Novels of the American West

Western Novels

The Old West or the American West has captivated the imagination of readers since even before the Old West had entirely left the stage. (In some cases the myth of the Old West began to influence the way people actually behaved.) The myth rested on some factual foundation. Heroism, savagery, physical hardship, endurance, as well as the breaking of mind and spirit, and the clash of whites and natives all took place against a backdrop of the unparalleled natural beauty found in the western United States. The Old West produced enduring stereotypes, among them: the Cowboy, Lawman, Gunslinger, Gambler, Savage Indian (sometimes the Noble Savage). Take a peak at the list of historical figures at the nd of this post and you'll be surprised how many of them you recognize.

Americans are not alone in their love of the Old West fiction. Europeans, Germans in particular have a thirst for such yarns. (Max Brand, an amazingly prolific American writer and immigrant from Germany has enjoyed popularity in his homeland.) Max Brand Online is the Official web site owned by the writer's heirs.

The Wikipedia entry on the Western genre has some useful classifications.

See also, Wikipedia entry on Western fiction.

The Old West or Western genre covers a wide range of quality from pulp novels to literary works. I offer the following Westerns that I have enjoyed.

Early Days in Texas
Not Between Brothers by David Marion Wilkensen. My review.
From Publishers Weekly:


Spanning three decades in the early 19th century that saw the birth and early years of the Independent Republic of Texas, this well crafted, gripping first novel portrays three cultures-Mexican, white immigrant and Comanche-in bloody collision....Wilkinson is a gifted storyteller who brings Texas history to life with a tale rich in adventure and high emotions.


The Borderland : A Novel of Texas by Edwin Shrake

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. “Cormac McCarthy's nightmarish yet beautifully written adventure masterpiece” of the Texas borderland circa 1830.

“The novel recounts the adventures of a young runaway, the kid, who stumbles into the company of the Glanton Gang, outlaws and scalp-hunters who cleared Indians from the Texas-Mexico borderlands during the late 1840's under contract to territorial governors. Reinvisioning the ideology of manifest destiny upon which the American dream was founded, Blood Meridian depicts the borderland between knowledge and power, between progress and dehumanization, between history and myth and, most importantly, between physical violence and the violence of language.” From the official web page.



Many Westerns also include a good bit of humor:

Little Big Man (Panther) by Thomas Berger

Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser

The Ballad of Dingus Magee by David Markson. An example of “acid western”.

From New York Magazine: "Long before David Markson became critics’ favorite underrated writer of experimental fiction, he was a pulp novelist. This newly reissued 1966 Western is an outrageously ribald take on the genre (marred, unfortunately, by a subpar Frank Sinatra film that was later made of it). A sample sentence: “‘Nice to have you back, you double-dealing, women-and-children-terrifying dishonorable skunk,’ Hoke said, setting aside the pen.” Trust us: there’s a lot more where that came from."


 
Friends of pancho villa by James Carlos Blake. From my review: James Carlos Blake takes the reader through the Mexican Revolution (and civil war) beginning in 1910 when Rodolfo Fierro, the narrative voice, joins Pancho Villa's small gang during a train robbery. Villa's fortunes rise and fall rapidly and Fierro has the ultimate insider access. Thirteen years later political opponents ambush and gun down Villa, by then retired, on the streets of Parral.


In Blake's telling, Villa and his friends had a grand time fighting, drinking, dancing, screwing, and loving (except for Pancho who rarely drank - he seemed to get married instead). At times the book is laugh-out-loud funny, which is a bit disconcerting because the bodies are piling up quickly. The confrontation between the Scotsman William Benton and Villa is hilarious in a profane and violent way. Pancho and Rodlfo inhabit a brutally violent world that frequently turns murderous almost without warning.

One paragraph captures the sense of history, the humor, and Villa's somewhat vague political identity when Pancho describes the impact of his brief invasion of New Mexico. "From now on their books will have to say, 'Nobody ever invaded the United States except for Francisco Villa, the magnificent Mexican patriot who tried so hard to be our friend but who we treated so shamefully because we are such stupid sons of bitches and have no honor.' "

Realist portrayals:

The Big Sky by A. B. Guthrie Jr. Won the Pulitzer Prize in 1950.

