Book review: Dancer by Colum McCann

In Dancer, Colum McCann gives us a passionate, gorgeous (fictionalized) account of the life of dancer and choreographer Rudolf Nureyev.

Often, when we hear statements like, "his life is inseparable from the tumultuous events of the twentieth century," we cringe--what a cliché! But in the case of Nureyev it is undoubtedly true. Furthermore, McCann blows the cliché out of the water by actually showing us what this means. For example, he plots Nureyev's childhood against the backdrop of what Soviets called "The Great Patriotic War"--the part of World War II in which they fought off the German invasion. McCann's depiction of frostbitten, maimed Soviet soldiers eating their starved horses in the trenches, the women who cleaned them up afterwards, and little Rudik Nureyev and his schoolmates performing folk dances to entertain the wounded men in the hospital is no less virtuosic than Nureyev and the great Margot Fonteyn as Romeo and Juliet.

Nureyev was born in 1938 in Soviet Russia; in 1961 he defected to the West. McCann masterfully creates the colors and contradictions of both worlds. The Soviet Union is a repressive regime whose luckiest citizens are those old enough to cherish memories from before the Iron Curtain dropped. The West has its own brand of coldness. McCann reveals the sorrow of the émigré who--a product of both, yet belonging to neither--may never go home again.

Through this bleak milieu leaps Rudik Nureyev, a gay (bisexual?) ballet dancer of Muslim Tatar heritage, passionately devoted to his true self and his art in defiance of his army veteran father and eventually in defiance of his government. We come to know him through others: his mother, his first ballet teacher, his sister, his assistants and lovers and friends--even the cobbler who manufactures his custom ballet shoes. We also know Rudik through pages of hastily scribbled notes to himself--on how to perfect his grand jetés, to remember social appointments, on books he'd like to read or had read, on his travels--his energy and love of life transported as if by electrical impulse from his mind to the page.

To me, McCann's refusal to tie up or reconcile the many facets of Nureyev's life and personality speaks not only to how various, how expansive, and how deep this artist was, but also to how many strands of his being there were to manage, how many relationships to nurture, how many choices to make. What was the limit of the sacrifice he offered to Dance?

Or maybe McCann means to say that there can be no definitive version of Nureyev's life, other than the one that he himself lived.

That life ended in 1993, when Nureyev succumbed to HIV/AIDS. But, as portrayed by Colum McCann, the Dancer never succumbed to the vast impersonal forces of twentieth-century wars, totalitarianism, capitalism, or even homophobia. He soared above.

Book review: Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, by Jefferson Cowie

I didn't study the 70s in school, because it was happening as I was growing up. So, though I remembered the outlines, I needed someone to fill them in. Cowie's palette is a somber one, though. At stake was, he writes: [the] dream... that collective working-class agency could guarantee basic economic security for all as the foundation of a greater freedom.

Cowie begins in 1972 in Lordstown, Ohio, where young auto workers, fearing that they will be "hacking on the line for 30 years" with no say in how their work is managed, go on strike. Pitted against them are the old, entrenched capitalists (of General Motors) and status-quo loving union bosses. These guys fear the young strikers - men with long hair and afros, love beads and mod clothing; Vietnam vets who know dysfunction when they see it. This bunch had seen liberation (at least on television) and wanted some for themselves. 

Stayin' Alive looks at the 70s as two distinct periods (1968-1974 and 1974-1982). Cowie discusses the political and economic happenings within each, followed by an analysis of that period's popular culture - music, movies, and television. At the beginning of the 70s, there is a glimmer of hope: maybe the young, integrated, liberation-demanding kids can win. But alas, Nixon's paranoid scheming, an energy crisis or two, stagflation, an ineffectual Carter administration, a union-busting Ronnie Reagan, and the sickening, no-holds-barred, runaway greed of the wealthy classes, all combine to drastically shrink the pie for which American workers must compete. By the end of the decade, being chained to an assembly line job in a factory with no say in your present, let alone your future, is actually looking pretty good - and damn near unattainable - to most working class Americans.

