The Infinities by John Banville

Of the things we fashioned for them that they might be comforted, dawn is the one that works. When darkness sifts from the air like fine soft soot and light spreads slowly out of the east then all but the most wretched of humankind rally. It is a spectacle we immortals enjoy, this minor daily resurrection, often we will gather at the ramparts of the clouds and gaze down upon them, our little ones, as they bestir themselves to welcome the new day. What a silence falls upon us then, the sad silence of our envy. Many of them sleep on, of course, careless of our cousin Aurora's charming matutinal trick, but there are always the insomniacs, the restless ill, the lovelorn tossing on their solitary beds, or just the early-risers, the busy ones, with their knee-bends and their cold showers and their fussy little cups of black ambrosia. Yes, all who witness it greet the dawn with joy, more or less, except of course the condemned man, for whom first light will be the last, on earth.

-The Infinities 

When I was growing up, one of my favorite books was D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths. I read it cover to cover, over and over again. I didn't grow up with organized religion, so while other children learned Bible stories, I knew the tale of Persephone by heart. Even though the Greek gods seemed both formidable and alarmingly capricious, I was secretly disappointed that they went unworshipped in modern times.

All that is to say, I have a particular affection for Greek mythology, so when I heard about John Banville's The Infinities, I was intrigued.  A story about Greek gods meddling in the affairs of an Irish family--what could be better? I had been watching Battlestar Galactica, in which Greek mythology plays an important part, so I was especially ready to enjoy some Zeus & Hermes action. Unfortunately, while I found the prose of The Infinities to be beautiful, its story left me cold.

The Infinities is a fairly short novel--less than 300 pages--so I anticipated that I would finish it quite quickly. The story, which takes place over the course of a single day, never really drew me in, though. Patriarch Adam Godley is in a coma, and his family has gathered around him to ready themselves for his presumably incipient death.  The day's events are narrated (for the most part) by Hermes, who makes note of his father's lusty advances (shock!) toward a woman in the house, as well as his own mischievous interference. The story is short on plot and long on description, unsurprisingly given the parameters of the novel, with Banville particularly seeming to relish a certain earthiness that I could have done without. I was intrigued by some of his characters (fragile daughter Petra and her would-be beau Roddy, to name two), but I found the gods themselves to be surprisingly...human. And while, as I noted above, the Greek gods have always had human traits writ large, never before have I found that that made them common or boring, as unfortunately I did here.

The Infinities is quite an admired book--made a number of top book lists last year, as I recall--and it does seem like the kind of book that would benefit from a deeper reading. (Maybe then I would better understand the ending, which seemed to come out of nowhere.) I believe, though, that the best books are those that can be enjoyed purely from a story standpoint. You might want to find the deeper meanings if the story is good, but you shouldn't have to do so to enjoy the book. That is probably essentially why I was not an English major, right there.

Up next: Another critically-acclaimed book, The Age of Wonder, which thankfully I'm enjoying much more so far!

American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent

The distinctive thing about so many nerds I've met is their willingness to pursue a dream version of their lives even when that dream isn't a plausible aspiration. Playing Sir Guillaume doesn't have anything to do with reinventing yourself through ambition. It has no careerist or pragmatic component. It's imitating the thing you most want to be, and that only, with no hope of the world outside your own head and your own group of friends coming round to accept it as the truest version of who you are. 

-American Nerd

In American Nerd, Benjamin Nugent sets out to investigate the origins of the idea of a nerd and to explore how nerdiness manifests in culture today. He also establishes his own nerd cred quickly, and returns to ruminate over his transition out of nerdiness in the strongest parts of the book.

I found aspects of the evolution of the concept of a nerd (or, as it was once spelled, nurd) interesting, but the early part of the book was not quite as absorbing as I had hoped. Although American Nerd is a short book, I didn't read it as quickly as I anticipated, simply because I found it a little dry at first. I did appreciate Nugent's explaining the relation between anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic sentiment at the turn of century and the low rung nerds still occupy on the social ladder, which I'd never considered before. Still, I found myself eager to move on to Nugent's exploration of modern nerd culture.

