A Will Rogers Treasury

Source of book: I own this

 

I have appreciated Will Rogers since I was a kid. He had a knack for a pithy quote, an astute observation, and a humorous way of looking at life. 

 

For those who don’t know about him, Rogers was at his peak during the 1920s and 30s, as a humorist, both in person and in his newspaper columns. He also acted in movies and had a lasso act at the Ziegfeld Follies. He was urged to run for office - and likely would have won easily - but he declined, preferring to comment from the outside. 

 

Rogers was Cherokee on both sides of the family - his mother’s ancestors traveled the trail of tears, and his father was active in tribal affairs as a judge and attorney. He considered his Cherokee heritage to be an important part of his identity, and referred to it often. 

 

This book is drawn from the over 4000 newspaper articles Rogers wrote - he was quite prolific - edited by husband and wife team Bryan Sterling and Frances Sterling. Bryan in particular was considered a noted authority on Rogers with several books to his name. Frances was likely every bit as involved, but, like women often are, she wasn’t as recognized. 

 

The Sterlings wrote part of this book, which is organized by year, from 1922 until Rogers’ death in 1935. The opening of each year is a summary of the events of that year, starting with the United States, moving to world affairs, and finally to the events of Will Rogers’ life - his movies, his tours, and so on. This is clearly written by the Sterlings, because events are placed in context, which often requires mentioning the future - including events after Rogers’ death. This book was published in 1982, so the sensibilities of the co-authors tend to be of that time. 

 

These sections are quite interesting, and fit well with the articles by Rogers. Often, Rogers is commenting on the events of the day, and the context helps illuminate what Rogers is saying. I particularly liked the way Prohibition was woven into the narrative, and appreciated the mention of the St. Francis Dam failure - I have a formative childhood experience connected to that - I’ll have to tell that story sometime. Finally, I had no idea that Amos and Andy lasted until 1965. Yeesh. 

 

Speaking of dates, did you know that “The Star Spangled Banner” didn’t actually become our anthem until 1931? 

 

There is also a mention of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists, and fictionalized in two very different but excellent books. 

 

Another interesting bit is that when Mussolini came to power, he outlawed abortion. And said the quiet part out loud, the core motivation behind abortion bans: abortions are “against the integrity and the health of the race.” Got to keep having those white babies. 

 

As with anything that is firmly rooted in a time and place, some of the columns feel really dated - subsequent events will, for example, show whether a political policy was helpful or harmful - and jokes aren’t always as funny as they were at the time. (A few, even with historical context, feel puzzling.) 

 

There is one particularly disappointing moment where Rogers calls The Birth of a Nation to be the best old film ever made. I didn’t expect this. Rogers was all too aware of anti-Native American prejudice and stereotyping, and was no fan of Hitler, so why did he admire a movie that glorified the Klan and utilized blackface and vicious stereotypes to mock African Americans? I don’t get it. 

 

With that out of the way, I’ll hit some highlights. 

 

First up is his takedown of Lord Stanley Baldwin, the Prime Minister of Great Britain at the time, I believe. For reasons I don’t know, he refers to him as “Sir Percy Baldwin” - perhaps as a joke? Anyway, here is a bit of it. 

 

This bird, Sir Percy Baldwin, that’s visiting over here, made some slighting remark about our Senate and House of Representatives. Now I resent that. The President and I can get vexed at Congress sometimes, but we are all the same family. We resent any foreigner coming in here and knocking our representatives. He said that all they know, is to raise hogs and wheat. He is wrong. They don’t even know how to raise hogs and wheat. 

 

For Rogers, he had the right to laugh at politicians, particularly those from his own party. But those Brits, man. As Rogers understood, the best humor is self-deprecating. Here is another bit, from “How I Became an Actor.”

 

My little old act with the lasso was just put into the Ziegfeld Follies to kill time, while the girls were changing from nothing to nothing. A male actor’s monolog in a girl show is just like an intermission. So I tried to make my act attractive by telling a few jokes, and the audiences laugh, and so Mr. Ziegfeld calls me a star. 

