Alan Sepinwall, The Revolution Was Televised ***

The book about the most recent "golden age of television" provides entertaining summaries of the shows usually considered to be its standard-bearers (The Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield, Lost, Mad Men, and so on), even if fans of these shows have probably heard the stories before.

However, Sepinhall doesn't provide any real analysis about the causes or effects of this golden age. He mentions a number of classic shows that preceded the canon and also several recent failed attempts to replicate the new formulas. So what made the early 21st century distinct? Conventional wisdom says it was The Sopranos,  but what about it? Sepinhall suggests that The Sopranos was successful because it combined something men like to watch (mob drama) with something women like to watch (family drama), but later attributes the failure of Friday Night Lights to reach a mass audience to the same reason.

I personally think that it was the proliferation of cable channels that led to the golden age. Lots of TV executives needed programming that would distinguish their channels, and they gave creators unprecedented freedom out of desperation or a lack of knowing any better. Other contributing factors were the availability of DVD and film studios getting out of "the $40-50 million good drama business."

Rafael Bernal, The Mongolian Conspiracy ****

A rough-hewn Mexico City hit man investigates reports of a plot to assassinate the presidents of Mexico and the United States. He might be in over his head with the international intrigue, but he knows the locals in Chinatown who appear to be at the heart of the plan.

The Mongolian Conspiracy is very much like a Dashiell Hammett book, if Hammett were writing in Mexico in the late 1960s and had a fondness for the word pinche. The story structure, the shifting alliances of our hero, and the questioning of authority all reminded me of Red Harvest. The only thing I didn't care for was how the writing shifted constantly and awkwardly between the third person and first person:

Garcia was going to say that he'd never used one, but then he remembered the one time he had. It was in Huasteca, and I was carrying out orders.

Within its solid thriller plot, The Mongolian Conspiracy sneaks in ideas about the rule of law versus the rule of action. Garcia is a former revolutionary who laments the bureaucratic nature of modern Mexican society and recognizes himself as a throwback and as a necessary evil for his superiors. As the story unfolds, though, he gains some respect for the rule of law.

John Eliot Gardiner, Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven ***

In the preface, the author says that he intends to paint a portrait of Bach, the man, using evidence drawn from his music.

Part of my aim in this book is to show how clearly Bach's approach in his cantatas, motets, oratorios, Masses, and Passions reveals his mind at work, his temperamental preferences as well as his wide-ranging philosophical outlook.

I don't think he does that, though. The first half of the book describes the context in which Bach lived and worked, the second half gives a detailed musicological analysis of Bach's vocal church music, but Bach's personality remains unknown.

I am not really the ideal reader for this book, being neither a musician nor a superfan of Bach's cantatas, Passions, and masses. However, I really enjoyed the sections about life in seventeenth century Germany and the latest musical styles of the Baroque era. Gardiner does an excellent job of explaining the actual day-to-day practice of a musician/composer in those times. Like Thinking in Jazz, the book identifies the many ingredients that go into creating "inspired" music. When listening to a Bach cantata, you need to keep in mind the Lutheran beliefs, the loud socializing in the pews, and the divided balconies where the choir sang hidden from most of the congregation.

Gardiner is a conductor who recently led an ensemble through a Bach Cantata Pilgrimage: a year-long tour during which they played Bach's cantatas during the week for which they were composed. (For two years, Bach wrote a new cantata every week related to the pastoral subject for that time of year!) He knows his Bach. If I were a musician performing any of the church music, I would study the relevant chapters immediately. He assuredly overanalyzes them ("God descends and takes on human form, symbolically represented by the last minute swerve to C major"), but in so doing he fulfills the conductor's role:

The primary role of the conductor is to identify and transmit [the shared] vision to all those involved. At every instant he needs to know where the music is headed; and he has to be able to convey to each musician how individual lines fit into the overall pattern.

Norman Mailer, The Executioner's Song ****

The Executioner's Song is an exhaustive 1000-page "true life novel" about the last nine months of Gary Gilmore's life. It starts with Gilmore's release from prison for an armed robbery conviction and ends with his execution for a pair of murders in Utah. Mailer tells the story from the perspective of the many people who encountered Gilmore during that time, using a simple declarative writing style that reflects the point of view of the person whose thoughts are being reported.

The exhaustiveness of the book occasionally leads to it being exhausting -- how many times did Gary steal a six pack of beer? How many lawyers filed suits to prevent the execution? However, Mailer does an excellent job of choosing mundane details and turns of phrase that bring the story and its characters to life. The cumulative effect of all the overlapping perspectives is powerful.

Mailer's flat, unsentimental style really pays dividends in the chapters describing the day of the execution. Things happen fast once the final appeal is rejected, and the characters' emotional states all try to keep up. After the execution itself, we follow Gary's body to the morgue and his friends to a memorial service. The juxtaposition of the brutally physical autopsy and the emotionally spiritual eulogies implicitly makes me think about the meaning of a man's life.