What Are You Reading

[Harp]

^O'Hara is a Mick after my own heart, but tales about poor little rich boys quickened with a silver
spoon in one hand and another spoon shoved up the yazoo, feeling sorry for themselves fail to hit
the spot anymore. Been there, read that.

I just gotta read this.

 

[Harp]

Finally found a good novel to read! It's The Words I Never Wrote by Jane Thynne, set in 1930s Germany and France.

Also reading the Pulitzer Prize winning The American People in the Great Depression by David M. Kennedy.

Another book came to mind: The Making of Casablanca; Bogart, Bergman, and World War II
by Aljean Harmetz. If you haven't already read this gem it should dovetail qute well with the film.
Then, a wine and cheese party to discuss book, Bogie, Bergman, and Becall if needs be.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Speer: Hitler's Architect by Martin Kitchen. Recommended.

I eagerly read Inside the Third Reich ("Erinnerungen") in the early 70's as an undergraduate and was fascinated by Albert Speer's account of Hitler's inner circle, and later read his Spandau Diary. I'll admit that I bought the image of the apolitical architect who later became the Nuremburg penitent.

Decades later, after having cross examined too many trial witnesses as to motive, bias, and interest, I became a lot more skeptical. There seems to be far too many recalled conversations and events described by Herr Speer of which he is the only one still alive. It came out later that there were events which he participated in that impeach any claims of a lack of knowledge of certain crimes against humanity. Kitchen goes a long way to dispel the "good Nazi" myth that likely saved Speer from the gallows at Nuremburg, and duly notes Speer's line of demarcation between "accepting responsibility" and admitting guilt.

A very well documented and thought provoking work.

 

[Fading Fast]

Point of No Return by John P. Marquand originally published in 1947


F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary star has eclipsed many strong authors from the first half of the twentieth century who also wrote about America's social and class structure, the cachet of "old money" and the struggles and limitations on moving up by earning more. While Fitzgerald deserves his reputation, his glow has hidden several other authors who have insightfully and effectively tread similar ground.

John P. Marquand's particular focus is on the decline of the once "ruling" Wasp culture and class. Marquand's The Late George Apley (comments here: #8497) is a "decline and fall" look at the Wasp culture, which, by abiding its own rules and ideals, slowly, and not so slowly, lost ground and influence to America's rising cultural and ethnic mix.

In Point of No Return, Marquand focuses less on the decline of the Wasps than on mid-century America's evolving class and social structure. He introduces us to Charles Gray, an assistant vice president at the old-line New York City Stuyvesant Bank (a trust bank). Gray is in competition with another assistant vice president for a vice-presidency position that just opened up.

In his mid-forties and in a small but respected financial institution, this could be his last shot at real career and compensation advancement. Gray is married with two kids and lives in a new suburb. He and his wife Nancy, a former law-firm secretary, are on edge over his promotion as they know the upward trajectory of their social and material life could stop for good if Charles is passed over.

Marquand, after drawing us into Charles' present world, takes us back in time to Charles' upbringing in the small town of Clyde Massachusetts, thirty miles north of Boston.

In this "very typical" New England town, Charles's family is a "lower upper" class Wasp. We learn of this very specific class categorization of the Grays when Charles returns home with a degree from Dartmouth and meets Malcolm Bryant, a sociologist studying the town of Clyde who has put the Grays in the "lower upper" category.

Through both Charles and Bryant, we learn that Clyde is a reasonably prosperous town with a few key factories providing the bulk of the employment. The town has divided itself into neighborhoods based on ethnicity, income and an intangible but very real old-line Waspy-ness.

While the social status runs kinda along the lines of poor and ethnic domestic servants on the low end to wealthy Wasp businessmen, judges, etc. on the high end, the lines blur at the overlaps.

The Italian who has a new and successful construction company is moving up (but only so far); where as, the Grays, whose now-deceased grandfather was a judge and member of some of the right clubs, are moving down as Charles' father, just a mid-level accountant, is only surviving, as everyone in the town knows, with financial help from his sister.

