Stanley Scism

David Abram, et al’s, India

Of the Rough Guide series. For sheer information, the best travel guide. My only quibble is that they refer to Theravada Buddhism by the term its detractors use, which they probably would not do for other religions. Outstandingly helpful guidebook, though.

Eyewitness Travel Guides: India

The best travel guides for illustrating sights and scenes, even various foods of India. Printed on photographic paper, therefore heavy, therefore not the best for backpackers. Details on lodging and eateries not as complete as in Rough Guides—the Eyewitness clientele probably stay in upper-bracket hotels and use travel guides more than would budget travelers.

Three nontravel notes: 1. At Matho Monastery, Ladakh, ‘oracles traverse the topmost parapet…blindfolded, despite the 98-foot drop onto the rocks below. The Oracles answer questions put to them about public and private affairs, and great faith is reposed in their predictions’ (p140). In the Bible, oracles are God’s Word through prophets (see, e.g, Isaiah).

2. At Mandu, Madhya Pradesh, ‘a seven-story victory tower acclaimed in contemporary accounts as Mandu’s finest structure. It was built by Sultan Mahmud in 1443 to mark his battle with the maharana of Mewar. Interestingly, the latter also built a victory tower at Chittorgarh after the same battle’ (p247)—each side claimed victory, as we see happening now politically.

3. Beypore, Kerala, ‘is believed to be the fabled Ophir, referred to in ancient Greek and Roman texts’ (p653).

However, the book’s editors don’t seem to understand the basic three broad groups of India—North, South, and Northeast, with the consequence that they divide crazily, and end up putting Orissa (but not Bihar) with NE India, UP and Uttaranchal in Central India, Rajasthan and Gujarat (but not Maharastra) in Western India, Maharastra with Goa and Karnataka in SW India, and ndia itself including Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra and Andaman. So don’t take geography lessons from them, but their photography and history are great.

Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World: The Greek Philosophers

The author hails from Norway, formerly taught philosophy, passionarly believes in philosophy’s importance for everyone, and won an award for the novel Sophie’s World. The present volume excerpts two chapters and wittily introduces to the reader the Greek world’s most famous philosophers, explaining Socrates’, Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas. My notes:

Two ideas to distinguish: logos means universal, as contrasted with and at times opposed to, individual reason (p7); nous means mind or intelligence (p12).

The oracle at Delphi started thus: a Greek goatherd searching for a missing goat found it on a hillside acting strange, investigated, and found a fissure in the ground emitting gasses. Their society, not knowing the natural source, attributed this directly to gods and eventually built to Apollo, god of wisdom, a temple, with a hole over the fissure, and a three-legged stool (called a tripod) over the hole. A priestess, titled Pythia, would sit on the tripod, become entranced by the fumes, start babbling, and the result was taken to be divinely inspired (in Greek, breath, wind and spirit all come from the same word, pneuma). Delphi was located near Corinth, and one can see from this scenario the overemphasis that rose in Corinth on speaking in tongues.

Since a babbling provides no clear message to anyone from the god, a priest was assigned the task of ‘interpreting’ the ‘message’, and would do so in hexameters (prophecy in poetic form was common—indeed, much Old Testament prophecy is poetic, as is readily seen in a modern English translation). This enabled the priests to say what they chose. Since opposing forces often both came to Delphi for wisdom, the priests became circumspect and cryptic in responses, the most famous example being when the king of Lydia asked whether he should fight Persia, and the priests responding that if he did so, he would ‘destroy a great army.’ He did—his own.

Hippocrates founded Greek medicine, believed in moderation and a healthy lifestyle, ‘a sound mind in a sound body’ and started medical ethics by requiring his students to take the Hippocratic Oath: ‘I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider to be for the benefit of my patiens, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to anyone if asked nor suggest any such counsel, and in like manner I will not give to a women the means to produce an abortion. Whenever I go into a house, I will go for the benefit of the sick and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption, and further, from the seduction of females or males, whether freemen or slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice, I see or hear which ought not to be spoke abroad, I will keep secret. So long as I continue to carry out this oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of of the art, respected by all men in all times, but should I violate this oath, may the reverse be my lot’ (p19-20).

Socrates, says Gaarder, ‘believed that this foundation [of human knowledge] lay in man’s reason. With his unshakable faith in human reason…’ (p31). Yes, rationalism is a faith.

