A GREAT DELIVERANCE by Elizabeth George

 

Having recently read and reviewed Elizabeth George’s latest book (SOMETHING TO HIDE) and finding it wanting in clarity and far too long, I thought a trip to the past was called for. I was lucky to find a copy of A GREAT DELIVERANCE in our Grand Living Library. This was Ms. George’s breakthrough first Lynley novel and was published in 1988. You will be pleased to note that it is everything the most recent outing is not.  

The title comes from the story of Joseph in the Old Testament. He says to his brothers that he is not there to punish them for selling him, but to “save your lives by a great deliverance.” It is half the length, tightly plotted, and full of spot-on description. We meet the upper-crust Lynley for the first time and he finds that he has been assigned to mentor a struggling working class Sergeant Barbara Havers. She had been demoted to street cop and is now given a final chance to keep her detective’s stripes. As you might expect, Linley and Havers mix as well as oil and water, and this sets up a relationship that will continue to provide contrast for the next thirty years.  As the pair investigate an ax murder in the bucolic Yorkshire countryside, we get a full treatment of Lynley’s previous love affairs and Haver’s own dark family past. The breathtaking climax makes the history behind the brutal killing even more terrible than the crime itself while taking both detectives to the edge of despair.

The descriptions in the early book are tight, colorful, tactile, and often extended by literary references. Take this phrase, “This was no grappling in an Elsinore grave” or this view of Linley. “He examined himself in the mirror at her words, his cigarette dangling from his lips, his eyes narrowed against the smoke, part Sam Spade part Algernon Moncrieff.” 

A humorous touch is added with the introduction of the funniest “Ugly American” you may ever see.  Hank Watson, an American dentist and his wife are visiting Britain for a tax write-off dental convention. They clash resoundingly with English society when, at a formal dinner, Hank tries to explain the “queers” in Laguna Beach to Mr. St. James--Linley’s good friend. And witness this description.  Hank’s hand was “fat, slightly sweaty” and “like shaking hands with a warm, uncooked fish.”  You might also appreciate the picture of Barbara Haver’s frumpiness when she puts on a dress. According to George, she resembled a white garbed barrel with legs.”

All in all, if you love Ms. George’s books as much as I do, you might better re-read some of the earlier ones while you await her discovery that bigger is not necessarily better.  

 

 

My major takeaway from last night's Jan. 6 tv presentation

 My biggest takeaway from last night. The cool and careful laying out of the timeline proved this was not a protest that got out of hand and turned into a riot and finally into an insurrection. It was fueled by organized groups who took up their positions even before the big enchilada started to address the crowd. The plan all along was to be ready to go as soon as the unwitting pawns started to reach the Capitol with their anger stoked by the speakers and T-man himself. Had the plan to delay the election certification not failed, I do not even wish to think of where we might be today.

Book Review: Something to Hide by Elisabeth George

 

Elizabeth George’s Something to Hide comes in at almost 700 pages and literally weighs over two pounds. (I put it on a scale.)  

She takes a full 100 pages to lay out four apparently separate background threads. There is a shadowy female health clinic that may or may not be involved with participating in female genital mutilation or fighting against it. There is another family with sexual and relationship issues that spring from their valiant efforts to minister to the needs of their severely handicapped daughter. There is a Nigerian family with a creepy violence prone bigamous father, a sneaky mother, an eight year old daughter, who for somewhat different reasons the parents would like to have “cut” in order to insure that she will make a good wife, and a modern son with a modern girl friend who are having none of any of it. Around the edges also is a police investigation targeting the shadowy clinic.  

Finally, a black female detective who is connected to that clinic, goes into a coma and dies. The autopsy reveals that she has been a murder victim and only then do we get a sense that this is a "Lynley" novel.  Acting Inspector Lynley, Barbara Havers, and Winston Ncata enter the story as the investigating officers. For the next six hundred pages you creep through the investigation with them and, as is normal in this kind of novel, while they find the linkages that draw the complicated plot together.  More disconcerting is that the already multi-layered story is not helped by the side trips into Lynley’s own new love interest and Barbara Havers lack of any love interest.

