Cover via Amazon

In Hope Against Hope Nadezhda Mandelstam bears witness to how the Terror destroyed her love, her life, and her generation.  Hers is a story of how an entire people—people she knew—became the creators, the collaborators, the executioners, and ultimately the victims of what we call “Stalin’s” Terror.

One by one, she names incredibly talented people: writers, chemists, physicians, violinists—and one by one she tells us of their moral destruction and physical deaths and of the families they left behind.  She speaks of how people sat in their apartments at night, trembling when they heard the car pull up or the elevator doors open.  And how even so, “they deluded themselves  with the hope that this cup might for some reason pass from them” (p. 185).  She tells of how even close friends shunned those who had been visited by the police.  She tells of parents terrified of saying anything in front of their own children lest “God forbid” the young ones repeat something in school.  And of how futile it all was.  “Give us a man and we will make a case,” the Chekists said.  It did not matter what you did (or did not) do—once you were listed as one of the millions who was to be “picked up” you were going to be found guilty and almost certainly die in a camp.

But people still tried to do something.  Although this “something” was never (that Nadezhda records at least) an act of overt resistance.  Instead, people tried to prepare.  Nadezhda tells us that everyone she knew had a suitcase packed for when the Chekists came.  One of their acquaintances took this to the extreme.  He lugged his suitcase around with him everywhere.  You could, after all, be picked up anywhere—on the street, at your job, at your friends’.  It did him no good.  When the Chekists finally came for him, he was so flustered he forgot his suitcase.  Osip Mandelstam too tried to prepare for the inevitable.  He loved Dante and so he acquired—with great difficulty—a pocket-sized book of Dante’s verse.  Something he could put in his pockets and take to the camps.  In the end though he left with a bulkier Dante, a book that probably did not even make it to the transit camp.  Stories like these—and this book is filled with them—make the Terror real.  Turning these pages, I felt as though I was looking at slightly aged photographs from (thank God!) another world.

It was in that world that Nadezhda Mandelstam spent her last years with her beloved husband, Osip Mandelstam, a man whose poetry according to Isaiah Berlin  and many others “possessed a purity and perfection of form never again attained in Russia .”  Nadezhda tells the story of their last years together in an almost stream-of-consciousness prose.  A prose that is not worried by chronology: flashbacks blend into premonitions and into the present constantly.  It is a story of exile, of waiting, of loving, interspersed by arrests, petty official vengeance, endless fear, and news that this friend or that has been “picked up” and died in the camps.  Yet this story—the personal story of how Stalin’s terror destroyed Nadezhda’s life—is constantly interrupted by accounts of Osip’s poetry.  Some of it she translates for the first time but for the most part she tells us how he composed it, the people whom he needed around him (almost all of them perished as well) to write and gives us some of her theories on the nature of poetry and art itself.  It may seem odd to have an account of the creative process right next to (sometimes in the same paragraph as) an account of the Terror but when you read these pages it works.  For you get the feeling that to Nadezhda poetry is synonymous with life.  And this book is filled with life.

This may seem an odd thing to say.  But Nadezhda fills these pages are filled with humor and irony.  At one point, for example, she describes a piece of Stalinist bureaucracy in this way: “He had devoted the whole of his life to the ‘reconstruction of higher education,’ and for this reason he had not had time to take any degrees himself” (p. 385).  At another point she remembers how, after the official informants became too much of a hassle Mandelstam and she went to the local police station where Osip Mandelstam offered to save the Chekists time and trouble by sending them any new poetry that he created.  The informants stopped coming after that.

And Nadezhda still has hope.  She hopes that Osip’s poetry—which she saved against all odds—by hiding it in suitcases, memorizing it, giving copies away to trusted friends will in the end be allowed back into the land of his birth.  She hopes the new generation will “hear” what he had to say.  For she has high hopes for this generation.  “This terror,” she tells us, “could return.  But it would mean sending several million people to the camps.  If this were to happen now, they would all scream—and so would their families, friends, and neighbors.  That is something to be reckoned with” (p. 330).

At one point Nadezhda Mandelstam (whose name means hope in Russian) wonders why she was named thus if she was fated to live through such evil times.  By the time you turn the last page of her haunting book, you will know.

The Negritude movement, first coined and conceived in Paris in the 1930’s took its shape out of the mold of French Black angst, and the Black Man’s desire to not only be, but also to  make himself known. Carried on the backs of Leopold Senghor, Aime Cesaire, and Leon Damas, the movement took root in one common sentiment. Each of the three founding writers felt strongly about Negritude; the subject had similar meanings to each of them. However, upon closer examination, readers and students of the movement will find slight differences in the founder’s interpretations of the word Negritude. Leopold Senghor felt the spirit of Negritude rested in the “spirit of Negro African Civilization,” (DoHarris 1); Aime Cesaire on the other hand believed that Negritude in essence was the “[simple] awareness of being black… [and] taking charge of one’s destiny as a Black Man, [taking charge] of one’s history and culture,” (DoHarris 1). Leon Damas maintained similar to Cesaire that Negritude meant throwing out the invitation to assimilate and exchanging it for Black culture and ethnicity.

Leopold Senghor, a man of African descent from Senegal shared the experience of his dark skinned brothers in every way except that he had not suffered lack as they had. This however did not permit him from participating in the struggle to shape Negritude. His poems express his sentiments about Negritude. It is clear from “Negro Mask,” that Senghor charges himself with preserving, chronicling and presenting Black beauty. His desire to preserve the cultural beauty ties in intricately with his art. In his opening stanza, Senghor draws on the natural beauty of his homeland to attribute ascetical value to a woman of color. “She sleeps and rests on the candor of the sand, // Koumba Tam sleeps. A green palm veils the fever of her hair, bronzes her brow, curves// The closed eyelids, a double cup with wellsprings sealed,” (Senghor 132). From the references to the green palm, the bronze, the sand, Senghor shows his commitment to his culture. Later in the poem, Senghor mentions God, ascribing an element of affirmation and acceptance to his subject;

“Mask face, closed to the ephemeral, eyeless, without substance…//that neither paint nor redress nor wrinkles nor the trace of tears or kisses stain.

