Early Returns: Le Parc Ben et Jarry is in the Lead

For this season, the Dave Spiwack league is down to 10 teams and has moved over to ESPN. Coming up with a good team name is always a challenge. This year's team is Le Parc Ben et Jarry. After winning the league title for the past two seasons, I didn't have high expectations for the year. But as of now, I'm in first. There's a long way to go, but I'd rather be looking down than up.


While I'm at it, I'll show a photo of the league home page. This is what you get when the owner of Hugo Chavez Ravine is the league commissioner:

Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

What do you get when you mix Charles Dickens and William Faulkner? You might be surprised, but the answer is Harriet Beecher Stowe in the form of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Published in 1852, Cabin apparently galvanised anti-slavery opinion in the Northern United States on the eve of its Civil War. As it was the second best-selling book of the 19th century (guess what was #1) it might be good to gain familiarity with it.

The book's title character is a Kentucky slave who is sold "down river" (every slave in the Upper South's worst fear) to Louisiana. As a sub-plot, it tracks the progress of George, Eliza, and their son: slaves who are attempting to escape to that land of freedom, British Canada, by way of the exotic port of Sandusky, Ohio. George and Eliza are tracked by bounty hunters and helped by Quakers along the way. I tended to find these sections more interesting than those that focused on Tom, even though they became few and far between.

Regarding Tom's owners, the infamous Simon Legree only appears in the last quarter of the book. His first stop in Louisiana is at the St Clare mansion, which, if memory serves, is the longest section of the book. There, he becomes the personal friend and attendant of the St Clares' young daughter, Eva. In the tradition of a Dickensian heroine (or did Stowe come first?), Eva is nothing but purity and goodness, whose only flaw is a poor physical constitution. Eva's mother Marie seems to be the literary role model of the self-centred hypochondriac, which is also seen in Faulkner's Sound & Fury.

At the St Clares', Tom's life seems pretty good by the standards of the slaves of the day, and the reader (or listener) has plenty of opportunity to hear from Augustine St Clare, who seems to be the most interesting and realistic character in the book.

Good things can't last, of course, and Tom eventually winds up on Legree's plantation, setting up the final showdown between good and evil and all that.

The book is interesting in several ways, including what one can read into the author's views on slavery and racial issues. From Stowe's occasional, but repeated racial stereotyping, it's clear that one can be against the legality of slavery and still be completely against the legal or moral equality of the races. I've seen it claimed that Cabin was the source of long-lasting stereotypes of former slaves, but I wonder if she was just reflecting the existing views of the time.

As almost an epilogue, African colonisation is discussed, and favourable press is given to the thought of transporting ex-slaves to Liberia (where they apparently can become American-Africans). Of course, I have the hindsight of 155 years of history that Stowe didn't have, but I don't think that experience of Americo-Liberians (or Africo-Liberians) was as rosy as predicted at the time.

What would you consider to be the worst aspect of slavery? It Stowe's eyes, it apparently was the internal slave trade, which resulted in the breaking up of families.

Also, the term "Uncle Tom" has developed a specific meaning in United States English. As a man of strong character who stuck to his principles and morals at great personal cost, Uncle Tom was definitely not an Uncle Tom.

The book's a little long and doesn't quite flow the way a modern novel would. Some readers may not enjoy the prominent place Christianity is given. It does have its ups and downs, but overall I give it a Recommended rating.

Swingset Photos

Two New Additions to My Reading Inbox

Despite the fact that items seem to enter it quicker than they leave, I added two books to my reading list today. When walking into the library, I usually walk right by the little section of discarded books for sale. Today, I stopped and took a look. It's $1 for paperbacks and $2 for hardcovers, so the cost isn't bad, but it's above trivial. There were some interesting selections. I bought these two:

• A Tree Grows In Brooklyn by Betty Smith. I think someone (was it DFV?) recommended this one.
• Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I assume I'll love it or hate it.

End of the Road

I went on a non-trivial bike ride today for the first time this year. I rode with some other former employees of my former employer. (For some reason, nobody expressed any regret about the employment relationships being past tense.) We ended up going 50 km (31 miles), which compares to the 8 km that I had previously ridden this year. I'd kind of like to ride more, but when I have time to exercise, I'm working on running rather than biking. I don't feel all that bad -- I think the second half of the ride was easier than the first half. Then we finished it off with a dinner at a nice little Italian restaurant.

Here I am with Jim and Brent at the end of the road. Or, if the bike trail continued from here, I didn't see it. We turned around.


My motto is, "Always stop for pictures with the gigantic carved wooden fire dog."

