The Unexpected President: The Life and Times of Chester A. Arthur

I like books about interesting but generally forgotten episodes or individuals in history. A few years ago, Destiny of the Republic, chronicling the life, times, and assassination of Arthur's predecessor, James Garfield, captured my attention. The President is a Sick Man, in which Arthur's successor, Grover Cleveland, underwent secret surgery on a boat likewise intrigued me.  

 

The Unexpected President is a bit of both. Chester A. Arthur was the ultimate machine politician and a man whom virtually no one in the country (aside from his New York cronies) wished to see ascend the presidency upon the death of Garfield. As Scott S. Greenberger illustrates, once he was president, though, Arthur genuinely seems to have used the position to right past wrongs, implementing far reaching civil service reforms, and pushing - though admittedly without either force or success - for stronger civil rights laws. As he did so, he was urged on by the invalided Julia Sand who took it upon herself to be the voice of his conscience in a series of (honestly, rather long winded and presumptuous) letters.

Whether owing to Miss Sand's urging, his roots as an abolitionist's son, or a desire to honor the memory of his dearly departed wife, Arthur determined to be his own man. Perhaps this was also made somewhat easier by the knowledge that he was dying. Yes, dying. In the days before round-the-clock media coverage, presidents routinely hid any manner of personal details, from mistresses to mania, and so it was with Arthur who spent the better part of his presidency in the grips of Bright's Disease. 

Greenberger has written a succinct and compact history of Arthur's term in office, as well as the factors that shaped him prior to the presidency. As he notes, the dearth of materials contributes to the volume's brevity: Arthur, perhaps ashamed of his pre-presidency machinations, burned almost all of his personal files and correspondence in the days before his death. That said, by its shortness, The Unexpected President perhaps lends itself to a wider audience than it would otherwise. Admittedly, this is still a bit of a history nerd's read. I am a proud history nerd and enjoyed it greatly; I can easily recommend it to my fellow history-lovers. 

Four stars.

The Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen, 83 ¼ Years Old

Is it fiction? A memoir? A combination? The only people who might now (the publisher?) aren't telling. in any case, it's great. Hendrik Groen is - duh - 83 years old. He lives in an assisted living facility that, despite being in the heart of Amsterdam, embodies every complaint I ever heard either In my great-grandfather or my husband's grandparents make about their facilities, long-time denizens all. First, the old people. It does not matter that my grandfather was perhaps the oldest resident in his final years - the litany of complaints about "all these old people" was never ending. And truly, the petty behavior of other residents ("the pineapple pickers," so named for their selective raids on the fruit salad were my grand-father-in-law's most frequent target) and disputes with management over a twenty cent raise in a cup of coffee are also a regular feature of assisted living life, both on paper and IRL. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.

First, Hendrik Groen. It's a pseudonym, and of the book, released as fiction, he says only that "there's not one sentence that's a lie, but not every word is true." So, in other words, believe what you want. As the title says, the book is his secret diary, in which he records the minutiae of a year, but from the perspective - real or not - of an octogenarian. As such, it's a fairly unique perspective: the value of friendship is central to the book, but the nature, naturally, is a bit different between the very elderly. Death, too, is a constant presence here, and Hendrik and his friends are regularly coming to terms with its approach, as well as with the ailments that so often precede it.

Although the humor is far less pronounced, I was regularly reminded of A Man Called Ove, although I think Hendrik is much more optimistic and much less crotchety than Ove. (His friend, Evert, could give Ove a run for his money, though.)

Five stars.

The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice

Trevor Corson's The Story of Sushi: An Unlikely Saga of Raw Fish and Rice is an intimate look at the art of sushi, told from the perspective of sushi-chef candidates at the California Sushi Academy. More than that, though, it is a bit of Jiro Dreams of Sushi meets The Sushi Economy meets Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper. (Jiro even makes a few cameos in The Story of Sushi.)

