Friends! 

I have taken a job working as a senior marketing writer/editor for a leading start-up tech solutions company.

I've been working through the weekends on this one... so I have not had the bandwidth to contribute to my blog.

I'll revisit it when I catch my breath!

Many thanks for your interest!

Through the years I have read Go Rin No Sho over ten times. It can easily be read in a day. Each time it is a different experience, because with the passage to time, the continuation of my study of the way of the sword, as well as the truths of life, I find it delivers new wisdom each time. Sometimes it makes me laugh that I could not see it before. 

Miayamoto Musashi was a legendary samurai swordsman of the middle seventeenth century in Japan who faced over sixty life-and-death battles during his time on earth. His approach to strategy became a bible to many martial artists through the centuries, and in the middle eighties of the twentieth century it became required reading for Harvard MBA students with an eye to gaining a better insight and understanding of how the Japanese mind worked in global business. 

Numerous translations of The Book of Five Rings are on the market, but Victor Harris's edition is the one I have turned to as an old friend. It provides a fine translation of the original text, and in the introduction provides a historical context of Musashi's life in Japanese history, including maps (I love maps), as well as recounting of some of his battles and contests. This edition also provides photos of different pieces of art and craftsmanship Musashi created, fostering a deeper relationship with the reader and Musashi.

The five rings represent the five states or perspectives to view the art of strategy from:

• Earth: An introduction and metaphorical discussion of martial arts, leadership and training 
• Water: A description of Musahsi's style Ni-ten, Ichi-ryu (Two Heavens, On Style), and conveys fundamental techniques and principles
• Fire: The challenges of battle, the heat of it, including different types of timing within the contest to adopt to achieve success
• Wind: This chapter explores a comparison of different styles, their strengths and weakness in strategy and swordsmanship
• Void: This is a short section offering more esoteric Zen influenced guidelines on applied thinking and correct mindset

​For Asian wisdom on martial strategy, many people are fans of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, which I have also read. It is indeed an essential book to have read and to keep handy for reference. But Go Rin No Sho remains a personal favorite, possibly because I spent a summer in Japan, and during this time became inspired to study  the way of the Japanese sword - the katana - and the Samurai. This decades-long pursuit of continued knowledge has been part of my path since college.

Umberto Eco died this month, and a number of his novels have had an influence on my writing.  He's well known for a number of novels, The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum and  The Island of the Day Before (all of which I have read). Foucault's Pendulum and The Island of the Day Before (all of which I have read).  I’ve run hot and cold on Eco, sometimes finding him too dark and obscure. I stopped reading The Prague Cemetery because of that – there was simply no one I liked or could identify with. His two earlier novels (Rose & Foucault’s) remain my favorites. However when I mention The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, I draw blank stares. 

This is a fascinating breaking of the mold for any novelist, in that Eco incorporates elements of high quality comic book graphics within the novel itself. The story’s concept is that antique book dealer from Milan, Giambattista Bodoni – Yambo, has lost his episodic memory due to a stroke. While he can remember everything he has read, all the memories of his life experience are gone. His family, his past, his name are all a blank. And one thing he seeks most emphatically is to regain the mental image of the girl he loved since his student days.

Yambo retreats to his childhood home of Solara in the countryside in hopes of possibly recovering his memory. He immerses himself in old books, newspapers, vinyl records magazines and comic books from his childhood in hopes of jarring hidden memories loose. In the process, he also immerses himself in old family history of his father and grandfather, some it poignant and painful. Some of this includes gripping experiences of growing up in Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Italy. 

​In the course of this inner journey, Yambo discovers a long lost, and very rare Shakespeare First Folio from 1623, and the shock of its recovery ushers in a myriad of lost memories. The convention of the comic book graphics weaves into Eco’s plentiful references of both scholarly research and popular culture to deliver a fascinating literary experience. In this book, one element cannot exist without the other. The lush graphics and evocative prose created a unique and distinctive reading experience which was for me like no other. Since the character is a collector of rare books, and the world of collectible books is part of the milieu, I feel this novel should to be read in hard bound edition with its high quality color plates. It is a book lover’s book. 

​In my readings through history, I’ve come across Maimonides’ name numerous times. He is acknowledged the foremost rabbinical arbiters and philosophers in Jewish history. His copious work comprises a cornerstone of Jewish scholarship. But exactly who was he, what was his history, and when did he live? That's what I wanted to know.

