Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy: born 2nd June 1840 died 11th January 1928

This novel, published in 1891, resonates, in surprising but subtle ways throughout our own social strata.  Indeed, the central theme of this work, viewed by many as Hardy’s masterpiece, hinges upon the importance of female virginity before marriage.

This consideration was reflected as recently as the 1981 marriage between heir to the British throne Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer.  Despite their twelve-year age difference, and their vastly diverging interests, Lady Diana’s virginity rendered her one of the limited number of candidates acceptable as Princess of Wales, and potential mother to the next  king of Great Britain.   

From its beginning, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is based upon a false supposition.  During a time of major economic depression in the 1870s, Tess Durbeyfield's father becomes absorbed by a hint from his vicar of his possible connection to the similar named family the "d'Urbervilles", who possessed significant wealth.  

Without any further verification, Durbeyfield determines to seek to gain whatever he can from this tangential connection.  Hence, after correspondence, Durbeyfield invests the family’s meager financial resources in sending his lovely, seventeen-year-old daughter, Tess, to visit their “relatives”.

Once having met her, Alec d’Urberville, accustomed to obtaining whatever or whomever he fancies, soon grows amazed by Tess’s ability to resist his amorous efforts.  Slowly, unused to the slightest rebuff, his feelings increase, until they begin edging towards love.

As to Tess, while she does her utmost to avoid becoming one more in a series of discarded conquests, she begins to pulsate.  In theory, she remains on the d’Urberville estate in hopes of her small wages as poultry keeper will compensate her family for its outlay regarding her journey.  Later, during a night in a field, her intimacy with d’Urberville is crystallized.

Hardy leaves it to the reader to determine to what degree, if any, her response is consensual.  During the late Victorian era, the thought of a girl or woman, especially if unmarried, feeling lust and or libido, could not be endured.  Thus, in this and other novels written by authors during the same era, the writer and reader collude in a form of political /moral correctness.

At any rate, this encounter results in Tess, humiliated and pregnant, returning to her village.  Although her baby lives only a few weeks, its conception and birth has made her a pariah.  Any hopes she might have of respect lies in traveling some distance.

Having found work on a dairy farm, she encounters the apprentice minister, perhaps satirically named Angel Clare.  Despite his bountiful choices as to a bride, Tess’s beauty and integrity urges him to propose.  Tess, having become besotted by Angel, fears confession of her indiscretion will impel him to retract his proposal.  (in the most ominous sense, she is right.)

Hence, although Tess and Angel marry, anguish soon besets them.

On their wedding night, Angel admits to a brief but wild interlude with an older woman.  Engulfed by a sense of relief, Tess reveals her encounter with Alec d'Urberville.  Angel, appalled and overwhelmed, explains to Tess her seeming innocence had induced him to ask her to become his wife; her words have flawed his belief in her to the point of his inability to consummate their union.  After several days of strain, Tess urges Angel to leave.  He agrees, promising to strive, from his deepest soul, to find some means of forgiving her.

The remainder of the book involves plot twists too intricate for our purposes here.  To summarize, Alec d’Urberville, finding Tess and her family near destitution, offers to support all of them if Tess will live as his mistress.  She agrees, again ostensibly based on need rather than any erotic wish.

While acknowledging Hardy’s genius, some critics have noted his tendency to force his characters to commit acts almost wholly inconsistent with their previous conduct,  in order to facilitate the conclusion he seeks.  While I will not ruin the ending for future readers, I join with those who maintain Tess’s subsequent actions fall into this somewhat puppeteer pattern.  

Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover

Ted Conover: born January 17th 1958 

While anthropologists often travel into areas where there lives are imperiled, the wildest jungle tribes cannot be more menacing than those held captive in a major American prison.  Yet, as part of his research into various subcultures, Ted Conover undertook the task of becoming a prison guard at Sing Sing for a year. 

(The politically correct term is “corrections officer”, but here I will use the terms “prison guard” and “corrections officer" interchangeably.) 

Although forced to undergo the same training as his fellow corrections officers, Conover’s position differed from theirs in that he knew, although his instructors, and later those prisoners over whom he would be given control guessed that for him this constituted research into the underworld of confined criminals.
  
To some degree, this gave him, in theory at least, some sense of detachment.  Having earned a PHD in anthropology, and written several books on various aspects of the lives of the marginalized, his lifetime income and later pension did not depend upon his job evaluation.  Still, caught in the barely controlled mayhem of Sing Sing Prison, he soon felt as constricted by bureaucracy and menaced by convicts as did his fellow guards.

One early lesson he learned was the power of the dis-empowered. The longer a convict’s sentence, the more carefree he could be when a policy proved inconvenient.  True, yard privileges could be suspended, or if the offense was viewed as grave, convicts could be locked in their cells or sent into “the  hole” of solitary confinement. Still, any incentive to comply or co-operate might be curtailed or halted altogether by the length of a sentence.  

Major disruptions in any cell blocks resulted in a temporary lock-down, its duration depending upon the time deemed vital to have a detrimental effect upon plans of similar future misconduct.  This penalty, while having a quieting effect upon the inmates of the cell block involved, required guards to undertake the most tedious prison jobs, generally done by inmates earning 15 cents per hour.

Simultaneously, the inability of such prisoners to queue up for meals compelled guards to bring food to each individual’s cell, and then pass them through the narrow window in each door.  This, Conover recounts, made him feel more like a waiter than a corrections officer.
  
Food, indeed, could be utilized as a tool of control.  At one point, those convicted of what were viewed as the foulest offenses still had a right to be given a sufficient amount of food to prevent their starvation.  While this requirement was met, it was done in the most indigestible way.  The bread upon which such convicts were forced to subsist was made so distasteful as to be all but impossible to ingest. One officer, asked to evaluate it, found it too palatable; it would need to become even harder to swallow.
  
As a reader, I found one of the most gripping aspects of this memoir to be its candor.  While at first succeeding in keeping his prison work separate from his home life with his wife and two young children, in time, this boundary began to erode.  Compared to the anguish he found himself forced to see, and his own balance between conforming to authorities while being fair to prisoners, Conover started to feel overwhelmed.

