the most they ever had

(The title is rendered in all lower case, as it is on the cover of the book.)

Rick Bragg

“…although he paid these poor mountain people next to nothing, it was the most they ever 

had.”  - Chapter 3

In his stories of the textile mill at Jackson, Alabama, Rick Brag tells of his own brother who survived unscathed by the machines to which workers lost limbs and even lives. The brother lived daily with the threat of brown lung, a respiratory disease which flourished in the cotton dust and the associated bacteria which filled their lungs daily. Despite those threats with which he lived, the brother feared more than anything, the shutdown, the silence of the mill. Near the end of the book, Bragg turns a phrase, saying that the people had lived within the roar and feared the silence.

One could regard this book a collection of linked short stories. A teenage worker became a hero when he jumped down an elevator shaft to escape the wrath of those on whom he played as prank. A man who worked with chemicals in the machine shop retired unscathed, only to learn the chemicals had taken their toll. Young boys gathered up coal dropped by the trains along the railroad tracks to warm their families, or surprised relatives in the outhouse with a firecracker tossed from behind the wall. A man gained local fame as he played on the company baseball team.

A mill supervisor made money even in the great depression and bought up property. He owned the pharmacy, the grocery store, and many of the mill workers homes. He would not hesitate to put them out of their homes if they made trouble, but gave away shoes and hams at Christmas. He regarded himself as a philanthropist

This book about the mill and those who worked in it is a paradox. The stories make sense in a counterintuitive manner. Bragg shows his skill as a master storyteller.

Hemingway on Fishing

From stories of young Nick Adams fishing the rivers of Michigan to a novella about an old fisherman named Santiago fighting off the sharks in an attempt to save his catch, fishing permeates Ernest Hemingway’s writing. In “Big Two Hearted River,” Nick fished near a logged over forest and a burned town, and the narrative established Hemingway’s career as a master of the short story. In The Old Man and the Sea, he revealed the depth of his craft and received a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize as stamps of approval from the larger society.

The posthumous book Hemingway on Fishing is a collection of some of his best writing on the subject. It includes short stories, journalistic pieces, and excerpts from books. The forward by Jack Hemingway, author of The Misadventures of a Fly Fisherman, reveals a love of fishing shared by father and son. The introduction by Nick Lyons, who edited the volume, gives a more detailed account of fishing as intertwined in Hemingway’s life, his writing, and even his relationship with his family.

The first section of the book is all about fresh water. It begins with four short stories about trout fishing, including the iconic “Big Two Hearted River,” which is, on the surface, just about fishing. The logged woods and burned town suggest deeper issues in the protagonist’s psyche.

Another short work, “Now I Lay Me,” is about a man in a hospital, or possibly a prison, who avoids sleep, and perhaps the accompanying dreams, by consciously remembering every stream he has ever fished. The story hints at Hemingway’s lifelong may have been inspired by knowledge of Jack Hemingway’s own experience as a Prisoner of War, waiting to be liberated by allied forces as they moved through Nazi Germany.

Most notable of the book excerpts is one from The Sun Also Rises, in which the tragic hero gets a respite from the drama of Lady Brit and his other friends by fishing for trout in Spain. The editor also included book excerpts drawn from A Moveable Fest and The Green Hills of Africa.

The center section reveals the lesser known Hemingway, the journalist who wrote feature articles for periodicals ranging from the Toronto Star to Vogue, Esquire, and Look. The articles report on opportunities and reveal the finer points of fishing for trout in Wyoming, Canada, and various European locations. Articles devoted to salt water fishing report on tuna fishing off Spain, and marlin fishing in the Gulf Stream, and off the coast of Peru. The story “On the Blue Water: A Gulf Stream Letter,” includes a report of fishermen who rescued an old man in a skiff far from land with the head and front part of a great marlin lashed to his skiff. The remains of the catch weighed 800 pounds. This gem surely inspired his prize winning novella, The Old Man and the Sea.

Section three includes salt water fishing battles of epic proportion excerpted from The Garden of Eden, Islands in the Stream, and The Old Man and the Sea. The first two are drawn from posthumous works, edited and prepared for publication by members of Hemingway’s family.

The fisherman in Islands in the Stream is a boy on the verge of manhood, obviously modeled after one of Hemingway’s own sons. In fact, the cast of characters is drawn from the family and the fishing friends of Hemingway’s days in Havana.

These stories remind us of heroic struggles fought well and fought hard. Some end in victories while others conclude with great loss. All of us have of course experienced victories and losses. We fight and endure as we celebrate victories and recover from defeats. We hope to rise victorious like the Phoenix, above our circumstances. The nonfiction works are strictly about fishing, but in the end, the fictional works are not so much about fishing as they are about struggle and the triumph of the human spirit. 

Madness Personified

At age 28, Ronnie is going back to school, to finish the degree she never earned and make a new start. As the lead character in Rebecca Cook’s novel Click, she does not undertake this journey alone. A large black crow flutters about the room or leaves to fly around the neighborhood and across the corn fields of Nebraska, a distant geography from Ronnie’s native Chicago. The bird always returns to perch on furniture, or on the shoulder of Ronnie’s husband Boyd (bird?).

