Allen Kopp – Page 50 – Literary Fictions

The Canterbury Tales ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Canterbury Tales (A Prose Version in Modern English) ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Geoffrey Chaucer (1343-1400) lived during the Middle Ages, almost two hundred years before Shakespeare. The English spoken at the time he lived is called Middle English, to distinguish it from Old English and Early Modern English (the language that Shakespeare spoke and wrote in). Chaucer’s most famous work is The Canterbury Tales, a collection of about twenty stories (some in prose but most in verse) with a simple premise: A group of diverse “pilgrims” (a nun, a knight, a miller, a priest, a doctor, a pardoner, a “wife,” etc.) on their way to Canterbury to pay homage to Thomas Becket (who “helped them when they were sick”) tell stories to pass the time and relieve the tedium of the road. Each pilgrim is required to tell a story, whether they want to or not. The stories range from bawdy, low humor to tragedy and give us a picture of what life was like in England at the end of the fourteenth century.

No matter how you’ve been spending your time lately, you probably haven’t been reading The Canterbury Tales in its original Middle English, unless, of course, you’re a graduate student preparing a thesis on the subject. If you’ve ever heard Middle English spoken, it’s beautiful to hear but not that easy to understand for modern speakers of English. A lot of the words are the same and are easily recognizable, but a lot of the words no longer exist in the language. (If you’d like to hear an example of spoken Middle English, here is an easy link to “The Nun’s Priest’s Tale” from The Canterbury Tales on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C6rS0aL0DM

Since Middle English is beyond the ken of most people (including me), there’s this “Prose Version in Modern English” by David Wright. A lot of the “feel” of The Canterbury Tales, I’m sure, is lost is this translation (sort of like the “modern American translation” of the King James’ version of the Bible), but if you need to read The Canterbury Tales and you want to be able to understand it, this is the best, most accessible way. Of course, you have to be a dedicated reader if, like me, you’re reading it only for enjoyment and out of curiosity and not because you have to. After all these years since high school English class, I finally know what the Wife of Bath is all about.

September 12, 2015 by allen0997

Your Friend August Wellington

Your Friend August Wellington ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

He selected several pairs of swimsuits from the men’s-small rack and locked himself in the dressing room. After checking the door three times to make sure nobody could get in, he took everything off except his underpants and, standing before the mirror, began trying them on: first a plaid pair that he immediately rejected because they were too skimpy; then a yellow pair with a black stripe up each side and a slit at the thigh that made him look like something he wasn’t; then a black, baggy pair that hung down almost to his knees and made him look like an old man; then a red pair that wasn’t too baggy or too tight. He turned this way and that, looking at himself from every angle. The red pair would do, even though he hated the way he looked with his chest, arms and legs uncovered. No doubt about it, he was meant to be clothed. He wasn’t sure he would ever let anybody see him in the red swimsuit, but buying it was the first step and then he would see. He couldn’t look any worse than a lot of other people.

Of course, he had already turned down the invitation to the pool party, but he still might change his mind. He could see himself calling at the last minute and graciously accepting, after all, the invitation that he had declined. “I thought I was having abdominal surgery that day but it turns out the doctor says I don’t need the operation after all. Hah-hah-hah!”

When he got home, Aunt Vivian was waiting for him in her Cadillac, smoking a cigarette. She saw him in her rearview mirror and jumped out.

“August, where the hell have you been?” She reeked of perfume and her lipstick was smeared down to her chin.

“I had some shopping to do,” he said.

“I was about to call the police.”

“Why?”

“You didn’t answer the door. I thought something terrible must have happened to you.”

“And how many martinis did you have for lunch today?” he asked.

She stood behind him while he fumbled with the key in the lock and when he opened the door she went inside behind him as if the house belonged to her.

“I want you to come and stay at our house until your daddy gets back from his business trip,” she said.

“I’ve already said I’m not going to do that.”

“When you’re in school, it’s different, but now that school is out you don’t have any business staying in this big house all alone.”

“I like being alone.”

“You get lonely.”

“No, I don’t!”

“You daddy had no business going off and leaving you alone. You’re still a child.”

“No, I’m not!”

“I worry about you.”

“No need.”

“So you’re saying you won’t come and stay at my house?”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

“I could still put you over my knee and whale the living daylights out of you,” she said.

“I don’t think so,” he said. “I’m bigger than you are.”

She swiped her fingers on the dining room table to see how much dust had collected there and then she went into the kitchen, opening the refrigerator and all the cabinets and looking inside.

“Are you eating properly?” she asked.

“Of course.”

“I’m afraid you’re just eating pizza and junk food.”

“I don’t even like pizza that much.”

“I could bring you some things.”

“No need.”

“You know how to cook?”

“I have a cookbook,” he said. “I can cook when I need to. Do you want me to show you?”

“You have eggs and milk?”

“I have flour, sugar, coffee and tea. What I don’t have I can go buy.”

“All right. I know you had to grow up fast with your mother dying so young the way she did.”

“Please don’t mention that to me again.”

“I hope Dana gets married again, for his sake and for yours.”

“He said something before he left about getting married soon.”

She nodded her head and smiled. “Oh, well, that’s encouraging! Have you met her?”

“I don’t think he has anybody in mind yet.”

“Is he seeing someone?”

