Angle of Repose - Wallace Stegman

If Henry Adams whom you knew slightly, could make a theory of history by applying the second law of thermodynamics to human affairs, I ought to be entitled to base one on the angle of repose, and may yet. There is another physical law that teases me, too: the Doppler Effect. The sound of anything coming at you--a train, say, or the future--has a higher pitch than the sound of the same thing going away. If you have perfect pitch and a head for mathematics you can compute the speed of the object by the interval between its arriving and departing sounds. I have neither perfect pitch nor a head for mathematics, and anyway who wants to compute the speed of history? Like all falling bodies, it constantly accelerates. But I would like to hear your life as you heard it, coming at you, instead of hearing it as I do, a sober sound of expectations reduced, desires blunted, hopes deferred or abandoned, chances lost, defeats accepted, griefs borne. I don't find your life uninteresting, as Rodman does. I would like to hear it as it sounded while it was passing.

Wallace Stegner describes the West and its people better than anyone. This Pulitzer prize-winning book is a masterpiece of great prose, detailing lives in last half of the 19th century. The book tells the story of older man uncovering information about his grandmother and writing about it. The west was a tough place for most people and Stegner is not one to romanticize the west. He places the reader in the middle of the hard lives of folks trying to build a better life based on hopes that often shattered.

With beautiful writing and an appreciation of the land, Stegner reveals the west of the average person. In this case, we see the story of a fascinating pioneer woman. She is conflicted over her love of culture, her marriage, and the course of her life. Like all great books, this is one that you will savor for a long time.

Measuring the World - Daniel Kehlman

In September 1828, the greatest mathematician in the country left his hometowm for the first time in years, to attend the German Scientific Congress in Berlin. Naturally he had no desire to go. He had been declining to accept for months, but Alexander van Humboldt had remained adament, until in a moment of weakness and the hope the day would never come, he had said yes.
So now Professor Gauss was hiding in bed. When Minna told him he must get up, the coach was waiting and it was a long journey, he wrapped his arms around the pillow abd tried to make his wife disappear by closing his eyes.

I liked the premise of this book--a historical novel about a famous mathematician and a naturalist both measuring the world in their own way. The book had its moments, but overall was disappointing. It may be that the translation from German to English did not well convey what made this a bestseller in Germany. It may be that Germans liked this book more because of the two famous Germans featured. For me, every time I started to getting interested, the book took a strange direction. There is little character development to get the reader interested and keep interest in the odd lives of the two scientists. I found myself wanting to read historical accounts of the scientists rather than this fictionalized tale.

Great Artists Explained - Robert Cumming

The type of personality that flourishes as a painter at any given time is the product of many different factors. There must be skill, determination, and inspiration, but those essential qualities are never enough in themselves. It is a simple truth that most artists reflect their own times but no more, whereas the outstanding artist has the ability to capture the imagination of future generations and say something of direct relevance to them. It is a rare occurence and is possible only if the artist is working out of the deepest personal conviction with a wish to reveal something more than skill and with the intention to do more than impress or please an individual patron or a specific artist. The timelessness and universality of the work of a great artist exists because he or she has something exceptional to say, and because for such artists painting is not an end in itself but a means of trying to reach a fundamental human truth.

This book is one of the annotated guides series. It shows a work or two from fifty great artists spanning the history of art. It is filled with large reproductions of the art which is the best part about the book. The annotations attempt to tell the story of each artist and the piece displayed. The book highlights artists and works that had an impact on other artists.

The art is wonderful, but I got annoyed with the annotations. With a dozen or more annotation boxes on each page, it was very difficult to pull the story of each piece together. Many of the annotations were insightful and pointed specifically to aspects of the piece that one may not have readily observed. There is no flow to the book, however, and the reader will be forced to jump around from historical facts, to details about style and composition. I wanted to like this book, and did at times, but it got laborious and I found myself wishing all the annotations were simply put into a coherent text.

Underworld - Don DeLillo

Longing on a large scale is what makes history. This is just a kid with a local yearning but he is part of an assembling crowd, anonymous thousands off the buses and trains, people in narrow columns tramping over the swing bridge above the river, and even if they are not a migration or a revolution, some vast shaking of the soul, they bring with them the body heat of a great city and their own small reveries and desperations, the unseen something that haunts the day--men in fedoras and sailors on shore leave, the stray tumble of their thoughts, going to a game.
The sky is low and gray, the roily gray of sliding surf.

This book is incredible. DeLillo has composed a masterful collage depicting the last half of the twentieth century. It begins with the Giants/Dodgers playoff game in 1951 and includes topics as varied as Lenny Bruce, J. Edgar Hoover, art projects in a desert, suburbs, and nuclear bombs. Having lived through this time period, I am awed at how DeLillo can peel away the layers of history and hype to reveal a gritty realism. There is a strangeness about the time reflected in the writing.

DeLillo creates moods and surreal situations to uncover truth. The books jumps around in time driven by themes more than a plot. Reading it was like being in a dream about the past fifty years and seeing what was underlying the times. It was a dream I didn't want to awaken from, even after 8oo pages. Rich and complex, the book is filled with great insight and philosophical musings.

The Unstrung Harp - Edward Gorey

Mr. Earbrass stands on the terrace at twilight. It is bleak; it is cold; and the virtue has gone out of everything. Words drift through his mind: ANGUISH TURNIPS CONJUNCTIONS ILLNESS DEFEAT STRING NO PARTIES URNS DESUETUDE DISAFFECTION CLAWS LOSS TREBIZOND NAPKINS SHAME STONES DISTANCE FEVER ANTIPODES MUSH GLACIERS INCOHERENCE LABELS MIASMA AMPUTATION TIDES DECEIT MOURNING ELSEWARDS ...

Gorey's first book, published in 1953, is as quirky and humorous as his others. It is amusing and very fun to read. I couldn't decide if I enjoyed the text or the drawings more. Gorey, the artist is incredible with his unique drawing style and ability to surprise the viewer entirely with his vision. Gorey, the writer could be no other than the artist with words that describe routine situations oddly.

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This book covers the literary life of author getting a book written and published. Not surprisingly, Gorey this life as miserable. It sure is fun, however, for the reader. This book can be read in fifteen minutes or savored for an hour or more. I found myself reading a couple times in the course of a week, enjoying it more with each reading.