O face as God made you even before the memory of the ages… (Senghor 132).

Senghor stays true to his firm belief in the preservation of culture and consequently his beliefs about Negritude.

Senghor’s friend and fellow poet Leon Damas, a native of French Guyana felt the full weight of the pressure to quietly assimilate. His father, partly European, and his mother, of Amerindian and African decent, insisted that Damas attend the University of Paris for a law degree. Damas, eager to express his Black culture and define himself as a Black man began to pursue other studies that led him to Negritude. His angst is evident in the poem “So Often.”

“So often my feeling of race//strikes the same fear//as the nighttime howling of a dog//at some approaching death//I always feel//about to foam with rage//against what surrounds me//against what prevents me//ever//from being//a man,” (Damas 54-55). The poet’s lines give life to his inward struggle to cast off assimilation. It is the threat “rage,” and not complacency that drives him to pen these poems, to preserve his culture. These lines make it evident that Damas wants nothing to do with Eurocentric culture. In the ending lines, Damas makes his point even clearer. “And nothing//nothing would so calm my hate//as a great//pool//of blood//made//by those long sharp knives//that strip the hills of cane//for rum,” (Damas 55). The silent vivid violence of these lines is unmistakable, and unavoidable.  Damas, much like Cesaire, seems unopposed to forcefully resisting assimilation, domination, and colonization of the French. His ending lines echo very near to a call to arms, an invitation to revolt. His childhood friend Cesaire gives voice to similar topics in his poems.

Aime Cesaire met Damas in school when the two were young. Their meeting began a long and lasting friendship that would open to include Senghor. Cesaire’s “First Problem,” expresses his particular beliefs about the meaning of Negritude. It is clear from the poem that to Cesaire, Negritude is resilience, endurance, and resistance.

When they grab my leg//I hurl back a jungle of lianas//let them lynch me//I vanish into a row of figs//The weakness of most men//They don’t know how to become a stone or tree//Sometimes I stick tender between my fingers//for the sole pleasure of breaking out// fresh poinsettia all night long//reds, greens flaming in the wind//like our dawn in my throat. (Cesaire 80-81).

Expertly using image and color to carry his message, Cesaire breathes the essence of Negritude into his poem. The reader can grasp that the simple act of “being” black is Negritude from the line, “They don’t know how to become a stone or tree,” both of which are (usually) permanent and natural entities. The references to the colors red and green, both patriotic colors of Cesaire’s homeland, suggest the idea of independence and thereby, ethic and national pride. Overall, this poem reveals Cesaire’s definition of Negritude through its potent images and symbols.

In conclusion, “Negro Mask,” “First Problem,” and “So Often,” represent the poet’s definition of Negritude through their powerful images and meaningful symbols. Senghor’s “Black Mask” preserves the integrity of Negritude by praising the beauty of Black skin; Damas’ “So Often” lends voice to the raw frustration often featured in Negritude poetry; and Cesaire encourages readers to become as resilient as the nature around them. Each founding poet saw Negritude cast in different lights, and though their styles differ their poems embody the same propelling spirit: the multifaceted spirit of Blackness.

Works Cited

DoHarris Brenda. “Negritude.”

Kennedy,Ellen C. and Maya Angelou. The Negritude Poets: An Anthology of Translations from the French. Thunder’s Mouth Press. 1989.

Linked by a book of illustrated fairytales, the three stories are told parallel to each other. The ploy of jumping in time from chapter to chapter works surprisingly well for this story as the past and the present become progressively more entwined with each other. If at the beginning of the book you tend to get slightly confused with these time changes, they make a lot of sense once you get past the first few chapters.

Starting out in Australia, the story leads the reader back to a country pile in Cornwall and the family that lived there before the Great War. The heroine of that story is Nell who was found on a ship without parents. She set out to find out about her roots symbolized by the book of fairytales found in her luggage. This old book also gave the only lead to her and she started to trace the known facts behind the author.

Eliza, who would become the author of the fairy tales, was taken in as a child by her uncle and aunt after her mother died. The known facts about her life were few, and the more Nell found out, the more she got puzzled, until finally she set out to England to trace down more facts. The quest led her into Cornwall and a family that was less than charming.

Cassandra, the third of the women, inherited a Cornish property from her grandmother Nell. Intrigued and at a loss to explain how her grandmother came by it, she set out in turn for England and Cornwall to unravel the mystery behind the property and her grandmother’s diary of her journey. Once there, she started to unravel the mystery and clues left to her by her grandmother only to find more questions than answers. In her quest, she used the fairytales as a guide to unravel the mysteries and lies behind the family once living near and in the property she inherited.

Covering a time period starting about 1900 to the present, the book is quite long, but this shouldn’t put you off reading it. It lends itself to reading chapter by chapter with interruptions as the there is no timeline you have to follow. But the storyline is strong enough to carry you on once you sit down with a cup of tea and might bind you up longer than you intended. You have to be prepared, though, to overlook some inconsistencies which the author overlooked as her characters evolved while writing; on the other hand, the logical errors are not grave enough to mar the enjoyment of the story.

If the rumors are true, and this character is replaced with a different actor, it wouldn’t be the first time.  A long time ago, Rachelle Lefevre was replaced by another actress in The Twilight Saga’s Eclipse due to scheduling conflicts similar to these brand new rumors. 

The worst thing that could happen with Breaking Dawn is if you see characters get replaced by new actors.

I have wrangled with this book and the resultant film for three years. It is frustrating that such an articulate book should be so hard to write about. I have found that all attempts to review or discuss it do not come out right. That last clause is most unsatisfactory in the light of the huge vocabulary and precise observation used by author Zoe Heller.

