Leadership by Rudolph Giuliani

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani begins and ends his book with the terrorist attacks of 9/11 which occurred during his final year as mayor. Sandwiched in between are several hundred pages of Giuliani’s views on management and leadership.   

Like most of these books that public figures seem programmed to write after their term in office expires, Giuliani’s book is both self-referential and self-serving.  He re-caps in a favorable light his accomplishments during his eight years as mayor, but, to his credit, Giuliani has plenty to favorably highlight.  His leadership during the 9/11 disaster was truly exemplary as was the order he brought to the chaotic and crime-ridden New York City of the 90s.  This book is interesting reading for anyone, but especially for New Yorkers and certainly for those who lived in the city during the 9/11 attacks.  

The way that Giuliani turned around crime in NYC is legend, but true legend of course.  In this book, he describes in readable fashion how his administration employed George Kelling’s Broken Windows Policy along with Compstat, regular precinct meetings and quality of life arrests to begin what would be the remarkable restoration of New York City to safety and livability.  He describes how he bypassed the bureaucracy to rout the squeegee-men at the bridges and tunnels and engage the MTA in the fight against graffiti in the subway system.  

He made Times Square and Bryant Park walkable again. He lowered taxes, dealt with a spate of plane crashes that had taken off from JFK and reformed the city’s welfare system.  His account of his dealings with the city hospitals is informative.  He made extensive changes to the Child Welfare Administration, separating it from the HRA to make it an independent and better functioning agency under the name of the Administration for Children’s Services.  

This book, though not autobiography, does have a trace of the personal in it.  The mayor shares a little about his schooling, his parents and more than I cared to know about his prostate cancer.  He included that subject in the chapter on decision making, a bit contrived perhaps.  He wrote just a bit here and there about his children.  He had nothing to say about his second wife, Donna Hanover and surprisingly more to say about his relationship with Judith Nathan who became his third wife (they are now divorced or in the process thereof).  He makes copious references to baseball and his love of that sport and other pastimes.  His account of how he prepared himself for the mayoralty is good reading.  He includes also reflections on his years as a prosecutor in the Southern District of New York and his years in the Justice Department. This is personal autobiography only to the extent that Giuliani wants it to be which is not all that much.  

Entirely missing from this book was any discussion by Mayor Giuliani of the role that his Catholic faith may have played in his personal formation or his decisions as mayor.  He does mention some of the nuns and brothers in his Catholic school education.  He did consider the priesthood for a time.  But in the day-to-day challenges of running a large and complex city neither prayer, church nor faith are discussed.  Something must account for his strong sense of justice, fair play, sense of responsibility and right vs. wrong.  I would have thought it would be his Catholic background.    

Rudy Giuliani is a man with a keen intellect that he puts to constant use in order to unpack issues, resolve problems and get a job done.  He is not one given to brooding introspective reflection or soul-searching self-analysis.  He is a man of action who uses incisive reasoning and facts to address life’s challenges.   Giuliani is not the most charismatic of public figures in case you didn’t know.  In fact, he’s pretty low on the likeability factor.   As he himself says, as a prosecutor he wouldn’t be doing his job if people found him likeable.  (I paraphrase.)  Nor does Giuliani have physical attributes working to his advantage.  He lacks the towering presence of a reserved six-foot-tall George Washington.  He could not pull off appearing in native Cherokee dress in the streets of Washington, D.C. as Sam Houston did.  He does not have the classic good looks of a JFK and he even has that slight speech irregularity barely noticeable as it is.  

What he does have is steely determination and an abundance of brainpower and confidence.  It must be said that he has used these to advantage and achieved to an admirable degree.  His contributions to the city of New York are, alone, enough that he should occupy a well-deserved place as a notable public figure.

