Lary Bloom

Writer, Editor, Teacher

The Bloom Blog

Photo by Nancy Dionne

 

Friday, December 30, 2005

The (Still) Good Earth

The lists are out -- the Best and the Worst of 2005. Here's my pick for best novel of the year -- Pearl S. Buck's The Good Earth.

I know. The book was written in 1931, so it hardly qualifies under the usual guidelines. But we don't live our lives under the usual guidelines. And it was only in 2005 that I cracked Buck's masterpiece -- which, in my view, qualifies it for consideration for this year's Bloom list. In literature as elsewhere we have to remind ourselves to take up the classics if we are to discover what is groundbreaking today.

Who could argue that The Good Earth wasn't groundbreaking for its time, and worth reading and re-reading now? It is an epic novel, covering many decades of a farmer's life in China, from his marriage to a woman selected for him to his preparations for death. The struggles of Wang Lung and O-lan span an era of social and political change. If the novel lacks the clever narrative innovations of the best of today's novels (Kafka On The Shore, by Murakami Haruki and Saturday, by Ian McEwan, both of which employ compelling flashbacks as the narratives move forward), it matches them for intimacy and engagement. And Buck's novel is particularly timely -- as China becomes central to the world economy, and yet remains oddly mysterious to most Westerners.

The word "masterpiece" is trotted out often. My definition requires that the work -- a book, play, etc. -- must clearly reflect the total immersion and passions of the artist. It's as if the artist was born to do such work, and never considered for a moment its commercial implications. This clearly is the impression here, an impression verified by the facts: When Buck wrote this, she did it in Chinese, and then translated it into English, to make it as authentic as possible. There are novels, like this one, in which every word seems to have a purpose, and there is nothing for effect only. Oswald Wynd's The Ginger Tree is another one of those (the only book Wynd ever published, but a gem). And surely Buck's novel is another.

If you haven't recently read The Good Earth, or (like me) shamefully haven't read it at all, pick up a copy at the library. You will see what I mean.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:39 AM  

Thursday, December 29, 2005

The Missing R

This week I got a note from a fellow who is also saddled with the same first name as mine. Like me, he has had to explain himself all his life -- offering that his mother, who wanted at all costs to avoid Lawrence, decided that Lary was the right choice. My correspondent had never come across anyone else with this handicap until he noticed a reference to my new book in a magazine.

It's possible we had the same mother, though I doubt it. Mine never had sex. That would be the logical conclusion from the limited and awkward "conversations" about the subject that she and I had. But she did give me much the same story about Lawrence. I found that to be prosaic, and not worth mentioning to strangers at cocktail parties who persisted in discovering the origins of my unusual name. So, as the years progressed, and depending on the mood, I indulged them with a variety of theories.

1. I was born during the Second World War, a time of rationing.

2. My parents were poor and couldn't afford the second r.

3. In Vietnam, the second r was shot off.

I do recall that my eighth grade teacher, one Miss Elephante, chided me that I didn't know how to spell my own name. I thought anyone with a name like hers should probably just shut up.

There are other awkward moments, of course. A young man about to meet me was told by my parents that I have one R. He didn't hear it quite right. When I went to shake his hand, he tentatively offered his. I learned later that he was nervous about how to greet me. He thought I had one arm.

There are other Larys out there. As a matter of fact, there's a Lary Bloom in California, who must be getting, by mistake, all my annual winnings from the Lottery.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:05 AM  

Monday, December 26, 2005

Laird Bared

Melvin Laird's essay, "Iraq & Vietnam," in a recent issue of Foreign Affairs is an intermittently lucid, if maddeningly self-serving, view of how one difficult war applies, or doesn't, to another. Here's a sentence for you that illustrates no lucidity: "In hindsight, we can look at the Vietnam War as a success story -- albeit a costly one -- in nation building, even the democracy we sought half-heartedly to build failed."

Laird should know better. He was, of course, Secretary of Defense during the last years of the Vietnam War. And, though he decries in his piece certain clear mistakes in our conduct of that war, he seems to conclude that indeed there was a light at the end of the tunnel. If only we had stayed at it longer. If only Congress had not cut off funding for the South Vietnamese government to wage war after our troops finally left. If only....What nonsense. We were funding a corrupt group of politicians and Army officers. But in the manner of today's politicians, views are conveniently arranged to justify unjustifiable acts.

