Our Story

This review first appeared in Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2491467631

Rao Pingru wrote this charming "graphic novel." It contains text and numerous paintings.

My first clear memories are of the ceremony that marked the formal start of my schooling: the Four Treasures of Study, the brand-new brush, ink, paper, and inkstone.  Uncle Huang, whose calligraphy was beautiful, grasped my hand and together we traced the first lesson. 

In 1940, Rao set off to join the First Command Whampoa Academy. I admired Napoleon and chose the artillery but upon graduation (1943) chose the 100th Army stationed in Yongfeng county in Jiangxi. I was determined to go home first and pay my respects at my mother's grave. Then I would go and kill the enemy and die without regret.

He married Mao Meitang in 1948 and writes of walks by a lake or snacking on Nanchang's "ovenside sesame cakes," chatting and sipping tea. Once they quarreled and stopped talking for a few hours. It was the only instance in their marriage that Rao could recall.

After the Revolution of 1949, Rao tried his hand at business. The family settled in Shanghai where he

worked as an accountant at the hospital and as Art and Literature editor at Dade Publications. 

1957 brought a drastic change in the political climate and Rao spent 1958-80 in "Re-education through Labor." Meitang survived with their five children on work in factories.  Rao worked at a factory during reeducation and was allowed to go home for Chinese New Year. When released he had to sign an agreement not to return to the factory or make any future demand on them. He registered at the Shanghai neighborhood and got his old jobs back. 

"When winter is at its coldest, spring cannot be far behind." He hoped that "the two of us should find a quiet spot in the countryside, have a small allotment, and live the simple life.

This world no longer exists. We are grateful for Rao's story.

Cassandra's Vision

In Agamemnon Must Die, a retelling of the Oresteia by Aeschylus, I wrote a chapter about Cassandra. The most beautiful of Trojan princesses had been chosen by Agamemnon to be his war bride. In my retelling, her visions become one of the "choruses" that typically comment or editorialize on the "action" in classic Greek plays.

Perhaps this did not do Cassandra justice for she has captured the imagination of artists since then. There are wonderful Attic vases that portray the plight of the doomed princess, but those are best seen directly on proper websites. I offer instead a medieval woodcut (Penn Libraries call number: Inc B-720 All images from this book Penn Libraries catalog record from a 15th century German translation of Boccacio) and a painting from the late preRaphaelite period ([Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Cassandra1.jpeg"> by Evelyn de Morgan).

On Wednesday, Oct. 9, at 6.30 p.m., I read this chapter to a meeting of Sierra Writers.

For information about buying Agamemnon Must Die, please see my website.

To those who are interested in historical fiction, I am pleased to introduce a wonderful Group on Goodreads.  It is one of many.

The Hundred-year-old Man

Jonas Jonasson's Hundred-year-old Man who Escaped is a charming story, told with gentle good humor and sly wit. A hundred-year-old man tires of life in a senior home and its restrictions on his consumption of vodka. So he climbs out a window and escapes. His adventures begin with an encounter with a young man from a criminal outfit ("Never Again") and a suitcase (full, it turns out, of money, a lot of money).

What follows is a tall tale, a shaggy-dog tale, with many long flashbacks. Our hero meets Franco, Truman, Madam Chiang Kai Shek, Madam Mao, the Koreans, a gulag, a trek across the Himalayas and Iran ... You get the picture.

Oh, yes, there is also a tough-talking dame and an elephant. Why not?

The characters are all sympathetic and the tone of the story beguiles. Notwithstanding the longueurs of this journey (and its occasional lapses), the book has received wild approval. The author has projects to continue his rapport with his readers. Check out his website and sequels.

The cover, above, and the original edition in Swedish on right.

Promotions on Smashwords

During the month of July, the following three items will be on promotion at Smashwords.com. The promotion is only available through Smashwords, an "aggregator."

The Battle of Chibi is available in almost any e-format for $1.50 instead of $5.99. Go to this link. There is a coupon code and you will probably have to "join" - but it is free.