 

Particularly early in his career, Rogers made money off of advertising, which led to some interesting shills. Rogers didn’t smoke, but he wrote spots for cigarette ads. He quipped that just like when he advertises pianos, all he claims is that the one he advertises is the best. 

 

For the most part, I will be featuring the stuff by Rogers, but I do have to mention this snarky bit from the summary of 1925. 

 

At the Locarno conference Germany agrees to a demilitarized Rhineland and “guarantees” Belgo-German and Franco-German borders. Despite this written “guarantee,” France begins construction of the Maginot line, a deeply dug fortification along the entire French-German frontier. Events will prove that the German guarantee and the French Maginot line are equally unreliable. 

 

Rogers would comment on German politics with this gem:

 

After all, elections are a good deal like marriages, there is no accounting for any one’s taste. 

 

One of the interesting things about reading a book like this is seeing how attitudes have shifted over time. Back in the 20s, gun control was actually on the table, and writers like Rogers - admired by those on all sides of the political aisle (and generally centrist for his time) - could question the “guns for everyone” orthodoxy that has now taken over the Right Wing. Here are a few bits from his column on automatic pistols. 

 

The biggest question that is agitating the public is the following: Are all escaped lunatics to be furnished with guns and ammunition?

…

Do you know what has been the cause of the big increase in murders? It’s been the manufacture of the automatic pistol. It’s all right to have invented it, but it should never have been allowed outside the Army, and then only in war times. The automatic pistol is as much more dangerous and destructive than the old six-shooter, as poison gas is over perfume. In the first place there is no skill or nerve required in using it. You just touch the trigger and aim the thing around like you would a sprinkling can, or a hose. It is shooting all the time, and the more unsteady the nerve of the holder, why, the better the shooting he can do, because he takes in a bigger radius. 

 

And he actually proposes this:

 

You let the government confiscate and forbid the entire sale of automatics, even to police officers, and everybody, because officers kill ten innocent people to one guilty one with those sprinkling cans, and prohibit guns of even the older variety to any but officers, and then, when you catch a guy with a gun, send him to jail, not just fine him. 

 

And this:

 

But I see where a lot of men are advocating letting everybody carry guns, with the idea that they will be able to protect themselves. In other words, just make a Civil War out of this crime wave. 

 

Will was right. He also discusses how an “everybody armed” situation would go down, with everyone whipping out a gun, sure the other is about to murder them. He also notes that civilians having guns has made things far more dangerous for the police as well, which is indeed the case. 

 

I also loved his column, “Slogans, Slogans Everywhere,” which has held up well. 

 

Everything nowadays is a slogan. 

…

Even political campaigns are run, and won, on slogans. 

…

The William Jennings Bryan run on a slogan: “16 to 1.” He was defeated, of course, because he didn’t explain what the 16 meant. It meant 16 defeats to 1 victory.

 

That’s a great joke, even if you have to know about the old silver and gold standards and exchange rate. 

 

I also liked this line, from a column on the Monte Carlo casinos. 

 

Monte Carlo has the right idea: fix a game where you are going to get people’s money, but the people don’t mind you getting it. A fellow can always get over losing money in a game of chance, but he seems so constituted that he can never get over money thrown away to a government in taxes. 

 

Rogers wrote a number of articles on Russia and the Soviet Union, and I was surprised at how well they have aged. He was quite perceptive on a number of points, perhaps even foreseeing Stalin’s eventual purges. Here is an interesting line, when Rogers spoke to a representative of Trotsky, who informed him that Russians didn’t go in for fun, because there were serious issues at hand. 

 

I wanted to tell them that what they needed in their government was more a sense of humor, and less of a sense of revenge.

 

Honestly, this is a good idea for any government. One of the reasons our current Right Wing is so toxic is because it is based on a sense of grievance - and a sense of revenge. What humor there is consists of punching down by mocking the vulnerable. A good dose of Rogers’ self-deprecation would be welcome. 

 

Several years later, he wrote a hilarious riff on caviar and vodka, which includes this line. 

 

Now then you add all these things and it’s got to ferment. Well, it don’t take long for anything to ferment in Russia. They are a nation that can start stewing before you know it. 

