Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five

Over forty years after its publication, Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five persists as a bitter satire of the American experience during the middle of the 20th Century.  It is the story of a rather unremarkable man, Billy Pilgrim who led a seemingly uneventful life except for two things: he witnessed the allied bombing of Dresden, Germany on February 13, 1945 as an American POW and later on was abducted by strange aliens who live in the fourth dimension.  As a result, Billy is "unstuck in time," drifting in and out of various points of his life in an apparent random process.  One moment he is at New Years Eve Party as a middle aged man, then suddenly shifts back to Dresden.  This leaves Billy and the reader in an disoriented state.

The story is told in fragments, making the entire novel seem like a disjointed series of seemingly unconnected events.  The style is cinematic, with little plot or character exposition.  In the self referencing introduction, Vonnegut wrote the novel is a failure "because it was written on a pillar of salt."  It is about looking back on a traumatic experience and not finding any answers at all. As a result, this is a rather cruel novel.  The idea that awful things often happen with little or no explanation is a tough message to take, but its there.  Vonnegut's universe is an indifferent one.

As an anti-war novel, it is in step with the Vietnam-era, but not so much with today.  The novel's subtitle, The Children's Crusade, is an irreverent response to the glorification of the military ethos.  Billy's 'comrades' in the American army are overgrown sadistic children that thrive in the moral fog of war.  The generals are no better.  In a flash forward to the future, Billy shares a hospital room with an Air Force historian who argues the Dresden bombings were completely necessary for the Allied victory in Europe. Billy's own experience on the ground belies the historian's detached and inhumane argument.  For myself, this is the most memorable part of the novel.  It is a fascinating, but mccarbe phenomenon, to watch the flurry of memoirs that come out after every administration that attempt to justify their actions to history, often with false humility. For therein lies the power of Slaughterhouse-Five.

Prior to its publication, many were unaware of the Dresden bombings.  But the Second World War was such a massive event, that its memory was lost in the fog of war (just as the bombings of Tokyo are hardly remembered because of the use of atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Perhaps traditional narrative fiction fails to capture the meaninglessness of total war and only speculative fiction can give one at least a sense of the madness.

Album Review: Wilco: The Whole Love

Wilco's newest LP, The Whole Love, is their most satisfying record to date.  Ever since the release of their their decade defining album, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot in 2001, their fanbase has gradually continued to grow.  The history of Wilco is unique and indicative of the how the music industry has changed in the past twenty years.  The Whole Love is a really good album in the tradition of the Beatles.

One of the great ironies of the Chicago based band is that some critics like to scoff at them as the practioners of safe, 'middle of the road' music that pleases a late boomer/gen x demographic.  They began with no certain fan base in mind and continue to work that way.  As an outgrowth of the alt-country band Uncle Tupelo, Wilco began with little fanfare.  Tweedy, considered second to Tupelo's lead songwriter Jay Farrar, has become a highly respected American songwriter.

A.M. (1995) Wilco's debut album continued in the alt-country mode of Uncle Tupelo.  A low key, promising debut.

Being There (1996) A highly ambitious double album that celebrates 1970s classic rock, precursor to the revivial of rock in the next decade. The track "I got you (at the end of the century)" is the best example of a classic rock pastiche.

Mermaid Avenue (1998) Their colloboration with Billy Bragg of unrecorded Woody Guthrie songs is great folk-rock.

Summerteeth (1999) A pop extravaganza, height of Tweedy's colloboration with Jay Bennett. Filled with over the top production and haunting lyrics.  But still no hits.

Yankee Hotel Foxtrot (2001)  A landmark record for Wilco that got them dropped by their label and almost broke up the band.  They were dubbed the 'American Radiohead.'

A Ghost is Born (2004) Tweedy's dark state of mind during this record comes through with songs about spiders filing tax returns, a stroll with the devil, coming to terms with addiction, and the loss of faith. Possibly their masterpiece.

Sky Blue Sky (2007) After two experiemental albums, a collection of mellow jam sessions - Nels Cline's guitar work adds a new dimension to Wilco.

Wilco: The Album (2009) Excellent set of songs, but some worried the album was too safe and lacked invention.

The Whole Love combines all the great elements of Wilco's past.  The opening song, 'Art of Almost,' recalls YHF and A Ghost is Born with its dark soundscapes and a mad guitar solo from Cline.  Another highlight is "I Might," a psychodelic organ driven song with Tweedy gleefully singing the chorus, "You won't set the kids on fire, oh but I might."  The Beatles have always been a major influence, especially the White Album.  Their influence is clear on 'Capitol City,' 'Sunloathe,' and 'Whole Love.' 

