Considerations...: Memorial Day

Word of the day : bwana : a respectful Swahili term used in Africa to mean 'master,' 'father,' 'boss'

Happy Memorial Day, folks! If the weather stays clear, we're headed back to the pool today once Julia gets most of her work done, maybe stop by Steak 'N Shake, which has been ridiculously crowded every since its opening - so much so that we haven't even stopped there yet; you put a decent restaurant in Statesboro and the people will flock to it like it's manna to desert dwellers.

In honor of the holiday, I thought it best to list my 5 favorite war films, even though it's a genre of film I'm rather indifferent to:

Saving Private Ryan (1998)

Jean Renoir's Grand Illusion (1938)

Inglourious Basterds (2009)

Bridge on the River Kwai (1957)

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

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Monday's Author Profile is a look at Ken Follett, a writer who has penned his share of war-timed thrillers.

Ken Follett

Born: Cardiff, Wales, 1949

Career: Follett was the son of a born-again Christian tax inspector, publicly-educated, a graduate of University College in London. (His parents didn't allow him to watch TV or go to the movies!) His first professional job was as a newspaper reporter, in South Wales, and then in London. While working as a reporter, he began writing novels. He next worked for a London publishing house, eventually working his way up to Deputy Managing Director. In his free time, he kept writing. He wrote ten novels before his breakthrough success with 1978's bestselling, award-winning Eye of the Needle, which was made, three years later, into a stirring, exciting film with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan.

(I might as well add now that Follett is Julia's favorite writer.)

From then on, Follett's output and reputation began to grow. Almost every book he has written has been a bestseller; many have been made into mini-series. He comes out with a book every couple years. In the 1980s he wrote romantic thrillers, often involving espionage, set in foreign locales - Triple (1979), The Key to Rebecca (1980), The Man From St. Petersburg (1982), among others.

He reached another level of critical success and commercial appeal with 1989's gargantuan Pillars of the Earth, a long, rewarding melodrama - with fascinating, boundless detail and a great love story - and a historical epic about medieval England and the intrigue that accompanied the building of the great cathedrals. It has been a worldwide bestseller since publication and was greeted with renewed interest when Follett wrote the sequel to it in 2007, World Without End; Pillars also gained some fame when Oprah selected it as a title in her Book Club.

The 1990s saw more historical-based thrillers, often involving the activities of agents and spies during World War II. Night Over Water (1991), A Dangerous Fortune (1993), and Jackdaws (2001) were all in the Follett vein: page-turning, fast-paced.

Noted Books: Eye of the Needle, Pillars of the Earth (arguably his masterpiece) and the sequel, the World War II-era actioners The Man From St. Petersburg, The Key to Rebecca, and Hornet Flight (2002).

2010 saw the first book in a planned Century Trilogy, spanning the 1900s. Fall of Giants follows a group of characters through the first quarter of the century, from a small town in Wales through the British government, to Somme, to the offices of Woodrow Wilson.

This October, the sequel, Winter of the World, which follows some of the same characters and some new ones, comes out.

Themes, Style, etc: With Follett, you don't get subtlety; you get crowd-pleasing excitement. Anybody can read and enjoy these books. They're breathlessly-paced and the various characters of the story dovetail and intertwine in satisfying ways. Melodrama, melodrama, melodrama, and in the best sense of the phrase. There's romance and sex, violence, war, wrong-side-of-the-tracks affairs, murder, dastardly villains, opulent settings. Follett is a research nut, and you often find yourself learning quite a bit from his books - the period and settings are always well-delineated. He's a great popular writer, exciting, a fine craftsman. I'd call him a guilty pleasure if there was anything to feel guilty about while reading him.

Books I Would Recommend: Everything I've read by him. Pillars of the Earth (*****) and World Without End (****). Eye of the Needle (*****) is an exciting-as-hell tale about a German spy and a British widow trapped on a small island. Jackdaws (***1/2) and A Dangerous Fortune (***1/2) are a lot of fun, and Fall of Giants (****) is something you just absorb and give yourself over to.

Books I Want to Read: Winter of the World (2012) and all the books of his that Julia owns that I haven't read yet: A Place Called Freedom (1995), set in colonial America; The Key to Rebecca; Lie Down With Lions (1986), set in Afghanistan; and Night Over Water, a 1991 novel about a disparate group of characters onboard a Pan-American clipper in the tempestuous days before WWII.

Follett's a cool guy. His wife is a political activist who has served various government posts on local levels, including Minister of Culture. Follett is movie buff, a Shakespeare lover, an amateur bass guitarist and is in a folk group where he plays the Russian stringed instrument the balalaika (below).

Author's Website: http://www.ken-follett.com/home/index.html

(See what he has to say about his own books, see what he's reading, see more of his bio, etc.)

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Oh, yeah, we need a Soul Track today, don't we?

Well, it is raining down here in the Peach State today, so we need a little...

"...feels like it's raining all over the world." Tony Joe White wrote the song on 1962 (a song included in Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time), and Benton recorded it in 1970. "Rainy Night in Georgia" was a #1 R&B hit, a #4 pop hit. It has been covered by, to name a few, Johnny Rivers, Ray Charles, Aaron Neville, and Tennessee Ernie Ford.

The man from Lugoff, South Carolina (metropolitan Columbia area, folks), Benton (1931-1988) excelled as a vocalist in different genres: soul, pop, gospel, blues. He had a silky, creamy voice (kind of Nat King Cole-ish), a flair for witty repartee in his duets. His friend, producer Clyde Otis, got him to sign with Mercury Records, and after 1959's breakthrough single "It's Just a Matter of Time," there was no turning back for Benton. Other notable tracks in his career: "Baby (You've Got What it Takes)" with Dinah Washington, and "The Boll Weevil Song."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-n1_FX501I

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And finally this holiday morning, let's plow on in our attempt to make our way through Professional Photographer magazine's list of the 100 Most Influential Photographers of All Time. Where were we?

Ah, yes. (George) Brassai (#43)

Brassai (1899-1984) was born in Transylvania, taking his name from his hometown (Brasso). Before coming to Paris in the 1920s, he studied art in schools in Berlin and Budapest. He was initially nondescript about photography but he became inspired because of his friendship with fellow Hungarian artist Andre Kertesz (#30 on our list ). In the 1930s. Brassai came into his own, gaining renown because of his night photography of Paris. His 1933 photo book, Paris de Nuit, is one of the most important of the 20th century - a collection of seedy locales and ambiguously-motivated, moody, swooning, creeping characters wandering the nocturnal streets and environs of the City of Light. He overcame the difficulty of shooting at night by focusing his small plated camera on a tripod, opening the shutter when ready, and firing the flashbulb. It was a direct, straightforward, primitive way of doing things. Some of the photos come across as dingy and misty, but all come together to evoke a mysterious, often romantic, underworld, the strange and intoxicating underbelly of a beautiful city.