Frighteningly Real, Welles' The Trial is a Fitting Cinematic Version of the Great Kafka Novel

It’s sad but true that I related to the main character, Joseph K. In Orson Welles’ cinematic version of Kafka’s The Trial (1962). It would be hyperbolic to say that I had a similar experience but I certainly had the same feeling of dealing with a labyrinthine and unknowable bureaucratic nightmare. 

One such occasion was one fine day when I was called into the principal’s office after having taught my first class of the day. I was told to bring along a union rep. I was met by the principal, a vice principal and the school district’s associate superintendent for instruction. I was told that there had been a charge of sexual harassment against me and that I was too be suspended effectively immediately while an investigation was conducted. I was not told who had leveled the charge nor what I was alleged to have done or when or where.

I was then escorted to my classroom to collect my personal belongings. When I tried to turn off my computer I was blocked. A school safety officer drove me home.

I felt like the world had ended. 

The next week was a living nightmare. Sleep was difficult. I spent hours trying to imagine who had accused me of what. I was on the phone constantly with the union president and the school district office. I felt like a pariah but didn’t know what I’d done to earn this awful feeling.

Six days after I was told of the accusation I was told that I had been cleared and that I could return to work. But I was still not told who had charged me of what. I was to learn that some of my female students had been interviewed about me and that my computer had been taken and my search history examined.

(Years later I was to learn that the accusation had been made by a female student who had a grudge against me for my role in a suspension that she’d earned. I also learned that that she’d leveled similar charges against other teachers. More than that I was told that the principal had been admonished for taking the girl’s accusation so seriously and that the principal had been told to apologize to me — she never did which is why I still take such great satisfaction in her having been fired.)

This was not the only — though certainly the worst — experience I had with the school district. Oh the stories I could tell and may yet.

One of the worst feelings we can have in life is not knowing what the hell is going on. You get a note from the principal that says “see me after school.” It could mean anything and the torment of not knowing what lasts until you enter the principal’s office. Having that feeling last for days is what The Trial captures so well.

While watching it I noted that there were stretches when I wasn’t paying attention to the dialogue. This can be a problem in trying to understand and appreciate a film. Not so with The Trial. After all much of the dialogue is circular, repetitive, slightly off, meant to obscure and confuse not inform. The film is more about the surrealism, the camera angles, the disorientation and confusion. 

The Trial gives you a psychologically vertiginous feeling. The world is off kilter and it’s difficult to know your place in it. Or for that matter up from down, right from wrong. Joseph K is at the mercy of….he doesn’t know exactly what.

It is a masterpiece of direction by Welles, liberally borrowing from the German expressionist of three decades before.  Too many people think that other than Citizen Kane all he directed was The Magnificent Ambersons — which the studio butchered. But in addition to The Trial he directed The Stranger, a terrific film in which he co-starred with Edward G Robinson, Chimes at Midnight his ode to the great bard, Touch of Evil, The Lady from Shanghai, F is for Fake and Othello, one of the better cinematic versions of a Shakespeare play.

The Trial wouldn’t be an easy watch for everyone but for some of us, it’s sadly familiar. Anthony Perkins starred as Joseph K and he captured a man struggling in unreality. The supporting cast includes Romy Schneider, Jeanne Moreau and Welles. 

What Took Me So Long? I Finally Get Around to Watching Mad Men -- and I Loved it

Jon Hamm as Don Draper

Well…that was interesting. I spent just over three months with Mad Men. Immersed in it. Binging all seven seasons and ninety-two episodes. Novelistic. One of the great TV shows of all time. People were variously fascinating, odious and pitiable. I was often unsure of whether I should cheer them on or revile them. I did both.

Mad Men was fascinating on many levels particularly in its depiction of how people delude themselves, lie to themselves and put up false fronts for others. Most of the time people were calculated in what they said or did or if not they were drunk and totally reckless. Everyone was self interested and loyalty could be bought and sold. I think it's a real reflection on business environments and the difficulty a lot of people have living in their own skin and more than that, understanding and appreciating others.

People were verbally vicious in a way that I sometimes felt was unrealistic. Alliances were formed but soon dissipated. Friends became enemies and vice versa. People wanted money, power, respect and sometimes just to be acknowledged and maybe loved a little bit. Relationships were mostly transactional. Even marriages. Trust was nigh on impossible.

Who can relax into life in such circumstances? No wonder everyone drank constantly. They needed to self-medicate or turn into nervous wrecks. Some did both.

