31. March 2012 by admin.

This well crafted story takes you on a mythical journey in a fiercely tribal world with Roj on his quest to capture the spotted stallion and then find the mysterious and powerful Root of Glory. Accompanied by his brother-in-law, Noli, he meets the beautiful Healdin who wields the deadly power of Mara the Vine. Conflicts between clans endanger Roj and Noli as they are followed by Bibbibib and Weakling, two vicious and evil warriors—casual murderers, who are intent on acquiring the Great Valuable for themselves.

This is a dark tale of adventure and danger with many fascinating, well-drawn characters and the tension of the hunt as Roj, on his hero’s journey, seeks personal fulfillment. Digitale’s writing is superb, as he weaves this tale of intrigue and betrayal in an environment with few protections and manifold fears. I recommend you read this while you keep your lights on.

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23. February 2012 by admin.

Film Review: New Tricks - for elders only (just kidding)

When three retired detectives, well into their senior years, are drafted back to work in the unsolved crime department, the criminal justice bureaucracy gets a taste of outrageous elder behavior they didn’t expect. Basically, forming an efficient and effective team, these three oldsters go to work on homicides that have been gathering dust in the archives for decades. They operate outside the guidelines of police procedure and frequently outside the boundaries of accepted propriety. In the process, they’re darn funny.

Brian, the brainy one, is self-centered, brilliant, with tunnel vision when he latches onto a problem and at the same time a mental case under the control of a regime of drugs. With a phenomenal memory, he remembers specific details of events that happened twenty years ago. At the same time, he has no idea what his wife likes to eat or what her favorite color might be.

Jack is quiet, methodical, organized and totally obsessed with his wife’s untimely death. He’s down to earth and logical. His forte is cross-examination and the ability to get under the skin of the toughest dudes.

Gerry is flamboyant, erratic, physical and fascinated with the opposite sex. He’s a loose cannon, who is not above a threat or two in order to get information he deems vital.

The leader of the group, Sandra, is a good twenty years their junior. A good-looking blonde, she’s tough as nails, a necessary qualification for keeping her rabble department under control. She has no qualms about punching out a bad guy or walking into a high society affair in a knockout evening dress.

This BBC TV series ran for two years. The DVDs are available from Netflix. All the episodes have captions, which helps a bit with the king’s English.

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17. February 2012 by admin.

Reviewing The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis

Far be it from me to criticize a successful writer of great literary renown like C.S. Lewis. However, I found it interesting to comment on his work from my perspective as struggling children’s novelist. It was surprising that writing styles have changed so dramatically since 1950. Reading this book was definitely a trip back into the past.

The first thing that struck me was his breaking character to address me, the reader. This parenthetical switch to second person in the middle of a narrative stream was a real shocker. It did tend to personalize the reading experience, however it jerked me out of my reading dream state. I know that rules are made to be broken and the form and function of grammar has changed since 1950, but I’m not ready to try this trick.

Another writing process methodology that Lewis employed was an explanation for the young reader of emotions expressed or shown by a character. It demonstrates his recognition that his young readers may not be familiar with a feeling experienced by one of his characters. He did this on several occasions in the novel and his sensitivity to the immaturity of his readers, I found impressive.

Finally, I picked up the second book of the seven book series, Prince Caspian. I was surprised to discover a very brief outline of the first book within the first chapter of this book. Every book in a series must stand alone, but Lewis found it necessary to ‘help’ his readers by relating events from the first book. This helps me determine how much of my first novel to mention in the sequel.

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27. January 2012 by admin.

Unexpected adventure, secrets and challenges greet four pre-teens as they journey on a tour to Saltzburg, Austria, the birthplace of Mozart. Lulu, Chloe, Morey and Greg become self-appointed detectives in a mystery that involves the forces of the dark and takes them ultimately to a co-existent Otherworld, known in Austria as the Anderswelt in search of Danu.

The characters are well drawn and Jusaitis moves them around Saltzberg with descriptions of the environment so complete and elaborate, you’ll never need to go there or, on the other hand, you may become motivated to see the sights for yourself. The storyline is delightful and light hearted with hidden threats that are engaging but never scary. In fact, Anderswelt exists more as a fairyland than an ominous alter-world.

Jusaitis is expert in her writing craft and it’s demonstrated by her use of English and her sentence structure within a writing style that is perfectly designed for the middle grade level. She writes in first person from Lulu’s point of view as the protagonist, with her best friend, Chloe, as her reluctant sidekick. For that reason, I believe the novel favors girl readers more than boys. Although the two boys, in support roles are, in themselves, interesting characters, Morey, an attraction to Lulu and Greg with his peculiar hobbies.

