I’m not necessarily looking for ethnic diversity in my reading, but that is what is coming my way. Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour literally did so. Walking to lunch in Southeast Portland, I saw a copy sitting on the steps saying, “Free to Good Home.” I liked the catchy note and was sold.
I should have been more suspicious, because the subject of this book is persuading blacks to use sales, the hard selling, cold calling kind, to get the success that has been traditionally denied them. In his view, skill in selling leads to a high paying job in the tech industry. This novel is fiction with quirky characters and an engaging plot used to drive home a point of view. Along the way, the tech industry in particular is chided for the lack of minorities in the sales force. Askaripour encourages blacks to follow this path to success while he says plenty to the whites who would keep them back.
I kept waiting for him to suggest to his readers that they consider WHAT they will skillfully sell, that this bit of moral consideration would be part of the book’s ending. But no, it wasn’t, and he never did.
There is a lot to dislike about The Good Lord Bird, James McBride’s historical fiction of abolitionist John Brown. It is steeped in shooting and killing as Brown believed in using violence to end slavery and the book does justice to this. The sermons of the messianic Brown, whose Biblical knowledge is inventive and apt, go on ad nauseum. The dialect can be difficult.
But – like the main character, Little Onion, I fell under the spell and became fond of the fiery, fanatical John Brown and wished the story wouldn’t end the way I knew it must. More than an unusual homage, this thoughtful book has a lot to offer.
The none too flattering depictions of John Brown and Frederick Douglass are timely as we examine our old heroes and find them wanting. Must heroes be flawless super beings, or is doing just one history changing thing enough to qualify?
Slavery was the flash point subject throughout lawless Kansas in the 1850’s when strangers were accosted wanting to know their stance. Answering the wrong way could be deadly. This reminded me too much of our current vax, anti-vax division; although at this point, it is only one choice that is potentially fatal.
The language is funny, “but with me traveling incog-Negro…and the Captain…famous as bad whiskey;” The observations are pointed, “Being a Negro’s a lie, anyway. Nobody knows who you are inside. You just judged on what you are on the outside…You just a Negro to the world.”
And finally – the “Good Lord Bird,” the ivory billed woodpecker, nicknamed that way because of the exclamations by people who saw it. Black and white with a fiery top, McBride’s chosen image is the bird that flies alone looking for a dead tree. “He goes out and he gnaws at it, and he gnaws at it till that thing gets tired and falls down.”
It is a fine description of Brown and his legacy. Did McBride pick a bird feared to be extinct because he thought there weren’t enough John Browns left in the world?
In A World on the Wing, Scott Weidensaul transmits his excitement about what new technology is doing for research into bird migration. It is not so much filling in gaps in knowledge as exposing how very many there are. This is a book for serious birders – a little bit too much for me. So I skimmed – and picked out the things on my level.
For example – birds’ stomachs and livers atrophy when they are ready to migrate and plump up again at the feeding grounds. (I wish I knew how to do some of that atrophy part.) Whimbrels fly into hurricanes and use the winds to propel them on their way. A new program being developed will use acoustics to identify what kind of birds are in that mass picked up on radar. Learning exactly where birds stop along the way is helping conservationists target their land purchases or work with peoples who want the birds in their pots.
I am comforted to read about the dedicated biologists in countries all over the world who are working to help birds survive. It is no longer a given.
Picking up pre-ordered groceries the other day, I was given a substitute (Pete and Gerry’s) for the organic eggs I usually buy. I was appalled to find them in a plastic container – with a second layer of upside down egg shaped plastic around individual eggs!
But – on the package was a blurb about their “Earth Friendly Packaging.” Really? I did not believe them but followed the link to their website – and I think I’m convinced. There was excellent information about the environmental costs of molded paper egg cartons vs. their cartons made from recycled plastic. Plus – they will send a postage free label so their customers can return the containers which will be recycled once again. Reading – such a great tool for evaluating assumptions.
I’ve always loved plays on words, so when I came across this Facebook post, I wanted to pass it on:
“What a gorgeous creature! It’s a giraffe reincarnated as a moth!
Do you think it was planned, or more of a giraffterthought?”
And then there is…
So, a pun, a play on words, and an anecdote walk into a bar…
No joke.
Much enjoyed. As always I am awed about how much you get read and write about.
Must heroes be flawless super beings, or is doing just one history changing thing enough to qualify?
What a relevant quote in this era of pulling down Lincoln etc statues!!
Lucky day for you and your readers. Always wise and witty thoughts fot all of us. Did you leave a thank you note on that step?😊
As always an enjoyable read. Very surprised with the piece about the plastic “earth friendly” egg packaging. I wonder whether the energy cost of recycling the plastic was addressed. But the postage free return program might balance out the costs. Interesting concept.
Maybe you could recommend THE GOOD LORD BIRD for book club?
Probably not. I liked it once, but I don’t think I want to read it again. I do have in mind the other McBride – Deacon King Kong which I thought was a better book.