But my biggest frustration of all is that the writer and director of the 2006 film do not understand the source material. It is clear not only from the script itself and its introduction but from the DVD extras and other interviews.

It also frightens me how many readers – even professional reviewers – see this as a creepy tale of Sapphic obsession about an unpleasant woman. It frightens me because it shows how incapable they are of understanding someone different, of feeling sympathy, or subtlety. In short, their response is a flashback to Victorian attitudes to deviance leading to incarceration and labelling that resulted in ostracisation, belittlement, and torture (what else can you call some of those ‘medical treatments’ for the insane?) for what is a masked form of homophobia.

I have always felt strongly about mental illness, an see today’s drugs as a form of control being akin to the electric shock treatments of the 1950s and its straitjackets, and even to witchburning. It is today’s way of silencing and invalidating those who don’t fit with those who grab the power to define respectability and normality.

The narrator of Notes on A Scandal soon propounds her thoughts on the pupil teacher affair she relates. Society makes deviant anything that does not fit its narrow socially accepted models. Although Barbara speaks of her friend’s dalliance with a minor, her words are true of Barbara and Sheba’s friendship. Personalities as well as relationships are true of Barbara’s treatise, and both apply to herself.

Barbara is something we are bad at respecting – an older unmarried woman who reveals no prior lovers or direct sexual feelings. In a world revolving round couples and the family, Barbara’s need for connection is met in a cycle of well chosen deep friendships with other women. Many leap to the conclusion that Barbara is a frustrated lesbian, running after unattainable women out of her league.

It is a step from this to asserting that gay people are mentally unbalanced and creepy. This isn’t the first book where same sex desire has been made the object of obsession, often with unsettling and even criminal results: Heavenly Creaturesportrays the teenage New Zealanders who committed matricide as disturbing delusionals – not the view of the lesbian feminist academics. Enduring Love (dismissed elsewhere) and The Talented Mr Ripley are fiction involving men who attempt murder, and the unsuccessful one spends his life in an asylum. Following on from this is that idea that most people are straight and that the attentions of a same sex person are unwanted, embarrassing and ridiculous; why can’t gay people aim their desires at one of their own kind?

I am not suggesting this is what author means to say or herself believes. But the underlying suggestion in a novel can be harmful to gay single people, and is exacerbated by the public reaction to the story.

Cate Blanchett summed up the story acutely with the phrase ‘it’sa study of loneliness.’ She and Judi Dench do justice to the main characters but the film their performances are confined within do not.

Notes does not only depict what it is to approach retirement as a spinster with little family and perhaps only one friend who has two lovers and two children. It is equally eloquent on what it is to be forty, long married and a mother, and still unsatisfied. Barbara often protests that Sheba cannot understand singleness and it’s easy to diminish its pain and inconvenience if its lot has not been yours. But Sheba expounds on how children and marriage can be an excuse to cover one’s lack of meaning and productivity. She splits apart meaning and purpose – children give you something to do and think about, but they are not your immortality and do not help with existential questions. Sheba has her own foibles and one may argue that her own lack and restlessness leaves her to be open to the titular unwise and illegal liaison.

Director Richard Eyre says that Barbara is a ‘gloriously unreliable’ narrator. He is wrong. Barbara is well placed to tell the story. She is involved personally in many of the scenes. And Sheba fills in the details of the ones where Barbara is not present. Many people do share their interactions with lovers with close friends. It is clear that Sheba’s personality is such that she is one of those sharers. Barbara says that Sheba never prefaced her confessions with ‘can I be honest?’ or any exhortation to brace oneself; they just popped out. Sheba goes over the Steven affair constantly to Barbara. There is nothing that Barbara says in the book which strikes me as something that Sheba would not have told her; whether it be around the [none too explicit] physical side of being with Steven, or observations about his or her own home. It is why Sheba’s final outburst of the book which gives rise to Eyre’s statement strikes me as odd. All that can be said is that Barbara narrates things she was not present at in the same tone as when she is.

If Barbara were such a calculated liar, then she would not have told her readers that she found lewd photos of Sheba and Steven by going through Sheba’s handbag. She would have found a more legitimate reason for their discovery. Barbara prefaces her most damning account of herself with embarrassment. Again, this could have been omitted or smoothed over if Barbara was dishonest or deluded.

The discrepancy comes in what Sheba plies Barbara with. Our account is what Barbara has pieced together, refracted through her perspective, but it is what has been fed to her by her friend. When Barbara recounts Hampstead trysts, she is paraphrasing Sheba’s words. Sheba is likely to have designed her narrative of those events for her friend’s ears as much – more – than what Barbara is depicting for her readers.

The book’s blurb ends with ‘friendship can be as treacherous as any lover’. It implies it is Sheba who learns of that treachery, but it is a two way discovery. Sheba sees she has a devoted friend with few other contacts. Barbara’s analysis of her lifelong regular confessor status is a sad one – that she is seen as so unimportant and an outsider that she is a safe confidant. Sheba lies to Barbara about Steven for some months, although Barbara defends Sheba by telling us that she believes Sheba meant to confess and lost her nerve, thus softening our view of Sheba and saving Barbara’s own feelings. Barbara’s delineation of her friend convinces some readers too well, for in fooling herself about the harder edges of Sheba’s schemes, Barbara has cast herself as villain.

Barbara tells us that Sheba’s feyness does not tally with the duplicitous planning involved in my analysis of her relations with Barbara. Barbara conveys to us that Sheba is as diaphanous as her skirts. But as Sheba knows she is sexy and that this can be advantageous, she sees her apparent transparency and floatiness is a persona to cultivate, an asset. Perhaps she and Barbara are better suited than some believe – and that kindred connection claimed by Barbara is indeed real.

