Les Miserables continued with volume III: Marius. This volume introduces a new character, Marius Pontmercy, whose father made a cameo appearance in the book “Waterloo” of volume II: Cosette. Volume III is a little over 200 pages long and split into eight books, the usual number. This volume includes page 611, the halfway point of the book. It doesn’t contain as many digressions as volume II, but can still get slow and long winded such as when describing the gamins or young street urchins of Paris including the introduced character Gavroche, Marius’ grandfather, each of the “Friends of the ABC”, Marius’ father’s life, and the changing views of Marius from being a Royalist like his grandfather to believing in the empire like his father to beginning to believe people should be free. There’s much setting up the background. But once it’s set up the story gets more interesting and riveting in the last 75 pages of the volume.
From reading his namesake volume, I got to know Marius Pontmercy. He lives most of his childhood and youth with his maternal grandfather, a Royalist, and has no contact with his Bonaparte-supporting father due to the different political opinion from his grandfather. But after his father’s death, Marius grows to accept, learn of, and eventually idolize his father and reject his grandfather’s Royalist views. Marius inherits a baron title from his father and receives a message to do service for an innkeeper, Thenardier, who saved his father’s life. Marius seeks out Thenardier but finds his inn closed and his family moved away. Ultimately rejected by his grandfather, he falls in with a group of young men, the Friends of the ABC. Pronounced in French, ABC sounds like ah-bay-say that also sounds like the French word abaisse that translates to abased. The friends include Enjolras, their leader; Combeferre; Jean Prouvaire; Feuilly, Coufeyrac who is similar in personality to Felix Tholomyes, Cosette’s father; Bachorel, Lesgle or Laigle or Bossuet; Joly; and Grantaire. Marius wears black in mourning for his father and is poor because he refuses help from his great aunt who lives with his grandfather. When all Marius can afford is a green coat, he only goes out after dark so that the coat appears black.
Most of the main characters from the previous volumes make appearances but often under different names. On his daily walks, Marius sees an old man with white hair with his young daughter in a black dress. Without meeting them, Coufeyrac nicknames them Monsieur LeBlanc (white) and Mademoiselle LaNoire. Marius eventually falls in love with her. Finding a handkerchief left by them with the initials U.F. he guesses her name is Ursula and so refers to her though he never meets her in the volume. He later hears the old man give his name as “Urbain Fabre” though this is likely a pseudonym. Marius’ neighbors are a man and wife with two daughters who seem very familiar. The man writes letters under different names requesting financial support. He uses alias Fabantou and Jondrette among others. All these assumed identities along with Marius’ new admiration and conflicting loyalties set the stages for some riveting scenes.
Along with the main characters’ aliases, the book mentions names familiar to me in other contexts. The royalist salon in which Marius’ grandfather participates includes the Bishop of Mirepoix. Isn’t Mirepoix also a food term meaning celery, onion and carrot all chopped up and ready to use? There are more references to “the Sword of Marengo” (p. 527) and “Marengo” is given as one of the “mighty words which blaze forever.” (p. 568) Well, it does blaze a lot in this book. I eventually researched this name of a street in Pasadena. According to the ever-reliable Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Marengo (retrieved 3/2/2010)): “The Battle of Marengo was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. The French defeated Austrian General Michael von Mela’s surprise attack, driving the Austrians out of Italy, and enhancing Napoleon’s political position in Paris.” The Wikipedia article later mentions Chicken Marengo, a famous dish of braised chicken with onions and mushrooms in a wine and tomato sauce. It sounds delicious. The article goes on to say “Local lore says it was cooked up on the battlefield by Napoleon’s personal chef using all the ingredients he could find in those adventurous circumstances.”
This volume mentions names significant to itself. One of Jondrette’s letters asking for financial support is addressed to “Monsieur Pabourgeot, elector, wholesale merchant, milliner, Rue Saint Denis . . .” (p. 618) The fourth and next volume is called “St. Denis.” Are they related? When describing the exploits of Marius’ father, Colonel Pontmercy, the author mentions how the colonel fought at the same place as his uncle, Louis Hugo. Another reference is more significant. After a visit from their elder daughter, Marius starts to notice his neighbors and realizes they are even worse off than he is. “Undoubtedly they seem very depraved, very corrupt, very vile, very hateful even, but those are rare who fall without being degraded; there is a point, moreover, at which the unfortunate and the infamous are associated and confounded in a single word, a fatal word, Les Miserables;” (p. 627)
I learned some new words used in this volume that I had to look up in my Random House dictionary. The Friends of the ABC have conventicles or secret meetings at the Café Musain. One of the ABC, Joly, thinks himself a valetudinarian or an invalid who is excessively concerned about his poor health. Marius passes the bar exam but continues to work for a book binder and doesn’t pettifog. The dictionary describes a pettifogger as “a petty, shifty, and often dishonest lawyer.” So they had just as much respect for lawyers in the 19th century. Complaining of some radical students planning a protest, Marius’ grandfather exclaims, “Virtue of my quean.” I’m not sure what that expression means. A quean is “a shrew or a hussy.”
Like the last volume, Hugo includes some humor in his writing. In the early chapters he describes how the gamin points to a house and says that a cure lives there. A cure is a minor clergy but the Papal Nuncio actually lives in the house. The new landlady at Gorbeau House is another old woman prompting Hugo’s line, “I do not remember what philosopher it was who said ‘there is never any lack of old women.’” (p. 504) While the Friends of the ABC are having another conventicle at the Café Musain, at another table an old man of thirty advises a young man of eighteen. Later Coufeyrac and Bossuet (A.K.A. Laigle) see Marius following Jondrette. Laigle proposes following Marius but Coufeyrac scolds him, “Bossuet . . . you are a prodigious fool (to) follow a man who is following a man.” (p. 654)
Along with the humor Hugo’s writing includes some interesting points that edify. In the section on Gamin, Gavroche is described as “one of those children . . . who have fathers and mothers, and yet are orphans.” (p. 504) Marius’ friend’s servant reads her books out loud because “to read out loud is to assure yourself of what you are reading.” (p. 583) Much of the exciting action in the volume takes place on February 2 that is “Candlemas Day” in 19th century France “whose treacherous sun, the precursor of six weeks of cold, inspired Matthew Laensberg with those two lines . . . Qu’il luise ou qu’il luiserne/ L’ours rentre en sa caverne (Let it gleam or let it glimmer/ The bear returns to his cave.)” (p. 615) That sounds like a version of Groundhog Day. There is the contrast between evil in the city and the forest: “ . . . in the cities, what hides thus is ferocious, unclean, and petty, that is to say, ugly; in forests, what hides is ferocious, savage, and grand, that is to say, beautiful.” (p. 628) Finally there’s Thernardier’s speech about the rich and charitable who “think themselves above us, and come to humiliate us, and to bring us cloths! As they call them! Rags which are not worth four sous, and bread! That is not what I want of the rabble! I want money!” (p. 635)
I used tape flags to mark 26 places in volume III: Marius, possibly a record for a book of any length, and this was just one volume of a book. This volume doesn’t have as much equivalent in the musical that doesn’t give much information about Marius’ life story. Marius seems to be the least miserable of the Miserables, if he can even be categorized as such. But that doesn’t make him any less a complex and interesting character. The 26 tape flags can attest to that.
