(+++) JUST BEYOND REALITY

Breaking Stalin’s Nose. By Eugene Yelchin. Henry Holt. $15.99.

My Brother’s Shadow. By Monika Schröder. Frances Foster/Farrar Straus Giroux. $17.99.

There Is No Long Distance Now: Very Short Stories. By Naomi Shihab Nye. Greenwillow/HarperCollins. $16.99.

     There is nothing light, amusing or distracting in these books – they are for young readers wanting a serious, thoughtful and in many ways depressing view of the world around us, or the world that was around us. Breaking Stalin’s Nose, set in Soviet times, is the story of 10-year-old Sasha Zaichik, who is approaching the long-awaited day when he will join the Soviet Young Pioneers and become “a reliable comrade,” in accordance with one of the organization’s laws. The laws also say he shall act in accord with his conscience and criticize shortcomings. So they say. But those are official rules. In his real world, Sasha finds things going distressingly wrong as he throws a snowball that breaks a classmate’s glasses, then accidentally damages a bust of Stalin at school. And all this happens after the worst thing of all: Stalin’s secret police show up in the middle of the night and take away Sasha’s father, who nevertheless tells his son, “It’s more important to join the Pioneers than to have a father.” The neighbor who coveted the apartment where Sasha and his father lived, and who thus filed the report that led to Sasha’s father’s arrest, is told, when he asks about Sasha, that “the state will bring him up.” At school, as the requirements of Soviet life inexorably close in on Sasha, his doubts and fears grow, until he has a frightening surrealistic encounter with “Comrade Stalin’s plaster nose…smoking a pipe!” Sasha must decide how to live, which means whether to live, for he is given a chance to betray others – or be imprisoned himself. The book ends with him waiting, with a very slight glimmer of hope, for a chance, perhaps, to see his father again, but with his own future very much in doubt – and those of several of his classmates having turned very grim indeed. Eugene Yelchin’s first novel, based loosely on the history of the land where he was born, is filled with his pictures (he is a painter and illustrator), and they are at least as chilling as his words, producing a book in which all the choices are poor ones and a young child’s life is very grim indeed.

     It was the depredations of World War I that set the scene that brought Stalin to power in Russia, while in Germany and the rest of Europe the war swept out old empires and old power structures, leaving behind fear, uncertainty and leadership vacuums that sowed the seeds of another world war a mere 20 years later. As Yelchin revisits his country’s past, German-born Monika Schröder revisits that of the nation where she was born and grew up, telling the story of 16-year-old Moritz Schmidt and his older brother, Hans, in My Brother’s Shadow. The Schmidts are a family divided: Moritz’s father died in the war, his brother still fights in the conflict’s last days, and his mother, deeply disillusioned with the monarchy and the barely adequate rations on which the family must subsist, has become a socialist – as has Hedwig, his sister. For his part, Moritz becomes a journalist, and soon finds himself reporting on the injustices that have radicalized his mother and sister – and falling in love with a girl who is both a socialist and Jewish. And then the seriously injured Hans returns, as determined to try to preserve the old order, or at least replace it with an alternative authoritarian one, as other family members are to overthrow it in favor of democracy. The book proceeds through the end of the war and the start of the yet-unnamed, yet-unorganized movement that would later become National Socialism and usher in the terrors of the Nazi era. But readers know this only through hindsight – the characters in the book, swept along on the tides of history, have scarcely any idea of where they are going. As Breaking Stalin’s Nose gives a sense of the claustrophobic and frightening world of Soviet Russia, so My Brother’s Shadow portrays an earlier time in which a nation and people, defeated in a long and viciously bloody war, face a future they cannot contemplate and hope – vainly, as we now know – to make better than their past.

     And are so many lives so much better in the 21^st century? As difficult and often unpleasant as the books by Yelchin and Schröder are to read, Naomi Shihab Nye’s There Is No Long Distance Now is just as fraught with unhappiness – for all that it is a 200-page collection of 40 very short stories rather than a novel telling a single tale. Individual sentences from individual Nye stories clearly show the overall mood of the book: “It was easier to die if you didn’t have family members to worry about at that exact moment.” “Now no one was happy. The children of the American soldiers, missing their parents, weren’t happy. The children of the British soldiers, celebrating birthdays without their dads singing to them, weren’t happy. The Pakistani kids, now dead, weren’t a bit happy.” “Her father wrote better than he talked, sometimes. So sometimes it wasn’t bad that he was far away.” “The headline on a rack of Austin American Statesman newspapers said, ‘110 Die in Baghdad Bombing.’ And Andy had to stop walking for a moment and place his hands over his ears. Could anyone else hear it? He felt as if he heard screams from the other side of the world.” The story from which this last quotation comes, “Thoreau Is My Partner,” concludes with words that could equally well describe the rest of this book about the interconnectedness of modern people and modern misery…and also describe the depths of sorrow, worry, anger and hurt explored in the books by Yelchin and Schröder. Nye’s words are: “Live each season as it passes… Well, what else could anyone do? Live the future? Live history? He crossed the street.” Young readers who endure any of these books – and reading them, short as they all are, does require endurance – will find themselves wondering what they themselves can do about their own lives and their own world. Hopefully, even if all they can do is cross the street, they will spare a glance back for those who must remain on the other side.

(+++) EASY AND NOT-SO-EASY LISTENING

Grieg: Complete Symphonic Works, Volume II—From Holberg’s Time; Two Elegiac Melodies, Op. 34; Two Melodies, Op. 53; Two Nordic Melodies, Op. 63. WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln conducted by Eivind Aadland. Audite. $19.99 (SACD).

Piano Music from Korea: Works of Younghi Pagh-Paan, Isang Yun, Sukhi Kang, Uzong Chae and Chung Gil Kim. Klara Min, piano. Naxos. $9.99.

     Anyone who thinks that classical music is “difficult” for the listener ought to listen to the second volume in Audite’s cycle of Grieg’s complete symphonic works, conducted by Eivind Aadland, to be disabused of the notion. This SACD of music for string orchestra is almost too easy to listen to – it soothes, meanders and often delights, but it never really challenges. The Holberg Suite (more formally called From Holberg’s Time) is the best-known work here and is exceptionally well played. This is a piece that even amateur and school orchestras occasionally perform, but never like this: the strings of the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln are simply gorgeous, their attacks precise, Aadland’s pacing just right, and the overall effect excellent in every way. The other works on the disc, though, are of less interest. They are Grieg’s string-orchestra arrangements of some of his songs, and they draw heavily on Norwegian folk tunes and dance rhythms, which Aadland explores quite effectively through his rhythmic emphases, decisions on when to use or not use vibrato, and other techniques. The music, though, is pretty, certainly not profound, sounding more like a series of salon pieces than anything else. Not that there is anything wrong with salon music – but it would have been nice to include something meatier as a contrast. True, the Holberg Suite is a contrast of sorts, but that is because its style is not really that of Grieg himself (as the composer noted): this is a “suite in the old style.” Beautiful playing and elegant interpretations are the hallmark of this disc – Aadland is a really excellent advocate for Grieg – but seekers of the substantive will have to look elsewhere.