The Battle of Chibi is my own "take" on The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in 23 chapters instead of 120. The ROTK is a very popular novel based on events from the third century in China. The novel itself was "published" in the 16th century. It is read all over East Asia and has spawned movies, tv series, anime, and computer games.

Like The Battle of Chibi,  my novel Agamemnon Must Die is based on a classic work. Aeschylus' Oresteia was a dramatic trilogy gathering up myths of the royal family of Mycenae after the Trojan War. This link will enable you to get an ebook for free. 

The Chinese Spymaster is the first of my attempts at writing a spy novel and it is also free at this LINK.

I made a start of explaining why I chose to write novels based on classics and spy novels in my fledgling website (link).

Anyone wishing to leave a comment or ask a question may try to leave a comment on the website or this blog or reach me via
Facebook
Twitter 
Linked In or
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Happy reading. If you can spare a moment, a rating or review would be most welcome.

The Three-body Problem

This is a brilliant book. It tackles hard science in a manner that one associates with Isaac Asimov. And it weaves the story with incidents from the Cultural Revolution.

But I wish it had more emotion in its characters. The main character faces all life with the same repressed self that she faced the murder of her father, enacted in front of her young eyes by fanatical revolutionaries. A similar stolidness sustains her through her decades under suspicion.

When she replies to a radio signal from the Trisolaris world - despite the clear warning NOT to do so, it appears to this reader to be with a similar sullenness, a flatness of spirit that defies reason.

One feels a need to be "fair" to the author. He has already stretched his art to include consideration of the three body problem - the random periods of hot and cold on the Trisolaris world is perhaps the best way to "show" and not tell about the problem. Their climate changes require that the inhabitants prepare themselves for indeterminate storage each time an emergency is announced. I will only say that the author managed to make getting one's body prepared fantastic and believable. He also discusses with aplomb possible states of certain substances in alternative universes with one, two, and many others more than three dimensions.

But the main character goes on to dispose of others who perhaps get too close to her. Her thin-lipped lack of remorse over these pages chilled my veins. It left an aching emptiness as I followed the author through his story. Perhaps we are from Mars and the author is from Vulcan.

The Emperor of All Maladies, a review

S. Mukherjee, The Emperor of All Maladies, 2010. A review.

This is a large book. There are nearly 600 pages, including a 26-page index, 59 pages of notes, and a select bibliography. Nonetheless, it is a lively book with prose at times more purple than common in nonfiction writing. The subtitle calls it "A Biography of Cancer." It is well-informed in the history of many branches of medicine as well as bravely philosophical in its inquiries.

It tells of the many forms of cancer from the point of view of an oncologist (S. Mukherjee, B.S. 1993, Stanford, D.Phil. 1997, Magdalen College, M.D. 2000, Harvard). As he treats his patients, he asks: where are we in the war against cancer? how did we get here? is there an end? can this war be won? 

Often, the first person voice of a doctor tells of an individual patient, such as Carla, a 30-year-old kindergarten teacher, and mother of three. On May 19, 2004, she asked her doctor to perform tests that might explain a month of worsening headaches, bruises, and lethargy. A lab assistant noted her blood looked watery, pale, and diluted. She was diagnosed in a few days as suffering from “acute lymphoblastic leukemia … a special incarnation of cancer [with] its pace, its acuity, its breathtaking, inexorable arc of growth …” But in 30% of cases, it was curable.

Mukherjee next skips back 57 years to 1947, and starts the story of Sidney Farber, a pediatric pathologist who then conceived of using chemicals in “therapeutic intervention” – chemotherapy. The author next goes back a whole century to 1845 and the autopsy of a slate-layer by John Bennett a Scottish doctor that revealed the patient's blood, full of pus but no sign of infection. Bennett speculated whether or not there had been a “spontaneous suppuration.” 

The author then describes the work R. Virchow, a German doctor familiar with Bennet’s work. Virchow renamed the illness weiss blut – leukemia. Like the Greeks who believed that philosophy began when things were given their proper names, Mukherjee zeroes in on the importance of Virchow’s achievement. The correct naming of this and other forms of cancer was important in bringing focus to the analysis of the disease, which by the end of the nineteenth century led to a study of the cells in a patient’s body. 