Cowie explains how the rise of identity politics, sadly, played directly into the cynical divide-and-conquer strategies of the union bosses and politicians. He shows how Wallace, Nixon, and Reagan deliberately inflamed racist white nationalist and misogynist sentiments in order to consolidate their own power. Sound familiar? Even the part where (Republican) politicians turn their backs on the material concerns of poor white people and replace those concerns with cultural ones - things like abortion and school prayer that would have no effect on their standard of living no matter how they were decided: that strategy began all the way back then, in the 70s, too. 

Cowie clearly knows his stuff - the detail about labor legislation and all the various political maneuverings are fascinating. That the momentous decisions made by the president and congress come down in the end to trivial matters of timing, or even just naked human frailties, incompetencies, and vanity is not well understood by most of us and is difficult to fully comprehend. I suppose that's why we accept simplified and simple-minded explanations for so many things? At any rate, Cowie's conclusion is that, by the end of the 70s, no economically-based "working class" identity remained in the United States - that workers had been successfully divided and, thus, had no real voice. 

He ends the book with something of a challenge: 
Whatever working-class identity might emerge from the postmodern, global age will have to be less rigid and less limiting than that of the [post-World War II] order, and far less wedded to the bargaining table as the sole expression of workplace power. It will have to be less about consumption and more about democracy, and as much about being blue collar as being green collar. It will have to be more inclusive in conception, more experimental in form, more nimble in organization, and more kaleidoscopic in nature than previous incarnations. The chapter of the modern working class has closed; the page of imagination is open; and the future is unwritten.

Book review: Dispatches, by Michael Herr

As a correspondent in the Vietnam War, Michael Herr experienced first hand the Tet Offensive, the siege of Khe Sanh, and the battle of Hue. In Dispatches, which I believe was first published in 1977, Herr describes multiple facets of the war as seen through his eyes, as filtered through his consciousness, and as wrung through his conscience.

Much of what Dispatches describes is not news to me; the Vietnam War has been something of a hot topic since I was a little girl listening to the casualty counts on the evening news. However, Herr's account is so rewarding, so riveting, that I hated to put it down. Combining rich descriptions of the milieu - landscape, city, or awesome, ghastly destruction - with unforgettable portraits of grunts and officials, fellow correspondents and super sappers, he fills in the outlines of what I already knew with vivid color.

The themes of the book are military malpractice, political bullshit, and, of course and above all, death. Also, Herr's (and everyone else's) love-hate relationship with war. And his attempt to reconcile the unreconcilable. And the sheer inevitability of it all. He writes, "There'd been nothing there that hadn't already existed here, coiled up and waiting, back in the World."

Epic and intimate, humorous and horrible, Herr's account is never simplistic and almost always fascinating. The only part that falls short for me is the section about his colleagues in the press corps; though many of the portraits are well drawn, for me they rarely measure up to those in the remaining chapters of the narrative. 

Still, I enthusiastically recommend this book for those interested in the Vietnam War, and for those interested in war generally. Men and war. Yep, men and war.

Book Review: The Other Side of Grief: The Home Front and the Aftermath in American Narratives of the Vietnam War, by Maureen Ryan

The Other Side of Grief is a survey of what must be hundreds of narratives, mainly novels and memoirs, relating to the Vietnam War - every type of narrative that I can imagine, except for stories of combat. Author Maureen Ryan takes the soldier's often repeated, familiar refrain of "you had to be there [or you can't understand]" and replies, "we were all there." 

Ryan's thesis is that we tend to privilege the stories of men, and therefore those of combat vets (who, we assume, are particularly manly men), but that, if we wish to understand the American "lingering fascination" with the Vietnam War, we need to consider everyone's stories - those of the siblings, wives, and children left at home, those of the war protesters who dodged "home front artillery" in Chicago and on college campuses, those of Vietnamese refugees, as well as the "aftermath narratives" of returning vets, and POW memoirs.

In The Other Side of Grief each of these categories gets its own chapter, in which Ryan discusses the themes touched on by the narratives in that category. Those themes illuminate interesting historical, social, political, or psychological points. For example, in the chapter "Years of Darkness: Narratives by and about American Prisoners of the Vietnam War," Ryan dissects the texts in question to lay bare the political appropriation of the POW issue - in careful counterpoint to women's liberation in the context of the POW wives. In "The Other Side of Grief: American Women Writers and the Vietnam War," Ryan examines the unique psychology of the sisters of soldiers.

