March 2026
Books read:
- Indigenous Continent: The Epic Contest for North America by Pekka Hämäläinen
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel
- Flesh by David Szalay
Trails walked:
- Mount Galbraith Loop near Golden (Mar 10th)
- Grandson walks in Rocky Mountain National Park (Mar 18th)
- Little Horseshoe Loop in Rocky Mountain National Park (Mar 20th)
Song(s) of the month: Blaze Foley
- If I Could Only Fly
- Clay Pigeons
March Summary:
I have recently had the… privilege(?) of introducing myself to the Medicare world. It is not for the faint of heart. As nearly everyone would agree, the health care system in our country is broken in so many ways. There are many countries around the world where health care is not a worry at all, either financially or otherwise: you get sick, you go to a doctor, everything is paid for. No need to “choose” a plan from among hundreds of options. No need to forgo a family vacation in order to pay for premiums. Instead of going on and on about this, I decided to have an imaginary (mostly) conversation about it with a Medicare Specialist. Here’s how it went, allegedly.
A Medicare Conversation:
Medicare Specialist (MS): I hear that you are coming off group health insurance and are eligible for Medicare now. Congratulations!
Me: Thanks, I’m looking forward to the government helping me with my health care. Where do I sign up?
MS: Just go to Medicare.gov and sign up for part A and part B
Me: Cool, so that will cover all I need, right?
MS: Well, not medication, you need part D for that.
Me: OK, so part A, part B, and part D, that’s it right?
MS: Well, there are several part D plans to choose from.
Me: Which one do I pick?
MS: Enter all the prescriptions you take, and it will tell you which part D plans cover which medications and how much each costs.
Me: OK, what if my medications change during the year?
MS: Ummmm
Me: Nevermind, so once I pick a part D plan, I’m all set, right?
MS: Well, you may also want to consider a part C Advantage plan or a Medigap Supplemental plan.
Me: A what and a what?
MS: Medicare parts A and B and D don’t necessarily cover everything, and if you have a really bad health issue, you could go bankrupt with parts A, B, and D only.
Me: Bankrupt…
MS: Yeah, so most people also pick either a part C plan (in which case you may not need a part D plan), or a Medigap Supplemental plan (in which case you probably still need a part D plan).
Me: ..uh?
MS: Yeah, these are plans you pay extra for that cover what Medicare parts A and B don’t cover, like 20% copay, maximum out of pockets, etc.
Me: Wait. I have to pay more because Medicare doesn’t really cover everything?
MS: Of course! You get what you pay for!
Me: OK, so just select either part C Advantage or Medigap Supplemental, that’s it?
MS: Well, there are lots of part C plans you get to choose from, some cost more, some cost less. And for Medigap Supplemental, you get to choose from plans A, B, C, D, F, G, K, L, M, and N. Oh, and F and G also each have a high-deductible plan too! Cool huh?
Me: [shaking my head]
MS: …And for each of the lettered Medigap Supplemental plans listed above, there are several different providers to choose from, where you can pay anywhere from $50 - $500 per month, depending on what you want!
Me: Oy vay. So, how much are the part C Advantage plans then?
MS: Oh, there are lots of them, and they are generally less expensive than the Medigap Supplemental plans!
Me: So, everyone probably chooses an Advantage plan since they are cheaper then, right?
MS: Well, not necessarily. The Advantage plans have several restrictions on which doctors and facilities you can use…and you have to get pre-approved for just about everything. And it depends on the Advantage plan. And we get lots of complaints about Advantage plans.
Me: So, I should choose a Medigap Supplemental plan then.
MS: Well, you’ll have to pay a lot more.
Me: I can’t even….
MS: Are you ready to sign up?
Me: Yes, I need hearing aids, so I’m ready.
MS: Wait, Medicare doesn’t cover hearing aids
Me: If I hear you correctly, you say Medicare doesn’t have hearing coverage
MS: Correct. You’re old. Old people lose their hearing. Normal.
