All reviews copyright 1984-2011 Evelyn C. Leeper.
THE WILD PARTY by Joseph Mancure March:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/15/2005]
Joseph Mancure March's THE WILD PARTY (ISBN 0-375-70643-7), illustrated by Art Spiegelman, is a re-issuing of what is described on the flap as a "lost classic", a "hard-boiled jazz- age tragedy told in syncopated rhyming couplets". Here's a sample of the style:
Christ,
What a crew!
Take a look at Madeline True;
Her eyes slanted. Her eyes were green;
Heavy-lidded; pouched: obscene.
Eyes like a snake's;
Like a stagnant pool filled with slime.
Her mouth was cruel;
A scar
In red,
That recently had opened and bled.
As you can see, the couplets are not always obvious to the eye, and the punctuation is idiosyncratic. The story itself has echoes of Frankie and Johnnie, and was made (with many changes) into a 1975 film (also titled THE WILD PARTY). In this re-issue, Art Spiegelman, best known for MAUS: A SURVIVOR'S TALE, provides wonderfully evocative woodcut illustrations for this story in verse that conveys both the exuberance and the desperation of the Jazz Age.
To order The Wild Party from amazon.com, click here.
SHINING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA by Stephen Marche:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/20/2008]
SHINING AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA by Stephen Marche (ISBN-13 978-1-594-48315-8, ISBN-10 1-594-48315-9) is arguably science fiction, though I know of no one who reviewed it as such. (The cataloguing data calls it "experimental fiction". It purports to be an anthology of Sanjanian fiction and other writings, with a preface that provides the historical, sociological, and literary background necessary to understand them. Sanjania is an island nation in the North Atlantic, and was formerly part of the British Empire. It is a very literary culture: "Sanjanians are perhaps the most literary people on earth. Bookstalls are as common as fruit stands, the theatres around Saint Magdalene's Square dwarf the City Hall, and on Sanjair flights the stewards push small carts of books down the aisle after the beverages and pretzels."
Later, it says of Saint Magdalene's Square, "Seemingly endless bookstalls fill the square's edge and spill into the side streets in every direction. Bargain hunters and literature lovers cram every nook and cranny from sunrise (more or less) to sundown (more or less)." (Sounds like Hay-on-Wye in Wales.)
The only real drawback to this literary Shangri-La is that it does not exist. Oh, well, you can't have everything.
The earliest pieces--in terms of the internal chronology--are the most interesting, since Mache constructs a separate dialect for that era: "In his eighteenth year, Marlyebone oxchopped and mangled the other wolfheads, Goodfriday Martins, Samuel Baker Deloney, Abraham Crisp and Lover Gromes, and claimed the overward. In his nineteenth year, the Crown pursued him. Crownagent Keagan Poulter took a bulletsmash in the face and could not be regaliated. Agent Will Champion's moniker fibbed everafter his failure. Robert Strunk sunk. In Marlyebone's twentieth year, his Scourge Sally Parkman, a Woman Crownagent, grabbed his pirate fleet, and yawled it against the waves of Portuguese Cove, ane Marlyebone scuppered overhill byland toward his homecove Restitution, flittering."
This dialect is characterized by many compound words, and I suppose Marche got tired of creating them, because after the first few pieces, they go away, alas.
To order Shining at the Bottom of the Sea from amazon.com, click here.
AMAZONIA by James Marcus:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/10/2004]
James Marcus's AMAZONIA (ISBN 1-56584-870-5) is the story of the author's five years (from 1996 to 2001) as an editor at amazon.com. It is okay to breeze through, but does not have any real surprises or revelations. People who have been following the dot.com phenomena in general will probably already know about amazon.com's various policies and acquisitions, and others won't learn much from this. For example, Marcus talks about the disastrous acquisition of pets.com, but doesn't explain *why* it was so bad compared to other apparently similar decisions that went well. There were interesting tidbits--the Millennium Poem, for one. And even though I knew the all about "Project Shift" and one of its unintended side-effects, it was interesting to see an even bigger picture. (Project Shift was the concept of removing shipping charges for all orders of two or more items. When this happened, "'The Book of Hope' began its meteoric ascent. This slender Biblical tract clearly had much to recommend it.... Most shoppers, however were attracted to its 99-cent price tag. Droves of them tossed it in the shopping cart a second, more expensive item and made their shipping charges disappear: a miracle on a par with the loaves and fishes. We also did a surprisingly brisk business with Dover Classics, which sold for a dollar each." I used this ploy at least once, and various shoppers' web sites suggested it as well, so it is not surprising that it actually impacted amazon.com's bottom line. Apparently, amazon.com came close to eliminating every item under five dollars from their catalog to solve this problem, until wiser heads prevailed and they dropped the "two-item-free-shipping" offer. (I believe now it is free shipping for items over a certain dollar amount.)
