Special Comment: Chicago Cubs 2013 Report Card

Today I was perusing some old posts and I came across this one.  It was written nearly two years ago and I have not written on the Cubs since.  I felt it was important to point out a couple clever things from it:

(1) "#2: Trading Sean Marshall

Sean Marshall was the lone bright spot on the extremely disappointing team last season (aside from Starlin). He was one of the best relievers in baseball. The Cubs got Travis Wood in return. I think he’s a starter, or something, and they needed one? Regardless, it shows that Theo has no idea what he is doing."

Update: Travis Wood turned out to be a pretty good move, so I forgive Theo for that.

(2) "I hope Wrigley Field falls a hundred thousand visitors short this year. I hope real Cubs fans will boycott this team."

Update: Attendance has continued to fall.  Who knew?

I moved back to Chicago after going to law school in New York for three years.  One of the things I was looking forward to was living in a city where other people cared about the same team as me.  I am not a Yankees or Mets or Giants or Jets or Nets or Knicks or Rangers or Islanders fan and the only time I could muster speaking about them was when they were playing a Chicago team.  Sadly, I came back to a team that just made me feel sad and depressed.

I write this because the Cubs have been in the news, a bit, and because the Championship series are in full swing (go Dodgers and Tigers).  There is $500 million in planned renovations for Wrigley Field, and the story is that the team has not even bothered to secure permits to begin the construction work.  Some angry fans suggest demolishing Wrigley Field and moving the team to a "friendlier" outlying neighborhood of Chicago (or out of the city entirely).  I doubt that will happen, but $500 million?  Did I read that right?  This apparently involves installing a large jumbotron which will block views from the rooftops across the street.  Having watched one game from those rooftops I will say that it is an experience that every Cubs fan should have at least once.  I'm glad I got to have mine, but who needs a jumbotron?  Need more advertising revenue?  How come the team seemed to do just fine in the past without these accoutrements?  Some people say that the Ricketts family is to blame (not Theo) and I am tempted to agree!  That two-year-old post referenced at the top of this post bemoaned the loss of Ryne Sandberg, and I am still not over it.  I remember hearing that Tom Ricketts used to sit in the bleachers and watch games, and I thought that was great because I did the same thing.  But did they really grow up fans?  I don't think Theo grew up a Cubs fan either.  

Now I will give a bunch of people grades:

Dale Sveum: D+

Sveum was fired, and two years ago I wrote, "maybe he will be a good manager."  I don't think he was a terrible manager (hence the "+") but I don't think Ryno would have gotten fired.  I read an article in the Sun-Times that said, be happy Sveum is the manager when the Cubs suck because it would be unfair to saddle Sandberg with such a bad team.  Fair enough!  But I still think Sandberg would not have gotten fired.  And let me be clear that I don't blame Sveum for getting fired.  It was practically impossible for him to make this team contend.  But if Theo/Jed/Ricketts have a plan to make this team contend in 2014 (maybe 2015 now?) then they must have known whoever managed 2012 and 2013 would be unlikely to last.  I read they're interviewing Rick Renteria and Dave Martinez.  If they cared about winning they'd be looking at, I don't know, Bob Brenly maybe?  

Alfonso Soriano: B+

For his age, and for his endurance through nearly the end of his contract, Soriano was one of the most reliable players on the team this year.  Notably he was traded to the Yankees for their playoff push and performed admirably, showing that he still could play another year in the majors.  His numbers (.254, 17 HRs, 51 RBI) were not great, but for his age, for playing in 93 games, and compared to the rest of the team, he deserves a B+.  It is too bad he will not be with us next year.  He was my favorite player since he was signed to the team.  

Anthony Rizzo: C-

Rizzo was the first move that Theo made where I thought, "Okay, maybe that is a good way of bringing young talent to the team."  Rizzo had a decent 2012 season, but he had a very disappointing 2013 season.  I doubt people expected him to make the All-Star team, but I was under the impression that he was supposed to be an All-Star caliber player.  He was a rock at first base, playing 160 games, and he drew 76 walks which was good for #1 on the team (along with his numbers in HR and RBI).  But he batted .233.  I am tempted to give him a C, because apart from the low batting average he wasn't exactly horrible, but the minus highlights my cynicism about relying on young unproven talent.  I would still give Rizzo the job starting first base next year but I would ask him to try to improve his average above .250 or maybe even .270.

