I have read most of Hemingway’s fiction.  Not all of it, but most of it.  I love his writing.  At its best it may be the best writing in America in the 20^th Century.  But even though I have read most of his writing I didn’t know that much about him as a person.  I knew the public persona, the tough guy big-game-hunting Cuba and Key West living drinking ambulance driving fisherman.  But I had never read a biography of him.  Still haven’t.  I did though just finish Hemingway’s Boat, Everything He Loved And Lost, 1934-1961, by Paul Hendrickson.  I now have that difficult tension with Hemingway that I have encountered with some other great writers or musicians; great works do not necessarily come from great people.

Hendrickson’s book does not claim to be a biography. It is a recounting of certain stories, attitudes, letters, and damage, related—some directly, some very very indirectly—to the 1934 custom boat Hemingway bought and took to Florida and then Cuba (where it still sits on blocks).  It tells of the friends and guests Hemingway took to sea with him, almost always to fish for marlin.  It tells of how he mistreated almost everyone in his world, including his “friends” from his impoverished days in Paris struggling to establish himself as a writer, to his wives, sons, and editors.  He was the trail blazer for so many Hollywood personalities of today, who have no lines and no rules, and literally do whatever they like, regardless of the impact it has on others.  The poster boy of narcissism.

Hemingway slept with his friends’ wives while they were topside on his boat.  He cut (personally) and died the hair of his own wife and the girlfriend of another friend to have more of a boyish look, and blonde rather than brunette, because he liked that better.  He wrote scathing letters to his editor, frustrated that he couldn’t use profanity in his novels.  He wanted to shoot everyone in the publishing industry (and said so in writing) when one of his books received poor reviews.  

In summary, he was self consumed.  He and his wives seemed disinterested in raising his three sons.  They would travel to Europe for three months leaving them in the US with a nanny.  Gigi, the son who gets the most attention in the book, was raised by a nanny, almost entirely.  In New York, nowhere near his parents.  A nanny who terrorized him.  And this is the son who started wearing women’s clothes when he was seven and died in his sixties in a women’s prison. 

The book is amazingly well researched, but has flaws.  Hendrickson injects himself into the narrative repeatedly.  “When I was able to locate him, I immediately flew to the west coast to interview him.”  Or after a gap is defined in what happened, he launches into speculation.  “Could it be that he was there?  Or that he came later?  Could it be he didn’t care enough to even consider going?”  It becomes tedious.  It feels unprofessional for a “biographer” to speculate and speak in the first person.  It’s off-putting.  But worse for me were two other things.

Hendrickson has fallen into the trap that haunts many non-fiction writers.  When they have researched something for years, and accumulate amazing amounts of information, they feel compelled to put that information in the book, in detail, regardless of whether it moves the narrative along or sinks it.  So we learn about the boat builder, the street it was on in New York, the wood, the building, the workers, the grandson of the boatbuilder, and on and on. 

But worse are the diversions into internal mini-psychological biographies of a long lost witness (we learn what walks he takes every day, still missing his wife), and Hemingway’s youngest and transvestite son (who ultimately had a sex change operation), Gigi.  I don’t know how many pages are dedicated to trying to understand Gigi, but far too many.  I wanted to hear more about Ernest Hemingway, not Gigi.  Gigi’s detailed and sordid story in fact comprises the last ten percent of the book.  And it causes the main narrative to run off the rails.  Hendrickson tries to show that to understand Hemingway one must understand Gigi; but it doesn’t work.  It comes off as a side show that adds little to other stories in the book.

Ultimately, Hemingway’s Boat is just a way for Hendrickson to tell stories about Hemingway; but they’re not told chronologically, and many aren’t necessary.  As someone who didn’t know much about Hemingway, I learned a lot, and understand him much better than I did.  But if this book was shorter and better organized, it would have been much better read. 

This is an amazing book written by a UVA law professor who reviewed the first 250 cases in which people were exonerated after DNA testing confirmed they were not guilty. It is extremely well written, easy to read, organized, and compelling. Garrett points out problems with our criminal justice system that are systemic, and not limited to a small number of cases where convictions have been overturned. Like a police officer knowing who the suspect is in a lineup. Like not recording interrogations and confessions. Like allowing “expert” testimony by forensic experts in areas with virtually no scientific support (like identifying hair and bite marks). Regardless of your political persuasion or which side you’re on if you do criminal law, this book is a must read. It is sobering and makes you want to make things better. Highly recommended.

