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Book Reviews

THE END OF ARROGANCE by J.C. MORRIS

FOOD FOR THOUGHT Philadelphia writer, Ed Dougherty

J.C. Morris has cooked up a sumptuous saga. The ingredients are family skeletons and social upheavals of the 20th century. Morris, in this meticulously researched book, has provided the reader with a savory stew accompanied by a luscious love story of incestuous urgings which make it a work of substance rather than a piece of fluff. Yet the tale is flavored with enough spice to make it taste like dessert. Leo Phillips, impaled on a spit of parental disfavor and the class system, strikes out alone to make his mark on the world. Unfortunately, he chooses the ill-fated Titanic as his vessel of escape. Leo's survival serves as an appetizer for the many adventures to follow. Told through the eyes of Leo's niece and biographer, a prologue begins each part of the book. We follow first Leo, then his half-sister, Chloe (yes, she's the one), then sibling rival, Egbert. Failed marriages, career building, dangerous duty in the Great War, embroilment in the socialist movement, a series of events keep the pot simmering. An encounter between Leo and Chloe brings the pot to boil. Morris, though, is clever. Just as the reader thinks that this event has ruined the repast, several exotic ingredients are added. New aromas waft through the air, and the reader breathes in deeply. At its conclusion, The End of Arrogance gives us the picture of a good man and woman who survive more adversity than most of us could imagine. Morris has done a superb job of including savory characters stewing in the right juices and produced a feast fit for a discriminating reader.

WHEN WE WERE ORPHANS by KAZUO ISHIGURO

Reading a book by Ishiguro is like trying to find your way through a boxwood maze: none of the paths down which the author takes you appears to lead anywhere. In his youth the English narrator has a friendship with a Japanese boy that seems to melt away. The narrator's attempts to find his parents (kidnapped from their luxurious home in wartime Shanghai) dissolve into his career as a famous detective when his "Uncle" sends him back to London to live with a "rich" Aunt. Nothing is what it seems to be. His attraction to Sarah, a strange fellow orphan, in a series of sporadic encounters in British society, is going nowhere. Yet the suspense produced by Ishiguro's off-kilter style is nearly unbearable. The reader is lured further in to the morass. Ishiguro's description of people and places are vivid and offbeat. In spite of his vague reference to "the whole affair" (the reader has no idea what affair", Sarah's romantic involvement with a series of celebrities? Political affairs?)' "the task" (what task? Finding his parents? Straightening out the corrupt Chinese regime? Fighting off the Japanese troops?) The reader is swept along in a fog. In the end it all comes together, but long after you put this book down, you are still trying to fathom how it all fits. Fascinating reading.