 

The Sword of San Jacinto by Marshall De Bruhl and The Raven by Marquis James

Sam Houston (1793-1863) was at once frontiersman, soldier, lawyer, Byronic hero, friend of both Indian chiefs and U.S. presidents, Commander-in-Chief of Armies during the Texas Revolution, husband, father, opportunist, politician and statesman.  He had a flair for the flamboyant and, at over 6 feet tall, he had the physical presence to carry off his colorful showmanship.  He was a Virginian, Tennessean and Texan.  As the Raven, he was a full-fledged son of the Cherokee Nation and married for a time to one of its daughters.  He served Tennessee as both a congressman and its governor.  He was the liberator of the Republic of Texas and its first president as well as its senator and, finally, its governor.  Houston even made a brief bid for president of the United States as a candidate for the Know-Nothing Party. 

Sam Houston is best remembered for defeating Santa Ana in the Battle of San Jacinto and winning Texas its freedom from Mexico in 1836.  The cause of the conflict between Texans and Mexicans had its roots in the Manifest Destiny of the young republic and, not, as I always naively thought due to the treachery of Mexican despots who wouldn’t leave the American settlers alone.   Like most conflicts between polities, this war of revolution was a battle for territory and power.  There’s a lot of Texas history to cover when you read about Sam Houston. 

General Houston was the voice of reason in the Texas Revolution and the model of leadership.   It is true that the courage and steadfastness shown by Bowie, Travis and Crockett at the Alamo are marks of true heroic virtue. But their lives need not have been lost. Houston had instructed James Bowie to remove cannon and other weapons from the Alamo, blow up the mission and abandon it.  Bowie did not follow orders.  Neither did James Fannin at Goliad who, along with his soldiers, was killed execution-style by the Mexicans who trapped him there.  It was only after these and other disasters such as the ill-fated drive south to Matamoros that Houston was finally able to exercise his full leadership and battle plans for a remarkable victory at San Jacinto. 

 There are other significant events in the life of Houston, but the Texas Revolution is both a seminal event in the history of Texas and in the life of Sam Houston.  This event defined his place in American history.  Later in life, Houston again showed reason and leadership with the stance he took on the secession of Texas from the Union.  Houston was staunchly against secession (though not exactly anti-slavery) and resigned his governorship of Texas over the issue.    

A brief word about the two books.  When we found ourselves in Texas in 2015, it seemed a good time to read about Sam Houston.  Conveniently, we had the Marshall De Bruhl book in our home library so I was able to both further my reading goal and read on a subject of my choosing with the De Bruhl book close at hand.  It wasn’t until I had finished the book that a Texan asked if I’d read Marquis James’ biography of which I had never heard.  

James’ book was written in 1929 and De Bruhl’s in 1993.  I don’t know if historians consider one better than the other but I found them of equal value.  In fact, the only difference I noted between them is that the James book had slightly better maps.  Both treat the person of Sam Houston with objectivity and a touch of humor.  Both avoid the psychological probing of the man’s actions and thoughts that I find so irritating in a biography.  Both give historical background with perhaps the De Bruhl book going into slightly more detail.    

Both are very good books to read when you’re ready to brush up on your American history and read about this uniquely American soldier and statesman, General Sam Houston.

To Write or Not To Write in Your Books

In 2004,  the classical pianist Lang Lang came to our East Village neighborhood music school during a summer piano workshop.  Young and totally without affectation, Lang Lang arrived in socks and sandals with his father as his manager.  He was great with the kids, easy-going, engaged and entertaining.  As a kind of wrap-up to the afternoon, our director had suggested that students bring a copy of the music they were currently working on for Lang Lang to sign.  

I happened to be standing near-by as the first student approached.  Lang Lang looked pained.  He demurred.  He politely shook his head no and said that he couldn't sign the music.  Perhaps thinking he didn't understand, our director cheerfully explained that it would be a souvenir of the workshop and that the students would appreciate it.  Lang Lang, still troubled and with careful language returned the explanation that he didn't want to sign the music because it would be disrespectful to the composer and disrespectful to the music if he were to scribble up the score with his autograph.  I was mildly surprised at the nature of his concern, but I think of his response every time I consider the matter of writing in books.  

