Micro-history Monday: The Professor and the Madman

With The Professor and the Madman, Simon Winchester presents a strange, personal and oddly upbeat history of the relationship between two men that ought never to have met. The first is Professor James Murray, the Scottish-born lexicographer behind what is now known as the Oxford English Dictionary. The second is Dr. W.C. Minor, a brilliant but insane American surgeon who murdered a London man in cold blood in the years after the American Civil War. Minor was consigned to the Broadmoor asylum after he was found not guilty of the crime because of insanity, and ultimately became one of the most significant contributors to the OED’s volunteer efforts. It was only after the first edition of the OED was published, when Murray traveled to Minor’s address to thank him personally for his tireless work, that Murray found out the doctor’s true identity and situation.

The story was bizarre enough to be fodder for the tabloid press on both sides of the Atlantic more than once during the early part of the 20th century, so it’s not surprising that Winchester resurrected the story again at the end of that century for further investigation. But I would argue that the tale of the two men merely provides a “hook” for the book that Winchester actually wanted to write (but which publishers no doubt told him wouldn’t sell), a history of English dictionaries, including his obviously beloved OED. And this is one of my main problems with the book. Winchester’s voice is so effusive in its praise of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, and then the OED, he waxes so poetic on their developments and uses, that he loses the battle for objectivity. My expectation of historians is when they re-approach a subject they will take many perspectives into account. But Winchester sweeps aside any criticisms of the OED – and there are many – in favor of devoted fandom:

There is some occasional carping that the work reflects an elitist, male, British, Victorian tone. Yet even in the admission that, like so many achievements of the era, it did reflect a set of attitudes not wholly harmonic with those prevalent at the end of the twentieth century, none seem to suggest that any other dictionary has ever come close, or will ever come close, to the achievement that it offers.(p. 221)

Winchester constructs the English language as the last vestige of the British Empire. But if it is, it’s worth remembering that it no longer belongs to the Victorian era. For me, the quaint spellings and definitions that make up the OED are an interesting historical artifact, but they give little sense of the dynamism of English in the internet age – for that, you’re better off with Urban Dictionary. So while I understand the importance of the original achievement, I am not as convinced as Winchester that the lexicographical achievement will stand alone in history -- I have more faith in English-speaking humanity than that. And humanity in general.

My second major problem with the book was the “pop psychology” angle on which some of the book's chapters depended. There is endless speculation about the causes of Dr. Minor’s madness (schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and separation anxiety are all proffered as possible explanations), as well as a prurient suggestion that some of the doctor’s later problems might have been caused by an unnatural attraction to the wife of the man Minor murdered – even though there is absolutely no shred of evidence that such an attraction existed. “Why go there?” I kept wondering.

This is a good book, however. The writing style was too flowery for my taste, but the story is told in a compelling way, moving between the two main characters - three if you count the OED - at a lively pace. Winchester did do primary research, and uncovered some letters that expand and enhance the story over previous tabloid versions. The word sleuths out there will definitely find it a treat. Recommended to those who can't start the week without finishing the NYT crossword puzzle, word historians, and anyone else who truly loves language.

That finishes the "What's in a Name 3" challenge - finally. I'm looking forward to next year's categories!

Garlic & Sapphires: Delicious Deception

Ruth Reichl’s Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise, is what I’d call a “food voyeur” title. This is a growing genre of memoirs about lives spent in and around the big city restaurant scene – usually in New York. Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential was my introduction to food voyeurism—and I imagine many others’ introduction as well—and it’s still the standard by which I gauge other books of this type, because of its honesty, hilarity and accessibility. (Just thinking about his riff on vegans can still make me chuckle!) Reichl turns the usual formula on its ear – she allows us a glimpse not of the kitchen, but of some of the finest dining rooms in New York City. And in so doing, I think she manages to expand the boundaries of a genre I’ve come to enjoy.

