Tag: Allen Kopp

The Immortal Nicholas ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Immortal Nicholas

The Immortal Nicholas ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp 

(This is a repost.)

The Immortal Nicholas by Glenn Beck is an unusual Christmas-themed novel that never mentions the word “Christmas” and isn’t any traditional Christmas story as we’ve come to know it. The main character is a man named Agios (Ah-GEE-os). He is embittered because his wife dies and then his young son dies through what he believes is his own carelessness while harvesting frankincense from trees growing on a mountainside that he himself has protected from intruders with poisonous snakes. He has no hope in life and wants only to die. When he is forced to leave his home, he encounters in his travels a young man named Krampus who is physically handicapped and who has been tortured by the Romans. He immediately takes up with Krampus and becomes his protector and, in a way, his father. His knowledge of frankincense and his possession of a small amount of the precious substance eventually leads him into the company of three “kings” (Balthazar, Melchior and Caspar) who are following a star that they believe will lead to the foretold Messiah who will save the world.

Agios finds himself in Bethlehem with the three kings at the stable where Jesus lay as a tiny baby. He wholeheartedly believes in the promise of Jesus’ birth and from that moment vows to protect Jesus, Mary and Joseph from those who would do them harm. He and Krampus follow Jesus around through the years, always staying in the background. He loses sight of Jesus until Jesus is a grown man and is going around ministering to the masses. Agios hears of Jesus’ ability to heal the lame and sick and he somehow believes that Jesus can cure Krampus of whatever is wrong with him if Agios can get him close enough to him. Agios and Krampus are present at the Sermon on the Mount but are not able to get very close to Jesus because of all the people. Finally, after all they go through to keep an eye on Jesus while staying always on the fringes of what is going on, they are there to witness the crucifixion. Agios is deeply stirred by the cruel death of the savior and goes away an embittered man. He believes that is the end of the promise that the birth of Jesus Christ gave to the world.

For some reason Agios doesn’t die but lives for centuries, to watch Krampus die and everybody else he ever cared about. While living as a hermit in the mountains centuries after the death of Jesus, he befriends a shepherd boy named Nicholas and learns from him that Jesus arose after his crucifixion, proving that his promise to the world was true and that he overcame death. From that moment on, Agios’ life is different. Despite his desire to not want to be near other people, he and Nicholas become close and Agios becomes a surrogate father to him. As Nicholas grows into adulthood, he becomes a priest with a very generous spirit and out of that the legend of Saint Nicholas grows, with a direct link back, through Agios, to the ministry of Jesus Christ.

The notes on the dust jacket tell us that Glenn Beck expanded The Immortal Nicholas into a novel for adults that started out as a children’s story. It’s simply written but smart and engaging enough for adults. It took a few surprising turns for me. When I started reading it, I didn’t know how a story about a man who lived at the beginning of the Christian Era could have anything to do with Saint Nicholas. I deliberately didn’t want to read any synopsis or summary while reading the book because I wanted to find out for myself where it would lead. Think what you will of Glenn Beck and his conservative principles, he is a very effective fiction writer.

Copyright © 2023 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Darkest Hour ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Darkest Hour ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

British actor Gary Oldman has played Beethoven and Dracula on the screen and now he plays Winston Churchill in the new movie, Darkest Hour. Winston Churchill became prime minister of Great Britain in May of 1940, almost by default, when the country and its politicians were unhappy with the way the elderly Neville Chamberlain was managing the war with Germany.

As the new British Prime Minister in 1940, Winston Churchill had an almost impossible job on his hands. He had a brusque, bullying manner, and a lot of people, even people in his own political party, didn’t like him. As King George V says to him, “You scare people. You scare me.” Personality problems were the least of his worries, though. Germany had assembled the largest fighting force in the history of the world, they were superior in tanks, air power and weaponry, and they were winning the war against the Allies. They were conquering all of Western Europe and were invading France, only forty miles across the English Channel from Britain’s shores. German invasion seemed inevitable. It seemed the war was already lost. American forces were not able to help at this point because, as President Franklin D. Roosevelt tells Churchill, “my hands are tied” by the Neutrality Act. The U.S. wouldn’t enter the war until the stakes became higher.

