The Works of Samuel Johnson: With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy. Volume 4 (1792)

There are twelve volumes altogether, and hey, I just finished number four! 1/3 of the way done! The Works of Samuel Johnson: With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy. Volume 4 (1792), another entry on Harold Bloom's Western Canon list, did not disappoint.

This volume is particularly fun -- it is made up of the first 70 entries in The Rambler, a bi-weekly periodical written and published by Johnson from 1750-1752. The essays, each about 5-10 pages long, are easily digestible comments on modern society and tidbits of advice on how to best live ones life. Some of the most amusing entries are written in the guise of devoted readers asking Mr. Johnson for some of his sage advice. Like much of Johnson, there is a combination of confidence, humor, and observation that make these moral essays not only fun to read, but, with some exceptions, still pretty good life advice.

Take this, for example, from No. 68 "Every man chiefly happy or miserable at home. The opinion of servants not to be despised.":

"This remark may be extended to all parts of life. Nothing is to be estimated by its effect upon common eyes and common ears. A thousand miseries make silent and invisible inroads on mankind, and the heart feels innumerable throbs, which never break into complaint. Perhaps, likewise, our pleasures are for the most part equally secret, and most are borne up by some private satisfaction, some internal consciousness, some latent hope, some peculiar prospect, which they never communicate, but reserve for solitary hours, and clandestine meditation. 

The main of life is, indeed, composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence; of insect vexations which sting us and fly away, impertinences which buzz awhile about us, and are heard no more; of meteorous pleasures which dance before us and are dissipated; of compliments which glide off the soul like other musick, and are forgotten by him that gave, and him that received them....

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours, which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises, which he feels in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they became familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution." 

Pretty spot on for something written 250 years ago....

Or look at this one, which is almost a perfect description of certain politicians that I can't wait to stop hearing about (from No. 11 "The folly of anger. The misery of a peevish old age."):

"There is in the world a certain class of mortals, known, and contentedly known, by the appellation of passionate men, who imagine themselves entitled by that distinction to be provoked on every slight occasion, and to vent their rage in vehement and fierce vociferations, in furious menaces and licentious reproaches. Their rage, indeed, for the most part, fumes away in outcries of injury, and protestations of vengeance, and seldom proceeds to actual violence, unless a drawer or linkboy falls in their way; but they interrupt the quiet of those that happen to be within the reach of their clamours, obstruct the course of conversation, and disturb the enjoyment of society. 

Men of this kind are sometimes not without understanding or virtue, and are, therefore, not always treated with the severity which their neglect of the ease of all about them might justly provoke; they have obtained a kind of prescription for their folly, and are considered by their companions as under a predominant influence that leaves them not masters of their conduct or language, as acting without consciousness, and rushing into mischief with a mist before their eyes; they are therefore pitied rather than censured, and their sallies are passed over as the involuntary blows of a man agitated by the spasms of a convulsion."

I could go on quoting all day, because Samuel Johnson is nothing if he is not deliciously quotable, but instead I'll leave you with a few more of my favorite entries worth reading in their entirety:

No. 16 "The dangers and miseries of literary eminence"
No. 34 "The uneasiness and disgust of female cowardice"
No. 39 "The unhappiness of women whether single or married"
No. 45 "The causes of disagreement in marriage"
No. 50 "A virtuous old age always reverenced"
No 59. "An account of Suspirius the human screech-owl"

Lucky for me, the next volume is even more of The Rambler! Slow and steady gonna win this race...

The Harness Maker's Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas by Nick Kotz (2013)

I won this copy of The Harness Maker's Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas by Nick Kotz (2013) in a raffle at an archives conference a few years ago and it finally made its way up to the top of my reading stack.

If you've been in downtown San Antonio you might have seen the Kallison's Western Wear cowboy on top of an old building on South Flores street (he's also on the cover of the book). This book tells the story of how the Kallison's got to San Antonio, how they grew a small harness making shop into a South Texas empire, and how they worked both within and outside of the Jewish community in the city to extend their influence and help their fellow Texans.

