Harvest Poems

Harvest Poems Carl Sandburg 125pp.

Harvest Poems is a collection of Carl Sandburg’s poetry from the entirety of his career. It is a remarkable “best-of” series, highlighting the greatest poems and verses from his life’s work. Carl Sandburg is a remarkable poet, in his verse he captures the broad sweep and grandeur of life in America through intimate portrayals of men and women throughout the country.

Sandburg’s style not only works wonders through its close focus, but also through a devastating sense of humor. Little lines, the twisted faces of gargoyles poking out from behind a more serious image.

These poems can paint their broad and sweeping pictures, especially in the selections from longer works. But the short poems are wonderful as well. Sandburg can take just a single little image and paint it in a longing, beautiful way. There is an almost Chinese feel to some of the pieces, when Sandburg will use the sparsest, smallest imagery, but fill a short poem with the entirety of a moment. “Fog,” one of my favorite poems from the whole volume, is an example of this technique par excellence.

The fog comes

on little cat feet.

It sits looking

over harbor and city

on silent haunches

and then moves on.

Harvest Poems leads me to discuss one of the wonderful aspects of doing this project-sometimes I re-read a book and find myself welcomed into the arms of an old friend. Good books only get better when you come back to them. Sometimes, however, I end up reading an author I’d never come to. When this happens, I find myself reacting in two ways. Sometimes I understand why I’d never read their work and don’t get very upset. But with authors like Carl Sandburg, I read them and get absolutely furious that I hadn’t read them yet. At the same time, it is a rare treat to read a poet with such tremendous skill.

Would I recommend Harvest Poems? Yes.

Score: 4.7/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Most certainly yes.

-Mr. Cheddar

Islam

Islam Richard C. Martin 178pp.

Richard C. Martin’s Islam is a fantastic introduction to the study of Islam. Over the course of the book, he discusses the historical context in which Islam arose, the historical tradition through which the religion has developed, and the interplay of Islam and secular culture throughout the world. Martin chooses to place short biographies throughout the text, giving excellent examples of how individuals have acted through and in response to their faith throughout history.

Islam’s greatest success is in giving the new reader a ground from which to study and think about Islam. Martin traces the course of Islam over the centuries, as theological debates and political changes have shaped the way that this religion works in society. In doing so, Martin strives to correct a failing in much western discourse about Islam. The least educated about Islam will refer to the religion as one massive, undifferentiated whole. The somewhat more educated tend to discuss the religion from a Sunni standpoint with Shi’a as outsiders and, at best, a strange sect within the religion. Not so with Martin. Each tradition within Islam is given a fair and comprehensive treatment, allowing the reader to step into the stream of discourse without hesitation.

I enjoyed Islam quite a bit, Martin’s writing was clear and concise, weaving together sources and disparate traditions into a cohesive whole. The only aspect of Islam which I found lacking was the notable exception of any mention of Wahabbism. In the final section of the book, there is a discussion of modern trends within Islam, even to the point of acknowledging the fundamentalist response to modernization. For a book which makes nods to gaining an understanding of the relationship between Islam and the west, I thought that this lacking was sorely felt. However, the book’s strengths are powerful enough to make up for this, creating an informative and worthwhile text.

Would I recommend Islam? Yes, most certainly.

Score: 4.3/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? No. While this was a remarkably useful introductory text, I don’t see myself coming back to it.

-Mr. Cheddar

Returning Home

Returning Home Tao Chi, Wen Fong tr. 91pp.

Wen Fong’s collection of Tao Chi’s poems, entitled Returning Home is a beautiful collection of poetry from the early Ch’ing dynasty of China. Fong’s translation is excellent, presenting the text in a careful and moderated tone. Again, I can unfortunately not comment on the reliability of the translation from the Chinese, but I can comment on Fong’s greatest achievement in the book. Returning Home opens with a long essay about Tao Chi’s poetry, placing it in context within the tremendous scope of the Chinese poetic tradition. Fong highlights how the high points of Chinese poetry tend to coincide with the foundation of new dynasties. At these points in history, the literati from the capitol are forced into the countryside, to live their lives away from the hectic politics of the new dynasty. Longing for home, these poets turn their eyes back and create a melancholy air with their poetry, setting their words down plaintively, returning home in writing-if not physically.

It is precisely this longing that Tao Chi’s poetry excels in portraying, through a combination of painting and calligraphy, Tao Chi’s poems drag the reader in through short, terse verses. Each poem accompanies a painting, six of them paintings of flowers and six landscapes. Fong’s commentary on the pieces is immensely instructive, in each case, he explains the style used in the painting and the calligraphy. Unfortunately, I am very uneducated in the distinctions between these styles. Happily, Fong’s commentary is remarkably useful for gaining, at the very least, a surface-level understanding of Tao Chi’s expression.

Onto the poems themselves, then. Tao Chi’s poetry is brief and poignant. Each poem paints a scene in itself, highlighted by accompanying painting. The landscape poems tend to be stronger than the flower poems, and I’ll use one of them as an example:

High on the mountain

the beautiful colors are cold,

Where flying white clouds

cease to look white.