“He was seeing a Mrs. Bone with three daughters but I think that romance fell through. I didn’t like her, so that might have had something to do with it.”

“You met her?”

“He took me out to dinner with them one night.”

“Oh, that’s lovely! Did you have a nice time?”

“No. Father isn’t supposed to eat lobster but he ate it anyway and got sick. While he was in the men’s room vomiting, I had a little tête-à-tête with Mrs. Bone. I think I scared her off.”

“Was that your intention?”

“I just told her the way things are.”

“I’m sure that was very naughty of you!”

A few minutes after Aunt Vivian left, there was a knock at the door. It was his friend from school, Colin Mayhew. He was carrying his gym bag.

“Is the paterfamilias still gone?” Colin asked.

“Who wants to know?” August asked.

“I’d like to stay here tonight if you don’t mind.”

“Why?”

“My parents are fighting again. I had to get away from all the yelling.”

“You can stay only if you promise you aren’t carrying any bugs or communicable diseases.”

“Very funny.”

“You can sleep on the couch or in the guest bedroom. You’re not sleeping with me.”

“Thank goodness! I was afraid that was going to be a condition for letting me stay.”

After they consumed a jar of peanuts and two glasses of wine apiece, the talk turned to the pool party.

“I’ve decided to go after all,” August said. “I bought a red swimsuit this morning.”

“You can’t do that,” Colin said. “You already turned down the invitation.”

“Yes, I can.”

“It would be very rude to show up after you’ve said you’re not coming.”

“Why are you always so concerned about what’s rude and what’s not?”

“I’m just telling you what I think.”

“That’s what’s wrong with the world. Too many people expressing their opinions.”

“Pardon me for living.”

“So you think I should call Beulah Buffington and tell her I’d like to come after all?”

“I know her. She’ll probably take your head off.”

“Let her try.”

“I wouldn’t have the nerve.”

“Are you still going?”

“Of course!” Colin said. “My dad’s letting me take the car.”

“You can come by and pick me up and we’ll go together.”

“I don’t think you should do that.”

“Why not?”

“If you told Beulah you’re not coming, that’s the same as not being invited at all. You don’t want to be a gate crasher, do you?”

“I’ll call her first and arrange it.”

Colin picked up the phone, handed it to August and dialed the number. Beulah answered on the first ring.

“Hello?” August said. “Is that you, Beulah?”

“Yes. Who is this?”

“This is August.”

“August who?”

“Wellington.”

“Do I know you?”

“From school?”

“Um, I don’t seem to remember you. Can you describe yourself?”

“Look, Beulah, I know why you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?”

”Pretending not to know me.”

“I’m terribly busy,” she said. “I’m going to have to hang up now.”

“I just wanted to ask you a question.”

“What is it?”

“It’s about your pool party.”

“What about it?”

“I was wondering if it would be all right if I change my mind and accept your invitation after all.”

An icy silence on the other end, after which she said, “I don’t want to be mean, August, but I’m afraid you weren’t on the invitation list.”

“You called me just the other day and invited me.”

“I did? Are you sure it was me?”

“Well, yes. I had no reason to believe it was anybody else.”

“This is very odd,” she said. “I’ve never had anybody call and invite themselves to one of my parties. Are you sure this isn’t a joke?”

“No, it’s not a joke. I just thought…”

“What did you say your name is again?”

“It’s okay, Beulah. Just forget it.”

“Well, I suppose it’ll be all right for you to come since you place yourself in such an awkward position, but I have to warn you. We’ve already invited more people than we can handle and we probably won’t have room for all of them. We’re hoping some of them change their minds and don’t show up after all.”

“No, I wouldn’t dream of…”

“I have to go now,” Beulah said. “It was awfully lovely speaking to you.”

August hung up and shook his head at Colin.

“What did she say?” Colin asked.

“She was very obtuse. She pretended she didn’t know me. She said she never called and invited me to the party.”

“Are you sure it was her?”

“She said I could come anyway but there probably wouldn’t be enough room.”

“That’s terrible.”

“No, it isn’t. I don’t care.”

“You don’t want to go?”

“No.”

“I’ll fill you in on everything that happens,” Colin said.

“Do you mean you’re still going?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“I thought you were my friend.”

“I am.”

“We’ve known each other since the beginning of school.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You can still go knowing that I’m not invited?”

“Yes.”

“Loyalty means nothing to you?”

“Look, August, just because you’re a loser doesn’t mean I have to be one, too.”

“So now I’m a loser, am I?”

“I only meant…”

“I don’t care what you meant. I want you to get out of my house.”

“If it means that much to you, I won’t go.”

“No, it’s too late now. I’ve already discovered what a rat you are.”

“Do you want me to talk to Beulah and wangle you an invitation?”

“No! I want you to leave. Right now!”

“I thought it’d be fun to come over here and spend the night with you. I was wrong.”

“Colin, if you don’t get out of my house right now, I’m going to stick a knife all the way through you!”

“Nobody likes you, August, but you’re not able to see it.”

“Do you want me to throw you out?”

“I know your mother killed herself because she was crazy. I think craziness runs in your family.”

August picked up a letter opener and began brandishing it in Colin’s face. “Have you ever seen a person stabbed with one of these things?” he said.

“I hope your father marries a horrible woman!” Colin said. “I hope you end up with a stepmother who makes your life miserable!”

