So, my sister was digging through the archives and discovered that our 6th great grandfather, Evan Watkins, built and owned Watkins Ferry which crosses the Potomac River where it divides Maryland and West Virginia (which I did not even know were adjacent). We have been up and down the east coast with family stuff, and yesterday we decided to detour over and take a look.
There’s no ferry any more obviously – there is a bridge which crosses from Williamsport, MD, into West Virginia. On the (now) West Virginia side, there’s an historical marker, which you can see in the photo, as well as what’s left of the house, known as Maidstone-on-the-Potomac.
It was raining pretty hard, and so after a few quick pictures we sat in the car at the side of the road looking around. I was startled out of my reverie by someone tapping on my window. It was a local woman who stopped to see if we needed any help – a reasonable guess, why else would anyone be sitting here?!). And isn’t it nice to know there are people like that still around! I explained why we were there, and she said “oh my goodness, I can’t believe it!” and launched into short speech, she was really into the history of the area and really seemed impressed that we had come.
I felt briefly and absurdly famous.
It got me thinking about what lasts. In philosophical approach I’m a Stoic – “memento mori“, Marcus Aurelius, and all that. So, I do think about death, and recent events have me thinking about it more. What will people remember about me? about you? If you have a family, you live on through your family, and they remember. But that usually only lasts a few generations. I remember my grandfather, but I expect nobody alive remembers much of my great grandfather. That Ferry, well, people remember. It was there. It’s marked. It’s a piece of history.
I write software. I look at it as a creative act, not unlike writing a novel. But software is ephemeral. Rarely does a piece of software matter for more than, say, a decade. The writer James Salter (whose work I admire very much) said:
There comes a time when you realize that everything is a dream, and only those things preserved in writing have any possibility of being real.
Well, 2020 was weird for all the reasons you know. But in spite of having a lot of time on my hands, I read about the same number of books as last year (45 vs 41 in 2019). Guess I spent that extra time working.
Still, it was a great reading year, I’m happy with the quality of what I read. A lot of classic works, and only a small smattering of “comfort food”, thrillers and such. If you want see the complete list, it is here.
If I had to point to one book this year, it would be 1984, which I read on Bookship with my good friend Thomas. I’d not read it since high school 40 years ago, so for all intents I might as well not have read it. It’s devastating. It is a truly disturbing polemic wrapped inside a heartbreaking love story. Given the insanity of our election year, and the simultaneity of our truth-challenged President together with the frank and unrepentant censorship by his opponents, our high tech / media overlords, 1984 really hit home. Orwell nailed it, although he failed to see the rise of big media and that censorship might not (only) come from the State, but might also come from the private sector. (yes, yes, I know, technically only the government can “censor” – but Facebook and Twitter are the closest thing we have to a public square now – they must be held to a different standard than random/small private enterprises).
I love this quote from Orwell: “The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.”
I read deeply in the Homeric world this year, reading The Odyssey for the first time (in the new Emily Miller translation which is wonderful, and again reading socially with Thomas), and followed that An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn is an Homeric scholar who took a history-based Homer sailing tour with his late father. What a wonderful story. I then moved to Ransom by David Malouf, a short, poetic retelling of the encounter of Achilles and Priam from The Iliad. The Odyssey was such great fun. And lastly, I read The Lost Books of The Odyssey by Zachary Mason, which is a series of “outtakes” – short stories – fake episodes from The Odyssey. These are often laugh out loud funny, and a real treat after finishing these other works.
Let me share a creepy excerpt from the “real” Odyssey, where Odysseus conjures the dead (Miller translation):
I drew my sword and dug a hole, a cubit widthways and lengthways, and I poured libations for all the dead: first honey-mix, sweet wine, and lastly, water. On the top, I sprinkled barley, and made a solemn vow that if I reached my homeland, I would sacrifice my best young heifer, still uncalved, and pile the altar high with offerings for the dead. I promised for Tiresias as well a pure black sheep, the best in all my flock. So with these vows, I called upon the dead. I took the sheep and slit their throats above the pit. Black blood flowed out. The spirits came up out of Erebus and gathered round.
As you may know I live in Hawaii, and I read a number of great books about, or set in, Hawaii. In the Time Before Light by Ian MacMillan is excellent. It is historical fiction set around the time of first contact in Hawaii, and follows the life of Pono, a kanaka maoli, a native Hawaiian. It is by turns riveting, brutal, romantic and educational, especially about old Hawaii. Wonderful storytelling that doesn’t sugar-coat anything. The book club I am in also read a modern sci-fi novel called Bones of Time, by Kathleen Ann Goonan, which is mostly set in Hawaii, and we read Reclaiming Kalakaua, a reconsideration of the life and reputation of David Kalakaua, the last king of Hawaii, based on contemporary accounts from Hawaiian sources.