Me: What about dental coverage?
MS: There MIGHT be a couple of Advantage plans that have it, but we get lots of complaints about how bad those are.
Me: So, no dental coverage?
MS: Right. You’re old. Keep brushing and flossing!
Me: I’m afraid to ask about vision care.
MS: Maybe hang onto those glasses you have for a few years
Me: Whatever, I’ll sign up for something I guess. Then I’m set for life, right?
MS: Well, you’ll have to re-apply every year and you’ll get to make all these choices all over again!
Me:
This month I read another great history of the Indigenous people of North America, a thought provoking novel about historians of the future, an epic and thoroughly enjoyable historical novel on the French Revolution, and a Booker Prize winning novel that was interesting but not award winning in my opinion. My rambling took me to a pretty hike near Golden, and a grandson hike and a pretty meadow loop in Rocky Mountain National Park. Enjoy!
Things My Grandkids Say: On a day trip to Rocky Mountain National park recently I was telling my six-year-old grandson about some of my moose encounters in the park. He was worried and asked if we would be OK. I said, we'll be fine because moose have poor eyesight and we could hide behind a tree. I told him even I can see better than a moose. His response: "But you're old, so you probably see like a moose." Yes grandson, you must have read my Medicare conversation above...
If I Could Only Fly
Clay Pigeons
Blaze Foley (born Michael David Fuller) seemed to live by James Dean's fateful words: "Live hard, die young, and leave a handsome corpse." (Note: there evidently were several folks that said versions of this before James Dean did, but it makes for a good story that Dean coined it). Foley was only 39 when he was shot by a man who was allegedly stealing from one of Foley's friends. Foley was an artist and musician from Arkansas, but spent most of his time in Austin. Lucinda Williams, who wrote her song Drunken Angel about Foley called him, " a genius and a beautiful loser." He had lots of bad luck in his short time on Earth, starting with his contraction of polio as a child which left him with a permanent limp. He was homeless for a time and lost many of his original recordings in various inconceivable ways. But he kept playing and recording music. Townes van Zandt (another brilliant musician who died too young) was Foley's mentor and hero. I wrote about Townes in my September 2019 blog. Ethan Hawke directed a biographical drama called Blaze that starred musician Ben Dickey as Foley. It was mostly about his relationship with artist Sybil Rosen. A really good look into a part of his life. Foley wrote a lot of good songs, but these two stick out for me.
Blaze Foley (born Michael David Fuller) seemed to live by James Dean's fateful words: "Live hard, die young, and leave a handsome corpse." (Note: there evidently were several folks that said versions of this before James Dean did, but it makes for a good story that Dean coined it). Foley was only 39 when he was shot by a man who was allegedly stealing from one of Foley's friends. Foley was an artist and musician from Arkansas, but spent most of his time in Austin. Lucinda Williams, who wrote her song Drunken Angel about Foley called him, " a genius and a beautiful loser." He had lots of bad luck in his short time on Earth, starting with his contraction of polio as a child which left him with a permanent limp. He was homeless for a time and lost many of his original recordings in various inconceivable ways. But he kept playing and recording music. Townes van Zandt (another brilliant musician who died too young) was Foley's mentor and hero. I wrote about Townes in my September 2019 blog. Ethan Hawke directed a biographical drama called Blaze that starred musician Ben Dickey as Foley. It was mostly about his relationship with artist Sybil Rosen. A really good look into a part of his life. Foley wrote a lot of good songs, but these two stick out for me.