     They might, for example, look to Klara Min’s very well-played CD of Korean piano music – but here there is an opposite issue, for most of these works are so meaty as to be positively gristly. It is not that they are modern, although they are – it is that their modernity is of a certain type, with works constructed and organized according to compositional principles that do not readily reach out to listeners. The Piano Sketches (1966) by Sukhi Kang (born 1934), for example, are clearly challenging and likely appealing to play, but a listener will hear quick changes of dynamics, note clusters and rhythms varying from the precise to the varied – with little to hold onto aurally. At the opposite extreme here, and considerably more successful from a listener’s point of view, is Pa-mun (“Ripples on Water”) (1971) by Younghi Pagh-Paan (born 1945) – a modern but impressionistic portrayal of the effect of throwing small stones into a quiet lake. Listeners need not know what is being represented in order to be captivated by the slow tempo, gradually changing dynamics, and overall gentleness of the work – interspersed with occasional sound bursts. Three preludes by Uzong Chae (born 1968), written in 2003 and 2004, are well-made pieces that do not really reach out to listeners. An analysis of their note groupings and use of polyphony may be of interest to musicians and of value to performers, but any emotional connection to an audience is largely absent. Such a connection would be expected in Go-Poong (“Memory of Childhood”) (1982) by Chung Gil Kim (born 1934), three of whose four movements are given here; but this is no Kinderszenen or Children’s Corner Suite. Using Korean folk and traditional melodies, the composer builds up a series of melodic impressions that may well reflect his own childhood but that do not reach across cultures very well – although some elements, such as the short second movement (“Namakshin”), are more effective than others. The one composer here represented by two works is Isang Yun (1917-1995). His early Fünf Stücke (1958) are wholly conventional for their time, being short, atonal works of little import. Interludium A (1982), also atonal, is more interesting (and twice as long as the five earlier pieces combined). Here there are clear sectional divisions and a free flow of ideas that even includes a tonal center for a central slow portion. This is an intriguing work, perhaps easier to admire than to enjoy, and Min plays it as well as she performs all the pieces here – which is to say, very well indeed. This is nevertheless a special-interest CD rather than one with broad appeal.

(+++) GREATEST HITS? SAYS WHO?

The 50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music. London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Parry. X5. $24.99 (4 CDs).

The Greatest Video Game Music. London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Andrew Skeet. X5. $16.99.

     You have to get past the sheer effrontery of the notion of “50 Greatest” this or that to enjoy any of the many collections claiming to skim the surface of the world’s best something-or-other. Certainly that is true as regards The 50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music, because most of the items here aren’t even “pieces” but parts of pieces – and that is apart from the question of whether individual selections deserve to be included at all. Why, for example, Brahms’ Hungarian Dance No. 5? Is it “greater” than the 20 other dances and also greater than, say, his Symphony No. 4 or Ein Deutsches Requiem? Nonsense. The first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth – greater than, say, the finale of his Ninth? Oh Fortuna from Orff’s Carmina Burana – tremendously exciting, to be sure, but one of the greatest classical pieces ever? A movement from Bach’s Third Brandenburg rather than one from, say, the Fifth – and what about the Mass in B Minor? Pachelbel’s Canon (actually only one of the innumerable ones he wrote) – ubiquitous, yes, but among the greatest works ever? It is the word “greatest” that sticks in the craw here. The collection could have been called, say, 50 for Fun: Classical Music You’ll Really Enjoy, or something like that, and it would not raise so many hackles. And in truth, if you think of it as 50 for Fun, this is a pretty good foray into the more accessible side of classical music – no extended choral works, nothing deeply in minor keys, no complete Mahler or Bruckner symphonies, certainly no Verdi operas (much less Wagner). A bit of Grieg here, a little Chopin there, a touch of Vivaldi, a soupçon of Debussy – there is nothing very wrong with this collection, even if there is nothing particularly right with it, either. It is a well-played, decently priced compendium of snippets that listeners unfamiliar with classical music may enjoy as an entry point to other, deeper and more complex works – or simply to the totality of pieces heard here only in small portions. This could be a good seasonal gift for someone who doesn’t listen to classical music but has always been a bit curious about why anyone would.

     The Greatest Video Game Music, aside from its similar title, is a somewhat different kettle of fish. The title may refer to the “greatest” music from any video games or to music from the “greatest” video games, but no matter: what listeners get here are 21 classical-music-style orchestrations of music, mostly upbeat, dramatic and/or emotive, from such games as “Legend of Zelda,” “Super Mario Bros.” (which includes a surprisingly sweet waltz), “Call of Duty 4,” “Final Fantasy,” “Grand Theft Auto IV” and “Halo 3.” Even the theme from “Tetris” is here – and, for that matter, so is the main theme from the currently wildly popular “Angry Birds.” Unlike classical music, which is created so audiences will listen to it, video-game music is written in support of a nonmusical experience. This does not mean it is necessarily uninteresting – film music too is created to support a nonmusical medium, and some such music is excellent when standing on its own. In the case of this album, though, it is a little difficult to know the intended audience. The games whose music is heard here are primarily mainstream rather than hard-core, and the selection of music omits, for example, the original “Tomb Raider” games and “Outcast,” both offering particularly good scores. But of course the selection of any “greatest” compilation will always be a matter of opinion. A bigger question for this CD is how well the video-game music adapts to a classical orchestra. The answer, in the main, is: not very well. Shorn of the connection to the games they support, sonically altered to be performed by traditional orchestral instruments, the themes are catchy enough but, as music, rather mediocre. Even superb composers, such as Shostakovich, were generally not at their best when creating film music. The lesser composers of these video-game themes have produced pieces that work well enough in context – sometimes very well indeed – but do not hold a listener’s interest very effectively when heard as orchestral compositions. This is basically evanescent music, designed for a supporting role; nothing here is ever likely to make it into someone’s idea of a compilation that might be called, however wrongheadedly, The 50 Greatest Pieces of Classical Music.

(++++) WORLDMAKERS

Snuff. By Terry Pratchett. Harper. $25.99.

Wonderstruck. By Brian Selznick. Scholastic. $29.99.

     Most writers use a world, real or fictional, as the setting for their stories. A few brilliant ones, though, create worlds so skillfully and with such detail that the stories they tell could take place only in those worlds. Terry Pratchett is a past master at this – indeed, a grand master. True, in its early years, his Discworld was mostly a place where odd stuff happened and lots of gags could easily be extracted from multi-legged luggage and people with funny names. But Pratchett grew as an artist and a thinker, Discworld grew as a concept, and now, nearly 30 years later, the stories of Discworld could happen only on Discworld – and, even more interestingly, they could happen only to the particular Discworld characters who are their protagonists. This is really quite an accomplishment, the equivalent of winding up a brilliantly constructed piece of machinery, setting it loose in a beautifully structured environment, and letting it have adventures that the author can then write down. Pratchett hones this technique to a perfect finish in Snuff. And the beginning is pretty darn good, too. You see, Pratchett has a cinema director’s understanding of the importance of detail: never introduce anything and draw your audience’s attention to it unless it is germane to the plot and will prove crucial later. This, if Snuff begins with that perfect Machiavellian ruler, Lord Vetinari, contemplating the goblin lifestyle and the art of smuggling, these matters are sure to be supremely important to the book – the more so to the extent that they look like diversions. If Sam Vimes, head of the Watch in the grandly grubby city of Ankh-Morpork, is forced to turn in his badge temporarily and take a vacation with his adoring and very upper-crust wife, and insists on putting the badge in an envelope himself and then sealing the envelope, and if the envelope turns out to contain an empty tin of snuff instead of the badge, then snuff will be crucial to Snuff. And if Pratchett uses one of the oldest police-procedural tricks in the book (in any book) – cop on holiday encounters nefarious doings requiring him to abandon vacation and deal with major crime – then it is certain that the particular form of nefariousness with which Vimes has to deal will absolutely, positively pull together every thread of the Discworld fabric that Pratchett has been weaving from so many telling details ever since the first page. Reading Pratchett these days is not only a pleasure because his books are witty, sarcastic, erudite, silly, juvenile and hilarious, often all at the same time, but also a joy because every page shows the hand and mind of an absolute master of his craft at work. Yes, the mind – Pratchett does have Alzheimer’s disease (an unusual form) and does have his share of mental difficulties, but they show nowhere in his plotting, pacing, satirical bite or utterly wonderful sense of humor. Whether Sam Vimes is in crimestopping mode or placating-his-wife-and-enjoying-his-son mode – or both simultaneously – he is behaving in ways that only he could possibly behave, and only in the context of Discworld. Because it is impossible to know how many more books Pratchett will be able to produce, it is doubly, even triply important to savor each new one. Luckily, he continues to make it easy. Snuff is great stuff.

