Today's All-Too-Real Plot Against America

Our Book

In April, the MBC held an uneasy book discussion at Stan’s. The book was Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, written in 2004. It imagines an alternate history in which famed aviator and German sympathizer Charles Lindbergh runs for—and wins—the 1940 U.S. presidential election. Roth envisions Lindbergh’s campaign built around the now all-too-familiar “America First” mantra and a promise to keep the U.S. out of World War II. Once in office, however, Lindbergh subtly pushes to integrate American Jews into the white Protestant mainstream. His administration breaks up Jewish enclaves in Eastern cities by relocating workers to rural towns and sending Jewish children to Southern farm work programs.

The story follows a young Jewish boy—named Philip Roth—and his family living in the Jewish section of Newark, New Jersey. The author’s choice to use his own name as the protagonist hints strongly at autobiographical elements drawn from his own early life in that same neighborhood.

Roth’s central theme—the danger of national isolationism—resonates powerfully in today’s political climate, offering a chilling preview of what many see reflected in Trump-era America.

Dinner at Stan's

Stan set the tone for the evening with a round of Manhattans at the bar, followed by a full Jewish deli spread: bagels with all the fixings, rye bread, challah, brisket, and an array of rugelach.

Our Discussion

Each member began discussing the book, but conversation always circled back to today’s reality. As host, Stan opened by admitting the story hit too close to home. He struggled to enjoy the book, finding it difficult to separate fiction from the disturbing possibility of an authoritarian America.

Jack appreciated the character development but criticized the plot’s flow, finding it disjointed. He drew parallels between the novel’s use of “The Big Lie” and the same tactic seen during the Trump administration. Paul felt the narrative dragged in the middle and lost direction toward the end. He observed how, like in real life, the ends often justify the means. Andrew enjoyed most of the book, but found the ending too convenient, relying on the artifice of Lindberg's sudden disappearance and a snap national election to return the story to the actual events of 1944.

Several members shared personal reflections. Dean described how his daughter, living in Alaska, witnessed firsthand the balancing act Senator Lisa Murkowski performs—caught between Alaska’s dependence on federal aid and the state’s strong support for Trump. Glen shared the most powerful story of the night: his Jewish Russian grandfather deserted the Russian army in World War II, knowing Jews were being used as cannon fodder. His escape from Russia was harrowing and deeply moving.

We all agreed on the strength of the novel’s female characters—especially Philip’s mother, who calmly steers her family through chaos. Clearly, she was inspired by Roth’s own mother.

Our Book Rating

Ratings ranged from 6 to 9, with most in the 7–8 range. Several noted they would have scored the book lower on literary merit alone, but Roth’s eerily accurate depiction of a demagogue rising to power warranted a bonus point.

And as a final, lighthearted note, members recalled that MBC’s very first book back in 2008 was also by Philip Roth—The Human Stain. What a long, strange trip it’s been.

--Larry

Stan Talks Pretty, Larry Edits, and We Listen In, all Virtually of Course

[Editor's Acknowledgment:  Larry took it upon himself to prime the blog with this guest post.  I am deeply grateful.  Enjoy and be gentle in your comments.]

Tuesday May 19^th saw, or more accurately Zoomed, the second MBC virtual meeting.  It still feels a bit strange that neighbors literally next door to each other have to see each other on a computer screen in a recreation of the old Hollywood Squares game show.  And you know how exciting our lives are when the highlight of the evening was Terry’s new toilet!

In truth, these virtual meetings provide all of us a means to see friends and catch up on our lives.  And it was good to hear about lives moving along outside of our own cloistered homes.   For the most part those updates are mundane – children (really young adults now) moving in and out of our lives, the bottling of the 2019 vintage at the Tom/Dean/Dan home winery, Terry moving back into his newly refurbished home, Paul preparing for his first Airbnb guests, Glen starting a new program at Madrone (San Rafael) High, Stan’s embarking on his itinerant life on the road with an MB Sprinter licensed in Hood River OR, and Andrew (along with COVID-19) bringing back the drive-in movie.   There were also a few sad updates – finding out that a couple of friends are battling cancer and how it is not advisable to have a shipping container drop on your foot (with live video of the recovering shoe and foot).