(Spoilers)
My reading of Les Miserables continued with Volume II: Cosette. This volume comprises 232 pages, eight books and spans a time period of less than one year of the main story. While Volume I: Fantine has its title character descend into misery, Volume II’s title character, who was born in misery, slowly starts to emerge out of it. Volume II also has some long digressions, moreso than Volume I. Much of it is Hugo talking to the reader.
The volume begins with a 47-page digression about the Battle of Waterloo. It gives long descriptions of the battlefield and how the armies are arranged including how the field resembles a letter “A” and most of the fighting takes place in the top triangle of the A. All the description of the setting is rather tedious, though Hugo does reassure the reader that “one of the scenes that gave rise to the drama which we are describing hangs upon that battle.” (p. 265) The prose gets a bit more readable once the battle is underway, though it can get a bit hard to follow with all the action. Hugo doesn’t always say to which side he’s referring. I have to go by whether the names of the commanders sound French, English, or German. I’m not sure who is being referred to as “the man of Marengo was wiping out Agincourt.” (p. 277) I just know that around the time I read this we had driving north on Marengo Avenue in Pasadena.
Hugo often waxes philosophically as he describes Waterloo just as he does at many other points in the book. He believes that by the time of Waterloo it was time for Napoleon to fall because “the excessive weight (as in power) of this man in human destiny disturbed the equilibrium.” (p. 280) This description reminded me of the character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series known as the Mule. He could control entire worlds with his mind and his emergence in power was not predicted by the Foundation psychohistorians. Back to Waterloo, it isn’t until the end of the book about it that the reader learns how it applies to the main story. After the battle, a prowler searches the bodies for valuables. He takes a ring from a presumed dead French officer. But the officer is not dead and the prowler carries him to safety. The officer asks the prowler his name and the prowler answers, “Thenardier.” The officer then gives his name, “Pontmercy.”
The volume contains another digression about Paris in the 1820’s and 1830’s. Hugo describes how when we live a place we feel indifferent towards most of the streets, windows, roof, and doors that we see every day. “But in aftertimes, when we are there no longer, we find that those streets are very dear, that we miss those roofs, those windows, and those doors.” (p. 378) Two later books in Volume II, VI. Petit Picpus and VII. A Parenthesis, are about nuns and religious orders (VI) and Hugo’s opinion that religious orders are obsolete (VII). I mostly just had to dig my way out of these books. There were only a few interesting bits such as one nun “known in the convent only by the horrible noise she made in blowing her nose. The pupils called her Racketini.” (p. 421)
The digressions can be long and tedious to read through especially that book VI: A Parenthesis that’s a digression of a digression. But between these sections the story itself is compelling and exciting. I learned details such as how Jean Valjean escapes after being captured and sentenced to life in prison. While on work detail on the ship Orion that’s dock in Toulon, he dives into the sea and is presumed drowned. I got a clear picture of Cosette’s miserable life with the Thenadiers. She doesn’t fantasize about a “Castle on a Cloud” as in the musical but the book does refer to Thenardier as “Master of the House” (p. 322) Thenardier also has a monologue that mentions “to sell to the first comer …”, “… empty small purses and honestly lighten large ones …”, “… to charge for the open window, the closed window, the chimney corner …”, “… to make the traveler pay for everything even to the flies his dog eat!” (p. 323) I found compelling Jean Valjean’s attempts to evade Javert through the dark streets of Paris. At one point Hugo writes, “If Jean Valjean had a kingdom, he would have given it for a rope” (p. 387-388) alluding to Shakespeare’s play “Richard III”. In this volume, Jean Valjean acquires another alias (in addition to Monsieur Madeleine from volume I), Ultimus Fauchelevent.
Within the story Hugo cannot help but include bits of commentary on the class struggle, on how the rich live in a different world from the poor. When the ship Orion approached the port of Toulon, her pennant “entitled her to a regular salute of 11 guns which she returned shot for shot: in all twenty two.” Hugo goes on to describe how for all similar salutes the civilized world fires off “daily 150,000 useless cannon shots. At 6 francs per shot, that would amount to 900,000 francs per day or 300 million per year, blown off in smoke. This is only an item. Meanwhile, the poor are dying of hunger.” (p. 310) I’m not sure where he got the 150,000 figure. That seems like a lot for the salutes in one day. When describing how Thenardier’s daughters, Eponine and Azelma, treat Cosette like she’s below them, Hugo interjects, “These three girls could not count twenty-four years among them all, and they already represented all human society; on one side envy, on the other, disdain.” (p. 341) In a digressive unrelated note, Eponine and Azelma are described as “regnant” a word I hadn’t known before that means “reigning in one’s own right and not as a consort” according to my Random House dictionary.
Not all the commentary is serious. Hugo includes a few humorous anecdotes. When Jean Valjean and Cosette first move to Paris, they rent lodging at Gorbeau House, and naturally, Hugo gives the entire history of the place. He tells a story of two attorneys named Corbeau and Renard who worked at the same law office. Their names translated to “crow” and “fox” respectively and the law clerks always made up silly songs about them and laughed. The attorneys petitioned the king to change their names. Corbeau became Gorbeau that has no meaning and Renard became Prenard that means “a grasping fellow” and the law clerks continued to laugh at him. Hugo adds a bit of morbid humor later in the volume. He writes, “It is, however, true; gravediggers themselves die. By dint of digging graves for others they open their own.” (p. 466)
Coincidentally, as I was first writing the preceding paragraph while riding the Metrolink train to work (at around 6:20 am on February 9, 2010), I noticed part of the name tag of the guy sitting next to me. On the top part was written what looked like “Los Angeles” in a logo. Below that was his first name in big bold type and below that in smaller type was the word (or name?) “Javert”. Speaking of coincidences, while I was reading the long digression about Waterloo in mid-January that name came up in some other contexts. We used MapQuest to get driving directions to Club Spaceland in Silverlake and one route has us taking a bunch of little side streets, one of them called “Waterloo”. One of the opening bands at Spaceland, either Rabbit or Arms Control, sang the song “Waterloo Sunset” that’s originally by the Kinks. Around that time there was a contestant on Jeopardy! who was a graduate of the University of Waterloo in Ontario.
