Hunting Dracula with The Historian

I honestly never meant for Geek Buffet to end up with a whole series of posts on vampire fiction, but here I am, adding to it again. (Previous posts here, here, and here.) I picked up The Historian to take with me on my long business trip in large part because it looked interesting enough and, perhaps more importantly, it looked long, thereby cutting down on the number of individual books I would be putting in my luggage. It turned out to be a good choice, so if you’re looking for summer travel reading as well, read on.

I mentioned before that most of my vampire fiction reading has ended up being at an interesting intersection of vampire and detective. The Historian doesn’t quite fit that model, although the story definitely provides enough mystery and suspense for the reader to make you have to know how it ends. (Or at least it did me.) The title, interestingly enough, could apply to any number of the characters in the book: the narrator, her father, or her father’s advisor. Truly, there are three stories going on in the book, from each of these historians’ perspectives, creating a very layered effect as the story travels back in time through three generations of characters and then forward again, (which at least one person I know found off-putting enough that she didn’t get past the first couple of chapters, but really, you should keep going.)

The stories are all really the same story, of course, and everything converges nicely at the end. The premise is this: The narrator begins the book by saying that she wishes to present the story of how her family became so involved in, and later known for, the search for Vlad Tepes, aka Dracula. She begins at the beginning of her own journey, when she was still in high school and discovered a strange book in her father’s library, blank except for a woodcut illustration covering the two pages in the exact center of the book depicting a dragon and the word “Drakula.” It is also accompanied by a bunch of very old letters addressed to “My dear and unfortunate successor.” Her curiosity piqued, she finally asks her father about them.

Basque Gastronomy and History

I seem to have stored up a backlog of book reviews that I’ve been meaning to post, so I’ll start trying to clear them out of my head and onto the internet now. This first one is somewhat unusual, in that it’s actually non-fiction, which I haven’t been reading much of lately.

This book actually has to be paired with a radio story. Back in May, before I had to leave for my 3-week business trip to Asia (I’m chronicling that over on my personal blog), I heard this piece from the Kitchen Sisters on NPR, from their Hidden Kitchens series: The Sheepherder’s Ball: Hidden Basque Kitchens. While my own cooking skills are notably underdeveloped, I find this series fascinating for the way it explores history and culture through the initial touchstone of recipes and food. In this case, they revealed the existence of a sizable Basque community in the US that I had never heard about before.

Francisco and Joaquin Lasarte came to America in 1964 from Basque country in northern Spain. Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator who repressively ruled the country for nearly 40 years, made life miserable for the Basque people, suppressing their language, culture and possibilities.

The result was a massive exodus, and the only way to come to the United States for many Basque was to contract as sheepherders. There was a shortage of shepherds in the American West, and Sen. Patrick McCarren of Nevada helped craft legislation in 1950 that allowed Basque men to take up this lonely and difficult job.

Neither Lasarte brother had any sheepherding experience when they arrived in America.

Tea Ceremony Books

Okay, I admit, I’m cheating a bit, because I’m cross-posting these book reviews from my personal blog. I thought they might have wider appeal, because I certainly enjoyed them. In any case, the topic of Japanese tea ceremony came up quite concretely this past weekend, when I had to act as the commentator for a demonstration. You can read about that experience and see some pictures in my original post. Strangely, I had actually recently read two books on tea ceremony, one non-fiction and one historical fiction.

The first one was given to me by a teacher I worked with in Japan, but I didn’t pick it up again and read it all the way through until this January. The Book of Tea, by Kakuzo Okakura, was originally written in 1906. Interestingly, it was originally written in English while Okakura was living in Boston, specifically as an effort to help Westerners understand Japanese culture. This remains an interesting perspective for such a book today, but it was pretty much unheard of in that time. Okakura’s writing is excellent and clear, and while he doesn’t delve too incredibly deeply into the history and philosophy of tea, nor really describe all the aspects of the tea ceremony itself, he does provide an overview to whet the appetite. Instead, he spends most of his time trying to give his unfamiliar readers the beginnings of an understanding of the cultural aspects of tea ceremony, including the architecture of the tea house and the particular style of ikebana flower arranging used to decorate the tokonoma.

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 18-THE END

Well, it’s time to wrap up the 1930 v. 1960 The Bungalow Mystery chapter-by-chapter analysis! Because this contains the final chapters, there are SPOILERS after the break!

Start from the beginning if you’re just joining us:

Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-10, Chapters 11-12, Chapters 13-17

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 13-17

Dinner was tasty, I must say. (I made Pad Thai pizza. Make some pizza dough, top with pad thai sauce, steamed chicken, scrambled egg, cilantro, mung bean sprouts, green onions and mozzarella. Tasty.)

Anyway, back to Nancy. If you’re just joining the Nancy Drew 1930 v. 1960 Bungalow Mystery play by play, start at the beginning:

Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-10, Chapters 11-12

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 11-12

I picked up all the stuff I had lying around the living room, put away the groceries, and started making dinner. Time for more Nancy! If you’re just joining us, I’m doing a chapter-by-chapter analysis of Nancy Drew #3: The Bungalow Mystery–the 1930 edition and the 1960 edition (the 1960 is the one that’s currently available.)

Chapters 1-4, Chapters 5-8, Chapters 9-10

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 9-10

Be sure to read the first and second installments of this Nancy Drew comparison!

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery Chapters 4-8

Ok, I’m back with more Nancy mania for you! I went to the coffee shop this afternoon and read the next 4 chapters! I’ve noticed a few things–

The 1930 edition has much shorter chapters– I’m about 12 pages further into the 1960 edition. Also, the 1960 has a much faster moving plot, where in 1930, they go into a lot more detail on various escapades… This chapter-by-chapter analysis shows some BIG differences in plot outline…

(Read the first installment here)

The Case of the Changing Editions, or, Nancy Drew: The Bungalow Mystery

They’re re-realeasing Sweet Valley High, but with some updates. The various blogs/discussion lists I read are fairly upset, especially as the Wakefield twins have gone down 2 sizes from a “perfect size 6″ to a “perfect size 4″. Yes, this reflects actual changes in how women’s garments are sized, yes this probably contributes to body image issues… blah blah blah. Frankly, I never liked SVH, so I really don’t care. I think many of the complaints people are lodging can be lodged against a great many of teen series and… yeah, I don’t really care.

BUT! It gave me the idea to do something else: Did you know that Nancy Drew was radically written in the 60s to make it more PC? (Hilarious given how un-PC she is by current standards.)

I feel weird blogging about this, because Geek Buffet founder Dana is much more the Nancy expert than I am, but she has kindly loaned me some of her orignal edition Nancy Drew’s. I thought it would be a fun experiment to read the 1930 edition of The Bungalow Mystery alongside the one that is currently available (the 1960 revised edition).

So, join me as I do a chapter-by-chapter analysis!

Globalization is Green

[cross-posted from GreenCouple.com, where my fiancee and I talk about how we're trying to live green(er) together]

I’ve stolen this counterintuitive title from a section in Tim Harford’s interesting economic book (and who thought that phrase would ever be used?), The Undercover Economist. The book as a whole is a great overview of economic thinking applied to a variety of topics, from finding a good used car to pricing coffee. Near the end, Harford attempts to debunk the idea that trade protectionism prevents globalization from damaging the environment. I find most of his arguments very persuasive, although there might be more arguments against globalization that he doesn’t cover. Hardford identifies three main anti-globalization arguments: a “race to the bottom,” transportation costs, and the idea that economic growth inherently hurts the planet.