This insight was important to frame Farber’s astounding work. Concentrating on human cells, Farber explored the chemistry of cell growth: what quickened cell growth or retarded it? Would some chemical analogy work on diseased cells? If science was founded on measurement, then Farber and his team surely proceeded on scientific ground, measuring every detail - blood count, transfusion, fever, etc. The researchers narrowed in on the complex vitamin B12 and variations of folic acid critical for the growth and development of normal cells. How would they affect the growth and development of cancer cells? They tracked the treatment of twins and pursued therapies even if one twin did not respond as well as the other.

They observed that several patients experienced partial remissions before succumbing to a variation of their illness. Cancer cells not only multiplied to overwhelm the bodies of their victims, but when checked by one or another of the drugs Farber and his team used, appeared to regroup and multiply again. The cells mutated spontaneously and evolved by the same mechanism that enabled life on earth to develop—natural selection. 

Observing late in the nineteenth century that the removal of breast cancer tumors often resulted in the reappearance of the disease elsewhere had led William Halsted to invent and refine the radical mastectomy. (The brutality implicit in the elaboration of this therapeutic pathway had a pale reflection in that pursued for prostate cancer.) 

Radiation therapy would not be widely accepted until after the work of Pierre and Marie Curie in the early 20th century - after their exposure to radioactive material showed that radiation could not only cure cancer but also cause it.

The chemotherapy that Farber pioneered inspired Min Chiu Li and Roy Hertz when they faced patients suffering from cancer of the placenta. Li, in particular, became obsessed with treating his patients even when their cancer appeared to have been eliminated. Li wanted to pursue the chemotherapy until the blood show absolutely no trace of the hormone that diseased cells secrete. He ignored the toxicity of the therapy to the patient and thus was fired. Not until five years later was it found that in the patients he had treated to the point of zero, there were no relapses. He had unwittingly achieved the first chemotherapeutic cure of cancer in adults.

Farber’s work on antifolates won him fame in the 1940s and 50s. He also grasped that much of the war on cancer needed to be waged outside hospitals and labs. To arouse a reluctant nation to support research into cancer required a political crusade. He teamed up with Albert and Mary Lasker, philanthropists. "To Farber's evangelistic tambourine, [Mary] Lasker added her own drumbeats of enthusiasm."

The doctor championed cancer research and one of his patients, Einar Gustafson was renamed Jimmy for what became the Jimmy Fund. The Farber–Lasker combination brought together political lobbyists and a strategist well-informed in the science. The team visited Congress regularly to lobby for funds for cancer research.

A major achievement of Mukherjee’s book is that to the fluent description of the doctors, patients, cancers, and cures he brought also an alert perception of the sociopolitical environment. As the March of Dimes gave a great boost to medical and cancer research, so the tobacco industry sought to thwart public health efforts against smoking. It rested its case ultimately on the contention science did not show that smoking caused cancer. [This was not the last time a basic requirement of hard science was used to thwart public health policy.] 

The search for a cause, a virus, or germ that could be exhibited as the origin of cancer might have foundered on semantics. Could there be an exogamous cause for a disease that sprang from endogamous mutation? Broad history was anecdotal: during the nineteenth century, cancer of the alimentary tract was widespread, ‘no doubt’ due to poor (misunderstood) hygiene; in the twentieth century, lung cancer was undeniably rampant, was this the result of cigarettes being given to soldiers in the world wars to boost morale?

The author shows how relevant statistics can be collected. The introduction of the national health system in the UK in 1948 required a registration of 40,000 doctors. Their death statistics shed perhaps helpful light. Between 1951 and 1954, for instance, 36 doctors died of lung cancer. Every one of them had smoked.

The debate over the cause of lung cancer continued in the US. In 1965, Bradford Hill, enunciated principles to guide epidemiologist to show a connection between possible cause and effect: was the relationship strong, was it consistent, specific, plausible, coherent, did it increase with time or 'biological gradient'? That same year, Congress passed the act requiring the label, “Caution: cigarette smoking may be hazardous to your health.”