Wow, I didn’t think this review would go this long. Compared to the first volume not as much happened in the second and, of course, there were all the digressions. Some do relate to the story and help explain some things such as the non in perpetual adoration in the chapel. But much of it is tedious. Still, the gripping story is worth it.
Towards the end of 2009 I started reading the classic novel Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. I got the unabridged version of 1,222 pages translated into English by Charles E. Wilbour. The edition I got from the Cal State L.A. Library was published by Modern Library, New York and does not have a publication date. It also doesn’t have illustrations such as the famous one of Cosette that was used as the poster for the musical (more on this later). There is one illustration just inside the cover page of a man standing knee-deep in water stooping over with a lantern and a walking stick. The book is separated into five volumes: Fantine, Cosette, Marius, St. Denis, and Jean Valjean each between 120-300 pages long. Each volume is separated into 8-15 books that are between 10-70 pages and each of these books is further separated into chapters of 2-10 pages. All these segments allow the reader to feel like they are making incremental progress.
I first heard of the musical Les Miserables in the late 80’s or early 90’s when my dad bought the soundtrack on cassette. The songs are very emotional and passionate. When I was a freshman in college I saw a professional production of Les Mis in Portland, Oregon. They used a revolving stage and there were more scenes than those featured on the soundtrack. In late 2009 I decided to try reading the book. The Cal State L.A. Library let me check out books for an entire quarter and renew them for two more quarters as long as no one else put them on hold. My wife had read the unabridged version on Les Mis many years ago and enjoyed it. She doesn’t read books very often, instead preferring to read magazine articles and web articles. I thought the book might flesh out the story and explain some things not completely explained in the musical such as Jean Valjean’s past. Within its great length, the book does this and much more.
The first volume, Fantine, is 253 pages long and separated into 8 books. The reader learns almost immediately that Hugo likes to digress. The first 50 pages (ie. the rule of 50) don’t mention any of the main characters. Rather, they’re all about the Bishop of D_____ who plays a small but very important role in the main story. I learned all about his background, religious life, and how good a man he was. Hugo blanks out a few names of towns such as D_____ and M_____ Sur M_______ where Fantine comes from and where Monsieur Madeleine builds his factory. Other town names are given such as Arras where the trial takes place and Montfermeil where the Thenardiers live in their inn.
The narrator (Hugo?) sounds as if he’s telling someone a story and sometimes refers to himself in the first person saying things like “I forget the place.” Many digressions discuss the political and economic situation in France and Europe in the early 19th century. After going through Jean Valjean’s past life and what led him to prison in the first place, Hugo writes, “English statistics show that in London starvation is the immediate cause of four thefts out of five.” (Hugo, p. 74) Hugo uses some words that had different meaning back in 1862 when the book was published. Diligences were horse-drawn coaches that brought people from one town to another. People didn’t have cars to get around. So far I found only 1-2 typos, pretty good for a book of this length printed before modern word processors. On page 197 Monsieur Madeleine “rsumed (his) monotonous dismal walk.”
Despite the writing style and digressing, the book does a good job of fleshing out the story that the musical only highlighted. In fact, Hugo is very thorough. Not only did I learn that “Valjean” is possibly a contraction of “Voila Jean” and changed from Vlajean to Valjean but that his mother’s maiden name is Mathieu. Speaking of names, Cosette’s real name was actually Euphrasie, but her mother, Fantine, made Cosette out of it as mothers tend to “change Josepha into Pepita and Francoise into Siltette.” (Hugo p. 127) I also learned why Jean Valjean faces life imprisonment after being released from prison. Not long after, he inadvertently robs a young boy from Savoy, Petit Gervais. At that time in France, those convicted of a second offence were sentenced to hard labor for life. Two strikes and you’re out, I guess.
After Fantine is dismissed from the factory she not only sells her hair (golden blond in the book) but also her two front teeth for two Napoleans or forty francs. Earlier Fantine is described as having gold on her head (her hair) and pearls in her mouth (her teeth). Before she becomes a “Lovely Lady” (or a “woman of the town” as Hugo writes), she tries to make a living sewing coarse shirts for soldiers of the garrison for twelve sous per day. This helps her get by until “a prison contractor, who was working prisoners at a loss, suddenly cut down the price, and this reduced the day’s wages of free labors to nine sous.” (Hugo, p. 157)
One aspect of the story that’s very fleshed out is Cosette’s full parentage. Her father is Felix Tholomyes, a rich young idler of 30 and a student possibly equivalent to the privileged “career students” of currents. He dates Fantine and three of his friends date three of Fantine’s friends. The men dress extravagantly and smile with “effeminate foppery.” The eight of them walk the public gardens of Paris, go to fancy restaurants, and eat apple puffs. Tholomyes is very witty, stating that there is good sense and art even in apple puffs. At one point he sings a Spanish love song in the gallega dialect. At another he describes how the ladies eat too much sugar and sugar is desiccating like salt causing diabetes (p. 116). Fantine and Felix are together for two years and not for just “a summer” as described in the song “I Dreamed a Dream”.
There is much consistency between the musical and the novel and some differences. I believe the poster for the musical came from an illustration that’s not in this edition of the passage that reads, “It was a harrowing sight to see in winter time the poor child, not yet six years old, shivering under the tatters of what was once a calico dress, sweeping the street before daylight with an enormous broom in her brittle red hands and tears in her large eyes.” (p. 132) Just as he sings in the song “Confrontation” in the musical, Javert was born in a prison. (p. 143) Also just as Jean Valjean sings in that song, he asks Javert to “Give me three days” to retrieve Cosette and return her to Fantine. Valjean does agonize over whether to reveal his identity in the chapter called “A Tempest in the Brain” (p. 184-199) of book VI (called “Javert) but he never explicitly asks himself “Who am I?” At the trial he does declare “I am Jean Valjean” but does not say “2-4-6-0-1”.
Another difference is Fantine’s dismissal from the factory. Her coworkers do spread incorrect and malicious gossip about her that gets her dismissed. What happened was “the overseer of the workshop handed her, on behalf of the mayor (and factory owner Monsieur Madeleine), fifty francs, saying that she was no longer wanted in the shop, and enjoining her, on behalf of the mayor, to leave the city.” (p. 150) I guess this isn’t really better than what happens in the musical. Also unlike the musical, the overseer is not a man but an “old spinster.” The directive actually came from her and not from the mayor.
