The BiblioFiles

Troost, J. Maarten: Getting Stoned with Savages

2007-01-21T14:17:00-05:00

In his best-selling travel memoir The Sex Lives of Cannibals (read my review), J. Maarten Troost chronicled the two years he spent living in Kiribati in the equatorial Pacific with his girlfriend Sylvia. After the period covered by the book Troost spent another two years in Washington D.C. working as, of all things, a "hoity-toity consultant to the World Bank," a change in lifestyle akin to, say, giving up a job on Gilligan's Island to work for Donald Trump. Fortunately the suit and tie and dependable paycheck of buttoned-down life didn't capture Troost, and he and Sylvia left civilization behind again, lured by warmer climes and the laid-back tropical mentality: "Stuff happens, but tomorrow the sun will rise again."

But more alarming than the tremors and the lava and the frequent cyclones, more alarming even than the shark-infested waters that put a damper on life in paradise, are the foot-long, poisonous, carnivorous, child-killing centipedes that live in Vanuatu.This time the couple moved to Vanuatu--formerly the New Hebrides--a country about the size of Connecticut that's composed of some 80 islands and lies directly on the Pacific Ring of Fire, which is to say that it's geologically interesting: Vanuatu has nine active volcanoes and experiences frequent, even daily, earthquakes. But more alarming than the tremors and the lava and the frequent cyclones, more alarming even than the shark-infested waters that put a damper on life in paradise, are the foot-long, poisonous, carnivorous, child-killing centipedes that live in Vanuatu. That's right, killer centipedes. And if you should get up the nerve to take an axe to one of them and, say, chop it into five pieces, it doesn't mean you've done away with it: it means you've now got five killer centipedes running around loose. Paradise has its price.

In addition to recounting his harrowing adventures with the island wildlife, Troost writes about Vanuatu's history and culture and living conditions. He spends a good deal of time describing the experience of drinking kava, a muddy liquid--"to the uninitiated...the most wretchedly foul-tasting beverage ever concocted by Man"--that became Troost's drug of choice on the island. And, happily, Troost put considerable effort into researching the country's long--and relatively recent--history of cannibalism:

"The last officially recorded incident of cannibalism in Vanuatu was in 1969 on the island of Malekula. I was born in 1969, and while I am willing to concede that 1969 is rapidly receding into the dim mists of time, it wasn't that long ago. Humor me. It seemed to me that if people were still officially gnawing at human limbs in 1969, it was more than possible that, since then, there had been some off-the-books cannibalism going on in Vanuatu."

About two-thirds of the way into the book, Sylvia having become pregnant, the couple decided to move to Fiji, where delivery promised to be less nightmarish. Fiji, it turned out, was full of prostitutes, both male and female, and Troost recounts his adventures on that front with his usual good humor.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals, Troost's first book, was a laugh-out-loud funny, you-must-go-buy-it-now kind of read. (Really, go buy it now.) Getting Stoned with Savages is not quite as good a book. It drags a bit when Troost is talking about Vanuatu's government, for example. But it suffers in comparison only because the author set the bar so very, very high with his first book. Getting Stoned with Savages is a funny book, and Troost's a likeable, self-deprecating, witty guide through the cultures and countries of Vanuatu and Fiji. Since I'll never be going to either country, I'm glad Troost is around to write about them for us. And I hope he winds up writing a great many more books.

Rehak, Melanie: Girl Sleuth: Nancy Drew and the Women Who Created Her

2007-01-07T14:16:00-05:00

Melanie Rehak has written a fascinating history of Nancy Drew, the preternaturally competent girl sleuth whose line of wholesome mysteries was one of some two dozen series published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate beginning in the early 20th century. Edward Stratemeyer, a prolific writer of children's literature himself--Rehak reports that he published 42 dime novels between May of 1892 and November of 1893 alone--created the Syndicate in 1905. The idea was that children's books would be written by Stratemeyer in collaboration with a number of ghostwriters and published pseudonymously. Stratemeyer provided detailed outlines and farmed the stories out to his stable of writers, and he edited the incoming manuscripts, sometimes extensively, a process meant to ensure consistency in style and plot from book to book. At the same time, the publication of the books under pseudonyms meant that the continuation of a series would not depend on the performance of any one author. Stratemeyer's creations included a great many familiar names--the Bobbsey Twins, Bomba the Jungle Boy, and of course the Hardy Boys. In 1929 he interested his publisher, Grosset & Dunlap, in a new series of mysteries aimed at girls, and he assigned the first Nancy Drew books to Mildred Augustine Wirt, the first of two strong-willed women who would be inextricably linked with the girl detective. Stratemeyer did not live to see the meteoric success of his creation. He died in 1930, after which the Syndicate was run by his two daughters, Harriet and Edna, but primarily by the former. Harriet would control the Syndicate and its creations up until her death in 1982.

