May Booknotes

 

“We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is.” – Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

Nonfiction: History, World War II

Avenue of Spies: A True Story of Terror, Espionage, and One American Family's Heroic Resistance in Nazi-Occupied Paris by Alex Kershaw

There are numerous stories of courage and self-sacrifice during the Nazi occupation of Paris during WWII, many of which have been forgotten or are unknown. This is one of them.

Sumner Jackson, an American physician and WWI veteran, his Swiss-born-naturalized-American wife, Toquette, and their son, Phillip, lived in Paris, where Dr. Jackson was head surgeon at the American Hospital. The Jacksons had the opportunity to leave Paris before the Nazis invaded but refused to do so. They realized that Sumner’s skills as a doctor and surgeon would be needed to treat the wounded and dying French soldiers.

Paris was occupied by the Nazis in June 1940. At that time, the United States was still neutral, and it appeared the American Hospital would be safe. Because of the Jackson’s love of Paris and France they decided to assist the French Resistance by hiding members of the resistance in the hospital to prevent their capture by the Nazis.

Their dangerous situation worsened when the Gestapo and the SS set up headquarters on Avenue Foch, practically next door to the Jackson’s apartment. Still, they continued to work with the Resistance. In December 1941, Hitler declared war on the United States, which made the Jacksons suspects.

Avenue of Spies is a record of what happened after Sumner, Toquette, and Phillip were arrested. They were political prisoners, were separated from one another, and suffered horribly in concentration camps. Their story is so disturbing it sounds like fiction. We know better, it is a history of the inhumane methods used by the Nazis when dealing with political opponents.

Avenue of Spies is difficult to read because it is about Americans as victims of Nazism. It describes what did and could happen when ordinary people resist fascism. Even today we can see how a “strongman” employs “revenge and retribution” against political rivals and ordinary people. I highly recommend this book.

Nonfiction: American History

How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America by Clint Smith

Starting in his hometown, New Orleans, Smith leads us on a tour of monuments and landmarks-those that are honest about the past and some that are not. Smith traveled to Monticello, Whitney Planation, Angola Prison, Blandford Cemetery, Galveston Island, and New York City – which had the second-largest slave market in our country. (I did not know that!) Then he traveled to Goree Island, Senegal where Africans were loaded on ships for their trip into American slavery.

“How do you tell a story that had been told the wrong way for so long?”

The place I found most interesting was Smith’s experience at a Memorial Day ceremony in Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, Virginia. After listening to the keynote speaker from the Sons of Confederate Veterans, he noted: “I was fascinated by the conciliatory equivocation of his tone, and his desire to … assimilate the memory of the Confederacy more fully into the US military … just as those who had fought in WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and Iraq. It did not seem to matter that they had fought AGAINST the United States.”

“History is the story of the past, using all available facts, nostalgia is a fantasy about the past using no facts … history is about what you need to know but nostalgia is what you want to hear.”

Many people Smith spoke with repeatedly insisted that the Civil War was not about slavery. Here are just a few historical facts from the secession documents which explain why states left the Union to form a separate nation, the Confederate States of America:

Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery.”

Louisiana: “The people of slaveholding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery.”

Texas: “The African race are rightfully held and regarded as inferior.”

Then there is the Constitution of the Confederate States, Article IV, Section 3: “The institution of slavery, as it now exists in the Confederate States, shall be recognized and protected.”

How did a Son of the Confederate Veterans respond when asked to reckon with the fact that his ancestors fought a war to keep African Americans enslaved?  In short, he responded, “You’re asking me to agree that my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents were monsters.” Obviously accepting historical reality would mean the deterioration of a nostalgic story that has long been part of his, and many other family lineages, and the disintegration of who they believed themselves to be. Family stories can become embedded in our identities in ways we are not fully aware of. This is why it is important to differentiate between history based on reliable and authoritative sources and nostalgia based on stories we want to believe.

“Just because something is difficult to accept doesn’t mean you shouldn’t accept it. Just because someone tells you a story doesn’t make that story true.”