I wish I could recommend this book, because the central theme of the heinous practice of genital mutilation of young girls begs for more attention. Unfortunately, the slow start hangs on into the rest of the book.  It just seems to move at a glacial pace. I sometimes wonder why perfectly good successful writers feel the need to enter the “Who can write the longest book?” competition against heavyweights like Melville and Dostoyevsky. Ms. George tries, but she loses this time. 

 

Singing a Sad Song Sort Of

Singing a Sad Song Sort Of

I'm not sure what to call our last six months, but it has been a major departure from our previous life.  Embarking on a new adventure seems a touch too romantic and the end of the line seems too  pessimistic, so let's settle on the more neutral it was time for a change. Change, of course, is the norm for all of us even if we are making a home in one place for over fifty years. Proof of this begins with the blog you are reading this on. It has asserted from the beginning that life goes only forward, never back. You cannot un-stir a pudding once you have stirred  the raspberry jam of living into it.

My recent review of Jacqueline Winspear's A Sunlit Weapon looked at change particularly as it impacts place.  Winspear cites Masie Dobbs' old teacher who said, “Place is a crucial factor in our work—and places leave their mark in the same way that a human being can touch us. We have to make our peace with place, with the locations where we have spent time.  We must consider how we’ve been affected by being present in a certain spot—and how the place itself is changed by what has come to pass.”  

Oh so true! As the Covid shut-down proceeded in the last two years, it became more evident that my wife and I were fighting that eternal battle with age. We had to quit tending our small garden and hire out the mowing of the lawn. The stairs to the second floor in the house seemed to be getting steeper and higher. Never mind the extra flight to the attic.  And the  work PLACES my wife and I had inhabited were increasingly populated with new faces that we had never worked with and did not know. Even though both of us had survived some major medical issues in the past, we were having to make more appointments with more doctors than before. Finally, a number of our long time friends began to move from their places in our town to places closer to their children. 

Was there a single straw that broke the camel's back?  No.  It was just was the load on the aging  camel's back was getting harder to carry. With that in mind I think we made our own change of place at the most opportune time for us. We were not forced into a series of quick decisions by any kind of family crisis or health emergency. We were not being pressured by our children to move someplace where our diminished capacities could be better serviced. We were both still generally mentally competent and had passed driver's license exams recently.     

Even accepting all of that,  we still tried to hedge our bets. We committed to renting an apartment in a senior community on a monthly no lease arrangement.  As we worked on downsizing the material acquisitions that cluttered our old home, we began to spend more time in the new place. If things did not work out, we could return to our previous surroundings without too much emotional or financial strain.  

Happily, I think enough time has passed to report that things have worked out quite well. We are nine  months into a series of changes that are fast becoming our new permanence.  Our move has taken us into a far more urban area than before and closer to our daughter, who is a teacher like her parents and lives only ten minutes away now. 

In trying to keep my own sights on how the "sense" of place is important, I began to think about some of the items that symbolized change in lives.  For instance, one of our very first acts was to visit the post office and file a change of address form. We had filed temporary changes or holds many times over the  years as we wintered in Arizona or took extended trips abroad.  But this was the first time since 1963 that our address change was permanent.  This was a real new place.  It led us to make a list of all the entities who needed to know we were moving. This first list contained our kids, our close friends, our bank, and of course the service areas of natural gas, electricity, and the water, sewer, recycling, and garbage pickup operations. Along the way we also noted people and organizations that we had no interest in informing of our departure. I trust you are pleased to note that if you are reading this, you are safely on the first list.  

