Mark Gilroy

Bringing Books to Life!

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We’ll Be Friends Forever – RIP Ora Knies

Amy with her 109-year-old grandmother.

My wife Amy’s grandmother, Ora Zimmerman Knies, died in her sleep on June 11, 2010. She was 109 years old.

Three days later we gathered at Memaw’s funeral mass held at St. Stephen Catholic Church in Hermitage, Tennessee. She was survived by her three “boys,” 11 grandchildren, 22 great grandchildren, and 19 great great grandchildren. She just missed holding a fifth generation of babies, with one of the great great’s due to have a child in a few weeks when she passed away.

Beyond savoring the memories and bonds of love and family, anyone who attended her funeral couldn’t help but reflect on all that Memaw had seen in her 109 active and colorful years of life. She was born January 13, 1901 – the year the first radio receiver picked up a transmission. Had she entered the world just two weeks earlier she would have been alive during three of the centuries of the Christian Era calendar.

Ora was born in the Territory of Oklahoma – it would not be admitted to statehood for another six years – and traveled cross country by horse-drawn carriage as a young girl when her family moved to Winchester, Tennessee.

The array of inventions and developments she witnessed in her lifetime is mind boggling – from the Wright Brothers engine powered airplane to commercial air travel and rockets and man landing on the moon; from the newspaper to the radio and on to the television, which itself morphed from black and white to technicolor with hundreds of stations; from the first Model-T rolling off the assembly line in Detroit in 1908 to the interstate highway system of the Eisenhower era; from penicillin and bubble gum in 1928 to the atomic bomb during World War II.

She witnessed the two world wars with Germany – the first by radio only and the second by radio and television. The day after her death, Governor Phil Bredesen of Tennessee landed in Germany to meet with Volkswaagen officials to discuss manufacturing opportunities in his state.

The United States of America has had 44 presidents in its history. Memaw lived during the presidency of 20 of them, from McKinley to Obama, and including her favorite, JFK.

Ora lived alone in her own house until 103, when she entered an assisted living facility. Her flower and vegetable gardens are still legendary. She drove her car for the last time on her 100th birthday. She did not hand the keys to her sons readily or happily and it took her a few years to forgive them – even though, according to the daughters-in-law, Memaw was pretty certain her boys had never really done anything wrong in life. She finally had to quit bowling in the Madison Bowling League when she was past the age of 100 due to hip problems.

Memaw’s last visit to our home was Christmas 2008 and she had a marvelous time, particularly looking through family photo albums. Amy had made memory books for Bo and Zach on their football seasons and after studying them several times, Ora proclaimed she was now a football fan. In fact, she wished she had learned to play.

Her one complaint about her assisted living residence was the food. She loved to have a home cooked meal and she participated in the preparation for Christmas Dinner by making her much requested peanut butter fudge. She sat by me at dinner and told me numerous times that we would be friends forever.

We all know that how we live our lives is what matters most. But most of us still have a fondness for the ongoing numbering of our days as well. If longetivity didn’t matter we wouldn’t work so hard to live longer.

For Memaw, quality and quantity were inseparable. She was one of those believers who received in abundance both of the blessings expressed in Psalm 91:16: “I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation” (NLT).

So Ora Zimmerman Knies, may I be so blessed, and yes, let’s be friends forever.

E-Book Inventor Passes Away – As His Invention Soars

Publisher’s Weekly reported today:

E-book sales rose 167% in June, to $80.2 million, at the 15 houses that reported figures to AAP’s monthly sales report and closed the first half of the year with sales up 161%, to $473.8 million.

But the biggest news in e-book publishing is that the inventor of the e-book, Michael S. Hart, passed away this past week on September 6, 2011.

What follows is an excerpt from the obituary for Mr. Hart written by Dr. Gregory B. Newby for Project Gutenberg.

Michael Stern Hart was born in Tacoma, Washington on March 8, 1947. He died on September 6, 2011 in his home in Urbana, Illinois, at the age of 64. He is survived by his mother, Alice, and brother, Bennett. Michael was an Eagle Scout (Urbana Troop 6 and Explorer Post 12), and served in the Army in Korea during the Vietnam era.

