Strange Fixations

Confederates in the Attic: 

Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War 

by Tony Horwitz

“There are people one knows and people one doesn't. One shouldn't cheapen the former by feigning intimacy with the latter.”   ― Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War

While I first read this book more than a decade ago I still remember it vividly, if for no other reason than the cover art, which I consider to be one of the most hideous of any book that I have read. Fortunately I did not let that stop me and inside I found a delicious mix of cultural history, personal reminiscence and odd, but true (I believe) miscellany about people who are fixated on the Civil War era.

The discussion of the Japanese people's fascination with Gone With the Wind was one of the oddest episodes. They visit Atlanta, Georgia as a result of their fixation, where they are known to look up Tara's location because they appear to believe that there must be a genuine Tara behind the novel. In that much of the book has a similar eccentricity, it reminds me of Louis Theroux's The Call of the Weird: Adventures in American Subcultures. Horwitz definitely looks for strange and perhaps undesirable elements to interview, such as the insane biker bar. There was an insightful conversation with Shelby Foote, and I ended up appreciating a particular pro-Southern viewpoint (even if I disagree with it).

Since the memories of the persons interviewed are fading and times are continuing to change, the book may have lost part of its value with time. It's much more entertaining because the book almost reads like a picaresque novel or anthology of short stories. It might be seen as a snapshot of the 1990s' zeitgeist in regard to the Civil War. The Civil War re-enactors are a genuinely odd breed, yet their fervor for the time period makes them endlessly fascinating. It was enjoyable to read.

An Independent Epic

Independent People 

by Halldór Laxness

“This was the first time that he has ever looked into the labyrinth of the human soul. He was very far from understanding what he saw. But what was of more value, he felt and suffered with her. In years that were yet to come, he relived this memory in song, in the most beautiful song this world has known. For the understanding of the soul's defencelessness, of the conflict between the two poles, is not the source of the greatest song. The source of the greatest song is sympathy.”   ― Halldor Laxness, Independent People

In this novel Halldor Laxness narrates the struggle with modernity of an Icelandic sheep farmer while creating in his protagnist, Bjartur of Summerhouses, a heroic character whose life mirrors the growth of Iceland itself as it enters the twentieth century.

In his attempt to live freely, poor sheep farmer Bjartur of Summerhouses living in rural Iceland faces a life of misery and a never-ending battle for existence. Bjartur always puts forth a lot of effort, yet he is beholden to others, endures severe treatment, and is forced to work in appalling conditions. He finally accumulates sufficient funds to purchase some land in a distant region of Iceland, where he starts a new life as a sheep farmer. He weds a local woman named Rosa, who has a daughter named Asta Sollija who, as Bjartur soon learns, is the offspring of a different man. Rosa passes away after delivery, but Bjartur raises the infant as his daughter and adores her.

“It's a useful habit never to believe more than half of what people tell you, and not to concern yourself with the rest. Rather keep your mind free and your path your own.”

Bjartur finally gets remarried, has three boys, and carries on with his menial existence. He endures suffering as he battles the land; he loses one son when he immigrates to America, another dies, and he rejects his daughter and exiles her from Summerhouses when she gets pregnant at the age of 15. Despite his struggles, Bjartur perseveres and manages to live freely until Summerhouses are no longer able to support him. Then, he decides to stop raising sheep and obtain a loan for summerhouses. He makes amends with his daughter, moves farther north, and resumes his hard life.

“Presently the smell of coffee began to fill the room. This was morning’s hallowed moment. In such a fragrance the perversity of the world is forgotten, and the soul is inspired with faith in the future…”

This summary doesn't do Bjartur's story justice because his novel also combines the supernatural with the natural struggle for survival, shows how man is constantly at odds with nature, and most importantly, considers the effects of one man's desire for independence on his life, his family, and the world around him. I've found that Laxness' lyrical prose and epic scope of narration compare well to those of Rolvaag's Giants in the Earth and Hamsun's Growth of the Soil. 

I must conclude with the author's comments on the importance of books: "books are the nation's most precious possession, books have preserved the nation's life through monopoly, pestilence. and volcanic eruption, not to mention the tons of snow that have lain over the country's widely scatteed homesteads for the major part of every one of its thousand years." (p 314)

The World of the Kabbalah

The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon 

by Richard Zimler

“God comes to each of us in the form we can best perceive Him. To you, just now, He was a heron. To someone else, He might come as a flower or even a breeze.”   ― Richard Zimler, The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon

In the novel The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon, which is set during the Lisbon Massacre of April 1506, the reader is transported into the mysterious world of kabbalah. A few years prior, Portuguese Jews were coerced into becoming Christians and brought to the baptismal font. Many of these "New Christians" conducted their rituals in secret and at considerable peril, while the kabbalists' secret, mysterious rites also persisted.

Berekiah Zarco, a youthful manuscript illuminator, was one of these hidden Jews. He seeks the assassin of his adored uncle Abraham, a renowned kabbalist found dead in a secret synagogue along with a young girl in deshabille, driven by love and retribution. Berekiah searches for answers among Christians, New Christians, Jews, and his uncle's fellow kabbalists, risking his life in dangerous alleys as they alternately illuminate and obscure the path to the truth he seeks.

The world of sixteenth century Lisbon and the Jewish Kabbalah comes to life in this historical mystery. The young manuscript illustrator, Zarco, is effectively portrayed as he attempts to find out who killed his uncle. His search takes him into the world of Kabbalists and with it brings the reader into a world of secret languages and codes. It was an award winner for best First U.S. historical mystery of the year and I agree that it gives the reader a flavor for a very different time and place. Anyone who has enjoyed Arturo Perez-Reverte or Umberto Eco will like Zimler's suspenseful tale.

Losing a Family in History

Leopoldstadt 

by Tom Stoppard

Here’s a couple waving goodbye from the train, but who are they? No idea! That’s why they’re waving goodbye. It’s like a second death, to lose your name in a family album.”   ― Tom Stoppard, Leopoldstadt

This play is both a historical and philosophical drama as well as a highly personal challenge from Stoppard, who didn't discover that he was Jewish until his 50s when a distant cousin got in touch with him. The author appears to make up for lost time with Leopoldstadt, a first-rate, epic, and impassioned declaration of his own origins. He asserts that forgetting one's forefathers is tragic in and of itself. To lose your name in a family album, as one character puts it, "is like a second death."

It is yet another play by Tom Stoppard that impressed me with its erudition and singular structure. But there was an undercurrent of emotion that built over the length of reading the play that overwhelmed me by the final scene. So many of the family members had succumbed to tragic ends over the course of the family history that there was a  nostalgia of lives lived that was was dressed in the end with widows' weeds of death.