Requiem for a Thought

Complexities of Life

One thing that I have tried to do with this blog, albeit in the admittedly much too rare postings, is to connect the seemingly unrelated complexities of life. Granted, I’ve only been able to do that on a microcosmic scale. It is my hope that, in time, the rambling here will lead to a more sophisticated philosophy later. In the mean time, I’ve been reading.

I’m actually reading three books right now. They are: Plagues of the Mind, by Bruce S. Thornton; Ripples of Battle, by Victor Davis Hanson; and A Widow for One Year, by John Irving. Although I’ll discuss each book, I think I’ll spend more time on the first one I mentioned, which, even though I haven’t made it half-way yet, is proving to be the most enlightening book I’ve read in some time. However, I’ll do that in Part II—yes, this post would just be too long otherwise.

PART I

A Widow for One Year (AWOY) is a book by the prolific (and thus) well-known author, John Irving. If you don’t recognize the name immediately, he is the mind behind several books, including The Cider House Rules, which made into a movie by the same name. I’ve seen three of the movie versions of his books and, given my dissatisfaction with the story development and the treatment of heavy, complex moral issues with kid-gloves, it was suggested to me by a friend that I should read one of Irving’s books before I pass judgment. In turn, I’ve started reading one of them.

AWOY was made into a movie last year with the title The Door in the Floor. Whereas the movie seems to have stayed very true to the book, I can tell that the book continues past where the movie ended, becoming the story of a life of a girl named Ruth, only a minor character in movie. In fact, the movie (and the part of the book that it was taken from, the beginning) deals only with one summer in Ruth’s life when she’s about six years old. And then it only deals with a young prep-school student spending a summer on Long Island with married couple whose relationship is only a ghost of what it had been. Not passing any judgment yet, but the book is considerably better written than I had imagined.

Ripples of Battle (ROB), is the second book from Victor Davis Hanson that I’ve read. Even more so than Irving, Hanson is a rather prolific writer, although his work is nonfiction and takes on the intersection between military and cultural history. In that vein, ROB highlights three military battles that, historically, have not received too much research or time: (in chronological order) Delium, 424 B.C.; Shiloh, 1862; Okinawa, 1945. His goal is not to describe the military tactics or battles in too great detail, rather he seeks to explain how these battles have directly affected our society. For instance, the Civil War battle of Shiloh, had the direct dual effect of creating one of the best Christian stories ever written and one of the most vile, hate groups in American culture.

Shiloh was the battle in which one Union Gen. Lew Wallace, through a somewhat understandable error, was disgraced in battle. Although his error has, through the somewhat mitigating lens of historical perspective, proven to have been more rightly include others rather than singularly to himself, he spent many years after the Civil War explaining himself to his comrades and other civilians. Granted, his previous shameless self-promotion and aggrandizement contributed to his being “black listed,” he nonetheless atoned for his war error in the form of a novel. The novel, which was later made into a famous Hollywood movie, was really a thinly veiled story of his own experiences during and after the war, set in the early 1^st century A.D. in Judea. The movie, Ben Hur, won several Oscars for its epic portrayal of a wealthy Jew thrown into slavery by a mistake and how he eventually triumphs.

The battle of Shiloh also helped establish the reputation of one Confederate general. Shiloh was Nathan Bedford Forrest’s breakthrough battle. Although the South lost, his brave maneuvering earned him a reputation in the South as a valiant general. This reputation gave him the authority to establish an organization after the war that challenged radical Reconstruction. Its members wore white robes and hoods as symbolic “ghosts of the confederacy,” the Ku Klux Klan. While the original goal of the Klan may not have immediately or readily embrace any racist sentiments, its reincarnation in the 1920s did just that. To his credit, I understand Forrest disavowed the organization once he saw it moving in that direction. Nonetheless, he is the father of the Klan—largely because of Shiloh.

PART II to be posted soon...