During our time back east, we did a lot of road-tripping around the country. During one trip we visited Michelle’s folks, who live near Mt. Vernon, and I’d never been, so off we went. It was fascinating, and that together with it being an election year caused me to want to read more about our country’s founding, and Washington in particular. This led me to David McCullough’s 1776, which was equally fascinating and highly recommended. Then we went on a road trip to Chicago to see my son. During that trip Michelle and I listened to the audiobook for 1776, and followed it with John Adams. Boy were our founders interesting people! We combined all of this into some fun visits to Revolutionary war sites, including an inspiring visit to Valley Forge (in this COVID year it was a great reminder that persistence is rewarded), and Fort Lee in New York, which factored heavily in the early days of the War. This led me to George Washington’s Secret Six by Brian Kilmeade, a recounting of Washington’s spy ring (yes, he had one). And from there, I read Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, which surprised me in how well and literately it was written, in addition to being passionate about the War cause.
Speaking of spies, sadly, we lost John Le Carré (David Cornwell) this year. While I found his politics sometimes tiresome, his writing never was, and I re-read (for the nth time), his masterpieces A Perfect Spy and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. Read them if you have not.
Also as part of the book club I am in, we have been making an effort to read more works by women and by authors from under-represented communities. In the spy genre, I *loved* American Spy, I felt (in a very small way), a taste of what is like to be a minority. I loved this quote from Jennifer Wilson in her review:
As such, Wilkinson does not graft the matter of race onto the spy novel but rather asks us to think about how being a minority is, in a sense, an act of espionage, a precarious state marked by shifting identities, competing loyalties, and a constant threat of violence.
We also read Americanah, which had a similar revelatory aspect, as well as often being laugh-out-loud funny.
At the beginning of the year, I finished up one last piece of Iceland reading, from my trip to Iceland: Smile of the Wolf, by Tim Leach. The early parts of Smile of the Wolf capture the grim beauty that is both the Icelandic terrain and the pagan northern world view. It mirrors the classic Icelandic sagas in many ways, but where the saga characters are usually pretty opaque, we get inside the heads of the characters and get a detail and color the sagas don’t provide, yet the cadence and speaking voices can be suitably terse or blunt. It’s transporting. Like a time machine to 10th century Iceland. Full review here: https://www.viking2917.com/smile-of-the-wolf-review/. The Half-Drowned King by Linnea Hartsuyker, a late December read, is also one of the better Viking novels I have read, and I’ve read more than a few….
Some books I really enjoyed this year: The Last Good Kiss, a darkly funny thriller by James Crumley. The Good Shepherd (and associated Tom Hanks movie!) by C.S. Forester, which I read socially with my friends Thomas and Lynn on Bookship – which then led to reading the first book in the HornBlower saga, Mr. Midshipman Hornblower. Which then led us to read The Game of Birds and Wolves about the female sub hunters in England during WWII. Really good fun all around.
Lastly I re-read a number of science fiction classics this year: Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (who is in our Meet the Author program on Bookship!!!), The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Leguin, and (in anticipation of the not-yet-forthcoming movie), Dune. All of them amazing books even on a 3rd or 4th re-read.
If you follow other things I’ve written, you know I’m a fan of Rules. Or rather, lists of Rules. My list of professional rules, somewhat inspired by Gibb’s Rules (from NCIS), my Leadership Rules from the Ancient Greeks. Fred Harvey, creator of one of the earliest travel companies and the first US restaurant chain, and his rules. Rules give us things to fall back on when it’s unclear how to proceed.
Recently I took a tour of Mount Vernon, George Washington’s home, and saw that he had his own rules, cribbed from 110 Rules of Civility & Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation, which is based on a set of rules composed by French Jesuits in 1595.
I was sufficiently intrigued by Washington’s history and the manner in which people respected him, that I realized I did not know enough about him. Washington was widely respected for that quality we refer to today as “gravitas“. As a result I am reading David McCullough’s 1776, which so far is good fun and highly informative. (I’m running a public reading on my social reading app Bookship, tap the link below to join me!)