Oh, yes, there was a book/audio book to be reviewed.  In the only instance in memory in which the host, Stan, did not only fail to finish reading his recommended book but also attempted to distance himself altogether from said book.  Stan explained how, had “we” voted for The Story of a Goat, its rating would have been Trump “incredible” as opposed to the “6” rating received by the chosen book – Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris.  We quickly reminded Stan, that it was HIS vote that broke the tie between the two books, leaving us to rate MTPOD not The Story of a Goat.

Other than Andrew’s effusive “I laughed so hard, I almost totaled the Land Rover”, the rest of MBC thought the book was like reading/listening to a self-effacing stand-up comedian – great in small doses but harder to appreciate during a longer reading/listen.  Not a Pulitzer contender, but certainly an enjoyable diversion during the sequestration.  The book brought to the fore how a “book” can be perceived differently in its audio versus paper formats.  The members that both read and listened to MTPOD agreed that Sedaris has a particular audio cadence that is hard to recreate on the written page – like trying to read a Seinfeld script and having to imagine how Jerry, Elaine, George & Kramer would deliver their lines.  Each member, like watchers of Seinfeld, had their favorite story from the Sedaris book – the speech teacher, David’s father, the visit from neighbors back home, learning French, and living in France.

We had additional discussion about how this compared to Sedaris’ other books.  The general agreement here was that MTPOD was not one of his stronger books and felt somewhat dated.  Certainly, none of the stories in this book matched the author’s reading of his Santaland Diaries story – now an annual NPR holiday staple.   So, while scoring only a mediocre “6” on the MBC rating scale, MBC agreed that Me Talk Pretty One Day, in whichever format, was a wonderful diversion during these Shelter-In-Place times.

--Larry

Stan: A Brief History of His Father's Favorite Book

Dinner and Acknowledgments

Last Tuesday, Stan invited us into his home, served us Puerto Rican fare from Sol, and gamely attempted to lead us in a discussion of Harari's ambitious history of homo sapiens.  Stan struggled, but not because he hadn't finished the book.   No, Stan's encounter with a hit-and-run driver left him with two fused cervical vertebrae and a nasty concussion.  It was the lingering neck pain and an inability to concentrate that sidelined Stan during parts of our conversation.

Stan, we salute your courage, thank you for your hospitality, and look forward to your full recovery. But we do not excuse the manner in which you foisted Harari's anthropology text on us.  You've complained frequently and loudly about others' selections and have long urged us to adopt a rule that a title must be read before it is proposed. And then you persuade us to read Sapiens merely because it is your father's favorite book?!  Is this hubris...or merely the effect of that concussion?

Our Review and Discussion of Sapiens:  A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Harari

Speaking of hubris, Harari's study of the history and triumph of homo sapiens, and our likely future as we benefit from the fusion of biology and technology, is equal parts breathtaking, arrogant, illuminating, and entertaining.  Alas, at more than 400 pages, it is not brief.

Sapiens explains our ascendance over other primates by carving our recent history into three distinct "revolutions."  Like many Sapiens critics, we were reasonably impressed by Harari's description of the Cognitive Revolution (larger brain=speech=an ability to mythologize= population growth), somewhat impressed by his analysis of the Agricultural Revolution (domestication of food/animals=our own domestication=population growth), but nonplussed by his ultimate characterization of the Scientific Revolution (immortality is within reach if we don't kill ourselves first).  

While we generally agreed that Harari poses interesting questions and supplies provocative answers, none of us (except perhaps Glenn and Stan) was as captivated as the librarians in China who named Sapiens the National Library Book of the Year in 2014!  We appreciated re-learning the anthropology we'd forgotten (or never learned), but some of us questioned the book's rigor, others found its breezy textbook style off-putting, and still others found the book digressive and its conclusions overreaching.    

Our Rating of Sapiens

Despite our many quibbles, and perhaps because we felt rewarded for our efforts and Harari's ambitions, we gave Harari a thumbs-up and Sapiens a robust 7.6.