The long digressions can make reading Les Miserables go very slowly and tedious but when Hugo gets to the main story, the reading becomes riveting and the book is hard to put down. Just getting to the trial is a struggle for Monsieur Madeleine as he faces one obstacle after another. I began to wonder if he would even make it on time and he’s not even sure he wants to go. Then there’s the altercation between Fantine and the idle gentleman who throws snow at her back. This leads to her arrest, her meeting Monsieur Madeleine in person, but also to her final downfall. She doesn’t survive the volume that bears her name. Though she didn’t start out as one, she is arguable the most miserable of the Miserables.
I don’t know how Three Trapped Tigers by G. Cabrera Infante got on my books to read list. It’s not a new book having been published in 1965 in the original Spanish and in 1972 in its English translation. Maybe it was mentioned in the old Book Review section of the L.A. Times in the review of a different, more recent book as a comparison. It’s about Cuba and I’ve read a few books that partially or entirely took place in Cuba, most recently Monkey Hunting by Cristina Garcia. In any case, Three Trapped Tigers had been on my list for several years and I figured I better get it off either by reading it or attempting to read it. It wasn’t available at the Covina Public Library but it was at the Cal State L.A. library in the original 1971 English translation edition.
I started reading it and the first page just before the prologue appears to be a map of the major streets of Havana, Cuba. I believe most of the book takes place there during the time just before Castro’s revolution. But in the first 50 pages it’s hard to get a sense of where the story takes place and what it’s about. I had read that the book had been compared favorably to the book Ulysses by James Joyce and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing. The prologue and the first seven chapters, all unlabeled and lacking even numbers, seem to each be written from a different point of view.
The prologue is a long monologue intro by an emcee at a nightclub. The monologue goes on for one long paragraph introducing dignitaries in the audience, making jokes, and switching between English and Spanish. Sometimes the Spanish is translated in the next sentence and sometimes it isn’t. It seems to be more of a random rant than a prepared speech that reacts to the famous people as they are spotted. It doesn’t reveal much about the emcee. I’m not sure if he’s a man or she’s a woman and I can only guess he’s a man from the time period and his compliments of the ladies.
The first section is called “Beginners” and the first chapter is a monologue of childhood memories. The next is a letter from a woman in Havana to a friend in another town whose daughter is in Havana leading a “scandalous” life as a model. Then there’s another slang-filled rant and then another monologue about sneaking into movie theaters that also touches on the unrest in the street (that eventually leads to the revolution?). The next chapter is one side of a phone conversation that seems to include a lot of nonsense. Maybe that’s more realistic. At one point the caller mentions the name Hermenegildo. This chapter is followed by the first person account of a man trying to procure a raise. The account is heavy on reflection. The next chapter is about a man trying to start a new life but things get strange and dark very quickly. In fact, the chapter is followed by two pages of black. By this point I had reached the rule of 50 (page 54 actually) and I just wasn’t getting into the book. I guess it consists of different voices in Havana during the time period but they all seem dark and disjointed. There is a lot of cursing and possibly lots of pretentious symbolism and unreliable narrator angles. I’ll leave this book for the literary scholars and the readers of Joyce and I can now remove it from my booklist.
I first heard of Fitz-James O’Brien from the book Dictionary of American Literature by Robert F. Richards that I read in 2008 (see earlier review). The Dictionary had an interesting and sad description of O’Brien and his work. It described how he came to the U.S. from Ireland after wasting his 8,000 (pound) inheritance in London and Paris. After periods of success from his writing and poverty he served in the American Civil War during which he was cited for gallantry. Unfortunately he was wounded and died from a tetanus infection in 1862 at age 34. The Dictionary blurb described his stories as “written in the tradition of Poe.” The most interesting part of the blurb was the one-sentence summary of O’Brien’s most well-known story, “The Diamond Lens”: “a story about an inventor whose powerful microscope enabled him to see a tiny female in a drop of water with whom he fell in love.” (Richards, p. 159)
The whimsical description made me want to check out the story and possibly other stories. There was nothing by Fitz-James O’Brien at the Covina Public Library but the Cal State L.A. library had The Diamond Lens and Other Stories that contains all the stories by Fitz-James O’Brien. His name, incidentally, translates to “bastard son of James, grandson of Brien”. The book contains seven stories, each one 20-60 pages long. The longer ones, including “The Diamond Lens” have chapters of 8-12 pages each. The book was never published during O’Brien’s lifetime and the stories originally appeared in magazines. “The Diamond Lens” originally appeared in Atlantic magazine in January 1858. This book was first compiled in 1932 and the edition at the Cal State L.A. library was published in 1970. According to the table of contents, the first story is “The Diamond Lens” and at 47 pages plus a 17-page introduction that mean I only had to read 14-15 pages over the rule of 50 to finish it. The book is light blue-green in color and has ten illustrations by Ferdinand Huszti Horwath depicting scenes from the stories.
The book begins with an introduction by Gilbert Seldes that gives more biographical information and some discussion of O’Brien’s writing style. It seems to have been written long after the stories were originally published. I think the intro was written in 1932 for the first edition of the collection. It uses one word I didn’t know when discussing “an intellectual gap between the ratiocination of (Poe’s) detectives and the deeper mysteries he declared but did not expound.” (p. 11) My Random House Dictionary defines “ratiocinate” as “to carry on a process of logical reasoning.” So Poe’s stories have a gap between what the detectives in the story figure out and the full mystery. Seldes describes O’Brien as “a Poe in the minor mode.” (p. 10) Seldes also goes into more detail about O’Brien’s service in the Civil War. I think the event for which he was cited for gallantry was when he rode ahead of his regiment with General Lande at Bloomery Gap. The two of them charged a Confederate force and demanded that the rebel commander surrender. He complied.
The first and title story, “The Diamond Lens” reads fairly quickly. There’s a little more to it than the Dictionary blurb’s one-sentence summary. It’s told in the first person by the inventor of the microscope who seems to be an anti-social, obsessive, and somewhat disturbed individual. The story covers most of his life though it focuses primary on his invention and discovery. The title comes from his needing a rare diamond to make the microscope. Though it is about a scientist, the story includes several elements of fantasy. It also turns out to be darker than whimsical and does not end happily. The moral seems to be to not get carried away by your obsessions and don’t tamper with the occult. It is similar to Poe or perhaps that old scary fable “The Monkey’s Paw”.
After finishing the title story I thought I’d try the next one, “The Wondersmith”. The first page describes a poor dirty street that the unnamed narrator likes because it has “outward character”. But by the 15th page the story becomes even stranger and darker than “The Diamond Lens”. I found myself not wanting to know how it ends or even what happens next so I stopped reading at about 21 pages in. I had past 50 pages and finished nearly 90 pages, but I had enough. Perhaps there was a reason O’Brien’s works cannot be found at the Covina Public Library.
