novels I have read. This is not to say that the book was troubling, or short changed my expectations, in the same way American author Larry McMurty’s latest effort, When the Light Goes (see review below) did. Unlike McMurty, who, getting on in life, stumbled and fell (in a literary sense) writing When the Light Goes, into the common trap of aging male fiction writers who seem hell-bent to write about the sexual prowess of their male characters in the hope of reclaiming the author’s own youth, Petterson’s fall from literary grace is more subtle. I had particular difficulty sorting through scenes in the book that transitioned from the past to the past-past, as the protagonist related bits and pieces of a life lived as a Norwegian boy, young man, and middle-aged adult, in both Norway and Denmark. Beneath the story lies the contemporary whisper of the protagonist’s impending divorce, a circumstance that compels the first-person narrator to visit his aging mother who is dying of stomach cancer. Trouble is, at an earlier point in the narrative, she apparently also was diagnosed with stomach cancer, when her sons were young, only to find out that the diagnosis was apparently in error. Was the doctor wrong or did the present-day illness, the same illness discussed earlier in the book, simply lie dormant and symptomless for decades? I had a hard time following the time bending narrative of this book.

On the plus side, the language of Petterson’s prose is very poignant and poetic, the sort of rhythmic writing that compels a reader forward even if there is slight confusion in the plot. The scenes between the narrator and a young girl he beds (age appropriately, it seems) and the narrator and his wife as they court are very tastefully done and convey a sense of  longing and moral fiber in the narrator that seems to fall off and vanish in later scenes. A lesser work from a strong writer that, in the end, is satisfying enough to recommend as a good read.

4 star out of 4.

When the Light Goes by Larry McMurtry (2007. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-4165-3427-3) brings back the Duane Moore character from The Last Picture Show (see my review below) and Duane’s Depressed (which I haven’t read). When last I knew, Duane was off to fight the Korean War mainly because he’d run out of options to make a living and better himself in Thalia, Texas: a dusty, dirty, windy spit of a town located not far from the Oklahoma-Texas border. Turns out that Duane has made millions in the oil industry after returning to Thalia, settling down, getting married and having four kids. His wife of many years, Karla, is dead and gone, the result of a car accident. Duane, after sixty-plus years of hard living, has heart problems; both romantic and physical. Turns out, despite his aging, decaying body, he’s still something of a catch: Both his forty-something bisexual psychiatrist and the seemingly coy California girl his eldest son has hired to work in the oil company office want Duane in bed. What to do? Duane has had a heart attack and must tread lightly when it comes to physical activity, including the horizontal bop.That’s pretty much what this book is from page 1 to 195. I’ll give the author this: It’s a quick read but that’s due to the brevity of the tale, not because it’s a page turner.

I’ve written similar reviews regarding books penned by other late-in-life male authors including John Irving and James Harrison. My chief objection to the more recent work of these writers is their irrational obsession with sex. Not story, not character, not setting; just sex. Now, I’m no prude. I’ve used sexual content and scenes in any number of my novels and short fiction. Not always, but when the story merits a romantic, sexual lilt, I have no problem writing scenes that involve disrobing and the act of procreation. That’s not what’s going on here folks: The fading light that McMurtry so desperately laments isn’t Duane Moore’s physical prowess or sexuality. It’s the disappearance, the vanishing of great characters and dialogue, both of which can be found in The Last Picture Show and Lonesome Dove. The story here is predictable and without purpose. We’re left to follow the aimless, pointless wanderings of an old guy trying to figure out which younger lass to bed. Duane’s attempts at self-reflection (like sex between strangers) seems empty and forced. McMurtry certainly could have written a protagonist who is without morals, without empathy, without direction, the sort of character who would fit the role of an indulgent, aging male far better than Duane Moore. But he didn’t take that risk. He didn’t ring that bell. The author, in a very real sense, played it safe and the result is an uninspired and unimaginative story.

In sum, I found very little to like about this story or its characters. I’d save the $14.00 cover price and buy one of James McMurtry’s CDs instead. James is the very gifted musical son of the author who writes fantastic Texas-inspired songs that feature lonesome lyrics and finely mastered guitar. Don’t get me wrong, Larry McMurtry remains a man who still commands my respect: His authorship of  Lonesome Dove brought the oft-ridiculed genre of the Western into literary limelight. But the author who penned that tale, like the Duane Moore who inhabited Thalia at the time of The Last Picture Show isn’t to be found in the pages of When the Light Goes.

