Happy Thanksgiving!

The Gentleman by Forrest Leo

Published by Penguin Press on August 16, 2016

If I had to sum up The Gentleman in one word, I would be hard pressed to choose between “hilarious” and “whacky.” Lionel Savage, a poet of moderate fame, married for money rather than love, only to discover that he had lost the ability to write (not that Lionel was much of a writer before he lost his muse). After a year of marriage to Vivien, the woman he could not live without has become woman he cannot live with. Lionel is contemplating suicide as the novel begins.

Lionel believes Vivien is vapid. When she is not inexplicably weeping, she is attending (or throwing) fancy dress parties. Lionel’s torment is compounded by the discovery that his 16-year-old sister is not the innocent child he believed her to be. But is it, in fact, his wife that makes him so unhappy? Is she really responsible for his writer’s block?

As Lionel hides in his study to avoid another of his wife’s fancy dress parties, a partygoer wanders in who proclaims himself to be the devil. He is not “a wicked stealer of souls and ravisher of virgins — he is, rather, a melancholy man … who stammers slightly and enjoys books and wishes himself better liked.” Lionel loans this sympathetic fellow a book of Tennyson’s poetry after explaining the source of his anguish. When Lionel discovers that Vivien suddenly vanished from the party, he comes to understand that he inadvertently sold his wife to the devil.

With that setup, Forrest Leo kicks off a freewheeling story that brings together an eccentric cast of characters, including Lionel’s impetuous sister, his wife’s adventurous brother, an inventor, and Lionel’s imperturbable butler. Lionel embarks on a series of madcap adventures with the goal of rescuing his wife, if he can only discover the route to hell.

Lionel learns something about himself after Vivien disappears. He also learns some things about Vivien, including the fact that she is a better poet than he (although he cannot fathom how anyone can write in free verse instead of following the solid British tradition of iambic pentameter). But poets cannot write without love, and The Gentleman is ultimately a romantic comedy as Lionel learns the truth about love — and about poetry.

As is the nature of romantic comedy, the ending is predictable but satisfying. The story calls for the suspension of disbelief on several occasions, but that’s easy to do in a story that isn’t meant to be taken seriously. Since the novel is a spoof of Victorian literature, true fans of Victorian literature might be put off by it, but I suspect that Vic lit fans who have a sense of humor will enjoy it. A novel like The Gentleman succeeds if it leaves the reader smiling, and I was grinning from the first page to the last.

RECOMMENDED

Can't We All Disagree More Constructively? by Jonathan Haidt

Tzer Island does not usually review essays, nor does it usually publish reviews on Tuesdays. Having accepted the opporunity to read some essays published in the Vintage Short series, however, I've been reviewing them. Two essays were reviewed last week on Tuesday and Thursay. Thursday this week is Thanksgiving and Tzer Island is taking the day off. Two more essay reviews will appear next week. Vintage Shorts are available in digital format for about a buck.

Published by Vintage on October 4, 2016. The essay is taken from The Righteous Mind, published by Vintage on March 13, 2012

The title of Jonathan Haidt's essay answers itself. If obstructionists from all political stripes worked toward constructive solutions of common problems rather than refusing to betray their ideological purity (or, more cynically, refusing to cede political power by working together with people they view as political enemies), a good many of the nation’s ills would be cured. But how can that happen?

Increasing polarization in the electorate, says Haidt, is nothing compared to polarization in Washington. Beginning in 1990, traditions of friendship between Republicans and Democrats in Congress were discouraged by party leaders, weakening human connections and making it easy for party members to treat opposing party members as political enemies. Since the ability of Congress to solve problems depends on its operation as a collegial body, the “take no prisoners” mentality weakens Congress as an institution.

What is the source of “hyperpartisanship”? Haidt suggests that social class and self-interest are no longer strong predictors of ideology (i.e., the wealthy are not always conservative and the poor are not always liberal). He reviews research suggesting that there is a genetic basis for political ideology (conservatives are genetically predisposed to fear and respect for authority; liberals are genetically inclined to empathy and to new experiences).

