JP’s Book Report – March, 2024 Edition

Another month, another audiobook. Or in this case, eight of them. My night driving continues, as does my regular consumption of books being read to me by people, either obscure or famous. The famous ones can be an unexpected treat

First up: The Two Towers, J. R. R. Tolkien (1954). I began my Tolkien-fest with The Hobbit, then dove headlong into his Lord Of The Rings trilogy. There is a significant wait for audio versions on my local library’s website, so I opted to be patient. This one finally came up and I plowed in with relish.

I had never read the books, but had seen the Peter Jackson film series. I remembered that this, the middle part of the trilogy, was a grim story, and my experience with this book confirmed it. But, it must be darkest before dawn (he said in a great flourish of originality), which makes my anticipation of the final book all the sweeter.

The Pelican Brief, John Grisham, (1992). This was Grisham’s third novel. I had remembered watching the 1993 film that starred Julia Roberts and Denzel Washington quite a few years ago, but had forgotten the basic plot. It was a good story, and one that seems oddly current, with the story having begun with the assassination of two U. S. Supreme Court justices.

In the aftermath, a brilliant law student uses her free time to research every case currently on appeal in the Federal Court system (a sure way to tell this is fiction, says the long-ago former law student) and writes a memo with her theory of what happened. She gives the memo to the law professor with whom she is having an affair, who shares it with a friend at the Justice Department. Whereupon, (look at what a legal mood I find myself in) people connected with the document start dying as the ringleaders of the plot try to stave off discovery. The law student stays ahead of the assassins and the nefarious plot is eventually laid bare.

This Side Of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1920), was mentioned in a comment after a previous Fitzgerald book was read. This, Fitzgerald’s first novel, was a complete change of pace from anything by John Grisham. The story follows the life of a spoiled young man from childhood into the beginnings of an adult life, through the travails, fads and follies of his era. It is an interesting look into the end of Victorian culture in America and the stirrings of The Jazz Age.

Fitzgerald’s prose in much of the book is a proto version of snark, and it is easy to see why he was hailed as one of the new breed of important authors to read at the start of the 1920’s. As the youth ages and life gets more serious, the author’s tone changes and the protagonist becomes more earnest. That character (whom I found tiresome), Amory Blaine, gets a pass for his yearnings for Bolshevik socialism because those in his era had not watched it play out – which makes him different from the generations that followed who are still under that ism’s spell. He was, though, a polarizing character, who was either a standard bearer of the Jazz Age generation or a spoiled, amoral and conceited nitwit. That debate was going on in the book’s early years and still went on with me over a century after the book’s debut.

When I was preparing to write the post from a couple of weeks ago celebrating George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue, it occurred to me that I did not know much about the man. Summertime: George Gershwin’s Life In Music, Richard Crawford (2019) fixed that for me.

In contrast with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Amory Blaine, George Gershwin was both talented and a man who worked as hard as anyone in the field of music. After starting as a “song plugger” for a New York music publisher, he began writing hit songs, and then full Broadway shows, often with his brother Ira as his lyricist-partner. Gershwin’s talent and drive also took him into the world of serious music, which began with Rhapsody in Blue (1924) and culminated in America’s first folk opera, Porgy and Bess (1935). At this point in time, I would argue that the greatest songs in the “Great American Songbook” were written by either Cole Porter or by George & Ira Gershwin. Sadly, Gershwin died at 38 years old following surgery for a brain tumor.

I had not dipped into film noir source novels for awhile, and tried A Kiss Before Dying, Ira Levin (1953). This was Levin’s first novel, and he would go on to write quite a few more that were turned into films, with Rosemary’s Baby, The Stepford Wives, and The Boys From Brazil being two notable examples.