Britain could fight it out and almost certainly be crushed. Germany would very likely annihilate the entire country and its culture and then step in and make it its own. The other alternative was a “negotiated peace” with Germany, which “Hitler’s puppet,” that delightful fellow, Benito Mussolini of Italy, would help to facilitate in Venice between Britain and Germany. This amounted to a surrender, which a lot of powerful politicians (including former Prime Minster Neville Chamberlain) advocated. They were unable to understand why Churchill would not even entertain the idea of “peace talks” with Germany.

The best scene in Darkest Hour (or, anyway, my favorite scene) is when Churchill, who has almost decided that capitulation to Germany is the only way to keep Britain from being crushed, goes off on his own and rides the “Underground” (London’s subway). While on the train, he meets and engages in conversation with some of the “common people,” bricklayers and housewives. He asks them what they think about negotiating an end to the war with Germany, mostly on German terms. Would these common people like for their country to become a puppet state of Nazi Germany? Would they like to see a swastika flying from Buckingham Palace? Their answer is clear: We will never surrender!  Churchill then gives his famous speech to Parliament, in which he states irreconcilably: We will go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to rescue and the liberation of the old.

If you, like me, are fascinated by the high drama of World War II, where truth is truly stranger than fiction, you will love Darkest Hour. Gary Oldman dominates the screen every second as Winston Churchill. If those dumbbells in Hollywood don’t award him an Oscar, they might as well fold their tents and go home.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts ~ A Capsule Book Review

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts by Carolyn Chute is set in Maine. Big Lucien Letourneau is the patriarch of a large family of uneducated miscreants and malcontents. Big Lucien has had many wives and many children. Whatever else these characters may be lacking in life, they always have plenty of children. Big Lucien has a “heart of gold.” He has lots of cats and he will give a place to stay to just anybody who needs it, family or otherwise.

Big Lucien owns a salvage yard containing rows and rows of wrecked cars. He barely makes enough money to keep going, but he employs several earthy men. As one of Big Lucien’s employees says, the salvage yard is the “goddamndest hellhole I’ve ever worked in.” I’ve felt that way about some of the jobs I’ve had, so I know exactly what he’s talking about.

Blackstone Babbidge (“Gene”) is one of Big Lucien’s employees at the salvage yard. He lives in a trailer park called Miracle City. His wife, Lillian Greenlaw, is one of Big Lucien’s former wives. Lillian’s freewheeling daughter, Junie Greenlaw, is one of Big Lucien’s many children. Gene Babbidge is Junie’s stepfather. Junie has been “messing around” with her stepfather (these people don’t bother with social conventions), so she is pregnant by him. Her mother doesn’t know who the father of Junie’s baby is, only that she is pregnant with a pregnancy that makes her sick a lot of the time.

Crude, foul-mouthed Maxine Letourneau is also one of Big Lucien’s former wives. Her children by Big Lucien include Norman, who marries a hippie woman, and Little Lucien, a sullen fifteen-year-old bodybuilder.

Severin Letourneau is Big Lucien’s half-Indian nephew. When he is sixteen, he impregnates Gussie Crocker, also sixteen, and they get married. Severin is also one of Big Lucien’s employees at the salvage yard. Severin and Gussie don’t have the money to pay their rent and are evicted. Big Lucien sets them and their two small children up in a thrown-together house in the woods that doesn’t pass code. That’s another of Big Lucien’s problems: the “code man” is after him for his various code violations.

Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts is a funny and engaging exploration of the lives of people living at the bottom of the socioeconomic heap. I read this book once before and fondly remembered it enough through the years to go back and read it again. We wouldn’t want the feckless Letourneaus living in our neighborhood, but we can wallow in their lives on the printed page and come away unscathed. That’s the magic of books.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp 

by allen0997

He’s Going to Kill Me

He’s Going to Kill Me ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

“You’ve just got to let me stay here for a few days, honey!” Madge Rapf said.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Irene Jansen said.

“Why not? The place is plenty big enough for both of us.”

“It’s not that. It’s…”

“I’m scared to go home! Vincent Parry has escaped from jail. He’s going to kill me for testifying against him in his murder trial!”

“If he has escaped…”

“Oh, he has!”

“Well, if he has escaped, I don’t think he’ll stay around here. He’ll get as far away as he can.”