She came, in fact, to claim to be Carolyn Keene herself--the pseudonymous author of the Nancy Drew books--giving no credit to Mildred Wirt, who wrote 23 of the first 30 books in the series (as well as many other books for the Syndicate).Rehak tells the story of Nancy Drew against a backdrop of 20th century history, describing how Nancy changed with the times--her fashion and lingo receiving occasional updates, for example, and the whole series undergoing an overhaul in the late sixties, in part to purge it of racist language. (The Nancy you grew up with, that is, may not have been the one your mother knew.) Rehak brings the story right up to the present: Simon & Schuster, which purchased the Syndicate after Harriet Stratemeyer's death, recently released a new series of Nancy Drew books in celebration of her 75th birthday. Much of Rehak's book is focused on the sometimes contentious relationship between Harriet Stratemeyer and Mildred Wirt. The Stratemeyer Syndicate was jealous of its properties, and Harriet in particular was a fierce guardian of the secrets behind the books' authorship. She came, in fact, to claim to be Carolyn Keene herself--the pseudonymous author of the Nancy Drew books--giving no credit to Mildred Wirt, who wrote 23 of the first 30 books in the series (as well as many other books for the Syndicate). The uneasy relationship between the two women makes Rehak's book that much more compelling.

Rehak's book is clearly the product of a great deal of research, and it is smoothly written. The story behind Nancy Drew's authorship is a complicated one, made so in part by Harriet Stratemeyer's deliberate obfuscation of the truth over the years, but Rehak has done a good job of unknotting the girl detective's messy history. I enjoyed in particular the details included on the inner workings of the Syndicate and would have liked to know even more about the collaborative process, if possible--an example of the synopses the Syndicate supplied its authors with would have made interesting reading, for example. The book might also have been improved by the inclusion of a complete list of Nancy Drew books, with publication year, author, publishing history, etc. My only complaint about the book is that Rehak sometimes goes into more detail than is necessary about tangential subjects. We learn, for example, not only about Harriet Stratemeyer's preparations for entering Wellesley College--a campus visit in 1910, entrance exams--but also about the founding of the institution by Henry Durant in 1875.

But Girl Sleuth tells a story that should interest anyone who grew up on any of the Stratemeyer staples--Nancy Drew or Frank and Joe Hardy or any of their counterparts. Certainly reading the series' back story made me interested in digging up some Nancy Drews myself.

Winspear, Jacqueline: Pardonable Lies

2006-12-24T14:14:00-05:00

Pardonable Lies is the third installment in Jacqueline Winspear's series of historical mysteries featuring Maisie Dobbs, Psychologist and Investigator. (Read my review of Maisie Dobbs, the first book in the series.) This outing finds Maisie juggling three cases. The first and least demanding of her attention involves a fourteen-year-old girl who's been charged with murder. More interesting, and more dangerous for Maisie, are the two cases that require her to confront her ghosts. Both an old friend and a prominent barrister charge Maisie with investigating the fate of their loved ones, a brother and son respectively, who were listed among the dead of the Great War. What happened to the men in fact proves to be more interesting than anything that was reported to their families by telegram. Looking into their deaths brings Maisie back to France, which in 1930 hardly resembles the shell-shocked landscape she knew during the War, when she'd served, and nearly died, working as a nurse at a casualty clearing station.