We got this book as a Christmas gift for our nephew who would turn 13 during the following year (2010). My wife originally heard about the book. The author, Alec Greven, was only 8 or 9 when he wrote it a couple of years ago. It was originally an assignment for school that his teacher thought was so good she suggested trying to have it published. It went on to become a best seller and Greven appeared on the Ellen Degeneres show or one of those daytime talk shows. The reviews on Amazon.com were generally favorable and many of the negative reviewers seemed like they were just jealous of Greven.
The book is very short: less than 50 pages. It is roughly square-shaped and comes in an attractive red cover. The back says that the book can be helpful to all boys ages 8-80. Inside, the book has only 4-5 lines of text per page along with illustrations done by someone other than the author. They’re usually of little boys or girls. The book has 4-6 chapters covering different aspects of talking to girls including crushes, making a good impression, and giving gifts. I read the book on evening about a week or two before Christmas and it only took me 15 minutes to finish it. Since the book was to be a gift I couldn’t keep it with me and reference it while writing this review.
The book is about how to talk to girls who boys “like” as opposed to girls they just want to get to know as friends. Greven writes that boys should not start seriously dating until middle school or even high school. Still, he isn’t writing about just being friends. At one point he says to focus on just one girl. Personally, I think it’s better to just focus on friendships with both girls and boys at that age and that’s how I think I felt when I was that age. There’s less pressure. Greven mentions early on that his research is from his own experiences in elementary school.
Greven’s advice struck me as being very simple, based on some disputable generalizations, and presented a bit haphazardly. Though it’s organized into chapters there is some repetition of ideas such as “Don’t be a show-off.” There are many caveats such as “Don’t act wild unless you like a wild girl.” Much of the book is common sense such as don’t act too desperate, don’t be the class clown, and begin conversations with “hi” followed by questions such as “did you see the episode of (TV show).” Missing from the book is the equally common advice “be yourself”. Perhaps even Greven thought this was too obvious, or perhaps he doesn’t think it’s good advice.
Greven seems to categorize girls into groups: pretty girls, wild girls, talkative girls, and “regular” girls. The best girls in his view seem to be the regular girls who he soon says can also be considered “pretty.” I’m not sure it’s a good idea to categorize too much. Something I learned from my own experiences is that girls and women are all different individuals and what you learn about someone doesn’t always apply to someone else. Still, Greven is only eight when writing this and seems to feel that some superficial categorization is helpful. I guess a boy doesn’t have much more to go by when meeting a girl for the first time. That she appears pretty may indicate that she’s overly concerned about her appearance and therefore high-maintenance, though I’ve met pretty girls and women who were also very nice.
The book does contain some good advice. Crushes often don’t work out and it is better to just move on than to brood over them. Girls don’t like it when boys publically celebrate getting together with them. It’s better to celebrate privately and not go bragging to friends. Greven writes that the average “relationship” between a boy and a girl in elementary school only lasts 30 days. Some pages have a tip at the bottom of the page that sometimes repeats an earlier point. The illustrations are cute with many featuring a blond boy who is possibly a caricature of Greven. They portray the different points written on each page such as giving gifts and the consequences of going after many girls at once.
How to Talk to Girls is pretty good for a book written by an 8-year-old. I don’t believe, as some Amazon reviewers contend, that it was written by an adult ghostwriter, though I’m sure it went through adult and possibly child editors. It is good advice for kids in elementary, middle, and high school. Adult males can benefit a little from the book, though I think they would have to be completely clueless if they didn’t know most of the things already. I hope Greven’s early success leads to a long successful future and doesn’t ruin him with unreasonable expectations. From his book he seems fairly well grounded. I heard that he has written 2-3 other books: How to Talk to Mom, How to Talk to Dad, How to talk to Santa, and that he’s currently working on How to Talk to Grandparents. (Actual order may differ.)
We hope our nephew likes the book. His parents and the other relatives had fun watching him open the present. We also got him the book Hatchet that I had recently read and enjoyed (see earlier review). That’s a book I would have wanted to read at ages 12-13. I’m not sure I can say the same about How to Talk to Girls. As I mentioned in its review, Hatchet is listed as a manly book on the Art of Manliness website. It probably won’t help as much with talking to girls.
Spoilers.
I had first seen The Kalahari Typing School for Men several months ago among the audiobooks at the Covina Public Library. I didn’t read it yet because I read on the cover that it was part of a series that begins with The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, that’s also the name of the series. The Covina Public Library had this audiobook in circulation and I waited for it to become available. For a while it was listed as checked out and later it was listed as lost. I needed an audiobook to help get some tedious chores done so I decided to forego my regular tendency to read mystery series in order and read Kalahari Typing School. Like all the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books it’s written by Alexander McCall Smith who’s from Scotland and I believe he teaches at either a law school or a school of criminology. I also had heard that this series was made into a BBC TV Series and was shown on HBO.
Like the other books in the series, The Kalahari Typing School for Men takes place in Gaborone, the capital of the African nation of Botswana. The main character is Ma Ramotswe, detective and owner of The Number One Ladies Detective Agency. Other major characters include Ma Macutsi, assistant detective at the agency; Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, Ma Ramotswe’s fiancée and owner and chief mechanic of Tlokweng Road Speedy Motors; and his two apprentices. I believe that they recur throughout the series along with some other minor characters. Everyone refers to Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni by his long formal title, even Ma Ramotswe. The book teaches much about Botswana and the customs there. It’s a country of around 2 million people that, unlike most African countries, never suffered through any dictatorship phase after gaining independence from colonial rule in the 1960’s. Ma Ramotswe remarks how the people of Botswana have long been good, polite people, though that may be changing with the next generation. She thinks about how the people of Botswana aren’t like the wild Swazis or the aggressive Zulus. In Botswana people refer to each other as “Ma” for Ms. and ma’am or “Ra” for Mr. and sir. They also refer to someone who has died as “late”, like most of us do. However, when asking if someone has died, a character asks, “Is she late?”
The mysteries turn out to be simply elements in the lives of the main characters among the other things going on. The title of the book is a business venture started by Ma Macutsi. She went to the Botswana Secretarial College and got the highest score on the final exam in the school’s history: 97%. Despite this she originally had a harder time finding a job than her lower-scoring but prettier classmates. The story also includes the characters’ love lives, lives at home, and friends. One plot line involves the opening of a rival detective agency that stresses that it is owned and operated by a man. It’s called the “Satisfaction Guaranteed Detective Agency” and has the tagline “Ex-CID, (the South African policy force?), Ex-New York (the proprietor lived in there for a short time), Excellent”.