This is a pre-teen novel that will take its readers to a different world for many hours.

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1. December 2011 by admin.

Tracker (2010)

I found this film complex in its exploration of humanity, yet a profoundly simple story. At its center, it’s about the value of life. The characters are mature men defining themselves by their decisions, and cast in a struggle against their social environment. It’s engaging and tense, yet singularly rewarding to watch.

Set in 1903, following the Boer war, Arjan Van Diemen arrives in New Zealand from his homeland in South Africa. The British had burned his farm to the ground and his wife and children were taken away. The British implemented the first concentration camps used in warfare and interned the wives and children of the Boer guerillas. Poor hygiene and little food resulted in the death of many, probably including Arjan’s family. The British gained another colony.

The day that Arjan arrives, Kereama, a middle-aged man of Maori extract is blamed for the death of a British soldier and runs away. Arjan, famous as a guerilla fighter and tracker is offered 100 sovereigns to bring him back alive. The two men, hunter and hunted, find themselves to be much alike. Kereama’s life and his family are also victim of British colonization. The two men are pitted against each other in a life and death contest.

The scenery of New Zealand as a backdrop to the story of these two men is spectacular. In one shot, multiple waterfalls cascade hundreds of feet down a sheer face of rock.

The concept of a manhunt has been used in many western films, however this story is more like The Naked Prey (1966) starring Cornel Wilde. In this story, the protagonist, is set free without weapons by natives in the African jungle and given “a lion’s chance” to survive as their prey.

There are violent fight scenes, yet no vulgar language and no smoking. There is a brief scene at the beginning of the movie implying sex with a prostitute.

It was an advantage using the optional subtitles because of the strong accents of the characters.

Reviewed November 27, 2011            Copyright 2011 Charles Markee

MPAA rating: R for violent scenes.

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24. October 2011 by admin.

I read Nathaniel Philbrick’s Mayflower out loud, a compliment in itself, since the sentence structure and clarity of the narrative voice made this a positive experience. The book has won several awards in addition to being a New York Times Bestseller. The extensive research that went into this book over the ten-year period during which it was written is evident from the size of the bibliography.

Several things struck me about the early settlers as depicted: how unprepared they were, the mistakes they made, their dependence on their religion and their dogged perseverance.  That they survived at all, seems in retrospect, a miracle. I was also quite take with the difference between the history of this period as taught me in the lower grades and the real evidence related in this version of history. In particular the cultural clash and resultant misunderstanding between English settlers and the Native Americans was never taught without bias. The fact that there were “praying Indians” helping the settlers was overlooked as was the fact that many of the English were intent on genocide with its subsequent gain of Indian lands. Also the protracted conflict referred to as Philip’s War was never touched even though it lasted for years and caused losses in the range of 10% of the English population and possibly as much as 50% of the Native Americans. Another surprise was the extent to which large factions of the Native Americans actually fought with the English against other tribes.

I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in learning how our nation began. However I do this with a warning that the last half of the story is heavily loaded with information about the blood bath involving not only men, but also women and children. One of the settlers who rose to prominence in almost every chapter toward the end was Benjamin Church. He was involved in most conflicts, seemed to be everywhere, and had great influence on the course of the historical events of this period, yet I don’t remember him having been mentioned in any of my childhood history texts.

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19. September 2011 by admin.

            The writing is beautiful and a joy to read.  If for no other reason, this book deserves to be read for the craft and poetry imbedded in Ms. Hegland’s prose.  The story begins with a family of four that includes two daughters.  One of them, Seventeen-year-old Nellie, the younger of the two sisters is the protagonist and the story line unfolds through her experiences and perceptions.  Eva, who is older than Nellie by only a year, is initially only a backdrop but evolves into a more significant role as the plot progresses.

            After reading the book I found it difficult to decide whether it was an odyssey or a fable, and maybe it’s both.  The environment for the story and the motivation that drives the plot line is the total failure of civilization’s infrastructure.  The family lives in an undetermined wilderness area, thirty miles from the nearest town, Redwood, which is remarkably similar in description to Healdsburg the author’s hometown. 

            The story unfolds through a logical progression from problem through crises to climax and resolution.  The emotional content includes denial, bestiality, fear, loss, love, depression and happiness, portrayed as randomly as it occurs in real life.  We all grow up, traverse emotions similar to these, and then realize we are alone in ourselves and mostly we prevail by means of courage, resourcefulness and perseverance which are also in the story.

