Harold Frederic, The Damnation of Theron Ware or Illumination **** 1/2

An awesome illustration of the value of browsing in used book stores. I'd never heard of Harold Frederic nor of this novel, by I found a copy of a Modern Library edition at Moe's in Berkeley. The premise sounded interesting, and the cover copy called it "one of the four or five best novels by an American in the 19th century."

The Damnation of Theron Ware tells the story of an up-and-coming Methodist minister in upstate New York. Due to some church politics, he is assigned to a small town with a conservative set of church trustees, who don't care for his fancy preaching and fashionable wife. While laboring under the burden of their austere religious vision, he comes under the sway of the local Catholic priest and his rationalist doctor friend. They open Theron's eyes to his provincial ways, and he slowly abandons his beliefs. As the title indicates, the result is not positive.

The book gives a good sense of everyday small-town life and the role of religion in late 19th century America. It takes Theron's religiosity and ambitions seriously, and questions the goodness of adopting a scientific-rationalist view. I empathized with Theron and believed in his sincerity; the author does not stretch him to turn him into a comic character. I loved it!

Blake Butler, Nothing: A Portrait of Insomnia ** 1/2

This unusual book has some fantastic passages in it. Butler's ability to capture dream states -- or more accurately, waking dream states -- is positively Lynchian. I'll remain haunted by the image of the man in the car outside of his house at night, with the engine running and his stare permanently straight ahead. And by the huge boulder slowly getting closer to falling on his not-sleeping form. And the recurring images of keys for hidden doors.

I also liked Butler's idiosyncratic way of phrasing ("The initial wanted instinct upon first hitting the pillow is to be blank"), including how he always refers to his body in terms of skin or meat, and his odd observations ("The bulk of any house is made of air"). His implicit comparison between the symptoms of insomnia and senile dementia was interesting.

I can't neglect to mention the thematically appropriate glow-in-the-dark Zs all over the cover of the book.

With all of this great stuff, why the poor rating? Because the parts between are filled with academic Deleuze-ian jargon and meaningless flights of pseudo-profound whimsy, during which my mind wandered so much that I may have missed some of the good stuff. The book would have been much more powerful at half of its current length.

Patrick O'Brian, Desolation Island *** 1/2

The fifth book in the Aubrey-Maturin series relies on familiarity with the characters and the milieu. I fully enjoyed it, but only because O'Brian hooked me with his inimitable style in the first four books. Desolation Island gives Stephen Maturin more of the plot than Jack Aubrey, and moves through its story at a leisurely pace: the only sea battle comes after page 200 and the titular island gets its first mention on page 297. Alas, the deliberate pace of the earlier chapters means that the exciting parts get short-changed a bit in the closing pages. In particular, I thought the scene of the Leopard crew fighting to save its sinking ship or abandon it was rushed.

No matter, though. I'll read The Fortune of War presently.

Yemina Ben-Menahem, editor, Hilary Putnam ****

Hilary Putnam is the philosopher who initiated me into contemporary philosophy. My undergraduate thesis advisor had me read “The Meaning of ‘Meaning’” (1975), and I was drawn in by the issues Putnam raises in that challenging and entertaining essay. I went on to read the other essays in his collection Mind, Language, and Reality, then works by the philosophers he referred to (such as Quine and Kripke), and on and on to this day. This book is a collection of essays about his philosophy.

None of the authors writes with the clarity or verve of Putnam himself, but by adding their perspectives together I was able to clarify some of my confusion about how Putnam's ideas changed over the years and how his philosophy differs from other contemporary philosophers. More importantly, the book presented ideas that changed, or at least deepened, my own views on the nature of reality.

For a more complete assessment of the philosophical points, see my summary on the Philosophy page of our web site.