Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - July 11, 2004, Winnipeg, Manitoba B7 editor Morley Walker / 697-7307 Winnipeg free press email sunday july 11, 2004 books Dunne a wit irony and the Mideast piquant last supper controversial opinions Are written in uncomplicated Way nothing lost by John Gregory Dunne Knopf 335 pages $36 reviewed by Randall King with a telling Eye and a worldly sense of melancholy John Gre gory Dunne once explored the shifting treacherous turf Between the Justice system politics and the Catholic Church. This was in his land Mark 1977 novel True confessions a ?40s?era roman a Clef focused on a Black Dahlia like murder. Substitute an omniscient Media for the Omni powerful Church and the dynamics stay pretty much the same in nothing lost Dunne a latest and last novel. The author who died of a heart attack in december 2003, was the brother of vanity fair diarist and courthouse gossip Dominick Dunne and the husband of essayist social critic Joan Didion. One can detect the pressure Points of their influence in this last testament a serviceable summation of his dyspeptic View of contemporary America encompassing mystifying violence self serv ing political pundits grasping celebrities and the great abyss Between poverty and privilege. The dramatic fulcrum is a grisly apparently racially motivated murder of a transient Black Man in americas Midwest heartland. The victim is made a Symbol ? the president attends his funeral ? so harsh Justice is demanded of . Mcclure a seasoned prosecutor handicapped in his career by a wife named poppy a quotable right Wing Media pundit whose political ambitions Long prevailed Over any recognizable signs of human warmth. But when one of the suspected killers turns out to be the brother of a sullen but wealthy teen supermodel named Carlyle an expensive defence is mounted by Teresa Kean a High powered Washington based lawyer with a Check ered past assisted by Max Cline the books narrator a former state attorney turfed from his Job by a Christian attorney general for being Gay. But this is not some literary Law & order. Most of the meaningful conflicts and the Surprise revelations take place outside the courtroom especially when the chief defence counsel and the prosecutor discover a shared passion that threatens the Case and their careers. The novel is populated with supporting characters that might be described As grotesque cultural caricatures if they did to in the age of 24 hours Fox news ring sadly True. But it is in those two main characters where Dunne creates his Saddest most veracious characters whose hopeless situation is Rife with passion and shame principle and Compromise life a bitter Sweet Yin Yang combo plate cooked up with consummate skill. Call this Dunne a piquant last supper. Randall King is a free press entertainment reporter. From Babel to Dragoman interpreting the Middle East by Bernard Lewis Oxford University press 438 pages $37 by Allen Mills t his is a col Lection of More than 50 essays and articles that Bernard Lewis the formidable scholar of Mideast Ern affairs has written Over the last 50 years. Some Are published for the first time and the rest Are garnered from often inaccessible academic places. There is a great breadth of interest displayed Here from a piece on the role of interpreters in the Middle East ? the Dragoman of the title ? to the idea of kingship in Arab and Muslim thought from food in the near East to the uses of the ottoman archives. Mainly he writes about the contentious events of the last Century of the end of Empire the birth of Israel and of pan Arab nationalism and the slow inevitable decline of the Middle East and its Peoples in comparison to the West. These developments have a culmination in the events of 9/11 and the inva Sion of Iraq. Though these pieces Are written originally for academic Pur poses Lewis writes in an uncomplicated Way and the general Reader will find much that will inform and Edu Cate. Lewis held an important position As professor of near Eastern studies at Princeton University for a Long time. He is now retired but is still prolific. His opinions Are contentious and controversial. The late Edward said famously singled him out in his Book orientalism As someone who failed to appreciate the Muslim and Arab cause who favoured Israel and the West and who altogether had a stereotyped View of the islamic world. Under the Guise of objective scholar ship said said Lewis preached propaganda and ideology. Lewis has not directly rebutted such criticism. He simply goes determined by on his Way. Perhaps he is too much a gentlemen to reply. There is though no doubting Lewis a strongly held views on the Middle East and the islamic world in general. And he writes about contemporary events always with an engaged perspective. His values Are evident. He is a 19th?century Liberal who believes in objective scholarship. He has an idea of development and modernization which leads him to a belief in Progress. He is a devotee of Liberal democracy and wonders Why All Peoples cannot be advantaged