The Plot Against America: Philip Roth's vision is clearer than ever

Philip Roth's recent death and the outpouring of praise and fond memories that followed, reminded me of the only Philip Roth book I have ever actually read. As with many other male writers I'd been put off Roth over the years in a number of ways, and with so many other choices out there, reading the great Roth had never been a priority for me.

But in 2004 when I had the opportunity to review his new book The Plot Against America - a story clearly satirizing the fascistic underpinnings of our society, underpinnings which had enabled the selection and installation of Dubya Bush as the President whose reign we were then enduring - I thought I might give Roth a try after all. I was glad I did.

Looking at this book again in 2018, its cautionary narrative feels more necessary to our collective consciousness than ever. For example, as we are criticizing the media for "normalizing" attitudes and behaviors (racism, misogyny, Naziism) previously viewed as aberrant in the mainstream, Roth's phrase describing the isolationist Lindbergh's appeal as "normalcy raised to heroic proportions" seems eerily apt with regard to Trump and his followers. 

This is a truly great novel, or at least a great novel of our time in this country. Perhaps it will resonate in other cultures, with their dark sides, as well. If authoritarianism and fascism are universally with us, lurking like a dormant virus in any human population and just waiting to express themselves given the necessary conditions, then this book could have Shakespearean legs in time and across cultures. Because, perhaps most of all, the appeal of the story is in how individual people respond and the choices we make. It's surely a good idea to think about this before we find ourselves forced to make such choices under pressure like this.

So here's my short review, from back then, recommending the book to older teens and adults in the "adult books for older teens" column of School Library Journal. (My reviews had a limited word count. For something a little longer and weightier, and seen from today's perspective, here's a 2017 commentary by Richard Brody in the New Yorker.) 

I think it's time to reread this book. 

Review: The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)

When Charles Lindbergh, Republican candidate in the 1940 presidential race, defeats popular FDR in a landslide, pollsters scramble for explanations-among them that, to a country weary of crisis and fearful of becoming involved in another European war, the aviator represents "normalcy raised to heroic proportions." For the Roth family, however, the situation is anything but normal, and heroism has a different meaning. As the anti-Semitic new president cozies up to the Third Reich, right-wing activists throughout the nation seize the moment. Most citizens, enamored of isolationism and lost in hero worship, see no evil-but in the Roths' once secure and stable Jewish neighborhood in New Jersey, the world is descending into a nightmare of confusion, fear, and unpredictability. The young narrator, Phil, views the developing crisis through the lens of his family life and his own boyish concerns. His father, clinging tenaciously to his trust in America, loses his confidence painfully and incrementally. His mother tries to shield the children from her own growing fear. An aunt, brother, and cousin respond in different ways, and the family is divided. But though the situation is grim, this is not a despairing tale; suspenseful, poignant, and often humorous, it engages readers in many ways. It prompts them to consider the nature of history, present times, and possible futures, and can lead to good discussions among thoughtful readers and teachers. Bibliographic sources, notes on historical figures, and documentation are included. -Christine C. Menefee, Fairfax County Public Library, VA

Offside: Iranian girls just want to see soccer

Today's news that Iranian women are still prohibited from seeing sports in stadiums reminded me of a film I liked several years ago, Offside. In today's news story, women found they could purchase stadium tickets online, and gleefully displayed their prizes in social media--but the government soon fixed the glitch and the prohibition stands. The 2006 film Offside (whose title, I gather, refers to a soccer rule nobody fully understands, in which a player is both in and out of a game) is a fictional version of a true story in which young women masqueraded as boys, in an attempt to get into the stadium to see another historic match. I decided to dust off the review I wrote several years ago, revise it a little, and repost it here.

Offside is a wonderfully subversive film on many levels. If I may be permitted a soapbox, for us here in the USA, subjected to drumbeats of war for so many years, it can reveal the beating heart of the actual people in that place, and give us pause. Check out the review and related links, see the film, and cheer!

Guarded by a reluctant soldier, girls
disguised as boys try to attend the
big game.