There is a lot of humor in the book. The story is rather light and relaxing. The mysteries mostly involved finding people from the past and checking up on a possible errant husband. There’s no murder or real crimes committed other than minor ones in the past. They’re very tame compared to the police procedural mysteries that I normally read. The book proceeds at a very leisurely pace and ultimately everything is resolved to nearly all the characters’ satisfaction.
McCall-Smith includes in the book some interesting points. During Ma Macutsi’s typing lesson she asks a student to type an essay about “the most important things in your life.” What a great topic for a general essay. Students write about their families and their favorite sports teams. Lots of Ma Ramotswe’s thoughts are revealed as she takes care of her foster orphans and works on her cases. She ponders how schools are like prisons where children are forced to be there and the older children and bullies dominate. When researching the background of someone she’s trying to find, she reflects how people’s lives are fragile and her just a few words from another can change the whole course of someone’s life.
The audiobook is read by the actress Lisette Lecat who has a slight but very understandable African accent. She gives slightly different voices to the different characters, just enough to distinguish them. I enjoyed the book despite the mysteries not being the major focus. It’s definitely a change from the usual mysteries I read since it has a female detective and takes place in Botswana. I consider it more escapist fiction than the compelling suspense of most mysteries I read. There are many books in the series and I think The Kalahari Typing School for Men is the third or fourth installment. A few of the others are audiobooks at the Covina Library. Maybe I’ll check them out the next time I want some light reading.
I heard about the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen from two reliable sources. First, Nancy Pearl recommended it in her book of book recommendations, Book Lust, in the Adventure Stories – Fiction section. The second source was the list of manly adventure books from the website The Art of Manliness (http://artofmanliness.com/). I had already read about 20 books from that list. They also had a list of manly books in general from which I had read around 10 books. Pearl described Hatchet as a book for teenagers and young adults but that all adults would enjoy it. I took her word and the manly list compilers’ word and they were both right. It’s a book for young adults but I still enjoyed it.
The book is about a boy, Brian, who lives alone for a while in the Canadian wilderness after crashing en route by plane to visit his father. With his parents’ recent divorce, his life is already complicated. He flies in a small bush plane with just enough room for himself and the pilot. There’s no security check before boarding and that’s a good thing because on his belt Brian is wearing a hatchet that his mother gave him. This hatchet turns out of be crucial for his survival.
Though it is fiction, this tale of survival seems very realistic. As the reader I felt like I was learning to survive right along with Brian. First he has to recover from his injuries from the crash, then find water, then food and shelter, fire, the basics. He has to figure out the best the way to do things through trial and error. Sometimes his errors lead to setbacks and almost prove fatal in at least one instance. There’s also the beauty and quiet of the forest. Brian eventually develops instincts that tell him when things might be dangerous or when things may yield a reward such as food. There’s also the isolation and hope of being rescued that he eventually learns not to depend on. Instead he develops a “tough hope” of survival. He does go through many changes in outlook. Most of the story takes place during the summer months and the book concedes that he probably would have had a much harder time in the winter.
I could tell right away that the book was primarily for teens and young adults. The sentences are shorter and there’s some repetition to emphasize main points and Brian’s important thoughts. The book is less than 200 pages long and has fairly large type, though I don’t think it’s a “blind edition”. Paulsen does a good job writing from Brian’s 13-year-old point of view. There are a few intense moments and sometimes I wondered how someone so young could figure out so much about survival and put in all the work: getting food, building a shelter, etc. But maybe I underestimate the young. The book won a Newberry Honor award that’s only given to books for children and youth. It does touch on some complicated themes: divorce of parents, hope, self-reliance. But I believe it explores them in a way that young people can understand.
Incidentally, when I opened the book I found it had a bookmark already in it: a pink and orange bookmark with an ad for the Nintendo DS video game Super Tuff Pink Puff with a picture of the character Kirby Super Star Ultra. That’s kind of ironic for video game to make bookmarks, almost contradictory.
I wish I had read the book 22-23 years ago when it first came out but I guess it took a book of recommendations and a manly top 100 list to bring it to my attention. I think back then I was more interested in reading books to get ahead in schoolwork rather than reading for pleasure and insight. Too bad, but I think I have the insight to appreciate it more now. Paulsen went on the write a series of books about Brian. Maybe I’ll check them out sometime. I could relate to the book because I used to live in Juneau, Alaska, though I was in town and not surviving on my own. I don’t think I’d want to find myself in a situation like Brian. But at least I know if I do, it could survivable with the right attitude and tools. Too bad we can’t bring hatchets on planes as carry on.
This is a book I had wanted to read for a while but for most of that time it wasn’t available from any of the libraries I most often visit. I even considered ordering it from the author’s bookstore, Tia Chucha’s. Then in September 2009 I noticed on Cal State L.A.’s online catalog that they had it in their new book section. It was about time they got it since it was published in 2002 and CSULA is very close to if not within East L.A. I first heard about the author, Louis J. Rodriguez, because I was interested in learning more about gang culture. Coming from Southeast Alaska and the Pacific Northwest, I hadn’t heard much about gangs. My closest gang affiliation was playing a member of the Puerto Rican gang, the Sharks, in a high school production of West Side Story. A while ago I read an article in the L.A. Times, possibly in the book review section that mentioned the book Always Running as a definitive account of gang life in the L.A. area. Later I checked out the book that's a non-fiction memoir by Luis J. Rodriguez. It’s about his life in the gang Lomas or “hills” in the west San Gabriel Valley in the late 60’s and early 70’s. They were rivals of the gang “Sangra” that was slang for San Gabriel. This was back when mostly Latinos lived in the area and long before it was populated by Asians.
Always Running was written as a warning to Rodriguez’s eldest son who was 15 at the time and starting to get interested in gangs. It is not a happy book and at times the story is very violent and graphic. About the only humor is in the author’s and fellow gang members’ nicknames. He’s called “Chin” because an injury made his chin more prominent. One of his homeboys is called “Chicharron” because of his dark skin, I think. Though it doesn’t romanticize the life at all, much of the book’s writing has a poetic quality to it. You could almost say the book is urban and gritty and poetic and lyrical at the same time. I remember seeing late author Frank McCourt be interviewed by author Mitch Albom at the 2006 L.A. Times Festival of Books. McCourt said he was tired of critics saying his writing was “poetic and lyrical” just as they describe most Irish or Irish-American authors. He said, “I want them to say (my writing is) urban and gritty.” Well, Luis J. Rodriguez seems to have succeeded at being both. It’s a dark book with a hint of hope at the end.
