God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater - Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (1965)

I first read God Bless You, Dr. Rosewater when I was a junior or senior in high school, on the recommendation of a classmate.  I have not read it since.  I do not know why that classmate felt the need to recommend it so strongly, but perhaps it was because we both had something in common with Eliot Rosewater:

"Eliot had unremarkable academic careers at Loomis and Harvard.  He became an expert sailor during summers in Cotuit, on Cape Cod, and an intermediate skier during winter vacations in Switzerland." (15)

This could hardly be the reason, but the fact remains that I have never read another book whose main character went to the same high school as me.  And that high school should have been proud to put this book on its English course syllabuses--or at least assign it for summer reading for incoming freshman students rather than Clan of the Cave Bear.  Because this book has a very positive message, and is much more fun to read.  I'm afraid, however, that it might be considered "too racy" or "adult" even though it is comparatively tame.

But the book was worth reading in 2000 and it is worth reading today.  Oddly enough, I could appreciate it more after going through law school:

"No one ever went out to lunch with Mushari.  He took nourishment alone in cheap cafeterias, and plotted the violent overthrow of the Rosewater Foundation.  He knew no Rosewaters.  What engaged his emotions was the fact that the Rosewater fortune was the largest single money package represented by McAllister, Robjent, Reed and McGee.  He recalled what his favorite professor, Leonard Leech, once told him about getting ahead in law.  Leech said that, just as a good airplane pilot should always be looking for places to land, so should a lawyer be looking for situations where large amounts of money were about to change hands." (4)

This is how the novel opens up: Norman Mushari is a young attorney straight out of Cornell Law School working for a firm that represents an $87 million foundation headed by Eliot Rosewater.  Eliot also went to Harvard Law School but he does not work for anybody.  He oversees the foundation.  His father is a senator, representing Indiana.  Mushari hopes to have Eliot adjudged insane so that he may be removed as an officer of the foundation and that control may pass to Eliot's second cousin, Fred Rosewater.

The action of the book moves to Rosewater, Indiana.  Eliot's ancestors founded the town, and he returns to set up new headquarters for the foundation.  This part of the book details the breakdown of his marriage to Sylvia and the business that he carries out.  He has a black phone and a red phone.  The red phone is for the fire department, where he is a volunteer, and the black phone is for the foundation.  The foundation essentially takes phone calls from anybody that is having any kind of problem.  Eliot is a sort of therapist and philanthropist to everyone in town.  The people of the town are often referred to as idiots.

In my review of Slapstick, I said that book bears a passing resemblance to this book (though Vonnegut self-graded that novel a "D" and gave this one an "A") and that a theme of that book was "extended families."  God Bless You, Dr. Rosewater is a better book largely because its plot is not nearly as unbelievable.  Yes, the plot is sort of ridiculous, but it is not altogether implausible that a person could be impossibly rich and feel that they don't deserve the money and thus go out of their way to help people less fortunate than themselves.  It is a rather heartwarming conceit, and while I might label most of Vonnegut's novels "heartwarming," this might be his "most heartwarming novel."  Eliot Rosewater is also one of the best characters he created.  Rosewater shows up in a few of his other books, though not nearly as often as Kilgore Trout, who also makes an appearance in this novel.  

There is also some clever commentary on obscenity.  The Supreme Court was still trying to define obscenity in 1965, but Vonnegut offers his own parallel reality:

"The Rosewater Law was what the Senator thought of as his legislative masterpiece.  It made the publication or possession of obscene materials a Federal offense, carrying penalties up to fifty thousand dollars and ten years in prison, without hope of parole.  It was a masterpiece because it actually defined obscenity.
Obscenity, it said, is any picture or phonograph record or any written matter calling attention to reproductive organs, bodily discharges, or bodily hair.
'This psychoanalyst,' the Senator complained, 'wanted to know about my childhood.  He wanted to go into my feelings about bodily hair.' The Senator shuddered.  'I asked him to kindly get off the subject, that my revulsions were shared, so far as I knew, by all decent men.'  He pointed to McAllister, simply wanting to point at someone, anyone.  'There's your key to pornography.  Other people say, "Oh, how can you recognize it, how can you tell it from art and all that?" I've written the key into law!  The difference between pornography and art is bodily hair!'" (95-96)

The plot may be described as thus: Eliot gives advice to people who want to kill themselves in Indiana.  This is the heart of the book and as such I don't want to spoil these scenes.  But there is another segment to the book: the Rhode Island part.  The action switches to Pisquontuit, Rhode Island, where Fred Rosewater, the son of a suicide, sells life insurance and is generally sad about his life.  This is a rather strange part of the novel, though I could not quite call it a misstep.  It just seems to get into a lot of detail about all the people in Pisquontuit, while Fred mainly exists as Eliot's potential replacement.  Mushari is the villain of the novel (though sometimes Senator Rosewater seems like a villain, too) but the book is not about the plot.  It's about how society reacts to a modern-day "saint"--is he a lunatic or is he the sanest man in America?

Like any Vonnegut novel, however, this is pretty light reading, and mostly fun for the humor of it.  But it is still just as relevant in 2013 as it was in 1965:

"'Well--' and Trout rubbed his hands, watched the rubbing, 'what you did in Rosewater County was far from insane.  It was quite possibly the most important social experiment of our time, for it dealt on a very small scale with a problem whose queasy horrors will eventually be made world-wide by the sophistication of machines.  The problem is this: How to love people who have no use?
'In time, almost all men and women will become worthless as producers of goods, food, services, and more machines, as sources of practical ideas in the areas of economics, engineering, and probably medicine, too.  So--if we can't find reasons and methods for treasuring human beings because they are human beings, then we might as well, as has so often been suggested, rub them out.'" (264-265)

In short, more people could stand to be like Eliot Rosewater.  If they did so, the world will be a better place.  This is why whenever I receive a phone call from some random person who managed to get my number in some strange way (like, for example, an extraordinary voicemail greeting I left on a phone at the City of Chicago Department of Law in the summer of 2012 that laid out every possible way to contact me) that I listen to them and try to help them as best as I can, rather than saying, "I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do for you."  There is much that can be learned from this book, and even if you didn't go to Loomis, I think you will find it highly worthwhile.

The Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man: The Early Years - Thomas Mann (Transl. Denver Lindley) (1954)

For the past few years I looked forward to the day when I could return to my work here and review the last novel by Thomas Mann that I was truly excited to experience.  Of course, Royal Highness, The Holy Sinner, and The Black Swan remain out there--to say nothing of Joseph and his Brothers--but I believed that The Confessions of Felix Krull was the last work I had yet to read that could stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the previous classics that had been reviewed on this blog.

Oeuvre Rule: the first-ever review on Flying Houses was Doctor Faustus; Buddenbrooks was reviewed twice (owing to a faulty internet connection and my mistaken belief that phrases from drafts would be intriguing to readers); The Magic Mountain contains no shortage of brilliance; and Death in Venice is every bit as troubling and beautiful as when it was published 101 years ago. Where then, to rank Felix Krull?

[The bottom?] (!)

Of course, Felix Krull is not a bad book.  But it is an unfinished one.  Unfortunately it suffers from the same problem as Fitzgerald's would-be late-era masterpiece The Love of the Last Tycoon--the untimely passing of its author.  Of course Mann lived a much longer life than Fitzgerald.  He died at age 80 rather than 44.  But it is a dangerous thing to begin a novel near the end of one's life when one bears the risk of disappointing the scores of readers that one has worked so hard to cultivate.  And while there are certainly flashes of genius that make the above-mentioned works such absolute pleasures, Felix Krull ultimately is not on their level.  I will submit, however, that had Mann finished this novel (if it were not only "The Early Years"), it would probably be closer to being in that exalted category of "classic."  As such we must mourn for what could have been--like Fitzgerald but in a different guise--and wonder whether some younger writer may "take up" Felix's story and attempt to finish it in a way that Mann would have found pleasing.  That would be no easy task.

Perhaps it is best to read Felix Krull after reading "Felix Krull," the short story from which it was derived.  I have not done that, however, and I can only say that if you happen upon a collection of Mann's stories that you check this one out before moving onto the book.  The book is 375 pages long.  It would probably be about 800 pages long in its proper finished form.

