GUILT ABOUT THE PAST(House of Anansi, $15.95), composed of six lucid essays by Bernhard Schlink, landed on my desk, and I am most grateful for the gift. I found this short book to be a provocative and lively set of arguments. Those who missed Schlink’s amazingly successful novel THE READER (Vintage, $13.95) - and even those familiar with it - may not know that Schlink is a lawyer and a judge. One essay is indeed devoted to law as an instrument, and the last is about the role and importance of fiction.
The second essay, "The Presence of the Past," is full of nuggets. "Whatever course of action they follow, it is not for us Germans to raise objections or feel indignation." On the other hand, "Whoever remembers wants the right to forget." In the new generation, the literature of the Holocaust can give up some of its prominence, and it is important to administer the Jewish sites in a way that never seems patronizing.
In another essay called "Forgiveness and Reconciliation," Schlink distinguishes between forgetting, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Read these essays for clarity about difficult issues. Read them also for their beautiful writing.
On Thursday, November 12 at 2:30 p.m., Michael Rosen gave a presentation of his book, WHAT ELSE BUT HOME: Seven Boys and an American Journey Between the Projects and the Penthouse at University of the District of Columbia/Windows Lounge, 4200 Connecticut Avenue, NW. Michael was also here in August to present a remarkable story. At the UDC event, Michael was accompanied by two of the youths about whom he writes.
Michael and his wife Leslie took into their apartment - and into their lives - a half dozen teenagers who lived nearby their Lower East Side building. They fed and clothed them, and more important, tutored and encouraged them to graduate from high school and go on to college. Yes, they all had mothers, but mothers who were so overburdened with other children and jobs that they welcomed the Rosens’ help.
Michael Rosen shows us how wide the gap is between middle and lower class life. The cultural disparities are huge. In this new information age, we expect much more of workers. Industrial work is disappearing. Service work pays badly. How can American society intervene to provide youngsters with the skills and know how they need to navigate in the global economy?
If you missed the talk, we have signed books on hand.
NEIGHBORHOOD MURAL
Some of you may have heard the All Things Considered report "A Widow Paints a Health Care Protest" by Joseph Shapiro on the neighborhood mural. It faces the CVS parking lot and is on the building owned by the BP Station. Regina Holliday created this painting in honor of her husband Fred, who died from kidney cancer. Joseph’s report was excellent and you can find the NPR story on the internet at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120028213.
"So many books, so little time" is definitely the lesson of autumn 2009. Lest anyone believe there is no point in coming to P&P to hear an author, let me quickly disabuse you of that. Let me review some the excellent talks last week that most of you missed: Tim Flannery, Denis MacShane and Max Cleland.
Last
week, for example, Tim Flannery, a
leading advocate for controlling the rate at which climate is changing and
certainly one of the most dynamic, spoke to perhaps 80 people. His small book
is called Now or Never, but his
talk belied the title. There is much we can do as individuals or as a nation
and whatever we do is better than not doing anything. Here’s the sad
part: Tim Flannery, an Aussie, who chairs one of the panels for the Copenhagen climate conference, says that the world needs
the Congress to pass the Waxman-Markey bill so the U.S. can play a leadership role at
the Climate Conference. We had to tell Tim that there is no way Congress can
act by December.
The
day before we hosted a visit by Denis
MacShane, an urbane, liberal, articulate British MP, who has written
a persuasive book called Globalising
Hatred: The New Antisemitism. MacShane headed a parliamentary inquiry
that found an intersection between right wing hatred of Jews because they
represent modernity, Islamic anti-Zionism, and left wing European fashionable
anti-Semitism stemming from pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist sentiments. He
argues that the problems of the Middle East do
not stem from a little country that borders only a handful of Arab nations, but also, the West cannot tolerate any expressions of
hatred against Muslims and Islam.