Wilco is an amazing example of a band surviving and making it an increasingly segmented culture where every musical act is marketed to a specific demographic.  They draw upon a number of different influences, no different than Beatles, Stones, or Dylan, and make it their own.  They do it the old fashioned way: make good albums and  play every concert like it's their last. But you still can't hear them on the radio. 

Book Review: Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961)

  After reading "Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates, it is tempting to wonder if this is just another novel about suburban alienation in the 1960s.  On the surface Frank and April appear as a typically happy young couple with two kids and a nice house.  Frank works as a ad man for a machinery company and April stays at home.  Yates does not despise these characters and writes about them with compassion and understanding.  Frank, who once had ambitions for a career in the "humanities," feels hopeless about his future in a pointless job on Madison Avenue.  April is haunted by a painful childhood and longs for a life outside of the suburbs.

Divided into three parts, the second part follows their aborted plans to move to Paris.  To them, Paris is more of a symbol than a real place.  Frank associated the city with his time in the army, a time when he felt most alive. Both also see the city of light as a place with culture and not the blandness of their affluent suburb.  For a brief time it appears their marriage will survive, but the sheer boldness of their plan overtakes them.  Instead of a novel about breaking away from an unsatisfying existence, it becomes one of lost hopes.

Some of the sentiments in Revolutionary Road match those of David Riesman's 1950 classic study of American conformity, The Lonely Crowd.  Ironically, in the novel Frank and April are aware of their need of approval from their neighbors and the dangers of breaking away from social norms.  In one of Frank's most inspired moments he states, "The whole country's rotten with sentimentality . . . This steady, insistent vulgarizing of every idea and every emotion into some kind of pre-digested intellectual baby food; this optimistic, smiling-through, easy-way-out sentmentality in everybody's view of life."  These ideas foreshadowed cultural shifts in the 1960s, but remain quite relevant, in our even more anxiety ridden time.

Back to my original question, there is a compassion for the characters from Yates, but for the setting.  The novel's epigram from Keats, "Alas! when passion is both meek and mild!" is a great way of looking at all the characters.  Most are self-aware, but have something within that holds them back.  Above all this is a character study that is set in a particular time in American history, but not exclusive to that time.

Book Review: Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Stephen King's second novel Salem's Lot reimagined Bram Stoker's Dracula by setting the story in 1970s America.  The novel set the formula King used for many of his other big novels, a small town is under threat from sinister forces, but as is often the case the people tend to be their own worst enemy.  The darkness underlying the reality in most small towns is fertile ground for great fiction and King is the master at tapping into that darkness.  Salem's Lot has its share of scares and social commentary, but suffers from an assortment of minor characters that slow down the story.

Ben Mears is the protagonist in Salem's Lot, a succesful young novelist that returns to his childhood home to research his new book.  Along the way, he begins a romance with a young artist Susan and eventually discovers that Jerusalem's Lot is infested with vampires.  King sketches out several of the locals from Salem's Lot, some join Ben in his fight against the vampires. Another key character is Tim Petrie, a perceptive child that sees the vampire threat.  Another fascinating character is the local priest Father Callahan, who is an Irish version of the Exorcist.

In his updated preface, King writes about his struggle in creating a vampire story in post-Vietnam America.  The villians are Nixonian: they rarely appear and tend to work in the shadows.  In many ways, the story owes more to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, rather than the classic Dracula story. The novel has bleak conclusion where the forces of evil prevail adds to the novel's power.  King takes awhile to develop the story so the middle is slow, but the final 200 pages are spellbinding.

Route 19 Revisited: The Clash and London Calling by Marcus Gray

Are rock albums worthy of a 500+ page book?  In this case, all I can say is there are worse ways to spend one's time.  I liked the book.  Marcus Gray's detailed study of London Calling is much more than a by the numbers "making of"  account, but a portrait of a time eerily similar to our own.  The year 1979 witnessed the Islamic Revolution in Iran, a near nuclear meltdown at Three Mile Island, massive unemployment in the West, the end of detente after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the rise of conservative leaders, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.  All  the songs on London Calling were an indirect response to those events, but also a dialogue with the past that offered some glimmers of hope for the future.  Route 19 Revisited will immerse you into the world of The Clash and make you reexamine your own world- in a good way.

