The Longbow, the Schooner, and the Violin: Wood and Human Achievement - Marq de Villiers

“Do you respect wood?”

— Larry David

My wife signed up for a membership to the Sutherland Quarterly and as part of a promotion they let her pick a free book from their catalogue. She chose The Longbow, the Schooner and the Violin. I respect wood (much like Larry David), so I read it.

The book wasn’t what I expected. I thought it would be a cohesive argument about the central place these three items held in human history, likely because of the similar structure of the title compared to Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel. de Villiers does lay out a rough premise to this effect in the introduction, citing these three objects as pinnacles of their genre, but in terms of influencing human history, he really only makes a convincing case for the longbow, which changed the course of warfare in the Middle Ages. The schooner had impact on trade, but was not of singular importance among similar boats. The violin, while an impressive instrument, was also not seismic in the same way.

Instead of weaving a single argument, de Villiers gives histories of these objects as pieces of cultural importance in their time, interspersing them with chapters about pretty much anything he could think of involving wood. These essays range from inspired (his taxonomy of the origin of forest was genuinely interesting) to somewhat bewildering (several pages detailing the best woods for different purposes). It feels a bit grab bag, and I wondered if these essays had been publishing previously for some sort of nature periodical (Trees Monthly?) and collected here.

de Villiers’ writing is strong, weaving eloquent description with prosaic turns of phrase to good effect. I liked the book, but it’s such an odd assortment that I’d recommend it to someone who really likes wood or else doesn’t mind taking literary detours.

Faith, Hope and Carnage - Nick Cave and Sean O'Hagan

Last month, I was pleased to receive a copy of Faith, Hope and Carnage as a Christmas present, as I’d heard about the book but hadn’t gotten around to buying it. The book os co-authored with Sean O’Hagan, but their collaboration was not in the traditional sense of celebrity biographies (i.e., the celebrity lends his name and the partner does all the actual writing).

For one thing, the book wasn’t written in the traditional sense. Rather, it is the transcript of an extended interview with Cave, conducted through phone calls over a roughly year-long period. The start of the timeline is shortly after the first COVID lockdowns, which are to some extent an impetus (a book written by phone being an apt medium in the era of social distancing).

The pandemic is thus naturally a subject for discussion, but the biggest theme is certainly Cave’s experiences as a grieving father in the wake of his son’s death in 2015. I doubt the years lessen the pain in an absolute sense, but they do offer Cave some time in which to reflect and articulate the experience, which those without children can never understand, and those (like me) who have kids but have not lost one can sense only as a sort of vertigo. I make no claims that I can in any way truly understand the abyss the grieving parent plunges into, but since becoming a parent, I can, in contemplating such a thing, peer queasily over the edge.

Though the book deals in grief, O’Hagan’s questions never feel exploitative. He is a good interviewer, probing where he senses more could be said without driving the conversation, pushing back on some statements in a way that is not confrontational, but prompts Cave to delve a little deeper or offer a clearer sense of his meaning. This isn’t needed often, for Cave is, in my opinion, a great thinker. There is an unfortunate tendency to assume people in a creative field have an innate understanding of larger issues, but Cave has long struck me as someone who truly thinks deeply about things. He is the sort of religious person that I greatly admire. Not a zealot, because zealots are invariably shallow thinkers who don conviction as a kind of flashy armor, but one who doubts as much as they believe. One whose belief is fueled, almost paradoxically, by that doubt. As someone who struggled with belief and wound up on the other side of the equation, it is always fascinating to me to read from someone who wrestled with the same questions and reached the opposite conclusion.

Of course, Cave is known most of all as a musician, and while the book avoids the trappings of the standard music interview (when’s the new album out? What does this song mean? Who are your favourite artists?) some discussion of his work is inevitable—and much appreciated. It’s particularly intriguing to read his discussions with Sean while in the process of writing Carnage with Warren Ellis.