 

Rogers was also astute about domestic politics. This next bit is something I wish more people understood in our day. While a president can certainly fuck things up (as Trump did for nearly everything he touched), most things are out of the president’s control. He (or, I hope someday, she) gets credit or blame for things they can’t control, from gas prices to inflation to the decisions made by their predecessor. 

 

Being great as a president is not a matter of knowledge, or farsightedness. It’s just a question of the weather - not only in your own country, but in a dozen others. It’s the elements that maye you great, or break you. If the Lord wants to curse about a dozen other nations that produce the same thing we do, why, then you are in for re-nomination. We we are picked out as the goat that year, and are reprimanded, why, you might be Solomon himself occupying the White House, and on inauguration you would be asked to “call in a public conveyance and remove any personal belongings you might have accumulated.” So it’s sorter like the World Series - you got to have the breaks. 

 

Rogers’ riff on Andrew Jackson Day is fascinating. He has no reason to like Jackson, who was Mr. Indian Removal Act himself, and a vicious bigot. (I wrote about how horrid he was some years ago.) Rogers writes with his usual gentle humor, but he has some pointed things to say as well. 

 

They sent the Indians to Oklahoma. They had a treaty that said: “You shall have this land as long as grass grows and water flows.” It was not only a good rhyme, but looked like a good treaty; and it was, till they struck oil. Then the government took it away from us again. They said the treaty only refers to “water and grass; it don’t say anything about oil!”

 

His reports from the Republican and Democratic conventions are pretty hilarious. And a bit nostalgic, for the days when we had two more-or-less functional parties, rather than one that has gone anti-democracy and full-on fascist. Here is one observation that made me think: Rogers saw the parties of his time as having quite a bit in common, on a variety of issues. So why were there two? 

 

So the whole thing, it looks like, goes back to the Civil War. The boys are still fighting it, and don’t know it.

 

These days, it is actually fully clear that we are still fighting the Civil War, and the party of Lincoln has switched and is now the Confederate party. 

 

Another truly hilarious column is the one on the marriage of the Prince of Wales. 

 

A thoroughbred race horse breeding establishment is more in line with royal marriages than anything I know of, only they are more careful to never inbreed; but as far as love is concerned, that’s a lot of hooey. They think it brings nations closer to each other, to have royal families married to each other. Well, it didn’t do much for Germany and England, but anyhow, let’s get the Prince of Wales married off and let the girls all over the world get their minds on somebody else. 

 

Hey, I recently read a book about that! 

 

The riff on stock market speculation is also good, written after the crash. 

 

There is one rule that works in every calamity, be it pestilence, war, or famine. The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. The poor even help arrange it. But it’s just as I have been constantly telling you, “Don’t gamble! Take all your savings and buy some good stocks, and hold it till it goes up. Then sell it.”

“If it don’t go up, don’t buy it.”

 

There are so many more memorable ones, but I’ll end here with a mention of “The Secret of Education,” a reminder that not only have humans always complained about the state of education, they have always complained about “new” education. It was always better when we were kids than it is now, kids can’t or don’t read like they used to, the young folk are stupid, and so on. At least Rogers is self aware and self deprecating enough to make as much fun of himself as he does the educational system.

 

A final thought: throughout this book, I was struck by the way that Rogers was simultaneously a progressive - he was a Democrat, supported FDR and the new deal, and was on the right side of the war against Fascism. But he also was conservative by temperament, naturally leaning toward the status quo, the way things were done in the past, and against change. To a degree, I think that is how I have become in the last decade. I have always been conservative by temperament, and I love old music, old books, old art, and don’t particularly love change. But I also have come to understand that things do need to change, and change in a progressive direction. Which, by the standards of our modern American political division, makes me a flaming pinko, apparently. 

 

Will Rogers was part of a long American tradition of humor and satire, along with Mark Twain, Bret Harte, and James Thurber. His writing is recognizably American for that reason. As with most people, he was a mixture of noble aspirations and some wince-worthy missteps. This book is worth reading both for its humor, and as a cultural snapshot of its era. 

 

Ninety Percent of Everything by Rose George

Source of book: Borrowed from the library.