August threw the letter opener, narrowly missing Colin’s head. As he was looking around for something else to throw, Colin grabbed his gym bag and ran for the door. August watched him as he ran across the street and disappeared down the block.

He went upstairs to his room and locked himself in, slowly took off all his clothes and put on the red swimsuit he had bought just that morning. He turned this way and that, looking at himself in the full-length mirror. To himself he looked like a hairless monkey, all joints and angles, his skin as white as paste. He could hear people in his head laughing and making fun of him for trying to get invited to Beulah’s party.

“This will never do,” he said.

He took the scissors and cut the swimsuit into strips, feeling he was relieving himself of a burden. And he left the strips on the floor around his bed to remind himself of just how foolish he had been.

August 29, 2015August 30, 2015 by allen0997

The Confidential Agent ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Confidential Agent ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

The hero/protagonist of Graham Greene’s novel The Confidential Agent is referred to only as “D.” That’s how confidential he is. He’s a middle-aged man (think Charles Boyer), a foreigner, travelling in Britain, and he’s not there to see the sights, either. He is a lecturer in the Romance Languages, a scholar and peace-loving man, but things haven’t been going so well for him. His country is at war, he’s been in prison for two years apparently because he was on the wrong side, and his wife was shot and killed by the enemy. He’s in Britain to negotiate a coal deal with the owner of a huge coal-mining conglomerate, a certain Lord Benditch. His side must have the coal to have a chance of winning the war. If the enemy gets the coal, D.’s side is certain to lose. Well, guess what? There’s another “confidential agent” from the other side, known to us as “L.” who also wants the coal. Will “L.” kill “D.” to keep him from getting the coal, or will “D.” kill “L.” to keep him from getting it? It’s a cat-and-mouse game from the beginning. D. is badly beaten (although it doesn’t seem to stop him) and his papers that establish his identity are stolen, and this is just the beginning of the obstacles that are placed in his way.

We realize early that the business about the war or D.’s side needing the coal doesn’t really matter. We learn nothing of the politics of the war or who is fighting whom. This is only a device to propel the plot. Don’t waste any time or expend any brain power trying to figure out the war.

Of course, there always has to be a “femme fatale” in a story like this. In this case she is the daughter (what a coincidence!) of Lord Benditch, the coal magnate, and her name is Rose Cullen (think Lauren Bacall). She seems to know D. and to know the importance of his mission, but where do her loyalties lay? Is she to be trusted? After a while she claims to be in love with D., in spite of their age difference and also in spite of his not being very lovable. Can D. make a go of it with Rose Cullen or he is only deceiving himself? Will they have a future together after the war business is settled, or is she only sucking up to him, seeking his vulnerable side to knife him in the back? In a story like this, you can never be sure.

We are told that Graham Greene wrote The Confidential Agent in 1939 in a matter of a few short weeks, fueled by Benzedrine (whatever that is), and that he wrote it for money. After it was finished, he was so unhappy with it that he wanted to disavow it and publish it under a pseudonym, but it was published under his own name and it turned out to be well-received by critics and the reading public alike. It’s rather formulaic, a “thriller” (in other words, “light” reading), but it lives up to its subtitle: An Entertainment.

August 23, 2015August 25, 2015 by allen0997

Busy Will You Wait

Busy Will You Wait ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Dot Crandall kicked off her shoes after one hour behind the desk and put on her fleece-lined mules. “My dogs are barking already,” she said. “I don’t know if I’ll make it to the end of the day.”

“You have to make it,” Zora Costello said. “You ain’t got any choice.”

“One day I’m going to show them who’s got a choice and who hasn’t!”

“Maybe you ought to buy a different kind of shoes if they hurt your feet all the time that way.”

“It’s not my shoes. It’s my feet. They’re not normal”

“Nothing else about you is normal, either.”

Before Dot could take exception to Zora’s remark, there was a chirp-chirp sound, meaning the phone was ringing.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click.

“People are calling here all day long with their problems,” Dot said. “It makes me sick.”

“I know, but that’s the world of business.”

“I don’t think I can stand much more of it.”

Chirp…Chirp.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click. “Okay, I didn’t want to talk to you, anyway!”

“Nobody’s waiting?” Dot asked.

“They just hang up.”

“My, but people are impatient today!”

“I’m glad they hang up,” Zora said. “Then I don’t have to deal with them.”

Chirp…Chirp.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click.

“I’ve got a pain in my side,” Dot said.

“Pregnant, I’ll bet.”

Dot’s laugh was a sudden release of air, as from a gas bag. “Now, that would be a miracle!”

“Call that old man of yours and tell him you’re got a little bundle of joy on the way.”

“Not that one! He’s got alcoholics’ disease and, if that isn’t bad enough, his brain has gone soft from watching too much TV. When he’s asleep he dreams he’s watching Bonanza.”

“Well, that’s what happens to old men, isn’t it?”

“I suppose so, but I’m not ready to take care of an old man yet. I’m still young.”

“You’re not as young as you’d like to think you are.”

“You should talk!”

“I know. We’re both old.”

“And still going to work every day. That’s the sad part.”

“How long do we have to go until we can retire?” Zora asked.

“I don’t think that day will ever come,” Dot said. “We’ll both still be here when we’re ninety-five.”