Plato’s concept of the forms, or ideal reality, came because he ‘believed that the soul existed before it inhabited the body….But as soon as the soul wakes up in a human body, it has forgotten all the perfect ideas. Then….as the human being discovers the various forms in the natural world, a vague recollection stirs his soul. He sees a horse—but an imperfect horse….The sight of it is sufficient to awaken in the soul a faint recollection of the perfect ‘horse’, which the soul once saw in the world of ideas, and this stirs the soul with a yearning to return to its true realm. Plato calls this yearning eros—which means, love’ (p40). So when you see a pretty girl and think she’s ‘divine’, you’re on the right track, according to Plato.

Incredible India: Adventure Sports

Incredible India: Dance and Music

The first volume covers rock climbing, rapelling, mountaineering, trekking, biking, mountain biking, hang-gliding, paragliding, ballooning, river running (rafting, canoeing, kayaking), cruising, scuba diving, snorkeling, sailing, windsurfing and other water sports, skiing, angling, nature walks, riding, and safaris by camel, yak, elephant, horse and jeep.

The second volume covers Carnatic, Hindustani, Ghazal, Qawwali, folk vocal music. Also the dholak, ektara, flute, jaltarang, ghatam, mridangam, nadaswaram, pakhwaj, santoor, sarod, shehnai, tabla banya, sitar, veena, violn, edakka, kombu, chenda instruments. Also the Kathak, Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathakali, Mohinlattam, Odissi, Manipuri, Chhau and folk dances (Dumhal, Rouf, Lama, Pangi, Losar Shona Chuksam, Bhangra, Raas, Gidda, Dhamyal, Duph, Lahoor, Dhurang, Mali, Tera Tali, Naga, Hazagiri, Cheraw, Nongkrem, Bihu, Thang-ta, Karma Munda, Ponung, Brita, Hurka Baul, Kali Nach, Ghanta Patna, Paik, Dalkhai, Gendi Silt, Bhagoriya, Jawar, Garba, Dandya, Kala, Dindi, Mando, Dollu Kunitha,Dandaria, Karagam, Kummi, Kuttiyattam, Padayani, Kolam, Lava and Nicobarese (not that you can see this last).

Frank Kusy’s and Rupert Isaacson’s South India

Frank Kusy was born in England to Polish-Hungarian immigrants, attended Cardiff University, left to start a career in journalism, worked with the Financial Times, and ‘India is his first love, the only country he knows which improves on repeated viewings.’ Maybe he should have completed university—he might know more. I could suggest several countries that can grow on a person. He spends three months of every year in India. I spend five, and know better than to put up with his ‘hell-wait’ for India buses to start: ‘To secure a seat, you have to get on half an hour before the bus is due to leave, and for that time, wth the temperature hitting 40 degrees C, you must grit it out, the sweat running inside your shirt and from your hair into your eyes. Children selling fruit climb onto the bus and thrust their wares at you. Beggars proffer their sores and stumps, but you cannot speak or even think beyond the next breath.’ Improves on repetition? I don’t think so. He says the bus driver doesn’t hit the people. Headlines suggest otherwise. It’s true that, when you get out of the heat and into the hills, the natural beauty and coolness can make you feel better about life. He’s also right about the Hyderabad’s Golconda fort and about the ‘seething, stinking town of Madurai’, although residents might rightly call it a city. He says, ‘In India, the calmer you are, the smoother things will go.’ They just seem calmer. The chaos remains. The book is inferior to Rough Guide or Doring Kindersley’s guides.

Darwin Porter’s and Danforth Prince’s Frommer’s Portable London

Really useless guidebook unless your main idea of tourism is to spend LOTS of money to eat and sleep in historic surroundings. If instead you are active, prefer to save money on accommodation and food, eating healthy and spending time seeing things, then forget this book and go to one with budget accommodation and practical information on the sights.

P.G. Wodehouse’s Big Money

Lessons learned, with useful quotes: ‘stolid affection, like a cow inspecting a turnip’ (p38).

‘Feeling now as Elijah would have felt in the wilderness if the ravens had suddenly developed cut-throat business methods’ (p43).

A father ‘visited his son and heir, but in some mysterious way….the extraordinary idea [he] might possibly have a little cash in hand, and be willing to part ith somne of it to the author of his being’ (p43).

‘Opportunity pressed down and running over’ (p44).

‘Father’s natural bewilderment’ (p45)

Glancing nervously back, ‘as if expecting to see the Recording Angel standing there with pen and notebook’ (p57).

‘Like an enthusiastic but ill-advised sportsman in the jungles of India who has caught a tiger by the tail’ (p66).

