The Forsyte Chronicles (The Forsyte Saga, A Modern Comedy, The End of the Chapter); by John Galsworthy

Forsyte Chronicles:-

This work developed over a lifetime and began with a simple theme, that of individual's right to life and love, especially those of a woman.

The first trilogy, Forsyte Saga, is the most famous of all. There are three trilogies, Modern Comedy and End of the Chapter being the second and the third.

The Forsyte 'Change was written as separate stories about the various characters and spans the time from migration of Jolyon Forsyte the original, referred to usually as Superior Dosset, the paterfamilias of the Forsytes, to London from border of Devon and Dorsetshire, onwards well into the time connecting it to the beginning of the second trilogy. The first two trilogies have interconnecting interludes between each of their two parts.
..........................................................
..........................................................


The Forsyte Saga:-

The Forsyte Saga was not planned as such but developed over years with sequels coming naturally as they did, and human heart and passion and minds within settings of high society of a Victorian and post Victorian England - chiefly London - and its solid base in property.

When it was published it was revolutionary in the theme - a woman is not owned by her husband, and love is not a duty she owes but a bond that is very real however intangible, that cannot be faked.

Wednesday, September 10, 2008.
................................................................
...................................................................


The Man of Property:-

The Man Of Property, with its very apt title, begins with Soames Forsyte, the man of property who not only inherited but is very good in acquisition of property and taking care of it. As such he has virtues necessary to society, honesty and prudence and more, but lacks in those that cannot be taught and must be developed by sensitivity - those dealing with heart. He has no comprehension of those, and proceeds to acquire the object of his passion, his first wife Irene, pretty much like he would any other property - with steady and unrelenting pursuit and some crafty methods that make it difficult for her to stay the course of not acquiescing. In this however he is wrong, and the marriage goes sour long before he would acknowledge it, with his total bewilderment and lack of understanding of his beautiful and sensitive, artistic, intelligent wife - he expects her to settle down and do her duty, and be happy with all that he can provide for her in ways of house and clothes and jewellery and stability, but she is made of a different mettle and is not one to see herself or any other woman as an object of male property.

She might have continued the slow death within, forced to do so by her husband reneging on his promise of letting her go free if she were not happy, had it not been for the architect Bosinney, fiancé of her niece by marriage June Forsyte the daughter of Young Jolyon, first cousin of Soames. Bossinney has sensitivity to match and recognise and appreciate Irene, and more - he falls in love with her, even as he is contracted to design and construct a house for the couple far away from the city where Irene may find solitude and peace and come to terms with her lot, or so her husband Soames plans mistakenly. The house is beautiful, but the love of the architect for the woman who the house is meant for is not to be bought or killed, and tragedy begins to unravel the lives involved, Irene and June and Bosinney - and Soames.

Young Jolyon, the son of Old Jolyon who disapproves of his son's second marriage and has not till date seen his new grandchildren by the woman who used to be in employ of his first wife before they fell in love, is a presence that comes to fore slowly in this, with art - he is an artist, and Irene appreciates beauty as much as he appreciates her in all her qualities - and the relationship and a recognition mutual to both. She seeks his help in the support and strength that his daughter needs from him now, with June too proud to be friend of Irene any more after the revelation of Bosinney and Irene being in love.
.....................................................................................


Interlude: Indian Summer of a Forsyte:-

Indian Summer here refers not to unbearably hot 45-50 degree centrigrade summer but the soft warmth of India of post rains in September - October that here the author uses as a silent metaphor for the beautiful life of Old Jolyon in his old age after he has bought the house Bosinney built for Irene, after Bosinney is dead, where he now lives with his son Jo, Young Jolyon, and his three children from his two marriages, June and Jolyon "Jolly" and Holly. Jo with his second wife is traveling in Europe when Old Jolyon discovers Irene sitting on a log in the coppice on the property where she had been with her love, Bosinney, and invites her to the home that was to be hers and is now his. This begins his tryst with beauty that is Irene, in the beauty that is Robin Hill, his home, and the surrounding countryside of which his home includes a good bit.

Jolyon employs Irene to teach music to Holly and invites her for lunches at Robin Hill, and listens to her playing music; they go to theatre, opera and dinners in town on days when she is not teaching Holly, and meanwhile he worries about her situation of barely above penury that her separation has left her in, her father's bequest to her amounting to bare subsistence. He decides to correct the injustice she is meted due to her husband not providing for her (this being the weapon to make her come back to him) and makes a bequest to her for lifetime, settling a good amount that would take care of her reasonably, and let her independence from her husband supported well.

He comes to depend on her visits, and she realises this, returning his silent affection and appreciation - and he dies when waiting for her one afternoon, in his armchair under the large old oak tree, with beauty coming to him across the lawn.
.....................................................................................


In Chancery:-

In Chancery continues with young Jolyon and Irene and Soames, the beautiful new house designed and constructed for Irene being now put up for sale by Soames who is tenacious in his not giving up on her in spite of her leaving him. Irene connects with Jolyon, partly due to Soames bringing an action against him for alienation of his wife's affections and then far more due to their being well matched, and they are together in spite of Soames trying various tactics - threat of divorce (a far more lethal weapon in that era), refusal to give a divorce when they wish for it, and so forth. Finally the divorce goes through and two children are born, Jon to Irene and Joyon and Fleur to Soames and Annette, a French young woman he finds in an inn and marries.

The new house is in chancery as are the people in this interim period and old Jolyon has bought it partly due to James, his brother and father of Soames, telling old Jolyon he owes it to Soames and to the Forsytes, seeing as how young Jolyon is responsible for the quandary Soames is in. Old Jolyon however is as much in love with Irene as most of the clan, and when once he finds her sitting in a corner of the property he assures her of his lack of disapproval of her finding refuge in the home built for her by her lover.

Jolyon helps Irene as his father's wish, and his own, having been appointed executor to the bequest of his father for her, and in the process comes to not only protect her from the husband who wishes her to return (so she can give him a son and heir, after all they are still married twelve years after she left), but also comes to be her friend, her companion and more. He does not admit his love, but she understands it, and their days together are spent in the same beauty that she did with his father until they are thrown together far more due to the persecution of her husband who would divorce her and marry a young woman he has fixed his sights on so he can have a son after all - he is now near fifty and his father James is dying, hankering for a son for Soames. But divorce laws were then difficult and Soames is unwilling to pretend an affair, so his choice is to name Irene and Jolyon, which neither of them oppose irrespective of facts.

It is the news of death of Jolly, son of Jolyon, that throws them together finally when both younger children of Jolyon along with Val Dartie the son of Winifred have gone to Boer war and June has joined Holly as nurse, and Jolyon in his grief for his son that he thinks he did not give enough of the love in his heart for him to has only Irene to consol him with her compassion.
....................................................................................


Interlude: Awakening:-

Little Jolyon, Jon, awakens to the beauty that surrounds him, the beauty that is his mother, and the love personified that is his father, even as his days are spent in play about the home Robin Hill that is now his parents' in more than one sense - his grandfather bought it from her ex-husband the first cousin of Jo, Young Jolyon, the father of Jon, after the architect Bosinney who was her first love died and she fled from her husband. Jon knows nothing of the history, and his blissful life is carried on the wings of imagination where he plays out every possible scenario from every book he reads, so his half sister Holly returning with her husband and second cousin Val from South Africa (where they married during Boer war and stayed to raise horses) finds him painted blue head to toe, playing by himself in the garden.
...................................................................................


To Let:-

To Let goes on with lives of the various families, and chiefly of young Jolyon and his now wife Irene and their home at Robin Hill, with his other children and their various cousins and uncles being part of the story. Soame's nephew Val Dartie falls in love with young Jolyon's daughter by his second marriage, Holly, and the two second cousins manage to marry and be happy in spite of an initial lack of acceptance by the clan due to their being not only second cousins but also related to parties feuding majorly about Irene's divorce of one and marriage to other cousin.

This has the unfortunate consequence of encouraging the other pair of second cousins, Jon and Fleur, in thinking they may make it a success as his sister and her first cousin did. This time however things are very different, and Jon's parents are as unlikely to approve of this match as Soames initially is. Soames gives in due to his heart being completely ruled by his daughter, and goes so far as to plead with Irene for his daughter's happiness, offering to never interact in their lives for sake of overall peace. But Irene cannot risk it, and Jon is sensitive to her and his father's point of view when he comes to know of their history.

He would be in a quandary but for the similarity of Fleur with her father in claiming him as her father had claimed his mother, and this repels him. Fleur's lack of comprehension in her loss is matched by her father's when he lost a wife he had a very slim chance to have a life with. And the beautiful home of Irene is now to let even as they leave to go as far away as they can from this place and this history.
...............................................................................................
...............................................................................................


 On Forsyte Change:-

On Forsyte 'Change is a collection of stories about various members of the clan, children and grandchildren of Jolyon Forsyte ("Superior Dosset") who came with his ten children to London, immediately post death of his wife in her tenth childbirth, spanning a time from their coming to London to well into the first world war. Galsworthy wrote these pieces after the second part of the Forsyte Chronicles, that is, Modern Comedy, to connect through time lapse between the Forsyte Saga and Modern Comedy, but it really covers far more.

