September Booknotes

 

“Books are time travel and space travel and mood-altering drugs. They are mind-melds and telepathy and past-life regression." - Toni Jordan

Atomic Bomb Book Trifecta – These three books about nuclear war are not listed in alphabetical order but rather in chronological order. Beginning in 1914, with what many people believe is the genesis of the idea of atomic weapons, H.G. Wells’ The World Set Free. Like his other futurist science fiction, this is his prophetic vision of atomic war published before nuclear fission was discovered in late 1938. 

Then moving forward in time to 1940 – 1945, The Devil Reached Toward the Sky is an engrossing oral history of the development of the atomic bombs. Finally, Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War describes the experiences of the victims of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki on that day and for the rest of their lives.

Fiction: Science Fiction

The World Set Free by H.G. Wells (published in 1914)

The World Set Free first spoke of the possibility of creating an atomic bomb. Prior to World War I, Wells predicted nuclear warfare years before official research began. He explains his vision of the chain reactions involved and the resulting radiation. Wells’ weapon has enormous destructive power and is dropped from airplanes wiping out everything for miles. He even used the term "atomic bombs."

“The atomic bomb flashed blinding scarlet in mid-air, and fell, a descending column of blaze eddying spirally in the midst of a whirlwind. Both the aeroplanes were tossed like shuttlecocks, hurled high and sideways … When he could look down again it was like looking down upon the crater of a small volcano. In the open garden before the Imperial castle a shuddering star of evil splendor spurted and poured up smoke and flame towards them like an accusation. They were too high to distinguish people clearly or mark the bomb’s effect upon the building until suddenly the facade tottered and crumbled before the flare as sugar dissolves in water.”

Wells goes on to describe the incredible political power mankind would obtain with the creation of nuclear weapons, but also the inevitable moral questions that would accompany the use of such weapons. This book may have been at least part of the original inspiration for the development of atomic weapons, as well as presenting many other ideas including a one-world government Wells called The World Republic, that will attempt to end all wars. While the League of Nations and United Nations have attempted to end all wars, war still exists. Meanwhile, atomic weapons are here to stay and could be used at any time.

“The power of destruction which had once been the ultimate privilege of government was now the only power left in the world--and it was everywhere.”- H.G. Wells

Nonfiction: History, World War II, Science, Atomic Warfare

TheDevil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb by Garrett M. Graff

Written by the author of The Only Plane in the Sky (an oral history of the September 11, 2001 attacks), The Devil Reached Toward the Sky is another excellent, “must-read” book! “Enriched by memoirs, diaries, letters, official documents, and news reports, this is an immersive and deeply human account of the then-secret Manhattan Project through the end of World War II and the dawning of the Cold War, capturing the scientific breakthroughs, military decisions, and profound ethical dilemmas that emerged from using nuclear weapons.”

 “The Atomic bomb is not an inhumane weapon. I think our best answer to anyone who doubts this is that we did not start the war, and if they don’t like the way we ended it, to remember who started it.” – General Groves

Most Americans are familiar with the movie Oppenheimer. This book goes into and way beyond his story. Drawing from over twenty-five oral history archives across the United States, Japan, and Europe, Graff has masterfully blended the memories and perspectives from key figures like Harry Truman and J. Robert Oppenheimer, the crews of the B-29 bombers (Enola Gay and Bock’s Car), and the haunting stories of those at ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

“It is not the scale of destruction that gave war a new dimension with the introduction of the atom bomb; what was new was the ease with which the weapon can be used … and therefore the terrible responsibility it would impose on the political and military leaders who would have to decide whether and when to use it.” - Rudolf Peierls

The Devil Reached Toward the Sky is a vivid, multi-dimensional view of events that reshaped the world. If you want to grasp the full impact of the atomic bomb on history and the enduring questions it raises about using such destructive power, this is an essential read.  

The last quote in the book: “Albert Einstein: I do not know how the Third World War will be fought, but I can tell you what they will use in the Fourth – rocks.”