Starlin Castro: D+

Castro was a bright spot two years ago.  I think he was an All-Star in 2012 but I might be mistaken.  Regardless, no one fell so hard and so fast.  Like Rizzo, there were a couple positives.  He was a rock, playing 161 games and getting 666 (!) at bats, but he batted a meager .245.  He led the team with 163 hits, but he only drew 30 walks and had 129 strike outs.  He was not always the lead-off man, but he is fast, and he only stole 9 bases (Soriano, 14 years older than Castro and playing in nearly 70 less games, stole 10).  I feel harsh giving him a D+ (I just changed that from a C- because I think Rizzo was a better player overall) but I think he deserves it.  Still, like Rizzo, he is one of the "future building blocks" and should start at shortstop next year.  But I would caution that if he doesn't improve by the All-Star break, he should be benched/demoted/traded.  

Nate Schierholtz: B-

Schierholtz was a more respectable version of Rizzo.  He batted .251, and came in 2nd with 21 home runs, and put up 68 RBI.  His on-base-percentage was lower than Rizzo's, so I am starting to feel like I am giving Rizzo too hard of a time.  I don't know what to say about Nate.  I thought it was a fairly good move to pick him up, but I'm not sure if he is still in the Cubs "plans" for 2015

Darwin Barney: D

Oh, Darwin, I really don't want to give you a D because you seem like such a nice person, but I'm sorry, I can't give you a D+.  .208 is just not going to cut it.  Barney was a good fielder (I think he won the Gold Glove in 2012) but his numbers just came up short this year.  Like Castro, give him the starting job again, but if he doesn't turn it around by the All-Star break, start considering how much of this young team should stick around for the impending trip to the World Series in 2015.

Travis Wood: B+

I was tempted to give him an A-, but I can't give that to someone that went 9-12.  Granted, his supporting cast was terrible, but he needs to hit at least .500 to get an A-.  His other numbers were good, and justify his being the lone All-Star on the team this year.  200 IP is what everyone aims for, and he hit it on the nose.  His ERA was a very respectable 3.11.  Wood, along with the Samardzija, should remain at the top of the rotation next year, and few Cubs fans have any complaints about them.

Jeff Samardzija: B

He was more pedestrian with an 8-13 record and a 4.34 ERA, but he threw 213.2 innings and struck out 214 for best on the team.  I don't think it's out of the question for him to make the All-Star team next year but of course, he needs a stronger supporting cast.

Edwin Jackson: C

Jackson was the Cubs biggest off-season acquisition.  Everyone thought he was going to be great--exactly the type of veteran they needed in the back of their pocket for their big run a couple years down the line.  And he did about as good as he could have with a weak offense, but he was also quite a disappointment.  Jackson had his worst season since 2007 with Tampa Bay where he went 5-15.  He went 8-18 and had a 4.98 ERA.  He was reliable, at least, and threw 175.1 innings.  But this was just, not enough.  I watched him pitch a few games where he seemed to "have it" and given that he is locked into a multi-year contract, he will probably take the #3 spot in the rotation next year.  Let us hope he can improve his consistency.

Jake Arrieta: B+

Honestly I don't know who else to name amongst pitchers because I don't know who the other 2 starters were on the team.  It seems like they just kept putting new people into pitch.  But Arrieta started 14 games so I figured he could be included.  He was above .500 (!) but his ERA was 4.78.  Most impressive was his opponent's batting average at .216.  I think he deserves a full year in the rotation, if he can handle it, and who knows maybe he would even bypass Jackson?  Unfortunately I don't know who the #5 starter would be, and I think the Cubs definitely need to pick up one high quality pitcher, if not two.

Wellington Castillo: A-

Sure, he only hit .274, but that was one of the highest averages on the team.  Plus towards the end of the season (right before he got injured to end it) he really seemed to turn it on.  I remember watching him make a very athletic play at home plate to tag out a sliding runner.  Catchers should be most important for calling games and defensive prowess, and Castillo is good at each.  He is my favorite player on the team, so maybe he really deserves a B+ but I give him an A- for personal bias.  

