Books read:
- David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
- Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
- The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler
- Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden
Trails walked:
- Upper Pine Canyon Trail near Payson (May 1st)
- Haunted Canyon Trail to Tony Cabin in the
eastern Superstitions (May 10th)
- Warpaint/Old Man/Mid-Life Crisis/National/Corona
de Loma loop in South Mountain in Phoenix (May 17th)
- Dutchman/Bull Pass/Boulder Canyon/Second Water
loop in the western Superstitions (May 20th)
- West Baldy Trail near Greer (May 25th)
Song of the month:
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| Four Peaks from the Second Water trail |
In the case of good books, the point is not how many of them you can get through, but rather how many can get through to you. -Mortimer J. Adler, philosopher, educator, and author (28 Dec 1902-2001)
In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they're still beautiful. - Alice Walker
The month of May is to the desert, what the month of November is to
colder climes. You start girding
yourself for the next 3 miserable months of weather to come. But this May has been surprising. In April and May of last year we had 12 days
of 100-degree weather, but so far this year only 2 days barely hit 100. And there have been several days where the
high didn’t get out of the 80s! This is
good news for everyone in the desert that doesn’t own an air conditioning
repair shop. For me it means much lower
electric bills and less travel time to get to great hikes. May is also when the Palo Verde trees are in
full yellow bloom everywhere. It is the
state tree of Arizona and did you know that both the seed pods and flowers are
edible? You can sprinkle the flowers on
your salad and eat the pods like edamame. So just as
the desert wildflowers are dying out, the Palo Verde trees and many cactus
start blooming to keep the desert colorful through May and into June. Speaking of Palo Verde, I was fortunate enough this month to attend a tour of the Palo Verde nuclear power plant west of Phoenix. It's the most powerful nuclear power plant in the US, provides power to nearly 4 million people, and is the only nuclear power plant in the world not located next to a large body of water. The engineers providing the tour were intelligent and very excited about their jobs and nuclear technology. We were able to ask any questions, so I asked about the nuclear waste issue, which is one of the main concerns about this technology. We still don't have a solution about what to do permanently with the waste so we currently contain it in cement and metal barrels on site. The eventual plan is to bury them underground at Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that has hit some political hurdles. The main talking point from the tour guides is that the waste from nuclear is much smaller than the waste from solar, coal, oil, etc. The elevator speech is that the nuclear waste from providing energy to 1 individual for their entire lifetime would fit in a coke can. Other than the waste issue, the other concern, obviously is the possibility of an accident. My wife and I have been watching the terrific HBO mini series Chernobyl which reenacts the Chernobyl nuclear plant meltdown in the Ukraine (then USSR) in 1986 (which was coincidentally the same year that Palo Verde came online). It seems that, between Chernobyl and Fukushima (the Japan nuclear power plant that was compromised during an earthquake and tsunami), the safety measures in place now would prevent any kind of accident from taking place, but nothing, it seems, is a sure thing. Of course the huge benefit of nuclear power these days, in light of climate change, is that it is very clean and emits no direct CO2. France gets 75% of their electricity from nuclear energy. The biggest problem with nuclear energy in the US these days is economic, since they get no government subsidies in the US like the petroleum and coal companies. Should this change? I don't have the answers, but it's something that should be studied.
The song of the month I’ve chosen is Lucinda Williams’ “Jackson.” It’s from her masterpiece of an album Car
Wheels on a Gravel Road which won a Grammy for best folk album in 1999. Every song on that album is great, but this
song stays with me long after I hear it.
It’s part breakup song, part road trip song, part emotional recovery
song. And the slide guitar is, well,
haunting, beautiful, and perfectly placed.
Rumor was that she initially intended for Emmylou Harris to provide
background harmony for the song, but in the end, she felt a male harmony was
needed so she chose Jim Lauderdale…and Emmylou has teasingly never forgiven her
because it’s such a great song...and well, Emmylou Harris is probably the greatest harmony vocalist alive. Williams has had fairly good commercial success
in her career, but I believe she is still under appreciated and under
recognized. This is probably because she's so hard to categorize; is she country, cajun, rock, folk, blues? Well, yes. Two of her following albums
“Essence” and “West” are also incredible. Vanity Fair said of her album West: "Lucinda
Williams has made the record of a lifetime—part Hank Williams, part Bob Dylan,
part Keith Richards circa Exile on Main St. ..." My wife and I saw her in concert a couple of
years ago and she was terrific at 64 years old, still telling stories and
playing a mean Gibson guitar.