Hart was best known for his 1971 invention of electronic books, or eBooks. He founded Project Gutenberg, which is recognized as one of the earliest and longest-lasting online literary projects. He often told this story of how he had the idea for eBooks. He had been granted access to significant computing power at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. On July 4, 1971, after being inspired by a free printed copy of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, he decided to type the text into a computer, and to transmit it to other users on the computer network. From this beginning, the digitization and distribution of literature was to be Hart’s life’s work, spanning over 40 years.

Hart was an ardent technologist and futurist. A lifetime tinkerer, he acquired hands-on expertise with the technologies of the day: radio, hi-fi stereo, video equipment, and of course computers. He constantly looked into the future, to anticipate technological advances. One of his favorite speculations was that someday, everyone would be able to have their own copy of the Project Gutenberg collection or whatever subset desired. This vision came true, thanks to the advent of large inexpensive computer disk drives, and to the ubiquity of portable mobile devices, such as cell phones.

Hart also predicted the enhancement of automatic translation, which would provide all of the world’s literature in over a hundred languages. While this goal has not yet been reached, by the time of his death Project Gutenberg hosted eBooks in 60 different languages, and was frequently highlighted as one of the best Internet-based resources.

A lifetime intellectual, Hart was inspired by his parents, both professors at the University of Illinois, to seek truth and to question authority. One of his favorite recent quotes, credited to George Bernard Shaw, is characteristic of his approach to life: “Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people.”

Michael prided himself on being unreasonable, and only in the later years of life did he mellow sufficiently to occasionally refrain from debate. Yet, his passion for life, and all the things in it, never abated.

Frugal to a fault, Michael glided through life with many possessions and friends, but very few expenses. He used home remedies rather than seeing doctors. He fixed his own house and car. He built many computers, stereos, and other gear, often from discarded components.

Michael S. Hart left a major mark on the world. The invention of eBooks was not simply a technological innovation or precursor to the modern information environment. A more correct understanding is that eBooks are an efficient and effective way of unlimited free distribution of literature. Access to eBooks can thus provide opportunity for increased literacy. Literacy, and the ideas contained in literature, creates opportunity.

In July 2011, Michael wrote these words, which summarize his goals and his lasting legacy: “One thing about eBooks that most people haven’t thought much is that eBooks are the very first thing that we’re all able to have as much as we want other than air. Think about that for a moment and you realize we are in the right job.”

He had this advice for those seeking to make literature available to all people, especially children: “Learning is its own reward. Nothing I can say is better than that.”

Michael is remembered as a dear friend, who sacrificed personal luxury to fight for literacy, and for preservation of public domain rights and resources, towards the greater good.

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

A number of friends and family members recommend books for me to read. With a few of them I take particular note: this is a good indication that I’m not going to like the book. But one person in my life who recommends a book two to three times a year – and almost always one I am initially suspect of because it is not something I would not pick out myself – is my son Merrick.

If not for Merrick’s recommendations, I never would have read Orson Scott Card (Ender’s Game), Haruki Murakami (Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World) or Yann Martell (Life of Pi – though I probably would have got to that one eventually) – to name just a few. Oh … and The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao.

Honestly, I really wasn’t interested in a novel that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the brutal Trujillo regime – I can watch the news if I want to be depressed was my first thought – but Merrick recommended it – and Diaz’s first novel did garner a few little awards like the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critic’s Circle Award. But on the issue of awards, that’s not necessarily a dealmaker for me; after all, there’s more than a few Oscar-winning movies none of us liked. So it came back to Merrick’s recommendation. I ordered it, promptly put it on the stack of books by my bed – where it dropped as low as the bottom third (usually the sure sign it’s never going to be opened) – and read other stuff for six months before finally picking Oscar up. Reluctantly.