Later in his piece, Laird writes cogently: "Victory meant everything to North Vietnam and nothing to the average American. We had few economic interests in Vietnam. Our national security interest-- preventing the domino scenario, in which the entire world would fall under the sway of communism if we lost in Southeast Asia -- didn't have enough currency to carry the day."

Laird argues, correctly, that George Bush has more going for him in Iraq -- people understand oil, and they understand the idea of trying to prevent 9/11 from happening again, even if they can't quite make a physical connection between Iraq and Osama Bin Laden. Many may buy into the "spreading freedom" idea, or to the idea of a democratic foothold in the Middle East, which historically has meant more to Americans than Southeast Asia has.

But in the end, Laird's essay self destructs because it holds fiercely to the idea that Vietnam was in some sense a dramatic success. It shows that "public servants" will cling to any view, even decades after it's proven untenable, to forge an honorable place in history.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 11:38 AM  

Thursday, December 22, 2005

The Intrepid Sailor

David Hays came back to visit this week from Chesapeake Bay, where he'll spend most of the winter on his little houseboat. He admits that living down there, where he knows no one except a helpful librarian, can be a little lonely. But he's getting a lot of writing done, which is a good thing. His work is always graceful and insightful, if not easily marketable.

I helped him years ago with My Old Man And The Sea, the book he wrote with his son Daniel about sailing around Cape Horn in a small boat. This was in the early 1990s. At the time, agents and publishers were busy rejecting the manuscript because they couldn't figure out where it would go in a book store -- was it for the sailing section or the family section? I kept saying to David don't worry -- it'll go in the Best-Seller section. Which it did. The book spent 14 weeks on the New York Times list, and eventually was translated into many languages. After that, he wrote another successful book about becoming a Bar Mitzvah at age 67, which had the great title Today I Am A Boy.

Last night, we talked over dinner about his new book which, typically, defies category. At age 75, David understands this and has a good humor about it. "The mail is running a thousand to one against me," he said. "But the one hasn't come in yet."
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:35 AM  

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Hitler's Publisher

We dropped by on Saturday night at Robert and Cathy Miller's open house in Manhattan. Cathy is a teacher at a private school (and, from the evidence, a wonderful cook), and Robert, a congenial host, is the owner of Enigma Books, a publishing house that features World War II histories.

Robert is formal fellow who always wears a tie, and did so on Saturday, though the male guests were the turtle-neck crowd. He is a congenial man, and he smiles when I refer to him as "Hitler's publisher." It is at once attention-getting and also true.

A few years ago, he convinced the Finance Ministry of Bavaria, which holds the rights to Hitler's sequel to Mein Kampf, to allow him to publish the book in North America. The ministry has been understandably reluctant to have this diatribe published anywhere, but nevertheless has permitted a limited array of houses around the world to do so. And so Robert, working with Gerhard L. Weinberg, emeritus professor of history at the University of North Carolina who discovered and translated the manuscript, published in 2003 what he titled Hitler's Second Book (a title the Bavarian Ministry of Finance despises).

The History Channel has already made a documentary about how it was discovered and why Hitler didn't want it published until after the war. The author got his wish, but not in the circumstances he perceived. The manuscript contains specific war plans against Britain and the United States, which is why he locked it in a vault for safekeeping.

The book sells reasonably in the United States, mostly in academia and to libraries. It is not in great demand by troublemakers. But in other countries, like Turkey, it is employed by some to justify the Holocaust, or to kindle new fires of hatred.

From time to time, I have dipped into the book, and have found it largely unreadable. It is written in the same style as Mein Kampf (and, unlike The Hitler Diaries has never been thought of as a forgery). It does show a demented mind at work - diatribe after diatribe about how the German people had been cheated of this or that.

In all, a valuable but demonic document. And, ironically, published by a man whose father was Jewish. (The last thing Hitler would have wanted, but to Hell with him.)

You may wonder who gets the royalties. Not a penny goes to the Hitler estate, such as it is. This also true for Mein Kampf. The North American rights to that have been held for decades by Houghton-Mifflin, and the book has produced a good deal of revenue. But soon those rights will expire, and anyone will be able to publish it.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 7:15 AM  

Monday, December 19, 2005

The People Ride In A Hole In The Ground

In a few hours, we'll know if New York's bus drivers and subway workers will go out on strike, and whether the city will be thrown into chaos.

