The Poe vogue

There seems to be a current vogue for contemporary fiction that casts Edgar Allan Poe as a character in the story. One such was The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl, which I commented on in my "Recent readings " posting of 6/17/06. In that story, Poe was posthumously cast as a character: a young lawyer, who had attended Poe’s funeral in Baltimore, became intent on solving the mysterious circumstances of his death and went to Paris to find Auguste Dupin (Poe’s fictional detective) in his quest. I described the book in that posting as an "overly-contrived potboiler" and noted that I didn’t finish it.

I believe I have recently seen something about another such Poe-as-a-character work of fiction, but I can’t recall it.

Yet another one I have just finished reading: The Pale Blue Eye*. It has Poe as a "fourth-classman" (a plebe) at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York in the year 1831. (In real life, Poe did attend the Academy in 1831 but was expelled for neglect of duty before the year was out.) In this book the murder of a cadet has taken place on the Academy’s grounds for which the Academy’s superintendent calls in a former police detective from the New York City force, now retired and living in a small village near West Point, to find the killer. Not only was the cadet murdered by being hung from a tree, but his heart had been cut out and taken away. Two other murders under the same circumstances follow.

* The Pale Blue Eye, by Louis Bayard, Harper Collins, New York 2006, 414 pages

Because the young Poe is described in the novel as something of a weirdo given to scampish behavior, the detective, whose name is Gus Landor, soon makes his acquaintance and (with the reluctant acquiescence of the Academy’s superintendent) enlists him as a junior aide in solving the murders.

There is merit to much of the novel. Providing an authentic atmosphere to a special place at a time 175 years in the past–in this case, the Military Academy at West Point in 1831–by a present-day author is not easily done. Bayard does well in this respect. He also makes the detective Landor into an unflappable fellow–a trait which allows him to keep his cool when engaged with some of the military brass and their hidebound attitudes. (Likewise, as a widower, Landor has no trouble accepting the sexual favors of a buxom barmaid who lives nearby.) However, with Poe, the author is a bit less successful in projecting his character–he at times stretches too far in making him a roguish devil-may-care upstart.

But the book does have its shortcomings. The first is its length–in my opinion, 414 pages is far too long for detective fiction; I prefer no more than around 200 pages. There is a lot of filler (numerous encounters between various characters that add little to the flow of the story) that could better have been excised. However, scanning many of the pages to skip over the filler, but yet keep track of the story, was fairly easy.

Another fault was that the entire story consisted of written reports, letters, testaments, etc. by Landor and by Poe: "Last Testament of Gus Landor April 19th, 1831" (the opening chapter), "Narrative of Gus Landor November 1st to November 2nd", "Report of Edgar A. Poe to Augustus Landor November 16th" are examples. To have characters going through an entire story just writing such texts (although conversations are reported in the texts) strains the credulity of the reader.

The denouement comes in two parts. So as not to give away the endings, I can only say so much about them. The first part is very much third rate–it could have come from one of Edgar Wallace’s stories or from a Stephen King potboiler. The second part, however, is interesting. It is in the same style as one of Agatha Christie’s whodunits which was criticized by some critics but which I liked.

How can Ann Coulter stand herself?

Is Ann Coulter truly as outrageous as she appears to be? Or, is it an act for which she is well paid? She reminds me of Westbrook Pegler, the far-right zealot columnist for the Hearst newspapers during the 1940's and ‘50's. Pegler basked in the glory that he assumed he had from his rants. Coulter could be his progeny.

I have just scanned her latest screed, Godless, The Church of Liberalism. That’s the one that became famous for her referring to the New Jersey women left widows by the 9/11 attacks as "the Witches of East Brunswick," and going on to say, "These broads are millionaires...I’ve never seen people enjoying their husbands’ deaths so much...And by the way, how do we know their husbands weren’t planning to divorce these harpies? Now that their shelf life is dwindling, they’d better hurry up and appear in Playboy."