The image is perfect and neat, but for one inconvenient fact. Boyd has been dead for three years. Despite their incorporeal nature, both Boyd and the crow are constants in Ronnie’s life. Boyd follows her around, whispers in her ear, briefly leaves on business trips, and appears in the apartment, even the bedroom, of her new boyfriend. When not flying about aimlessly, the bird flutters its wings inside her rib cage, or flies feet first at persons with whom she has unpleasant exchanges. Sometimes it carries her off to other places, and sometimes she flies with the bird. More than a symbol of her affliction, the bird is its personification.

The reader may hope against hope that Ronnie will pull through this crises, but she seems to unravel, even as the plot tightens and wraps itself up. As the story progresses toward an ending which appears to be inevitable, Ronnie is clearly loosing ground. The final scene manages to be both surprising and yet expected, which makes for a rewarding finish.

Some readers may find the strong language and frankly sexual encounters off putting, but these elements give the characters a three dimensional quality which is refreshing in comparison to the flatness of some modern fiction. The book is both compelling and unforgettable.  

The Old Man and the Sea

Just reread this story

The Old Man and the Sea

The line went out and out and out but it was slowing now and he was making the fish earn every inch of it.

The pundits of instruction manuals, workshops, classrooms, and critique circles tell us that repetition is unacceptable in both prose and poetry. Nevertheless, this line stands out as a summary of the battle between a great marlin and the old fisherman, Santiago. Ernest Hemingway received a Pulitzer Prize for his novella, The Old Man and the Sea, repetition and all. Hemingway had other works in progress when he died, but this was the last long work of fiction published during his lifetime.

The story itself holds a form of conflict that barely exists in recent literature, the conflict of man against nature. One can substitute the word person for the word man, in the name of gender equality, but I use the terms as I learned them.

The three forms of conflict in literature, as I learned them, were man against God (or the gods), man against nature, and man against man. The first is exemplified by The Odyssey and the Book of Job. Examples of the second include Moby Dick and the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner. Examples of the third include such classics as Hamlet and modern classics such as The Road by Cormac McCarthy. Other suggested conflicts such as man against himself (i.e. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), man against society (i.e. Fahrenheit 451), and man against machine (i.e. The Terminator) are all special cases of man against man.

The disappearance of man against nature as a recognized form of conflict came home to me in a recent writing workshop where the facilitator listed man against God, man against man, and man against himself. Nature was left out entirely, perhaps symbolic of a society which no longer considers nature significant or powerful. In a contemporary world we forecast the weather, hold back the sea with levees, channel the course of rivers and generally regard nature as vanquished. This is well described in John McPhee’s nonfiction book, The Control of Nature. Bill McKibben described it in another way in The End of Nature.

Our belief that we have conquered nature has theological roots in the word dominion, but I believe this is magnified beyond all measure in the contemporary world. Despite the evidence of earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, and volcanic eruptions, our belief in our omnipotence continues. Given this belief, it may not be possible for a living author to write a book such as Moby Dick, a novella such as The Old Man and the Sea, or a short story such as “The Bear.”

Despite our current trend of ignoring nature, it has a strong presence in Hemingway’s story. 

In a frequently quoted line, Santiago is alone in the boat, but speaks aloud. “But man is not made for defeat,” he said. “A man can be destroyed, but not defeated.” Hemingway is speaking through the character, of course, but he makes more of the story than a simple battle. Santiago loves the fish and calls him brother, despite his intent to kill the fish. He is sorry for the fish being spoiled when sharks come. He feels sadness for another fish he had killed, perhaps years ago, and remembers her mate who leaped high for one last look before he dove into the depths, just escaping the fisherman’s harpoon.

Most of all, Santiago regards the sea as a feminine entity. She gives or withholds great favors such as a favorable day’s fishing. She sometimes gives storms and high seas, just as a lover is sometimes tender and at other times moody and impetuous. He makes much of how the sea is subject to the influence of the moon.

Santiago, the Cuban fisherman, exemplifies a much more complex relationship with nature than 21^st century humans can generally envision. This is true as well for Hemmingway: hunter, fisherman, world traveler and author.  The themes of The Old Man and the Sea also appear in his earlier nonfiction work, The Green Hills of Africa.

The greatness of this novella is preserved for all time. Aside from winning the Pulitzer Prize, it was cited prominently in the judges’ remarks when Hemingway received the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Abbey’s Road

Edward Abbey

I usually skip the introduction to a book, even a nonfiction book, but as I thumbed through the opening pages of Abbey’s Road, looking for the start of chapter one, I noticed correspondence embedded in the text. Specifically, it was Abbey’s letter to the editors of Ms Magazine (which Abbey spelled Mizz Magazine), followed by an equally witty and cutting response from Gloria Steinem herself. Neither letter saw print in the magazine, but Abbey preserved them for posterity in the pages of his book.

