Wordsworth – Selected by W. E. Williams, 1950 ★★

Biting Off More than I Can Chew

Reading William Wordsworth became a most challenging reading assignment. If enjoyment was my objective, I failed miserably.

He’s technically brilliant and his words are full of joy. His lyricism, his rhyme schemes, his ability to effortlessly conjure up scenes of awesome beauty – he had talent and vision to spare. His short poems feel weirdly effortless in their genius, their Poe-like flow, and simple eloquence.

Hoover's FBI: The Inside Story By Hoover's Trusted Lieutenant – Cartha D. "Deke" DeLoach, 1995 ★★

Sympathy for J. Edgar

J. Edgar Hoover, civil libertarian? According to one of his top aides, yes.

For a time in the 1960s, Cartha DeLoach was the third-ranking executive in the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau’s point man with the White House. Watching his boss dicker with President Lyndon B. Johnson on what the FBI could and couldn’t do under the Constitution was for DeLoach both instructive and edifying:

Nicholas Nickleby – Charles Dickens, 1838-39 ★★½

Great Characters, But a Bit of a Mess

Everything that’s right – and wrong – about early Charles Dickens comes to roost in his third novel, less celebrated now but as popular then as anything he wrote. If Nicholas Nickleby often misses the mark for today’s reader, that speaks more to time’s passage than lack of talent.

A big takeaway from reading Nicholas Nickleby, far more than its story or characters: Dickens’s boundless imagination.

Explorers On The Moon – Hergé, 1952-1954 ★★★★

Fantasy Becomes Prophesy

The fantastical aspect of Explorers On The Moon is not what Hergé did with his extraterrestrial adventure, but what he didn’t do.

No moon men. No cities hidden beneath lunar craters. No princess kidnapped by green-skinned space pirates from John Carter’s Mars.

No, Hergé plays it straight. The result: more of a mind flip now than some cosmic fairy tale would have been then, as he pretty much nails what a moon flight entails before anyone ever went and did it.

Destination Moon – Hergé, 1950-1953 ★★★

A Small Step to a Giant Leap

Nobody ever watched Star Wars to see Luke Skywalker fix moisture vaporizers. Nor do they want an entire movie of Clark Kent hunting for phone booths. What to make of a Tintin story that amounts to set-up for a boffo coming attraction?

Destination Moon still works fine. While the story itself is kind of static and anticipatory, the vision and craft of creator Hergé and his growing team of skilled collaborators are on vibrant display. You expect lush visuals and lovely details, and you get those, but something else, too: Real-world verisimilitude in comic form.

Bury Me In A Pot Bunker – Pete Dye with Mark Shaw, 1995 [Revised 1999] ★★

Golf's Bogeyman Looks Back

Resentment is the price many incur for being forward-thinking. This is true as well when designing golf courses.

When Pete Dye oversaw the opening of his Harbour Town Golf Links in South Carolina in time to host a 1969 PGA Tour event, tournament participants were apoplectic. Greens were much too small. Bunkers were much too large. Trees were everywhere.

A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man – James Joyce, 1916 ★★★½

A Portrait of Many Parts

There were times reading A Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Man where I was convinced that this was not only a great novel, but the greatest ever written in the whole history of mankind.

Other times, I felt it wasn’t even very good.

Still, consider this not only an appreciation of a literary cornerstone, but a recommendation. A Portrait Of The Artist is well worth your time. Just be aware that it goes on some wide tangents and gets a bit preachy.