The lyrical beauty of countryside and awakening of various Forsytes to beauty and to individual rights along with their occasionally coming into contact with public and their trials and secret joys or escapades form part of most of this, some delightful and some poignant. The success of it all is, having finished all that Galsworthy wrote about the Forsytes one wants more.
......................................................................
......................................................................


A Modern Comedy:-

The second part of Forsyte Chronicles begins - with The White Monkey, first volume of the Modern Comedy - where the Forsyte Saga left off, with a six years gap that includes what was then called the great war and is now known as the first world war. The story here continues with Fleur at the centre and her father, Soames, close to her, with Jon and his mother Irene far away in US.
.........................................................................................


The White Monkey:-

The White Monkey is both a painting - by a Chinese artist, to go with the Chinese drawing room Fleur has designed for her house in London - and an allegory for the life of that time and place, upper middle class England and specifically London, with homes in the city and additional houses in the surrounding countryside. The society is in quest of culture, advance of civilisation, of art and literature and other pursuits of mind and heart - social works, politics, et al - that those who do not need to toil for survival may busy themselves with could indulge in if they so aspire. This society uses much, and throws away much, pretty much as the monkey in the painting does, and is not far different at heart from the uncomprehending disconsolation in the monkey's eyes, with Fleur at the centre of the tale and her father close.

Fleur like her father before her is disconsolate at loss of object of her passion, and like him is collecting, with one difference - he collected paintings and objects of art, she collects people. Neither of them was then or is even now unusual in this. But the difference is critical in that the career of a salonniere depends on the people one collects, the ambient society, and its acquiescence in being thus collected. Works of art are paid for and do not strike back, while people might even as they are guests in one's home.

Soames won't take anyone speaking ill of, much less hurting, his beloved daughter - she is the one occupying his whole heart, a heart injured by loss of his first wife Irene and his total lack of comprehension of why he lost one he hankered after and thought he had rights to - after all he had done everything in terms of marrying her respectably and giving her all the financial security she never had had, and more - so all the more he is passionate in his taking care of his daughter while being sensitive and delicate with her, qualities he acquired perhaps due to loss of Irene with whom he was neither.

So he chooses to confront rather than let go and kill by ignoring a treacherous behaviour directed at his daughter in her quest of a life of salonniere in society. She as her loving and patient aristocrat husband know well he was wrong in choosing that path, and try to stop him in his defence of his daughter - but in vain. And the course is thus set for an expose of society that acknowledges moral right but avoids those right, while preferring beauty and entertainment and lack of confrontations.
............................................................................................


 Interlude: A Silent Wooing:-

Wilfrid Desert, poet and friend of Michael Mont, is in love with Fleur, and she is not in love with her noble, cheerful, silent husband who is in love with her, so she is missing a passion that she had in her love for Jon. But Wilfrid is not willing to let her dangle him beyond a point and she must decide between going away with him or letting him go, and much as she is unwilling to let this interest go she must, and he leaves for east.

Jon meanwhile has married Anne whom he met in US, and her brother who is a distant cousin of Mont and owns a sizeable property in south visits England, and falls in love with Marjorie Ferrar who is unwilling to declare her engagement with an aristocrat of formidable financial status from Scotland, since he is simple and she has been a woman of modern character and passion for Society, life et al. Marjorie would rather dangle them all indefinitely as long as she has not found another play, but it won't do.
..............................................................................................


The Silver Spoon:- 

The Silver Spoon, the second volume of this trilogy, continues with Soames's defence of his daughter against her treacherous guest that he threw out of her home, and the defence of the case this guest brought against Fleur. Much is brought to light delicately as Galsworthy does in his expose of the society, their thoughts and morals and sensitivities and attempts to understand the time and the world they live in. This society is mostly those born with a silver spoon, and some of them deal with those in more perilous or dire circumstances - chiefly Michael Mont, Fleur's aristocratic husband with his quest to do good and to take on politics as a career in an honest way - while others are less caring about those in lesser circumstances, whether honestly as Fleur is or otherwise.

Michael attempts to help various people who appeal to him in his various capacities, and has mixed results in return, some success and some not quite so much. One couple he helped before his political career began managed to stay together despite delicate problems to negotiate and even managed to migrate to a better climate in Australia, but is not as immediately well off as they thought. Another is a disaster partly, with a third doing all right.

Fleur is unable to face her loss of face in society post winning the case brought against her by a badly behaved guest, and is taken for a long travel around the world by a caring and concerned father who would do anything for her. He has tried to stop the case from getting to court by offering to pay, but the intractable stupidity of the aristocratic guest who demands an unqualified apology along with a hefty payment (she needs the money to pay her bills) makes it necessary he defend his daughter and he does so only too successfully, with the prosecuting Marjorie Ferrar losing her rich aristocrat fiance and her newly found status along with her newly announced engagement, but not her place in society!
.................................................................................


Interlude: Passers By:-

The general strike and its concerns and effects on various people is the next, with Jon and his wife arriving in England with intentions to settle down. The first, the strike, has a good effect in that Fleur manages to shine in a new role, running a canteen at the railway station for the volunteer workers, and very successfully, at that. But she is then again in contact with her various second cousins, the descendants of young Jolyon from his three wives, and here are possibilities for stability or fall of Fleur.
...............................................................................


Swan Song:-

If only she could have equanimity or at the very least prudence and control of her passion for her lost first love, Jon, she would do well. She cannot, however, give up what she considers her rightful claim to his heart, and to his love. She is aware of his love for his lovely wife, and so engineers situations to where it is possibly disastrous for all concerned. Jon and his wife survive it, she not so much, and is saved only by the timely intervention of her father at heavy cost to himself, and by the true nobility of the husband who won't indulge in theatrical relinquishing or violence but will wait quietly for her to heal and to return to him in her heart. In this he hears a swan sing when he strolls out on grounds of Soames's house in the last part, and this is a fitting image for one just as silent and noble as a swan.

Monday, August 12, 2013
......................................................................................
......................................................................................


End of the Chapter- 

In the third trilogy of Forsyte chronicles the story centres on cousins of Michael Mont, mainly on his mother's side, the Charwells who are socially somewhere bordering on landed gentry and aristocracy, unlike Forsytes who made their way up from farmer to various money making professions (solicitor, investment manager, builders, stockbrokers and more) to artists and gentry of leisure. Being upper caste in England amounts to being bred and brought up to notions of service to the country and accordingly the Charwells are occupied with work dealing with law, church, and so on, when not with actual landownership including caring for the tenants and other residents of the land. Mostly the three parts focus on Dinny, Elizabeth Charwell, an attractive young woman of Botticelli beauty with a sensitive heart and capable mind who cares for not only her own family and clan but anyone around who might need her, and does the care taking actively with initiatives, meeting people and speaking to them, and more.
.................................................................


Maid In Waiting:-

In Maid in Waiting, Dinny who is the person the title is after, is busy rescuing her brother and an uncle and other related people from various tangles to do with love, empire, standards of behaviour to do with scientific expeditions and treatment of people and animals, love, mental illness and more. She is unable to consider a brighter prospect for herself with either of the two very suitable beaux who fall in love with her, and would not make a match yet.
............................................................


Flowering Wilderness:-


In Flowering Wilderness she meets and falls in love with Wilfrid Desert, a friend of her cousin Michael who had fallen in love with Fleur in the White Monkey and left for east to disentangle himself, and Wilfrid is in love with her just as much, except that unfortunately he has been in a circumstance where forced to choose between life and conversion he had chosen life and thus disgraced all of his countrymen, endangering them to future kidnappings and disdain from those under British rule. This cannot be considered suitable for Dinny by her family and clan, and the story cannot be kept quiet, not the least due to the pride and sense of uncertainty Desert has about his own actions, and it ends up in her heart breaking with him leaving for east once again.
........................................................


Over the River:-

In One More River Clare, the younger sister, returns home from Ceylon after a brief duration of married life, determined not to suffer any more her husband's sadist behaviour. Since she is young and beautiful, there is the expected entanglement with a young man falling in love with her, only she is unable and unwilling to consider any physical contact for now, and is not in love for a while until her own status is clear. But her husband is more than willing to take all possible steps including a divorce court where she is accused of adultery while she is unable to go into why she left him due to her delicacy about exposing her married life and its unsavoury character, and she comes to appreciate her young lover only when threatened with possibility of losing him. Dinny and the clan stand by her, and in the meanwhile another suitor appears for Dinny, who she is able to accept only post news of her first lover being dead and buried in far east on an expedition up a river, a news that makes her seriously ill. It all ends well with both sisters set well with their respective men and the clan at peace, and Fleur has been of borderline help at crucial moments, not the least with her father's money coming in handy to pay for legal costs of the divorce.
....................................................................................................................
....................................................................................................................


