Pulitzer Project: Arrowsmith

My trek up the Pulitzer Prize fiction winners list continues with Arrowsmith, the 1926 winner written by Sinclair Lewis. Lewis must have been a bit of an odd duck, because he refused to accept the prize, although he wasn't as shy about accepting a Nobel for literature a few years later.

But then Arrowsmith is an odd book. In terms of readability, how well it's stood the test of time, and other criteria, it falls in the middle of the pack of the early prize winners (1918-1926) I've read so far. It's not nearly as good as the Willa Cather work, but for sure it's head and shoulders above Ernest Poole's His Family. Still, it felt a bit incoherent, like Lewis wasn't really sure just what it was he was shooting for when he wrote it.

Its main character, Martin Arrowsmith, is, to say the least, exasperating, one of those guys who kind of bumbles along cluelessly, full of insecurities, fearing he'll be viewed as a hick or a rube but at the same totally convinced of his own superiority, and in the end baffled as to why nothing he does turns out quite the way he thought it would. As I was reading it, I kept thinking, this poor sap is an Aspie! As written, Martin is classic Asperger's syndrome: highly intelligent, tightly focused on the one thing that fascinates him, and absolutely lost when it comes to social interactions and having some insight into what other people might be thinking or feeling.

Brief plot synopsis: Martin Arrowsmith is a fellow from a small town in a fictionalized Minnesota. I'm not sure why the author makes up a state rather than coming right out and saying Minnesota when the one he does make up is clearly geographically and politically improbable (bounded by Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan), but he does. Martin's hero as a boy is the town doctor, an aging bachelor alcoholic who in his sober moments extols the glories of science to Martin and inspires him to go to college and medical school.

Martin's parents both conveniently die just before he leaves for college, a state university, so he has a small inheritance to help support him through school, but not much. He lives on a pretty tight budget. He spends his summers working (one year he's on a crew putting in a telegraph line across Montana, another he spends as a waiter at a resort hotel), and the school year engrossed in his classes and engaged in awkward interactions with fellow students. When he enters medical school, he pledges the medical fraternity and moves into the frat house even though he doesn't have much use for any of his fraternity brothers. He has a roommate that annoys him by being noisy, rude, and generally inconsiderate, but instead of moving out or asserting himself at all, he suffers in martyred silence because when it comes to personal relationships he's too insecure to speak up.

And so it goes. We're shown Martin's life from Martin's perspective, and the combination of total naivete and smug superiority tends to be a little off-putting. I had a hard time getting through the first half of the book. It wasn't easy getting interested in a character who was as completely self-centered as Martin Arrowsmith. He's so totally convinced that he's right (after all, science is on his side) that he's incapable of understanding why other people don't Get It. His faith in scientific evidence is absolute while his people skills apparently are close to nonexistent, so it's no surprise he's a failure as a small town GP in North Dakota, despite being the son-in-law of the town banker. He does a little better when he gets a position as an assistant public health officer in a large city in Iowa, but blows that position by once again being so narrowly focused on the science he neglects the people who count.

Eventually, through the sheer dumb luck of having one of his former college professors in a position to help him, he ends up in a research position at a private scientific institute in New York. One assumes the fictional institution is loosely based on the Rockefeller Foundation. Martin is finally in a place where he can devote his energies 100% to basic research, and he does. He makes a remarkable discovery -- he finds phages, viruses that kill bacteria such as staphylococcus aureus -- and is pushed to publish quickly. Naturally, he decides to be stubborn and not submit a paper until he's absolutely sure there are no questions left, demonstrating that he could be as naive about science (there are always more questions) (every published paper concludes with a variation on "additional research is needed") as he is about people. Just as naturally, another scientist makes a similar discovery, getting the credit and, in the process, annoying the institute's directors so Martin's hopes of a promotion (more money, bigger lab, more assistants) vaporize.