Offside: This is a miracle of a film by Jafar Panahi, an Iranian director the whole world can love. Somehow I'd managed to miss it until now, but it was released by Sony Pictures Classics in 2006 in many countries. Sadly it was banned in Iran and so could not qualify for the Oscar competition, but (according to the Director's Interview on the DVD--be sure to see that too) Offside enjoyed wide and very popular distribution in Iran through pirated copies.

The story is simple, on the surface. It is 2006, in Iran, leading up to the soccer World Cup, and a very important match is taking place. Under the reigning theocracy, women are not allowed to attend sports events in stadiums along with men. But another kind of fanaticism, that of passionate sports fans, does not discriminate on the basis of sex. Several young women (some of them young teenagers, so I'll refer to them here as girls) just want to see a very important match which might qualify Iran to go on to the 2006 World Cup. Individually, determined to witness this important event, they attempt to disguise themselves as boys and slip in, but one by one they are caught and detained together in a sort of holding pen where they can hear the crowd but not see the game. They form a community of fans there, thwarted but not entirely prevented from being part of the communal event.

The soldiers guarding the young miscreants are equally unhappy with the situation, for various reasons having nothing to do with the law they must enforce. One wants to see the soccer match but can't because he's on duty; another is consumed by a concern about returning to his village so he can help his mother and take their cattle to the pasture. Meanwhile, other people impinge on the situation: A man wants to find his daughter, but recognizes her friend instead; boys disguise themselves as girls disguised as boys, in an attempt to meet the girls. One of the soldiers is able to follow the game by peering through bars, and gives the girls a blow-by-blow account of the action.

For those of us who don't know much about soccer (or football, as it's called in the rest of the world) the "offside" of the title refers to a rule which seems to have something to do with being in the game but not being able to take part, a very apt analogy to the girls' situation, if I'm reading that right. But you can enjoy this film even if you don't follow the sport (I don't) because it's about normal people just going about their lives, and has the aura of truth. In fact it takes place in "real time," in the same 90 minutes as the soccer match itself. And remarkably, much of it is based on, and actually filmed against the background of, real events. Bearing in mind the challenges the director faced during filming, the resulting seamless film demonstrates his genius in editing. It's not a documentary, but it feels real and intimate.

The spiritual center of oppression in the film, for me, found itself in a wonderfully bizarre scene in the men's rest room, which has all the frustration of an anxiety dream. Yielding to his innate humanity and allowing one of the girls a visit to the rest room, an inept young soldier must navigate the various outre characters he finds there in a futile attempt to guard his charge. One sympathizes with the soldier when the girl escapes his watch and actually gets to see some of the game. But ultimately she knows there is no freedom here. She returns to the holding pen in good conscience to describe part of the game to the other girls still detained, assigning them the parts of the players.

(Possible spoiler alert, this paragraph only:) Eventually, before the match ends, the prisoners are put into a bus, along with a young street boy who has been trying to smuggle firecrackers into the stadium. The intention is that all these lawbreakers will be turned over to the Vice Dept. and the soldiers can go back to their lives. But along the way girls, boys, and their soldiers all fuse with the larger crowds as Iran wins the match and the entire city erupts in egalitarian, joyful celebration. I hope that's not a spoiler, but it's no secret who won the match as this is based on real incidents.

As for the other details I've revealed, you really must see the film for its magnificent directing, acting, and writing--full of small and large ironies and playful references-- to catch the full magic. This movie must be experienced and my words can only be flat in comparison to the flow, charm, and endearing nature of the story it tells.

Offside is filled with humorous incidents and characters. Most delicious to me are conversations in which the girls challenge the logic of the law, and the soldiers attempt to explain it in standard terms that really have no bearing on the situation. In this frustrating situation the characters shine, each a unique gem of a human being with moments of revelation. No culture is one-size-fits-all, and there are always people who must be stifled as they struggle to fulfill their talent in a society that hems them in. Just as W. Bush claimed to get crazy messages from a god that did not represent most Americans' spirituality, Offside shows a country, or at least a situation, in which most modern Iranians, whether they're from village or city, are not represented by their government: They are living in a divided and surreal way under a fanatical religious regime which simply doesn't suit their characters or lives. Where Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis (in its fine animated adaptation) focused so well on an educated, politically active stratum of Iranian society, this is a street's eye view of the masses in a moment of celebration that reminded me of the bonfire-jumping of Nowruz (behavior also banned in the present Islamic Republic, which I read about in this book, and this). Offside is, for me, an affirmation of the greater Iranian history and character that preceded, and surely must survive, current tyranny.