* Godless, The Church of Liberalism, by Ann Coulter, Crown Publishing Group, New York 2006

Her above comments are just a sampler of her foul mouth. In other venues, there was the one where she wished Timothy McVeigh had bombed the offices of the New York Times rather than the Federal building in Oklahoma City. Or, "Like the Democrats, Playboy just wants to liberate women to behave like pigs, have sex wothout consequences, prance about naked, and abort children." (from her book How to talk to a Liberal (If You Must)) Or, calling a student at Indiana University a "gay boy" when he asked during the Q&A following her speech there about her hatred of Democrats. (These last references came from the encyclopedia Wikipedia.)

Coulter does some little credit to herself by occasionally saying something in Godless that does make sense. An example is her coverage of the Willie Horton incident that figured in the 1988 presidential election. Horton, a convicted murderer, sentenced to life without parole and serving time in a Massachusetts prison, was one of a number of prisoners who were granted occasional week-end furloughs by Governor Michael Dukakis, who was the Democratic opponent of George H.W. Bush in the election. While on this furlough, Horton went to Maryland and raped a woman before he was captured and returned to his Massachusetts prison. Dukakis took much deserved flack for letting such a man be free on a furlough. According to Coulter, Dukakis was disdainful of such criticism and refused to meet with a sister of the man who was murdered by Horton, for which he was sent to prison, and also would not speak to the Maryland woman who was raped by Horton or her husband.

She also makes a sensible argument for capital punishment. Likewise, she viscerates a school district in Connecticut for allowing a sex education teacher to order a high school boy to handle a condom in front of his class.

But these few merits fall far short of offsetting her demerits.

I raise the question: does Coulter genuinely believe the outrageous bilge that she spews out? My guess is that, at the beginning of her career, she was inclined toward the far right, but as time went on she found how much richer going more and more in that direction would make her. So, if going more toward the lunatic fringe puts more money in my pocket, you’re damn right I’ll go for it, she thinks. It’s a bit like a stripper who takes off most of her costume–but as the applause grows louder, she takes off the pasties and then, with still more applause, off comes the bottom.

Although she still seems to be on a gravy train with her syndicated column, her books, and her public appearances, the ride may be slowing down. Following are comments by some of her non-admirers.

"We’ve decided that syndicated columnist Ann Coulter has worn out her welcome. Many readers find her shrill, bombastic and mean-spirited. And those are the words used by readers who identified themselves as conservatives." David Stoeffler, editor and publisher of the Tucson, AZ Arizona Daily Star, 8/28/05, as the reason for dropping her column from that newspaper.

"Life is too short to read pages and pages of rant." From a review of her book Treason by Arnold Beichman in the Washington Times 8/2/03. And that newspaper generally leans toward the right!

"...Ms. Coulter is reviled because she is mean, malicious, the barbed-wire front woman for a cabal of bloviators, bully boys and blowhards (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage and others) who are pleased to regard themselves as the guardians of conservatism’s soul. Conservatism’s soul should sue for slander." (Leonard Pitts, Jr., columnist for The Miami Herald, as published in the Baltimore Sun.)

It appears that Coulter is unmarried (there is no mention of a marriage in her biog in Marquis Who’s Who). Small wonder. What man could live with her?

Zidane compared to Achilles

I expect this to be my last posting about l’affaire Zidane. In fact, I promise that it will be unless Zidane comes back into the news in some unforeseeable way. I am writing this one because I can’t resist talking about the comments of the noted French intellectual Bernard-Henry Lévy.*

The heading of his column is "Zidane, from Homer." He opens the column with:

Here is one of the greatest players of all time.

Here is a legend.

A worldly myth, and unanimously celebrated.

Here is the providential man, the savior...like Achilles bearing a grudge and enraged, brought about the defeat of his own (his own team).

Better still: here is a super-Achilles...

Later in the column he calls Zidane "the man more admired than the pope, the dalai-lama and Nelson Mandela all rolled together...an icon, a demigod, a hero, a legend." He even invokes Machiavelli and Dostoyevsky in describing Zidane.

