The Critic: A Tasty Past Vintage

 

The Critic (2007)

By Peter May

Riverrun Books, 388 pages

★★★★

 

 

 

Here’s another gem from the League of Women Voters Book Sale. Scottish mystery writer Peter May is probably best known for The Lewis Trilogy, but his best known investigator is the half-Italian/half-Scottish (Lor)Enzo Alexander Macleod. The Critic was just May’s second what would eventually be a seven-book Enzo series. Each can stand alone, so sequential reading is not necessary.

 

In it I saw both May’s early promise and how he quickly evolved. The Critic is set in southern France where Enzo seeks to reopen a cold case involving the disappearance of Gil Perry after a recent book poses the possibility of foul play. Perry was a wine critic so influential that his ratings could make or break a vineyard. He was last seen in the Occitan/Languedoc region of southern France.

 

Local gendarme Daniel Roussel thinks that’s rubbish and holds a typical distrust of outsiders. Small wonder in Macleod’s case. He’s in his 50s, divorced, semi-estranged from his children, sports a ponytail, and hasn’t exactly been hitting the gym. What could a man such as he know about wine or reviving a cold case. Quite a bit actually; Macleod speaks fluent French and knows his wines. More to the point, he knows even more about forensics, which he teaches at the University of Toulouse, though locals distrust that sort of thing even more than foreigners.

 

The nearby towns of Albi and Cahors were once the center of the Albigensian heresy of the 13^th century, but you’d not guess that given how tradition-bound it became, especially in its chauvinistic attitudes about wine. Laurent de Bonneval, for instance, is a key leader in l’Ordre de la Dive Bouteille. He’s so devoted to natural wines that he can hardly mention American vintages without spitting because he believes they contain synthetic yeast. You can imagine what he and other farmers think of Enzo, who rents a farm gîte (furnished unit) under the easily blown cover that he’s there for wine and rest. When the owners find out his real agenda, they want him gone though they need the extra income more than they dislike Enzo and the way he rearranged a farm wall.

 

Enzo certainly isn’t getting in a lot of relaxation, but he does his best to consume numerous local bottles. Enzo cast smore suspicion when Nicole Lefeuille, one of his students, shows up to assist, locals jump to conclusions when they notice her large breasts and youth. Yes, this really is a conservative part of France! Actually, Nicole is more interested in Fabien Marre, one of Enzo’s top suspects, and has no problem telling Enzo her extracurriculars fall into the MYOB category. He fears she’s in grave danger, but one of the intriguing things about Macleod is how often he gets things wrong.

 

Besides, his own complicated affairs of the heart don’t provide much moral high ground. When his daughters appear, he takes an instant dislike to Kirsty’s boyfriend Roger. Okay, Roger did once sleep with Enzo’s on again/off again girlfriend Charlotte, so that’s creepy. Still,  Kirsty isn’t about to submit to lectures from a papa who’s not above putting the moves on a married female judge. Macleod has reservations about daughter Sophie’s boyfriend as well; Bertrand looks like a Mohawked punk rocker, but it turns out he is a wine supertaster. Many are the egoists who think they can tell vintages, types of grapes, the soils in which they were grown, distinct smells, and the “notes” of wines (pear, vanilla, stone, old leather, etc.), but only a very small number of supertasters can actually do so. The missing Gil Perry was another. 

 

What’s a mystery without a few pickled bodies? Ancient hatreds, jealousy, fear, tragedy, coded ratings, and forensics all come into play before Enzo muddles his way to the bottom (in more ways than one) of the situation. The Critic has a few misfires, such as what’s-under-the-kilt jokes that were shopworn even in 2007, clichéd beat-the-clock escapes, and a maudlin backstory involving a dog, but it’s a book you’ll find yourself plowing through in a few sittings because of May’s facility in building suspense. It would be apt if you felt compelled to have a glass of wine or two while reading. No California plonk, though.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: The book contained a phrase from Rabelais that I love: “I have nothing. I owe a great deal, and the rest I leave to the poor.”  

