D.W. Wilson, Once You Break a Knuckle *** 1/2

This collection of stories is similar to another book I read recently, The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake. Both collections feature blue-collar characters living in remote rural areas (in this case, the Kootenay Valley in British Columbia), are written in strong stoic prose, and have individual stories that gain resonance when read together.

It's important to say that the protagonists are "bluecollars" and not "hicks -- the right-wing gun-toters who exploit our unemployment system, who pop welfare checques on dope from the Native reserve, who think beef jerky and Coke constitutes a decent lunch to pack their kids... [and] who find genuine humour in the suffering of others."

The stories didn't feature as much of the landscape as I would have liked. The stories are about the toughness of the people, My favorite piece of color was old man Crease's T-shirt that said, "Pain is only weakness leaving the body."

The book is well-titled: every story includes references to knuckles. 

John Porter, One Day as a Tiger ** 1/2

The subtitle of this book is "Alex MacIntyre and the birth of light and fast alpinism," which suggests the biography of a mountaineering pioneer, does it not? The author sets us straight in the Preface, saying "this story of Alex is not in any sense of the word a pure biography." I would go farther and say that it's not a biography at all. Rather, it is John Porter's thoughts and memories of a time during which he often climbed with Alex MacIntyre.

If you met John Porter in a bar and spent all night talking about climbing, I imagine you'd hear something like this book. He tells a wide-ranging story, covering everything from the history of mountaineering to equipment design and the politics of British adventure clubs. He wanders from topic to topic and from past to present, mostly staying superficial. His accounts of climbing are only intermittently compelling.

Other books have given me a sense of the adventure of mountaineering or of the strange psychology of its top competitors. One Day as a Tiger left me with a sense of how irresponsible climbers tend to be: wandering off from base camp, smashing train speakers during an illicit trip through the USSR, forging permits, abandoning crashed cars, gaming donors. Does this mean I've gotten old?

As for the purported protagonist, Alex MacIntyre comes across as a talented climber during a time of change, but no pioneer. 

Kevin Barry, City of Bohane ****

This novel is well named, since the city is more vivid than its characters or plot. Like New Crobuzon in Perdido Street Station, Bohane comes alive. I feel like I could find my way around the place, from "the Arab tangle of alleyways and wynds" that make up the Bohane Trace, up the 98 Steps to the "bleak, forlorn, .. violently windy" Northside Rises on the bluffs over the river, across the footbridge to Smoketown, and along De Valera Street into New Town.

In the year 2053, the Harnett Fancy (Trace blood-and-bone) prepares to feud with the Cusacks (from the flatblocks on the Rises) for control of the city. Meanwhile, the Gant Broderick, boss from twenty years gone, wanders back from the Big Nothin' along the High Boreen.

The story is told in a colorfully concocted patois that is fun to read. And, oh, the costumes!

Silver high-top boots, drainpipe strides in a natty-boy mottle, a low-slung dirk belt and a three-quarter jacket of saffron-dyed sheepskin.

Jacques Ranciere, Moments Politiques ***

As a collection of "occasional pieces" (newspaper articles, magazine interviews, radio broadcasts), this book feels fragmented, without clear, solid argumentation. I was able to construct an impression of Ranciere's views from isolated tidbits but I don't feel at all confident that it's an accurate impression.

The theme that resonated most with me is how the categories we use to classify people -- immigrants, citizens, working class, and so on -- arise as part of a problem statement instead of being naturalistic, and that frequently all sides in a political debate implicitly agree to the classifications. (Ranciere refers to this as "consensus," even when parties disagree violently about how to address the problem.)

I was marked in my youth by Satrean existentialism, and there received the impression that every identity is an imprisonment in a role. ("Politics and Identity")

Ranciere indulges in plenty of Continental philosophical jargon ("an activist as a subject faithful to collective decision, who works as a member of a kind of collective interiority"). However, his ideas frequently come through clearly; I highlighted numerous aphorisms throughout the book. 

The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake *** 1/2

Breece D'J Pancake is a writer from West Virginia who published a handful of stories before committing suicide. This book contains his entire output of twelve stories along with three appreciations from other writers.

I'm afraid that my experience of the stories was negatively impacted by the foreword from James Alan McPherson. McPherson tells about meeting Pancake at the University of Virginia. The picture he paints of Pancake as an outsider who cultivates his image as a hayseed is so clichéd that I briefly thought Pancake might be a fictional character. The afterword from Andre Dubus III is far more effective at conveying the strengths of the stories.

Nearly all of the stories take place in the dying coal mining towns of West Virginia, and Pancake captures the region well using carefully chosen details. His protagonists are men who feel tied to the land but pine wistfully after others who have left.

Many respectable critics rave about Pancake, comparing his stories to Hemingway's. They reminded me more of Alistair MacLeod with their focus on working-class characters living in out-of-the-way towns. (MacLeod's territory is Cape Breton Island.) Dubus captures the appeal well in his afterword: these are not typical literary characters. However, they aren't very distinct from one another; the names and circumstances change, but the men all seem like the same guy to me.

I would say Pancake was a very promising writer. His prose style and sense of place are fully formed, but the plotting and thematic development revealed his youth.

Bernard Bailyn, The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution **** 1/2

This book provides a history of the ideas that lead to the American Revolution -- about sovereignty, representation, and of course liberty. It doesn't cover the events of the Revolution; in fact, it assumes that you are familiar with them already.

The reader's experience is in many ways the reverse of the colonists' experience. Bailyn deconstructs notions that we now take for granted and shows how they developed from earlier assumptions; the older ideas are the ones that seem new to us.

The two things that surprised me most were the extent to which English opposition writers influenced American public opinion and the respect everyone had for the English constitution. We really wanted to remain British citizens! If only there weren't a conspiracy in the British government to topple the balance of forces between the Crown, Parliament, and the people.

I was also surprised by how forcefully Bailyn presents the anti-federalist case when discussing the ratification of the Constitution. Forming a federal government really did feel like a repudiation of the achievements of the Revolution, and it was not at all clear the system would work.