What I love about this book is that it is not only about our nation's history, but it is also a personal reflection of how history affects people’s lives. At each location Smith speaks to and interviews various people - tour guides, employees, or other visitors. He simply shows that history affects each one of us, including how our ancestors may influence what we do, say, and believe today. Smith also strongly encourages us not to ignore or 'forget' history we find upsetting or inconvenient, including our own family history. I am sure this book will win an award, it is excellent! 

Hugh Fraser ("Captain Hastings") Audiobooks – Read by my all-time favorite reader, Hugh Fraser. All Agatha Christie mysteries but NOT Poirot or Miss Marple.

The absolute best thing about these audiobooks is the reader, Hugh Fraser. I listened to these before bedtime and then slept soundly. The stories do involve murders… but his voice is so calming!

Murder Is Easy by Agatha Christie

Luke Fitzwilliam, a military policeman recently returned from the far east, encounters an old lady on a train. She tells him she is off to Scotland Yard to try and stop yet another murder in her small village. Luke listens to her story but feels she is just an “old lady” and humors her with his attention. A few days later two news articles grabbed Luke’s attention. One reports the death of the old lady in a hit and run on a London street (before she gets to Scotland Yard). The other is a report of the death of a man she had mentioned. Luke begins to wonder if she was indeed telling the truth.

Luke decides he will investigate. A good friend introduces him to an acquaintance who happens to live in the same village as the old lady. Luke arrives with a cover story to explain his presence and begins to investigate.

There is a feisty girl involved, an unnecessary romance, and several grisly murders. Luke is quite easily led up several wrong paths until the murderer is finally unmasked. Not my favorite Christie mystery but with Hugh Fraser narrating the audiobook, I thoroughly enjoyed it nonetheless!

Spider’s Web adapted by Charles Osborne from a play by Agatha Christie

Clarissa, the wife of a Foreign Office diplomat, discovers a body in the drawing room of her house in Kent. Desperate to dispose of the body before her husband comes home with an important foreign politician, Clarissa persuades her three house guests to become accessories and accomplices. But things don’t go as planned. An unknown person has called the police to report the murder, and they arrive before the body is removed. The search for the murderer and the motive begins.

Clarissa is like a spider as she weaves webs of lies. Each time the police inspector sees through one of her lies, he persuades her to tell the truth. However, Clarissa then tells a different story each time.

One of the things I enjoy about Agatha Christie is her descriptions of people; she has a way of describing people in unflattering but amusing ways. Clarissa was initially humorous, but as the story progressed, I found her lying to be annoying. The ending was a surprise, which is probably due to the “spider’s web” of lies that preceded it!

The first part of the audiobook includes what sounds like “stage directions” – after all, this was originally written as a play. However, Hugh Fraser’s voice is so pleasant I didn’t mind listening to descriptions of the setting or characters. Once the plot was set in motion, he really breathed life into the characters.

Towards Zero by Agatha Christie

‘I like a good detective story.  But, you know, they begin in the wrong place! They begin with the murder. But the murder is the end. The story begins long before that– years before sometimes– with all the causes and events that bring certain people to a certain place at a certain time on a certain day.”

That is exactly what I love about Towards Zero! Christie really sets the stage and takes her time before getting to the actual mystery portion of the story. It works well though because you are getting bits and pieces of relevant information about the characters along the way.

Publisher’s Description: “An elderly widow is murdered at a clifftop seaside house...What is the connection between a failed suicide attempt, a wrongful accusation of theft against a schoolgirl, and the romantic life of a famous tennis player? To the casual observer, apparently nothing. But when a house party gathers at Gull's Point, the seaside home of an elderly widow, earlier events come to a dramatic head. It's all part of a carefully laid plan - for murder...”

Two thumbs up for Towards Zero!

Fiction: Essays, Humor

A Man Without a Country by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Written 20 years ago, A Man Without a Country is a collection of humorous and angry essays about the state of the world with an emphasis on the United States. Vonnegut was 82 years old when he wrote this book. Two years later he was dead. This book may possibly be the closest thing to his memoir. It is filled with his unique perspective on the world and sharp wit. Vonnegut is interesting, down-to-earth, and funny as he goes on rants about America, people in general, and all the things he's seen during his life.

"But I am eighty-two. Thanks a lot, you dirty rats. The last thing I ever wanted was to be alive when the three most powerful people on the whole planet would be named Bush, Dick and Colon.”