I was slightly disappointed that Nugent mostly looks at aspects of nerd culture that I don't really have any interest in, like video games and anime. Still, it can be fascinating to see how people can be obsessed with something that I wouldn't give two seconds' thought to. After all, I have plenty of my own geeky obsessions (currently Battlestar Galactica, which ought to get me plenty of nerd cred). I think I would have liked this section of the book to be a bit more substantial--more nerdy subcultures profiled, and more depth in each one.

Throughout the book, Nugent references his own childhood nerdiness, which included plenty of Dungeons and Dragons and video games. At some point he consciously decided to leave behind childish things, breaking ties with his former roleplaying buddies and finding a home in any group that would have him--any group but the nerds, that is. American Nerd gave him the opportunity to consider this decision, and he talks with several of his childhood friends about what nerd culture meant to them. It turns out to be a lot deeper than you might expect, a true safe haven for friends who were doing their best to survive in very unstable households.  It's emotionally affecting, and I wouldn't have minded seeing more reflections from men (and women, who are pretty underrepresented in the book) on how their nerdy habits affected their lives.

So overall, American Nerd has some interesting parts, but it wasn't quite as compelling as I had hoped. No worries.

Up next: The Infinities by John Banville. Winner of the Man Booker Prize, what what.

An Object of Beauty by Steve Martin

At Sotheby's, she started to look at paintings differently. She became an efficient computer of values. The endless stream of pictures that passed through the auction house helped her develop a calculus of worth. Auction records were available in the Sotheby's library, and when a picture of note came in, she diligently searched the Art Price Index to see if it had auction history. She factored in condition, size, and subject matter. A Renoir of a young girl, she had witnessed, was worth more than one of an old woman. An American western picture with five tepees was worth more than a painting with one tepee. If a picture had been on the market recently without a sale, she knew it would be less desirable. A deserted painting scared buyers. Why did no one want it? In the trade, it was known as being "burned." Once a picture was burned, the owner either had to drastically reduce the price or sit on it for another seven years until it faded from memory. When Lacey began these computations, her toe crossed ground from which it is difficult to return: she started converting objects of beauty into objects of value.

-An Object of Beauty 

Man, did I need a book like this one. I've had a steady string of good, but not great books in the last six weeks--I don't think I've read one I found truly absorbing since Mockingjay. An Object of Beauty came along at precisely the right time.

Honestly, I wasn't expecting to like it so much. I read Steve Martin's novella Shopgirl and felt that, while it was technically good, something about it left me cold. It was an aloof sort of book, if that makes sense. An Object of Beauty is similar in a sense. Lacey Yeager, the character whom we follow as she climbs the social and corporate ladder of  the New York art world,  is ambitious and cunning, not particularly easy to warm up to. But it doesn't really matter--you don't need to like Lacey to enjoy the story. Because while Lacey is the chief personage we get to know in An Object of Beauty, she's not the book's true main character. Art is.

And art--well, that I love. I studied Art History in college, but now it would be a rare day indeed when someone asked me my opinion on Joseph Beuys, or even Picasso. But this story is full of people with opinions on these and other artists, and spending time with them was like getting to know people with whom I have mutual friends. It doesn't matter if I like them or not (and I would not choose to spend time with a Lacey in real life), but we do have something in common. Martin is clearly extremely well versed in modern art, and his tale of Lacey's rise from lowly Sotheby's drudge to gallery scenester is note perfect. There's a vicarious thrill in getting access to this world, and as little as I truly sympathize with Lacey, I absolutely understand the power that a painting can hold over a person.