Marquand shines at limning the nuances of the social and class aspects of small-town America. Kids from different classes can mix and play together when very young, but less and less as they get older; a middle class woman might be able to join an upper class club, but she'll never be appointed to a committee leadership role; if your father owned a drugstore, you can only move so far up in society even if you go to the "right" college and build the "right" career.

Charles discovers one of these limitations when he begins dating the very "upper- upper" class Jessica Lovell whose father is unfailingly polite to Charles, but sends subtle messages of disapproval such as only greeting Charles in certain rooms.

Frustrated by this rebuke, Charles tries to advance his career by quitting his job in Clyde and obtaining a position in an investment house in Boston. But nothing will ever be enough for Mr. Lovell, so eventually, Charles leaves for New York and a fresh start at Stuyvesant Bank. Soon after, he meets and marries a woman who, like him, is trying to climb the social ladder.

Here he discovers a different but also strong social stratification, yet being New York, there is more give and fluidity to it. The plot of the book, will Charles be appointed vice president is thin, but it's a construct Marquand uses well to analyze early and mid-twentieth-century America's class structure.

It's a structure that is much-less rigid than the older European ones. It allows for plenty of movement, especially as America's economy provides for plenty of opportunity to build wealth. But at this time in America, there is still an old-line Wasp class sitting astride most of the important businesses and organizations.

While their position seemed nearly unassailable to Fitzgerald in the 1920s - think Tom and Daisy Buchanan escaping back into their world of money and status with Gatsby dead - by mid century, Marquand could see the cracks forming - cracks that would completely shatter the old order by the end of the century.

Marquand lacks Fitzgerald's genius for creating Greek-tragedy-like characters from stories out of American business and society, but he has Fitzgerald's eye for seeing the subtleties and hidden sinews of America's social classes and organizations. That alone makes him a worthy read as, in books like Point of No Return, he insightfully captures an America of a certain time and place.

 

[Harp]

^Around twenty-one or so, back home in Chicago, I applied for admission to a number
of colleges and universities across the spectrum: several Ivy League; near other top dollars;
a solid hidden gemstone; one low brow college coal nugget; and my state flagship.
A crap game dice roll, to be sure; nothing merited grade-wise as reflected adolescent apathy,
but veteran insouciance bravado filled any academic gap. I had been tested by the war and found myself
not wanting. Harvard wait listed me. Georgetown Jebbies turned thumbs down. Columbia nodded yes,
Southern California consented and gifted scholarship. Others indecisive delayed any decision.

Amherst, however asked for an interview. Accordingly such was arranged with an Amherst alumnus
ensconced inside a blue chip law firm downtown, where I spent an hour long appointment being
looked over. A thoughtful and kind man, my appraiser was honest but frank. He considered me quite
a diamond-in-the-rough; though more the former, but still a tad too rough hewn for Amherst.
There was an unmistakeable WASP class aspect, the jewler's loupe flashed a few times and we talked
openly about subjects far off the beaten path. He had read the Illiad and Odyssey; so too had I,
and I had lived in Greece, which he had never visited. Also Amherst did not have a bunch of vets
with avuncular tolerance for younger, more privileged kids whom had never been in a war.
A Jude The Obscure diamond rough with unspoken blood on his hands.
Concluded meeting with a handshake and sincere best wishes. College chess match a draw.
I had shook the gate without doubt but it remained seemingly locked tight.
Amherst declined my admisiion application.

This interview proved unique, being the last instance wherein I ever sensed patrician waspishness
or saw the loupe pulled along pocket watch chain with a Phi Beta Kappa key.

 

[Harp]

Speer: Hitler's Architect by Martin Kitchen. Recommended.

I eagerly read Inside the Third Reich ("Erinnerungen") in the early 70's as an undergraduate and was fascinated by Albert Speer's account of Hitler's inner circle, and later read his Spandau Diary. I'll admit that I bought the image of the apolitical architect who later became the Nuremburg penitent.

