“Smart People,” a Play by Lydia Diamond

Smart People, a 2016 play by Lydia Diamond, has been staged by several companies around the country. It’s set in 2008, shortly before the presidential election. Four people (and they are the only characters in the play) are connected to Harvard University. One is a surgeon, one is a psychologist, one is an actress, and one is a teaching neuropsychiatrist. All are, to one degree or another, interested in how the brain works. And all four are, to one degree or another, looking for love and affirmation. 

But then there’s politics. And politics saturates the characters’ thinking. Only a small part of that politics concerns the presidential election; it almost serves as an unspoken theme off-stage. But there’s academic politics (and what happens when cancel culture rears its head). And there’s what happen when the politics of relationships inserts itself into what might have been love stories. For all of their understanding of how the brain works, for all of their expertise, and for all of their intelligence, the characters of Smart People seem unable to overcome the politics they supposedly know so much about. 

 

Lydia Diamond

Yet these characters are all recognizable. In their own ways, they are all compelling. That isn’t to say a reader of the play finds them sympathetic. Each is disagreeable, the neuropsychiatrist in particular. He’s an academic close to tenure, something of a rainmaker for bringing all kinds of grants and recognitions to his department. He’s looking for what in the brain makes people racist. He himself is “evolved,” as he describes it, and has transcended his own racist leanings. Except he suddenly faces cancel culture for something he says in the classroom. 

 

One doesn’t today expect such a probing treatment of the academic and cultural left, but that’s exactly what Smart People does.

 

Diamond’s plays include Stick Fly, Harriet Jacobs, Voyeurs de Venus, The Gift Horse, Inside, and The Bluest Eye (a stage adaptation of the Toni Morrison novel). A graduate of Northwestern University, she has taught at DePaul University, Columbia University, and Boston University. She is currently a clinical associate professor of Theatre at the University of Illinois – Chicago. 

"Charles Dickens: A Very Short Introduction" by Jenny Hartley

Oxford University Press has been publishing a considerable number of “very short introductions,” numbering now in the hundreds, covering authors, movements, science, technology, history, and other subjects. Last year, OUP published one for C.S. Lewis, written by James Como. The slender volumes are about 100 pages, and the ones for authors include a biographical overview as well as a discussion of major works. 

And who was I to resist one for Charles Dickens?

 

Charles Dickens: A Very Short Introduction by literary scholar Jenny Hartley was originally published in 2016, without the “very short” in its title. Last year, it was republished including the “very short,” and packaged like the other OUP introductions. It’s concise, insightful, and covers the highlights of the author’s life and career.

 

Hartley discusses Dickens’s life through the prism of his works. Through Oliver Twist, we’re introduced to his early professional life and his meteoric rise in public acclaim. Sketches by Boz and other works help explain the public and private Dickens. Several works serve as the platform to explain his mastery of character and plot (and not everyone agrees on his mastery of plot). Bleak House, Dombey and Son, and other novels are used to discuss the author’s relationship with London. Hard Times serves as the platform for his radical politics and public crusades for social change. And A Christmas Carol becomes the window through which we see the man’s enormous impact on literature and culture.

 

Jenny Hartley

Hartley, Emeritus Professor of English at the University of Roehampton, is the author of Charles Dickens: An Introduction (2016), The Selected Letters of Charles Dickens (2012), Charles Dickens and the House of Fallen Women(2009), Millions Like Us: British Women’s Fiction of the Second World War (1997), Hearts Undefeated: Women’s Writing of the Second World War (1995), and other works. She was president of the International Dickens Fellowship from 2013 to 2015 and serves on the Academic Advisory Board of the Charles Dickens Museum in London. 

 

Charles Dickens: A Very Short Introduction is not only brief; it’s also an excellent study of the author and his works. Hartley takes “very short” seriously and still manages to provide a broad overview with resorting to broad generalizations. It’s an excellent “very short” volume.

 

Related:

 

C.S. Lewis: A Very Short Introduction by James Como. 