Some of them are from another age. Some of them are laugh-out-loud funny (“When in Company, put not your Hands to any Part of the Body, not usually Discovered.“, “In the Presence of Others Sing not to yourself with a humming Noise, nor Drum with your Fingers or Feet.“).
Some of them are wildly topical – masks and social distancing, anyone? (“If You Cough, Sneeze, Sigh, or Yawn, do it not Loud but Privately; and Speak not in your Yawning, but put Your handkerchief or Hand before your face and turn aside.“, “Shake not the head, Feet, or Legs roll not the Eyes lift not one eyebrow higher than the other wry not the mouth, and bedew no mans face with your Spittle, by approaching too near him when you Speak.”)
Some management lessons are to be found:
Being to advise or reprehend any one, consider whether it ought to be in public or in Private; presently, or at Some other time in what terms to do it & in reproving Show no Sign of Cholar but do it with all Sweetness and Mildness.
Wherein you reprove Another be unblameable yourself; for example is more prevalent than Precepts.
Never express anything unbecoming, nor Act against the Rules Moral before your inferiors.
Detract not from others neither be excessive in Commanding.
Undertake not what you cannot Perform but be Careful to keep your Promise.
Let thy carriage be such as becomes a Man Grave Settled and attentive to that which is spoken. Contradict not at every turn what others Say.
And lastly a few good reminders of personal behavior, not unlike things Marcus Aurelius might say.
Let your Conversation be without Malice or Envy, for ‘is a Sign of a Tractable and Commendable Nature: And in all Causes of Passion admit Reason to Govern.
Speak not injurious Words neither in Jest nor Earnest Scoff at none although they give Occasion.
Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.
The rules are a quick read, even if many of them are from another age. Good fun. And since there’s an election coming up, I’ll leave you with a view into Washington’s campaign tactics 🙂
When I was young, maybe 18, I visited my girlfriend (now wife)’s house. My father-in-law to be, a rather imposing and gruff former military officer, lets me in the house. At this time my now-wife and I had not been dating long, and I had hair down well-past my shoulders. So, you can imagine I was on thin ice (no pun intended!) with him. He led me into the kitchen, and I got “the question”.
No, not that one.
This question was, “Mark, do you want a Martini”?
I was, as I say, 18, and I think I’d had gin once and decided it was the vilest thing on the planet.
So of course, I said yes.
He reached into the freezer, pulled out a bottle of gin, poured some in a glass, and handed it to me.
Gulp.
Even at that early stage of my cocktail career, I was pretty sure there was supposed to be something else in the glass. Wanting to stay on his good side, I smiled and choked it down. Later, he explained that was what he called a “combat Martini” — when you couldn’t be bothered to fool around. The “in the freezer” part was optional, he explained. Now, who can forget “shaken, not stirred”? My father-in-law’s Martini was neither.
It’s been a long while since then, and I’ve encountered a lot of Martinis in my books and in my life.
Triggered by a friend’s text message (not the I’m-losing-it kind of triggered, just the it-reminds-me-of kind of triggered), I’m thinking of some of my favorite Martini stories, literary and otherwise. My quarantine drink of choice has become the Martini, very dry. I haven’t yet taken to calling it a Quarantini, but I might get there. By the way: there are a lot of Quarantine Book Clubs out there!
“Shaken, not stirred” made its first appearance in Ian Fleming’s 6th Bond novel, Dr. No. But of course, it was memorialized forever by Sean Connery. This advice is contrary to all textbook cocktail technique — Martinis, and any other cocktail with no fruit juice, is to be stirred, not shaken.
I was reminded of all this by my friend’s text message, reminding me of the advice from Kingsman, the Secret Service:
Martini, gin. Not vodka. Obviously, stirred for 10 seconds while glancing at an unopened bottle of vermouth.
To my now-adjusted tastes, this is how a dry Martini should be made. Gin, not Vodka. Perhaps, after first rinsing the glass with Vermouth and discarding it (the vermouth, not the glass). Reasonable people can differ about this, of course.
Speaking of Martini tricks, I must pass on a secret I learned from James Salter, the world’s best writer you never heard of. (I have not explained this to my father-in-law — I am afraid of what he will say). From Life is Meals, a non-fiction book Salter wrote with his wife:
“There is a final, unconventional secret. Shake a Lea & Perrins Worcestershire sauce bottle, then quickly remove the cap and with it, dash a faint smudge of the contents — far less than a drop — into the bottom of the shaker before beginning. It adds the faint, unidentifiable touch of greatness.”