If I Could Only Fly - A tragically beautiful love song, it was written for his artist girlfriend Sybil Rosen. His voice and the music help to make this one of the most achingly great love songs ever written. Sample lyrics:
If I could only fly, if I could only fly
I'd bid this place goodbye, to come and be with you
But I can hardly stand, I got no where to run
Another sinking sun, another lonely night
Here's the studio version that is so sparse it breaks your heart:
Clay Pigeons - John Prine recorded this song in 2005 on his great album Fair and Square and for years I assumed he had written it. It is a quintessential John Prine song. Who else could possibly have written it? I think it wasn't until I saw Ethan Hawke's movie Blaze that I found out Prine didn't write it. It's a great song about a person who's obviously deeply depressed, but who also wants to help lift up other people dealing with their own problems. Such a great attitude to have while in the depths of depression. Sample lyrics:
I'm goin' down to the Greyhound Station
gonna get a ticket to ride
Gonna find that lady with two or three kids
and sit down by her side
Ride 'til the sun comes up and down around me
'bout two or three times
Smokin' cigarettes in the last seat
Tryin' to hide my sorrow from the people I meet
and get along with it all
I like this live version from Austin. If you have a chance, go to the YouTube site and read some of the comments on this link to show how strongly people feel about this great song:
The author is a Finnish historian who has been the Rhodes Professor of American History at the University of Oxford since 2012. His interest has focused on Native American tribes and he’s written other well received books on the Lakota and Comanche people. In this book he took on a very large task and 500 plus pages really were not enough. There were several times in my reading where he would mention a story that sounded fascinating, only to move on from it after only a sentence or two. Wait! I want to know more about that! But overall I enjoyed the way he described the thought processes of the various Indigenous tribes and how they played the different invading countries off of one another in order to create uncertainty and extend their way of life for as long as they could. All the stories of broken treaties and massacres (on both sides) are included in the book. Being raised in the southwest, I knew some of the stories about the Apache and Navajo and the various Indian hunters who tracked them down, but I wasn’t as familiar with all the eastern and midwestern tribes. The Iroquois and Lakota and Seminoles extended their lifestyles as long as they possibly could, using a combination of negotiation, raiding of colonists, and acquisition of other tribe members. There are too many individuals and tribes to go into, but some of the well-known ones (Sacajawea, Geronimo, Sitting Bull, etc.) are included as well as names I’d never heard of that accomplished incredible feats of cunning and bravery.
Here are some lines:
The earliest traces of people in North America have been found in the Southwest, where human presence dates back twenty-three thousand years.
CORN IS ONE OF HUMANKIND’S GREATEST FEATS OF genetic engineering. It does not exist in the wild; Corn cultivation began in the southwestern Amazon rain forest around 4500 BCE, and the crop reached the semiarid highlands of the North American Southwest around 2000 BCE.
IN THE FALL OF 1492, the Taínos, an Indigenous people who dominated much of the Caribbean, spotted three curious vessels approaching the coast.
infectious diseases had cut Florida’s Indigenous population by hundreds of thousands within two generations.
English policymakers labeled both the Irish and the Indians as lesser people—malicious, devious, barbaric— who did not and could not possess sovereignty over the lands they lived on.
In 1633, as if God wanted the English to persevere, an unusually virulent smallpox epidemic devastated the immunologically defenseless Indians around New England. More than eighty percent of the Native Americans in the region died.
British soldiers handed the Indians two blankets and a handkerchief from their smallpox hospital, hoping for “the desired effect.”
When the thirteen colonies severed ties with the British Empire a year later, the Declaration of Independence labeled Native Americans as “merciless Indian Savages,” the assumption being that the Indians were loyal to the British.
most Native nations made decisions based on consensus and frequently included both women and men in the deliberations.
Gold was behind the United States’ latest westward encroachment. In early February of 1848, unusually rich veins were discovered at Sutter’s Creek in California, setting off a rush. In 1849, twenty-seven thousand overlanders crossed the central plains along the Platte River. In 1846, there had been 150,000 California Indians; in 1860, only 35,000 remained.
As the northernmost of the Pueblo towns, Taos was a frontier community with a mixed population. Rumors started to spread that the residents of the town, Taoseños, were feeding information to the Comanches and the Utes about the movements of Spanish troops. The Taoseños seemed to have reckoned that they would be better off under Comanche auspices than under the officious Spanish regime.