I first became acquainted with C.S. Lewis in college.  I was drawn to his lucidity and insight.  After reading a few of his books, I couldn’t get enough.  In my late college years and early twenties I set out to read everything he wrote.  I didn’t read his academic works on medieval literature, but did get through pretty much everything else, fiction and non-fiction alike.  Ever since then, I’ve been fascinated by Lewis and his writing.  I’ve even been to Oxford and to the Eagle and Child, the pub where C.S. Lewis would meet on Tuesdays with his friends and co-writers who came to be known as the Inklings.  I’ve often wondered what effect the other Inklings had on Lewis’s writing and thinking. 

 That question has now been answered.  In her book, The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community, Diane Glyer explores all their interactions, and all the implications.  The book was recommended to me by a student of Dr. Glyer’s at Azusa Pacific University.  I was enthusiastic, but began the book with some trepidation when I realized it was “academic” and had numerous footnotes.  The odds of a college professor writing a book with footnotes intended for the academic community that is insightful and is still readable and enjoyable was low.  But she has done it. 

 Not only is it full of information I’d never heard before, but it gives the reader exceptional insight into the two writers who are the focus of the book, C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, two of the most popular authors in the twentieth century.  As an author, I was particularly interested in her insights into the creative process and the way that the community “supported” the writers efforts.  I say supported in quotes, because reading their work to the others was often like getting their fur pulled off (to use a Lewis analogy from another context).  They encouraged each other, no doubt, but they also said what they thought, regardless of whether that made the author feel good about his work or not.  They were dedicated to producing the best work they could, and were willing to hear rough criticism to achieve it. 

 Gyler also puts to rest the claim by many of the Inklings themselves, that the other Inklings had no effect on their writing or direction.  She proves unequivocally that they did.  She has done an impressive job of researching her topic, even to the extent of finding draft manuscripts and comparing them to comments and notes by Inklings.  They may claim that other Inklings had no affect on their work, but Gyler shows they did. 

 If you have are interested in C.S. Lewis or J.R.R. Tolkien, in learning more about how they lived, how they created their magnificent works, how they thought and how they related to their closest friends, there is no better book in which to lose yourself.  This is a wonderful book that is extremely well written and captivating.  I can’t recommend it more highly.

RQ-170

So the news stories tell us that America has a super Secret drone that it uses to collect intelligence information called the RQ-170.   It is so secret that no picture of it has ever been released.  Then one day, Iran claims it has shot down one of these drones flying in its airspace.  The United States admits it has a drone missing, but denies it has been shot down.  Iran shows the drone on international television, with President Ahmadinejad claiming they have been able to “control” it.  The United States demands to have it back, but Iran claims it now belongs to Iran, and they are entitled to an apology from the United States.  The capture of this drone is a setback to the United States; the drone gives Iran (and others?  China?  North Korea?) access to our latest stealth and radar technology.

Now let’s make it into a spy novel: The United States is very concerned about the Iranian nuclear weapons program that is rapidly approaching a deployable bomb.  Unwilling to conduct conventional war to stop it (which would also probably not succeed), the Americans come up with something much more clever.  Knowing that Iran is vulnerable to computer viruses (like the Stuxnet virus that originated as a joint Israeli/US program that infected the Iranian uranium enrichment plants  and caused their centrifuges to overspeed, ruining a fifth of them), they devise a new scheme to infect Iran’s most capable computers.

The United States takes one of it secret drones and replaces the super secret radar and sensors with equivalent but far less sensitive systems from a few generations ago.   The US then puts a central processing unit–a computer that usually analyzes and transmits information from the sensors–into the drone that is extremely sophisticated and encrypted.  But it’s not quite so encrypted that no one could ever get into it, but encrypted enough that some smart people might try, and would need to use their most sophisticated computers to do so.

The US then flies the drone from Kandahar, Afghanistan (where they’ve been flying from for months) over Iran, where it appears to “lose control.”  Amazingly, the drone drops/falls/spins from very high altitude to the ground with virtually no damage.  The Iranians claim a great success and a shoot down of the Great Satan’s most sophisticated technology.  The Americans express surprise and demand to have the drone returned.  Iran refuses, and over time is able to break into the CPU with their most sophisticated computers, which happen to be the same ones being used in the final stages of the nuclear program.  But by doing so, they have unwittingly introduced the most destructive computer virus ever created into the most sophisticated computers in their country.  The computers are destroyed, and the nuclear weapons program is set back years.