by the blessings of democratic government Freedom of opinion and religion and growth through technology and markets. To these he adds an old world scepticism and sense of irony. He observes wryly in this Book that there is a Dif Ference Between Freedom and Independence and in the Middle East strangely More Good was done for Freedom under imperialist dispensations such As the British in Egypt than under Independent indigenous regimes that have often refined the meaning of tyranny. Equally he is impressed by the irony that minorities were often better protected under the old ramshackle ottoman Empire than under the spank ing new enlightened revolutionary regimes of Nasser Saddam and Khomeini. Lewis a world is Subtle and Complex. Certainly he is no believer in revolution and Points out the horrid measures of oppression that revolution has typically left in its Wake in the Middle East. This is not yet the language he employs to make his a Book for Case is aggressive the Beach and very Frank. He is but it is a scholar of pre Polit ical correctness Days. One for he gilds no Lily in everyday talking of the resent ments of the islamic Domestic world As it confronts Reading its evident underdevelopment and weak Ness in the face of Western Progress and sophistication. Islamist he says now hate us because they recognize our political and economic not to say technological superiority and this is especially galling because once muslims were hegemonic Over these same Western Peoples. This is not a Book for the Beach but it is one for everyday Domestic Reading. There is wit Here and irony and Good prose Frank talking and Tough reason ing. Lewis does not hide his biases. Even if one does not agree with him it is hard not to Admire Lewis a learning and erudition. Allen Mills is the chairman of the University of Winnipeg a politics department. Technical personal integrated in is Story curing is How science is solving the mysteries of multiple sclerosis by Howard l. Weiner . Crown publishers 320 pages $38 reviewed by . Stevenson it is known that or. Jonas Salk the scientist and physician who discovered the polio vaccine had applied his scientific efforts to another Crip pling disease known As multiple sclerosis. Salk a efforts to discover a vaccine for this condition were More of a Challenge is is so much More complicated than polio. Polio is a sin Gle disease caused by a single agent. I think is is a syndrome with multiple estimates indicate that 50,000 canadians suffer with multiple sclerosis literally Many scars in reference to the lesions that occur in the Central nervous systems of those afflicted. Canada has a High rate of incidence with a particularly Large number of cases reported in the Prairie provinces. Young adults Are a substantial part of this demographic As is has been referred to As the polio of our is is a mysterious and Complex affliction of the Ner Vous system that includes symptoms such As weak Ness numbness fatigue loss of motor control memory problems and visual disturbances. Paralysis sometimes occurs in certain stages of the disease. Though is is considered an autoimmune disease it is accepted that viral components May also be a Factor. The disease attacks the protective myelin covering of the Central nervous system causing inflammation and damage and compromising the electrical messages that course through the body. There Are Many researchers working towards a cure and or. Howard Weiner is a Leader in the race. An american physician and researcher who has devoted almost three decades to the study of multiple sclerosis Weiner serves As the Robert l. Kroc professor of neurology at Harvard medical school and he is also founder and director of the partners multiple sclerosis Center at the Brigham and women a and Massachusetts general hospitals in Boston. Weiner has written curing is How science is solv ing the mysteries of multiple sclerosis to present read ers with stories from the frontline of laboratories and hospitals. In this volume the author incorporates his own scientific findings with those of other leading researchers in relating their quest to end the disease. To Date he says there is no known cure forms and there is still much speculation on the nature and cause of the illness. Weiner states is is a Complex disease whose cure depends on understanding Many variables some of which still remain unknown such As what causes the different subtypes of is and Why some people respond to treatment while others do curing is is his explanation of the disease and its treatment through an in depth study of the science and faces behind this medical mystery. Weiner effectively integrates the technical with the personal and readers who wish to learn More about is and the application of science to a solution will find this a worthwhile read. Most importantly however those afflicted with the disease will recognize in weiners Book How they could Benefit through the efforts of Many dedicated individuals and there is much to anticipate in that regard. . Stevenson is a Winnipeg writer and editor ;