‘Look at Othello and Desdemona. Othello hadn’t dreamed of saying all that stuff about moving accidents by flood and field, of hair-breadth ‘scapes I’ the imminent deadly breach, until that girl dragged it out of him with her questions. Othello knew perfectly well that when he talked of the cannibals that each other eat and the men whose grow beneath their shoulders he as piling it on’ (p68).

‘Wished to be elsewhere, and that right speedily’ (p72).

‘Grim and desolate spots where the foot of white man had not trod nor the Gospel been preached’ (p77).

‘Said something sharply in one of the lesser-known dialects of the Hindu Khoosh’ (p101).

‘In a slow, thoughtful sort of way like a man hunting for a lost collar stud’ (p102).

‘Groaned slightly and winced, like Prometheus watching his vulture dropping in for lunch’ (p102).

‘A drove of dotards who talk across you about the time they ere given a half-holiday because of the Battle of Crecy’ (p104).

Hit on the ear by a hard dinner roll, he ‘leaped convulsively and for an instant forgot all about the girl. In similar circumstances, Dante would have forgotten Beatrice’ (p106).

‘A frame of mind which would have qualified him to walk straight into a Chekhov play and no questions asked’ (p108).

‘Suppressed elation as of one ho on honeymoon has fed and drunk the milk of Paradise’ (p119).

‘Lawyer tightened his lips another fraction of an inch, as if to say that something of this kind as only to be expected in a world in which all flesh was as grass…find himself legally debarred from being a feofee of any fee, fiduciary or in fee-simple’ (p126).

Do simple daily things ‘reverently, as one feeling that there is a home beyond the skies’ (p131).

‘Sudden apparition of a totally unwanted’ anyone affects one as ‘the ghost of Banquo on a memorable occasion affected Macbeth’ (p141).

Helping a visitor, a ‘stranger in a strange land’ (p141).

‘Hart that pants for cooling streams when heated in the chase’ (p143).

Breaking off a mistaken engagement and getting engaged to someone else is ‘a consummation devoutly to be wished’ (p161).

‘Should say no that God was in His Heaven and all pretty well right with the world’ (p163).

One man, called a Jonah, corrected ‘Judas’ because ‘he liked to get these things straight’ (p181).

One man puzzles over ‘the sort of thing Marcus Aurelius used to worry about’ (p211).

Another man paraphrases Longfellow (p212).

One man recommends another by saying, ‘His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “This was a man!”’ (p224).

Insights gained from this book:

If you wear mismatching clothes at work, you’ll be treated like earwax.  If you wear smart suits, people will pretend to like you because you might be their boss some day.  If you wear sandals and beachwear, you’ll be worshipped as the only one who understands the computer.
 
If your tie falls in your tea, it’s time for your committee meeting.  Ties know these things.
 
He points out the obnoxious people who harp on other people’s every slight mistake.
 
One way to the top:  find strange-looking, powerless people to blame everything on.
 
Another way:  doing nothing rather than making mistakes.  Another:  taking credit for other people’s work.  Another:  write useless things that offend no one and mean nothing.
 
And increase staff and have them all make work for each other.  (Adams probably got this from Parkinson.)  I know offices (which shall be presently anonymous) operating this way.
 
Decentralize everything centralized, and centralize everything decentralized.  People think you’re a genius.
 
Offer to start new projects involving a lot more people.  They budget you more money.
 
If the boss gets a bonus for cutting expenses, some people will be out of a job and the others will work harder.
 
Writing resolutions or manuals or anything else by committee is ineffective and time-consuming, but people do it to mask blame.
 
People higher in the hierarchy take credit for other people’s ideas.  For instance, Kenneth Reeves sent manuscripts to the editing department and, lo and behold, other people wrote articles on the same subjects, stealing his ideas, before putting his words into print.  So now he left the hierarchy and has his work printed elsewhere.
 
When people call, give them information you have but that they don’t want, ask them to rephrase the question as many ways as possible, leave the phone and come back as someone else, hold for ten minutes, then disconnect them.  If they call back, refer them to recently deceased persons, or use a difficult foreign accent and start from the beginning.
 
People think that the more copies you receive of other people’s work, the more important you are.
 
The time
 a project will take is probably one week per the number of people involved.
 You can stall basically all productivity by demanding cost-benefit analysis, extensive discussion of alternatives, financial analysis.  By having good time management but different priorities, you can create gridlock.  (Find people who actually do this and kill them.)
 