Over the course of a summer, Corson follows the progress of a cohort in the California Sushi Academy. Beyond simply documenting their progress filleting fish and peeling cucumbers, though, he documents the history of sushi in Japan, as well as its evolution both in that country and throughout the west. It's no coincidence that two of the individuals he profiles are Danish and Australian. He focuses as much on the rituals of sushi preparation as he does the life, death, and mating cycles of the various creatures that become this delicacy.

Full disclosure: I really love sushi. It's probably my favorite Japanese meal, and I've lost count of the number of times I've toured Tsukiji Market. Corson still manages to make me question the wisdom of partaking in certain dishes, though, along with further pondering how some of these things became food in the first place. Also, once they became food, how they stayed food: as Corson tells it, you can catch some pretty dread diseases, man. Which I guess is why menus always warn against eating raw or under cooked seafood. But I digress.

Even more than learning about the fish and miscellaneous sea creatures, I was particularly intrigued to learn about the rice preparation. For a moment I considered actually trying to replicate the steps Corson describes, but I'll probably just settle for adding a splash of rice vinegar in the future.

I enjoyed this book immensely, and think anyone with even a minor talent for or interest in cooking would particularly like it; Corson provides sufficient detail for even the amateur chef to try some of the more basic recipes, especially those for rice, eggs, and sauces.

Four stars.

The Wheel of Fortune

If I were to summarize The Wheel of Fortune in one sentence, it would be Downton Abbey on Steroids. (And, yes, I realize that's a phrase and not a sentence.) You've got scandals, you've got forbidden romance, you've got bodies and butlers and wars galore. It's easy to imagine Julian Fellowes scratching out notes as he pored over Susan Howatch's tome on the manor life.

Howatch gives us the Godwin family with their lovely home of Oxmoon set deep in the Welsh countryside. Just as Mary would stop at nothing to have her family home, so too are the various Godwins possessed, driven to all manner of madness and ill-deeds by the pull of lovely Oxmoon. "Take me back to Oxmoon, the Oxmoon of our childhood" becomes a regular refrain throughout the years and generations. (Really, I must break this streak of multi-generational sagas!)

By shifting perspectives regularly - here a hundred pages from the perspective of Robert, there a hundred or so from Ginevra, and so on - Howatch also makes the reader think about the ways in which events are perceived by different members of a family, or even a husband and wife. Howatch provides a primer on how skeletons find their way into the closet, and occasionally back out, as well as the burdens of blood and birth.

The Wheel of Fortune is long.There's no question that it's well-written or has a plot that draws the reader in. Reading it, though, is definitely a commitment.

Three-and-a-half stars.

The Children

I cannot figure out why I wanted to read this. It's exactly the kind of book that generally irritates me (recap: "modern" fiction, complete with smartphones, texts, and potheads), yet had been on my reading list for ages so, naturally, when it was available from the library... Big mistake. (In my defense: maybe I was hoping for another Ove?)

According to Amazon, Ann Leary's The Children is "the captivating story of a wealthy, but unconventional New England family, told from the perspective of a reclusive 29-year-old who has a secret (and famous) life on the Internet." Wealthy? Yes. Unconventional? Yes. Reclusive protagonist? Yes. Captivating? I'm not so sure. Essentially, it's the story of what happens when Spin Whitman brings his new fiancee to the family home for the summer.

Go ahead and call me lazy, but I'm going to crib from Amazon again, which ends its review thus: "With remarkable wit and insight, Ann Leary pulls back the curtain on one blended family, as they are forced to grapple with the assets and liabilities – both material and psychological – left behind by their wonderfully flawed patriarch." And so we have yet another difference of opinion. I found neither wit nor insight, and drew very little in the way of conclusions about the "flawed patriarch." I found plenty to dislike in his two step-daughters, his sons, his wife, and pretty much everyone else, but came away with little opinion of the supposed central character himself.

I'm going to give it one-and-a-half stars, but I'm also going to give it the benefit of the doubt because, as I said at the beginning, this type of fiction just isn't for me.