The first hike of May took place on the first day of May
this year. Last month I had hiked the
lower portion of the Pine Canyon trail, which was nice, but not spectacular in
any way. However, the Upper Pine Canyon trail is spectacular
and beautiful. Hiking Buddy (HB) and I
drove up I-17, then east on AZ260 which climbs 4,000 feet in 30 miles between
Camp Verde and its intersection with AZ87 (aka the Beeline highway). The hike starts at a dirt road turnoff which
is exactly 1.2 miles north of AZ260, on the right (east) side of AZ87 (this is
important because Google Maps does NOT know this location). The unofficial name of the trailhead here is
the Cinch Hook trailhead, named after the Cinch Hook snow play area, just down
the road, which is named after a buckle used to tighten horse saddles (is this too much useless information? Tell me). Once you turn off here, you must open a gate,
drive through it, then close the gate, then drive a few hundred feet until you see a sign for the trail and
park here. The sign says it’s 8 miles to
the lower Pine Canyon trailhead, but this is way off. It’s closer to 11 miles since they’ve
realigned the trails near Pine. Our plan
for the day was to hike around 3.5 miles down to the Bearfoot bridge (Bear Footbridge? Barefoot bridge? Bare Footbridge?....so many possibilities), have
lunch, then climb back up. It’s about a
third of a mile from the car to the edge of the rim where there is a terrific
camp spot with great views of Pine Canyon and beyond. Nearly any viewpoint on
the Mogollon rim is spectacular and you can access many of them along Forest
Road 300 which is a good dirt road that contours along the rim from AZ87 to
Woods Canyon Lake. FR300 is one of the
most scenic drives in Arizona and I highly recommend it. Once at the edge of the rim, after taking
some photos, we headed down, down, down to Pine Canyon in 1,000 feet and 1
mile. Once in Pine Canyon, the trail was
very easy and shady, and at about 2 miles we met up with Pine Creek which we
followed down to the footbridge. This section of the hike is magical with the
sound of the creek, the huge ponderosa trees, junipers, oak trees, and many
others. At Parsnip spring, the water
flowed for a hundred yards down to Pine creek and was covered with what I
suppose was parsnip but looked like clover leaves. It looked like a river of clover. We spotted a deer bounding across the trail
near the bridge; I love watching these animals run through the forest…so
graceful. There were several signs
pointing to such places as Darling Rocks, Temple Canyon, and Tiny Cave. We didn’t take any of these diversions on
this trip…maybe next time. We ate lunch
near the bridge, with the sound of the creek for our background music; wandered
around this area a bit and then headed back up the rim. That last mile is a lung burner!
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Taking in the views from the rim
|
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| Heading down down down |
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| River of Parsnip (clover?) |
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| Footbridge was today's destination |
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| Natural Arch? |
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| Tree Huggers |
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| Walkin' Tree |
David Copperfield
was Charles Dickens' favorite
novel. It was, to some extent, an
autobiographical novel and Dickens admitted that much when he said it was
"a very complicated weaving of truth and invention" (he would have made a great politician). Written in 1850, it was smack in the middle
of Dickens' career when he was 38 years old; written after Oliver Twist and A
Christmas Carol, but before Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Like many great novels of the time, it
originated as a series of monthly magazine installments from 1849 through 1850. This is an epic novel, coming in at just
under 900 pages. For the most part, it
was easy reading, although there were a few sections which were hard to
follow, mainly due to the language usage of the time. It's a great coming of age story (I think
they call this bildungsroman in the literary circles where I don't reside) and
beautifully portrays the many ways in which a person changes as they grow,
learn, and mature (well, at least most people learn and mature...certainly not
all...). Like all Dickens' novels, the
characters are memorable and perfectly written.