“You’ll be ninety-five before I will!”

“We’ll die chained to these desks and nobody will even notice.”

“We’re already dead and in hell. That’s the only explanation.”

Chirp…Chirp.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click.

“Fix your face, honey! Here comes that cute postman!”

With the precision of an acrobat, he came through the door, deposited the mail on the desk and went out again, all without looking up.

“I wish I could get him to look at me just once,” Dot said.

“Why?”

“I think he’s cute. Don’t you think he’s cute?”

Zora hooted with laughter. “If he looks at you, he would probably only be noticing the resemblance to his great-grandmother.”

“If I was only twenty years younger, I could go for him in a big way.”

“If you were forty years younger, it would still be a stretch.”

“He looks like a boy I was crazy about when I was fifteen. He was a couple years older than me and he wouldn’t give me a tumble.”

“He probably liked other boys.”

“You never forget your first love.”

“Are you sure he was the first?”

“I wonder what his name is.”

“You were in love with him and you didn’t know his name?”

“No! The postman! I wonder what his name is.”

“You could always ask him,” Zora said.

“I’m too shy. I wouldn’t be able to get the words out.”

“Do you want me to ask him for you? It’s probably Nelson or Kenny or something like that. Or maybe Kenny Nelson.”

“I think he looks like a Freddie.”

“Okay, then, we’ll say his name is Freddie.”

“One day when he comes in here,” Dot said, “I’m going to ask him if it’s raining. You know, engage him in conversation.”

“The janitor is more your type.”

“He’s too much like my husband and, anyway, he’s married.”

“Yeah, all the good ones are taken.”

Chirp…Chirp.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click.

“They hung up?”

“I think it was Freddie the postman calling to see if you would answer. It sounded like his breathing.”

“If he calls again, tell him I’m waiting for him to make the first move.”

“Tell him yourself! He’s your love interest.”

“The pain in my side is getting worse,” Dot said. “Now I’ve got the same kind of pain in my head. I think I’ll go home sick for the rest of the day.”

“And leave me here to cope all by myself? I don’t think so!”

Chirp…Chirp.

“Goodapple and Rood,” Zora said. “I’ll connect you.” Pause. “Busy-will-you-wait?” Click.

“Hung up again?”

“Yeah.”

“I think you’re pushing the wrong button, honey. When you try to put them on hold, you’re disconnecting them.”

“Which button am I supposed to push?”

“This one.”

“I’ve been pushing that one.”

“That’s why they all seem to hang up. You’re cutting them off.”

“Well, isn’t that funny? Hah-hah-hah! The joke’s on me! Hah-hah-hah!”

“You’d better not let Mr. Goodapple know you’ve been hanging up on his clients. He wouldn’t like it.”

“You know what Mr. Goodapple can do! I’ll just say there’s something wrong with the phone.”

“The problem isn’t with the phone but with the person using the phone.”

“Yeah, who cares? I’m hungry.”

“Me too. I didn’t eat any breakfast this morning.”

“Maybe we could slip out and get a real sit-down lunch today.”

“We can’t both be gone at the same time. We’ll have to go one at a time or one of us will have to bring back.”

“I’ll go.”

“And leave me alone to answer the phone? I don’t think so!”

“You go, then. Bring me back a bacon and tomato on whole wheat toast, a large Coke and a pack of Luckies.”

Their thoughts were just then interrupted by the smell of Mr. Goodapple’s cologne and the sound of his footsteps in the hallway coming toward them. Dot opened a ledger and began studiously copying figures from it onto a pad. Zora opened her desk drawer and began rearranging the things inside.

“Well, well, well!” the great man boomed. “How are we all doing today?”

“Just fine, Mr. Goodapple!” Zora said.

“Very good, sir!” Dot said.

“Keeping busy, are we?”

“Oh, yes, sir!

“I like to check up on the girls in the front office and make sure things are running smoothly.”

“We’re getting along swimmingly,” Dot said.

“We’ve been so busy this morning!” Zora said. “Hardly time to catch our breath.”

“Haw-haw-haw!” he laughed, showing his mule-like teeth. “That’s the way we like it, isn’t it?”

“Oh, yes, sir!”

“The busier we are, the more we feel we’re earning our pay.”

“I was saying that very thing a little while ago,” Zora said. “We do love our jobs so.”

“You’ve both been here a long time, haven’t you?”

“Oh, yes, sir! Many, many years in fact.”

“More years than we can count,” Dot said.

“Some people just can’t stand to ever think of retiring, can they?” he said.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have my job to go to every day,” Zora said.

“I feel the same way,” Dot said.

Mr. Goodapple smiled in his self-satisfied way. “I like to see dedication in my people,” he said. “And loyalty. Nothing is more important.”

Somebody came up behind Mr. Goodapple and tapped him on the shoulder and he left. Zora and Dot let out their breath with relief.

“That bastard!” Zora said. “Spying on us!”

“He’s got his nerve!”

“He thinks he’s so important and he’s just the white on top of old chicken doodle.”

“The smell of his cologne makes me sick.”

“For two cents I’d tell him what I think of him!”

“The pain in my side just got worse!” Dot said. “I have to get out of here!”

She stood up and shuffled in her mules down the hallway to the ladies’ room. When she came back, she was pale and her intricate hairdo had come undone.