Refuse to answer questions unless you know who is asking, why and what they will do with the information.  Heirarchies (like HQ) try to keep people from getting mad at them.  Small groups(like local churches) have more flexibility and can take advantage of opportunities.
 
Fancy titles mean that people at the bottom of the hierarchy can avoid “truly demeaning titles” like “boot-licking, lower-than-dirt assistant peon” (p43). 
 
Just hope you don’t have a boss who makes you ill slowly (ulcer or overwork) or kills you quickly (heart attack).  Hope you get a cheerleader or do-it-yourself person.  The boss won’t waste time clarifying instructions—use your own judgment.  When he says, “our workers are our more important asset” or “our strategy is to improve long-term results” or “we are studying that issue to prepare an appropriate action plan,” in each case he means nothing.
 
Bosses say, “Why don’t people come to me sooner?”  The reason is:  they chew out people who come to them.
 
Your performance appraisal will be “hastily prepared, annoyingly vague, and an insult to whatever dignity you might still possess” (p56).
 
The boss’s secretary must be placated by a blood sacrifice.  You say, “I need just a few minutes of the boss’s time,” and the gargoyle who serves as his secretary says, “First you must defeat me in a battle to the death in a pit of fire-breathing lizards” (p59).
 
You can adapt some of Adams’ thoughts to church work.  For instance, people in evangelistic teams speak in code:  when they say, “I prayed about it,” they mean, “I asked my dog.”  When they say, “I’m sure we can win a million souls,” the answer is, “Right.  When pigs floss.”  And when they say, “We’re working closely with the pastors,” they mean, “We told them our favorite colors.” (see p. 62).
 
Expense accounts:  order the most expensive thing in the restaurant when someone else is paying:  “I’ll have the endangered species kabob” or “Give me the yeti steak grilled on Everest rocks.”  I know people who treat me this way when I pay.
 
When you get a chance at feedback, enjoy it:  “This is garbage.  And what second-hand place sold you that terrible shirt?”
 
When you put your pen down and turn your eyes, someone will steal it.
 
In a meeting, look at the people to see who’s really in charge:  the person with no writing materials is a senior executive, the person trying to look more relaxed than anyone else is probably an executive, the person dressed out of style is in finance, the person eating a sack lunch is a technical person,” the person returning calls during the meeting is a middle manager.
 
And the intelligence of the meetings goes down the more people you have present.  1 person says, “The project is good.”  A second person says, “There are many issues.”  The third person asks,” Is it our mission to think of issues?”  The fourth person says, “What are issues?”
 
Meetings are so boring that you could die.  Solutions:  daydream, crack jokes, sleep.  (I’ve seen people do the last two on the Foreign Missions Board.  I did the first.)
 
Attending meetings is considered to be working, even if you do nothing.  Attend as many meetings as possible—task forces on productivity are the ultimate irony.
 
If the meeting contains more than three people, one of them is too distracted to participate meaningfully.  (Parkinson would say that over five is too many.  In India, many committees have three people and that seems to work.)  Finding a date you’re all available is another problem if the committee gets too large.  “The first time every body else is available is June 8 in the year 3057…Well, yeah, I suppose you will be dead by then…so I guess you’ll be free that whole day” (p76).
 
And if people ask you a question, drone on about unrelated topics.  This avoids giving the wrong information and also reduces the volume of future questions.
 
Don’t give bad news.  People just hate you for it—it’s called “shoot the messenger.”  So emphasize the positive, even if there isn’t any.  If everyone’s dying, say the number of funeral ceremonies is up.  If a project fails because your boss is an idiot, say he has “genetic predisposition to suboptimal performance” or, better, something more obscure than that.
 
And if someone wants something you don’t want to do, say, “We’ve proactively prioritized our quality mission objectives and reached a breakthrough strategic consensus that our bottom line would be negatively impacted by that path forward” (p80).
 
But don’t lie.  Lies tend to catch up with you when second lies contradict first lies.  Except on your resume, Scott Adams says.  Tell people you r job title, not what you DO.
 
When you’re late to a meeting, make your excuse more dramatic than that of people who were also late but got there before you.
 
Bosses who don’t understand technology will be slow to adapt new ways, especially in reducing paper.  If you create a computerized, interactive, multimedia training tool, they’ll want photocopies.  Technology has met its promise of reducing workload because it prevents us from doing any work at all when the equipment all breaks down.
 
All technological progress is based on faulty assumptions—people wouldn’t do it if they understood the consequences.  People who made the wheel and thought it would make things less complicated weren’t thinking about urban planning, pollution, etc.  People who invented TV and thought it would benefit culture and education weren’t thinking about human nature.  People who invented the computer and though it would eliminate paper while freeing us all from tedious, unfulfilling jobs weren’t thinking about modern life.
 