In two leaves, Tao Chi’s poem is presented in a beautiful sparse style. The calligraphy is lovely, but I am not experienced enough with Chinese calligraphy to speak to its quality on the level it deserves. This painting, however, is beautiful. Sharp brushstrokes cut into the paper, fading into white spaces which block out sections of mountain and the lonely stand of trees clinging to the side of the outcropping. 

Tao Chi’s poetry is phenomenal, presented in a careful and scholarly tone by Wen Fong. The essays and exegesis on each poem are remarkably helpful for getting deeper into the poetry, even for someone with a relatively shallow experience in Chinese poetry. In other books of Chinese poetry I’ve read, there will be a frequent mention of the paintings which accompany many poems, but never actual reproductions of the paintings. The paintings do lose a little bit in being reduced to fit in a comfortably sized volume, but their presence is incredibly helpful.

Would I recommend Returning Home? Yes, very much so.

Score: 4.9/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Yes.

-Mr. Cheddar

Primitive Mythology

Primitive Mythology Joseph Campbell 503pp.

Joseph Campbell’s Primitive Mythology is the first volume in Campbell’s masterwork series, The Masks of God. In this book, Campbell traces the mythogenetic impulse from biological precursors in non-human species up through the stone age, leaving off at the emergence of literate cultures. Campbell focuses on myths and stories, but also brings in archaeological evidence about the earliest humans, discussing the mass interring of kings and their courts, the bear-cult which was predominant in our earliest ancestors, but survives to this day in some regions of the world, and the early distinction in myth and understanding of the world between hunting and planting cultures.

Campbell’s work is fascinating, synthesizing myths and ritual practices from cultures around the globe, he presents the reader with a vivid picture of how humanity developed and used stories to cope with life in our early history. Focusing largely on the myths of American Indians, Africans, and Australian Aborigines, the reader is given an excellent picture of the myths and stories that shaped our earliest understanding of the world. Campbell steps outside of the realm of myth occasionally, largely so that he can talk about the rituals surrounding an individual’s (mostly men’s) transition into adulthood. This exploration of ritual is focused almost exclusively on circumcision. 

It is a shame that The Hero with a Thousand Faces is more present in public familiarity with Campbell’s work than The Masks of God, but this fact opens up to an important caveat. The Hero with a Thousand Faces never steps outside of Campbell’s expertise, it remains strictly focused on aspects of narrative. In The Masks of God, Campbell makes diversions from his analysis of the origin and development of myth into a discussion of religious life in general. It is crucial that, when reading campbell, one maintains a steady focus on myth and only reads Campbell’s elaborations on religious life through the lens of myth. Attempting to understand the wide scope of religious life through the limited information one can glean through texts and stories is a fool’s errand.

Every time I have gone back to read Primitive Mythology, I have enjoyed it more and more. It is a book who’s appeal can only broaden as the reader gains a progressively wider familiarity with stories and texts from around the world. Campbell’s writing is clear and concise, rarely wasting a phrase, but simply pulling the reader happily along as he takes a meandering path through the history of human myth.

Would I recommend Primitive Mythology? Yes, absolutely.

Score: 4.8/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Yes.

-Mr. Cheddar

Manhattan Project

Manhattan Project Stephane Groueff 429pp.

Stephane Groueff’s Manhattan Project is a wonderful history of the Manhattan Project, the United State’s four year project to create, test, and deliver an atomic bomb. Groueff’s prose is so engaging that you almost forget you’re reading about the creation of the worst weapon of mass murder ever developed. The book is pervaded by the tension surrounding every experiment, every attempt in the process of enriching uranium as well as the looming and largely unspoken danger of an enemy power beating the United States to the bomb.

During World War II the United States faced the unimaginable threat of Nazi Germany creating an atomic weapon and using it to wipe out the allies. In response to this, President Roosevelt created the Manhattan Engineering District-a massive project to understand the science behind nuclear fission and achieve the incredibly difficult industrial tasks standing in the way of creating a usable atomic weapon. It is that latter aspect that dominates Groueff’s text.

Groueff writes his history in a very effective manner. Rather than adopting the stance of a distant, third-person narrator, he chooses to follow the leader of the Manhattan Engineering District, Brigadier General Leslie Groves. Every piece of information, every bit of knowledge we gain about the progress of the Manhattan Project is fed to us as Groves travels around the country, leading the project to its ultimate conclusion. Manhattan Project does not, however, slip into great man history. Rather, Groueff focuses on the uncounted contributions of thousands of scientists and industrialists around the country, all collaborating to create the atomic bomb. Interestingly, only about a dozen people knew what they were working towards. A few hundred knew that they were working on the enrichment of uranium. The rest, numbering in the thousands, had absolutely no notion what they were working towards creating.