Dioner Navarro: A-

Probably the best player on the team this year.  He hit .300.  Enough said.  He probably deserves a higher grade than Castillo, but like I said, personal bias.  Together, however, these two catchers make up an excellent platoon that does not need to be changed.  And Navarro is the "veteran" who will turn 30 in February.  So the Cubs should keep these two locked up for their run at the pennant.  

Kevin Gregg: B

Sure he blew 5 saves, but that's not so bad for a team that was truly awful.  He complained about getting pulled for a younger closer at the end of the season, but it's nice to see someone care about getting playing time on a team that really didn't matter at that point.  He re-invigorated his career, and was one of the few bright spots this year.

Junior Lake: B+

Young player, only played in 64 games, but hit over .300 for a good part of his time, and ended up at .284.  Really not too much to write about (and that's the problem with this team--I don't want to ignore anyone, but I'm going to have to--this team had too many players with too small of a data set to effectively analyze).  In short, Lake replaced David DeJesus in Center Field.  DeJesus was "solid" and Lake was arguably a better player, if much less experienced.  Hopefully he will grow into a surprise.

Donnie Murphy: B+

I liked Donnie Murphy because right around the time I moved back from New York he was in the middle of his "tear" where he hit 8 home runs in 16 games or something.  He ended up with 11 home runs in 46 games, which is still pretty good.  He hit .255, which is not astounding, but is definitely good for this team.  Also he was a 30-year-old rookie.  So he is my second-favorite player after Castillo, but I fear he may not get as much playing time next year.  Hopefully he is given a chance to start next year.

James Russell: B

A weak 1-6 record for a reliever, but a very respectable 3.59 ERA.  Like I said about Wood and Samardzija, you can't judge these pitchers on their win-loss record.  Russell pitched well enough that he should be a keeper.  And at 27 he should be in his prime.  

Ryan Sweeney: B

Played in just a few games less than Junior Lake and barely merits inclusion in this list, but he hit .266 which is good for this team, and I saw him come up with a big hit or two near the end of the season.  He would be good to keep around as a utility player.  

Kyuji Fujikawa: C

He only pitched in 12 games.  Along with Edwin Jackson, he was a "big news" pickup because he was going to replace Carlos Marmol as the closer.  He saved 2 out of 3 chances.  His ERA was 5.25.  But his data set is too small.

And that is my overall problem with this team.  While many of the players near the end of this list were "okay," it was the big-time everyday players that just did not perform this year.  I can't say bad things about Scott Baker, Brian Bogusevic, Brooks Raley, Luis Valbuena, Carlos Villanueva, or Zac Rosscup.  They were all "okay."  You can't really tell who deserves to stay.  

The fact is this rebuilding effort has yet to give anyone much to be excited about, though Ricketts noted that the Cubs minor-league system is currently ranked #2 in baseball.  That's great, but if 2014 sucks, and attendance falls yet again, maybe they should think about splurging on some big names in 2015.  For some odd reason, I think they can afford to do that.  

We All Sleep in the Same Room - Paul Rome (2013)

That said we never had a creative writing class together, and had we, I would have included him on the short list of best student writers I had read while in attendance at that institution, alongside, oh, Paul Rome, Adam White (technically from Dartmouth), Xenia Viray, and Jordana Rothman--and it bears mentioning that they all came from the same single class out of the eight or so I took.
-Review of Eeeee Eee Eeee (11/26/08)