To order Amazonia from amazon.com (!), click here.
ACQUIRING GENOMES: A THEORY OF THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 11/21/2008]
ACQUIRING GENOMES: A THEORY OF THE ORIGINS OF SPECIES by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan (ISBN-13 978-0-465-04391-X, ISBN-10 0-465-04391-7) has a interesting theory (speciation happens by the acquisition of genes from symbiotic organisms), but made statements that I thought at odds with current definitions. For example, the authors say, "Groups of organisms, again like people or corn plants or chickens, considered to be all descended from the same ancestors ("clade") are classified as members of the same species. Such organisms are called 'monophyletic' because they are descended from 'a single common ancestor.'" But as I understand it clades are nested, e.g., all primates form a clade which itself exists within the clade of all mammals. Clearly this crosses species boundaries (or makes the term "species" meaningless.)
And "... viruses are not alive and indeed they are even, in principle, too small to be units of life. They lack the means of producing their genes and proteins." One can deduce from this that viruses are not alive *if* producing their genes and proteins is the definition of life (and if it is true that viruses cannot do so). But my suspicion is that this is probably not the only accepted definition of "life" and other, equally valid, definitions may imply that viruses are alive.
I have to say that the authors show more desire for intellectual honesty than most. Rather than attempt to hide contrary views, they include a foreword by Ernst Mayr that contradicts or denies them on several key points (e.g., symbiogenesis as an instance of speciation, the validity of the principle of acquired characteristics). Mayr says, "Given the authors' dedication to their special field, it is not surprising that they sometimes arrive at interpretations others of us find arguable. Let the reads ignore those that are clearly in conflict with the finding of modern biology. Let him concentrate instead on the authors' brilliant new interpretations and be thankful that they have called our attention to worlds of life that ... are consistently by most biologists."
To order Acquiring Genomes from amazon.com, click here.
ALL THE WONDERS WE SEEK by Félix Martí-Ibáñez:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/15/2009]
ALL THE WONDERS WE SEEK: THIRTEEN TALES OF SURPRISE AND PRODIGY by Félix Martí-Ibáñez (no isbn) was first published in 1960, but two of the stories appeared in WEIRD TALES in the early 1950s. Before I comment on the stories, let me point out that Martí-Ibáñez is yet another doctor who writes speculative fiction, though his writings tend more towards fantasy. More current examples are Michael Crichton (definitely science fiction) and F. Paul Wilson (horror). But Martí-Ibáñez's model is more from the mainstream, since his dedication reads, "To William Somerset Maugham, greatest modern example of the physician as homme de lettres, whose friendship has been throughout the years an evergreen source of joy, inspiration, and enlightenment."
Another general observation is that although Martí-Ibáñez was born and raised in Spain, and later moved to the United States, his stories are all set in Latin America. One might say they are magical realism (see last week's column), but in any case, Martí- Ibáñez apparently felt that the atmosphere needed for his stories was neither Iberian nor North American. (Not until such writers as Mark Helprin and Neil Gaiman did this sort of writing with North American settings gain a wide audience.) One perhaps sees the inspiration of Maugham here, since Maugham set many of his stories in hot jungle climates.
But Martí-Ibáñez is very even-handed about his settings. Every story is set in a different country (or in some cases, two), meaning that of the seventeen continental Latin American countries or territories, he covers all but Mexico, Panama, and Uruguay, as well as having one story set in Cuba. (Belize, Guyana, Surinam, and French Guiana cannot really be included in Latin America in this context.) And there is no duplication of countries, leading one to think that this was intentional.