There's the cunning meanness of
Uriah Heep (yes the 70s band was named after him); the tough and eccentric Aunt
Betsey Trotwood; the forever down on his luck but ever optimistic Mr. Macawber;
the stoic fisherman Mr. Peggotty; the strict and evil Murdstone brother and
sister; the never ending kindness and
unrequited love of Agnes; and so many more.
It takes 900 pages to truly develop so many different characters to such
a degree, and then to tell a great story which intertwines all their lives over
a period of 30 years. I loved the
portrayal of how David fell in love with various women at a young age,
especially with Dora, whom he adored, even though nearly all his friends knew she was
not right for him (it took him a few years to figure this out; like it does
with so many who fall in love at a young age).
Dickens was socially active in his life and helped improve the lives of
children and women in Victorian England.
Like many of his novels, David Copperfield reveals the difficulties
encountered by both. He depicts the
difficulties of child labor and being sent off to boarding school at a young
age; and portrays the plight of so-called 'fallen women', and prostitutes, as
well as society's attitude towards these women and towards married women
and their "place" in society.
Many consider this to be Dickens' masterpiece and it's hard to argue
with that, especially since, so far, I've only read 3 other novels he's written. I would put it right up there with Great
Expectations.
Happily, the weather this May has been slow to heat up, so
HB and I picked an unseasonably cool day to get in another hike to the remote eastern Superstitions. We chose the Haunted Canyon trail to Tony Cabin.
Tony Cabin was built in 1919 by homesteader William Tony. He eventually sold the property in 1924 to
George Taylor who died in 1949 and left it to his heirs. The inconsistent water supply and abundance
of bears and mountain lions made ranching too much of a risk, so the property
went idle for years until the Superstition Area Land Trust (SALT) bought it in
2008 in order to preserve it and maintain the riparian area, especially in
light of increased commercial mining in the area. William Tony sure chose a wonderful place to
build his cabin. The surrounding meadow
is beautiful and peaceful, with nice mountain views, and a small stream and
spring. The drive to the Haunted Canyon
trailhead starts just before the mining town of Miami-Globe on Pinto Valley Mine road
off US60. The scenery on the drive is not so
beautiful as it takes you through the commercial strip mines dotting the
area. Once again, the Google map lady
was a bit confused because mining operations change the configuration of the
roads as required, but by following the signs for Forest Road 287, you
eventually get to a T junction at around 7 miles from US60. At this T junction, you turn left to reach
the trailhead (turning right at the junction would take
you across the bridge and then eventually on to the Miles Ranch trailhead
described in the April 2019 blog). The
first 1.5 miles of the trail are along a closed dirt road which follows a creek
where we encountered around 4 or 5 water pumping stations, owned by the commercial
mines. Then the road ends and you head
up the Haunted Canyon trail #203. The
trail starts off skirting away from the creek to avoid a narrow section of the
canyon (which might be interesting to explore some day). Then it drops back into the
creek bed and the remaining walk is riparian heaven. Dense vegetation, tall shady trees, and the
sound of the creek make this hike truly enjoyable. We can attest to the abundance of wildlife as
HB spotted a black bear around 20 yards away (it took off into the brush as
soon as it saw us). In addition to the
many lizards and birds we always see on Arizona hikes, we also spotted some deer,
a snake (not a rattler), and then we saw something that seemed to not know if
it was a snake or a lizard…maybe a skink?
We ate lunch at the cabin which was a perfect setting. There’s a visitor’s journal in the cabin and
so we recorded our names and read through some of the entries…a few scout
troops (the kids’ comments are hilarious), and visitors from as far away as
Taiwan and Canada. Once rested up, we
headed back the 6 miles to the trailhead.
Another beautiful and perfect day in Arizona.
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| Water flowing in Pinto Creek |
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| One of several water pumping stations along the first 1.5 miles |
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| The beautiful meadow where Tony cabin is located |
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| Tony Cabin - a great lunch spot |
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| Angry Tree |
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| Banana Yucca |
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| Trail art |
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| Pinto Creek |
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| Shadow Hikers |
Breathing Lessons by
Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer prize in 1989 and was Time magazine's book of
the year. So why had I not heard of
Anne Tyler before? Probably, because in
1989 we had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old and life was a sleepless blur of diapers and
bottles. It was only after reading Nick
Hornby's "Ten Years in the Tub" that I found her. Here's what he said about her (among other
glowing things): "Anne Tyler changed my life. Before I started reading her
books, back in the 1980s, I had no idea that novelists were allowed to do what
she did, and still does, namely, write with simplicity, intelligence, humor,
and heart about domestic life....I realized that she had been given permission
because she's a genius..."