The details of his wife’s day and his children’s fussing, at times exhausted his tolerance. By the end of his year as a corrections officer, he began to see how this life, lived on a continuing basis, could decimate families.  Fortunately, Conover’s spouse and offspring only suffered a few verbal bruising's, which could be healed by his reversion to his role as husband and father.  

Still, we, as readers, are left with the question as to what becomes of the family lives of those guards who, via decades on the job, sentence themselves, and to some extent those closest to them to a form of lifelong confinement.  

All Who Go Do Not Return by Shulem Deen

Shulem Deen: photo courtesy of Pearl Gabel

   
Often, well-grounded organizations and religions give rise to splinter groups.  These tend to consist of members who wish to carry principles to a deeper, more stringent degree than do their fellow members.  While such separatists can prove successful, they have no means of ensuring their offspring will accept their demands and decisions. This struggle is illustrated with gripping candor in Shulem Deen's memoir.

Born into a highly orthodox branch of Hasidic Judaism (Skveres), Shulem was expected to conform, without  question, to rules set forth by rabbinic leaders.  Their restrictions permeated every area of his life; even the list of books he was permitted to read was   extremely limited. 

Inquiries which implied the slightest doubts as to any edicts held by the sect could result in expulsion from his Yeshiva School. This fact alone contributed to Deen’s conflict between his wish for intellectual exploration and the principles meant to govern his life. His acceptance into a Yeshiva school was viewed as an indication of high intelligence.  Further  signs of dissension  could mean ostracism, and even being disowned by one's family.  

As Deen recounts, fear of exclusion from the sole framework he had known from his birth impelled him to marry a young woman chosen for him.  Their wedding took place after seven minutes of being allowed to sit alone in a room, with authorities outside its door, eager to perform the solemnities.  Gitty, the bride selected, while not unattractive, held little appeal for him.  All he had been told about her was her adherence to views which had begun to make him feel suffocated.  

In time, though tenderness developed between them, Gitty’s dedication to orthodox views created an endless chasm.  An early example of this was shown by her horror when she heard Deen listening to a radio.  Possessing or utilizing of any medium from the world beyond their sphere was completely prohibited.

Indeed, when in 1997, news of the death of England’s Princess Diana absorbed most of the globe, neither Shulem nor Gitty had any idea as to who she was, or that she had ever existed. 

A further plagued consisted in their all but inescapable poverty. Knowledge acquired in the Yeshiva School did not qualify Deen for what he felt to be worthwhile employment.  As a girl, Gitty’s education had been largely confined to preparation for domesticity. 
At the same time, birth control was nearly always prohibited. Thus, despite mounting unpaid bills and ceaseless requests for extensions on rent, the number of children grew.

The remainder of this book explains Deen’s wrenching but definite need to evaluate Hasidism in terms of various other avenues of thought. He was forced to accept the dangers of compliance when his father, based on dedication to beliefs, died when his otherwise healthy body gave way, due to years of near self-starvation.  

Although I have read many memoirs, Mr. Deen’s book proved especially gripping in that it allowed me to learn of a wholly unfamiliar manner of thinking and living.  Mr. Deen takes the reader through his gradual, often wrenching process of reaching a decision as to the way he would live the rest of his life, as well as the consequences of his choices.  

Whipping Boy by Allen Kurzweil

Allen Kurzweil born December 16 1960 is a journalist and author of children's novels

Full Title.  Whipping Boy: The Forty-Year Search for My Twelve-Year-Old Bully by Allen Kurzweil

Historically, bullying has been viewed as one of the components of growing up.  While generally associated with boys, girls have been equally culpable-their torment often psychological, but equally likely to leave lasting scars. 

Sadly, it was considered cowardly to “rat on” a fellow student or peer; those who were harassed were expected to cope, and ideally be strengthened for life’s realities by the experience. To some degree, both genders were pressured to “take it like a man”, allowed to vent lingering rage and hatred on those several years younger.  

For nearly all of us, if nightmares and memories lurk and attack, it is natural to hope the rigors of life has avenged the sense of absolute helplessness at the hands of another.  We might, at least in imagination, find opportunity to confront and retaliate. 

The question this book presents is at what point the urge to find and punish the playground or boarding school beast evolves from thought to obsession.  At age ten, Allen Kurzweil was eager to become anchored at the Aigion School in Switzerland.  His father’s early death left his mother, though affectionate in her way, in quest of a new husband.  Still, Allen’s hopes for security soon disappeared when he found himself in a room at the top of the residence hall with four other boys, one of whom was the predominant, twelve-year-old Cesar Augusto Viana. 

Perhaps not even a bully knows why he or she chooses a particular victim.  In Allen’s case, his newness combined with his Jewishness, rare at the school, made him his prey.  Cesar’s tortures included forcing Allen to chew and swallow a series of bread pellets saturated in hot sauce, inflict the thirty-nine lashes demonstrated in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Jesus Christ Superstar" in a deliberately offbeat rhythm, and most unforgivably, order another boy to hurl Allen’s dead father’s pocket watch from a high window.

While it is not clear whether Cesar understood the significance of this watch as a memento, it seems likely it would not have mattered.  In fact, it might have enhanced his pleasure.  It was this final act which left Allen with an inflexible quest to get even.

In a macabre sense, as an adult, Allen was lucky.  Despite the Internet, most bullies, if located, are found to be living conventional lives.  Cesar, who always seems to have perceived himself as superior to human judgments, involved himself in a fraudulent cartel resulting in a criminal record and prison sentence.  

While brilliantly summarized in this memoir, it took Allen four decades to garner this information and eventually make seemingly amiable contact with Cesar.  During this time, Allen married, had children and wrote several successful children’s books.  Still, he had to find Cesar. Though at first surprised at the co-operation of those who helped facilitate his often complex research, each of them admitted, when asked, recollections of their own Cesar sparked their incentives. 

Eventually, the two do connect, though Cesar no longer views Allen in an adversarial role.  Ultimately, Allen feels impelled to view aspects of his own character which he had tried to avoid. Once having reached these realizations, he is able to begin shedding the grudge which has held him in shackles for so many years.  Only then, after having lived on this earth for more than half a century, does he begin to experience a sense of complete maturity.

This book is a must read for those who have been bullied and those who are coming to terms with having been bullies.

The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall

Radclyffe Hall born on 12 August 1880 died 7 October 1943

Like many books which were on the cutting edge in their time, this novel has been viewed for some while as dated, and almost quaint in its depiction of the gay lifestyle.  In fact, the freedom implied in this phrase could not have been conceived of during the time of the 1928 publication of this pivotal book.

As might have been expected, the pompous pronouncements regarding its vileness, combined with legal furor, resulted in a huge increase in sales.  Indeed, Ms. Hall was victorious in that there is no quicker way to gain public acclaim than to have one’s book banned or considered taboo.

Why did this novel, in which no word even approached obscenity, evoke such distress?  

Radclyffe Hall, a lesbian called “John” by her circle, delineates the life of Stephen Gordon, whose name in itself can be seen as foreshadowing her later gender preference.  Stephen’s wide-shouldered, narrow-hipped body and tendency to give voice to wild frustration soon convinced her parents of a subtle difference between herself and other small children. Her father’s approach was to study the works of scholars such as Havelock Ellis, in an effort to understand the psychological leanings of what was then called an “invert”.

Conversely, her mother felt horrified at the thought of her daughter becoming ostracized as a member of a marginal group, barely acknowledged as a splinter of British society.  While this undercurrent of conflict caused Stephen confusion, it does not diminish the strength of her desire for intimacy with other women.  

During WWI, women otherwise divided from one another, were given opportunities to develop a profound sense of community as nurses, ambulance drivers, and participants in other auxiliary branches.  When Stephen and fellow driver Mary Llewellyn found their friendship taking on erotic overtones, Stephen feels torn. While aware she herself has no choice as to gender preference, she questions the fairness of bringing Mary into a painfully hidden life, while she might otherwise find conventional happiness.

Still, Once Mary voices her feelings to Stephen; the reader is given a sense of their physical union, with no details provided. (Arguably, this tends to be lacking in modern fiction, in its often tedious attempts at complete candor.) 

Slowly, as their infatuation eases into domesticity, Stephen’s guilt increases as she senses a loneliness growing in Mary, due to the life-style imposed upon them by societal scorn.  France has always tended to be more flexible and accepting of minorities than has other countries.  Thus it is there that Stephen and Mary become part of a fringe group of homosexuals.

Perhaps the most moving passage occurs when a young man, desiccated by an abyss of drugs and misery, as he passes Stephen, murmurs “My sister”. Seeing her and Mary’s potential future mirrored in his despair, Stephen answers, “My brother.”

This encounter Forces her to view the emotional well of loneliness she as an invert can never escape.  Still, perhaps Mary can. Stephen must then decide whether or what she must do in order to prevent Mary’s absorption into that seemingly depthless well. 

As readers, we explore with Stephen the absolute hellishness of her ultimate choice.  

Bittersweet by Susan Strasberg

 

Susan Strasberg May 22 1938 – January 21 1999

Ms. Strasberg begins this memoir with the admission that her newborn daughter entered this world with holes in her heart, traceable to recreational drugs use by her then husband Christopher Jones and herself.  Although during this era hallucinogens were believed to enhance experience and understanding, the side effect and heredity dangers were not fully known.  Guilt brought about by the knowledge their daughter’s permanent health might well have been scarred by their chemical explorations added to their sadness. Ultimately, surgery would prove fruitful, but for a significant while, the prognosis was worrisome. 

Beginning with this candor, Susan Strasberg, born on May 22 1938, reflects upon her life at the apex of the Actor’s Studio, an organization for professional actors, which her father, Lee Strasberg, joined in 1951.

Lee Strasberg, with his wife Paula as voice coach, taught method acting, requiring student actors to find some source in their lives which could be put to use in order to give a naked dimension to a performance.  Hence, if required to portray a character who has just received tragic news, it was viewed as vital to relive such a moment in one’s own life.  

As the fame of the Strasberg’s’ teachings increased, so did requests for inclusion in their acting classes.  In time, their numerous students included James Dean, Anne Bancroft, Dustin Hoffman, Marilyn Monroe, and the young Susan Strasberg.  Indeed, Ms. Monroe became, for a time, a part of the Strasberg household.  This arrangement was symbiotic in that as Ms. Monroe’s status as an Aphrodite skyrocketed, so did the pre-eminence of the Strasberg classes.  What then was the impact upon Susan of this near-divinity sharing the daughterly role?  At one point, her mother Paula felt forced to follow Marilyn to the location where a film was in process, in order to elicit the needed responses.  

Susan’s feelings towards Marilyn were ambivalent.  While admiring her exquisite looks and allure, Susan could not avoid envying the adoration they created.  Still, in its way, this frustration contributed to Susan’s success in one of her earliest roles as the bright but plain Millie Owens, in the 1955 film “picnic”, written by William Inge.

Millie’s slightly older sister, Madge, is blessed with penultimate glamor.  In a scene where Millie, unused to alcohol, drinks to the point of gut-wrenching cries, she keeps repeating, “Madge is the pretty one!”  In fact, in her mind, the fictional Madge represented the genuine Marilyn.  Still, a genuine sisterly friendship developed between these two young women.  (In her second memoir, “Marilyn and Me” she describes their bond.)  

Susan’s next pivotal role was that of Anne Frank in the 1955 Broadway production of “Diary of Anne Frank” based on the diaries of this young girl, killed during the holocaust. Although her performance received many accolades, she was sorely disappointed when not chosen for the role in the film version.  Years later, when she asked the director George Stevens why he had not chosen her, he said it was because she had not asked him.  Perhaps he was thirsting for a request from Lee Strasberg’s daughter. 

Her later roles were more-or-less consistent but somewhat sporadic. As she once said to fellow actress, Lee Grant, they were both like good, reliable dresses, kept in a wardrobe to be worn, not to elegant soirees, but suitable for any number of events and occasions.

Susan Strasberg’s life went through its romantic vicissitudes. Apparently, her sense of ordinary good looks continued to haunt her.  On the night when she and her future husband Christopher Jones, having connected erotically during a film, were about to spend their first night with each other, she thought of what it would be like to wake in the morning beside someone more attractive than she was.  Still, although their union ended in a hostile divorce, for a time they did share deep passion and tenderness.  