One of the major beautiful things about Forsyte Chronicles - all three trilogies, but the first and third in particular - is the love of the author for beauty of England in general and countryside, nature in particular. Very lyrical. The other, more subtle, is the depiction of society in general, upper middle class of English society in particular and the times they lived in in the background, empire on distant horizon until the third trilogy where it is still in background but a bit less distant.

The society changes from the first to the third trilogy but not radically, and in this the author is successful in portrayal of how things might seem radically different superficially but are closer to where progress began, and progress being slow in steps that various people pay heftily during their lives for.
...............................................................................................................................
 ...............................................................................................................................

The Shepherd: by Frederick Forsyth.

My kindle edition claimed 700 pages and so it was astonishing to finish it in an hour or so in one afternoon, having expected the usual Forsyth tale with detail, worldwide canvas and more. One had to check to make sure the kindle had delivered the whole book! It had, and then one realises it was published in '75 or so, and perhaps the number of pages is explained by the illustrations. Still, one is left wanting more, to begin with. Not that the story is unsatisfactory by itself, quite the contrary, it is beautiful and perhaps ends just right when it should rather than going on. But one does want more when one is just finished reading.

The synopsis everywhere pretty much tells what it is about, although it does not say how beautifully it is written. Quite lyrical, unlike most work of this author, although that is not to say his other works are lesser, merely different. This one is comparable rather to works of Richard Bach and James Hilton in its qualities of lyrical beauty. There is suspense of course, a matter of life and death, and more.

And the Mountains Echoed; by Khaled Hosseini.

The author attempts another form of telling this story in this work, with separate stories across the time spanned by the whole centred on various characters and woven together by the common thread of the narrative. So one gets a deeper understanding of each one, for the duration, and a comprehensive one of the whole.

In his previous works too the author has made one aware that terrible doings are not necessarily patented by any one particular sect or organisation, and instead are rather a part of human characters that some choose to succumb to or indulge in while others stay clear of or rise above. In this one too, while he does not refrain from mentioning the atrocities by various politico-terror organisations, he brings out horrors perpetrated by people for private reasons that are as mundane as division of property within the family and clan, or stealing property that belongs to someone now poor and in need of it.

The stories take one across the world with the characters forced to or choosing to travel, migrate and take refuge in various countries for various reasons, usually seeking to find peace that they can live and prosper in. There is cultural diversity therefore, and a kaleidoscopic change of shifting patterns as people from Afghanistan, France, Greece and US move back and forth across, bringing their own cultures and languages and meeting others of diverse backgrounds.

And of course he depicts goodness and nobility of human characters, but not in expected ways or places, rather more in a variety of ways small and large. Often good comes accidentally to someone despite it being not quite clear that such was the intention, for an obvious example when a woman of mixed French and Afghan background who is rendered incapable of bearing her own children - due to some medical procedure she underwent early - adopts a little Afghan girl from a poor family, and eventually takes her to France to live in an attempt to survive. Whatever the loss the girl suffers of her family and connections, it is obvious it is good for her not only for survival but blossoming of a life and mind that would have been unthinkable back home with her family had she not been taken away.

One rather wishes the story would go on and fill gaps left about various characters, and go further, the way one wishes a just finished cup of coffee or tea would continue for a while longer. Perhaps the author would do so at that and tell us what happened to everyone. And this is the success of his work.
................................................................................


In an amazing detail he makes the little Afghan girl of poor farmer family adopted and brought to France to grow up to not only choose Mathematics for her studies but do well enough to go on to be on faculty in Paris and retire only for reasons of health, and have a good life with a family meanwhile with a French husband and three children of her own to boot, with grandchildren galore yet. And the details mentioned of her work in Mathematics are meticulously done so it is not ridiculous either.

It takes someone with some familiarity of the world of science and of western social life to know what a miracle he has painted so very casually. Not because this woman is of another culture, another race, but simply because she is a woman, and west does not tolerate women with careers without penalty of family and peace of mind in any field, even fashion that one would think would be a womens' own field, much less science which is seen as male club and Mathematics which is the very central ivory tower therein.
.................................................................................

Inferno; by Dan Brown.

Brown takes one topic for each work of his and presents a thoroughly researched expose thereof with a thin veil of a murder mystery, and this time it is about the very factual problem of today, where all dire scenarios of future have all sorts of interconnected roots with one chief problem, overpopulation. Also, in this work he goes back to his first two works in the sense of a background from history, art, literature and so forth, deeply rich and contextual for the problem. Da Vinci Code had Leonardo Da Vinci and his works along with history of Europe, west Asia and Rome of two millennia, while Angels and Demons had church and Illuminati and a short lived pope that might have been murdered; this work has Dante, Virgil, Vasari, bible of course, and other works related to concept of hell and inferno as depicted in various systems related to church. Needless to say he portrays east vs west in a very limited way as church vs Islam.

Inferno here is both the problem - problems that come together in the current scenario and their future outlooks for earth and humanity - and solution thereof. Any solution to human population growth and its devastating effects on earth of today must deal with question of reproductive rights and of course resulting human rights of survival, and in past this was taken care of by nature with various calamities such as plague or war and deaths of infants and mothers in childbirth - all of which are today receding with increasing of human knowledge and widening of consciousness, to the extent that very concept of an inevitable death past a certain age is now challenged, and natural relief from overpopulation can only be a far lower rate of reproduction.

For obvious reasons such as racism that is still very rampant, this possibility of such a tool for culling of reproduction cannot be in hands of a powerful institution that might thereby use it to wipe out population seen as unimportant, and one can imagine scenarios where a government in possession of such a tool may wipe out a few poor nations. Or continents.

So here a genius scientist works alone to solve this, and leaves clues about his work admittedly due to an egotistic need to be acclaimed for relieving humanity from the hell it is inadvertently descending into - overpopulation, global warming, wiping out forests and species galore, and effects of any and all of these.

Most people in any glimmer of this assume it is a virus related to a plague that is being released and race to stop it, finding out that it is too late to do so, and trying to discover what virus, what effects, what if any solutions might exist. What they discover however that it is a virus quite different from what they all imagined, bringing not death but a permanent solution to the problem, and is in the long term benevolent. The remainder is sort of anticlimactic, and leaves only one question that most readers would not realise exists.

Populations culled at a certain rate worked for the best is an observation and the virus goes towards affecting it in a certain way, in Brown's Inferno. However, he fails to see that in reality his solution might cull population at twice that rate at most, and certainly there would not be any guarantee that it could be limited to the rate he states is ideal, unless a very organised reproduction was arranged throughout the world. Sheer calculation and a small error that he has perhaps missed.

The Clifton Chronicles: Book 3; Best Kept Secret: by Jeffrey Archer.

Archer always keeps a suspense in the end of every volume of this series, and this one, part three, is no exception. This time the story is moving on to the next generation and - a la As the Crow Flies and at least another one of Archer's works - there is multiple suspense, possible incest and more.

They already have a son, and hope to be united in marriage, but are they related through a common father? One expects this these days to be simply and privately solved in an hour or so by medical procedures, but those days before DNA tests were possible much less common, it was a matter for courts - and that is a surprise until one realises quite how complicated the issue is.

It is far more important for the people concerned whether they can marry and if the son is not labeled born of incest, but there is more to it, since the will of the grandfather who founded the estate and the shipping corporation that the eldest son shall inherit the whole, and the law of the land too goes in generally for the elder son inheriting the title albeit in that case it has to be the legitimate one.

So the drama begins where the previous part left it off, is the couple related already; and the issue is to be decided by the parliament of UK, as most issues that are not satisfactorily solved by courts do. Again, in this case the people concerned are mostly selfless and care only for the good of the whole family, but the public is involved!

From this - the vote goes with need of the one single person presiding to vote to break a deadlock, described by the author in his usual way keeping one breathless - to the brilliant son of the brilliant couple growing up and getting into scrapes, and the uncle meanwhile in scrapes of his own that are more evoking of pathos rather than an amusing chuckle, and then too there is the little sister (daughter of the deadbeat dead father, aunt to the little boy) found and adopted into the family; very engrossing, but it goes further.

Adventures of the boy where he is quickly out of his depth, and the various elders involved quickly and silently to not merely get him out of it safely but to have the profit of it all for the nation, it becomes slightly reminiscent of an earlier work of the author where a similar young man out of his depth in Switzerland had a previously brilliant (but now a mere bank employee) roommate come to his aid unexpectedly, and so on to a thrilling chase that solved satisfactorily.

Here it is satisfactory in that part albeit slightly less thrilling and more concerning for the boy, but the whole thing twists and turns unexpectedly towards the end with the father of a schoolmate involved in a sinister way. Villains that pursue the righteous main characters with no thought to their own happiness but only to destroying that of others is yet another familiar theme. It would be cliché if it were not all too familiar in life and only too true to type.

Archer leaves the reader hanging in suspense at the end as usual in the series, so one expects the next part impatiently. Must read for Archer fans and all the more so for Clifton Chronicle connoisseurs.

Three Cups of Deceit: by Jon Krakauer.

The original book that Krakauer refers to and exposes for semi fiction with exposure of Mortenson's saga did seem too much, and it is, going by this. Great deal of the story in Mortenson's original is just that - story, gilded for fundraising purposes. There might be more to it though, and Krakauer is not going into that which is obvious. 

