The Pioneers

 

The Pioneers – by David McCullough

A somewhat new offering by one of my favorite historical authors.  When one thinks of American “pioneers”, probably a lot of images flood the mind.  We think of the old west, log cabins, a ramshackle prefabricated town with a church, a saloon, and a sheriff’s office.  We think of men on horses, cultivating the fields with primitive equipment. We think of their wives back at the cabins sewing clothes for their huge brood of children while preserving fresh food for what will probably be a long harsh Winter.

Well, for better or worse, there’s very little of any of that in this McCullough offering. We must conclude that “Pioneers” is probably not the best title for a book such as this.  I can imagine that someone wanting to read an account of genuine “pioneers” might come away from a book such as this rather disappointed.  Perhaps this was the best title he could come up with?  Or perhaps his publisher simply wanted to sell more books?

What this book actually is, is the birth of the Ohio territory that was created with the passage of the Northwest Ordinance that came into existence when the nation of America was very young.  When talking American history, many can tell you that our young country had 13 colonies, fought a Revolutionary War, and George Washington was the first President. But what happened next?  This book tells you about one such major accomplishment and succeeds in keeping the reader highly entertained throughout.

There were a few key players, and in many ways this book could have been a biography about said individuals. Specifically, Rufus Putnam, a former general in the Revolutionary War, along with the Reverend Manasseh Cutler of Massachusetts. The Northwest Ordinance is essentially their brainchild and we read about it from the beginning. Much of the first part of this book consists of the two travelling throughout the Northeast gaining support for their dream.  Once approved, we read about the arduous journey towards what would essentially become Marietta, Ohio and the “pioneer” life begins.

Most of this book, though, is more of the history of the region for the next 50 years or so. Manasseh Cutler’s son Ephraim arrives, and over time seems to emerge as the main protagonist in our history.  Perhaps author David McCullough chose to title his book “The Pioneers” because it has much more appeal than calling his book “The Cutlers”?  Anyway…

This book is only about 260 pages (excluding endnotes etc.) in length and 50 years is a lot of history to pack into such a short volume. We read about a lot of events that happen during this time, and the short page space means we get somewhat abbreviated accounts, but I never felt cheated.  There are Indian attacks, food shortages, and yellow fever epidemics that are described in a bit of truncated detail.  We also learn about some of the historical events that peppered the new Ohio area around the time such as the scandalous ex Vice-President Aaron Burr arriving and trying to splinter the new nation through unscrupulous means.  We also read about the invention of the steamboat, and a lot of humorous anecdotes of visiting foreign celebrities, and their view of this peculiar new nation.

I would recommend that this book be required reading for anyone who was born or resides in the state of Ohio. Of course, not being from that part of the country, a lot of the people and events described may be second nature to said residents, but this is a wonderful account of how a new part of the country of America came into existence, fought bits of adversity, and manage to prosper.  Our story stops around the 1840s. We read a bit about how the inhabitants of this new area abhor slavery (thankfully), yet we can begin to feel the pot simmering as our story closes and we get close to the American Civil War.

Most of what I have read by the author is very enjoyable and this book is no exception.  Just don’t expect to read too much about the stereotypical “pioneer life” here.

Castle of Water

 

Castle of Water – by Dane Huckelbridge

Castle of Water is one of those “stranded on a desert island” stories. A 30-something year old American man and a young Paris newlywed couple charter a single engine plane from Tahiti to a smaller destination. Unfortunately their pilot likes alcohol too much and the next thing we know, the plane has crashed killing the pilot along with the newly married man.  Fortunately the other two manage to survive by drifting to a small, uncharted island about the size of a football field.  The plane had an “emergency survival kit” for such a purpose, and the two fortunately manage to salvage it so they have the means to survive with very measly means.