On Saturday night, however, all was well below the streets of New York, as if no threat appeared anywhere in the dark tunnels. I was struck by a few things. The first was that, on a primary subway line, there was no hint of security. This seemed odd, because it is generally accepted that the New York subway system is at the top of the terrorist list. And yet, in a way, it didn't seem odd, because of the mindset of New Yorkers, who carry on in the only way they know how -- living at a frantic and satisfying pace and paying no attention at all to the "could happen" rule, which is of course what keeps the media -- particularly news cable networks -- thriving.

A couple of images from 11 p.m., Saturday evening on the 6 line, between East 28th street and East 86th street:

A midshipman from Annapolis, coming home from a party, with his tall blonde girlfriend. He held her tightly. I imagined she is his fiancee, though there was no ring that confirmed this, and that the two of them accept uncertainty as a way of life.

And the woman in the last seat in the subway car. She was deep into her book: The Death of the Soul.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 6:01 AM  

Friday, December 16, 2005

Oh Little Town of Cos Cob

This time of year, the firehouse in our town is lit with Christmas lights and it brims with commerce -- selling wreaths to benefit the all-volunteer Chester Hose Company. This is a fine thing, if an entirely Christian thing. We Jews have to face up to it: It's a Christian country (if unofficially) and, if our all-volunteer fire companies are to survive, well then, they should share in the business of Christmas.

It is, of course, not such a simple matter, particularly when the decorations carry more religious significance than mere blue, green, yellow, and red lights. When the town of Cos Cob, Connecticut, put a creche at its firehouse two decades ago, the historian Barbara Tuchman objected loudly and passionately. We may indeed be a largely Christian country, she argued, but to put such displays in public places, supported by public dollars, is on its face discriminatory. And of course the controversy continues to this day -- the president lit the national Christmas tree, as it was always called, until the last few years, when, in an effort to be more inclusive

This is a fine line. On the one hand, Jews might easily join in the spirit of the season, in the way that many Christians are willing to participate in Jewish rituals (Passover comes to mind). On the other, given the liturgical gap between Judaism and Christianity and the historical baggage of religious discrimination (and extreme consequences to that) it's easy to see why many Jews can't easily do that.

As a child, I always enjoyed Christmas because that's when my piano teacher put aside the difficult classical pieces and brought Christmas carols to the house -- much easier to play, and more fun. I had to play them, however, when my mother was off at work, because she couldn't bear the idea that her son would dabble in such melodies and lyrics. The words "Christ the Lord" were never to be sung in our house.

My mother is gone, but the attitude lingers. When our synaogogue choir was asked to join in on a Thanksgiving ecumenical service this year, phrases like that were crossed out of the hymnal by the rabbi, who explained that he didn't want to offend anybody. But of course, crossing that out by its nature offends. The ecumenical effort means nothing if it waters down spirituality and identity.

So I say, oh come all ye faithful, or not, and enjoy the season.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:20 AM  

Thursday, December 15, 2005

How Long It Takes

Yesterday's Hartford Courant editorial page eulogized Senator Eugene McCarthy as a great American who mastered the art of dissent in a time when our country was engaged in an unpopular war. A nice tribute, except that nowhere in it was there even a hint of irony, or a mention of today's war dissenters, who, by the evidence will have to wait three or four decades before their status changes from cowards and traitors (in the language of Coulter, Limbaugh, Hannity, and Schmidt) to courageous patriots.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:24 AM  

Wednesday, December 14, 2005

What The Art Thief Was Thinking

He or she was, perhaps, thinking, "Art thefts usually happen in Paris and in New York City, and when they do, they generate a lot of publicity, and the guys usually get caught. But, hell, this is only little old Guilford, Connecticut, so who would know? I'll bet I can get away with it. I'll just go into the Guilford Public Library, where the last time I checked I didn't see a whole lot of security guards, and pilfer these two nice little watercolors that I like so much. I'll hang them in my living room. Besides, the artist will be flattered. What higher praise can their be than having her work stolen?"

Or maybe the thief was thinking, "She has more talent than I do. I'll show her."

Who knows what the thief really thought? At this point, no one has a clue as to the identity of the person who did this on November 28. But it is indeed a sad case. Monique Hanson, who painted these works, is distraught, and so are public officials in Guilford, who've never experienced such a thing in a public place.