Bent’s Fort became the northern anchor of the Comanche Empire and its allies. It was a vital supply depot where the four Great Peace nations secured guns, ammunition, horses, metal tools, blankets, and other necessities.
On December 26, 1862, in the frontier town of Mankato, thirty-eight Dakotas and biracial persons were escorted onto a collapsible platform, where they were noosed and dropped. In that same year, Congress passed the Homestead Act, which entitled every U.S. citizen to 160 acres of federal land west of the Mississippi—an accelerator of Indigenous dispossession.
There are nice views the entire way, but you can’t really see the big mountains until you’re at the summit. I especially enjoyed the view of the Coors brewery and downtown Golden nestled between North and South Table Mountains. I hiked North Table Mountain back in December of 2024. It was windy today, but the temperatures were in the 50s, so I just needed a mid-layer for this hike. Saw a few hikers, but it didn’t seem crowded at all. I had the summit all to myself which is always nice. By the time I reached that patch of ice on my way back, it was already too slushy for spikes, so I just used my hiking poles to keep from sliding. I got some nice shots of the golden colored foothills which should have been the source of Golden’s name, but it was actually named after Tom Golden, one of the many prospectors that came to Colorado during the Pikes Peak Gold Rush of 1859 (with that name it seems he had no choice but to look for gold). The mountain that I climbed today was named after Denman S. Galbraith (1918-1974), a Golden historian who was known for his active participation in community affairs.
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| It's uphill from the start |
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| The road from Golden |
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| I was prepared for this but didn't expect it |
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| Coors factory between North and South Table Mountains |
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| Views of the big mountains |
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| I loved the color of these slopes |
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| Artsy shot |
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| Let your imagination run wild |
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| Lonely tree shot |
Toward the end of the first part of the book, Tom had put together his findings on “A Corona for Vivien”, which is the name of this epochal poem, of which there are no known copies in existence. Using old emails, bank statements, and government records he pieced together the story of the poet, Francis Blundy, and his wife at the time, Vivien. The big mystery was why there were no records of the poem, other than statements from those at this literary dinner party. Tom thought he had the stories of Francis and Vivien down pretty well and he even discovered a clue that might reveal where the original copy of the poem might be located. A somewhat harrowing journey ensues where Tom and Rose hire a boat to search for the poem. Then the novel suddenly returns to the early 21st century and Vivien is writing the story about her life before and after she met Francis the poet. It turns out that Tom, the future historian, had a lot of things right, but he missed a couple of HUGE events in the story which Vivien proceeds to tell. This is where the title of this novel comes into play: What We Can Know. Because no matter how much you think you know about someone or some idea, there are always things that you can’t know. Vivien and Francis had hidden a dark secret which they covered up well. Only Vivien’s telling of the story unveils it. And the adventure that Tom and Rose go on at the end of part one? What they find is something they never quite expected. I won’t go into more detail because it would spoil the fun for anyone who decides that they want to read a great book. Here are some lines:
And so the debate has limped on, and the fame of the Blundy evening has grown through the years as cities, landscapes and institutions have drowned or withered.
I’d like to shout down through a hole in the ceiling of time and advise the people of a hundred years ago: if you want your secrets kept, whisper them into the ear of your dearest, most trusted friend. Do not trust the keyboard and screen. If you do, we’ll know everything.
it was precisely our youth that drew us to the period (1990-2030). What brilliant invention and bone-headed greed. What music, what tasteless art, what wild breaks and sense of humour: people flying 2,000 miles for a one-week holiday; buildings that touched the cloud base; razing ancient forests to make paper to wipe their backsides. But they also spelled out the human genome, invented the internet, made a start on AI and placed a beautiful golden telescope a million miles out in space.
Alzheimer’s, a case of early onset. He was forty-three. In retrospect it was not clear which time was worse, when he lived in anguish about his future and discussed suicide with her, or when he crossed the line into vacancy and no longer understood what was happening.