The Clash (1976-1985) Joe Strummer (guitar, vocals), Mick Jones (guitar, vocals), Paul Simonon (bass), and Topper Headon (drums) burst onto the scene in 1976 as part of the "punk" movement.  During the mid 1970s, disillusioned youth were angry at the direction of popular music with corporate rock bands that played safe middle of the road music (Boston, Wings), ego driven bands who made their millions and then ignored their fans (The Rolling Stones), and pretentious "art" rock (Pink Floyd) (Sex Pistols front man Johnny Rotten was noted for wearing "Pink Floyd Sucks!" t-shirts).  The release of Never Mind the Bollocks by the Sex Pistols in 1977, dubbed "Year Zero" in the punk manifesto, sent a sledgehammer into the music industry. All the songs were under three minutes with sneering vocals spewing venom at anyone that pissed them off.  The punk manifesto divided the world up between the loves and the hates. The hates were establishment and "souless consumerists", while the loves were charismatic outlaws, amoral, unconventional. 

Their debut album, The Clash (1977) was received as a punk masterpiece, but also hinted at their ambition to go beyond the confines of punk.  While tracks like "Remote Control," "I'm So Bored with the USA," and "Career Opportunities" all fit into the anti-authoritarian punk ethos, others like "Police and Thieves" experimented with reggae.  After touring America with Bo Diddley, Strummer and Jones traveled to Jamaica to prepare for an album of all reggae music.  Their sophomore LP, Give Em' Enough Rope, which featured a cover with an army of Maoists marching over a dead American cowboy, flopped with critics and nearly forced the band out of their recording contract with CBS.

In 1979, the Clash regrouped and wrote one of rock's all-time great albums.  The iconic cover, with Simonson smashing his bass guitar, symbolized their rage at the bleak world of 1970s Great Britain. But as Gray points out, a recurring theme throughout the album is dealing with that anger and channeling it towards positive ends.  The styles of the songs move from 1950s rockabilly, disco, reggae, ska, rock - blending genres and styles in a way not seen since the Beatles.  Many of the songs originated from newspaper articles, books, and movies they were watching - with subjects running the gambit from the Spanish Civil War, Montgomery Clift, consumerism, coca-cola, and revolutionary politics.

Gray wrote an essay for every song that delves into the cinematic, literary, and musical influences behind them.  Like the Beatles, the Clash rarely created anything original, but took all their influences and shaped them into their own distinct style.  For instance, on "Death or Glory," Gray connects the ideas in the song to Tennyson's "Charge of the Light Brigade" and the 1942 film Casablanca.  Strummer wrote "Spanish Bombs" after reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia.  The opener, "London Calling," drew upon news headlines that predicted another ice age, the end of the world's oil supply, and a Third World War.  The lyric "zombies of death" came directly from the first modern zombie novel, I Am Legend by Richard Matheson, another book they were reading.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in rock and roll history. Gray wrote that London Calling continues to endure not because of its dark themes, but its "defiant spirit, its power to uplift, and determination to lead by example . . .  it looks fear in the eye, then pulls on its boots and goes out to face the day."  Like any great album its meaning will change after repeated listening - and of course, be sure not to get lost in the supermarket.   

Album Review: The Nylon Curtain by Billy Joel

The Nylon Curtain (1982) is arguably Billy Joel's finest album.  It is a collection of songs directly inspired by the Beatles and the bittersweet realities of the Reagan era.

  The opener ,"Allentown," is a lament about the economic issues that plagued the Midwest in the 1980s.  Joel writes about the high unemployment and the declining expectations of the new generation, "every child had a pretty good shot of getting at least far as their old man got/but something happened on the way to that place and they threw an American flag in our face." 

In a similar vein is "Goodnight Saigon," his only direct song about the Vietnam War.  By the 1980s the passions of the had diminished and the narrative of the began to change. President Reagan, who called the conflict a "noble war," moved Americans to forget the painful politics of the era and placed emphasis on the sacrifice of the soldiers.  Popular films like The Deer Hunter and First Blood were examples of the shift in attitude on Vietnam by avoiding the politics of the era.  The song is written from the point of view of a soldier on the ground who did his duty in spite of the horrible conditions he faced.  Joel also avoided the politics and wrote about remembering those who continue to struggle after the war - very much in the tone of All Quiet on the Western Front.