Monique intended to give the landscape to her daughter for Christmas. It is a delightful work -- one that shows that when she was growing up in France and enrolled in art classes that she was doing the right thing. Never mind that over the decades she made her living doing something else she is very good at -- teaching French cooking. I told my friend that I'd help get the word out about the thefts, so if you know anything, please write back. Christmas is around the corner.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 10:31 AM  

Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Haven't Got A Clooney

As we walked out of the cineplex friends walked in. "Oh, what did you see?" they asked. "Syriana," I said. "How was it?" they inquired. I thought a moment, then said, "I'll know in a couple of days."

A couple of days have passed and I know. I'm pleased that movies like Syriana are being made -- big, tough, intelligent, political movies. Somebody has to take on arrogant politics, runaway corporate interests, the CIA, and diminishing natural resources. But I do wish that Syriana would have been a better film, one that allowed its audiences to root for one of its characters. It had a chance to be the Silkwood of its age -- speaking in a tough and eloquent way on critical subjects that escape eloquent political debate. Hollywood, at its best, can say it straight and convincingly. This is Hollywood at its decent.

The problem is digital, reflective of the collective loss of attention span -- or at least the appearance of it. We are not allowed as viewers to invest properly in any character's story sufficiently, so that what we have here is an "important" hodgepodge of clever scenes, not a movie that can move an audience to tears or action.

Given that, I suppose George Clooney still plays an interesting character, one that I'll actually get when I see this again on DVD.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:50 AM  

Monday, December 12, 2005

Newspapers Cause Political Scandal?

In Sunday's Hartford Courant, veteran political columnist Michele Jacklin announced her retirement and took the opportunity to blame her employer for the proliferation of political scandal in the state.

Jacklin, whom I knew when I worked the newspaper and who never pulled punches, argued that by dramatically reducing political coverage in the last few years in the effort to cut costs, the Courant and most of its competitors ceded journalism's traditional watchdog role. In doing so, this allowed politicians, no longer in fear of being closely watched, to run amok. The result has been corrupt city mayors and a governor who won't get out of federal prison until February.

Former colleagues at the paper had told me that Jacklin was among those offered an early retirement (as I was four years ago). When I heard this, I assumed she would write a final column that would be, in her tradition, unblinkingly candid. But in this case, her candor should not be mistaken for insight.

The syllogism she presented was faulty. The Courant has indeed cut back coverage of government considerably. No one who can examine facts would argue otherwise. But to say that therefore John Rowland went haywire is too large a leap. While it's true that before Rowland and a variety of mayors had to hire criminal defense lawyers there was a period that was largely scandal free. But it is also true that there was plenty of press coverage in earlier decades when scandals in city halls and governors mansions rocked Connecticut and the country.

Insiders at many newspapers argue, rightly, that the industry as a whole is offering less to readers every year. But John Rowland didn't take a hot tub from a state contractor because the Courant made cutbacks. He took it because of the same sense of entitlement that crooked politicians have felt since the first American election.

I wish Jacklin well. No doubt a writer who has consummate knowledge of Connecticut politics still has market value. But first she must submit to the ritual of the retirement party, and the speeches about how much management loved her. I'd like to be a fly on the wall of the Courant's Thomas Green Room when, at the end of the program, she offers her remarks. Perhaps, for once, she should just say "thanks" for 25 years of employment and head off into that other world.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 3:39 AM  

Sunday, December 11, 2005

Book Tour (Part 6)

Sometimes you have to get in your car, drive for an hour, get lost, make a panic call from your cell phone to ask "where the hell am I?" in order to find home.

Yesterday, I went to the public library in South Windsor, Connecticut, which in the strange geographic tradition of Connecticut is just north of the town of Windsor. (And East Windsor is north of that, of course.) My intent was to be part of an unusual town program: sculpture unveiling/book signing.

The sculpture is by Karen Rossi, the queen of whimsy, whose Fanciful Flight mobiles (designed in Connecticut and manufactured in China) are a world-wide phenomenon. Karen herself is a phenomenon -- a whirlwind of ideas and energy who was being honored by her hometown, which had commissioned her to design a large scultpture in front of the library/town hall complex.

A politician made a speech about how the sculpture came to be. Karen, holding her chihuahua, Taco, thanked everyone, and then the party moved inside for a reception and the signing. She was the one who connected the two events -- thinking creatively, as usual -- because at the heart of Lary Bloom's Connecticut Notebook is a profile of her, and she thought, well, this makes sense.