     Wonderstruck is, too, and at more than 600 pages is 50% longer than Pratchett’s latest. But despite its sheer bulk, it is far from a difficult book to read – although some of its subject matter is indeed on the heavy side. This is Brian Selznick’s second foray into a format he created with The Invention of Hugo Cabret, which deservedly won the Caldecott Medal in 2008. That is to say, Wonderstruck is told as much in pictures as in words, but it is definitely not a graphic novel and equally definitely not a traditional novel with voluminous illustrations. The story itself – or part of the story – is carried forward entirely in pictorial mode. Another part of the same story – or rather another part of the book, but what appears to be a different story – is told textually. And then Selznick knits the pieces of the stories together, showing that they are really one intermingled story, and leaving readers, well, wonderstruck. The tales take place 50 years apart, in 1927 and 1977, and focus on Rose and Ben, two people who go on difficult quests to try to discover what is missing in their lives. What they are missing is not their hearing, even though both are deaf – this is the first connection between them that readers will discover. No, what each needs is a human connection of some sort, a family connection, a sense of self derived from knowing where he or she belongs. So the quest on which the two go is not, at bottom, all that unusual: “finding oneself” is quite a common plot in novels. But nothing that Selznick does with the plot seems ordinary. The story moves around geographically as well as in time, and one of its focuses is Cabinets of Wonder, ornate pieces of furniture in which collections of all sorts were kept. They were, in essence, miniature versions of what we now call museums – and a particular museum turns out to be important to this story. Indeed, the climax takes place in what could be called a modern Cabinet of Wonder, and a very wonderful climax it is, too. Selznick does quite a marvelous job of intricately connecting his fiction to real-world events – such as the fact that 1927 was the year sound came to films (turning deaf moviegoers into instant outsiders), and 1977 was the year of a major blackout in New York City. From small things and large, small incidents and big ones, Selznick creates a story that is heartwarming but not overly sentimental, taking as one of his foundations a brilliantly snappish line by Oscar Wilde: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.” Wonderstruck is not, it must be said, quite as enthralling as The Invention of Hugo Cabret, largely because its approach is no longer brand-new. But it is nevertheless an outstanding book, a feast both for lovers of words and for lovers of pictures, offering a very unusual and highly original way of telling a lovely and heartfelt story in which the world as Selznick shows it is the only one in which this particular tale could possibly have taken place.

(+++) SORT OF SCARY STUFF

Guys Read, Volume 2: Thriller. Edited by Jon Scieszka. Walden Pond Press. $16.99.

Scary School. By “Derek the Ghost” (Derek Taylor Kent). Illustrated by Scott M. Fischer. Harper. $15.99.

Poison Apple Book: At First Bite. By Ruth Ames. Scholastic. $5.99.

     Mild chills are in store for young readers who pick these books up – and there is some amusement, too, from time to time. The second Guys Read anthology is actually on the serious (if melodramatically overdone) side, having left the humor largely to the first volume, Funny Business. This time, Jon Scieszka edits and introduces a collection in which the word “weird” makes very frequent appearances. The 10 authors here are all solid craftsmen (and craftswomen), some of the standouts being M.T. Anderson, Walter Dean Myers, Jarrett J. Krosoczka, Bruce Hale and Patrick Carman. Oh, heck – they are all standouts, one way or another: the others are Matt de la Peňa, Anthony Horowitz, Margaret Peterson Haddix, Gennifer Choldenko and James Patterson. Myers’ “Pirate” is perhaps the scariest story here, because it is the closest to real-world reality, being about a Somali boy involved in piracy. At the opposite end of things is Horowitz’s “The Double Eagle Has Landed,” which features “the world’s worst detective” and such lines as “is it a safe safe?” and, in response to a comment that a man spent three years in prison, “He was a guard?” It’s the kind of story in which someone urges someone else not to open the doors, and he opens them anyway, and “at once about a hundred bells all around the building began a deafening clang.” A little of this goes a long way. There’s amusement too in Hale’s “Nate Macavoy, Monster Hunter,” in which Nate, to get information on Pukwudgies, must talk to “the toughest kid in sixth grade. Brandon Frye. …He’s built like a big brown refrigerator, with a shock of thick black hair, eyes like black lasers, and the sweet disposition of a hungry wolverine.” Then there is Anderson’s “The Old, Dead Nuisance,” about fights between psychics and a treasure hidden in plain sight. As usual in an anthology, and as these examples show, the stories vary widely and come with all sorts of moods, with even the “thriller” description fitting some only loosely. The Guys Read series is supposed to be especially for boys, and boys are indeed the main protagonists in these stories, but beyond that, the book is just another short-story collection whose contents will have varying levels of appeal, depending on each individual reader’s taste.

     Young readers whose taste runs entirely to humor, or rather what Mad magazine used to call “humor in a jugular vein,” are the target audience for Scary School, first in a new series about a school where the teachers have a bad habit of eating the students and the students are mostly ghosts, ghouls or goblins anyway, so it doesn’t much matter. Charles Nukid is the new kid at school in this installment, told by 11-year-old Derek the Ghost – or, well, 11-years-old-when-he-died-in-a-science-experiment-gone-wrong Derek the Ghost. A fair sample of the narrative here: “Principal Headcrusher was familiar with Dr. Dragonbreath’s unusual teaching method, which tended not to support the more common notion that students should stay alive during class.” Or: “Here’s the thing about Scary School: sometimes the students could be just as scary as the teachers. You might be a regular kid, but the kid sitting next to you might be a zombie, a vampire, or a werewolf. That’s what made Scary School extra scary and was a big reason why Principal Headcrusher could charge so much for tuition.” One more: “When you’re doing Monster Math with a monster, the monster is always right.” The book is full of weird teachers, odd students, and such places as Scary Garden, “at the end of the school yard behind a tall white fence that prevented the dangerous plants from attacking the students. There were holes in the fence that kids had to watch out for, because sometimes a hungry plant would reach through the hole to snatch a good meal. But that didn’t happen too often.” There really isn’t much plot here – just a lot of vaguely connected scenes filled with amusing weirdness – but readers looking for something offbeat and at least as funny as it is frightening (actually a lot more so) will enjoy it.