Halfway through the book, the author quotes William Carlos Williams, “If a man dies, it is because death has first possessed his imagination” to introduce the work of an oncologist in “repossessing” his patients’ imagination from death. It demanded an act of “exquisite measuring,” for too much and “imagination might bloat into delusion” while too little “might asphyxiate hope altogether.”

Such was the case with Susan Sonntag whose first doctor was “totally pessimistic.” (Her story was captured by her son’s memoir.) She battled for months to find a doctor “whose attitude was vastly more measured and who was willing to negotiate with her psyche.” Of the clinicians that the author trained with, Thomas Lynch, who treated lung cancer patients was such a master of “medical nuance.” He recognized that a patient who had survived the removal of a large lung mass was “catatonic with fear.” The doctor spent an hour talking about the surgery, her family, and a grandchild nearby, before broaching the subject of recurrence or metastasis, perhaps even a fifty or sixty percent chance. There are ways, Lynch said, “that we will tend to it when that happens.” When not if, care not cure.

How does an author of a biography end a book in which the subject seems far from being terminated? When Mukherjee began the book, he thought it might have ended with Carla’s relapse and death, but no. She had undergone five years of chemotherapy without a relapse, which meant she was as close to cured as she could be. So he closes with Atossa, a Persian queen who was diagnosed with what was most likely breast cancer. With her case in mind, he recapitulates the treatments/cures that have been developed since 500 BC. Mastectomy, radiation, chemotherapy, genetic sequencing, and targeted drugs – not so much curing the disease as prolonging life. The scientist is hopeful, the doctor is philosophical.

The Emperor of All Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize in 2011 and was made into a PBS miniseries in 2015.

The Chinese Spymaster

My first spy novel is free through October 4, 2018, at Smashwords. The code is BP72R. You'll have to sign in at the site but it won't cost anything. (Writers should know about this site anyway!)

Please leave a comment or review if you can!

Book Reading - Six Stories

These six stories show some characters from the Shu and Wu kingdoms. Liu Bei, the warlord who dedicated himself to the defense of the Han Dynasty, and his oath brothers Zhang Fei and Guan Yu as well as their brilliant strategist Zhuge Liang and their champion Zhao Zilong. 

1. The Peach Orchard Oath. The story of the oath that Liu Bei, Zhang Fei, and Guan Yu took at the beginning of the Huangjin rebellion became the standard for all associations not based on family or locality. Some scholars think that the paradigm was even borrowed by those who formed secret societies, those 18th-century forerunners of the Hongs and the Tongs. [The image is that of the cover of the book.]

 2. Borrowing Arrows. This story shows the cleverness of the strategist for the Shu kingdom, Zhuge Liang. The movie version Chib, Red Cliff, lingers over this story. [The image is from the Internet.]

3. Conjuring the East Wind. This story is represented by the image of a Zhuge Liang who is larger than life (suggesting a paranormal power?). In the dead of winter when the prevailing winds are from the North, he calls up the East Wind to help the armies of Shu and Wu attack Cao Cao who is on the north bank of the Yangzi.

4. The Bride as Bait. When Liu Bei's wife dies, the schemers in the Wu kingdom propose a marriage with their Princess in order to lure him into their clutches so they can get a large province back. Again Zhuge Liang turns things to the advantage of the Shu kingdom. (The image on right is that of the Princess, downloaded from https://m.aceshowbiz.com/still/00003725/red_cliff30.html)

5. The clever strategist provides advice, in the form of three pouches with "emergency instructions," that suffices for the fifth story as well - The Princess Saves the Day.

The movie Red Cliff focusses on the battle [A. D. 208] which owed the final victory to the charismatic leadership of Zhou Yu, the Commander in Chief of the Wu kingdom.
[The image is that of a movie poster. Zhou Yu is the middle figure.]

6. The sixth story is of Zhou Yu's funeral, at which his friend, rival, and nemesis - Zhuge Liang delivers an oration.











I am pleased to announce the reading of these stories at 2 p.m. on Saturday, July 21 at the Helling Library in Nevada City, CA. 
This free reading is sponsored by the Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS). Visit their website here.