What happened to the men in fact proves to be more interesting than anything that was reported to their families by telegram.Pardonable Lies is well written and nicely plotted and steeped in period detail. The Maisie Dobbs books are cozies, which is to say that they are gentle reads, no wallowing in the gory specifics of blood and guts. But Pardonable Lies is not a light book, exactly. Maisie is indeed haunted by her experiences in the War, as are the people she is in daily contact with. The aftershocks of a war that claimed so many lives and ripped Europe apart are felt everywhere and provide the series with an affecting backdrop. And there are occasional references in this third book to the political goings-on in Germany, the emergence of Hitler and the growing influence of the Nazi party, which remind the reader--if we'd needed the reminder--that Maisie's world is a precarious place, destined soon enough for a second terrible war. Maisie doesn't know this yet, of course, and her ignorance--the ignorance of all of Winspear's characters--adds to the book's poignancy.

As we learned in the first Maisie Dobbs mystery (I have not yet read the second), Maisie was trained in a sort of holistic detection by an enigmatic wise man, Maurice Blanche. We learn more about Maurice's history in this installment, as Maisie's investigations lead to some trouble with her mentor. Among Maisie's skills are her ability to sense an interlocutor's emotional state by adopting his or her posture--something I find a little hard to swallow but which isn't made too much of in Pardonable Lies. We also learn here that Maisie has the ability to sense the presence of spirits. We are told, in fact, that Maisie is attended by two spirits herself. Readers may find the supernatural elements in the book off-putting, but again, these are not emphasized and are not essential to the plot. My qualms about the intrusion of the supernatural into Maisie's story aside, I quite enjoyed Pardonable Lies. It won't keep you up late reading, but it's a solid, enjoyable historical.

Shachtman, Tom: Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish

2006-12-10T14:13:00-05:00

When they turn 16, children who have been raised among the Old Order Amish experience a curious coming-of-age ritual, the rumspringa--or "running around"--a period during which they are given license to experience the conveniences and temptations, previously forbidden them, of mainstream, "English" society. Amish youth in rumspringa can dress like their mainstream contemporaries, and they can drink and smoke and date and party, and some of them engage in such behaviors with dangerous abandon. Some of the rumspringa parties attended by Amish youth differ little from those thrown by non-Amish teenagers: sex and drugs and rock and rap, vomiting and sleeping in, unplanned pregnancies. The Amish, that is--and this is something I would never have dreamt I could say prior to reading this book--are, some of them, too wild for this reviewer. Other Amish youth, perhaps most, are more restrained in their rumspringa explorations, confining their wild behavior to attendance at parent-approved events.

The Amish, that is--and this is something I would never have dreamt I could say prior to reading this book--are, some of them, too wild for this reviewer.The rumspringa period is intended to give the young Amish some experience of mainstream culture so that they can make informed decisions, when the time comes, about whether or not to join the Amish church as adults. The period ends, ideally, when a young adult in rumspringa decides to be baptized into the church, which implies refraining thenceforth from the illicit behaviors they were allowed briefly to experience. Some 80% of Amish youth do, in fact, return to the fold.

Tom Shachtman's Rumspringa is the product of more than 400 hours of interviews conducted between 1999 and 2004. Shachtman focuses on the period of rumspringa, but in fact his book serves as an introduction to Amish life as a whole. Each of the author's 11 chapters centers on some aspect of Amish life--education (most Amish aren't educated beyond the 8th grade), farming, punishment by shunning, the role of women in Amish society. Shachtman profiles a great number of individual Amish of varying ages, returning to his subjects' stories throughout the book as anecdotes from their lives become pertinent to his current theme. Shachtman seamlessly integrates direct quotes and information gleaned from the interviews into his narrative. And in fact Shachtman writes very well throughout the book. His prose is clear and admirably precise.

Shachtman's book is also fascinating, at least to this reader, who was previously largely unfamiliar with the particulars of Amish culture. I cannot know how a reader raised in the Amish faith would respond to the book, but Shachtman's study seemed to me a very thoughtful and fair-minded exploration of the society. The author finds value in much of what Amish culture has to offer--the Amish work ethic, for example, dependable community support, their care of the elderly and infirm--while finding fault with other aspects, for example, their abbreviated educational system. Shachtman concludes with a chapter considering why so high a percentage of youths in rumspringa eventually join the church. What is the allure of life in Amish society, considering that the price of belonging, the renunciation of much of one's independence, is so high? It is a very interesting discussion.