Nathan Kallison escaped the Czar's anti-Semitic edicts and  murderous Cossacks in 19th century Ukraine to join his brother in Chicago. Ultimately all three Kallison brothers and their elderly mother were able to make the crossing. Nathan worked hard to build a successful harness-making business, a trade he had learned as a young boy, and soon caught the eye of another Jewish immigrant from Russia the really rather demanding Anna Lewtin. The two married, had a son and daughter, and worked hard. Ultimately, though, the crowds, dirt, and potential of tuberculosis in Chicago did not agree with Anna. They randomly met a couple while traveling who encouraged them to settle in San Antonio and, although they had never been to Texas, they decided to give it a shot. Nathan opened another harness and saddle shop, which was a great success in a Texas still dominated by ranches and where the automobile had not yet made many inroads. The book follows the Kallison's as the store expands, their family grows, they move into nicer and nicer houses, and they really become part of San Antonio's social scene. Nathan buys a ranch outside of town so that he can test some of the recommendations from the newly established extension office and uses that as a way to help Texas ranchers and farmers and to expand their reliance on his store. Eventually, under the leadership of Nathan's sons, the store grows into a downtown behemoth selling everything from hats to jewelry to  washing machines and farm equipment and one of the sons, Perry, becomes the host of a very popular daily radio program, the Trading Post.

While the story of the Kallison family is interesting, the real selling point for me was using that family's story as a jumping board for a history of San Antonio and Texas in the first half of the 20th century. Kotz (who is the son of Nathan's younger daughter, Tibe) is a professional journalist who didn't know much about his family history until he starting digging in to research this book. The reader benefits from the context that Kotz provides, particularly in the areas of Jewish life in Texas and the impact of the dust bowl and the world wars on San Antonio and the Kallison family.

The book is very nicely illustrated with a combination of family pictures and historic shots of Ukraine, Chicago, and San Antonio. The bibliography and footnotes are also rewarding, although I was a little frustrated with the lack of personal reflection from Kotz on his family. There is a brief author's note at the end that talks about his memories of his grandfather and his childhood in San Antonio, but reading an author writing about himself in the third person (particularly when going over particularly emotional and intense family events) is a little uncomfortable for me, although understandable given his journalistic background.

I wasn't sure how into this book I'd be, but with a scope that moves beyond harness-making, the ranch, and the story of a single family, I'd recommend this one to anyone with an interest in San Antonio or Jewish life in Texas. Nicely written, well researched, and excellently illustrated, this one is worth a spot in your reading pile.

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (2015)

Delicious Foods by James Hannaham (2015) is the next selection for my long-running DAFFODILS book club. In my brain I keep wanting to call this one Dangerous Foods instead because, to be honest, the action here is much more dangerous than it is delicious.

This is a rough book. We start out with a young man named Eddie speeding away in a truck in Louisiana. Both of his hands have recently been cut off, but we don't know how. We know something really fucked up has happened and we also know that he left his mother behind. The first chapter sees him to the relative safety of his aunt's house in St. Cloud, and starting the reader out with his horrible but successful escape helps make the rough times we flash back into a little more tolerable.

Eddie's mom, Darlene, is a crack addict. She wasn't always -- before she was a college student, a wife, a store owner, and a mother. Then her husband, Nat, was violently killed after becoming a leading black activist in a small town in Louisiana. Darlene and little Eddie are left alone and Darlene turns to crack to comfort herself. They move to Houston and Darlene moves closer and closer to the edge, becoming the perfect target for a mini-van full of addicts who offer her an amazing job working on a farm with luxury accommodations and all the drugs she wants to take. Even though Eddie is at home in the apartment alone, she hops in. And then things get bad.

I don't want to give too much away because this is really a powerful book, and I think everyone should check it out. Hannaham has an amazing control over his characters' voices -- Eddie, Darlene (pre and post-addiction) and, interestingly, crack cocaine itself, are all distinct and moving narrators of the story. Most of the book is set in east Texas or west Louisiana, and the descriptions of the land and the people are spot on. There is an amazing (like I still can't stop thinking about it) scene involving Darlene and a grackle that I don't think someone who hasn't been around grackles a lot could ever fully understand. Best of all, Hannaham nails the ending with an event that brings characters together and ties up loose ends, but not too neatly or in a pandering way.

This is a well-constructed, damn fine, moving, funny, horrible, wonderful book.