I had seen the 1953 movie made from this book, which starred a young Robert Wagner as Bud Corliss. Corliss was a selfish and amoral man (this was certainly a month for amoral characters for me) whose plan for success in life involved marrying a rich daughter of a large copper company. At first, I was disappointed because the book closely tracked a movie I had seen, but then things diverged and got more interesting. Corliss got daughter no. 1 pregnant, so he was forced to kill her because her father would never approve. Then daughter no. 2 wound up dead investigating her sister’s death. Was Corliss involved? I’ll never tell. And certainly it was coincidence that he was in love with and on the verge of marrying daughter no. 3. He had a brief relationship with karma at the end, which ended poorly for him.

I had known for years that early 20th century author Booth Tarkington was a native son of Indianapolis. His first Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Magnificent Ambersons, was on hold at my library, so I chose his second Pulitzer Prize winner, Alice Adams, (1921) Tarkington was kind of the opposite of F. Scott Fitzgerald, as a man who mourned the passing of the Victorian age in favor of something new and coarse, which was creating a world he did not really recognize.

The story is about a lower middle class family in a midwestern city that is almost certainly Indianapolis of a century ago. The father is a plodding clerk, the son runs with a fast crowd, and both mother and daughter seek status far above their social station. It was made into a movie in 1935, which was an early vehicle for Katherine Hepburn. I found the book more enjoyable in the way that it gently skewered those with social pretentions but lauded values of an older generation, like honesty, integrity and kindness. Tarkington has gone out of style among literary people, but his point of view is one that has some staying power if you don’t seek to be seen as one of the cool people.

Ernest Hemingway was definitely one of the cool people in his time. It was one of his books that was the first thing I read for an assignment in high school that, upon finishing it, thought to myself “Wow, that was a really great read!” It has probably been fifty years since I first read The Old Man And The Sea, (1952), and this audio version (read by Donald Sutherland) did not disappoint.

It is a simple story of an aging fisherman from a poor Cuban village who goes out into deep water after many days of coming home with an empty boat. It is a simple story of a simple man, but one that is genuinely engaging. The old man is alone with his thoughts, but Hemingway takes us all along for the ride, and what a ride it turns out to be. If you have never read this short novel, you simply must do so.

This final selection was one that I stumbled upon via my library’s website – Killers Of The Flower Moon: The Osage Murders And The Birth Of The F.B.I., David Grann (2017). This is a non-fiction telling of a series of seemingly unrelated killings in Oklahoma in the 1920’s. The Osage tribe had been driven into a rocky corner of that state by the U. S. Government around the turn of the last century. But through a combination of good luck and good negotiation, the Osage specifically retained mineral rights in an area that turned out to be one of the richest oil fields in the first third of the twentieth century.

The problem was that all of that money drew people who tried to get it. Because oil rights could only transfer by inheritance, all kinds of fraud ensued, as did murder. The book is written in three main segments: 1) The story of the murders and the situation that led to them, 2) the story of the F. B. I.’s first major case after J. Edgar Hoover took charge of that bureau, and 3) the stories of other deaths and other crimes that the F.B.I.’s investigation missed or otherwise failed to solve, for a variety of reasons. It was an excellent choice to keep me company over a few dark nights on the road.

I know, I know – you saw nothing from my bookshelf of classics that are demanding to be read. Progress on that front will be seen next month. And I am now working off of several lists for inspiration, including one that I am finally making from reader suggestions. The only problem is that I am not likely to live for the additional ninety years that it will probably take me to read everything I will want to read, even at this pace. Oh well, first world problems.

29 thoughts on “JP’s Book Report – March, 2024 Edition”

  1. This sounds like a very good list, although I have read none of these. 

    With your consuming these via audio, I would imagine the quality of the narrator (as well as their voice and intonation) has a huge influence on how well the story is told and how well it is appreciated. Narration certainly seems to add another layer to the overall experience. 