We were quite surprised that many of the second list members easily and quickly re-found our new place almost before we had moved. Political groups, charities, and people selling everything from miracle cures to ways to make a million dollars by buying crypto currency seem to be impressively efficient at finding us anew. Their missives poured in at our new abode and often included little stickies  imprinted with our new address.  "Use these to make it easier to send us more money faster" was their theme song. How they found us so soon again, I know not. 

Other changes symbolizing our new location began to accumulate. We had to get right with the government and the medical establishment. Social security and Medicare were like climbing Mount Everest without oxygen. Days would go by as phone calls were deferred by the bureaucratic equivalent of Microsoft's Blue Screen of Death--"All our operators are busy. Your call is important so stay on the line while we play you the worst possible version of canned music we could find."  Several hours later, long after every operator has certainly called it a day and gone home, we would hang up in despair and decide to try again tomorrow. Dogged diligence with the government is absolutely necessary whenever you decide to move.  

We are thankful that the offices of Iowa's state government were more amenable. I think that is because you are going to give them money rather than trying to get them to continue sending you money that you had earned over the years. In quite short order we got new Iowa plates for our car and received our new Iowa driver's licenses. These acts seem small, but they put an observable visual stamp on our  move.  

That is beside the fact that in the first week after getting our new license plates, we almost lost our car a couple of times because we were looking for a white vehicle with Illinois plates on it. Do you know how many white cars there are in every parking lot in Iowa?  

Then there is my new driver's license. It stares at me every time I open my wallet. A fresh horrible photo looks back at me and under it is that strange new address. An even more powerful reminder of change was that my new license no longer carried a "Glasses Required" notation.  Eye surgery has given me a 20/20 view of the world without the necessity of the lenses I had worn for the last seventy years. That, I tell you, was a real change. I am still waking up in the morning and reaching for the non-existent specs that were always just within reach on the bedside table.   

Another important change for our intellectual and mental health was the acquisition of a new library card. I am pleased to report that libraries are still truly client centered operations. You just show them a piece or two of first class mail addressed to you at your new address and a library card is issued zip zip with no muss, no fuss, and no bother. Free access to thousands of books, magazines, and videos are opened to you in a flash. What a splendid welcome to a new city. The federal government might take some lessons here.   

The  greatest change of all has to be the selling of our family home and the leaving of our many friends and neighbors. We bought our house in 1975. It sat on a tree surrounded corner lot on a street that reminded me daily that I, a theatre guy, was living on Broadway. The house had a two car garage, a nice kitchen, a formal dining room, a large living room with a fireplace and built in bookcases at one end. 

To get to the second floor you used a magnificent solid oak stairway that remains something to kill for. 

                                                    

On the second floor there were three bedrooms, a sewing room, and another bedroom that we soon converted into to a full scale study complete with bookcases and old fashioned office desk. 

The house also had a full attic, which became ever fuller as the years went by. That space kindly accepted all the assorted detritus that had worn out its welcome on the floors below. Plus, there was room for the remnants of several past places long left. There was the mirror from my parent's living room as well as the baby book my mother faithfully compiled on me. There were cartons of crystal and dishes from my wife's mother and grandmother, as well as my wife's mother's dressing table and mirror. And there were toys ranging from my old standup slate and stamp collection to my wife's storybook dolls and our own children's matchbook cars and dolls.  Although most of the children's books had been passed on or given away, there were tons of photos--some in albums and some in antique frames. Many of them were unlabeled and are of places and people who lost the battle of identity to the passage of time. All in all our attic, and I suspect yours if you have one,  was a large dusty museum of other places in other times.    

Let's return to the lower regions now. We raised our children in the rooms of this house and lived on in it long after the kids had left the nest. More unusual, in the current world of constant movement, is that my wife and I owned only one home. The buying of it was a singular place event in our life and the selling of it became another. Here it is around the time of purchase in 1975.  It was built in 1906 and through the years we resisted the covering of its grand old Queen Anne exterior with aluminum. The 2 1/2 inch cedar siding allowed for a rich softness of appearance and a graceful bump out that helped separate the first and second floor by creating a nice horizontal dividing point for a tall house. The soffit overhang and its decorations put in another line to separate the second floor from the attic and roof. We retained all of this because covering a house with metal generally tends to erase such distinguishing features. 