Throughout history, many great ideas started as scribbles on the backs of envelopes, match books, and cocktail napkins.  But unless you’re very confident about that idea of yours, you should use regular paper when you show it to the boss.  Don’t, for instance, write it on your cornflakes and staple them together.  The boss cares more about style than substance, good formats than good ideas.  And if you have LOTS of analysis, that helps to prevent people from having to think.
 
Delegating is getting other people to do your work.  And don’t admit you don’t know the answer to a question, but respond with a tougher question.  If someone asks, “Do you have the monthly report?” ask them in which of several possible forms they want it, blah, blah, blah—overwhelm them with options.  When they say they don’t know, ask, “Then why are you here?”  You’ll avoid criticism if you’re touchy (I know some bosses like that)—unless your people are as touchy as you are.  When they say, “Your report is almost perfect,” you can say, “Almost?!  You’re prejudiced, you bigot!  I know your type, all smiles, but secretly hating me.  I’ve got a lawyer!”  When they say, “O.K. it’s perfect, extraordinary, incredible,”  you can respond, “Really?  Or are you just saying that?”
 
When people ask questions, say you’ll get back to them, but never do it.
 
If you work for a large organization, they have procedures they have to follow that make dismissing anyone almost impossible.  If you have no career ambition and no pride, you can take advantage of this.
 
If work comes to you by mail, it’s totally unimportant and you can ignore it forever.  If by telephone, you can ignore the phone, since no important assignment comes that way.  If it’s by personal threat, you might be able to make some time on your calendar.
 
Assignments keep getting delegated until they arrive at the person who understands them the least.
 
And when we have a strategy, a plan, we know what we don’t do.  If we have no strategy, then, when the phone rings, we don’t know who’s supposed to answer it.  If we have a strategy, then, when the phone rings, we can answer it and say they have the wrong number.
 
As people have more job experience, they get more pessimistic.  New people say, “Great idea!  Let’s start right away!”  People employed five years say, “We tried that.  It didn’t work.”  People employed ten years say, “We’re all going to die.  It’s the end of life as we know it.”
 
Each person think the correct solution to a problem is the solution he personally knows.  A finance specialist will recommend budget allocations.  A technical person will recommend a technical solution.  A brute will recommend brutality.  A martinet will recommend command.  The fretful porpentine will say, “Listen to me, people!  We must stick them with quills—it’s the only way!” (p103).
 
Wild guesses become rumors, then “facts” through the miracle of communications.  Communications can also mean that strategies seem useless, or at least ridiculous, by the time they pass through several layers of management.
 
Job change?  Very traumatic and degrading.  Do it only when your current job becomes unbearable.  Not just when you’re tired, but perhaps start preparing a resume when you’re willing to risk financially and in comfort in order to change.  Meanwhile, keep in perspective—you might feel insignificant, but at the same time, you can’t seriously endanger the planet.

We’ve reviewed Wodehouse omnibus editions and

Wooster stories and short story collections, but this particular volume introduces to Glory readers a new character, Lord Ickenham, who combines the best of many Wodehouse characters.  If you’re tense, like me, and need to relax before falling asleep, read Wodehouse.  You’ll shriek with laughter as you subside into oblivion.Excerpts:            “…bore his cigar as if it had been a banner with the strange device Excelsior” (p7).            “It was his considered view that joy reigned supreme.  IF at this moment the poet Browning had come along and suggested to him that he lark was on the wing, the snail on the thorn, God in His heaven and all right with the world, he would have assented” (p8).            About to shoot a Brazil nut at a pretentious lawyer and knock off his top hat, Ickenham says, “it’s extraordinary how vividly this brings back to me those dear old tiger-shooting days in