Next Up:  1984 by George Orwell

Dean offered us the chance to go back almost 10 years and read Verghese's Cutting for Stone, almost 50 years and read Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, or almost 70 and immerse ourselves in 1984.   With a hint of authoritarianism in the air, we picked the latter. We'll see if Orwell's classic stands the test of time.

2014 In Review

With apologies, here’s a belated summary of our meetings in 2014, following our evening imbibing Joy Juice with Dan:

In March, I hosted and had the highest hopes for my favorite novel of 2012, Peter Heller’s The Dog Stars.  This first-person narrative chronicles the post-apocalyptic angst of a pilot (Hig) holed up in a rural Colorado airport with an ornery fellow survivor (Bangley), an aging dog (Jasper), and miles of open (and threatening) prairie around the airfield.  I thought Hig’s obsession with and eventual exploration of the world beyond would capture everyone’s imagination.  It did, but with reservations about Heller's plot contrivances.  At rating time, we gave the novel a modestly positive 7.1.  At least the Filipino food from Ma’s was a hit.

Glenn hosted us in April, with Rory graciously providing the venue.  The dark interior of the McNear House dining room was the perfect atmosphere as we ate stew and discussed Miller’s Cold War classic, A Canticle for Leibowitz.  Most were glad they read (for the second month in a row) this post-apocalyptic novel, but some quibbled with the narrative’s intentionally slow progression (yes, it took centuries before those monks figured out the meaning of a grocery list).  The church/state tension and the hostility towards science were fascinating, as was society's fate in repeating its cycle of self-destruction (barring a technological, not spiritual salvation at the novel's end). Were it not for the novel’s plodding pace, we might have rated it higher than 6.7.

In May, Terry had us reading another period piece, this time from the French Indo-Chinese conflict in the 1950’s.  Graham Greene’s The Quiet American generated ambivalence, as we struggled with the opium-laced duplicity of the English correspondent, Fowler, and the implausibly naïve American diplomat, Pyle.  The book had no likeable characters and instead was an interesting, if disturbing harbinger of the war that followed a decade later in Vietnam.  Following Stan’s loud protestations that Greene’s novel was “not a war book” (no one said it was, Stan), we gave it a thumbs-up rating of 7.1.

Stan hosted us for a twofer in June.  Our chosen book, Saramago’s Cain, was (thanks to the sudden generosity of Random House) twinned with a pre-publication edition of Alan Furst’s latest novel, Midnight in Europe.  Those of us who read Furst’s pre-WWII spy thriller were disappointed.  Thin, poorly plotted, and with unfinished characters.  Enough said.  Cain, on the other hand, was a provocative read for even those whose recollection of the Old Testament had grown dim.  From the Garden of Eden through Cain’s lengthy exile, Saramago's final novel moved along with an almost mystical hum.  Impressed but unpersuaded that Saramago had achieved anything close to the standard he set with Blindness, we gave him the benefit of the doubt with a 6.5 rating.

Following Doug’s summer party in July (thanks again, Doug), we met at Dean’s in August to chew over Reza Aslan’s critically-acclaimed Zealot.  It was mere coincidence that Zealot picked up where Cain left off.  And while no one was pining at the end of the meal for yet another story about the Bible, we were all quite taken by the extraordinary research Aslan poured into this latest account of the story of Jesus of Nazareth.  His thesis that Jesus was less a proselytizer than an overt revolutionary provided plenty of conversation to accompany our meal and as a story was impressive enough to earn a 7.6. And about that meal, Dean did a superb job replicating the cuisine of Israel while operating with a balky hip.  (Glad the bionic version is working well, Dean.)