Simplicity and children's books

This book is addressed to children aged five to ten. It is beautifully produced with illustrations by the author herself. The story is uncomplicated. A poor girl, Padme, grows up in a rich household. Her task is to sweep which is all she does, all day long, all life long, for her demanding employers. But she is grateful to have work and a place to live.

One day, a great man arrives. This is the Buddha himself, who is gracious and cheerful. After a meal, he invites everyone into the garden where he teaches about life, suffering, and meditation. Everyone receives a blessing. Padme asks how she could meditate in her very busy life - there is always something to clean or dust. The Buddha teaches her about meditation while working - to work and live mindfully, in meditation.

The Buddha returns to teach another lesson. That caring for others, concern for their suffering and their happiness, can be a prayer.  That a heart filled with such prayer is an indication of greatness.

This story is perhaps what five-year-olds need. Stories are perhaps what ten-year-olds need. Mindfulness and compassion are what we all need.

Time was, we had daughters of between five and ten. I tried to read to them and sometimes succeeded. I remember Goodnight Moon and Charlotte's Web and Where the Wild Things Are. I think fondly of The Phantom Toll-Booth and of Holes. They grew up, naturally. For a while, there were the Harry Potter books.

Now they are on their own. May mindfulness and compassion fill their lives.

Historical fiction - Sarah, by Marek Halter

This is an ambitious book. It takes us into the mind of its characters, particular Sarah's.  "She did not need to look down to know that her tunic was stained. She could feel the fine woolen cloth sticking wetly to her thighs and knees ... Fear, disgust, and denial mingled in her mind." 

Was it physical revulsion or youthful rebellion or ... that drove this twelve year old against what seems to be the tradition of her society when "Bridal blood" appears at the onset of puberty. This sets her off on a willful rebellion against her father's plans for her betrothal. But this reader cannot relate to this - nowhere does the author provide a hint WHY Sarah resented her predicament.  "In exchange for a few shekels of silver or a few measures of barley," she would be given to a man. Should someone reading this in the 21st-century project into the story a present-day motive?

Ichbi Sum-Usur, her father, notices that she has a stubborn streak as strong as his own but Sarah does not appear motivated simply to thwart her father. All the details regarding oaks and terebinth, the ointment of cypress that a Sumerian groom puts on the brow of his betrothed at their nuptials, the odors of almond, orange peel, sesame seed oil, the olive oil in woolen tampons - appear as smoke and mirrors to distract the reader. 

The poor thing is twelve years old and reads in the eyes of her prospective groom his judgment of her - "thin, graceless, without breasts or hips." It seems creepy that a wedding is planned for her and this man, but we don't have any inkling that this is what propels her to flee her home (in a posh section of town reserved for Sumerian nobility) to find a kassaptu, a witch, who could sell her herbs to prevent fertility. (The word reportedly appears in Sumerian incantations against witchcraft.)

Sarah's rebellion, in that it is unexplained, does mirror Abraham's against the traditions of his own tribe - the many gods, made of wood or clay, that even his father Terah worshipped. This reader was left with the impression that his arguments against the many gods make more sense than his faith in the One, invisible and unrepresented, who speaks very occasionally to him. The same wilfulness, lack of clear motivation, shrouds both main characters.  For Abraham, it was a leap of faith. A reader of this novel does not expect to make a similar effort to follow the story.

As a result, the book lacks the "why" that would carry a story, but not a plot. The author relies on the traditional, Biblical story for a guide to what happens and when. Thus the narrative moves along despite the absence of motivation that a reader can detect in the main characters.

Many other things are brought to life in this book. Sarah's embarrassment over Lot's infatuation, her distrust of Eliezer of Damascus - a boy that Abraham brings into his trust, her intriguing ambiguity over Pharoah's advances. Despite the book's brevity, each of these motifs leaves the reader with a sense of understanding - but not the desperate resort to those herbs.