I don't want to spend this entire review comparing Paul Rome to Tao Lin, but it's unavoidable.  I never had a writing class with Tao, but I had one with Paul.  It would have been fun if all three of us were in that same class--but that above quote suffers from slight inaccuracy: Adam White was not in that class.  I studied with him in Paris in 2003 and he just happened to write a novel while we were there that contained flashes of greatness.  The class to which I was referring was taught by Chris Spain.  I do not want to air dirty laundry but I cannot resist: Mr. Spain did not like me.  During one class, my peers gave comments on a story I had written while I joked quietly with a friend I brought in as a guest of the class (whom I also would list among the "best student writers" I knew if we had not suffered an "epic" falling out two years later).  Mr. Spain did not appreciate my gesture, as he felt it was enormously disrespectful.  He tore into me in the "notes" he handed out during the next class.  His "notes" were classic and I still have most of them saved somewhere.  They were his prescriptions for good writing, though he was always quick to mention that he was probably wrong about everything anyways.  He was very modest.  And in time, of course he was right: I needed more humility.  My ego was too big.  It was good to have too big of an ego, and maybe I would make it big after all, but more likely I would suffer a serious reality check before that happened.  Of course he was right.

Now I realize that 9 1/2 years ago, I had no clue what I was doing.  I majored in Writing and Politics at Gallatin because I liked it when people told me I wrote a good story.  There was no practicality to the matter.  In hindsight it was a colossal waste of $160,000 ($180K?) and I would be much better off today had I gone in for IT or Science or Economics or Business or almost anything else.  I was very much an epicurean.  I lived for the present and did not think of the future, unless it was a future where I was a rich and famous author that got away with being a big slacker throughout most of his adult life.  

Paul Rome acknowledges Chris Spain at the end of We All Sleep in the Same Room, along with a couple other MFA-preppers, saying, "their teachings resonate."  I would have done the same thing in my first novel, except I never wrote an acknowledgments section because nobody ever thought it was good enough to publish.  And to be fair, it is a bit of a mess, and people have told me I am a terrible writer because I do not believe (super-strongly) in the virtues of revision.   I think Paul and I differ on this count:

"After attending NYU's Gallatin School, Rome began his first novel.  Surviving countless edits and multiple formative relationships, We All Sleep in the Same Room is due for release by Rare Bird Books on October 15, 2013." 

That is from the "about the author" section of the press materials I received.  By my count, that is an 8 year gestation period.  And I guess this is where I start with my review: We All Sleep in the Same Room is engaging, humorous, insightful, and memorable.  And it's all over much too soon.

At 179 pages with fairly large type, it reads more like a novella than a novel.  And I have no problem with that!  I subconsciously listed Paul first in that line at the top of this post because the stories he wrote in class seemed effortless.  He has apparently made something of a name for himself in Bushwick with the readings of recent short stories he has written.  I've enjoyed them all!  In particular I remember a funny story about a "bromance" involving bird watching in Prospect Park.  And while this novel has a lovely arc, and builds and builds to a powerful climax, I must admit that I was let down by the ending.

I will do my best to avoid "spoilers" because it is a rare moment on Flying Houses indeed where we review a book two weeks before its release date.  

The main character is Tom Claughlin, a labor lawyer living in Manhattan, near Union Square.  He is married to Raina, and has a 3-year-old son named Ben.  As the novel opens, Tom is watching Ben being carried around by their new babysitter, Frank.  And here it is perhaps worth noting that I am glad Paul includes a male babysitter in the story.  Babysitting is not an equal opportunity profession, and there is little good reason for its rampant sexism.  

I wasn't sure what kind of novel this was going to be when I started it.  It struck me as almost some sort of mystery or detective thing, along the same lines as Paul Auster's New York Trilogy. But in fact it lands squarely in the "literary fiction" category.  

I don't want to give away the plot (it pretty much comes down to a few bad decisions) but the novel splits time between Tom's work life and his home life.  It is written in the first person, and spare.  It flows beautifully.  It reads like a charm.  It's endearing.  It's a pleasure to behold.

But I am sorry.  I cannot get over the ending.  This book has enormous potential and then the ending comes.  Some people may like the ending a lot.  I don't.  I can't help but compare it to "Breaking Bad," since that is the most topical "ending" as of this date.  I liked that ending because it wasn't a WTF ending.  WTF endings sometimes work best, and I have even tried a couple times to use them.  And maybe I'm just getting older, but I like to feel some closure at the end of a book.  Complete and total closure may be too much because a book is sort of different from a movie or TV show--it plays in your mind and seems to exist in a peculiar environment created by both your imagination and the author's.  As such the characters can seem even more real and ending their story can seem like their death and make you sad.