But I don’t mean to suggest that there was no fondness between these women or that their friendship was manufactured on either side; or that either party crafted affections and situations or were as in control of their own feelings and destiny as the above. 

But Sheba does come off rather well from her friendship with Barbara. Barbara negotiates with Sheba’s fearsome mother for money and to stop her being made homeless. Barbara cooks for her broken companion when no one else will be near her. Barbara listens to hours of recollection which must seem tedious and painful – the book she writes makes these bearable. Barbara looses her job – the one thing that had occupied her days for nearly 40 years – due to Sheba. Barbara’s own reputation is tarnished as she becomes the guardian and spokeswomen of a famous miscreant, unable to get a any landlord to take her on.

I do not recall Sheba thanking Barbara for any of this, nor apologising. She does not apologise for her insensitivity over the death of Barbara’s cat which caused the Connolly cat to be let out of the bag. In doing so, Barbara had not so much betrayed Sheba as fulfilled an overdue moral and legal duty.

The film changes that episode, as if a screenwriting by numbers tutor had insisted on cranking up the drama. I know that half an hour is missing from the released film, and I suspect it is needed. Sheba’s homelife had seemed quite calm, but suddenly it erupts without warning or building up. In the book, the pivotal point is reached as Sheba leaves a bereaved Barbara for Steven; in the film, it is a family outing for a play.

The ending is changed – again seeming that film convention demands a showdown, as if this were the hero Transformer and baddies fighting instead of two complex women. Sheba’s outburst at Barbara and then the press was completely out of her character. Sheba finds Barbara’s diary and scrapbook and derides her restaurant receipts, as if this is a sign of craziness, like finding a shrine of photos in someone’s basement. I like that the lesbian element to be kept as unspoken by Sheba in the novel, but Marberthe screenwriter has Sheba screech this notion with ridicule, before pushing Barbara across the room and storming out on her forever, and back to her husband. Barbara’s compensation is to find a new victim on her favourite Parliament Hill bench. Barbara’s not allowed to learn anything from her time with Sheba – but is set to repeat the pattern with even younger prey. If this screenplay storm is meant to show a developmental arc in Sheba, it fails woefully. It is also the same kind of character curve that ends shallow films – bust em up and leave them, never any reconciliation and growth.

At this point it is worth observing that Barbara is as much older than Sheba than Sheba is than Connolly. Barbara comments that the end of childhood is marked by an legally enforced arbitrary age, when the narrative makes clear that Steven is not a victim and not a child. Barbara often remarks on how the gender of differingly aged lovers makes a difference. In Barbara’s case, the gender is the same but the ages, once a decade or two later, no longer matter.

It’s been suggested to me that Barbara’s draw to Sheba is maternal and there is some sense in that. Sheba’s own mum is a prickly relationship and she is physically distant from her daughter. But Barbara is near, and she gives the only child treatment to Sheba.

I think that Barbara’s feelings for Sheba are more like a romantic friendship as described in The Ladies Of Llangollen. Barbara does make a hint or two that lust is not unknown to her, but her feelings for Sheba do not appear sexual. Sheba makes the distinction between sensual and sensuous, far removed from sexual. When Barbara asks to stroke Sheba’s arms, it’s not about being sex staved as Sheba unkindly remarks: it is a simple act of bonding without desire. It upsets me that that moment is found to be disturbing by many.

What does disturb me is how Heller goes all Patricia Highsmith in her last few pages. But I wonder if there is another layer – and that we are not to take Sheba’s outburst as the truth. How can Sheba call Barbara crazy and manipulative after her own behaviour? The novel doesn’t end as I hoped on many levels.

As well as a better understanding of singleness and homosexuality, this story to me craves a better understanding of those passionate non sexual relationships; and also that there may be people whose deepest relationships are not physical ones. Perhaps our society needs to learn to accept asexual as much as gay, bi and trans.

It also needs to better deal with loneliness and need. When asked in an interview if had met a Barbara in life, Eyre says he had and her loneliness kept people away like a bad smell. Our trend is to keep away from anyone that seems hard work, holding them away and compounding their pain. Really this is weakness on the behalf of those who cannot and will not find the strength to grow and the courage to engage with someone else.

These are themes I write of on this site and in my own work – and I end by offering a link to my thoughts on society’s dichotomy between acceptable and unacceptable obsessions:  http://www.socyberty.com/Relationships/The-Most-Selfish-Kinds-of-Love.298587

One can see how Barbara’s pain is augmented by being outside of the acceptable ones.

I have many more thoughts on this story and will be adding further pieces shortly.

Cover via Amazon

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

            The Tipping Point is the biography of a simple idea and how little things can make a big difference causing a “tip” in a circumstance.  The Tipping Point is one dramatic moment in an epidemic when everything can change all at once.  Malcolm Gladwell begins with the example of “Hush Puppies” shoes and also speaks of the fall of crime in New York.  One may stop to wonder how these two very different examples share a basic underlying pattern.  They both exhibit contagious behavior and in each case little changes caused big effects.

            Gladwell speaks of three rules of epidemics: Law of Few, The Stickiness Factor and the Power of Context.  In the first rule, Law of Few, he illustrates certain type of people who help tip the scales.  These are connectors, mavens and salesman.  He gives an example of a famous connector, Paul Revere, which was a most surprising story.  In introducing the next rule, the Stickiness factor, Gladwell uses Sesame Street and Blues Clues to exhibit repetition as a learning tool in the youth of today.  The third rule, The Power of Context, touched on the crime rate of New York City.  A little gesture such as cleaning graffiti off the subway walls helped to reduce crime in the area.  He introduced the “Broken Glass Theory” depicting that unchecked signs of deterioration in a neighborhood or community could result in a declining quality of living.  If a window is broken or left un-repaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares or no one is in charge.  This could lead to an epidemic of crime.  Gladwell mentioned the magic number of 150.  Groups of 150 display levels of intimacy and efficiency.  Groups larger than this size tend to be toxic.  This strategy of smaller groups is found in many corporations’ organizational structures today.