G&S details Reichl’s tenure as the chief restaurant critic for The New York Times, a coveted and significant job in the food world to say the least. Although she’s a native New Yorker, Reichl’s food sensibilities were developed and perfected on the West Coast, and that pushes the boundaries of what she considers great cuisine, causing a rather large rift between her and the previous, Euro-centric chief restaurant critic, which is one of the central tensions of the book.

Reichl shows us the woman’s perspective on what is often thought of as a man’s world. This is partially done through the many disguises she employed to keep her identity secret while she’s working on a restaurant review. The treatment she gets in most restaurants seems linked to the persona she has assumed, and I loved how she used her position to bring attention to the glamor of the dining experience to those who don’t get to dine at great restaurants often – or ever, for that matter.

The woman’s perspective is also clear in the implications of her job – both the credits and the debits – on her husband and son. Eating out sure is fun, but how does a 4- or 5-year old manage so many nights without mom? Or so many late meals with the grownups? Her reflections on these questions – and on her feelings about her duel identities – are deeply reflective and denote a woman who is willing to look critically at her life in order to get the most out of it.

On a personal note, having lived in New York City in the late 80s and early 90s, I loved re-reading her reviews of some of the top restaurants of that era, which brought to mind romantic dinners with my then-fiancé (now husband of nearly 20 years) at places like the Rainbow Room, Cellar in the Sky, Union Pacific, and even – and you’ll have to read the book to see why this is so darned funny – Tavern on the Green. Her witty style really brings the “characters” that make up the front end a restaurant to life – both those that extend diners dignity, and those that do not. Anyone who has ever waited for a table at a trendy restaurant will feel the author’s pain at times; anyone who has unexpectedly gotten the best seat in the house just because the hostess was in the right mood will recognize her exultation. It’s a really fun read, and it goes by too fast.

So as food voyeuristic reads go, put Garlic and Sapphires right up there with Bourdain’s classic exposé, and way ahead of recent entries, such as Heat. That’s book number 5 in the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge: a plant. My last title has to contain a title. I held off on The Professor and the Madman because it also fits into the Goodreads Seasonal Reading Challenge that I’m working on this summer, so that I’ll finish up with that in early June, and then start working on the other two challenges I’ve joined!

The Motion of the Ocean will make you root for monogamy

I loved Janna Cawrse Esarey’s The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife. It was funny. It was personal. It moved fast, most of the time. And most importantly, it was self-reflective, but not necessarily self-absorbed, which is a pretty tough posture to assume convincingly.

The story is simple: boy meets girl, boy gets girl, boy leaves girl, boy meets girl again, girl dumps girl, boy meets girl, boy moves in with girl, boy marries girl (FINALLY), boy and girl sail 17,000 miles from Seattle to Hong Kong to see if their marriage will actually work. You know, that old chestnut. Janna is the “girl,” and she tells the story of her romance with passion, joy and energy. She doesn’t shy away from the nasty bits, whether discussing herself or her “boy,” Chinese-speaking, and all-around bronze bod goddy, Graeme.

Without giving away the answer to the central question of the novel, namely, can two people overcome their shared and difficult history to create one life out of the two that their break-ups have created, I can say that the book is in turns very romantic, very comic, and very disturbing. Although the backdrops are stunning – Mexico, Micronesia, and Hong Kong among them – they are not a “character” in the same way the locales are in other travel-oriented memoirs, such as Eat, Pray, Love. Rather, they play second-fiddle to the love story, providing little more than location for a story of relationships. I actually appreciated that, because the author isn’t trying to make her story some kind of allegory – the places are incidental because the story truly is paramount here.

To be honest, the author’s personality is so very close to my own (perfectionist, justice-oriented, emotional, petulant), and her husband’s so very close to my husband’s (entrepreneurial, calm, egalitarian, aloof) that even though we have 10 years both in age and marriage on the couple, I couldn’t help but root for them. I would absolutely recommend this memoir to people who love travel, who appreciate the beauty of a long-term relationship, and who have ever wondered whether love is a force of destiny or a work in progress.