I prefer teaching the post-2015 period, when social media were beginning to be drawn into the currency of private lives, when waves of fantastical or malevolent or silly rumours began to shape the nature not only of politics but of human understanding. Fascinating! It was as if credulous medieval masses had burst through into modernity, rushing into the wrong theatre and onto the wrong stage set. In the stampede, grisly government secrets were spilled, childhoods despoiled, honourable reputations trampled down and loudmouthed fools elevated.
I believed the students needed to find out for themselves that people of those times were not all greedy fools. Not only climate scientists, but millions, even hundreds of millions of ordinary people understood the processes of the Derangement.
Some historians have marked the beginning of the new dark age with the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and that is where quite a few history books begin or end. I would propose the first climate war in 2036, one in a sequence, between two nuclear states, India and Pakistan, traditional enemies. One issue was water, once plentiful in the form of Himalayan glacier-fed ice-melt. Now, as long predicted, drying up.
Every day we’re being told about the Inundation, the dark ages, the idiocy of those times, the warming they ignored and all that, their stupid wars, the animals they killed, how skin colour meant so much. On and on. The morons of long ago.
The Nigerian empire had its own reasons to keep on cutting the Atlantic seabed cables. They alone had the submarines to do it. Very little news was getting out of North America.
From the 1970s onwards, millions of white British travelled south in summer by cheap flights to spend hours each day spreadeagled by swimming pools and on beaches beneath a ferocious sun. The purpose was to turn white skin brown, which was considered a healthy and attractive look. That this idea coexisted with white racism was, the author suggested, one of the fascinating enigmas of social history.
The last time Francis and I had seen each other, he had a bag on his shoulder in which was concealed a mallet smeared with blood. A corpse was on the floor. With what ease we conspired not to return there. What an achievement.
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| Little mountain goat |
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| I can see for miles! |
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| Hiding from "the moose" with bad eyesight |
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| Like only a 6 year old can smile |
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| Still some snow, but not much for this time of year |
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| Fall River |
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| Rock skipping |
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| Interesting cloud |
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| Sprague Lake views |
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| Grandson and I |
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| Artsy Sprague Lake shot |
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| An ice cream to top it off |
There are three main historical characters in this book: Camille Desmoulins, Maximillien Robespierre, and Georges-Jacques Danton. I’m not sure who they would exactly compare to in the American Revolution, but it wouldn’t be far off to say they would be similar to Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and maybe George Washington. The main difference of course is that all three French revolutionaries ended up losing their heads to the guillotine. Mantel captures the desperation of the people at the time and also the political divisions. Many of the people still loved their king (Louis XVI) and queen (Marie Antoinette), even though the two of them bankrupt their country and left people starving. It’s one of the reasons that the king and queen weren’t executed until 4 years after the storming of the Bastille. The importance of bread to the people of France is described perfectly: “Under Robespierre, blood flowed, but the people had bread. Perhaps in order to have bread, it is necessary to spill a little blood”. An interesting fact for me was that both the king and queen were only in their 30s when they died. I guess the paintings I’ve seen of them made them seem much older to me (stupid powdered wigs). There were several sorts of committees and conventions that tried to govern France after the July 14, 1789 storming of the Bastille. The author brilliantly captured all the arguments and disagreements and chaos of these meetings (physical fights, angry mobs) which eventually led to what’s called the Reign of Terror where tens of thousands of perceived political enemies lost their heads to the newly invented guillotine.
All three of the main characters were fascinating to get to know; their incredible strengths and subsequent weaknesses. All three were brilliant and a biography of each would be fascinating to read (they were also in their 30s when they died). I especially enjoyed Mantel’s imagined dialogues amongst all these great people. The acerbic wit and killer lines sort of made me feel sorry for the author’s husband; he had no chance in any argument!
Kind of a side note: When I was teaching art history to grade schoolers back in the 90s, one of the most haunting paintings I saw was The Death of Marat by Jacques-Louis David. Both Marat and David featured prominently in this story.