Manhattan Project was fascinating, impossible to put down. For as long as I can remember, I have had a vague understanding of the scientific work undertaken to develop the atomic weapon. However, until I read Manhattan Project I had never given a consideration to the tremendous industrial challenge that pursuing such a weapon required. To give an example: the creation of an atomic bomb requires several kilograms of either uranium-235 or plutonium. Prior to the Manhattan Project, plutonium was simply a theoretical element, no one had ever observed it. Uranium-235 composes roughly .7% of the natural state of that element. The question then, is how to separate the necessary uranium-235 from the overwhelming prevalence of uranium-238.

At the outset of the project, there were five separate methods placed on the table: centrifuges, electromagnetic separation, gaseous diffusion, and two methods of plutonium production. No one knew which technique would prove to be the best method, so Groves pursued the simplest solution available to him: full steam ahead on all five methods. As the project wore on, different methods ran into difficulties and were cancelled, until finally the gaseous diffusion technique was settled on.

If you enjoy reading about history and are interested in the tremendous challenges that the United States overcame in the Manhattan Project, or simply want to gain a layman’s understanding of the processes a country goes through to become a nuclear power, a recurring theme in world politics, Manhattan Project is a book well worth your time.

Would I recommend Manhattan Project? Yes.

Score: 4.3/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? I haven’t quite decided. It was riveting, a tour de force of history, but I don’t yet know if I will come back to it.

-Mr. Cheddar

Cosmos

Cosmos Carl Sagan 365pp.

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos is a well-written companion book to his phenomenal television series of the same name. In thirteen chapters, Sagan gives an overview of the beauty of science and the scientific view of the world. Cosmos is one of the best books I have ever read as an introduction to a scientific worldview and the beauty of understanding the world empirically.

It is a testament to Sagan’s immense skill as an author that in thirteen chapters he is able to shift his focus from the origination of life on this or any other planet to scales as large as the observable universe without losing the reader’s interest. Not the least of Sagan’s best writing in the book takes place when he lets himself simply sit back and imagine what life could look like on another planet. Without a doubt, Sagan is passionate about the science he discusses through the whole book, but when he begins to speculate freely, his excitement is infectious.

While I enjoyed his writing and understand that Sagan was working towards establishing the difference between a scientific view (self-correcting and self-questioning) and his understanding of a religious view (authoritative and uncompromising), I found Sagan’s treatment of religion to be a little offputting. It was frustrating to be enraptured by his loving descriptions of intellectual giants such as Copernicus and Gallileo, then be derailed by a paragraph-long diatribe against the Church not immediately cleaving to their discoveries.

Cosmos is an enjoyable book, a treat to any reader interested in viewing the world through the lens of scientific inquiry. For the reader new to science writing, Cosmos will inspire them to further reading and learning. For the veteran lover of science, Cosmos feels like an old friend, welcoming you to walk down the path of humanity’s ever-increasing knowledge of our world and our universe.

Would I recommend Cosmos? Yes.

Score: 3.8/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Surprisingly, no. While Sagan’s writing is brilliant and informative, his treatment is a touch too broad and therefore deals with its subjects a little too simply. When the desire to hear Sagan’s thought strikes me again, I think I will simply stick with his television series.

-Mr. Cheddar

Bringing Wine Home

Bringing Wine Home Jesse Frost 79pp.

Jesse Frost’s autobiography, Bringing Wine Home is the story of one man’s love affair with real food. The book switches between three periods in Jesse’s life: his time visiting organic wineries in France, his work in a kitchen in New York, and his first experiences working on a farm in Kentucky. Bringing Wine Home is the first volume in Frost’s autobiography, covering in detail the years leading up to his decision to operate his own farm producing food for his own community.

Frost’s prose is carefully crafted, pulling the reader along with an enthusiastic let’s go throughout the whole volume. The passages in New York City sometimes feel aimless, but this was intentional. Frost had not yet found his passion and was going through the motions of supporting himself and making a living with no joie de vivre in the experience. From the moment he steps foot on Vouette et Sourbée; however, Frost finds himself sucked into the world where he belongs-working with the land and creating real food.

My first thoughts on reading Bringing Wine Home was to compare it to Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain or St. Augustine’s Confessions, and on further reflection, this comparison holds up well. In all three of these autobiographies, we follow the writer’s progression from a past into their new life, which they lead with an unshakeable enthusiasm. It may be going a little far to liken Frost’s love affair with real food to the religious fervor of Augustine and Merton, but I feel the comparison holds up. If growing and providing real food to people you meet face-to-face and know is not a religious experience to Frost, it is deceptively close. After finding this comparison between these books, I was pleased to note that Frost does not indulge in the self-flagellation which dominates the early stages of Merton and Augustine’s books. He is willing to call himself out on his shortcomings, but does not wallow in them in the way that Augustine and Merton do.

Bringing Wine Home was a very enjoyable evening for me, and the joy in reading this book was complemented nicely with dining on Mrs. Cheddar and my CSA provided from Frost’s farm. It was truly a pleasure to read the beginnings of the life of the people who put the food on our table. I tremendously look forward to the release of further volumes of Frost’s autobiography.

Would I recommend Bringing Wine Home? Yes.

Score: 4.5/5

Would I keep this on my bookshelf? Yes.

-Mr. Cheddar