The real drama in the book comes toward the end -- Martin has been tasked with investigating plague and attempting to find a cure. Plague was still a major health issue in the early part of the 20th century, despite the cause being well known, and Martin's assignment is to find a cure or a preventative -- or both. In the 1920s antimicrobials like penicillin were unheard of; the focus in infectious disease prevention was on vaccines and type-specific sero therapy (i.e., using antibodies obtained from a survivor of a disease to cure patients ill with that disease; sera were developed by passing the disease through animals [lab rats, monkeys])*. The bacterium responsible for plague, yersinia pestis, has been known since 1894, along with its vectors (fleas carried by rodents). Martin thinks he's close to a break-through, he has a serum that seems to work, and then he's pushed to use it before he's sure it's ready.

Plague hits an island in the Caribbean. The institute sends Martin and a colleague to the island with instructions to do whatever they can to stop the devastation. Martin wants to administer the serum as a controlled experiment, i.e., just give it to half the plague victims so he can compare survival rates; his colleague says their duty is to give it to everyone. In the end the colleague dies, followed not long after by Martin's wife (a woman who Lewis should have described as wearing a halo along with her cotton dresses, because it doesn't matter what Martin does, she supports it), and Martin Arrowsmith goes slightly mad -- and injects everyone he can. Whether or not the serum actually made a difference becomes impossible to tell, because plague tends to run its course naturally. The outbreak could have been at its peak when they arrived, and the serum may not have made any difference at all.

Still, the institute takes the credit for getting the outbreak under control, Martin gets handed a promotion (bigger lab, more underlings) when he gets back to New York, and he bumbles along awhile longer. He even acquires a very wealthy wife, a woman who initially loves him because of his devotion to science but ends up alienated by the amount of time he spends in the lab.
The book ends with Martin more or less happy -- he's in the lab where he's always wanted to be -- but basically alone. I'm not sure just what point Sinclair Lewis was trying to make. Good scientists aren't motivated by money? It's not possible to do science and deal with people, too? Most people are idiots with tunnel vision? Rich people are essentially shallow?

Sinclair Lewis is one of those authors I've been hearing about for years, a major figure on the American literary scene whose books fall into the "of course you're read. . . " category when the reality is that unless they're assigned in a college class almost no one picks up a copy of Babbit, Elmer Gantry, or Arrowsmith. We know the titles; most of us have never read and never will read the actual books. Will I read the others now that I have read Arrowsmith? I don't know. Arrowsmith was readable, more or less, but when I find myself reacting to a book by thinking "I've read worse," that isn't exactly high praise.

Arrowsmith was made into a movie in 1931 starring Ronald Colman and Helen Hayes. In typical cinematic fashion, the movie apparently compresses the time line for Martin's life considerably. An on-line synopsis describes it as "one of the most prestigious films of its time," which is generally code for "doesn't stand up well." I'm not sure I have any interest in ever seeing it, at least not going by the cheesy poster photo of Helen Hayes dying in Ronald Colman's arms. It definitely hints at lots of melodramatic over the top ham acting -- and it does fall into that time period when actors were still making the transition from the exaggerations necessary in silent films to being able to be more subtle in talkies.

Next up on the list: 1927 and Louis Bromfeld's Early Autumn, another book I'd never heard of before looking at the Pulitzer winners list. It's going to be another Interlibrary Loan Request because DeKalb does not have it in its catalog.

[*This is a technique that's still used today, especially with novel or rare pathogens. Doctors will transfuse plasma from recovered survivors of a disease to current victims. If it's done early enough, it can work.]

Movie Review: The Motorcycle Diaries

Actually, it would be more accurate to call this a rave rather than a review. I watched this movie last night and loved it. I liked it so much, in fact, that I'm thinking about renewing it so I can watch it again in a day or two instead of taking it back to the library tomorrow.