 

Not long before I started this blog, I read The Big Necessity by Rose George, and it very much changed my perspective on what is arguably the greatest development in modern civilization - sanitation. As George pointed out, the “clean water” problem isn’t really a water problem - it’s a shit problem. As in, how do we keep the shit out of the drinking water. I highly recommend that book, along with The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, which is about cholera and how a contaminated well caused dozens of deaths - and eventually led to the great project of the sewers of London. 

 

It turns out that Rose George later wrote a book on container ships, which, as the title suggests, move about ninety percent of everything around the globe. As with the prior book, she doesn’t just research, she lives her topic. 

 

In Ninety Percent of Everything, George travels as a “supernumerary” (aka, a passenger) on a Maersk container ship, the Kendal, from Britain to Singapore. She also spends some time on a few other craft - a French anti-piracy ship, a whale research ship - and ashore. But the bulk of the book is about her voyage and the topics connected with that. 

 

She reveals plenty of human details - the isolation and loneliness of crews who rarely are on land for more than a day at a time, the terrible pay and conditions, the use of flags of convenience to skirt labor laws, the fate of hostages taken by pirates, the work of chaplains and others who minister to crews, the shockingly high risk of death and injury in the profession, the international nature of the work. It is a good balance of factual information and the human face. 

 

Like so many of the workers who form the backbone of our entire society and economy, sailors remain largely invisible and outside the public consciousness. (Think as well about farm workers and others in our food chain, factory and sweatshop workers in the third world, to name two others.) 

 

Currently, Filipinos form the core of most crews, although sailors as they always have, come from all over the world. Since my dad grew up in the Philippines, and I was part of a Filipino-American church in my teens, I am fascinated by that country and its culture. (Also, there are a lot of Filipinos in California, particularly in healthcare where my wife works. Our town got a Jollibee a few years ago, and if you know you know…) 

 

There is a particularly great line regarding the country’s colonial experience that George heard from the crew of the Kendal. 

 

Still, the crew is as friendly as dinner last night was frosty. They have a ready humor that you’d expect from nationals of the Philippines, where the country’s two long occupations by Spain and the United States are often described as “four years in the convent and fifty in Hollywood.” 

 

Later, she describes hearing the singing of a Journey song in a Tagalog accent. As fans of the band will know, the frontman since 2007 has been Filipino Arnel Pineda - and yes, my experience has been that Journey is always one of the most popular karaoke selections at any Filipino gathering. (Related: there are some worship songs that I will always and forever hear in a Tagalog accent in my head. Good times.) 

 

There is another amusing anecdote about a cruise ship that was sinking, and the captain pretty much bailed. (Captains like that get a bad reputation.) The mayday call was actually made by an entertainer, not crew. 

 

When Moss Hills, having managed to call the coast guard from the bridge, was asked to identify his position, he replied, “I’m not a rank. I’m a guitarist.” 

 

Win one for the musicians. 

 

I also found the history of flags of convenience to be fascinating. For those who are not familiar with the term, a ship is considered to be essentially a floating piece of its homeland - the laws of that country apply when in the open ocean. Very few ships these days are actually registered in the country in which the owners live and work, or the country who built the ship, or any of its destination. Rather, the ship is registered wherever the owners feel will bring the most favorable laws - usually a lack of taxes, minimum wages, and unionization. (Yeah, yuck.) 

 

But the history is interesting too - most American-owned ships were registered in the US until a certain law was enacted: Prohibition. In order to get around those rules - and perhaps serve a little wine to passengers traveling to and from Europe - liners were re-registered in Panama, which had no such laws forbidding alcohol. 

 

After World War Two, the surplus ships from the war were largely bought up by Greek and Italian firms, who made the switch to flags of convenience the new way of doing business. 

 

As a cat lover, I appreciated the idea that cats have often been part of the crew. But also, the way that a certain Suez pilot was described as a “uniformed bridge cat, moving around in search of sun.” 

 

As a final bit, I want to mention that the merchant navy has never gotten the respect it deserves. The Battle of Britain was won, not primarily by the military, but by the supply chain. I’ll let George take it from there.