Breathing Lessons tells the story of Ira and Maggie (married nearly 30 years)
during a 24-hour period in which they drive from their home in Baltimore to a small town in
Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of the husband of Maggie's best friend. By the end of that 24 hours and 300 or so
pages, you feel like you've lived with Ira and Maggie their whole lives. The funeral turns into part high school
reunion and part reenactment of her friend's wedding which helps the reader
understand the younger Ira and Maggie when they were falling in love. Maggie is this beautifully complicated woman
whom Ira describes in the novel this way: "It's Maggie's weakness. She
believes it's all right to alter people's lives. She thinks the people she
loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things
around to suit her point of view of them."
Of course, Ira is quite the opposite and the back and forth symphony
between them is both beautiful and heart breaking. At times Ira seems like a jerk, raining on
her optimistic parade, and then you read about something incredibly loving and
heroic that he did for her and you fully understand why they are still
together, even with all their faults. After
the funeral, Ira and Maggie stop by to visit Fiona (their son's ex-wife) and
their granddaughter and try to convince them to come stay with them for a
weekend. Maggie is convinced that Fiona
and their son still love each other and is secretly plotting to get them back
together, which does not end well. It's
so difficult to fully describe her writing, but, for me, it seems to place me
in the same location as the characters, almost like I'm sitting in the car or
room with them, watching everything unfurl.
Some people read books to learn, some read books to escape and enjoy the
plot, some read books for the beauty of the writing. Breathing Lessons is a book for all those
readers.
The weather, as we’ve reached mid-May continues to be
unseasonably cool, so HB and I decided to stay home and do a local desert
hike. We created a 9-mile loop from the Warpaint, Old Man, Mid-Life Crisis,
National, and Corona de Loma trails in the southeast section of South Mountain. The 16,000-acre South Mountain Park is one of
the largest city parks in the country.
With 3 mountain ranges and 51 miles of trails, it’s a great local
resource for hiking, horseback riding, and mountain biking. When you look at South Mountain from afar,
with its looming radio towers, it seems barren and ugly. However, on the ground, it offers some
surprisingly nice scenery, interesting rock formations, great views, and some
Hohokam petroglyphs. We started at the
Corona de Loma trailhead which is really just some parallel parking on Warpaint
drive in Ahwatukee, north of Ray road.
The first half mile or so follows the Warpaint trail, then follows a dry
wash where it meets with the very steep and rocky Old Man trail which climbs
1,000 feet in a mile to meet up with the Mid-Life Crisis trail. My theory about how that trail got its name
is as follows: Some old man got hurt on
this trail, and when he got home, his wife said, “What are you trying to
prove? Are you having a mid-life crisis or
something!” Well, it’s understandable,
because this trail does have some adventure in it. It requires you to navigate through several
boulder piles and includes a bit of scrambling around to find the trail and
avoid getting ledged out. And to top
things off, you need to hike off-trail for a quarter mile or so to meet up with
the National trail in order to make this a loop back. The National trail is like a superhighway of
trails. It’s very popular with Mountain
Bikers as it traverses the spine of the mountain for 14 miles. We were only on it for around 2 miles until
the Buena Vista road terminus where it connected to the Corona de Loma trail
for the hike back down to the car. The
Corona de Loma trail has a much easier gradient than the Old Man trail, and
it’s much less rocky. One of the nice
benefits of being able to do a desert hike in mid-May is that you get to see
some Saguaro cactus blooms! This is the
state flower of Arizona and is pretty interesting. Each flower blooms for only a 24-hour period,
and during this time they are pollinated by bats at night and birds and bees
during the day. They bloom on the very
tips of the saguaro, reaching as high as they can to attract pollinators. The barrel cactus were also blooming which
provided some additional color to the walk.