                                

The big trees that surrounded the house when we bought it are all gone now--victims of disease and ferocious midwestern storms. The scrubby pine you can see in in front of the porch is now taller than the house and threatens to take over the entire front yard.  As you can see the house was a dreary white when we moved in. I personally painted it a mellow sea breeze blue around 1977 and that has been its color ever since.  By the time the fifth re-painting rolled around (I only did the personal painting twice.) we had long ago renamed the home our "old blue monster."  Below are two current views. The first was taken this spring and the other a few winter's ago.  I hope you will agree that it presents a noble presence. 

  

            

The interior, where most of the memories reside, has evolved a good deal over time. Old furniture was replaced with new, the kitchen was modernized, walls were re-papered to change figures of children's toys to more staid patterns, the bathroom now claims a walk in shower, etc. We did not take a great deal of our old furniture with us to our new apartment. We bought a new bedroom set and a smart TV to replace our stupid one with the tiny screen. We retained some familiarity by putting some of our precious pictures back up on the new walls and displaying some of our favorite pottery. As you can see my Wisconsin roots are now celebrated on the big screen. "Go Pack!"  

                                        

Even though we moved into our new digs last fall, we did feel that moving physically was enough trauma for both of us. Thus we made the conscious decision to wait for spring before putting our house up for sale. I suspect now that this was just another sign of hedging our bets. All through the winter we still were holding out for the possibility of going home again if we had to. When the big decision to sell was reached this spring, it happened fast and furious. We had a whiz of a realtor and she helped us complete the sale quickly at what we felt was a fair price in the current market.  An internet auctioneer was hired to remove and sell all the remaining household goods.   

My large collection of theatre books and plays mostly went off to the college library and to former colleagues, but  "Empty rooms Empty tables" from the musical "Les Misérables" kept playing in my head as the auctioneer emptied the place to take to his warehouse and showroom.  

                                    

At the end only the memories remained. Past sorrows mixed with joys, and periods of sickness morphed into long stretches of health. The strongest feelings were of the thousands of daily departures and and returns that house had seen. The  "Byes" and "Hi, I'm home's" that came from all the residents as they left or returned from work or school, or outings or play rehearsals, or events or travels seemed to float about in the now empty rooms. The globe keeps turning and the places abroad from England to Finland, Japan, and Egypt added their special sights and sounds to our home in that small town on the prairie. 

As the closing approached the house seemed to slide slowly toward the same ambiance it had when we had moved into it some fifty years ago. Our memories would now be replaced by the lives of the new owners.    

 The rooms became almost barren.

And then totally empty.

                                        

The living room was poised to await the sounds of new music and new conversations. 

Just prior to the closing we placed the house keys and garage door openers in a manila envelope that would be turned over as soon as the final documents were signed.  When that was accomplished, all that remained as we drove out of town, was this final exclamation point. I do not mind admitting that I shed a tear. 

Hey! Hey!  What can I say? 

The tears are away,  

And it's a new day. 

Grand Living awaits. 

With our name on the wall.

And a new set of keys to open a new door. 

An empty space would soon be filled.

A magic wand was waved and presto------

I am now sitting in my new study in the swivel chair you see below.

                                            

I am writing a new chapter in the book of life. Join in if you can. Visitors are welcome.  

