An OK Book, If You Like That Sort of Thing

I've finally been reading War and Peace, twenty years after I pretended to read it for a Russian literature class at Yale (being an artful bullshitter, I nevertheless earned a B). The book has been considered a masterpiece for so long that I feel reluctant to even blog about it. I can't share how much I'm enjoying this novel of novels without sounding like a guy running around town telling people about this delicious new food he discovered called pizza.

Leo Tolstoy (c) Library of Congress"War and Peace is a great book. Thanks for the newsflash, Doiron."

Well, War and Peace is a great book, even if holding it above your chest for an hour at a time feels like doing an extended bench press.

As a reader, I'm struck by all those things my Russian lit teacher tried to impress upon me long ago. I'm appropriately, if belatedly, awed by Tolstoy's insights into the broad range of human motivations, and I'm dazzled by the seeming effortlessness of his artistry. As a writer of fiction, I'm just humbled. Tolstoy makes writing a novel look so easy that I can understand authors around the world smashing their laptops in despair after reading War and Peace.

Then I stumbled across this quote on Wikipedia attributed to Anton Chekhov:

When literature possesses a Tolstoy, it is easy and pleasant to be a writer; even when you know you have achieved nothing yourself and are still achieving nothing, this is not as terrible as it might otherwise be, because Tolstoy achieves for everyone. What he does serves to justify all the hopes and aspirations invested in literature.

If Chekhov felt that way, it takes some of the pressure off us hacks, I guess.

Bambi Was a Maine Deer

OK, he was a German red deer first. But the Bambi that the world knows and loves—friend to Thumper, wooer of Faline—was actually a white-tailed deer from Baxter State Park in Maine, as this article in the world's best magazine proves definitely.

PS. Among hunters, Walt Disney's Bambi is the most hated movie ever because they blame it for transforming what had formerly been a socially accepted pastime into a perceived bloodsport pursued only by closeted homicides. My own take is: Bambi isn't all that pernicious (man does enter the forest, after all), but anthropomorphizing animals is naive and an expression of humanity's abiding narcissism. Also, most of the hunters I've known are highly moral people who are far less likely to inflict violence on other human beings than the urbanized Major Nidal Hasans and Seung-Hui Chos of the world.

What Michael Pollan Hath Wrought

Hunting has been on the decline throughout the U.S. for a while, but in today's New York Times, Sean Patrick Farrell has a story asserting that there's a grassroots movement of urban and suburban gourmets picking up rifles to harvest their own venison:

Some American chefs who grew up with rifles in their hands have long been passionate about wild game, even if the law forbids them from serving it in their restaurants. The subject has also been taken up recently by the writers Michael Pollan, who shoots a wild boar in “The Omnivore’s Dilemma,” and Steven Rinella, who chronicled his quest to kill a wild American bison in “American Buffalo.” But until recently, tree stands and Mossy Oak camouflage were rarely mentioned in the same breath as, say, heirloom tomatoes.

Anthony Licata, editor of Field & Stream magazine, said he wasn’t surprised that a new generation of eaters was discovering what traditional hunters have known all along: “There’s nothing more organic and free range than meat you hunt for yourself and your family,” he said.

 Like Jack Shafer over at Slate, I'm always suspicious of Times "trend" stories, but as someone who hunts without apology and believes it offers the best way of managing animal populations in human-occupied landscapes, I hope Farrell has discovered something real here.