     There is some amusement in the latest Poison Apple entry as well. These books, aimed at preteen girls, are quick reads whose not-too-frightening plots are easily understood and speedily forgotten after each book ends. At First Bite is a little unusual, though, because instead of a plot in which there may or may not be something supernatural going on, Ruth Ames’ book features something definitely supernatural from the very beginning. The reason is that the protagonist, 12-year-old Ashlee Lambert, is a vampire. And the plot hinges on whether there is another vampire in town – “town” being Los Angeles, to which Ashlee has moved from New York City. This is not a simple relocation for a vampire kid, since L.A. has all that sunshine and Ashlee has got to learn to deal with some really bad sunburns. Besides, she must contend with the usual mean-girls clique at her school; and in addition to learning about the need for SPF 75 sunscreen at all times, she must handle the possibility that Dark Ones are about, and also make sure she always has a good supply of Sanga! (a drink that comes with its own exclamation point and “was invented by a genius vampire who was as grossed out by hunting as I am”). And then there are her involuntary shifts into a bat. Soon Ashlee is suspecting that there may be more than one other vampire in town. She’s right, too, but not in the way she initially thinks. Anyone who knows Bram Stoker’s Dracula will realize quickly that a key to what is going on lies in a character named Mr. Harker; but even young readers unfamiliar with Stoker will likely pick up clues well before Ashlee and her friends do. At First Bite is better written and somewhat lighter in tone than most of the Poison Apple books, and if it is still, ultimately, forgettable, at least it offers a fair amount of fun while being read.

(+++) BEING STRONG

Grant’s Final Victory: Ulysses S. Grant’s Heroic Last Year. By Charles Bracelen Flood. Da Capo. $27.50.

True Strength: My Journey from Hercules to Mere Mortal and How Nearly Dying Saved My Life. By Kevin Sorbo. Da Capo. $26.

     The notion of “facing down death” is popular in heroic fiction, but real life – and real death – are another matter. No one faces death down, but some face it with far greater equanimity than others. The phrase “death with dignity” has become a watchword of proponents of hospice care and assisted suicide, but it is far more applicable to the final year of Ulysses S. Grant, whose body was ravaged by throat and mouth cancer just when his personal circumstances and those of his family were at their lowest ebb. Grant, famously naïve about monetary matters, had lent his name and given all his family’s money to what would later come to be called a Ponzi scheme – and he had lost everything. He started his memoirs in an attempt – successful, but not until after his death – to provide for those he loved. Mark Twain, who had become Grant’s friend and who published the memoirs, found Grant’s writing exemplary and the memoir tremendously valuable – a judgment generally shared by historians and critics right up to today. Charles Bracelen Flood, author of Lee: The Last Years, creates a fast-paced and highly informative book about Lee’s great opponent in Grant’s Final Victory. Told through letters, telegrams, newspaper articles and research that ranges from expected academic sources to a book by Grant’s granddaughter, Princess Julia Catacuzene (who was nine years old when Grant died), Flood’s book balances the sadness of Grant’s physical decline with an appreciation of the near-heroic measures he used to keep himself writing. Indeed, Twain believed that creating the memoirs is what kept Grant alive so long – the former president and general died three days after finishing them. Legal depositions involving the unraveling of the firm of Grant & Ward appear here side by side with remarkable photos of Grant, his family and those who were significant in his life: P.T. Barnum, Generals William Tecumseh Sherman and William Scott Hancock, magazine editor Robert Underwood Johnson, onetime Grant friend and assistant Adam Badeau (who later betrayed Grant’s trust in him), and many others. A photo of Grant himself, only weeks from death, is tremendously moving in a way that all the narrative of heroism, preservation of the Union and a two-term presidency is not. The respect accorded Grant by former Confederates is one of the most telling parts of this story, and the great love felt for him by his wife and children is another. Grant, whose reputation has had many ups and downs over the years, emerges from this heartwarming portrait not as a hard-edged, hard-drinking soldier and severely flawed leader of a reunited nation – as some biographies have portrayed him – but as a concerned, capable, loving and supremely determined man whose military brilliance was perhaps matched, and to an extent undone, by his tremendous naïveté in political and financial matters. Grant’s Final Victory is intended not so much to be revisionist history as to be corrective history. Many of its most telling elements are the small ones: “By four in the afternoon [of the day of Grant’s death] Bloomingdale’s department store had sold over six miles of black crepe.”

     Confrontation with death in a far more modern setting is the subject of True Strength, the story of TV actor Kevin Sorbo – who, at the height of his career in 1997, had three very atypical strokes in a single day. Unlike Grant, who accepted his diagnosis of fatal cancer (caused by many years of cigar smoking) with equanimity and a determination to do the best he could in the time remaining to him, Sorbo refuses to take a possible death sentence at face value; that is no longer the way Americans handle such things. He almost lost his left arm because of an aneurysm – but doctors saved it by thinning his blood so much that he could have bled to death if he had moved too much. When the immediate crisis had passed, Sorbo began years of battling back physically and mentally: physical therapy, psychiatric help, and alternative as well as conventional medicine all played their parts. True Strength is a typical modern memoir by a typical modern minor celebrity, of interest primarily to Sorbo’s fans and fans of the TV show Hercules, the Legendary Journeys, on which Sorbo starred in the 1990s. There are the usual behind-the-scenes-of-the-entertainment-world elements to keep fans interested, of course. “A go-see is a two- or three-hour time slot when invited models show their books, making small talk while the photographer or art director pages through their portfolios. They are usually cattle calls, with lots of bored-looking models hanging around, waiting their turns. Modeling is such an odd business. ‘Hi. Here are pictures of me. Aren’t I great? Please book me. Please.’” And there is what passes for the usual sort of self-revelation, as when Sorbo first confronts his recovery chances: “My goal is for a complete recovery to the heroic, invincible, driven man I have been my whole life. Here this guy [a doctor] is telling me I shouldn’t even want that. His words singe me. I flush, from embarrassment or nerves; his perspective blazes on my skin and puts a pit in my stomach.” True Strength has a deliberately upbeat tone and message, with Sorbo working his way back into acting and becoming head of a mentoring program for inner-city teens. This is all very admirable and will be inspirational for some people – specifically, for Sorbo’s fans. The chapters contributed by various people in Sorbo’s life will likewise be of interest to fans. But in the long run, there is nothing very special about Sorbo’s determination or his road back to health, and nothing very special about him, either, except his modest level of celebrity. Certainly his story is worth cheering, as is the tale of anyone’s recovery from a life-threatening condition. But True Strength is not a book designed to appeal to everyone; it is a book for fans of an actor who want to get some vicarious pleasure out of reading about his trials and triumphs.

(+++) REACHING BACK

The Mystery of the Missing Everything. By Ben H. Winters. Harper. $16.99.

The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman. By Ben H. Winters. Harper. $5.99.

The Last Musketeer. By Stuart Gibbs. Harper. $16.99.

The Three Musketeers. By Alexandre Dumas. Adapted by Clarissa Hutton. Pictures by Brett Helquist. Harper. $6.99.

     Some new books are more effective and more fun only if you know their predecessors. The Mystery of the Missing Everything reintroduces middle-school detective Bethesda Fielding, now an eighth grader, in a story about a stolen trophy that has led Principal Isabel Van Vreeland to cancel the eighth grade’s much-anticipated field trip to Taproot Valley. The trophy is super-important to the principal, since it is the only one the school has ever won, and it brings out her mean streak: “Instead of helping her get to the bottom of this, and get her precious trophy back, all everyone did was moan and groan about their precious extracurricular activities. …Well, guess what, folks. You want me to make things better around here? Too bad. They’re about to get a lot worse.” Bethesda methodically works on the trophy issue, and soon becomes a thorn in the side to a certain someone: “Bethesda was clever. A little too clever. She was determined to solve the mystery, and for the person in the upstairs bathroom, that was a problem.” There is a long list of suspects, through which Bethesda goes methodically, and there turn out to be several confessions, none of them useful until, of course, the one that is (actually the two that are). And a bit of deus ex machina at the end guarantees that everything comes out fine – thanks in part to Ida Finkleman, who at one point is sort of a suspect but who turns out to be a big help. She is the focus of Ben Winters’ previous book, The Secret Life of Ms. Finkleman, which is now available in paperback. In that book, set a year earlier (with Bethesda as a seventh-grader), there is much made of Ms. Finkleman’s apparent tattoo of Ozzy Osbourne, and of the contrast between the conservatively dressed music teacher and the real Ms. Finkleman, who seems to have a “secret life.” But it turns out that there is a secret beyond the secret, a mystery behind the mystery: what has been revealed about Ms. Finkleman turns out not to be correct, not quite, and even that tattoo, although it exists, proves not to be what it seems. The twists in Ms. Finkleman’s story are rather overdone, but the book seems somewhat less forced than The Mystery of the Missing Everything, and rock-music fans in the target age range will find it neatly to their tastes – and a good foundation for the newer book, if they want to know more of Bethesda’s detective adventures.