After such a hagiography, Lévy goes on to chastise Zidane for his behavior by saying, "that incomprehensible act, insane,..the last recollection of him in the annals of football will be, not as having gone out in a blaze of glory, but having been sent to hell."

His final words are: "Achilles had his heel. Zidane will have had his...(which) has brought him down to the level of his human brothers."

* Lévy is a regular columnist for the French weekly magazine Le Point; this column appeared in its 7/17/06 issue. It is apparent that he wrote the column before Zidane gave his story in interviews on 7/12/06 as to the head-butting event in the World Cup championship match. The above translations from the original French are by me.

I don’t care for the over-used phrase "over the top," but it certainly applies to Lévy’s rhetoric.

Zidane, apologies but no regrets

Zizou speaks, the world (at least the French) listens. I watched the four-minute interview that he had on 7/12 with the French TV show Canal + Plus; it was available on his website www.zidane.fr. I also watched part of a longer interview that he gave the French TV network TF1 (available at its website http://tf1.lci.fr); it kept breaking up, so I didn’t watch the whole thing. (Both interviews were in French, of course).

Zinédine Zidane’s explanation of his behavior in head-butting the Italian player Marco Materazzi in the championship match of the 2006 World Cup was that he was provoked by insulting remarks made by Materazzi, about Zidane’s mother and sister. He said that Materazzi had been making such remarks during the match and that he (Zidane) finally reacted.

He apologized for the incident especially to the children who might have been watching and to his fans, but he said that he didn’t regret it because it was a reaction to the insultes très graves by Materazzi. He added, "Would I have done something unprovoked within the last ten minutes of my career as a player?"

There was a blizzard of comments by sports figures and the news media about his sentiments expressed in the interviews. BBC News published an interesting--and occasionally amusing--summary of the comments (posted on its website http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk). Some quotes from the BBC article:

It had the makings of an address to the nation from the head of state. Across the country, families gathered around TV sets; in bars they ordered extra drinks. The sports daily L’Equipe ran a cartoon of Zidane sitting behind an ornate desk, alongside a French flag–as if about to speak from the Elysee Palace (the residence of France’s president).

Zidane’s refusal to repeat the exact words (used by Materazzi) still has everyone guessing.

The article noted that most newspapers were "reverential" in their stories and editorials about Zidane and his interviews. However, one took a different tack–the left-wing Liberation commented that a similar situation occurred in the 1988 World Cup championship match when a leading player on the British team (which was playing Argentina), David Beckham, was redcarded, but, unlike Zidane, Beckham "was contrite, recognising that he had damaged his team." "‘Zidane did no such thing yesterday (in his interviews),’ says Liberation. ‘He did not have a word for his team-mates, whom he perhaps cost the World Cup.’"

So, now that the World Cup is over, and Zizou has told his story, and the French public and press have had their say about his story, perhaps the world will again turn on its axis.

The 2006 World Cup: Zidane, the head butter

The world press was agog over Zinedin Zidane, of the French team, butting Marco Materazzi, of the Italian team, in the chest with his head in the soccer World Cup championship game last Sunday in Berlin. The main question was: why did Zidane do it? Why, when this was to be his last game and he was about to retire in a blaze of glory? Instead, for his act he was ignominiously banished for the game with a red card and, arguably, a factor in the French team’s losing to Italy (had he stayed in, he would undoubtedly have been one of France’s kickers during the penalty kicks to break the 1-1 tie and, based on his prior kicking record, would probably have made his kick).