“Oh, no, honey! He’s out for revenge!” Madge said. “He’s already killed George Fellsinger!”

“Why would he kill George?”

“I don’t know, but George’s head was smashed in with his trumpet, and the only two sets of fingerprints on the trumpet were George’s and Vincent’s.”

“That probably isn’t true,” Irene said.

“Do you think I’d make up something like that?”

“I don’t know, dear. Would you?”

“Oh, Irene! You’ve got to listen to reason! I can’t go home! I’m scared half out of my wits! I’m so scared I don’t know what to do!”

“Why don’t you call the police?”

“And what would they do?”

“I don’t know. Assign somebody to guard you, I guess.”

“They don’t care about me!”

“Well, I’m sorry, I don’t know what you’re going to do, but you can’t stay here.”

“Why not?”

“Because Bob is coming over. He’ll be here any minute. We have a date.”

“Oh, Bob! What do I care about Bob? I’ll just hide myself away upstairs in your bedroom and Bob will never know I’m here!”

She started for the stairs, but Irene stopped her. “You can’t do that, Madge!”

“Why not? Have you got somebody up there?”

“Just try to calm yourself down, dear. I’m sure you’re all worked up over nothing. Help yourself to a scotch and soda. Take a few deep breaths and I’ll call you a taxi.”

The doorbell rang and it was Bob. Irene let him in. He was smiling until he saw Madge.

“What are you doing here?” he asked.

“Oh, Bob!” Madge said. “You’re the last person I wanted to see!”

“What’s going on?” Bob asked Irene.

“She’s heard that Vincent Parry’s escaped from prison and she’s convinced he’s going to kill her.”

“He has escaped and he is going to kill me!” Madge said.

“It’s highly unlikely,” Bob said.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to postpone our date tonight, Bob,” Irene said.

“All right,” Bob said, “but I don’t like it.”

“Oh, who cares whether you like it or not?” Madge said. “You make me sick!”

“No, I’ll tell you about sick,” Bob said. “When I think that I almost married you, I want to jump out the window and kill myself!”

“Oh, why don’t you go ahead and do it? I’ll stand by and enjoy every second of it!”

“Will you take her home, Bob, and try to calm her down?”

“Only for you,” he said.

“I don’t want him to take me home,” Madge said. “I think I’d rather have Vincent Parry get me.”

“Madge, that isn’t very nice,” Irene said.

“Well, I’m just not a in a very nice mood right now,” Madge said.

“If I have to take her home, I will,” Bob said, “but I don’t guarantee that I won’t kill her myself.”

“Oh, you just go ahead and try it!” Madge said.

“Well, let’s get going,” Bob said. “The quicker I can get her home, the quicker I’ll be rid of her!”

“And don’t expect me to ask you in, either!” Madge said.

“Oh, boo-hoo!” he said.

“Well, how about if I call you tomorrow, then, hon?” Madge asked Irene with a bright smile.

“I think I’m going to be busy tomorrow,” Irene said.

“How about the next day, then? We can have lunch.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Well, maybe next week,” Madge said.

“You’re going to have to hit her with the sofa to get her to take a hint,” Bob said.

With Bob and Madge gone and the door triple-locked, Irene breathed easier. She went up the stairs and knocked lightly on the door to the bedroom.

“Yeah!” came the voice from inside.

She pushed open the door and there was none other than prison escapee Vincent Parry sitting on the side of the bed.

“They’re gone,” she said.

“Who’s Bob?” Vincent asked.

“Just a guy. He used to be engaged to Madge.”

“Until you cut in?”

“No, nothing like that. I really don’t know him very well. We’ve been out together a few times. Nothing serious.”

“It’s none of my business,” he said with a shrug.

“Did you kill George Fellsinger?” she asked.

“No, but I was there right after it happened and I saw George on the floor. It’s true my fingerprints were on the trumpet, but I didn’t kill him. I was there earlier and he wanted me to see the semi-precious stones inlaid in the keys. If my fingerprints and his were the only ones on the trumpet, then that means that whoever used it as a murder weapon wore gloves.”

“I knew there had to be an explanation.”

“I would never have killed George. He was going to hide me out at his place for a few days. He was my best friend.”

“Did you kill your wife?”

“No, but it was Madge’s testimony that got me convicted. She lied.”

