Book Review: Bleak House by Charles Dickens

Bleak House by Charles Dickens
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

There are many curses that people place upon themselves and their descendants, some are the rest of their actions and others by their indecisions complicated by bureaucratic failures then sometimes it’s both. Charles Dickens shows the effects of both in his 1853 novel Bleak House not only on his main characters but also on secondary characters who are just unlucky to interaction with the afflicted persons.

Sir Leicester Dedlock and his wife Honoria live on his estate at Chesney Wold. Unknown to Sir Leicester, before she married, Lady Dedlock had a lover, Captain Hawdon, and had a daughter by him. Lady Dedlock believes her daughter is dead. The daughter, Esther Summerson, is in fact alive and is raised by Miss Barbary, Lady Dedlock's sister, who does not acknowledge their relationship. After Miss Barbary dies, John Jarndyce becomes Esther's guardian and assigns the Chancery lawyer "Conversation" Kenge to take charge of her future. After attending school for six years, Esther moves in with him at Bleak House. Jarndyce simultaneously assumes custody of two other wards, Richard Carstone and Ada Clare (who are both his and one another's distant cousins). They are beneficiaries in one of the wills at issue in Jarndyce and Jarndyce; their guardian is a beneficiary under another will, and the two wills conflict. Richard and Ada soon fall in love, but though Mr. Jarndyce does not oppose the match, he stipulates that Richard must first choose a profession. Richard first tries a career in medicine, and Esther meets Allan Woodcourt, a physician, at the house of Richard's tutor. When Richard mentions the prospect of gaining from the resolution of Jarndyce and Jarndyce, John Jarndyce beseeches him never to put faith in what he calls ‘the family curse’. Richard disregards this advice and his subsequent career endeavors fails as a result of his growing obsession while his personal relationship with Jarndyce deteriorates. Lady Dedlock is also a beneficiary under one of the wills and while looking at an affidavit by the family solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, she recognizes the handwriting on the copy and almost faints, which Tulkinghorn notices and investigates. He traces the copyist, a pauper known only as "Nemo", in London. Nemo has recently died, and the only person to identify him is a street-sweeper, a poor homeless boy named Jo, who lives in a particularly grim and poverty-stricken part of the city known as Tom-All-Alone's. Lady Dedlock investigates while disguised as her maid, Mademoiselle Hortense. Lady Dedlock pays Jo to take her to Nemo's grave. Meanwhile, Tulkinghorn is concerned Lady Dedlock's secret could threaten the interests of Sir Leicester and watches her constantly, even enlisting her maid to spy on her. He also enlists Inspector Bucket to run Jo out of town, to eliminate any loose ends that might connect Nemo to the Dedlocks. Esther and Lady Dedlock see each other at church and talks at Chesney Wold without recognizing their connection. Later, Lady Dedlock does discover that Esther is her child. However, Esther has become sick (possibly with smallpox, since it severely disfigures her) after nursing the homeless boy Jo. Lady Dedlock waits until Esther has recovered before telling her the truth. Though Esther and Lady Dedlock are happy to be reunited, Lady Dedlock tells Esther they must never acknowledge their connection again. Meanwhile Richard and Ada have secretly married, and Ada is pregnant. Esther has her own romance when Woodcourt returns to England, having survived a shipwreck, and continues to seek her company despite her disfigurement. Unfortunately, Esther has already agreed to marry her guardian, John Jarndyce, who sees Woodcourt is a better match for her and sets not only Woodcourt with good professional prospects and sets the two of them up for an engagement. Hortense and Tulkinghorn discover the truth about Lady Dedlock's past. After a confrontation with Tulkinghorn, Lady Dedlock flees her home, leaving a note apologizing for her conduct. Tulkinghorn dismisses Hortense, who is no longer of any use to him. Feeling abandoned and betrayed, Hortense kills Tulkinghorn and seeks to frame Lady Dedlock for his murder. Sir Leicester, discovering his lawyer's death and his wife's flight, suffers a catastrophic stroke, but he manages to communicate that he forgives his wife and wants her to return. Inspector Bucket, who has previously investigated several matters related to Jarndyce and Jarndyce, accepts Sir Leicester's commission to find first Tulkinghorn’s murderer and then Lady Dedlock. He quickly arrests Hortense but fails to find Lady Dedlock before she dies of exposure at the cemetery of her former lover, Captain Hawdon. A new will is found for Jarndyce and Jarndyce that benefits Richard and Ada, but the costs of litigation have entirely consumed the estate bring the case to an end. Richard collapses and Woodcourt diagnoses him as being in the last stages of tuberculosis and he dies before the birth of his namesake son. John Jarndyce takes in Ada and her child, a boy whom she names Richard. Esther and Woodcourt marry and live in a Yorkshire house which Jarndyce gives to them. The couple later raise two daughters.