In September, Larry persuaded us to read Steven Kotler’s controversial work examining the state of “flow.”  In The Rise of Superman, Kotler posits that today’s generation of extreme athletes is achieving extraordinary success by hacking (his term) flow and that this state of being holds promise for all manner of human endeavor.  As a group, we weren’t buying it.  And I mean that literally, as some of us felt that Kotler’s book-length exposition was designed in part to sell his accompanying workshops, seminars, and the like.  While some felt that a state of flow was achievable (Stan and Dan, in particular), no one was willing to defend Kotler’s view that flow is the sine qua non of ultimate performance.  The anecdotes were interesting, but the hyperbole relegated The Rise of Superman to a subpar 5.7.

With the arrival of rain and colder weather, we convened at Peter’s to mull over Dan Brown’s best-selling account of the University of Washington’s 1936 Olympic rowing team, The Boys in the Boat.  To a man, we enjoyed the core story with its (obvious) themes of teamwork, redemption, sacrifice, honor, and the like. But, led by Larry, we panned Brown for larding up a compelling story with extraneous detail and trying too hard to eulogize an entire generation (yes, THAT generation).  We also decried the formula: part Laura Hillenbrand, part Erik Larson, Brown doesn’t quite do justice to either. George shared his early rowing experience in Pocock shells and that rowing gradually disappeared from the national consciousness not only because of the rise of televised sports, but also due to the taint of too many betting scandals. Notwithstanding our quibbles, The Boys in the Boat generated a healthy 7.1 in our final rating.

Roy hosted us—well most of us—in December to share reactions to Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story.  Ok, let’s cut to the chase. Since I didn’t attend, I can’t do justice to the conversation.  But I did collect the votes afterwards and was surprised that Shteyngart, whose peculiar brand of Russian émigré satire isn’t for everyone, managed to pull down a 7.5.  Either Roy’s distillations were especially powerful or I misjudged my fellow MBCers.  Regardless, kudos to Roy for a fine meal (according to my sources), and that’s a wrap for 2014!

A Make-Up for 2012

As club secretary, I must fall on my sword for my repeated failure, over the last year or more, to regularly post summaries of our meetings. I blame Tom A. for initially stepping in to save me, only to later step out and expose my lack of constancy. With that mea culpa, herewith a very quick summary of our meetings since January's A Sport and a Pastime.

In February, Paul fed us victuals from the Kashmir as we considered the story of the 1999 expedition that discovered the remains of legendary British mountaineer, George Mallory.  In Ghosts of Everest, Hemmleb et. al. chronicle their successful attempt to re-trace Mallory's fateful route in 1924 in order to figure out what exactly happened to Mallory and his climbing partner, Andrew Irvine.  Less successful was the manner in which Hemmleb and his co-authors joined their account with Mallory's.  The story of each expedition was fascinating, but the book's split narrative was awkward and resulted in a modest 6.7 rating. Maybe it was the intimidating presence of our guest and published author/teacher, Andy, that made us extra critical.

In March, we convened at Stan's (yes, another outstanding meal of grilled meat and roast potatoes!) to consider Sherman Alexie's modern-day account of life on the rez in Reservation Blues.  We split over the dream sequences and mystical moments, but were taken by the honesty with which Alexie paints his characters.  Alternatingly sympathetic and scathing, Alexie depicts life on and off the reservation (and his characters' infatuation with music) with a remarkable vividness, especially for those of us for whom the BIA is just another acronym.  The 7.0 rating understated the generally positive tenor of our discussion.

Armando hosted us in April with an ethnic feast that complimented Robert Laxalt's beautifully drawn memoir set in pre- and post-war Nevada.  As men of a certain age, perhaps we were predisposed to fall hard for Sweet Promised Land and its elegiac re-telling of a quintessentially father-son story.  The father, Dominique Laxalt, is a hard-working immigrant (herding sheep in the foothills near Carson City) whose sons achieve fully the American dream (one as a US senator, another as a university professor) but whose heart can't quite forget the family he left behind in a small town in the Pyrenees.  His return home with his younger son is both reunion and closure. Several guys commented that this story continued to resonate long after the pages were turned.  It certainly did for me.  For that reason, it earned an 8.3 rating and climbed into our current Top 5.