 

The Titanic attracts an audience for its combination of glamour and tragedy. But so should the stories of the merchant seamen who fought in World War II, although they were classed neither as veterans nor fighters, despite losing more men, proportionally, than any branch of the armed services, and despite enduring extreme danger and the constant chance of being torpedoed, of facing a death from drowning or burning by flaming oil, or countless days in an open lifeboat. 

This is a fascinating book, and George’s writing is engaging. Definitely read The Big Necessity while you are at it. 

 

Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

Another long trip, another Terry Pratchett audiobook. 

 

The title of this book - Monstrous Regiment - comes from a poisonous pamphlet written by the misogynistic dickwad and anti-Catholic bigot John Knox. More about him at the end. Entitled The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women, it - among other arguments for why women shouldn’t be allowed to be monarchs - claimed that women were only created in the image of God compared to animals, and were not equal to men in that regard. 

 

Terry Pratchett, of course, couldn’t resist taking the terms “Monstrous Regiment” in their modern meaning (rather than in the sense of “unnatural reign” originally intended), and making a novel about it. 

 

So yes, this is a book about women in the military. But it is also about gender roles and stereotypes more broadly - and about that pesky question of why, given their competence and abilities, women are not accepted as leaders the way men are. 

 

In addition, this book is queer as fuck. It contains Pratchett’s only openly gay relationship, arguably contains multiple transgender characters, and even within cishet norms, bends the concept of gender to the breaking point. And, since this is Pratchett, he also makes it wickedly funny. 

 

One can only wonder where Discworld would have gone had Pratchett not died prematurely - it was clear he was unafraid to take on heteronormativity and the gender binary. 

 

The setting for this book isn’t Ankh-Morpork, but the small theocratic nation of Borogravia. Think a combination of a Middle-Eastern Islamic state and the Balkans. Borogravia worships Nuggan, who appears to be mostly concerned about establishing an increasingly long list of “abominations” - the list of banned things. 

 

In addition to the usual suspects, this list becomes increasingly bizarre and impossible as time goes on. Eventually, the chief exports become abominations, and crop rotation is forbidden, plunging the country into poverty and famine. 

 

So, naturally, they invade a neighboring country! 

 

This is of little interest to Ankh-Morpork until Nuggan declares the Clacks towers to be an abomination - anything modern, of course, as Fundamentalists do. When the towers are burned down, Ankh-Morpork suddenly has skin in this regional war, and is faced with the question of how to solve it, preferably without committing troops. (If this sounds familiar, well…) 

 

Caught up in the middle of this is young Polly Perks. Her father owns a local inn and pub, but Polly pretty much runs it. Unfortunately for her, women owning property is an abomination (naturally!), so she is counting on her brother Paul to inherit, then let her run the thing. 

 

The problem is, Paul has joined the army and disappeared. With Polly’s future in the balance, and her beloved (if naive) brother missing, she decides to cut her hair, impersonate a boy, and join the army to go look for him. 

 

Since the war is going badly, recruits are in short supply, and the recruiters are willing to bend the rules a little, which is how the newly formed regiment Polly joins ends up with a troll, a vampire, and an Igor. There is also, shall we say, something rather secret about all of them. 

 

In command of this regiment is the book-smart but combat-incompetent Lieutenant Blouse, who is well meaning but….well it’s a good thing the real commander of the group is Sergeant Jackrum, a wiley veteran who saved a general’s life back in the day. 

 

Things get off to an interesting start when they run across an elite group of the enemy, capture them, and send them back where they came from naked and bound. Oh, and Polly also kicks their leader in the balls. 

 

It turns out that said leader was actually Prince Heinrich, who is furious both at his humiliation and the fact that the incident made the news - William de Worde, last seen in The Truth, knows a great story when he hears one, and sees his chance to make Ankh-Morpork care about the war. 

 

Vimes too sees an opportunity: if he can manipulate the war enough so that Borogravia has a chance, he can get both sides to accept a peace that allows their shattered countries a chance to rebuild. 

 

As the squad is forced into combat before they are trained, they start to learn about each other. It is no spoiler to say that they all turn out to be women. There are a variety of reasons they joined up. Polly wants to find her brother. Shufti is knocked up by a soldier who abandoned her. Lofty and Tonker escaped from an abusive school, and are lovers. 