Story time: When I was just about to graduate from college, I applied for an internship at a very prestigious art gallery in Manhattan. The time came to schedule an interview, and I panicked--I didn't have the money to fly to New York from an interview, much less to live there on a meager stipend. But it's one of the moments that makes one wonder, what if? When I did finally move to New York, my parents most thoughtfully gave me the gift of a membership to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, probably my favorite place in New York City. (Central Park is a close second. These places are iconic for a reason.) I've lost track of the number of times I've visited the Met. At least twenty. Over time, there were certain paintings that I began to identify as "mine." I sought them out every visit, filled each time with the sense of joy that comes with seeing an old friend. They once temporarily removed a favorite Monet* and I was quite incensed. That was my Monet, didn't they understand?  I felt like I loved it more than anyone in the world could, and, selfishly, I would have taken it with me if it had been offered. So yes, all that is a way of saying that I suppose I do understand part of the way that Lacey appreciates art. But, going back to the excerpt I chose, I never made the transition that Lacey did--I don't see paintings as objects of (monetary) value. And for that I'm glad.

Would one like An Object of Beauty if one doesn't care about art? I wondered that as I read. I've certainly read my fair share of books that involved subjects that I had little interest in or knowledge about. In this case, I think an appreciation for art would certainly heighten one's enjoyment of the book. I mean, Martin includes little reproductions of some of the paintings under discussion. If that's the kind of detail that makes your heart go pitter-patter (or at least spares you a trip to Google), then I think this book would be a winner. But even if that idea provokes an overwhelming meh, I think that it's worth a try all the same. It's a pretty classic tale of the pleasure and pain inherit in gaining access to the most elite part of society, when it comes down to it. Joyce Carol Oates has compared it to an Edith Wharton novel (specifically, The Age of Innocence, which I haven't read); I myself thought of Vanity Fair's Becky Sharp. I was surprised to see there were very mixed critical reviews, as I (obviously) thought it was quite good, and could even see myself rereading it in the future.

Up next: American Nerd by Benjamin Nugent. Dang, there goes the title for my autobiography.

*And yeah: I'm a huge fan of art, but I'm definitely no snob. I love Monet.

A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

My eyes darted to the words under the photograph that had called to me. Fished from the water by a sightseeing boat the morning of Saturday, May 30, 1931--the day before yesterday. Apparent cause of death: stab wound to the heart. Under distinguishing characteristics they listed a heart-shaped tattoo on his lower back that said "Father." No identification present.

I needed none. I knew the face as well as my own, or my sister Ursula's, with our square jaws and cleft chins. I wore my dark blond hair cut short into a bob, but he wore his long, like our mother, like any woman of a certain age, although he was neither a woman nor of a certain age. He was my baby brother, Ernst.

-A Trace of Smoke 

Hannah Vogel is a reporter operating out of 1931 Berlin. She's seen some terrible things while writing stories about the city's criminal element, but nothing could prepare her for the nasty shock of seeing her brother's face among those cataloged in the police department's Hall of the Unnamed Dead. In some ways, it was unsurprising: Ernst had lived an unconventional, uncompromising life that had put him in contact with some unsavory men. Even so, Hannah is naturally aghast.

Worse still, Hannah can't report her brother's death to anyone. She lent her and Ernst's identity papers to Jewish friends fleeing the country in light of the growing influence of the Nazi party. If Hannah identifies Ernst, she could put her friends in jeopardy. The truth of the matter is simple and frightening: if Hannah wants Ernst's killer to be punished, she's going to have to find him herself.

It's more difficult, and more dangerous, than she possibly could have imagined. Matters are further complicated when a little boy shows up on her doorstep. He claims that Ernst was his father--and Hannah his mother. Hannah takes the boy under her wing and does her best to take care of him in the face of an increasingly menacing threat from persons unknown. 

I had some mixed feelings about this one. Hannah I liked well enough, although she didn't strike me as a terribly distinctive heroine. She was so forward-thinking as to be boring, if that makes sense. When I read historical fiction, it's not because I want to read about people who would react just as modern people would. While I was reading, I couldn't help but think that the story might have been more interesting from the point of view of Hannah's friend Bettina, a policeman's wife, who seemed a more traditional German woman of that era.