It opens up, as it must in a first-person narrative bearing such a title, with Felix's early childhood.  He grows up in an unnamed town along the Rhine Valley, near Mainz.  His father is a purveyor of champagne.  He has one sister (Olympia) and a godfather (Schimmelpreester) that opens up certain doors for him.  His parents like to have parties.  They often have people over, and apparently for this reason his family is held in low repute in their town.  Or not quite:

"It was mostly these social affairs that provoked the town gossip that called our household disreputable, but I learned early that it was the economic aspect of the situation that was principally in question.  For it was rumoured (and with only too much justification) that my poor father's business was in desperate straits, and that the expensive fireworks and dinners would inevitably furnish the coup de grâce." (15)

There are several fantastic scenes early on in this book that made me feel it was on its way to
greatness.  And truly, the first "book" in it (there are three: Book I is about 50 pages, Book II is about 130 pages, and Book III is about 200 pages) may be close to perfect.  Near the end of Book I, his father suffers an unfortunate end (and if I were Elizabeth Warren, I would include this passage in a casebook to complement a certain passage from A Man in Full):

"Our financial collapse was complete; it became clear why my poor father had put it off so long and involved himself so deeply in the toils of the usurers, for he was aware that when the crash came, it would reduce him to total beggary.  Everything went under the hammer: the warehouses (but who wanted to buy so notoriously bad a product as my father's wine?), the real estate--that is, the cellars and our villa, encumbered as they were with mortgages to two-thirds of their value, mortgages on which the interest had not been paid in years--the dwarfs, the toadstools and earthenware animals in the garden--yes, even the mirrored ball and the aeolian harp went the same sad way.  The inside of the house was stripped of every pleasant luxury: the spinning-wheel, the downy cushions, the glass boxes and smelling salts all went at public auction; not even the halberds over the windows or the portieres were spared; and if the little device over the entrance door that played the Strauss melody as the door closed still jingled unmindful of its desolation, it was only because it had not been noticed by its legal owners." (51)

Felix then moves with his mother to Frankfurt, where the charming second part of the novel takes place.  Schimmelpreester tells each member of the family what they are supposed to do, and they follow his orders.  Felix is supposed to go to Paris to meet with a hotelier, but he also must worry about his military service.  In the meantime, he enjoys his time in Frankfurt, though he is reduced to sleeping on a kitchen bench, and often tries to summon carriages for people leaving the theater, sometimes receiving a tip.

Now, Book One is very good, but it takes 80 pages to get to Chapter V of Book II, which is probably the first "great" scene in the novel: Felix's first attempt at "conning."  He hopes to avoid military service, and his manner of completing this task is unlikely.  He expresses great enthusiasm and tells all of the presiding officers that he considers himself in excellent shape for service.  They find this rather hard to believe, as he makes subtle movements that betray a weaker constitution.  They tell him that the barracks is not a health resort, and laugh at him when he asks if he could just try because he might improve.

After this, we come to Felix's encounter with a prostitute named Rozsa.  While there is a scene in Book One that briefly details an affair he carries on with a housemaid who is perhaps fifteen years older than him, the scene with Rozsa is more remarkable because she seems to love him regardless of the fact that he has no money.  At this point it may be prudent to mention a criticism that I have read of this book: the main character is unsympathetic.  He is extremely good looking and he charms everyone he meets within a few minutes and everything comes much too easy for him.  Well, I hope my review indicates otherwise.  I do not share this criticism with others.  I think there are plenty of signs that most of the other characters find Felix annoying, and it is only through these "love scenes" that certain readers may scoff in disbelief.  However, the scene with Rozsa is practically rated PG compared to what comes later.  Felix also gives a nice defense of his relationship with her, and why he should not be considered a pimp despite the fact that sometimes he shares in what she gets from her customers:

"For my own part I am in agreement with folk wisdom which holds that when two persons do the same thing it is no longer the same; yes, I go further and maintain that labels such as 'drunkard,' gambler,' or even 'wastrel' not only do not embrace and define the actual living case, but in some instances do not even touch it.  This is my point of view; others may judge differently about this confidence--in respect to which it should be remembered that I am making it of my own free will and could quite easily have passed over it in silence." (112)

Finally, then, in Chapter VII of Book II, about 115 pages in, the "action" of the novel seems to pick up, for Felix is taken out of his home element and put on a train destined for Paris.  He has a number of adventures on the train, but he is primarily entertained by acting extremely politely with the commissaire, even going so far as to wish his wife and children well after he takes his ticket.  The language of the book switches, in stretches that are nearly too long to subsist in untranslated form, to French.  I would not be surprised if newer editions of the book translated the French into English, or at least provided footnotes  I could understand most of what was being said, but I think I have a decent "foundation" in French.  Regardless, even if you do not know French, I do not think you will miss all that much if your edition does not translate it.  Also of note during this section is an unlikely event: a woman "dropping" certain valuable jewelry into Felix's bag during a customs check--his second act of "conning."

Felix finds his way to the hotel where he is supposed to work, and to the dormitory where he is to sleep, along with his bunkmate, Stanko.  Stanko finds the jewelry and tells him to go to a certain shopkeeper to trade it in for cash.  Felix does so the next day after speaking to Stürzli, the general director of the Hotel Saint James and Albany, after being told that he will take over for Armand, the elevator operator who is quitting that day.  The scene with the shopkeeper Pierre Jean-Pierre is as memorable as the military service coup, particularly in the way the negotiations are carried on rather disagreeably until the deal is struck, at which point Jean-Pierre turns into a much nicer person.

The last scene worth noting in Book Two is the experience Felix (now Armand--and it is strange the way everyone calls him Armand, not even thinking he has a different name) has with a certain middle-aged woman--the same one that dropped her jewelry into his bag on the train.  She is a novelist who is staying in the hotel, and she takes Felix into her room where she asks him to defile her.  Now this may very well be the most unrealistic scene in the book.  Perhaps it is pure fantasy, or perhaps it is Mann trying to write a "modern 1954 novel" complete with blunt intimations:

"'Perversion!  Love is perversion through and through, it can't be anything else.  Probe it where you will, you will find perversion...But it's admittedly sad and painful for a woman to be able to love a man only when he is quite, quite young, when he is a boy.  C'est un amour tragique, inadmissible, not practical, not for life, not for marriage.  I, I married Houpflé, a rich businessman, so that in the shelter of his riches I could write my books, qui sont énormément intelligents.  My husband can do nothing, as I told you, at least with me.  Il me trompe, as they say, with a theatrical demoiselle.  Perhaps he is some good with her--I should rather doubt it.  It's a matter of indifference to me--this whole world of men and women and marriage and betrayal is a matter of indifference.  I live in my so-called perversion, in the love of my life that lies at the bottom of everything I am, in the happiness and misery of this enthusiasm with its heavy curse that nothing, nothing in the whole visible world equals the enchantment of the youthful male.  I live in my love for all of you, you, you the image of desire, whose beauty I kiss in complete abnegation of spirit.  I kiss your presumptuous lips over the white teeth you show when you smile.  I kiss the tender stars of your breast, the little golden hairs on the dark skin of your armpits.  And how does that happen?  With your blue eyes and blond hair, where do you get this coloring, this tint of light bronze?'"  (172-173)

That final question is a reference to Felix's physical appearance--at once both "light" and "dark."  This scene with Madame Houpflé is somewhat difficult to square with the rest of the novel.  It is certainly unrealistic, but perhaps not so much given that Felix is extremely good-looking (one may wonder about what unlikely events befall those blessed with such looks).  At least it is entertaining and humorous when she asks Felix to beat her and when he confesses that he took her jewelry and that she finds it charming and asks him to steal more from her while she pretends she is asleep.  But there is also question mark #1 that I have about this book:

"She came.  We came.  I had given my best, had in my enjoyment made proper recompense.  But how could I fail to be annoyed that at the very climax she had been stammering about degradation and had called me a stupid little slave?" (170)

Does he mean what I think he means?  It is impossible to think otherwise.  Perhaps question mark #1 is not such a puzzle, but question mark #2, I must admit, is a doozy....

But before we get there there is almost 200 pages of action.  I will cover it shortly.  "Armand" is serviceable as a "lift-man" but soon he moves on to work as a waiter in the hotel.  In the meantime he sells more of the jewelry that he "stole" from his ladyfriend, and he and his colleague Stanko enjoy an evening at the circus.  As a waiter he meets a fair number of interesting characters, but three in particular: Eleanor Twentyman, Lord Strathbogie and the Marquis de Venosta.  