Decades later, after having cross examined too many trial witnesses as to motive, bias, and interest, I became a lot more skeptical. There seems to be far too many recalled conversations and events described by Herr Speer of which he is the only one still alive. It came out later that there were events which he participated in that impeach any claims of a lack of knowledge of certain crimes against humanity. Kitchen goes a long way to dispel the "good Nazi" myth that likely saved Speer from the gallows at Nuremburg, and duly notes Speer's line of demarcation between "accepting responsibility" and admitting guilt.

A very well documented and thought provoking work.

Several years ago I rode the Rock Island 5.35 Blue Island Express down to Beverly Hills with a
federal judge who recounted a visit by the Japanese counsel concerning reparation payment to
an American pow held captive by Japan. A most unpleasant diplomatic encounter, made all the
more so by the counsel's arrogance. The demarcation line held firm.

 

[Harp]

Preet Bharara, Doing Justice; A Prosecutor's Thoughts on Crime, Punishment, And The Rule of Law

Former US Attorney, Southern District of New York, Bharara is hated by Dinesh D'Souza,
Dee-not as smart as he should be---too much school too little street--tangled with election law
and subjected to harsh retaliation for reasons having nothing to do with guilt; and Preet the Sweet
needs to set a few things philosophical left. Sweet dropped the ball and never got the credit due
for key axe man lackeyhood a la nomination to SCOTUS. But, he's still available.

 

[Fading Fast]

The Graduate by Charles Webb first published in 1963


The movie is better than the book is not something you hear often, but it is true for The Graduate. While the book adds some enlightening character background information, the movie is both funnier (thank you Dustin Hoffman) and better at capturing the zeitgeist of the sixties angst and cultural pivot from "Ivy League" to "hippie" style. (Comments on the movie here: #29,651 )

Benjamin Braddock is an overachieving Ivy League student who returns to his upper-class west coast home after graduation completely disaffected with life. While his parents and their friends want to celebrate Ben's scholastic accomplishments, including a graduate school scholarship he's won, he's moody and withdrawn to the point of rudeness.

In what would become a pretension of those of a particular bent in the later sixties (and on), "rebel" Ben leaves home to live amongst the "regular" people of the world. Yet he returns a few weeks later when he discovers farmers, shop clerks, firefighters and truck drivers aren't the romantic heroes his condescending elitist arrogance led him to believe they were.

Now indulging his discontentment from the safe and luxurious confines of his parents' home, he floats around in their pool all day drinking beer and acting glum as his tolerant parents only modestly question him about his future. It's the classic hypocritical rebellion of "I don't like your values or your money," but it's easier to be against those things while still enjoying them.

Enter Mrs. Robinson, his parents' married forty-year old close friend who has known Ben his entire life. Like a lioness stalking a kill, she culls him from the herd, comes on to him hard and, after a little hesitancy by Ben, they begin a sexual affair all but devoid of emotion or even conversation.

Enter Elaine Robinson, Mrs. Robinson's home-on-break-from-Berkeley daughter and contemporary of Ben. Clueless-to-it-all Mr. Robinson begs Ben to date Elaine, while Mrs. Robinson, in some of the only pillow talk she and Ben share, "forbids" it. After Ben is all but cornered into taking Elaine out, and after his aborted attempt at sabotaging the date, Elaine and he hit it off.

Enter the nuclear option. Mrs. Robinson (who is probably psychotic) threatens Ben with exposing the truth of their affair to Elaine if he sees her again. Ben, launching the missiles first, tells Elaine the truth (good God), which leads to her melting down and wanting nothing to do with Ben anymore (the one good decision anyone ever makes in this book, but it is sadly reversed later).

She's sent back to college, while Ben pines away for her until he decides to go up to her campus at Berkeley. But first he announces to his parents that he's going to marry her, despite Elaine herself having no knowledge of this plan. Yes, Ben has many issues.

Ben rents a room in Berkeley and hangs around the campus until he runs into her. From Elaine, he learns her mother claims Ben raped her, which is untrue, but which, for a time, deeply alienated Elaine form Ben. Ben, single mindedly, insists they should get married, staying on point even when Elaine notes many practical problems to the idea. You want to scream, "run Elaine, run!"