I finished this book with a sense of respect for Ms. Strasberg’s candor, combined with disappointment at her seeming lack of compassion towards her mother Paula. This proved especially true in describing the humiliating manifestations of the cancer which eventually led to her death.  What Paula had tried to attribute, for years, to a series of miscarriages was in fact a terminal illness.
Still, as with any memoir, we enter the memoirist’s framework to the extent we can, drawing our own interpretation in terms of its less than likable aspects.  
Susan Strasberg died of breast cancer at age 60, on January 21, 1999. 

Listening With my Heart by Heather Whitestone

Heather Whitestone at age 39

Born on February 24 1973, Heather Whitestone lost her hearing due to a childhood illness when she was 18 months old.  During her early years, while aware of her impairment, she did not regard herself as deaf.  Instead, as she writes in her memoir, she was just Heather.
  
If anything, she felt her hearing loss gave her a degree of freedom. Able to hear to a small degree with the help of a hearing aid, she could shut out aggravating noises with the flip of a switch.  Once, while on a family vacation, her sister groused about the loudness of their dad’s snoring.  Heather simply switched off her hearing aid and relaxed into peaceful sleep.

Beginning ballet classes as a child, she found she had a natural grace and ease in movement.  As her proficiency grew, so did her self-assurance.  Like any art, ballet requires intensive practice and self-discipline.  Eventually, Heather felt the urge to enter beauty contests in which talent was a crucial component.  Having succeeded in becoming Miss Alabama in 1994, the combination of her lovely face, lithe body and balletic skill led her to become, in 1995, Miss America.
  
Predictably, when a member of any minority is rewarded for excellence, there are those who try to undermine them by attributing victory to condescension. At times, Heather felt overwhelmed by the constant drone of the word “disability”, shadowing her to the point where it felt like a cave from which there was no escape.

One especially insensitive woman with a camera in one hand and a duck in the other, approached Ms. Whitestone to say, since her duck was deaf, she would like a photograph of him with the first deaf Miss America.  Still, Heather’s sense of inner balance allowed her to stay centered upon the validity of her success, and the positivity she could generate to others who are marginalized by society. 

In time, she met John McCallum, an aide to Congressman Newt Gingrich.  As Christianity is one of the cornerstones of Heather’s life, it was vital for her to ascertain straight-away whether this young man who evoked tender feelings shared her beliefs.  Hence, during their first dinner together, she asked him directly if he was a Christian.  When he said he was, she asked what had motivated him to become one.  His answer felt honest and genuine.  By the end of that evening, she no longer wondered whether he had asked her for this date in order to boast of having gone out with a former Miss America.  In time, their initial mutual liking evolved into love, resulting in marriage and three children. 

A cochlear implant has greatly helped Heather’s ability both to hear and communicate.  In this book, she conveys her individual and Christian principles for ongoing inner contentment and towards outward achievement. 

Having herself faced bigotry and discrimination; she now works as a motivational speaker, and is active on various political committees to make employment for people with disabilities truly equal, rather than theoretical, as it often is now.  In this memoir, she recounts her experiences with candor, ending with a sense of uplift and encouragement.  

The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore

Brian Moore: born 25 August 1921 died 11 January 1999

On its surface, this novel centers on the obsessive quest of a middle-aged woman to marry her landlady’s brother.  Yet, it is so much deeper; having read it more than a decade ago, I am still touched by its memory.

Judith Hearne, in her mid to late forties, was compelled by guilt to nurse her elderly aunt during those years when most young women get married and start families.  Apparently, whenever Judith hinted to her aunt her wish to work outside the home and mingle with those her own age, her aunt reminded her of her kindness in taking the orphaned Judith into her home when no-one else was willing to do so.  Although never guessed by her as a child, the horrific price of this charity was the absolute sacrifice of the joys and opportunities of her young womanhood.

Thus, in middle-age, Judith’s lack of practice in interacting combined with increasing fear at the thought of spinsterhood  were shown by in her speaking in “a high, silly voice”, to any bachelor, until he walked off, having lost any trace of interest in becoming better acquainted.

When this book begins, Judith is subsisting as a piano teacher, having recently rented a room in the home of a widow. Judith’s social life consists of Sunday visits to a family she has known for some years.  On some level, she knows her visits are tolerated rather than enjoyed. Still, her paucity of friends is such as to impel her to accept this begrudged acceptance.  A further incentive is their custom of serving sherry.  Alcohol is the substance which goes some way towards easing the emptiness in Judith Hearne’s soul.  Although she hopes this is well-hidden, she has reason to be aware it is not.  She has been forced to vacate her previous flat due to disturbances by her drink-induced laughter.

As to her passion, her fixation on marrying focuses upon the above-mentioned brother of her landlady-himself a fellow lodger of sort, living by the dwindling proceeds of a settlement gained via an injury.  A down-and-outer, assuming Judith has hoarded savings, he asks her to go out with him one evening.  During their talk, he suggests they become joint restaurant owners.  When she agrees, he tells her, whilst running his hand down her back, she has found herself a partner.  Given her hopes, she interprets this as the beginning of a romantic relationship.  Soon, he realizes Judith has little money, while she is forced to accept his interest had been no more than comradely in nature.

By then, however, she has come to believe she cares deeply about him, and if he fails to court her, she will have no choice but to give voice to her feelings.  When she does so, his consequent surprise and rejection brings about the nervous collapse which she has thus far kept in abeyance. 

Imploding from inner turmoil exacerbated by drink, she seeks the aid of a priest.  This supposed man of God, disgusted by her drunken and overwrought state, refuses to speak with her.  Her screaming “Let me in! Let me in!” delves far beyond this priestly indifference.  In essence, it is her cry to a world which views her needs, her whole life come to that, as futile/irritating.  Viewed in its larger sense, her “Let me in!” epitomizes the plea of all those who sense themselves despised overall, just beneath a gauze of civility.

The catharsis of this book, involving other characters which space does not permit mentioning here, helps cleanse away the mists of deceit which have characterized interwoven relationships.  Most crucially, Judith reassesses her life, and finds within herself a kind of elegant dignity.