The above synopsis only covers the main plot, but expertly woven throughout are two subplots surrounding Caddy Jellyby and Mr. George Rouncewell who interact with the main characters at various times throughout the novel. Dickens masterfully crafts the cast of characters and the plot in an engaging and intriguing serious of plots that make the book a complete whole thus showing why his work is considered among the greatest of literature. Yet Dickens is also a bit too wordy resulting in scenes taking longer than they should and making some readers like myself, to start skimming through places in the later half of the book when a character that likes to spout off begins having a soliloquy of some indeterminable length at the expense of missing something connected to the slowly culminating climax.

Bleak House turns out to show Charles Dickens at his best as well as showing off what might be his one little flaw. The interesting characters and multilayered narrative keep the reader engaged throughout the book even as they must sometimes endure Dickens wordiness that might drown them in unnecessary prose. Though over 900 pages, a reader should not feel intimidated given that many Dickens books are an extraordinary length and the reader keeps on being engaged throughout their reading experience so that length does not matter.

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Book Review: Discovering the City of Sodom by Steven Collins and Latayne C. Scott

Discovering the City of Sodom: The Fascinating, True Account of the Discovery of the Old Testament's Most Infamous City by Steven Collins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Genesis 18-19 account of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah has become part of the Western cultural zeitgeist and its location a mystery ever since the beginning of Biblical archaeology. Discovering the City of Sodom: The Fascinating, True Account of the Old Testament’s Most Infamous City by Steven Collins and Latayne C. Scott goes into the decade-long excavation of a site in Jordan that Collins purposes the evidence points towards it being the location of the destroyed city.

Much of the book is written by Collins who first explores the everything around the account of Sodom in Genesis and denoting that it must be read “authentically” not “literally”. One of Collin’s most important points early on is looking at the actual Hebrew wording of the text and what important words actually mean, this factors into where Collins believes the Bible locates the city of Sodom not at what is the bottom of the southern Dead Sea or on its southeast coast but on the eastern side of the Jordan River opposite Jericho. After laying out what the Bible actually says about Sodom and the historical era the Bible describes it in—the Middle Bronze Age—Collins then goes into the what his numerous archaeological excavations at Tall el-Hammam have made him believes he’s found Biblical Sodom including the fact that after the large city that was located there was destroyed in the Middle Bronze Age, nothing was rebuilt there until the Iron Age around 700 years later. Scott’s contribution was related Collin’s professional journey giving tours that located Sodom at the traditional southern Dead Sea location to his letting reading of the Bible lead him to look for a large prosperous city in the Jordan plain across from Jericho and the discoveries made at el-Hammam that made Collins realize he had found the city of Sodom.

Both Collins and Scott did a very good job with their respective parts of the book with Collins focused on the academic side and Scott doing a biographical look at Collins’ personal journey over several decades when connected to this subject. The biggest positive of the book is Collins’ balance of keeping to the authenticity of the Biblical account and dealing with facts found in the dirt, not only at el-Hammam but across the Levant. The biggest issue with the book is the same as another book by Collins’ and that is layout as the maps were placed in the back of the book and not nearer to the relevant text where they would be helpful. However, given that there were two authors the change of font style denoting when each author was writing was a very choice.

Discovering the City of Sodom is an enlightening read with Collins’ engaging writing that made what could have been dry academic details lively while Scott’s biographical sketches give a more personal touch. While the layout of the book is a bit of a mixed bag with differing fonts denoting which author was writing is a positive, the placing of maps in the back of the book instead of near the text that they illustrated is a negative. Whether you agree with Collins’ archaeological discoveries and research, this is a informative read about the era of the Middle Bronze Age in the Levant.

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Book Review: Zero Hour by Jerome Preisler

Zero Hour by Jerome Preisler
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Precious stones, secret technology, and black-market deals plus New York City makes for an interesting combination that slowly finds UpLink getting involved via an unexpected source. Zero Hour is the seventh book of Tom Clancy’s Power Plays series written by Jerome Preisler who brings together secondary characters from previous books to join the main cast.