After much back-and-forth discussion and hesitation over the next weeks, Ben begins to win her over, until Elaine's father swoops in and takes her away. Ben then goes in search of Elaine, finally finding her at the church where bride Elaine is walking down the aisle in a hastily-arranged marriage to a "nice college boy."

(Spoiler alert) Ben disrupts the affair and she and Elaine run off together with a hint of discord or regret or something unsettling between them as the book ends. One doubts that happily ever after is in the cards for these two.

In the movie, Ben isn't quite likable, but he seems more confused than selfish. In the book, he is an insufferable snob and hypocrite, who bullies people to get what he wants.

His default setting is passive aggressive, which becomes simply aggressive when he meets resistance. One can only hope Elaine sees this before marrying him. Other than that he is quirky and passionately wants to marry her (that's always an ego boost), she seems to understand that he is unhinged from reality.

The book version of the story also lacks the atmosphere of the movie. You don't feel the sixties; you don't feel Ben's youthful angst as anything but an indulgence, and you don't even feel the sexual spark between Ben and Mrs. Robinson.

The Graduate is an okay and quick read if you want to learn a bit more about the characters than you do in the movie, but it is one of those rare times where the movie is better than the book.

 

[Harp]

Truth tell once told, The Graduate enticed meself young lad that I surely was for fair colleen Mrs Robinson but forty yet fine; leaving boyo aside the tracks. Hell's bells who gives a damn about him whose ass sucks buttermilk with Mrs R plain as day waiting for the take?

 

[Harp]

A Fedex envelope retirement packet. Put aside. Cruised the net for readable tripe and found
Andrew Windsor settled with Ms Guffrie, finally. A 'substantial contribution' to sexual abuse charity,
and remuneration to plaintiff whom has attorney contingency costs. Lawyers normally charge a third
of settlement; so a $10,000,000 lump sum looks a nice lien. Windsor reportedly sold his Swiss ski chalet
to raise his crap game bankroll. A princely sum taken at supposed firesale. Without doubt the Windsor
defense advised this course earlier before all the damage done by a wild bull through the family
china shop, mores a pity such counsel went unheeded. Shakespeare, bard of princes, plebes, thieves,
soldiers, and scoundrels said it best: 'a cease of majesty dies not alone, but like a whirlpool doth drag
what's near it with it.'

 

[Harp]

Scott Turow, The Laws Of Our Fathers

A legalese novel spun webbing around Chicago: city, cops, court, criminals. Light-featherweight book boxing.
Turow was US Attorney Chicago, last heard a partner at Sonnenschein, a Chicago blue chip law firm.
A made guy; just like in The Sopranos. I once met Turow, only shook hands and some small talk however.
I had read his Harvard Law memoir, One-L before law school-recall talking about that. I had heard
rumors to the effect that he contracted out his tenure for a book deal, never telling anyone; and, as I
now write this-I remember reading a flyleaf disclaim-cum apology in One-L.
Whatever the ins n' outs of One-L it's great reading. And Turow an extraordinarily polite gentleman.

 

[Fading Fast]

Your Turn, Mr. Moto by John P. Marquand originally published in 1935


John P. Marquand is a Pulitzer Prize winning author of novels about twentieth century American society. His The Late George Apley (comments here: #8,497 ) and Point of No Return (comments here: #8,804 ) provide Fitzgerald-like insight into American class and social structure and mobility that are still enjoyable reads today.

So why is this noted author of award-winning literary novels penning popular spy thrillers? Probably because he wanted to - some authors just have to write. For twenty years, from the mid 1930s to the mid 1950s, Marquand wrote seven Mr. Moto spy novels about Japan's elegant, refined and highly intelligent superspy, Mr. Moto.

Your Turn, Mr. Moto is the first entry in the series. Oddly, Mr. Moto's initial outing is more about an American pilot, Casey Lee, than Mr. Moto himself, but perhaps (I've only read this one in the series, so far), Mr. Moto will become more of a central character in subsequent outings.