Commentary on the event wasn’t limited to the press–other notables and individuals had something to say:

French president Jacques Chirac: I don’t know what happened and for what reason he was disciplined. But I would like to tell of the esteem that I have for a man who has exemplified at the same time the beauty of sport, the greatest human qualities and who brought honor to French sport and great honor to France. (1)

Ehoud Olmert, Israeli prime minister: The match pit two friends together...I particularly admired the quality of the strikers. Unfortunately, there was the deplorable head blow by Zidane...I was touched by the joy of the Italians in Rome (after their victory). (1)

Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, who said he sent a personal letter to Zidane "to express my...friendship to Zidane and to give him some comfort" (Zidane was born in France of Algerian immigrant parents): He was a demi-god of the World Cup, but five minutes later he became something that sportsmen should shy away from.(The British newspaper The Independent 7/10/06)

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Green party in the European parliament and "a great football fan": Zidane certainly lost it from provocation..Those who say "at that level one must keep control of his nerves" are correct , but at the same time (football) is the entire life of this young man who came from a modest background and has fought all his life...For one for whom life has been one of combat there are moments when he loses it. (1)

Raymond Domenech, coach of the French team: When one "takes it" as he did for 1 hour and 20 minutes and the referee lets things go on, it (Zidane’s act) is understandable. It’s not excusable, but it’s understandable. (2) He’ll carry that weight for a long time. (3)

Marcello Lippi, coach of the Italian team: I am disappointed in Zidane because I have held him in high esteem. I told him so before the match...It’s a shame that he went out that way. Materazzi told me that he didn’t say anything. (2)

Marie-George Buffet, former French sports minister, said "Zidane’s aggressive act was unforgivable for its effect on children watching the game." (4)

Giuseppe Materazzi, father of Marco Materazzi: (H)e told me (in a telephone conversation) that he (Marco) had been provoked by the captain of the French team (Zidane). (2)

(1) Article "Tempête sur un crâne" (Tempest over a skull) from the French newspaper Le Figaro 7/10/06

(2) Article "Pourquoi Zinédine Zidane est-il sorti de ses gonds?" (Why did Zinédine Zidane become unhinged?") from the French newspaper Nouvel Observateur 7/10/06

(The above translations from the original text of the above French newspapers are mine.)

(3) Associated Press article "The Zidane Mystery: What Set Him Off?" from the Washington Post 7/10/06

(4) Paraphrasing of Mr. Buffet’s comment in the above Washington Post article

Sports writers and columnists around the world had their say:

His farewell match seemed set for a fairytale ending...(but) the fairytale transformed into one of horror as he wheeled around on Marco Materazzi after the Italian to say something to him and headbutted him in the chest. (The Times of India 7/10/06)

This morning, Zinedin, what do we tell our children, and all those for whom you were the living role model for all times? (The French sports daily L’Equipe, as reported in the Associated Press article cited above)

The red card brought an undistinguished end to Zidane’s glittering career but he has received much support in France. (The Independent, cited above)

Why did he do it? Speculation is all over the place.

The goofiest one I have seen was reported in the French newspaper Le Figaro on 7/10/06: It seems that the Brazilian TV station Globo reported that it engaged several experts in lip-reading to tell what Materazzi may have said to Zidane just prior to the incident; these experts said that he called Zidane’s sister a prostitute, and had done so previously. (Another "expert" said the remark was about his mother.) Brazilians reading the lips of a man on the field, presumably speaking in Italian, is indeed a wonder (TV close-ups of the men’s faces were only a few seconds).

Another version is that Materazzi called him a "terrorist." That was in the Associated Press article cited above, which was picked up by several Bristish and U.S. newspapers.

The "terrorist" epithet was assumed by a French organization SOS Racisme to have been what was said or, it added, it may have been "sale algérien" (dirty Algerian).

Materrazi was quoted in the Associated Press article as saying, "It is absolutely not true, I didn’t call him a terrorist. I don’t know anything about that."

Zidane’s agent, one Alain Migliaccio, was quoted by the BBC as saying that Zidane told him that Materazzi "said something very serious to him, but he wouldn’t tell me what."

It sounds a lot like the "trash talk" that U.S. National Football League linemen carry on with their opponents.