            Gladwell introduces several case studies throughout the book. Airwalk shoes, teenage smoking and breast cancer awareness to name a few. 

            The Tipping Point is a magic moment when an idea, trend or social behavior crosses a threshold, tips and spreads like wildfire. It’s a book about change. In particular, it’s a book that presents a new way of understanding why change so often happens as quickly and as unexpectedly as it does. The Tipping Point is an examination of the social epidemics that surround us.

Full Summary of The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference

            The book, The Tipping Point, How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell identifies and explains mechanisms which cause certain trends to “tip” and take hold and others to fail.  Gladwell portrays examples from marketing, medicine, literature, politics, and other spheres that show basic moves and conditions that can transform a small change into a huge awakening.  In the beginning of his book, Gladwell uses an example of “Hush Puppies” shoes and how a handful of hipsters in Manhattan started wearing the shoes and caused a shift in sales.  It took a group of “opinion makers” to wear the shoes; other saw them and copied the style.  After a few fashion designers used them, “Hush Puppies” reached the “tipping point”; causing this brand of shoe to take off in sales and till today still exits in stores everywhere.

            Gladwell identifies how epidemics are started.  He assesses that most trends and styles are born and spread according to certain types of transmission and also in conveying certain style and ideas.  Gladwell introduces three rules of epidemics; the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor and the Power of Content.  The tipping points that transform a phenomenon into an influential trend require a certain type of people. The success to any kind of social epidemic is dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gift.   Those particular people make things happen.  They are usually energetic, connected, knowledgeable, persuasive and influential among their peers.  They are connectors, mavens, and salesman.  Connectors are individuals who have many ties with people.  They have a special gift for bringing the world together.  They tend to be outgoing and helpful.  They are the kind of people to know when you need a job because they know somebody who knows somebody.  A famous connector he uses as an example was Paul Revere and his ride warning the patriots, “The British are coming”.  This was an example of a word of mouth epidemic.  People knew and trusted Paul Revere.  They believed him and followed his warnings.  At the very same time, William Dawes, also rode warning people of the same thing.  No one listened to Mr. Dawes because he was not as well known as Paul Revere.  His message did not stick like Paul Revere’s historical message.

             Gladwell then speaks about mavens. The word Maven comes from the Yiddish and it means one who accumulates knowledge.  Mavens are people who have a strong desire to help other consumers by helping them make decisions.  They are information specialist.  To be a maven is to be a teacher.  Mavens are information brokers, sharing and trading what they know. They are also avid readers of “Consumer Reports”.  Mavens have the knowledge and the social skills to start word-of-mouth epidemics, but don’t how to pass it along. The third type of person is the salesman who twists arms and motivates people into to actions.  Great salesmen have the ability to enter into an arrangement, establish themselves quickly and proceed rapidly to sell items. Salesmen have skills to persuade us when we are unconvinced of what we are hearing and they are critical to the tipping of word-of-mouth epidemics.

            As the book continues on, Gladwell introduces an important factor in tipping items.  This is called the “stickiness”.  Stickiness is a specific factor quality of a message that makes something memorable and grabs people’s imagination.  The Stickiness factor states there are specific ways of making a contagious message memorable. These are simple changes of the presentation of structuring of information that can make a big difference in how much of an impact it makes.  An example of the stickiness factor is the children’s show, Sesame Street.  The makers of Sesame Street use this repetitive factor to teach kids with rhymes and rhythms. The same teaching segment of the show is presented throughout the week repetitively before a new concept is introduced.  This method helps children understand and comprehend by using visual-blending exercises.   One example of this showed segments that teach children that reading consists of blending together distinct sounds.  In one, “Hug”, a female Muppet, approaches the word HUG in the center of the screen.  She stands behind the H, sounding it out carefully, and then moves to the U, and then the G.  She does it again, moving from left to right, pronouncing each letter separately, before putting the sounds together to say “hug”.  As she does, the Muppet Herry Monster enters and repeats the words as well.  The segment ends with the Herry Monster hugging the delighted little girl Muppet.  The legacy of Sesame Street was if you paid careful attention to the structure and format of your material, you could enhance, “stickiness”.  Sesame Street today is watched by children all over the world in an effort to better prepare them in their future education.

            Another aspect of mechanisms that cause trends to “tip” into mass productivity is the next term Gladwell points out, the Power of Context.  When environmental conditions are introduced and are not right, it is not likely that the tipping point will occur.  Gladwell speaks of the rapid decline in violent crime rates that occurred in 1990’s in New York City.  He acknowledged a variety of factors that played a role in the decline.  One instance was the removal of graffiti from the subway areas.  With a clean environment, crime rate began to decline.  Criminologists James Q. Wilson and George Kelling developed the “Broken Window theory”.  This theory basically proposed that crime was the natural result of a disorder. If unchecked signs of deterioration in a neighborhood or community were seen by all, this could result in a declining quality of living.  If a window is broken or left un-repaired, people walking by will conclude that no one cares or no one is in charge.  In the cities, graffiti was equivalent of broken windows which initiated more serious crimes.  This is an epidemic theory of crime.  Crime is contagious and can start with a broken window or graffiti and spread through an entire community. Cities began the clean up which allowed other factors like the decline in crack cocaine use and the again of the population to gradually tip into a major decline in the crime rate.

             Gladwell also mentioned for a trend to tip, you need a large number of people to embrace it.  Certain sizes and types can also achieve a tipping point.  In the novel, “Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood” appealed strongly to middle-aged women in Northern California.  These women were able to push the book into a national success. These women related their own experiences to the book and through word of mouth caused the novel to become a best seller.  This book was an emotionally sophisticated character-driven, multi-layered novel that expressed reflection and much discussion in book groups.  The novel became a social experience, a conversational piece and tipped into a larger word of mouth epidemic.  The lesson of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood states that the small close knit groups have the power to magnify the epidemic of a message or idea.

