I enjoy reading murder mysteries and psychological thrillers. I consume multiple books each month on my Kindle and consider the service a bargain as I always fall asleep with a book open on my chest. As I have gotten older, there are opportunities to read during the wee hours of the morning – a book is more dependable than melatonin and leaves far less after effect than sleeping pills or potions. I do occasionally read and enjoy other genres but I always return to search for a great novel and novelist. This week I was advised to read the new Louise Penny novel, “All the Devils are Here.” Penny has earned numerous awards for the Armand Gamache series. Gamache lives in a small fictional village called Three Pines near Montreal while serving as the Chief Inspector of the Surete du Quebec. Gamache is a very complex personality and often finds himself confronting his own ghosts as he pursues the criminals. There are 16 books in the series to date and it is not critical but recommended you start from the first. Penny is a fine writer and story teller and her books will take your mind off the many issues of the day.
The newest novel is set in Paris where Gamache spent his early life and where his two children now live with their families. While there to celebrate and support his daughter through the delivery of her second child, his Godfather’s project pulls the entire family into a dangerous and well developed intrigue. Engineering is a portion of the plot line and in several discussions a “funicular” is discussed. I was curious and now learn that a funicular is a transportation system that uses cable-driven cars to connect points along a steep incline. Two counterbalanced passenger cars are attached to opposite ends of the same cable. Very clever that such a contraption can carry people and goods up and down a steep slope with little outside power. An early version added water at the top of the slope to the car while releasing water at the base. In 1880, the Mt Vesuvius funicular began carrying people to the top of the volcano and through multiple eruptions stayed in service until l944. In l880 the opening was celebrated with the song, “Funiculi, Finicula”. I encourage you to listen to the Pavorotti version. The song tells the story of a young man, who compares his sweetheart to a volcano and invites her to join him on a romantic trip up to the summit. The song is timeless and the funicular gave rise to later improvements in cable cars with the first in the United States up Telegraph hill in San Francisco.
I hope you have already determined that reading is fundamental to our health. I know what I am reading is mostly fictional, scary to think some in our country think the craziness we hear from our Fearless Leader is not fictional intrigue and deception.
Follow the facts and the evidence. Please invest in the future of our democracy and vote for humility, integrity, selfless service, unity, equal rights, and compassion.
Mike