The author has stretched to cover all the high points of the Biblical story and added many details regarding ancient history. This is entirely an author's prerogative. It is also the fate of those who write historical fiction to have to decide how much history to include. This is a matter of judgment, but there are consequences.

Choosing to make Sarah a Sumerian is a huge step that allows the author to avoid the question of whether and how Sarah is related to Abraham. Tradition speaks of her as having the same father as Abraham and there is within some circles much anguish over the taboos that had to be finessed. 

Making her the daughter of a Sumerian nobleman solves this. Sarah is not only from a different family but from a different people, a different civilization. But it raises other questions. The Sumerians are obscure but not so obscure as to preclude raising other questions regarding the timeline of the events retold in this novel.

The Sumerian aspect becomes entangled with Halter's choice to tell his story with several appearances by Melchizedek. This is an enigmatic figure about which Jewish, Christian and other traditions have an uneasy body of knowledge. Such a figure might have been left in the mists of legend. But he lives and breathes in this novel with a remark that suggests he is the first of the Hebrews. If he is a "historical" figure, when did he live and was it any time that made an association with Abraham possible or likely?

Can one ignore these questions on grounds of an author's discretion?

I believe that this depends. Everything an author writes builds a world. If the author invests his story with pieces of Sumerian facts or lore, then "consistency" requires that the world created jibes with known facts. An author is free to choose to write fantasy, for instance, but to write about Polish knights or Luftwaffe battle tactics begins the process of circumscribing his novel, his artistic freedom. In choosing to write of Melchizedek as the king of Salem, who called his people "Hebrews," Halter brings the question of known facts upon himself.

Not an expert on the history or legends of Melchizedek, I am however aware as Halter must be that tradition makes him a son or grandson of Noah through Shem. This is most inconvenient for a historical Abraham - usually dated around 2000 B.C. But a "historical" Melchizedek must be dated close to 2500 B.C. - if we accept the tradition that he was somehow related to Shem. And it should be noted that Shem as the great-grandson of Enoch, whose life overlapped with his as well as Adam's, is a link to the Creation. Halter has wisely chosen to disregard this complication, but he himself invited this by inserting so much of Melchizedek into his story.

I found understandable Sarah's love-hate feelings towards Hagar. She was a gift from Pharoah who wanted nothing left that would remind him of the woman Abraham passed off as his sister. The picture of a rambunctious Ishmael is likewise engaging though brief. But what is one to make of Sarah's request in the prologue when she is on her deathbed - that both Isaac and Ishmael would gather with all the people at her tomb? Nothing in the story shed further light.

Finally, in the mystery that, since Kierkegaard, one confronts with fear and trembling - the sacrifice of Isaac that Ywvh asks of Abraham - Halter has given Sarah an enviable role in resolving this heart-rending turn of events. 

Startup - a "millennial" novel?

Startup by Doree Shafrir is a funny, light read that makes one feel old. Oh, to be thirty again--even though characters in their thirties in this novel wish to be in their twenties.

The title cues one's expectations though there are some who might quibble over the choice of New York for the location of this story. The companies and groups named include TakeOff, TechScene, StrollUp, and Startup Bootcamp. The characters talk about seed funding, unicorns, valuations, and "faking it till you make it."

The workday begins with "Morning Rave" which reminded me of the company calisthenics that Japan, Inc. introduced. The characters consume coconut water, use meditation apps, never hail a cab or ride on the bus. This is the age of Uber. Of Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat - better, you know, for sexting than Twitter.

Into this millennial world, some rain must fall. Nannies get sick and even Engagement Ninjas have to deal with toddler demands when the husband is uncooperative. And how does the wife cope with her obsessive shopping habits? Supplemental income - selling her underwear, it seems. Then there is that sexual harassment thing. The consequences of such for this story are weightier than fake news and fake identities.

Without a doubt, this is not the world of Jane Austen or John Cheever. It does not pretend to be. For a while, I was pleasantly transported into a world that, alas, I shall never experience. 

But that is why we read, isn't it?

Setting up a Website

The following is a Public Service Blog.