Things don’t start off well. The man seems somewhat levelheaded, but the Parisian woman is rightfully angry at having lost her newly betrothed husband, and she constantly releases her frustration towards the only other human being in her new abrupt existence.  Well, the two manage to solder on as best they can.  After all, this will only be a temporary travail.  Surely a rescue crew will come looking for them soon and they’ll be able to leave this desolate nightmare and get back to civilization.

Right?

What transpires is a rather sad yet touching tale. If we’re honest, it’s a tad hard to have an entire novel devoted to two people living on a deserted Pacific Island. How does an author keep such a plot fresh?  There’s only so much a reader can endure when reading about sunburned strangers forced to eat green bananas and constantly making shelters out of leaves.

We read a little bit about what life was like for these two before they arrived in their new surroundings, and these parts are quite interesting. It helps us understand the characters a bit more, and one wishes the author would have maybe included more of such a substory.  

As you can probably surmise, any time there’s a story about a man and a woman stranded on a desert island, we know it won’t take too long before the inevitable happens.  So what we do have is a lot of introspective storytelling between the two people.  They invent stories to share with each other about an alternative reality where the two of them meet in more normal circumstances.  It’s nice, and probably realistic in terms of people in such situations, but it can wear old after a bit.   The fact that our female protagonist is French can be a bit tiresome as well.  She speaks English, but the author often litters her dialogue in her native French with no explanation as to what she’s saying.  Again, perhaps real, but a bit of a hindrance.  She also says “Pfft!” a lot. I think that expression is a new one for me.

There are other things I struggled with while reading.  You would think two people who lived on such a small island over such a long time would know every nook and cranny after only a few months, yet they are constantly “discovering things” on the island.  And whereas I’m no electronics expert, I never could figure out how a shortwave radio could last without power or fresh batteries for such an extended period of time. (Although I’m sure someone with more knowledge could easily enlighten me.)

Our story actually “starts” at the “end”, so in a sense I’m not really giving you any spoilers in my review.  Probably the biggest disappointment of this book was that it ended too quickly.  This is one of those books that when you only have 10 more pages before the end, you scratch your head a bit because you realize that there really needs to be about 100 more pages to get to anything resembling a satisfying conclusion.

I still enjoyed this novel overall and was a bit disappointed to discover that this book is the author’s only novel.  Apparently he’s written a few non-fiction books around topics a tad inconsequential, but he really shouldn’t give up novel writing altogether.  This was a nice diversion, and for a “first time novel” it was quite good.

 

Gwendy's Final Task

 

Gwendy’s Final Task – Stephen King and Richard Chizmar

Bad News, Good News, Bad News.  The Bad News is it is the consensus that even though Stephen King is considered one of the most popular authors during the last 50 years, he’s written some pretty awful books. The Good News is, for me at least, he’s had a pretty good streak going as of late, and I haven’t read anything too awful by him for quite some time. The Bad News is that this one, sadly, breaks the winning streak.  This offering was pretty bad on so many levels.

First, this is a sequel.  Actually I think it’s part 3 of a trilogy, yet part 2 was written by co-author Richard Chizmar as a solo effort, so I never made the effort to tackle that one.  Part 1 was actually a decent effort. It was somewhat brief, and could have easily been a novella instead of a standalone book that costs the reader $25 or $30.  That story was somewhat entertaining.  Part of the problem, for me anyway, is that I really didn’t remember much about the first book.  Something about a little girl who is given a “mysterious magical box” by a “mysterious stranger in a bowler hat”.  The magic box allows little Gwendy Peterson to do some pretty neat magical things, but with all good things, there are bad things attached. I think. I honestly don’t remember too many details, and I don’t really remember Stephen King doing a decent job in this novel reminding his readers of the exact reasoning behind the box and why Gwendy wanted to use it in the first place. Strike 1.

So fast forward several years.  I think we’re now in 2026. The book was written in 2022, so we’re in the “future” but if you pick this book up several years after it was written, you may not be aware of the fact that the story takes place in a hypothetical forthcoming time.  So some events we read about actually happened, such as the COVID pandemic.  Other events, like the Great Pyramids of Egypt exploding (or something) probably (let’s hope) won’t actually occur. So if one picks this book up in, say, 2028, they may be a tad confused by the “reality” that surrounds them in this book. Strike 2.

