Braddock. Catch the fever!

NYT article here. I actually have had sorta good times in Braddock, biking through on the way to the Great Allegheny Passage. The view of the Edgar Thompson works is impressive. And also Jeanne and I saw a good production of Thérèse Raquin in the Braddock library.

Bookish.

The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery. A confection, but philosophical. A tale of a Paris concierge who reads Tolstoy, and a suicidal girl who lives in the building. Worth the read. One review here.

A Case of Exploding Mangoes, by Mohammed Hanif. Kind of like Catch-22, with Under Officer Ali Shigri as Yossarian. The hook of the story is the death of Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in a 1988 plane crash. Very funny; highly recommended. NYT review here.

The White Tiger, by Aravind Adiga. "Let animals live like animals; let humans live like humans. That's my whole philosophy in a sentence." The story of a moral entrepreneur, Balram Halwai, from a poor Indian village, who gets a start as a driver for a rich family in Delhi. Impressive; this won the Booker Prize last year. One interview here, in which the author says of poor Indians, the subjects of the novel: "But also their intelligence impressed me. What rickshaw pullers, especially, reminded me of was black Americans, in the sense that they are witty, acerbic, verbally skilled and utterly without illusions about their rulers." I leave analysis of that observation as an exercise for the reader.

Bookish.

Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith. Gruesome tale of Russian serial killer in the 1950s, or rather the policeman who tracks the killer down. Absolutely preposterous plot. Terribly clumsy use of free indirect discourse. Incoherent characters. Stay away.

Bookish

The Journal of Hélène Berr. This was published last year from a manuscript that the author had given to the family cook bit by bit for safekeeping during World War II. Berr was a French 21-year-old daughter of a decorated WWI veteran and respected industrialist, an accomplished violinist and lover of English poetry, and Jewish. This is a record of how her world descended into madness. No happy ending. In France, she has apparently become known as "the French Anne Frank." Like Frank, Berr was taken to Auschwitz in 1944, then to Bergen-Belsen, and died shortly before the camp's liberation, of typhus. One review here.

After Steel.

1. Suffer through collapse of industry that once dominated region and supplied world with steel;
2. ?
3. Profit!

Felt!

Last one today. You may notice, starting around the 2-minute mark, the final verse to "Little White Duck."

Industry!

This is video from an alternate universe in which Benji and his cousins Dovid and Elisha play industriously, side-by-side, with no arguments or wailing.* ** *** Fascinating!



*But note what Benji does as soon as Jeanne turns her back. Way to use your fortitude, Dovid.
** Thanks, Nana and Poppa, for the awesome Chanukah gifts.
*** If you go to youtube to view, you can view in high quality. Makes a big difference.

Woo!

Benji "woos" Anne.

Bookish.

Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey. Two gamblers stake a wager on the insane attempt to manufacture, transport, and build a glass church in the Australian wilderness. Endlessly inventive, though sometimes at the price of verisimilitude or moving the plot. This won the Booker in 1988 or so.