I loved this book, loved it’s intimacy, loved Cave’s passion that has mellowed with wisdom into a surprising optimism. I was sad when it ended. As a Cave fan, I’m certainly the target audience, but I’ve also never been huge on biographies or books about my favourite bands for their own sake. Too often, these feel more like collector’s items than works of literature. This one is different. I would recommend it to people who haven’t even heard of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. What Cave has to say cuts deeper than fandom.

Fairy Tale - Stephen King

I was pleased as always to come across a new Stephen King novel last month. It’s comforting to know that he’s out there, and I’ll have something enjoyable form him to read every year or so. It’ll be a sad day when he’s gone.

Fairy Tale treads a similar path in broad strokes to another of his more recent works, 11/22/63. In both books, a young narrator befriends an old recluse and through their friendship discovers a portal to another world. Except in 11/22/63, it’s a question of when, and in Fairy Tale it’s a question of where. In this case, the world of Empis, a kingdom once majestic but defiled by a usurping king. Drawn to the world by the promise of a cure for his ailing dog, Charlie Reade finds himself slowly transformed into a storybook prince, albeit one with a dark side, and becomes embroiled in the struggle to right past wrongs and restore balance to the kingdom. The book follows and plays with fairy tale convention, demonstrating the allusive richness that King has become known for, especially in his later years.

The writing is pure King, effortlessly readable, with rich turns of phrase now again dropped in without tarnishing the sense of genuine dialogue needed in a first person account. As always, King’s characters are his strongest point, and the long set up as Charlie meets and befriends the cantankerous old Mr. Bowditch, scenes that would be mere water treading for a lesser author, are in some ways the best parts of the book.

Who By Fire - Matti Friedman

As I get older, I sometimes encounter stories that make me wonder how I could possibly have never heard about them before. In Who By Fire, Matti Friedman gives an impressionistic yet precise account of an event that should be part of the broader Rock ‘n Roll mythos alongside Elvis’ hip-shaking Ed Sullivan debut, The Beatles’ rooftop concert, and the fatal stabbing at Altamont Speedway.

In October 1973, Israel fought a brief and brutal war with Egypt and its Arab allies, waged by the latter in retaliation for an ignominious defeat in the Six Day War a few years earlier. The Israelis, careless with bravado from past victories, were caught completely by surprise, and faced the very real threat of annihilation. This conflict, launched on the eve of the Jewish Holiday Yom Kippur, drew Jews from around the world to come and defend their ancestral homeland, regardless of whether they’d once lived there or even visited (echoes of this can be seen in Ukraine today). One of these Jews, who came not to fight but to work on a kibbutz and free up a younger man for the front, was Leonard Cohen.

Cohen never saw a kibbutz. Israel knew he could serve the land he called his “myth home” better with his true gifts of poetry and song. And so he roved about the battlefields of Sinai with a contingent of musicians, playing concerts for weary troops, drifting between platoons like a phantom, leaving many who heard and saw him wondering if the encounter was even real. No footage of these concerts exists, and only a few photographs can be found.

From this material, alongside entries in Cohen’s journal and interviews with spectators, Matti Friedman pieces together a rough account of Cohen’s travels. It is solid journalism, precise when it can be an honest about its gaps when it can’t. Yet the strength of the book is not in reconstructing the minutia of a tour schedule (an impossible task; even Cohen didn’t know where exactly in Sinai he was most of the time), but in capturing the feeling of obligation and looming terror that haunted that war and all others. Indeed, Cohen isn’t even the true protagonist of this book. His concert is more a lens through which to view the lives of several young Israelis fighting for their survival and the survival of their country.

I was moved by this book in ways I didn’t expect. I feel I have a deeper knowledge of Cohen and his myth home for having read it. Though it lacks a cohesive ending, it is powerful from start to finish and adorned throughout with lovely prose. Worth a read from any Cohen fan, but even if you know his work only vaguely (as was the case for some of the soldiers he played for), this book still has a lot to offer through its timeless reflection of war and art, and the place one has in the other.