Max Cleland is an American hero who served
this country as much as one man can: he fought in Vietnam with
valor and lost three limbs. He was elected U.S. Senator from Georgia
in 1996, but when he ran for reelection his opponent Saxbe
Chambliss allowed ads to run on TV that questioned Cleland’s patriotism because
he voted against going to war in Iraq. His book Heart of a Patriot
is a frank discussion of his anger and depression that he hopes will reach many
veterans, of whom he says “The mental and emotional wounds … have been
far more difficult to overcome.” Asked about the wisdom of expanding
American troops in Afghanistan, Senator Cleland was very skeptical, asking what
the objectives are and whether they can be achieved by even as many as 200,000
troops.
Bernhard Schlink
The second essay, "The Presence of the Past," is full of nuggets. "Whatever course of action they follow, it is not for us Germans to raise objections or feel indignation." On the other hand, "Whoever remembers wants the right to forget." In the new generation, the literature of the Holocaust can give up some of its prominence, and it is important to administer the Jewish sites in a way that never seems patronizing.
In another essay called "Forgiveness and Reconciliation," Schlink distinguishes between forgetting, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Read these essays for clarity about difficult issues. Read them also for their beautiful writing.
What Else But Home
Michael and his wife Leslie took into their apartment - and into their lives - a half dozen teenagers who lived nearby their Lower East Side building. They fed and clothed them, and more important, tutored and encouraged them to graduate from high school and go on to college. Yes, they all had mothers, but mothers who were so overburdened with other children and jobs that they welcomed the Rosens’ help.
Michael Rosen shows us how wide the gap is between middle and lower class life. The cultural disparities are huge. In this new information age, we expect much more of workers. Industrial work is disappearing. Service work pays badly. How can American society intervene to provide youngsters with the skills and know how they need to navigate in the global economy?
If you missed the talk, we have signed books on hand.
NEIGHBORHOOD MURAL
Some of you may have heard the All Things Considered report "A Widow Paints a Health Care Protest" by Joseph Shapiro on the neighborhood mural. It faces the CVS parking lot and is on the building owned by the BP Station. Regina Holliday created this painting in honor of her husband Fred, who died from kidney cancer. Joseph’s report was excellent and you can find the NPR story on the internet at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=120028213.
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"So Many Books, So Little Time"
"So many books, so little time" is definitely the lesson of autumn 2009. Lest anyone believe there is no point in coming to P&P to hear an author, let me quickly disabuse you of that. Let me review some the excellent talks last week that most of you missed: Tim Flannery, Denis MacShane and Max Cleland.
Last week, for example, Tim Flannery, a leading advocate for controlling the rate at which climate is changing and certainly one of the most dynamic, spoke to perhaps 80 people. His small book is called Now or Never, but his talk belied the title. There is much we can do as individuals or as a nation and whatever we do is better than not doing anything. Here’s the sad part: Tim Flannery, an Aussie, who chairs one of the panels for the Copenhagen climate conference, says that the world needs the Congress to pass the Waxman-Markey bill so the U.S. can play a leadership role at the Climate Conference. We had to tell Tim that there is no way Congress can act by December.
The day before we hosted a visit by Denis MacShane, an urbane, liberal, articulate British MP, who has written a persuasive book called Globalising Hatred: The New Antisemitism. MacShane headed a parliamentary inquiry that found an intersection between right wing hatred of Jews because they represent modernity, Islamic anti-Zionism, and left wing European fashionable anti-Semitism stemming from pro-Palestinian or anti-Zionist sentiments. He argues that the problems of the Middle East do not stem from a little country that borders only a handful of Arab nations, but also, the West cannot tolerate any expressions of hatred against Muslims and Islam.
Max Cleland is an American hero who served this country as much as one man can: he fought in Vietnam with valor and lost three limbs. He was elected U.S. Senator from Georgia in 1996, but when he ran for reelection his opponent Saxbe Chambliss allowed ads to run on TV that questioned Cleland’s patriotism because he voted against going to war in Iraq. His book Heart of a Patriot is a frank discussion of his anger and depression that he hopes will reach many veterans, of whom he says “The mental and emotional wounds … have been far more difficult to overcome.” Asked about the wisdom of expanding American troops in Afghanistan, Senator Cleland was very skeptical, asking what the objectives are and whether they can be achieved by even as many as 200,000 troops.