World's End: A T.C. Boyle Classic

World’s End (1987)

By T. C. Boyle

Penguin, 456 pages.

★★★★

 

 

 

I enjoy going to League of Women Voters book sales: 50 cents-$1 for paperbacks and two bucks for a hardcover. At a recent sale in Amherst I scored a few titles from favorite authors and works of others I’ve been meaning to read.

 

One of the latter is T.C. Boyle whose World's End was a PEN/Faulkner winner. The back blurb promises, “Walter Van Brunt is about to have a collision with history.” And how!  World's End is a sprawling novel that starts in the 17th century and wends its way through the 1960s, all with an eye toward helping Walter uncover his father's role during the “Peterskill” riots of 1949 (Peekskill thinly disguised) Local thugs, American Legion toughs, the KKK, and coopted cops broke up a licensed concert sponsored by then-legal American communists. Had not luck prevailed, more than bloody noses and broken bones would have occurred. One of the mob’s objectives was to lynch African American singer Paul Robeson.

 

It seems a stretch to locate the roots of 20^th century history in 1663, but Boyle is a weaver of connections who wants us to consider what things are bred in the bone. Most of the book is set in New York's Hudson River Valley, but it also detours to the Netherlands and Alaska, involves Native-American tribes, social class conflict, racism, feuding families, and missing limbs. (Yep, missing limbs!)

 

Boyle included a cast of characters for each of the time periods, which you’ll need as 61 play important roles. Unless you grew up in New York State, you might not know it was a Dutch colony for 30 years before the English took control. Dutch influence is why some of New York’s most powerful families bear surnames such Van Buren, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, and Roosevelt.

 

Most of the novel’s Dutch protagonists are of lesser fame –though Peter Stuyvesant of Manhattan island notoriety gets some play–but they were part of a drama pitting highborn against lowborn. Walter's kin were among the latter, tenant farmers and pioneers who intermarried with Kitchawank (Algonquin) natives, and paid the price if they crossed Van Wart patroons, Dutch office holders, or their allies.

 

You can get bogged down in the names and unfamiliar political dynamics, but Boyle delivers a history lesson that is left out of most textbooks. This is especially case of the Kitchawank, many of whom were mixed bloods of shifting loyalties but increasingly Europeanized lifestyles. Not that that's saying much, as lowborn Dutch lived both close to nature and close to the vest. To simplify, clashes between the Van Warts and the Van Brunts shaped Walter’s life two centuries before he was born. Not that Walter is a prince in the 1960s or even a decent person. It's also the case that the Van Warts are not as mighty as they once were, yet still considered themselves to be. Bred in the bone?

 

Doyle's book is an American tragedy, so not too many characters wear untarnished armor. His countercultural males are largely unwashed, unrealistic, and sexist to the core. The exception is that Boyle has sympathy for the crew of the Arcadia trying to clean up the polluted Hudson. (He is so obviously alluding to the sloop Clearwater and Pete Seeger that one wonders why he bothered with such disguises.) The crew might be the only folks in the book with altruistic motives, no matter what detractors thought of their politics.

 

Walter and others will indeed collide with history.  Such crashes take a toll even if the parties survive (and not all will.) Walter's dilemma, like that of his ancestor Wouter, is an old one that resonates today: Do we repeat history or change it? Do we take a stand or bend the knee? It was happenstance that the Peekskill riots factored into World's End, but I certainly drew comparisons to the January 6th rioters who chose base motives over democratic ones.

 

Boyle’s book was written 36 years ago when the general public's reading habits were more sophisticated and patient than they are today. As such, Boyle saw no need to compromise between literary style and storytelling. It takes time to sort characters, untangle the historical threads, and immerse yourself in the narrative, but it's worth it.

 

Rob Weir

 

Note: The cover is adorned with a wooden shoe, a nod to the Dutch, but also a sly reference to sabots from whence we get the word sabotage. In the early 1800s artisans threatened with job loss hurled sabots into machines.