     “Adventure” is the perfect word for The Three Musketeers, published in serial form in 1844 and ever since identified with swashbuckling heroism and the “all for one, one for all” mentality (in fact, Alexandre Dumas invented the phrase – albeit in French). Readers who have long enjoyed the novel, or one of its many adaptations, may nevertheless be unaware that there were two sequels: Twenty Years After and The Vicomte of Bragelonne: Ten Years Later, one part of which is famous as The Man in the Iron Mask. And now there is another sequel of sorts, or rather a prequel: The Last Musketeer by Stuart Gibbs. It is really a pretty silly book, involving time travel by 14-year-old Greg Rich in an attempt to rescue his parents after they disappear during a family trip to Paris. Greg meets the teenage Musketeers – Athos, Porthos and Aramis – and discovers that he must help them survive some dastardly machinations so they can become the heroes they are meant to be and meet up with d’Artagnan. This means that Greg himself must become a Musketeer, which is possible because his family history is tied to the Three Musketeers, and…well, the whole setup is so far-fetched that it is hard to believe Gibbs wants anyone to take any of it seriously. The camaraderie of the Musketeers quickly extends to Greg: “‘By now you’re not a stranger,’ Aramis interrupted. ‘You’re a friend.’ ‘Besides, this is about right and wrong, and defending honor,’ Athos added.” And so the morality underpinning Dumas’ novels (which are collectively called The d’Artagnan Romances) appears in Gibbs’ book as well, however hard it may be to take it seriously in this context. And how seriously will modern readers take it in the original context? The Three Musketeers is certainly still worth reading, even – for young readers – in the rather lightweight adaptation by Clarissa Hutton. Brett Helquist’s name appears on the cover in larger type than Dumas’, which shows this edition’s orientation – although it is not a graphic novel (actually, The Three Musketeers would make a good one). Helquist’s illustrations are suitably overdone – lots of smirks and snarls by bad guys and lots of heroic posturing by the good characters. And the translation is suitably dramatic – plenty of “Begone!” and “Silence!” and “Help! Help!” and such. And the development-a-minute plotting still carries readers along into the mixture of swordplay and chivalry that has long made Dumas popular. There may not be all that much to The Last Musketeer, but there is still plenty to enjoy in the novel that provides its foundation and background.

(++++) VIRTUOSITIES

Berlioz: Overture to “Béatrice et Bénédict”; Harold in Italy; Paganini: Sonata per la Gran Viola e Orchestra. David Aaron Carpenter, viola; Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vladimir Ashkenazy. Ondine. $16.99.

Couperin: Concerts Royaux. Bruce Haines, hautboy; Arthur Haas, harpsichord; Susie Napper, viola da gamba. ATMA Classique. $16.99.

William Alwyn: Concerti Grossi Nos. 2 and 3; Dramatic Overture—The Moor of Venice; Serenade; Seven Irish Tunes—Suite for Small Orchestra. Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by David Lloyd-Jones. Naxos. $9.99.

     Both individual and ensemble virtuosity are much in evidence in these fine new recordings. David Allan Carpenter’s is particularly good: he restores some extra-difficult elements of Harold in Italy that Berlioz wrote in an unsuccessful attempt to persuade Paganini to accept and perform the work – which Paganini never did, although the great violinist gave the piece high praise when he heard it played by someone else. The added elements do not significantly change the overall work, which is neatly described as a “symphony with viola obbligato” on this Ondine recording. Paganini, of course, wanted a pure display piece in which he would play constantly. In fact, the viola, although important, is not sufficiently prominent in Harold in Italy for the work to be dubbed a concerto. Nevertheless, without prominent and strongly played viola elements, the piece falls flat – which it decidedly does not as performed by Carpenter with the Helsinki Philharmonic conducted effectively by Vladimir Ashkenazy. The final “Orgy of the Brigands” is particularly well done here: not as orgiastic as the finale of the earlier Symphonie fantastique, it nevertheless has considerable power and drama. Ashkenazy also leads a light, well-paced and bouncy version of the overture to Béatrice et Bénédict, which functions as a sort of curtain-raiser for Harold in Italy. Also on the CD is Paganini’s own version of a piece – to his taste – for viola, the Sonata per la Gran Viola e Orchestra. This is actually a fairly small-scale work, its three movements lasting less than 13 minutes, but there is certainly plenty of virtuosity in it, especially in the final set of variations. Carpenter plays it quite well, and both he and Ashkenazy are careful not to over-expand the work into something larger than it is.

     The scale is also appropriately small in the excerpts from François Couperin’s Concerts royaux on a lovely reissue by ATMA Classique of a 1999 CD featuring the late Bruce Haynes. Haynes, who died in May at age 69, was a multitalented advocate of Baroque performance practices, not only playing the hautboy (ancestor of the oboe) – as well as the recorder and modern oboe – but also crafting replicas of Baroque woodwinds at his studio in California. Haynes also wrote extensively on historical performance and was by all accounts a fine teacher. What stands out on the Couperin disc, though, is simply his musicality. All the works here, which date to the 1720s, require delicacy and careful blending of instrumental voices, with the hautboy not so much “first among equals” as it is an equal ensemble member whose aural prominence is due more to its innate tone than to any especially virtuosic writing. Couperin’s blending of voices is, in fact, a particularly pleasant sort of chamber music, in which the performers (and Haynes is very abled partnered by Arthur Haas and Susie Napper) make music together, cooperatively, the ebb and flow of the melodies and the instrumental sounds carrying listeners along with apparent effortlessness on the part of the players. This CD stands as a fine tribute to Haynes and his art: elegant, understated, beautifully played and a delight to hear again and again.

     The virtuosity is of a different order in the works of William Alwyn (1905-1985), even when Alwyn superficially adopts the Baroque form of the concerto grosso. Alwyn wrote three works with that title, and while the second and third, on the surface, partake of the correct form, they are filled with a lyricism that goes beyond their Baroque models. The third, which features a particularly well-handled blending of brass, winds and strings, is especially pleasant. Indeed, “pleasant” is a pretty good adjective for a lot of Alwyn’s music – for which reason it is not quite at the level of the works of fellow Britons Holst and Vaughan Williams. Even in his Shakespeare-based Dramatic Overture—The Moor of Venice, Alwyn seems more inclined to the lyrical than the overwhelmingly dark and despondent, although certainly the overture has its moments of power. This is the world première recording of the overture, and also of the Serenade and Seven Irish Tunes, both of which are well-made, nicely orchestrated works that flicker through multiple moods. None of the music here is as interesting as Alwyn’s oboe concerto or his Lyra Angelica for harp and strings, so this CD is not really the best introduction to Alwyn for those unfamiliar with him; the disc, which is very well played and conducted, gets a (+++) rating. Those who have already encountered Alwyn will find this an enjoyable expansion of their knowledge of his music.