It's a biopic, the story of the young Che Guevara and a road trip he undertook with a friend in 1952. They started from Buenos Aires, Argentina, on a not especially reliable Norton 500 motorcycle, and six months later arrived in Caracas, Venezuela. The settings are spectacular, the acting appears to be first-rate (hard to tell for sure when you're reading subtitles), and Che's evolution from a middle class med student whose biggest goal in life is to get into his girlfriend's pants into a revolutionary is fascinating.

This is an engrossing and entertaining movie. It begins in typical road trip fashion, a buddy comedy, two young guys out for adventure while taking a break from the university. It's pretty light-hearted initially, despite the difficulties the guys have along the way (not much cash for buying meals, for example, and the motorcycle keeps breaking down), but gradually Che and Alberto begin to recognize the extreme poverty and hardship around them, the disparities between rich and poor in South America, and a more serious tone emerges. You can see Che changing, and you can also see that he and Alberto are going to go in separate directions once the trip ends.

One of the cooler parts of the movie is right at the end when as they're rolling the credits they include the original photos Che and Alberto took along the road.

The one downside is it is in Spanish, and subtitles can be distracting. I personally find subtitles annoying because I like to be able to do needlecrafts while watching television, and having to keep up with subtitles makes quilting awkward.

It's official

Finally got the paperwork for the promotion. It took about two months longer than everyone said it would. The only thing left now is to see if the powers-that-be make good on their promise of getting me out of a cubicle and into an actual office.

The cool thing about an actual office, of course, would be that I could arrange my work space so the monitor screen wasn't visible to passers-by. . . .because I am the Sudoku Queen. I could sit facing the door and no one would ever sneak up on me again.

15 Books

Blame this one on (((Billy))) the Atheist.

Don’t take too long to think about it. Fifteen books you’ve read that will always stick with you. First 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes.

So here goes:

1. Red Planet by Robert A. Heinlein. Back in elementary school this book got me hooked on science fiction, a genre that's turned into a lifelong love. I loved all of Heinein's "juveniles" (Have Spacesuit, Will Travel; The Rolling Stones; Rocketship Galileo . . . ) and most of his adult books -- until he went off the deep end into dirty old man senility with the last two or three.

2. A Boy and His Dog, Harlan Ellison. Okay, technically it was first published as a novella, not an actual book, but that's a minor quibble. I'd probably add a couple of Ellison's short story collections, too, because gems like "Shattered like a Glass Goblin" and "Pennies Off a Dead Man's Eyes" are still sticking with me over 30 years after I first read them.

3. The Bell Jar, Sylvia Plath. Along with I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Hannah Green it was one of the two "must read" books for adolescent females in the late 1960s.

4. The Royal Road to Romance, Richard Halliburton. Halliburton was an adventure traveler in the 1920s. He bummed around the world on tramp steamers and wrote about his experiences in far-off places.

5. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy. An amazing novel.

6. Jeeves, Jeeves, Jeeves, P. G. Wodehouse. Technically three novels (How Right You Are, Jeeves; Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves; and Jeeves & The Tie that Binds) but again a minor quibble.

7. A Fine and Private Place, Peter S. Beagle, and

8. I See By My Outfit, Peter S. Beagle. Two early works by a gifted author, #7 is Beagle's first novel, #8 is autobiographical, a description of a cross-country motor scooter trip taken by him and a friend in the early 1960s.

9. Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail, Hunter S. Thompson. No explanation needed.

10. And the Band Played On: Politics, People, and the AIDS Epidemic, Randy Shilts. Examination of the AIDS epidemic and a devastating take-down of the American public health system and the Reagan administration that was quite willing to ignore disease until it became clear heterosexuals and kids could die from it, too.

11. Danny and the Boys, Robert Traver. A fun book by the author of Anatomy of a Murder.

12. The Heavens and the Earth: A Political History of the Space Age, Walter A. MacDougall. There's a reason this one won a Pulitzer for history.