Writing in books was something I was taught not to do so I suppose I actually agree with Lang Lang after a fashion.  Except for writing your name or a brief dedication on the inside cover, writing in a book was tantamount to 'ruining' the book, messing it up and demonstrating a careless disregard for one's belongings.  To the extent that I've even given thought to writing on a music score, I suppose I don't go for that either.  Except for fingerings or extra dynamic markings, my opinion has always been that all that scrawling on your music meant that you didn't know the piece very well!

No more! I still don't like mussing up my music, but as for books, I attribute my change in outlook to C.S. Lewis who wrote that writing in the books you're reading is a way of making them your own.  How true. What better evidence that I've been round the block with a book than finding my notations and pencil markings among the pages!  A little question mark here or there means I'm confused about this or that and need to re-visit the passage.  Underlining can be used to highlight new vocabulary, a name, date or important idea. Bracketing is nice for an important paragraph that contains a summary or pivotal idea.  An exclamation point usually means That's weird or Who would have thought.  Occasionally, I offer an opinion in the margins or a brief phrase that summarizes the subject covered on that page.   

I do now and again still find the idea of marking up a book objectionable particularly if the book is printed on fine paper stock or if the book is just beautiful or very old.  In these circumstances I may still use faint pencil markings, though faint pencil markings is generally all I use.  No pen whatsoever.  I do admit to finding it easier to mark up a paperback. I do not write in library books or books that I borrow from others and I generally do not bother much with writing in a book of fiction. Writing in a Bible is a bit off in my estimation though writing in a study Bible is fine.   I don't like to see writing in children's picture books. I think it's only good discipline to tell young children not to write in their books.   

You can see that there is judgment to be exercised when it comes to writing in books. I acknowledge that one does have to make certain considerations.  Overall, however, writing in books is a practice that I can endorse as a worthwhile and enjoyable adjunct to reading.  It would be useful to hear what others have to say on the subject.  

As for Lang Lang on that long-ago occasion, it should be added that he had brought along promotional materials.  For the students, there was an over-sized sort of post card with a picture of Lang Lang standing in front of a grand piano.  On my son Phillip's card Lang Lang wrote 'To Pillip,' and Lang Lang did not seem to mind that his big, loopy letters were written all across the picture of himself on the front of the card.     

LBJ Architect of American Ambition by Randall B. Woods

What a difference 58 years can make.  Though basically a liberal Southern Democrat who created one federal program after another, Lyndon Johnson defies categorization as either liberal or conservative,  Democrat or Republican by today’s standards.  

And what a book almost 900 pages does make.  Lyndon Baines Johnson’s trajectory from Hill Country Texan to President of the United State is narrated in full detail in this biography with detailed in-depth coverage of his years as a Senate aid, Congressman, Senate deal maker and power broker to the heady days of his presidency, the 60s, the Great Society, the War on Poverty, Vietnam and the Civil Rights movement.  The detail was at times daunting, at other times it filled in the empty spaces in my recollection of the tumultuous Kennedy-Johnson era.  The LBJ years were my formative years. I was 11 in 1963 when JFK was assassinated and the events of the 60s have remained indelibly printed in my memory but they are just that, discrete events. I never could figure out how to connect the dots.

There was the nightly news on TV, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Life magazine that kept constantly in the forefront the names—McNamara, Ky, Khrushchev, Mobutu, Bobby Baker, Bill Moyers; the places—Cuba, Dienbienphu, the Mekong Delta, Dallas, Selma, Watts and Newark; the laws—The Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Voting Rights Act of 1965, The Higher Education Act; the programs-- Medicare, Head Start, HUD, NEA, NEH, CAPs; the events—the Bay of Pigs, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassinations, Bloody Sunday, the Tet Offensive.   My parents had opinions and were involved but there was never sufficient discussion or explanation to provide a framework for understanding everything that was happening and who the various players were.  Reading about LBJ and his life and times provided the framework.  