(+++) PAST PERFECT?

Busoni: Doktor Faust. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Richard Lewis, Ian Wallace, Heather Harper, John Cameron; Ambrosian Singers, Chorus from the Royal Academy of Music, and London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. LPO. $16.99.

Mahler: Symphony No. 2; Shostakovich: Symphony No. 5; Vaughan Williams: Symphony No. 8; Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis; Otto Klemperer: Merry Waltz; Ravel: Rapsodie espagnole; Brahms: Symphony No. 4; Ottokar Nováček: Perpetuum mobile. London Symphony, BBC Symphony and New Philharmonia Orchestras conducted by Leopold Stokowski. BBC Legends. $39.99 (3 CDs).

     It is all too easy to idealize the past – indeed, in a sense, humans remake themselves by reimagining their pasts all the time. When it comes to music, it is easy to think that “legendary” performances of the past were far superior to anything more modern, and certainly better than any renditions recorded more recently. Now, though, thanks to the increase in releases of archival recordings, this belief in the superiority of the performers and recordings of yesteryear can be put to the test, or rather to the ear. This frequently involves a rebalancing of priorities – superb older performances of Beethoven and Brahms symphonies, for example, almost invariably omit exposition repeats that the composers wanted and that are nearly always included today. In the case of a less-known work such as Busoni’s opera Doktor Faust, revisiting a classic performance from 1959 makes it possible to appreciate some excellent casting and singing – while regretting the significantly shortened version that was presented. Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau is in fine voice here as Faust (he appeared several times in this opera, even appearing in one production as a speaker), and the rest of the cast supports him ably, with Richard Lewis a suitably unpleasant Mephistopheles and Heather Harper an effective if perhaps not highly seductive Duchess of Parma. Busoni’s libretto, which he wrote himself, varies substantially from Goethe’s better-known version of the Faust legend, with (for example) the seduction and abandonment of Gretchen occurring in a prologue and being less important than Gretchen’s brother’s failed attempt at revenge. At the time Sir Adrian Boult conducted this recording, the only available version of the opera was the completion by Philipp Jarnach, and this in turn was shortened for purposes of the BBC broadcast recorded here. Decades later, in 1982, Antony Beaumont completed Doktor Faust by using sketches by Busoni that had previously been thought lost. So what this recording offers is a shortened version of a not-ideally-completed version of Busoni’s final opera, well sung and certainly well conducted, but ultimately coming across as rather thin – which the score as a whole decidedly is not.

     The three-CD BBC Legends release of performances by Leopold Stokowski is in some ways at the opposite extreme. Stokowski always favored the lush, and his conducting was inevitably broad in scope and grand in scale; it was as if he attained subtlety mostly by accident. Throughout this compilation, there are grand gestures and very broad approaches to music, whether the works are well adapted to the Stokowski technique or not. Stokowski was also a tinkerer with orchestration, using his vast knowledge of the orchestra to heighten elements that he thought could be brought out more effectively if things were changed here and there from what the composer wrote. This is a decidedly old-school approach that was uncommon even when Stokowski was in his heyday; to the extent that it occurs and is audible in these recordings, it simply sounds odd, as if the emphases and colors are in the wrong places. Stokowski was a master of the massive but was scarcely known for delicacy. Thus, in the 1963 recording of Mahler’s “Resurrection” symphony, with the BBC Chorus, BBC Choral Society, Goldsmith’s Choral Union, Harrow Choral Society and London Symphony Orchestra – plus soloists Rae Woodland and Janet Baker – the choral sections of the finale are gigantic and the lengthy lead-in to them is broad and intense; and the funereal first movement is also effective, even in the performance’s obsolete monophonic sound. But the middle movements, where Mahler so carefully balances the heaviness and intensity of the open and close, are disappointingly pedestrian (although Baker’s rich contralto is superb). Similarly, Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5, recorded in 1964 with the London Symphony, has a wonderful-sounding finale (although too triumphal for more-modern interpretations of the work), but the subtleties, sarcasm and warmth of the earlier movements do not get their full due. Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No. 8, also recorded in 1964 – but with the BBC Symphony Orchestra – fares better: perhaps because the work is less known, Stokowski approaches it in a more straightforward way, and the orchestra’s excellent playing makes a strong case for the music. Ottokar Nováček’s Perpetuum mobile, recorded the same year with the same orchestra, is a minor work (although the composer’s best-known one), handled pleasantly enough in Stokowski’s own orchestration. The remaining pieces here feature the New Philharmonia Orchestra and were recorded in 1974. Otto Klemperer’s Merry Waltz is nicely played, if a little lumbering; Ravel’s Rapsodie espagnole is a bit too grand and expansive although, again, well played; and Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis is so rich a brew of strings that it is nearly overwhelming – it is sumptuous but very slow. As for Brahms’ Symphony No. 4, the most transparent of the composer’s symphonies and the most indebted to Bach, it gets a somewhat too grandiose and overly speedy treatment that makes it rather less impressive than it can be. All the works here showcase Stokowski as a conductor generally more comfortable with grand gestures and big works than with pieces of more-modest dimensions or requiring a lighter touch. His approach seems very much one of the past – a time when many classical works were far less known than they are today, so changes and reemphases by a conductor seemed far more justifiable. There is a great deal worthwhile in these Stokowski performances, but also quite a bit that will sound wrong-headed, slightly “off,” to today’s audiences.

(++++) TALES OF SURREALITY

The Chronicles of Harris Burdick: 14 Amazing Authors Tell the Tales. By Chris Van Allsburg. Houghton Mifflin. $24.99.

Moving House. By Mark Siegel. Roaring Brook Press. $16.99.

     Chris Van Allsburg has done some amazing things. Two-time winner of the Caldecott Medal (for Jumanji and The Polar Express, both of which were made into movies), he is also the creator of The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, the best modern inspirer of creative writing for young people – and, it now turns out, a darn good inspiration for famous and successful adult authors, too. The 1984 book was a mystery that could not be solved: 14 enigmatic illustrations, each with a title and brief caption, but with no stories to go with them and no way of finding out what the stories were supposed to be (because the author-illustrator had mysteriously disappeared right after dropping off the pictures with a potential publisher). There are tales within tales in The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, since that possible publisher was himself a fictional character – thus, the book involved a fictional publisher getting fictional illustrations from fictional stories that may or may not have been written by a fictional author-illustrator who mysteriously vanished into thin air, leaving it to reader to imagine or write their own tales. A wonderful concept – and one now taken a big step further in The Chronicles of Harris Burdick, to which Chris Van Allsburg himself contributes one story, with such luminaries as Stephen King, M.T. Anderson, Walter Dean Myers, Lois Lowry, Cory Doctorow and Jon Scieszka contributing others. Indeed, every author here is well-known – the others are Jules Feiffer, Sherman Alexie, Linda Sue Park, Kate DiCamillo, Louis Sachar, Tabitha King and Gregory McGuire. And the book’s introduction is by Lemony Snicket. It would spoil the fun (and the chills, for there are some of those) to say too much about the stories themselves; suffice it to say that each author takes his or her assignment to write about one of the original often-surrealistic illustrations quite seriously, and every story fits its illustration and caption very well – although (and this is the charm of the whole Harris Burdick conceit) there are many, many other possible ways to write about the very same pictures. Those pictures have retained all their charm and oddity. In one, a man raises a chair above his head as if to hit a lump beneath the carpeting, with the title “Under the Rug” and the caption, “Two weeks passed and it happened again.” In another, four people ride along railroad tracks in an open cart pulled along by a billowing sail, with only mist in the distance, with the title “Another Place, Another Time,” and the caption, “If there was an answer, he’d find it there.” In yet another, a frightened-looking woman stands with knife poised above a glowing pumpkin, with the title, “Just Desert” and the caption, “She lowered the knife and it grew even brighter.” These are wonderfully evocative visual images, ranging from the beautiful to the ambivalent to the genuinely spooky, and The Chronicles of Harris Burdick does every one of them proud through short, very well-written interpretative stories that will – and should – have young readers and adults alike talking about their own ideas of what the illustrations really mean. And what they really mean is, of course, that ideas are gateways to the infinite recesses of the imagination. The Chronicles of Harris Burdick is a remarkable book and a thoroughly wonderful one.

