Sadly Beautiful

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mark

 

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold (2009. Hachette Audio Books (audio version). ISBN 978-1-60024-842-9)

Oh to have this talent. This is one of those books that, though deeply troubling in terms of its subject matter (the rape and murder of a 14 year old girl), is so beautifully constructed as to read (or sound) like a five hundred page poem. Most of you have likely seen the movie (starring Mark Wallberg as the grieving father and Stanly Tucci as the killer) or read the book in print. So why waste space here, on my blog, reviewing a book that nearly everyone knows something about?

First, as I started this review by saying, and as the title indicates, this is a magnificent work of great literary clarity and beauty. It is quite simply one of the best books of its time. The plot of the book, the dead girl, Susie Salmon (“like the fish”, she reminds us) looking down at the world she left behind from “her” heaven could have been maudlin and silly had some lesser writer thunk it up. Not so in the hands of Alice Sebold. The author is clearly a talented storyteller but also, and more important to a novel of this length and psychological depth, an excellent wordsmith. Her depictions of Mr. Harvey, the killer, and the Salmon family, including the feisty and determined younger sister (and potential victim) Lindsey Salmon, are all spot on. You will come to know each member of the Salmon family as intimately as your own kin. You will come to love and want to embrace the omnipresent Susie even though she is no longer with us. What could have been a card trick, a literary slight of hand had someone else attempted this tale becomes an American masterpiece.

Second, the audio version is read by Ms. Seboe, the author, and she acquits herself well in this effort. I’m not sure anyone would want me to read at them from my work, even if it were as polished and well crafted as this book, for nearly eleven hours. But Seboe’s voice has the perfect inflection and pitch to make this read a memorable one.

Finally, though I have read the book, watched the movie, and now listened to the novel as our Pacifica navigated through Montana on the way to Bozeman, I have to say that having my memory of Seboe’s hauntingly striking tale of love and loss reinforced by the audio version wasn’t overkill: It was sheer entertainment. I was not disappointed in hearing Susie Salmon’s tragic story one last time, from the author’s mouth. This is one of those rare flights of literary fancy that the author, in penning the book, got right and did not have the quality of her effort diminished by the movie or audio versions of her work.

5 stars out of 5. A stunningly gorgeous story.

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A Short, Well Written Ride

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (1996. Simon and Schuster (Audio version). ISBN 978-0-7435-5208-0)

The first Stephanie Plum crime novel brings the young out-of-work Jersey girl into the limelight as a skip tracing bail bondswoman whose first client turns out to be an ex-cop on the lam. I’m an Evanovich virgin so I didn’t know quite what to expect from the author. And, as a spoiler alert, my taste tends to literary novels rather than genre fiction, Still, with the entire width of North Dakota facing my wife, our youngest son, and me on a recent ski trip to Montana, I had my better half pop the discs into the changer of my Pacifica as we roared onto the Great Plains. We weren’t disappointed.

Evanovich uses all the tools of a traditional literary writer, including finely wrought characterizations of Plum, Morelli, and a menacing boxer turned psychopath, to create a believable and palpable sense of urgency and anxiety. We care about Stephanie Plum, want her to succeed, despite her numerous rookie mistakes. There are enough twists and turns to keep the action moving and enough surprises to make the book memorable. All in all, my first foray into Evanovich’s world of crime and criminals was a satisfying visit.

4 stars out of 4.

 

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Ten Things Montana Taught Me…

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Mark

 

 

The Blogster at Red Lodge, Montana.

What I learned after skiing five straight days last week with my fourteen year old son  and my wife in Montana.

First, as I get older, I don’t get better on skis. But as 14 year old’s get older, they do get better. Go figure!

Second, Montana beer is great beer. And it’s better than great after that first day of fighting moguls on black diamond runs from the top of Red Lodge Mountain to the chalet. Trust me. 57 year old legs and thighs fairly burn after the first three or four turns at 9,000 feet but after two Glacier Ales at the local pizza parlor (Pizano’s:  great pizza and fantastic staff), you forget the pain. Honest.