 

Wazzer also escaped an abusive place, but has taken refuge in her religion - not so much Nuggan, but the Dutchess (the ruler of Borogravia, who is almost certainly dead, but nobody admits that) who is used as the figurehead for the religion. Wazzer’s devotion will be a key plot point - in Discworld, remember, belief creates the god, not the other way around. 

 

Igor(ina) is looking for a chance to be her own boss - preferably serving a female clientele. Carborundum (aka Jade) is bored with the female troll roles. And as far as Maladict(a) - she wants an adventure. 

 

Key to the story is the question of “passing.” The women, of course, have to “pass” as men. What does this involve? Well, a lot of changes to behavior and language, to fit the gender stereotype. And socks. Because socks give you power and even entitlement. 

 

But there is also passing in the other direction. In order to gain access to the castle, the characters dress as washerwomen - a nice spoof on The Wind in the Willows if you know the details. Blouse - a thespian in school - is not as good at this as he thinks. But….the women in the castle aren’t going to rat him out because he is excellent and enthusiastic about ironing. (I recognize a bit of myself there…) 

 

There is also a lot in this book about gender roles, gender stereotypes, and ultimately a strong argument that people should be allowed to be who they are - regardless of gender, gender identity, or sexuality. 

 

There are so many great quotes in this book. Because I was driving most of the time (with a few spells taken by my 18 year old), I had no way to write them down. Fortunately, Discworld has many devoted followers who put lines online. Here are the ones I liked the most. 

 

“The presence of those seeking the truth is infinitely to be preferred to the presence of those who think they've found it.”

 

Having grown up in the Fundamentalist subculture, I entirely agree with this. True Christ-followers don’t believe they know everything - but fake-ass hypocrites always do. 

 

I loved the many lines about the stupidity of a certain kind of patriotism and the senselessness of most wars. 

 

“The enemy wasn't men, or women, or the old, or even the dead. It was just bleedin' stupid people, who came in all varieties. And no one had the right to be stupid.”  

 

“You take a bunch of people who don't seem any different from you and me, but when you add them all together you get this sort of huge raving maniac with national borders and an anthem.” 

 

“[The pamphlet] was very patriotic. That is, it talked about killing foreigners.”

 

“Stopping a battle is much harder than starting it. Starting it only requires you to shout ‘Attack!’ but when you want to stop it, everyone is busy.” 

 

“It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!”

 

“Bein’ a soldier is not hard! If it was, soldiers would not be able to do it! There is only three things you need to remember, which are, viz: one obey orders two give it to the enemy good and hard three don’t die.” 

 

“There was always a war. Usually they were border disputes, the national equivalent of complaining that the neighbor was letting their hedge grow too long. Sometimes they were bigger. Borogravia was a peace-loving country in the midst of treacherous, devious, warlike enemies. They had to be treacherous, devious, and warlike, otherwise we wouldn't be fighting them, eh? There was always a war.” 

 

And this line, which is pretty universally applicable:

 

“The four lesser apocalyptical horsemen of Panic, Bewilderment, Ignorance, and Shouting took control of the room.”

 

Regarding the issue of socks:

 

“And a woman by herself is missing a man, while a man by himself is his own master.

Trousers. That's the secret. Trousers and a pair of socks. I never dreamed it was like this. Put on trousers and the world changes. We walk different. We act different. I see these girls and I think: Idiot's Get yourself some trousers!” 

 

An all too accurate assessment of folk songs:

 

“Then it is about sex,” said Polly flatly. “It’s a folk song, it starts with ‘’twas,’ it takes place in May, QED, it’s about sex. Is a milkmaid involved? I bet she is.”

 

It wouldn’t be a Pratchett book without at least one terrible pun. 

 

“Er…what's that glass for, sir?'

‘It’s a monocle,’ said the captain. ‘It helps me see you, for which I am eternally grateful. I always say that if I had two I’d make a spectacle of myself.” 

There is also an ongoing pun because the obnoxious corporal keeps calling Polly "Parts" rather than "Perks" - and she is a private so... which is also very on brand for the theme of the book - how much do parts actually matter?