Although I thought I knew a lot about the Vietnam War, the '60s, '70s, and '80s, I learned quite a bit from this book. I believe that the sheer number of texts that Ryan examines allows her to make certain assertions with authority. One of the most important from my point of view is her statement that "the women understand, as the men do not, that the Vietnam War happened to an entire generation and lingered long after the last bullet was fired." Clearly, many of us have had that thought before. But in this case Ryan shows how it is grounded in numerous texts, written by many different men and women, all seeming to indicate that same pattern. 

Privileging one type of story unquestionably leads to misunderstandings of reality. This should be a rallying cry. We need the full spectrum of perspectives not only to unravel our fascination with the Vietnam War, but also to prevent future wars.

Beware of Book Reviews

For the past several months I've been reading in preparation for a new writing project. As I did when I was researching my previous novel, Seeking the Center, I'm trying to be diligent about reviewing the books that I read. I post the reviews on Goodreads, and I've decided to post them here as well, where they are more accessible to folks who aren't on Goodreads.

I hope you find them interesting, and I invite your comments.

The blood spilled at the end of life, and the blood spilled at its beginning

I'm currently reading Dispatches, by Michael Herr. Of all the hundreds or maybe even thousands of books written about the Vietnam War, it is one of the most celebrated. 

The book's reputation is well-deserved. I'm admittedly not terribly far into my Vietnam War research, but of all the books I've read so far (and also including Burns's and Novick's documentary series The Vietnam War), Dispatches is the first and so far the only account that has haunted me at night. It is riveting, horrifying, beautiful, sad, funny, gruesome, and insightful. In loving, sketchbook fashion, Herr fills even the most briefly encountered grunt with a luminous humanity. He owns up to his own bullshit, and helps us understand.

Reading this afternoon, on page 210 out of 260, I suddenly imagine the rivers of ink spent accounting for all those rivers of blood spilled in that misbegotten war. And then I remember how, when I was writing my (unpublished) first novel (The Bear Wife), I determined to imbue its birth scene with just as much suspense and violence, as much glory and dignity and prominence, as its scenes of Viking battles.

Because those nasty old pragmatic pagans recognized, even if we don't, that you can't spill blood at the end of life unless you've spilled some at its beginning.

Spindle whorls (and spinners) at Jamestown

Meanwhile, in other news, two spindle whorls were found at the site of the English fort at Jamestown, Virginia, dating from the early 17th century. This would seem to indicate that, at that time, there were European women in Jamestown engaged in spinning yarn. Presumably the guys needed clothes, sails, fishing nets, bags, etc.

The fact that they found the spindle whorls in such a recent (17th century) context is interesting to me, because, in my incomplete knowledge, I didn't realize that the ancient "drop spindle" method of spinning was still employed during that time. According to the Jamestown author the method was still used in rural England and, I would venture to guess that, because the whorls themselves apparently came from present-day Belgium, it was used there as well.

Why did folks adhere to the earlier technology? Probably because it allowed for more efficient multi-tasking by the women. If you're sitting at a spinning wheel, you can't do much else except, maybe, sing. But the distaff and whorl put you well on your way to accomplishing the womanly mission of being everything to everyone. Alternatively, it allows you to go hide away somewhere and spin a tale or two, take in the scenery, or simply philosophize on the nature of the cosmos, all while creating a strong, fine yarn.

The Jamestown spindle whorls are described here. Also, I wrote about Jamestown a few years ago. (It probably needs an update, but I haven't done that yet!) And I've written about Weaving, War and Womanhood (which includes a bit more about spinning).

Gingerly entering a new era, hoping not to jinx it

For my latest project, I'm doing some typically idiosyncratic, non-methodical reading about music, and about the Vietnam War.*

And while I didn't write on this site at all while I was full into researching, writing, and editing my novel Seeking the Center (Cuidono Press, 2016), now that I've moved on, I may occasionally "scribble" some ideas here. My new mix of topics - especially the war part - might end up fitting in somewhat with previous spindlewhorl posts, so it seems convenient. Additionally, and primarily, I don't want a third website. I can barely handle what I've got.

I welcome all comments! 

*Incidentally, I do review most of the books I read, and if you're interested, you can read my reviews on Goodreads.