In keeping with a theme of the novel, Twentyman and Strathbogie become entranced by "Armand."  This happens at the same time, roughly.  I would go so far as to say that this little section, from pages 200-217, is the single best part of the entire book.  It is contained like a perfect short story.  Felix needs to tell both that, charmed as he is by their infatuation with him, he cannot do what is asked of him.

Eleanor is 17 or 18, staying at the hotel with her parents. It is humorous to see her fall in love with a waiter, who must be kind and gracious all the while.  She comes down to breakfast by herself when her parents are still asleep and tries to "woo" "Armand" until he is eventually made to deflate her advances:

"'It's abnormal, too, for you not to ignore me, as would be natural and as your Mummy quite properly demands, but instead to come down secretly to breakfast and talk to me about "love" while your parents are prevented by their peaceful slumbers from coming to the defence of the social order.  This "love" of yours is a forbidden love which I cannot approve, and I am forced to reject any pleasure of my own in the fact that you like to see me.  It's all right for me to like to see you, if I keep it to myself, that's quite true.  But for you, Mr. and Mrs. Twentyman's daughter, to like to see me, that's impossible, that's contrary to nature...What you call "love" is something that happens to people on trips and at the sight of tail-coats like mine.  When you have left, as you will very soon, you'll forget it before you get to the next station.'" (205)

This mention of love being something that happens to people on trips may perhaps remind the reader of Death in Venice, and I can only say that the description of what happens with Lord Strathbogie is the ultimate "reverse Death in Venice" and that Mann must have intended it as such.  "Armand's" conversations with the Lord seem to have greater weight, as the man, who is about 50, desires to take him away and make him his personal valet, and maybe even adopt him and make him his heir.  Felix, as a person who is destined to wear many masks throughout life, finds this idea somewhat appealing, but ultimately cannot accept:

"'Please--I don't want to wound you or minimize the honour you have paid me, but if someone precisely like me occurs only once--each of us, of course, occurs only once--there are nevertheless millions of young men of my age and general physique, and except for the tiny bit of uniqueness, one is made very much like the other.  I knew a woman who declared that she was interested in the whole genre without exception--it must be essentially that way with you, too.  The genre is present always and everywhere.'" (216) 

Finally, after the novel reaches its high point (in my opinion), Felix meets the Marquis de Venosta, who is about his age, and whom he finds to be a pleasant person to serve.  The Marquis is from Luxembourg, and he has been staying in Paris and seeing a woman named Zaza.  His parents do not approve of this relationship and they believe that a world tour will do him some good and take his mind off of Zaza.  

On his nights off from the hotel, "Armand" sometimes goes to the theater or has dinner at nice restaurants, and on one of these evenings he runs into the Marquis, who is very garrulous and drinks very much wine and causes "Armand" to miss the theatrical performance that night.  During this dinner scene, it begins to become obvious why the Marquis has become such a major character.  Of course, Felix is plotting his next "con," which will be impersonating the Marquis on this world tour while the real Marquis stays behind in Paris and rents out an apartment with Zaza.  His first stop will be in Lisbon, Portugal.  

And it is here that the novel ends.  This is the longest single portion of the book, and perhaps a bit tiresome.  However, on the train ride to Lisbon, Felix (now "Louis" or "Loulou") meets one Professor Kuckuck, a man with "starry eyes."  The Professor speaks of celestial subject matter and this proves enchanting for "Loulou":

"There was no question, he said, that life on earth was not only an ephemeral episode, but Being itself was also--an interlude between Nothingness and Nothingness.  Being had not always existed and would not always exist.  It had had a beginning and would have an end, and with it space and time; for they existed only through Being and through it were bound to each other.  Space, he said, was nothing but the order of material things and their relationship to one another.  Without things to occupy it, there would be no space and no time either, for time was only the ordering of events made possible by the presence of objects; it was the product of motion, of cause and effect, whose sequence gave time its direction and without which there would be no time.  Absence of time and space, however, was the definition of Nothingness.  This was extensionless in every sense, a changeless eternity, which had only been temporarily interrupted by spatio-temporal Being.  A greater duration, by aeons, had been vouchsafed to Being than to Life; but some time of a certainty it would end, and with equal certainty the end implied a beginning..." (266)

This conversation goes on for about ten pages and is probably the highlight of the "Lisbon" section of the novel.  This is a strange moment in the novel and I can only conjecture that Mann wrote this knowing that he would not complete the rest of the novel, and that he was not very far from meeting Being and Nothingness himself.  As such it is a powerful moment, and probably the most profound single piece of the novel.  

Once "Loulou" settles in town, he goes the Museum of Natural History, where Professor Kuckuck is a director.  Then he meets the Professor's family, which includes a wife and a daughter.  The daughter is named Zouzou, and the irony of "Loulou" meeting his very own Zaza is not lost on the character.  There is also a strange section where "Loulou" meets the King of Portugal and tells raucous stories about his parents' two dogs, and this is all conveyed in a long letter "Loulou" writes to the Marquis de Venosta's actual parents.  

His stay in Portugal is longer than intended by a month, and perhaps predictably, he falls in love with Zouzou, while playing tennis with her often.  Zouzou is a fairly interesting character--she is very "forthright" and believes that "silence is unhealthy" and that "things must be called by their real names."  She is very cynical, in a word, and she does not believe in "love"--she believes that love (in keeping with another theme of the novel) is but a pretext for sexual longing, and this makes it a perversion in a certain sense.  "Loulou" tries very hard to persuade her otherwise in a long speech near the very end.

However, before we get to question mark #2, I must add finally that at a certain point, I became upset that this novel was not going to provide closure.  I was distracted from this final set of events, and did not really care how things turned out.  In fact, if it has not been made clear above, I consider this the weakest section of the novel.  The "Paris" section is certainly the strongest, and this part might only have been better if we saw what became of "Loulou" in Argentina, or the United States--other stops that he was to make on his world tour.  Also we never see Felix go to jail, as he mentions in passing at earlier points in the novel. 

Nor do we find out how the matador that he sees during a bullfight in the penultimate scene of the novel comes back into the story.  All we see is that he gives Zouzou a stack of pictures that he had made--nude sketches of Zaza with Zouzou's curls--and how she is disgusted by them, but how she then kisses him passionately--and then we finally get to question mark #2.

Zouzou's mother sees what happens, and she reproaches "Loulou":

"'You can thus realize what stupidity you were guilty of when, in your need for love, you followed a childish course and formed the capricious notion of turning a child's head.  That was not choosing or acting like a man, but like an infant.  Mature reason had to intervene before it was too late.'" (377)

But then, finally, question mark #2--does she fall under his spell, too?

"'Once when we were conversing you spoke to me about the graciousness of maturity and the graciousness with which it speaks of youth.  To encounter it successfully requires, of course, a man's courage.  If an agreeable youth only showed a man's courage instead of seeking satisfaction in childishness, he would not have to run off like a drenched poodle, uncomforted, into the wide world....'
'Maria!' I cried.

And: Holé! Heho! Ahé' she exclaimed in majestic jubilation.  A whirlwind of primordial forces seized and bore me into the realm of ecstasy.  And high and stormy, under my ardent caresses, stormier than at the Iberian game of blood, I saw the surging of that queenly bosom." (377-378)

Perhaps that is not quite a puzzle either, but it is a very strange way to end this novel.  I have said all I can about The Confessions of Felix Krull.  I recommend it for Mann-obsessives, but there are finer "closure-producing" compositions in his oeuvre if one has not exhausted it.  

    

   

A People’s History of the Supreme Court – Peter Irons (2006)

A People’s History of the Supreme Court is modeled after Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, a book I have not read but have often seen in the bookshelves of friends.  As such this review may be lacking.  It would be interesting to compare the books to one another and see which is more “readable.”  This book clocks in at 531 pages and covers the period between 1787 and 2006.  It mentions every single Supreme Court Justice, but it is less about the personnel of the Court than the cases brought before it.  There are glimmers of greatness in this book, but I must confess that it eventually began to bog me down.  This may be attributed to the fact that I have previously read and reviewed The Brethren, Wild Bill, and The Nine—three books which mine similar territory to this book’s final 130 pages.  Regardless, the first 400 pages were often more interesting than not, and Irons has created a largely admirable work. 