For fans of the comic strip Terry and the Pirates, which ran from the 1930s to the 1970s, the world of Mr. Moto - war-torn China trying to push out the Japanese invader - will be familiar territory.

Both the comicstrip and Mr. Moto leverage a complex and nuanced East-meets-West dynamic as American and British spies and adventurers play agent provocateurs, heroes, mercenaries and missionaries amidst the chaos of war in China.

Casey Lee, once a reasonably famous aviator war-hero and daredevil pilot, now an expat in Japan disaffected from his home country, agrees to do a small "favor" for a mysterious Japanese man, Mr. Moto. In return, Moto promises Japan will fund Lee on a solo trans-Pacific flight (back when that was still an adventurer thing to do).

Mr. Moto sends Lee into China to bring back a message from a contact of Mr. Moto's, but before Lee even gets there, all hell breaks loose. On the ship over to China, he meets a beautiful blonde ex-pat Russian (she fled her country when the communists took over), while several Chinese and Japanese seem to be watching Lee closely.

After a mysterious Chinese man, who was trying to pass Lee a message, is killed in Lee's cabin, Lee, with help from the blonde Russian, escapes the ship and swims to China. There, it's game on as he is played between the Chinese, the Japanese and the Russian seductrix.

(Spoiler alert) Only toward the end do we learn that everyone is chasing Lee because they all believe the mysterious Chinese man on the ship gave him the formula for a catalyst that will dramatically increase gasoline's fuel mileage. With a war underway and more combatants about to join, the formula could be a game changer.

The formula, itself, was discovered by the blonde Russian's now-deceased chemist father, so she's been hanging on to Lee trying to get it for herself. With it, she hopes she can help the White Russians take back her country. We all have our dreams.

As in any good spy novel, the end has everyone racing for the formula - planes, trains and cars all converge on a remote Chinese village where someone will or won't walk away with the valuable formula.

For 1935, it's a good spy novel, but it takes too long to get its story out. The last few chapters - when you finally learn why everyone is pursuing Lee and willing to do anything to find out what they think he knows - are gripping. Yet, up till then, author Marquand keeps you too in the dark as to the why of the story to be fully engaged.

Your Turn, Mr. Moto shows promise, but stumbles out of the gate. It pushes its title character too far into the background and, then as noted, takes too long to roll out its plot. If later books in the series, though, build on the last few chapters of this inaugural offering, another Mr. Moto book could be worth a try.

 

[52Styleline]

"Soldier, Sailor,Frogman, Spy. Airman, Gangster, Kill or Die" by Giles Milton.

Yet another collection of individual experiences on D Day. Easy reading but nothing new on the topic.

 

[Tiki Tom]

^^^^ Thanks, FF. I had never heard of the Mr Moto series. sounds right up my alley. 1930s spies and intrigue written in the actual era? I’ll look for it the next time I’m at the library.

Right now I’m reading “The Kahunas (The black —and white— magicians of Hawaii), a book of various articles written on the subject between 1898 and 1960. Compiled by Sisley S. Merrill. The book was cheaply published in 1968, is only 100 pages long, has bad cover art and looks like a piece of trash. I was hesitant to check it out. …but I’m glad I did. It is filled with descriptions of the old Hawaiian religious system, with more detail and vocabulary and specific methodology than I have found elsewhere. Very interesting and a good window into the culture. Just shows that you can’t judge a book by its cover.

 

[Harp]

What Happened, Hillary Rodham Clinton

Plucked this tome at random. A spied evocative epistle ghosted no doubt, but vae victus veritas.
Have Celine's Death sitting bed stand, remember a long undergrad weekend reading this with
Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Celine, and Foucault, to some extent even Joyce, Belloc, Chesterton
require right mood to approach greatness. Conversation is often cited with Celine's Laureate denial,
but his cards were tipped earlier.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Sport and a Pastime by James Salter originally published in 1967


A Sport and a Pastime delivers on Lady Chatterley's Lover's unfulfilled promise of literature and arrant carnal passion in one read, but it is not for the faint of heart. Author Salter holds back almost nothing in his exposition of what a man and woman can do in bed, or a chair, or a car, or the woods, or on the floor, or, well, you get the point.