We met next in June at my house and enjoyed plenty of sushi and sake as we considered Louis Zamperini's unforgettable odyssey from Torrance, CA to the Berlin Olympics to a POW camp in Japan.  Laura Hillenbrand is a shameless crowd-pleaser whose recreation of the Zamperini story engendered questions from us (and others) about its authenticity of detail. That aside, most of us felt uplifted and exhausted by Zamperini's extraordinary resilience and will to survive.  Our conclusion was to forgive the sometimes tedious and occasionally hyperbolic passages and celebrate--with a 7.4 rating--an amazing story of survival.

In July we declared a bye and instead appeared with spouses and no books at Doug's house for his second annual summer party.  After commiserating with him over his recent burglary, we tucked in and stuffed ourselves.  Thanks again, Doug.

Our last meeting was delayed to September, when Glenn hosted us at Roy's house.  With food from Sol, we were all ears as Ralph Leighton regaled us with stories about Richard Feynman, the Nobel physicist who was also his father's colleague at CalTech.  Glenn had proposed and we picked Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, unaware that Ralph Leighton was Roy's brother-in-law.  The book was filled with the infectious humor and antics of a renowned physicist who related his personal story to Leighton in a series of recorded conversations over the space of several years.  From those recordings, Leighton produced this delightful memoir.  Even those of us with little interest in applied physics found in  Feynman (via Leighton) a riveting storyteller indeed. 

Hunger - it's what's for dinner!

I was unable to write. Everything around bothered me and distracted me; everything I saw obsessed me. If only one good thought would rush in, then words would come!

The setting sun bounced off the deep blue horizon, like a medicine ball dropped on a Doberman Pinscher from a great height, then rolling into a fireplace and immolating itself like a Phoenix turned to ash. (Paul) I went to a friend's house. His name was Stan. He gave me food, for my writing. (John) Stan is a very controlling host. I wonder what his next book will be. Seems like he enjoys the senses (Blindness, Hunger), so what's next? (unsigned) Yes, Stan is testing us. But we cannot be fooled! We want our food!!! (Tom J.) F&*# this! (Andrew)

They try to divert me, with stories of voyeuristic children's toys and tales of home construction, men riding high on giant wooden beams suspended from cranes, like Slim Pickens in Dr. Strangelove. Young people are triumphing in lacrosse and water polo, going to new high schools and new colleges. They have hopes and futures to look forward to. I have a blog entry.

"One roast beef!" I said. I started eating; gradually I became more and more ravenous and swallowed whole pieces without chewing them. I tore at the meat like a cannibal. Chips, guacamole, salsa, salad, potatoes. How can such foods fuel my masterpiece? Bread, yes bread is my friend, but so much good wine and beer makes my writing insane, or annoying (but not funny).

Thoughts of last night's adventure flooded over me, made me almost delirious. I remember that they talked of the book. (That twit translator George Egerton! That thoughtless writer-of-other-people's-forewords Paul Auster! I will not waste my spit on them.) It was like a vein opening, one word followed the other, arranged themselves in right order, created situations; scene piled on scene, actions and conversations welled up. Every word I set down came from somewhere else:

"It gave me a better perspective on homeless people and the psychosis of hunger." (Dean)

"It reminds us that homeless people have a lot going on inside." (George)

"It was a stream of consciousness, but of a bipolar schizo. His writing was more intelligent than his actions. I like to see characters change and grow, to be affected by something." (Larry)

"It was a boring, irritating, honest character study of someone going crazy. Did he imagine the woman? Who would be attracted to him?" (Paul)

"My ADD and his psychosis didn't match. I kept falling asleep after reading only 2 pages; it was brutal. All acute angles, with no rhyme or reason." (John)

"The book is amazing in a historical context, portraying the amorphous life of the subconscious. But no one progressed - was there a method to his madness or was he just a whack job? It reminded me of the fish in the Citi Card commercial." (Doug)
(at 0:20 mark in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xvUkHqEDX4 )

"I struggled to like it at first, but it grew on me. Why was he honest with the girl? He had a compulsion to be outdoors and on the outskirts." (Andrew)

"I tried to hate it, but I ended up loving it. It's funnier than crap, because the guy is such a moron." (Dan)

"I skipped ahead 50 pages, and the same things were still happening." (Dean)

"This book is an important byway of literature, but really hard to read, like Crime and Punishment, but without all the happy, fun parts. What would great fictional characters be like if they were medicated?" (Tom A.)

