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It’s difficult for history to serve as a guide when so many people tend or prefer to be oblivious of it. Whether overcoming that tendency motivates Mary Doria Russell’s Dreamers of the Day is unclear. Regardless, her novel may well teach more people some basics about the origins of the modern Middle East than many books devoted to the subject.
Ostensibly the tale of an Ohio school teacher, Agnes Shanklin (so named in honor of an English teacher Russell had in high school), the book is a larger journey in both a geopolitical and personal context. Shanklin saw her mother, brother, sister and her sister’s family die in the flu pandemic of 1918, which she herself barely survived. Her closest companion is her dachshund, Rosie, who at times seems an almost too predominant character. Thanks largely to a business her cool and distant mother sold several years before, Shanklin is left with the financial wherewithal to transform her austere life.
Thus, in 1921, the 40-year-old decides to set out for the Middle East because of letters her sister sent when she and her husband had been missionaries in Lebanon. Shanklin sails to Cairo, where she is unable to claim her reservation at the Semiramis Hotel because of Rosie. The hotel is the scene of the Cairo Conference of 1921. The furor created on her efforts to enter the hotel attracts the attention of several conference participants, including T.E. Lawrence, better known to many as Lawrence of Arabia. In fact, the title of the book comes from a passage in Lawrence’s own Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
In the most significant of several timely coincidences, Lawrence was friends with Shanklin’s sister. Mistaking her for her sister, Lawrence comes to Shanklin’s rescue and serves as her introduction to many of the conference participants, including Winston Churchill. Between being invited to dinner and on excursions with them and what she gathers from Karl Weilbacher, a German spy she meets because of Rosie, Dreamers of the Day becomes a combination travelogue and overview of the background and events that gave rise to the modern Middle East.
Yet Russell may ask the reader to suspend belief just a little to much. The extent to which Shanklin is readily welcomed into the lives of the conference dignitaries and how freely they share their geopolitical views and concerns with her tends to beggar the imagination. As a result, the book periodically feels like a treatment for a made-for-television movie. This is especially true for those of us who inevitably compare each of her works to the creativity and imagination of her stunning debut novel, The Sparrow.
That said, Russell still has an outstanding talent for telling a story and creating characters. Just as Dreamers of the Day provides a basic primer on the creation of today’s Middle East, Shanklin’s journey allows a firsthand look, albeit fictional, at the area and its people. This is all interlaced with the core story of a spinster embarked on her own journey of self-discovery and is all told from a unique perspective years later.
This is Russell’s second foray into historical fiction and is a generally commendable example of the genre. After all, historical fiction may be at its best when it so accurately reflects the actual history that serves as its foundation and helps readers learn about their world.
[T]he soil is so fertile that you could plant a pencil and harvest a book
Mary Doria Russell, Dreamers of the Day
As noted in the last post, the cold weather has left little or no inspiration. Even the title of the book I am currently reading is coincidence, not by design. Thus, I cop out with recent marginalia.
- Although the lack of ambition includes reduced devotion to reading, I came across another book challenge I might consider. This one is based on the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, sponsored in part by World Literature Today, to which I subscribed at the end of last year.
- Speaking of international literature, the first catalog of Open Letter, the new publishing enterprise for international literature, has been announced. As an aside, I note the catalog indicates Open Letter’s books are going to be distributed by the University of Nebraska Press in Lincoln.
- SF Site has announced it’s reader’s choice awards for 2008. I’ve read three, two of which I voted for in the polling, but haven’t read the top two, both of which are fantasy titles.
- Two of my favorite local bloggers have prime rants. Jesus The Marketer makes Commander Other a bit snarky while Scott H. takes aim at certain tax preparers (I consider the latter a fully legitimate target should I “accidentally” lose control of my vehicle).
- Despite his feelings, even Commander Other must be interested in this auction of historical artifacts.
- And not to stray too far from horrible marketing practices, must we corrupt children’s books?
- I never would have thought that there was a “smell of space.” (Via.)
- Finally, the 2008 Tournament of Books is underway. (Via.)