Lest you think Pratchett falls for the obvious fallacy that women are moral angels (that’s Victorian condescension repackaged as “feminism.”)

 

“Besides, she thought as she watched Wazzer drink, you only thought the world would be better if it was run by women if you didn’t actually know many women. Or old women, at least. Take the whole thing about the dimity scarves. Women had to cover their hair on Fridays, but there was nothing about this in the Book, which was pretty dar—pretty damn rigorous about most things. It was just a custom. It was done because it had always been done. And if you forgot, or didn’t want to, the old women got you. They had eyes like hawks. They could practically see through walls. And the men took notice, because no man wanted to cross the crones in case they started watching him, so half-hearted punishment would be dealt out. Whenever there was an execution, and especially when there was a whipping, you always found the grannies in the front row, sucking on peppermints.” 

 

That said, women deserve equality not because they are better than men, but because they are human to the same degree men are. We don’t let women lead because they do it better, but because they deserve the same chance men do. 

 

This observation is also excellent:

 

“It was women’s work, and therefore monotonous, backbreaking, and social.” 

 

And this one:

 

“He might be worth listening to.  Even if you think he’ll only tell us lies.  Because sometimes, sir, the way people tell you lies, if they tell you enough lies, well, they sort of…show you what shape the truth is, sir.”

 

I am sure there are several I wanted to quote - particularly an extended passage arguing against gender pigeonholing. Gender itself is mostly a set of culturally informed performances - different in time and place too. I have written before that the panic about LGBTQ people comes down to misogyny - the need to know if someone is female so they can be treated with disrespect. Pratchett gets this, and uses his skills at humor and satire to reveal how silly it all would be if only it didn’t have serious negative effects on our society and on all of us. 

 

But really, read the entire book. Pratchett is entertaining and hilarious and all - but he is also a sharp social satirist, and a wise and compassionate writer. 

 

***

 

About John Knox:

 

So, John Knox. How retrogressive do you have to be to make John Calvin - John fucking CALVIN look progressive? 

 

As a child, learning from the A Beka curriculum, Knox was rather revered. Which is natural for a few reasons. First, he did lead the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, and certain elements of the Reformation were very positive. I will grant him that, just like I believe that Luther and Calvin brought some long-overdue reforms to both religion and government. 

 

Unlike a lot of popular preachers, Knox never got rich off his audience or off of royal favors. In his way, he did in fact live out his beliefs, and I can respect that about him.

 

Likewise, Knox was correct in pushing back against absolute monarchy - he believed that if a monarch was unjust, their subjects were in the right in deciding to rebel. Very American there too, one might say, which is another reason the A Beka writers loved him. 

 

But on the issue of women, hoo boy. The tract I referenced above was made in response to John Calvin’s own writing that because women led in the Bible, there was no issue per se with them ruling now. That the queens in question at the moment were Catholic was far more of a problem from Calvin’s point of view. 

 

Knox argued that whatever might have happened in the Bible, God was certainly NOT putting women in leadership now. That role was completely forbidden to them - in society, the church, and the home. 

 

Had he stopped there, I think I might have just written him off as another male theologian of that era (and often ours) who conveniently ignored just how competent these females were, and how capable of leadership. It’s kind of a “who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes” scenario, right? 

 

But he went even further and fully dehumanized women. He compared them to the blind, the sick, the impotent, the foolish, the insane, and so on. We wouldn’t let those people lead, so why should we let a woman, who is all those things do so? Yeesh. 

 

And, as I noted above, he flat out said that women were only to be considered “created in the image of God” in comparison with animals. In comparing men to women, only man was truly in the image of God. 

 

Or, as has been noted, if God is a man, then men are gods. 

 

That’s disgusting, false, unbiblical, and nasty. Just saying. 

 

I should also mention that his conclusion was that, like the prophets of Baal, Queen Mary should be removed from office, and perhaps executed for being out of her place. Unsurprisingly, Mary didn’t take this well, and Knox was expelled from the country. 

 

So pardon me if I refuse to revere Knox. 