“I followed your trial all the way through. I was there every day.”

“I know,” he said. “I saw you.”

“I wrote letters to the editor of the newspaper about how unfairly you were being treated in court.”

“Why did you even care?”

“Because the same thing happened to my father. He was convicted with lies and false testimony. He was innocent.”

“You know that for certain?”

“Yes. He died in prison after only six months. He had a bad heart to begin with. I knew that being in prison would break him, and it did. It was a blessing, really, when he died. His troubles were over.”

“I’m going to kill Madge,” he said. “Every day and every night when I was in prison I dreamed of squeezing the miserable life out of her, watching the fear in her eyes when she knows she’s going to die and there’s no taking it back.”

“Revenge will avail you nothing,” Irene said. “Read your Bible.”

“I’m not good like you.”

“You don’t want to kill Madge just yet. I have a feeling she holds the key.”

“Key to what?”

“I think she’s the one person in the world who knows who killed your wife and George Fellsinger.”

“Do you know something I don’t know?”

“No, it’s just that I know Madge. I know her type. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do.”

“Madge was there on the day Gertrude was killed. She left behind one of her gloves but, not only that, I could smell her awful perfume all through the house.”

“Your wife and Madge were friends?”

“I think it’s safe to say they hated each other. Gertrude saw Madge as a rival.”

“You were once in love with Madge?”

“No, but she had it in her head that I’d marry her.”

“The plot thickens.”

“But where does that leave George?” Vincent asked. “Who killed him?”

“I think she knew that you and George were friends and that you probably would go to him after you escaped from prison. She killed him so people would think you did it.”

“Poor George. I was the only friend he had in the world.”

“His funeral is tomorrow. I think I’ll go and take some flowers.”

“I’d go myself if I wasn’t the leading suspect.”

“Just rest for a while and I’ll fix us some dinner.”

“You’re too good, Irene. I don’t deserve you.”

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans ~ A Capsule Book Review

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Thirty or so years after the American Revolutionary War, America fought the Second War of Independence with the British. This was the War of 1812. The hero of that war was Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, an Indian fighter who didn’t have much experience as a strategic war planner, but who possessed a natural instinct for defeating a mighty foe. The British army was the best equipped and best trained army in the world. They had defeated the mightiest armies of Europe (the Battle of Waterloo was yet to come, in 1815). They had their sights set on New Orleans, a city of strategic importance at the mouth of the Mississippi River. If they could conquer that city—and they were fully confident they could—they could take possession of the entire country west of the Mississippi and make it their own…or so they thought.

The British forces assembled a few miles to the east of New Orleans and prepared to move on that city. The wealth and plunder that New Orleans possessed was to be shared by all of the invading force. They expected only token resistance from the Americans, as they had when they burned the city of Washington. After all, weren’t they (the British) skilled in warfare and superior in numbers and in weaponry? The one element the British didn’t count on was General Andrew Jackson.

The area east of New Orleans known as the Chalmette Plain is where the Battle of New Orleans was fought. General Jackson pulled together a diverse amateur army of farmers, old and young, country people and city people of all nationalities, blacks, woodsmen, riverboat men, and even some pirates who pledged their support to protecting the country from British invasion. Some of them didn’t even have weapons. This “inferior” army overwhelmed the British forces through tenacity and strategic planning on the part of General Jackson. Though he was wounded and far from well, he fought side by side with his men and wouldn’t allow them to become discouraged and complacent.

The terrain—boggy swamps, marshes and bayous—was unkind to the British; they weren’t used to fighting in three feet of water. General Jackson and his army stopped them from advancing on New Orleans. British losses were heavy, while American losses were minimal. Demoralized and defeated, the British army withdrew.

Andrew Jackson was the man of the hour. He was seen as saving, not only New Orleans, but the Union. He was to this war what George Washington had been to the Revolutionary War. The unpopular war was at last redeemed in the eyes of the American people and President James Madison left office on a high note. And, of course, Andrew Jackson a few years later himself became the seventh president of the United States.

Andrew Jackson and the Miracle of New Orleans, by Brian Kilmeade, is American history made entertaining. In under 270 pages, we get a glimpse of wartime America in 1812-1814 and of the resolve that won a war against overwhelming odds. The British, after two wars fought on American soil, would not come calling again.