Offside can feel edgy, but only because of the context in which it was made: The viewer is aware that Iranian women have faced, and too often not survived, very terrible abuse while incarcerated. And while the film tells the story of a seemingly trivial pursuit--a soccer match--every situation carries larger echoes of the years of suppression since the Islamic revolution of 1979, when women, filmmakers, intellectuals, and musicians have not been allowed to practice their gifts and sometimes have been brutally treated.

Offside can also feel very sweet, because the people in it are just human beings you might find anywhere, and (as often happens in real life) they do not encounter a single sadist in the entire 90 minutes, they only find other people who are sympathetic. It's a fine bit of balancing between humanity's darker side (which is only hinted at here) and our finer qualities of humor, empathy, hope, and enthusiasm. It's a human comedy quite unlike anything else I've seen in movies.

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End note: unfortunately, things are worse than ever right now for filmmakers in Iran and Syria, and this brilliant auteur is now under house arrest and prevented from making films. Here are some recent stories on the current status:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/04/orwa-nyrabia-disappearance_n_1855892.html
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/ff20120914a3.html

Earlier, I posted some information on other suppressed artists, here: http://mypersonalblogccm.blogspot.com/2010/01/forbidden-beats-of-freedom.html

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London Road (film review)

London Road is a middle class residential street in Ipswich, a quiet city near London. After a football stadium was built, prostitutes began to come to London Road to work in the adjacent streets and alleys, changing the character of the neighborhood. Then in 2006, from late October and into December, five women were found murdered in the area. Police identified the victims as local prostitutes, and quickly arrested a suspect who was tried, found guilty of all the murders, and sentenced to life in prison in 2008. Those are the facts.

London Road, the musical film, also takes place on London Road during this time, but is not really about any of that. We don’t see the killings, the victims, the police investigation, the perpetrator, or the trial. What we do see are the residents of London Road: We see how they reacted to these events, how they coped, and how they worked to bring joy back into their community. We also hear from some of the surviving prostitutes. And, sometimes for very comic relief, we see the people of the media attempting to report what goes on.

This movie is billed as a musical (and follows a successful stage musical run in London), though I can't help thinking of it as an opera. Notably, aside from what must have been drawn directly from transcripts of news reports, the libretto consists entirely of words, phrases and sentences taken verbatim and distilled from three years of interviews with the people, both residents and sex workers, of London Road. Their plain and very real speech has been scored precisely to preserve each speaker’s pitch, tone and rhythm, and then transformed through a sometimes percussive and repetitive, sometimes lyrical or contrapuntal musical treatment into recitatives, duets, and full ensemble pieces set in the homes and public places of London Road, a street in Ipswich.

During the time of the murders, Julie introduces one of the first songs as she sidles down the sidewalk next to the hulking sports stadium: “Everyone is very, very nervous...um… and very unsure of everything… basically.” Then her refrain is repeated by other characters, each in their own way, and finally expressed as a full choral piece by many Christmas shoppers, who come together to share the sentiment in a public square under the shadow of a grotesquely large Santa statue, which broadcasts quietly in the background, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.” Movies just don’t get any better than this!

Through this scene wander two wide eyed teenage girls, caught between horror and giggling (“It’s like, it could be anyone in here….I’m just gonna, like, cry, Ha! Ha!”), as they attempt to process the inconceivable--the realization that comes to many women eventually that any man “could be him… Is it him? Is it him?” They trip--transfixed, inspecting the face of each man they pass-- through a bus ride, coffee shop, and a store populated with male mannequins, as their refrain is repeated throughout the community in an eerie chorus of Christmas shoppers of all ages. “Is it him?”