Patrick Sullivan leaves his mistress’ apartment to meet his buyer of artificially created sapphires as well as plans for a laser gun codenamed Dragonfly but is killed by his buyer and becomes a missing person. Sullivan’s employer, a Pakistani national who doesn’t know Sullivan stole the plan, is planning to use the laser gun for a massive terrorist attack by releasing a deadly acid vapor cloud over New York City as well as sell the other prototype to Muslim freedom fighters in Kashmir. Sullivan’s wife goes to an UpLink employee who was his last meeting and asked for Sword’s help—thanks to newspaper reporting on UpLink’s help to find the Russian conspirators who attacked Time’s Square—to find her husband. The employee goes around the local Sword leader to Roger Gordian to ask for the favor forcing the new UpLink CEO to send Tom Ricci to New York to investigate the matter. Ricci and the local Sword leader discuss her investigation into Sullivan’s employer on what to do with the Sullivan matter then Ricci goes to upstate New York to spy on Sullivan’s employer and sees men packing things into a U-Haul that he tails to a nearby motel and has a local Sword operative observe it while learning where it was rented. Unfortunately, one of the terrorists make the lookout and arrange an escape, but Ricci meets with Sullivan’s murderer and learns about the Dragonfly that he connects with where the U-Haul was rented. Ricci leads a Sword team that intercepts that van just before the laser gun was powered up.

Honestly the above synopsis is leaving out two subplots that at the end of the book amounted to just taking up space even though one was entertaining and had potential to add to the overall story but fizzled to nothing. Upon ending this book it wasn’t hard to rate this the worst book of the Power Plays series as nothing really came together and Preisler focused on characters who in the end amounted to nothing in the overall scheme of things while a character study on Ricci was underwhelming. And as one of the shortest books in the series it really tells and exposes one of the biggest weaknesses of Preisler’s writing.

Zero Hour is short and devoid of coherence in the various narrative threads while focusing on characters that in the end did not having anything to do with the endgame. Jerome Preisler has written some good installments of this series, but all the things he’s done wrong in the so-so installments were on display making for a disappointing book.

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Book Review: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Some innkeepers are just friendly entrepreneurs, but some had lives before and one is a myth in his own time. The Name of the Wind is the first book in Patrick Rothfuss’ The Kingkiller Chronicles as the mysterious innkeeper Kote recounts the actual events of his life to a chronicler whose come looking for him.

After dealing with polite bandits, a chronicler finds a man building up a fire off the road and the two are attacked by spider-like monsters and the chronicler is knocked out. Waking up two days later the chronicler finds that the man is the innkeeper where he’s sleeping and who he was looking for to write down his life. The innkeeper, Kote, says the chronicler has the wrong person only to be confronted by his real name, Kvothe, and agrees if he tells it over three days which the chronicler agrees to. Throughout the next day around the events of patrons and Kvothe’s fae student Bast, Kvothe tells the events of his early life from travelling with his parents among the performing troop they led, their murder by the mythical The Chandrian, and his three years surviving in the streets of Tarbean before finding a way to the University and being admitted thanks to the yearlong schooling—in both mundane and “magical” disciplines—he had from an arcanist Abenthy who travelled with this troupe. Once in the University, Kvothe gets on the bad side of several Masters and another student, Ambrose, in his first few days through he rises through the ranks of students quickly but is also banded from the University’s Archives. Kvothe describes his studies and battle against poverty over several terms, as well as his rivalry with Ambrose, before adding the element of his lute and singing at a nearby tavern where he meets Denna who begins becoming an obsession to him. After escaping an attempt on his life by Ambrose, Kvothe learns about a Chandrian attack and travels to the village meets up with Denna and has a run in with a drug-addled draccus to save the village. Returning to the University, Ambrose destroys Kvothe’s lute which results in Kvothe using “the name of the wind” wounding Ambrose which results in his getting whipped though advanced in the standings of the University with a new Master sponsor. The book ends with the leader of the bandits that stole from Chronicler come into the inn though it’s a demon in the man’s skin, killing one of the patrons while the blacksmith’s apprentice kills it. Later that night, Bast confronts Chronicler that his job is to make Kvothe a hero again over the next two days or something unpleasant would happen to him.

The hype surrounding this book made me cautious as I began reading it not wanting to heighten my expectations, which resulted in me getting interested in the story until the scene shifted to the University resulting in the book become tedious until Kvothe finally left for his excursion and interaction with the draccus. Frankly a lot of this book I felt was a different version of Harry Potter, which isn’t fair to Rothfuss especially when the action picks up in the flashback narrative or the Waystone Inn scenes of which the later I back looking forward too because they were more engaging.

The Name of the Wind is an overall nice book and hopefully sets up a lot more exciting stuff in the next two books of Patrick Rothfuss’ trilogy. While I personally didn’t buy into the hype that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t finish the trilogy, at this point at least, because there are very engaging scenes that Rothfuss writes that make the book a page turner.