 

All Quiet on the Western Front Deromanticizes War

 

 

All Quiet on the Western Front (2022)

Directed by Edward Berger

Netflix, 147 minutes, R (violence, gore, disturbing images)

In German (Subtitles but some versions dubbed)

★★★★★

 

I read All Quiet on the Western Front when I was in high school. It, the Vietnam War, and the Quakers turned me into a pacifist. Later I saw both the 1930 and 1979 film versions of Erich Maria Remarque’s classic  novel, but the 2022 remake tops them all. The novel and the various films are the most powerful antiwar statements ever produced. The latest film, directed by Edward Berger, won all manner of prizes, including four Oscars.

 

Some ducked it because it is so gruesome. To such people I say that it drives home the absolute obscenity of war and moves us beyond the hero dreams of military recruiters, braggadocio generals, and pandering politicians. If you don’t like what you see on the screen, watch how you vote and don’t let your children become soldiers. Every element you see on the screen is a logical outcome of war and each justification for combat is hollow.

 

Seventeen-year-old Paul Bäumer (Felix Kammerer) is the protagonist of All Quiet on the Western Front, one of millions of lambs sent to the slaughter who fell for the patriotic claptrap of the German high command during the waning days of World War I. He is a fresh-faced postal delivery boy lured into uniform along with three of his best friends.  The lie is on from the outset, old uniforms boiled to remove the blood, sewn to close the bullet holes, and (most of) the tags removed that identified the deceased former wearers. It’s 1917 and trench warfare has stalemated to the point where waves of young men charge across bomb-pocked landscapes filled with barbed wire, dead horses, corpses, and water-and-blood filled craters. The insanity of youths being machine-gunned, blown apart, bayoneted, set afire, and gassed to secure a few hundred meters of land is on full display. So too is life inside the trenches: sucking mud, excrement, sniper fire, flares, bunker-blasting bombs, and the grim task of collecting dog tags from the dead when there’s a lull in the fighting.

 

There are hundreds of ways to die. Albert Kropp is roasted by a flamethrower and Tjaden Stackfleet stabs himself in the throat with a fork rather than endure amputation (and, in all likelihood, sepsis). Paul will loses his comrades but befriends “Kat” Katczinsky (Albrecht Schuch), an older soldier who becomes a big brother of sorts. As you might predict, graveyard humor, dreams of women, and talk of a postwar future that few will live to see dominate trench conversation. That is, when they are not too emotionally drained to speak. One of the ways that one tries to deal with the horror is to become a stoic killing machine that can shoot another human being at pointblank range, smash a skull with a rock, or repeatedly stab someone, move on to the next victim, and avoid becoming one yourself. When you find a room of 60 dead new recruits who died because they prematurely removed their gas mask, you but shrug.

 

The ultimate craziness, as Paul and Kat survive into 1918, is that German politicians know the war has been lost­–U.S. entry into the conflict tipped the scales–but try convincing the Kaiser of that or fanatics such as General Friedrichs (Daniel Striesow). The German state secretary Matthias Erzberger (Daniel Brühl) is trying his best to end the war, but he’s getting no cooperation from French General Fuchs (Thibault de Montalembert) on ending the carnage. Fuchs has the winning hand and knows it; he gives the Germans 72 hours to accept unconditional surrender involving major land concessions and won’t listen to pleas that a victor’s peace could lead to a future war. (Think fascism and World War II.)

 

The accord is signed and, as you might know, the war ended at 11 am on November 11: 11/11/11. Ahh, but what about that 72-hour period before the armistice took hold? Do you think a sanguinary monster such as Friedrichs will tell his troops to chill? He’s perfectly willing to send hundreds of young men to their graves if he can claim a “glorious” victory. Remember the line from Apocalypse Now: “The horror! The horror!”