The author describes Johnson as a “visionary committed to public service.”  Johnson espoused a “modern individualism” and a “pragmatic liberalism.”  He was paternalistic, believing as he did that government exists “mainly to be an agent of social justice."  In Johnson’s own words “Government is the business of deciding what is right and then finding the way to do it.” 

LBJ decided that it was right for Washington, D.C. to create opportunity for all Americans, that it was right to fight for full equality of the races under federal law, that it was right for the federal government to guarantee education, housing and medical care for all citizens.  Though well-intentioned all of this, the way he found to do it was mis-guided.  Like most social justice warriors, Johnson confused the proper roles of government and religion. While it is the proper role of government to reflect the moral law (which I thought stemmed from natural law which will be to the inherent benefit of the common good), it is not the role of government to hatch and legislate morality.  Rather it’s religion and philosophy that shape citizens’ morality.  The government is there to ensure that citizens can exercise their beliefs in a safe and rational society with fair and equal treatment of all.    

Johnson, himself, admitted the failure of his own programs.  By 1968, amidst riots and violence following the assassination of MLKJr and with Ralph Abernathy addressing 50,000 people in June about broken promises and the failure of the administration to end poverty and discrimination, here’s what Lyndon Johnson said (his words): “the very people we are seeking to help in Medicare and education and welfare and Food Stamps are protesting louder and louder and giving no recognition or allowance for what’s been done.  Our efforts seem to have resulted only in anarchy…The women no longer bother to get married, they just keep breeding.  The men go their way and the women get relief---why should they work?” 

Yet Johnson persisted in his “vision.” 

I found it hard to dislike him.  There is a sincerity underlying LBJ’s misguided do-gooder mission. He was for the common man and being from the rural South, he identified with him.  Though dedicated to the poor and disenfranchised, it seems LBJ never intended to help them by creating a welfare state.  Though a champion of civil rights he was careful to keep the white South in mind when advancing the cause of ‘the Negro.’    

Overall, Lyndon Johnson had traditional values and believed in America and love of country. He was decidedly more principled than most politicians of today and his politics were decidedly less partisan. His political style was to bring the ends to meet the middle.  He valued hard work, honesty and loyalty.  He didn’t like communists. He did not identify with intellectuals or coastal elites. 

Though maybe he was a man who craved being the center of attention and sought out more than his fair share of praise and approval, I didn’t find Johnson to be any more of an egotist or ambitious over-achiever than the next career politician or Type A personality.  Too much is made of his domineering personality and his overarching ego in my opinion.  

He had a sometimes-testy relation with the press not all unlike that of President Trump.  He could be crude and boorish as when he displayed his abdominal scar to the world.  While his speeches were loaded up with flowery, idealistic, even preachy language, to his cabinet members and advisors he spoke his mind, talked straight and made no effort to tidy up his grammar or his slang. 

Lyndon Johnson was not a fake, phony or fraud. He at times speaks best for himself as on this occasion in Italy during his presidency.  Johnson was not all that interested in collecting art but an art dealer made available to him a painting of a nude valued at $3,000. Commenting on the possible purchase of the artwork, LBJ told the aide traveling with him: “He [the art dealer] wants $3,000 for it.  I told him I’d give him $l,500, but I also told him that I would give him the whole $3,000 if he’d take about twenty pounds off her ass.” 

You know you have to laugh!    

Whether this book or some other (such as Robert Caro’s volumes on Johnson) is or is not the authoritative work on the life of LBJ, the author certainly covered the waterfront.  I did have the slightest hesitation about continuing with this book when I skimmed the introduction.  There, the author described the hours immediately following the assassination of JFK and the swearing-in of LBJ on the plane.  The author referred to Jackie Kennedy in her “green” suit.  Green!  What an editorial oversight!  Everybody knows her suit was pink! 

 

 

 

Japan's Imperial Conspiracy by David Bergamini

 Japan’s Imperial Conspiracy, Volumes 1 and 2 by David Bergamini is a detailed and exhaustive study of the reign of Emperor Hirohito with especial emphasis on his role during World War II.  It is certainly one of the most difficult books I’ve ever read, if not also---- at 1,386 pages of text with an additional 142 pages of glossary and notes-- one of the longest. 