Other highlights include "Laura", "Surprise, Surprise," and "Scandinavian Skies."  On "Laura" Joel channels the spirit of John Lennon (even sounds like him) in a song similar to "Sexy Sadie" and "I'm So Tired" from the White album.  Meanwhile, "Surprise, Surprise" is a nod to Wings era McCartney.  One of the hidden gems in Joel's catalogue, "Scandinavian Skies," is a cryptic song about a haunting tour through Europe.  Is it about the travails of touring?  On closer reading there are references to holocaust (Joel's father was a survivor), punctuated by the haunting strings, in lyrics like "The Sins of Amsterdam were still a recent surprise" and "the tour of Germany Was bleeding into our eyes."  The pristine sound of the song captures the majesty of European civilization, but also the darkness that lays beneath all the "culture" of Europe.

Whatever one's opinion of Joel's later career and the fact he has not made an album since 1993, it remains a soundtrack for the baby boom generation.  His later albums moved away from social commentary to banal pop songs, devoid of the adventurous production in The Nylon Curtain.  Perhaps MTV is to blame for destroying the singer-songwriter era and putting image above all else. Some flourished in this environment, but most did not.  But that's another story.

Book Review: Kardiac Kids: The Story of the 1980 Cleveland Browns by Jonathan Knight

Red Right 88.  Those words continue to send chills down the spines of Cleveland Brown fans.  On a frigid January day at old Cleveland Stadium, the Browns were on the verge of victory in a divisional playoff game with the Oakland Raiders when quarterback Brian Sipe threw an interception that ended their season.  Jonathan Knight's comprehensive account of that season recaptures one of the most exciting years in Cleveland sports.  For three seasons (1978-80), the "Kardiac Kids," consistently pulled off dramatic victories in the closing minutes of their games.  The book makes it clear that while 1980 Browns came up short in the end - they provided their fans with an unforgettable ride that continues to resonate to this day.

During the 1950s, the Cleveland Browns were the premiere franchise of the NFL.  They were a dynasty that won five world championships (this was the pre-Super Bowl era) with a legendary corps of Hall of Famers like head coach Paul Brown, Marion Motley, Otto Graham, and arguably the greatest football player ever - Jim Brown.  In 1964 the Browns trounced the Baltimore Colts 27-0 for yet another championship that few realized at the time - would be their last.  During the 1970s the Browns struggled after a series of bad trades, lackluster draft picks, and injuries.  Cleveland fans were forced to sit back and watch as their division rival the Pittsburgh Steelers went on to win four Super Bowls. 

In 1978, things began to turn around when Browns owner Art Modell hired Sam Rutigliano as head coach.  A longtime assistant coach, Rutigliano revitalized the Browns by building an explosive offense behind the accurate passing of veteran quarterback Brian Sipe.  After a promising 8-8 season in 1979, it appeared the Browns were heading in the right direction for 1980.  And they would not disappoint.  Cleveland, a tough blue collar town, faced high unemployment, racial and ethnic tensions, and a constant target of comedians who taunted their town as the "mistake by the lake," desperately needed something positive to happen for their city.  While it is a cliche that a winning football team will not revitalize a city overnight, it can do much to lift the spirits of people experiencing tough times.

Knight provides a detailed account of every game and some of the drama that went on behind the scenes.  Unlike other "insider" accounts of professional sports, they generally seemed like a good group of guys.  Rutigliano was true players' coach who was respected for his intelligence and willingness to roll the dice when the time called for it.  The 1980 Browns were a veteran team with many players in their prime of their careers.  Lyle Alzado, an acquisition from the Denver Broncos, had a reputation as a loose cannon, but his enthusiasm added a spark to the defense.  Newcomers like tight end Ozzie Newsome and linebacker Clay Matthews made great contributions and went on to become Hall of Famers. Brian Sipe, however, was the leader and rock of the Kardiac Kids who always gave his team a chance to win in the clutch.  He continues to hold most of the passing records for the Browns franchise.

The heartbreaking 14-12 loss to the Raiders ended an era.  In 1981, they fell to 5-11 and went on to suffer a succession of losing seasons.  By 1985, the year the Browns returned to the playoffs, only six players remained from the 1980 squad.  Although the Browns went deeper into the playoffs later in the decade (they lost three AFC championships to the Denver Broncos) the heroics of the Kardiac Kids remain etched in the memories of Browns fans.  Knight did a great job in recapturing the excitement of that year.  The Browns reminded their fans that hard work and a "never say die" attitude can make anything possible.