 

All Quiet on the Western Front is brilliant filmmaking in the service of warning us against such horror: the cinematography of James Friend, the creepy soundtrack of Volker Bertelmann, the make-up artistry of Heike Merker, and Berger’s uncompromising don’t-look-away direction. Too much horror? Did you think war is pretty?

 

Rob Weir

The Spirit of the Beehive is a Spanish Masterpiece

 

The Spirit of the Beehive (1973)

Directed by Victor Erice

Bocaccio Distribution, 97 minutes, Not-rated

In Spanish with subtitles

★★★★★

 

 

 

It’s intriguing that authoritarian rulers think they can manipulate media to their advantage, especially in their waning days. Spanish director Victor Erice was a bit like the character Fernando (Fernando Fernán Gómez) in The Spirit of the Beehive, a semi-closeted critic of the regime of Francisco Franco. Erice’s film is now considered one of Spain’s finest and is included in the Criterion Collection of classic films. It debuted in 1973, two years before Franco died and his fascist-style Falangist movement collapsed with him. Before he expired, Franco tried to convince a skeptical global community that artistic freedom thrived in Spain, which is how Beehive got a global audience. I doubt this is what the generalissimo imagined.

 

It was Erice who was the more clever manipulator. First, he set The Spirit of the Beehive in 1940, the year of his own birth, but also when Franco’s troops vanquished the last Republican resistance. Erice filmed in the real-life village of Hoyuelos, a remote village in northern Spain in which the big excitement occurs when film reels are delivered and the local hall becomes an impromptu theater. In this case, it’s the James Whale-directed  1931 version of Frankenstein in which Boris Karloff was the Monster. In that one, the Monster plays with a young girl by the waterside before killing her. Was Erice suggesting Franco-stein? Probably! Why else make the Monster the centerpiece of a horror/drama film whose principal is six-year-old Ana (Ana Torrent)?

 

Ana and her older sister Isabel view Frankenstein and it had a profound effect on Ana’s vivid imagination. The sisters live in one of the few bourgeois homes in the village, though both Fernando and his wife Teresa must hide their sympathies for the defeated Nationalists. Theirs is the age-old strategy of keeping their heads down and only dragging out the crystal set late at night (probably to listen to the BBC). They also hide the photo albums, lest the wrong eyes observe shared comradery with the wrong people. You’d only know this from research, but one such photograph is of intellectual Miguel de Unamuro, a fierce Franco critic who died during house arrest. How did Erice get that past the censors? My only explanation is that the film was too enigmatic to reveal Erice’s intent.

 

The film makes brilliant use of psychological terror. Chekov’s gun is a time-tested dramatic device that introduces a prop that foreshadows its future use. Ahh, but what if you fill the screen with eerie music, flashback Monster images, a remote abandoned cottage, a deep well, school anatomy lessons, dark furniture, windows that blow open and slam shut, poisonous mushrooms, a cheerless painting of St. Jerome, a creaky house, and rumors of a ghostly spirit? Anybody who tried to bring all that to bear in a single denouement would produce a messterpiece, not a masterpiece. But thanks to Luis de Pablo’s atmospheric soundtrack and the carefully angled cinematography of Luis Cuadrado, the film’s real terror occurs in Ana’s point-of-view shots, her dreams, and in the minds of viewers. One tense moment involves Isabel and serves to warn you to watch carefully and assume nothing.

 

Another character is known simply as “fugitive,” an on-the-lam former Nationalist soldier whom Ana tries to help. Is he Ana’s Frankenstein? What do we make of Ana’s disappearance? There has to be a Monster of some sort, right? It would seem so, but who and where does it lurk? And what about the title? In part it references the honeycombed windows that frame some of the screen’s tension, and it’s also a smokescreen for Fernando’s misanthropy, but I suspect we are also invited to consider what resides in the folds and crevices of the human brain. Such probing certainly affected child actress Ana Torrent, who went on to become a well known star in Spain. She is on record with saying that she was figuratively and literally haunted by the movie. 