At the center was Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Outwardly the uber handsome, cool, creative superstar of advertising. But as is the case with human beings he was a complex character which means he had a past that formed and deformed him — boy did he. It can be maddeningly difficult to know one’s self, when you steal someone’s identity that equation is many times squared. How could others really know him if he didn’t know himself? Understand him? The impossible dream. It was no wonder he bounced from one relationship to the next. How could he find love and contentment when he couldn’t find it in himself? Sex was often another way to avoid introspection. When you’re intimate with another person, surely everything is okay. But then you get out of bed.

Draper was at the center of the story episode after episode so we had to root for him. This became easier as we saw his vulnerabilities. It’s hard to hate a person when you know so much about them. And we got to know Draper — one of the richest characters television dramas has ever produced. We also got what we most want out of characters — change. How does this character grow throughout the series? How do they respond to events around them, particularly the ones over which they have no control?

It was not a one man band. Draper was surrounded by a deep supporting cast. The most compelling was Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss). From something of an ingenue to a big wheel in a big company, she had an interesting ride and went through an array of changes. There were failed loves (what on Earth did she ever see in Duck? — Yuck!) And big wins and little losses. Her relationship with Draper was one of the best things to watch on the show. It was a good choice not to have them consummate it, that would have been too easy a move and not quite right for either character. As the show progressed Peggy was often angry, sometimes justifiably so and other times unnecessarily. Given the level of sexism she was dealing with, one has to give her a pass.

Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks) was another female character whose story arc was highlighted. Unlike Peggy I never warmed to her. She was so often so cold and I never understood why she literally prostituted herself to gain an account for the firm. But even more than Peggy she had to navigate the roiling waters of sexism that could have drowned a lesser woman. (Imagine what it was like for “real” women in that time and before and even since. Infuriating.) Like a lot of the characters Joan could be heartless in her remarks to co-workers, often Peggy. I found this damn near unrealistic. People said things to each other — cruel, personal, insulting — that would leave deep long-lasting wounds. I realize the business world of the Sixties was different than what I’ve experienced but still remaining friends with someone who verbally eviscerates you seems a stretch. I was also bothered by just how much drinking Draper on others did. Not morally offended, but it seemed beyond the limits of what a human could endure and remain ambulatory.

Elizabeth Moss as Peggy Olson

A character who frequently made rude remarks was Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser). He was a perfectly hatable person who proved that you can be something of a dimwit and still succeed in the business world. The proper connections, the right background and particular kind of glibness can offset being a total jerk. He was a tough watch for me, but like so much of the show, an interesting one.

I much preferred Roger Sterling (John Slattery). He was a right bastard but a charming and witty one. He was a man who didn’t know what he wanted but had a lot of fun looking for it. His LSD trip episode was particularly enjoyable. Sterling represented a certain archetype. The man from money and the right school who comes to be defined by his money, power and hedonism. I think he admired, even loved Don Draper, but everyone else was window dressing — unless they were available young women.

There are many other characters that much more could be said about and therein lies one of the great strengths of the show. There were no stick figures. Everyone was fully drawn and fully believable to the point where they began to feel familiar.

One of the beauties of Mad Men was how it took it’s time. The pacing was always nearly perfect. Scenes were allowed to breath but they were never languid and always to a point. Writing and directing like that is a rare thing. In watching all ninety-two episodes I was rarely bored (a few story lines were less appealing than others). The were no wrong notes. Characters may have surprised you from time-to-time but they were always consistent with who they were.

It’s amazing that it took me over ten years from the end of the show’s run for me to start watching. I can’t explain it other than to say we often come to things when the time is right for us. It was my kind of show particularly because it was set in the Sixties a time I grew up in and have had an enduring fascination with.

We get heavy doses of sexism, homophobia and racism not to mention a dollop of classism. But we get the coincidental social and cultural changes of the time. People’s attitudes soften, hair grows longer, there is a begrudging acceptance of “others.” The period accuracy was particularly appealing to me.

How did I feel about the ending of the show? The same way I did about the beginning and most of the middle — spot on. They took some strange twists and turns to get there but wrapping it up with the iconic “Hilltop” Coke ad with the subtle suggestion that it was a Don Draper invention, hit the mark. Surely he went back to the ad game. He’d wandered, he’d wondered, he’d found a bit of himself, he’d experienced contentment and enlightenment. But for fulfillment, well that required him going back to work. Creative people have got to create. Otherwise, what else are they? I imagine it was a long time before he retired. I’d also guess that Peggy was working alongside him till he left and they still never slept together. After all, she’d finally found love and it had been right under her nose where only we in the audience could see it.