But first, I cannot resist tying in a personal connection.  Few readers of Flying Houses have been with us from the beginning (those inauspicious days of April through July of 2008), but it is worth noting that Irons’s literary agent was the subject of an early post.  “Finally, let me thank some of the people who helped make this book come to life.  My agent, Sandy Dijkstra, found my editor, Jane von Mehren, whose meticulous and thoughtful editing has improved the book immeasurably.” (xix) Now, there are not all that many literary agents.  There are the heavy hitters, and they keep large rosters of writers.  However, I found this mention quite ironic.  Ms. Dijkstra was the only agent to respond to my query on my first novel.  She rejected it, and I attacked her in the post linked to above, which mentioned her derision for the original title of The Joy Luck Club. 

First, let me note that I am not the same person I was in 2008.  Many changes have taken place and I would probably not be so critical of Ms. Dijkstra as I was in those impetuous days of my mid-20’s.  Second, let me note that my complaints have not abated, and that the publishing industry continues to irk me to no end.  I went to law school in a time of economic turmoil, and I felt that getting a job with a law degree would be easier than getting a first novel published.  My dreams remain intact, however, and soon it will be time to test those waters again.

With that out of the way, Irons opens up his book by explaining that he was an ex-con admitted to Harvard in his mid-thirties.  He went to jail, “serving a three-year sentence for refusing military induction in 1963.” (xvii)  He also was instrumental in reopening the wartime internment cases of Fred Korematsu, Min Yasui, and Gordon Hirabayashi.  In short, Irons mentions these facts in the introduction to the book as a way of setting up the reader’s expectations.  Yes, he is probably going to be taking a “liberal” stance on the cases to be discussed. 

This does not make the book any less valuable, however, because Irons is a very good researcher.  The book opens with what is probably its strongest point of coverage: the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, PA in 1787.  For the first 75 pages or so, Irons brings the real “framers” to life and makes it feasible for 21^st century readers to understand them and maybe even identify with them.  This part of the book is truly special because there have been numerous debates about the “original intent of the framers” and how to decide cases from a “textualist” perspective.  Irons delves deeply into this material—but not so deeply as to make it a bore.  I have to believe that many Americans would find this portion of the book to be a “page turner,” even though it makes virtually no mention of the English court system or how the American court system would differ.  He does offer up a real stinger to the pro-gun lobby:

“In recent years, advocates on both sides of the ‘gun control’ issue have debated the ‘original intent’ of those who framed the Second Amendment.  Elbridge Gerry, Madison’s adversary in both Philadelphia and New York, offered this defense of the proposed amendment: ‘What, sir, is the use of a militia?  It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty.’  Arming the citizens who belonged to state militias, Gerry argued, would deter Congress from establishing a federal army that might oppress or invade the states.  Those who now advocate the constitutional ‘right’ of every citizen to ‘bear arms’ of any kind—from cheap handguns to assault rifles—are well advised to read the debates that led to adoption of the Second Amendment.  Not a single member countered Gerry’s argument that the ‘right to bear arms’ was limited to members of a state militia.  The current opponents of gun control legislation pay little heed to the Framer who spoke most clearly to the ‘intent’ of Congress on this controversial issue.” (75)  

From there, he moves into a discussion of George Washington’s first appointments to the Supreme Court.  This may well be the most hilarious portion of the text.  It is understandable that the Court seems “bush league” because it was in its infancy.  They barely have any work to do at first, and many of the Justices simply failed to show up for work.  Nobody really seemed to care, though.  The Supreme Court was in New York City in those early days.  It is worth noting that Irons writes with an eye towards entertaining “lay readers” (i.e. those that have not studied the primary materials themselves) and at times he writes with literary flair:

“The men Washington placed on the Court, in contrast [to Franklin Roosevelt], were a thoroughly undistinguished lot.  One spent time in debtors’ prisons for defaulting on loans; one returned his commission after five days to serve in state office; one never attended a single Court session; one was impeached for political bias on the bench; one was insane; and another was senile.” (86)

Things changed in 1801 when John Marshall took the post of Chief Justice.  Irons mentions that there are more than twenty books about Marshall and practically everything is praiseworthy.  Irons is careful, however, and keeps a critical eye on the Justices, primarily in regards to their views on slavery.  He is very tough on Marshall’s successor, Roger Brooke Taney, whom he denounces as a “racist” perhaps a dozen times, but he is more even-handed with Marshall:

“For almost two centuries, praise for Marshall as a judicial statesman has far outweighed criticism of his role as Chief Justice.  But the historical scale requires some balance.  Marshall was plain and humble in person, yet he was an aristocrat in outlook.  He came from a state [Virginia] that vigorously insisted on its ‘sovereign’ rights within the Union, but he favored the ‘General Government’ in almost every case he decided.  He read the Constitution broadly to protect the rights of property, but narrowly when he addressed individual rights.  Most important, Marshall disregarded his ‘feelings of humanity’ and looked at blacks as property, not as persons.  This last weight on the historical scale strips the mantle of ‘statesman’ from Marshall’s shoulders.” (141)

At this point it seems prudent to consider the usefulness of this book to law students.  There is probably no better book for incoming 1Ls to law school than this, for it covers almost every single case that will be encountered in any course on Constitutional Law.  This is what makes the book largely admirable.  While The Nine may be a more intriguing read because it covers events that most of us are not too young to remember, this book explains the foundations of the major doctrines of Constitutional Law—it is thorough on First Amendment cases and the Equal Protection Clause; it mentions substantive due process in passing; it covers the early Commerce Clause cases in fair detail (but unfortunately fails to mention Wickard, Lopez, Morrison, or Raich); it covers the “laissez-faire” period of the Court and the Lochner decision quite well; and it draws useful distinctions on the voting of certain Justices on the value of precedent and deference to the legislature against judicial “activism” and “voting from the gut.” And the Table of Contents will be useful for law students that wish to gain a more “human” grasp on what is actually being said in the opinions they are studying, for it includes all the cases mentioned.

The coverage of the major Marshall Court decisions is phenomenal.  Marbury v. Madison and Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee are brought to life, and Irons thankfully explains Marshall’s personal role in each, which some professors may mention but may just confuse law students, for the facts behind each case are so bizarre.

His coverage on Chief Justice Taney’s reign is focused squarely on the Dred Scott decision.  I had no idea how complicated the facts behind this case were, but while Irons explains that details on it are sketchy, he does an excellent job of telling the story of how Dred Scott came to bring his case before the Supreme Court.  This is a very long section of the book and probably has the most detailed analysis of any single decision.  This case is not a major point of study in law school, but it is interesting reading. 

He also covers the case Ex parte Milligan in good enough detail that it will prove helpful for law students.  This is a case that is studied more often, and it is these early cases (up through the Slaughterhouse Cases) that make for the most difficult reading in a law school course and accordingly prove to be the most valuable portions of the book.  But what comes across most clearly is Irons’s distaste for Taney:

“Lincoln correctly charged Taney with trying to ‘nationalize slavery’ by his twisted and tortured reading of the Constitution in Dred Scott.  That his opinion was ultimately reversed by constitutional amendment is no consolation to the hundreds of thousands of young men who died after the Supreme Court shot holes through the Constitution.  It is fitting to speak ill of the dead when they committed acts of infamy.  Taney wrote an infamous opinion in Dred Scott, and no later judgments of his judicial ‘greatness’ can remove that stain from the Court’s history.” (184)

Irons also does his best to define what “partisanship” meant in the 19^th century, but I must confess that I still find what the parties stood for to be confusing:

“(The change in party labels requires a brief digression to avoid confusion.  The Federalists changed their name to the Whig Party between 1836 and 1856, when they became the second Republican Party, adopting the name of their former opponents.  The Jeffersonians who first called themselves Republicans abandoned that name in 1828—after using the hybrid title of Democratic-Republican for several years—to become the Democrats.  If this sounds confusing, it is.  But the nineteenth century saw a proliferation of party labels, including Free-Soil, Liberty, Union, American, and Anti-Mason.)” (122)

The next major point the book takes on is Plessy v. Ferguson.  This will be more useful than the coverage on the Dred Scott case because it is arguably more infamous for its precedential value.  (Irons also covers the Yick Wo v. Hopkins case and explains its facts quite well.) While the story of Homer Plessy is not quite as entertaining as that of Dred Scott, it is interesting to know that he could “pass” as a white man and that he actually wanted to get arrested so that he could challenge the separate accommodations for whites and blacks at the time.  Here, Justice John Marshall Harlan is the only dissenter in the case, and he emerges as one of the more noteworthy Justices and not just because his grandson would take up the post 44 years after he retired.  Again, Irons turns a critical eye on an apparently “liberal” justice that is worthy of praise:

“The notion of a ‘color-blind’ Constitution has enormous appeal as a guiding principle.  But there are dangers in substituting slogans for hard, realistic analysis.  Harlan’s famous sentence [‘Our Constitution is color-blind, and neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens.’] has been ripped from its context by those—including Supreme Court justices—who have wielded it in recent years as a weapon against affirmative action and other ‘race-conscious’ remedial laws and programs.  Those who quote the ‘color-blind’ sentence invariably fail to quote the sentences that preceded it in Harlan’s opinion.  ‘The white race deems itself to be the dominant race in this country,’ he wrote.  ‘And so it is, in prestige, in achievements, in education, in wealth and in power.  So, I doubt not, it will continue to be for all time, if it remains true to its great heritage and holds fast to the principles of constitutional liberty.’
Harlan stated in these sentences the reality of race in 1896.  Whites held the reins of power, which they used to whip blacks into submission.  Harlan does not deserve scorn for acknowledging this reality, however much it reflected the ‘pride of race’ that he celebrated.  He had no more desire for ‘social equality’ with blacks than Justice Brown.  He was, after all, a man of his times, the son of slave owners and a man of superior prestige, education, wealth, and power.  But he was not a racist like Chief Justice Taney.” (230-231)

Irons makes a similar point about Abraham Lincoln, quoting from a speech where he says that he is not for social equality with blacks, though he is definitely against slavery.  This is surprising and some of these glimpses into the realities of the times are another factor that make this book worth reading. 

However, around this point, Irons switches his focus to the First Amendment, and Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and the Schenk case in 1917.  He focuses on the “incitement” cases during World War I in First Amendment jurisprudence for quite a while, perhaps because of his own skirmishes with the law in the 1960s.  While this coverage is good, it is at this point that the Court’s decisions began to speak more for themselves than coverage on them.  There is quality coverage on Holmes as one of the greatest Justices in history, and also Louis Brandeis.  But, at least in my course in the First Amendment, our professor covered these cases in such fine detail that Irons’s descriptions amounted to little more than a nostalgia trip. 

He does cover the New Deal cases in excellent detail—the Schecter Poultry v. United States, West Coast Hotel v. Parrish, and National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Company cases are quite important in defining the contours of the Commerce Clause, and law students are likely to find Irons’s emphasis of the importance of these decisions useful.  But it is also at this point that I began to lose interest in the book and “went through the motions.”  Of course, I was excited for the year 1939:

“Born in Minnesota in 1898 and raised in Washington state, William O. Douglas went east as a young man to Columbia Law School, where he taught after graduating at the top of his class [Not exactly—see Wild Bill review].  He moved to Yale’s law faculty in 1928, joining the ‘legal realists’ who looked behind judicial doctrine to explore the social, political, and economic forces that shaped the law.  Douglas staked a claim in the growing field of public and corporate finance, and Roosevelt picked the young professor to head the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Word got around that Douglas was a card shark, and he soon became one of the president’s ‘poker buddies’ and a New Deal insider.  Ironically, the only four senators who voted against his confirmation opposed Douglas as a ‘reactionary tool of Wall Street.’
William Douglas joined the Court at forty, the youngest justice since Joseph Story.  He stayed for thirty-six years, the longest tenure of any justice.  Douglas came to the bench without a well-defined judicial philosophy, and left as he came.  Much like the woodsman he was, Douglas avoided the beaten path and blazed his own trail.  Raised in poverty and struck by polio as a child, he developed a visceral sympathy for society’s ‘outcasts,’ including Communists and criminals.  He shared Frankfurter’s expansive view of due process and Black’s ‘absolutist’ devotion to the Bill of Rights.  Douglas was often criticized for failing to articulate a coherent judicial philosophy.  Certainly he never followed the narrow—but divergent—path from which Frankfurter and Black rarely strayed.  But there was an animating principle behind the twelve hundred opinions Douglas wrote over more than three decades.  ‘Our starting point has always been the individual, not the state,’ he wrote in 1958.  However far he wandered from the beaten path, Douglas never lost sight of his judicial lodestar.” (328-329)

So I really cannot complain about the coverage of Douglas, except that it is short and mentions nothing about his personal life.  There is also a nice quote about Justice Brennan:

“Perhaps the warmest tribute came from a former law clerk, Richard Posner, now a notably conservative federal judge.  Justice Brennan’s lasting influence, Posner wrote, stemmed less from his ‘commitment to a doctrine’ than from ‘the emanation of a warm, generous, and good-hearted person.’” (474)

There is not much else I can say about this book.  I think I have made my points relatively clear.  There are better books to read about the Court in the 20^th Century, but I have not read anything as compelling as this on the 18^th and 19^th century Court (though I have not been very interested in reading anything about it also).  Irons chief focus seems to be racism and later on, affirmative action programs, sprinkled in with the two major gay rights cases in 1986 and 2003.  He ends in 2006, largely focusing on the Guantanamo Bay cases, and barely mentioning Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito.  As I mentioned in the review for How Judges Think, this book may be due for a revision.  It is unfortunate that Irons does not mention Buckley v. Valeo, but any description of the Court that includes 2010 will include Citizens United and any mention of that case requires reference to Buckley.  This book was already revised once, however, and it is unclear that much could be added, though the opinions handed down by the Court this past summer certainly fall in line with Irons’s predictions regarding the path of gay rights.  Jeffrey Toobin did an excellent job on Citizens United and the Affordable Care Act Cases in The Oath so there is at least good reading material out there.  Irons work as a scholar of the “ancient history” of the Court is what makes this book most special, and though I have not read Zinn’s famous volume, I am sure this stands up alongside it fairly well. 

How Judges Think - Richard A. Posner (2007)

Oeuvre rule: I have read dozens of judicial opinions by Judge Posner of the 7th Circuit and almost every one of them has been a good read.  I even remember reading one obscure bankruptcy decision which was very entertaining because he went out of his way to highlight the frivolity of the litigant's claims.  He has been a federal judge for more than 30 years.  He has written a formidable number of books and law review articles.  His name is synonymous with "economic analysis" and "law."  He was made to serve on the Supreme Court, but was never nominated because he could not be counted on to "vote along party lines."  He also teaches at the University of Chicago Law School and blogs at http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/.

Last year I applied to be his law clerk.  I applied to about 100 other judges.  Almost all of them sent rejection letters.  A couple actually sent invitations to interview.  Judge Easterbrook (Posner's colleague on the 7th Circuit) sent a postcard rejection.  Posner was the only judge who failed to respond.

And who could blame him?  After all, I sent him my rejected 40 page note on the plight of temporary workers in the wake of the Great Recession, and added, at the end of my mail-merged cover letter, that I was a huge fan of his.  I've heard he likes to have clerks with backgrounds in engineering and science.  So I completely understand.  And I would not be so petty as to criticize How Judges Think based on the mere failure of a response.

But this is not going to make the "best books of Flying Houses" list for one reason and one reason only: it has very limited appeal for a mass audience.  This book is made for law students, professors, law school administrators, judges, lawyers, and anyone who has been faced with the thankless task of poring over law review articles.  Occasionally, it is interesting enough for lay readers, but the proof is in the acknowledgments:

"I have incorporated material from the following articles of mine, though with much revision and amplification: "The Role of the Judge in the Twenty-First Century," 86 Boston University Law Review 1049 (2006) (chapters 3 and 4); "Judicial Behavior and Performance: An Economic Approach," 32 Florida State University Law Review 1259 (2005) (chapter 5); "Reasoning by Analogy," 91 Cornell Law Review 761 (2005) (chapter 7)...." (379)

And six other articles.  So while yes, Judge Posner is an extremely hard worker and probably one the most (if not the most) prolific writers in the history of American law, it appears that he writes his articles with an eye towards incorporating them into a book (though I did read one funny article by him called "Goodbye to the Blue Book" that may not have found its way into a book).  As one recent law graduate told me when I was a 1L, "Posner writes with an eye to being published in casebooks."