Copyright 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

With the multiplex given over almost entirely to comic book super heroes, sequels, and animated films for the kindergarten set, it’s hard sometimes to find a movie for grown-ups. Such a movie is Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. It’s a wry look at the after-effects of a murder in a small town.

Middle-aged mother Mildred Hayes (Frances McDormand) will do almost anything to find the person who murdered her daughter, Angela, seven months ago. Mildred is tough and fearless; if you have a confrontation with her, she might hit you in the stomach and humiliate you in front of your friends. When the local police in all that time don’t have a suspect, Mildred decides to take some drastic action. For $5,000 a month she rents three unused billboards on the old highway that hardly anybody uses anymore to advertise her message: “My daughter died while being raped. Why no suspects?”

People sympathize with Mildred over the loss of her daughter, but most believe the billboards are a bad idea. Mildred’s belief is that the police will work harder to find the murderer if their laxity is made public via billboard advertising. The foul-mouthed police chief of the town, Bill Willoughby (Woody Harrelson), has plenty of problems of his own. He’s dying of cancer and doesn’t have long to live. A glimpse inside the police station shows us that this police force is anything but efficient. Maybe it is time for somebody to hold them accountable for something. Their bumbling is personified by dim-witted officer Jason Dixon (Sam Rockwell), who lives with his strange mother and makes Barney Fife look like a genius.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri was written and directed by Martin McDonagh who, despite being English, seems to have a feel for small-town Americana and the American way of speaking. Despite the movie’s somber theme (trying to find a murderer), there’s lots of clever dialogue and some funny lines. Some of the plot twists are implausible, such as the no-consequences torching of the police station, but the whole thing is so unexpected and original that we don’t care. Originality is a rare quality these days in American movies. There’s even a town midget and a middle-aged divorced father with a ditzy nineteen-year-old girlfriend who turns every statement she says into a question. What more could you want from a movie?

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

A Separate Peace ~ A Capsule Book Review

A Separate Peace ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

John Knowles’ 1959 novel, A Separate Peace, has become a modern classic, has sold millions of copies, and is regularly found on high school reading lists. It’s a coming-of-age story about life in a boys’ prep school in New Hampshire in 1942, focusing on two boys in particular, Gene and Phineas. Gene is an introspective intellectual with a dark side and Phineas an outgoing star athlete, liked by all. As different as they are, they are best friends and roommates.

The sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys at the Devon School are on the threshold of adulthood, but they are also on the threshold of something else: World War II is raging, in Europe and elsewhere, and it is a given that all of the boys are preparing in some way to enter the war when they finish school. The war influences everything they do and think. Will they make it through alive? Will they be brave, or will they follow their natural instincts and preserve their own lives at any cost? These are questions that young men have been asking themselves for as long as wars have been waged.

Through Gene Forrester’s first-person voice narration, we get a sense of how different Phineas and Gene are. Phineas seems to be above rivalry or competitiveness (or any “ugly” emotion), but is there something in Gene’s nature that would force him to deliberately hurt Phineas because Phineas is always the best at any athletic endeavor and in a way insufferable? An incident involving a tree during the last fateful summer at school causes a tragedy that fuels the second part of the story and forces Gene, and others, to question his motives and his character.

A Separate Peace is a readable classic, just under 200 pages, on the universal themes of friendship and growing up. It has a feeling of truth and authenticity to it; that’s why people are still reading it sixty years after its first publication.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

The Hair of Her Head

The Hair of Her Head ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

The queen was at the forefront of every fashion trend. If she painted her face the color of chalk, every lady of the court with any fashion sense ended up with a face the color of chalk. If she wore a ruff collar to a court function, ruff collars became the rage before the sun rose again. If she wore platform shoes under her gowns to make herself a few inches taller (taller than the king), shoemakers were working round the clock by the end of the week to satisfy the sudden desire for platform shoes.

When the queen decided she wanted a new coiffure, she summoned Alphonse, the court hairdresser, and his retinue of lackeys and assistants. She was getting tired, she said, of the same old curls, fluffs and puffs. She wanted a new style of dressing her hair that nobody had ever seen or imagined before. She wanted to hear people gasp with surprise and envy when she entered a room.