His agent is reported to have said that Zidane will tell what happened–he didn’t say when. "He (Zidane) was very disappointed and sad. He doesn’t want things to end that way," the agent added, to which Le Figaro added, Nous non plus (We don’t either.)

Even with his humiliation, Zidane was awarded the trophy as the best player of the 2006 World Cup. Also, it seems that French fans have not ben very harsh on him–he was seen on BBC television after the games were over waving and giving a "thumbs up" from a balcony of the Élysée (the residence of the French president) to a cheering crowd.

The Latest News

The latest news, just out today (7/12) is from the "ESPN Soccernet" website. It ran an article with the heading "Zidane: Materazzi insulted my mother and sister."

"I reacted badly and I would like to apologise for it," Zidane told Canal Plus. "I do apologise but I don’t regret my behaviour because regretting it would mean he (Materazzi) was right to say what he said."

Spiritual Benefit from Soccer

Well, even with all the contention over l’affaire Zidane there is a spiritual benefit from soccer. Or, so the website www.jesusandtheworldcup.com tells us:

The World Cup is the world's biggest event for the world's most popular sport. When your team wins, you can feel great; when your team loses, you can feel terrible. It's what makes soccer exciting -- some years your team does great, other years it may be a real struggle. If soccer is your source of happiness, then your life can go up and down.

There is just one source of peace and joy that doesn't change -- and that is God. Having a personal relationship with God can give you true peace no matter what happens on the soccer field. Here are 4 key steps you can take to begin a personal relationship with God.

The message goes on to list the four steps and provide commentary about them.

This week's quiz, last week's answers

This week's quiz: Dogs and cats.

1. An Alaskan sled dog.

2. An Australian wild dog.

3. "Herd" is to cattle as ____ is to cats.

4. A cat that lives mostly in trees in Central and South America.

Next week's quiz: Automobiles, past and present

Answers to last week's quiz: British and American writers.

1. This British author, as a boy, worked in a factory that made black shoe polish. Later he became a court stenographer.

Charles Dickens

2. This American author has a bridge in Boston named after him.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. A bridge over the Charles River is named after him.

3. This British author began a novel with the words "It was a dark and stormy night..." for which there is a contest every year in the USA for an opening sentence worse than that one. He also coined the phrase "the pen is mightier than the sword."

Edward Bulwer-Lytton

4. This American author had only one book, a novel, published to great acclaim; it was later made into a popular movie. The author died after being hit by a taxi.

Margaret Mitchell, author of Gone with the Wind

A kind act remembered

Many years ago, when I was age 13, I had saved $3 with which to buy a baseball glove. A buddy and I rode our bicycles to the store in the little North Carolina town where I was born and grew up. I was dumbstruck when at the store I found the $3 missing–I had put the three $1 bills rolled together in my pants pocket, and they had obviously fallen out while bicycling to the store.

Stricken with disappointment and shame for not having been more careful with the money–$3 at that time to a 13-year-old boy was like hundreds of dollars today–my friend and I started looking under parked cars along the route we had taken, hoping that the bills might have blown under one of them and stuck there. No such luck! As we were doing this, a man who was walking by and knew us, Mr. Lonnie Breedlove, who owned a nearby grocery store, asked what was going on. We, of course, told him my sad story.

Some time later that day, Mr. Breedlove phoned my house to tell that his truck driver who delivered groceries to customers had found the lost money and that I should come by his store and pick it up! By his account, the driver had found it a long block away from our route to the store (he was said to have found it at an intersection on a street parallel to the one we took, the block between the two streets being maybe 200 yards long).

Although at the time I believed his story, as time passed I realized that it didn’t happen. How could three $1 bills have stuck together while being blown some 200 yards (it wasn’t a windy day to begin with)? Would a truck driver, upon finding money in the street–remember, it was a lot of money at that time–have told about it, and then voluntarily given it up to be returned to its rightful owner? Hardly. I realized that, out the kindness of his heart, Mr. Breedlove didn’t want to see a young boy so disappointed, so he concocted the story about it being found and gave me the $3 from his pocket.