Olives? I can take or leave them — if I have good ones, I like them. Dirty Martini? Heaven forbid. No, just, no.
Gin? Bombay Sapphire is my ideal. If on the expensive side. The Botanist is quite good, but even more expensive. Hendricks I find too floral, and yet again more expensive. Gordon’s gin, which will re-appear shortly as part of a Vesper, is quite inexpensive, and when very cold and combined with that magic ingredient mentioned above, is quite good.
Vermouth? Who are we kidding? We’re not going use it, except to rinse the glass. Any brand will do. My father-in-law’s Martini recipe, likely not original, requires no vermouth at all, it simply requires looking at the picture of the man who invented Vermouth, while you drink your gin. You really just want the idea of vermouth, not the reality. (As he’s aged, his Martini purity has relaxed just a bit — he is now taken to putting a few big cubes of ice in a glass and pouring his gin over….)
Salter wrote fiction, mostly (although his memoirs Burning the Days is one of my favorite books ever. The section where the young Salter learns about sex is priceless). His Light Years is a beautiful, heartbreaking work about the disintegration of a marriage, but contains this less-dark nugget about Martinis, and showcases the diamond-like prose Salter is known for:
“I think I’d like a martini,” Viri said. He drank one, icy cold, in a gleaming glass. It was like a change in the weather. The pitcher held another, potent, clear. “How do you make them so cold?” he asked. “Well, you happen to have commanded the drink which is, in my opinion, the one true test. You have to have the right ingredients — and also you keep the gin in the freezer.”
Made with care, the Martini might be the perfect cocktail. The author H. L. Mencken memorably described the Martini as ‘the only American invention as perfect as the sonnet’. He’s also the (possibly apocryphal) author of one of my favorite quotes about creative endeavors: “There are three rules for the writing of a novel. Unfortunately no one knows what they are.”. A good reminder that conformity to some imagined set of rules doesn’t lead to novel work.
Of course, it’s easy to overindulge in Martinis. Salter quotes the writer James Thurber in Life is Meals: “One is all right, two is too many, and three is not enough.” The satirist and writer Dorothy Parker’s famed quote also comes to mind:
I like to have a Martini, two at the very most; three, I’m under the table, four I’m under my host.
Is there is any character in literature more associated with Martinis than James Bond? It’s hard to imagine. In Casino Royale (the book), he invents one of my favorite variations: the Vesper.
”A Dry Martini”, he said. “One. In a deep champagne goblet.” ”Oui, monsieur.” ”Just a moment. Three measures of Gordons, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemonpeel. Got it?”
However you make your Martinis, I hope you have a great book on hand to read along with it. Books are a great comfort in times like these — especially if you’re reading with a friend!
As for the proper Martini technique — here’s Bond’s latest take on “shaken, not stirred”. In Casino Royale (the movie), when faced with the inevitable question, he responds:
2019 was a good year for reading. If you’ve been reading the blog, you know I went to Iceland this year (trip report). I read a lot of Icelandic stuff in preparation (my reading list here), so I won’t recount that. Other big themes for the year: lots of Social Reading, using my app Bookship; the usual dose of spy novels and some literary fiction; and lastly comfort food, in the form of old favorites and Jack Reacher books.
Bookship continues to enable a lot of social reading for me. With various friends I read Henry V, Justine (I love Lawrence Durrell!), Following the Equator by Mark Twain, The Hound of the Baskervilles and Tarzan by Edgar Rice Burroughs (who once lived about a mile from my house!). I also re-read Dan Simmon’s Hyperion with my family, which was good fun! The book club I am in read some fun stuff as well, including Unfamiliar Fishes, a fascinating history of post-contact Hawaii, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, The Power by Naomi Alderman, and the rather disappointing Life After Google by George Gilder.
Reading Henry V with my friend Thomas was a high point of the year for me. It’s the first Shakespeare I can remember reading (I’m sure I read Romeo & Juliet in high school, but I don’t remember it). Learning to flow with Shakespeare’s language, stopping occasionally for a dictionary check, but usually just going with the flow, was good fun. We used that reading as a jumping-off point to explore Salic Law (kidding, sort of, it’s a plot point), the history of the battle of Agincourt, where a heavily outnumbered English force (estimates vary, but commonly reported as 6000 English against roughly 30,000 French), destroyed the French force, the English Longbow being the decisive factor. We also explored the various theatrical renditions of Henry V (Olivier, Branagh, et. al.). I also re-read Bernard Cornwell’s wonderful book Agincourt, a nice fictional complement. Henry V is the source of a number of quotes you may know, yet not know whence they came:
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!” “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers” “The game’s afoot!” (you may have thought, as I did, this originated with Sherlock Holmes) “Oh for a muse of fire”
and my personal favorite, delivered best by Branagh.