One other interesting tidbit about South Mountain is that there used to
be a Speakeasy hidden near the southwest section of the park during the
Prohibition era. You can see the remains
from either the Pyramid or Bursera trails.
We ran into quite a lot of people on this hike, especially on the
National trail where we had a nice visit with 3 young people who were
staying at a local hostel; one was from New Zealand, one from Germany, and one
from China. So, I guess the trail should
now be named the International
trail….
The Accidental
Tourist by Anne Tyler won the National Book Critics Award in 1985 and was a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And as
great as Breathing Lessons was, this was, for me, even better. I haven't seen the movie, which was highly
regarded but there is no possible way that the movie can come close to
revealing the characters as they are portrayed in this book. Muriel Pritchett is now one of the most
endearing and great characters I've EVER read.
Maybe I loved this book so much because of the huge variation in
personality traits between the protagonist (Macon Leary) and Muriel Pritchett,
and because of how much it was reminiscent of me and my wife. Not that we are exactly those characters, but
I certainly lean towards passiveness, rule following, and being organized and
prepared; while my wife is certainly more spontaneous, gregarious, creative,
and believes that it will somehow all work out in the end. In the novel, Macon is married to Sarah and
you find very early on that they've lost their 12-year-old son in a violent
shooting. They separate, and Macon moves
in with his sister and 2 brothers who all live in their grandparents' home
because, basically only they are able to put up with each other, no one else
really can. They are ultra-organized,
emotionally detached, and mechanically inclined. During this time Macon meets Muriel who ends
up training his unruly dog, and in time, training Macon to live a bigger life,
no longer insulated by his siblings and their house. Muriel's zest for life in the face of so many
challenges is a joy to read. She lives
in a poor Baltimore neighborhood, raising a sickly son, managing several low
paying jobs, and helping all her neighbors and family in so many ways that she
is a life force to behold. The title is
taken from the travel guidebooks for businessmen that Macon writes for his
boss, Julian, who also plays an interesting part in the book. Eventually Macon's estranged wife, Sarah,
finds out about Muriel and decides that a reconciliation of their marriage is
in order. So, Macon has this choice to make,
which is beautifully resolved during the last chapter which is set in Paris and
is so brilliant that I found myself gasping out loud as I was reading. What an author!
The month of May continues to be surprisingly cool, so I was
able to get in a western Superstitions hike during a visit from our daughter. So, she and I (along with her dog) set out
for the First Water Trailhead, which is at the end of a 3-mile, good dirt road off
AZ88, also known as the Apache Trail. As
part of the National Reclamation Act of 1902, it was decided to dam the Salt
River in order to provide a more reliable source of water to the Phoenix area. To build this dam, which would eventually
hold Roosevelt Lake (named after Teddy Roosevelt who enacted the Reclamation Act),
a road was dug out of an ancient Native American footpath used by Anasazi, Hohokam,
and Apache tribes to trade and to move livestock from summer to winter feeding
grounds. The road runs around 40 miles
from Apache Junction to the dam at Roosevelt Lake. From the First Water Trailhead, we made a 15-mile
loop combining the Dutchman/Bull Pass/Boulder
Canyon/Second Water trails. I had already
walked most of this loop except for the southern part of Boulder Canyon and the
eastern section of Second Water. So, it
was nice to have those trails completed.
I wanted to show my daughter the spectacular view from the top of Black
Top Mesa and she was not disappointed. We
were also able to find a few of the Spanish petroglyphs along the edge of the mesa
(see my February 2019 blog for more info on this mesa). After enjoying the views and searching for petroglyphs, we headed north up Boulder Canyon where it started to rain, with thunder
and lightning. Luckily, we were well prepared
with rain gear and enjoyed the sound of thunder echoing across the canyon as we
wound our way back and forth across the wash.
The rain stopped just as we started ascending the Second Water trail up
to Garden Valley. We stopped to check out the ruins near the
intersection of the Second Water and Black Mesa trails. Lots of pottery sherds and an arrowhead were
gathered on some rocks and were interesting to hold and ponder about before we
left them right where we found them. The
walk through Garden Valley was beautiful, as the sun was trying to poke its way
out of the clouds. A great day in the
desert with my daughter....and her dog.