Nonfiction: History, Atomic Warfare

Nagasaki: Life After Nuclear War by Susan Southard

“Most Americans still frame nuclear war as a terrifying potential event rather than a past actuality with historic and scientific value.”

In the late morning of August 9, 1945, three days after the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, the people of Nagasaki moved through another day of hunger and wartime routine. At 11:02 a.m. a brilliant flash illuminated the sky, followed by an explosion equal to 21,000 tons of TNT. With searing heat and an annihilating force that defies imagination, the blast tore through factories, shops, and homes, carrying unprecedented levels of radiation that penetrated the bodies of people and animals. Approximately 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 were wounded.

For much of the world, the United States’ 1945 atomic bombings of Japan represented an end to a long and costly global war. But for tens of thousands of survivors who barely escaped death beneath the mushroom cloud, their new lives as hibakusha (atomic bomb–affected people) had just begun.

Nagasaki takes us on the astonishing journeys of five survivors, all teenagers at the time of the bombing. We learn how they and hibakusha across the city navigate an uncertain future with painful, disfiguring injuries, acute and late-onset radiation-related illnesses, and haunting fears that they would pass on genetic disorders to their children and grandchildren. In a remarkable demonstration of human resilience, a small number of hibakusha made the very personal choice to speak out about their experiences, even as U.S. policies kept their suffering hidden in both in their own country and throughout the world. The survivors’ goal: To ensure that Nagasaki remains the last atomic-bombed city in history.

Not wanting to be drawn into the game of blame and counter-blame which still accompanies historical discussions about World War II, Southard brings the hibakusha stories to life through face-to-face interviews; photographic portraits from youth to old age; as well as family histories; media interviews; and official and private publications.

It took thousands of survivors’ accounts, movies, and books to counter the Holocaust denial. These five survivors perceive that the same counter-narrative is needed before the atom-bombed cities are lost in the “hole of history.” For them there is no enemy apart from war itself; they want to promote a 21st century which is based on compassion and sensitivity rather than self-destruction.

Related Booknotes: Quakers, Krishna, and ICBMs (May 2024)

Related Blog Post: They Thought the War Was On (Oct 2022)

Related Blog Post: Time Is Running Out … (Nov 2020)

Other books I read this month …

Nonfiction: Medicine, Science, Memoir

Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life by Louise Aronson

Last month I read Super Agers which was a digest of the most recent research into aging and health. This month I read Elderhood in which noted Harvard-trained geriatrician Louise Aronson uses stories from her quarter century of caring for patients, and draws from history, science, literature, popular culture, and her own life to “weave a vision of old age that's neither nightmare nor utopian fantasy--a vision full of joy, wonder, frustration, outrage, and hope about aging, medicine, and humanity itself.” It’s a book that tackles why aging must be understood and redefined and why the medical establishment’s usual goals of saving lives and curing disease are misplaced and ill-advised in many older patients.

Dr. Aronson makes many excellent points including these:

• There is a supremacy of bureaucracy over human decency and good medical care.

“Our insurance systems reimburse generously for chemotherapy but little for conversations of patient values and goals and wishes for end-of-life care, and nothing for the time a doctor spends figuring out how to get diapers and a commode for his patients with end-stage cancer.”

• Being “old” should not be classified as 65+. People in the Third Age of life (the young-old) have vast differences in health, activities and consumer roles. They are very distinct from the “old-old” who are truly infirm and dependent.

“There are six conditions participants in a recent study identified as worse than death: bowel and bladder incontinence, the inability to get out of bed, and needing around-the-clock care.”

• Pharmaceutical trials focus mostly on middle-aged, not elderly, targets. As a result, the side effects in the elderly are often minimized or glossed over entirely.
• It is easier for the elderly to get a cochlear implant than a hearing aid or laser treatments instead of eyeglasses. Yet a simple “fix” can do wonders by providing the elderly with a healthier, fully engaged life.

