No Strings Attached – ENews

Published in 1979, The Habit of Being begins where O’Connor’s writing career began (she was in her early twenties at the time); it ends with a brief letter to a friend written just days before the author died at the age of thirty-nine.

Published in 1903, the short novel concerns the captain and crew of a steamship traveling through the China Sea when a typhoon strikes. The narrative’s focus is on the awesome and terrifying force of this storm, and the manner in which the characters deal with it.

The Japanese title of this 1990 novel is Tenjo no Ao, which means “heavenly blue.” The American translator, Edward Putzar, opted for No Reason for Murder—which sounds like a hardboiled detective novel. Not that I’m complaining; after all, it’s the English title that initially caught my attention. I doubt that I would have given a second glance at a book called Heavenly Blue. Plus, the author herself did not object (per the translator).

Thankfully Tender Mercies received the recognition it deserved. The writer, Horton Foote, won the Academy Award that year for best original screenplay (and Duvall won for best actor). 

Fleming’s book itself, which was published in 2009, is an admirable work. He handles the subject matter with keen wit, intelligence, and moral common sense. Few histories provide a more fascinating description of the main antagonisms of the Cold War.