I thought I wanted a website and decided to purchase a "domain" from X, a most highly regarded "platform."

Then I learned that the site should be hosted by Y, another most highly regarded -- you get the picture. So I signed up for that. It turns out that a website needs a template (as a high school senior needs clothes for the Prom); so I try to get that. That is when it got complicated. The details were messy, so I took a break for prayer and fasting.

It turns out that this venture requires more preparation than I thought. As with the exploration of the levels of the after life, one needs a Beatrice for a guide. I don't believe the details are worth repeating except to say that anyone wishing to setup a website should examine the basics and confirm them with someone knowledgeable - is there a computer club in the neighborhood? A class you could take at the local community college? A friend who has a website you admire?

Seriously now, I recommend those wishing to set up a website as opposed to a blog do the following (CAVEAT - be prepared to spend two weeks not two minutes or two hours at each step):

1. Search for "how to" or even "here's how" advice on the web or in libraries. Here's an example.

2.  Look at a dozen websites of established authors you admire (e.g., Michael Lewis, Scott Turow) and of new, Independent authors you have come across. Do not let yourself be intimidated! Examine the different links these sites have (Layout, Navigation, Design.) How are the "pages" organized? Are there links to electronic bookstores other than the "Zon"? Take copious notes!

3. Talk to people you meet. Ask for advice, comments on your "work-in-progress" as in various stages of building the website before you invite the whole world to visit.  Writing is a lonely occupation; fight the urge to stay in your bunker, study, cave ... Join a writing group. Take classes at the library or community college. Join online groups like Goodreads or Scribophile or ...

Then pick a name.

What should one name the website? Authors agonize over questions like this - what to title the novel? What do we call the baby? A search is easy to perform and, just for fun, one could search in different languages. Pashtun boy names? Mongolian girl names? There's nothing wrong with John and Mary and, in fact, if one's last name is Tjoa, one should keep it simple.

Here is my new website. It rejoices in the nickname of a character in the first book I published, The Battle of Chibi.

Sleeping Dragon Books

Please feel free to leave a comment on the website or here on this blog - or at the associated Facebook page.

The Libation Bearers

[Greek and Trojan women come to tend the grave of Agamemnon, the victorious leader of the Greeks against Troy. This is an excerpt slightly adapted from Agamemnon Must Die, Createspace, Kindle, and Smashwords, 2014. See tab for BOOKS on this site. I offer this here to give some of my attempts at poetry an airing.]

 [Bust of Aeschylus who lived in the 6th century B. C., probably from the 4th century B.C. Downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.]

We hail and laud thee, O Agamemnon, king of men.

You who returned victorious from your mighty labors

On the broad plains of Troy as you did from

Your many expeditions to establish

The will of Zeus throughout this land.

O king, we have faithfully maintained your shrine,

As enjoined by Lord Aigisthos and his Lady Clytemnestra.

At every new moon, we have come

To honor your memory with fresh libations,

To sweeten the air with boughs of laurel,

And to sweep away grime and filth, from man or beast,

Or from the wind and the weather, that should foul your memorial

Or tarnish your memory.

We implore you to keep the city safe and the plains fertile!

We beseech you to guard over us against pestilence,

As well as hostile swords and spears.

We pray peace be with your spirit for you have

Made all who live in the Argolid proud.

Hail Agamemnon, king of men!

[The Greek mourners.]

Ou-ai, listen also to our woe for our grief overflows.

We, whose fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers followed you;

We, who have waited in vain for their return.

Our number is great; those here are but the few

Who have sought the protection of the palace

From hunger and homelessness. No one can protect us

From the gnawing pain of sorrow and loss.

It is not greater than those of our number

Who enjoy the comfort of remaining family.

They suffer still from the anguish of their loss.

But our eyes have grown dim from the tears we have shed.

Our voices have become hoarse from the cries we have raised.

Our hearts have dried up with our hopes and love.

Only these shells remain: bereft, benighted, beyond hope.

Are our fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers with you?

Do they do you honor as we do? As we must, by command

Of our lord and our lady?