“The most fundamental consideration must be the moral one: Will we treat all human beings as human beings regardless of differences, or treat some as lesser beings? The unattainability of absolute equality is no excuse for the ruthlessness devaluation of individuals or social groups.”

• Successful aging is possible for those who do not perceive meaning in aging itself, but instead, perceive meaning in being themselves in old age. Adaptability and self-acceptance are key.

“Events are judged not on their entirety but on their moments of peak intensity and on their endings. And what is life but a long, messy, awful, wonderful event? Elderhood is life’s final act; what it looks like is up to us.”

Elderhood is for anyone who is aging – which is every human being! It is an empathetic look at a vital but often disparaged stage of life.

Nonfiction: Memoir, Literary Criticism

A Jane Austen Education: How Six Novels Taught Me About Love, Friendship, and the Things That Really Matter by William Deresiewicz

Initially this book looks like a literary criticism, and in a way it is. But it’s more of a memoir - a memoir that uses literary criticism as a vehicle for explaining the author’s moral and intellectual development during his young adulthood.

Deresiewicz, now a professor of English, introduces himself as an obnoxious grad student, superior, cocky, self-involved, and a hater of Jane Austen without ever having read her work. But then he’s required to read Emma for a class, and something happens to him. The story of the superior, cocky, and self-involved heroine allows him to see himself for the first time. He learns he doesn’t know everything and needs to pay attention to the little things in life.

He then goes on to read more of Jane Austen and discovers even more “life lessons.”

• Pride and Prejudice: “Making mistakes is the only way to grow up. Being right might get you a pat on the head, but being wrong can help you find out who you really are.”
• Northanger Abbey: “We can never reach the end of what’s inside us, never know the limit of our own potential.”
• Mansfield Park: “People’s stories are the most important thing they have, and paying attention to those stories is just about the most important thing you can do for them.”
• Persuasion: “A true friend points out your mistakes – even at the risk of losing your friendship.”
• Sense and Sensibility: “Of all Austen’s beliefs about love, the hardest one to accept was this: not everyone is capable of it.”

If you are a Jane Austen fan you may already believe everything worth knowing about life and love can be learned in a Janes Austen novel. Deresiewicz thinks so, too. He soundly reaffirms this opinion that the world would be a better place if everyone just paid attention and listened to Jane Austen.

I found this book to be an entertaining and at times moving book. By focusing on the "subtleties of everyday life" in Austen's work, Deresiewicz demonstrates the power of literature to help us evaluate our own lives.

Reading Across the Seas Book Club: Tunisia

A Tunisian Tale: A Modern Arabic Novel by Hassouna Mosbahi, Max Weiss (Translator)

This unconventional novel explores the darker side of modern Tunisian society.

A man spreads rumors about a widowed mother's moral character among the people of a slum on the outskirts of Tunis. The slum is filled with migrants who have come to the city from the rural villages in search of a better life. Hearing the rumors about his mother, her twenty-year-old son takes matters into his own hands and commits an unspeakable crime.

A Tunisian Tale is disturbing as it alternates between the unrepentant sociopath son as he sits on death row and his murdered mother in the afterlife. The son guides us through his juvenile exploits and twisted memories. He also retells a Tunisian fairy tale as if he was the “hero” in the tale and in real life. Meanwhile the murdered mother calmly gives an account of her interrupted life from beyond the grave.

This novel reminds me of Camus' The Stranger (which I read in May) which is also a “modern classic” about an unrepentant sociopath. However, A Tunisian Tale focuses on the Tunisian culture’s obsession with women’s “honor.” This is not an uplifting tale. It is a book about shameful behavior towards women. As the son says, “People in my country say that it’s better for a person to live as a rooster for just one day than to be a chicken for an entire year.”

I am left with this thought, "The books that the world calls immoral are books that show the world its own shame" – Oscar Wilde