“I was just sick in the bathroom,” she said. “The stress is too much for me.”

“You’d better go home and lie down, then, honey,” Zora said. “I can cover for you.”

“You’re right,” Dot said. “I guess maybe that’s the thing I ought to do.”

After Dot was gone, Zora combed her hair and fixed her face. Then she left the office to get herself a good lunch. She would take as long as she wanted, if not the entire afternoon, and if Mr. Goodapple didn’t like it, well, she’d be glad to tell him what he could do about it.

August 11, 2015 by allen0997

The School on Heart’s Content Road ~ A Capsule Book Review

The School on Heart’s Content Road ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

I first became a fan of Carolyn Chute when I read her novel The Beans of Egypt, Maine many years ago. Then Letourneau’s Used Auto Parts, Merry Men and Snow Man. Her most recent book (not that she’s published but that that I’ve read) is The School on Heart’s Content Road. She has another book out, Treat Us Like Dogs and We Become Wolves (just out in 2014) that I haven’t yet read but that I intend to read as soon as I’m ready to tackle another 700-page novel. (The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt, last year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, is 769 pages.)

The thing about Carolyn Chute is that she’s not like other writers. Nothing bores me any faster than stories of yuppie angst and heartbreak (multiple marriages, affairs, fears about growing old, screwed-up kids because their parents are screwed up, blah, blah, blah). Carolyn Chute writes about the other end of the spectrum: people on the fringe, the dispossessed, the poor, illiterate (what’s called in the South white trash but is called something else in Maine where her books are set). These people are fascinating, and in The School on Heart’s Content Road we have a whole assemblage of fascinating characters. Characters who are much more concerned about survival than about their stock portfolios or what wines to have for dinner or what college two-year-old Muffy will apply to when the time comes.

The School on Heart’s Content Road is set, for some reason, in the year 2000. It is not about a school but instead centers around four characters: Michael (known as “Mickey”) Gammon, Jane Miranda Meserve, Richard York (likes to be called “Rex;” his mother calls him “Ricky”) and Guillaume (known as “Gordon”) St. Onge.

Fifteen-year-old Mickey Gammon smells bad (he doesn’t bathe) and he can’t read, even though he goes to school (or seems to). He lives with his half-brother Donnie Locke and Donnie’s family. Donnie works in an unidentified “chain” (like Wal-Mart) store and is understandably unhappy. He and his wife Erika have a sick child, Jesse, who is bound to die with cancer, whether he has treatments or not. They hardly have enough money for pain medicine for the sick child. Also living with them are Mickey and Donnie’s mother, Britta (she has three kids by three different men, none of whom she was ever married to), their younger sister, Elizabeth, and several of Donnie’s kids from a previous marriage (referred to throughout the novel as the “girl gang”). Donnie throws Mickey out of the house. (“You can’t live here anymore,” he says.) Mickey lives for a while in a tree house with Maine winter setting in. He begins spending time with Rex York, a fifty-year-old Vietnam veteran who has a military bearing and a soldierly attitude toward life (he doesn’t eat desserts and maintains his trim body with exercise). Rex is head of the True Maine Militia. This is a “separatist” group that doesn’t trust the government (with good reason) and will use force if necessary to “take back” (with plenty of guns and ammo) the country that they believe was stolen from them by greedy politicians and an even greedier corporate structure that “steals from them and tries to sell back what they have stolen.” They are a fringe group and have been much maligned by the mainstream media, whose job it is to stir up fear in the public imagination against them.

Gordon St. Onge is about ten years younger than Rex York, but they have known each other since they were young. (They consider themselves almost brothers.) Gordon is called (among other things) the “Prophet,” because he is a head of the “Settlement,” a sort of commune/co-op where a bunch of people live and work. Gordon is charismatic and is loved by most of the people who know him and feared by many because he has a lot of (not legal) wives and many children by those wives. It seems that nothing disturbs the public as much as the thought of “polygamy” and a “cult” in which young girls are made to have “relations” with much older men (it isn’t like that in the Settlement). Life seems to be pretty harmonious in the Settlement and the people living there are happy. Still, though, there is the idea that they will overthrow the government in an ugly way if (and when) they have the chance, or possibly even try to secede from the Union. For this reason they are disliked and feared.

Jane Meserve is a six-and-a-half-year-old, half-black girl (her father was a black musician with whom Jane’s mother, Lisa Meserve, had one encounter) who is suddenly left without a mother when Lisa is hauled off to jail on a drug charge. When Jane is wearing her heart-shaped, white-framed glasses that allow her to observe things that others can’t see, she is secret agent Jane, adding a lighter touch to the proceedings. She is a wry observer of everything going on around her, smart and clever beyond her years. She and her mother serve to illustrate how unfair and brutal police are (can be) to poor, powerless people. When her mother goes to jail, apparently forever, Jane is taken in by a Settlement family.

The School on Heart’s Content Road is always engaging reading. The “set piece” of the novel, toward the end, is a long, long (too long) sequence about an open house kind of event at the Settlement where everybody is invited. Hundreds of people show up; there are music, food and drinking. When Gordon speaks, he works the crowd up into a frenzy with his rhetoric about taking back the country and not standing for the government’s lies and double-dealing anymore. There are federal agents everywhere, and word has been circulated that somebody is going to try to kill Gordon. We know something is going to happen but we don’t know what until it happens. It’s not what we expected.