Simultaneous translations

After Acts 2:1-13

It is a polyglot of nations

represented, people from

everywhere living

in one place, this city

at this time, people

hearing the wind

thundering and rushing,

a mighty river cascading

down mountains,

a waterfall of sound.

They hear the wind

and come running,

called to see and

called to witness

this event at this time,

what none have seen

before: the languages

of nations pouring forth

from men who know

only own, their own.

Photograph by Zac Ong via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

The world experienced a pandemic a century ago – the so-called Spanish flu that may have killed upwards of 50 million people – or more. The current pandemic of COVID-19 has shredded business, education, the restaurant and travel industry, and a lot more. Not to mention holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Livia Gershon at Smithsonian Magazine took a look at the earlier pandemic to find out what the Christmas of 1918 looked like.  

One old-time entertainment that’s enjoyed a revival during the COVID-19 pandemic is jigsaw puzzles. Rebecca Bodenheimer at JTSOR Daily takes a look at the old / new puzzle craze.

 

Have you ever thought about writing a detective novel? Jonathan Dunsky, author of the Adam Lapid mysteries (Israeli noir, set in the early 1950s), has some advice. For the record, I’m a Dunsky fan, and I’ve reviewed several of his novels, most recently The Auschwitz Detective.

 

The Hallmark Channel is the entertainment that proper literary folk love to ridicule. Steve Guthrie at The Rabbit Room has a decidedly different perspective – he likes happy endings. (I read romances for the same reason.)

 

More Good Reads

 

Poetry

 

The Struggle for the Formalist Tradition – Joseph Salemi at Society of Classical Poets.

 

The Last Days of Mandelstam – Vénus Khoury-Ghata (tr. Teresa Lavender Fagan) – Tony Messenger at Messenger’s Booker.

 

The Web – Katie Peterson at Literary Matters.

 

Writing and Literature

 

What makes a Penguin Classic? – Alexander Larman at The Critic Magazine.

 

John le Carré: a man who rose through the English class system as it was collapsing – James Snell at The Critic Magazine.

 

Reviving the Lost Art of Letter Writing – David Steele at Veritas et Lux.

 

Life and Culture

 

Schools Are Not Tools – Edvard Lorkovic at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Why we need a common faith – Kit Wilson at The Critic Magazine.

 

Home, Revisited – Ken Colombini at Front Porch Republic.

 

Can Monetary Policy Be Unjust? – Austin Rogers at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.

 

Solzhenitsyn: A Voice for When History Repeats Itself – Heidi White at FORMA Journal. 

 

Lessons from the American South for Healing Our Nation – Jerry Salyer at The Imaginative Conservative.

 

Faith

 

Watts and Wesley: A Tale of Two Hymn Writers and the Christmas Carols that Remain with Us – Ryan Rindels at Historical Theology.

 

Don’t Stay for the Applause – John Stonestreet at Breakpoint.

 

News Media

 

Substack isn’t a new model for journalism — it’s a very old one – Michael Socolow at Neiman Lab.

 

The Biggest News Stories Every Year (You’ve Never Heard Of): The work of Project Censored – Matt Taibbi at Literary Hub.

 

American Stuff

 

An epic painting, pain and destruction of Nashville battlefield – John Banks Civil War Blog.

 

Selah Video Reflection: Psalm 8 – Jeff Johnson

Drawing: Old Man Reading, pencil on paper by Vincent Van Gogh (1882).

A rushing wind

After Acts 2:1-13

It is the wind we hear,

the rushing sound,

the mighty roar filling

the space around us,

the space inside us.

Tongues of fire appear, 

divide and rest above

each of us, a singularity

translating into tongues

all could understand.

The sound brings men

running to where we are,

shocked to hear languages

flowing from tongues of men

and from tongues of fire.

Before we miss it, though, 

there is a preamble 

to all of this, a presupposition

or possibly even a pre-condition:

we were all together.

Photograph by Mahkeo via Unsplash. Used with permission.

