The Grouchy Editor

by David Grann

A few weeks ago, I watched a YouTube video featuring amazing images of Mars that have been transmitted back to Earth. The high-definition pictures of the red planet’s barren landscapes held my interest for 15 minutes or so — and then it was time to move on to the next video. I’d seen enough.

Perhaps I’ve become jaded, or I’ve watched too many science-fiction movies.

It’s easy to forget how, for most of history, exploration was a rock-star pursuit that riveted the world. Long before YouTube, or even television, newspaper accounts of adventurers like Percy Fawcett mesmerized readers all over the globe.

David Grann (Killers of the Flower Moon) spent years researching the life, legend and disappearance of Fawcett, a British explorer who entered the Amazon basin in 1925 with two other expedition members — hoping to confirm the existence of the titular “Z” — and then never came back.

Did the Fawcett party fall victim to disease or to predators? Did a hostile tribe kill them? Grann’s exhaustive research (and even a trip to the Amazon, hoping to retrace Fawcett’s final excursion) fails to provide definitive answers.

That’s a problem. By the book’s conclusion, we still don’t know what became of the enigmatic, obsessed (I might say “bull-headed”) explorer. Nor, despite Grann’s best efforts and imagination, do we get conclusive answers about the mythical “city of Z.”

By the time I turned the last page, I was impressed by Grann’s achievement. I was intrigued by Fawcett and his exploits. But unlike those newspaper readers of a century ago, I was not enthralled.

I was ready for the next YouTube video.

© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Robert B. Parker

When you think about it, celebrated gun-for-hire Spenser isn’t all that great at his job. In A Savage Place, Spenser flies out to Hollywood to function as bodyguard-helper to a TV reporter investigating mob ties to the movie industry.

In the end, things don’t work out so well for the reporter. Nor do they for Spenser.

But that’s not what Parker’s Spenser books are about. They are about the Boston tough guy’s self-deprecating wisecracks, and about his wry observations of people and places. What, for example, does a hardened egg like Spenser think about the “beautiful people” of 1980s L.A.? Will he charm his way into the sexy reporter’s bed? Does a bear shit in Beverly Hills?

I don’t think this is one of the better books in the Spenser series. The “white knight does his part to serve feminism” theme feels a bit forced. Also, the damsel in distress isn’t particularly likeable.

But the wisecracks are on cue, and so are the action scenes.

© 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by C.S. Lewis

Wikipedia describes British intellectual Lewis as a “Christian apologist.” Really? Maybe I’m misinterpreting the term, but it doesn’t seem to me that Lewis’s writings do much “apologizing” for Christianity.

But I digress. In The Screwtape Letters, Lewis plays devil’s advocate — literally — through “Screwtape,” a high-ranking demon and advisor to his nephew “Wormwood,” a novice demon attempting to corrupt a young Englishman. In a series of letters to the nephew, Screwtape details the tricks of their trade: how to plant ungodly thoughts in an individual’s head, and then how to encourage those thoughts to flourish.

This is accomplished chiefly by appealing to the Englishman’s vanities, fears, etc., and then finding ways to justify his delusions. The great Enemy to Screwtape (and Wormwood) is, of course, Christianity.

Lewis said that he found the writing of Screwtape Letters to be “easy,” but also unpleasant. It’s not hard to see why. Like a film actor who enjoys playing villains on screen, it was probably fun to play-act Satan’s assistant. And yet, there are so many depressing aspects to human nature — so many pitfalls to being a good person — that you might not want to dwell in that role for very long.

 © 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by Ayn Rand

If I read this Ayn Rand novella just 10 years ago, my reaction to it might have gone something like this: “Interesting. Far-fetched, but interesting.”

The dystopian world Rand creates in her story depicts a society in which totalitarian collectivism rules. The protagonist is a confused soul living in a city where nothing is done — or even thought — by “I” or “me.” To do that is a crime. The only acceptable pronoun is “we.” People don’t have names; they are assigned numbers. Everyone follows, like docile sheep, the dictates of the “Council.”

Interesting, I would have thought in 2014. But people are not docile sheep, I would have thought, 10 years ago.

Flash forward to 2024, in which “he” and “she” are routinely replaced by “they,” and in which violating groupthink can cost you your livelihood. Individualism is dangerous because it threatens the well-being of the group, we are told.

I suspect the reason Anthem is not routinely cited with Brave New World and 1984 as warnings about the perils of — insert your “ism” here — is because Rand planned it in 1937 as a magazine article. It’s a very short novel. It doesn’t have the meat of 1984 or Brave New World. But it effectively conveys the same message.

 © 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)

by James Herriot

I was seeking relief from the anxiety, tumult, and horror that is politics in 2024. So, when I read the adjectives “warm” and “joyful” in the blurbs for All Creatures Great and Small, I was hoping they weren’t some book publicist’s hyperbole.

Happily, they are not.

Creatures is a series of 67 short stories depicting the life of a young veterinarian in rural Yorkshire, England, in the late 1930s. Real-life vet James Herriot slightly embellishes his encounters with denizens of the countryside in stories that are sometimes sad, often hilarious, but always entertaining. If that sounds a bit sappy, rest assured it is not.

The vignettes are richly varied. In one, Herriot meets a rich man whose wife and daughters hold contempt for him; on the same day, he visits a dirt-poor farmer whose young daughter venerates her father. Which of the two men has a better life?

In another tale, an elderly widower loses his best and only friend: an old dog that Herriot cannot save.

But the majority of the stories are funny. Herriot’s life with his boss and a co-worker — two eccentric, bickering brothers — is a treasure trove of humorous episodes. And then there are the farmers: variously obstinate, inarticulate, hostile, friendly, or admirable.

I highly recommend this book. I would call it “warm” and “joyful.”

 © 2010-2024 grouchyeditor.com (text only)