I used the verb ‘portrayed’ rather than ‘told’ intentionally, because to read this book is to live the story as it unfolds in your mind.  It is said that a good story creates a dream state for the reader and it was true for me with this book.  Half way through the book I woke one morning from an anxiety dream involving the dangers of living in the country as we do.  So I was living the book.  The author accomplished this by letting me experience events as they would occur and not as they might be told.

This is a story written from the first person perspective of a young woman and it is about the issues that she and her sister have as women.  I began to wonder as I read whether this was a book written for women or for everyone.  It does focus on abilities not usually required of women in today’s society.  However their obstacles in the story were universal.  A man might deal with them differently, but he would still have to deal with them.  We need to remember that protected young civilized women, who are products of a relatively affluent society would react much differently than other ages or the other gender, and so goes the story.  Furthermore, it is thought provoking to consider our exposure regardless of gender to a collapse of the infrastructure that we take for granted. 

Several things bothered me as I read.  What happens to the father is predicted fairly early, but I had to wait quite a while to learn what it was.  I also had a hard time tolerating the lack of information about the disaster, whatever it was.  For me, how I would react and what I did would depend to a large extent upon what was going on in the world.  And the absence of men for most of the book unbalanced the story for me, but that was probably because of my own gender.  Finally the ending was too flamboyant and illogical for me.  Although, I have to conclude that these criticisms disappear when the story is taken as a metaphorical fable.

I haven’t heard the name, Nellie used during my time in the 20^th century.  And ballet dancers use Marlee to create a dance floor, not Mylar.  But these are really nits.

The writing in this book makes it a piece of art in my view.  That it raises more questions than it resolves only increases its value for me.  It’s not a lightweight story.  Reading it will engage some serious emotions. 

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19. September 2011 by admin.

This novel written by a local Sonoma County author, Jean Hegland, is an incredible read.  It took me into the lives of two women, their children, their troubles and their personal journey.  As I read, I came to know these two women, care about them and eagerly await my quiet time with them each evening.  Last night, I finished the book and set it down with the sadness of losing a close friend.

A piece of work is art to me when it surpasses its medium and provides me with a quality of emotion or a uniqueness of thought I didn’t have before.  Windfalls was both of these for me.  I lived the life and felt the emotions of Anna and Cherise.  At one point early in the story, there was a scene so vivid and devastating that I had to avoid the novel for several days to recover my perspective.  Of course, I know these things happen, but I’m normally able to keep them at a distance.  Not so with Hegland’s work.  She writes up close and personal and her heart shines through from the words on each page.  And even during terrible events, she moves her characters forward through their heroine’s journey like she’s holding a baby bird and teaching it to fly.

In a limited sense, the story is about motherhood.  And it is written about women but not necessarily just for women.  Her birthing scenes brought me back into the delivery room where I witnessed the births of my last three children.  So in the larger sense, the story is about human parenting.

The artistry of a novel also lives in the crafting of its words, and it is Hegland’s choice of words, her similes, her descriptions that kept me intrigued and stirred my emotions as though I were reading poetry.  But it goes further, because the right gathering of words can have a rhythm, a magic balance between the sounds so that they sing and for me, this novel was a song.

Finally, both Anna and Cherise are protagonists in the story, and I realized as I put the book down for the last time, that I knew more about Anna because of the kind of person she was.  Yet Cherise was the more unusual and more interesting character, and in a subtle way, she was the predominate protagonist because of who she wasn’t.

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19. September 2011 by admin.

Ms. Barrett crafted this wonderful story and brought it to life primarily by virtue of the historical research that gives each scene a vivid reality.  But she also uses the contrast between Erasmus’ personality and the concept of adventure to make it seem even more exotic.  I quickly became immersed in the expedition.  It was so real and so absorbing that I had great difficulty tearing my self from the story to continue my own daily life.  I felt while reading the book, that I was on a vicarious, fabulous adventure in another time.  At its conclusion, I felt as though I had just rushed through a text, which had more depth, content and historical richness than there was time to absorb.

Ms. Barrett weaves adventure, hardship, danger, conflict and love into a complex story line set in the mid-nineteenth century.  She introduces her four protagonists and their emotional quadrangular relationship in the first chapter.  The wildly different personalities of Erasmus, Zeke, Lavinia & Alexandra create a background tension in the story that hangs in our mind as the author carries us along on the expedition with its daily foreground tension.  She cleverly foreshadows future events using Erasmus’ internal dialogue in the first chapter. 

She sets up anxiety about the future by using the cavalier Zeke as the leader on a brig called Narwahl, a name derived from the old Norse words ‘corpse whale’.

