What I’m Reading Now

In case you’re interested, though I don’t expect you to be.  I typically juggle several books at a time and read one or the other depending on what mood I’m in and what my attention span is.

1.  In the Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafon.

A Spanish bestseller recently translated into English.  I read some Spanish, enough to recognize the cadence even in the translated version, and it is beautiful.  The story dwells firmly in the world of magical realism, but lacks the clichés of some of the recent additions to the genre.  “In the Shadow of the Wind” is itself the title of a novel by a mysterious writer named Julian Carax, whose story young Daniel Sempere is determined to unravel despite danger to himself as well as odd parallels between the novel and himself.  Set in post civil war Barcelona, the city and its factions are as much characters as anyone else. 

2.  Enchantment, Guy Kawasaki.  Meh.  I don’t know why I keep doing this to myself. 

3.  On Literature, Umberto Eco.  Have I mentioned how much I love Daedalus Books?  I’m blessed to have a warehouse outlet near where I live, and stopping by makes my day every single time.  They carry out of print and remaindered books, which, given the taste of the American reading public, is pretty much everything good.  And they’re rock-bottom cheap.  A few days I ago I scored this, along with three or four volumes of poetry, and paid $ 25.00. 

Anyway, you may recall Eco as the author of The Name of the Rose.  Its sheer heft scares a lot of people off, but like Tolstoy once you start it you can’t stop.  I haven’t read any other of his books, but now that he’s back on my radar screen I think I will. 

3.  History of the Ancient World, by Susan Wise Bauer.  Another long one (around 800 pages), but very much worth the read if you’re interested in getting a better grasp on pre-fall of Rome history.  I actually just finished reading, so this isn’t technically something I’m reading now, but at 800 pages I feel like I should get some credit. 

The focus is on the development of the best documented cultures: Sumeria/Assyria/Babylon; Greece; India; Egypt; China; and eventually Rome.  Occasionally Bauer sneaks in a new tribe she hasn’t previously introduced, which was a little disconcerting, and by the end I was having trouble keeping the Hittites and the Bactrian Greeks and the Aryans (the original ones, in India) straight.  But now I can sound smart at parties. 

4.  A Village Life, Louise Gluck.  I almost always read a poem or two at bedtime, and this is the volume I’m working on now.  I’ve worshipped Gluck for years, but this slim collection, set in an unspecified Mediterranean village, takes my breath away.  Think of Spoon River Anthology plus Winesburg, Ohio and add in the shimmering language of a truly gifted poet.  Mmmmmmmm.  Also, for me at least the feel of a book of poetry is almost as important as the words inside.  Fat anthologies are purely utilitarian.  I like the feel of a little, beautifully bound book in my hand, and this one is just the right size, with just the right sort of paper and a lovely font.  As much as I adore my Nook, I will always treasure this sort of aesthetic.  And there isn’t much poetry in the online shop at B&N anyway. 

Finally (and off topic), good luck to my hubby John, who will be running the 15th annual Port to Fort this weekend to benefit Believe in Tomorrow, providing hospital and respite services to critically ill children and their families.  Please consider supporting this wonderful organization.  If you’d like to sponsor my husband, email me at jlubinski@fblaw.com.  Or just go here.  Who knows what books these children will grow up to write?

 

Edgar Lee Masters and the Big Sea Change: We’ve Been Here Before

The great myth about the good old days – of law practice and in general – is that there were good old days at all. 

The media has of late been declaring Biglaw dead.  Downward pressure on the hourly rate is encouraging partners to depart for smaller firms.  Even white shoe firms are talking about alternative fee arrangements.  The notion that clients should not be billed for the time of inexperienced associates is understandably gaining some traction.  Firms have laid off and deferred associates, slashed summer programs, and cut back on hiring.  A vocal if disorganized bunch of law students and never-associates are grumbling online about the law school “scam.”    

But realistically nothing has changed.  That’s what I think when I read Edgar Lee Masters’ Spoon River Anthology. 

Masters was a prolific writer with novels, biographies, and plays under his belt, but he is best known for his collection of poems memorializing the residents of a fictional town.  Spoon River was set in Fulton County, Illinois, not far from where Masters spent most of his life practicing law.  For about five years – well before the Scopes or the Leopold and Loeb trials – Masters partnered with Clarence Darrow.  (Darrow himself, despite his reputation today as a hero of labor and the underdog, once represented a Chicago landlord in his effort to have a tenant committed to an insane asylum because she had not paid her rent.  Not really relevant, but an interesting fact.)  During this time, most biographies of Masters report simply that he “defended the poor.”

But as lawyers we know this means he probably collected very little money.  The two quarrelled; Darrow’s indictment for perjury and jury tampering didn’t help things (although Masters conducted depositions in Darrow’s defense.  See the transcript here: http://darrow.law.umn.edu/trials.php?tid=17 .)

Masters and Darrow parted ways and Masters formed his own firm.  During this time Masters began writing the poems that would become Spoon River Anthology. 

The poems were serialized before they were collected and published.  It’s not the sort of thing you read in a single sitting.  Although Masters befriended the likes of Carl Sandburg and Theodore Dreiser, his own poems, I think, reflect a wry lawyer’s pragmatism about the people he represented.  No modernism here.  The voices of Spoon River sound like the voices of the people who flow in and out of any law office, as clients or otherwise. 

Keep in mind that while Masters was practicing law and writing his poems, the Bolsheviks were seizing control of Russia, the Boer Wars were being fought in South Africa, Standard Oil was under antitrust scrutiny and unionized labor was transforming the American economy.  Women in the United States and Britain were demanding the right to vote.  The Constitution was amended to permit a federal income tax.  The Federal Reserve was created.  The Lusitania was sunk.

It was a time of unprecedented change.  But what concerned Masters in his poetry were people like “Jack McGuire”, who would have been lynched if his lawyer hadn’t struck a back room deal with a judge – http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/view/Jack_McGuire.  Or Lydia Puckett, whose spurned lover “stole the hogs and went to war” – http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/view/Lydia_Puckett.  Or Doctor Meyers, who went to prison for performing an illegal abortion –http://spoonriveranthology.net/spoon/river/view/Doctor_Meyers.  Personally, I imagine each of these characters sitting in a chair on the other side of Masters’ desk, although that probably isn’t fair to him as a writer. 

There are plenty of parallels in our modern world to the early twentieth century.  I like to think that Masters’ focus in the midst of all this social and economic turmoil was in the right place.  Lawyers have seen change before.  It comes in cycles.  We call it outsourcing or contract lawyering or what have you, but what matters now is what mattered to Masters: the relationship between lawyer and client, lawyer and lawyer, lawyer and community.  We bring boats to the sea change, we adapt, and we go on.