The court hairdresser propped the queen up in an elaborate swiveling chair, stuffing pillows all around her to make her as comfortable as she could be. He knew he was going to have to create something different, and fast, if he was going to keep his job. He was under a considerable amount of strain but he had been in the same situation before and he knew he would get through it. To keep the queen calm and to soothe his own frazzled nerves, he called a small ensemble of court musicians into the room to play softly the music that was known to put the queen to sleep. In no time at all, she was snoring.

She slept for three hours. She woke up only because her little pet monkey Marcel was blowing bubbles with his pipe and one of his bubbles, a very large one indeed, landed on her nose and popped. It couldn’t have happened at a better time because Alphonse was just then putting the finishing touches on the royal coiffure.

The queen was impatient to be handed a mirror, but Alphonse wanted an unveiling of sorts. When he pulled her to her feet, he had one of the ladies-in-waiting tie a scarf over her eyes. Then he walked her to an enormous mirror that went from floor to ceiling with two side mirrors tilted out at angles. He took the scarf away and stood back, heart pounding. If the queen didn’t like the royal coiffure, he might be sent packing with only the clothes on his back.

She blinked her eyes several times and regarded her reflection without expression for what seemed a very long time but couldn’t have been more than two or three minutes. She turned this way and that to see herself from the back and from both sides and from every oblique angle.

The royal coiffure was, indeed, unlike any coiffure her majesty had ever seen before. Instead of the customary white, it was a slightly pinkish color, like a cloud at sunset. The color was not the most salient feature, however; the one thing that made this coiffure so much different from others was its size. It was at least a foot high of gorgeousness—elaborate rolls and twists adorned with shimmering precious stones and ostrich feathers. On the sides and in the back, hanging about the royal neck and ears, was a profusion of sausage-like curls that seemed to have been spawned by the puff of pink rising above. It was truly a coiffure befitting the queen of the land.

However restrained her majesty might have been in showing approval, she was most pleased with the royal coiffure. She touched the court hairdresser lightly on the shoulder and passed from the room with a tiny smile on her lips. The court hairdresser collapsed into a chair and ordered a bottle of wine and a plate of sausages be brought to him.

That evening the queen wore a magenta gown and her ruby jewels to complement her pink hair. On the arm of the king, who always managed to look like an unhappy frog in a powdered wig, she entered the dining salon where her court was assembled. As she and the king passed in their stately procession from one side of the enormous room to the other to take their places at table, all eyes were upon her. She heard gasps, whispers, exclamations, but the looks of envy and jealousy were the most gratifying to her. All the other ladies present looked like laundresses and milk maids beside their queen.

They, the ladies of the court (and this included some of the men), were all delighted by the queen’s new coiffure. While they couldn’t run the risk of being seen as trying to better the queen, they were free to emulate her as much as was fitting. They could copy her coiffure if they so desired, but they had to be careful not to have hair higher than the queen; this could incur not only the disfavor of the queen but also of the king and the royal offspring. The queen was above all considerations of competitiveness. She was without peer. She was the queen.

So there followed a frenzy of high hair at the court. When all the ladies had hair as high as—but no higher—than the queen, the queen herself went a couple of inches higher each time they saw her. And if the queen appeared with blue hair, all the ladies the next day had hair the same shade of blue, but no bluer; the same for green, lilac, yellow, orange and every other color imaginable.

When the queen and all the ladies of the court had hair higher than about three feet, special accommodations had to be made. They had to sit on the floor in carriages because ceilings were just not high enough. A special section at the opera had to be designated for them because nobody ever wanted to sit behind them. Many of them had to sleep sitting up in a chair or flat on their backs on the floor, as they could no longer sleep in a bed with three-foot-high hair. These were all minor inconveniences, however, in light of what was to come.

The pomade the ladies used to keep their hair malleable was made of apples and other organic materials. At all times of the year, but especially in hot weather, the pomade was likely to turn sour and create a smell. This situation resulted in the ladies using overpowering scents to mask the smell of the pomade. Some of the gentlemen of the court, including the king, became sickened by the strong, unnatural smells. The king was forced to require the women to sit downwind from him and to have lackeys fan the air. The queen complained to the king that his behavior toward the ladies was insulting but he paid her no mind.