Bengal.  The same tense extectancy, the same breathless feeling that at any moment something hot may steal out of the underbrush, lashing it’s top hat” (p11).            “…each particular hair standing on end like quills of the fretful porpentine” (p12).            Ickenham says he can do it:  “Did our representative at King Arthur’s Round Table say ‘Can’t’ when told off by the front office to go and rescue damsels in distress from two-headed giants?  When Henry the Fifth at Harfleur cried, ‘Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more, or close the wall up with our English dead’, was he damped by hearing the voice of a Twistleton in the background saying he didn’t think he would be able to manage it?” (p12).  And adds, “Anything William Tell could do, I can do better” (p13).            When he sees the man enter the street, he says, “There he spouts” (p13).            Not giving up secrets of the trade, Wodehouse says, “The question of how authors come to write their books is generally one not easily answered.  Milton, for instance, asked how he got the idea for Paradise Lost, would probably have replied with a vague, “O, I don’t know, you know.  These things sort of pop into one’s head, don’t you know,” leaving the researcher very much where he was before” (p14).            The old lawyer, angry with young men, thinks, “If, say, something on the order of the Black Death were shortly to start setting about these young pests and giving them what was coming to them, it would have his full approval.  He would hold its coat and cheer it on” (p19).            When the lawyer tries to get Ickenham to identify the young man who knocked off his top hat, Ickenham replies, “Let me try.  I remember a singularly handsom, clean-cut face and on the face a look of ecstasy and exaltation such as Jael, the wife of Heber, must have worn when about to hammer the Brazil nut into the head of Sisera, but…no, the mists rise and the vision fades” (p22).            The lawyer takes out his venom in writing a novel, but wants it under a pseudonym due to his political ambitions:  “It is all very well for your Dantes and your Juvenals to turn out the stuff under their own names, but…You cannot expect to get far on the road to Downing Street if you come up with something like Forever Amber” (p25).            Realism in expecting response to a first novel:  “An author who expects results from a first novel is in a position similar to that of a man who drops a rose petal down the Grand Canyon of Arizona and listens for the echo” (p27).            But the novel takes off, and the publisher is pleasantly surprised, having expected a first novel to only build a foundation to a later one:  “…had been looking on all this while as just another of the stones the builder had refused, was plainly about to become the head stone of the corner” (p29).            But the lawyer doesn’t want to be infamous.  He sees the situation “through a glass darkly” (p29).              Ickenham suggests a solution:  call someone else the author, and uses a literary example:  Francis Bacon, “according to the Baconians” started writing plays, then worried that people would find out:  “After knocking off a couple of them, he got cold feet.  ‘Come, come Francis, he said to himself, this won’t do at all.  Let it become known that you go in for this sort of thing, and they’ll be looking around for another Chancellor of the Exchequer before you can say What-ho.  You must find some needy young fellow who for a consideration will consent to take the rap.’  And he went out and fixed it up with Shakespeare” (p39).  You didn’t know that, did you?  And it’s just as well, for that theory is falling out of favor.            So the lawyer decides to call his nephew, who he hates, the author.  The nephew is a dandy, “a social blot who…had…no right to be so beautifully dressed.  Solomon in all his glory might have had a slight edge on Cosmo Wisdom, but it would have been a near thing” (p41).            Cosmo, now notorious for having written the book, is fired by his employer and basically told to “go and sin no more” (p47).  Thereafter, they consider him a “broken reed” (p159).            The lawyer tries to change his irascible nature, and Ickenham says, “Give him time.  It isn’t easy for leopards to change their spots.”  When asked if they want to, he answers, “I couldn’t say.  I know so few leopards” (p58).            Ickenham’s godson is Johnny Pearce, now a young detective novelist.  Pearce’s ancient nannie, more known for her absolute control of the house than for her Biblical knowledge, says, “Verily, as a jewel of gold in a swine’s snout is a woman which is without discretion.  That’s what Ecclesiastes wrote in the good book…and he was right” (p66).            Someone without an appetite recoiled from the chicken casserole “as if it had been something dished up by the Borgias” (p68).            Ickenham meets Peasemarch, an old friend from Home Guard (WWII) days and they sing, “If the Dons sight Devon, I’ll quite the port of heaven an’ drum them up the Channel as we drummed them long ago,” from Sir Henry Newbolt’s “Drake’s Drum” (p75).            On the House of Lords:  “I’m a Lord, yes, no argument about that, but you don’t have to keep rubbing it in all the time….We know what lords are.  Anachronistic parasites on the body of the states, is the kindest thing you can say of them.  Well, a sensitive man doesn’t like to be reminded every half second that he is one of the untouchables, liable at any moment to be strung up on a lamp post or to have his blood flowing in streams down Park Lane” (p76).            On showing mercy:  “You string along with the Bard of