The men of the community, for their part, are faced, perhaps for the first time in their lives, with the realization that they might be under suspicion simply for being male. They even begin to view each other warily. One tells a nervous woman, “There’s a psychopath on the loose. Dreadful. Dreadful. It’s as if someone’s chucked acid on you. And you can feel it all over you. It’s… standing here, you can feel it. We’re all guilty. No, no we’re not. Just one person is...but...No, we’re not. The rest of us are sane.” The girls look on doubtfully. and sing, “You automatically think ‘It could be him’…  Yeah”

And these are just the first few minutes, the most gothic part of the film. Fortunately the murders stop in December when a suspect is arrested, but he has been living on London Road, and his boarded-up house stands as a macabre reminder to residents of dreadful events as they struggle to come to terms, in their different ways, with the intrusion of such evil into their quiet lives. The film chronicles, with unflagging energy and insight, their experience as they witness the case slowly wending its way through the court, and try to keep their community together as it becomes an object of public fascination.

The prostitutes, or sex workers, are also given their due, if somewhat parenthetically, when several of them poignantly describe how the murders affected them. They are haunted by thoughts of the murdered women, and have made some changes for the better in their lives, but I won’t presume to quote them; It’s better to hear them sing their own stories. In a narrative counterpoint, the residents describe, according to their different natures (some more kindly than others) how they feel about these women.

In the end, as befits any epic of journey or war, order is restored and joy is found again. The people dance. I won’t spoil the ending, but it includes a garden competition no gardener would want to miss.

There is a lot more to praise and comment upon in this film. It’s as stark, yet layered and sometimes colorful, as the variety of urban life it chronicles. Yes, it was a grim time, but the story also offers significant moments of great sweetness and several varieties of humor. As one of the characters says, “All of humanity is right here.”

I saw London Road first in a theater, where it had the impact of an opera simulcast on a large screen. But my second viewing on DVD at home had its points as well: With subtitles on, the poetry of the lyrics really stands out. Finally, during the end credits, portions of the original recorded interviews are played. The voices are eerily true to the music which, by then, will be running through a viewer’s memory, affirming the truth of the story:

“We’re really upset… He was only there for ten weeks Ten weeks! It’s just a chance. The one place in the … in the whole world where he went to live for ten weeks. Could’ve been anywhere. Could’ve been next to you.”

"A Single Man" and "Little Ashes": Two Films to See Again Now.

As I was revising and updating my earlier blog, Planetbound, I came upon a post that struck me as all too timely. It reviews two films--A Single Man and Little Ashes--and it felt like a very good time to take another look at them now. From Franco's Spain to Midcentury USA, with a meditation on our lifespans and sense of history, I hope you will enjoy the post too. Go to :
https://mypersonalblogccm.blogspot.com/2011/01/single-and-singular-men-film-reviews.html

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.” 
Albert Einstein

(from Steve Detwiler's Graham Hancock Weekly Science Report, 1/20/2017)

A quartet of strange and wonderful sounds from long ago and far away

Lately I've come across some European sounds from long ago. They charm, and they awaken in me a feeling of almost-remembered times and places. Their appeal is not just in the romanticism of the "long ago and far away;" they leave me with a mind refreshed and a spirit lighter, and with that somehow comforting awareness of the vast spaces all around and within us.

Adagio ma non troppo
The Lost Songs of St Kilda
This music comes to us down a chain of connections so delicate and tenuous that it seems unlikely they found each other at all, and if those connections hadn't materialized we'd never have had a hint of what was lost. This story made me me feel the weight of human lives forgotten--and at the same time, the lightness of the our present moment.

The Lost Songs of St Kilda are currently featured among the British audience's "top 50" hits on the radio station Classic FM in London. As the fascinating story on the website unfolds--and do please visit the story linked above; this post is no more than a teaser--we learn that St Kilda is small group of islands in the outermost Hebrides, rarely reachable not only from Scotland but even from the other islands, because the seas there are almost always very rough. Yet for 4,000 years the isolated islands supported populations of about 200 people from time to time, and they must have developed some unique cultural traits. Not much is remembered now about their way of life, except that they ate seabirds and made tweed from the wool of a variety of "stone age sheep" that still survives today.