"It was almost comical, but reading it was such torture that reaching the ending came as a relief. The author keeps putting him in "no, don't do that" situations, but he's completely self-destructive, and he keeps trying to drag in God. You can see how this book is related to Kafka, Camus and Nietzsche." (Stan)

"It was OK." (Tom J.)

They say the protagonist denied himself opportunities, but maybe deprivation is exactly what he needed to bring out the worst in his writing. It has worked for me.

It was the best piece I had ever read in my life. I became giddy with contentment, gladness swelled up in me, I felt myself to be magnificent. Then I stopped, my head was empty, I couldn't do any more. It was time to end the whole business now! I began staring with eyes wide open at these final words, at this unfinished page. At the end, I couldn't understand what was going on, I had no thoughts at all.

Chez Stan, Blind But Not Hungry

Acknowledgments
Stan’s baronial residence could not have contrasted more sharply with the rapid physical decay depicted in Jose Saramago’s Blindness. Had we a stronger sense of justice last night, we would have given our beef tri tip and roasted new potatoes to the cyclone victims in Myanmar. Instead, we tucked in, helped ourselves to ice cream, and promised to support Garth’s upcoming Burmese fashion show fundraiser. (Although his daughter may be worried about his preference for fem couture, we know Garth’s intentions are honorable.)

Stan, thanks for feeding the 14 of us as we sorted through the pain and triumph of Blindness. However, your insistence that we complete our roundtable discussion with our eyes closed may have overly stimulated certain other senses. When I opened my eyes, my plate was empty. The obvious suspect was the man seated to my left, who arrived with a see-through gauze blindfold and a tendency to thievery. If I had one of Garth’s stiletto heels, I might have planted it in John's thigh.

The Book
Although Saramago’s plot is compelling (an epidemic strikes a city, renders its inhabitants blind, and creates a profound loss of social order), several in the group complained that the book was slow going. The absence of conventional punctuation, the elliptical dialogue, and the intentional omission of character names made the act of reading more challenging.

While Roy criticized the writing as “mechanical” and Doug was surprised at his own lack of progress, Jack praised the book as an excellent sleeping aid. (I noted, with obvious insight, that the removal of punctuation was a conscious attempt by Saramago to eliminate visual cues for his readers. But I was quickly informed that all of his books are written this way. That ended my insight for the evening.)

Most of us, however, got used to the narrative style and were absorbed by the story and its parallels to the Holocaust and any number of other fascist and authoritarian-inspired tragedies of the last century. Armando and Glenn both read this novel in overtly political terms, with Glenn (or was it Armando?) discovering a cautionary tale perfect for the current election cycle. Glenn’s disclosure that Saramago is an atheist with a pessimistic view of mankind came as no surprise, particularly given the jarring revelation during the novel's scene in the church. Doug, who admitted his bias against political fiction, was intrigued by the plot but underwhelmed by Saramago’s delivery.

The interesting result of our discussion was how highly we rated this book despite a few strong dissents (Roy felt generous giving it a 3!). Even with conservative numbers from Dean, Jack, and Doug, the book drew more 9's and 10's than any book to date. Stan, Terry, Glenn, and Larry all ranked it as their book of the year. With an 8.3 rating, Blindness has overtaken The Great Gatsby and Tortilla Curtain. Beyond its high rating, Blindness also seemed to provoke more topical discussion than any other book on our list.

Next Up

For next month, Jack asked us to consider The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner, as well as McGuane’s The Bushwhacked Piano and O’Brien’s The Things They Carried. The virtue of each choice, as we enter the summer season, is its brevity. So, in gratitude, we agreed to take up Stegner’s 1976 National Book Award winner. For the ambitious engineers in our group, extra credit will be awarded if you also read Angle of Repose and come prepared to explain the title.