Friday, February 1, 2013

The Racketeer: by John Grisham.

Delight after the somber reality of some of his past recent ones, and true to his earlier form albeit with less crusading for truth or championing of the victims and more about sheer getting away with it.

Sunday, December 2, 2012.
................................................................................................

................................................................................................


It's as usual by Grisham  a tale of law and courts and judges and lawyers with backdrop as usual of Southern states, and crimes and solution by honest but wronged ones, with details of prisons that remind one of autobiographical works of Jeffery Archer.

But the real story is about travails of an honest black lawyer, a judge who took bribes and a mining consortium that bought the judge - and the neat way the wronged lawyer managed to overturn the success of those criminals without committing a crime.
................................................................................................

................................................................................................

"Frostburg is a few miles west of the town of Cumberland, Maryland, in the middle of a sliver of land that is dwarfed by Pennsylvania to the north and West Virginia to the west and south. Looking at a map, it is obvious this exiled part of the state was the result of a bad survey and shouldn’t belong to Maryland at all, though it’s not clear who should have ownership. I work in the library, and on the wall above my little desk is a large map of America. I spend too much time gazing at it, daydreaming, wondering how I came to be a federal prisoner in a remote part of far-western Maryland.

"Sixty miles south of here is the town of Winchester, Virginia, population twenty-five thousand, the place of my birth, childhood, education, career, and, eventually, The Fall. I am told that little has changed there since I left. The law firm of Copeland & Reed is still doing business in the same storefront shop where I once worked. It’s on Braddock Street, in the Old Town, next door to a diner. The name, painted in black on the window, was once Copeland, Reed & Bannister, and it was the only all-black law firm within a hundred miles. I’m told that Mr. Copeland and Mr. Reed are doing well, certainly not prospering or getting rich, but generating enough business to pay their two secretaries and the rent. That’s about all we did when I was a partner there—just manage to scrape by. At the time of The Fall, I was having serious second thoughts about surviving in such a small town.

"I am told that Mr. Copeland and Mr. Reed refuse to discuss me and my problems. They came within an inch of being indicted too, and their reputations were tarnished. The U.S. Attorney who nailed me was blasting buckshot at anyone remotely connected to his grand conspiracy, and he almost wiped out the entire firm. My crime was picking the wrong client. My two former partners have never committed a crime. On so many levels I regret what has happened, but the slander of their good names still keeps me awake. They are both in their late sixties, and in their younger days as lawyers they struggled not only with the challenge of keeping a small-town general practice afloat but also fought some of the last battles of the Jim Crow era. Judges sometimes ignored them in court and ruled against them for no sound legal reason. Other lawyers were often rude and unprofessional. The county bar association did not invite them to join. Clerks sometimes lost their filings. All-white juries did not believe them. Worst of all, clients did not hire them. Black clients. No white client would hire a black lawyer in the 1970s, in the South anyway, and this still hasn’t changed much. But Copeland & Reed nearly went under in its infancy because black folks thought the white lawyers were better. Hard work and a commitment to professionalism changed this, but slowly.

"Winchester was not my first choice of places to have a career. I went to law school at George Mason, in the D.C. suburbs of Northern Virginia. The summer after my second year, I got lucky and landed a clerkship with a giant firm on Pennsylvania Avenue, near Capitol Hill. It was one of those firms with a thousand lawyers, offices around the world, former senators on the letterhead, blue-chip clients, and a frenetic pace that I thoroughly enjoyed. The highlight was playing gofer in the trial of a former congressman (our client) who was accused of conspiring with his felonious brother to take kickbacks from a defense contractor. The trial was a circus, and I was thrilled to be so close to the center ring.

"I was one of seventeen clerks that summer. The other sixteen, all from top-ten law schools, received job offers. Since I had put all my eggs in one basket, I spent my third year of law school scrambling around D.C., knocking on doors, finding none that were open. At any given moment, there must be several thousand unemployed lawyers pounding the pavement in D.C., and it’s easy to get lost in the desperation. I eventually fanned out through the suburbs where the firms are much smaller and the jobs even scarcer.

"Finally, I went home in defeat. My dreams of big-league glory were smashed. Mr. Copeland and Mr. Reed did not have enough business and certainly could not afford a new associate, but they had pity on me and cleared out an old storage room upstairs. I worked as hard as possible, though it was often a challenge to put in long hours with so few clients. We got along smoothly, and after five years they generously added my name to the partnership. My income barely rose.

"During my prosecution, it was painful watching their good names get dragged through the mud, and it was so senseless. When I was on the ropes, the lead FBI agent informed me that Mr. Copeland and Mr. Reed were going to be indicted if I didn’t plead guilty and cooperate with the U.S. Attorney. I thought it was a bluff, but I had no way of knowing for sure. I told him to go to hell.

"Luckily, he was bluffing."

"My father was one of the first black state troopers hired by the Commonwealth of Virginia. For thirty years, Henry patrolled the roads and highways around Winchester, and he loved every minute of his job. He loved the work itself, the sense of authority and history, the power to enforce the law, and the compassion to help those in need. He loved the uniform, the patrol car, everything but the pistol on his belt. He was forced to remove it a few times, but he never fired it. He expected white folks to be resentful and he expected black folks to want leniency, and he was determined to show complete fairness. He was a tough cop who saw no gray areas in the law. If an act wasn’t legal, then it was certainly illegal, with no wiggle room and no time for technicalities.

"From the moment I was indicted, my father believed I was guilty, of something. Forget the presumption of innocence. Forget my rants about being innocent. As a proud career man, he was thoroughly brainwashed by a lifetime of chasing those who broke the law, and if the Feds, with their resources and great wisdom, deemed me worthy of a one-hundred-page indictment, then they were right and I was wrong. I’m sure he felt sympathy, and I’m sure he prayed I would somehow get out of my mess, but he had a difficult time conveying those feelings to me. He was humiliated, and he let me know it. How could his lawyer son get himself so entangled with such a slimy bunch of crooks?

"I have asked myself the same question a thousand times. There is no good answer.

"Henry Bannister barely finished high school and, after a few minor scrapes with the law, joined the Marine Corps at the age of nineteen. The Marines quickly turned him into a man, a soldier who craved the discipline and took great pride in the uniform. He did three tours in Vietnam, where he got shot and burned and briefly captured. His medals are on the wall of his study in the small home where I was raised. He lives there alone. My mother was killed by a drunk driver two years before I was indicted.

"Henry travels to Frostburg once a month for a one-hour visit. He is retired with little to do, and he could visit once a week if he wanted. But he does not."

"I suppose I should be thankful that my father makes the effort.

"As always, he’s sitting alone in the small visiting room with a brown paper sack on the table in front of him. It’s either cookies or brownies from my Aunt Racine, his sister. We shake hands but do not embrace—Henry Bannister has never hugged another man in his life. He looks me over to make sure I have not gained weight and, as always, quizzes me about my daily routine. He has not gained a pound in forty years and can still fit into his Marine uniform. He’s convinced that eating less means living longer, and Henry’s afraid of dying young. His father and grandfather dropped dead in their late fifties. He walks five miles a day and thinks I should do the same. I have accepted the fact that he will never stop telling me how to live my life, incarcerated or not."

"He taps the brown bag and says, “Racine sent these.”

"“Please tell her I said thanks,” I say. If he’s so worried about my waistline, why does he bring me a bag of fatty desserts every time he visits? I’ll eat two or three and give the rest away."

"“Looks like we’ll all be speaking Spanish before long. They’re taking over.”

"Henry has little patience with immigrants, anybody with an accent, people from New York and New Jersey, anyone on welfare, anyone unemployed, and he thinks the homeless should be rounded up and placed in camps that would resemble, in his view, something worse than Guantánamo."

"“I’ll probably leave the country,” I say. “Go somewhere where I can use the Spanish, somewhere like Panama or Costa Rica. Warm weather, beaches, people with darker skin. They don’t care about criminal records or who’s been to prison.”

"“The grass is always greener, huh?”

"“Yes, Dad, when you’re in prison, every place has greener grass. What am I supposed to do? Go back home, maybe become an unlicensed paralegal doing research for some tiny firm that can’t afford me? Maybe become a bail bondsman? How about a private detective? There are not a lot of options.”

"He’s nodding along. We’ve had this conversation at least a dozen times. “And you hate the government,” he says.

"“Oh yes. I hate the federal government, the FBI, the U.S. Attorneys, the federal judges, the fools who run the prisons. There is so much of it I hate. I’m sitting here doing ten years for a noncrime because a hotshot U.S. Attorney needed to jack up his kill quota. And if the government can nail my ass for ten years with no evidence, just think of all the possibilities now that I have the words ‘Convicted Felon’ tattooed on my forehead. I’m outta here, Pop, just as soon as I can make the break.”

"He’s nodding and smiling. Sure, Mal."

................................................................................................

The story now begins with the murder of a federal judge, Fawcett, and Bannister has information on identity of the killer, information that he'd trade with FBI only for immediate release.