Vonnegut wrote about the purpose of humor, as a way of dealing with anxiety and fear, and helping people better face these emotions, and the world. He held up Mark Twain as a fellow humorist who found a way to help people laugh through terrible times. Yet, he acknowledged that even Twain wrote angrily about things in this country he could not possibly laugh at.

Vonnegut's political hero was the socialist Eugene Debs. But he saw no real hope for thinkers such as Debs to save the world. He thought the rich, the corporations, and the politicians just don't care about kindness, compassion, or generosity. Given our current situation, I appreciate his bleak honesty.

“The biggest truth to face now – what is probably making me unfunny now for the remainder of my life – is that I don't think people give a damn whether the planet goes or not. It seems to me as if everyone is living as members of Alcoholics Anonymous do, day by day. And a few more days will be enough. I know of very few people who are dreaming of a world for their grandchildren.”

Like Twain and Einstein before him, Vonnegut had given up on humanity. In the end, he thought he had simply grown too grumpy to be funny anymore. Let me respectfully disagree, I smiled throughout most of this short book, laughed several times, and almost fell out of my chair at his explanation as to why he did not win the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Fiction: French Literature

The Stranger by Albert Camus, translated from the French by Stuart Gilbert

Publisher’s Description: “Published in 1942 by French author Albert Camus, The Stranger has long been considered a classic of twentieth-century literature. Le Monde ranks it as number one on its "100 Books of the Century" list. Through this story of an ordinary man unwittingly drawn into a senseless murder on a sundrenched Algerian beach, Camus explores what he termed "the nakedness of man faced with the absurd."

How the story begins: "Mother died today. Or maybe yesterday; I can't be sure."

Meursault, the main character, is a man without feelings and incapable of feeling remorse or indeed any emotion. Those deficiencies are evident at his mother’s death when he does not cry (not even when he is alone) and does not even seem upset. Later he agrees, without reservation, to write a letter for a friend. The letter is an invitation for his friend’s ex-girlfriend to come to his apartment so his friend can beat her up. He has no remorse for his role in the woman’s beating. His inability to feel any emotion is dramatically revealed when he shoots a stranger after an altercation on the beach. Five shots: first one, a pause, and then four more. The “four more” is what eventually gets him convicted.

“Since we're all going to die,’ it's obvious that when and how don't matter.”- Meursault

What is up with Meursault? Why doesn’t he “feel?” Maybe Meursault has Alexithymia. It is a personality condition characterized by the inability to identify and describe emotions in oneself. Individuals suffering from this dysfunction also find it difficult to distinguish and appreciate the feelings of others, which leads to a hopeless and meaningless life.

“What did other people's deaths or a mother's love matter to me; what did his God or the lives people choose or the fate they think they elect matter to me.” - Mersault

Meursault is a stranger. A stranger to himself. A stranger to others. A stranger to life. A stranger to everything. So, what is the point of this novella? Should we contemplate the existence or absence of empathy in our lives?  Will this knowledge lead us to live a better life and to help others to do the same? Does Camus want us to avoid being “a stranger?” (I would answer, “Yes!”)

I found The Stranger to be a weird, yet thought-provoking novella. It is no wonder Camus won a Nobel Prize for Literature!

Right Thing, Right Now

 

“Let’s do what we can. Let’s be a small light in a dark world.” - Ryan Holiday

Nonfiction: Philosophy, Personal Development

Right Thing, Right Now: Justice in an Unjust World by Ryan Holiday

If you are looking for a book all about Stoicism, this is not it! The author, Ryan Holiday, is a writer and a marketer who promotes Stoicism. In Right Thing, Right Now he uses historical figures to support his assertion that “everything worth pursuing in life flows from a strong sense of justice - or one’s commitment to doing the right thing, no matter how difficult. In order to be courageous, wise, and self-disciplined, one must begin with justice.” Holiday uses examples from the lives of Emily Davison, Thomas Clarkson, Harvey Milk, Martin Niemoller, Florence Nightingale, President Carter, and many more to illustrate his point.