Guthrie wrote the Big Sky in 1947 and then a sequel, The Way West in 1949 and a second sequel Fair Land, Fair Land in 1982.

Shadow Country (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Peter Matthiessen (actually on the frontier in Florida)

True Grit by Charles Portis.

Deadwood by Pete Dexter

The Last Crossing: A Novel by Guy Vanderhaeghe

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. If you enjoyed Lonesome Dove, I highly commend the other three books in that series: Streets Of Laredo : A Novel, Dead Man's Walk : A Novel, and Comanche Moon (Lonesome Dove)

Wikeipedia provides this handy summary of the Lonesome Dove books:

The order in which the books were written:

1. Lonesome Dove (1985)

2. Streets of Laredo (1993)

3. Dead Man's Walk (1995)

4. Comanche Moon (1997)

Chronology of Events

1. Dead Man's Walk

2. Comanche Moon

3. Lonesome Dove

4. Streets of Laredo



McMurtry also wrote a trilogy of Berrybender books:

The Wandering Hill: The Berrybender Narratives, Book 2 (Berrybender Narratives)

Sin Killer : The Berrybender Narrative, Book 1

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Americans are not alone in their love of the Old West fiction. Europeans, Germans in particular have a thirst for such yarns. (Max Brand, an amazingly prolific American writer and immigrant from Germany has enjoyed popularity in his homeland.) Max Brand Online is the Official web site owned by the writer's heirs.

Max Brand - King of Westerns: Frederick Schiller Faust Was a Prolific Author of Western Novels
by Matthew Pizzolato

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A web page with a list of the actual gunfights in the Old West.

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How many of these Old West historical figures do you recognize?

Billy the Kid

Buffalo Bill

Wild Bill Hickok

Judge Roy Bean

Jesse James

Bass Reeves

Frederic Remington

Annie Oakley

Butch Cassidy

Kit Carson

Bat Masterson

William Breakenridge

Alan Pinkerton

Will Rogers

Sam Bass

Calamity Jane

George Custer

Wyatt Earp

Black Bart

Bill Pickett

Belle Starr

Favorite Authors - One through Eight

I put this list of my favorite authors together a couple years ago. My only criteria then and now is that I really enjoyed the experience of reading the author's books. This installment includes eight such authors. I have left out Mark Twain because I figured "why bother to include one the Big Names?". But I may just rethink that thought.
Not really in any order:

1. Larry McMurtry fiction of the West, esp. the Old West & history of the same Lonesome Dove: A Novel by Larry McMurtry. His essays on NYRB. His archive page from NYT.

2. Alan Furst – “historical espionage novels” of the pre-WW Two era in Europe, esp. central Europe; Kingdom of Shadows by Alan Furst or Dark Star: A Novel. Impossible for me to choose a single favorite; only Foreign Correspondent and Dark Voyage disappointed (a little). New book in June 2010: Spies of the Balkans

Furst interview with Robert Birnbaum on Identity Theory web site.

Radio interview with Furst on KQED


3. Edmund Morgan – US colonial era historian - essays by Morgan at NYRB.

On TV wiith Charlie Rose on Ben Franklin.

One of my favorites: The Birth of the Republic, 1763-89 (The Chicago History of American Civilization) by Edmund S. Morgan



4. James McPherson US Civil War historian - He wrote the greatest single-volume history of the Civil War or any war or an era: Battle Cry of Freedom: The Civil War Era (Oxford History of the United States)

Amazon's James M. McPherson Page
McPherson continues to turn out quality and readable histories:

Book: Abraham Lincoln and the Second American Revolution

Book: Tried by War: Abraham Lincoln as Commander in Chief

Meet James McPherson at the NEH web site.

5 Questions for James McPherson (Pulitzer Prize-Winning Historian & Britannica Contributor) on Abraham Lincoln & His Legacy.