The mystery itself held my interest, and I found the milieu interesting. I confess I don't know much about the pre-WWII era in Germany, so I learned a few things. I did find the inclusion of a prominent real-life Nazi as a character to be a bit odd. It's certainly fairly popular to include real people in historical fiction, but it's not the easiest thing to pull off. Again, I can't pretend to have a comprehensive knowledge of the figures of that era, but for some reason it took me out of the story. Sometimes including a real figure only reminds the reader that the rest of the story is made up, making it hard to suspend one's disbelief. I would have preferred that Cantrell had made up a fictional Nazi with a similar background and position of influence. I don't think it would have lessened the impact of this character's role in the story.

All in all, I can't see myself continuing with this series at this point, though I definitely think that this story could appeal to a wide audience--mystery fans, history fans, &c. Not one I feel compelled to spend more time on myself. There are just so many books out there, you know?

Up next: I've already begun  Steve Martin's An Object of Beauty, which is off to a strong start.

Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

Krishnan has raised the idea of going back to India to visit and perhaps adopt another child, but Somer has resisted. She seems intent on preserving Asha in the little cocoon they have woven around her. It's not the way he sees family, as a precious thing that needs to be protected. For him, family is a wild sprawling thing, a strong thing that withstands years, miles, even mistakes. For as long as he can remember, there have been minor transgressions and major feuds erupting among his big clan, and it doesn't affect the endurance of their family's bond.

-Secret Daughter

In Secret Daughter, Shilpi Somaya Gowda traces the story of two families. There is the story of Jasu and Kavita, living in poverty in rural India. In 1984, Kavita gives birth to a daughter. As female babies are considered less than desirable, she makes the difficult journey to an orphanage in Mumbai. Losing her baby that way, while incredibly painful, is better than the other possible outcome: she's already seen one of her daughters killed shortly after birth.

There is also the story of Krishnan and Somer. Krishnan, from India, meets Somer when studying at medical school in America. He falls in love with her and with his new country, and they begin to make a life there together. When Somer discovers she is infertile, Krishnan hits upon an idea: to adopt a child from India. Somer is reluctant at first, but eventually they make arrangements and travel to Mumbai in 1985. They adopt a young girl: Kavita's daughter.

Gowda shows us how these two families weather the next twenty years. Kavita and Jasu decide to try for a better life in Mumbai, only to discover that it will be far more difficult than they ever imagined. Somer and Krishnan gradually grow apart as their daughter grows up, their relationship in part weakened by Somer's inability to accept the importance India has in her husband's and daughter's lives--and thus in her own life as well.

This really is a character-driven novel, and luckily I liked most of them. Things got off to a bit of a slow start, but after that I became invested, mostly in Kavita and Jasu. Krishnan I liked as well, though not much of the story is told from his point of view. The problem is Somer. While I was sympathetic to her early difficulties in becoming pregnant, once she traveled to India she managed to burn through a lot of goodwill very quickly. She's breathtakingly narrow-minded--I really hope her lack of understanding of Indian culture and her complete unwillingness to share in any of it reflects only on her character and is not representative of Americans in the 1980's, because that would be really sad. It was very frustrating to watch Somer handle things so poorly, though I appreciated that Gowda was able to tie up her story fairly well. I think overall Gowda provided the happiest ending she could within the bounds of realism, but the book was somewhat on the sad side. Interesting, though.

Up next: A Trace of Smoke by Rebecca Cantrell

More Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin

[Tales of the City spoilers ahead]

She was not moving back to Cleveland. She was not running home to Mommy and Daddy. She knew that much, anyway. For all her trials, she loved it here in San Francisco, and she loved her makeshift family at Mrs. Madrigal's comfy old apartment house on Barbary Lane.

So what if she was still a secretary?

So what if she had not met Mr. Right...or even Mr. Adequate?