"The Sleeping Bell", for example, takes place in the Colombian jungle. We know this because in the very first paragraph he writes, "when one is traveling on foot in the Colombian jungle...." Indeed, he is very explicit in every story about where the events take place. Unlike some authors whose descriptions are either vague or contradictory, Martí-Ibáñez is quite clear in his locations. And like many of his other stories, this one is rooted in the events of the Spanish conquest--in this case the story of a pagan statue and a church bell.
"The Star Hunt" (which takes place in Ecuador) uses another recurring theme: the desire to escape from "the commonplace and hopeless." The main character goes out one morning on an errand and finds himself drawn into a series of extraordinary adventures far beyond his normal banal existence.
"A Tomb in Malacor" is one of the WEIRD TALES stories and takes place between Managua (Nicaragua) and Guatemala City (Guatemala). It has a real "Twilight Zone" feel to it, but definitely pre-dates the series, so it is possible that this is one of the stories that inspired Rod Serling.
"Niña Sol" is set in high-altitude Peru, "The Seekers of Dreams" in "Maitecas, close to the steaming Paraguayan jungle" (what an evocative description!), "The Buried Paradise" in La Paz (Bolivia), and "Amigo Heliotropo" in Honduras and El Salvador.
The inspiration for "Between Two Dreams" may very well be the story of Zhuang Zhou (a.k.a. Chuang Tzu), who fell asleep one day and dreamt he was a butterfly. When he woke up, he wondered whether he was Zhuang Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuang Zhou. I find Martí-Ibáñez's choice of Costa Rica a little unusual for a tale of a conquistador, although I suppose if Central America was good enough for "stout Cortez", .... Okay, that's a literary reference--I know Cortez was not in Central America. (This is the other WEIRD TALES story.)
"The Song Without Words" (set in Argentina) has a definite Pied Piper sub-text (or maybe not even so "sub") as well as having the popular fantasy plot device of the circus. Even when the circus is not literally magical, the whole philosophy of a circus is magic-- something beyond our daily existence.
"The Threshold of the Door", set in Caracas (Venezuela), is a story that with a couple of additional phrases could have appeared in Clifton Fadiman's FANTASIA MATHEMATICA. "Stand sideways on the threshold and walk sideways toward the frame. ... if you walk straight toward the frame without fear, I promise you that you shall enter the poetic world whole and safe. You know why? Because in our world doors are horizontal instead of vertical. Our doors, when open, cross yours. That is why you can't enter the poetic world through the opening of your doors. You must stand sideways on your threshold and walk straight into the side beam. You will then enter the invisible door of our world." Even as it is, without any descriptions of the fourth (spatial) dimension, it seems inspired by Edwin A. Abbott's FLATLAND ("Upward, not northward!").
"Havana: 60 Longitude West, 70 Latitude South" is not a typo, even though Havana is actually 82.33 Longitude West, 23 Latitude North. (The title actually has degree symbols, but I cannot do them in ASCII.) Let's just say that this brings plate tectonics to a whole new level.
"Senhor Zumbeira's Leg" (set in Brazil) is a story that could easily have come almost directly from the Arabian Nights. Not that it is a secret--it is clear that that is what Martí-Ibáñez intended. Is it just accidental that the only story based on a story cycle from "the mysterious East" is set in the only non- Spanish-language country in Latin America--or is it that Martí- Ibáñez chose Brazil as the most foreign to himself as a native of Spain?
"Riquiqui, I Love You!" (set in Chile) was listed in the table of contents as "Riquiqui, I Lov Youe!", which actually sounded more mysterious. Alas, this title *was* a typo, and while the story was fine, the misprint seemed so redolent with atmosphere that I was at least a little disappointed.
Martí-Ibáñez has written a lot of other books. Most seem to be histories of medicine. He has at least one other collection of stories (WALTZ), a historical novel, a humorous novel, and a travel book. I suppose it is good that he can write in many fields, but it does mean that we have not gotten as much speculative fiction/fantasy/magical realism from him as we might otherwise have gotten.
To order All the Wonders We Seek from amazon.com, click here.