YouTube  Conversation with History at UC Berkeley



5. Edward Rutherfurd official site

Historical fiction epics of British Isles and elsewhere. I loved his books when I read them; not sure I would put him this high today if I was starting fresh - but then again I think I've read sarum three times!
My favorites:

Book: London: The Novel by Edward Rutherfurd

Book: Sarum: The Novel of England

Book: The Forest

6. Rose Macaulay – Makes my list on the strength of one book: The Towers of Trebizond with its famous opening line: "'Take my camel, dear,' said my Aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass." Famous First Words : NPR

Rose Macaulay - NYRB The NYRB page for The Towers of Trebizond



"The Towers of Trebizond" by Rose Macaulay - Salon.com “Dotty English eccentrics take a tour of Turkey in this delightful and long-forgotten 1956 satire -- which then takes an unexpected and sobering turn toward a crisis of faith.”



7. John Mortimer  Try any of the Rumpole of the Bailey series and  if you will soon swoon for the old darling as tweaks the pompous and defends the criminal accused. "Crime doesn't pay, but it's a living."

Book: The First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer

SALON Features: "Champagne for everyone!"

UK Guardian obit: Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer dies

Madeline Kahn interviews John Mortimer:

He has his own page on the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/john-mortimer

I’ve never read his Rapstone Chronicles books (Paradise Postponed & Titmuss Regained) – I tried one many years ago and it wasn’t to my taste at the time. Paradise Postponed (Rapstone Chronicles). 



8. John Biggins A Sailor of Austria: In Which, Without Really Intending to, Otto Prohaska Becomes Official War Hero No. 27 of the Habsburg Empire (The Otto Prohaska Novels) by John Biggins

Biggins wrote four marvelous books of historical fiction featuring Otto Prohaska, a Czech resident of the Austro-Hungarian Empire who serves on a submarine in its navy during WWI. Each book takes Otto to a different unexpected adventure. Oddly, it is hard to find much information about Biggins. Apparently the books did not sell all that well when originally published in the 1970s, but have been reissued by McBooks Press.

Check out the star ratings on Amazon: The people who read it, love it.

Tony Miksak's Words on Books as broadcast weekly on KZYX radio discusses John Biggins:

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Probables for the next installment:


9. George MacDonald Fraser

10. Patrick O’Brian

11. Gore Vidal

12. Paul Fussell

13. Arthur Conan Doyle

14. John Keegan

15. A.B. Guthrie

16. John Le Carre`

Favorite Detectives - Cops and PI's at War

This is the second installment in an occasional series listing my favorite detective fiction. This post is a sampling of detective fiction set in the midst of war. 


(The first post is here:Favorite Detectives - Introduction)

Favorite Detectives -

Cops and PI's at War

Former Berlin police detective and now private detective Bernie Gunther stars in Philip Kerr's trilogy Berlin Noir: March Violets; The Pale Criminal; A German Requiem.

The books may be found separately or as a compilation of all three books in Berlin Noir.

The opening book March Violets is set in the darkening days of Hitler's Germany; the 1936 Olympics are just coming to town. Kerr's protagonist, Bernard Gunther, is a private detective hired by a very wealthy conservative (i.e. non-Nazi) German industrialist to find out who murdered his daughter and her Nazi husband, burned down their home, and stole a diamond necklace from their safe. My review (permalink).
 
The Pale Criminal is set in 1938. Bernie has taken a partner in his PI business, but Nazi deputy chief Reinhard Heydrich wants Gunther to work for him to stop a serial killer who is murdering young blonde Aryan women. Back on the police force, Gunther is drawn into Heydrich's power struggle with Nazi chief Heinrich Himmler, an even more destructive human than Heydrich (Of course, Heydrich was assassinated in 1942 or he might have surpassed his boss).

(The title refers to Nietzsche's use of the phrase in Thus Spake Zarathustra A “pale criminal” has a particularly malevolent personality disorder.)

From Crime Scraps: "With such disgusting real life characters as Julius Streicher, Reinhard Heydrich, and Heinrich Himmler featuring in the narrative it is a bleak warning from history about what happens when the state does not just favour the criminal over law abiding citizens, but actually becomes the criminal."