It's Been Too Long

It had been too long since I've been to a "Student of the Month" luncheon. Here's a photo from today's:

Is Pluto a Planet? by David A. Weintraub

Here's a non-fiction book that I picked up from the library. This is a good example of the typical book I would have read at one point in my life. However, in the past 9 or so years, I've been reading more fiction than non-fiction.

Is Pluto a Planet? is subtitled "A Historical Journey through the Solar System". The subtitle is fitting. A good part of the book covers a history of man's understanding of the solar system, from pre-Aristotelian days to the present. For example, in its earliest form, the 7 planets were the sun, the moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. In addition to those first two, which might sound odd today, note that the Earth isn't one of them. As man's understanding of the solar system improved, in addition to adding Uranus and Neptune to the list of planets, the Earth was added and the sun and moon removed. Interestingly, there no less than 15 other objects that were at one point considered planets by a sizable segment of the scientific community. These were the 4 Galilean moons of Jupiter, the 5 largest moons of Saturn, the first 4 asteroids discovered (Ceres, Pallas, Juno, and Vesta), and also Vulcan and Hind's Planet (which doesn't seem to have a large web presence).

Then there's Pluto, which was the fourth object to be considered the 9th planet, and is a focal point in another redefinition of the word "planet".

The book has its good and bad points. On the plus side, in addition to what I've mentioned, it traced the history to the present, including a section on the Kuiper Belt, which was discovered after I finished school. On the down side, there are sections where the discoveries of several Kuiper Belt and Scattered Disk Objects are boringly described in paragraph form.

Also, the author seems to feel strongly about his opinion. He's looking for a physics-based definition of the word "planet", and if I understood him correctly, he feels that it should be any object that isn't, wasn't, and won't be a star, and is large enough that its shape is primarily determined by hydrostatic equilibrium (is mostly spherical). In real terms, how does anything larger than Miranda sound*? (That is, a diameter of about 500 km.)

In being a scientist looking for a physics-based definition, he is forgetting any historical basis for the word, so I'm not sure I agree with him. It seems like we need a new word, but as we learn more, there will always be borderline cases. For example, Chiron was originally thought to be an asteroid when it was discovered in 1977, but now it's also considered to be a comet.

All-in-all, it's not bad, but not something I'd recommend to someone who's not interested in astronomy. For the general reading population, I give it two stars out of five.

* See mirandasound.com.

Some Spring (Or "Dreaming of a White Easter")

So much for Spring flowers this year. The tulips look even worse, but since my forté seems to be daffodils, I'll refrain from posting sick tulip photos. I've heard that the area fruit trees will also be unhappy this year.

We may be warmer on average this year, but we seem to have also had snaps where it was considerably colder than normal. Today's forecast high is 14C (25F) colder than normal for April. Granted, it's still early April, so today's normal high is likely lower than the month's average.

Weird Hexagon on Saturn's North Pole

One of the most recent bits of news from the Cassini Saturn orbiter is the weird (or in the words of NASA, "bizarre") hexagonal cloud pattern at the planet's north pole. Apparently, it's been there since at least the Voyager days. Why would clouds form a long-lived hexagon? Check out the video available with the press release. Is this one of the strangest (or really, most unexplained) things in the solar system? I can't think of anything that seems odder off the top of my head.

By the way, isn't it time we had a long-term ("permanent") robotic orbiter presence at each of the first 8 planets? You never know when you'll find something interesting. Sure it would cost money. Maybe we could cut back on manned spaceflight or something.

Mercy Among The Children by David Adams Richards

Mercy Among the Children is a book I actually managed to read, rather than listening to the audio version. One genre I'd like to keep up with is Giller Prize winners, and Mercy tied for the 2000 award.

The novel is set in the rural Mirimichi region of New Brunswick. When Sydney Henderson was 12, in a moment of anger, he pushes his (male) friend Connie Devlin off a roof. Thinking Connie is dead, he makes a vow with God, "Let Connie live, and I'll never harm another soul." Connie pops up, face bloodied, but none the worse for wear. Sydney does his best to keep this promise. As he grows up, Sydney develops a love for reading and learning. This, combined with his gentle nature and his avoidance of alcohol, makes him quite the outcast. Still, he manages to win and marry one of the most beautiful girls in the region, the caring (but not very bright) Elly.

The story is told through the eyes of Sydney and Elly's son Lyle who was born in 1970, and at times can be grim and gritty. Just when you think it can't get any worse for the family, something else goes wrong and the community wrongly turns further against them.