I had expected, of course, an enjoyable reunion with the sculptor, and was not disappointed. But what I didn't expect came as I walked past the library's reference desk.

Mary Ann Terwilliger introduced herself and showed me a copy of the 1960 edition of the Charles F. Brush High School yearbook. Even in a library, this is a rather rare edition to find. It is a school, after all, that the exists several hundred miles west of South Windsor, in what was once Connecticut's Western Reserve.

Mary Ann and I are two immigrants from the suburbs of Cleveland, Ohio, a fact she well knew from columns I had written over the years in the Hartford Courant. And, on this day, she provided the printed evidence. She showed me a page of 11th graders. And there I am, the slug with the chubby cheeks, in the bottom center, labeled L.Bloom.

It is the only page in the yearbook where I make an appearance, which should indicate how active I was at dear old Brush High, where my main intention, as I recall, was to survive Mr. Weinman's unintelligible geometry lessons and finish in the top 50 per cent of my graduating class so that I could get into a college.

Mary Ann, like me, she has never been to an official reunion. So our little ten minute chat was as close as we've ever come. We wondered aloud about our gym teacher, a "nice guy," who a few years ago was discovered taping the goings-on in the girl's bathroom, and summarily fired. And we talked about other distinguished faculty members.

I pointed all of this out in a little speech I gave at the book signing. Someone asked in the Q and A period whether a book tour is exhausting. No, I said. It is a privilege. And, apparently, it is a road back to where I came from.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:07 AM  

Friday, December 09, 2005

Ann Coulter She Isn't

On Wednesday night, I drove out to Storrs, Ct., for a book party. Not the book party that the papers had written about -- the depositing of $16,000 into Ann Coulter's bank account by the student government in exchange for one of her diabtribes, in person. No. I passed Jorgensen auditorium, where students lined up in the cold to get in, to get to the UConn Co-op, where there was a modest but passionate reception for an author whose work is much more honest and eloquent.

Suzy Staubach is not an American household name. And her new book, Clay, won't make her one, though it is well written and erudite and, well, one of a kind on the subject of baked mud. But there was something about the juxtaposition of ideas that night in Storrs that is compelling.

Coulter is, of course, highly marketed. See my blonde hair? Feel my venom for liberals? She belongs in the same category as all unchangeable pundits, who fill the airwaves with misinformation, and the result is that the public, which has a large segment of lazy folks anyway, forms its impressions on the slickest (and sometimes the sexiest) of presentations that don't come anywhere near the facts.

On the other hand (literally) there is something primal and beautiful about Suzy's world. She made reference in her remarks to the days of childhood when we all made mud pies. As adults, we stopped slinging mud, or at least most of us did. Suzy is, by profession, a book seller. She runs the general book division at the Co-Op and as such has been a stalwart in the effort to keep independent bookstores alive.

More than that, she has been a great supporter of Connecticuts authors, encouraging us and otherwise giving help, and arranging book parties in our honor. So it was time to turn the tables (and fill them with baked goods). The audience was of respectable size as book signings go and it included many who have benefited from Suzy's support, including the best-selling novelists Wally Lamb and Pam Lewis.

Suzy's hobby, for all of her life, has been to make pots. I remember years ago when she first told me that she wanted to write about the subject. I thought it was a grand idea, and even contributed a possible title: It's A Mud, Mud, Mud World. Sense prevailed in the publishing world, however, and Clay was the result.

It is a lovely book. Everywhere you turn in it, you learn something not only about how the earth has been used for everything important, including shelter and food, but the context of history as well.

For all of her talent, Suzy didn't make anything like $16,000 on Wednesday night. Maybe she sold 30 books, which could net her royalties of upward of fifty bucks. Down the street, Coulter sold hundreds (all of which Suzy supplied, and sent staff members to handle the sales.)

Coulter's speech, meanwhile, was interrupted by loud music, and, outraged (as always) she refused to finish it. She agreed only to take questions. One of them could have been, "Why are we here, when there is something truthful and beautiful happening just down the street?"
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 12:53 PM  

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

John McCain's Sweater Vest

Senator John McCain traveled to New Haven this week to appear at benefit for Read To Grow. He had a book to plug of course. This, his fourth (done in partnership with his writer and chief of staff Mark Salter) is about admirable historical figures. Mother Teresa is in Character Is Destiny. So are other usual suspects: Gandhi, Sir Thomas More, Abe Lincoln, Nelson Mandela. But also, interestingly, Charles Darwin.