As if the smell wasn’t bad enough, some of the ladies began to be infected with all kinds of vermin. It seemed the very high, elaborate coiffures attracted unwelcome visitors. One lady died while eating a dinner of roasted squab. When her body was examined, it was discovered she had a family of poisonous spiders nesting in her hair that were feasting on her scalp as they saw fit. Another lady had a couple of enterprising bats take up residence in the upper reaches of her coiffure; the bats decided to vacate the premises at a very inopportune moment. Still another was infested with a rare kind of beetle that heretofore had been found only in the Orient. Other of the ladies complained of lice and fleas.

Outside the walls of the palace, more serious events were taking place, of which the king, the queen, and their court of aristocratic sycophants and hangers-on were largely unaware. The common people, many of whom were starving and dressed in tatters, were disenchanted with the king and queen and with royalty in general. There was a movement afoot to revolt, to bring down the government and put in place a fairer, more equitable system of running the country. Who needed a king and queen anyway? They were bleeding the country dry and enjoying themselves while they were doing it.

When the revolt finally came, the king and queen were preparing to decamp to their summer palace in the mountains with their enormous retinue of servants. The king immediately had the palace secured, but he knew that he and the queen and everybody else in the palace were not altogether safe from an angry mob.

Some members of the court assumed false identities and fled for their lives. The ladies with high hair dismantled their coiffures and washed out the dyes, as it happened that their coiffures had become hated symbols of excess and indifference to the plight of the common people. Some went so far as to shave their heads to disavow who they were. A few of the ladies were found to have been men all along.

The king and queen decided to stay in the palace, an act of defiance if there ever was one. When the mob came for them, they were standing at the top of the staircase of the grand salon as though posing for a picture. The king was dressed in his sumptuous robes of state, powdered wig and crown. The queen wore her loveliest gown and most elaborate jewels. Her coiffure was a grand, four-foot-high creation of defiant flaming orange, adorned with her many-jeweled crown proclaiming to the world that she was queen and none other.

The monarchy was abolished and a provisional government established in its place. The king and queen never saw each other again after the day they were taken and they never saw their children again. The king’s head was severed from his body and placed on a spike in front of the palace that had been his home.

When the queen a few weeks later met the same fate as the king, it was a grand event for the common people. Everybody crowded into the city to see the old girl get what she had coming. And when her head was finally severed from her body a great cheer went up, but there was something else, too: all the bugs, mice, vermin, spiders and small birds living in her hair scattered throughout the land to tell their tale of life and death at the court.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Hiddensee ~ A Capsule Book Review

Hiddensee ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Author Gregory Maguire takes fairy stories or well-known fantasy stories such as The Wizard of Oz and “reinterprets” them for a grown-up audience. His latest novel is Hiddensee, all about the life of the fictional character Herr Dirk Drosselmeier, woodcarver and toy maker who made from wood “the nutcracker.” Yes, it’s the same nutcracker as the one in the story popularized by Tchaikovsky’s ballet, which was taken from a short story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, which was itself adapted from a story “The Nutcracker” by Alexandre Dumas. As you can see, this is a story with deep literary roots, none of which you need to know to enjoy the book.

Hiddensee is set in the 1800s in the Black Forest in Bavaria, southern Germany, a magical place even when nothing happens there. Dirk Drosselmeier is a foundling child never knowing his parents or where he came from. He is brought up in a tiny house deep in the woods by an old man and an old woman, who, we find out toward the end of the book, are really Hansel and Gretel. He never has any contact with any other person in his life besides this old man and old woman. They treat him kindly until he is about ten years old and they decide to kill him. When Hansel takes him out into the woods to kill him with his axe, the killing isn’t successful, except in the sense that Drosselmeier dies and comes back to life. It’s a fantasy story, remember.

Drosselmeier, for obvious reasons, gets away from Hansel and Gretel and spends the rest of his childhood with a minister, who takes care of him but is mostly indifferent to him. Do you see a trend here? He doesn’t have a very happy life and doesn’t seem to belong anywhere. One important plot point that must be remembered is that Drosselmeier, when he leaves Hansel and Gretel, takes a crutch with him that he made for Hansel. The crutch is of no apparent use to him, but he takes it with him everywhere he goes, anyway.