So what if Norman Neal Williams, the one semi-romance of her first six months in the city, had turned out to be a private eye moonlighting as a child pornographer who eventually fell to his death off a seaside cliff on Christmas Eve?

-More Tales of the City 

When I was reading More Tales of the City, words to describe it kept popping into my head: soapy, fizzy, fun, &c. Although the book has its share of dramatic moments, they're all so overblown that I can only describe this as a light read--and a thoroughly enjoyable one.

More Tales of the City picks up just weeks after the events of Tales of the City. All of our favorite characters are ready to embark upon new (and often exciting) adventures. Some friendships and relationships blossom, while others are tested. Mary Ann Singleton and Michael Tolliver go on a Mexican cruise, courtesy of her late boss, Edgar Halcyon. Edgar's widow Franny is struggling to find herself after his death, and their daughter DeDe tries to cope with her thoroughly jerky husband Beauchamp and the imminent arrival of her twins (not Beauchamp's, naturally). Meanwhile, Mona Ramsey goes to Winnemucca, Nevada to find herself, leaving behind landlady Anna Madigral, whose mysterious past is finally starting to come to light.

There is quite a lot of plot, and if you took it terribly seriously, it would never be plausible--amnesia! Sudden paralysis! Being drafted to work as a receptionist in a whorehouse for a week!  When you put it all together, it doesn't sound at all likely, but that's really beside the point. More Tales of the City is a fast and engaging read because you can't wait to see what happens next--and really, experience has shown it could be anything.

Up next: Still have a lot of choices here. I will probably go with Secret Daughter by Shilpi Somaya Gowda, which ought to be a change of pace.

The Night Villa by Carol Goodman

Once, when Ely had locked himself in his study to meditate and chant, I pressed my ear to the door to listen to what he was chanting. At first all I heard was a low rhythmic hum and then, when I realized when there were actual words beneath the hum, I couldn't recognize their language. I thought for a moment that he'd added speaking in tongues to his repertoire of miracles, but as I listened I realized he was chanting three repeated lines of Greek hexameter verse. It took me another hour to transcribe and translate the three lines. I don't know what I was expecting. A summoning of Satan? A prayer for help? An invocation to the dead. Certainly not these three questions:

Where did I go wrong today?

What did I accomplish?

What obligation did I not perform?

-The Night Villa

I've read several books by Carol Goodman, though The Night Villa is the first I've read since beginning this blog. Her books, which I've usually enjoyed, tend to have similar elements: a connection to the past, an exploration of mother/daughter relationships, a strong elemental presence (usually fire or water), a main character who is a scholar or an artist, a super-dramatic denouement. With The Night Villa, Goodman continues to stick closely to these familiar ideas. I didn't find it to be her most successful outing, but it still had its moments.

The Night Villa tells the story of Sophie Chase, a UT Classics professor who is recruited to join an excavation at Herculaneum after an unexpected tragedy almost derails the project. Sophie is hoping to learn more about 1st century slave Iusta, the subject of her thesis, who once lived in the villa that was buried by the 79 AD eruption of Vesuvius. Scrolls have been discovered at the site that promise to shed new light on Iusta's life, and, despite some misgivings, Sophie can't resist their siren call. Why misgivings? The project seems troubled from the start, but she's more concerned with the man she'll be working with: her former professor and former paramour (always a winning combination), Elgin* Lawrence.

If Lawrence's presence weren't enough to make the situation difficult, Sophie discovers that the project has a connection to the Tetratkys cult, which is devoted to the worship of Pythagorean principles. Her own ex-boyfriend left her to live with the cult a few years back, and when she starts to receive mysterious coded messages in Italy, she wonders if Ely could be behind them.  Things are even further complicated when Lawrence confides that one of the members of the team--which also includes Sophie's student, the fragile Agnes; artist Simon; Christian scholar Maria; tech-wizard George; and the excavation's financial backer, John Lyros--is a member of the Tetraktys cult.

