FILM REVIEW: The Woman King

It's been quite awhile since I saw a movie in the theaters, but last weekend I saw two of them! The husband and I intended to see Bros opening weekend with another gay couple but when it turned out they couldn't see it until Sunday we decided to go see The Woman King on Saturday, since it had stellar reviews and was only available in theaters. I'm glad we did!

The Woman King is a star vehicle for Viola Davis, the most Oscar-nominated Black actress of all time (and winner of the 2016 Best Supporting Actress for Fences). However, it is also a rarity among studio films, with a predominantly Black female cast. The movie is about the legendary Agojie, the "virgin African Amazons" who were an all-female army in the West African kingdom of Dahomey during the slave era. The film features John Boyega (The Force Awakens, Small Axe), Thuso Mbedu (The Underground Railroad), Lashana Lynch, Sheila Atim, Jordan Bolger and Hero Fiennes Tiffin. The last actor plays Santo Fereirra, the main white character in the film, a slaver from Brazil who is working with the enemies of the Dahomey to buy and ship captured Africans into slavery in the Americas. He arrives with his interracial friend Malik played by the pulchritudinous Jordan Bolger, who is the son of a Dahomey mother and white father.

Of course any film about slavery is effused with violence, but in this case the violence is mainly done by the Black female characters in the film (the Agojie).  The film is set in 1823 and makes clear that both the Dahomey and the Oyo participated in the slave trade, by selling captured African combatants to the slavers. However in the movie, Davis' character, Nanisca, the head of the Agojie decries the practice to King Ghezo (played by Boyega) and argues the Dahomey could and should trade palm oil with the white man instead. The primary conflict in The Woman King is between the Kingdom of Dahomey and the Oyo Empire, who are much larger and to whom the Dahomey pay tribute to. Dahomey refuses to pay tribute and the two nations go to war, with the smaller Agojie army using the superior tactical and strategic prowess of Davis' General Nanisca to eventually become victorious. However, during the main Oyo-Dahomey battle in the movie some of the main Agojie characters we have been following (played by Lynch and Mbedu) are captured and taken to be sold into slavery. Mbedu's character (Nawi) is bought by Bolger's character (Malik) in order to rescue her. (The two had their "meet-cute" moment earlier in the film when Nawi finds Malik bathing in a nearby waterfall and takes his clothes which for me was a highlight of the movie because Malik is phyne!!)

Although being told explicitly by her king not to go and rescue her captured Agojie soldiers, Nanisca goes anyway and along with her most loyal supporters basically destroys the town/port where slaves were being bought and sold and then transported across the Atlantic.

Overall, The Woman King is a well-done, action film (I think I saw someone call it a "a Black female Gladiator or Braveheart") with exceptional performances by Davis and Mbedu. It is exceedingly violent, almost graphically so, since almost all the combat is hand-to-hand with sharp, bladed weapons, a few primitive  guns and some gunpowder-based explosions. Despite the action genre, there is real emotional relationships depicted between many characters, like Nawi and Malik, Nawi and Nanisca, and Nanisca and Amenza (played by Atim). It's one of the best times I have had at the movies in years!

Title: The Woman King.
Director: Gina Price-Bythewood.
Running Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes.
MPAA Rating: Rated PG-13 for sequences of strong violence, some disturbing material, thematic content, brief language and partial nudity.
Release Date: September 16, 2022.
Viewing Date: October 2, 2022.

Writing: A-.
Acting: A.
Visuals: A.
Impact: A+.

Overall Grade: A (4.0/4.0).

Star Rating:  ★★★★½☆  (4.5/5.0).

BOOK REVIEW: Circe by Madeline Miller

Circe by Madeline Miller is another one of her amazing novelizations of the life of a famous (or infamous) character from Greek mythology. I had previously read The Song of Achilles, a heart-wrenching book about the most famous tragic gay love story of antiquity, that of Achilles and Patroclus (told mostly from the perspective of the latter). While The Song of Achilles can be described as a gay male equivalent of a “bodice ripper” (“jockstrap stretcher”?), featuring one of the most celebrated heroes of all time, Circe is about a less well-known and decidedly less well-regarded antihero. The genius of Miller is that she uses the protagonists of her books and their interactions with the Greek pantheon to depict mythological stories and legends as real events and occasions in the lives of her characters. Because her research is impeccable and her knowledge of the mythology is so vast, Miller is able to weave stories that readers have heard of together with others that we haven’t into a seamless, compelling whole that is educational, emotive and engaging.

All I remember knowing about Circe before reading Circe is that she was a sorceress (i.e. witch!) who turned Odysseus’ men into pigs after they landed on her island when they were sailing back from the Trojan War. She and Odysseus “hooked up” and this delayed his return to his long-suffering wife Penelope by several years. While all of that is known, Miller starts her story of Circe’s immortal life much earlier, informing us of her subject’s relationships to the more central gods of Greek mythology. Circe was the daughter of Helios, the Titan god of the Sun. The Titans, you may or may not remember, were the primordial gods who existed before the Olympians. They were led by Cronus (who had taken over by killing his father Uranus) and thus tried mightily to prevent the same thing happening to him by swallowing and imprisoning all the children he had with his fellow Titan, Rhea. However Rhea helped her favored son Zeus escape this fate and so it did come to pass that eventually Cronus’s son did usurp his father to become the King of the Gods and ruler of Olympus after the Olympians won a Great War with the Titans. The point of this background is to put Circe’s life in context; she was the daughter of a defeated Titan (Helios) and a sea nymph (Perses) who was always in the shadow of the now-ascendant Olympians and also her (evil) elder twin siblings Aeëtes and Pasiphaë. So although Circe grew up in godly dominions and in proximity to divinity she was only a demigod herself and even her godhood was of a secondary nature, since it was from a Titan, not an Olympian. In other words she was always  perceived (and perceived herself) as an outsider.

Early in her life, Circe discovers that she has powerful magical abilities through the use of herbs and incantations. Unfortunately, at a young age she uses these powers to break an important rule, by elevating a mere mortal she has a crush on to become a god (a status higher than she herself has) and turning a rival of hers into a horrible monster. When her bad behavior was revealed, an agreement was reached between Helios and Zeus to punish her by exiling her to a private, remote (but verdant) island for the rest of her very long life. 

Miller provides us context and rationale for Circe’s actions, so the reader begins to understand why she does some of the objectively horrible things she does. We also learn more about her siblings, and they are most definitely even worse. Her sister Pasiphaë births the monstrous Minotaur of Crete (after having sex with her husband's prized bull and gets a dispensation from their father to let Circe be released from her island exile to act as her sister’s midwife). Her brother Aeëtes committed murderous atrocity after murderous  atrocity to protect the Golden Fleece well before Jason and the Argonauts show up. I don’t think Miller excuses Circe’s bad actions, exactly, but we definitely learn Circe’s side of the story, especially in the most well-known tale involving her, namely that of her relationship with Odysseus and their son Telegonus.

Overall, the experience of reading Miller’s Circe is highly recommended for anyone who ever spent time in a library researching the various lives and family trees of the Greek and Roman gods. It’s an engrossing and enjoyable way to experience mythology. 

Ultimately, if you have already read The Song of Achilles then Circe compares somewhat unfavorably with that masterpiece, but there’s very few books that don’t. (If you haven’t read The Song of Achilles yet, what are you waiting for, a sign from the gods? Get to it!) That said, Miller does as good a job as one can do with an antihero like Circe as protagonist. I can’t wait to read whatever story/tale/myth she decides to tell an entire book about next!

Title: Circe
Author: Madeline Miller.
Format: Kindle.
Length: 433 pages.
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company.
Date Published: April 04, 2018.
Date Read: July 29, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller is a legendary book about a legendary gay love story. Being gay myself, I had heard about this book from several gay acquaintances and had been warned about the powerful emotional wallop it delivers. I can confirm that it is very easy to become emotionally invested in this story about Patroclus and Achilles, told from the perspective of the lesser known Greek. There’s a reason this book has more than 310,000 ratings averaging well over 4.2 on a 5-point scale on Goodreads. It connects on a visceral level with the vast majority of readers; this is an amazing feat since at its heart The Song of Achilles is a love story between two men (both mortal, but one with a goddess for a mother).

For anyone who has even a passing interest in Greek and Roman mythology, The Song of Achilles is a treat. Many, many famous and familiar names fill its pages. To name just a few: Odysseus, Heracles(Hercules), Apollo, Athena, Agamemnon, Helen, et cetera. And there are many more included whose names you probably should know, but don’t. For me, these were people like Peleus (Achilles’ mortal father), Thetis (Achilles’ mother, a sea nymph), Pyrrhus (Achilles’ son), Briseis (longtime female companion to Patroclus and Achilles), Hector (hero of Troy) and Diomedes (one of key leaders of the siege of Troy).

The Song of Achilles is told from the perspective of Patroclus from beginning to end. We learn that he was also a prince, the son of Menoitius, who himself was the son and grandson of kings. Through a horrible accident at the age of 10 he ended up killing another young boy, the son of another king (there were so many tiny Greek kingdoms at this time that the land was chock full of princes). As a result, Patroclus was exiled and taken in by King Peleus, Achilles’ father. Patroclus was shy and Achilles was literally the golden child, with bright blond hair, green eyes, a perfect physical specimen of male beauty (even at the young age of 10) and the center of attention wherever he went.

Essentially from this point on Achilles and Patroclus grow up together, becoming inseparable companions, beginning as platonic friends and eventually becoming soul mates. As told from the viewpoint of Patroclus, the deepening of their relationship is detailed, heartwarming and incredibly romantic. Miller makes the interesting decision to downplay the presence of homophobia in Greek society as having any impact on how Achilles and Patroclus view themselves or their relationship, while all the whole making it very clear that EVERYONE knew that the two were lovers. (At one point the witty Odysseus says, "One tent's enough, I hope? I've heard you prefer to share. Rooms and bedrolls, both, they say.") This is somewhat explained by the cultural practice at the time that boys often took other boys as lovers “in their youth” but that there was an expectation that on reaching the age of maturity (at 16!) men would find a woman to settle down and make a family with.

Soon after Achilles turns sixteen, the Trojan war begins and it is fascinating to see how many of the major players viewed the conflict at its onset. For example, no one expected that it would take over ten years to "rescue Helen." Since Achilles was known to be the most skilled warrior since Heracles, the Greeks were extremely confident of their eventual victory, but they were unaware the role that the Gods (especially Apollo) would play in the conflict. (Or they thought that the gods on their side were more powerful than the gods on the other side.) Tragically, they were wrong about multiple aspects of the war.

One aspect of the book which enhances it’s salience and emotional impact is the fact that despite the story being so well-known The Song of Achilles still provides surprises. You probably already know the contours of the story (Troy falls, Patroclus dies, Achilles dies, Helen lives) so one can't really say these are spoilers. But there is a fair amount of predestination; Achilles was told his fate (by his immortal mother who heard it from the Fates) that if he doesn’t go to Troy he would not have eternal fame, that if he went to Troy he would die there, and that he would not die before Hector. All of these “spoilers” in the story turn out to be true, and it’s this foreknowledge that is absolutely devastating to the reader, especially since Patroclus is aware of all the predictions as well, and basically unable to do anything about it. It's hard to read the last 10% of the book without being emotionally devastated.

The Song of Achilles is both a tragedy and a love story; it’s a familiar tale with a completely unfamiliar and riveting plot at its core. The motivations and motives of the main characters are so recognizable yet simultaneously frustrating that it is hard to overstate the emotional investment of the reader in the resolutions of their conflicts. It’s a book that stays with you for a really long time. And to me, that’s the best kind! I'm definitely looking forward to picking up Circe, by the same author.

Title: The Song of Achilles.
Author: Madeline Miller.
Format: Kindle.
Format: 389 pages.
Publisher: HarperCollins.
Date Published: March 6, 2012.
Date Read: April 14, 2021.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A/A (4.08/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

CELEBRITY FRIDAY: Patrick Bumatay Becomes First Openly LGBT Federal Appellate Court Judge

Openly gay, Filipino Patrick Bumatay, 41, was confirmed by the U.S. Senate by a 53-40 vote to a lifetime seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Cort of Appeals. Bumatay is the first openly gay man to be appointed to the federal judiciary at the Circuit Court level (one rung below the U.S. Supreme Court) and is also the first Filipino to serve in that capacity. His nomination was opposed by both of California's U.S. Senators, Kamala Harris and Dianne Feinstein, which prior to the Trump administration would have doomed his candidacy. He was also opposed by basically every major LGBT and/or civil rights organization. He is Trump's 49 confirmed appointee to the circuit courts.

WATCH: Ta-Nehisi Coates' Opening Statement in Reparations Congressional Hearing

2018 BASEL: Federer Wins 99th Career ATP Title

Roger Federer won his 99th career ATP title at the Swiss Indoors Championships held in his hometown of Basel, Switzerland. Federer defeated Romanian qualifier Marcus Copil 6-4 7-6(5) in his 14th final in Basel to win his 9th title. The only male player who has won more titles is Jimmy Connors, who won 109 titles. I had previously thought that this total was out of range for Federer, but now I'm not so sure.

2018 US OPEN: Djokovic Wins 14th Major (defeating del Potro)

Surprising some, Novak Djokovic won the 2018 U.S. Open men's singles title by defeating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3 7-6(4) 6-3. With this win Djokovic has jump started hisyear by winning two majors, Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and brought his career total to 14 majors, tying Pete Sampras at #3 on the all-time list, behind Rafael Nadal at 17 and Roger Federer at 20. Since he is 31, Nadal is 32 and Federer is 37 the Serb has a reasonable chance of ending his career with more majors than the Spaniard, and may even catch the Swiss's total. His partisans note that, right now, he has a head-to-head advantage of 24-22 over Federer, 27-25 over Nadal and 25-11 over Andy Murray and 19-5 over Stan Wawrinka.

Could these two consecutive major title wins be the first half of a second Nole slam (to be completed in 2019)?

GRAPHIC: Demographics of Immigrant Fraction Of United States Has Varied Over Time

This is an interesting graphic which shows the demographics of the non-native population of the United States has varied over time. Axios summarizes the changes over time thusly:

• For most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the vast majority of immigrants came from Western and Northern Europe. The Irish fled famine, the Germans fled political instability, and Italians primarily wanted better economic opportunity.
• The 1965 act ended a program that allowed Mexicans to work on U.S. farms but remain residents of Mexico. That changed the nature of immigration from Mexico and from Central America "to primarily unauthorized," Batalova says.
• In 1986, the U.S. gave legal status to almost 3 million undocumented immigrants — an overwhelming majority of them from Mexico. These new green card holders could then sponsor additional family members.
• There has been a surge of Central American asylum seekers in the U.S. over the past several years as political chaos, poverty and violence have ravaged many of those nations.
• New laws also opened the door to immigration from Asia — initially from India and Taiwan, and later China.
• Following the Vietnam War, there was an influx of Vietnamese people and other citizens of the region who fled to the U.S. as refugees.
• Most recently, there's been a wave of immigration from African countries that began in the 1990s and 2000s for a wide variety of economic, political and humanitarian reasons.

hat/tip: Axios

#EqualityDay: Anniversary of Multiple LGBT Legal Victories!

Happy #EqualityDay! Today is June 26, which is an auspicious day for LGBT equality in the United States. In 2003, the Supreme Court finally affirmed the basic humanity of LGBT citizens and eliminated the remaining state laws banning sodomy in Lawrence v. Texas; In 2013, the state struck down the odious Defense of Marriage Act which had prohibited the federal government from recognizing legal same-sex marriages in United States v. Edith Windsor and also ruled in Hollingsworth v. Perry that California's Proposition 8 was unconstitutional; in 2015's Obergefell v. Hodges the Supreme Court struck down all state-based bans on recognition of same-sex marriage (including California's Proposition 8) effectively legalizing marriage equality nationwide! (A curious fact is that all of these LGBT-supportive decisions were written by Anthony Kennedy, a Reagan appointee and Republican conservative jurist.)

Happy 241st Birthday, Carl Friedrich Gauss!

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Carl Friedrich Gauss is one of the most important mathematicians of all time. Today, April 30th, is the 241st anniversary of his birth, and Google's Doodle is recognizing that fact. Some of the reasons why Gauss is known as the "Prince of Mathematicians" (in Latin princeps mathematicorum);

• Proved the fundamental theorem of algebra (in his Phd thesis!)
• Proved that a 17-sided polygon (the heptadecagon) coudl be created with compass and straigh-edge.
• Invented the Diiscrete Fourier Transform (160 years before Cooley and Tukey)
• Proved Fermat's Last Theorem (for n=3 and n=5)
• Computed the sum of the 100 positive integers (at age 5!)
• The normal distribution is also known as the Gaussian distribution

And many, many more...

ANNIVERSARY: Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated This Day In 1968 #MLK50

Today is April 4, 2018 the 50th anniversary of the date that Martin Luther King, Jr was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. My mother was VERY pregnant with me at the time and thus for some reason I have always had an affiliation with Dr. King, since I was born a few weeks later.

Many people are using the anniversary to discuss and analyze the "progress" that has been made towards equality and ending racial discrimination in the United States in the 50 years since he was killed.

However I just want to take a moment and recognize that the man who had already won a Nobel Peace Prize and catalyzed the civil rights movement was 39 years old when he was gunned down by a white man, James Earl Ray, who was hoping to forestall or reverse changes in the area of race relations in the United States.

BOOK REVIEW: Police At The Station And They Don't Look Friendly by Adrian McKinty

Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly is the  sixth (and perhaps last?) book in the Inspector Sean Duffy series by Adrian McKinty. It is quite a corker, and probably the best in this quirky mystery thriller series set in Northern Ireland in the 1980s when "the Troubles" were at their peak. It is a good sign about the quality of these books that I had previously  said that the fifth book in the series, Rain Dogs, was clearly the best. (It was on my list of favorite books read in 2016.) The Duffy books just keep getting better and better!

The book begins with a scene where our protagonist is in such mortal peril that the reader is confronted with reality that this might be the end of the road for our favorite Catholic detective with the snobbish music tastes who has been trying to solve murders in a setting where religious factions (Catholics and Protestants) are frequently torturing and killing each other (and the forces trying to maintain order) with abandon.

However, after beginning with a literal bang, the next chapter is set in some unspecified amount of time in the past where we discover that Sean is living (in sin) with the mother of his months-old baby girl, Emma, and generally bored out of his mind with no murders to solve when a very strange one falls into his lap. (A drug dealer is shot to death with a crossbow, and it's the second time in as many days someone has been shot with such a medieval weapon.)

One feature of the Sean Duffy thrillers is that the plots get unbelievably complicated and they entangle people at highest levels of British and Irish society that one would not think that a local copper in a small suburb of Belfast (Carrickfergus) would have any chance of interacting with, let alone collaring. Another feature is the deployment of mystifying (to American ears and eyes) of Irish slang which gives the series a sense of verisimilitude and exoticism which is both appealing and off-putting (simultaneously!) The amusing titles of the books apparently come from lines from Tom Waits songs.

In Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly the fine line Duffy has been walking as a Catholic member of the occupying British police force (the Royal Ulster Constabulary) becomes untenable as many mutual enemies (such as the Catholic IRA, the Protestant paramilitaries and the British military establishment) decide the time has come to eliminate their common irritant, our "fenian" [an anti-Catholic slur] hero.

Mckinty pulled off an interesting bit of fore-shadowing by giving the reader a chance to grapple with Duffy's demise in the beginning of the novel before resolving the question of his main character's mortality in a way which is ultimately satisfying. (Yes, I am being deliberately vague to avoid spoilers.)

All of the above being said, if this is the final Duffy book I will not be sad or mad as I think McKinty has managed to bring Duffy through very many improbably survivable situations before and I have enjoyed the journey as long as it lasted. It is hard to see how McKinty could (or can) continue to sustain the increasingly high quality of the Duffy series if it were to continue. However, we will just have to wait and see!

Title: Police at the Station and They Don't Look Friendly
Author: Adrian McKinty.
Paperback: 322 pages.
Publisher: Seventh Street Books.
Date Published: March 7, 2017.
Date Read: April 15, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★★  (5.0/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.

Federer-Nadal XXXVIII: Federer Beats Nadal In 4th Final In 2017 To Win Shanghai Masters

Roger Federer won his 94th career ATP tour title on Sunday when he defeated his arch-rival (and current World #1) Rafael Nadal 6-4 6-3 in 71 minutes to win the Shanghai Masters. Federer is now tied with Ivan Lendl for second place on the all-time list, behind Jimmy Connors 109 titles. It was the 4th time he had beaten Nadal in a final this year  (Australian Open, Indian Wells, Miami Open and Shanghai Masters). He has now beaten him 5 times in a row and has not lost to Nadal since the 2014 Australian Open semifinal.

This match was the 38th meeting between the two rivals, which Nadal now leads 23-15. Even though the scoreline appears as if today's match was close, in reality Federer never faced a breakpoint, while he converted 3 of 7 breakpoints he earned against Nadal. He had 10 aces to Nadal's 4. Nadal was riding a 16 match win streak which included 3 titles (US Open, Beijing Open and China Open). He is the #1 ranked player in the world and is still 1950 points ahead of Federer, with only 3000 points at stake for the rest of the 2017 season. It is almost certain that Nadal will end the year at #1, for the first time since 2013. Nadal's year-to-date record is 61-10.

GRAPHIC: Confederate Statues Mapped In Time and Space

This post has an interesting graphic which demonstrates that statues commemorating the Confederacy (which was devoted to the maintenance of slavery and promulgation and prolongation of white supremacy) primarily happened in two waves, one around the establishment of Jim Crow laws in the 1910s and again in response to the civil rights movement in the 1960s.

This refutes the claim that these statues are primarily about "history and heritage" and supports the argument they are signals to Black people about the permanence of white supremacy.

Hat/tip to Axios.

Today Is #LovingDay: 50th Anniversary of Nationwide Interracial Marriage Legalization

As someone in an interracial same-sex marriage who has taught students the details of the landmark 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case Loving v. Virginia  several times I can't let today go by without acknowledging that it is the 50th anniversary of the release of that unanimous ruling striking down laws banning interracial marriages (because such statutes seek to maintain "White Supremacy").

Happy #LovngDay!

BOOK REVIEW: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead

This was my first audiobook. My husband and I listened to it on our anniversary vacation in Hawaii (Kauai and Kona).

The narrator is Bahni Turpin and she is quite impressive. She provided individual voices for each of the characters and her vocal inflections communicate the nuances of the story and made the book a delightful experience. I would probably "read" another audiobook by her from an author I was ambivalent about just because she was the narrator! (Yes, she is that good.)

I'm not sure I'm a fan of the audiobook experience overall. I feel like I did not have as continuously engaged an experience with the audiobook as I would have had if I had read the book in either "dead tree" or electronic form. But it was fun to share the experience with my hubby. There were some scenes and plot points that my husband asked me about that I missed but as a whole the book was the source of many thoughtful and interesting conversations, which is one of the key reasons to read, in my humble opinion.

All that being said, The Underground Railroad  is very effective at depicting the horrors of slavery and illustrating the toxic effects of white supremacy and legal racial subordination on both Black and White people. There's an especially affecting scene when the ramifications of harboring a fugitive slave in a upside-down version of North Carolina become chillingly clear.

Another thing that comes across is how difficult life was back then without the modern technological advances we are now used to (in 2017); I'm not talking about fancy inventions like iPhones and electric cars and the Internet, but basic necessities of modern life we almost always take for granted like antibiotics and anesthesia and electricity. 

The Underground Railroad also points out all the different ways that people's humanity is degraded by the various horrible jobs (slave catcher, slave boss, overseer et cetera) that they are forced to undertake in order to survive. This is true of the black people and the white people in the book.

Although its calling card is the fact that the "metaphorical" Underground Railroad we have heard of in history books is a real thing in the book, to me this was a minor point, and even a bit silly. The primary selling point of The Underground Railroad is its depiction of slavery (even in a fictionalized, heightened form).

The Underground Railroad is also a compelling (and action-packed) story about what happens to a number of slaves named Cora and Cesar.


Title: The Underground Railroad.
Author: Colson Whitehead.
Paperback: 320 pages.
Publisher: Doubleday.
Date Published: August 2, 2016.
Date Read: January 17, 2017.

OVERALL GRADE: A (4.0/4.0).

PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: 11/22/63 by Stephen King

I'm excited that I have finally finished my first Stephen King book (speed reading my sister's copy of Carrie when we were both teenagers doesn't count).

Anyway, I'm not a big fan of horror so I have generally stayed away from Mr. King's work previously.

However the premise of 11/22/63 fascinated me (someone goes back in time to try and stop the John F. Kennedy assassination) and even though I was a bit daunted by the size of the book I put it on my amazon wish list around Christmas time and was happy when it arrived.

11/22/63 is about a lot more than just time travel, but as a time travel novel it succeeds quite extraordinarily.

But 11/22/63 also succeeds as a love story, a thriller and as social commentary (about the 1950s and 1960s in America). I appreciated the fact that the protagonist gets sent back to 1958 and although there is a lot he likes, he also notices that for people who are not cis heterosexual white males like him, life in the 1950s was not so great (racism, antisemitism, homophobia, antediluvian attitudes about contraception and sexual activity are all brought up during the course of the novel). Maybe since a lot of the story takes place as the main character works as a teacher and I'm a teacher it strongly appealed to me, but I don't think so. I think this book has a pretty universal appeal.

It's definitely a bit slower than it needs to be but it also succeeds on its own terms and it totally deserves its excellent ratings by oodles and oodles of people on Goodreads. If someone understands the ending could they please explain it to me, especially the stuff about the various (Yellow, Red, Green and Ochre) card-carrying guys at the time portal. Even without that, I am glad that I read the book. I'm aware that Hulu has made a series based on the book starring James Franco but I don't feel like I need to see another version of the book.

This was the first Stephen King book I had read but is certainly not be my last! I don't think I'm going to run out and read The Dark Tower stuff (which is supposed to be a tale of epic fantasy). I have already read the Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers and End of Watch), which I enjoyed tremendously since it is in the mystery-thriller genre. I look forward to reading books by Mr. King in some of my other favorite genres.

Title: 11/22/63.
Author: Stephen King.
Paperback: 880 pages.
Publisher: Gallery Books.
Date Published: July 24, 2012.
Date Read: July 2, 2015.

GOODREADS RATING: **** (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: B+.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A

2017 AUS OPEN: Serena Beats Venus For Record 23rd Major

As I predicted, Serena Williams, 35, defeated her older sister, Venus Williams, 36, to win her record 7th Australian Open and record 23rd major title. The score was a surprisingly close 6-4 6-4.

Serena's win means that she has won the most grand slam singles titles in the Open era, the traditional measure of tennis greatness. She surpasses Steffi Graf's 22 and is one behind the all-time leader Margaret Court. (Martina Navratilova and Chris Evert finished with 18 majors each.) And she reclaims the World #1 ranking from Angelique Kerber, who beat her in last year's Aussie Open final.
And there's no indication Serena Williams will stop winning major titles any time soon. My prediction is at least 25, but I do not think she will be playing in 2019. Venus Williams is starting to make noises about playing the Tokyo Olympics in 2020! For Venus, reaching a major final after being diagnosed with Sjogren's Syndrome in 2011 and waiting more than six years between her last major final (2009 Wimbledon) is simply a jaw-dropping achievement which adds to her legacy.

How the Final Was Won
It was the 28th meeting between the sisters (9th in a major final) and Serena improved to a 17-11 head-to-head lead, as well as a 7-2 lead in major finals. (The only Venus wins in major finals came in the 2008 Wimbledon and 2001 US Open.) As with most of their matches, the quality of play was somewhat erratic. It began with four consecutive breaks of service, until Venus became the first to hold to edge ahead 3-2. Serena followed suit and followed up that hold with a break, which she consolidated to go up 5-3. Venus was able to hold serve to force Serena to serve for the set which he did with the help of two aces, including on set point. In the second set the quality of play went up considerably, as Serena calmed down and as both players made fewer errors and the winners were either even (Venus, 10 all) or slightly ahead (Serena, 11-9). The final mini-drama came in the 10th game of the second set (which overall followed the first set, minus the scratchy beginning) after Serena had broken and consolidated her advantage she was serving for the match but fell behind 15-30. But her serve returned and she hit two consecutive good serves (not aces) to go up 40-30 and won on her first championship point due to a Venus backhand error.

BOOK REVIEW: Underground Airlines by Ben Winters

Ever since I read Ben Winters' pre-apocalyptic mystery-thriller The Last Policeman trilogy (The Last Policeman, Countdown City and World of Trouble) last year I have been something of a fanboy of this speculative fiction author. I was VERY psyched when I learned that his first book published after The Last Policeman was going to be called Underground Airlines and set in an America with an alternate history where slavery persists to the 21st century and based around a modern analogue of the Civil War-era Underground Railroad. 

Underground Airlines is out now and clearly has an incredibly compelling premise. The alternate history is based around a seminal event which bifurcates Winters' fictional timeline from ours: the assassination of President-elect Abraham Lincoln in 1861 and the subsequent "grand compromise" which defuses the tension between the states that in our timeline led to the Civil War. The ratification of five constitutional amendments have the effect of maintaining slavery because they allow every state in the Union to determine its slaveholding status, and includes a fiendishly clever clause which prevents the enactment of any future amendment to the Five Compromise amendments, cementing slavery into the fabric of our nation forever.

Most familiar historical events that occurred in our timeline (e.g. 9/11, Michael Jackson, Franklin D. Roosevelt) also occurred in the timeline of Underground Airlines but there are some fascinating (and horrifying) ways that the absence of the Civil War from our past has warped the timeline presented in Underground Airlines. 

Interestingly, it's not the entire South which has legalized slavery (or the preferred term "Person Bound to Labor") in the modern era. Slavery is alive, well and bureaucratized in the Hard Four: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana and Carolina (North Carolina and South Carolina are reunited).

While Underground Airlines has an amazing premise, it also has a VERY complicated protagonist. He is a former slave named Victor who is now working (via coercion) for the U.S. Marshal's Service as an undercover agent to locate escaped slaves in the North and return them to involuntary servitude. Victor is a very problematic character (and in my mind, not very sympathetic). [This may be a feature of main characters in Ben Winters novels--the titular cop in The Last Policeman is also an anti-heroic figure.] Victor's circumstances are almost excessively complicated; he is in Indianapolis, Indiana looking for an escaped slave named Jackdaw when he runs into a troubled young white female with an adorable young African-American son whose future becomes entangled with his. Through the machinations of the (somewhat convoluted) plot, Victor becomes a double agent and perhaps  even a triple agent as he gets sucked into a particular situation that involves searching for a "mcguffin" which could potentially have a devastating impact on the rotten institution of slavery. However, to do so requires Victor to travel to the Hard Four which leads to some of the most harrowing and pulse-pounding scenes in the book.

Overall, despite my misgivings and issues with the main character, the setting of the book provides author Ben Winters with multiple opportunities to include mordant, thought-provoking commentary about race, class and history in our society which elevates Underground Airlines above the multitude of other media sources of entertainment which compete for our attention but ultimately fail to resonate as strongly with the conscience and memory of the reader.

Title: Underground Airlines.
Author: Ben H. Winters.
Paperback: 336 pages.
Publisher: Mulholland Books.
Date Published: July 15, 2016.
Date Read: September 27, 2016.

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY:B+.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A-.

2016 FRENCH OPEN: Djokovic Wins 12th Major, Achieves Career Slam & Nole Slam At Same Time

As I predicted, Novak Djokovic won the 2016 Roland Garros men's singles title by defeating Andy Murray 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-4. Djokovic's win was historic: he finally won his first French Open title in his fourth appearance in the Roland Garros final, becoming the eighth man in history to achieve the career slam. In fact, he has now won the last four consecutive majors, becoming the first man in 47 years to simultaneously hold all four major titles, sometimes called the Nole slam.

MEN'S FINAL REVIEW
The final was of relatively high quality, although both players started off nervously, trading breaks at the very beginning. Murray settled down first and was able to nurse his break advantage to take the first set 6-3. Djokovic settled down almost immediately once the second set began and broke Murray immediately and ran away with the first set 6-1. It was clear by the time the third set was half over that Murray's moment had passed and it was only a matter of time before Djokovic would be achieving his longterm goal of the career slam.

Djokovic is now fourth on the all-time list of major singles titles, behind Roger Federer (17), Rafael Nadal and Pete Sampras (14). He increased his head-to-head  to 24-10 against Murray and is  now 5-2 in major finals against Murray and 12-8 in major finals overall. Murray falls to 2-8 in major finals.