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • You remind me of a big irritation when I listened to Alice Adams. The female narrator had a generic non-accent, until she read dialog, when she gave all of the characters a distinct southern accent. Booth Tarkington was a native Hoosier and placed his characters in what was almost certainly Indianapolis. Indianapolis of 1920, which was before the great southern migration really got underway, was absolutely not a place where southern accents predominated. We have always turned our “ings” into “in’s” (like turnin’ nothin’ into somethin’), but it is done without a twang or drawl. It probably grated on me so much because this was one book that was absolutely about the people in my area, and the reader had no clue about how people in my area talked.

      Like

      Reply

      • Now, you have reminded me…..

        Years ago I took a two week radio/tv/film class at the university in Terre Haute (ISU? I don’t remember). Anyway, one of the professors was discussing accents and dialects. He said the industry standard, average American English accent (or, rather, lack thereof) for the United States was found in Indianapolis. He said that was the sound emulated by most actors in film and announcers on radio.

        So the narrator definitely missed the target it sounds.

        Liked by 1 person

  2. Great review of This Side of Paradise, and you can see why it was being read across the age groups, by both college kids of that age that identified with the character, and parents, who were trying to figure out what happened to their kids! What’s amazing to me is how many first novels by now famous writers through the ages, covers the same ground. I once put together a reading list for a friends kid going off to college, that included almost every writer I could think of from the 20’s to the 80’s whose first novel covered the “coming of age” angst. Also read The Flower Moon when it first came out and found it sad and riveting. As if we haven’t done enough to the First Nations people.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I thought later that This Side of Paradise, Alice Adams and Flower Moon were all about America in the 1920’s, but may as well have been about three different worlds. Fitzgerald wrote about the young fast (and often monied) crowd, Tarkington wrote about the lower middle class of the conservative midwest, and Flower Moon dealt with Oklahoma’s culture of cowboys and the Osage. It was really interesting to get to compare and contrast them in such a short time.

      Like

      Reply

      • J.P., if you want to add another viewpoint to your literary travelogue of the 1920’s, I can highly recommend Sinclair Lewis’s Main Street. Published in 1920. I heard about it for years, and never read it until about 2010, and even in this day, it pretty much accurately describes the small mindedness and stifling atmosphere of small to medium size Midwestern towns. Since Lewis was from Sauk Centre Minnesota, he was pretty much describing what he knew, and it pretty much exists similarly today! I think the story was, he won a Pulitzer for it, but the organization refused to give it to him; later on, when another of his books won, he refused to pick it up!

        Liked by 1 person

      • I always confuse him with Upton Sinclair, who wrote “The Jungle”. A selection from next month made several mentions of Lewis, who was well-known for his progressive/liberal/leftist sensibilities and views. I would like to read something by him, if for no other reason than to form my own opinion about his writing, especially with a century of hindsight. Another possibility among his output being “Babbitt”. I am curious to decide if he writes about those places’ stifling atmosphere, or if he is one of those who would consider everywhere outside of the Greenwich Village of his era to be stifling in that way.

        Like

      • J.P. You’re killing me! The Upton Sinclair / Sinclair Lewis thing is a forever confusion for me. I can’t tell you how many times I recommended Main Street by Upton Sinclair!

        Liked by 1 person

  3. Hi. I’ve thought about re-reading The Old Man, which I read 40 or more years ago. But I read Hemingway’s To Have Or Have Not a year or two ago, and didn’t think too much of it. It’s great that audio books have become very popular. They originally were made for blind people, I think.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I remembered reading another novel or two by Hemingway back in my high school days many moons ago, and those books had very little effect on me. Even then, Old Man stood out, possibly because it was so short. It also occurs to me that it is perhaps the most masculine book I have ever read, without a single female character to be seen.

      And yes, it is amazing the selection out there.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • I don’t think I have ever seen the Spencer Tracy movie – which is odd because I have watched a lot of movies of that era, and Tracy is a favorite of mine. And yes, a guy has to do something when he is alone in a vehicle for 60 hours a week, and it might as well be books. I may really up my game when it comes to crossword puzzles, with all of this new literary exposure. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  5. I only have read two on your list his month, The Two Towers and The Old Man and the Sea. I really didn’t care too much for the whole Lord of the Rings trilogy and thought it was kind of plodding and could have been edited to one book. I hated The Old Man and the Sea and cannot see why Hemingway is such a big deal. But I like (fresh) Circus Peanuts candy, too.