So when I came across Sherwin Nuland’s highly accessible book on this historic figure, I grabbed it, and put it on my reading pile; and because of its short length, it made a great weekend read for me.

Before his death, Nuland was a professor of clinical surgery at Yale and widely known as the author of How We Die: Reflections on Life’s Final Chapter which won the National Book Award and spent thirty-four weeks on the New York Times best seller list.

Nuland’s Maimonides explores the man’s life, influences and works, and provides an insight into the context of this historic figures impact on his world during his life and in the centuries following. Born in Córdoba during the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula, which was under Moorish rule, Moses Maimonides developed an early interest in sciences and philosophy. He read Greek philosophers accessible in Arabic translations and immersed himself in the sciences and learning of Islamic culture. Ultimately forced to leave Spain because of the harsh Islamic climate, he moved to Morocco and Palestine, and finally settled in Egypt, where he continued his work as a renowned physician, treating members of the ruling family in Cairo. He also eventually became the leader of the Egyptian Jewish community and its principal teacher. His writings as the Jewish culture’s foremost legal authority and scholarly philosopher brought him to ultimately be described as the Architect of Judaism.

Moses Maimonides was a Renaissance man before the Renaissance: a great physician who served a sultan, a peerless scholar of the Torah, a community leader, a groundbreaking philosopher whose greatest work--The Guide for the Perplexed— strove to reconcile scientific knowledge with faith in God. He was a Jew living in a Muslim world and a rationalist living in a time of superstition. Eight hundred years after his death, his works continue to inspire and stir debate. Nuland’s book, a comparatively quick read, is an insightful introduction to the greatest of Jewish thinkers.

    
Robert Stone taught at Amherst College when I was there. Unfortunately, having just transferred there as a junior and not being in the English department, and instead the Drama department, with a concentration on playwriting, I was not able to take any courses with him. Too little time at the college, and too much competition for enrollment in his small classes.
Robert Stone passed away at the beginning of this year, and since I read Damascus Gate shortly after his death, I thought it would be a suitable time to reflect on one of his more recent works, since he had an influence on me as a younger writer in the following years after moving to California. This effect on me related to his novels Dog Soldiers (winner of the National Book Award) and A Flag for Sunrise (set in Central America). I read both while developing my book Brother’s Keeper, set in Guatemala in the late 1980’s, and which I have re-written extensively and will be forthcoming in the near future… It was a project I began over twenty years ago which involved visiting Central America during the peak of the troubled and tragic times down there.

Damascus Gate takes place in mainly in Jerusalem, where Stone explores the contemporary theme involving the strange effect of religion in this timeless city. The novel’s hero, Christopher Lucas, is an American journalist writing a book on the ‘Jerusalem Syndrome’ and how particular people here are compelled to become religious lunatics—from a messiah to an Elvis—and in turn use the city as their theater. Half Jewish and raised as a Catholic, on his quest to write his story, Lucas finds encounters spies, prophets, conspiracies and fanatics which leads to a climactic scene under the Temple Mount, where a plot is afoot to blow up the sacred site and instigate a holy war (and to my observation the recent mini-series Dig on the USA Network borrows extensively from this novel.)

The cast of characters Lucas encounters range from singer Sonia Barnes, daughter of an interracial couple who is involved with a religious sect headed by Adam De Kuff, wealthy heir to a New Orleans fortune, and his ‘handler’ Raziel Melker, son of a politically powerful Michigan family, a musician and a heroin addict. The novel’s sub-plots explore gun and drug deals with Palestinian and Mossad involvement, characters with ruthless and lethal hidden agendas as the story world also ranges from the Tel Aviv, the Gaza Strip, the Golan Heights, the southern desert, and more. All the time Stone shares with the reader an underpinning of the different layers of history in this land along with a range of discussions with the characters on history, philosophy, morality and more. His command of obscure and esoteric religious history is impressive and remains a detail I appreciated.

Critically acclaimed by many, Stone is a notable writer, there is no doubt, and his writing is rich and vivid in its descriptions, providing the small details that help bring a moment to life. I would make one observation after finishing the book. While I liked it, and might read it again in a few years, I found the characters themselves almost entirely ‘in their heads’; there was virtually not heart to these characters. Themes of compassion and empathy were missing for me. Granted, the characters were driven, the action intense and compelling, as the novel seemed to maintain an objective of exploring themes of moral ambiguity, which John le Carré' so deftly explores in his novels. But without the heart and compassion, the characters seemed focused mainly on an intellectual level, and Stone seems to miss (for me) the soul of the matter within the human condition. 