Here are some lines:
Marat has a family? I mean a mother and a father and the usual things? The ordinary arrangement, the cook said. Odd really, I never thought of Marat having a beginning, I thought he was thousands and thousands of years old.
“The poor feel nothing,” the Prince said. “Do not be sentimental. They are not interested in the art of government. They only regard their stomachs.”
At the time they met, Claude was working and worrying his way to the top of the civil service: through the different degrees and shades and variants of clerkdom, from clerk menial to clerk-of-some-parts, from intermediary clerk to clerk of a higher type, to clerk most senior, clerk confidential, clerk extraordinary, clerk in excelsis, clerk-to-end-all-clerks.
one of these impossible girls, destined to be shouted at, always with her nose in a book.
You can’t, he tells his brother Augustin, separate political views from the people who hold them; if you do, it shows you don’t take politics seriously. – Roberspierre
this will be the last and most ardent of my desires, I should like to see the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest. - Denis Diderot, French philosopher
The abbé put his fingertips together: he was a frail, still, wan man, who dropped words from his lips as though they were written in stone, who never joked, never argued: politics, he said, is a science I have made perfect.
“Would they kill the King?” “Heavens, no. We leave that sort of thing to the English.”
“My dear,” Dillon said, “here’s the Lanterne Attorney.” Laure stirred a little crossly: “Who?” “The one who started the riots before the Bastille fell. The one who has people strung up and their heads cut off and so forth.”
“You and Camille write for the educated,” Hébert said. “So does Marat. I’m not going to do that.” “You are going to start a newspaper for the illiterate?” Camille asked him sweetly. “I wish you every success.”
If someone would trust me, I wouldn’t need to be so devious.” “Yes, Monsieur,” Teutch says stonily. “I wouldn’t go marketing that epigram, if I were you, Monsieur.”
If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did?
She wanted to race home, back to her books and the reasonable people inside them.
I’ll tell you why people always want war—it’s because there’s easy money to be made out of it.
there’s nothing to fear, the machine does everything. It is mounted on a scaffold, a big frame with a heavy blade. The criminal ascends with his guards. He is not to suffer, because in France the age of barbarism is over,
They threw up their red caps and began to sing the “Ça Ira” in one of its bloodier versions. Then they sang this new song, the “Marseillaise.”
You have to choose, a safe life, or a life in the Revolution.
You could lock him up in a dungeon for fifty years and he wouldn’t go mad. He’s got everything he needs inside his head. Danton said this about Robespierre
You have a touching faith in the shortness of people’s memories. I dare say it is justified.
Louis must die so that the nation can live.
“Oh yes—can we offer you an escort, Citizen Deputy, to a place of greater safety?” “The grave,” Camille said. “The grave.”
“But you are a young man still.” “Ah yes. But the years have been crowded with incident.”
You seem determined to wipe out opposition by using the guillotine—but it is a senseless undertaking. When you destroy one opponent on the scaffold, you make ten more enemies among his family and friends.
At the time they met, Claude was working and worrying his way to the top of the civil service: through the different degrees and shades and variants of clerkdom, from clerk menial to clerk-of-some-parts, from intermediary clerk to clerk of a higher type, to clerk most senior, clerk confidential, clerk extraordinary, clerk in excelsis, clerk-to-end-all-clerks.
one of these impossible girls, destined to be shouted at, always with her nose in a book.
You can’t, he tells his brother Augustin, separate political views from the people who hold them; if you do, it shows you don’t take politics seriously. – Roberspierre
this will be the last and most ardent of my desires, I should like to see the last king strangled with the guts of the last priest. - Denis Diderot, French philosopher
The abbé put his fingertips together: he was a frail, still, wan man, who dropped words from his lips as though they were written in stone, who never joked, never argued: politics, he said, is a science I have made perfect.
“Would they kill the King?” “Heavens, no. We leave that sort of thing to the English.”
“My dear,” Dillon said, “here’s the Lanterne Attorney.” Laure stirred a little crossly: “Who?” “The one who started the riots before the Bastille fell. The one who has people strung up and their heads cut off and so forth.”