Gwendy is now a 64-year-old Senator.  Since our main character holds such a prestigious occupation in the world of American politics, this gives Stephen King his familiar, yet annoying, opportunity to espouse his annoying political opinions ad nauseum.  This isn’t the first time he’s done this, and it sadly won’t be the last.  Being political isn’t a bad thing in a book as long as you bottle the acid and tame the venom to a degree.  I recently read another fairly new King novel, “Billy Summers”, and in that book, King takes aim at Donald Trump about once every 75 pages or so.  In this book, however, King barfs up his opinions every other page it seems.  Like the author, I despise the 45^th President, yet such musings are not welcome when the man dictates his opinions in such a forced condescending way throughout the entire book.  If King ever truly wants to convert the ignorant Trump supporter, his methods in his writing simply won’t get the job done.

So when we read about Gwendy in her bid for the Senate against her Trump worshipping opponent, all of the annoying stereotypes bludgeon the reader over the head.  She campaigns with a mask.  Her opponent, of course, does not.  Of course it’s a conservative district, and of course Gwendy doesn’t have any chance of winning - especially when her opponent is a leader of his prestigious church (of course). Well, of course he has an affair with a young member of the congregation. Of course he then gets her pregnant. And of course he tries to secretly obtain an abortion. And of course he’s discovered, and of course it makes the national news. And of course this sinks his campaign allowing Gwendy to, of course, win the Senate seat.

Of course it does.

Strike 3.

Now, not to confuse you, but this little story takes place in the “past” during our story.  The “present” involves the well-known Senator Gwendy Peterson getting to go to Space with an astronaut crew.  Her main motive is to get rid of the magic box and the evil that it contains.  What better place to get rid of it than somewhere other than the planet Earth?  So our main story takes place on a space shuttle where Gwendy is surrounded by astronauts who all have specific duties, but, hey, it’s great publicity to allow an esteemed Senator to go along for the ride.  There’s another “non-astronaut” as well - some mega rich billionaire who is the epitome of a rich, white, Republican male.  So of course, Gwendy can’t stand the guy and every time we read a dialogue between these two characters, it’s quite painful since King goes out of his way to not allow a single, decent thing come out of such a monster’s mouth. So this unbelievable character serves no purpose other than to allow King to scratch his hateful itch towards such a stereotype.  Actually, the character DOES serve a purpose to the story, but the events that actually happen here are quite dumb.  Strike 4 (and Strike 5 as well).

If things in this hackneyed story don’t seem to get any worse, they sadly do. It seems as though Gwendy is in the first stages of Alzheimer’s, and she seems to be forgetting a lot of things. Whether or not this condition is due to the evil box, I’m not quite sure, but, oh boy, King never fails to remind us that Gwendy’s mind is deteriorating.  You want to metaphorically grab the author by the neck and scream “We get it! You don’t have to remind us every other friggin paragraph!”.    So we read something like “Gwendy reaches down to tie her shoes”.  But, then, Gwendy can’t remember how to tie her shoes. So King spends several paragraphs elaborating on this fact.  Oy.  Strike 6.

I should also point out that in addition to reading the other (two?) book(s) in the series, Stephen King also has a bad habit of including happenings from his other novels in his current story as well.  This might be kinda cool for someone who’s read every Stephen King book a multitude of times, but one wishes that the author be reminded that not everyone who picks up this book is familiar with the plots of novels such as “It” or any of the books in the Dark Tower series.  Strike 6. No wait….I mean Strike 7.

This book was a waste of time and a waste of money.  The first book in the series was good, but this one seems nothing other than trying to exploit that story and turn it into a worthless rant that we’ve all heard before.  It’s sad that the reader must endure this kind of tripe from King every few years are so. Especially when he’s capable of so much better.