 I actually liked the plot of the book well enough, and the characters, too. My problem with the book was largely one of exposition. There is a lot of information that Goodman wants to convey, mostly about mythology and history, to her readers. The issue is that in order to do so, she sometimes makes her characters, who are well versed in these subjects, talk in a manner that I found clunky and unrealistic. Example:

"Well," Agnes says, taking a deep gulp of air and refastening her ponytail, "for one thing, the newly excavated frescoes haven't been photographed yet, but, most important, they've also found charred papyrus rolls in the villa. The little taggie things on them--"

"Sillyboi," I suggest, providing the Greek term for the tags that ancient librarians used to identify papyrus rolls.

"Um, yeah." She giggles nervously. "I guess I should use the Greek term, but it always makes me laugh..."

 I don't know about you, but that whole passage could have replaced with a dictionary definition of sillyboi and it would have been about as subtle. Either use the word or don't, in my opinion. There's nothing wrong with sending your reader to a dictionary or Google, as long as we're not having to put the book down every other line. I think if Goodman had trusted the reader a little more, she wouldn't have had to be so long-winded and unnatural with the exposition in general.

Similarly, the supposed passages from the ancient texts they uncover at the site strike me as unusually candid--and again, exposition-heavy. But since Goodman has studied classics and I have not, I will assume she has a better ear for this sort of thing than I do, and maybe that is how people wrote at the time. She does make one reference to how remarkably open the author seemed in his writing, which does help to make the passages seem somewhat less glaringly modern. After a while, I got over how unlikely these passages seemed, and tried to just focus on the story, which made the book more enjoyable.

In short, not my favorite of her books, but I've read enough that I would still be interested in looking into her next one. (Just checked Amazon and discovered I'm actually one behind; Arcadia Falls comes out in paperback February 8th and sounds quite promising. )

Up next: More Tales of the City

*You'd think I might be tempted to go off on names again, but I was actually rather charmed when the back story for Elgin's name was revealed. Also I was terribly pleased that there was a minor character named Sam Tyler, a name shared by the main character on Life on Mars.

Jane by April Lindner

"So. Passing as a sex symbol. Can I?"

I weighed my words carefully. "You might not be movie-star handsome," I said finally, "but you're good-looking for a rock star."

Mr. Rathburn's eyes widened. "That's three times you've hurt my feelings in one conversation," he said a bit gruffly.

-Jane

Spoilers for Jane Eyre (& thus Jane) ahead.

Retellings of classic novels have become so popular that it's almost surprising that it took this long to get a modern take on Jane Eyre. April Lindner admits in her author's note for Jane that there were some challenges in imagining the story in our times; it doesn't  lend itself to the modern day quite as easily as something like Pride and Prejudice, for instance. Lindner figured out a way around these problems, though, and by and large I think she wrote a successful adaptation.

In Lindner's story, Jane Moore applies for a position as a nanny after her parents die in a car accident, leaving her financially destitute and forced to drop out of college. The agency finds that her complete lack of pop culture savvy makes her the perfect candidate for one of their plum positions: nanny to reclusive rock star Nico Rathburn*. She accepts, then pours over old tabloid stories to learn about her new employer. Rathburn is a legendary musician with a notorious history of drug use and womanizing, including an ill-fated marriage to a drug-addicted model. She's a bit taken aback, but nonetheless soon finds herself at his secluded estate outside of New York City, wondering if she's made the right choice.

Lindner hits many of the same beats that Jane Eyre does: the roadside run-in with her  boss (far less plausible here, though she does try to explain her lack of recognition of this man whom she's seen in dozens of pictures), the "Do you think me handsome, Jane?" bit (the excerpt above), the guests coming to Thornfield, etc. I enjoyed seeing the parallels.