     Mark Siegel’s Moving House is not at this level – few books for young readers are – but its gently told and delightfully illustrated story partakes of surrealism just as surely as does Chris Van Allsburg’s. Siegel’s title is intended to be read two ways – as “we are moving to a new house” and “the house is moving.” The latter reading turns out to make the former unnecessary; that is the entire plot. But the way the plot unfolds is what makes this book so special. Little Joey and Chloe, two of the widest-eyed children to be found anywhere this side of Disney animation, love their house, but they and their parents do not love living in Foggytown, where people constantly bump into things and no one can see the stars. So it is time to pack up and move house to somewhere clearer than Number Seven Carriage Street. But the house itself has other ideas – or rather the same idea. It turns out that love goes both ways: the kids love the house, and it loves them back. So in the middle of the night, “Joey and Chloe’s room tilted, the house wriggled and jiggled and everything went whoa this way and whoa that way” as the house picks itself up and starts to wander. In illustrations reminiscent of a famous Winsor McKay Little Nemo in Slumberland sequence, the house grows legs and arms and stretches, yawns and trots off, explaining along the way that it does not want Joey and Chloe to leave it. They do not want to leave it either – so the house, the kids and the entire town get together to come up with a solution. In addition to McKay’s influence, Siegel has clearly absorbed elements of comic books and cartooning (notably in a scene where numerous houses huddling in the fog all open their window-eyes wide). Clever use of color and perspective make Moving House as much fun to see as to read – even more fun, actually, since the one slightly sour note here is a textual reference to the stars being visible “before the factory,” an environmental dig that unnecessarily mars the otherwise beautifully handled dreamscape of the story. This is a minor jarring note, though, in a book that otherwise mixes charm, surprise and all sorts of enjoyment into a surrealistically delightful soufflé.

(++++) CLASSICS FOR A NEW GENERATION

The Giver: The Gift Edition. By Lois Lowry. Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. Houghton Mifflin.$19.99.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream. By William Shakespeare. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Persuasion. By Jane Austen. HarperTeen. $8.99.

Emma. By Jane Austen. HarperTeen. $8.99.

     Recasting literary classics for 21^st-century teenage readers is a noble endeavor: it would be nice if books generally considered “great literature” would be read because they are considered interesting rather than because they are required in high-school and college courses. How to make the works appealing to today’s young readers, though, is by no means clear. The Giver has been a modern classic since its first appearance in 1993; its winning of the Newbery Award was scarcely a surprise. Because it is only 18 years old, it needs relatively little to make it intriguing and appealing to today’s young readers: its language still speaks clearly to them, its dystopian plot is easy to see and follow, and its eventual uplifting and hopeful message carries as much meaning now as it did when Lois Lowry first wrote it. Like so many other books for a preteen or teenage audience, this is about growing up – but there is nothing facile about Lowry’s story of regimentation, assigned roles and the tremendous losses that accompany gained knowledge: “He didn’t want the memories, didn’t want the honor, didn’t want the wisdom, didn’t want the pain. He wanted his childhood again, his scraped knees and ball games. …But the choice was not his.” The Giver is ultimately about choices that can and cannot be made – and about finding a way to choose when there seems no way to do so. This is a resonant theme, and one that withstands the occasional logical lapses of the story. The new “Gift Edition” of the book is handsomely bound and includes striking illustrations by Bagram Ibatoulline, who takes particular advantage of one of the Giver’s abilities: to see color when no one else can. Thus, some illustrations are in black-and-white, some are in color, and some have a tiny and very effective splash of color in what is otherwise black-and-white. Lowry’s 1994 Newbery acceptance speech is included at the end as a sort of postscript, and is really all the additional commentary the book requires – to the extent that it needs any at all.

     Older works need more. New HarperTeen editions of classics by Shakespeare and Jane Austen attempt, somewhat dubiously, to interest modern young readers by including “extras” of various kinds at the end. The works themselves, though, are presented straight, without commentary or explanation, and since the authors’ language is not easy for most teens today, it is unlikely that these new oversize paperbacks will produce a sudden groundswell of interest. One can always hope, though; these three new editions all get (+++) ratings because of that hope.

     A Midsummer Night’s Dream fares best in its new guise. Printed in large type and with plenty of white space on each page, the play is as easy to read in this format as its language will allow. And the “extras” really do add something extra here. Not all of them – not, for example, the rather lame six-question “What would you do in the name of love?” quiz. But on the plus side, this edition offers five short stories by members of the online teen writing community Inkpop (www.inkpop.com) – each reimagining one part of the play or another. The real value of these stories lies not in their writing (although that is generally good) but in the simple fact that they are by members of the same teenage audience at which this edition is targeted – that is, here are young people who have read the play, absorbed it, thought about it and created something new based on it. That may be enough to bring at least some new readers to A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The remaining “extras” probably won’t: they are “10 Things You Didn’t Know about William Shakespeare” (one of which is that he was born in 1564 – which scarcely seems a little-known fact) and an excerpt from Romeo & Juliet that is, again, given in the original language and without explanatory material. True, footnotes and explanations can interfere with the flow of a work and the enjoyment of it; but given Shakespeare’s language, which is glorious to those who can follow it but can be nearly indecipherable to those who cannot, it would have been helpful to make at least some attempt to get today’s teen readers involved in one of the most frequently adapted and most amusingly enjoyable of all Shakespeare’s plays.

     The language is, chronologically, much more modern in Jane Austen’s works, but the sensibilities of the author of Sense and Sensibility are, in their own way, more archaic than those of Shakespeare. Austen is going through a resurgence of popularity these days through various adaptations and reinterpretations, so it seems to make sense to bring out teen-oriented editions of some of her actual writing. Instead of Shakespeare’s speedily stagey pacing and constant confusion of identities, Austen provides slow-moving works that are emotionally charged (by Victorian standards) with questions of love and devotion. Persuasion is about an attempt to rekindle a romance that ended when Anne Elliot allowed her family to dissuade her from engagement to poverty-stricken Captain Wentworth even though the two were in love. Typical dialogue: “‘I am much obliged to you,’ was her answer, ‘but I am not going with them. The carriage would not accommodate so many. I walk: I prefer walking.’ ‘But it rains.’ ‘Oh! Very little. Nothing that I regard.’” The HarperTeen edition comes with the same six-question “love quiz” offered in the Shakespeare volume, plus “10 Things You Didn’t Know about Jane Austen” (she never married; she died at age 41; and so on). There is also an excerpt here from Emma, Austen’s famous story of a matchmaker who eventually makes her own match. And then the “extras” in the new edition of Emma include the same “10 Things” supplement plus an excerpt from Persuasion. The quiz in Emma, though, is different: “Have you found your match?” And it includes only five questions. Emma is nearly twice as long as Persuasion, and although more famous, may be more difficult for modern teens to read, simply because it does go on and on for nearly 600 pages. Again, the dialogue may be hard for today’s teens to relate to: “‘I am very sorry to hear, Miss Fairfax, of your being out this morning in the rain. Young ladies should take care of themselves. – Young ladies are delicate plants. They should take care of their health and their complexion. My dear, did you change your stockings?’ ‘Yes, sir, I did indeed; and I am much obliged by your kind solicitude about me.’” The recent upsurge of interest in Austen’s works has come about almost entirely because of such adaptations as the delightful 1995 film Clueless, which is loosely based on Emma. Reading Austen in her original language and at her original length is a taller order than enjoying reinterpretations of her plots and characters, and there is nothing in the HarperTeen editions to help modern readers adjust to the notions, language and pacing of novels from 19^th-century England. It would be nice if these books did in fact cause more of today’s teens to develop an interest in Austen and Shakespeare, but the likelihood of that happening because of these volumes seems, unfortunately, slim.

