Lake Forest: tides; books read January-June; MODERN TIMES

At 5:00 PM last Friday Carol drove us the mile to the lake front where we set up camp chairs and sipped and ate sliders—one ham and brie and one sirloin each from a local shop—a few inches from water’s edge.  Before we did, we climbed the 120 stairs up to the top of the bluff.  

Several groins of huge boulders divide the Lake Forest beach into separate sections.  In late afternoon the beach was not crowded and we found an area mostly to ourselves and a few sea gulls.  We and the gulls watched a sailboat under sail for a while in light winds before the crew lowered the sails and turned on the engine to reach their destination before sunset.  A few powerboats.  A barge far out carrying a crane.  And a kayak that came into the beach and landed.  Air temperature of 72F/22C.  

We were close enough to the water that Carol jokingly said she hoped it was high tide.  I know the Mediterranean Sea does not have tides, but had not thought about the Great Lakes.  I googled and in fact the Med and the Great Lakes do have tides, but so small—less than 2”/5 centimeters at spring high tides, that they are considered non-tidal.

A pleasant evening which we will repeat.

Books Read January-June 2023

                

                THE SLOWWORM’s SONG   Andrew Miller

       TRAFALGAR   Nicholas Best

THE CLASSIC TRADITION OF HAIKU

MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE   Alan Furst

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD   Thomas Hardy

WHEN WE CEASE TO UNDERSTAND THE WORLD   

Benjamin Labatut

ZEN POEMS OF CHINA AND JAPAN

THE COMPLETE ODES AND EPODES   Horace

HOJOKI:  A Hermit’s Hut As Metaphor   Kano no Chomei  

GREAT SHORT POEMS

SIX FRIGATES   Ian W. Toll

DOM CASMURRO  Machado de Assis

THE VIVISECTOR   Patrick White

300 TANG POEMS

101 GREAT AMERICAN POEMS

BARROW’S BOYS   Fergus Fleming

THE RED PONY   John Steinbeck

THE ICE BALOON   Alec Wilkinson

THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO   Steven Galloway

TIME’S LAUGHINGSTOCKS AND OTHER VERSES   Thomas Hardy

THE ALIENIST   Caleb Carr

OF MICE AND MEN   John Steinbeck

IDYLLS OF THE KING   Alfred Tennyson

TWAIN AND GRANT   Mark Perrybn

PERSONAL MEMOIRS   Ulysses S. Grant

THE PENGUIN BOOK OF JAPANESE VERSE

THE WINTER SOLDIER   Daniel Mason

THE WAGER   David Grann

BY SORROW’S RIVER   Larry McMurtry

CORELLI’S MANDOLIN   Louis De Bernieres

WELCOME TO HARD TIMES   E. L. Doctorow

THE FATE OF THE CORPS   Larry Morris

THE SPY   Paulo Coelho

TO THE GATES OF RICHMOND   Stephen Sears

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CHOLERA   Gabriel Garcia Marquez

LANDSCAPE TURNED RED   Stephen Sears

THE MOON IS DOWN   John Steinbeck

SOCRATES   Paul Johnson

THE SHADOW LINE   Joseph Conrad

Several of these are classics which I was reading for the second or third time and obviously enjoy.  One classic which I had not read before and found an exceptional surprise and pleasure is Tennyson’s IDYLLS OF THE KING.  Of the others, I particularly recommend SIX FRIGATES, about the founding the the U.S. Navy; THE VIVISECTOR, by the Australian Patrick White, one of my favorite novels about an artist; THE CELLIST OF SARAJEVO, a novel based on true events when during the siege of Sarajevo a cellist played each afternoon in a public square exposed to Serbian fire; TWAIN AND GRANT, the friendship of the two men in the last year of Grant’s life;  CORELLI’S MANDOLIN, a partial love story set on a Greek Island during the Nazi occupation, revealing at the end the slaughter by Nazi troops of their former Italian allies after Italy’s surrender;  THE GATES OF RICHMOND, non-fiction about McClellan’s failed campaign to take the Confederate capital in 1862 which revealed some Civil War history I did not know.

Although I read most of it at the end of June, not included in the above list is MODERN TIMES:  THE WORLD FROM THE TWENTIES TO THE NINETIES  by Paul Johnson because I finished it’s 1140 pages on July 7.  Johnson is a conservative who believes in small government and free markets and is willing to ignore the torture of their opposition by some such as Portugal’s Salazar and Spain’s Franco.

Obviously I do not share all his opinions, but I am pleased to see him quote several historians who call what are now known as the First and Second World Wars, the Second Thirty Years’ War—the First Thirty Years’ War was 1618-1648.  I have long thought that given enough time, the wars will be seen to be one war interrupted by a 21 year cease fire while the exhausted and bleed dry countries waited for another generation to come of age to be cannon fodder.

I also like that of American Presidents he admires Harry Truman and considers John Kennedy image without substance.  I do, too.

I have already included the astounding quote in the book from Adolf Hitler.  Here is another interesting quote:  ‘Germans are Belgians with megalomania’.  Less you think I am anti-German, that comes from a German, Konrad Adenauer, the Chancellor of West Germany from 1949-1963.

Writing about the atrocities performed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, Johnson says, They epitomized the great destructive force of the Twentieth Century:  the religious fanatic reincarnated as professional politician.  The self-righteous seeking to impose their beliefs on others are still active among us.

What is of particular interest to me is what is not in the book, how much that seems of importance in our world has happened in the past thirty years since it was published.  There is no Internet.  No iPhones.  No social media.  No 9-11.  No American Afghanistan War.  No rise of China to become the world’s second biggest economy.  Bare mention of the break-up of the Soviet Union and the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Of the Soviet Afghanistan War, Johnson writes:  The war lasted a decade, and at no point were the Russians and their allies able to control much more than the main towns and the strategic roads.  That sounds familiar.

I could wonder how with the example of Russian failure the United States a few years later embarked on another futile Afghanistan war, except the answer is obviously hubris, some in our government thought that we being superior could succeed when the Russians could not, and it took us twice as long as they to learn our lesson and at a terrible cost.

Unfortunately Johnson observes, and I believe correctly, A prime discovery of modern times is that reason plays but little part in our affairs.

Homo insipiens, not homo sapiens.

So you must find your own way through the labyrinth.