Avon about the quality of mercy not being strained?” (p89).            Ickenham tells the lawyer to mellow:  “I, too, have long been wounded by your manner toward your sister…considering it to resemble far too closely that of one of the less attractive fauna in the Book of Revelations.  Correct this attitude….Coo to her like a cushat dove” (p.91).            The young man, in distress, meets a friend:  “his heart leaped up as if he had beheld a rainbow in the sky.  Rather more so, in fact, for, unlike the poet Wordsworth, he had never cared much for rainbows” (p97).            Peasemarch is in love with the lawyer’s sister, and about to make his move when she mentions saucepans.  “Romeo himself would have been discouraged if, early in the balcony scene Juliet had started talking about saucepans” (p117).            Ickenham observes: “As the fellow said—Ecclesiastes, was it?—I should have to check with Nannie Bruce—whoso findeth a butler findeth a good thing” (p122), and “who, I asked myself, is the Johnny who is always on the spot, the man who sticketh closer than a brother?  The butler, I answered myself.  Albert Peasemarch, I said, still addressing myself…” (123).            Peasemarch and Pearce still have trouble in their respective romances because “the course of true love has not been running very smooth of late” (p123-124).            Ickenham observes:  “Every little bit added to what you’ve got makes just a little bit more” (p126).  And when wanting a story told, says.  “Don’t be cryptic, my boy.  Start at the beginning, and let your yea be yea and your nay be nay” (p127).            The plot heats up, with one character undecided:  “Like the youth who slew the Jabberwock, he paused a while in thought” (p134).  In contrast, Ickenham, in action, “feeling, as did Brutus, that there is a tide in the affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune” (p140-141).  Meanwhile, the lawyer, “questing hither and thither like a Thurber bloodhound” (p145) and finally reaching his objective “with something of the emotions of Xenophon’s Ten Thousand when they won through to the sea…he saw what the poet Tennyson has described as the shining levels of the lake” (p146).  But this doesn’t comfort him, for the swan chasing him “was not one of those swans that abandon the battle half fought.  When it set its hand to the plough, it did not readily sheathe the sword.  Casting a hasty glance behind him, Sir Raymond could see it arriving like a

United States Marine” (p146).            All this happens in a peaceful town where, “except for an occasional lecture by the vicar on his holiday in the Holy Land, illustrated with lantern slides, there was not a great deal of night life” (p149).  In these idyllic surroundings, they prowl “in a manner popularized by the troops of Midian” (p149) and, when they must run, “fly like a youthful hart or roe over the hills where spices grow” (p151).            Johnny Peace, in the midst of mounting, multiplying problems, asks, “Had even Job, whose troubles have received such wide publicity, ever had anything on this scale to cope with?” (p167).  When he blames his problems on his Ecclesiastes-quoting nannie, the local policeman says, “I should like the address of the suspect Ecclesiastes.”  When Johnny answers, “I’m afraid I can’t help you there” and the policeman asks, “Is he a juvenile delinquent?” Johnny responds, “More elderly than that, I should say” (p168).            But in the end, as often in Wodehouse, “all things were working together for good” (p179) and all the lovers are getting married.  “It’s the only life, as Brigham Young and King Solomon would tell you, if they were still with us” (p191).  Ickenham is happy.  “He had set out…with the intention of spreading sweetness and light among the residents of that inland Garden of Eden, and in not one but several quarters he had spread it like a sower going forth sowing” (p206).  When some people get married, they turn to sober and somber citizens out of tune with hopes and dreams—“Ichabod was the word that sprang to lips when the mind dwelt on…” (p221).  But men lucky enough to be married to women who like them still love life.            As does Wodehouse.  I heartily recommend this book.

This is adventure 6 of 8 in the series, and, let’s see, Jack, Philip, Dinah and Lucy-Ann have been having adventures for five years, and they started when Jack was fourteen, and he’s still not out of school.  They said in the first book that he was an indifferent student (or, to be politically correct, differently abled, his one-track mind tending toward birds all the time.  But to still be in school at 19 or 20 is a bit much, or perhaps that’s explained because in the late 1940s and early 1950s (when the Adventure series was written), social promotion hadn’t yet become quite the thing.            Well, maybe they’re not all that retarded.  After all, Philip in this book can make travel arrangements, and this time Jack and Phillip and even Bill get roughed up a bit, instead of merely threatened.  Enid Blyton wasn’t, however, I somehow feel, thirsting for

Hollywood to script this book into a movie.  And something I’ve been anticipating for a few volumes finally happens:  Bill and Aunt Allie (Philip and Dinah’s mother, Jack and Lucy-Ann’s foster-mother) decide to marry.            It’s not as exciting a book as the previous ones—somehow, counterfeiters, spies, art thieves, gunrunners and mad scientists were all presented better than is a treasure hunter in this book.  Or perhaps

Indiana Jones has spoiled us and we expect archaeologists to experience all he does.  Yet, even the

Indiana Jones series is fake and unreal—note how he kills people right and left and we never watch them suffer, whereas if a “good” guy is hurt, the action stops so we can all feel his pain.  But that’s

Hollywood for you.  Enid Blyton is still innocent, clean children’s literature, interesting in spite of that wretched parrot who keeps taking over the plot line and dialogue.

