Christopher Wren, The Cat Who Covered the World

This story about Henrietta, the pet cat, traveling around the world with reporter Christopher Wren and his family is light-hearted and fun. The family loves its cat so very much that they put up with all sorts of complications brought about by traveling and living abroad with an animal.

The cat is small, as its mother was a Siamese. It is gray and an excellent mouser. And wouldn't you know it, at one point (in Cairo) it decides to go its own way and gets lost for a time in dangerous back streets and filthy alleys.

This book conveys very well the warmth and stability generated by a loving family. So much so that at one point I was wondering how the parents could be so pleasant and patient all the time. The answer is that no one is that perfect and no two children are such models of good behavior all the time. The focus of this book is not the people, however, but the cat. As the author writes, Henrietta is an ordinary cat who has extraordinary adventures. This book will make you glow with delight, it is so deftly written. 

Journey of Souls by Michael Newton, Ph.D.

In case you have ever wondered what happens to the soul after the body dies, or in case you don't believe we have souls, this book is for you. Yet I am not sure I entirely believe what this book purports to uncover for us through the use of hypnotherapy. How do we know the interviews with therapy clients have not been invented? The interviews all sound suspiciously similar in the use of words, grammar, and level of vocabulary. Actually, all the client interviews sound like Dr. Newton!

Pond by Claire-Louise Bennett

The writing has such subtlety that one thinks the author must be mad. Indeed, from behind the dutiful prose about everyday things, come explosions of raw terror and rage. It is quite mesmerizing, really. I especially like the story called Control Knobs, about how the knobs on her kitchen appliance were crumbling, one by one, and after they were all broken she would have no way to cook anymore. The surface and the depths are not very far apart for this writer!

The New Censorship by Joel Simon

Freedom of expression is coming under fire all around the world. Are we living in a surveillance state?  To answer that you would need to know that even children's toys come equipped with open mics! I guess it is no secret that professional journalists are being imprisoned and killed all over the world. 

Joel Simon has written a profound book on surveillance and censorship. Copyrighted in 2015, it is still quite current. 

The Divided Self by R.D. Laing

I first heard of R.D. Laing in the late 1960s, when he was known as an 'anti-psychiatrist.' He was thought to have a kinder view of people with disordered mental states. In those days, ordinary people sometimes took mescaline or LSD in order to experience unusual experiences in their minds. I believe Laing set up communities in which doctors and patients lived together, but I don't think he ever found a satisfactory way of healing the sick. He characterized psychotic people as having splits in their mental organization.

I couldn't help but notice hints of contempt in his writing, such as on page 148, where he writes: "I am quite sure that a good number of 'cures' of psychotics consist in the fact that the patient has decided, for one reason or other, once more to play at being sane."

Laing goes on to say that the schizophrenic uses obscurity and complexity deliberately "as a smokescreen to hide behind. This creates the ironical situation that the schizophrenic is often playing at being psychotic, or pretending to be so. In fact, as we have said, pretence and equivocation are greatly used by schizophrenics." (p. 163)

And further: "A good deal of schizophrenia is simply nonsense, red-herring speech, prolonged filibustering to throw dangerous people off the scent, to create boredom and futility in others. The schizophrenic is often making a fool of himself and the doctor. He is playing at being mad to avoid at all costs the possibility of being held responsible for a single coherent idea, or intention." (p. 164) Quite possibly the patient is not cooperating with the doctor to avoid the stigma of mental illness.

Personally, I don't think everybody is so articulate as to be able to say what is plaguing them. That would take a great deal of insight, and everybody is not graced with insight. In what other field of medicine do we expect the patient to figure out and speak up about his or her own disease?

These days, almost 60 years later, psychiatrists do not talk much to patients. They prescribe medications which quell 'voices' and help keep patients from becoming unglued. Sad to say, doctors still regard all psychoses as being chronic and incurable.

Soul by Andrey Platonov

It would be difficult to imagine a more poverty stricken area than the deserts of Central Russia in the late 1930s. As Platonov's writing makes clear, the people owned practically nothing. Meals of boiled grass were common. But even during the blackest times, we see people making the choice to go on, not to die. The reader can feel embedded in the life of a nomadic tribe on the verge of extinction, far from the centers of power and money.

This book is actually a collection of stories. One entitled "The Return" is now considered Platonov's masterpiece. Yet the authorities did not approve of him. I would say he is still rather unknown, despite being perhaps Russia's best writer of prose.

  

Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

Back in 1928, when Swann's Way was first published, there were no cellphones. Servants used to bring handwritten notes around between friends. So much has changed since then, including our taste in literature. Proust's extremely long sentences and paragraphs that take up pages will not be for everyone. I had not read a book like this in 40 years! But it was worth it, since I found this classic quite fascinating. Styles of writing may have changed, but people have not.