Where do I rank Mad Men among TV show?. You’ll soon find out. A future post will list my favorite TV dramas. Rest assured it will be near the top, which, considering some of the programs produced this century, is already high praise.

I’m damn glad I invested the time in Mad Men. (I’m also glad it’s over so I can catch up on other things like reading.) It was deeply satisfying to plunge into story so rich in ideas. Mad Men took itself seriously and invested in characters and authenticity and all the small things that make a show special (set designs, period detail, wardrobe, the use of just the right music). 

I’m glad I got to know Don Draper — well, as best as one can.

How the Hell Do You "Enjoy the Sunshine"?

I don’t eat cottage cheese and I don’t like it, so why would someone say to me: “enjoy your cottage cheese”? Okay, they probably wouldn’t. Yet people sometimes a person will tell me to “enjoy the sunshine.” Unlike enjoying cottage cheese I don’t even know what this means. Am I expected to go outside and feel the sun on my face and exclaim: “this is great!”? Am I supposed to go for a walk “in the sun”? If the latter does that mean I’m supposed to enjoy the look of the cloudless sky and the large yellow orb in the sky? What the hell?

Sunshine has it’s place in the world. A sunny day, particularly following a series of cloudy or rainy days can be most welcome. But by and large I don’t care for the sun beating down on me. If it’s in your face it can be damned annoying and obscure your vision. I hate the sun in my face. I especially dislike the sun if it’s hot, after all the sun is the source of that heat. No thanks.

Give me fog, rain or at least overcast. Keep the temperatures down in the low sixties at most. I’ve got coats, jacket, scarves t and sweatshirts, let me wear them. I hate coming home sweaty because it was hot outside. 

I make a point of letting people know my feelings about the sun and sunny days. They never seem to hear it. I’m still told to “enjoy the sunshine.” I still hear: “isn’t it beautiful out?” “What a nice day.” “What great weather.” Drives me nuts. It's like people don't want to listen to contrary opinions.

Making it worse people will cheer on the sun during a drought. I remember at work once someone mentioned we were finally going to get rain after months without a drop, this at a time when there were  fears of a drought. One co-worker responded with “oh no!” As if she'd just been told that a meteor was going to crash somewhere  in the area. Some people — check that, many people — seem to want it to be 75 degrees and sunny everyday. How terribly boring.

Give me variety. Mix in some rain with the sun, some sun with the rain. Bring in some clouds. Speaking of which, I’ll never understand people raving about cloudless days. If we’re going to have blue skies there’s nothing prettier than big white puffy clouds scattered about. No clouds is depressing, empty, like death. 

I’ve had people get annoyed with me because I bristle at sunny days and celebrate the rain. They can’t stand that I won’t get with the program and be like everyone else. Why do I have to be a spoilsport and have my own opinions?

A final word on this: often those warm (or hot), sunny days people extol are a product of global warming. We experienced that here a few weeks ago when there was a week of record-breaking heat. High temperature records were set virtually everyday. It was all down to — this accord to meteorologists — climate change. That makes it worse when people are essentially celebrating global warming. These are the same people who love a good drought too.

Enjoy the sunshine? Can’t do it. Just as I can’t enjoy cottage cheese.

Yours Truly the Teacher: An Imposter or Lucky?

I’ve been teaching for most of the last forty years and I still ask myself if I’m good teacher or an imposter. I wonder if I was “meant to be” a teacher or if I stumbled into it.

For the first part of my career I was a middle school history teacher although I did a lot of subbing before and after. I know for a fact that a lot of students loved me. I was an interesting and innovative teacher who did his level best to make history come alive and create connections in history with the world of today. I was dedicated, hard-working and on top of that a “fun” teacher with a rich sense of humor. It can be argued that I leaned too heavily into that humor and brought an element of silliness to the classroom. For a lot of students this was a welcome change from the drudgery they experienced in a lot of classrooms. 

I was meticulous about the tests I wrote and the projects I assigned. Then again I was a lazy grader often not giving students the feedback that they deserved. I met with students on a regular basis and tried to find ways to motivate the ones who needed it. They knew I cared.

My biggest flaw was that I handled discipline poorly. I was inconsistent, strict at times, loosey goosey at others. Adolescents need consistency. I was also impatient and at times temperamental. Side effects to medications I was on for panic and depression sometimes made matters worse. It was an odd profession for me considering I suffer fools badly. Still most students and parents were happy with me and I was showered with compliments at various times. 