The article on Classic FM tells us that St. Kilda was a popular tourist destination for Victorians attracted to the romanticism of its archaic charms, but the people elected to evacuate to the mainland almost 100 years ago when their population fell to just 36. It was assumed that any music unique to St Kilda had been lost when its people joined the culture on the mainland--until a volunteer at a care home in Edinburgh met an elderly man who, in childhood, had been taught some of the island's music by a piano teacher from St Kilda. The boy loved his teacher's story of this music's origin in the lost world of St. Kilda, and sixty years later he still  remembered eight songs without words, and liked to play them for the other residents at the home.

The volunteer recognized that this memory might be important, and recorded him. From there, the music found its way through a number of musicologists and musicians until finally, along with composer Sir James Macmillan and a piano, it traveled back to St Kilda on a boat escorted by dolphins. There, before a small audience of National Trust employees and some students on the island to study its feral sheep, the songs without words were played again and recorded, and now they're on the Classic FM hit parade.

But, again, do visit the link to the story. There's much more to it than I've related here, and it's all truly beguiling. You can see a map, short videos and photos at Classic FM, and even hear some of this music.

Allegro moderato
Elfdalian, the ancient forest language of the Vikings
Another video that caught my attention recently came through an email from someone on the Norse side of my family, where any news of Vikings is welcome. Elfdalian, the ancient forest language of the Vikings, is not music, precisely, but it's certainly musical. This language survives today among a few speakers in a very remote Swedish village called Alvdalen where, until 100 years ago, people still used the ancient Runic script. The link above is to an article about Elfdalian which includes video of a performance in which the language is spoken.

It's haunting to see and hear this very real Elvish language. The people living in Alvdalen are still struggling to keep the language alive much as the Celts are doing in Ireland and Scotland, and as other language groups do in other places where the speakers have become minorities. I regret that the poetry most often spoken in Elfdalien now consists of translations of Christian narratives, as in the video linked. Still, the performance has a haunting Nordic sound and maybe, someday, someone will unearth a poem in Elfdalien about the goddess Freya, who traveled through the air in a chariot drawn by fierce cats. But that's not to detract from the amazing fact that Elfdalian is still spoken at all. It still sounds beautiful.

Scherzo
Kulning: Old Swedish herding calls
Also from Sweden comes another ancient European voice art: Calling cows in the pastures. These videos (linked below) are wonderful. Who wouldn't appreciate a concert like this, from a pretty girl in a white summer dress who shows up in your pasture to sing just to you?  In the second video, linked below, it's winter. The cows must be  keeping warm in the barn, but the song still echoes through the snowy forest.

Allegro cantabile
Wood Works: Norse folk tunes "from all the small places"
I had the very good fortune to hear the Danish String Quartet in concert this winter. Besides exacting and passionate performances of some fine classical music, they played their own arrangements of several folk tunes from the westernmost Danish island, from the forest of Sweden, and from an itinerant Norwegian musician playing a tune he remembered from the Rhineland. I bought the CD and like listening to this music in the morning and in the evening:  Spare and elegant in that special Scandinavian way, it's good medicine for clearing the head and opening up new pathways to surprising and mostly-benign, rather spacey places.

From the album's liner notes, the Quartet explains:

The string quartet is a pure construct: Four simple instruments made of wood. But in all its simplicity the string quartet is capable of expressing a myriad of colours, nuances, and emotions--just like folk music.... Normally the string quartet has been reserved for the classical masters. Now we want to see what happens when we let the Nordic folk music flow through the wooden instruments of the string quartet.

 Does it work? We hope so. And remember: We simply borrowed these tunes. They have already been returned. 

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Encore:  (from comment received):
And here, with a recording, is music by Peter Maxwell Davies, based in the same area of Scotland: http://www.classicfm.com/composers/maxwell-davies/guides/farewell-to-stromness-staggeringly-simple-genius/

Encore (from email received): A YouTube link with historic footage showing St. Kilda. The page also lists other videos to explore. Wonderful! Go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4vaFfE24HU and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-CpkFgxx2I

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PS Not Celtic, but even longer ago and farther away...
The oldest notated music yet found and interpreted: Ancient Assyria:  http://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/blogs/what-does-oldest-human-music-world-sound

Music from the Moon? http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/unexplained-space-music-heard-astronauts-far-side-moon
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