            In continuing discussion on group size, Gladwell introduces his theory of the magic of the number of 150.  Group sizes play a large part in tipping scales.  He refers to 150 as the magic number of a group size.  This group size displays levels of intimacy and efficiency.  Groups larger than this size tend to be more toxic.  With a smaller group, you can become comfortable and rely on the other members to exhibit qualities of accuracy.  Many corporations today use this factor as a foundation for their organization structure.

            In the case study sections in this book, Gladwell discusses the rise and decline of the Airwalk shoe.  It was originally geared toward skateboards in Southern California. It obtained national recognition through advertising techniques that portrayed“coolness” about them.  By using fad styling in their shoes, Airwalks were able to create a product that was always right on target and exactly what the public wanted.  The advertising agency came up with a series of dramatic images, single photographs showing the Airwalk user relating to his shoes in some weird way.  In one, a young man is wearing an Airwalk shoe on his head, with laces hanging down like braids, as his laces are being cut by a barber.  The ads were put on billboards and in “wild postings” on construction-site walls and in alternative magazines.  As Airwalks grew, the advertising company went into television.  The strength of the Airwalks advertising campaign was in more than the look of their work.  Airwalk tipped because its advertising was founded very explicitly on the principles of epidemic transmission.

            Gladwell touches on the Translation Factor.  Translator takes ideas and information from a highly specialized world and translates them into a language the rest of us can understand.  The most sophisticated analysis of the process of translation comes from the study of rumors.  As we remember the child’s game of starting a rumor and as it is communicated to each person it is heightened and exaggerated totally changing the initial comment.  In a rumor, there are three directions that are followed.  The story is first leveled. Details that are essential for understanding the true meaning of the incident are left out. Then the rumor/story is sharpened.  The details that remain were made more specific. Finally, a process of assimilation takes place; the story was changed so it made sense to those spreading the rumor.  What mavens, connectors and salesmen do to an idea in order to make it contagious is to alter it in a way that specific details are dropped and others are exaggerated so that the message itself comes to acquire a deeper meaning; thus causing a “tip”.

            Gladwell used the spread of teenage smoking as another example of the tipping point.  Once again he reiterates the idea of “coolness” of smoking which causes a teenager to start smoking.  He also noted that making smoking sound dangerous and rebellious appeals to teenagers.  Larger advertising companies continuously pump money into campaigns enticing teenagers.  Many teenagers end up continuing their cigarette experiment until they get hooked.  The smoking experience is so memorable and powerful that they cannot stop smoking.  The habit “sticks”.  Telling teenagers about the health risks of smoking; “It makes you wrinkle”, “It can give you lung cancer and you can die”, doesn’t matter to them in the least.  It is exciting, mysterious, dangerous and cool and especially frowned upon by their parents; all the elements to make teenagers want to smoke more.  Emotional problems such as low self-esteem, unhealthy and unhappy home life, depression could lead to smoking in the first place among these teens.

            Another important example of the concept of tipping was a nurse named Georgia Sadler who began a campaign to increase knowledge and awareness of breast cancer and diabetes in a black community in San Diego.  She moved her campaign from churches to beauty salons.  Women would sometimes spend two to eight hours having their hair braided.  Stylist form bonds with their customers so she initiated the stylist to present a constant cycle of new information and gossipy tidbits on breast cancer awareness and diabetes into the salons.  She wrote material up in large print and put it on laminated sheets.  She set up evaluation programs to find out if it was working and if she was changing attitudes to get women to have mammograms and diabetes testing.  Her program worked.  She tipped the scales in her quest to help these women.

Image by Titanas via Flickr

            In conclusion, the first lesson of the Tipping Point is starting epidemics requires concentrating resources on a few key areas.  The Law of the Few says that connectors, mavens, and salesman are responsible for starting work of mouth epidemics.  There are times when we need a convenient shortcut; a way to make a lot out of a little, and that is what Tipping Points in the end are all about.  There is difficulty in the world of the Tipping Point as hopefulness as well.  By controlling a group size, we can improve its interest to new ideas.  By repetitive presentation of information, we can improve its stickiness.  Tipping points are a reaffirmation of the potential for charge and the power of intelligent action.  The world around us seems like an immovable place, but with the slightest push – it can be tipped.

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To contact the author of this summary/review, please email Lisa Patti at Lisa.Patti@selu.edu.

David C. Wyld (dwyld@selu.edu) is the Robert Maurin Professor of Management at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. He is a management consultant, researcher/writer, and executive educator. His blog, Wyld About Business, can be viewed at http://wyld-business.blogspot.com/.

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This is a truly wonderful and well-written book that talks about the many benefits dogs bring to our lives.  You may not agree with everything Stanley Coren has to say—I am not sure how I personally feel about his claim that Homo Sapiens, rather than Neanderthals, inherited the earth thanks to dogs—but, I hope that, like me, you will find most if not all, of his stories heart-warming.  And most stories in this book (this book is a collection of accounts, many of them based on the author’s own experience) are not as speculative as the one about Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens.  It is well-known for example that dogs reduce stress; it may not be so well known however that during the Cuban Missile Crisis, JFK “interrupted the deliberations of his advisers to have Charlie [his Welsh terrier] brought to him.  For what seemed like a very long time, Kennedy sat stroking the dog, and the president gradually seemed to relax.  Then, with a clam look of control he put Charlie down and said, ‘I suppose it’s time to make some decisions’” (p. 154).