There is a tad liberty taken with the narrative, mostly in first person until now with Bannister being the protagonist, in relating the scenes between FBI officers where the protagonist couldn't possibly have been present. 

................................................................................................


"My celly is a nineteen-year-old black kid from Baltimore, in for eight years for selling crack. Gerard is like a thousand other guys I’ve seen in the past five years, a young black from the inner cities whose mother was a teenager when he was born and whose father was long gone. He dropped out of school in the tenth grade and found a job as a dishwasher. When his mother went to prison, he moved in with his grandmother, who was also raising a horde of cousins. He started using crack, then selling it. In spite of a life on the streets, Gerard is a kindly soul with no mean streak. He has no history of violence and no business wasting his life in prison. He’s one of a million young blacks being warehoused by the taxpayers. We’re approaching 2.5 million prisoners in this country, by far the highest rate of incarceration in any semicivilized nation."

"The chow hall has invisible barriers that dictate where one sits and eats. There is a section for the blacks, one for the whites, and one for the browns. Intermingling is frowned upon and almost never happens. Even though Frostburg is a camp, it is still a prison, with a lot of stress. One of the most important rules of etiquette is to respect each other’s space. Never cut in line. Never reach for anything. If you want the salt and pepper, ask someone to pass them, please. At Louisville, my prior home, fights were not unusual in the chow hall, and they were usually started when some jackass with sharp elbows infringed on someone else’s space."

"I’ve known men who spent time in the hole, or solitary confinement, and the worst part of it is the lack of social interaction. A few handle it well, but most start cracking up after a few days. Even the worst loners, and there are plenty of them in prison, need people around them."

"It was one of my early clients who told me about Judge Fawcett. The man was desperate to get out of prison, and he thought I could work miracles. He knew precisely what was in the safe in the basement of that cabin, and he was obsessed with getting his hands on it before it disappeared."

................................................................................................

"In five years, I have helped six inmates gain early release from prison. Needless to say, this adds mightily to my reputation as a masterful jailhouse lawyer, but I caution every new client that the odds are stacked heavily against him."

"As the victim of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), an often misguided and famously flexible federal law, I am keenly interested in the proliferation of the federal criminal code, now at twenty-seven thousand pages and counting. The Constitution names only three federal offenses: treason, piracy, and counterfeiting. Today there are over forty-five hundred federal crimes, and the number continues to grow as Congress gets tougher on crime and federal prosecutors become more creative in finding ways to apply all their new laws."

There is a horrendous description of treatment meted out to Malcolm Bannister, the protagonist, in the trial and custody process.

"After four days of deliberations, Judge Slater delivered what is commonly referred to in trial circles as the “dynamite charge.” This is basically a demand that the jurors get back there and reach a verdict, at all costs. You’re not going home until we have a verdict! Such a charge rarely works, but I wasn’t so lucky. An hour later, the exhausted and emotionally spent jurors returned with unanimous verdicts against all defendants, on all counts. It was obvious to me and many others that they did not understand most of the code sections and intricate theories used by the prosecution. One of the jurors was later quoted as saying, “We just assumed they were guilty, or else they wouldn’t have been charged in the first place.” I used this quote in my appeals, but it apparently went unheard."

"The trial was a spectacle, a farce, a ridiculous way to search for the truth. But as I learned, the truth was not important. Perhaps in another era, a trial was an exercise in the presentation of facts, the search for truth, and the finding of justice. Now a trial is a contest in which one side will win and the other side will lose. Each side expects the other to bend the rules or to cheat, so neither side plays fair. The truth is lost in the melee."

Bannister had asked to self surrender. Instead he was taken immediately inyo custody, and transported via the system. The description of this process is unbelievable in its mindless horror.

"Louisville is five hundred miles from my hometown of Winchester, Virginia. Had I been allowed to self-surrender, my father and I would have made the drive in about eight hours. He would have dropped me off at the front gate and said good-bye.

"Forty-four days, twenty-six of them in solitary, too many stops to remember. There is no logic in this system and no one cares. No one is watching.

"The real tragedy of the federal criminal system is not the absurdities. It is the ruined and wasted lives. Congress demands long, harsh sentences, and for the violent thugs these are appropriate. Hardened criminals are locked away in “U.S. Pens,” fortresses where gangs are rampant and murders are routine. But the majority of federal prisoners are nonviolent, and many are convicted of crimes that involved little, if any, criminal activity.

"For the rest of my life I will be regarded as a criminal, and I refuse to accept this. I will have a life, freed from my past and far away from the tentacles of the federal government."

................................................................................................


FBI agents met Bannister and gave him the deal he asked, and he gave the name, Quinn Rucker. FBI caught him, and while he was interrogated, investigated and found cash, guns and a Hummer; he was brought to confess and knew it was Bannister who'd given his name, as Bannister had known he would. Bannister knew about the arrest from newspapers.

"There is a surprising amount of organized religion in prison. As troubled men, we seek solace, peace, comfort, and guidance. We’ve been humiliated, humbled, stripped bare of dignity, family, and assets, and we have nothing left. Cast into hell, we look upward for a way out. There are a few Muslims who pray five times a day and stick to themselves. There is a self-appointed Buddhist monk with a few followers. No Jews or Mormons that I know of. Then there are us Christians, and this is where it gets complicated. A Catholic priest comes in twice a month for Mass at eight on Sunday mornings. As soon as the Catholics clear out of the small chapel, a nondenominational service is held for those from mainline churches—Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and so on. This is where I fit in on most Sundays. At 10:00 a.m., the white Pentecostals gather for a rowdy service with loud music and even louder preaching, along with healing and speaking in tongues. This service is supposed to end at 11:00 a.m. but often runs longer as the spirit moves among the worshippers. The black Pentecostals get the chapel at 11:00 a.m. but sometimes must wait while the white ones simmer down. I’ve heard stories of harsh words between the two groups, but so far no fights have erupted in the chapel. Once they get the pulpit, the black Pentecostals keep it throughout the afternoon.

"It would be wrong to get the impression that Frostburg is filled with Bible-thumpers. It is not. It’s still a prison, and the majority of my fellow inmates would not be caught dead in a church service.

"As I leave the chapel after the nondenominational service, a CO finds me and says, “They’re looking for you in the admin building.”"

................................................................................................

Malcolm Bannister was supposedly transferred to another prison and held incommunicado in solitary confinement with no mail and no visitors. In reality he was taken by FBI and was free, and went into witness protection program. After a face change at a military facility and a name change, Max Reed Baldwin was taken to Jacksonville, FL where he was given an apartment on lease and instructed to open a bank account, by his handler, so the reward money would be wired.

"I have no way of knowing the wire is being watched."

................................................................................................


Quinn Rucker and his lawyer pleaded not guilty, denied his confession, and also claimed FBI had lied and tricked him into signing it by using threats. Max was handed over to the local handler.

"Pat and I say our farewells. I thank him for his courtesies and professionalism, and he wishes me well. He assures me my new life will be rewarding and secure. I’m not sure I believe this, because I’m still looking over my shoulder. I strongly suspect the FBI will monitor me for some time, at least until the day when Quinn Rucker is convicted and sent away.

"The truth is I cannot afford to trust anyone, including Pat Surhoff, Diana Tyler, the U.S. Marshals Service, and the FBI. There are a lot of shadows back there, not to mention the bad guys. If the government wants to watch me, there’s little I can do. They can obtain court orders to snoop into my bank account, to listen to my phone calls, to monitor my credit card activity, and to watch everything I do online. I anticipate all of the above, and my challenge in the near future is to deceive them without letting them know they are being deceived. Taking one of the two jobs would only allow them another opportunity to spy."

Why wasn't he aware wired money can be watched?

................................................................................................

"During the afternoon, I open another checking account at Atlantic Trust and move $50,000 from the SunCoast account. Then I do the same thing at a third bank, Jacksonville Savings. In a day or two, once the checks have cleared, I will begin withdrawing cash.

"As I putter around the neighborhood in my little Audi, I spend as much time looking in the mirror as I do watching the road. It’s already a habit. When I walk the beach, I check out every face I see. When I walk into a store, I immediately find cover and watch the door I just came through. I never eat in the same restaurant twice, and I always find a table with a view of the parking lot. I use the cell phone only for routine matters, and I assume someone is listening. I pay cash for a laptop, set up three Gmail accounts, and do my browsing in Internet cafés using their servers. I begin experimenting with prepaid credit cards I buy at a Walgreens pharmacy. I install two hidden cameras in my condo, just in case someone drops in while I’m away.

"Paranoia is the key here. I convince myself someone is always watching and listening, and as the days pass, I fall deeper into my own little world of deception. I call Diana every other day with the latest news in my increasingly mundane life, and she gives no hint of being suspicious. But then, she would not.

"The lawyer’s name is Murray Huggins, and his small Yellow Pages ad announces specialties in just about everything. Divorce, real estate, bankruptcy, criminal matters, and so forth, pretty much the same ham-and-egg routine we followed at dear old Copeland, Reed & Bannister. His office is not far from my condo, and one look suggests the laid-back beach practice of a guy who comes in at nine and is on the golf course by three."

