Friday, July 24, 2020

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie ****

Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie is a Hercule Poirot novel. It concerns Linnet Ridgeway, a rich and beautiful American heiress living in England. She marries the fiancĂ© (Simon Doyle) from her good, but poor, friend (Jacqueline de Bellefort, aka Jackie). Like many books in this series, a long list of suspects ends up confined together. In this case, they’re on a ship touring the Nile. Linnet and a couple of others get murdered. Hercule Poirot catches the murderers.

The story is closely related to the 2nd book of Samuel chapter 12. This chapter is about King David taking Bathsheba from her husband. This incident is not mentioned in the book, but the Parable of the Ewe from this chapter is discussed.

One day a guest arrived at the home of the rich man. But instead of killing an animal from his own flock or herd, he took the poor man’s lamb and killed it and prepared it for his guest.

The book is strangely contemporary because the author presents Linnet’s fatal flaw to be her privilege. Poirot accuses Linnet of being “like the rich man in the Bible, you took the poor man’s one ewe lamb.” If this doesn’t point out Linnet’s privilege, he further observes, “Linnet’s been brought to believe that every annoyance can automatically be referred to the police.”

Later on, in a different context, the author again rails against privilege. “Put it on to a poor devil like Fleetwood, who can’t defend himself, who’s got no money to hire lawyers.”

Cornelia sighed. “They thought of everything.”
[Poirot’s] eyes seemed to be saying: “You are wrong. They didn’t allow for Hercule Poirot.”

Agatha Christie. Lots of suspects. Complicated murders. Not too complicated for Hercule Poirot.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations. 

Tuesday, July 14, 2020

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern ***

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern is a strange book: a combination of Alice in Wonderland, Ready Player One, and Lost in a Good Book. It is a fantasy about video games and literature. One common characteristic of all these books is that they are not typical novels. They are difficult to enjoy unless the reader is in a compatible mindset. The reader has to get it. Referring to a video game (a metaphor for the book, or vice versa): “A lot of people have played it now, but I don’t think anyone gets it.”

Everything in the book is a metaphor for literature, either reading it or writing it, or both. Our (occasional protagonist) Zachery Ezra Rawlins goes through a door (one of many, maybe infinitely many) and finds himself in an underground maze, library, dollhouse, harbor, place.
“This is the rabbit hole. Do you want to know the secret to surviving once you’ve gone down the rabbit hole?” Zachary nods and Mirabel leans forward. Her eyes are ringed with gold. “Be a rabbit.

The book continuously compares “stories” to video games. Some of the comparisons are subtle, like the way computer graphics add details as the character moves closer to an object or a scene. In general, the novel is based on video game physics. Time is non-linear and moves backward and forwards. The same is true for space. Distance has no meaning, and the inside of a space is not limited by the external appearance, moving through a door can take you anywhere is time and space.

Because the book follows video game physics, it is hard to follow, jumping around in time and space. The multitude of characters assume different roles. No one seems to know what they are doing or where they are going. I was not a reader who got it.

The book regularly compares reality to literature/video games, sometimes ironically. “Kissing, Eleanor thinks, is not done any justice in books.” Eleanor is thinking her kiss in this book is so much better than kisses in books?

A strange book. Readers either love it or hate it. Read the first 100 pages and decide.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.

Sunday, July 5, 2020

Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe ****

Uncle Tom’s Cabin was written in response to The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. When Lincoln met the author, he was reported to declare, "So this is the little lady who started this great war.” Her main arguments against slavery were selling children away from their mothers, and the arbitrary disposition of enslaved people when their owner died. The enslaved people are shown to have family and Christian feelings. Slavery is characterized as a “curse forever.” I imagine she “started this great war” by inspiring empathy for enslaved people and arguing against complacency.

The story has two main plotlines. Uncle Tom is sold south, and Eliza escapes north to Canada. Both begin when Mr. Selby is forced by financial hardship to sell Tom and Eliza’s son Harry to a slave trader Tom Loker. Eliza is aided by Quakers in Ohio. Tom is first sold to the good owner Augustine St. Clare and then to the evil owner Simon Legree.

The book discusses many issues that are current today: white supremacy, reparations, segregation, the difference between being enslaved and poor, and whether saying only a few owners are evil is reason condemn the entire system. Segregation: “How many merchants would take Adolph, if I wanted to make him a clerk; or mechanics if I wanted him taught a trade? If I wanted to put Jane and Rosa to a school, how many schools are there in the northern states that would take them in? how many families that would board them?”

The book foresees The EU (“If Europe ever becomes a grand council of free nations.”)

The author is an anti-Semite and supports black stereotypes: “cooking being an indigenous talent of the African race,” “nature of his kindly race, ever yearning towards the simple and childlike,” and “the African, naturally patient, timid, and unenterprising.”

Tom is a parallel to Christ.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was a contemporary of Charles Dickens. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was published shortly after David Copperfield. Like Dickens, Uncle Tom’s cabin was serialized and is often written as if the author was paid by the word, which she probably was. Also, like Dickens, the myriad plotlines are tied up in a happy ending.

A powerful story of the mistreatment of African Americans, prior to the Civil War, that is still relevant today.

Check out https://amazon.com/shop/influencer-20171115075 for book recommendations.