Posner begins the book by discussing 9 theories of judicial behavior (attitudinal, strategic, sociological, psychological, economic, organizational, pragmatic, phenomenological, and legalist) and whether judges's decisions are best explained by the political preferences they bring to their cases, largely focusing on the idea that "liberal" judges are appointed by Democrats and "conservative" judges are appointed by Republicans.  Some of this is confusing because it may be difficult to say what separates a "liberal" decision from a "conservative" one.  Of course there are easy cases like Goldberg v. Kelly (a Justice Brennan-authored decision requiring evidentiary hearings prior to the termination of public assistance benefits) and Citizens United (a Justice Kennedy-authored decision allowing corporations to make virtually unlimited expenditures in the area of campaign finance), but as noted in my previous review, certain areas such as criminal procedure do not always allow for such neat "left/right" categorization.

Posner then goes on to discuss the judge as a labor-market participant.  While Posner's reasoning on the matter is sound, it underscores how esoteric this book can get:

"Each bit of information the judge received that bore on that truthfulness [of a witness] would be likely to alter his prior probability [a pre-inquiry estimate of a witness's truthfulness], but not erase it; the prior probability would affect the posterior probability [a post-inquiry assessment of a witness's truthfulness], as in Ω(H/x) = p(x/H)/p(x/~H) x Ω(H), the simplest version of Bayes's theorem.
Ω is odds; the left-hand side of the equation is the posterior odds that some hypothesis, H, is true; the last term on the right-hand side of the equation, Ω(H), is the prior odds; x is the new information obtained in the course of the inquiry; p is probability, and p(x/H)/p(x/~H), the first term on the right-hand side of the equation, is the ratio of the probability that x would have been observed even if H was false (~H). (So if those two probabilities were the same, the new information would not alter the odds; it would be a case of multiplication by 1.)" (66) (brackets mine)

While I may have made that more confusing with my bracketing, it was the simplest way I could sum up what is unquestionably the most unreadable portion of the book.  Thankfully, Posner does bring it down to a more human level:

"Suppose the hypothesis is that the witness--let us say the plaintiff in a sex discrimination suit--is testifying truthfully, and that before she begins to testify the judge sets (almost certainly, unconsciously) the odds that she will be telling the truth at 1 to 3, which is equivalent to a probability of 25 percent (1 out [1+3]).  She testifies, producing new information, x.  Suppose the probability that x would be observed if she was telling the truth is .6, that while the probability that it would be observed if she was not telling the truth is .3, so that the ratio of the two probabilities is 2.  When this "likelihood" ratio is multiplied by the prior odds of 1 to 3, the result is posterior odds of 2 to 3 (1:3 x 2 = 2:3), which is equivalent to a 40 percent probability (2 out of 5) that the witness is telling the truth." (66)

I will not comment any further on Bayesian theory.

I could go through the rest of the chapters and summarize what each one is about, but that would be boring and a needless waste of time.  You may read the Introduction or the Conclusion to the book if you would like a bite-sized morsel of it.  Like any good law review article, it is systematically and structurally precise.  Posner does not exactly come out and say, "I am a pragmatist," but it seems clear that he favors the "pragmatic" behavioral model of the judge over the others.

Sadly, as I often mention when discussing Vladimir Nabokov's thoughts on Thomas Mann, Posner does not have kind words for my favorite Supreme Court Justice:

"Law is a methodologically conservative profession, and 'bad boy' rhetoric such as [Jerome] Frank's advocacy of psychotherapy for judges or Fred Rodell's proposal that the practice of law be made a crime and courts be replaced with administrative agencies including a 'Killing Commission to apply its laws about what are now called murder and manslaughter,' like the antics of the 'crits,' ensured that these scholars would not receive a fair hearing.  That the only avowed legal realist to become a Supreme Court Justice--William O. Douglas--flouted perfectly sensible norms of judging (FN 46) also helped to give realism a bad name." (112-113)
("Here is a sampling of criticisms of Douglas--none by conservatives.  'His [Douglas's] opinions were not models; they appear to be hastily written; and they are easy to ignore.'  L.A. Powe, Jr., 'Justice Douglas after Fifty Years: The First Amendment, McCarthyism and Rights,' 6 Constitutional Commentary 267, 269 (1989).  The carelessness of Douglas's opinions was rooted in his 'indifference to the texture of legal analysis, which arises from an exclusively political conception of the judicial role.' Yosal Rogat, 'Mr. Justice Pangloss,' New York Review of Books, Oct. 22, 1964, p.5.  'Douglas was the foremost anti-judge of his time.' G. Edward White, 'The Anti-Judge: William O. Douglas and the Ambiguities of Individuality,' 74 Virginia Law Review 17, 80 (1988).  Douglas 'refus[ed] to judge in tax cases.'  Bernard Wolfman, Jonathan L.F. Silver, and Marjorie A. Silver, 'The Behavior of Justice Douglas in Federal Tax Cases,' 122 University of Pennsylvania Law Review 235, 330 (1973))." (FN 46)

Posner is generally a very witty writer, but it can be difficult at times to mine through the seeming intellectual elitism of his prose to realize that what he is writing is actually funny.  But other times, he frames the law in a way that laypersons will understand:

"Versions of judicial modesty include [James Bradley] Thayer's principle that statutes should be invalidated only if they are contrary to any reasonable understanding of the constitutional text and Holmes's 'can't helps' or 'puke' test: a statute is unconstitutional only if it makes you want to throw up." (288)

I will make one final point about How Judges Think: while it is probably going to attract little interest from those outside of the "profession," it is good reading for law students, and it will probably be slightly more interesting than your average law review article or casebook reading assignment.  Most law students will probably find the final section of the book, where Posner discusses the political nature of the Supreme Court, to be most entertaining.  He gives brief (but always intriguing, given the level at which his mind is operating) remarks on most of the Justices then sitting in 2007, and delivers a pretty thorough review of Justice Breyer's book Active Liberty.  He also criticizes Justice Kennedy's constitutional philosophy:

"Justice Kennedy's opinions in Lawrence v. Texas (the homosexual sodomy case) and Roper v. Simmons [the juvenile death penalty case] make only limited efforts to ground decision in conventional legal materials.  They could not do more, operating with nondirective constitutional provisions and in the teeth of adverse precedent.  They are appeals to moral principles that a great many Americans either disagree with or think inapplicable to homosexuals or juvenile murderers.  The approach is consistent, however, with the judicial philosophy that Justice Kennedy expressed in the interview from which I quoted in chapter 9, when he said that 'all of us have an instinctive judgment that we make...You make these quick judgments...Judges do the same thing...But after you make a judgment, you then...have to see if that...accords with your own sense of ethics and morality.  And...[you have to understand] that you have the opportunity to shape the destiny of this country.  The framers wanted you to shape the destiny of the country.  They didn't want to frame it for you.'  This is the most powerful judge in America speaking, and, if we may judge from his decisions, meaning what he says--that the framers of the Constitution wanted Anthony Kennedy to shape the destiny of the country in accordance with his own sense of ethics and morality, though it strikes many as quirky." (310-311) (first brackets mine)

While the book reads fairly well from beginning to end, its genre likely falls into "legal theory," and so most readers may pass a chuckle when Posner goes off for five pages about Chief Justice Roberts's "umpire analogy" to judging, but few will stick it through to the end.  Through no fault of its own is the book dated (there are at least four major cases, involving Anna Nicole Smith, the Affordable Care Act, Campaign Finance, and gay marriage, on which Posner likely has something to say), but it is one that is a prime candidate for a "new edition." 

Posner opens up the book with an exclamation point--one of the few in the text--and closes on a powerful salvo, which nicely summarizes his raison d'être:

"For that recognition [that legalism is not the path to reform] to take hold, however, will require a change in the way in which law is taught in law schools.  Realism about judges is sorely lacking there.  Law is taught as if judges were second-class professors, professors manqué--legal analysts lacking the specialized knowledge of the law professor.  The motivations and constraints operating on judges, and the judicial mentality that results, are ignored, as if judges were computers rather than limited human intellects navigating seas of uncertainty.  As a result students are not taught how to present a case to a judge in a way that will strike a responsive chord.  The curious judicial passivity that results from judges' being accustomed to simply decide whatever is brought to them to decide, rather than to initiate anything, has made most judges shy about telling lawyers how they should be presenting cases to maximum effect, thus helping themselves by helping the judges.  The nation needs a better bridge between bench and bar, and its construction must be largely the work of the law schools." (377)

Ultimately that is who will get the most out of this book: law school administrators and practicing lawyers.  While it is highly doubtful that every judge possesses as masterful an intellect as Posner's, I am sure they would find many of his comments to be accurate.  I am sure that by reading this book, and taking out some of the "pro tips" he offers, one could become a better attorney.  Or you could at least learn how not to screw up an amicus curiae brief if you happen to teach at Yale.  