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| Daughter and dog on Dutchman trail towards Weaver's Needle |
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| Daughter and dad....that hat is nearly as pointy as Weaver's needle.... |
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| Searching for petroglyphs with great views |
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| Prickly Pear blooms along Boulder Canyon |
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| Cholla Cactus blooms in Boulder Canyon |
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| Stormy weather looming |
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| Garden Valley after the rain |
Escape from Camp 14 by
Blaine Harden tells the harrowing true story of Shin Dong-hyuk’s remarkable
life. He was born in a North Korean
labor camp to 2 political prisoners. There
had only been 2 or 3 known escapes from North Korea’s labor camps and none from
Camp 14. But after living his first 23 years
in prison, Shin managed to do it with the help of a man who taught Shin about
life outside the only place he’d ever known.
This man ended up paying the ultimate price for helping Shin. The brutality of this camp is frightening. In many ways worse than the Japanese and
German prisons during World War II (those lasted 5 or so years, whereas camp
14 had been in place nearly 50 years). I
won’t go into the details of this brutality because it’s so disturbing, but suffice
it to say that after his escape, Shin went through many years of Post-Traumatic
Stress Syndrome. It was fascinating to get
this perspective of someone who had never known of any life outside of a
prison. And in this prison, family
members are encouraged to inform on each other so there seems to be no place
for any kind of love or caring of other human beings. In fact, he was basically
living like an animal for 23 years. He
escaped in early 2005 which turned out to be fortuitous timing for him. This was after the famine of the 1990s and
the governments of China and North Korea were somewhat lax about border
crossings during this time due to the need for traders to go back and forth to
bring food and consumer products. An
interesting side note is that one consequence of the Soviet collapse in
1989 was the stoppage of Soviet financial and agricultural support to North
Korea, which was partially the cause of the famine. Shin’s story is so unbelievable that it had
to be vetted by many people, including other escapees, former guards, and
humanitarian organizations familiar with these labor camps. The book was published in 2012, and in 2015
Shin informed the author that he had made up portions of his story. The author published an updated version with
this information. The major difference was
that Shin spent some of his younger years in a different and less strict camp rather than his entire life in Camp 14; however the basic idea of his life and the story in the book remain the
same.
Over Memorial Day weekend, we rented a large cabin in Pinetop, Arizona and stayed with several family members for a great weekend of hiking, fishing, eating
and more eating. On Saturday, my son organized
a hike up the West Baldy trail near
Greer for 5 of us, including his wife, my sister-in-law, and one of my
nephews. It was a beautiful sunny day, with
a bit of wind. The trail to the Mount Baldy
summit is 6-7 miles depending on where you start, but after 4 miles we got blocked
by several feet of snow on the trail which we were not prepared for. So, we dropped our day packs and ate some
snacks near a beautiful stream, surrounded by snow. Mount Baldy contains the headwaters for the
Little Colorado River (which ends up in the Grand Canyon) and the Salt River
(which provides water for the Phoenix valley). The summit is sacred Apache grounds and is off
limits to non-tribal members without a special permit. So, the trail ends on top of a ridge where the
West Baldy trail meets the East Baldy trail. We started the hike at the Little
Colorado parking area which has room for around 10 cars. The official trailhead with much more parking
is a bit further north on AZ273, but parking at the official trailhead also
adds more distance to the hike and a couple hundred more feet of climbing. The first 2-3 miles along the west fork of
the Little Colorado river is a beautiful walk through green alpine meadows with
the river meandering through it. This is the busiest stretch of the trail and we met several large families in this area backpacking and camping. It was refreshing to see so many children in one place not glued to their cellphones; and none of them looked bored! We started gradually climbing through a thick forest of ponderosa, fir, aspen, and spruce trees. It soon turns into an obstacle course of huge downed trees from the 2002/2003 bark beetle scourge which killed many trees in Arizona. Just after this area is where we had to end our hike due to snow cover on the steep trail and no snow shoes or crampons. It's always great to be hiking in the beautiful outdoors, but when it's with your son, his wife, aunt, and cousin, it just makes it that more special.
