DUST STORM

A Grave in Gaza by Matt Beynon Rees (Soho Press, 352 pages, hardcover $24.00, 978-1-56947-472-3)

Omar Yussef, principal of a school in Bethlehem, hasn’t been to Gaza since he “had nice curly hair and…could carry an overnight case without breaking into a sweat.” He arrives with a Swede, Magnus Wallender, and meets a Scot, James Cree at the border. Both of them work for the UN While Yussef’s visit is to inspect UN schools, it takes all of five pages to sidetrack him into a rescue mission. The very dangerous rescue mission of a teacher taken into custody after discovering the sale of university degrees to the members of one of the two dueling security (is that the word?) agencies. The next day, it starts to blow, and the murkiness of Gazan politics gets down and dirty as well.

This is the second in Rees’ series, and the writing is superb. As is the pacing. And as improbable as Yussef’s passion is to get to the bottom of things—to go where even angels, gangsters, and corruption fear to tread—he’s a character with humor, strength, and depth. I read this one on the way to New York and back and found, at the end, that I’d formed a great attachment to the brave, portly do-gooder. This is a series I’ll keep up with.

“DON’T BLOW BUBBLES OF DESPAIR.”

This book sits face up on a shelf in my office. Always a step ahead, New Directions published this new edition of Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Poetry as Insurgent Art as a hardcover, without a dust jacket. Smart. And fun. Hence the title. This book is full of wonders, wits, and wisdoms, like:

Poetry the shortest distance between two humans.

Great poets are the antennae of the race, with more than rabbit ears.

Oh my, and this:

Be a dark barker before the tents of existence.

Great for the purse, car, bathroom, or hanging by its ear from the Xmas tree. (978-0-8112-1719-4)

ALL THE REST IS NOISE

In Praise of Flattery by Willis Goth Regier (University of Nebraska, 23 illustrations, 232 pages, Softcover $21.95, 978-0-8032-3969-2)

This one’s been sitting in a pile for months. I just couldn’t get to it, and I couldn’t let it go either. Good thing, as I finally cracked it open a couple of days ago and spent a couple of hours laughing. I’m a sucker for this kind of stuff. Yes, in a way, it’s much like Ferlinghetti’s book above, but better, because there are notes and illustrations and quotations from Tacitus and La Rochefoucauld and Saint Simon and anon, etcetera. To La Fontaine, “Flatterers thrive on fool’s credulity.” Samuel Johnson said Dryden was the paragon of “meanness and servility of hyperbolic adulation.” Shakespeare called it “the monarch’s plague.” But instead of just throwing out aphorisms, Regier has numbered RULES. One hundred twenty-eight of them. Here’s one:

RULE 2: Praise must please.

If it does not please, it’s noise....

And another:

RULE 5: To stand out, flattery must fit in.

When flattery is misplaced it is fatal to a flatterer. A flatterer must be able to work a crowd or flatter a target in the midst of one. The audience needs to be taken into account, not just the persons flattered, and not only the present audience but possible future ones. “Holbien, according to legend, so flattered Anne of Cleves that Hery VIII married her on the strength of the likeness, with the result that as soon as the King saw the original the painter had to fly the country.” [Bowen]

Or,

RULE 13: Flattery is a science. [Colton]

Flattery needs to be carefully calibrated. It improves with education, it advances through close observation of cause and effect, and it is based on repeated experience. Among fine-tuned people, flattery requires almost atomic precision.

Last one.

RULE 27: Flattery adapts to all emotions.

Percy Shelley wrote that pity, admiration, and sympathy are “flattering emotions.” There are more. If you doubt yourself you flatter your intelligence. If you blame yourself you flatter your conscience. Love flatters lovers, fear flatters bullies. Apologies flatter. Twilights flatter. Flowers flatter. Oils and alcohol flatter. Words flatter better than anything else, except, on occasion, rapt silence (Rule 66)….

RULE 66: Silence flatters.

“Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise,” says the Proverb (17:28)….

See now, wasn’t that too much fun.