One of the most compelling aspects of this novel lies in its author’s ability to convey powerful emotions without one wasted word.  He also combines various styles, sometimes using the narrative voice, while at other times giving characters freedom to let the reader hear their thoughts, beliefs and self-justifications.  The fact of our feelings outraged and disgusted by some of these, adds a further dimension of truth to this reading experience.  

A Book by Desi Arnaz (senior)

Desiderio Alberto Arnaz and Lucille Désirée Ball

Those of us who recall watching the 1950s “I Love Lucy” show, or have enjoyed its re-runs, may not be aware of the uniqueness and ground-breaking work involved in its presentation.  According to Arnaz’ Autobiography, almost from their first meeting, starlet Lucille Ball and Cuban singer Desi Arnaz felt a galvanic connection.  Despite their later divorce after a volatile marriage, the residue of this affection never truly dissolved. 
  
Untapped ability lay beneath both Desi and Lucy’s somewhat superficial appeal.  Desi’s talents transcended his persona as an amorous Hispanic Don Juan, while Lucille’s comic abilities would long outlast her fleeting allure as a flirtatious firefly.  Almost from the first, Desi called her “Lucy” mainly because no-one else ever had, and undoubtedly due to his sense that this name suited her flamboyant nature far better than did the dainty restraints imposed upon a Hollywood dolly.

They married on November 30th 1940.  From its outset, their marriage was fraught with both joy and flame.  Desi’s Hispanic male expectations were soon deflated by Lucy’s American mindset.  When Desi, drowsy and dry-mouthed from drinking, shook Lucy awake and ordered her to get up and bring him a glass of ice water, she obeyed obediently.  A few hours later, however, she shook him awake to voice her fury and astonishment at his request and her compliance.  Never was he to do that again.

Having invested in their own company, Desilu Productions, they decided to create their sitcom, “I Love Lucy”.  No hurdle was viewed as too large to impede them.  When told by fire inspectors that certain production aspects violated laws, Desi asked what he needed to do in order to accomplish what he had just been told was forbidden.  A compromise resulted.  

In order to make “I Love Lucy” succeed, another couple was needed.  Thus, Desilu employed Vivian Vance and William Frawley to portray Ethel and Fred Mertz, the slightly older pair from whom “Ricky and Lucy Ricardo” rented an apartment.  A further example of the Arnaz business method occurred at a lunch meeting between Arnaz and Frawley.  When Frawley groused he could not get work in Hollywood based on the false belief of unreliability due to drinking, Desi put it to him in concrete terms.  One missed day of work due to alcohol would be accepted.  A second such lapse would be concealed by the script writers, though perhaps at some inconvenience.  A third offense, however, would result in instant firing, and Frawley’s inability to obtain further work as an actor by any studio.  This strategy succeeded; the first show was aired in October 1951.  Frawley never missed one day of work, or appeared for one rehearsal or show with the slightest sign of having imbibed beforehand. 

Much of Desilu productions work was innovative.  Never before had a show been on a sound stage, presented in front of a live audience.  In addition, the recording industry was still seen as high-tech.  Desilu preserved its episodes in this form, and gained firmer control than they would have if they had allowed large networks to sell their work to smaller TV stations.

Today, there are those who ridicule the “I Love Lucy” show as mindless slapstick.  Arnaz does not deny their program contained farcical elements.  Still, as he states in this autobiography, their purpose was to entertain-nothing more.  If someone, after a long day at work, switched a TV onto their show, they hoped to generate laughter and fun.  There was no social commentary or solemn subtext.  Even the Ricardo’s worst arguments always ended in humor and tenderness.  They hoped to reflect the typical 1950s couple, plagued by the day-to-day irritations, with never a question of granite-like love. 

Even though outdated marital views can be found in their programs, countless couples still seem to recognize aspects of themselves and their lives within the Ricardo’s framework. 
The book is a wonderful read depicting a complicated career, a volatile relationship and I believe Desi's lifelong love for “Lucy” 

Babysitting George by Celia Walden

George Best: 22 May 1946 died 25 November 2005

At first, George Best, the surname seemed predestined.  At age 17, he scored a soccer triumph which made history for the team Manchester United.  Throughout the 1960s, he was sought-after on every level.  In addition to his heroic sports status, Best was adored by countless female fans.  He also succeeded in becoming a member of the globally known Mensa Society, meant to include only the top 2 per cent of those with mental acuity.  

Still, throughout his life, his consumption of alcohol was intense. As a young man in peak condition, the results of these bouts, however wild, could be thrown off by his highly self-disciplined exercise regimen. Furthermore, his determination to continue receiving public acclaim undoubtedly aided in his relative ability to maintain a greater degree of sobriety than he might have otherwise. 

Sadly, when the exhilaration of fame began waning, Best sustained his sense of self-esteem and well-being mainly from the boost liquor gave him.  This accelerated the process of ageing, rendering him of less interest somewhat sooner than, in all probability, than would have come about if he had retained some vestige of appeal during his later years.  

In 2002, Best required a liver transplant to prevent him from dying before he reached age 60.  In addition, tablets were surgically implanted into the lining of his stomach which would induce nausea if he drank alcohol.  Ideally, Best would have used this opportunity to enjoy a fruitful old age as a soccer coach or instructor.  Instead, its result had the opposite impact.  His subsequent conduct indicates Best savored this chance to return to his youthful shenanigans.  By then, his tolerance for alcohol was such as to overcome even the internal implants.

It was at this juncture that young journalist Celia Walden was hired to protect Best from vulnerability to predatory tabloid reporters who sought to exploit him.  Ms. Walden was not told to try to prevent Best from drinking.  Such a task was understood, by that time, to be futile, and likely to annoy and alienate Best. 

As their friendship evolved, Ms. Walden spent some time at Best’s home, purely in a platonic manner.  She recounts, when Best asked her if she found him attractive, she replied her liking for him was not of that kind; he seems to have respected her honesty. On the other hand, she refused to enable his alcoholism in even the slightest way.  Hence, when he asked her to get him some ice for his drink, she told him to get it himself.