Mark and his second Glacier Ale of the night!

Third, my 2008 Pacifica (which I just bought with 61,000 miles on it to replace my 2005 Pacifica with 160,000 miles) has the same flaw that the 2005 version of the van had: It hates altitude to the point where it blows its coolant cap and dumps anti-freeze all over the parking lot. You’d think a vehicle that, when new, commanded a $40,000 price tag (not what I paid, trust me!) could handle altitudes commonly found in the American West. Here’s a tip for you Pacifica owners: Carry an extra cap and a gallon of anti-freeze with you anytime you go above 4,000 feet. You won’t regret it.

Fourth, when your wife suggests that she’s just fine gliding down the greens and blues at a ski hill, leave it at that. I followed this line of logic on this year’s sojourn to mountains and guess what? The arguments were nil!

Fifth, 15 inches of mountain snow is still 15 inches of snow. Add to that, the steepness of the bowls at Bridger Bowl and you have the makings of more muscle pain and agony between your thighs and calves. Again, don’t bother asking the 14 year old whether his thighs are on fire after a day of black diamonds and bumps: He’s oblivious, immortal, as only 14 year old boys can are.

Jack Bridger Munger at Bridger Bowl in the middle of a snow storm.

Sixth, hot tubs were likely invented by skiers. Old skiers. And they work.

Seventh, when you refill the coolant tank in your 2008 Pacifica after the cap has gone kaput, do it when the engine is COLD! That’s what the little fill level line is for. Not following instructions leads to two things: No heat in the car and a very serious rise in the heat gauge until you’re smart enough to shut the car off, let the engine cool down, and then fill the coolant tank to the proper level.

The eighth lesson I learned while skiing happened at Moonlight Basin, the newer, cheaper, less-well-known sister hill to Big Sky. Never, never keep skiing on a black diamond run after you’ve lost a ski, especially if you’re surrounded by trees. The result? You take a nice header avoiding a pine and smack your shin with the trailing ski. Metal edges are made out of metal for a reason.

 

Lone Tree Lift, Moonlight Basin.

 

Skiing in the mountains is as close as I’m ever going to get to sky diving. But I’m OK with that, and that’s the ninth thing I learned while out in The Treasure State: Be happy with who and what you are and don’t worry about things you haven’t done or may never get to do. The guy who organizes the annual Ski Hut excursion from Duluth to Bozeman, Montana, Wes Neustel, taught me that. Wes is still downhill skiing, in the mountains, at 92 years old. I don’t think he’s all that into hang gliding or sky diving. That Wes is steady and true on his skis, even into his tenth decade of life, seems like a great life lesson to me.

And finally, I learned that, even if the wallet is a bit thin on cash and things aren’t going exactly how you thought they should, a week with your wife and your son, skiing the Big Skies, is a good break from real life. Thanks, Rene’ and Jack for putting up with a tired, cranky old judge skiing on borrowed skis…

 

The Blogster at Bridger Bowl.

 

Peace.

Mark

 

 

 

 

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The Way to Write

Posted on February 16, 2012 by Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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.

 

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The Light Has Gone Indeed

Posted on February 8, 2012 by Mark

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.

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A New Way of Thinking

Posted on February 4, 2012 by Mark

Recently, twenty Minnesota judges gathered at the pastoral Gainey Conference Center to participate in the Judicial Decision Making Conference. Also known as the “Literature and the Law” conference, the premise of the session is to read short works of fiction, including some classic works of literature and some-lesser known stories and plays, with an eye to self-discovery and reflection on what it means to be a judge and how one goes about the difficult and sometimes gut-wrenching job of judging others. I’d heard about the conference but when an invitation to attend popped up on my work computer one day, I thought, “What the hell. I’m a writer. I’m a judge. I might as well give it a go.” And so I did.