It's a slow start for fifty or so pages as the narrator of this tale, a middle-aged man, with regret, or ennui, or something gnawing at him, excessively describes the sights, sounds and smells of Paris and the small French town of Autun.

He's temporarily staying in the latter at a friend's house while observing and fantasizing about the love life of his friend Dean Phillips, a twenty-two year old, handsome, American Yale dropout with almost enough family money to bum around France for a while.

Dean meets Anne-Marie, a poor, alluring, eighteen-year-old French working-girl and it's sexual game on. While it's sometimes hard to tell what is the narrator's fantasy and what is real, Dean and Anne-Marie begin a relationship based on sex and youth. Plus, he represents money and class to Anne-Marie, while she's a carnal tabula rasa for him.

There is something more, though, than just sex or opportunity to their relationship as Anne-Marie begins thinking marriage while Dean plans relationship-exit strategies that he's reluctant to deploy.

So for months, they spend their weekends and many nights together, take trips around France, fall into the routine of a couple and explore each other sexually in an incredibly adventurously way.

One divide they rarely discuss is their class difference, as Dean is attracted to Anne-Marie's "common" and "cheap," albeit pretty, looks and manners. She's cute and sexy, but in a, from his perspective, low-rent way. He's embarrassed to have her meet his friends or family (the latter he never introduces her to).

She, conversely, sees him as a way out of her poverty and dead-end job and is proud when she brings him home, which results in an incredibly awkward afternoon. Anne-Marie believes they will overcome this, but we see, painfully for her, he isn't thinking that way.

As the relationship progresses, the story's tension builds as Anne-Marie's and Dean's intentions diverge. He, mainly, passively lets her believe what she wants, so we see the crash coming that she doesn't.

When he does leave and flies home to America, he weasels his way out by saying he'll be back or will send for her, but we know he has all but no intention of doing so.

Other than an epilogue full of spoiler alerts, that's it for Dean and Anne-Marie. It takes a bit, but we finally see Dean as a, using appropriate-in-this-case modern terminology, spoiled, privileged rich kid who uses and discards Anne-Marie.

It's real because most of us have known a few Deans in our lives - good-looking, personable, attractive-to-women men who have enough family money to coast through their early post-college life while hurting a few women along the way.

Even though the Dean-Anne-Marie story is bookended by the narrator's observations, his role and thoughts are never fully developed, and he is clearly unreliable, so there's an element of uncertainty to the entire story.

Despite its flaws, A Sport and a Pastime poignantly captures middle-aged disappointment, France of that moment and, more powerfully, young love, young sex and the hurt and deception most experience on the field of intimate human relations, at least one time, early in life.



P.S., While not a major part of the book, there is some ugly racism in the novel, including the use of the N-word, that is rightfully offensive to us today, but was not unusual for the norms and thinking of the time. As is often the case, we see here, the past is also more nuanced than we acknowledge now. It's still very wrong, but as in this book, it's not as simplistic as it is often portrayed in our modern telling.


N.B. This was a FL member @Harp recommendation

 

[Touchofevil]

The Man Who Went Up in Smoke (1966) by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. Entertaining in the way that Beck novels always are.

 

[Fading Fast]

Van Bibber etc. by Richard Harding originally published in 1892


There are no time machines (yet), so any lookback or study of the past is imperfect as all you can do is take in a lot of period information and do your best to interpret it in a larger context.

Reading the novels of a particular time is one piece of that puzzle as, while they reflect the biases and assumptions of their day, they are, at least, free of the modern biases and assumptions that warp period novels.

Especially since present day period novels, more and more, seem written to advance a modern political or cultural point of view rather than being a serious attempt at historical accuracy.

Van Bibber etc. is a collection of short stories from a period when short stories were popular and lucrative. The main character, Van Bibber, is a young man with a trust fund who's a member of "the Four Hundred" (society) in New York City's Gilded Age, a clique and period recognizable to readers of Edith Wharton.