Walden’s initial hope that, at some point, Best would realize the hazards of drinking and stop were eliminated during his time in substance abuse rehabilitation.  Ms. Walden, visiting him, was delighted by what appeared to be a rejuvenated vigor and verve. Then, someone better informed as to the tricks of alcoholics told her it was alcohol which allowed Best to feign this sense of renewal.  In fact, he was functioning under its influence, its odor disguised under breath mints known to seasoned drunkards. 

In time, Ms. Walden’s journalistic assignment ended.  George Best was no longer a figure deemed worthy of even the attention of tabloids. After that, she phoned him from time to time, to wish him well rather than due to what she knew to be unrealistic expectations.  Thus, his needlessly early death did not come as a shock to her, or apparently anyone close to him. 

In conclusion, what can one say about journalist Celia Walden, meant to shield Best from tabloid abuse, having written her own memoir after his death?  Some reviewers have seen her book as being as invasive as those interviews she was paid to thwart.  While this position is valid, as a veteran reader of memoirs, I disagree with this interpretation. 

True, there were definite financial and publication credits to be gained by recording her recollections.  At the same time, a compassion and concern radiates throughout these pages.  To a large extent, this book explored the last years of the life of this once esteemed athlete in a deeper and finer way than an objective, purely factual account could have provided.  

Cut Me Loose by Leah Vincent

Leah Vincent: Courtesy of leahvincent.wordpress.com 

Full title.  Cut Me Loose: Sin and Salvation After My Ultra-Orthodox Girlhood by Leah Vincent

Tragically, numerous parents communicate to their children either directly or subtly, “I will always love you if, when, unless, and other parameters.  This could not have been truer than in Leah Vincent’s original home, where Jewish strictures were rod-like in their rigidity.
  
Leah’s first disgrace came about when, in her mid-teens, she was found to be corresponding with the brother of a close friend.  Still, although this was viewed as besmirching herself, and potentially the family as a whole, they were willing to allow her to redeem herself-if she did not stray again from those rules which were meant to be part of her marrow.  

Marriage and motherhood were meant to be the absolute goals of anyone in Leah’s position.  Initially, she viewed this as her ultimate destiny.  Then, having lived for a while with her married older sister and observing the humility of her life, its appeal quickly dwindled. 

Eventually, Leah was sent to New York to a comparatively liberal school, as no Orthodox school would enroll a girl who had written letters to a young man.

Increasingly ignored by her family, Leah turned to romances which proved bogus and false.  In time, she turned to self-harming and overdosing on pills in order to distract herself from the despair borne of emptiness.  The candor with which she chronicles this part of her life is both astounding and moving. 

Leah’s anguish continued, until one older lover made a suggestion that would entirely change the path of her life.  Though ultimately his affection proved hollow, his advice impelled her to take risks which resulted in avenues of success she could not have dared to envision without his encouragement.
  
Having come to accept her family’s bigotry regarding any choices which did not conform to their beliefs, she was able to overcome this wound and begin her separate life, with its own joys and pitfalls. 

The raw honesty of Leah Vincent’s account leaves those of us with families who place no conditions on love feeling deepened compassion for those who do not, combined with renewed gratitude for our own.   

An Iranian Odyssey by Gohar Kordi

Gohar Kordi: Courtesy of Serpent's Tail Press

An Iranian Odyssey by Gohar Kordi

A more difficult escape from an emotionally suffocating life situation is almost inconceivable.  Born into a culture where being born female was already a detriment, at four years of age, Gohar contracted an illness which, ignored by her family, resulted in her complete loss of sight.

While this neglect may have been accidental, it has long been understood that in some societies a female child is deliberately or negligently disfigured, maimed or disabled in order to enhance household income via begging.

As soon as she was viewed as old enough, each morning Gohar was placed in an area believed suited for her to sit and implore passers-by for whatever meager coins they might spare.  Later in the day, these “earnings” would be appropriated by a family member.

With time, as her intelligence grew, Gohar found this plight humiliating to the point where it became unbearable. Still, her familial role had been assigned, and her pleas for its end were treated with that same indifference which had caused her to lose her sight.
  
A time came when she felt she would die inside if this subsistence continued. Desperate and determined, she found a means of contacting a radio station and thereby makes her miseries publicly known. 

Eventually, she was rescued and relocated to a school for the blind. Once there, despite brilliant grades, her attempts to enter a university were met with a similar bigotry as she had suffered in the past.  Still, in 1970, she succeeded in graduating from Tehran University.  

Fortunately, during weekends spent at the home of a friend, this friend’s brother saw both her physical beauty and observed her deep understanding of literature as well as other interests the two of them shared. 

At this point, I will leave the rest of the story for readers to explore and enjoy.  Despite its disheartening start, this memoir ends on a drumbeat of triumph, a sense that the cruelest obstacles can be overcome by a combination of strength and ingenuity.   

Not Without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody

Betty Mahmoody

A more romantic meeting between two people would be hard to imagine.  Having suffered a back injury, a course of physiotherapy was prescribed for Betty, an attractive young woman. The doctor designated to give this therapy was the courteous, gentle Iranian Sayed Bozorg Mahmoody.  

Born in Iran, Mahmoody had been educated in the USA and seemed to concur with the American belief in spousal equality.  A subtle attraction must have evolved during these sessions.  After her final session, Dr. Mahmoody turned Betty on her back and kissed her lips, expressing the love he had developed for her.  As Betty reciprocated his feelings, the two soon began seeing each other.  Having married shortly thereafter, they produced a daughter, Mahtob.

Though initially seeming contented in Alpena Michigan where they had met, in 1984, Mahmoody began urging Betty to bring their daughter Mahtob for a two-week visit to his family in Tehran. When Betty questioned his plan to return to America, she states he pledged on the Holy Koran to return when their visit was finished. A nephew, as a house guest, reinforced this vow by assuring her the family and overall cultural structure would never allow Mahmoody to dishonor his word, given such a deeply religious foundation.

Once in Iran, they were both aghast by the sounds of domestic beatings by husbands, evoking cries of pain from their wives. Then, when the Mahmoody’s themselves had a minor dispute, Dr. Mahmoody struck Betty, with force.   Both spouses were shocked by this act; he pleaded with her from his soul to forgive him.