 I found Lindner's handling of Rathburn's secret to be among the most interesting parts of the adaptation. In some ways, the news should come as less of a surprise to Jane Moore than it did to Jane Eyre: JM knows a lot more about her employer's past than JE ever did, which is one reason why the rock star twist on Rochester didn't quite work for me. JM knew Rathburn was once married, at least. It's been a while since I read Jane Eyre, but I don't think JE finds that out that until the whole crazy story comes out. Still, you don't expect to find people holed up in attics nowadays any more than you did in Charlotte Bronte's time. JM's reaction is, unsurprisingly, similar to JE's, and though it does seem extreme, she does eventually come to realize that she didn't handle it terribly well.

I enjoyed Jane Moore as a character, but oddly I didn't care much for Nico Rathburn. I love Rochester**, so perhaps it was inevitable that his modern update would seem like a pale imitation. On the other hand, I enjoy both Jane Austen's Mr. Darcy and Helen Fielding's Mark Darcy, so I don't think that's exactly it. Part of what made Rochester so interesting was that he had a hidden dark part. He alluded to it when talking with Jane, and even confessed to some parts of it. However, it wasn't like Jane could look him up on Wikipedia or something to get more information. Nico Rathburn, despite the fact that he's supposed to have been out of the media spotlight for some time, is just not mysterious enough. Also, he's a middle-aged guy with earrings, which, let's face it, is a hard look to pull off, even for a rock star.

Even with those reservations about Mr. Rathburn, though, I sped through Jane in a day. I couldn't really see reading it again, but it was pretty enjoyable. It didn't quite pack the punch of Jane Eyre, though; it definitely lacks that dark, Gothic tone that makes Jane Eyre so captivating. I'm interested in rereading some of those classics with a weird bent (The Turn of the Screw, Rebecca), and maybe I'll add Jane Eyre to the list--or at least make sure I see the upcoming film adaptation, which looks great.

Up next: The Night Villa by Carol Goodman, set in my new hometown of Austin and my beloved Italy, which bodes well. 

*I just can't with that name. When I was in middle school, I had a book called Building Believable Characters. In that book, the author mentions the importance of matching a character's first and last names (and then provided long lists of names by ethnic heritage, which was probably my main motivation in buying the book. I'm fascinated by names.). Nico is a great first name for a rock star: kind of quirky, kind of edgy. Rathburn sounds super posh (it makes me think of Basil Rathbone, for one) and, while it works well as a name that sort of evokes Rochester without being Rochester, it clashes horribly with Nico to my ears. Just so fake sounding, you know? Anyway. End tangent.

**When I was in high school, my friends and I used to go blazer bowling on a semi-regular basis. I found a favorite ball at the lanes, a pinkish one with a slight lump on it. Being a weird sort (surprising, I know), I named the ball Hurricane Rochester. (Hurricane was the brand of the ball). True, super dorky story.

Ghost Hunters by Deborah Blum

 "I confess that at times I have been tempted to believe that the Creator has eternally intended this department of nature to remain baffling, to prompt our curiosities and hopes and suspicions, all in equal measure, so that, although ghosts and clairvoyances, and raps and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and can never be fully explained away, they also can never be susceptible of full corroboration."

-William James, Ghost Hunters

As a child I, like many other children, was equally fascinated and terrified by tales of the supernatural. I'd ask my mom to buy the 99-cent collections of ghost stories sold in our grocery store's checkout line. I visited New Orleans and bought a book of bayou-centric ghost stories (I can still remember the pale pink cover), but at some point decided it was ill-advised to sleep in the same room with it. I believed, in one way or another, in just about everything: ghosts, UFOs, the Bermuda Triangle, the Anna Anderson story, etc.

I grew more skeptical as I got older, but, I have to say, I still enjoy learning about things that can't be explained easily. Last Halloween, I discovered Travel Channel's Ghost Adventures, and was immediately taken with the show's mix of goofy charm, bravado, and a dash of the unexplained. When I stumbled upon Deborah Blum's Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof for Life After Death, I thought it might be an interesting complement to my recent viewing.