After several chapters on the history of Japan beginning with the year 50 A.D, Bergamini ushers us into the 20^th century and examines the extent to which Emperor Hirohito orchestrated Japan’s involvement in WWII as well as Hirohito’s role in making Japan a militaristic and totalitarian society.  The author also covers the post-war American occupation of Japan though less in-depth.  

Bergamini’s thesis is that Emperor Hirohito was neither a figure-head emperor nor a puppet of either the Japanese navy or army.  To the complete contrary, the author describes Hirohito instead a strongarm dictator with a plan.  He was a totalitarian-style leader who shaped and directed Japan’s ‘Strike South’ campaign to conquer the Pacific, and, if possible, the world.  Hirohito was also, according to the author, directly involved in the Pearl Harbor attack and had knowledge of many of the barbaric atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese throughout this period. 

The author conducts his historical study using heretofore unavailable and/or unreleased original sources such as diaries and transcripts of meetings and conversations.  These sources were only  newly available in the 1960s and Bergamini documents his thesis at every point along the long and winding way from Japan of the 1920s to the defeated and ravaged post-war Japan of 1945.  This book was published in 1971.

Mr. Bergamini was born in Japan and lived in both Japan and China as a child, being the son of a missionary and architect responsible for the design of hospitals, churches and other public buildings.  Most remarkable, he spent the duration of the war, his teenage years, in a concentration camp in the Philippines along with his family.  Mr. Bergamini eventually returned to the U.S. and went to Dartmouth College and earned other scholarly distinctions before becoming a reporter for Life magazine and the author of several books including this one.  He is deceased.  It’s difficult to find out much about the man despite his very unique background in the Far East.  He references those years in his ‘Author to Reader’ introduction and there are a few scattered footnotes throughout the two volumes where he fleshes out a point or two with his personal observation or experience.  I would very much like to know more about him.

I’m apologetic about this commentary for the simple reason that the depth of analysis I can muster up will be only as good as the depth and breadth of understanding I was able to wring out of the book. Since I was operating from a pretty shaky knowledge base to begin with, I fear my commentary may not do justice to the author’s work and for that I apologize.  Let me explain.   

First, my knowledge of WWII in general is fragmented and shallow; I confess to never having been a properly interested student of the War.  This changed after spending an unsettling afternoon at Dachau several years ago when I finally resolved to educate myself on the subject of  WWII and about more than just the concentration camps.  Thus I set myself to reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William Shirer (it was in our home library).  More recently, I read Mr. Shirer’s Berlin Diaries and then went back and selectively re-read The Rise and Fall.    I’ve also poked around at portions of Anthony Beevor’s World War II. That about sums up my background.

Naturally my knowledge of the Pacific theater during WWII could only measure up to less than my overall knowledge of the war itself.  Add to that my general ignorance of Japanese history, culture and politics and you will understand why I was often at sea while reading this book.

Speaking of culture, my minimal and superficial knowledge of Japanese culture caused me to make wrong assumptions at times and at other times to simply shake my head in bewilderment.  My impression of Japan as a nation of docile, hopelessly polite people with quaint customs is based solely on post-war Japan.  Reading Mr. Bergamini’s book, with his obvious affection for the country and people of his youth was instructive. 

More of an irritation to me than an ignorance of the culture was my total lack of familiarity with the language.  Yes, of course, the book is written in English, but the names, the names!   One after another, they would blend together and I would quickly lose track of who was who and which one was what.  In contrast, I recently read a giant tome on the Renaissance and the sesquipedalian Italian names tripped off my tongue as easily as you please. 