"Force of Evil" by Simon Michael

London barrister Charles Holborne, formerly known as the Jewish East End boxer Charles Horowitz, meets his good friend Detective Sergeant Sean Sloane at a pub for a drink. Charles and Sloane have a lot in common; both have strong stubborn streaks, and both have a certain prejudice against corrupt politicians and police officers. It’s the mid-1960s. Despite his courtroom success, Charles is an outsider in his profession, because of his profession and the stain of being too friendly with the wrong kind of crowd. Sloane, too, is an outsider, an Irish cop working for the London Met who finally got his transfer out of the corrupt Vice Division.  

Sloane may have transferred out, but both he and Charles are about to get sucked into a case that involves stolen goods from the Royal Air Force, two murders, the gangs running London’s underworld, and police corruption that makes the Vice Division look clean.  As they leave the pub, they see someone checking nearby rail cars – someone who shouldn’t be. Sloane gets severely beaten up; the villain is allowed to go free by the apprehending officer. The detective sergeant recovers at a local hospital, and he finds himself becoming interested in his attending physician, Dr. Irenna Alexandrova, who fled South Africa after her parents were jailed by the apartheid regime. 

 

Despite being told to stop his investigation into the railyard incident, Sloane continues, while developing a relationship with the doctor. Soon, she’s framed and arrested by police officers attempting to pressure Sloane. If she’s convicted, she’ll be deported to South Africa, where she probably faces death.  Charles takes on her legal case. The attorney is also juggling his blown-up relationship with his former girlfriend and working with his brother to figure out a solution to their mother’s failing memory.

 

Simon Michael

Force of Evil is the sixth Charles Holborne legal thriller by British author Simon Michael, and it’s every bit as good as its outstanding predecessors. Michael draws upon his own legal background to tell his stories, and it’s fascinating to watch the twists and turns each story takes.

 

Michael studied law at Kings College, London University and was called to the Bar in 1978. He worked primarily in the field of criminal law until the late 1990s, when he focused his practice on clinical negligence. He began writing in the 1980s and resumed it when he retired from legal practice.

 

Force of Evil builds quickly, with tension mounting as the story moves toward the courtroom drama of a case brought against an innocent woman by corrupt police officers. It’s a top-notch story by one of the best writers in the genre today.

 

Related:

 

My review of The Brief by Simon Michael.

 

My review of An Honest Man by Simon Michael. 

 

My review of The Lighterman by Simon Michael.

 

My review of Corrupted by Simon Michael.

 

My review of The Waxwork Corpse by Simon Michael.

“So Much Better Your Way, Signed Jack” by Theresa Laws

Jack Riley walked away from a promising political career in the Jackson, Miss., area. He’s now attending seminary and working at a local church, both aimed at his new calling to serve God. He’s raising his toddler son alone, with the help of family. His wife Kelly died, and Jack is still struggling with the loss.  

At a local park, he meets Cynthia Rogers, a young woman who’s reading on a park bench. He feels a flicker of interest, but he moves one. One night, on his way home for more seminary studying, his car his nearly destroyed by drag racers who lose control. When he wakes, he’s in the hospital, facing long weeks of rehabilitation and concerns about his leg. His nurse happens to be the young woman he met in the park.

 

A relationship slowly builds. When it seems to become something serious, a colleague from Jack’s political days returns to Jackson, with more on her mind that helping her family. Cynthia quits her job, flees to her family home in the North, and finds new nursing work. Jack is devastated.

 

So Much Better Your Way, Signed Jack is the second in the Love Still Lives series by Theresa Laws, following Diary of a Divine Relationship: Jack & Kelly. In addition to writing fiction, Laws is a published songwriter and plays the flute. She lives in the Chicago area. 

 

The novel tells the story of Jack and his family, a family that’s very close and is known for its faith in God. Jack finds himself praying almost constantly. He meets miracles every day, not only those involving his accident but also seeing friends return or come to faith themselves. So Much Better Your Way, Signed Jack is a very different kind of Christian romance from what I’ve usually seen and read, opening a door to a related yet still different culture.