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (Transl. Richard Peaver and Larissa Volokhonsky) (1877)

I am very pleased to present our newest writer on Flying Houses, Juan J. Perez.  He has reviewed a book for me that is somewhat famous.  I openly admit that I am a tyro when it comes to Tolstoy.  I have read part of The Death of Ivan Ilyich, but I have generally favored the Russian writers that adopted America as their new homeland.  I do not know very much about the political climate in Russia in 1877, but I am guessing this book reflects it accurately.  This review, on the other hand, focuses on matters of the heart, or the "doomed romance" aspect of the novel.  Juan has written an excellent review, and if he feels up to it in a few years I will welcome a review of War and Peace.

“All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” So begins what Leo Tolstoy was to call “his first novel” with a sentence that has been oft-quoted since its creation. Anna Karenina is truly in a realm of its own. It’s almost akin to a soap opera in that one finds it impossible to take their eyes off the drama unfolding. The comparison might sound insulting to some, but it is only the lowly opinion of a literary fledgling penning his first review. The particular version that is going to be discussed is the translation done by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. If the reviews on the jacket are to be believed, it is a superb translation a cut well above the rest. Still, the main reason it found itself in my book bag was not because of the glowing reviews or even the acclaim the story itself has received, but rather, my desire to educate myself on the classics which with high school had neglected to acquaint me. The English classes in my curriculum were more focused on sending students out of class for juvenile behavior than on Romeo and Juliet or The Great Gatsby. Shakespeare was enjoyed on occasion, but that was on my own, and there was no extent beyond that. That is what led me to peruse the aisles of my local library and grab Anna Karenina without a second thought.

While having heard the name in passing often enough, Tolstoy was very much an enigma to me—something similar to a shadow undulating in my peripheral vision. The introduction in this version gave an enlightening apercu on Tolstoy, his work, and, most importantly, the novel in question. Anna Karenina was written amidst a time of great questioning in Russia. Many publications advocated for ideals such as sexual freedom and communal habitation. Women’s education, enfranchisement, and role in public life were very much debated. As Pevear states, “On all these matters Tolstoy held rather conservative views. For him, marriage and childbearing were a woman’s essential tasks, and family happiness was the highest human ideal….An intentional anachronism, his novel was meant as a challenge, both artistic and ideological, to the ideas of the Russian nihilists.” (ix) Yet, although he essentially despised adultery, Anna was not portrayed unsympathetically.  In fact, Tolstoy’s wife wrote that he had “envisioned the type of a married woman of high society who ruins herself. He said his task was to portray this woman not as guilty, but as only deserving of pity…” (xi)

Anna Karenina’s plot revolves around a vast array of characters and settings that is splintered into eight parts. Part One introduces us to the predicament that is the Oblonsky household. Stepan Arkadyich has been caught having an affair with the family’s former French governess by his wife, Dolly. Despite his best attempts, he is unable gain her forgiveness. He desperately turns to the visit of his sister, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina, as his only hope for salvaging his marriage. Ironically enough, while Anna does indeed convince Dolly to forgive Stiva (Stepan) and take him back, it is this very visit from St. Petersburg to Moscow that introduces her to her folly, Count Alexei Vronsky, a young and handsome officer who is very well regarded in society. It is also during this time that Stiva’s childhood friend, Konstantin Levin, has come to Moscow with the intent of proposing marriage to Stiva’s belle-soeur, Kitty. Unfortunately for Levin, Vronsky has also begun courting her, albeit seeing it as a minor flirtation rather than expressing intent for marriage. Due to this, Kitty rejects Levin for Vronsky which sends a depressed Levin back to the country. However, it seems karma plays a hand in this for, as soon as Vronsky meets Anna, he loses all interest in Kitty and is determined to pursue Anna back to St. Petersburg to woo her. This leaves a very distraught and unresponsive Kitty in his wake and the Shcherbatsky family travels to the country in order to try and brighten her spirits. Back in St. Petersburg, Anna finds herself drawn to a different social circle which is radically different from the virtuous and pious one she used to belong to. It is here where she gives in to Vronsky’s advances and begins her deadly dalliance with him. This does not go unnoticed by her husband or other society people, and it commences a whirlwind of adultery, jealousy, and hypocrisy amongst everyone.

The part that most captivated and enraptured me was Part Seven’s finale, where Anna meets her demise. The style that Tolstoy uses to describe Anna’s stream of consciousness during her last moments flows effortlessly and beautifully. One can practically picture themselves in Anna’s position. “What was he [Vronsky] looking for in me? Not love so much as the satisfaction of his vanity,” she ponders. (762) In what this reviewer believes to be one of the greatest internal dialogues ever written, Anna displays her paranoia at her situation, “ My love grows ever more passionate and self-centered, and his [Vronsky’s] keeps fading and fading, and that’s why we move apart…And there’s no help for it. For me, everything is in him alone, and I demand that he give his entire self to me more and more. While he wants more and more to get away from me…He tells me I’m senselessly jealous, and I’ve told myself that I’m senselessly jealous, but it’s not true. I’m not jealous, I’m dissatisfied…If he is kind and gentle to me out of duty, without loving me, and I am not to have what I want—that is a thousand times worse even than anger! It’s hell! And that is what we have. He has long ceased loving me. And where love stops hatred begins.” (763)  Her mind is completely revealed to the reader and all one can do is read on as Anna’s mental state deteriorates, “Ah, a beggar woman with a child. She thinks she’s to be pitied. Aren’t we all thrown into the world only in order to hate each other and so to torment ourselves and others?”(764)

This brings me to a subject often discussed by critics: was Anna mentally ill? While I am not an authority on the matter, as psychology was never a class of mine, I will say that Anna does indeed seem to display characteristics of mania and schizophrenia. In fact, it is my belief that Tolstoy actually alludes to her mental instability with a line from Anna herself, “’No, I won’t let you torment me,’ she thought, addressing her threat not to him [Vronsky], not to herself, but to the one who made her suffer, and she walked along the platform past the station-house.”(767) What follows is the infamous suicide scene which was foreshadowed in the beginning of the book when Anna was introduced, “And the candle by the light of which she had been reading that book filled with anxieties, deceptions, grief and evil, flared up brighter than ever, lit up for her all that had once been in darkness, sputtered, grew dim, and went out for ever.”  (768)

Many will probably disagree with me on this, but the book should have ended there. Part Eight was admittedly a hastily added part, but it detracted from the book for me a great deal. There was little to no closure for Anna’s death in that section and my annoyance at Levin’s “sufferings” tainted my enjoyment of the book. My desire to finish the book from beginning to end was the only reason it was read. It seemed very odd and out of place for Levin to have such conflicts after all that he has endured and gained throughout the story, which only increased my perplexity and vexation at his supposed woes. Despite a rather unsatisfying end for me, Anna Karenina was a greatly enjoyable book to read. My curiosity is sufficiently piqued for me to go and search out Tolstoy’s War and Peace, which many claim is his magnum opus. Let us hope the owner of this blog does not ask me to review it as well. Adieu, my fellow book lovers.

My Beloved World - Sonia Sotomayor

It is appropriate that My Beloved World will be my final post on Flying Houses before I leave Brooklyn Law School.  I expected to put the blog on hiatus for most of law school, but I ended up remaining somewhat prolific and increased its popularity exponentially.  "My Beloved World" refers to Puerto Rico in this book, but my beloved world will be the library at Brooklyn Law School, which I will be sad to leave.  There have been many miserable things about law school, and while aesthetically our library cannot compete with say, Pepperdine's (which features a view of the Pacific Ocean that surely puts it at the very top), I have always felt that there has been such a wealth of knowledge and information here that learning about the "legal aspect" of any topic was within my grasp.  In my case it came in the form of the biographical accounts of Supreme Court Justices--truly the best models one could hope to have in trying to achieve excellence.