If you are a reader of “serious” fiction (as opposed to a reader of Harold Robbins or Jacqueline Susann), you will like The School on Heart’s Content Road. If it was a movie, it would play at art houses instead of at your neighborhood multiplex where they have Ant Man and Jurassic World and all the latest rom-coms. Some of us just want more out of life and we’ll do whatever we have to do to get it.

August 2, 2015August 3, 2015 by allen0997

Go Set a Watchman ~ A Capsule Book Review

Go Set a Watchman ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

Harper Lee is famous for writing To Kill a Mockingbird but also for something else: she was friend and confidante to Truman Capote and has been portrayed by not one but two Hollywood actresses in movies about Capote and his writing of In Cold Blood. Truman Capote and Harper Lee were childhood companions in the tiny town of Monroeville, Alabama and remained friends until his death in 1984. While Capote became as famous for his eccentricities (his appearances on The Tonight Show) and his partying lifestyle as he was for the books he wrote, Harper Lee eschewed the limelight and has been, like other writers of her generation, notoriously reclusive. At age 89, she still lives in the tiny town of Monroeville, Alabama. You get the impression that fame hasn’t changed her very much.

With the phenomenal success of To Kill A Mockingbird and the equally famous movie that followed the publication of the novel, Harper Lee might have “cashed in” on her fame; she might have written other books or a sequel, but she didn’t. In the foreword to the thirtieth anniversary printing of her famous novel, she said simply that she didn’t have anything else she wanted to say. It doesn’t happen very often, especially when there’s money to be made.

Now, oddly enough, all these years later, in the futuristic year of 2015 (it would have seemed so in 1960), a new Harper Lee book has emerged, Go Set a Watchman. The title is from a passage in the Book of Isaiah: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth. Every man’s island, the book tells us, every man’s watchman, is his conscience.

At first glance, Go Set a Watchman seems to be a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird because it’s set twenty years after the earlier novel, but Harper Lee didn’t intend it as a sequel. It is, we are told, a first draft of To Kill a Mockingbird. It was apparently shelved for a different version and hasn’t seen the light of day until now. The publisher, HarperCollins, must have recognized the enormous amount of interest (and the cash potential) in a new book by Harper Lee, even if it is a book written sixty years ago.

The girl in To Kill a Mockingbird, Jean Louise “Scout” Finch, is an adult in Go Set a Watchman. When she is twenty-six, on her yearly summer visit to her hometown of Maycomb, Alabama, she witnesses many changes. Her father, seventy-two-year-old Atticus Finch (the hero of To Kill a Mockingbird) suffers from debilitating arthritis and is not as vigorous as he once was. Calpurnia, the black maid who kept house for him for many years, is too old to work anymore and has been replaced by Alexandra, Atticus’s bossy sister. Calpurnia’s grandson is in trouble for running down in his car (and killing) a drunken white man. Jeremy (known as “Jem”), Jean Louise’s older brother, has succumbed at an early age to the hereditary heart condition that claimed his and Jean Louise’s mother’s life. Henry Clinton, a young attorney and protégé of Atticus Finch (four years older than Jean Louise and a lifelong friend of her brother’s) wants to marry her, but she isn’t sure if he’s the right sort or not. The most significant change, however, is in the social and political landscape of the South. Black people, spurred on by “outside interests,” are demanding their civil rights. The white people who have taken for granted the “status quo” in the South for generations are going to have to adjust to a new order of things. It’s a transitional period in the South, not unlike the period of Reconstruction after the Civil War. It’s in this atmosphere of change that Go Set a Watchman is set.

Most people will probably agree that Go Set a Watchman is not as compelling or as nearly perfect as To Kill a Mockingbird. Instead of a five-star novel, it’s a four- or a three-star novel at best. That’s not to say, however, that it’s not worth the time and effort it takes to read it, especially for those who have read To Kill a Mockingbird and/or seen the movie version and would like to know what becomes of the characters twenty years later.

July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 by allen0997

The Idiot ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Idiot ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

The title character in Dostoevsky’s 1869 novel The Idiot is Lyov Nikolayevitch Myshkin, or “Prince Myshkin,” as he is generally known. He is fair-haired, about twenty-eight, frail and unwell, an epileptic given to seizures at unexpected moments. For the last few years he has been living as a charity patient in a sanatorium in Switzerland. When the novel begins, he is released from the sanatorium, although he is not well, and is returning by train to his native Russia.

He comes into some money (less than he at first thought) that allows him to live without working. In Petersburg, he falls in with a collection of characters and finds himself so completely out of his depth because he is so unlike any of them. He seems to the others naïve and unworldly, trusting and good (in a world where there isn’t much that’s good). He earns the appellation “idiot,” not for lack of intelligence but for his simplicity.

Prince Myshkin befriends a family known as the Epanchins. The matriarch of the family, Lizaveta Prokofyevna Epanchin, is a distant relative of his and is in fact “Princess Myshkin.” The Epanchins have three daughters in their twenties. Prince Myshkin seems drawn to the youngest daughter, Aglaia. Whether she is drawn to him in return is not immediately clear, not even to her. The Epanchins waver in their belief that Prince Myshkin is an acceptable son-in-law. If they start to have a favorable opinion of him, something always happens to make them change their minds. His potential marriage to Aglaia is an on-again, off-again proposition.