That Paul is able to accomplish this in his first novel is remarkable.  The novel seems plucked out of real life.  I couldn't help but thinking about my cousin and his wife, who are pushing forty and have a four-year-old and a two-year-old and all share a small apartment in Brooklyn Heights.  This vision of "small family life" in NYC is delightful--but it has a certain dark side that I won't get into.  

Usually I like to excerpt the especially beautiful passages, but there's not much I can include.  There's really not.  Like I said, the entire novel is a pleasure to read, and there is such a logical progression from sentence to sentence that nothing ever feels awkward or forced.  I can, however, point out one thing I am almost 100% positive is a mistake:

"'And you're happy for me?'
'Yes.'
"I'm taking the bar soon, in January.'
'Wow.  So soon.'" (119)

Tom should be responding, "Really?  I thought you could only take it in February!"  I don't mean to be snarky but I mention this primarily because today I found out that I passed the Illinois Bar Exam.  So this is my own little memento on Flying Houses to remember a special milestone day.  But yes, the bar exam is administered in February and July--and from what I understand the last two days in each (except in California where it is 3 days).  Thus even though this novel takes place in 2005 (Hurricane Katrina is mentioned twice, along with a transit worker's strike) and perhaps it might be theoretically possible for there to be an earlier test date, I highly doubt that.

But to make up for that admittedly minor blunder, there is an excellent account of labor law litigation that I know several of my labor-obsessed classmates would read with interest.  It is a relatively small case, but the way it evokes passion in Tom is one of the highlights of the novel.  I was going to excerpt a passage from the climactic scene, but I will not spoil it.  All I can say is that Paul shies away from the typical portrait of litigation in mass media and goes for something much more realistic.  Perhaps it seems a bit like, "that's it?" but in that case it is true to life.  

In the case of the ending, however, the "that's it?" feeling is much more pernicious (for me, at least).  Because I feel like this novel is close to perfect.  I love the scene in McCarren Park, I love the scene at The Polar Express, I love the scenes at Tom's law firm, and I love the scene at the Christmas Party.  And then, something happens.  We don't exactly know what.  The reader can guess.  But it's not clear that's what really happened.  

Thus, We All Sleep in the Same Room suffers only from its WTF ending.  As I've said, I could be completely wrong about this.  I know the MFA contingent is a fan of WTF endings, but I don't know where Paul fits in with the MFA contingent.  He has not gotten his MFA and the question is, is he going to?  

When I reviewed Eeeee Eee Eeee, I interviewed Tao Lin.  I kind of wanted to interview Paul, too.  But I don't have many questions for him.  I would just ask him if he was going to get his MFA.  I'd imagine not.  Most people seem to do that to get their first book published.  Paul did it on his own.  And he did a good job of it.  Why get the MFA?  Because you can always improve your writing?  Maybe, but I know that 9 1/2 years ago Paul was a natural and nothing has changed.  I would not be surprised if Paul follows this up with a collection of short stories, since I would expect him to have a pretty good portfolio by now.  

But the big, big, big question: who is better--Paul or Tao?  Tao is an acquired taste.  Truthfully, Tao is more of an original, just because of the bonkers marketing machine that is his internet presence.  Paul is more of a "one size fits all" writer.  I don't want to say one writer is better than the other, but I will say that We All Sleep in the Same Room is better than Eeeee Eee Eeeee and Richard Yates and about as good as Shoplifting from American Apparel.  I have not read Taipei, though to be fair Tao did try to send it to me, but it is published by Vintage (i.e. "big-time") and Vintage does not care about Flying Houses (though Random House may...).  I have read that Taipei is Tao's best book yet, and that perhaps should be compared to this.  But it will need to wait.

Regardless of who is better, let Paul Rome become as famous as Tao Lin.  Let all of the NYU alumni of the Class of 2005 go on to fantastic, wonderful lives and careers where they create beautiful art.  I will look forward to reading all of Paul's work and I hope he goes on to construct a powerful oeuvre.  It is at least fun for me to pretend I was friends with people before they got famous. 

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.