"For $2,500, Murray can build a few firewalls. He’ll set up an LLC—limited liability company—in Florida, with M. R. Baldwin as the sole owner. The LLC will then form a corporation in Delaware with Murray as the sole incorporator and me as the sole owner. The registered address will be his office, and my name will appear in none of the corporate documents. He says, “I do this all the time. Florida attracts a lot of folks who are trying to start over.” If you say so, Murray.

"I could do this myself online, but it’s safer to route it through a lawyer. The confidentiality is important. I can pay Murray to do things the shadows will never suspect and be unable to trace. With his seasoned guidance, Skelter Films comes to life."

................................................................................................


Max was asked to meet FBI and the prosecution team, and chose neither Roanoke nor his new location.

"“Have you told Quinn’s lawyer that I will testify?”

"“No. We do not divulge anything until forced to do so.”

"“That’s the way I remember it,” I say. These guys forget that I was once on the receiving end of a federal prosecution, with FBI agents sifting through every aspect of my life and a U.S. Attorney’s office threatening to incarcerate not only me but my two innocent partners as well. They think we’re pals now, one big happy team walking lockstep toward another just verdict. If I could, I would knife them in the back and poison their case.

"They—the federal government—took away five years of my life, along with my son, my wife, and my career. How dare they sit here as if we’re trusted partners.

"We eventually get around to my testimony and spend a couple of hours in review. This ground has been covered before and I find it tedious. Mumphrey’s chief assistant has a script, a Q&A, for me to study, and I have to admit it’s pretty good. Nothing has been left out.

"I try to visualize the surreal setting of my testimony. I will be brought into the courtroom wearing a mask. I will sit behind a panel or a partition of some manner that will prevent the lawyers, the defendant, and the spectators from seeing my face once the mask is removed. I will look at the jurors. The lawyers will pitch questions over the wall, and I will answer, my voice distorted. Quinn and his family and their thugs will be there, straining for any hint of recognition. They’ll know it’s me, of course, but they’ll never see my face.

"As certain as it seems, I seriously doubt if it will ever happen."

................................................................................................

FBI fortunately caught a phone conversation between someone from Rucker family and an agent of theirs, informing the Rucker family about the new name and whereabouts of Bannister, including plastic surgery. They met Max, ooffering to relocate him. He pointed out that they had no idea if this agent did it simply by shadowing FBI, and said he'd prefer to do it himself, promising to appear for the trial as promised.

"Before dawn, I load the car and wait. I sit on my terrace for the last time, sipping coffee and watching the ocean fade into pink, then orange as the sun peeks over the horizon. I’ve watched this many times and never grow tired of it. On a clear morning, the perfect sphere rises from the water and says hello, good morning, what another fine day it’s going to be.

"I’m not sure where I’m headed or where I’ll end up, but I plan to be near a beach so I can begin each day with such quiet perfection."

Max drove, located the tracking device while having his car serviced, and thereafter was lost to FBI.

"Baldwin had moved the money so fast the FBI lawyers could not keep pace with their requests for search warrants. There were at least eight withdrawals totaling $65,000 in cash. There was one record of a wire transfer of $40,000 to an account in Panama, and Westlake assumed the rest of the money was offshore. He had grudgingly come to respect Baldwin and his ability to disappear. If the FBI couldn’t find him, maybe he was safe after all.

"If Baldwin could avoid credit cards, his iPhone, use of his passport, and getting himself arrested, he could remain hidden for a long time. There had been no more chatter from the Rucker clan, and Westlake was still dumbfounded by the fact that a gang of narco-traffickers in D.C. had located Baldwin near Jacksonville. The FBI and the Marshals Service were investigating themselves, but so far not a clue."

Max was in Roanoke after driving around West and hired a private detective to locate Nathan Cooley, writing to him about making a documentary film about FBI agents simply shooting drug traffickers instead of arresting them. He signed his name Reed Baldwin.

................................................................................................


Max hired a small team of filmmakers, instructed them to be silent, and conducted the meeting and film making with Nathan Cooley who had lost his brother Gene in a bust. He shot some footage for two days, until Nathan was comfortable, and got him excited about more shooting in Miami, flying on a private jet. He got Nathan drunk on the flight and hospitalised on arrival at Jamaica (after which Nathan was arrested) and vanished, later meeting him in jail through a lawyer who bribed the guards.

The whole point is now coming to light, as Nathan pleaded with Reed to get money from his home - Nathan has eight million dollars worth of gold bars hidden under a trapdoor in the storage shed.
.................................................................................................

Max had connected with Vanessa whom he met in Frostburg visitor's room, and they worked together in this; she collected the gold before he arrived and having met, they separated to deposit the gold in various bank lockers in Richmond and Miami, before she met Dusty Shiver to give him evidence that Quinn Rucker had been in a detox facility when Fawcett was murdered, and Max wrote to federals.

"Dear Mr. Mumphrey and Mr. Westlake:

"I’m afraid I’ve made a grave mistake. Quinn Rucker did not kill Judge Raymond Fawcett and Ms. Naomi Clary. Now that I’m out of prison, it has taken me several months to realize this, and to identify the real killer. Quinn’s confession is bogus, as you probably know by now, and you have zero physical evidence against him. His attorney, Dusty Shiver, now has in his possession clear proof of an airtight alibi that will clear Quinn, so prepare yourselves for the reality of dropping all charges against him. Sorry for any inconvenience.

"It is imperative that we talk as soon as possible. I have a detailed plan of how to proceed, and only your total cooperation will lead to the apprehension and conviction of the killer. My plan begins with the promise of complete immunity for myself and others, and it ends with the precise result that you desire. Working together, we can finally resolve this matter and bring about justice.

"I am out of the country and have no plans to return, ever.

"Sincerely,

"Malcolm Bannister"

................................................................................................


Max wrote again before the federal team responded and met him. Immunity for all three, Quinn and Max and Vanessa, were given, and Quinn released and brought to his lawyer, before Max would give the details. Westlake questioned about the gold, but Max refused to answer, and about ethics, he said it didn't belong to anyone - if the original owners were traced they'd hide and deny it.

"Six months after I arrived at the Louisville Federal Correctional Institution, I agreed to review the case of a drug dealer from Cincinnati. The court had badly miscalculated the term of his sentence, the mistake was obvious, and I filed a motion to get the guy released immediately with time already served. It was one of those rare occasions in which everything worked perfectly and quickly, and within two weeks the happy client went home. Not surprisingly, word spread through the prison and I was immediately hailed as a brilliant jailhouse lawyer capable of performing miracles. I was inundated with requests to review cases and do my magic, and it took a while for the buzz to die down.

"Around this time, a guy we called Nattie entered my life and consumed more time than I wanted to give. He was a skinny white kid who’d been busted for meth distribution in West Virginia, and he was adamant that I review his case, snap my fingers, and get him out. I liked Nattie, so I looked at his papers and tried to convince him there was nothing I could do. He began talking about a payoff; at first there were vague references to a lot of money stashed somewhere, and some of it might be mine if I could only get Nattie out of prison. He refused to believe I could not help him. Instead of facing reality, he became more delusional, more convinced I could find a loophole, file a motion, and walk him out. At some point, he finally mentioned a quantity of gold bars, and I figured he had lost his mind. I rebuffed him, and to prove his point he told me the entire story. He swore me to secrecy and promised me half of the fortune if I would only help him."

"As a child, Nattie was an accomplished petty thief, and in his teenage years drifted into the world of meth."

He'd been hired by someone, who only gave his first name as Ray, to do some work for five dollars an hour; it turned out he was needed to help move a very heavy safe, out of the truck Ray drove to the cabin, into the cabin basement.

"Nattie told his brother, Gene, who was in the vicinity hiding from the sheriff two counties away. The brothers became curious about the safe and its contents, and decided to investigate. When they were certain Ray had left the cabin, they attempted to break in but were stopped by heavy oak doors, unbreakable glass, and thick dead bolts. So they simply removed an entire window in the basement. Inside, they could not locate the safe but did manage to identify Ray. Riffling through some papers at a worktable, they realized their neighbor was a big-shot federal judge over in Roanoke. There was even a newspaper article about an important trial involving uranium mining in Virginia, with the Honorable Raymond Fawcett presiding."

"The basement was one room and one closet, a narrow space with small double doors. Inside the closet, Ray stored stuff that appeared to be forgotten—hunting clothes, boots, and a pile of old quilts and blankets. Gene cooked up the plan of hiding Nattie in there, for hours, with the idea that through the tiniest of cracks in one of the doors, he would be able to watch as the judge opened the safe and stashed away whatever it was he was hiding. Nattie, at five feet seven and 130 pounds, had a long history of hiding in cracks and crevices, though he was initially reluctant to spend the night in the closet. The plan was revised yet again."

They managed to do it, and Nathan saw the gold.