I must say, I'm not overly fond of scientific explanations of paranormal things, however logical they may be. I feel like they suck the fun out of things, to be honest. What I found interesting about the premise of Blum's book was that William James and his fellow scientists experienced things in the course of what they called their psychical research that they could not explain. James is remembered now as the father of psychology, and some of his colleagues would go on to win Nobel Prizes or be awarded knighthoods. These were very upright, very scientifically-minded men, in other words--not the type who would be taken in without good evidence.

The research of these men coincided with the height of the Spiritualism movement. Mediums were springing up all over the place in the United States (where James lived) as well as Europe (home to many of his fellow researchers). The scientific establishment had, on the whole, rejected even research into psychical phenomena as worthless. Nevertheless, these men--James, Henry Sidgwick, Fred Myers, and Edmund Gurney, among many others--were each drawn in for their own reasons. The latter three were among the scientists that formed the Society for Psychical Research in London in 1882, an organization that still exists today. Through the SPR they explored many aspects of paranormal activity, though Blum especially focuses on their efforts to document the phenomenon of the "crisis apparition" (the vision of a loved one at the time of his death) and to explore the capabilities of mediums.

They were able to debunk many instances of apparent psychical phenomena that they witnessed--and yet not everything.  Their investigations seriously jeopardized their reputations as legitimate scientists, but they could not dismiss what they'd seen. James was among those who was fascinated by the American medium Leonora Piper, whose abilities, although inconsistent, had produced some very compelling evidence for either telepathy (a term coined by an SPR member) or life after death. Late in the book, Blum recounts a story of cross-correspondence--that is, different mediums in different parts of the world getting similar specific messages alleged to be from the same spirits--that certainly left me puzzled. James and his fellow researchers were often left in the state of uncertainty that he describes in the passage I excerpted above. In a time when science was constantly uncovering new things, is it any wonder that these men thought they might be on the verge of a similar breakthrough? That the concrete evidence they sought seemed to always be just beyond their grasp must have been hugely frustrating, yet it motivated them ever onward.

 Blum packs a lot of information into her book, as you can probably tell from my blathering. I won't lie: with the exception of James, whom I was already familiar with, and Richard Hodgson, who for whatever reason made a big enough impression, I found it rather difficult to keep all of the scientists straight. It wasn't quite as lively a read as I might have hoped--not really a pageturner, that is--but it certainly gave me some interesting insight into an era I confess I'm less acquainted with than perhaps I should be. I admire the passion and the commitment of these researchers to the cause they believed in, and I appreciate that, even though they never proved their case, their work certainly left even the modern reader with some things to think about.*

Up next: I really have a wealth of books to choose from right now. I'm going to go with Jane, a modern update of Jane Eyre.

*Although this is only tangentially related to the research angle, I can't help but think about the famous Fox sisters. As teenagers, they became some of the best-known mediums in the early days of the Spiritualism movement, claiming to communicate with the spirit of a peddler who'd been killed in their home years before they had moved there. The sisters fell on hard times in their later years and one confessed it had all been a hoax, though she later recanted the confession. Several years after their deaths, a skeleton was found entombed in their cellar. Now, say what you will about their abilities, but that's a bit odd, don't you think?

In Medias Res: Ghost Hunters

So I was reading Ghost Hunters, which I'm enjoying so far, when I stumbled upon this passage concerning a trip the psychologist William James took to see his brother Henry, the novelist, in England:

William relaxed into the visit. He spent afternoons in conversation at his brother's clubs, surrounded by an aromatic fog of tobacco smoke. He made occasional calls on scientists. He walked the sooty streets, enjoying Henry's company. Then he found himself suddenly alone. Back in America, Henry James Sr. was dying. Their mother had died of bronchitis earlier that year, and their sister, faced with this second impending death, felt overwhelmed. She asked Henry Jr. to come home.

William--the more high-maintenance brother--was to stay in England. "All insist William shall not come," his sister telegraphed. William debated returning home anyway, despite his nervous state, but had to admit he probably wouldn't be an ideal deathbed companion.

Interesting family dynamic they had going there.