This is McCain's version, I suppose, of JFK's Profiles in Courage, and it is quite well done. It will come in handy if the Arizona senator is foolish enough to go up once again against party loyalists and seek the Republican candidacy for president.

Indeed, one of the members of the sold-out audience, which raised a ton of money for a charity that gives books to newborns, asked if the sweater vest McCain was wearing would be part of his New Hampshire outfit. "You'd be a great president," the lunch guest pronounced, "and bring honor back to the White House."

I was pleased to see McCain, and to introduce myself at the reception held before hand -- and to ask for his help. He was only too pleased to oblige, giving me the name of a person I could contact on his staff who is an expert on issues involving POWs and MIAs. I need this for a book I'm working on. And of course, McCain is an obvious source. It is hard to imagine his five and half years in the hands of his North Vietnamese captors. He is certainly one of the few in Washington (Jack Murtha is another) who has any credibility in discussing war-related issues. I say this though I disagree with his view that the Iraq can be won by sending more troops. As a Vietnam himself (as I am), he surely recalls that generals asked for more troops all the time, and got them, and nevertheless couldn't win that war.

Even so, McCain seems like a thoughtful man, and, more than that, a man with an infectious intelligence. His answers on the hardest questions thrown to him at the luncheon reflected deep experience and immersion in our nation's problems. He admits that that "the system is broken in Washington," and that "most of the nation's business is done behind closed doors," and that money is being wasted everywhere ($24 billion in pork in the last transportation bill), and that the federal budget is tragically out of whack. He understands how it was that Duke Cunningham could hoodwink everyone in his kickback scheme, and that his fellow committee members, if they are not guilty of that crime, are part of a general culture that makes such crimes possible.

The luncheon questioner pleaded, at the end, "Please consider running for president." And, if the standing ovation was any indication of the banquet room's general feeling, it seemed clear that there were at least 900 votes he could count on.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 9:06 AM  

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

In Cold Ink

Writers -- at least good writers -- who see Philip Seymour Hoffman's film portrayal of Truman Capote will squirm in their seats. Because they will see themselves in small ways, or large. They will recall times when the story was everything, and all else was of much less consequence.

Coming out of the theater, I thought of Janet Malcolm's opening paragraph in The Journalist and The Murderer: "Every journalist who is not too stupid or full of himself to notice what is going on knows that what he does is morally indefensible. He's a kind of confidence man, preying on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying them without remorse."

But of course as dramatic as that statement is, it is also too simple. It leaves out the motives of many of the journalist's subjects, and the complexities of the work.

Joseph Mitchell, a nonfiction pioneer, chronicled the most unglamorous characters of New York City, the street people, in mid-20th century. His New Yorker portraits were at once stark and sensitive, and he created a body of work unmatched in the depth of its urban humanity. And yet, after he wrote Joe Gould's Secret, he never published another story, though he came to his office every day for decades. There is nothing but speculation as to why -- Mitchell never talked of it. But I think I know why. Joe Gould, a clever homeless man with a bachelor's degree from the Harvard class of 1911, pulled a con job on Mitchell. And Mitchell understood, well before Janet Malcolm's argument, that he couldn't blame it all on Gould. He had been taken in himself. He had been so careful during his career to print only what he saw as truth, and somewhere along the line his vision was blurred, his judgment foggy. And he began to question everything about his life and work, a circumstance that in his case turned a prolific writer into a blocked and frustrated figure.

It is an occupational hazard. It is not possible to be a writer without self-doubt, and without moral and ethical questioning. It is not possible, that is, to be a good writer without it.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 2:13 AM  

Sunday, December 04, 2005

"But There's Nothing I Can Do"

In an era of deadly political lies and of twisting honest truths into the machinery of destruction, we might look to an unlikely source for courage, as the example of the power of a lone voice in the wilderness and as a demonstration that one person, no matter how unlikely, can make a difference. In short, we should study the work of a Nazi.

We are not accustomed to this, of course, nor should we be. But here is a lesson, fetched from six decades ago, for our generations.