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| Alpine meadows along the Little Colorado...and a happy dog |
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| More meadows with snow among the pines |
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| Our group headed towards Mt. Baldy |
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| Here's where we stopped due to excess snow on the trail...great lunch spot though! |
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| Headed back to the car |
Until next month...happy reading and rambling!
David Copperfield
was Charles Dickens' favorite
novel. It was, to some extent, an
autobiographical novel and Dickens admitted that much when he said it was
"a very complicated weaving of truth and invention" (he would have made a great politician). Written in 1850, it was smack in the middle
of Dickens' career when he was 38 years old; written after Oliver Twist and A
Christmas Carol, but before Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Like many great novels of the time, it
originated as a series of monthly magazine installments from 1849 through 1850. This is an epic novel, coming in at just
under 900 pages. For the most part, it
was easy reading, although there were a few sections which were hard to
follow, mainly due to the language usage of the time. It's a great coming of age story (I think
they call this bildungsroman in the literary circles where I don't reside) and
beautifully portrays the many ways in which a person changes as they grow,
learn, and mature (well, at least most people learn and mature...certainly not
all...). Like all Dickens' novels, the
characters are memorable and perfectly written.
There's the cunning meanness of
Uriah Heep (yes the 70s band was named after him); the tough and eccentric Aunt
Betsey Trotwood; the forever down on his luck but ever optimistic Mr. Macawber;
the stoic fisherman Mr. Peggotty; the strict and evil Murdstone brother and
sister; the never ending kindness and
unrequited love of Agnes; and so many more.
It takes 900 pages to truly develop so many different characters to such
a degree, and then to tell a great story which intertwines all their lives over
a period of 30 years. I loved the
portrayal of how David fell in love with various women at a young age,
especially with Dora, whom he adored, even though nearly all his friends knew she was
not right for him (it took him a few years to figure this out; like it does
with so many who fall in love at a young age).
Dickens was socially active in his life and helped improve the lives of
children and women in Victorian England.
Like many of his novels, David Copperfield reveals the difficulties
encountered by both. He depicts the
difficulties of child labor and being sent off to boarding school at a young
age; and portrays the plight of so-called 'fallen women', and prostitutes, as
well as society's attitude towards these women and towards married women
and their "place" in society.
Many consider this to be Dickens' masterpiece and it's hard to argue
with that, especially since, so far, I've only read 3 other novels he's written. I would put it right up there with Great
Expectations. 
Breathing Lessons by
Anne Tyler won the Pulitzer prize in 1989 and was Time magazine's book of
the year. So why had I not heard of
Anne Tyler before? Probably, because in
1989 we had a 3-year-old and a 1-year-old and life was a sleepless blur of diapers and
bottles. It was only after reading Nick
Hornby's "Ten Years in the Tub" that I found her. Here's what he said about her (among other
glowing things): "Anne Tyler changed my life. Before I started reading her
books, back in the 1980s, I had no idea that novelists were allowed to do what
she did, and still does, namely, write with simplicity, intelligence, humor,
and heart about domestic life....I realized that she had been given permission
because she's a genius..."
Breathing Lessons tells the story of Ira and Maggie (married nearly 30 years)
during a 24-hour period in which they drive from their home in Baltimore to a small town in
Pennsylvania to attend the funeral of the husband of Maggie's best friend. By the end of that 24 hours and 300 or so
pages, you feel like you've lived with Ira and Maggie their whole lives. The funeral turns into part high school
reunion and part reenactment of her friend's wedding which helps the reader
understand the younger Ira and Maggie when they were falling in love. Maggie is this beautifully complicated woman
whom Ira describes in the novel this way: "It's Maggie's weakness. She
believes it's all right to alter people's lives. She thinks the people she
loves are better than they really are, and so then she starts changing things
around to suit her point of view of them."
Of course, Ira is quite the opposite and the back and forth symphony
between them is both beautiful and heart breaking. At times Ira seems like a jerk, raining on
her optimistic parade, and then you read about something incredibly loving and
heroic that he did for her and you fully understand why they are still
together, even with all their faults. After
the funeral, Ira and Maggie stop by to visit Fiona (their son's ex-wife) and
their granddaughter and try to convince them to come stay with them for a
weekend. Maggie is convinced that Fiona
and their son still love each other and is secretly plotting to get them back
together, which does not end well. It's
so difficult to fully describe her writing, but, for me, it seems to place me
in the same location as the characters, almost like I'm sitting in the car or
room with them, watching everything unfurl.