Startled but striving to accept this aberration as a cultural reflex, Betty was able to overlook it until his later violence showed it to be an ingrained part of his sense of the matrimonial state.  Her initial tolerance allowed her to enjoy the rest of their visit, convinced it would only be for the agreed-upon two weeks.  

Then, in the midst of her packing for their trip home, Mahmoody told Betty they would stay in Iran for the rest of their lives, their daughter inculcated with middle-eastern values of wifely subservience.  Nothing on Betty’s part to alter the granite of his betrayal, calculated before they had left America, could urge him to change this decision. 

Through the subsequent weeks and months, her defiance continued, freeing Mahmoody, in his own mind, to brutalize her in those ways which had at first seemed appalling to both of them.  Whenever Betty and their daughter left the house, Mahmoody had them followed, then quizzed the toddler as to their doings and whereabouts.  He showed an even deeper malevolence by separating mother and child for a week or more.  
  
Eventually, he stated Betty was free to leave Iran if she chose, but their daughter, Mahtob, would stay in Iran under his sole custody. This crystallized Betty’s decision.  Yes, she would flee from Iran, but she would not leave Mahtob to endure the miseries of Iranian womanhood.

After various attempts at negotiation, Betty was able to lull Mahmoody’s suspicions to the point where, despite their estrangement, he believed she would stay in Iran with Mahtob until a conference took place with a lawyer.  The rest of Betty Mahmoody’s book, later made into a controversial film, chronicles the strategies needed to gain hard-won liberty from middle-eastern cultural suffocation of wives and daughters.  

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

 

Jeannette Walls

Perhaps each of us has a glass castle-a hope which, while aware its fruition may never be reached, helps ease the tedium of daily life. Sadly, Jeannette Walls’ father allowed this ideal to obliterate such realities as paying bills, setting down roots, and finding/retaining a worthwhile job.  (His ruthlessness even led to the smashing of his children’s piggy bank in order to steal their hard-earned savings, and then laugh when confronted.)    

In efforts to elude debt collectors, Mr. Walls expected his wife and children to view their nearly nomadic travels as a series of delightful adventures. Convinced some nefarious dealings would soon make him wealthy, he became enmeshed in any number of schemes, each of which ended in yet another family “adventure”.

Throughout these miseries, the dream of the glass castle loomed, to the point of his digging a hole he believed thought would hold its foundation.  This compassionate but honest memoir chronicles both the struggles of growing up in such a family, and the gradual understanding of parental fallibility.  

Still, as to most children, at first Jeannette viewed both her parents as pillars, able to shield her from strife and turmoil outside their familial bond.  It took countless cruelties and disappointments before she could see the vulnerability beneath her father's bravado. In all likelihood, he could not allow himself to perceive its intensity. Even after he contracted tuberculosis, he dealt with it by his usual nonchalant shrug-or at least made every effort to do so.

As years passed, Jeannette saw both her parents aging, especially her father, given his long-standing hard-living lifestyle.  Still, having reached the end of this book, I was left with a sense that, in a peculiar way, all four Walls’ children drew some benefit from their early vagabondage.  Jeannette feared she might be drawn into marriage with someone similar to her father.  Instead, her childhood upheavals led her to someone both tender and stable. Her three siblings also made wise, well-considered choices.

While this review touches upon some exhilarating peaks and wretched pits of their shared growing years, there is a great deal of depth to be found and savored by future readers of this wonderful book.  

All the Pain that Money can buy by William Wright

Christina Onassis

All the Pain that Money can buy: The Story of Christina Onassis by William Wright

It is axiomatic that wealth cannot purchase genuine joy, and exploitative predators will feign affection in hopes of financial gain.  Still, it is hard to fathom what profound insecurity led the daughter of the affluent Aristotle Onassis to allow herself to have been subjected to the series of friends, lovers and husbands described in this biography.

Born in 1950, her parents’ divorce in 1960 may have deprived Christina of the stability of a strong family unit.  Her mother’s later death, due to a somewhat suspect drug overdose, resulting in her bequeathing her large fortune to Onassis, may have left Christina with a mistrust of men, while creating a depthless void for a female anchor. 

This search was shown when, during a party in her early twenties, Christina pleaded with a female stranger, nearly twenty years her senior, to be her friend.  False friends seemed to pervade her existence.  At one point, hospitalized to an emotional breakdown, one supposed friend visited her to request a significant financial loan.  When Christina explained she felt unable to reach any such decision before her recovery and release, this “friend” persisted until Christina succumbed consequent to complete exhaustion. Later, she was forced to bring court action in order to have this money returned.
  
A further hurdle lay in what the fashion world viewed as her failure to morph into the expected mystique of wealthy women.  In a mean-spirited jibe, comedienne Joan Rivers sneered that while women without much money were allowed to be overweight and frumpish, heiresses such as Christina Onassis ought to be slim and elegant.  In an effort to keep her weight within bounds, Christina substituted tablets of various kinds to provide her with those pleasures her peers gained from alcohol.  It seems she took a great many.  

Not surprisingly, Christina’s romantic life reflected its other aspects of chaos.  Due to space limitations, we will focus here on her final 1984 marriage to businessman Thierry Roussel.  Shortly after their marriage, Thierry prevailed upon Christina to allow his “former” mistress, a Swedish model called “Gaby” by whom he had fathered two children before his union with Christina, to move into a guest house on her estate. 

In a gesture of deep compassion, Christina agreed. Predictably, although ostensibly as a platonic arrangement, Thierry soon began to persuade Christina that while she had her guests and hired help for companionship during the night, Gaby would be desolate.  One dinner guest, appalled at this ruse, felt helpless to intervene; it needed to be Christina’s decision, however demeaning. 

While interpretations differ, it seems Christina divorced Thierry after learning he had conceived a child with Gaby after Christina had married and trusted him.  After their divorce, the reasons for Christina’s death will always remain obscure.  By that time, her weight and other physical limitations had compelled her to use a wheelchair, ideally on a temporary basis.

During a stay at a friend’s mansion in Argentina, her maid found she had died in the bath.  The most probable reasons for her death were an amalgam of weight gain, lack of mobility, and the large amount of tablets she had been ingesting each day for years. Physicians diagnosed its cause as a cardiac arrest.  