For, if you are of a notion that your country is out of control, and that its policies are leading us down a path of treachery, put yourself in the untenable position for a moment of Major Karl Plagge, of the Wehrmacht, the German Army, in the early 1940s. There you are, as commandant of a labor camp in Vilna, capital of Lithuania, and it is your job to murder Jews. You have no choice. Not only your career, but your life, depends on it. And yet you don't. You do the opposite. You protect Jews from the SS. You do it, as Plagge later admitted, nervously, in your own way, by being pragmatic. But also by being clever and courageous. In all, you keep one thousand Jews from perishing over a period of three years, although many of them will die during periods when you are not in control of the outcome.

The story of Major Plagge came to light when a Connecticut physician, Michael Good, uncovered the facts behind his mother's Holocaust survival. His book, The Search for Major Plagge, tells a remarkable story. But it isn't just the story you expect to read -- about Nazi horror, or even about redemption. It is a story for the 21st Century.

It would be wholly irresponsible, of course, to suggest that the National Socialist Party of Germany resembles our national politics. Nor would it help my point to do so. Our national politics are extremely tame and monumentally enlightened by comparison. And yet, even with that going for us, we feel a certain helplessness, a certain what's-the-use? attitude.

One voice. One person. One act. These can make a difference in the darkness.

Here are Karl Plagge's own words, summed up in a letter a year before his death in 1957: "People are more good than bad, but they are more or less ignorant....The most hopeless vice is ignorance, which believes it knows everything and for this reason presumes the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind. To true goodness and love belongs also the greatest possibility of clarity of vision."
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 9:22 AM  

Friday, December 02, 2005

Woody At 70

Vanity Fair's December issue offers a profile of Woody Allen at 70, by Peter Biskind. It is in many ways a depressing piece. Allen, at his distinguished age, claims to be no closer to understanding life on earth than he was forty years ago, when his films ranted on (in inventive and clever fashion) about urban angst and impending death.

His recent revelations give me no comfort. Woody Allen, in my view, has been a sage for our time, and now to see him in this state (though clearly mitigated by his apparently swell relationship with his wife/former step-daughter who has now, at long last, reached half his age), it is disconcerting. We tend to think of our artistic heroes, probably inappropriately, as people who have keen insights and who learn to acccommodate life's difficulties in a manner in which we can take heart and instruction. But Woody Allen still gropes. Understandly, it depresses him that he never sees some of his children.

Everything he wrote for the screen was funny or poignant or both, and we began to demand too much of a good thing. I remember standing in line in Paris for the opening of Small Time Crooks, which when translated into French doesn't fit on the marquee. Parisians are nuts about Woody, in the same way they were about Jerry Lewis. The movie that day had French subtitles, which of course I didn't need. The effect was that I laughed, and, two seconds later the audience laughed, though, in this movie, lamely. When Woody's character admitted in a "60 Minutes" interview that he never imagined to have such financial success in life, he confided, "All I ever wanted to do was learn how to spell Connecticut." I roared. But it was the only sound in the theater for some time. I roared for what was, which, when you think about it, was plenty.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 4:21 PM  

Thursday, December 01, 2005

Hot Stove Leaguers

At Kenny's wine store in Deep River, there is not much heated debate over Iraq or abortion or much else in the news. What stops traffic here is the subject of the Mets, and, in general, baseball. Kenny, who has been a fan of the Mets for a long time, has wagered on them with me over the last three years. And this habit has cost him three fine bottles of wine. Our wager is simple to construct: no odds are calculated. I owe him a bottle of wine -- coals to Newcastle for a wine shop owner -- if the Mets win more games than the Indians in a season. And he owes me if the opposite happens. Those who would argue that rooting for the Tribe only leads to heartbreak have not sampled the French and Italian vintages the team has delivered to me these past summers. Yes, the Tribe may have disappointed in the standings, but less so than the rich Mets, who spend and spend but can't seem to get the results that, on paper, seem all but promised.

Yesterday, the Hot Stove League was warming up. Kenny was excited about the signings of slugger Carlos Delgado and stopper Billy Wagner, as excited as he was in past years when the Mets paid to get Pedro Martinez, Mo Vaughan, Carlos Beltran and other high priced talent. Meanwhile, the Tribe continues to count its pocket change and practice its voodoo economics.

Just the sort of situation that makes me want to double the bet next season. But I won't. Even though, as the song argues about baseball and life, you gotta have heart.
Posted by:Lary Bloom at 8:55 AM  

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Lary Bloom • Telephone: 860.526.2067 • Fax: 860.526.8088 • Email:

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