Tag Archives: Fate

The Past is Epic

Don Winslow’s City of Dreams is the second installment in the Danny Ryan trilogy. As with City on Fire, the first installment, Winslow continues to be inspired by Homer and Virgil, as he sprinkles quotes from the Iliad and the Aeneid throughout. For example, City of Dreams opens with this from the Aeneid: “Of wars and a man I sing, An exile, driven on by fate.” Referencing these ancient epics might be a gimmick, but it works because the quote describes Danny Ryan as much as it does Aeneas, though I would argue the series, so far, has more in common with the Odyssey. Let me know when I start sounding pompous. Oh, wow, that was fast.

The story opens with a potential bang. It’s 1991 and Danny Ryan is in the California desert. He’s on his knees and someone is holding a gun to his head. So suck it, Homer, that’s how you start an epic. Virgil, meanwhile, is wondering how we got here. Fortunately, there’s a flashback to provide that answer.

Danny and his small crew of Irish mobsters are fleeing Providence, Rhode Island, after losing a gang war to the Italians. His wife has just died of cancer, so his infant son comes with him. His elderly, alcoholic father is along for the ride too. They make it to San Diego doing off-the-books jobs. Life is tough, but at least he’s still alive. Soon a shadowy government figure gives him an opportunity to make some real money – the kind that could provide him a new life. It sounds too good to be true. No one ever gets a new life, right? “You might get a fresh start, a second chance, but your old life stays with you.” Danny should say no but he says yes. And so the story goes until Danny lands in the desert giving the side eye to that pistol.

The futility of trying to escape your past is the major theme here, and many of the characters, at least the ones who didn’t die in City on Fire, return. To the reader’s delight, that includes Danny’s mother. She’s a modern-day goddess who knows the secrets of many powerful people.

Lots of things happen, and lots of poor decisions are made as Danny travels to the desert. His brief foray in the movie business is chief among those poor decisions. To Danny’s great surprise, Hollywood is making a movie of the gang war he barely survived. Anyone who’s seen a Martin Scorsese movie knows Hollywood “gets off” on the “exploits of real-life gangsters.” There’s much humor here, but for Danny there’s also unneeded publicity. More poor decisions are made.

Hollywood is all about reinventing yourself, and Danny tries but he’s no movie star. He runs all the way to the city of dreams to get away from his past, “But nothing is more persistent, more patient, than the past. After all, the past has nothing but time.” City of Dreams is a great read and a welcome installment in the Danny Ryan trilogy. It does exactly what it’s supposed to do; it leaves the reader wanting a third installment.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Child of Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy’s Child of God is set in the mountains of eastern Tennessee around 1965. It opens with the county auctioning off Lester’s home. “Lester Ballard never could hold his head right after that.” Then he’s falsely accused of rape. After several days in jail, the sheriff determines Lester is not guilty (he’s certainly not innocent) of this particular crime and he’s set free.

You might think Lester is a little pissed off now, and you’d be right. But not to worry, Lester is a “child of god much like yourself perhaps.” And like you perhaps, Lester becomes unmoored, feral – though in fairness he was probably always feral. He starts collecting things: stuffed animals from the fair, women’s clothing, female corpses. You know, the standard stuff anyone would collect after losing everything.

So the sheriff gets involved again, but Lester has disappeared into the mountains. The sheriff represents what passes for civilization in this “dead and fabled waste.” This is obvious because he wears “pressed and tailored” chinos, and his name is Fate (no one ever accused Cormac McCarthy of light-heartedness or subtlety). So Fate is chasing Lester in a place the “good lord didn’t intend folks to live in.” Some things just don’t change in Cormac Land, and when the sheriff is asked if he thinks people are meaner now compared to the old days, he responds predictably. “I think people are the same from the day God first made one.”

Lester is a precursor to McCarthy’s Judge Holden in Blood Meridian and Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men. He’s just not as compelling as those superbly nihilistic killers. These novels share other Cormac tropes too: wild and brutal landscapes, men comfortable with random acts of violence, and civilization fighting a losing battle against viciousness.

But back to Child of God. I hope this doesn’t come as a surprise, but people die. And when someone dies, we call it fate even though fate had nothing to do with it. So fate does eventually catch up with Lester, but Fate doesn’t.

What makes men like Lester Ballard, Judge Holden, and Anton Chigurh so vicious? Is it the inhospitable environment? Something inside them? The devil? I hope you aren’t so naive as to think Cormac McCarthy is going to answer that for you.

Gladiola Overdrive, Chief Editor

Death Responds to Donne

I have heard many silly taunts
in my extensive time,
and they are never more clever
just because they rhyme.
Ignorance should whisper
like a muffled chime.

I am not proud
though you are too proud to see
that when the Grand Bungler
created you it also created me.

I am not mighty or dreadful.
I do not overthrow.
Those are your birthmarks.
You are your foe.

Poison, war are a scaly brood
for which I have no need.
They hatched in the nest with you,
and you are the fodder on which they feed.

Chance is a monkey
whose mischief ends at the tomb.
Fate and sickness are encrypted
when you are in the womb.

You are the slave 
of desperate men and kings,
who look like lice to me -
or other insects without wings.

I am a lantern at the end of day.
I am not the Magnificent Fumbler,
who gave you feeble DNA.

I bring peace after you have done your worst,
and while I may eventually die,
you will die first.

Luvgood Carp, Editor-in-Chief