As many young people in my generation, I grew up generally familiar with the name of Confucius. The name is deeply woven into my association with China, and his influence there and in the world is undeniable. But when I came across this book – Confucius - A Throneless King – I realized how little I truly knew of his life, his place in history and his influence on Western philosophy, as well as Asian thought. This book provided a quick and very readable overview of the man's life and works, all placed in useful context.

Confucius lived in the six century B.C., during a time when China was riven by wars between feudal states. Though born in aristocratic origins, he was still considered a commoner, yet his reputation as a diligent young scholar helped him gain his first position in the civil service, as a manager of the grain warehouse for the Lu state. His conscientious work was rewarded with greater responsibility, managing the state’s heard of oxen and flocks of sheep. During this time his personal philosophy began to develop. And during this time he began to teach as well.

Yet the topic of his teachings was not yet social or political philosophy, which was still germinating within him. Instead, he taught what he had studied diligently for years: history, rituals, music and poetry. He described his credentials to teach: “He who by revising the old, knows the new, and is fit to be a teacher.” He advocated reading classic texts of the time such as The Book of Songs, which he felt had great wisdom. He once claimed the poems contained within this text could be summed up into a single phrase “Think no evil.” Herein the foundations of his later work were laid where he strived to develop a system of thought and ethics for social and political behavior that would promote peace and harmony.

His reputation within the state of Lu grew, and he attracted students from all across the capital city and the surrounding countryside as well. During this time three influential families, who were subservient to the duke of the state were struggling for dominant power. And as one family ascended, they reached out to Confucius to help validate their influence because of his righteous reputation. Political struggles continued between the families, while competing states outside Lu competed for dominance and power. Confucius was ultimately left disillusioned and resigned from his government post.

A began a long set of journeys visiting small kingdoms in northeast and central China, and at the courts of the states he visited he expounded his teachings. He never saw them implemented, however. At the age of 68 he was invited to return to the state of Lu. There he spent his final years teaching his disciples and writing his wisdom in a set of texts known as the Five Classics. In his life time, he never saw the impact or adoption of his teachings. It was through his disciples and his texts that he finally gained influence and incorporation into the Chinese way of life, and later in the world. He was a remarkable man whose knowledge and influence resonate with untarnished integrity even today.                                                          

I enjoy spy novels and thrillers, and I’m the first to recognize that spy novels are not necessarily thrillers. They may be chess games. John Le Carré is the master of that form. Daniel Sylva has established himself as a consummate franchise novelist, balancing the thriller and the spy trade with his Gabriel Allon books, of which there are 15 at the time of this writing. I’ve read 14 of them. And I thoroughly enjoyed the first thirteen. I’ve chosen one of my favorites, which sits in the middle of the sequential Allon mythology, and in talking about the book, I’ll also make reference to the wider array of stories Silva entertains in his Gabriel Allon cycle.

Moscow Rules is the eight Gabriel Allon book. Where the first seven books dealt with Arab terrorists, and tracking down deadly criminals protecting old World War II era and Nazi-related secrets, this book ventures into the world of the new Russian Mafia. Allon’s background is that he was part of the original team chosen by the Israeli secret service to track down the Munich terrorists of the 1972 Olympic Games. A promising young painter, he was recruited by Ari Shamron, director of the Israeli secret service, because of his fluent European German and his calm steady nerves. Allon’s cover, and passionate profession when not on assignment, is as a fine art restorer. His world is restoring paintings and ancient murals of Michelangelo, Caravaggio, and all the great artists of Western culture.     

In Moscow Rules, a journalist’s death leads, Allon to Moscow where he encounters a new Russia, glittering with symbols of conspicuous wealth, luxury cars and beautiful women, and more. Here Allon must track down the urgent message the dead journalist tried to get to Allon, a warning of impending terror. This leads the Israeli agent to Ivan Kharkov, a former KGB agent who has built a global investment empire on the rubble of the old Soviet Union. And he is the man responsible for the journalist’s death. Allon learns too, that Kharkov is involved in arms dealing, and one critical sale of Russia’s latest weaponry to Al Qaeda is about to take place; but when and where are not yet established. Failure to interrupt the sale would lead to the most lethal terrorist attack since 9/11. This discovery comes with a threat to his life that also almost leaves him imprisoned in Russia by the FSB, Russia’s new KGB headquartered out of the Kremlin.