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    • I can see your point on the LOTR trilogy, but then I am not through it yet. I am coming at it with the mindset that the slow pace and heavy detail is kind of an old-school luxury in which time is of less importance.

      That is interesting that you hated Old Man, and also interesting what makes anyone hate one book and really like another. I guess the Circus Peanuts thing explains it as well as anything else might. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

    • Herb, interestingly enough, Hemingway and Fitzgerald had an acrimonious relationship that could only be described today as “frenemies”. Fitzgerald thought Hem was a up and comer, and recommended Hemingway to his editor at Scribners, and it was a battle back and forth from then on, with Hemingway taking every opportunity to dis Fitz whenever he could, even tho they hung out socially. To your point, I’ve never been a fan of Hemingway either (a little too much of the “thrust and poke” macho braggadocio), and generally, those who follow twenties literature either like Fitzgerald, or Hemingway, but rarely both. They are entirely different writing styles and sensibilities. Hem is considered in some sense, the beginning of the end of the bull-roar macho poser, and Fitz is considered the dawn of the love-lorn poetic metro- sexual.

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

  6. I feel better that I am more familiar with this list than I usually am with reading lists! I enjoyed reading (e.g., The Two Towers), watching (e.g., Flower Moon) or both (e.g., the Pelican Brief) of many of these. I love how you multi task. I am a big fan of that skill.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  7. I’m not into audio books, but do read up a storm when we are snowbirds in AZ! Our community has a really good little library and the gym is right next door – so I can multi-task on the stationary bike!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  8. You sure are plowing through these books JP. I did read and see “The Pelican Brief” but had forgotten the plot of the movie. “Alice Adams” sounds interesting to me; I’m going to jot down that name. I think the only book by Hemingway I’ve read is “For Whom the Bell Tolls” and was required reading for school. I sure hope to get back on the track for reading again. I have about five years of AARP magazines to read first.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • I don’t think I have ever read an AARP magazine, although they show up here too. It is funny how many audiobooks I can plow through, but how far behind I am on reading everyone’s blogs!

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • I’m going to try and leaf thru those AARP magazines this year as part of my massive decluttering effort, so I can get back to reading books. A fellow blogger from Wales that I follow is nearly blind. She writes about life with a seeing eye dog and their adventures. She has a machine that is able to “read” our posts and she responds to them. Pretty amazing.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. I’m going to assume your review of “The Pelican Brief” is a thumbs-up recommendation, because the timing couldn’t be better. I just finished “The Associate’, which was a nice dip back into Grisham after a long time away, and I’m looking for another. I started the sequel to “The Firm” but gave up because I kept picturing Tom Cruise instead of a character of my own imagination. On the other hand I never saw “The Pelican Brief” so I won’t picture Julia Roberts (much as I’d like to). Also, thanks for the push to read “The Old Man and the Sea”. Like Grisham, it’s a no-excuses choice to get back in touch with an author I put down a long time ago.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    • Old Man is a great read because it is so short, if for no other reason. I read other Hemingway books in my school years and don’t recall any of the others hitting me the same way. But I may try another to see how I like it as an adult.

      Your problem with Tom Cruise as The Associate was the same problem I had with A Kiss Before Dying – I kept seeing Robert Wagner as Bud Corliss. That receded a bit as the book’s plot diverged from that of the movie I had seen, but it was still there.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

      • You just reminded me of “Tortilla Flat” by John Steinbeck. I read it back in high school, and not as an assignment. When my friends asked me why, I said I wanted to be able to claim I read something by Steinbeck. I suspect his more popular books (“The Grapes of Wrath” et al) are quite a bit longer.

        Liked by 1 person

Leave a reply to Quippery Cancel reply