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Book Review: Let My People Go! by Steven Collins

Let My People Go!: Using Historical Synchronisms to Identify the Pharaoh of the Exodus by Steven Collins
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The debate on if the Bible is historical comes down to one event for proponents on both sides, The Exodus, not only if it happened but when. Let My People Go!: Using Historical Synchronisms to Identify the Pharaoh of the Exodus by Steven Collins combines what the Biblical text says with the historical record that Egyptologists and other historians have pieced together from numerous ancient sources in search of the man who Moses confronted.

Collins begins by examining the variables of the problem at hand from the actual Biblical account of events as well as the geographic extent of place names used, the propagandic nature of Pharaonic Egypt, and the on-the-ground facts that modern Egyptologists have constructed to get at actual history behind the propaganda. Using the Biblical account of the events from the time of Joseph to Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, in particular the consequences and impact of the Exodus events on Egypt, Collins looked to see if they matched up with Egyptian and wider Middle Eastern history at anytime to see if the Bible was historically accurate. Using this “synchronism” method, Collins pinpointed the 18th Dynasty’s rise as an anti-Semitic, due to the foreign Hyksos, empire that reached the Euphrates to it’s suddenly rapid fall internationally with domestic upheaval as seen with Akhenaten to the era that matched most of the points of reference. Collins then eliminated one-by-one the established candidates of the 18th Dynasty, as well as Ramesses II given popular culture, that Biblical scholars and mainstream Egyptologists put forward as the Pharaoh of the Exodus then showed how the “synchronism” timeline didn’t match the historical timeline. Collins ends the main body of the text with establishing Thutmose IV, the last Pharaoh of the powerful Thutmosid empire before it’s dramatic decline under his son Amenhotep III and grandson Akhenaten, as fitting perfectly the events of the Bible to go with the historical record.

In roughly 142 pages filled with text as well as tables and charts, Collins puts forward his case for the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Overall the scholarly portion of this monograph is very good for familiar with the Bible and the general history of the era, yet Collins unfortunately tried to find a middle ground between his main audience of Christians (fundamentalists or otherwise) and general readers that did not work as he explained a tad too much for one and too little for the other. The short length of the book and its layout between the covers were also problematic. In lengthening the book to explain certain things like the avenue of mainstream research he was comparing the Biblical events to and the leading Egyptologists behind them, even if those same individuals find the Exodus dubious; the book’s layout was unfortunately a mess considering it had very informative tables and charts, but those items were times with the text explaining them and at others back in the appendixes resulting the use of numerous bookmarks or looking back and forth.

Let My People Go! is an informative look at the Biblical narrative of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt, the Exodus, and the beginning of the Conquest in comparison to the mainstream view of ancient Egyptian and Middle Eastern history. While Steven Collins brings a lot of knowledge to the subject and does well to bring it across to the reader, his efforts are undercut by length and layout of the book which doesn’t do justice to his argument.

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Book Review: Harleen by Stjepan Sejic

Harleen by Stjepan Šejić
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

She has become one of the most popular comic characters in the past few decades though her character began on the greatest superhero animated series of all-time. Harleen is a character origin story written and drawn by Stjepan Sejic about Dr. Harleen Quinzel’s turn into Joker’s right-hand woman Harley Quinn.

Professionally struggling psychiatrist Dr. Harleen Quinzel doesn’t know what to do with her career as her theory on the suppression of empathy for too long as part of the flight or fight response results in losing it and being mentally unbalanced. After a failed grant presentation and a late night of drinking her disappointment away, Harleen is walking home when she suddenly finds herself at gunpoint across from The Joker only for Batman to save her. The next day she is surprised when Lucius Fox gives her a grant from the Wayne Foundation to pursue research on her theory at Arkham Asylum. Harleen interviews the inmates, a who’s who of Batman’s rogue’s gallery, except Joker until she breaks down and does so. All throughout this time, she can’t sleep which is affecting her perception and thinking. The Joker quickly realizes she’s his ticket out and through his contacts gets her research to manipulate her in the future. But Harleen’s theory doesn’t sit well with Harvey Dent who wants her to quit, which she refuses and days later he is attacked with acid to the face. But the mob boss who attacked him is kidnapped by rogue police officers who execute him and release the video though it shows Batman and Robin coming in at the end. The arrival of “the Executioners” seems to make the Joker’s interviews stand out and she focuses on him for her research, though he has nothing to do with the rogue officers. Dent recovers though the acid also caused brain damage, ironically taking away his empathy, and he publicly derides the failures of the system which makes the Executioners come to him looking for instructions. Dent’s plan is to release the inmates of either Arkham or Blackgate Prison to cause havoc in Gotham City to make the general pubic allow for literally executing offenders. The coin toss lands in favor of Arkham and they stage a raid on the Asylum to release the inmates, but once free Joker tells his fellow inmates that the Executioners are there to kill them which sets them off on a rampage on their rescuers. Harleen rushing into the Asylum to find Joker, not only her patient but now lover, kills a security guard to save Joker’s life then has a mental breakdown as a result and becomes Harley.