In this short book, Stanley Coren recounts (each with a human story that puts a face on the story) the many other benefits we derive from our dogs: an improved immune system, a guardian angel, a life-long friend to whom we can tell our innermost secrets, a crime fighter and a disease detector.  And he illustrates each of these benefits.  He tells, for example, how a West Highland white terrier named Angel, saved Nancy’s life on more than one occasion; how a cocker spaniel named Duffy saved Arlene’s life by noticing her melanoma; how a bloodhound caught the Philadelphia bomber and so much more.

But also he tells of how callous we often are to our dogs.  Not only does he tell stories of individuals’ cruelty (tying a dog into a sack and attempting to drown him, for example) but of official cruelty.  Virtually all the dogs that served our country during the Second World War were euthanized by our government; almost all the dogs that served us during the Vietnam War were left with the South Vietnamese and were later eaten or simply killed; dogs considered to be “aristocratic” were murdered en masse during China’s Cultural Revolution; and FEMA forced dog owners to be separated from their dogs—with many (perhaps most) dogs dying as a result.

And finally, I think a few words must be said about this book’s author, Stanley Coren.  You may know him as the author of the (justly famous) How to Speak Dog.  Less known perhaps is that this psychology professor was one of a team of people that convinced the federal government to change its policies regarding dogs in an evacuation.  No longer will dog owners be forcefully separated from their companions.

Stanley Coren has done his part to ensure that we treat our canine companions who have done so much to improve our lives with the kindness they deserve.  I highly recommend this book.

Resell Rights supplies many opportunities that you are able to generate your profit from.

With the increase in attention to Resell Rights for that last handful of many years, lots of resellers are crawling the web in search of high quality Resell Rights products they can re-sell, and the obvious chances from this really is your opportunity to take advantage from this trend that is here to stay.

Do it right, and you’ll appreciate residual income without applying any extra effort on your part, when it comes to advertising, as some of the best product authors are offerring their goods online. And I will show you how you are able to do just that.

The Concept

Quite simply, you market your e-book, presenting the consumer with either Basic or Master Resell Rights.

Basic Sell Rights means:
 You have the right to resell the product but your client, or customer, does not have the right to sell it to others.

Master Resell Rights means:
 You have the rights to resell the item, including the Basic Resell Rights itself, to your customers. Your customers can also resell the product to their customers.

Thus, your ebook, or  product will appeal to two markets, namely the customers, potential customers and merchants.

Customers are only thinking about using the information the product provides.
Resellers, on the other hand, can take advantage of the Resell Rights income opportunities you have offerred, together with your e-book and realise 100% of the profits, through reselling the item.

This is of no real concern to you, as you are able to count on back-end sales, as your resellers clients become YOUR clients via your own links and affiliate ID’s, that you will have included into the e-book.

And of course , if your resellers prefer to have their own affiliate IDs inside your ebook, rebranding it to be their product, you can charge them an additional fee for the rebranding service.

by John Wayne Gacy

John Wayne Gacy has one of the most notorious names among all serial killers. He raped and murdered as many as 33 boys and young men in the 1970s, burying the bodies on his property. He has also been dubbed the “Killer Clown” because he was known to dress up as a clown at children’s parties in his neighborhood. Under questioning by police, Gacy eventually admitted to his crimes. He was executed in Illinois in 1994 after spending 14 years in prison.

While in prison he wrote the book “A Question of Doubt,” which is his take on the events surrounding his trial and the murders of which he was accused. If you are not familiar with the history of Gacy’s crimes, this book will be only confusing to you. But if you are aware of the history, and you’re a serious student of crime, this book gives an excellent (though at times deranged) look into the mindset of a serial murderer.

The Gates of Janus

by Ian Brady

Ian Brady, along with accomplice Myra Hindley, was found guilty of the “Moor Murders,” the slayings (and in some cases sexual assaults) of five children in England in the early 1960s. Hindley died in prison in 2002. Brady is still imprisoned after being declared mentally insane in 1985.

Brady is the author of “The Gates of Janus,” a somewhat serious (though awkwardly disturbing) attempt at studying the mind of serial killers. Brady goes on to blame society for serial killers and creates a philosophy of sorts about relative morality and sort of serial killers as “supermen,” perhaps trying to justify his own crimes to himself. He also spends multiple chapters studying specific serial killers and their crimes. As can be expected, this is not a book for the meek.

While in prison, Hindley also wrote a book, an autobiography. It has yet to be published.

Holmes’ Own Story

by H.H. Holmes

His real name being Herman Webster Mudgett, H.H. Holmes is perhaps one of the most prolific serial killers few people seem to have heard of. He operated in America in the late 1800s and possibly killed hundreds in secret chambers of horrors he had built in a “castle” in Chicago. Holmes eventually admitted to 27 murders and was executed by hanging in 1896.

During his trial, Holmes wrote the book ” Holmes’ Own Story.” This book cannot be found on its own today (except perhaps in some rare collections), but it is still available as part of a larger work, “The Strange Case of Dr. H.H. Holmes,” a collection of three source books about Holmes and Holmes’ confession. “Own Story” is an autobiography, starting from Holmes’ childhood and eventually leading to his trial. Throughout the book Holmes insists he is innocent and he makes up plenty of nonsense in an attempt to prove his innocence. He fails miserably, in my opinion.

Killer Fiction

by G. J. Schaefer and Sondra London

A former police officer, Gerard John Schaefer was found guilty of the two murders of two teen girls in 1972 in Florida. When his home was searched, many items belonging to other missing women were discovered. Still, Schaefer was only convicted of the two murders. In letters from Schaefer over the years, he boasted of torturing and killing as many as 34 women. He even boasted of cannibalism. In 1995, Schaefer was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate.

Author Sondra London, at one time engaged to Schaefer, put together a collection of fictional horror stories written by Schaefer. Some of the stories were discovered in his home while others he wrote in prison. All the tales are disturbing, including the torture, abuse, degradation and eventual murders of women.