Salt Houses

Improbably, Salt Houses is the third multi-generational narrative I've read this year. Following the Koreans and the Italians, I've hit on the Palestinians. Hala Alyan's Yacoubs are certainly the most peripatetic of these families, forced by events from their ancestral homes in Palestine into Nablus in '48 and then from Nablus to Kuwait City in '67 and then from Kuwait City to Amman in '90.

Without giving the plot away, I can certainly say that the younger generations find themselves part of the diaspora in Europe and the U.S. some years after that. Phew. Also: these are people who, relatively easily, transport themselves from country-to-country and continent-to-continent is telling. No refugee camps here. And so, it is interesting to consider the history, the sadness, the anger, the resignation, and ultimately the meaning of home from the perspective of people who don't always behave as they should and seemingly "have it all."

Despite the turmoil, Alyan's story centers on the relationships the characters have with one another, parents, spouses, children, siblings, grandparents, and cousins. Alyan's story also moves at a good clip, covering more than half a century in a succinct 300 pages. I was fascinated to read an interview with Alyan (available on Amazon), in which she talks about her writing process, specifically that this began as the story of a young man, presumably Mustafa, in pre-1967 Palestine, because in its final form, the protagonist is his sister, Alia.

Alyan's prose is lovely and the characters are just maddening enough to be real. I found this a quick, but thoughtful, read, and would that I would particularly recommend to someone looking to broaden their reading horizons beyond the "usual" perspectives.

Four stars.

The Fall of the Dynasties: The Collapse of the Old Order 1905-1922

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Edmond Taylor's The Fall of the Dynasties is that it was written in 1963 and so provides a different perspective on the events leading up to World War I and surrounding the Russian Revolution than more current works. I did a double take the first time I read about "the last man alive who can tell us..." and certainly in the 60s the story of the Balkans was only half-written.

As the title says, The Fall of the Dynasties is an in-depth look at the final years of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman empires. Actually, it's an in-depth look at the first three, and a single chapter on the last (which was too bad, because the chapter on the Ottomans was pretty fascinating, but I digress). Taylor explores the broader societal underpinnings that led to war, but also the personal flaws and foibles of the crowned heads, whose decisions - or lack thereof - sent their empires headlong into a war from which neither ruler nor ruled would ever entirely recover. (To that end, the Czarina came off the worst, while the doddering Habsburg, Francis Joseph, appeared mostly to be swept away by events, at least in the final years. Of course, he was an octogenarian on the eve of the war.)

On the whole, I found the book alternated between extremely interesting and sleep-inducing. As I said before, I wanted more of the Ottomans; conversely, I wanted less of the Romanovs - or, more specifically, of the Bolsheviks and what felt like every.single.detail. of the run up to and immediate aftermath of the Russian Revolution.

It's certainly not terrible, and largely still relevant - plus today's reader has the benefit of the last half-century of history in understanding how the Balkans, Slavic nationalism, and the rise and subsequent fall of the Soviets all played out. That said, there are simply many other more interesting, and possibly complete, books on closely-related topics. The interested reader may want to consider any of the following in lieu of or in addition to The Fall of the Dynasties.

• For an empire-by-empire tour that also considers the roles of the British, American, French, and Japanese empires: 1913: In Search of the World Before the Great War.

• A concise look at the the many failures - diplomatic and military - that ultimately led to four years of unrelenting bloodshed across Europe, and eventually the world: The Guns of August.

• For more on the consequences of empire in the Middle East:  Hero: The Life and Legend of Lawrence of Arabia or Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell (Lawrence and Bell are both British, so there is also quite a bit about the British Empire, but each offers an excellent look at the Middle East before - and after - World War I).

• And, of course, I would be remiss not to add The Beauty and the Sorrow to this list, as it remains, for me, the most in-depth and moving look at World War I imaginable. As a POW remarks, “the great lords have quarreled, and we must pay for it with our blood, our wives and children” (p. 18-19).