FFB-THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATON-Robert Coover

THE UNIVERSAL BASEBALL ASSOCIATION, INC, J. HENRY WAUGH, PROP., by Robert Coover

With the exception of CATCH 22, I don't know of another book that knocked me out in quite the way this one did when I was young(er). Written in 1968, it overflows with creativity, humor, and pathos. Maybe it's not forgotten, but I rarely hear it mentioned.

J. Henry Waugh is an unhappy accountant who entertains himself by inventing a game that he can escape to at the end of the day. Every action in the game is ruled by the dice. Waugh does not get to intervene. He is, of course, no more in charge of what happens in the game then he is in what happens in his life. He finds this out when his star pitcher is killed by a pitched ball. (Yes, his game even allows for such events; it's that complex) This fictional event has impact on Waugh's real life in horrible ways.

Cleverly, Coover allows the players, managers and baseball executives to come to life, making the book much less static than this might sound. Is Waugh a God? If so, he has little power over his invented world and even less over his real one. It is chance that rules Waugh's game and his world. Until....This is a great book.

Short Story Wednesday, Hard-Boiled edited by Bill Pronzini, Jack Adrian

                                                             H/T Todd Mason

"Graveyard Shift" by James Reasoner; "The Long Silence After" by Ed Gorman

Browsing in the Dawn Treader bookstore in Ann Arbor in January, I grabbed a book from the shelves entitled HARD-BOILED. It was an anthology published in 1995, edited by Bill Pronzini and Jack Adrian, and published by Oxford University Press. I took it home and was delighted to find stories by two of our most faithful reviewers, but that isn't why I'm choosing these two stories today.

Although the stories are quite different, they share a theme: men attempting to redress the loss of a wife through criminal action. Though the outcomes are different, both stories are rich in atmosphere, tension, and character and a quality I love: uxoriousness. They rise above many short stories that depend almost totally on plot. Within a few pages, we know these men---or think we do. I highly recommend both stories as primers on how to write a short story as well as stories to be enjoyed.

George Kelley 

TracyK 

Kevin Tipple 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 The Jewish Book Fair began today at the Detroit Institute of Arts with Michelle Young talking about her book, The Art Spy, The Extraordinary Untold Tale of WW II Resistance Hero, Rose Valland who rescued much stolen artwork. The Festival goes on for a month. There must have been 500 people there. 

Also saw Secret Mall Apartment and Roofman. 

Watching Task, Low-Down, Baby Fever, Slow Horses. Has to be the best season of Slow Horses. 

Sad that the Tigers are out of the series although they never played well after mid-July. 

Still reading Black Cake, and trying to get started on Isola (Allegra Goodman). 

Very sad about Diane Keaton. Certainly one of my favorite actors.  

Still enjoying great weather. It's probably going to be gone with a thud.  

FFB TRIAL AND ERROR, Anthony Berkeley

 (reviewed by Casual Debris in 2012)

 
Its excellent premise is what attracted me to Anthony Berkeley's original, innovative and highly entertaining Trial and Error. Mild-mannered Lawrence Butterfield Todhunter learns that due to an aggressive aneurism he doesn't have much time left on this earth. Wanting to commit a great, humanitarian act before he goes, he throws a dinner party and tosses out a hypothetical, which leads nearly everyone to declare that great can be achieved through murder, so long as the victim is deserving of death. Hence Todhunter decides that before his impending doom he must seek out an appropriate victim and commit this terrible act.

Anthony Berkeley's novel has been out of print for some time, since the late 1960s it appears, with the exception of a small print run in 2001 by House of Stratus. This is a terrible shame because Trial and Error is an excellent read, a unique mystery that reads almost like an epic novel as it spans various significant episodes, each one a small book on its own, from Todhunter's seeking the perfect victim to the murder itself and its eventual trial. The book is split into five parts, each part dealing with a substantial leg in Todhunter's journey. There are a number of twists and I won't reveal anything more about the central plot.

The novel also boasts great characters, dialogue and attention to detail that is simply riveting. The world Berkeley manages to create is very real, and the geography of the various UK locations are clear; we always know where we are and where the settings lie in relation to one another. Moreover, the novel is filled with a good deal of humour despite its premise and its incessant focus on death. Yet what elevates Trial and Error from a good British mystery to a great novel is its notions of absurdity. Throughout the novel is a pervasive sense that despite the high dramatic aspects of life, both selfish and altruistic actions are governed by nothing more than chance; no matter how we strive for control the idea that we can influence destiny, our own or someone else's, is ridiculous. It is clear that the universe has its plans and the minutest element can thrust and thwart our plans in any seemingly random direction. And in the final scene even these ideas are challenged, as Berkeley twists the entire story into something altogether different.

Trial and Error is additionally a success due to its innocuous protagonist. Lawrence Todhunter is barely a character, a simple man with simple ideas, impressionable and easily influenced, harmless in every dimension of his being. While it initially appears that such a character would undoubtedly fail in maintaining interest in any kind of novel, Todhunter succeeds in growing on the reader, not necessarily through his altruism, but through his determination and particularly because he does indeed transform. Not static at all, this Todhunter. Berkeley also risks creating an over-sentimental character, particularly as he is nearing death, and yet does a wonderful job in being direct with his story and avoiding overblown sentimentality.

The novel's only weak point is at the early stage of the trial, when Berkeley feels the need to restate details which the reader is already familiar with. This portion of the work suffers a little in its pacing, but once the cross-examination begins, the writing, particularly the dialogue, is so riveting that we nearly forget the slow progress of the previous thirty or so pages.

Anthony Berkeley's Trial and Error is a rare find that is absolutely worth seeking out

Wednesday's Short Fiction

 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/10/13/coconut-flan-fiction-catherine-lacey

Did you ever read a story and feel the protagonist in the story could be you? This is the story of an extremely passive, dependent woman in Mexico who loses her passport. Every bit of description diminishes anything of note about her. Even her voice is referred to as "little." Nobody seems to see her or remember her. Frightening in its own way. My therapist would think I wrote this. How easily this woman could disappear in a crowd. 

TracyK 

George Kelley 

Jerry House 

Monday, Monday

 ONE BATTLE was the best movie I've seen in a long time. I am only occasionally a Paul Thomas Anderson fan but this one is right up there with PHANTOM THREAD. I also rewatched COLUMBUS at home. I can't say exactly why this movie works so well for me but I would love to go to Columbus, Indiana and see all of the great architecture. 

Reading THE SUMMER HOUSE (Matsuie), a novel also about architecture and BLACK CAKE (Wilkerson). 

On TV, watching THE LOWDOWN (HULU), TASK (HBO), LYNLEY etc. 

It's been weeks since it rained. It is killing my sinuses. 

How about you