A FEAST FOR CROWS by George R. R. Martin:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/05/2006]
Although I started Hugo-nominated A FEAST FOR CROWS by George R. R. Martin (ISBN 0-553-80150-3), I could not get interested in it, and gave up after about fifty pages. It has the additional problem of being the fourth (and apparently not last) in a fantasy series.
To order A Feast for Crows from amazon.com, click here.
THERE ARE TWO ERRORS IN THE THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK by Robert M. Martin:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/06/2007]
THERE ARE TWO ERRORS IN THE THE TITLE OF THIS BOOK by Robert M. Martin (ISBN-10 1-551-11493-3, ISBN-13 978-1-551-11493-4) is subtitled "A Sourcebook of Philosophical Puzzles, Paradoxes and Problems". Much will be familiar to readers of this sort of book, but Martin also includes a lot of paradoxes that I do not recall having seen before.
For example, here's one for physicists (page 132): Consider the
following two statements:
1) Shadows do not pass through opaque objects.
2) If light doesn't fall on something, then it doesn't cast a
shadow.
Most people would agree with these. Okay, then, consider the following scenario: I am standing with a light behind me and a wall in front of me. I cast a shadow on the wall. Now I hold a coffee mug in front of me. Consider the shadow cast on the wall that is directly in line with the light and the mug. Is it cast by me, or by the mug? The former violates premise #2, the latter premise #1.
Martin also seems to have an interesting response to those who claim that morality comes from religion (i.e., God) (page 175). Consider, he says, that you receive a message purporting to be from God. Let's say that you go outside and your hydrangea is burning, but not consumed. Out of it comes a voice saying, "You've got it all wrong. I want you to lie, cheat, steal, murder, and throw beer cans on your professor's lawn." Obviously if you did not originally believe in God, you would not believe the voice, but even if you did, the probability is high that you would not believe that the voice was God telling you what to do. Why not? Because you have some notion independent of God about what is good and what is not.
Some of Martin's paradoxes are just variations on better-known points. For example, he asks whether there can be a true statement which is impossible for you to believe. Yes--consider the statement "X is dead," where X is your name. It will be true one day, but when it is, it will be impossible for you to believe it. [page 80] This is just the contra-positive of Descartes's "Cogito, ergo sum."
This is just a small sample of what Martin covers in this book. Each chapter is independent of the others, so you do not have to read this straight through, and taking a break to think about each chapter is probably a good idea. (The reviews on amazon.com indicate that this is a great book for teenagers as well as adults.)
To order There Are Two Errors in the the Title of This Book from amazon.com, click here.
THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY by Zachary Mason:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/10/2003]
Another example of stealth science fiction is THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY by Zachary Mason (ISBN 978-0-374-19215-0). It is subtitled on the cover "A NOVEL", but it is not. It consists of 44 vignettes of alternative events in the life of Odysseus, events which are often mutually exclusive. For example, in "Penelope's Elegy" Odysseus returns home to find Penelope dead, while in "A Sad Revelation" she has remarried, and in "A Night in the Woods" a third scenario unfolds. The stories, or vignettes (the longest is still under 3000 words), do form a unified whole--not a novel, but a series of meditations on the subject of Odysseus. Mason goes back to the original meaning of "Odyssey" as being the story of Odysseus, and some vignettes occur outside the ten-year period covered in Homer's "Odyssey".
This raises an interesting question in terms of Hugo nominations. The definition for Best Novel calls for "a science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more." It makes little sense to nominate the individual pieces as short stories, but the book as a whole seems ineligible.
My one complaint about THE LOST BOOKS OF THE ODYSSEY is that Mason (or his editors) felt it necessary to footnote several of the references to the original ODYSSEY. For example, a comment Odysseus makes about not killing the Cyclops because he and his men would then be trapped is footnoted with an explanation of how the Cyclops had them in his cave with a massive boulder that only the Cyclops could move blocking the door. I find it hard to believe that the people reading this book would be unfamiliar with the ODYSSEY.
To order The Lost Books of the Odyssey from amazon.com, click here.