My biggest problem was an inability to get along with administrators who for the most part disliked me. I was oppositional and questioned decisions and orders and rules. Far from being able to kiss ass I was a pain in that ass. This came back at me in waves. I was always being scrutinized and criticized by administrators. It didn’t help that most of them were incompetent. Certainly my relations with higher ups tainted my teaching career and drove me out of public schools. I could have handled it better. 

I safely landed in the world of teaching in English language centers like EF, LSI and Kaplan (I’m still at Kaplan). Here the results have been decidedly better. After stumbling through my first year or so I’ve been universally loved by students and administrators. Nonetheless I still, at times, feel like an imposter. I’ve never strictly followed the curriculum at any school. I give short shrift to certain grammar topics such as the passive voice and reported speech preferring to focus on what I consider more important topics such as writing correctly. 

So I’ve never been a by-the-book teacher but I get results and plaudits. I also love what I’m doing. I variously loved and hated being a public school teacher but there’s little not to like about teaching English to eager learners from all over the world (I’ve had students from over sixty different countries). I spend one helluva lot of time either alone or just with my wife. I’m not a social butterfly. But I like people and in my job I get to interact with them daily. I’ve had a few jerks, a few who are lazy a few but for the most part they’re darlings and we have fun. 

Sometimes life doesn’t take us where we want to go but we end up where we need to be all the same. I don’t suppose I am an imposter. More accurately I’ve been incredibly lucky.

My Favorite History Books and Biographies

Maybe the best of the best

Hoping that it will prove beneficial to someone out there  I have here compiled here my favorite history books and biographies. I’ve been reading such fare pretty much since I got out of the cradle. I'm a life long student of history. Where appropriate I’ve grouped together books that are by the same author -- as you’ll see in the first eight paragraphs. I’ve not written complete reviews of the books as there’s enough here to wade through as it is. I’ve also not linked the books — at least not yet — because frankly that's pretty time-consuming. If you’re interested in anything here (and I hope you are) it’s simple enough to find them and more detailed reviews as well. Hopefully this will nudge some people towards a book or two that they’ll find as edifying as I did. I’m admitting right up front: There are omissions. I scoured my bookshelves for titles but some books I no longer have and have slipped my mind. I’m sure within minutes of posting this I’ll kick myself for excluding something but there are over fifty titles here. So again I hope this inspires  you, dear reader, to read one of these wonderful books.

Adam Hochschild is my favorite history author. I’ve had the privilege of seeing him give book talks three times. He’s written three books that I consider masterpieces of historical writing: To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918;  American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis; and Spain In Our Hearts: Americans in the Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. I’ve also very much enjoyed three other books of his: King Leopold’s Ghost; Bury the Chains; and Rebel Cinderella. Simply put he’s a serious scholar who can write like a novelist. While he generally takes on sobering topics he presents them with a writer’s flair and gives readers hope and inspiration often based on a hero or two who emerge in the telling.

Robert Caro is for me the grand master of biography. The first four volumes of his projected five-volume bio of Lyndon Johnson are unparalleled. Master of the Senate was for me particularly impressive. Caro actually moved to where Johnson grew up in West Texas to better write about him. For the final installment he lived for a time in Vietnam because of course that’s the country that Johnson sent so many American bombs to. He grills interview subjects getting the minutest details to better understand the big picture. I also revere his book Working, something of a writer’s autobiography. I’ve tackled the massive Powerbroker and been enthralled but needed a break from it. I’ll be back.

Over the course of four books Rick Perlstein detailed the rise of the modern conservative movement. Those four were all brilliant books: Before the Storm: Barry Goldwater and the Unmaking of the American Consensus, Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America; The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan and Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980. Comprehensive, balanced  and surprisingly entertaining. Taken together they’ve helped me better understand the political landscape of the last sixty years and what we are facing today.

Erik Larson writes popular history that reads like great fiction. My favorites of his books are The Splendid and the Vile: A Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance During the Blitz; Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania; and In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. I look forward to reading each again.

Jeff Guinn has written two of the best contemporary history books I’ve ever read and on two topics of enduring fascination. Manson: The Life and Times of Charles Manson and The Road to Jonestown: Jim Jones and Peoples Temple. These are books that bring back to life two compelling if repellent individuals whose actions shocked the world. 

Richard Evans wrote the Third Reich Trilogy: The Coming of the Third Reich; The Third Reich in Power; and The Third Reich at War. Between them they are pretty much everything you ever wanted to know about Hitler’s regime. Page-turning history.