So that’s my body of water title. Loved it! Two-thirds of the way through the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge. Next up is my title title, The Madman and the Professor. I’ll also be using this for the Summer Season Challenge on Goodreads.

Curry: A bit too dry and bland for my taste

Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham uses the term “curry” in the British sense, in that the real topic of the book turns out to be a food history of the Indian subcontinent – in much the same way that the British describe every dish cooked with sauce and a combination of exotic spices a curry, even though the term reduces an entire cuisine (in fact, multiple cuisines) to an Anglo-ism. The British perspective infuses the book, as Collingham gives the Raj credit for the development of what the world knows as “Indian” food, even while admitting the pale imitation of the real thing that global Indian has become – and somehow missing the point that it was only the British usurpation of the sub-continent that allowed England to borrow the closest thing it has to its own cuisine.

In fairness, Collingham has done her homework, and the beginning sections of the book, which are built around popular “Indian” menu items and the cultures and time periods to which they are related, are very interesting. The influence of Mughal rulers and the Portuguese on the cuisine is detailed along with the complex history surrounding the wax and wane of their influences on the culture. Collingham uses a variety of primary sources, and uses quotes from letters of those traveling through India to great effect.

Collingham loses her historicity, and to some extent her perspective, when she comes to the British Raj. She is just too enamored of the British occupation of what are now India, Pakistan and Bangladesh to analyze the facts and effects. Hers is a kinder, gentler Raj than one might expect, and the outcomes of occupation and globalization – terrible things like indentured servitude and diaspora – are spun in Pollyanna fashion into the elevation of the cuisine of not only the British Isles, but Fiji, Trinidad and South Africa. Gee willikers, wasn’t it great of those affable Brits to make life so unlivable for folks in their own country that they had to skedaddle away, and take their food preferences with them? (This is the same kind of thinking that no doubt has the British taking credit for John F. Kennedy’s presidency – if we hadn’t starved the poor Irish out of their own country, they wouldn’t have gone to Boston and voted for that Irish Catholic fellow. Well done us.)

Sub-continentals are not the only ones who have a right to be aggrieved. Her knowledge of the United States seems to be limited to her belief that inhabitants take all their cues – culinary and otherwise – from the UK. As she tries to explain why the US does not share the British mania for curry, she seems stumped. One look at her sources, however, and it’s clear that she is clueless of the US beyond a few Manhattan and Chicago eateries and restaurant reviews. At one point, she even seems to imply that the British appropriation of food from the sub-continent actually led to the acceptance of ethnic cuisine. Here’s the thing – I don’t think it was the British who gave us Italian food. I think it was – wait for it – the Italians!

The book isn’t awful, just Anglo-centric, and way too long. She should have stopped while she was ahead – in Goa. I did learn a lot about the history of a fascinating cuisine, and I appreciate the author’s painstaking research in some areas. So that’s my food book, and third book in the What’s in a Name 3 Challenge complete. Next, I’m taking on a more personal history with my body of water title: The Motion of the Ocean: 1 Small Boat, 2 Average Lovers, and a Woman's Search for the Meaning of Wife, by Janna Cawrse Esarey.

Goat Song: An unlikely and compelling walk through the Vermont hills with goats

Brad Kessler’s Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Making Cheese was just what I was hoping for when I picked it up. It was an interesting story about intelligent (and very likeable) people who chose to change their lives. There is no critical moment that forces Brad and his wife Dona’s move from New York to rural Vermont: the longing was there, and when the opportunity came, they simply took it.

The story of their first year with their goats is absolutely engrossing. Since they are so central to the book, the individual personalities of their first two milking goats, Hannah and Lizzie, are documented in extraordinary detail. In fact, the only real “antagonist” in this story becomes an uncooperative goat, which in turn becomes the vehicle through which we see the author’s maturation as a pastoralist.