Sejic did a wonderful job in building upon the foundations that Paul Dini and Bruce Timm laid in Batman: The Animated Series of Harley Quinn/Harleen Quinzel’s origin as Joker’s doctor to his henchwoman-lover. Taking advantage of the DC Black Label’s adult focus imprint, Sejic shows how Harleen’s slow mental spiral between reality and a living dream/nightmare develops throughout the book including a stunning final page that brings things into clear focus. Sejic includes references to previous incarnations of Joker in various Batman media adaptations now and again as nods to the past, which do not distract from the main story adds to the enjoyment of fans of the franchise. As a longtime fan of Sejic’s art, the book showcases it magnificently and frankly I wanted to go back through ignoring the text and study every panel again.

Harleen is the story of an earnest, dedicated psychiatrist slowly through her own actions and skillful manipulation of her patient joins those she wanted to help. Stjepan Sejic’s wonderfully written and amazing drawn story is a must get for anyone that is a fan of the character or a fan of a well-constructed origin story.

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Book Review: A.G. Daniells: Shaper of Twentieth Century Adventism by Benjamin McArthur

A.G. Daniells: Organizational Innovator by Ben McArthur
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The man tasked with heading the implementation of a new administrative structure of a growing world-wide church and later to lead that church after the death of its prophet. A.G. Daniells: Shaper of Twentieth Century Adventism by Benjamin McArthur follows the life of the longest-serving General Conference President in the history of the Seventh-day Adventist church which simultaneously corresponded with a rapidly changing world and church in the first two decades of the 20th Century.

McArthur efficiently covers Daniells early life in Iowa and his humble beginning in service of the denomination as a minister in the Iowa Conference and a missionary in Texas before being called to be a missionary in New Zealand. Then beginning with Daniells time in New Zealand and then Australia, McArthur details not only how Daniells time in the Southern Hemisphere made him a strong supporter of world missions but also brought forth his administrative skill as this faraway branch of the growing worldwide church innovated in bureaucracy to compensate for the distance away from world headquarters in the United States. Daniells return to the United States was the precursor to his election at the 1901 General Conference session to be President and the much-needed administrative overhaul of the church using the model Daniells had helped shape while overseas. McArthur’s attention to detail examples how this overhaul not only shaped the overall church, but Daniells presidency which was early dominated with the controversy with John Harvey Kellogg and the medical establishment of the church then the resulting fallout and need to reestablish the medical wing of the denomination. Among the biggest struggles McArthur’s book brought out was the budgetary reform to get the denomination out of debt, which played into the controversy with Kellogg, when building new institutions. But one thing was always in the forefront of McArthur’s analysis of Daniells’ presidency—and before—his relationship to Ellen G. White, whose opinion mattered not only to church officials but regular church members. And it would be his relationship with White and her prophetic gift that would end his presidency due to the rise of fundamentalism that crept into denomination and Daniells perceived lack of belief in her gift. McArthur closes out Daniells life with how he became an advisor to his two successors as well as his authorship of two important Adventist books including defending White’s prophetic gift.

Given the significance of Daniells time as General Conference president, McArthur focused the bulk of his biography on the 21 years he served in that office with extensive scholarship as seen in the citations at the end of each chapter. Though covering many topics over Daniells life, McArthur’s prose was engaging and allowing the reader to understand the interconnectedness of numerous issues Daniells had to deal without overwhelming them. One of the interesting things McArthur did early in the book to give context to Daniells and his time was comparing him important non-denominational figures who had a similar impact in their professions as he did with the General Conference, one of which was Theodore Roosevelt. But the most important facet of the biography was Daniells’ relationship with Ellen White and the gift of prophecy which McArthur’s scholarship is shown at its best.

A.G. Daniells: Shaper of Twentieth Century Adventism is not only the biography of one man but shows how the Seventh-day Adventist church’s administrative structure was reset to accomplish its mission to the world. Benjamin McArthur’s excellent scholarship and engaging writing gives the reader an insight into how significant this time in the church’s history is important for today and how one individual was able to use his skills to help move the denomination forward.

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