A Life Spent Reading

This is the fourth or fifth time I’ve read Mark Salzman’s charming debut novel, and it’s still just as delightful as I remember it. The book recounts Salzman’s two years of teaching English in China in 1982-84, and it is one of the best and most honest of the “English teacher in Asia” type books I’ve seen, as well as being one of the best of the China Watcher genre (although the China it describes really no longer exists). It helps that Salzman speaks Chinese and has an abiding interest in the culture; he seems to have been game for pretty much anything, including punishing bouts of martial arts practice, calligraphy, cooking and what have you. Despite the light style of the writing, these interests enable Salzman to delve deeper into what goes on around him than most foreigners would, and saves the book from the limitations of, say, Learning to Bow.

Salzman isn’t a really well-known author, but he has written a number of books, and the ones I’ve read have been uniformly engaging and entertaining despite their widely divergent subject matter. He has an ability to relate – when you think about them – really incredible stories with a complete lack of pretentiousness and a good dollop of humor. At the same time, Salzman isn’t afraid to look more deeply into himself and others to find the more lasting lessons and aspects of the things he has experienced.

I find it hard to imagine a reader who wouldn’t enjoy Iron and Silk. If you’re looking for a new author, you can do much much worse than to try Mark Salzman.

I had never read Dashiell Hammett before picking up this book. According to other reviewers, The Dain Curse is atypical of Hammett, but of course that doesn’t matter to a first-time reader. I wanted to try something from the master of 1920s hard-boiled detective fiction, and sure enough the book was entertaining, despite a plot so convoluted and incomprehensible you could break it into thirds and have enough for three good-sized Robert Crais adventures.

Hammett is generally credited with inventing the hard-boiled detective story, and was its leading proponent until Raymond Chandler came along a decade later. Still, Chandler respected Hammett and with good reason. Hammett’s book, despite being published in the late 1920s, still seems fresh and interesting. (Another interesting point is learning just how much of modern life was already in place in 1928. Vacuum cleaners, long-distance phone calls, the insanity defense…all of these appear in the novel.)

Equally interesting were the parts that have changed. Some of the slang was completely lost on me (anyone out there know what a “darb” is…?), and the way that different races are described – and treated – in the book shows the huge distance that American society has traveled since it was published. And then you have exchanges like the following – between a woman in her 20s and the hero, the nameless Continental Op – that let you know you’re not dealing with anything too modern:

She laughed suddenly, asking:
“Will you beat me if I’m bad?”
I said she might still be young enough for a spanking to do her good.

Still, Hammett’s writing is fresh even after all these years and laugh-out-loud funny in places. His scenes are original and the story carries you along well, even if you don’t really have any idea what’s going on with the plot. Although word has it that his other books are better, I would recommend this one to anybody who has an interest in crime fiction, as well as any student of literary history. If The Dain Curse is the worst of the lot, I very much look forward to reading his other novels.

For all that the plot revolves around murder and corruption, this 1984 adaptation of Bernard Malamud’s novel brings to mind a more innocent age. It’s a story about baseball, set sorta-kinda in the 1930s, and has a lot of baseball’s lore and best moments woven into the story. Robert Redford heads up a truly all-star cast (Glenn Close, Robert Duvall, Kim Basinger, Richard Farnsworth, Wilford Brimley…even some of the bit parts have furture A-listers playing the roles) to create a genuinely enduring sports movie.

Redford plays Roy Hobbs, a farmboy from the heartland who has maybe more talent than anyone ever did for baseball. He heads for the majors, only to be derailed by temptation and one very very bad choice. Sixteen years later, an aging Hobbs gets his shot. He has one season left in him, one season to prove himself. The bulk of the movie deals with this season, Hobbs’ ups and downs, and along the way weaves several different themes together into a cohesive whole. The lessons Hobbs learns are timeless, and director Barry Levinson walks a very fine line indeed between reality and mythology. But the balancing act works, Randy Newman’s score is superb, and I’m not afraid to admit that I enjoyed having my emotional reactions tugged this way and that. Rocky has nothing on this movie.

I also enjoyed the bonus feature, in which Hall-of-Famer Cal Ripkin, Jr. talks about the game, about keeping a level head when you’ve got talent, and what the movie meant to him. Ripkin is one of the few modern players who seems to have kept some of the old-time values, and it’s refreshing to see a true superstar who isn’t some sort of anti-social primadonna. He’s also articulate, insightful and humble, which brought to mind a hero of the era that the movie depicts…a fellow named Gehrig.

Go ahead and buy this one. The setting, the lack of CGI (or virtually any special effects, for that matter) make this a movie that will view as well years from now as it does today. Certainly, the twenty-plus years that it’s been since I first saw it haven’t hurt it at all.