Pearls from Mt. Olympus

     Several years ago Russell Crowe starred as Jack Aubrey in a movie adaptation of Patrick O’Brian’s “Master and Commander” – a seafaring saga set during the Napoleonic wars. When I first saw the movie I didn’t like it. Russell Crowe looked out of shape and seemed to be breezing through the part as if his mind were only half involved. The movie was competently done, but I just couldn’t shake the negative impression I had of Russell Crowe’s performance. Well, I saw the movie again two weeks ago and realized I was a complete idiot and that Russell Crowe and the rest of the cast had nailed their parts, and the movie itself was an excellent screenplay superimposed over a meticulously researched recreation of life on a British frigate. What changed?

     Well, for one thing, just before I saw the movie for the second time, I had just finished reading the first two books in O’Brian's series, Master and Commander and Post Captain, and now had a really good feel for the character of Jack Aubrey and the subtleties of life in the British navy. So when I saw the movie again, I realized Crowe was faithfully rendering the character – masterfully, in fact – and that Peter Weir, the director, had not lost any of his magic or attention to detail since he directed the excellent Harrison Ford movie Witness some eighteen years earlier.

     But what was interesting to me was that the movie itself hadn’t changed, but my ability to appreciate it had. My ignorance had caused me to misunderstand and under-appreciate a really sterling work. Also, quite interestingly, I realize now that my original opinion of the movie had been influenced by a negative article I had read about Russell Crowe the week before. Ha! Aren’t we human beings interesting characters! We think our opinions are more than that – we think they are all pearls of pure wisdom handed down from Mt. Olympus. Little do we realize how many of our supposed objective opinions are shaped by ignorance and prejudice. 

     This same principle holds true for book reviews. Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey series has been called by the NYT book reviewer, ‘the best historical novels every written.’ And if you go to Amazon you will find hundreds of people who wholeheartedly agree. And yet you will also find a few who criticize the series as boring, too nautical, and plotless. It makes you wonder how many of those critics actually made the effort to appreciate O’Brian’s genius. So the learning principle for me is that whenever you give your negative opinion on the hard work of another, you should think twice – after all, you might be the problem.         

    My next posting will be on what makes a good book title. 

Best regards,

Jim

Zurich

Master and Commander - an excellent read

A friend of mine recommended that I read Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian - recommended it so strongly that he actually bought me a copy! As I read it, it was tough going in the beginning - felt like I was sailing upwind and against the Gulf Stream up until about page 180.

What kept me working at it was the dawning realization that by reading so many light-weight thrillers, I had become somewhat intellectually lazy when it came to reading heavier, weightier books such as Master and Commander. Also, I was inspired by the nagging sense that there was a great book buried somewhere in there and I was missing it. So I stuck with it. And was richly rewarded. Once I synced into O'Brian's writing style I even went back and reread parts of the book just to see what I missed - and again, my efforts were rewarded.

Several things impressed me about the book. First, there was an enormous amount of research evident in every line of the book, and it was all interwoven without being professorial or lecturing. It was artistically done to a degree I don't think I've observed in any other writer of historical novels. Second, O'Brian had a lot of confidence in himself as a writer because he left much of his research and nautical terms unexplained and undefined - he just rolled the story along saying what needed to be said in the language of the day and expecting the reader to keep up. I'm sure many readers over the years have jumped ship over that style, but for the ones who stuck with it, there was a rich experience to be had. Though even now I'm not sure I could tell a forestay from a quarterdeck or a goglobbly(?), I do think I have experienced living and working on a sloop during the Napoleonic wars.

So, what have I learned?  I think I've learned again that there is no one writing style that works for everyone, but that authors must write what they must write and tell stories in the way they feel is best. Some readers will criticize and some will disparage, sometimes out of ignorance or laziness, but in the end the author must tell the story in his style and his way. If it's a commerical success then so be it - the gods were smiling - and if not, well, if it's an honest book done to an author's best abilitiy then that is still something to strive for. One critic said of O'Brian that what he wrote wasn't just a sea adventure but was 'literature'. What a well-spoken compliment and well deserved. But I'm sure other readers have said - like I was tempted to do before I buckled down - all this nautical jargon is too confusing.

For my next posting, I will draw upon Rulon's academic background - he was a Communications major at Boise State University - and relate his attitudes about the communication tactics unsed by U.S. presidential candidates.

Jim

Zurich 

Is Rulon Hurt a Republican or a Democrat?

Is Rulon Hurt a Republican or a Democrat – inquiring minds want to know! Early in Einstein’s Trunk, Rulon and Yohaba have their first political discussion while sitting in Yohaba’s apartment. Since then I have spent many hours eavesdropping on their political conversations and so feel singularly capable of summarizing their viewpoints. Naturally, Yohaba thinks Switzerland has most of the right answers – full employment through a nationwide apprenticeship program, stay out of wars, eliminate corruption, and return most of the tax money back to its citizens in the form of long-term infrastructure development and an adequate safety net for the aged, infirm, and unemployed.  Having lived in Switzerland for almost a third of his life, Rulon tends to agree with her.

But make no mistake, Rulon is a red-blooded, gun toting American through and through. He believes that the American eagle has a right wing and a left wing but the head is in the middle. And that is the reason why he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat! Rulon would love to see a third American party spring up. He thinks both parties have failed America. Both say one thing publicly to get votes from the masses and another thing privately behind closed doors to get money from corporations and the wealthy to finance their campaigns.

To Rulon’s way of thinking, the most important issue in America right now is fixing the campaign finance laws and to somehow overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizen’s United decision allowing corporations to give unlimited money to SuperPACs because “corporations are people.” Rulon believes if you fix the campaign finance laws then politicians will be free to fix the country's problems without worrying about offending their corporate donors.

Even though Rulon is a tough guy, he’s a bit of a history buff and, as his father has said, ‘he can see through a brick wall, given enough time.” In other words, he is no fool. He’s sees the corporations in America as not having allegiance to anything except “returning value to the stockholder”, who, by the way, could be from any country in the world. If corporations can make more profits by moving jobs to China, they’ll do it in a heartbeat – then lobby for overseas tax breaks! Rulon believes that if corporations are left unchecked on the path they are headed, America will eventually return to what it was like in the 1800s when the robber barons ruled the land, child labor was in full swing, and factory workers were paid barely living wages. After all, if the world is an open market and capital is free to move anywhere in the world, why should American workers be paid more than Chinese?

Rulon is particularly impressed with Germany which also faced complaints/threats from corporations that they had to move their manufacturing jobs overseas if they were to survive. But the German unions wouldn’t let that happen and instead of being allowed to abandon German workers to chase cheap and easy profits overseas, the German corporations were forced to think of innovative ways to manufacture in Germany while paying the relatively high German salaries. And since they had no choice, they figured it out! In America, on the other hand, corporations were allowed to move American jobs overseas with impunity, keep the profits, and pay less taxes. Everyone won except the American worker. Both parties abetted or fiddled while that was happening, and that is why Rulon has no use for either party.

Next posting will be on the book Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian and what it taught me about writing novels.

Jim Haberkorn

Zurich