So far, so good. Where Haidt goes off track, I think, is his failure to recognize that many of the arguments he makes against liberalism apply equally, or more strongly, to conservatism. He contends that the failure of progressives to consider how their proposed changes to society would weaken “moral capital” is “the fundamental blind spot of the left.” His suggestion that conservatives have more moral capital (resources that sustain a moral community) than liberals is unsupportable. Contrary to Haidt's suggestion, I suspect that most liberals do consider how their proposed changes will affect society, and that they don’t find many conservative “moral” causes (condemnation of gays, suppression of minority voting rights, imprisoning suspected terrorists without due process and then torturing them, advancing economic policies that concentrate wealth in the hands of a few, hostility toward government regulations that benefit workers and the environment, etc.) to be particularly moral. The notion that “conformity and loyalty” strengthen moral capital is true only if people are expected to conform and be loyal to moral behavior, which doesn’t include bashing anyone who isn’t a white Christian conservative straight male (or a submissive white Christian conservative female).

To be fair, Haidt suggests that conservatives, while allegedly doing a better job than liberals of preserving moral capital, “often fail to notice certain classes of victims, fail to limit the predations of certain powerful interests, and fail to see the need to change or update institutions as times change.” Yet those very failures are evidence that conservatives are preserving their own narrow self-interests, not moral capital.

Haidt suggests that liberals want too much change too quickly and thus squander moral capital. Maybe, but it seems more likely that diligent efforts to combat racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and political corruption actually build the moral capital that is needed to make enduring changes that benefit all Americans, not just the social conservatives. Yes, that pisses off the conservatives and encourages them to rally around their causes, but quietly enduring oppression changes nothing.

Haidt then talks about his agreement with certain fundamental tenets of liberalism (government restraint of corporate abuses and regulatory efforts that improve the quality of life), libertarianism (free markets work wonders), and conservatism (helping minorities hurts majorities). I’m paraphrasing the last one, but I think that’s what Haidt is really saying. He argues that enforced diversity weakens social bonds that make a society strong, but America’s diversity has always been its strength — not to mention that equality of rights is a fundamental American moral value. I don’t buy the premise that helping a “subset of bees” is likely to “damage the hive.”

I don't mean to suggest that all conservatives are small-minded social conservatives, but those are the voices that control politicians on the right side of the aisle. Conservative legislators must do their bidding, at least to some extent, if they want to be reelected. Karl Rove thought he had a master plan when he created a big tent to house social conservatives together with economic conservatives, but the social conservatives won't share the tent with conservatives who reject their narrow-minded view of the world. If the Rockefeller Republicans once again have a meaningful role in the party, compromise might replace hyperpartisanship, but that won't happen any time soon.

Near the end of the essay, Haidt gets around to the topic suggested by the title, but doesn’t offer much hope for constructive disagreement. If members of Congress lived in Washington instead of flying home every weekend, their kids might become friends and they might not view political opponents as enemies, but who’s going to make that happen? He urges people to open their hearts as a means to open their minds, but people who urge society’s return to the pre-Civil War era aren’t about to open their hearts to immigrants and blacks and gays and all the other people they evidently despise. Haidt’s essay is interesting, but I don’t see much in it that I would regard as constructive.

NOT RECOMMENDED

The Coming by Joe Haldeman

First published in 2000; published digitally by Open Road Media on September 27, 2016

The Coming is a light novel. More comedy than drama, the story is notable for the amusing cast of characters Joe Haldeman assembles against a backdrop of alien visitation. Haldeman gives a nod to James Gunn’s science fiction novel, The Listeners, as his inspiration for The Coming. The stories are quite different, but the form is similar, in that each book explores the impact of an alien message on a variety of different characters.

A common theme of science fiction, present in The Coming, is that scientists make better decisions than politicians. That might be true, given some of the stupidity that comes out of Washington, but nobody elects scientists. One serious point in this otherwise light-hearted novel is that politicians who convene a panel of science advisors should probably heed the advice they receive.

Something is approaching the Earth at nearly the speed of light, but it’s slowing down. It should arrive in three months, on New Year’s Day. It sent a message -- “WE’RE COMING” -- that isn’t particularly helpful, but it does get the attention of the media, thanks to the astronomer, Aurora Bell, who first decodes the message.