Rodriguez had written other books, poetry, more non-fiction, and even a children’s book. In one of my classes at CSULA we reconstructed one of his poems about a noisy machine. He has a website, www.luisrodriguez.com that includes his blog. I read it sometimes. It describes his speaking, writing, fundraising, and gang intervention activities. The Republic of East L.A. seemed interesting: a book of twelve fictional short stories all connected to East L.A. It took some time to locate the book in the Cal State L.A. library after I learned they had it. I didn’t know where the new book section was. The location wasn’t given online as it is for the other sections but I figured it couldn’t be too hard to find. I eventually found the new books on a few shelves on the north end of the library’s ground floor. It was near where they had special exhibits. At the time they had different chess sets from around the world (see earlier blog). They had the paperback edition that was orange and yellow with a picture of a young woman on the cover. I’m not sure about the origin of the photo. It seemed to correspond most closely to the story “Las Chicas Cuecas”. The book does give the origin of the photo of two feet standing on the lower rung of a metal fence that is used for the title page spread and the chapter opener page. It is from La Jette, a French short film from the 1960’s that inspired the 1990’s film Twelve Monkeys.
All the stories in the Republic of East L.A. either take place in the area or have characters from there, usually both. I think Rodriguez lived there when he as a young adult, after his gang days. The stories are all fiction, though I believe some parts may be semiautobiographical such as the story “Miss East L.A.” about a rookie reporter for the fictional free community newspaper called the Eastside Star. The title of the book, The Republic of East L.A., comes from a quote attributed to barrio evangelist Jo Jo Sanchez in an early 80’s L.A. Times article. I think most of the stories were originally written in the 20 years before the 2002 publishing of the book. A few seem a little dated such as “Pigeons” that describes West Covina a place “with only fairly well off Anglo families.” (p. 9) Or maybe he was describing it as a place that used to be like that. Now it seems like more Asians than Anglos live in West Covina.
I like how all the stories reference streets, areas, and/or neighborhoods that actually exist. I could locate just about every East L.A. street mentioned on a map. Rodriguez spends several sentences describing the former General Hospital now called USC-L.A. County Medical Center. He writes “A lot of Chicanos inhaled their very first breath there—and exhaled their last. It’s the cheapest and most overworked hospital in the city. Our hospital. East L.A.’s.” (p. 178) Many places mentioned or even featured are not in East L.A. At one point the main character of the story “Mechanics” suggests to his wife and family that they go out to eat at a “good restaurant” such as Clifton’s or Philippe’s in Downtown L.A. The narrator/limo driver in the first story, “My Ride, My Revolution” describes driving Taiwanese businessmen to Valley Blvd’s Asian Heights in Alhambra. The preachy narrator of “Oiga” describes how she walked miles and miles to her ex-boyfriend’s house in Hacienda Heights. I can understand that because Hacienda Heights is far away from many places. Then there’s the party scene in “Las Chicas Cuecas” that takes place at a house in Highland Park on Avenue 47. The author mentions that the area is controlled by the gang The Avenues. They are one of the first gangs I heard about after first I moved to the L.A. area.
I was hoping the stories wouldn’t be as dark and graphic as Always Running and they weren’t, for the most part. They are a bit depressing, more than I thought they would be. It’s as if East L.A. is full of broken dreams. But some stories such as “Finger Dance” have some hope. Some are darker such as “Shadows” and “Pigeons”. “Las Chicas Cuecas” is a bit dark and graphic in parts but also includes some hope. Its title translates to “the bent girls” as in they’re bent out of shape by their difficult life but they’re not broken. Some stories contain humor or other things I can relate to. In “My Ride, My Revolution”, the first person protagonist, Limo driver Cruz Blancarte, listens to a tape of the band Pavement as he waits for his next rider to board. In “Mechanics”, a coworker of the main character quotes Charlie Parker when he says, “Just remember, romance without finance is a nuisance.” (p. 117)
The Republic of East L.A. is pretty good but I’m glad I didn’t have to buy it to read it. I guess I was used to reading Rodriguez’s blogs about his work and his and his wife’s bookstore/press, his gang intervention work, and his promoting art as an alternative outlet for youth pressured to join gangs. I guess life is hard for most residents of East L.A. and Rodriguez realistically portrays this. But it’s not all bad and the book ends on a high note. How could it not with a story titled “Sometimes you Dance with a Watermelon.”
I first heard about the book Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi from the assistant director of Alumni Relations at my undergrad college. I had lunch with him at Pho 777 in Azusa in July 2008. I was looking for ways to improve my networking skills and the assistant director strongly recommended this book saying that it has helped him greatly with the public relations aspects of his job. I checked out the book from the Covina Public Library. It’s hard to miss with its orange cover. It was published in 2005 that actually makes it a bit dated. It has around 200-300 pages separated into 3 main sections and many smaller chapters. I mostly read it during my spare time at home and, though it read fairly quickly, it never felt like fun or pleasure reading. In fact, it made me feel a bit stressed to read it. I kept going, even past the rule of fifty because I thought I might find something very useful. There were some possible good ideas, and some profound insights. But there were also some strange, less focused ideas. The book’s tone seemed to be almost frantic (e.g. you gotta do this, you gotta do that) and despite having chapters and main sections, it didn’t seem very well organized. The section on small talk that seems to me to be one of the first steps to networking doesn’t appear until the latter half of the book. Often, the book seemed more like an autobiography than a self-help book (therefore a self-self-help book?) or that it was only for a certain type of person (extroverts) or career (sales/marketing).
Never Eat Alone begins like an autobiography where the author tells how he started learning how to network as a child and teen. In this section he recommends being audacious and not be afraid to ask anyone for anything because they may just give it to you. He then veers off into goal setting that I guess is related to networking though only in that they are both ways that help lead to success. I guess his point is that you need to have goals if you want to network. He gives an example of Yale (that happens to be his alma mater) class of 1953 being survey on whether they had goals and whether they wrote down their goals. Twenty years later the 13% who had goals but didn’t write them down were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who didn’t have goals. However, “the 3% who wrote down their goals were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% combined.” (Ferrazzi, p. 24) His point seems to be: when you graduated from college, you should have had goals and you should have written them down. The survey could also have proven that if you were lucky enough to know what you planned to do, you did better. I’m not sure if he states it explicitly, but I don’t believe it is ever too late to write down your goals and pursue them.