The seminar was held at the Gainey Conference Center, an estate just outside Owatonna now owned and maintained (superbly, I might add) by the University of St. Thomas. As is my usual custom, I loaded the address into Theresa (my Garmon navigational assistant) and, on Thursday morning at 6:00am, I drove from Duluth to Owatonna. Being the optimist I am, I thought Owatonna was just a tad south of Lakeville; just outside the southern ring of Twin City suburbs. I was wrong. It’s further than I thought. In fact, it’s south of Faribault. But I had plenty of time to make the opening session, which was due to start at 9:30am, until Theresa sent me on a wild goose chase. I swear that I inputted the correct address for the Gainey Center. So I’ll ascribe my late arrrival to the tendencies of women, including electronic surrogates, to get lost. It couldn’t have been me, the male in charge,who made the mistake, could it?

Despite my sidetracked route, I arrived just as each judge was making a brief introduction. And then, the sometimes intense, sometimes humorous, always humbling work of self-reflection and assessment began.

The two major works we read and discussed, included Arthur’s Miller’s astonishingly vivid depiction of the Salem Witch Trials, The Crucible, and a lesser known work by American playwright, Wendy Wasserstein, An American Daughter. The point of the readings (which also included four other pieces of varying lengths) was not to critique or assess story, or character or plot, but to delve into the inner thoughts, emotions, and decision making of the protagonists and minor players with an eye towards tying that conduct to what we, as judges do, every day when we decide cases. There we were: white, black, male, female, Christian, Jew, and agnostic, all seated around a circle of tables, trying to understand the reasons and emotions and driving forces behind our judicial decisions. It was, at least to this judge, cathartic to hear other jurists, some new to the job, but many with more experience than me, express the methodology and basis for what it is they do with the most delicate and important of our fellow citizens affairs: How we reason as we impact liberty, family, and property with our rulings.

For my money, The Crucible by Arthur Miller (1952 and 2003. Penquin. ISBN 978-0-14-243733-9) was the work of the conference. Why? First off, Miller’s attempt to link the McCarthyism of his day to the fear and hysteria of the witch hunts in colonial Salem is spot on. There are also (to a lesser degree) parallels between the mass delusion of Salem in the 1600s to Germany in the 1930s, but the greater and more appropriate link, in my view, is to the American experience during the 1950s when men and women were challenged by “Tail Gunner” Joe regarding their loyalties. The intensity of the play, followed by watching the very fine performances in the 1996 film version of the tale, are haunting and thought-provoking. Especially relevant to the attendees, I believe, is the character of Judge Danforth, the jurist who is bent upon “rooting out Satan” in Salem even if it means the mass execution of innocent men and women. Which, of course, it does. In many ways, reading and watching The Crucible  challenges a judge, including this judge, to reflect upon the quality and nature of evidence we hear and see in court and how one’s personal views, political, religious or otherwise, skew perceptions of truth.

Wasserstein’s play, on the other hand, which was included in our readings so as to challenge our judicial noggins regarding religion, gender, and orientation, never really struck a chord with me similar to what I experienced reading The Crucible. An American Daughter (1998. Harcourt Brace. ISBN 0-15-600645-6) is the tale of Dr. Lyssa Dent, a presidential nominee for the post of Surgeon General. Surrounding the privileged and somewhat aloof Dent are her husband, Walter; her father, a United States Senator; and a host of other “interesting” supporting characters. Dent has a secret in her past which threatens to derail her nomination. Patterned after the “Nannygate” scandals of the recent past, the secret is this: When the elitist Lyssa received a summons for jury duty, she tore it up and never served. This seemingly inconsequential act turns out to be the linchpin upon which Dr. Dent’s figurative lynching in the media takes place. The problem with this play is, unlike The Crucible, where there is an abundance of sympathetic victims to pique our interest and outrage at Danfroth’s pompous piety, An American Daughter provides the reader with no such characters with which to empathize. At the conference, I quipped that the play “Reads like a bad episode of Seinfeld.” I think that’s an apt assessment. The problem for me, and I think, for anyone trying to delve into the deeper meanings of  Wasserstein’s prose, is that, the thinness of the morality of all concerned blocks any such detailed consideration of motivation or character. The play just didn’t measure up in terms of being a catalyst for serious discussion about what it is we judges do in our professional lives.

Over two days, I was privileged to discuss, break bread, and share laughs with some of Minnesota’s most talented jurists. Some folks who hold the purse strings for judicial education seem to to believe that thoughtful consideration of decision making has no place in judicial education, that, to use a Joe Soucherayism, it is too Mysterian, too “touchy feely” to merit funding and attention. After two days at the bucolic Gainey Conference Center assessing how it is we judge’s think, I heartily disagree. There’s great value in such self-reflection and contemplation, value that cannot be obtained at mainstream “topic-based” legal or judicial seminars. I’ll make the Judicial Decision Making Conference an annual “must” because the opening of a jurist’s eyes is also the opening of a jurist’s soul.

The Gainey Conference Center

 

Peace.

Mark

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A Simple Story

Posted on January 28, 2012 by Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!)

 

 

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Dumpster Diver

Posted on January 25, 2012 by Mark

Not Exactly the Same Dumpster...But Close!

 

Most of you don’t know that, in addition to working as a full-time District Court Judge, writing novels, running a blog, working with Boy Scouts and confirmation-age kids, and being a dad and husband, I also teach. At UWS. This semester, it’s Environmental Law, which is a fairly sophisticated and demanding subject. I’m what is classified, within the University of Wisconsin system, as a “Senior Lecturer”. Now, I don’t know if you have to be AARP qualified to attain the designation as “Senior” when teaching undergrads, but if that’s the sole criteria, well, I meet it!

Anyway, Sunday evenings, I usually get ready for class by reading and outlining the selected text for the week from our course books, putting aside any relevant news articles of a conservation or environmental bent for class discussion, and setting aside any DVDs I’ll be using in class. My liturgical practice is to curl up on the sofa in my writing room, books and pen in hand, the computer tuned to MPR’s classical music station, Brahms, Bach, and Sibelius playing softly in the background, with the door to the great room shut, cozy as a caterpillar in a cocoon, as I prepare. That’s the way I’ve spent many, many Sundays the past three years and I truly enjoy the work. But not this Sunday. This Sunday, panic; mind-numbing, deep-roosted uncontrollable fear took the place of careful consideration and contemplation.

“I can’t find my text books!” I yelled.

Rene’, our 3rd son Chris, and our youngest son, Jack were all within earshot as I stepped from the study into the great room of our house in a funk.

“Did you leave them at work?” Rene’ asked.

“Nope.”

“Sure you’re not just overlooking them, Dad,” Chris offered.

At the suggestion I was less than diligent in my search, my blood began to boil.

“I guess I’d know if I looked or not, now wouldn’t I?”

“Chill, Dad. Chill.”

I shook my head and wrung my hands.

“That’s over two hundred dollars in books. They’re instructor copies. Provided by the publishers. I can’t afford to replace them and I need them for Tuesday’s class. Jack has Scouts tomorrow so tonight is the only night I can prep for class.”

“Are you sure you didn’t…”

I left Rene’ in mid-sentence. A thought, a horrible realization, dawned on me.

Oh shit! I said as I walked back into the writing room and stared at last year’s books. Those were supposed to get tossed with all those writing magazines I cleaned out of here last week. I bet I tossed this year’s books instead. Shit, I am an idiot.

I threw on my jacket, pulled gloves over my hands, and bolted out the door into the garage. Without a word of explanation to my dumbfounded family, I slammed the door, hit the remote garage door opener, climbed into Rene’s car, fired it up, and backed out of the garage.

I hope they’re still there.

I knew that Harold (the youngest member of our town board) was working at the Minno-ette, the neighborhood bait and convenience store. I whipped the Matrix into the lot, leaving it running as I dashed into the store.

“This is gonna sound weird, Harold,” I said through labored breath, “but do you have a key to the mixed paper dumpster at the recycling shed? I think I tossed some text books I need for a class I teach at UWS out along with some old magazines.”

Harold shook his head.

“Nope. Not any more. But Connie can open it for you.”

“Could you call her?”

Harold, being a nice guy and a diligent public servant did just that.

I drove over to the recycling center and waited. Within minutes, Connie (one of the recycling center attendants) and her husband arrived. I retold my tale of woe to Connie. She opened the dumpster. It was jam packed full of cardboard and magazines. I climbed the cold steel skeleton of the box and plunged in.

“You know,” Connie said thoughtfully as her husband shined a flashlight on my work, “I think they emptied this since you were here last.”

I ignored the nice woman’s observation. I didn’t want it to be true: I wanted to spy one copy of Poet’s and Writer’s Magazine  or The Sun amidst all that trash. Then I would know: The books can’t be far away. No one else in Fredenberg, I reasoned with some sense of sinful pride, reads Poet’s and Writer’s.

Connie was right. I was wrong. There were no textbooks anywhere to be found in the cold, silent depths of that steel box.

Dejected, I drove home. I parked the Matrix in the garage, buzzed the door closed, and headed into the house uncertain of how I was going to explain my lack of preparation to my class. Then it hit me:

Environmental Law books sent to the recycling shed… Isn’t recycling part of protecting our environment? This all must be a lesson from God; some bit of knowledge I’m supposed to comprehend and pass along.

When I figure out  the significance behind my dumpster diving, how it relates to the bigger scheme of things, I’ll let you and my students know.

Peace.

Mark

 

 

 

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A Local Treasure

Posted on January 24, 2012 by Mark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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!

 

 

 

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Just a Walk

Posted on January 15, 2012 by Mark

White Pine Plantation-The Other Munger Trail

I was off work on a mental health sabbatical. Those of you who follow this blog know why. ‘Nuff said. My dad and I together have a parcel of 135 acres (give or take) out in Fredenberg Township, the place my wife, our four sons, and I have called home for the past 28 years. 28 years! That’s a hell of a long time to be rooted in a place, any place, in these topsy-turvy times. Most folks move from place to place, job to job, community to community, getting their education, chasing employment, following their children or parents. Not us. Rene’ and I were both raised in Duluth and knew, when I finished law school, that Duluth was where we wanted to settle in. I really didn’t have an itch, a desire, to live out, to live in the country, until Dave Michelson (he’s gonna want royalties pretty soon since this is the second blog in a row he’s appeared!) bought some land and an old fire-trap of a trailer on Bowman Lake, an ox bow on the Cloquet River. Once I saw the soaring bald eagles, nesting osprey, the flowing black water, and felt, yes literally felt, the quiet, I was hooked. I bugged Rene’, as law school wound down, to travel back to Duluth to look at rural property. Nothing clicked. So, like many young couples, we settled: We bought a nice little house on St. Marie Street in Duluth and moved our family of three (Matt was just a year old) back home.

Thing is, I could never get the image of the Cloquet River out of my mind. Eventually, I found what I (if not Rene’) was looking for: And old Sears house, complete with a vegetable garden, a barn,  and eight acres along the banks of the Cloquet came up for sale. It took some convincing but, in 1984, expecting our second child (Dylan), we moved to Fredenberg. And we’ve been on the same tract of land ever since. During our nearly three decades in the country, I’ve managed to carve a few good trails through the woods that we use for hiking, hunting, horseback riding (we no longer have horses but our neighbors do), and cross country skiing. The photo above depicts one of those trails as it cuts through an old pasture on our property The white pines you see growing alongside the path? They’re seedlings deposited by century-old giants that survived the Great Cloquet Fire of 1918. They are not planted by man: They’re nurtured by God.

So, on my day of contemplation and rest, what I really wanted to do, since it was winter and all, was click into my Nordic-style cross country skis, let the dogs out (no need to ask “who” in this equation!), and ski our trails. But there’s little snow this year. Oh, there’s a trace: you can see that in the photos. And, desperate for the swoosh of wax on white, I’ve skied once since November. But that was short-lived: The day after I skied, it was over forty degrees and the snow cover we had turned to solid ice. I’ve learned, living out so long, that there’s great relief in being able to compromise. And so, on a fine January day not so long ago, I laced up my hiking boots, buttoned up a warm jacket, slipped gloves over my hands, and took the dogs for a walk.

We have three dogs. Matt, before he left home for good, brought a year-old-lab-husky-something-or-other mix named Daisy home from his work. She’s black most seasons, brown and black at times, and is the smartest damn dog we’ve ever owned. She’s getting close to a dozen years old at this point, a bit long in tooth for a big dog, and her hips are showing her age. But she’s always game for a romp in the trees, especially if rabbits are involved. Not grouse: She has, despite clear Labrador lineage, no interest in birds. Then there’s Jimi Hendrix, a miniature dachshund  (German for “badger dog”) who’s getting on seven years old, give or take. Jimi is about as dumb a dog as God ever created. But he is so damn cute with his double dapple coat and the way he scoots after bunnies. Finally, Chris (our number three son) rescued another Labrador,  a dog Chris named “Kramer” after the Seinfeld character of the same name because the dog is lean and lanky. Kramer came to us on approval from a veterinarian’s office in River Falls, Wisconsin, where Chris was going to school at the time. The deal was, if we liked the dog, he stayed. If not, he was going back to the vet to meet an unfortunate end. Since I’m listing Kramer as one of our three dogs, you know the end of that story!

Jimi and Daisy

The day of our walk, there wasn’t much happening in the forest. Jimi and Daisy lunged ahead over stiff snow in search of rabbits. Kramer, timid and exceedingly gun shy, his rear hips delicate and barely able to bear the weight of his rear end, ambled agreeably behind me, displaying zero interest in anything remotely close to hunting.

Kramer

It happened when we hit Old Man Farley’s Trail (don’t ask: that story would take an entire blog). Without warning, Jimi burst into his “I’m on the trail of a silly rabbit” bay. I’m not sure if all wiener dogs are high tenors or if Jimi’s pitch is due to being neutered: In any event, when he started his call, Daisy, always interested in bunnies, joined the daschund in the chase. I kept walking, knowing exactly what would happen. And it did. The yapping of the little dog grew more intense. Daisy dove deeper into the alders and birches and balsams lining the trail. And then, there it was: a bolt of white zipping across the open space of the trail cutting through  the tight woods. The snowshoe hare was fifty yards ahead of its pursuit and in no danger of apprehenshion.

We kicked up one lone roosting grouse as we descended the only hill on the trail. I wasn’t startled by the burst of energy from the fleeing partridge. And the dogs, true to form, weren’t the least bit interested in the bird. We followed the River Trail (clever name, eh?) to the banks of the Cloquet River, where, though the water was near freezing (too cold for any being possessing common sense to go for a dip) Daisy promptly plunged down the bank and sat in the black water. I stood at the top of the bank, Kramer by my side, watching the sun sink in the west, as the pink tongue of the old black dog lapped and lapped and lapped.

The Cloquet River

And then, we turned north. We followed the riverbank for a bit, still on property that my father owns, taking our sweet time to amble home. The point of this essay is this: Sure, you can spend some dough on expensive therapists after something bad or unexpected happens in your life. Seeking such help is, in fact, a good way of dealing with tragedy, a breach of privacy and safety, or loss. But there’s also this: A lot can be healed by a simple walk in the Minnesota woods with three imperfect dogs by the side of their imperfect master.

Peace.

Mark

 

 

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