From that premise, the story branches off in a multitude of directions. The Coming is a free-wheeling novel. It consists of short chapters, each focusing on a specific character, many of whom make only a few brief appearances. A primary storyline involves a blackmail scheme that is only tangentially related to the first contact story. More directly tied to the main plot is a president whose first instinct is “If we don’t understand them, we should kill them.”

The thread that binds the characters is their speculation about the intent of the approaching aliens. Haldeman writes convincingly of people who perceive everything as a threat, and add aliens to the list; people who perceive everything in religious terms, and expect the aliens to be messengers from a deity (perhaps coming to smite the unholy); people who view it as a hoax because they don’t believe anything that comes from the government or the news media; and people who view a visit from aliens as a chance to make a fast buck. Occasionally a scientist comes along who refuses to base an opinion on speculation rather than fact.

I like the novel’s future-building. Haldeman envisions a future in which America (and the English language) is strongly influenced by Latino culture, university students make high tech porn, homosexuality has been outlawed (again), and addicts use genetically-programmed designer drugs. The Coming was first published in 2000, so predictions of the future seem dated in only a couple of respects.

Dialog is strong and often quite funny. After the buildup of alien visitation, the ending seems too abrupt. It’s clever, but if this were a more serious novel, I would find the ending disappointing. I don’t demand a dramatic or meaningful conclusion from light fiction, so my disappointment was mitigated by the fact that the novel as a whole is amusing and enjoyable. It’s more a reflection of silly attitudes in contemporary American society than a science fiction novel, but that’s fine for open-minded readers who thinks science fiction doesn’t need to consist exclusively of space opera.

RECOMMENDED

The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

First published in 1896

The Island of Dr Moreau is H.G. Wells’ novel about a mad scientist who takes the idea of anthropomorphizing animals to an extreme. It is a horror story, but it explores a number of philosophical questions as the horror unfolds.

Edward Prendick, a biologist, is near death when he is rescued from a lifeboat after being forced to abandon ship. When he recovers his senses, he finds himself on a schooner with a drunken captain, a doctor named Montgomery, a deformed man who attends the doctor, a caged puma, and an angry pack of muzzled dogs.

Montgomery, having been booted out of medical school in London, is on his way to an isolated island. Through no fault of his own, Prendick is booted off the ship, leaving him with no choice but to join Montgomery on the island.

The island, of course, is home to the mysterious Dr. Moreau. It’s probably impossible to spoil a story this old, but I won’t say much more about the plot, except to note that Prendick encounters creatures who are “human in shape, and yet human beings with the strangest air about them of some familiar animal. Each of these creatures, despite its human form, its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into it, into its movements, into the expression of its countenance, into its whole presence, some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast.”

That quotation gives you a sense of Wells’ prose style which, to readers raised on genre authors who write eight word sentences and three sentence paragraphs, might seem laborious. Perhaps it is, but it is a style uniquely Wells’ own.

Prendick discovers that human-like beasts on the island are (rather reluctantly) following a set of laws. Transgressions are enforced by punishment that is “sharp and sure.” But, just as the promise of swift punishment does little to deter criminal behavior or misbehaving children, threatening to punish beasts who eat the flesh of other animals (or humans) isn’t likely to change their nature. And like all systems of punishment-based law, the system does no good if those who violate the law are not caught.

Philosophical questions that the novel raises include the difference between man and beast and the justice of a system that forces the island’s inhabitants to live in fear of laws they do not understand. The novel could be viewed as an allegory of legal systems and particularly of religious law, where obedience is coerced by instilling fear of punishment by a higher power. It can also be seen as an indictment of totalitarian government, where the “sayer of the law” uses ruthless tactics to dictate obedience among the masses, who are viewed as incapable of governing themselves (or whose self-governance is feared). And the novel can be seen as a caution against attempts to replace the natural with the unnatural, perhaps a forerunner of the debate about genetic engineering. On a simpler level, while the novel isn’t very frightening when viewed as a horror story, it is an entertaining tale, made all the more interesting by convincing characters, both man and beast (and in-between).

RECOMMENDED