As with my ignorance of the culture and history of Japan, my lack of familiarity with the geography of the region didn’t do me any favors either.  Fortunately, the maps on the inside covers of both volumes were there to help.  They were not exceedingly detailed maps, but I was able to orient myself enough to then consult an atlas for, say, Lake Khasan or Port Arthur or the route of the Siberian railway.  Rather humbling also was the matter in Volume 2 of having to constantly flip back and forth from text to map to find familiar place names such as Corregidor, the Bataan peninsula, Iwo Jima and Midway!  I was even slow with the island names of the Dutch East Indies and there again depended on the map. 

As if all this weren’t enough to lower my self-esteem, the general history of the neighboring countries, especially China and Russia, is so lightly imprinted upon me that I was at a distinct disadvantage regarding Russo-Sino wars and the struggles of China during the times of Sun Yat Sen, Chiang Kai Shek and Mao.

With these humiliating handicaps, I devised a plan for reading the book in order to keep from drowning completely and putting the book aside entirely. About 2/3 of the way through the first volume I decided to read for big ideas and not to spend so much time on the details of every coup, palace intrigue, policy and conspiratorial plot.  I came up as best I could with a list of some of the ideas that seemed most important and I would read with an eye for those. 

One big idea was to read with the background question in mind.  Does this policy/plot/decision show that Hirohito was master-minding Japan’s foreign affairs?  Was this event/decision to Hirohito’s advantage or disadvantage?  Does this turn of affairs give evidence that he was pulling the strings? 

Another big idea was to place events in the context of one of the two general foreign affairs approaches of the Japanese.  There was the Strike North policy which was to stave off Russia and the Strike South policy which was to embark on the subjugation and conquering of basically all of Asia north to Manchuria, east into China, Burma, as far as possible into India,  the Southeast Asian peninsula, the Dutch Indies, and then head to Hawaii and the western coast of the United States.  

A third big idea was the Samurai culture/traditionalists of Japan vs. the more jingoistic martial types, including Hirohito, who wanted to conquer the world.  There was also the organ policy vs. its counterpart (had difficulty with that one).

What I learned from this book remains to be seen.  Or heard.  I doubt if I could converse fluently on the war in the Pacific or if I could even name five significant decisions that Hirohito made concerning the war. On the other hand, I certainly have a far more informed big picture and for each of those empty knowledge cups I listed above, I have filled them with a few ounces of information thereby reducing my overall deficit on the subject by a considerable amount.  At least I now have a running start when I attempt this book again.  I also have two follow-up books that may help me to further digest and reflect on what I read here. 

Lastly I have to admit that I felt an alienation from and an impatience toward the culture and people of Japan after reading this book.  Hirohito himself gave me the creeps.  I couldn’t stand anything about him.  He seemed cunning and calculating, a smug, humorless, self-absorbed man.  There was not a single Japanese male in the book who struck me otherwise.  General MacArthur came across as a loveable teddy bear compared to those guys!   Japan is a world of puffed-up macho men.   As for the women, they are enslaved.  They are chattel.  They live in degradation.  I’m so thankful to God that I’m not a Japanese female.  Furthermore, the duplicity in that culture, the posturing, the ever-present mask, how does anyone ever feel real?  When they’re not dissembling, they act child-like.  Maybe it’s all the same thing.  The value the culture assigns to the human person is just about zero. They think nothing of inviting one another to commit suicide.  It is not insignificant I think that Christianity was so consistently and widely persecuted in Japan.  To this day, less than one percent of the population of Japan is Christian.

Reading this book was a valuable exercise.  Mr. Bergamini convinced me beyond any reasonable doubt that Emperor Hirohito bore full responsibility for the actions of Japan in WWII.  He should have been tried and sentenced for his war crimes.  I believe it was Australia that was particularly adamant on that subject but they were overruled.  After reading this book, I’m of a mind that the United States treated Hirohito far too kindly.  That said though, did we really need to rub Japan’s nose in their defeat and preach to them about the deception perpetrated by their emperor and the perils of worshiping him? After all, it’s the people of Japan who have to live with themselves, not us.  

One would think that at least the women might finally wake up to the bondage under which they labor. Just an afterthought.     