I was not angry since I came to France! (watch it here)
Kenneth Branagh delivers the goods.
Inspired somewhat by Traveling the Equator, Mark Twain’s travelogue of the Pacific and Asia, I tackled Max Adams’ In the Land of the Giants, an historical travelogue of Dark Ages Britain. Very interesting, although extremely dense in history and place names, so I had to read in increments, on-and-off for most of the year.
On the more serious side, I read some truly outstanding novels this year. The most memorable of them, Norwegian by Night, is actually not entirely serious. In fact it’s the funniest book I’ve read in a long long time.
Definitely more serious is James Salter, whose writing I love deeply. Solo Faces is a literary exploration wrapped inside a mountain climbing adventure novel. Not unlike, although not quite the equal of, Wind, Sand and Stars. But close. Light Years is the heartbreaking story of a disintegrating marriage. One of my favorite passages (which is not bleak as is the rest of the novel).
“I think I’d like a martini,” Viri said. He drank one, icy cold, in a gleaming glass. It was like a change in the weather. The pitcher held another, potent, clear. “How do you make them so cold?” he asked. “Well, you happen to have commanded the drink which is, in my opinion, the one true test. You have to have the right ingredients— and also you keep the gin in the freezer.”
The Narrow Road to the Deep North is another grim masterpiece, the harrowing experience of Australian prisoners of war building the Burma Railway during WWII. City of Crows is an atmospheric medieval tale by Chris Womersly, well worth the read. Transcription is WWII-era historical fiction from Kate Atkinson. I found it good, but not great; some of her other works are likely better starting points. Out of left field, I found a copy of Miské’s novel Arab Jazz, a unique murder mystery set in the Arab section of Paris. As The Guardian says, “Arab Jazz is a genre novel in the same way that Pulp Fiction is a genre film – superseding the form even as it pays homage”.
Spy Stuff.
You know I love a good spy novel. This year I read a number of good (although perhaps not great) spy novels. The exception to the “great” are the few John Le Carré books that I read. Joseph Kanon’s Leaving Berlin was very atmospheric and good fun; but I felt it covered territory that Alan Furst has already covered quite extensively. Warlight, by Michael Ondaatje was equally atmospheric, but felt confused and rambling; I couldn’t quite figure out the point of the book. I did a healthy dose of “thriller” spy novels in the form of Olen Steinhauer’s Nearest Exit, The Cairo Affair, and Liberation Movements. All solid efforts but not perhaps rising to the best of his work or thrillers in general. Mick Herron’s The List, a novella, had me laughing til the scotch came out of my nose.
Comfort food
Bookish “comfort food” is what I call it when you are tired and want to read, and just get a great story without the effort of absorbing something new. It can be a book you’ve already read, or an easy read where you love what’s happening but you kind of already know where it’s going (looking at you Lee Child). A number of this year’s spy novels were comfort food: one of my favorite books of all time, Tim Power’s Declare, a crazy quilt of a novel including spies, Djinn (the supernatural kind), Kim Philby, Lawrence of Arabia, Mt. Ararat, Saharan adventures, Nazis and the Cold War. And with a plausible historical storyline behind it. John Le Carré’s Call for the Dead, and Smiley’s People, Alan Furst’s Blood of Victory, Lee Child’s Make Me, Past Tense, and The Christmas Scorpion. For about the nth time I re-read Tolkien’s The Two Towers, my favorite of the three books, and William Gibson’s Count Zero, voodoo-inspired science fiction featuring world-weary, middle-aged mercenary Turner, one of my favorite of Gibson’s characters.
what’s on deck
I am just finishing Smile of the Wolf (https://www.viking2917.com/smile-of-the-wolf-review), the last of my Iceland books, and wow. It’s like a time machine to 10th century Iceland. If that sounds even mildly interesting, read this book. The first half is utterly immersive.
We’re traveling to Greece and Rome late this year, so I expect to be doing a lot of relevant reading. Thinking about Mary Beard’s SPQR, Emily Wilson’s Odyssey, probably some Mary Renault to get me started. My book club has just started The Left Hand of Darkness, which I have not read since high school, so I’m looking forward to revisiting that.