In the meantime, Prince Myshkin has fallen in love (or thinks he is) with Natasya Filippovna Barashkov. She is a flighty, changeable woman who is known for her beauty but, more notoriously, for being the “kept” mistress of a wealthy man. She is both reviled and admired at the same time. Prince Myshkin decides he wants to marry this woman, although he hardly seems to know her. For her part, she is lukewarm toward him. She thinks at times about marrying him while at other times she makes fun of him for being an “idiot.” (If he had any sense, he would get as far away from her as possible.)

Also in love with Natasya Filippovna are Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin (known as “Ganya”) and Parfyon Semyonovitch Rogozhin (on the train with Prince Myshkin when the novel begins and with him also at the end, playing an important role in how the story is resolved). Gavril Ardalionovitch Ivolgin is the older son of the Ivolgins. His father, General Ardalion Alexandrovitch Ivolgin, is one of the most colorful characters in the book. He tells improbable stories about historical events in which he played a part in his younger days (one a long, involved story about being a “page” for Napoleon when Napoleon’s armies invaded Russia).

The introduction of The Idiot states that it’s a “digressive” novel, meaning there’s a lot that happens that doesn’t have anything to do with the plot. It’s a long book (559 dense pages) that could have been shorter if it hadn’t seen so “digressive.” That’s the way with Russian novels, though. Forget tight plotting and economy of words. In one of the digressions, the character Ippolit Terentyev, who is dying of consumption, writes a long, long “explanation” of his life, which he then reads to a roomful of people, for no apparent reason. That’s not to say it’s not interesting, but it just doesn’t seem to serve any purpose.

There’s a character list at the beginning of the book that helps to keep the characters straight, especially since the same character will be referred to by one name in one place and then referred to by another name in a different place. For example, the person we have come to know as “Prince Myshkin” is called “Lyov Nikolayevitch” a little farther along. I found myself referring to the character list a lot.

For the dedicated reader of “heavy” reading (not “light,” not “breezy”), or for the fan of Russian novels, The Idiot is a fascinating reading experience. I was really glad to get to the last page. The next book I read will be something fun and easy.

July 10, 2015July 11, 2015 by allen0997

Baby

Baby ~ A Short Story by Allen Kopp

Louise was gone for three days. When she returned home, she was carrying a bundle in the crook of her arm.

“Where have you been all this time?” Theodore asked. “I was about to call the police.”

“Oh, you silly man!” Louise said. “Where do you think I’ve been? I’ve been giving birth to your son.”

She lifted the corner of the blanket to show him the baby’s face.

“This one has blue eyes,” Theodore said.

“He has your eyes.”

“My eyes are brown.”

“I think I’m going to name him Nathaniel,” she said. “After Hawthorne.”

“Name him whatever you want.”

“If I give him the name of a great writer, he might turn out to be a great writer himself.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You like that name?”

“It’s as good as any other, I suppose.”

She laid the baby down gently on the couch and took off her coat and laughed. “Believe me,” she said. “It’s not easy carrying a newborn baby home on the uptown bus. I had to stand up the whole way, holding the baby in one hand and trying to keep from falling with the other. You’d think a gentleman might have given me his seat, but nobody even noticed me.”

“I could have come down and met you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said. “I managed perfectly fine. And, anyway, I wanted to surprise you. What do you think of our new son?”

“He’s, uh…I can’t seem to find the words. I’m speechless.”

“I know! It’s a shock, isn’t it? Seeing him for the first time?”

“Especially since I didn’t know he was expected.”

“But that makes it that much more fun, doesn’t it?”

“If you say so.”

“Now, don’t you be an old grump puss! I’m going to need lots of help from you with this baby. Feeding him, changing his diapers, bathing him, and all the rest of it.”

“I don’t think that baby is going to be any trouble at all,” he said.

“No, of course not! He’s such a good baby! I can tell already, as young as he is.”

Theodore played piano in a jazz combo in a bar, so he had to leave to go to work. “Don’t wait up for me,” he said.

“Have a good time,” she said, “and don’t worry about me. The baby and I will be here when you get back.”

With Theodore gone, Louise was glad to have some time alone with the baby. She carried him into every room in the apartment, talking to him all the while, even though she knew he didn’t understand a word she said. She fed him, bathed him, and put him to bed in the crib at the foot of her own bed.

She slept until one o’clock, at which time she got up and fed him again. After she put him back in his crib and got back into bed, she had trouble going back to sleep. She kept thinking about how Theodore didn’t seem very happy about the baby. Well, men, she thought. You can’t ever tell what they’re thinking or how they really feel. They keep it all bottled up inside.

At two o’clock she still hadn’t gone back to sleep. She got up and checked on the baby and when she saw he was sleeping peacefully she knew the problem wasn’t with the baby but with her. She was lonely and sad. She picked up the sleeping baby and put him in the bed beside her. After that she was able to go to sleep.

Theodore came home about three-thirty. He undressed quietly and got into bed and after he had lain there a couple of minutes Louise began to cry.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

“I’m not going to have any more children,” she said.

“Okay.”

“I don’t think you love them.”