 

It's stunning to realize that The Spirit of the Beehive was Erice’s first feature. It should be noted that it is so slowly paced that in its day, some audiences booed. Does it drag? Maybe, but it also has the effect of prolonging viewer anxiousness and apprehension. Like young Ana, I have been haunted since I saw it.

 

Rob Weir

The Good House: Strong Leads but Inconsistent

The Good House (2021 )

Directed by Maya Forbes and Wally Wolodarsky

Roadside Attractions, 114 minutes, R (language, brief sexuality)

★★★

 

 

Hildy Good (Sigourney Weaver) is a Type-A personality  who was once the best realtor in Wendover, Massachusetts. Courtesy of an acrimonious divorce and alcohol rehab, she has slipped to C- on the personality charts and is now the number two realtor because former protege Wendy Heatherton (Catherine Erbe) stole many of Hildy’s clients when she was on the shelf. Hildy wants to get her mojo back, but like many recovering alcoholics, thinks she can control herself, which is nearly always a recipe for failure.

 

Wendover is a moderately sized town prone to gossip. The local scuttlebutt holds that Hildy has more of a problem than she thinks. In a creative attempt to rebuild her practice, Hildy aids a young couple with an autistic son sell their home. It needs repairs and upgrades they can't afford, so Hildy contracts jack-of-many-trades Frank Getchell (Kevin Kline). He has always carried a torch for Hildy and has hopes for the future, but from her standpoint the best thing about Frank is that he works cheaply.

 

Hildy begins to think big and aims to secure a big development deal with the Santorelli brothers. She has also befriended Rebecca McAllister (Marina Baccarin), who is new in town and learns that she’s having an affair with Peter Newbold (Rob Delaney), a psychologist whom she has known for many years. This means Peter might be leaving his wife and selling his home. Peter infers that if he does, he will use Hildy as his agent. When she finds out he's actually listing his house with Wendy, Hildy hits the roof. Can Hildy stay in control, or is she too deep into her cups and too far down the path of self-deception? It’s not hard to spiral downward when she and Rebecca began to share bottles of wine.

 

From there it’s just a short slide to solo chugging several bottles a night and hallucinating. About the only thing that is working in Hildy’s life is that she has begun a romance with Frank. Alas, she thinks it’s just a fling and fails to appreciate what a thoughtful man he is. Frank bails her out of a few potentially embarrassing situations, though he learns the hard way that it’s very difficult to help someone to whom you are close. Eventually even he grows disgusted with some of her behavior and he won’t be the only one betrayed.

 

As a film about alcoholism, The Good House is neither bad nor all that great. Weaver,  however, is perfect for the role of Hildy Good. She is now a mature actress who looks great for being in her 70s but, when necessary, dons her fading rose face. Did she also channel some things that touched her personally? I don’t know about that, but Weaver certainly embodied verisimilitude. As they age, many people have difficulty adjusting to the fact that they can’t sustain a high-powered life. It’s doubly tragic if they lack the grace to accept a simpler one. You should sympathize; American society often makes it difficult for them to find new niches, which is a major reason why depression and substance abuse are common among older adults. Weaver reminds us of such things.

 

Kevin Klein is equally well cast. He was once known for his boyish charm and good looks. Kudos for making a nice transition into the role of Frank, a  crusty New Englander more at home covered in sawdust or splattered with paint than sitting around a formal dinner table. Unlike Hildy, Frank is comfortable with who he is. And why not? Beneath Frank’s roughhewn working-class exterior lies an essential decency.

 

As such movies go, several crises  push Hildy to confront reality and shuttle viewers toward a happy ending. In other words, The Good House is ultimately a bit of a fairy tale. I'm sure it happens on occasion that a single shock induces sobriety, but it’s usually a messier and longer process. In some respects, Hildy’s fall from her initial sobriety is more realistic then her sudden return to the dry wagon.