He is a bachelor in his twenties who spends his days at his club, eating at Delmonico's, going to the race track, visiting his wealthy friends or meeting with his trust fund lawyers ("to sign some papers" that he doesn't understand). He is part of 1890s "idle rich," but doesn't quite realize how privileged his life is.

Van Bibber himself is often a send up as he's a bit of a clueless boob, but in a likable way. While in one story, with oddly modern overtones, Van Bibber forces an absentee father from his set to acknowledge a daughter he had with a woman not of his class, most of the stories gently moc Van Bibber's seriousness.

Be it his inability to economize after losing most of his current month's trust fund income at the race track or his painfully awkward attempt to teach a homeless man a lesson about honesty (this one would fail the PC test by a mile today), we see him as a decent-but-not-too-bright man trying to live up to his class' values and sense of noblesse oblige.

The stories themselves are entertaining if a bit formulaic, but it's the window into another time period that makes them a treat for us today. Van Bibber etc. isn't great literature or a definitive account of the 1890s, but it is one contemporaneous perspective on how an era saw itself.

 

[dubpynchon]

I’ve just started Stanley Lombardo’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey. I read Lombardo’s Iliad and I’d forgotten how readable it was, the Odyssey is the same. There are lots of descriptions of the sea as the ‘wine dark sea’ and the ‘deep purple’ sea, which made me wonder if the rock band Deep Purple named themselves from Homer… no, they didn’t.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred by George F. Will published in 2014


A Nice Little Place on the Northside is less a studied history of Wrigley Field than author Will's enjoyable ramble through the Chicago Cubs' past with side trips to anything baseball related that Will finds interesting.

At the time of publication, the Cubs hadn't won a World Series title in over a hundred years and never in its venerated 1914 stadium, Wrigley Field. (That losing streak finally ended with the Cubs World Series victory in 2016.)

Well-known journalist and political commentator Midwest-born Will has suffered, seemingly mirthfully, as is the norm for Cub fans, rooting for this perennially bad team. What is it that keeps fans coming back to Wrigley despite the team's poor play?

Is it Wrigley itself? While Will lauds the history, in-city location and architecture of the stadium and notes how past owners have tried to make a trip to Wrigley an event itself, the question remains unanswered.

Instead, Will gives us some Cubs history, mixed in with some baseball history, mixed in with some beer history (beer and baseball grew up together in America, according to Will) and enough anecdotes about famous baseball personalities who have touched Wrigley to keep the pages turning in this short effort.

A few of the many personalities making an appearance in Will's pleasantly meandering effort include "Mr. Cub" and one of the most affable men in baseball ever, Ernie Banks, sarcastic but astute baseball manager Leo Durocher (no fan of the aging Banks he managed), Babe Ruth and the time he (maybe) "called his home run shot" and even Bill Buchner before the ball famously went through his legs after being traded to the Red Sox.

Plus, you'll learn how Cubs team owner Bill Veeck tried to plant Chinese Elms at the back of Wrigley's bleachers to help beautify the stadium. The Windy City's winds undid that 1937 effort, but not until $200,000 on structural support was spent, a not inconsiderable sum in a year in which the entire Cubs payroll was $250,000. The effort to install ivy, another part of the beautification plan, was more successful.

Author Will won't let you escape A Nice Little Place on the North Side without some loser humor as he provides a brief review of the 2008 book Your Brain on Cubs: Inside the heads of Players and Fans. The title tells you all you need to know.

Will also avers that Cubs fan loyalty itself is self-defeating as the team's financial success doesn't require it to win, since the fans buy the tickets and beer anyway. So your losing team is really your fault Mr. and Mrs. loyal Cubs fan as you've disincentivized management from having to field a winning team. Good grief.

The above stories and anecdotes are only a small sample of Will's output in A Nice Little Place on the North Side: Wrigley Field at One Hundred. For fans of America's once singular pastime, it's a fun and quixotic amble through the Cubs', Wrigley Field's and baseball's attics, with the amble itself being the purpose.