If my story isn’t the correct one, then we’ll need to ask our intelligence community a few questions.  How did you allow yourselves to lose control of the most top-secret drone in the US inventory?  If you did lose control over hostile territory, how is it you didn’t have a destruct mechanism on board to ensure it didn’t fall into the wrong hands which might allow reverse engineering of the sensors and radars?

Is the CIA clever enough to do what I have postulated?  Stuxnet was pretty clever, I must admit.  But this time, although I hope so, I doubt it.  What do you think?

It has now been confirmed that Qaddafi has been killed, probably by rebel forces after his convoy fleeing his home town was stopped by US Predator drones.  Celebrations fill the streets of Libya.  The seven month effort by NATO, acting as the rebel Air Force, during which they flew over 26,000 air missions (see a good summary by The Guardian ) ended with the rebels prevailing in the civil war.  So Qaddafi is gone.  Good.  The world is better for it.  But as this mission ends, it is important to ask:  By what authority were the US and NATO involved in a Libyan civil war?

Qaddafi was a bad man.  He supported terrorism (in the 80s mostly), tormented and oppressed his people, and needed to go.  But is that the whole story?  After 9/11, President Bush told every country in the world either you’re for us or you’re against us.  What did Qaddafi do?  He dismantled his weapons of mass destruction, abandoned his nuclear program, swore off supporting terrorism, admitted responsibility for downing Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland by a bomb placed by Libyan agents, and agreed to pay $2.7 Billion in compensation to the families of the victims ($10 Million per family).  You can read about it here.

 So how exactly did President Obama and others wake up and say, wait, I know, let’s attack Qaddafi because others in his country want him out?  If you look at it from a Realpolitik perspective (diplomacy based on power and practicality) perhaps Qaddafi needed to go for progress to take place in Libya and elsewhere in the Middle East.  But that’s a dangerous idea.  By what criteria do we impose that kind of belief on the leader (however legitimate) of another country?  (Let’s go get Mugabe of Zimbabwe and about twenty others if that’s the standard). 

In the United States we have always taken the position that we don’t do things simply because we want to, or because it would be better for others.  We don’t attack other countries because we like somebody else better, or we think it’s time for them to have a different regime.  We have even endured absolute outrage from many in our country when it comes out that the CIA was active in regime change, like Argentina.  Yet here we are being overt, killing Libyans acting as the rebel Air Force, and most Americans just shrug. 

Why did the United States, and ultimately NATO, attack Qaddafi?  The best I can tell it’s because he was “endangering and attacking his own citizens.”  Isn’t that the nature of a civil war?  That “civilians” are attacked?  They are the ones running the opposition.  If there are attacks that result in the deaths of women and children, again, and that’s the justification for us attacking, then again, why aren’t we attacking Mugabe in Zimbabwe, and or the leaders of Sudan and many other places?  And if attacking civilians is our reason, why the silence/inaction against Syria which has attacked villages with tanks and tortured and executed teenagers? 

And NATO?  I re-read the NATO charter.  You can read it for yourself on NATO’s website.  The only provision that allows for military action by NATO forces is Article 5, the provision that declares an armed attack on one member is considered an attack on all members.  Qaddafi’s Libya attacked no one.  There has been no armed attack on any NATO country that would authorize an attack on Libya by armed forces of NATO in response. 

 Once again, just like President Bush going into Iraq, we went in because we wanted to, without lawful basis (Afghanistan was justified as they were harboring those who attacked us on 9/11.  In fact, Article 5 of the NATO treaty was invoked for the first time ever after 9/11 and reconfirmed by NATO unanimously by all the ambassadors to NATO from its member countries.)  There was no invocation of Article 5 by NATO for Libya.  No press conferences to describe the dangers from this attack on NATO.  Because none existed. 

Maybe we’ve come to the place where American forces can be sent into combat by a president whenever he feels like it and for whatever reason he believes supports it.  No longer does he need to worry about silly treaties, or declarations of war by Congress or even by an authorization by Congress.  Just do it.  Maybe that’s what the country wants, and the laws and treaties don’t matter.  I sure hope not, but that’s what it’s beginning to look like, at least while President Obama is in office, or in the 90s, when President Clinton used the same non-logic for NATO to bomb Serbia in 1999.