“Could we postpone this conversation to another time? I’m very tired.”

“Take Nathaniel and put him with the others. They need to get acquainted.”

“I just got into bed. Can’t you do it?”

“You’re the father.”

He sighed and got out of bed again without turning on the light. He picked Nathaniel up by the neck and carried him out of the room and down the hallway to another room. In this room was a bed with six lifelike plastic dolls lying side by side, all exactly like Nathaniel. He added Nathaniel to the collection and went back to bed.

“Better now?” he asked Louise.

“Yes.”

“And this is going to be the last one?”

“Yes, I think so. Seven is my lucky number.”

July 6, 2015September 19, 2015 by allen0997

The Pat Hobby Stories ~ A Capsule Book Review

The Pat Hobby Stories ~ A Capsule Book Review by Allen Kopp

F. Scott Fitzgerald was, among other things, a writer of magazine stories. He wrote the seventeen Pat Hobby stories in this collection for Esquire magazine. The stories were published for seventeen consecutive months between January 1940 and May 1941, the last five appearing after Fitzgerald’s premature death at the age of 44 in December 1940. And it wasn’t for love of writing that he wrote them or for “art.” He wrote them for the money they brought in.

As the thirties come to a close, Pat Hobby is a studio hack, a screenwriter who reached his peak in the Silent Era and has been on a downward slide ever since. He drinks to excess and has three ex-wives. Where once he was a high-flyer pulling down three thousand big ones a week, now he is lucky to get two or three weeks at two hundred and fifty a week doing rewrites. Whatever writing talent he ever had is gone. He still dishes out a line of malarkey, though, and can bluff his way through almost any situation. Give him somebody he wants to impress and he impresses them; that is, if they don’t already know what he’s like.

Fitzgerald was drawing on his own experiences in Hollywood when he wrote the character of Pat Hobby. Fitzgerald himself, of course, drank to excess, had plenty of marital problems with his wife Zelda, and worked on the scripts (without garnering screen credits) for several movies of the era, including Marie Antoinette, The Women, and A Yank at Oxford. He co-wrote the screenplay for the 1938 Robert Taylor movie Three Comrades, based on a novel by Erich Maria Remarque. After writing his novels The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, and Tender is the Night, he was definitely beneath himself in Hollywood.

Fitzgerald himself wanted the seventeen Pat Hobby stories to be collected in one volume. If they don’t exactly make a novel, they do make a cohesive whole, and if they lack literary merit, they at least provide a glimpse into the mind of one of America’s most celebrated writers at the end of his life.

June 12, 2015June 15, 2015 by allen0997

Insidious: Chapter 3 ~ A Capsule Movie Review

Insidious: Chapter 3 ~ A Capsule Movie Review by Allen Kopp

Insidious: Chapter 3 is another venture into “the further,” the dark place where malevolent spirits dwell. You may visit “the further” if you know how and if you have a good reason, but chances are a malevolent spirit will attach itself to you and will be with you when you come back. Insidious: Chapter 3 is a different story with mostly a different set of characters than the ones in Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2. The characters who repeat themselves in all three movies are Elise Rainier (played by Lyn Shaye), the psychic, and Specs (Leigh Whannell, who wrote all three Insidious movies and directed this one) and Tucker, the ghost hunters who record (or try to) all the paranormal activity going on and provide comic relief whenever it’s needed.

When Insidious: Chapter 3 begins, Elise Rainier is a disillusioned psychic. She has given up using her “gift” because a malevolent spirit has threatened to kill her if she helps any more living people rid themselves of the dead. When a high school girl named Quinn Brenner visits her, though, she decides to give Quinn a little reading because she seems like a nice girl. Quinn wants to reach her mother in the spirit world. When Elise tries to reach Quinn’s mother, she reaches instead a malevolent spirit. “When you contact one of the dead,” she tells Quinn, “you contact them all.” She warns Quinn against trying to contact her mother on her own; Quinn confesses she has already tried it but without success.

Quinn lives in an a vintage (old) apartment building with her father and younger brother in an unnamed location. A man who committed suicide in the building a long time ago is now a malevolent spirit and is living in the air vent that leads into Quinn’s room. It seems that Quinn drew his attention in her efforts to contact her deceased mother. The malevolent spirits are tired of their dark world and desire more than anything a living person to attach themselves to. The man who committed suicide in the building desires Quinn.

Quinn is hit by a car on the street and nearly dies. When she is recuperating at home with both her legs broken, the ghostly occurrences only increase. Knowing how much Quinn is in trouble, Elise decides to end her enforced retirement and help her. She will go into “the further” and make the malevolent spirit leave Quinn alone any way she can. She is putting her own life and reputation on the line.

I like horror movies as long as they’re believable (make you want to suspend disbelief) and are not about attractive vampires and are not slasher movies with jiggling teenagers. Insidious: Chapter 3 is a solid entry in the horror genre and a worthy successor of Insidious and Insidious: Chapter 2. It’s well-made and intelligent with a lot of the creepy tension that distinguished the first two movies. It ends in such a way that there is probably going to be an Insidious: Chapter 4 if this one generates enough revenue at the box office. Even if there isn’t a chapter 4, though, the first three movies make a memorable trilogy to watch at Halloween or any other time.

June 11, 2015June 12, 2015 by allen0997