A German Requiem  After the Nazi defeat, we find Bernie struggling to survive in post-defeat Berlin and Vienna. Gunther is hired (by a Russian colonel of intelligence) to go to Vienna  get his former Berlin police partner and now black marketeer Emil Becker off on charges of murdering a U.S. Counterintelligence Corps captain. Life is better in Vienna, but only comparison to Berlin. Gunther finds himself in the middle of a struggle amongst the Russians, two wings of the US military, a secret group of former Nazis, and the people of Vienna. Kerr excels at recreating the poisonous atmosphere of post-war Vienna.


Kerr returned to Gunther after a 15 year absence in THE ONE FROM THE OTHER. Here's a WAPO review  Link to the book at Powells:The One from the Other

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The Inspector Troy series is set in London with WW Two as a backdrop.

Second Violin: An Inspector Troy Thriller by John Lawton 


My review (permalink).
Second Violin is the sixth book in John Lawton's Inspector Troy series (see for example, Bluffing Mr. Churchill (Frederick Troy Novels)). The events in this book occur chronologically earlier than the previous books in the series. (For that reason, I read this book first, which may or may not be the best way to enjoy this book). The story begins in Austria with Hitler's Anschluss in 1938 and ends with the Battle of Britain in the autumn of 1940.

Frederick Troy is a sergeant in Scotland Yard's elite murder squad and Second Violin tells the reader how got there. Troy is the son of newspaper lord and Russian émigré Alexei Troy. He could have done anything (or nothing at all, for that matter), but he chose to become a beat cop. The denizens of Stepney Green, his patrol beat, see him as a toff out slumming.

Frederick Troy's brother, Roderick, is a foreign correspondent for their father's paper. He witnesses the horrible events of Kristallnacht in Austria before being put on a plane and sent packing by the Nazis. While brother Frederick is assigned police duty rounding up aliens for internment, Rod he finds himself more directly involved in the camps than anyone imagined possible. Freddie manages to take on a murder investigation when three rabbis turn up dead.

In perhaps the book's strongest element, Lawton examines the brutal treatment of Jews in Austria through one Josef Hummel, tailor, and the subsequent rounding up and internment of aliens, including not only Hummel, but also long-time London residents who turn out to have been born in a foreign country.

While I recommend reading this book and intend to read other books in the series, I cannot give Second Violin five full stars. Lawton jams too many disparate story lines and a few stand alone bits (like Sigmund Freud) that leave the reader feeling a bit disjointed. (I should also add that it may be that some of the things that seem like loose ends, but may not be so untidy if one has read the previous books in the series). I also found that reading this book made a nice companion for the most excellent Foyle's War: Set 1 (The German Woman / The White Feather / A Lesson In Murder / Eagle Day) TV series.

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A Small Death in Lisbon by Robert Wilson 

My review (permalink).

For much of the book A Small Death in Lisbon is like reading two novels. One book follows the investigation by Inspector Ze Coehlo into the 1990's murder and possible sexual assault of a 16-year old daughter of a powerful Portuguese lawyer. The other one is the tale of German businessman and SS supporter Klaus Felsen who is 'persuaded' to move to Portugal and obtain wolfram (tungsten) for the Nazi war effort. Great fortunes are amassed and powerful connections established.

Wilson sets his tale in 20th century European history. He covers aspects of WW II that were new to this reader and from a German and Portuguese perspective - also unusual - and the reign of the conservative dictator Salazar and the revolution of 1974. Portugal's development as a modern society provides the background for much of the story.

Both those stories are interesting in their own right, but meander along and the reader is left to wonder how the two stories could possibly come together. Finally about midway into the book the author drops a clue. Things begin to pick up.

I partially agree with another reviewer (who, unlike me, did not like the book): there is a lot of drinking, smoking, sex, and violence. The sex and violence passages are descriptive without quite being gratuitously graphic, in my opinion, but others will disagree. To each his own, but some readers may want to be aware of these elements.

I probably would have given the book four stars, but in the last 100 pages or so the twin stories crash together as the tale reaches an exciting and satisfying resolution. As I closed the book cover, I actually said 'wow, what a finish'.

Favorite Detectives - Introduction

Detective stories - mysteries, historical mysteries - are my favorite genre fiction, just ahead of historical fiction. Combining the two genres combined often works well and opens a broad field for storytelling. A historical mystery in the hands of a great writer is sublime.