3 stars out of 5.

The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry (1966 and 1994. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-0-684-85386-4)

The title to this review isn’t meant to belie the fact that The Last Picture Show is, to a great degree, an American classic along the lines of The Heart is a Lonely Hunter  or To Kill a Mockingbird or East of Eden. Yet, unlike those books, which take on broad, larger-than-one-man-or-woman’s-existence-issues, McMurty’s tale of teenaged angst and maturation, while written in prose that calls to mind Carson McCullers , is more in line with The Graduate  or Catcher in the Rye in terms of the scope of story. There are no great debates contained within the pages of this novel, no rants or rages or discussions about race, gender, income inequality, or politics. And yet, the read is satisfying. Why? Because, as McMurtry would later reinforce in his the colossus-in-print Western to beat all Westerns, Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry is a first rate storyteller and a creator of memorable characters. As in Lonesome Dove, McMurtry  clearly understands the motivations and inner dialogue of both male and female characters inhabiting his worlds. And, there is much about life to be learned from language such as the following:

Duane was too bleary and sick to do more than grunt. His hair was plastered to his temples with sweat. “You drive,” he said.

By some miracle Sonny managed to wind his way through Matamoros to the Rio Grande-in daylight the water in the river was green. The boys stood groggily under the customs shed for a few minutes, wondering why in the world they had been so foolish as to come all the way to Mexico. Thalia seemed an impossible distance away. 

“I don’t know if I can make it,” Sonny said. “How much money have we got?”

They found, to their dismay, that their money had somehow evaporated. They had four dollars between them. There was the money that Sam, and Genevieve had given them, hidden away in the seat springs, but they had not planned to use that.

“I guess we can pay them back in a week or two,” Sonny said. “We’ll have to use it.”

This scene follows two young men (Duane and Sonny) having blown their cash on booze and whores in Matamoros, Mexico on a whimsical trip apart from their dull and unexciting lives in Thalia, Texas; a trip that Duane and Sonny thought would define their entry into the adult world. But, as McMurtry paints the picture, the wonders of Matamoros did not live up to expectations or lead to life-changing revelations of soul or spirit. In the end, Thalia is Thalia even if you’ve been to Mexico.

I read this book because I, like most of my generation, had seen the movie (gotta love a young Cybil Shepard!) years ago and thought it to be, on its own merit, an American classic. When I found out that McMurtry had reprised the character of Duane in a new novel, When the Light Goes, I wanted to read the new book but felt an obligation to read the original before doing so. After spending three days racing through The Last Picture Show, I can’t wait to go back to Thalia no matter how desolate the place may be.

5 stars out of 5. Not Lonesome Dove but then, what book is?

(Note: A Review of When the Light Goes will be forthcoming. I can only read so fast!)

Up North by Sam Cook (1986 and 2003. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN0-8166-4267-2)

Everyone needs a toilet book. At least I do. Something to divert one’s attention from the business at hand, so to speak. OK, that’s not strictly true. There are folks whose constitutions require only brief forays into the lavatory: I’m not one of them. Too much information? Sorry. Not relevant to a book review? Oh, but that’s where you’re wrong, dear reader.

Recently, when I’d finished the latest copy of Conservation Volunteer (that great little magazine put out by the Minnesota DNR) my literature of choice for the potty, I searched my bookshelf for something suitable for…contemplation. The stories have to be short, to the point, uplifting, and well written for a book to serve such a function. Sam Cook’s Up North is just such a collection. To be fair, it would also be great bedside material or sitting in the deer stand material or toss in your Duluth Pack and take along the trail material as well. In fact, that last application, where this thin volume is pulled out of a canvas satchel after a long day of paddling and portaging in the wilderness, opened before a roaring campfire, and read aloud, might be the most appropriate suggestion of the lot. Like a well-seasoned woman, you know, the kind with girl-next-door looks and keen intelligence who’s comfortable in a canoe, at the symphony ball, or giving birth, Up North seems to fit in wherever you decide to read it.

Not every story in this collection is great literature or reminds one of John Muir or Sig Olson or Aldo Leopold or Jack London (or any of our other great nature/outdoor/conservation writers). But there are some tales squeezed into the 180 pages of this seasonal work (the stories are arranged “Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter” as their topics dictate) that reach such heights. My favorite? The story of octogenarian brook trout fisherman Enok Olson. Just give a listen to this description of a day on the water with Enok in “The Trout Fisherman”:

Soon we could hear the stream, and finally, after sliding part way on our rear ends and climbing through some cedars, we were there.

At one of our pauses on the way down, Olson said, “We may not get any fish, but I know you’re gonna marvel when you see the river.” He was right This wasn’t just a stream. It was a canyon. Sheer walls of sedimentary rock rose from the water’s edge, some 40 feet high. Where there were no walls, the valley rose at a pitch like the one we had just slid down.

The water was low, almost as low as Olson ever remembered seeing it. In the shallows it was the color of weak tea, but coffee brown in the pools below the ledges and along those sheer walls.

Olson couldn’t wait to get a worm on his hook and get it in the water. He wasn’t asking for much. “If I get one fish, I’m happy,” he said. “If I get two fish, I’m really happy.”

He pulled his hip boots up, put his walking stick in front of him, and waded into the stream. It’s hard to imagine what it must be like to be stream fishing at 89 when you’re eyes won’t see all you want them to see and your wading legs aren’t as steady as they once were.

“They’d Rather Have Cash” takes readers inside L.L. “Newt” Newton’s fur buying operation in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, perhaps giving us a glimpse of what it was like to trade furs back in the heyday of the voyageurs. Cook’s descriptive and narrative powers are on fine display in that tale, drawing us into a world that most of us will likely never traverse. Some of the shorter pieces, like “Stocking Feet” whet our appetite. Cook teases us with the beginnings of a duck hunting story: We awaken with the protagonist, can smell the morning coffee, feel the crispness of the early morning air as we load our gear, but we don’t follow the story into the duck blind itself. That’s not a bad thing. It points out, as many of these essays do, how important the smells and sounds and tastes that accompany great trips or hunts are to our memory.

Sam Cook has been an icon in the Duluth writing community for decades. It’s a testament to his story telling ability that, when I pick up the latest Sunday edition of The Duluth News Tribune, his work is the first that I read. Here’s hoping he keeps writing great stories of the world outside our doors for years to come.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5. Take this book along with you and read it aloud around the campfire on your next outing!

Prague by Arthur Phillips (2003. Random House. ISBN 0-375-7577-8)

Too harsh, you say? I don’t think so, kind readers. The book blurb from The New York Times  (the determinator (to coin a new Bushism) of good taste for American fiction readers) reads:

Ingenious…Phillips presents his characters with a wry generosity and haunting poignancy to rival his wonderfully subversive wit…”

Well, after slogging through 367 pages of Phillips’s prose, I am a bit confused: I never found much evidence of “haunting poignancy” in this novel. Oh, there were fits and starts of a story (several stories in fact) in the form of some intriguing character sketches. One actress in this aborted play set in early 1990 Budapest, Nicky the bi-sexual, cropped hair, photographer and painter, is particularly well crafted and comes off as a complete, if flawed, human being. The primary protagonist, John (a journalist working at a tabloid in the Hungarian capital) is less fully developed, though Phillips does spend a great amount of paper and ink creating a tale of ugly sibling rivalry between John and his brother Scott, a conflict that finally disipates into thin air like smog from Budapestian traffic. That’s the pattern that is repeated time and time again throughout this novel: Characters are introduced through great chunks of narrative and dialogue that seemingly ramble on for pages, only to have those actors vaporize without any resolution of their respective roles in the overall plot.

Now it may be that I am too dunderheaded to appreciate challenging, new-era prose for the genius that it is. I am a fairly straight forward sort of a guy who responds best to novels told in classic fashion. So take this criticism with a grain of salt if you relish the odd, the brinksmanship of say, Ulysses. I’m just not that interested in stories that don’t take me to a conclusion where sense is made; where the inner and outer turmoil of fictional characters comes to a point of resolution. That’s my main criticism of this book: The writing is, overall, nicely done (with the exception of the dialogue, which tends to denigrate into speechifying) but the story is so disjointed and unrelentingly inconsequential, I found myself wanting more and getting less. For example, about half-way through the tale, Phillips introduces us to Imre Horvath, an old man and the last of a publishing dynasty that has printed Hungarian literature for over a century. Much of the second section of the book deals with Horvath’s attempts to obtain the rights to the Hungarian portion of his family’s former empire as the Communists leave power and free enterprise returns to Budapest. Charles, another main character (part of the cadre of expatriates integral to the overall story as they move through the city and plot as a group, as a band of merrymakers) ends up working with Horvath in the old man’s efforts to reunite the company. Phillips gives us, through Horvath’s piece of the overarching “pie” that sometimes resembles a plot and sometimes resembles a series of vignettes, a reason to become intrigued. But the effort doesn’t satisfy because, just as soon as we are captured by the old man’s story, we’re off again chasing the cherished Emily (the somewhat infantile and unfeeling object of John’s romantic love); or watching Mark, a gay Canadian of means implode; or sitting in the corner of John’s bedroom voyeuristically watching as he deflowers a Hungarian speed skater.

I’ll admit to it: I was looking for another Per Petterson novel after reading Out Stealing Horses and stumbled upon this book in the “P’” section at our local Barnes and Noble. I’d never heard of Arthur Phillips or the book but given I have a desire to someday go to Prague and act like a typical boorish American tourist, and given that the cover is extremely captivating, I picked up a copy (along with Petterson’s To Siberia which was a far better read. You can find a review of To Siberia and Out Stealing Horses below). To my mind, Prague doesn’t live up to its cover blurbs or its cover.

One final note. The title of this review comes from the fact that the story is set in Budapest, not Prague. The inside joke amongst the characters, if you will, is that they all long to live in Prague, which, during the early 1990s, was seen as the cultural equal to 1920s Paris by American men and women of creative bent. I wanted Prague and got Budapest. That, in and of itself, isn’t all bad and I’ll give Phillips an “A” for clever deception. But I really did want to be find myself immersed in a story set in Prague, with characters and a plot that made me desire to visit there immediately. I felt no such visceral longing for Budapest as a result of reading this book. I won’t say that my time spent in Hungary was completely wasted but I will say the tour guide could have been more succinct and direct in the construction of his truth.

3 and 1/2 stars out of 4.

Led Zeppelin: When Giants Walked the Earth by Mick Wall (2008. St. Martin’s. ISBN 978-0-312-59039-0)

I know. The lyric is from the Grateful Dead, not Zep’. But after reading Mick Wall’s comprehensive biography of the quartet, it just seemed to fit. The author (who didn’t come onto the music scene soon enough to personally chronicle the first real power quartet to meld classical, rock, soul, and blues into music that grabbed hold of popular culture; taking work done by other bands like Cream and the Stones and the Beatles to a new and unexpected plain) uses personal interviews, archived materials, news reports, and the like to pull together a very comprehensive and thoroughly enjoyable peek into the lives, demons, and thoughts of the four founding Zeppelin members. It’s, in the end, a well-written book that makes you want to listen to lesser known Zep tracks and simply chill while Jimmy Page’s genius as a guitarist and producer washes over you like the wall of sound that crashed over millions of fans during the band’s zenith.

There is no question after reading Walls’ chronicle of the parade of booze, drugs, groupies, sessions, antics, and concerts that made up the lives of Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, and John “Bonzo” Bonham for the better part of a decade, that the lads were lucky that only Bonzo died of an alcohol and drug induced stupor (choking on his own vomit in 1980). Bonzo’s demise spelled the end for Zep, though, as Walls sketches the story, the band had already passed its creative prime and was headed towards a collective crash landing at the time of the drummer’s death. Bonzo’s death (a man revered by many as the greatest rock drummer of all time) simply solidified what was already in process: the end of Zeppelin. The odd three man reunions that took place thereafter (with Bonzo’s son Jason filling in on drums) never rekindled the magic of the band’s six studio albums or the live performances of the mid-1970s and, in many ways, were like the return of an aging athlete to his beloved sport when he’s past his prime. Walls does a very fine job of following the careers (or, in the case of Jimmy Page, non-career) of the surviving band members, making it very clear that Robert Plant, the voice of Zep, was already on the way out when Bonzo died and, with his solo career well launched (including a fist full of Grammys for his work with roots star, Alison Krauss), has never had regrets that Led Zeppelin finally, like the famed Hindenburg, crashed and burned. John Paul Jones, the most inventive and adept musician of the bunch, has found satisfaction in producing the work of others and appearing as a session player on many, many albums since the demise of the band. It is only the sad lament of lead guitarist and band leader, Jimmy Page, who has, since Bonham’s passing, floundered. Walls paints the picture of Page as an old man desperate to recreate what he once had and lost, pleading, begging, for Plant to come back to the fold to recreate the impossible.

Taken by promoter Tats Nagashima to what he boasted was “the most elegant restaurant in Tokyo”, Bonzo grew fed-up with being served sake’ in tiny cups and demanded “a beer mug or some buckets”. Later that night, they paid a visit to Tokyo’s famous Byblos disco where Bonzo showed his disapproval of the music by urinating from a balcony on the DJ. Bundling the drunken drummer into a cab, Cole finally gave up and left him to collapse on the street just feet from the entrance to the Tokyo Hilton where they were staying. The next day, Bonzo and Cole bought Samurai swords, and drunk again that night, began enacting a sword fight at the hotel, slashing and cutting at anything they could: chairs, curtain, mirrors, paintings. For an encore, they snuck into John Paul Jones’ room and carried his still sleeping body out into the hall where he spent the rest of the night…At the end of the night, the Hilton banned Led Zeppelin for life…

This passage reflects the sort of “all hands on deck” writing style Walls employs (to much success) through most of the book. The only criticism I have of the biography is Walls’ use of fictionalized “first person” vignettes interspersed throughout the book: These passages detract from the thorough journalism Walls employs and, are in a word, quite silly. But for this ill-advised device being employed, the book would be a five star read.

In the end, if you want to understand where all that fantastic music came from, this book is a good place to start. Fifty pages into the story, you’ll want to buy the six Zep albums and surround yourself with their collective genius.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5.

To Siberia by Per Petterson (1996. 1998 Translation. Picador. ISBN 978-0-312-42899-0)

On the way home from school I walk right behind Lone and mimic the way she moves. She minces along. I go on doing that as long as it is fun, and Lone never once looks back. She lives in a big house…almost at Frydenstrand. I don’t go as far as that, but in the same direction. We never walk together. Lone is upper class and must not be seen in my company. The feeling is mutual. But as I am about to turn up Asylgate, she does turn around. She stares at me with eyes full of hate, takes hold of her scarf and wrenches it around so the knot is at her nape and hitches it up until it’s really tight, sticks out her tongue, and squints at me. At once I start to run, hit her with my shoulder, and knock her backward into a snow drift. I give her a thorough ducking. She may be the headmaster’s daughter, but no one makes game of me. No one.

In this brief, almost novella-sized poetic novel, Petterson, whose  Out Stealing Horses (see my review in the Review Archives) became an international best seller, paints a picture of pre and post WWII Denmark and Norway that is the literary equivalent to an Edvard Munch painting: Sparse, dark, bitter, yet compelling. To Siberia is really a collection of interlocked vignettes rather than a fully realized novel: The storyline skips and meanders and moseys around, following the young female protagonist and her brother through a series of scenes and encounters. But this lack of continuity and structure is not a deficit. Indeed, the wayward path of story in this book is one of its distinct charms. The Scandinavian lilt and lyric of the author’s prose reminds one of an old Norse saga or of some long forgotten folk song. Sea spray and snow and gray skies and bone chilling cold are omnipresent throughout this story of  two siblings growing up in chaotic times. There are hints of holocaust, war, death, sabotage, sex, forbidden love, and incest sewn within the fabric of Petterson’s poetry, all of which enable the fully realized characters of the tale to grapple with the emotional upheaval of small countries dragged into a world wide conflagration. A simple yet powerful piece of writing.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5.

Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson (2011. Simon and Schuster, ISBN 978-1-4516-4853-9)

I want to live alone in the desert
I want to be like Georgia O’Keefe
I want to live on the Upper East Side
And never go down in the street
Splendid Isolation
I don’t need no one
Splendid Isolation
Michael Jackson in Disneyland
Don’t have to share it with nobody else
Lock the gates, Goofy, take my hand
And lead me through the World of Self
Splendid Isolation
I don’t need no one
Splendid Isolation

((C) 1998 Warren Zevon)

I’m listening to Warren’s song from his live album, Learning to Flinch as I type this review on my iMac wireless keyboard in my writing studio overlooking a river that, though he wasn’t an outdoorsman, Steve Jobs would appreciate. There’s a high gray and aqua sky above the stark, empty early winter landscape. The sun is hidden somewhere between twelve o’clock and nine: it’s completely concealed by clouds. Somehow, the austerity of the day, the melancholy of the “in betweeness” of this time of year is a suitable, nay perfect, backdrop to talk about the life and legend that was Steve Jobs.

Enigmatic. Irritable. Demanding. Narcissistic. Habitually deficient in honesty if deception served a “greater” purpose. Emotionally absent as a father and partner.

These are a few of the negative character traits that ring true from Isaacson’s multiple interviews with Jobs (over 100) and the men and women who knew him as boss, father, husband, lover, friend, and business competitor.

But, as with every great man (and make no mistake about it, in terms of late 20th century and early 21st century product design and intellectual capacity, Steve Jobs possessed the greatness of a Henry Ford or a Thomas Edison), there is also the positive. For if a man like Jobs did not have his positive side, well then, what the world would be left with is another sociopathic tyrant, another Hitler, another Stalin.

Loyal. Honest in most things (perhaps too brutally so). Generous. Self-reflective. As demanding of himself as he was of others. Spiritual. Artistic. Gifted. Genius. A leader.

Those are the positive aspects of Jobs’s complex personality that shine through in this impressive book.

I am new to the Apple fold. Since 1984, when Rene’ and I bought our first Tandy 8088 machine from a Radio Shack store in the Burnsville Mall, through a series of other DOS or Microsoft based machines ( a Sony, an HP, a Micron, a TI, a Gateway, and several others), I had adhered to the notion that Apples were for graphic designers, architects, and no one else. There was, as I considered each new computer purchase along the way (necessitated by the built-in obsolescence of the DOS-Windows machines or by their inability to last for more than a year or two without a major melt down) always the sense that those folks who owned a Mac were snooty: That because they bought an Apple they were condescending and chauvinistic about their choice in technology. But when my eldest son (and webmaster) Matt finally had enough of my phone calls, enough of my emails asking “How do you add this widget to Windows again?” and pushed hard last year for me to make the switch, I went with him to Best Buy to pick out a new iMac. Now I know what I’ve been missing for  27 years. Finally, as Steve Jobs intended, I have a machine that is built for humans to interact with and understand: I am no longer the pawn of a series of programmers and engineers. I am no longer the mere operator of a machine: I am its master.

The biography is, for someone like me (who didn’t really appreciate the Steve Jobs story as it was being played out in Silicon Valley) an eye opener. Walter Isaacson was tabbed personally by Jobs to write this book and, given that the story’s subject matter selected the author, this biography could have been a whitewash, a fluff piece extolling Jobs’s brilliance as an engineer. But Jobs wasn’t a genius in the sense of Bill Gates or Jobs’s own original partner, Steve Wozniak. Steve Jobs’s genius is best described (according to Isaacson) as an affinity for standing at a particular intersection to direct traffic:

“I always thought of myself as a humanities person as a kid, but I liked electronics…Then I read something that one of my heroes, Edwin Land of Polaroid, said about the importance of people who could stand at the intersection of humanities and science, and I decided that’s what I wanted to do.” It was if he was suggesting themes for his biography…The creativity that can occur in one strong personality was the topic that interested me in my biographies of Franklin and Einstein, and I believe that it will be key to creating innovative economies in the twenty-first century.

There is no clearer example of Jobs standing at the above-stated intersection than his involvement with the iPod and his ability to convince recording studios and musical artists (including U2, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles) of the need to make their music available to the common man and woman through Apple’s iTunes Store at a time when Napster and other on-line sites were decimating the bottom line for artists and studios.

After a lot of negotiating with the record companies, he said, “they were willing to do something with us to change the world.” The iTunes Store would start with 200,000 tracks and would grow each day. By using the store, he said, you can own your own songs, burn them on CDs, be assured of the download quality, get a preview of a song before you download it, and use it with your iMovies and iDVD to “make the soundtrack of your life.” The price? Just 99 cents, he said, less than a third of what a Starbucks latte cost. Why was it worth it? Because to get the right song from Kazaa (an on-line service) took about fifteen minutes rather than a minute. By spending an hour of your time to save about four dollars, he calculated, “you’re working for under the minimum wage!” And one more thing: “With iTunes, it’s not stealing anymore. It’s good karma…” Eddy Cue, who was in charge of the store, predicted that Apple would sell six million songs in six months. Instead, the iTunes Store sold a million songs in six days…

Jobs’s insistence on the vertical integration of Apple products, from iMac, to iPod, to iPhone, to iPad has been challenged by tech savvy geeks as being overly paternalistic and limiting. But for the vast majority of computer and device users who have no interest in hacking or innovation on a household level, Jobs clearly got it right: Build beautiful, easy-to-use, durable machines that don’t witness their usefulness expire once they’re pulled from the box. Isaacson explains this philosophy, the history behind it and the man who preached it to his disciples in a concise and compelling fashion that anyone interested in computers, business organization, or creative genius will gobble up like free space on a hard drive.