Two great books from Isabel Wilkerson: The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration and Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents.  In The Warmth of Other Suns, Isabel Wilkerson chronicles the Great Migration through the lived experiences of Black Americans who fled the Jim Crow South in search of freedom and opportunity, revealing both the hope and hardship of that journey. In Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, she broadens the lens, arguing that the United States is shaped by an unspoken caste system that underlies racial inequality, drawing parallels with India and Nazi Germany. Together, the books are eye-opening looks at the Black experience in the U.S. and I wish more people would read them.

Doris Kearns Goodwin is another popular historian. Her book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Home Front in World War II won the Pulitzer Prize and is one of my favorite all-time books. She is also the author of Team of Rivals and Bully Pulpit both of which I enjoyed immensely. 

Barbara Tuchman Guns of August. It’s been awhile since I last read it. This is the book that helped me fall in love with reading history.

FDR by HW Brands. I’ve read many a book on Franklin Roosevelt but this the best one which is saying something given the quality of many of the bios about Roosevelt. 

King: A Life by Richard Eig. Not hagiography but an honest look at the great Civil Rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Will be the definitive book on King for years to come.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X and Roots by Alex Haley. The former is the amazing story of a former gangster who rose to become one of the most important and influential figures of the 20th century. The latter is one man’s story of where he came from.

Subversives: The FBI's War on Student Radicals, and Reagan's Rise to Power by Seth Rosenfield. uncovers how the FBI, under J. Edgar Hoover, secretly surveilled and sought to undermine the Free Speech Movement at the University of California Berkeley, while also tracing how these conflicts helped shape the political rise of the odious Ronald Reagan. It reveals a hidden history of government overreach and political maneuvering that influenced campus activism and, to an extent, national politics.

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. After seeing the film of the same name I walked out of the theater into a bookstore and bought this, one of the best biographies I’ve ever read. It’s a great companion to the film and vice verse.

All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery by Henry Mayer. I had the privilege of knowing Henry at the time this excellent biography came out so I got to talk to him about it -- a real honor. Garrison was an amazing man and this book does him justice.

Red Comet: The Short Life and Blazing Art of Sylvia Plath by Heather Clark. The best author biography I’ve ever read. The word thorough doesn’t even begin to define this marvelous book. All the details are worth pouring through.

Watergate: A New History by Garrett Graff. I’ve read umpteen books on Watergate and this is the definitive and most comprehensive account. If you want to understand Watergate from a to zed, here’s your book.

All The President’s Men by Woodward and Bernstein. Like the movie it inspired their Washington Post reports to this real time history  is a seminal work in it’s field. Admittedly this is not technically history being written as events unfolded but it certainly serves as it now

American Heiress: The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes and Trial of Patty Hearst by Jeffrey Toobin. The story of Patty Hearst, her kidnapping, her abrupt conversion into a revolutionary, her time on the run, her arrest, trial and use of white privilege to avoid jail time have always fascinated me. For years I yearned for a book like this and what a delight when it came out and was as good as the subject necessitated. Amazing stuff, superbly written and illuminating.

Muse of Fire: World War I as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier Poets by Michael Korda traces the lives of British and American soldier-poets—like Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon—to show how World War I shattered romantic ideals of war and gave rise to a new, starkly honest poetry shaped by trauma, disillusionment, and firsthand experience. I loved this book. It was heart-breaking and illuminating and even inspiring. 

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot. I’ve bought this book four times. Once for me and three times as gifts. This is a kaleidoscopic look at San Francisco from the Summer of Love through the AIDS crisis. It encompasses such ionic figures as Harvey Milk, Janis Joplin, Jim Jones, Bill Walsh, Dianne Feinstein and the Zodiac killer. Fascinating times and this is the book that best sums them up.

Grant by Ron Chernow. Chernow has cranked out a half dozen or so popular biographies including ones on Alexander Hamilton (the inspiration of a noted musical) and George Washington. His book on Grant was the one I found most engaging and revelatory. I knew Grant rose from the ranks to be a great general and was subsequently a poor president but Chernow’s book filled in a lot of blanks and gave me a greater appreciation for Grant and the understanding that he wasn’t such a bad prez after all.

Trouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow by Leon Litwack. Not an easy read as it details some of the lynching that were — tragically — part of the Black experience in the South for nearly a hundred years. I found it indispensable when I was a teacher. Scholarly yet written with compassion.

The Wounded Generation: Coming Home After World War II by David Nasaw. I only recently finished this excellent book that centers around the effects the “Good War” had on Americans, particularly of course, those who served. The war reverberated throughout the country for years after and as we see, PTSD is not a recent phenomenon.

Kent State: An American Tragedy by Brian Vandermark. Another book I only recently finished it is a granular but readable look at the murder of four students in May 1970, an event that to some marked the end of the Sixties.