His introduction includes correspondence to and from a number of persons, both famous and unknown. One such correspondent apparently confused him with the notable playwright Edward Albee and chastised him for his recent departure from his usual style.

Further comments in the introduction mark Abbey as a defender and promoter of western literature and nature writing in general. He specifically mentions Joseph Wood Krutch, great granddaddy of western conservationists, and other nature writers, but he reserves the heir to Thoreau honor for Virginia (and Puget Sound) resident Annie Dilliard. He then takes exception to Dillard’s constant invocation of the Deity, stating that use of the simple word mystery (without capitalization) would suffice.

Beyond the introduction, the book is divided into three unequal parts, with part one, a travelogue, being the longest. Here we see Abbey in his element, the untamed wilderness and cattle ranches of the American Southwest, with trips further afield to the Great Barrier Reef, Aboriginal Australia, and an uninhabited island off the coast of Mexico. He also recounts a rafting trip on the Rio Grande River. Aside from the uninhabited island, he encounters a variety of interesting people along the way, including a barmaid whom he is not quite successful in convincing to travel with him across the Outback. That story though, is pure Abbey.

Part two is devoted to polemics, essay style writing which takes a specific view and gives no credence to any opposing argument. Despite his years supporting himself as a park ranger, cowboy, fire tower lookout and teacher, Abbey shows no respect for the Park Service bureaucracy nor its sister agency in the Department of Agriculture, the U.S Forest Service. His comments are equally likely to infuriate cattle ranchers, university administrators, feminists, and gun control advocates. Abbey loved the American West, and was equally at home bird watching or hunting deer. He took the construction of Glen Canyon Dam as a personal affront. In this section Abbey confronts the powers that be in the spirit of his better known fictional work The Monkey Wrench Gang. 

The third and shortest part is devoted to personal history. It lacks the lyric passages of his nonfiction book, Dessert Solitaire, my personal favorite of his works, but perhaps gives more insight into the man, his life’s work, and his motivations. It includes a story of a hiking trip with his young daughter, child of the wife who died of leukemia. This particular story shows a tender side to a man normally regarded as a grizzled old curmudgeon. 

Abbey’s Road provides a retrospective of his life up to that point in time. His best known books were already written, but more were yet to appear. I recommend it highly to anyone who loves the outdoors, and is at least willing to suspend judgment about his anarchist politics.

The Art of Haiku
Stephen Addiss

If you enjoy short poems or delightful visual art, this book is for you. It was my first introduction to haiga, visual art specifically created to accompany haiku. Addiss illustrates his work liberally with exemplary poems and samples of visual works created to accompany them, stressing the point that they were created to be enjoyed together. He traces the history of short form poetry in Japanese society, beginning with tanka, a five line form poem popular early in the previous millennium and continued into the present day, and contrasts it with the Chinese style poetry which was popular in the imperial court. He follows this with biographies of the three acknowledged masters of Haiku and Haiban, Basho (17th century), Buson (18h century)and Issa (19th century). The chapters on these three include illustrations of their artwork, as do the sections on Zen poets and early 20th century haiku poets. He ends the work at World War II, stating that Haiku has since become a world wide phenomenon, and a description of it in recent years would fill another book. I found it a delightful read.

I did experience some difficulty navigating between the text and the illustrations on my Kindle Fire. Apparently the publishers originally placed the illustrations in the center of the book and the clickable links in the Kindle edition were difficult to operate with touch screen. The screen size also made some of the illustrations difficult to view. I will try looking at it with the Kindle App on my laptop, 

I have now acquired a hardbound copy. Although I am happy with the other books in my kindle library, I like the size and accessibility of the illustrations in the bound copy better than the ebook, in this particular case.

Moon Over Taylor’s Ridge

Janie Dempsey Watts

Little Creek Books

When Avie returns home to Taylor’s Ridge, a small community near Ringgold, Georgia, to settle her father’s estate, she finds her childhood home thick with relatives and neighbors she remembers. Some are friends and others are decidedly not. Aunt Ardelia is spying on her and everyone else in the community. Her brother and half-sister have plans of their own for daddy’s estate and particularly the land. Her son, Joseph, seems to be stronger and handling his asthma better as her husband, a continent away in California, is distant and preoccupied with work. The storekeeper Xylia seems to be the only friendly face in the crowd.

Into this scenario steps Will, a new friend of Cherokee heritage, happy to befriend Avie and Joseph. As Xylia assists Joseph in his search for the legendary Cherokee silver mine on Taylor’s Ridge, Will provides insight into the culture of a people brutally removed from their homes and shipped to Oklahoma after gold was discovered at nearby Dahlonega. This culture is still an undercurrent in the Southeast, and Avie discovers just how significant it is to our country, its traditions, and her family. She faces a dilemma, as she confronts an unworkable present, an uncooperative family and a possible new romance. In the end, she finds the strength to face her fears, to fight for what she believes and to take brave steps into a brighter future.

The role of the moon, I leave for the reader to find in the pages of this book. Moon over Taylor’s Ridge is a riveting tale, through which Janie Dempsey Watts weaves the strands of interrelated narratives. Read this book today.