The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

You open to the first page and read that it is a Saturday afternoon at twilight on Egdon Heath. Hardy describes it as “This obscure, obsolete, superseded country……. of heathy, furzy, briary wilderness….”  

Grandfer Cantle is next introduced singing and dancing a jig saying, “Jown the slippery glasses!”  Jown them indeed you think wondering what he’s talking about. 

You wonder again when Hardy describes the protagonist, Eustacia Vye in this way, “Where did her dignity come from?  By a latent vein from Alcinous’ line, her father hailing from Phaeacia’s isle?-or from Fitzalan and De Vere, her maternal grandfather having  had a cousin in the peerage?”  Hmm.

Back to the heath, the comically superstitious Christian Cantle (who claims his age to be “Thirty-one last tatie-digging”) says, “Egdon Heath is a bad place to get lost in and the winds do huffle queerer to night than ever I heard ‘em afore.  Them that know Egdon best have been pixy-led here at times."

And pixy-led we are.  Though I was initially a bit lost, this is a great tale and after a few pages, the reader accustoms himself to Hardy’s writing even if the reader isn’t thoroughly versed in the classics and the Bible.

My own introduction to Thomas Hardy was in high school when we read The Mayor of Casterbridge.  That’s the story that opens with a husband trying to sell his wife.  What a sad sack Hardy and all his characters are!  What miserable creatures for whom happiness seems always out of reach. According to my father who liked reading Thomas Hardy, the writer didn’t “believe in marriage” is how I recall my father putting it.  A hasty read of Hardy’s bio tells us that marriage must have perplexed him.  The death of his first wife haunted him even though they had been estranged.  His second wife was 39 years his junior!  In addition to marriage, Hardy must have had his doubts about Christianity as well given the final scene of the book where he appears to make a mockery of the Sermon on the Mount.  The unfortunate Clym Yeobright is giving the sermon!  Hardly a Christ-like figure.   Consider also that the most impressionable, superstitious and laughable character in the book is named, of all things, Christian. 

Whether symbolism abounds or not in this story, I took the heath to be a furze-covered, wild kind of purgatory where souls roamed about often losing their way on this untamed patch of earth that offered no clear line between good and evil.  Dominating the heath was the Rainbarrow, a tumulus, a hill of bones, a burial ground, maybe hell itself, to which the characters were perilously headed if they couldn’t find their way to heaven.  Which they couldn’t. 

Hardy’s characters were flawed, unable to grasp what true love is as if Hardy believed such an inability to be the essence of the human person.  Love was either a duty or a transaction to the characters.  Clym, the native who returned, is a sop of a man, a spoiled mama’s boy with no spine. Eustacia is a Jezebel, a vixen. Wildeve is a bully and a womanizer. Thomasin and her aunt are timid rabbits. Diggory Venn is vaguely likeable as he hovers shadow-like in the background, a symbol of sacrifice and virtue though even with him my patience wore thin at times.  Be that as it may, Hardy does weave these unpleasant characters into a clever and suspenseful story. Whether it’s an innocent mistake, a missed knock on the door or the driving rain on the heath, there’s always a glitch that causes the characters to just miss the chance to find true happiness. 

It’s no surprise that Hardy aspired more to poetry than prose.  His writing is very beautiful and often evokes vivid images or a prevailing mood with few but carefully chosen words.  The dice game between Venn and Wildeve is an example. We know the men are on the heath at night but we know just how dark and gloomy it is when the candle goes out and Wildeeve makes a frenzied search for lightning bugs so they can continue the high-stakes game. The reader can feel the tension between the two men yet Hardy relies only on the terse back-and-forth dialog to communicate that tension. 

This novel appeared in installments in a magazine called Belgravia and Hardy’s original ending was too depressing for his readers who demanded of the author a more upbeat conclusion.  Hardy complied.  A brief footnote at the end of the edition I read explained the predictable gloom that Hardy had originally intended.  Despite the downer that he is, I like Hardy’s stories (this is my second reading of The Return of the Native) and I will certainly revisit his other novels in short order.