Having finished this often heart-wrenching book, I was left with a sense that Christina had detached herself from any major concern as to living or dying.  While not suicidal as such, she had grown apathetic as the consequences of her constant drug-taking.  

Bollywood boy by Justine Hardy

Justine Hardy

This book reflects both the culture of India and the overwhelming exhaustion of those who are its current celebrities.  As a journalist, Justine Hardy travelled to India to learn more about its film industry, and ideally, interview its current idol, the young Hrithik Roshan. 

Early on, she came to realize the significance of cinematic productions to the people of India. At one point, while visiting an acquaintance, Justine commented she thought the fight sequence in one film had been a bit over-blown.  Only when physically backed against a wall by a male fellow guest, edging closer in a menacing way, did she begin to understand their significance.

The host, having halted this guest’s intimidation, later explained its source to Ms. Hardy.  The largely impoverished and joyless lives of an audience in India renders escape into a fantasy realm a type of emotional oxygen.  In essence, Bollywood represents the Hollywood of the past, and to some degree, the present as well. Life is presented as idealized.  Reality, to the extent it must be portrayed, is kept to a minimum.

Two people fall absolutely in love; their future bliss seems beyond doubt.  Then, there must be a hurdle to overcome.  This barrier, such as a pre-arranged marriage, is overcome, freeing the lovers to live in bliss for the rest of their budding lives, with one another. The subliminal message is, this could happen in your life as well, despite its improbability.
  
Ms. Justine Hardy’s view is supported by instrumentalist Ravi Shankar, who compiled an autobiography with the help of former Beatle George Harrison.  During the early 1940s, employed to write musical scores for two films exploring the ravages of poverty and the degradation of the poor, Shankar found these films were not well-received.  Already, as Shankar recounts, fanciful songs and dances, interspersed with combat sequences, had become in vogue, and were expected and demanded. 

Returning to Justine Hardy’s account, the idolatry of Hrithik Roshan was so intense as to be almost frightening.  Her journalistic endeavor, combined with her fascination with the lives of people in other parts of the country, impelled her to sample a variety of settings.  In one upscale club, a young woman she describes as “Perfect Features”, all but ignored Justine’s efforts at conversation.

Then, with the swiftness of a flash flood, grasping and clinging to Justine as if she were a trusted older sister, she repeatedly asked her what she should do.  Puzzled at first, Justine soon gleaned this Adonis she had been sent to India to pursue had just entered the club, transforming its most savvy female patrons into teenage vampires. 

Who then was this Hrithik Roshan?  Naturally, no human being could begin to approach the iridescence surrounding him.  Still, when Justine Hardy finally succeeded in securing an interview, she found herself touched by his vulnerability.  Across from her sat an exhausted young man on the cusp of adulthood.  What was the source of his weariness?

In fact, there were several.  Having married a young woman he had been dating for some while in hopes of starting a family, he had married her.  His outraged female fans believed this wife had found some means of caging him, ending their own potential to win him as a spouse.

In addition, the physical exertion demanded by the dance and battle scenes often left him with multiple bruises, sprains, and even bone breakages.  Still, despite whatever pain he might feel, he knew the need to perform as if impervious to any suffering beyond temporary heartbreak.

There were, he was well aware, a limited number of years during which his body, mind and good looks could withstand the ruthlessness of this regimen.  Ultimately, he would need to relinquish his part in the myth of Herculean fortitude.  
What might become of him later?  

My Accidental Jihad by Krista Bremer

The Hijab

My Accidental Jihad: A Love Story by Krista Bremer

Is there some universal force which can bring people from completely differing backgrounds together in a profound, loving union?  In a sense, this is the query at the core of Krista Bremer’s candid memoir.  Raised in southern California where freedom of thought is prized, Krista moved to North Carolina in order to further her career as a journalist.  Once settled, she scheduled for herself a jogging regimen.  During one such jog, she met Ismail, a Libyan man 14 years her senior, with strong Islamic beliefs. 

Gradually, the two began jogging together, their meetings becoming less accidental, until they agreed to meet at specified times, then going out for coffee later.  Still, given their age difference, and the polarity of their cultural and religious frameworks, even after they became lovers, Krista regarded their bond as a friendly romance.  Ismail had wished to marry Krista for some time.  Although uncertain at first, her perspective changed when she realized a child had been conceived between herself and Ismail.  As neither of them wished to terminate this pregnancy, the couple were married.  Not surprisingly, awareness of the ways in which Krista and Ismail diverged grew increasingly clear.

Why, she wondered, would he go without food all day throughout the month of Ramadan, eating only three dates, in a specified pattern, just prior to sunrise?  Conversely, what, he wondered, impelled her to wish for a gift focusing on hearts each Valentine’s Day. 

Each of them did all they could to accommodate one another’s wishes.  Still, a pivotal moment came when Krista, having found Ismail took no joy in her Valentine gifts, shaped a heart out of colored paper and then wrote on it all the reasons she loved him.  Later, during an evening walk, Ismail said this was the most perfect gift she could ever have given him.

A few years after their marriage, their visit to his native Libya helped Krista understand his values.  The women, in charge of all domestic work and food preparation, spent nearly all their free hours in each other’s company.  At first, Krista wondered how they endured the inevitable level of suffocating stultification.

Gradually, she realized these women found a peace and relaxation together.  It was all they had ever known, all they expected; they comprised an affectionate unit.  Older ladies died, young women married, but the basic group stayed cohesive.

She also discovered one major reason Libyan women, aside for religious commands, are willing to appear in public with their bodies and faces all but completely concealed by various types of veils.  Having asked one sister-in-law to show her the ways in which these coverings were created, she felt the gentle but definite knot of the head scarf being secured under her chin.  For the first time, she luxuriated in the freedom of privacy.  Arguably, this mode of dress was the ultimate feminist refusal to be appraised in terms of male definitions of allure and attractiveness.  

Krista Bremer’s memoir ends with the couple’s resumption of life in America, and their mutual knowledge that some divergences will always need to be overlooked, or result in the occasional conflicts. Still, in any successful relationship, at the root of genuine love is acceptance by each partner of the other, transcending their separateness.