I did experience some early disenchanted with the story only because I was unable to identify with the protagonist, Erasmus, who ruminated in a scientifically meticulous and droll voice about his life and his failures.  Erasmus was ever ready to be the victim.  Fortunately, I continued to read in spite of the reluctant and flawed Erasmus. 

I expected to find a hero, but there was none, yet the tale was heroic.  The men and women act heroically many times for a variety of reasons.  Erasmus heroically leads the remaining crew of the Narwhal to safety after Ned forces him into thedecision.  Ned heroically drags Zeke back across the ice to the brig on his return trip from Anaorak, although neither he nor the doctor wanted to go.  Annie heroically gives her life to support her tribe’s beliefs and to save her son.  The only real candidate for the title of hero might be Ned, but he is only a background character.

Strangely, the character Zeke’s motivations are never fully revealed although he has a determining impact on the course of the story .  The allusion to Erasmus’ father in his confrontation with Erasmus is not enough.  Also, any information about Zeke’s solo trip North on foot is completely missing from the story.  The trip would have been a perfect opportunity to explore Zeke’s obsession using internal dialogue.  This lack of information about Zeke struck me early in the story.  At the end of the first chapter I wondered, “Who is Zeke?” and, “Why would experienced adult men turn their lives over to a 26 year old arrogant, self involved egomaniac with no significant credentials?”  These questions were never answered to my satisfaction.

In sharp contrast, both Lavinia and Alexandra were very real and interesting even as secondary characters.  For me, they represented alternative extremes of female personalities, one competent, in pursuit of a meaningful life and the other frivolous, seeking an owner husband.  This contrast or culture clash if you will, is also contained within Ms. Barrett’s characters in her Ship Fever short stories.

In general, Ms. Barrett is deeply perceptive about the feelings of her characters. She effectively conveys an Austen like love between the protagonists that consists of restraint, waiting and for Lavinia, pining.  She keeps us, like her characters, dangling in anticipation of a relationship.  Erasmus seems oblivious of his own interest in Alexandra, which quite nicely fits his character.  However, I felt his loss of Dr. BooreHaave in my soul and I grieved with Erasmus.  I also felt the discomfort of Erasmus’ inadequacy dealing with leadership.  It was only Zeke who remained a mystery throughout the novel.  It was almost as though Ms. Barrett herself disliked Zeke and refused to give him any feelings.

As the Northern adventure ends in Part II and Ms. Barrett moves into the final crisis with the Esquimaux woman and her son in Part III the story converges to a very realistic conclusion.  In this section, the author’s use of internal dialogue by the Intuit woman and the boy is particularly creative.  I have found many authors’ climaxes and conclusions to be perfunctory and unsatisfying.  However the ends of this story fold together nicely and I put the book down with a sense of completion. 

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19. September 2011 by admin.

Whether you’re a native, a relative or a tourist, this book will be your personal gemstone of historical information.  From the gold rush through the twentieth century it takes you to the parks, the wharfs, the saloons, the theaters, the International Expositions, the restaurants, hotels and the history that have made San Francisco uniquely, The City.

            Smith is a fourth generation native of The City and his passion for its special place in his life fills these pages.  He tells the tale of its evolution from sand dunes to metropolis in a friendly conversational style that’s accompanied by fascinating historical photographs and quoted inserts by natives who lived during times past.  What develops as you read is a picture of people with determination who built a city first with gold, then with agriculture, trade and industry.  There is no other place like San Francisco and Smith captures its uniqueness simply by documenting a reality that is frequently stranger than anyone could create with fiction.  How many times did buildings burn to the ground only to be rebuilt in grander style? 

            My own personal history came alive reading this: The water chute at Playland, swimming at Sutro’s, breakfast at the Cliff House, dancing at Bop City, riding the ferry boat to the 1939 Golden Gate International Exposition, my grandmother’s memories of the 1906 earthquake and fire, brunch at the Palace Hotel or meeting Emperor Norton walking along Market Street.  But more than nostalgia, I gained a perspective of San Francisco’s place in the growth of our nation and the development of its place in the a global economy.

            Reading this was a journey of discovery.  I didn’t know there was an earlier, 1894 International Exposition.  I didn’t know that Treasure Island was also intended to be the location of the San Francisco International Airport.  And the list goes on.

            Yes, there was crime and graft wherever there were people and money and it’s included as part of the city’s history.  But San Francisco was and is a spectacular fairyland of sweeping vistas, rolling hills, wind swept beaches, amazing bridges and beautiful buildings.  The fairy castle on the book’s cover exemplifies this theme.  It’s the third Cliff House, built in the French Chateau style, completed by Adolph Sutro in 1896 and burned to the ground in 1907.

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