Read Jacqueline Winspear's A SUNLIT WEAPON

 

Jacqueline Winspear’s A Sunlit Weapon is a fine, but not great, addition to her long series of Maisie Dobbs novels.  Maisie and her familiar entourage are now placed in the middle of WWII. Eleanor Roosevelt is about to tour Britain and dark deeds in the homeland as well as from abroad are afoot. British airplanes being ferried about the country by brave female pilots are being shot at, Maisie’s American husband just happens to be in charge of security for Mrs. Roosevelt’s visit, and a young black American serviceman is found bound and gagged in an old barn. Meanwhile Maisie’s daughter is being bullied at her school and her assistant Billy’s sons are in uniform and exposed to danger. I am amazed at how Winspear manages to weave all these threads together, but the chapters at the end that are devoted to unscrambling things go on too long. 

Certainly, the mysterious traitorous events keep the story line moving, while Winspear works the underlying themes of racial and class differences between England and the United States and the  emancipation of women in the war effort.  Maisie Dobbs continues to be a fictional standard bearer for all women through the years as they juggle professional careers, family responsibilities, and motherhood. For that alone the series continues to worth reading.    

Another more personal area that struck me was the way in which a sense of place infuses depth into the detection aspect of the novel. Maisie relies on her former mentor Maurice for her ability to locate the hidden truths that at first seem to be disconnected. She quotes Maurice, who said years ago, that “Place is a crucial factor in our work—and places leave their mark in the same way that a human being can touch us. We have to make our peace with place, with the locations where we have spent time.  We must consider how we’ve been affected by being present in a certain spot—and how the place itself is changed by what has come to pass.”  

My wife and I are at this very moment readying our long-time family home for sale. We were surrounded by a sense of place as we wandered for the last time through those empty rooms a week ago. They kept reappearing in my mind fully furnished and inhabited with years of memory.  All I can say is I agree with Maurice and Maisie. We must look and pause--listen to the vibrations, soak up their presence, and find their essence. Through that we may know the history in a place and find and feel the truth.

 

 

 

 

Jim and Jan Walk With Shakespeare

DO NOT BE AFRAID!

William Shakespeare will not harm you.

Join Jim and Jan De Young Tuesday,  May 17^th  at 10:30 AM in the Forum Theatre (at Grand Living in Cedar Rapids) for a pleasant walk with Shakespeare along the South Bank of the Thames River in London to visit the site of the original Globe Theatre and the new re-built one.

Even if you have been to London before, we think we may be able to show you a few things you have not seen.

Wapsipinicon State Park

 We haven't had a field trip for quite a while and yesterday, with warmth and sun making the world seem new and fresh, we took a ride to Anamosa and  Wapsipinicon State Park. I think both of those names are spelled right, but if not, forgive me. . 

We left from Grand Living where the flags were half mast to commemorate fallen Iowa State Troopers. 

We arrived at the park in about 40 minutes and took time for a look at the now unused bridge and the dam on the river. 

 

A fisherman was trying his luck just below the dam.

The park is nestled in a valley cut by the Wapsipinicon River or the "Wapsi" as the locals prefer. The park roads and trails sometimes follow the river and at other times move along the higher ridges and  bluffs. The rocky cliffs are definitely interesting to geologists and there are several stone quarries in the area.   A number of the park's structures were built with this local stone by prisoners at the state prison in Anamosa. The prison itself was built of this hard grey stone as well.  

What was truly enjoyable was to see the patches of new spring growth and wildflowers. We need more knowledge here but these are Sweet Williams we think. 

This one needs more research. 

Some early violets were easy to identify.

This one is still a mystery.

These seem to be Morning Stars

May Apples are easy. 

Watch out for this one. It's stinging nettle.

The woods still show some damage from last year's derecho. 

Under current forest management philosophy most of the trees are left to decay where they fell. Occasionally when a larger one blocked  a road, it was cut. 

The park features a sporty nine hole golf course.

The Anamosa Rotary Club has built a nice shelter on an open hillside with a pleasant view.

At one point you even get to drive through a small stream.

It was a lovely day and in spite of  all the many problems of the world, it was possible to put cares on hold and enjoy the natural beauty of the planet. 

Thanks to Art and Carol who led this little excursion.