Some people read books to learn, some read books to escape and enjoy the
plot, some read books for the beauty of the writing. Breathing Lessons is a book for all those
readers. 
The Accidental
Tourist by Anne Tyler won the National Book Critics Award in 1985 and was a
finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. And as
great as Breathing Lessons was, this was, for me, even better. I haven't seen the movie, which was highly
regarded but there is no possible way that the movie can come close to
revealing the characters as they are portrayed in this book. Muriel Pritchett is now one of the most
endearing and great characters I've EVER read.
Maybe I loved this book so much because of the huge variation in
personality traits between the protagonist (Macon Leary) and Muriel Pritchett,
and because of how much it was reminiscent of me and my wife. Not that we are exactly those characters, but
I certainly lean towards passiveness, rule following, and being organized and
prepared; while my wife is certainly more spontaneous, gregarious, creative,
and believes that it will somehow all work out in the end. In the novel, Macon is married to Sarah and
you find very early on that they've lost their 12-year-old son in a violent
shooting. They separate, and Macon moves
in with his sister and 2 brothers who all live in their grandparents' home
because, basically only they are able to put up with each other, no one else
really can. They are ultra-organized,
emotionally detached, and mechanically inclined. During this time Macon meets Muriel who ends
up training his unruly dog, and in time, training Macon to live a bigger life,
no longer insulated by his siblings and their house. Muriel's zest for life in the face of so many
challenges is a joy to read. She lives
in a poor Baltimore neighborhood, raising a sickly son, managing several low
paying jobs, and helping all her neighbors and family in so many ways that she
is a life force to behold. The title is
taken from the travel guidebooks for businessmen that Macon writes for his
boss, Julian, who also plays an interesting part in the book. Eventually Macon's estranged wife, Sarah,
finds out about Muriel and decides that a reconciliation of their marriage is
in order. So, Macon has this choice to make,
which is beautifully resolved during the last chapter which is set in Paris and
is so brilliant that I found myself gasping out loud as I was reading. What an author!
Escape from Camp 14 by
Blaine Harden tells the harrowing true story of Shin Dong-hyuk’s remarkable
life. He was born in a North Korean
labor camp to 2 political prisoners. There
had only been 2 or 3 known escapes from North Korea’s labor camps and none from
Camp 14. But after living his first 23 years
in prison, Shin managed to do it with the help of a man who taught Shin about
life outside the only place he’d ever known.
This man ended up paying the ultimate price for helping Shin. The brutality of this camp is frightening. In many ways worse than the Japanese and
German prisons during World War II (those lasted 5 or so years, whereas camp
14 had been in place nearly 50 years). I
won’t go into the details of this brutality because it’s so disturbing, but suffice
it to say that after his escape, Shin went through many years of Post-Traumatic
Stress Syndrome. It was fascinating to get
this perspective of someone who had never known of any life outside of a
prison. And in this prison, family
members are encouraged to inform on each other so there seems to be no place
for any kind of love or caring of other human beings. In fact, he was basically
living like an animal for 23 years. He
escaped in early 2005 which turned out to be fortuitous timing for him. This was after the famine of the 1990s and
the governments of China and North Korea were somewhat lax about border
crossings during this time due to the need for traders to go back and forth to
bring food and consumer products. An
interesting side note is that one consequence of the Soviet collapse in
1989 was the stoppage of Soviet financial and agricultural support to North
Korea, which was partially the cause of the famine. Shin’s story is so unbelievable that it had
to be vetted by many people, including other escapees, former guards, and
humanitarian organizations familiar with these labor camps. The book was published in 2012, and in 2015
Shin informed the author that he had made up portions of his story. The author published an updated version with
this information. The major difference was
that Shin spent some of his younger years in a different and less strict camp rather than his entire life in Camp 14; however the basic idea of his life and the story in the book remain the
same. 