 

To reiterate, The Good House a good movie, just not an outstanding one. To make an analogy, the film’s Wendover is not really a Massachusetts coastal town. The location is actually in Nova Scotia. That's a Hollywood movie in a nutshell, illusion masquerading as goes-down-easy truth.

 

Rob Weir

 

Scapegoats, Hype, and Prospects: Boston Red Sox

Could be the Red Sox Management Team

I am a Yankees fan, but I think the Red Sox will have a faster turnaround, as they are less constrained by payroll.

 

Let’s start with this. The person who gets fired isn’t always the problem. General Manager Chaim Bloom took the fall for several miserable seasons, but he did what he was hired to do: cut payroll. In baseball, you often get what you pay for and Boston has been unwise in its spending habits. The payroll is $205 million but that’s only because they have so much deferred money on the books. (They’re still paying Manny Ramirez and Dustin Pedroia, among others.) Bloom wielded the scalpel per ownership orders. Did he help the farm system? I’ll get to that.

 

Pitching is the number one priority and it would be wise to stop pining hopes on older pitchers with a history of injuries. Like Cory Kluber and James Paxton for instance. If they can find a buyer for Chris Sale, they’d be wise to sell. Richard Bleir, Mauricio Llovera, and Kaleb Ort are also expendable. Insofar as the lineup goes, they need to admit that Trevor Story was an expensive mistake and move on. They got what they could out of Rob Refsnyder, but he’ll never be an everyday player. The infield needs to be rebuilt and the catching corps looks better on paper than it is.

 

I often think the Red Sox don’t have pitching smarts. They tried to move Nick Pivetta, but he’s one of their most reliable hurlers. They also need to end the Garrett Whitlock as starter experiment and put him back in the bullpen where he’s outstanding. Build around Brayan Bello, one of their best pitching prospects in some time. I’m less convinced by Kutter Crawford, but it’s early days. Any way you slice it, though, Boston will need a frontline pitcher or two to compete in 2024. If ownership foolishly pots for a win-now mindset, that would mean moving someone they’d rather not.

 

Unlike the Yankees, the Red Sox can hit. That is, if they make smart decisions. They think Justin Turner is too old, but he sure is raking now. They’d also like to move on from Adam Duvall, but he too is productive. (They should have never traded Hunter Renfroe.) More baffling still, they have buyer’s regret over Masataka Yoshida. Please, please send him to New York! Alex Verdugo is allegedly difficult, but the man can hit as long as you don’t think he’s going to put 30 homers over the wall. The future core, though, is Rafael Devers, Tristan Casas, and (they hope!) Jarren Duran and Ceddanne Rafaela.  Duran should be alright, but it’s hard to say about Rafaela.

 

Boston’s long-term future rests on the yield of the farm system. How good is it? There’s the rub; as I’ve noted elsewhere, the Red Sox are MLB leaders in hyping prospects. I’ll rank them the same way I did the Yankees: R for Real Deal; S for Suspect, and P for it will take a Prayer. Again, though, the Hype Machine makes all of this speculative.

 

·      Bobby Dalbec: R but not in a Red Sox uniform. He strikes out a lot, but he’s versatile and has power. Needs a change of scenery.

·      Marcelo Mayer: R Perhaps the shortstop of the future, though scouts think he’ll end up at second or third.

·      Nick Yorke: R He could be the one to make Sox fans forget about Pedroia.

·      Roman Anthony: S He could make Yoshida redundant, but he’s raw at present.

·      Ceddanne Rafaela: S The Sox love him, but scouts don’t. He hasn’t shown much power thus far.

·      Tanner Houck: S A prime example of hype. He was supposed to be an ace, but it looks like he’ll be a mop up pitcher.

·      Joe Jacques: S Looks promising, but the sample is miniscule. The same can be said of Josh Winckowski and Zack Kelly. I’d pick Winckowski as the best of the trio.

·      Kyle Ort: P Lots of noise around him, but most of it is from balls exploding from bats.