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The Making of a Serial Killer

by Danny Rolling and Sondra London

After Schaefer, author Sondra London became engaged with Danny Rolling, who confessed to the mutilations and murders of five students in Florida in 1990. Rolling eventually also confessed to murdering a family in 1989. He was executed in Florida in 2006.

During his imprisonment, Rolling worked with London on this book, “The Making of a Serial Killer.” It is his version of the murders to which he confessed. And he does not shy away from the horrific details. Be wary of reading this book unless you have a strong constitution for the gory. This is perhaps the most disturbing of all the books listed here, being made up of murders told from a real killer’s point of view.

Rolling also wrote a horror novel, “Sicarius,” which has been published in a limited edition.

Related links

6 serial killers who were never caught

6 excellent true crime books

Violence in Fiction: How Does the Writer Know When Enough is Enough?

Cover of Exodus And Revolution

To Machiavelli, he was a Founder, one of that handful of men in history who was able to change his people’s very nature; a Prince who “governed prudently while he lived” and who organized his institutions in such a way that when he died they “still maintained” themselves.  To DreamWorks and Paramount, he is a Prince of Egypt whose rivalry with Ramses is Egypt’s downfall.  But what sort of political leader was Moses and what sort of people did he lead?  In The Nursing Father: Moses as Political Leader and Exodus and Revolution,  Aaron Wildavsky and Michael Walzer take these questions seriously but from different angles.  Aaron Wildavsky looks at the Exodus story as a study in leadership and so his emphasis is on the kind of political leader Moses was while Michael Walzer prefers to emphasise the people who followed Moses (and later the Prophets) into the land of Israel.

So Aaron Wildavsky argues that in Exodus, we see displayed four different regimes: slavery where leadership is unlimited, continuous and despotic; anarchy where leadership is limited to a specific end and meteoric, equity where leadership is charismatic because all are equal before God so the only justification for leadership (inequality) has to be some sign of perfection, and hierarchy where leadership is limited, continuous but is in danger of being autocratic.  Aaron Wildavsky further makes the point that these regimes are sustained by belief.  There were far more Hebrews in Egypt than there were Egyptians.  The Hebrews could have left by themselves; they had no need of a Moses to lead them.  But, because slavery inculcates passivity in slave and master alike, the most Hebrews could manage to do while in Egypt was cry out to God.  To Aaron Wildavsky then the liberation was not really the people’s idea but God’s and Moses’ (Michael Walzer disagrees-pointing out that without at a minimum the people’s participation the liberation could not have happened).  Nonetheless, both writers agree that what followed was a period of anarchy.  Or as Aaron Wildavsky puts it, the people grumble to Moses, he tells God and God sends a miracle (water, bread, meat, what have you).  A few days later the process repeats itself.  No-one is in charge.

Then we come to Mount Sinai where God makes a Covenant with the people (Michael Walzer emphasises that the Covenant is made with all the people, including the women and the strangers among them).  The deal is simple: accept moral codes (internalize morality) and you will be free and will live in a good land and if you don’t do it then you won’t.  And because all are party to this conditional Covenant equally, this regime is (in Aaron Wildavsky’s terms) a regime of equity.  In such a regime he points out only a charismatic person can be a leader because a society of equals does not admit a moral basis for inequality other than perfection.  Unfortunately, in such a regime the only way to remain a leader is to purge one’s followers—as Moses does when accused by Korah of being a tyrant and by Dathan and Abiram for being a poor leader and a hypocrite to boot.  The purge, Aaron Wildavsky points out, is never justified in the Bible—indeed shortly after purging his enemies Moses proves their point by not only contravening God’s word but by substituting his will for God’s.  Moses, the charismatic leader, has indeed taken too much unto himself—a bit of hierarchy is perhaps in order.  Of course the move toward a more hierarchical regime has been in place all along, starting with Jethro’s suggestion that Moses form a bureaucracy and end up with (according to Michael Walzer’s count) of 15 percent of Hebrews being rulers at any given time.  By the time the people enter the land of Canaan, they have a set of (hierarchical) institutions as well as many laws (again Aaron Wildavsky and Michael Walzer disagree as to the exact number).  Power in Aaron Wildavsky’s account has been institutionalized. 

But enough about the leaders.  What of the people?  Someone had to follow Moses and Aaron or the whole thing would have been pointless.  In Aaron Wildavsky’s account, the people (with a notable exception) are largely missing.  They are “regimes”; Michael Walzer’s account by contrast is all about the people.  He points out that no matter what the circumstances, it took tremendous courage to leave Egypt and everything they had ever known for the sake of a vaguely-remembered promise.  He points out too that it was this same courage that allowed the people to grumble against God.  And that the stubbornness which so infuriated Moses and God is not an unalloyed evil.  For even as it led to much backsliding it also made it impossible for this people to forget their word.  They were too stubborn for that.  And finally he points out that at Mount Sinai, as Korah had claimed, all heard the voice of God equally and all entered into the covenant of their own free will.  And that this Covenant implied not only freedom (a slave after all Michael Walzer argues is perhaps more “free” than a free man because he is not held accountable for his actions) but responsibility.  They promised to live up to a very stringent moral code.   And that by doing so, the people made themselves into a nation.

To Michael Walzer then the hierarchical elements of ancient Hebrew society (such as the priesthood of the Levites) are a perhaps (with a strong emphasis on perhaps) necessary evil.  But he is in no doubt that this is an evil (he much prefers the egalitarian and charismatic prophets).  In the end then, Michael Walzer’s book ends on a hopeful note as he recounts the lessons many peoples from the English under Cromwell to the revolutionaries in Central America learned from Exodus–and the lesson is how to mobilize an essentially courageous people to become free .  To Aaron Wildavsky, the right lesson to be drawn from the same book is how to move people (often against their will) from one regime (one set of beliefs) to another so that they can have a good and decent government.  Which is why he calls Moses “the consummate politician.”

Perhaps, I can see Michael Walzer reply.  But does not a decent government need a decent people?