I just finished a book in this category Morality Play by Barry Unsworth. My review:Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

Detective stories lend themselves to exploration of serious issues; for example, why do people behave the way they do, whether for good or ill or when is it morally sound to do a bad act for a good end. Detective stories can take place anywhere on Earth (or I suppose in the Universe, but I can't think of any sci-fi detectives) and at any time in history (or the future - as in the alternate history mystery Fatherland: A Novel (Mortalis) by Robert Harris).

And anyone can be a detective. And I do mean anyone - a Turkish eunuch, a Laotian coroner and a Russian nun to name three.

The master, of course, was Arthur Conan Doyle. You can buy the "complete" Holmes stories in several editions - none of which seem to be quite the same!

The Complete Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes is my preferred edition because it has Sidney Edward Paget's original illustrations that accompanied the stories in the 19th-century British magazine "The Strand."

Doyle did not invent the detective novel. That honor apparently belongs to the 1859 book The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins: Father of the Detective Novel.

The first detective short story was published in 1841 when Edgar Allan Poe introduced Monsieur C. Auguste Dupin in the short story The Murders in the Rue Morgue.

(Doyle also wrote several non-Holmes works of fiction that are well worth reading. In particular I recommend The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. Here is my review.

The Sherlock Holmes' character has been reborn time and again. My favorite Sherlock pastiche is set in Minnesota! Sherlock Holmes and the Ice Palace Murders: From the American Chronicles of John H. Watson, M.D. by Larry Millett.

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The next post will list some of my favorites in the detective mystery genre.

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

Morality Play by Barry Unsworth

My review:

Brilliant Literary Historical Fiction, January 15, 2010

By	Douglas S. Wood "Vicarious Life" (Monona, WI) - See all my reviews

Barry Unsworth writes literary historical fiction. Now there's a sentence that sounds as much like a challenge as a description, by which I mean his writing lifts the genre above clanging swords and abundant décolletage.

Morality Play is a murder mystery set in 14th century England. Our narrator Thomas is a Benedictine brother "outside his diocese without license"; enticed by the delights and promise of a spring day, he wandered off and is still wandering months later when he comes across a band of players in the woods arguing over what to do with a dead body. The dead body is not a murder victim, but rather a deceased member of the troupe.

After Thomas is allowed to join the players, they make their way to a nearby town. When the standard Play of Adam fails to fill the coffers, their poverty drives them to a startling innovation: they adapt the "morality play" and base it on real events, to wit a play based on a recent murder of a young boy by young woman. Medieval morality plays portrayed good versus evil with characters personifying attributes on one side or the other. Unsworth's play includes God, Mankind, Death, Devil, Justice, Good Counsel, and Truth to name some.

With only hours to prepare, the players must ad lib and they soon find that their assigned roles organically guide them toward a critical examination of the supposed facts of the crime. After the first performance the troupe spreads across the town to find out more for their evening's performance. Before all is said and done, they get very near the truth and find that they have mightily displeased the local lord.

Aside from giving the reader an interesting mystery, Unsworth also takes us literally backstage in the life and work of a traveling medieval theater group. He also convincingly recreates life and the social order of 14th century English town with the threat of plague and famine on Earth followed soon thereafter by hellfire. Unsworth's key insight, however, is found in his exploration of the way that roles can confine and define human behavior. Morality Play is a highly entertaining and stimulating read.

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Here's an interesting quiz by the same name.

Morality Play

1000 Novels to Read - Sci-Fi and Fantasy

From the Guardian's Series: 1000 novels everyone must read

Here are their sci-fi and fantasy entries.

CS Lewis: The Chronicles of Narnia (1950-56)
JRR Tolkien: The Hobbit (1937)
JRR Tolkien: The Lord of the Rings (1954-55)
Philip Pullman: His Dark Materials (1995-2000)
Terry Pratchett: The Discworld series (1983- )
Ursula K Le Guin: The Earthsea series (1968-1990)

Umm, aren't we missing a few things like, Asimov's Foundation series or his Robot series or Robert Heinlein or Dune or...Yeah, yeah, that little list above is just for works that create  "imagined worlds".