13. Can You Forgive Her?, Anthony Trollope. The first of the Palliser novels, and the one that turned me into a Trollope fan.

14. Two Years Before the Mast, Richard H. Dana. Fascinating true account of two years Dana spent as a common sailor in the 1830s on a ship that sailed from Boston to California.

15. Fatu-Hiva: Back to Nature, Thor Heyerdahl. An account of the year Heyerdahl and his bride spent on Fatu Hiva in the 1930s. Heyerdahl's observations there influenced his scholarship and later work, particularly the Kon-Tiki expedition in 1947.

I think #3 is the only one I have no interest in revisiting. It was memorable at the time, but once was enough.

As of today

exactly 9 months to go. . .

Book review (sort of)

I have found a new (to me) author to love. John Ringo.

I have been a science fiction fan since about the 5th grade, and I've always been a fan of the hard core stuff, actual science fiction in the tradition of Robert A. Heinlein's Starship Troopers. I am also, for various reasons (maybe it was the influence of Heinlein on me in my formative years), a fan of military science fiction.

A few months ago I stumbled across a series of co-authored books (March Upcountry, March to the Sea, March to the Stars and We Few) co-authored by David Weber and John Ringo. I liked the series. So I figured I'd go looking for more -- and I'd also try out the individual authors and see what I thought.

Well, I read one book by David Weber writing solo, and was not impressed. It felt flat, and left me with no desire to go looking for any others. So then I tried John Ringo, A Hymn Before Battle. I was hooked instantly. Gust Front is the second in a series of (thank you, book gods!) twelve titles related to the Posleen wars.

There is, of course, almost no chance genre fiction like this will ever be considered great literature, even though Ringo is a highly talented author. Still, the prose flows nicely on the page and the books respect a reader's intelligence. He is treading familiar ground: an alien threat that isn't taken seriously until it's too late, military officers intent on fighting the last war instead of the one they're confronted with now, various nefarious machinations happening in the background (including a group of what can only be summarized as Benedictine ninjas that make Dan Brown's fantasies about Opus Dei look positively trite in comparison) to tease the reader into wondering into just who is actually allied with whom and when will the ultimate betrayals be revealed -- in short, it's all wonderfully entertaining, mind candy at its finest.

I'm almost done with Gust Front, and am giving serious thought to actually driving tomorrow to the branch library that has When the Devil Dances (book #3) on its shelves instead of doing my usual request for it to be delivered to Brookhaven.

Sunday morning

C-SPAN. Coffee, toast, the endless entertainment provided by the delusional right-wing faithful. Life is good. I am a creature of habit, I like having a set routine -- stalkers would give up on me through boredom; I'd be too easy -- and this morning definitely followed the usual script to lull me into a cozy feeling that life is proceeding as usual: Obama's a socialist, Social Security is teetering on the brink of insolvency, we're all doomed as long as the Democrats insist on dragging civilization down into the abyss.

Not surprisingly, the looniest calls, the one where describing the caller as a "few fries shy of a happy meal" doesn't really cover it because it's real clear the poor sap never even made it to the drive-through window, were all from the South. Is it the kudzu? Does it emit fumes that kill brain cells?

Two different things have reinforced the image of the South as the bastion of the mentally challenged: one is the "birther" movement, the other is health care. Both just floor me. They're both so far over the "how fucking dumb are you?!" line that they're well beyond "the stupid, it burns" point.

The birther movement, which anyone with even a modicum of intelligence can see is a proxy for racism -- Barack Obama could have been born under the US Capitol rotunda with both houses of congress witnessing the event and there'd be closet Klan types howling that he's a foreigner (and this is the part they won't say out loud) because he's black. Because, of course, as far as they're concerned the only people who actually qualify for elective office are white males and an occasional token white woman.