They followed you gladly for love of their king;

We beseech you to share with them the libations we have brought.

[The Trojan mourners.]

Ou-ai, ou-ai, hear us, most fearful king of men,

You who led those myriad ships and men against us.

Foolish Paris gave you your moment and you grasped it.

Hector and Priam loved him too dearly to abandon him.

To what end? Ou-ai, to what end?

Those we loved most dearly, our fathers, husbands, lovers, and brothers—

All fell before your swords and flames.

They made you pay dearly, they did.

Us, you and your men gathered as trophies and war brides.

Fully half of us could not bear the thought of such fate.

They embraced us, then threw themselves

Into Poseidon’s watery clutch.

Fully half of those left among us were sick and lost at sea,

Joining their captors in that briny sepulcher.

Yet another half of those who arrived here

Have since succumbed to taunts, torment, and terror

As prisoners of war. We remain,

We do not deserve better. We have seen how

Those captured before Priam’s walls have fared.

We know the cruelties that Troy visited on those who

Fell into its snares or yielded to its armies.

We who are left of your trophies and able still to walk

Have joined in pouring the libations to you,

King of men, to join in your sorrow

And share in your grief. Know this, that the libations we poured

For you, we have poured also for ourselves.

Ou-ai, ou-ai!

[The image of the vase decorated with a scene from the Oresteia is that of an Italian archaeological find from the 3rd century B. C. downloaded from Wikimedia Commons. The last image is that of the cover of Agamemnon Must Die, 2014. Neither this blog extract nor anything in Agamemnon is translated from Aeschylus' Oresteia. I have used the non-prose form to approximate the "Greek chorus" and given such content as I have felt best conveys what its "message" might be in today's vernacular. Comments invited.]

The Dragon Boat Festival

The Northern California International Dragon Boat Festival will celebrate this event in 2017 in September with races on Lake Merritt. In China, the People's Republic has declared May 30 to be a national holiday in 2017. (It has recognized this old but popular folk celebration only since 2008.)

In the Chinese calendar, the festival falls on the fifth day of the fifth month. Hence the festival is sometimes referred to as the "Double Fifth" similar to the celebration of the tenth day of the tenth month as the "Double Tenth" (the day commemorating the end of dynastic rule in China). This is celebrated much more in Taiwan than on the mainland as the ROC has claimed the mantle of Chinese Nationalism despite having lost the civil war. [The painting on the left dates from the eighteenth century and has been downloaded from a Wikipedia article about this festival.]

The dragon boat festival has been associated most frequently with the action of Qu Yuan, a poet and a minister in one of the seven warring states prior to the unification of China by the Qin (late in the third century B.C.). Qu Yuan had opposed a proposed merger of his home state with Qin and when he was dismissed, committed suicide by jumping into the river. It is said that the people of his state tried to save his body for proper burial by roiling the water of the river to distract the fish from feeding on it. Another servant of this state, Wu Zixu, is also said to have died on the same date, thus strengthening tradition regarding the celebration. Indeed, a third death on this date is said to have contributed as well. Cao E, a young woman's whose father had fallen into the river, searched for his body until both were found several days later, an act of filial piety by a daughter. The first two deaths were recorded in Sima Qian's classic history as both exemplified loyalty, a Confucian virtue (though their causes were hopeless).

[More recently, the festival achieved the status of a Google doodle.]

Many other folk beliefs have contributed to this early summer event. These have contributed folklore regarding luck to be earned by balancing an egg on its end and defense against illness by wearing herbs in pouches. Realgar wine was valued for its power to ward off evil as well as disease. It is probably an acquired taste.

Many Chinese folktales include references to this festival including the Legend of the White Snake, said to be one of the "China's Four Great Folk Tales." This folktale has several forms, briefly summarized in a Wikipedia article linked. The story has been brought to American theater most notably by Mary Zimmerman in New York City in 2013, see review in the New York Times, linked.

It would be a shame not to mention that the Dragon Boat Festival is a special occasion - as if one is needed - for special dumplings (glutinous rice with sweet and savory fillings, see image picked at random from very many on the Internet).