Oh, OK, here are links to the entire list of science-fiction and fantasy works:

• Science fiction & fantasy novels everyone must read (part one)
  
• Science fiction & fantasy novels everyone must read (part two)
  
• Science fiction & fantasy novels everyone must read (part three)
  

Wow, one title I did not expect to find here is Mikhail Bulgakov: The Master and Margarita (finally published in 1966, twenty years after he passed entirely out of the reach of Joe Stalin).


BTW, The Guardian has a book section that is simply smashing, even brilliant!

The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan Tao Yun) by Eliot Pattison

Below is my review of The Skull Mantra (Inspector Shan Tao Yun) by Eliot Pattison.

The Edgar Awards are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America. They honor the best in mystery fiction, non-fiction, television, film, and theatre published or produced in the previous year. The awards are technically the Edgar Allan Poe Awards.

Some Tibet info. Learn about gompas.


(Photo of the Potala Palace near Lhasa is from Pondstone Communications Blog)
Another review at:

BookLoons Reviews - Skull Mantra by Eliot Pattison

"I don't believe everything I read on a book's cover, but when the blurb on The Skull Mantra compares this thriller to greats like Gorky Park and Smilla's Sense of Snow, it's dead on. Pattison has written a remarkable first novel, which places an indomitable protagonist in the disturbing political setting of contemporary Tibet. Who hasn't heard of the plight of the Tibetan people after the brutal Chinese takeover with its erasure of ancient monasteries, genocidal treatment of monks and nuns, and forced labor camps?"

Get Advice on Guru Practice.


My review:

The Skull Mantra earned Pattison the 2000 Edgar Award for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. The story is set in contemporary Tibet. The mystery centers around the efforts of imprisoned former detective Shan Tao Yun to solve a string of murders of high-ranking Chinese officials. The powers-that-be are bent on pining the murders on several Tibetan Buddhist monks. When the headless body of the local prosecutor is discovered by Shan's prison labor gang, he is allowed to investigate the crime by Colonel Tan, the local ranking official. Having spent three years sharing close quarters with imprisoned monks, Shan is highly skeptical that a monk is behind this murder.

The lives of the Tibetan monks and all Tibetans under Chinese domination are Pattison's real focus. That focus raises this book above its rather convoluted and, shall we say, unlikely mystery (are disgraced Chinese detectives really given more-or-less free rein to investigate murders?). Pattison also explores beliefs of Tibetan Buddhists. The demon Tamdin is central to the story, but of greater interest we also learn about gompas, the fortress-like monasteries where traditional practices are studied and passed on; and we learn about gomchen or great meditators; and we learn about the painstaking creation of beautiful sand mandalas, which, once completed, are destroyed.

Pattison sheds light on the Chinese treatment of Tibet, and especially the Buddhist monks; the treatment seems to swing between bad and abhorrent. For example, Shan learns that during the Cultural Revolution the Red Guard seized and destroyed ancient Buddhist manuscripts and used the shreds to line their latrine. Tibetans have been killed or imprisoned, as well. The Chinese government has also drastically altered demographics by encouraging Chinese emigration to Tibet to an extent that Chinese are now a majority in Lhasa, the capital city. (The Chinese government disputes these claims.)

While the history and the mystery contribute to the book's value, its transcendental strength is the exploration of Buddhist spirituality. This element comes through not just through the monks' lives, but also through the changes in Shan and his two assistants/minders. The book could have used a bit tighter editing. Physical locations could have been more distinctly identified as it was sometimes difficult to know where things were happening. Pattison has written another five books in the Shan series and two more in a new series set in colonial America (Bone Rattler: A Mystery of Colonial America). The Skull Mantra gives readers a original and creative take on the detective mystery genre. Highly recommended.

My Reads 2009: Classic and Significant Books

For no particular reason, in 2009 I spent a significant chunk of my reading time catching up on some of those books that anyone who takes reading even a little bit seriously should read.

I term them Classics and Significant Books. The classics tag is, I think, self-explanatory. Significant books are books that have endured for at least several decades and remain noteworthy.

I'd like to add links, but the Internet is running in mud this morning. This page has my reviews on Library Thing.

1.    Heart of Darkness and The Congo Diary by Joseph Conrad. Conrad's semi-autobiographical journey up the Congo River. Coppola used it as the basis of his film classic Apocalypse Now.