Did I mention this book deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic under the the brutal Trujillo regime – AND includes footnotes with historical context and explanations throughout the novel?

Are you feeling as unenthused about Oscar as I was yet? I can go on!

But what a pleasure The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao was to read. The jumbled but poetic wordsmything (along with those interesting and slightly disconcerting but somehow fitting footnotes) allow Diaz, the author, to output an interesting blend of stream of conscious thought and carefully constructed and intellectual analysis of the world through the eyes of his characters and his out-of-story interjections. I think that makes him a self-aware author. (I guess pulling that off is part of the reason he is a professor at MIT. I’m pretty sure he’s a very smart guy.)

The novel is a subtle and nuanced winding road with an occasional roadblock that delivers a direct, to-the-point, academic, sledge hammer observation on life.

Our hero, Oscar, is born in poverty in the DR – though his grandfather, a wealthy and famous physician in that nation, committed the unforgivable crime against the state. He tried to hide his beautiful daughter from the lecherous Trujillo. The beautiful daughter, Oscar’s mother, moves to a rundown, hardscrabble community in New Jersey that is bordered by a dump on one side and a six lane highway on another.

There is a fleeting period of Oscar’s life when he is the most handsome boy in his neighborhood and school and his mom and great aunt are convinced he is destined to become an international pop star – perhaps as big as Porfirio Rubirosa. But that is a short lived fantasy on their part as Oscar becomes a fat little boy who is the object of ridicule and relentless teasing from classmates. It doesn’t help that Oscar’s mother is distant and harsh to the point of cruelty – she would probably be reported to health and human services today – with he and his sister. (There’s a reason this savage beauty is the way she is that can only be explained by the ravages of the curse described in the next paragraph of this review.) But Oscar is a survivor and escapes into a world of sci-fi and fantasy – he is a bonafide literature and gaming nerd – that allows him to be and dream anything but what he is. Speaking of dreams, Oscar has only two compelling visions in life:  first is to become the Domincan version of J.R.R. Tolkien; and second is to find true love, something he feels he glimpsed in the golden age of his pre-adolescent youth when he seemed to be on his way to becoming the next Pofirio Rubirosa. Oscar writes novels by nightstand light and falls madly in love on a constant basis – always and inevitably to experience the anguish of heartbreak. Sometimes before the object of his affection even knew he was in love with her.

I should have started where the book starts and mentioned that The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao is primarily about an evil spirit – the Dominican word is fuku – that has cursed Oscar’s family from the moment Trujillo (master of or mastered by evil spirits?) heard rumors of the beautiful daughter of Oscar’s grandfather. The evil spirit has destroyed or stolen anything good the family has had  – from lands and wealth to beauty and health. (Oscar believes the original fuku landed at San Juan with Christopher Columbus: the Ground Zero of the curse.) So Oscar’s family’s story is that of a precipitous fall from grace to one of dysfunctional but heroic struggle against the weight of a brutal personal history.

The ultimate question I got from the book is this: if you are cursed is there any point in fighting it? Isn’t that what a curse is – something you can’t fight? Or is there something one can do? How does a lost, downtrodden, forgotten, broken family – and a not-so-little boy who suffers from depression and inertia – stand up to all that an evil spirit – one that is still alive in human form through Trujillo’s heirs – and all that it can send at them?

On a visit to see family in the DR it is the frightened, cowardly, non-threatening and non-physically-imposing, ostracized, outcast, loner Oscar that dons the armor of a knight from one of his fantasy novels and chooses to face and slay the fuku beast on behalf of his family once and for all – and win the heart of his one and only true love while doing it.

Does his story end in the most improbably of victories – like Frodo Baggins in Oscar’s author-hero’s Lord of the Rings trilogy – or does his family’s fuku prevail and claim yet another victim? If you’re in the mood to read a book that deals with the political history of the Dominican Republic during the brutal Trujillo reign, you will discover the answer!

Sad. Humorous. Fanciful. Brutal. Optimistic. Fatalistic. Jumbled. Linear. Circular. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao has it all.