Once back in Israel, Allon remains steadfast to get Kharkov who now vacationing in his luxury villa in San Tropez. Allon learns that Kharkov’s wife, Elena, the original source of the information leak, loves the paintings of Mary Cassatt, and Allon creates a forgery of one of her paintings as a method to get close to her and Kharkov’s household.

Elena’s expert eye, however, spots the forgery, but the dialog has begun with Allon’s team, who share information about her husband’s extensive ruthless dealings which her conscience cannot ignore. She ultimately decides to help Allon. The perils are high as he strives to get her and her children out of Kharkov’s tight security and to safety as the team avert the imminent terror threat. But Kharkov is not through yet, nor is his pungent determination to get revenge. We see him again in the following novel, The Defector.

I especially enjoyed this book and The Defector because of its depiction of a world I have not seen much of – the new Russia, and the consequences of the Wild West spirit of no rules for the ambitious ruthless new age of gangster-businessmen billionaires.

All of Daniel Silva’s Allon books have a sense of tension, heart, conscience, adventure, humor and soul that I find well delivered with a sense of integrity to his dedicated craftsmanship in these franchise novels. I’ve read a number of other authors who, after establishing their story and character franchise equation after three or four installments that simply appear to be too lazy to go the distance to deliver a quality piece of writing. Silva sweats the details.   

The demarcation line between scholarly religious historians and traditional Christian theologians could not be more clearly drawn in this book. Through his research into the text of the New Testament, and referencing other extant sources of the time, James D. Tabor presents a picture of Jewish theology during the years after the death of Christ and its context with the earliest Christianity. The journey through this knowledge is both is compelling and illuminating. In researching for my three Sub Rosa novels, I’ve read a number of books in this genre relating to more recent and alternative Christian scholarship. They include: Tabor’s The Jesus Dynasty, Elaine Pagels' The Origin of Satan (review below), The Gnostic Gospels, Beyond Belief: The Secret Gospel of Thomas; James M. Robinson’s The Gospel of Jesus: A Historical Search for the Original Good News; The Lost Gospel of Judas Iscariot: A New Look at Betrayer and Betrayed, by Bart Ehrman and Beloved Disciple: The Misunderstood Legacy of Mary Magdalene, the Woman Closest to Jesus  by Robin Griffith-Jones… and many more. This book stands out for me by its compelling depiction of the wholesale authorship of Christianity by the Apostle Paul. Indeed it would appear that the Twelve Apostles and Jesus himself take a backseat to Paul’s vision of the worship of God.

In Tabor’s book a number of compelling scholarly points are raised. The first is that it was never Paul’s original charter, granted by the Jerusalem leadership - the Original Apostles – to share the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth to the non-Jews and in turn create a separate faith, outside of Judaism. Instead these Gentiles were people coming to Jewish temples with the goal of embracing the monotheistic belief that Judaism offered, with Jesus as God’s sacred representative on earth. As a literate and Roman citizen Paul had a number of factors working for him that the Twelve Apostles did not. He wrote down his positions defining Christianity, creating a body of written work, and he had freedom of travel within the Roman Empire, setting up branch communities outside of the movement’s ‘headquarters’ in Jerusalem.

And indeed when he did go to Jerusalem to meet with the Apostle leadership (James, Peter and John), it was marked with strife, disagreement and animosity. Indeed, in Paul’s thinly veiled view of was conveyed with severe characterization and sarcasm: Referring to James, Peter and John, he called them as “the so-called pillars… those reputed to be somebody… what they are means nothing to me…” (Galatians 2:6, 9) He continues on another passage of the New Testament: “I am not the least inferior to these super apostles… false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ.” (2 Corinthians 11:5, 13). Indeed he claims his heavenly revelation on the road to Damascus superseded anything that Jesus and Apostles taught, revealed to him alone by God. Never once in Paul’s writings does Paul directly quote any of the teachings of Jesus, and only once does Paul appear to allude to one of those teachings. Indeed Paul by all appearances took pride in lying about faith (1 Corinthians 9:20-21) where he expressed orthodox Jewish Torah tract for one audience where for those outside adopted a completely different message… As stark contrast to “Seek and ye shall find” and “The Truth shall set you free,” teachings of Jesus (cited even in The Gospel of Jesus with the original unadulterated teachings of Jesus of Nazareth and determined by the Jesus Seminar, a collection of over 150 critical scholars and laymen Biblical scholars whose goal was to find the original word of Jesus, free of later additions after His death.   