·      Kyle Barraclough: P Unless he’s a late bloomer, he’s a bummer.

·      Kyle Teel: P The Sox need a catcher, but this kid is no Carlton Fisk. He allegedly has power, but he hasn’t shown much. If he’s a defense-first catcher, there’s no room for him on the roster.

 

Lots of the hope is at lower levels of the minors. That places players such as Wilyes Abreu, Blaze Jordan, Louis Perales, and a half dozen others in the show-me category.

 

Minor leaguers are often at their most valuable as trade pieces. It’s imperative that Boston gets a new general manager in place soon. Young players often play winter ball and hope to attract notice. The downside is that just as often their flaws are exposed and trade value goes down. Houck and Ort are examples of that. What could you get for the pair of them? A new GM needs to develop a 3-year plan and not be afraid he or she is trading a future Mookie Betts.

 

Rob Weir  

 

 

My Medieval Summer Part Three: Hammond Castle

 

Hammond Castle

Gloucester, Massachusetts

 

  

Without conscious intention on my part, this summer involved a nostalgic trip to the past. My MA is in medieval history, but I abandoned that quest nearly 40 years and instead pursued a Ph.D. in U.S. history. Truth be told, though, I’ve always had a soft spot for medieval studies. In June, I visited Musée de Cluny and Ste. Chapelle in Paris and a few days later, ventured to the magnificent 13^th century ChartresCathedral. 

 

 

In September I continued my trip in the Wayback Machine (WABAC in the old Mr. Peabody cartoons) in an unlikely medieval site: Gloucester, Massachusetts. That’s where John Hays Hammond  Jr. (1888-1965) erected Hammond Castle in the 1920s.

 

 

As such things go, it began with a rich person and obsession. Hamond came from wealth and as he traveled around Europe, he collected a few things that were more grandiloquent that the tea towels, scarves, bric-a-brac, and chocolates most of us acquire in Europe. His goal was nothing less than to recreate a castle and cathedral in Gloucester based on Chartres. 

 

 

That didn't quite happen. First of all, Chartres was never a castle. Secondly, Hammond Castle is a classic mishmash: part Gothic cathedral, part medieval castle, and part French Renaissance chateaux. It houses things Hamond bought in his journeys, plus lots of stuff–like an entire shop and home–that he had shipped over. Nor did his towers and Great Hall reach the 121-foor height of Chartres, but his 81-footer is pretty impressive.

 

 

Hammond added to his collections as his wealth increased. Among other things, he was an inventor whose work in radio waves and unmanned flight pioneered in remote control devices and presaged drones. He studied with Alexander Graham Bell, idolized Thomas Edison, did a lot of work for the defense department, and was on the board of directors of RCA. 

 

 

 

The Gloucester of his days was a thoroughly blue-collar (and often gritty) fishing port. I doubt that he hobnobbed much with the locals, as he was also a bit of a bohemian. He married a female artist but was bisexual, which would not have set well with locals back then. Not that they knew; Hamond's friends and social set led lives walled off from the hoi polloi. 

 

 

Another way Hammond made money was through building concert organs. If you’re thinking, “Oh cool, Hammond organs!” don’t make the same mistake that I did. These are not the instruments used by rock n’ roll and studio musicians. His were used in much more formal settings and were more akin to what you see in cathedrals and symphony halls. He filled the wall cavities with (literally) thousands of organ pipes. What are the odds that two unrelated individuals named Hammond built organs? One hundred percent in this case! 

 

 

The photos (best viewed in full-size mode) show that Hammond Castle is an eclectic place. It’s simply a matter that John Hammond Jr.. collected bigger things than most of us and had a lot more money at his disposal. It would drive a purist crazy, but the best way to approach is to enjoy each detail in its own right and not try to imagine how it would have looked in any particular time period. It displays objects from ancient Rome through the Renaissance and that, my friends, is a whopping span of about 1,800 years!  --Rob Weir