"Naturally, the brothers were stunned at what they had learned, and they began making plans to rob the safe. It would require an altercation with the judge, and probably violence, but they were determined to follow through. Two weekends passed and the judge stayed in Roanoke. Then three.

"While watching the cabin, and the judge, Gene and Nattie had returned to their meth business because they were broke. Before they could get the gold, they were busted by DEA agents. Gene was killed, and Nattie went away to prison.

"He waited five years before he strong-armed Judge Fawcett, tortured Naomi Clary, robbed the safe, and executed both of them."

Nathan was in jail in Jamaica and would welcome a deal to accept his crime and go to U.S. prison, Max told them, with no need for a trial. After he'd told them all, he had a drink with Westlake separately so they could talk. This was about the source of the gold as Max guessed it.

"“If my guess is correct, Judge Fawcett was accepting and hiding pure gold in the middle of the uranium trial. ... The company gave Fawcett his jackpot; he gave them everything they wanted.”"

This ties up neatly.

................................................................................................

Max put it forcefully to Westlake that federal investigation into the uranium mining consortium must take place, and the judgement by Fawcett in favour of mining cannot be allowed to stand; he gave a month before he'd contact the ace reporter of N.Y. Times and give him the whole story. 

................................................................................................


John Grisham finishes off with details of how the plan was put together by him with Quinn, his brother and sister Vanessa, and how they transported the remaining gold from various lockers to an apartment in D.C. before dividing it and taking it to Antigua on a yacht.

But the real story remains about travails of an honest black lawyer, a judge who took bribes and a mining consortium that bought the judge - and the neat way the wronged lawyer managed to overturn the success of those criminals without committing a crime.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

................................................
................................................
Sunday, December 2, 2012.

January 18, 2020 - January  2020.

ISBN 978 1444 76871 8
................................................
................................................

Big Bang: by Simon Singh

Simon Singh tackles a subject all encompassing in human enquiry in this, touching everything from earth and solar system to relativity to origin of the universe and a few other huge topics besides, in a very very thrilling write up that is easy to read and makes it easy to comprehend for a non professional reader of the subjects such as physics and astronomy. Indeed, but for a couple or so pages at the beginning and similar at the end in the epilogue, where he touches on philosophical and such angles, this is one of the most intriguing, thrilling, satisfying and wonderful books to read.

One of the aspects of life and community of scientists is the surprising evidence that it is not always as scientific as one might expect, and even apart from the non rational aspect of the discoveries there is the very surprising but only human aspects of scientists who do the work being ignored or sidelined and forgotten with time until someone else rediscovers and gets the credit - and the prizes too. Attempts to correct the injustice happen, but again surprisingly, on less than the prize level. 

Friday, November 2, 2012

Oleander Girl: by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni.

A bridge over two very different parts of the world, migrants bridge a huge distance and gaps in cultures, languages, diaspora. Writing about their own kind comes easy in one way, and difficult in every other - does one write for those one left home, those one is living now with, attempt to make it universal and that how, precisely? For any artist, any writer tells one of thoughts and emotions and visions relating to world and universe as seem from one's own stand, one's own viewpoint, and universality is rare, although dominant cultures demand and define universality as something of the dominant cultures' point of view.

This author does a good job on the whole but in this one flounders a bit relating to Indian point of view on one hand and a satisfactory solution to the final dilemma faced by the protagonist towards the end on the other. A bias towards one race or culture is seen as preferential on a basis different from what it actually is - a vestige of colonial rule, rather than a preference for a particular race. It would be racism if it were a preference for a particular race or colour irrespective of any other factor, and such is hardly the case for majority of India. Colonial domination on the other hand explains much of various prejudices and that the real preference when it comes to family and relatives is after all for one's own is but natural. It would be racism if one preferred a race irrespective of all other factors and were to have negative firm opinions to all others, which is not true of India.

The protagonist, a young girl brought up very protected by her old grandparents in India, newly in love with someone of a more modern social set and about to be engaged, begins to discover that what she was given to understand about her parents is slightly untrue, and it makes a vast difference. She sets out on a journey to search for a father she knows almost nothing about, except his first name and of course the name of her long dead mother, literally across the world to another country, encountering untold dangers from strangers of another culture and from her own. Her future uncertain, especially if she finds her father, she is nevertheless determined to search to the limit of her capacity - limited severely by her small finance.

The dilemma at the end is therefore all the more climactic, when her fiance and his mother accuse her - and quite understandably so - of deception re her discoveries about her father towards the end of her journey. At this point her father has asked her to return to US and assured her of help and all the support she might need while there is another man who is in love with her and has helped her to look for her father in a very active way; will she return, retrace the route her mother went forth on before returning to her parents for a visit?

It is not clear if the glib easy solution opted for by the author is for a need to please a readership in India or if she simply was too tired to work more on this story, but something a bit less simple would have been more in line with the story until then. For instance her return to her father's country and a new university life unlike what she has experienced in the cocoon of her hometown, and possibly her distanced fiance coming over to US to woo her while taking charge of his family business end in Manhattan, would have been slightly less simplistic.

But perhaps it is the story that looms larger in the shadows that precludes this - the story of the silent and deadly discrimination against migrants from India post collapse of twin towers, based more on ignorance and resulting prejudice against all humanity of sepia tones (rather than the so called "white", which really is a colour no human skin has after all), and expressed in general hostility with negative effects in business as much as in sporadic violence, is the major theme in the background of the story of the girl who goes looking for her father.

This story is silent in the western press and usually dismissed as something of a fear very understandable under the circumstance, but in reality it is as much racism as it gets. For example US residents and citizens of Japanese roots suffered majorly during the WWII, but Germans did not, and nazi sympathisers had a field day (perhaps still do) with hostile acts against Jewish citizens of US, including severe violence. On the other hand the "nonwhite" world does not go berserk with violence against all whites on basis of a suspicion of nazi or kkk or even general racist and colonial culture of the "white"s, past or present, and any Asian or African confusing a Brit or Russian with a nazi would be seen as ignorant. That confusing all Asians with talibans or other jihadis is just as stupid, racist and ignorant is not yet understood much less admitted by the so called "white"s is yet another instance of the stupidity, ignorance and racism.

Far From The Madding Crowd; by Thomas Hardy.

Thomas Hardy is not merely master storyteller, there is much more to the superb author than that. It is difficult to decide which facet of his excellence to go into first and which is the best and so on.

There is the genuineness of settings and descriptions of his time and place, which might seem trivial but really is not easy to achieve. There is the human nature and its vagaries, especially when it comes to interactions of people with one another and with ambient society. There is the series of events that are as genuine as in real life, with few major happenings and their ripples, reactions of various characters major and minor, and events caused by people as well as by fate.

But the best of all is his lyrical, poetic descriptions of the earth and heavens, of perfectly ordinary people and their reactions to it all, in a slow and deliberate tempo that gives one far more than if one were actually experiencing it all first hand.
........................................


This work perhaps is best in that respect in that it begins with rhythms of life of a shepherd who is prudent and competent at everything he does, which includes his ability to tell time by looking at skies and to know which sheep needs precisely what, to know that harvest needs action now before rains come pelting down and destroy all the work of the year of all the men. Then there is the funeral scene with its dense fog that he describes as unshed tears suspended in air and thick on the trees.

As to the characters and story that grows out of the people and their nature described so well, few could do it so well. The bewitching beauty who likes her independence and her very strength and nobility of character that - along with her innocence - makes her a prey to the vagaries of an unstable vain man who is not without feeling but is without much conscience or strength when it comes to responsibility, after she has not accepted a man she liked and could be friends with and work with, and after she has innocently been the cause of a noble character man of wealth falling in love with her deeply, is a facet of human interactions that most would not look twice at, except perhaps to comment that she deserved it. That she did not so deserve even though it was her faults and mistakes that caused it is made clear by this author even through his less noble characters.

That it all ends happily after deep tragic events muted and otherwise, is the final satisfaction of this work. With Hardy, that is not always the case.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012. 

A Group Of Noble Dames; by Thomas Hardy.

A collection of tales from the master story teller of England with women young and old as the focus of the stories, told at a cosy setting of fireplace talk post dinner amongst a group of men exchanging tales. Interesting in study of human nature, each different from other and only constant is the unpredictability of not only events but human nature itself.

Mayor of Casterbridge; by Thomas Hardy.

A man can make a horrendous mistake in a bad moment with drink and temper, and however much he regrets it and does his best to change himself and aspire to be a better man, another moment of being less vigilent with one's faults can again bring him down and bring unhappiness to him and others around him. One may pity him, but one has to excuse those he harmed and are unable to love him again, or even forgive him, especially the young ones.

Thomas Hardy is a master in literature. And this is one of his best. Few books can be so heart wrenching about a man of such character.

Thursday, September 11, 2008
.............................................


Hardy belonged to an era when a few miles were a great separation, although people were traversing the Atlantic ocean regularly enough in search of livelihood and sometimes more than once in a lifetime. Perhaps it is that era or perhaps it is the author himself or it is a reflection of his times and his society, but invariably he makes his stance clear - unless there is subterfuge and trickery involved in saving a woman who made a mistake however small, pay she must and she does in his works for the mistake, often with her very life.