Theologians, of course, vigorously contest the conclusions of Tabor’s interpretations and scholarship, their points originating from tradition and articles of faith. From an academic and historical perspective, however, Tabor’s points cannot be simply dismissed out of hand, just because of the uncomfortable historical perspective that they present. For me, the book was rich food for thought. 

This is definitely my kind of book: a story with roots deep in the past, an original and enlightening contemporary narrative, all intertwined in a compelling structure that mystifies and compels. All the better when some the central story element of the past involve medieval times.

Andrew Davidson’s debut novel, The Gargoyle involves an unnamed narrator who is a burn victim from an automobile accident, leaving him little more than a husk of a living man. His past as a porn star, which led to him becoming a producer of that content, serves as a haunting memory of the pleasures of the flesh he will never know again. He's also a drug addict. Yet in the midst of this depressing state of affairs a beautiful, eccentric woman comes to him, insisting that they were lovers centuries before, which he dismisses out of hand. This is Maryanne Engle.

Maryanne Engle’s devotion to him cannot be ignored. Her dedication to him becomes the engine and pathway to his many months of painstaking healing in the hospital, and later in her home, an edifice evoking the feeling of a medieval castle. Her commitment to him, however, is challenged by her enduring passion which is fueled by a religious sense of duty and destiny: her sculpting of stone gargoyles. Between her days-long obsessive creativity cycles, she shares different stories with him, one of which is the serialized account of their story together. He was a mercenary in medieval Germany, and she was a nun at convent whose fame for mystics was widely known, and their scriptorium renowned for producing great works. When he becomes wounded in battle, his life expectancy nil, he is brought to the convent as a last effort at healing, and she becomes his caretaker. Their story in the book intertwines in the present and the past, as each takes care of the other in some measure, while the narrator of the present day story continues to cast doubt on the entire narrative. Yet with his history in the present of being a user of people and situations he finds himself when all other hope is lost, that a heart grows inside him with profound and resonating feelings for her.

I hesitate to give more details, because the journey is the thing in this read. It’s not formulaic in any way. It’s a story that refuses to follow traditional routes, yet ends with a satisfying and resonant closure. A rich, entertaining, insightful and enlightening read. 

I enjoyed this book on a number of levels. I had traveled to the rain forest jungles of Latin America some years ago on my own quest for experience while researching a novel. I also felt some kinship with the author, David Grann, who felt compelled to research this first hand. His story is also of the story of The Lost City of Z. The subject of the quest to find this elusive place, and the story of the man who made it his life’s quest,  however, resonated as well for me in other ways.

Based on his study of document in the National Library of Rio de Janeiro, British surveyor Col. Percy Harrison Fawcett named this mysterious city which had been described by a Portuguese explorer in his writings from 1753. The account described an advanced city seen from one of the many rivers in the Amazonian forest. While others dismissed the account, Fawcett became obsessed with discovering the city, and engaged in seven expeditions to the Amazon between 1906 and 1924, only to disappear on the last one, in the company of his son. The story captured the imagination of the world, while Fawcett’s wife maintained the home front, striving to mount rescue missions to find her lost family. Fawcett was never found, but the quest for finding him became passion for numerous people, all the way up to the recent past. And it was this obsession that Gann needed to explore for himself, tracing Fawcett’s exploration as best as possible, since he had maintained a secretive habit of hiding his maps to guard against competing explorers who might try to steal his glory.

A staff writer for The New Yorker, Grann’s book chronicles Fawcett’s, how he became an explorer, as well as his many journeys to the Amazon. As well, he also documents some of the explorers who went to find Fawcett, some of whom also never returned. Grann’s own experience in the jungle gave more of a vivid and intimate feeling for the reader to experience this fascinating, and wildly untamed world where the slightest misjudgment of where to step, or what to touch, could mean the different between life or death. The theme of a European’s obsession Amazonia also made me think of the documentary Burden of Dreams, the documentary of the director Werner Herzog’s filming of his obsession in the Amazon: Fitzcarraldo… and of course Herzog’s other epic of Amazonian obsession, Aguirre, the Wrath of God. The ending of the book also had a satisfying conclusion which included a visit to an archaeologist living native style among the indigenous tribes there, and his insight into the elusive lost city which Fawcett staked his and his son’s life on discovering.