Further Reading: "Pastoral" by Nevil Shute

 Nevil Shute, again

I believe I have labelled several of his titles on this blog.

This novel was called "Pastoral", written in 1944. An edition called a "wartime book". It appears I have a first edition, printed in Kingsport, TN of all places. Imagine, a small city in TN had a viable industrial plant printing books during WW2.

The story of about a skilled young (22) bomber pilot, veteran of nearly 50 long range bombing runs over major cities in Germany, later in the war.

He meets and falls in love with a beautiful young signal  officer, Gervase. His problem is, she is unawakened to the charms of men. She's 21 and was brought up to have a career for a while before (matter of factly) getting married. Plus, she is dedicated to her war work.

So, Peter Marshall, the pilot, has to wear her down, woo her with dates and fun.

Meanwhile, it's not all fun and games: he has two very frightening bombing runs with are described in exciting detail--even as we read about them, nearly 80 years on!  And there are a couple of  interesting twists in the narration.

Yep. Another from the stock pile of books I collected to get me through the current, unfolding emergency.

I can't usually sleep through the night, so I turn on the light and read a while.

Part of this is age: old people don't sleep as well. Part is worry; people say we should not worry: some even say it's a sin to worry. 

I say it's unhealthy to worry, so I try to take my mind off the evil circumstances. 

The Monastery of the Mind--a phrase used by Victor Davis Hanson...

...it fits.

Basically, we have worked about the house, (beginning the ultimate clean out of our home, for what ever move we might make) walked outside, watched You Tubes, done some careful travel by car, beginning to work on family history, targeted and necessary appointments such as dentist, doctor (and today, a haircut).

And, thank Goodness we have not needed the Doctor very much at all!

And reading.....

Who knew I had such an interesting library of used books gleaned over the many years at second-hand book stores, book exchanges, etc?   (I've been preparing for the Pandemic for all these years!)

So I have shopped my stash!

Latest is a slim paperback volume by Francis N. Stites on the life of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall-Defender of the Constitution.

Interesting--in a nutshell--the early founders and framers of our institutions had to assemble the principles of our Rule of Law from the cases they had before them: several had to do with land deals and real estate claims in the West; Marbury vs. Madison (established the importance of the contract to the individual in law) was an employment dispute.

Marshall himself was a Virginian, son of a bootstrapped farmer; he had extensive real estate in VA and in the emerging area of Kentucky. He was loyal and loving to a young wife who never recovered from the nervous breakdown she had, early in their marriage, over the successive deaths of a couple of children! She was almost completely house bound, in her room and needing quiet--but she kept having children.

This little book was published about 1980; I'm not sure it could be released in our world today. 

The Framers and Founders of the US were not naive or stupid. They saw and understood evil and criminal behavior. They had the likes of Aaron Burr to content with, after all. But I wonder if they were able to anticipate and foresee the gradual rise of Marxist Communism (50-80 years in the future)? A seemingly unstoppable progression of thuggery, staged on a world wide basis? I just don't know.