 

***

 

The Terry Pratchett list:

 

Rincewind:

 

The Colour of Magic

The Light Fantastic

Sourcery

Faust Eric

Unseen Academicals

 

Tiffany Aching:

 

The Wee Free Men

A Hat Full of Sky

Wintersmith

I Shall Wear Midnight

 

Witches:

 

Equal Rites

Wyrd Sisters

 

Watch:

 

Guards! Guards! (Stupid abridged edition, which is an abomination unto Nuggan and everyone else.)

 

Industrial Revolution:

 

The Truth

Raising Steam

 

Other Discworld:

 

Small Gods

 

Non-Discworld:

 

The Carpet People

Dodger

Dragons at Crumbling Castle

Good Omens (with Neil Gaiman)

Nation

 

The Black Cauldron by Lloyd Alexander

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

Way back in 2017, during our trip to see the eclipse, we listened to the first book in this series, The Book of Three. After that, we never did get to the others, because the second book was completely unavailable in our local library system - like other books that became Disney adaptations, it was stolen and not replaced. 

 

More recently, however, I got a library card for the Los Angeles County system, as well as a new truck which was able to play nicely with the Libby app. Because the younger kids didn’t remember the first book (and the older kids are off at college and no longer traveling with us regularly), I decided to go back and listen to the first one again, followed directly by the second. 

 

You can read my thoughts on the first book here.

Having met the main characters in the previous book, it was nice to have them back. Taran, of course, as the hero of the story, but also Eilonwy the sarcastic and badass princess, Fflam the goofy king turned bard, Doli the grumpy dwarf, and the half-human Gurgi. There are also appearances by Gwydion and Dallben, mentors to Taran. 

 

Another character becomes important in this story, as a sort of antagonist and counterpart to Taran: Prince Ellidyr, a youngest son trying to prove his worth, and making an obnoxious ass of himself in the process. 

 

The macguffin this time is the titular Black Cauldron, a magical pot that can be used to create undead warriors - the “Cauldron Born.” Possessed by the arch-villain Arawn (who is essentially the lord of the underworld), the cauldron is wreaking havoc on the kingdom of Prydain. So, Gwydion and the other chieftains decide to attempt a theft of the pot. Taran, Doli, Fflam and Ellidyr go with them, joined on the sly by Eilonwy and Gurgi. 

 

So far, so good, but things go awry when it turns out that the cauldron has gone missing - and Arawn is furious. From there, there is a narrow escape using the assistance of the Fair Folk, tracking through a swamp, a bargain with primordial witches, a betrayal, and a noble sacrifice. 

 

I won’t give away the plot beyond that. 

 

To a degree, I felt that this book assumed you knew the characters, and thus didn’t spend as much time on the characterization. Instead, the book as a more detailed plot, and more about the maturation process for Taran. It is, after all, his story. We still do not know his parentage, but it is becoming clear that he is growing into the role of a leader. He still has a long way to go, but he is definitely not the naive assistant pig-keeper he was in the first book. 

 

I thought that Alexander did a good job, given the constraints of shorter works of fiction for children, at exploring the moral complexities at play. Is it ever okay to seek power? Or is an object of power in itself corrupting to one’s morality? How are flawed people influenced by their circumstances - such as the case of Ellidyr? When is it appropriate to stand up for one’s self, and when is it necessary to accept an insult for the greater good? 

 

The plot itself requires the question of the “scapegoat” - the innocent person who takes on the sin of a community. How innocent is enough? How flawed can you be before you cannot take on that role? Never answered is exactly why we see a need for scapegoats in the first place. 

 

And, perhaps the most crucial to Taran himself, can he give up a source of magical insight that has brought him respect, and rely instead on his own judgment? Does he have the self-confidence to do that? 

 

Again, understanding that this is a book for children, not a psychological novel for adults with the patience to read long books, Alexander brings a lot of nuance. He isn’t Henry James, and the books aren’t as long or quite as good as, say, Terry Pratchett, but these are well written and thoughtful books. 

 

I think this one in particular was an excellent look at what true leadership looks like - taking care of those in one’s squad, not ordering people around. 

 

With the LA County Library system available now, I believe I can get all five books on audiobook, so we may be returning to them a lot sooner than last time.