5 stars out of 5. Highly recommended as a holiday gift!

Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe (2005. Barnes and Noble Classics. ISBN 978-1-59308-216-1)

One of the classics or it wouldn’t be included in B&N’s trade paperback library, right? Well, Moll Flanders appears to have been included in the bookstore giant’s series of “great” novels because, as the editor of the B&N edition of the novel writes:

If we define the novel in the way we are used to thinking about fiction-as a prose narrative of substantial length that makes a pretense of reporting life in a form human beings might well have imagined to have lived it-Defoe surely stakes a claim as the first English novelist…

(p.xiii, ibid, Michael Seidel)

Purported to be, as the subtitle states, The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders (a fictional biography of a woman born to poverty in Newgate Prison, whose only chance, as a child, of a safe and honorable upbringing disappears like morning vapor on a Welsh moor) this book attempts (to recreate in fiction) depictions of English poverty and class disadvantage painted far more honestly and credibly by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist and Bleak House. Now, some might argue the book’s failings arise from the language Defoe wrote in: late 17th and early 18th century English, a form of English that is so archaic, so outmoded that four hundred years later  the language itself is the main issue with the novel. I would disagree. Think of more recent works of fiction, such as Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Hurston. That novel is embedded with a twisted distortion of English derived from the Deep South that many might find difficult, if not impossible, to negotiate. And yet, to this day, Their Eyes retains its vigor and its passion as a great read. Certainly, the distance of time makes works of fiction less relevant. And certainly, in comparison to Moll Flanders, Their Eyes is a relative newborn. But in the end, I have to disagree that it is the language of Defoe’s novel that makes the book less than satisfactory.

A great novel, whether contemporary, literary, science fiction, or romance lives or dies upon the shoulders, broad or narrow, of its plot and characters. And that’s just it: In my view, the shoulders that this story rests upon are too narrow to carry the weight of the book’s narrative. There are far too many coincidences, too many pat plot devices, too many escapes from the noose experienced by Moll Flanders along the way to make the story ring true. Would, at a time when children were executed for stealing, a matronly thief (with a long history of deception, prostitution, lies, thievery, and other law-breaking) really escape the noose as Moll does towards the end of story? (This isn’t a spoiler alert: Since the book is written in first person, we know from page 1 that Moll will survive her travails.) Doubtful. This is but one of many, many purported “ah ah” moments in the plot that seem contrived. Then there is the character of Moll herself: One moment seemingly honest and hard-working and ready to redeem herself, and the next, ready to steal from the house down the street. Complex characters are great: No villain is totally evil and no hero is totally good. But if a character is to possess such multiple layers, these nuances need to be explained in context and revealed in depth. Such revelations do not occur (with respect to Moll’s character) in the book.

Overall, this novel amounts to a chronicle of an incident-driven fictional life with little, if any, genuine exposition of character.

3 stars out of 5.

Blue Guitar Highway by Paul Metsa (2011. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 978-0-8166-7642-2)

Bob Dylan. Mark Knopfler. Nils Logfren. Bruce Springsteen. Tom Waits.

You’re asking: “Munger, what the hell do those guys have to do with you writing a review about Minnesota’s hardest working, less-than-a-household-name, guitar slinging Iron Range boy, Paul Metsa?” Fair question, dear reader. Fair question. Well, immediately after finishing Metsa’s memoir of the road, Blue Guitar Highway, having read numerous passages depicting Metsa’s home in North Minneapolis as a virtual library of pressed vinyl, I was so moved by the book, I began pulling out my old LPs: records I haven’t played in at least a decade and started listening to music the way it should be listened to: Pillow under my head, flat on my back, a nice Merlot in hand, the volume way up, and no one else home. Oh, the journey Metsa paints with words isn’t always as pretty or succinct (a couple of scenes were repeated, leaving me with the sense that a bit more editing would have made the book even better), and, as someone else has written, Paul tends to be a name dropper (by repeatedly telling us whom, amongst the gods of rock, folk, blues, and jazz he’s shared a stage with). But in the end, for a first time author of a piece of substantial length, Metsa mostly hits the right notes. In fact, there are portions of the prose that fairly sing, that are as good as it gets in rendering a contemporary life on the page. Consider this passage, towards the end of the book:

Backstage were the musicians-the performers and listeners-who were there to enjoy the evening along with the crowd that was now arriving from all directions. Wherever lifer musicians gather the bonds are felt-those who know the decades of blasts of glory, music itself a life-lasting love. Followed by rejection, broken-down cars, the times in sickness and in health, other band members, friends at first, only in it for the money (like there ever was any) who will jump ship for a few dollars more. The slow suicide of drugs and booze that lurks in the guise of midnight angels and  whiskey queens, sirens who call from corners with the dove-like eyes of your first true love, but the intent of prostitutes who follow the feet of their victims in the quicksand of slow and meaningless death. Bar owners, booking agents, and record labels that could give a good goddamn. Audiences more interested in pinball or pool tables or television screens, the band on the stage nothing but a bother. Death and destruction, love many times lost, and the occasional one-night stand hotter than the skillet of a New Orleans short-order cook…Or real love with a human touch made to last with lovers sometimes drawn from opposite magnetic poles that proved marriage was possible and strong like David’s slingshot against the Goliath that was the music business, sweeter than honey…Building families that stand the test of time and kids that are now musicians themselves. Or the kids who never knew Daddy’s name, and some only remembering it as long as child support was paid on time, the waiting for that to come around, as music is nothing if not the discipline of hope. And all the rest-the poison gigs and the majestic ones that vanish as quickly as they came, all the things you could only wish would happen but would never bet on-that reminded us why were here in the first place, like black-robed priests who take an oath of poverty…whose faces we never saw but whose presence we always felt…

(p. 251, Blue Guitar Highway)

See what I mean? Metsa uses his talents as a songwriter and lyricist to full advantage. His prose sets us to laughing, crying, and remembering often within the same sentence. Honesty (regarding Metsa’s success as a musician and in his personal life) drips onto the pages of this hard-wrought memorial like sweat from The Boss on a great night on the stage. Sure, as some critics have complained, there’s some gratuitous name dropping here and there in the story. Teaching Bruce Springsteen the three chords of a Woody Guthrie song before playing en masse in a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame tribute to Woody. Is that incident significant enough to record for posterity? Sure it is if, as is likely, this is your one opportunity to tell your story. The fact that Springsteen asked and Metsa answered, yeah, I’d say that’s worthy of reportage, in an honest, off-hand sort of way. Which is exactly the way it comes off in the passage. Those who have criticized the occasional name dropping (or, in the case of one insensitive jerk ( Michael Adams) in his Amazon.com “review”, Metsa’s creds as a musician) are missing the point of this journey: Paul Metsa is not Bob Dylan. Hate to confuse you folks, but Metsa doesn’t claim he wrote anything as world changing as “Blowing in the Wind” or altered the face of music by his work on the stage. What he’s chronicling (to steal the title to Dylan’s own memoir) is something that this writer is very familiar with: The day to day grind of trying to make a name for yourself in the ever-confusing, cut-throat world of popular culture and art. Just like Metsa, I’ve logged tens of thousands, nay, likely hundreds of thousands of miles, hawking my books in the U.S., Canada, and Finland. And I’ve only been at it ten years. Metsa has been walking the Blue Guitar Highway for over forty years. And he’s done it despite rejection, personal loss, money woes, dependency demons, and all the other gremlins that leap up to smack an artist down. There is tremendous value in this story of sweat and blood and tears: It lets the rest of the world know, those folks that think you simply pen a song or a novel and toss it towards an agent and become instantly famous and wealthy, that such stories are fantasy and don’t bear any resemblance to the grit and toil of the real world of a musician, artist, or writer.

In a nutshell: This memoir belongs on any music fan’s bookshelf. It’s sitting on mine, as I finish this review, next to Dylan’s Chronicles, David Crosby’s Long Time Gone, Neil Young’s Shakey, and Guthrie’s Bound for Glory. Metsa has captured a life not yet completed: Let’s hope he tells us more.

4 and 1/2 stars out of 5.

(Note: Buy this book and, if you like what you read, log on to: http://www.amazon.com/Blue-Guitar-Highway-Paul-Metsa/dp/0816676429/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1321106475&sr=8-1-fkmr0 and add your review. I’m serious: Michael Adams, whoever the hell he is, trashed Metsa for no apparent reason. There’s no substance, no actual critique of the book contained in Adams’s review, and yet, Adams felt sufficiently mean-spirited to give the book one star. Peruse my book reviews on this site: The only book I’ve ever given one star was The Book of Mormon! Not for its content but for its readability. Give an honest assessment of Blue Guitar Highway on Amazon because, in my view,  a one star rating wrongfully diminishes the beauty and value of the book.)