Ferrazzi goes on to use the New Agey metaphor of the “blue flame” and bliss for a goal as in “follow your bliss” or follow your blue flame. He describes how Joseph Campbell determined that his “blue flame” was the study of Greek Mythology. “After graduation (from Columbia U.) he moved into a cabin in Woodstock, NY where he did nothing but read from 9 in the morning until 6 or 7 at night.” (p. 27) This is an interesting account but one I expected to read in a book about networking. I bet Campbell ate alone many times during those five years. This account also reminded me of seeing a video of Campbell speaking in my Into to Religious Texts class. At the time I thought he gave a rather dull and unfocused lecture that was difficult to understand. Maybe I’d appreciated it better now that I’m older. Ferrazzi also writes that, “Campbell believed that within each person, there’s an intuitive knowledge of what he or she wants most in live. We only have to look for it.” (p. 27)
I did learn a few possibly good networking ideas from the book. One is to frequent a favorite restaurant that’s preferably high-end, get to know the staff and eventually the owner. Bring coworkers there and have them cater an event. According to Ferrazzi, the restaurateur will soon introduce you to their important clients. Another idea is social arbitrage: bringing two people together for mutual benefit. If you don’t known enough people to do this, you can become a knowledge broker. You can get knowledge free or nearly free from books, articles, or the Internet. You just read the information, summarize the big ideas and why it might be useful, and send it to people you want to meet or already know who might benefit from it. Another good idea is to write an article. First you find something you’re interested in, then find a newspaper, newsletter, or publication that might be interested and the editor will probably say, “Let me see it when it’s done.” (p. 247) You identify the top experts on the topic you’re researching and call them for an interviews saying you’re calling on behalf of the (name of publication). Ferrazzi writes, “What you’ve unknowingly done, by calling these people and setting an interview is establish a terrific environment for meeting anyone anywhere.”
Ferrazzi presents some ideas that weren’t as new to me but still good. One is to improve your speaking skills and when you’ve gotten better, volunteer to speak at conferences or events. You can get involved with an organization such as Toastmasters Club who’ll give you a chance to practice in a non-intimidating environment. I know from experience about meeting people by speaking. After presenting at a couple of conferences for work, it seemed like all these people I didn’t know knew my name. Ferrazzi also suggests the book How to Make Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. I had heard of it and had always thought it was just a generic self-help book. But after reading Ferrazzi’s account of the book’s history and main ideas, I think it might be worth checking out sometime.
Some of the more profound ideas that Ferrazzi presents also make sense. Late in the book he describes a meditation technique called Vipassana, “a technology for inner peace that can drive fear from the heart and help us have the courage to be who we really are.” (p. 295) That sounds similar to the the Bene Gesserit chant to alleviate fear from Frank Herbert’s book Dune. Per teacher S.N. Goerska, Vipassana involves a “grueling 10-day course, during which practitioners sit for hours-long stretches in absolute silence, without eye contact, writing, or communication of any kind except with teachers at the end of the day.” (p. 296) Like the story of Joseph Campbell, this sounds interesting but I’m not 100% sure how it helps with networking. In sounds like the course involves eating alone. Ferrazzi also includes an interesting quote from the Rabbi Harold Kushner: “Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. These rewards create as many problems as they solve. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter so the world will be a little bit better for our having passed through it.” (p. 294) I’m not sure I agree with that 100%. Another profound idea that Ferrazzi describes that’s more pertinent to networking is “refrigerator rights”. He argues that we need more “refrigerator relationships” with people we are comfortable and informal enough to allow us to walk into one another’s kitchens and rummage through the refrigerator without asking. (p. 289) He references this idea from Dr. Will Miller and Glen Spark’s book Refrigerator Rights. Due to “increased mobility, American emphasis on individualism, and the overwhelming media distractions available to us, we lead lives of relative isolation.” They argue that the refrigerator relationships keep us well adjusted, happy, and successful.
The book seems to encompass not just networking but Ferrazzi’s entire philosophy about being successful. The views are very much his own and have obviously worked out well for him. I’m not sure they would work as well for those of us that are different from him. Also the way he presents some of his ideas is sometimes haphazard or a bit digressing. In the chapter of how not to be the smoozing networking jerk he makes the point that you should never go to a party or conference empty handed or without anything to offer. That makes sense. But as an example he mentions bloggers who write online journals for free and are “often rewarded with a devout following of people who, in return, offer as much as they receiving.” (p. 59) I like that he gives kudos to us bloggers and makes blogging seem like a form of networking, but how does that apply to the party or conference he started out with?
There are parts of the book that seem a bit dated. I guess the book is a bit old, having been published in 2005. He doesn’t mention MySpace or Facebook at all though he does briefly mention Spoke, LinkedIn, Friendster, and a few I hadn’t heard of: Ryze, Zerodegrees, and Capital IQ. The latter aggregates market data and information on executives. Ferrazzi is only partly sold on e-mail that he believes wallflowers use to avoid personal interaction. Digital media may make communication faster, but Ferrazzi believes they are not effective at making friends. He also believes that mean business is over and mean guys finish last. He asserts that we live in a new “abundance of choice in business in everything from products to career paths.” (p. 58) He bases this on quotes from author and friend Tim Sanders. Another reason Ferrazzi gives for mean business being over is that e-mail, instant messaging, and the web make it almost impossible for a crummy person to keep his or her reality a secret anymore. I’m not so sure that the “abundance of choice” still exists in the current economy.
Speaking of the economy, last year I read in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune about “Pink Slip mixers” where people who had lost their jobs would meet at a bar, restaurant or club, commiserate, and figure out ways they could help each other. This seemed like a good idea to me especially the part about having something to offer the others. It almost seems consistent with Ferrazzi’s idea of always having something to give. But Ferrazzi later writes that these networking events are useless and only for the desperate or the uninformed. He writes, “Imagine a congregation of people with nothing in common except joblessness. That’s not exactly a recipe for facilitating close bonds.” (p. 99) I ask, “Why not? What about the adage ‘misery loves company’?” And, if attending these networking events is useless then what kinds of events should the unemployed attend?
Something I had hoped the book would cover was small talk. There is a chapter on it but I didn’t find it very helpful. It basically said to be genuine and determine the other person “Jadori window” on how much they’re willing to open up. I wish he gave some examples of conversations.
Overall, I found some things in the book that might be helpful but not enough to redeem all that I didn’t find helpful or that I disagreed with. Also the book’s message was inconsistent at times and the content was organized in a rather haphazard way. At one point Ferrazzi says to never eat alone and at another he praises a meditation technique that involves talking to no one. I get that he has had an interesting and successful professional life and a number of things have worked well for him. But this doesn’t mean they’ll work for everyone. I also don’t buy into the whole philosophy that there should be no boundaries between work and personal life. I didn’t find the excited and almost stressful tone of the book to be easy reading. I’m glad it wasn’t too long or I wouldn’t have finished it. I may recommend it for people like Ferrazzi or workaholic extroverts with type A personalities. For everyone else, go ahead and eat alone.
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