That said, the amusing part of watching the birthers in action is seeing just how unbelievably ignorant they are about how birth certificates are actually issued, and what counts as one. They actually get into debates over supposed differences between a "certificate of birth" and a "birth certificate." It goes beyond moronic. You know, when I applied for a driver's license here in Georgia they insisted on seeing my "birth certificate" so they'd know I was a U.S. citizen. You know what it says across the top? "Certificate of birth." (It's also kind of funny seeing just how many there are who don't seem to believe Hawaii is a state, so even if President Obama was born in Honolulu it doesn't count, but that's a different issue.)

And then there's health care. . . this is a part of the country that has some of the lousiest health outcomes in the nation. Quality of care sucks big time, lots and lots of people have no health insurance whatsoever, and they're worried about socialized medicine? Get a grip, people. Socialized medicine would have to be an improvement over none at all.

Of course, one of the funnier things to emerge from the South in the past week was reading about one of the fine citizens of South Carolina who got up at a town hall meeting and ranted about not wanting the government to mess with his Medicare by replacing it with a government program. When the Congress critter whose district it was tried telling him that Medicare is a government program, his constituent started arguing with him.

It's got to be the kudzu.

Yard sale score

I am not normally a cookbook collector, but when I spotted this gem on a yard sale table this morning I could not resist. After all, how often do you find recipes for coconut blancmange with dark cocoa sauce,

blueberry kissel, and Scandinavian fruit soup?

Livestock

After reading the killer cattle post and seeing that I still dream of cows, the Younger Daughter called to ask if I was serious about getting cattle after I retire.

Well, to be honest, no. I love Ayrshires -- they're a very elegant cow, as dairy cattle go, and they are on the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy watch list, but when I'm being realistic I know there's no way I want to be interacting with them on a daily basis. We hobby farmed in the '70s. I've known the joys of being cow-kicked while sitting on a milking stool, getting slapped in the face with a urine soaked tail, and having a case of contact dermatitis that had my hands itching for months on end. One of life's little ironies is that much as I love cows, I'm allergic to them. Besides, as the MMWR article made clear, a full-grown cow can kill a person without even meaning to. A mature Ayrshire can weigh 1100 pounds. All she has to do is sidestep unexpectedly, shove you up against a barn wall, and you've got cracked ribs or worse.

I would, however, like to treat the farm, the retirement bunker in Michigan's upper peninsula, as an actual farm. I like the idea of having some chickens wandering around, maybe some geese, and perhaps a few goats. And whatever we get, I'll try to pick it from the endangered livestock breeds lists, which is what a person who hobby farms should be doing anyway. The heritage breeds can tolerate the unpredictable conditions of a hobby farm where the breeds used for modern industrialized agriculture cannot.

When most people think of endangered species, they don't think of Pineywood cattle or Gloucestershire Old Spots pigs, but, thanks to industrialized agriculture, quite a few livestock breeds have either gone extinct or are close to it. Most dairy operations are 100% Holstein (the classic black-and-white cows in the Chik-Fil-A ads; which is another irony, using dairy cattle instead of beef to encourage people to eat chicken). Many of the other dairy breeds -- Ayrshires, Guernseys, brown Swiss, milking shorthorns, even Jerseys (Elsie the Borden cow is a Jersey) -- are harder and harder to find.

Same thing is happening with poultry -- Tyson and the other industrialized operations have bred varieties of chickens and turkeys that could not possibly survive on a traditional "family" farm. The emphasis on breast development in turkeys has meant that for many years the birds sold by Jenny O and the other big companies have had to be artificially inseminated -- the birds lost the ability to reproduce without help several decades ago. Ditto chickens -- breeding for lots of breast meat results in birds that can't mate naturally.

So I'll get a few chickens, some white Chinese geese (tempting though it is to get the gray Africans instead -- the Africans we had back in the '70s were the only "watchdogs" we've ever had that prevented Jehovah's Witnesses from getting out of their cars), and some goats to serve as brush cutters. Life will be good, albeit regretfully cow-free.