Acute Angles - More Summer Reading |
Copyright (C) 2001 by David Fidelman, All Rights Reserved It’s time
for this column’s second traditional Annual Summer Reading Guide about the books
you should have been planning to read this summer but never got around to. There
were so many things to do – travel, sight-seeing, swimming, boating, hiking,
partying and all the other important summer activities – who had time to read?
No problem. The summer reading guide provides all the literary and cultural
information you need to hold your own in any conversation about books.
This year’s column is dedicated to Clifton Hillegass, creator and for forty
years the publisher of “Cliff’s Notes” the capsulized versions of books used
by countless numbers of students, who died this past spring at the age of 83.
It’s been a problem year for catchup summer reading. So many notable books were
published that the classics will have to be put off until next year. Stick to
American history and just three of this year’s books will get you through the
literary discussion season.
The Wind Done Gone is one of the most talked-about books of the year, and is
available only because the United States Court of Appeals denied the Margaret
Mitchell estate efforts to block the publication of this parody of Gone With
the Wind. The story is told by Cynara (aka Cinnamon or Cindi), Scarlett O’Hara’s
half-sister, and provides us with the startling information that the slaves
had an entirely different version of life on the plantation than the owners
did. The cast of characters includes Other (Scarlett O’Hara), her father Planter
who owns the plantation Tara, her mother Mammy is a slave, R (Rhett Butler),
Dreamy Gentleman (Ashley Wilkes) and Mealy Mouth (Melanie). When discussing
this book try to work the words antebellum and miscegenation into the conversation
(after looking them up in the dictionary and practicing them a few times so
you can say them without stumbling). You can also score points by remarking
that both Cynara’s name and the title of Gone With the Wind come from a poem
by Ernest Dowson, who also wrote, “They are not long, the days of wine and roses.”
Our second president John Adams is this year’s Founding Father of choice, the
subject of a brilliant biography by David McCullough. It turns out that Adams
was a heroic figure in the American Revolution, was heavily involved in the
creation and survival of the new country, and was the subject of the Broadway
musical “1776.” He and Thomas Jefferson were close friends, even though they
disagreed with one another on almost everything. Last year’s historical romance
du jour was Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. (As one famous historian put
it, “What do people think those Virginia planters were doing, anyway?”) This
year it’s John and Abigail Adams, who had a solid and enduring marriage – possibly
because of their long separations while he was busy being President and a political
figure, while she was home in Massachusetts raising their family.
To really liven up a conversation, mention the book by Michael Bellesiles Arming
America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture. The author, a professor at Emory
University, has researched legal, probate, military and historical records and
has come to the conclusion that gun ownership was rare in colonial America.
He says that “gun ownership was exceptional in the seventeenth, eighteenth,
and early nineteenth centuries, even on the frontier” and that guns became prevalent
only after the Civil War. Prior to 1850 only about one-tenth of Americans owned
guns (mostly muskets), and most of those could not hit anything. The Kentucky
rifle took about three minutes to load, and was highly inaccurate. From the
Seven Years’ War through the Crimean War, an estimated 95 percent of projectiles
missed. In much of our early American history, guns were not effective in war
– most of the fighting was hand-to-hand combat done with pikes, staves, hatchets,
clubs, and bayonets. Few Americans resorted to hunting for food, because trapping
and animal husbandry were more effective and economical. Today in New York State,
hunters bag far more deer with bows than they do with muzzle-loaders. After
you bring up this book for discussion, stand back and watch the fireworks between
the pro and anti gun members of the group. Somebody is sure to point out that
the Bellesiles statistics are incomplete and inaccurate. Guns might have been
clumsy and unreliable, but they could pierce armor at long range – their only
competition was the crossbow, which was heavier, more expensive and just as
slow firing. The English military longbow was heavy and difficult to use, and
by the 1600’s even the English gave up trying to raise armies of bowmen. The
discussion is bound to get heated, so perhaps you should first make sure that
nobody in the group is armed, and that no guns are available.