The author’s musings on the significance of herding to the development of human society were very interesting, but little of the history was new to me. I enjoyed the author’s adventures in cheese making, and wished I could taste one of his artisanal tommes, to taste the flowers and grasses of the previous summer in a wedge of cheese. The author’s asides into the Christology of cheese making, and the relationship between cheese and monasticism, however, were a bit more far-fetched – and that’s coming from someone who studied medieval history as an undergraduate. I squirmed a bit as Kessler got in touch with his “inner monk.”

For a couple of crazy minutes during an insomnia-induced reading session, I actually thought about getting one of those cute Nubian goats, which tells you how wrapped up I became in Kessler’s narrative. I heartily recommend this book to anyone who likes microhistories, to foodies, to non-fiction lovers and to anyone who enjoys a good animal story. So that’s Book 2 in the What’s in a Name 3 Reading Challenge: a musical term. My next book is the food title, as I’m reading Lizzie Collingham’s food history of the Indian subcontinent, Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors.

Kabul Beauty School: Cut and Tease

Debbie Rodriguez' Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil is a tough book to review. On the one hand, her experiences are unique -- a hairdresser from Holland, Michigan, who winds up founding the first beauty school to open in Afghanistan after the Taliban were driven out of the capital. On the other hand, it is not a brilliantly written or particularly insightful book.

Fleeing her own abusive husband, Debbie finds purpose in Kabul. Her accounts of her dealings with the byzantine bureaucracy might make for Kafka-esque reading on their own, if the author was better able to contextualize them. Instead, Rodriguez reports them, often dismissing or simply failing to interpret the cultural differences that led to the impasses in the first place.

It's the stories of the women who attend the beauty school that make the book so fascinating -- as daughters of a tribal Islamic society, they occupy a completely different space within the cultural framework than any American woman would, a fact that the author sometimes learns the hard way. However, their stories run together, fueled by one or more antagonists: abusive father, abusive husband, abusive brothers, even abusive sons. The "men" of Afghanistan are one brutish monolith, unless they are lucky enough to be touched in some way by Western culture (cultural hegemony, anyone?). The women are more sympathetic, but often disappoint because of their own cronyism and lack of empathy for each other's plights. The women of Kabul are NOT the Sisterhood of the Traveling Burqua.

Despite this, in the end I felt great compassion for the women of Afghanistan, and that may have been the author's point. But the book reads more like an edited diary than a well-considered memoir, and most of the characters remained unidimensional to the end. Many threads were left unwoven into the final manuscript; new and interesting characters were introduced toward the end, with no resolution. The author's own life remained largely unexamined.

Finally, I couldn't help wondering whether or not the author's frank discussions of some of the personal issues associated with her long-suffering students wouldn't be exacerbated by the book, which made me feel somehow complicit in their suffering. I wound up hoping things were going well for them, but not too optimistic.

Ultimately, I would recommend reading the book, as it does tell a compelling tale. I'd suggest you bring a level of skepticism to the text, however. First book in the What's in a Name 3 Challenge -- a place name -- complete! Next up for me is the musical term, since I've chosen Brad Kessler's Goat Song: A Seasonal Life, A Short History of Herding, and the Art of Cheesemaking.

Eat, Pray, Love

Obviously, this best seller fits into none of the categories in the What's in a Name 3 Challenge. But it's the book that needed to be finished before I could start on the challenge. So, I'll report that it's finished, and I loved it. I know it's one of those books that people either love or hate -- I come down on the love side. Liz is so AMERICAN, so difficult, so sincere in her yearning. She is high maintenance, but high performance as well. Her trip in Indonesia was reminscent of A Tale of Two Cities: Recalled to Life! I'm glad this book is launching me into the reading challenge, as it's about having an open mind. And that is the theme of the books I have chosen for this challenge.

The What's in a Name 3 Challenge

For my first challenge, I've picked the What's in a Name 3 Reading Challenge. Pretty straightforward, and yet wide open too. Six books from any genre, with these title characteristics:

1. A book with a food in the title
2. A book with a body of water in the title
3. A book with a title (queen, president) in the title
4. A book with a plant in the title
5. A book with a place name (city, country) in the title
6. A book with a music term in the title

Sounds fun!