Eventually, Sydney leaves the family on a self-imposed exile. Ironically, in some ways, things start to look up for the family at the time, which happen to be Lyle's mid- or late- teens. As happens in real life and literature, Lyle rebels against his father's views. Without any examples of an appropriate (non-zero) amount one should be willing to speak out against, stand up to, or even harm his fellow man (or, I suppose he can at least use that as an excuse) we get to observe how far Lyle will go as he drifts past a "normal" amount of harm and into being a thug, albeit a thoughtful one who's well-read (like his father) in Tolstoy and Shakespeare.

Sydney is convinced that you can't harm your fellow man without the harm coming back to you in some way. Lyle and the reader get to learn whether or not this advice stands the test of time.

The book is full of Canadian winters, toxic waste, and memorable characters, including Lyle's siblings: the beautifully intelligent Autumn, whose albinism makes her regarded by the world as an outcast member of of an outcast family, and little Percy. There's also sulking Mat Pit, his schemingly beautiful sister Cythia, the weak-willed Connie Devlin, and Leo McVicar, who becomes a remnant from a prior era, and more.

Overall, I'd say that this is the best contemporary fiction I've read for quite a while, though it is a step below an "all-time favourite". I give it a solid 4 stars out of 5.

Longer Sentences

For dinner tonight, my wife and the big kids went out to dinner, leaving the little ones at home with me. I was excited to hear little 2.7182818 say,

"Yay! Daddy went pee-pee on the potty! Daddy gets a blue nummy!"

Sorry about the subject of the sentence, but blue nummies are important to the little guy. Also, I don't think I've ever heard him speak that many words in succession before. (Obviously, we're using treats as a toilet training incentive!)

I ate a blue nummy. I wish I had a photo of myself being presented my blue nummy.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Simply put, authors should not intentionally try to confuse their readers. Sure, a skilled author can withhold information, portray events from different points of view, or make the meaning of events not clear until later. However, in The Sound and the Fury, Faulkner takes things way too far.

The book is ostensibly about the decline of the Compson family, formerly a leading family in Faulkner's fictitious Jefferson, Mississippi in the generations after Civil War. It's divided into four chapters. The first three are one day in the life of each of the three Compson sons, Benjy, Quentin (who, along with Harvard roommate Shreave, also appears in Absalom, Absalom!) and Jason (IV). The fourth is told from the point of view of an "omniscient" narrator, but places some emphasis on the Compson's negro servant Dilsey. The problem with this approach is that the chapters are in reverse order of understandability:

• Benjy is an Idiot in the clinical sense. He supposedly has the mental capacity of a 3-year old at age 33, except that I don't think I've met a 3-year old that was as incapable as he is. He apparently spends much of his time crying, slobbering, and howling. However, it's not all bad. The section does faithfully record conversations and events, so for example, you might have, "Versh said ... and I cried." The "catch" here is that Benjy has no concept of time. Certain events in 1928 will remind Benjy of something else from 1905 or 1910 and Benjy will suddenly be describing something 20 years in the past. This happens without any warning. It's up to the reader (who at this point in the story doesn't know the characters or events) to figure out what happened when by little flashes of of the story. I felt like I was watching television with the channel continually being changed.
• Quentin is a little easier to follow. He's finishing up his first year at Harvard in 1910, but he also has major issues that he is dealing with. His world and world view is basically coming to pieces around him, so he'll also switch back and forth between events, times, and even fantasies without much warning.
• By the time we get to Jason we're so confused and exhausted that we just want to know what is going on. Jason, for a pleasant change, doesn't disappoint. I've seen Jason described as a "Monster" with no regards for anyone or anything beyond himself. That may indeed be the case. Even so, I found him much more likable than the other brothers. I even felt sorry for what he has to put up with all his life! From reading other reviews, I don't think Jason is supposed to be likable.

As for the story, I suppose it had something to do with their sister Caddy. Each of the brothers' relationships with her is explored. A major point is her promiscuity and the effect it and its aftermath has on each of them and the family.

The Compsons' great-grandfather (not in this book) was supposedly the governer of Mississippi. Their grandfather was a Civil War general. I'm not sure what their father was besides a drunk. At the end of Sound, Benjy has the mind of a tot, Quentin is tot in the German sense, and Jason, the leader of the family, is unmarried and has no interest in marriage, thinking all women are witches (or something like that). So the Compsons end here, it would appear.

Regarding the title, it's from Shakespeare's Macbeth:

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

As with my prior experience with Faulkner, this may be a book to be studied. It may be a book that reveals more and more detail each time you read it. Benjy may indeed be the most difficult narrator in all of literature to follow or may be the work of a genius. But, I like to be able to read (or hear) a book once and understand it well enough that I don't have to resort to the SparkNotes (as wonderful of a site as that may be) to know what happened.

Not Recommended.