Dr. Sloper is a brilliant surgeon.  His beautiful and intelligent wife dies in childbirth, and their dull daughter has her father’s scorn.  When a dashing and cruel suitor shows up, the doctor, convinced the young man is only after her money, uses his vast resources of intelligence to beguile and threaten her out of her growing affection.  He then finds she’s has some willpower of her own.  The novel shows how society can cruelly, pitilessly misuse people.

 

Seven years before, Anne Elliott had listened to well-intended but mistaken advice and had broken off an engagement with Captain Wentworth.  Now’s he’s back, and this time Anne lets love conquer all.  Author Jane Austen had also turned down a proposal, and might have been having second thoughts, but soon after writing his novel, she died of tuberculosis.  This is Jane Austen’s last and greatest novel.

If you long for classic literature contrasting modern literature’s emphasis on the bawdy, this is not the book for you.  The book does contain references to those activities perpetuating the human race.  However, the book does have elegant description, uproarious high spirits, and has been described as “epic, comic, tragic” and still true to life.

The story focuses on Tom, born in the mid-1700s of uncertain parentage, but of definite pure heart and warm blood.  In life, he meets virtue, vice and various people richly described, suffers funny misfortune finds fame and fortune.

This Time-Life book pictures South American civilization starting with the Chavin civilizations of 1400-400 BC, then the Paracas, Nazca and Moche cultures of 400 BC to 550 AD, then Tiahuanacans and Hauris of 550-900, then the Chimi of 900-1476, then the Incas, who established overall control, only to be defeated by the Spaniards in 1532.  By 1572, the last Inca resistance had been crushed with its last king’s death.            The Incas divided their society into 10s, 50s, 100s, 500s and 1,000s, and so on, almost the same as Moses divided

Israel (and Jesus divided the crowd of 5,000 while feeding them (p61).  Only the Incas divided them by 10, 50, and 100s (and so on) families rather than individuals.            Incas also killed the whole family for the sin of one, because “a crime both religious and civil” would merit “the death of not only the culprit but also his parents and siblings” (p121).  The Israelites, likewise, killed killed Achan and Korah with the same high value places on religious crime.  A secular era doesn’t understand this.            The Incas had no welfare state—everyone had to work.  The top three civil crimes of were lying, stealing and laziness.  To this day, Andean people still have a strong work ethic.            Learning cross-cultural education benefits us.  Indeed, Pizarro for years “deal with peoples of the

New World, studying their strengths and weaknesses.  And his lessons in conquest had come from the master himself when, in

Spain, he had listened to Hernan Cortes, his cousin, tell the story of how he had wrested

Mexico from the Aztecs.  Atahualpa [the Inca emperor], while able to muster hundreds of thousands of fierce, battle-hardened fighters, knew nothing of the European character” (p24).  And he lost.  Let’s learn, and win, progress, succeed.

Dickens wrote during the height of the industrial revolution, when factories and mines hired children because their hands and bodies were small and they could do detailed work or fit in tiny places more easily than adults.  When children’s hands were chopped off by machinery, factory bosses said it was the children’s fault for carelessness.   Boarding schools were frequently simply stages on which frustrated adults could strike out physically, emotionally and psychologically at children under their so-called care.  Nicholas Nickleby contains one of Dickens’ most vivid characters, headmaster Wackford Squeers.  Along with Nicholas’ unethical uncle, Ralph, the title character goes through the usual heartaches we expect in Dickens, befriends a retarded orphan who had been abandoned at the boarding school, and comes out safe and sound at the end—we also expect that in Dickens.  In Great Expectations, the main character rises in society through writing; in Nicholas Nickleby, through drama.

This book contains excerpts from his previous books Failing Forward:  Turning Mistakes Into Stepping Stones for Success, The 21 Indispensible Qualities of a Leadeer:  Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow, The Success Journey:  The Process of Living Your Dreams.  He says the secrets of success are:  Dream (what he in other books calls Vision); Persevere (don’t give up);  Grow (develop yourself).  Tastefully done illustrations matched with bon mots of wisdom.  Excerpts in this issue’s Leadership Lessons section.