Since the incident occurred well over 60 years ago, Mr. Breedlove must have passed away years ago. But I am sure that he built up some good karma for his next life by his kind act.

Recent readings

Kingdom Coming * is a polemic. As with any polemic, a reader who disagrees with the author will call it a screed, but one who is sympathetic to the author’s view will find it insightful and a forceful argument. I fall into the latter category

* Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism by Michelle Goldberg, W. W. Norton, New York 2006, 242 pages

Ms. Goldberg’s theme is simple: the far-right, conservative Christians are a present danger insofar as their intent is not simply to win others to their convictions but, rather, to force their style of governance on the United States. The 31-year-old author describes herself as a "secular Jew" who is a contributing writer to the magazine Salon; she describes a tremendous amount of research that she put into the book, having interviewed a large number of the Christians she writes about and attended megachurch services and conferences of the faithful. She names not only the usual suspects (Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, James Dobson, Tim LaHaye, Paul Weyrich, Ralph Reed) but many others that I had never heard of.

While I have no admiration of these conservative Christians, these "people of faith"–I could never be one of them–I have never felt threatened by them. However, if one gives credence to Ms. Goldberg’s testimony, they are a clear menace to our society. They not only want school prayer, the "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments displayed publicly, and the other trappings of their faith, they also want elected government officials, teachers of our children, and everyone with influence on our lives to be of their ilk.

She talks about "Christian Reconstruction": "Reconstruction theory calls for a stealth strategy to Christianize politics and culture." She refers to one Gary North, "one of the movement’s key theorists, (who) wrote of the need for activists to penetrate secular institutions to ‘smooth the transition to Christian political leadership....Christians must begin to organize politically within the present party structure, and they must begin to infiltrate the existing institutional order.’ " (p. 14).

She quotes a variety of the far-right Christians, whose words point out the menace of their ideology.

"We must remove all humanists from public office and replace them with pro-moral political leaders." Tim LaHaye. (p. 39).

"Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ–to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness...World conquest. That’s what Christ has commissioned us to accomplish" George Grant, identified as executive director of Coral Ridge Ministries, "a multimedia empire" headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. (p. 41).

"The humanist West is our modern throne of iniquity, framing mischief by enacting laws. We must return to God’s law. We must work towards a true Christendom. Thy kingdom come, O Lord!" R. J. Rushdoony (now deceased), described as a leader of "Christian Reconstructionism." (p. 158).


"The overarching question we face today is: ‘Who is America’s sovereign?’ and ‘What is his law?’...The holy Bible makes clear that Jesus Christ is our sovereign...America’s founding fathers understood and acted on this Biblical truth." Howard Phillips, another Reconstructionist who has "called for the execution of abortionists, a crucial plank in the Reconstructionist agenda." (p. 167).

Further on the theme of the menace to America’s free society of the far-right Christians, Ms. Goldberg writes "If fascism’s rise is gradual and subtle, how does one spot it?" As an answer she quotes Robert O. Paxton, a history professor at Columbia University, "We know from tracing its path that fascism does not require a spectacular ‘march’ on some capital to take root...Fascists are close to power when conservatives begin to borrow their techniques..." (p. 179).

She adds, "Those who don’t want to live in the country the Christian nationalists would create have no choice but to fight...the threat will not simply fizzle out without a countermovement organized to defend pluralism, religious equality, reason, and personal freedom. If current trends continue, we will see ever increasing division and acrimony in our politics. That’s partly because, as Christian nationalism spreads, secularism is spreading as well, while moderate mainline Christianity is in decline." (p. 181).

Well said.

My response to "Anonymous's" comment that Ms. Goldberg would take offense at my referring to her as a "31-year-old." (See "Comments" below.) I went with the odds. I only knew that she was born some time in 1975 (that info was given at the front of the book), so on July 2nd (the date of my posting), the 183rd day of 2006, there was a 50.13709% chance that she had turned 31 (183/365).