Of course, it is extraordinarily unlikely that I will ever be a federal judge, but at the very beginning of this book, Sotomayor assures all that it is okay to dream:

"A student recently posed another question that gave me pause: 'Given that there are only nine Supreme Court Justices, each with life tenure, can anyone realistically aspire to such a goal?  How do we hold on to dreams that, statistically, are almost impossible?'  As I tell in these pages, the dream I first followed was to become a judge, which itself seemed far-fetched until it actually happened.  The idea of my becoming a Supreme Court Justice--which, indeed, as a goal would inevitably elude the vast majority of aspirants--never occurred to me except as the remotest of fantasies.  But experience has taught me that you cannot value dreams according to their odds of coming true.  Their real value is in stirring within us the will to aspire.  That will, wherever it finally leads, does at least move you forward.  And after a time you may recognize that the proper measure of success is not how much you've closed the distance to some far-off goal but the quality of what you've done today."  (viii)

Most striking about My Beloved World is Sotomayor's natural flair as a storyteller.  It is written almost as if it were a novel, and even has a couple of moments of "magical realism" that would not be out of place in a Marquez novel.  However, Sotomayor ends the story when she is appointed as a federal judge in the Southern District of New York in 1992.  Of course many law students and legal scholars will want to hear about Citizens United or Sebelius or other landmark decisions that were heard sufficiently long before publication, but no such treats are offered.  And it is probably for good reason: Sotomayor (like almost all federal judges) is politically savvy.  Later on in the book she rebuffs a colleague's suggestion to join the Republican party in order to have a better chance of nomination, deciding instead to register without any party affiliation.  Of course people view her as one of the "liberal Justices" and for the most part she has lived up to that stereotype.  However, I was quite surprised to read about her feelings on the criminal justice system.  While I am sure that she considers all cases fairly and without bias, I would generally presume that a "liberal Justice" would show slight bias to the Defense, and not the Prosecution.  However, Sotomayor started her career at the New York County District Attorney's Office, and I was shocked to read some of her statements regarding criminal law:

"However caustic, Judge Rothwax was no cynic, though like many a cynic he had been disillusioned, having started his career as a Legal Aid attorney and civil rights advocate before becoming a prosecutor.  That early experience led him to conclude that given all the elaborate protections of the rights of the accused, any defendant whose case eventually came to trial was almost certainly guilty.  In a controversial book, the judge proposed abolishing the Miranda warning and other rules that he believed handicapped the police and prosecutors; he also argued that a 10-2 jury verdict was close enough to unanimous for conviction.  I wasn't prepared to accept his presumption of guilt, though it is borne out statistically: policemen don't normally make arrests on sheer caprice; most defendants do turn out to be guilty.  But a probability of guilt doesn't seem reason enough to revise our standards of due process.  These are designed to protect everyone from the human frailties of those whom we entrust to enforce the state's tremendous powers.  Even if the vast majority of the law's agents exercise these powers scrupulously, it is unconscionable that anyone should pay for a crime of which he was unjustly accused.  Blackstone's famous ratio ('better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer') still speaks to a deep-seated sense of what is just." (208)

Thus, Sotomayor covers herself--at least in this regard.  She does offer up some incredible stories and is not afraid to write about sensitive topics.  I would say that this book should be required reading for anybody that would like to be a prosecutor (or a criminal defense attorney, for that matter), if only because she offers valuable tips for success.  It is extremely difficult to argue with Sotomayor: she is wise, and what the book beautifully captures is how she turned her "humble beginnings" into an asset rather than a liability.  But first, two tips for criminal trial attorneys.  The first is emotion:

"Granting myself permission to use my innate skills of the heart, accepting that emotion was perfectly valid in the art of persuasion, amounted to nothing less than a breakthrough.  Warren [Murray] would teach me much else in the way of trial skills, as had John Fried, Katie Law, and others at the DA's Office.  But that was the single most powerful lesson I would learn.  It changed my entire approach to jurors, from the voir dire to the structure of my summations, and the results spoke for themselves: I never lost a case again.  I had hung juries a couple of times, and once or twice a conviction on fewer than all counts of the indictment, but never an acquittal.
Leveraging emotional intelligence in the courtroom, as in life, depends on being attentive; the key is always to watch and listen.  You don't need to take notes with the court reporter getting down every word.  Lower your eyes to your pad, and you're bound to miss that hint of a doubt that flits across the witness's face.  Scribble instead of listening, and you won't notice the split second of hesitation in which a witness hedges a choice of words, avoiding the ones that would flow naturally in favor of the ones whose truth he or she is more certain of." (210)

The second is jury selection, debunking a myth that still seems to creep into the minds of attorneys today:

"Other lessons I would figure out for myself, often contrary to conventional wisdom.  Some prosecutors, for instance, would look for legitimate reasons to eliminate black and Hispanic juror candidates in the voir dire, the assumption being that minorities are biased in favor of defendants.  But to me that made sense only if you saw all people of color as potential perpetrators and believed, even more implausibly, that they all saw one another that way, too.  It was obvious to me that any black or Latino who held a job, or went to school, or stay home to care for an elderly parent was likely as law-abiding as anyone in my own family and, if anything, far likelier to be the victim of a crime than to commit one.  The notion that such a person would, on the basis of racial or ethnic solidarity, let anyone walk who might pose a danger to the community would have seemed laughable where I came from.  And so I packed my juries with the kinds of people I'd grown up among; the results, again, spoke for themselves."  (211-212)

While I do not believe this book will get any "bad reviews," it is not perfect (I found two typos: "Riven" instead of "Driven" near the beginning; "judge (last name)").  Some might decry sections of the book as being too "touchy-feely" and lacking in clues to Sotomayor's jurisprudence--but she anticipates this in the preface.  I would have liked to see a section on her decision that ended the Major League Baseball strike in 1994, but perhaps we will need to wait until she retires for her "judicial autobiography."  I must say that I read the book in a week, as "pleasure reading" while studying for the Bar, and was dismayed that she did not devote a single word to her experience of taking it (perhaps some memories are better forgotten).  But while I cannot say it is one of the best books I have reviewed on Flying Houses, it contains unmistakable wisdom, clarity and value.  And I found Chapter 24 to be the single best moment of the book.  Justice Sotomayor indulges in a fair bit of self-deprecation, which is welcome in a book where she has to explain how she achieved such magnificent heights.  She is also extremely funny at times.

In Chapter 24 she describes her life after her divorce from her high-school sweetheart, moving to Carroll Gardens and getting advice from friends on dating, with which she did not have much experience.  She writes about her prospects of giving birth to a child and her life as a diabetic.  She writes about adoption.  She writes about her circle of friends and how they have kept her from feeling alone.

She also writes about smoking:

"I had been a smoker since high school, burning through three and a half packs a day for much of my life.  I made my first serious attempt at quitting in my final year of law school: every time I felt the urge, I ran around the block, often with Kevin and Star chugging alongside in solidarity.  Going cold turkey during exams may sound like a needlessly brutal rigor, but in retrospect it seems less perversely self-punishing than lighting up again two years later when Kevin and I split.  There would be further attempts, using various methods, including hypnosis, but nothing worked for good until I saw little Kiley holding a pencil between two fingers, blowing imaginary smoke rings.  The guilt of endangering the health of a loved one is by far the best motivation I've discovered." (284)

She also writes about Puerto Rico's strange situation as an American territory, but not a State.  I do not know if Puerto Rico will ever become a State, but if it does, I think Sotomayor will be considered an important figure in bringing the issue back to the forefront.  However, her feelings on the matter are somewhat masked:

"Again and again, the conversation returned to the island's political status.  Did we want to remain a commonwealth, with some self-rule and a preferential trade relationship with the mainland?  Half the class believed that was no better than being a colony of the United States, living as second-class citizens.  But if we should aspire to statehood, the full rights of citizenship would come at the price of the full obligations, including a tax burden that, arguably, might have crippled our economy at the time.  Some proposed, with passionate conviction, that full independence was the only way to preserve our culture and the proper dignity of self-determination.  The economic repercussions of each position were as inscrutably complex as they were critical to the arguments.  And for those who are eager to discern my present views on the status question, I can only advise you not to give too much weight to whatever ideas vied for prominence in a young student's mind." (152)

All I can say is that this book really made me appreciate Sotomayor and the contributions she continues to make to our country.  If I ever get the chance to meet her, I will ask her for a hug.  I would imagine she gives amazing hugs.

Here is a clip that perhaps better encapsulates what is so great about her: her willingness to be a public figure and to serve as a role model par excellence: