LITC BOOK REVIEW: Just Kids by Patti Smith

Reviewed by Donald Quist:

Just Kids is the National Book Award winning memoir by musician, writer, artist, Patti Smith. The book's main focus is to serve as an homage to Robert Mapplethorpe, her former friend and lover, and not to mention one of the most famed photographers of all time! This book has become one of my instant favorites. Smith’s narrative voice is so strong and the relationship between her and Mapplethorpe is so compelling, I forgive her redundancy and endless name dropping. She is a braggart, offering readers a glimpse behind the velvet curtain of the arts scene in 1970’s New York, and though that is somewhat the book's biggest appeal—the sense of voyeurism and exclusivity that sells tabloids—she is sincere. I found myself immediately drawn to her vulnerability, how her words read like a letter from a really close friend. If you strip away the cameos, her story is still meaningful and hopelessly romantic. There is a line in the book where Smith, speaking about Mapplethorpe’s work, says, “His obscenity was never obscene.” Her writing is very much the same. Smith approaches even the darkest aspects of her recollections, things like carcinoma, contracting the clap, head lice, intravenous drug use and dating two male prostitutes, with the frothy poeticism one would expect from a literary romance. But that is what it is, a story about two young people in love, with their art and each other, trying to craft an identity for themselves, walking in the shadows of giants and inevitably becoming giants themselves.

Share your thoughts on Just Kids, Friday, April 8th, 2011 @ 3:30pm, as the Coker College Library hosts a public book discussion with the Chair of the Art Department, Professor Jean Grosser in Room 228.

LITC Book Review: Chronicle of a Death Foretold

Chronicle of a Death Foretold
by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

As the library's Writer in Residence, I use my time in the stacks to familiarize myself with celebrated authors and award wining pieces of
literature. I can say without reservation that Gabo’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is every bit deserving of its Nobel Prize. Journalistically, through a series of facts and firsthand accounts, he crafts a non-linear story just as descriptive and engrossing as any of his romantic epics. Delivering on the promises made by its title, Marquez recants the events leading up to the death of our story's would-be protagonist, Santiago Nasar, a moderately wealthy man-about-town. Masterfully, Marquez manages to tell us the same story more than once and keep it interesting, each go around revealing enough information to satisfy the reader’s curiosity. We’re turned into silent voyeurs desperately trying to seek out the sordid details of this gruesome murder as Gabo’s nameless narrator pieces together the snapshot in his mind. Every young journalist should be made to read this book if only to explore the limits of the medium. With Chronicle we are reminded that writing can be primarily informative without foregoing the art of storytelling, a lesson that compliments so beautifully the sense of magical-realism present in all of Marquez’s work.

Rating:
out of 4 Cobras

LITC Book Review: Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific

As the library's resident World War II expert, I've read many volumes covering the various aspects of combat during those dark days of the 1930s and 1940s. From veteran's memoirs and in-depth histories of particular operations or battles to broad coverage of the entire conflict, most of these tomes cover the combat and heroics of front line troops. A few might mention the rear echelon soldiers, sailors and airmen, but most look at these troops with derision (with nicknames unprintable here). A few cover these troops well, like David Colley's The Road to Victory : the Untold Story of World War II's Red Ball Express.

Judith A. Bennett's Natives and Exotics: World War II and Environment in the Southern Pacific is unique because it is one of the first books to cover the great environmental impact of having over 2 million men and women -- Japanese, Dutch, Australian, and American -- invade the hostile environment of the Southern Pacific. Although tales of combat are mentioned, most of the book deals with the rear areas and the troops that provided medical care, supplies, and food to the frontline soldiers and Marines.

Most casual readers of World War II history know that the Pacific theater was a difficult place to wage war, but most probably didn't know how difficult it was just to survive on some of those islands. Incessant rain, disease, poor sanitation practices, and lack of food/diversity of diet were some of the major environmental factors affecting both sides -- and all of that happened before combat even started!

Bennett tells of the infamous fighting on the Kokoda Trail, between Australian (and later U.S.) and Japanese troops. The Japanese military was still unstoppable at this point - the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, and Singapore had fallen and now Australia itself was threatened. The Japanese military decided to land on the northern coast of New Guinea, near the villages of Buna and Gona. Their objective was to take Port Moresby, on the southern coast, via a "road" through the treacherous Owen Stanley Mountains. Their beachhead was located near malarial swamps, so by the time the Japanese troops met the Australian forces, they were in the throes of malaria. Moving their bivouacs out of these swamps, and using better anti-malarial practices might have had a huge impact on the Japanese troops' performance. The Aussies were using better anti-malarial practices (basically getting rid of mosquito larvae, defoliating, issuing insect repellent, and so on) and thus were able to fight at almost full strength. However, when American forces joined the Australians late in the campaign, they disregarded the successful anti-malarial practices (more than likely, supplies were low of bug repellent and defoliants) and suffered greatly from a large outbreak of malaria, impairing their performance. Not surprisingly, U.S. forces made a habit of disregarding local or Allied expertise in fighting in the environs of the South Pacific.

With every soldier or Marine, food was of utmost importance -- even if only for keeping morale high. Shipping the food across the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean was costly. Refrigeration was in high demand for blood plasma, so food supplies were often canned or dehydrated. Both combatants turned to local gardens and native farming to help give their troops some variety in the mess halls and in the field. For the Japanese on isolated outposts late in the war (after their naval link to the home islands was cut), this local gardening was all they had. Bennett does an excellent job discussing the different types of crops and methods used, as well as incorporating natives and their practices into farming.

Fishing proved to be an important food source for both sides, and they would even use explosives (when they could be spared) to blast the fish to the surface. Australian forces set up fish processing stations using local Melanesian labor and allowing the islanders to design their own workstations. Americans took a different tack. They supplied their support troops with fishing gear designed to work in the cold waters of New England. The tackle was too heavy to use near the coral reefs that permeate the South Pacific, so few fish were caught without modifying the gear. Once fish was caught and ready to be processed, American forces set up elaborate processing stations for local labor to utilize, with tables and benches. The islanders had been fishing for many generations using their own methods. They preferred to clean and process fish sitting on the ground, cross-legged. Needless to say, satisfactory changes were made and the islanders began processing record amounts of fish for hospitals and outposts.

Bennett includes pictures, charts, maps, and ample graphs. The book is heavily footnoted and has a substantial bibliography. Not exactly for the casual history reader, the book is a good read and breaks new ground in an important field of study.

Rating: out of 4 Cobras