(++++) BRAINIACS ALL

Leonardo’s Legacy: How Da Vinci Reimagined the World. By Stefan Klein. Translated by Shelley Frisch. Da Capo. $16.

The Power of Neurodiversity: Unleashing the Advantages of Your Differently Wired Brain. By Thomas Armstrong, Ph.D. Da Capo. $16.

      The literal translation from the original German in which Stefan Klein wrote his book about Leonardo Da Vinci says the great creative genius “newly invented” the world, or “invented it anew” (neu erfand). The English “reimagined” seems an inadequate substitute, for all that Shelley Frisch’s translation generally reads well and makes it easy to follow Klein’s line of argument. The difference is that Klein’s wording emphasizes Leonardo’s actual, real-world creativity, while the translation indicates that what Leonardo did was largely within his own mind. Yet it is important to understand that Leonardo was no idle dreamer but a highly practical constructor of instruments of peace and war, of ancestors of robots, and of diagrams of the human body whose accuracy is quite astonishing even though the worldview through which Leonardo saw anatomy now seems hopelessly quaint. To Leonardo and others of his time, the human body – a divine creation – was a microcosm of the larger world: “So then we may say that the earth has a spirit of growth, and that its flesh is the soil; its bones are the successive strata of the rocks which form the mountains; its cartilage is the tufa stone; its blood the springs of its waters.” One of the most amazing things about Leonardo is that he could foundationally accept this viewpoint while conducting experiments whose findings are as strikingly modern as the man-as-microcosm belief is archaic. Klein’s book, originally published in 2008 and now available in paperback, not only discusses well-known aspects of Leonardo’s work, such as his three-decade preoccupation with flying, but also less-known but more important ones, such as “the first city map the world has ever seen,” of the town of Imola, near Bologna. The map is reproduced in the book, showing the town from a bird’s-eye view, and it is amazing. But then, so much that Leonardo did was amazing – and a great deal of it was in the service of war. Klein makes no attempt, unfortunately, to reconcile Leonardo’s stated and apparently sincere aversion to violence with the instruments he imagined (and sometimes created) for propagating it: “In one sketch, archers are running away from an exploding grenade, which Leonardo referred to as ‘the deadliest of all machines.’ In another, a war chariot with rotating scythes as large as men is mowing down soldiers and leaving behind a trail of severed legs and dismembered bodies.” It has been argued that Leonardo needed, after all, to support himself, and that rulers such as Cesare Borgia wanted his expertise for reasons of conquest, not peace. True enough, but this is an incomplete truth, since any requirements that Leonardo create machines of war surely did not mandate that he show their gruesome expected effects in such detail. This is one Leonardo mystery that Klein does not attempt to solve; nor does he seek to explain, for example, why Leonardo so much time and effort over so many years trying to unravel the mysteries of flight. But Leonardo’s Legacy is nevertheless a fascinating book, whether Klein is discussing the Mona Lisa or explaining that “Leonardo considered water the perfect symbol of the maelstrom of time,” leading him to create, for example, a remarkable picture of a giant , apocalyptic tidal wave. And what, finally, is the legacy to which Klein’s title refers? It is, the author says, that Leonardo “showed us what man is capable of when liberated from the constraints and apparent certainties of the world.” Although others might phrase this differently, or analyze Leonardo’s contributions in different ways, Klein has certainly made an effective point about the man who was surely one of the world’s great lateral thinkers.

      Lateral thinking – the solving of a problem by looking at it from multiple angles rather than attacking it head-on – is but one form of “brain work” at which certain people are better than others. Those who are not very good lateral thinkers may have other strengths. In fact, argues California psychologist Thomas Armstrong, a “differently wired” brain like Leonardo’s would probably today produce a diagnosis of ADHD (attention deficit-hyperactivity disorder). For, Armstrong says, people with ADHD, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, autism and other forms of mental illness really have compensating strengths that go unappreciated in the rush to treat (and especially medicate) the overt symptoms. In reality, Armstrong argues, brain differences should be observed through a diversity model – one in which, for example, depression and bipolarity are seen to be indicative of creativity; one in which differences in brain structure and function are celebrated instead of there being a set of “normal” brain behaviors and a set of deviant ones. Armstrong seems to want to bring political correctness to neurology, just as others have insisted there are no “disabled” people, only “differently abled” ones. At a certain level, the attempt is admirable, for marginalizing people with, for example, Asperger’s syndrome, does little to help the individuals and may actually be detrimental to society. At another level, though, Armstrong’s argument quickly becomes absurd, much like the protests of defense attorneys against forced medication for schizophrenic defendants on the grounds that giving them behavior-altering drugs that will allow them to stand trial infringes their civil rights. It is difficult to tell just who the audience for this book is supposed to be, since on one hand Armstrong discusses good career paths for “differently wired” people (useful information for them), while on another he talks about creating better environments for the “neurodiverse” (useful ideas for parents, caregivers, teachers and employers). Armstrong’s basic point – which he makes repeatedly – is that “there is no example of a normal brain” and “the important question [is] who is normal anyway.” Well, there is such a thing as a bell curve, and the 80% of people in its middle can reasonably be considered “normal,” but Armstrong prefers to talk about “the rainbow of intelligences,” “the advantages of anxiety,” “the positive side of being autistic,” and more (those three quotations are chapter titles, not passing references). Armstrong is also dismissive of economic costs associated with widespread changes in education or management of the “neurodiverse,” saying, for example, that appropriate educational changes have been shown to work in two schools and can therefore work everywhere. This is not just arrant nonsense but arrogant nonsense – which, however, does not mean the idea is a poor one. “The concept of neurodiversity provides an alternative approach where we begin to break down old divisions that separate people with disabilities from so-called normal people,” writes Armstrong, and this is certainly a well-meaning statement. But there is so much underlying naïveté here, such utopian insistence on the essential goodness and equality of everyone under all circumstances, that The Power of Neurodiversity finally fails to convince – because it refuses to acknowledge that its approaches may make sense some of the time for some people under some circumstances. Seeking all or nothing makes it that much more likely to get nothing – a reality of which Armstrong is unaware, or one that he choose to ignore. The book gets a (+++) rating for those who accept its underlying equivalence between those who are “differently abled” mentally and physically, but a (++) rating for those who do not accept the inherent superiority of cultures “which are based less on rational grounds than contemporary Western culture,” and in which “people with symptoms that might be regarded as schizophrenic by Western clinicians are in some cases celebrated as gifted” and regarded as shamans.