After he leaves the minister he finds himself as a sort of servant with a wealthy family, where he befriends the young musician Felix Stahlbaum. He and Felix remain friends as long as they both live. He gets into trouble when it is assumed that he impregnated a young servant girl (he didn’t) and has to leave. He ends up with a paper maker with a strange Persian wife and two small boys. He befriends the family and begins making toys and entertaining the two boys with stories he heard as a child. Eventually he falls in love with the paper maker’s wife. This, of course, does not end happily.

Anyway, the story follows Drosselmeier’s life through to the end. He makes a nutcracker from the crutch he took away from Hansel and Gretel. He sets up a shop in Munich and makes a living as a toy maker. His friend Felix Stahlbaum has two sons of his own and Drosselmeier becomes their godfather.

Felix’s family is the only family Drosselmeier has ever known. Felix dies and Drosselmeier continues being friendly with his widow and two sons. One of the sons grows up and has children of his own, including a daughter Klara. Klara is sickly and might die. The story takes us to a Christmas Eve when Klara is gravely ill and Drosselmeier presents her with the nutcracker he made years earlier and a magical castle that can be opened only with a golden key that is kept inside a walnut concealed on the Tannenbaum. What happens when Klara is alone in the room with the nutcracker, some mice, and the magical castle forms the basis for the story’s conclusion.

I’ve read all of Gregory Maguire’s books. Hiddensee is not my favorite, but it’s engaging and beautifully written throughout, if you, like me, are willing to suspend disbelief for three hundred pages. For a book by Gregory Maguire that seems truly inspired, however, read Wicked or Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997

Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile ~ A Capsule Book Review

Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Ancient Egypt is one of the oldest cultures in the world, going back more than five thousand years. The Egyptians were some of the most innovative and inventive people in the world. They built the largest stone structure ever constructed anywhere in the world (Pyramids at Giza) and the largest temple of worship (Karnak Temple), using sophisticated engineering techniques but without machines and with tools that we consider primitive. They advanced art and architecture and invented writing, even though only about five percent of ancient Egyptians could read and write. They waged war, wove cloth, sported fashionable clothes, grew and irrigated abundant crops, built furniture and beautiful decorative items, practiced medicine (even though they knew nothing about germs or bacteria), and adorned their tombs with riches beyond imagining. They worshipped many gods, but the pharaoh was the supreme being, the living god. Everything the people did was in tribute to the pharaoh.

The Egyptian civilization would have never existed if it hadn’t been for the Nile. Every spring the river flooded and when the floodwaters receded, fertile soil was left behind. The raising of plentiful crops was relatively easy, giving the people plenty of time to do other things, such as wage war against their neighbors for their pharaoh and engage in massive building projects. Instead of a necessity, war was a given in ancient Egypt. The most revered pharaohs were the ones who waged the most successful military campaigns. Egypt wasn’t interested in adding to its territory but in stealing the plunder of the vanquished.

Over its thousands of years of history (the longest-lasting civilization anywhere in the world), Egypt’s fortunes rose and fell, depending a lot on whoever happened to be in charge at the time. Some pharaohs were effective leaders, while others led the country to chaos. At Egypt’s highest point, it was the richest country and the most feared superpower in the known world.

Ancient Egypt: Everyday Life in the Land of the Nile by Bob Brier and Hoyt Hobbs is an interesting and informative overview of what life was like for the three million or so souls who called Egypt their home thousands of years before Christ. Did you know there was one pharaoh who sat on the throne for ninety-four years, a record that still stands for any king or monarch in any country in the world? Did you know that, through the complex rules regarding succession, there was one woman, Hatshepsut, who was pharaoh? We know Egypt in modern times mostly through the fabulous treasures that were uncovered in Tutankhamen’s tomb in the 1920s. The truth is that Tutankhamen was a minor pharaoh as pharaohs go, a “boy king” with a misshapen body who sat on the throne for only ten years. He was considered so insignificant that, in the years after his reign, he was almost forgotten, almost erased from historical records. Most of the pharaohs’ tombs were plundered in ancient times, no matter what measures were taken to secure them, but Tutankhamen’s tomb was left untouched by robbers because, the truth was, most people didn’t even know he had existed. When his tomb was opened in the 1920s, it provided a snapshot of ancient Egypt at the apex of its glory. So much for a “minor” pharaoh.

Copyright © 2017 by Allen Kopp

by allen0997