Sometimes we may not be aware of injustice but what will we do when we are made aware? Are we willing to choose the right thing even if it means losing the “support” of others? Here is what President Truman did:

Sgt. Isaac Woodard, Jr., was a Black soldier who had just returned to the United States after fighting in World War II. On February 12, 1946, Woodard, still wearing his Army uniform, rode a Greyhound bus to return to his home in South Carolina. Woodard asked the white bus driver to stop the bus so that he could use the restroom. The bus driver reluctantly agreed, calling Woodard  “boy,” a derogatory term often used in the South to demean Black men. Woodard, who had served three years in the Pacific theater, responded, “I’m a man just like you.”

At the next town, the driver summoned the police. They removed Woodard from the bus and beat him. The police officers repeatedly and viciously poked him in his eyes, leaving him blind.

President Truman upon learning about the beating and blinding of Sergeant Isaac Woodard, Jr. said, “I had no idea it was as terrible as that. We’ve got to do something”

Two years later, in 1948, many Southern states walked out of the Democratic National Convention over Truman civil rights policies. He replied, “You can always get along without the support of people like that.”

Sergeant John Rice

Then, in 1950, Sergeant John Rice, a Native American World War II veteran, was killed in action in Korea. He was denied burial in Sioux City, Iowa due to his race. Truman was outraged and arranged for his burial with honors in Arlington cemetery and sent a plane for his family. Truman’s official statement read: “The President feels that the national appreciation of patriotic sacrifice should not be limited by race, color, or creed.”

“ … when I say all Americans, I mean ALL Americans.” – President Harry Truman

Joseph Kennedy, Sr.

What happens when we intentionally avoid choosing the “right thing?” … Joseph Kennedy, the father of President John Kennedy was the U.S ambassador to the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1940, during the time of the rise of Hitler and Nazism. He was an isolationist, made false equivalencies, and argued with “whataboutisms.” He supported appeasement as Hitler invaded Austria, Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, Poland, Belgium, and France. During this time, he continued to discourage any potential aid from the United States to Britain, even as bombs were falling in London!

Joseph Kennedy wasn’t a secret Nazi, but he, like many men, wanted the problem NOT to be his. He was looking for a way NOT to care. To NOT get involved. To NOT have to risk anything.

In the end, his son, President John Kennedy was haunted by his father’s cowardice and his role in appeasing Hitler that led to World War II and the loss of his older brother who was killed in action. John Kennedy learned an important lesson from his father’s avoidance of the right thing!

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” – President Kennedy

Pastor Martin Niemöller

If injustice doesn’t affect you, why bother to pursue justice for others? Will you wait to do the right thing only when the time is right for you?  … In the 1920s and early 1930s, Pastor Martin Niemöller, a German theologian and Lutheran pastor, sympathized with many Nazi ideas and supported radical right-wing political movements.

After Adolf Hitler’s interference in the Protestant Church, Niemöller then became an outspoken critic of Hitler. He was imprisoned in Nazi prisons and concentration camps during the last eight years of Nazi rule, where he nearly died.

After World War II, he was asked how he could have been so self-absorbed during the rise of Nazism, so silent when it mattered, Niemöller answered, “I am paying for that mistake now, and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”  

He finally realized Germans had been complicit through their silence on the injustice perpetrated by the Nazis on "other" people  - it didn't "concern" them. Their silence resulted in the Nazi persecution, imprisonment, and murder of millions of people. He felt this was especially true of the leaders of the Protestant churches. Niemöller openly spoke about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.

In addition to the fascinating stories of historical figures, Right Thing, Right Now offers you an opportunity to look at yourself. The author asks some tough questions which may lead you to believe that the circle of your life may be too narrow, your heart too cold, and your character too small to see the injustice in your community and in our world. But he then goes on to give you hope that you, too, can be "a small light in a dark world."

The right time for me to read this book was right now! It was particularly good to read as the dark cloud of radical right-wing political rhetoric and unconstitutional acts seems to be increasing without any end in sight. “Freedom is essential … but the most essential freedom is the freedom from fear. Our job is to fight to ensure justice prevails – that the vulnerable are protected and can live without fear. Because they are us and we are them”. Every one of us can be courageous in our daily lives by choosing to do the right thing, right now.

“The Stoics never claimed that living justly was easy, only that it was necessary. And that the alternative—sacrificing our principles for something lesser—was considered only by cowards and fools.”