Tess was raped and she paid with loss of her marriage by her husband leaving her, insisting she was wife of the man who had raped her, and she eventually paid for it by being hanged for the murder of the rapist. Lucetta in this one is made to pay for having nursed a stranger to health and thus compromised her name, and if she marries another for love of the other or for fear of the one she nursed, no matter, society shall punish her so much she loses a baby prematurely and dies of shock.

Susan is sold by her husband to a stranger and she is over and over certified as innocent for having gone with him, no matter how wrong the husband was in the first place, and dies soon after attempt to correct her mistake. Her daughter is miserable for no fault of her own, is full of virtues and triumphs all her trials with the prescribed womanly virtues, except the unwillingness to forgive and inability to comprehend the actions of the man who made her miserable, and she is castigated without a word by the author towards the end for this.

The man who causes so much misery to various people is sketched best by the author with all his faults out in the open and his temper, his dark psyche and his violence not hidden, and his virtues clearly visible for all to see but not much dwelt on, with the theme being how he is respected and feared but never loved due to the complex mix of his nature. One cannot say one would be able to deal with him better if one met him, he might not allow that to happen to one any more than he did to Susan or her daughter or Farfrae, but the author nevertheless leaves one with a deep pity for the man whose mistakes and pride and temper and more caused so much misery to others - and to him. He gets the worst punishment after all in life, no one loves him, and few sympathise, fewer respect him past his loss of stature. He has attempted to rectify his mistakes by sacrificing much and achieved much, but his nature he could not change and so he lost all by steps, including the love of the daughter that could have been his.

Thursday, November 23, 2012

Mill On The Floss: by George Eliot.

Human nature, the author's era, and in particular a corner of the veil over caste system of Europe lifted with the casual reference to the separate churches or chapels for the poor and the gentry - all in all, good.

Friday, February 11, 2011
...............................................

Amazingly this is one of the few works of literature where a film or a television serial gives more, not less, than the original work in some ways. The social contexts of the time and the general setup is described in the book by the author as much as the author saw necessary, but times change and perhaps social set up across the world in another land, another time is different. At any rate, what comes across as a very personal story of a young woman in particular and her family in general, with the society as the frame thereof, changes when one takes into account the context of the time and the society, which is brought to view far more clearly on film in the film or television series.

The central character Maggie is very endearing in her persona full of life and aspiring for a life of mind and spirit while in turmoil of heart and conscience. Eliot seems to be a follower of Aquinas, and at any rate finds it necessary to make the poor young girl give up her one chance of finding life of happiness when she and a young man are inexorably drawn in spite of all obstacles, with little quarter given to his very valid arguments about the others they are engaged to being merely cheated if these two pretended no love existed between them.

The author seems to make little of the young woman's quest for independence by on one hand making her insist she won't depend on her relatives if she can make her own living and on the other hand give far more importance to the claims of various relatives and others when weighed in against her own mind and heart.

As for others, the society then clearly had its caste system with money and power playing top roles (which one doubts has changed much) and more, society including most women (author mentions them towards the end as the wives whom the rector cannot bring to see reason or truth where a poor young woman without powerful connections when compared to others is concerned - what else is new? -) consider a young woman as not quite proper except as someone belonging to, property of, under protection of a relative with some money, prestige, power, preferably male. If the male is merely a slightly older brother, nevertheless he has the power of righteous indignation and wrath if the young woman has any emotions much less actions or thoughts that are not explicitly approved prior to having them by the said male, and same is true of other relatives. The young man in question gets far more latitude in comparison.

In short the life and society of Europe was not that different regarding the feudal structure especially regarding women from what is now protested about as the restricted version in lands other than those of richer western nations (which is not a geographical term, since it includes Australia and NZ generally) with lifestyles of plenty and so forth.

One wishes the author had made Maggie's society see common sense and have a heart and allow her and Stephen Guest to be happy, but Eliot seems to think it is necessary to go tragic to deprive Maggie of everything that can possibly be taken from her including life, merely for the sin of having a young man of rich class fallen in love with her - he has been courting her cousin, but is really not bound by promise to her - and the only relief in all this is that the four young people concerned, the two in love and the other two who thought they belonged to them, understand all perfectly with no rancour. Which makes it all the more senseless that the tragedy is forced merely for sake of punishing a flouting of conventional bindings due to truth of hearts.

But then again, the author is a prisoner of her times, and perhaps she meant to bring about change in social attitudes by forcing this tragedy to attention of her readers and making them see sense.

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

July 27, 2012. 

................................................................................................

................................................................................................

Vanity Fair: by William Makepeace Thackeray.

In retrospect it seems far more the fault of a caste system that worships money and those that have it, not often questioning how they came by it, and despising and sidelining and using any which way those that do not have it. Under such a social system a man might commit much chicanery and even murder, and be able to establish his house in higher circles - it has and does happen all too often. A woman of talent however had no chance then short of having a wealthy male marry her, however capable she was, however beautiful, and there were always those that would save such a man from marrying her however unworthy of her he was otherwise, while all the more willing to dally with her even at cost of their own family life and marriage. Today things are different, not much but a little, in that a woman from not wealthy origins might still find good chances to rise to her fullest capabilities in her career, and even find a worthy mate, while caste is now less relevant albeit not quite done with. People of wealth still scorn those without and will save their sons from marrying worthy and beautiful women of no dowry, but it all matters a bit less.

Friday, December 10, 2010.
.........................................


Thackeray is either unable to make up his mind about what stance to take for public view, or adopts that stratagem as part of his satire extending to himself. With all the withering Goyaesque portrayal of the rich and the titled in most part, and while often acknowledging qualities of his heroine that would go a long way towards making of a man if she were one, he nevertheless takes care to repeat his refusal to give her a certificate of innocence or goodness, while not quite condemning her and making clear his satire re those that do so condemn her or pursue her with gossip and accusations unfounded in most - ninety nine out of hundred, really - part. The only really good people in his work are the major Dobbin (who is pursued by ridicule and discrimination almost into his adult life, and even then in not a small part until his worth is proven beyond doubt and beyond his father's lowly beginning as a mere grocer rather than a rich or titled person), and Amelia the other heroine who is looked down on not merely for her poverty for a large part of her life but also for her simplicity and goodness itself.

So perhaps a reader may conclude that in European caste system one can only be a rich and - or  - powerful male, preferably with a title or half a dozen, before one can have one's small faults overlooked and be respected socially, and the more the wealth, power and titles the more one's sins' degrees that can be not only overlooked but have one drooled over nevertheless. And if that was so in Thackeray's time, what has changed since? Only that in lands elsewhere a man may have a fair chance to do well and be recognised for one's worth before one is quite old, and sometimes even a woman might have such a chance, but for most part in most of the world the status quo remains.
.....................................................................


Becky Sharp has good qualities that might today raise her to a satisfactory status by her own efforts rather than having to please those with wealth and titles for sake of getting them to give her husband a position and money to secure a good life for the family; at any rate, she stands a better chance today of being seen as a normal person with normal concerns rather than a social climber, such climbing being neither necessary today to find financial security or a good life nor a vice per se.

But if Becky's lack of feminine virtues (she is not fond of her only child, and is more involved in pleasing people who can assist her husband with his career - which, come to think of it, might have served her extremely well had she been married to someone with a position in colonies part of the empire) is dwelt upon by the author and many many of his characters, they nevertheless manage to overlook the corresponding lack of masculine virtues in her husband (he never does manage to find work after the war and his resignation from the military, which is again surprising since he has no money apart from his salary; he never attempts to understand his household finance and worry about how to pay anyone, and he gambles albeit mostly successfully); what is more, without quite making it clear, Becky is blamed for the financial fiasco too, when it comes, although she has been instrumental in getting him a position that he promptly takes leaving her behind to face ruin.

If he is praised for being fond of his son and she is denounced for the lack of it, shouldn't he be denounced for lack of providing for his family and providing her a male authority to depend on (she is always pleased when he does show any sign of it), and shouldn't she be praised for attempting to secure a future for him and for the family?

No, the caste system of Europe says - any blame is for the female, any compassion and respect is for the male. Unless she happens to be well situated to begin with, that is, by virtue of happening to have a father or a husband with money or power or title, both with all of the above if possible. Then she can do as she pleases. No questions asked, no denouncing, no criticism, unless she happens to lose the instruments that have raised her to the status.

In retrospect it is not clear what exactly Becky Sharp did or did not do that was different from the general conduct of the empire in colonies, or generally the behaviour of European states in Asia and Africa.

Come to think of it, there is a subtle parallel there between Becky with her social climbing due entirely to her own innate qualities and Napoleon with his self built empire that the then European monarchs joined in bringing down with a crash, mainly because he was a common man who lacked royal pedigree.

Whatever the faults of Thackeray as a writer - and there are many - one can be reasonable certain that this parallel was not hidden from him, what is more he fully intended it but did not care to make it so obvious as to become socially unpopular or worse for it.

Thursday, July 19, 2012.
.................................................................