2.    I, Claudius : From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54 (Vintage International) by Robert Graves.

3.    The Case of Comrade Tulayev (New York Review Books Classics) by Victor Serge.

4.    The First Rumpole Omnibus by John Mortimer. OK, I'm cheating a little here by including this volume in this list, but it's my list and I really love the Rumpole books.

5.    War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. This book is the major reason that my total number of books read was down from previous years! The new translation is the one to read. Yes, it is worth your time.

6.    The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. I re-read this book about every five years.

7.    Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding. I read this book as a freshman at the University of Illinois and it was one of those books that introduced an 18-year-old from Southern Illinois to a broader, deeper world of learning. Fielding also wrote the perhaps better known Tom Jones.

8.    The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. On one level, The Name of the Rose is a decent whodunit set in an isolated northern Italian medieval monastery. Mixed in with the mystery, however, are discursions in semiotics, hermeneutics, biblical analysis, religious debate, literary theory, and medieval history. And what would a medieval mystery be without the inquisition? I find Eco's tendency to show off a bit annoying, but the guy is Mr. Smarty Pants. My review.

Saw the movie before I read the book. Both are good. Each has a somewhat different ending. The movie is easier on the little gray cells.



Try this page for a more comprehensive list of Great Books.

Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery by Michael Gregorio

Critique of Criminal Reason: A Mystery by Michael Gregorio
 

Publisher's Weekly summary: "Philosophy professor Gregorio delivers a stellar debut, a mystery set in 1804 that cunningly incorporates the ideas of the great thinker Immanuel Kant into a twisty, fast-moving whodunit plot..... Admirers of quality intellectual fiction should embrace this book, with its pitch-perfect period detail and psychologically complex protagonist."


My review:

In the first book in this intelligent and fascinating series, the reader is quickly plunged into the midst 1803 investigation of a string of murders in Konigsberg, Prussia. Hanno Stiffeniis, a rural procurator, finds himself mysteriously and peremptorily ordered by King William III to report "with all haste" to the ancient city held in a "grip of terror".

Stiffeniis has been recommended to the King by an "imminent person", which turns out to be aged Immanuel Kant, whom he knows from a brief but intense meeting seven years earlier. Something about that meeting caused such concern that Kant's lawyer had written to Stiffeniis and demanding that he never communicate with the old philosopher again. Dark hints are dropped as well that Stiffeniis had a hand in his brother's untimely death.

Mystery swirls around the murders. Are they part of a Jacobin plot to destabilize the Prussian state? Or are the killings the work of a madman? Stiffeniis does meet, of course, with Kant who has also engaged the aid of a doctor engaged in paranormal "science" and primitive pathology. Does Kant really put stock in the doctor's hocus pocus wherein he appears to speak with the spirit of the most recently deceased victim? Has Kant's great mind finally broken under the strain of decades of heroic sustained effort? Has he suddenly changed his philosophical views on death's door?

Stiffeniis also has to struggle with the brutal methods of the Prussian military in handling his prisoners, but his own missteps lead to tragic results that pile one on top of another.

The identity and motive of the killer are well-hidden. Any number of characters seem like plausible candidates at one time or another: Stiffeniis's assistant, Kant's former assistant Martin Lampe, a luridly sensuous albino prostitute, and even Kant himself (!). Even once the murders are solved, the mystery concerning Stiffeniis's brother remains. His own parents turned bitterly and irredeemably against him, but why?

The book contains a number of historical characters in addition to Kant, including his lawyer Jachmann, and his former live-in aide Lampe, who really was fired about two years before Kant's death. The telling of the tale magnificently recreates the lost world of inflexible bureaucratic militaristic Prussia, the debauched denizens of an early 18th century port city's waterfront, the vast chasm of separating the well-to-do burghers from the multitudes living in Third World class poverty. The story also oozes appropriate amounts of creepiness.

Critique of Criminal Reason is an extremely well-written and intelligent murder mystery - but don't worry, you don't need to know Kant's philosophy to appreciate the story. Highest recommendation.

Other views below the jump.

Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen

"Shadow Country is altogether gripping, shocking, and brilliantly told, not just a tour de force in its stylistic range, but a great American novel, as powerful a reading experience as nearly any in our literature. This magnificent, sad masterpiece about race, history, and defeated dreams can easily stand comparison with Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Robert Penn Warren's All the King's Men. Little wonder, too, that parts of the story of E.J. Watson call up comparisons with Dostoevsky, Conrad, and, inevitably, Faulkner. In every way, Shadow Country is a bravura performance, at once history, fiction, and myth — as well as the capstone to the career of one of the most admired and admirable writers of our time." The New York Review of Books

NYT review:Shadow Country - Peter Matthiessen - Book Review - New York Times
LA Times review:'Shadow Country' by Peter Matthiessen - latimes.com

My review:

Shadow Country (Modern Library Paperbacks) by Peter Matthiessen

An American Epic of a Brutal Man and Place, December 30, 2009 Shadow Country is Peter Matthiessen's reworked rendering of his earlier trilogy of historical fiction relating the life of the brutal Florida pioneer Edgar J. Watson. (This version still consists of three "books" and runs to almost 900 pages. I did not read the earlier version and so cannot offer comparisons between the two.) Shadow Country is almost entirely set in the 1890's and early 1900's in a frontier region not widely known - the Ten Thousand Islands of south Gulf Coast Florida (the Everglades area). The area was absurdly remote at the time and presented such daunting challenges and dangers to any settlers that it was in fact nearly unsettled. And nearly all who did settle there were running or hiding from something, such as the law or deserted family members. Or they were just deeply anti-social. Aside from its remoteness, the area had almost nothing to recommend itself (I usually the qualified `almost nothing' in the vent that I think of some redeeming feature). It is brutally hot and humid, resistant to agriculture, possessed of dangerous animals (on sea and land), prone to calamitous storms, infested with mosquitoes, and inhabited by a large proportion of suddenly violent men as well as sociopathic criminals. This is the place Edgar J. Watson chooses to live. Within the first ten pages of Book One, the reader confronts this sentence: "Oh Lord God," she cries. "They are killing Mr. Watson!" (Killing off the main character in the opening pages of a 900-page work of fiction proves Matthiessen is either brave or foolish.) The story is told with a dozen different narrators recalling Watson's arrival and life in the islands. Matthiessen's remarkable ability to produce so many distinctive voices makes this book incredibly readable. These people can all tell a story (they are in good practice life on the islands providing so much idle time). Matthiessen does not, however, make them all tell the same story; differences of viewpoint produce a fascinating ambiguity. That Watson is an exceptional man is undoubted. Beginning with nothing, he manages to set himself up as a power to be reckoned with. He is also grandiose, violent, and merciless. But is he a murderer (several times over)? Opinions vary. He drinks too much. He loses what he has and what he wants and what he values. It is a hard life in a hard place. Edgar Watson was a hard man in dire need of some education and civilization, neither of which could be found in any quantity in the islands. Book Two traces the story of Lucius Watson's "obsessive quest for the truth about his father" (NYT Review). It is the 1920's and Lucius is writing a history of his father's life (he has a doctorate in history), traveling to courthouse archives and interviewing long-forgotten family members. But he also has "the list" of the armed men who gunned down the elder Watson. The list naturally makes people nervous and some of them are quite dangerous. Book Two reveals some fascinating history, including the mostly unsavory operation of the law in south Florida, such as sheriff's renting the labor of black inmates to business interests (and pocketing much of the money). For more on that practice see Douglas Blackmon's stunning new history Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Book Three presents Edgar himself as the narrator of his life story from a child in South Carolina to various stopping places in Florida, Arkansas, and finally the Thousand Islands. The brutality of his childhood, the ready violence of white men toward blacks and of his own father toward him, makes Edgar's later actions more understandable person, if not justified. He develops a rigid personal code that demands recompense in full for any slight. He attempts a justification that reveals some complexity and contradictions, but falls short of the mark. Shadow Country is an American epic of a mysterious historical character (yes, Edgar Watson really lived and died in the islands). The writing is at times exquisite. The story it tells is often brutal or just about plain hard life. The writing is compelling, the reading can be draining.