Harris, Bob: Prisoner of Trebekistan

2006-11-26T15:13:00-05:00

Bob Harris, a one-time "B-minus-list comedian" turned five-time Jeopardy champion, has written a memoir centered around his experiences as a contestant on the show. His Prisoner of Trebekistan--a title hearing which Alex Trebek is said to have "smiled inscrutably"--is everything you'd hope for in a comedian's Jeopardy memoir. Harris proves to be an affable, goofily amusing escort through the various stages of Jeopardy playerdom, from the tests administered to would-be contestants through the mind games played backstage in the green room to chats with Alex mid-game. Having lived it, Harris is able to describe the life of a Jeopardy contestant in training. The regimen of study he adopted makes for fascinating reading: notebooks filled with information to be absorbed (lists of presidents and Shakespearian plays and European rivers), innumerable cartoons, very often buttock-related, drawn as mnemonic aids; Harris's lifestyle and living room rearranged to facilitate his "state-dependent retrieval" of information once on stage. (Which means that he ate green-room-style food for months and moved his furniture around so it resembled the Jeopardy set.)

The regimen of study he adopted makes for fascinating reading: notebooks filled with information to be absorbed (lists of presidents and Shakespearian plays and European rivers), innumerable cartoons, very often buttock-related, drawn as mnemonic aids; Harris's lifestyle and living room rearranged to facilitate his "state-dependent retrieval" of information once on stage.Harris is fascinating too when he analyzes Jeopardy play. He explains, for example, that the typeface the show uses determines a question's maximum length--just over 100 characters into which "they have to squeeze enough data to limit all possible responses to one, usually include a clear hint of some kind, and if possible even cram in a small dollop of humor." Elsewhere he writes about the speed of game play:

"[T]he total time of an actual sixty-clue Jeopardy game (leaving aside the thirty-second fever dream of--p-TING!--Final Jeopardy): just under thirteen minutes. Sixty twelve-second cycles slowed only slightly by three Daily Doubles. As the game flies along, your total time-to-think period, as Alex reads each clue aloud: usually between two and seven seconds, followed by the wait-wait-now spasm of thumby buzzer-whacking. Twelve seconds, again. Twelve seconds, again."

Harris walks readers through his own Jeopardy appearances, explaining his thought processes and the difficulties posed by the game: knowing the right answer, it turns out, is often the least of one's worries.

Harris also teaches readers something of what he knows about memory techniques. Suffice it to say that by the end of chapter nine, with virtually no work on your part, you'll be able to reel off the titles of E.M. Forster's six novels and the names of all seven U.N. Secretaries-General.

But perhaps a humorous romp through mnemonic techniques is also to be expected from a Jeopardy champion's Jeopardy-centric book. What you probably won't have expected to stumble on in Prisoner of Trebekistan is a compelling, even wise account of the author's life, moving portraits of his family, failed relationships, chronic disease and cancer wrapped around Jeopardy tournaments and memory games, the manifold strands of Harris's account deftly woven together. Harris is surprisingly insightful, introspective and likeable and sweet. In the end he finds, to his surprise, great joy inherent in small, familiar things, his Jeopardy-wrought education having changed his perspective in unanticipated ways:

"Squirrels were cavorting with glee back and forth, their tails flicking and curling as if just for show. The word squirrel comes from the Greek for "shadowtail," skia oura, which descends to our very own word.

Wait, I thought. Hold on. I'd seen Mom's backyard before, once or twice. Was the connection to classical Greece always here? This seemed new."

I came to Harris's book at perhaps a disadvantage, not having seen his Jeopardy run on TV. Other readers may already be familiar with him and the great many players he mentions by name in his story. It would have been a big plus if the book had been packaged with a DVD of Harris's appearances on the show. This would not only get people like me up to speed on Harris's play, but would be interesting even for readers who never miss an episode to watch given the author's play-by-play discussion of the games.

The only substantial complaint I have about Prisoner of Trebekistan is that it goes on too long. Near the end of the book Harris details his post-Jeopardy wanderings, informed as they were by his new-found appreciation of things historical. I'm happy for his happiness, but I don't want to read about it: I would in fact omit the whole of chapter twenty-three and tighten up the last several chapters for a crisper ending that would leave readers wanting more. That said, make sure you do read Harris's index, as he clearly had fun drawing it up. Here's a sample entry:

Mosquitoes, size of lawn darts, 18; bird-eating, 61; fighting with bare hands, 62; unlike any I remembered, 208

And don't miss the Merv Griffin and Alex Trebek entries while you're back there.