“You and Camille write for the educated,” Hébert said. “So does Marat. I’m not going to do that.” “You are going to start a newspaper for the illiterate?” Camille asked him sweetly. “I wish you every success.”
If someone would trust me, I wouldn’t need to be so devious.” “Yes, Monsieur,” Teutch says stonily. “I wouldn’t go marketing that epigram, if I were you, Monsieur.”
If your children grow up, and prove traitors to the people, will you be able to demand their deaths, as the Romans did?
She wanted to race home, back to her books and the reasonable people inside them.
I’ll tell you why people always want war—it’s because there’s easy money to be made out of it.
there’s nothing to fear, the machine does everything. It is mounted on a scaffold, a big frame with a heavy blade. The criminal ascends with his guards. He is not to suffer, because in France the age of barbarism is over,
They threw up their red caps and began to sing the “Ça Ira” in one of its bloodier versions. Then they sang this new song, the “Marseillaise.”
You have to choose, a safe life, or a life in the Revolution.
You could lock him up in a dungeon for fifty years and he wouldn’t go mad. He’s got everything he needs inside his head. Danton said this about Robespierre
You have a touching faith in the shortness of people’s memories. I dare say it is justified.
Louis must die so that the nation can live.
“Oh yes—can we offer you an escort, Citizen Deputy, to a place of greater safety?” “The grave,” Camille said. “The grave.”
“But you are a young man still.” “Ah yes. But the years have been crowded with incident.”
You seem determined to wipe out opposition by using the guillotine—but it is a senseless undertaking. When you destroy one opponent on the scaffold, you make ten more enemies among his family and friends.
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| My car at the trailhead |
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| My first obstacle |
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| In another couple months, I'd be worried about moose in these willows |
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| Still some ice |
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| Trail art |
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| Typical spring hiking |
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| Mt Ypsilon |
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| Lots of fire mitigation going on during this dry winter |
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| Pretty meadow |
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| Something died in this pretty meadow |
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| Fall River |
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| Meadow with views |
The novel tells the story of a Hungarian man named Istvan. It begins when he’s 15, being raised in a sort of tenement building by his mom in a small town in Hungary. The event that ends up steering his life in a certain direction occurs when he falls in love with a 42 year old neighbor woman who has been having sex with him (he’s 15). She ends the sex when he says he loves her. An accident happens with the woman’s husband and Istvan ends up in juvenile prison. He gets out of prison, is lost for a year, doing miscellaneous illegal things for money, ends up in the Army during the Iraq war, suffers PTSD from a tragic mine incident, gets some therapy, ends up in London working as a security guard for a strip club, saves a man’s life after work one day, that man ends up giving Istvan a job which eventually finds him living among the 1% elite. Fascinating and more tragic events occur where he loses his place in society and he ends up living with his mom again in Hungary. So a sort of circle of life thing.
The story is very interesting and kept me turning the pages. But man, Istvan is not an interesting person. His dialog consists mainly of responding Yeah or OK to people’s questions in between cigarettes. He rarely starts any dialog himself. So, he’s basically still a 15 year old kid as his life changes in incredible ways. Interesting, but I would have given the Booker last year to The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny.
Here are some lines:
In the evening there’s the sound of the mosques... They start up all over the place, not at exactly the same time but sort of overlapping, so that the overall effect is slightly chaotic. There’s something about it that he likes, though. The air seems to vibrate.
he passes a few of the girls, leaving in tracksuits and raincoats, with earbuds in their ears and don’t-eventhink-about-talking-to-me expressions on their faces. He doesn’t talk to them.
“The man died?” Mervyn asks. “Yeah,” István says. “Yeah, he did.” He feels unexpectedly shaken. It’s been years since he’s talked about this, and talking about it now he understands, as if for the first time, the extent to which it has affected his whole life since then.
Until next time, happy reading and rambling!