Poor man wanna be rich,
Rich man wanna be king
And a king ain’t satisfied
Till he rules everything
“Badlands,” Bruce Springsteen, Darkness on the Edge of Town
The hectic nature of the last couple weeks combined with the frigid temperatures to turn my ambition to molasses. PP eliminated any doubt of that with a post last night that echoed exactly what I thought but was too lazy to research and write a post about. Simply summarized, it seems Argus Exec Editor Randell Beck has abandoned his prior position on blogs, as evidenced by the fact he’s started one. I can’t help but wonder, though, if instructions from farther up the chain of command led to Beck’s blog.
A couple other observations about the beta Argus blogs/site.
First, I’ve had no success trying to view the blogs themselves with Firefox. Certainly a serious design flaw given the ever increasing number of people like me who use that browser 99.8 percent of the time. Perhaps there is simply a problem with my Firefox browser or laptop (same problem is on my desktop at home too). If not, the Argus would be wise to examine this issue before the site goes out of its current beta.
Second, while anyone can apparently set up their own blog at the new site, I won’t be doing so. I’m happy to blog here but I’m not willing to give a corporate media behemoth a free blog. Perhaps it’s another example of cutting off one’s nose, but I guess I’m not that interested in visitor counts to try to generate traffic that way.
There must be some mistake
I didn’t mean to let them take away my soul
“The Show Must Go On,” Pink Floyd, The Wall
Ben Franklin’s comment about the certainty of death and taxes seemed true around our household this week.
Sunday morning, the 36-year-old husband of my wife’s niece died of cancer. My wife was there for the week prior to the death helping her niece tend to her husband and their four children as the inevitable approached. Thus, she and our three daughters were at a funeral in northeast South Dakota Tuesday afternoon.
I couldn’t attend the funeral because I was dealing with taxes. Not my own, but the state’s. I was on my way to Pierre for a Supreme Court argument on the constitutionality of the state’s tax on insurance premiums. The tax currently brings in about $60 million a year and, according to the governor’s budget address in December, is five percent of the state’s revenues. Arguing in support of the constitutionality of the tax and, hence, the continuation of those annual revenues, makes it among the more significant of my Supreme Court appearances. Still, I’ll take taxes over death any day.
Hopefully things will now return to at least a semblance of normal.
Now I lay me down to sleep
I’m praying Lord my soul to keep
If I die before I wake
Somebody made a big mistake
“When I Pray,” Todd Rundgren, Faithful
No, I haven’t been locked up — so far at least. As noted in the last post, last week was hectic and a state Supreme Court argument this week in a major case have left little time for much other than bouncing between doing and stressing. Thus, a few pieces of linkage until my next post, which likely will not be until the middle of the week at the earliest.
- This one’s a tad old but, sadly, this Onion story is another example of satire hitting too close to the mark: “Area Eccentric Reads Entire Book.”
- For eccentrics at the other extreme, The Atlantic has opened its site to all visitors, not just subscribers. This means, among other things, you can browse issues going back to 1995 and hundreds of articles dating as far back as 1857, including book reviews.
- It may not be what you think but I love space porn.
- Much closer to what you may have been thinking about the prior item, I’d love to hear the guy explaining to his wife, “But honey, I’ve got to watch it for a piece I’m writing.”
- Five SF/F concepts scientists are working on. (Via.)
- Tell us Ed, what do you really think about the NYT Book Review‘s SF columnist? For what it’s worth, other blogs agree and I’m pretty much with them.
- three percent has a preview of the books in this year’s “Reading the World,” a collaboration between publishers and independent booksellers to promote literature in translations throughout the month of June.
- The second in Jackson Browne’s series of CDs from his solo acoustic tours, named appropriately Solo Acoustic, Vol. 2, is set for release in early March. He also is working on a studio album of new material for release later this year.
No sooner had I hit the streets
When I met the fools that a young fool meets
All in search of truth and bound for glory
“Daddy’s Tune,” Jackson Browne, The Pretender
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