HAND OF GLORY by Sophie Masson:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/10/2003]
I just read Sophie Masson's HAND OF GLORY, an alternate history set in Australia. There aren't many of these (for starters, known history there goes back a lot shorter time than in Europe, for example), but this didn't seem to do much with the "alternate" aspect.
Hand of Glory is not available in the US; you might try http://www.amazon.co.uk.
AN OXFORD TRAGEDY by J. C. Masterman:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/09/2007]
AN OXFORD TRAGEDY by J. C. Masterman (ISBN-10 0-486-24165-3, ISBN-13 978-0-486-24165-4) is another classic Dover mystery, notable for its academic setting. There is an entire sub-genre of "bibliomysteries" which take place in bookstores, libraries, and academic settings, and this falls in that category. (See http://www.bibliomysteries.com/ for an extensive list.) This is not especially noteworthy as a mystery, but I still applaud Dover for having brought what seems to be an entire generation of mysteries into print.
To order An Oxford Tragedy from amazon.com, click here.
THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (I AM LEGEND) by Richard Matheson:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/24/2011]
The science fiction book-and-movie discussion group chose Richard Matheson's I AM LEGEND and the film THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. The film is not bad, but has quite a few goofs and sloppy moments. For example, Morgan says he has had eleven kills in three years, but he is making dozens of stakes, and he asks, "How many more will I have to make?" Morgan seems to be drinking three-year-old coffee, finding huge amounts of fresh garlic, and not having any problems with sides of beef that have been hanging in a meat locker for three years. Even with an uninterrupted power supply--which is very unlikely--they would be pretty rank. And the tires on the cars he looks at would be flat.
An example of sloppiness is when Morgan meets the woman, there are two trucks are moving along a road in the distance. Also, the handle on the armory door is on a different side when seen from the outside and the inside. (That is, on either side, if you are facing the door, the handle is on your left no matter whether you are inside or outside the room.)
She says she has been hiding and not eating, but apparently does get to a hair stylist. (It turns out she is lying, but even so, her hair is too well styled for the situation.)
I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/21/2007]
I re-read I AM LEGEND by Richard Matheson (ISBN-13 978-0-765-35715-1, ISBN-10 0-765-35715-1) after seeing the movie. I have to agree with Mark--the movie that is most faithful to the book is the 1964 version, THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. In fact, the current film credits not just Richard Matheson but also the screenwriters of the 1971 film, THE OMEGA MAN, for the story. So not surprisingly, the current film resembles that in many ways. Of the current film, I will say that it is probably worth seeing the movie for the production and set design, but not for the action sequences or make-up. One note: the 1954 Fawcett edition of I AM LEGEND is 160 pages long; the 1995 Tor edition (reprinted in October 2007) is over three hundred pages long. This is not just larger print and wider margins--the Tor edition also includes ten additional short stories, hence is actually a collection. Normally one would expect a title such as I AM LEGEND AND OTHER STORIES, but I guess they felt that just I AM LEGEND was stronger.
To order I Am Legend from amazon.com, click here.
THE PAINTED VEIL by W. Somerset Maugham:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/29/2008]
THE PAINTED VEIL by W. Somerset Maugham (ISBN-13 978-0-099-50739-0, ISBN-10 0-099-50739-0) was this month's selection for the "original" book discussion group. Mark and I had seen the movie a while ago, and Mark suggested the book for the group. The screenwriter changed a lot; more specifically, he added a lot. There is no aqueduct-building in the book, and no insurrection or civil war. (The ending is also significantly different.) I think the reason for this (besides wanting to add action sequences) was that the book was told entirely from the main character Kitty's point of view, and that was considered undesirable for the movie. First of all, it would mean that the lead actress would be in every scene, which is hard work. And second, this in turn would make the film "a woman's film", at least to the backers, meaning that it would not attract a wide enough audience. So the screenwriter added scenes of Walter Fane in the lab, scenes of Walter Fane in the hospital, scenes of Walter Fane by the river, and so on. Of Kitty's feelings about the nuns and their life and emotions--the main focus of the book-- very little is left.
They also moved the location of the British "colony" from Hong Kong, to Shanghai, for reasons I can't figure out. (Maugham himself had to change it from Hong Kong to the fictional Tching- Yen when the book first came out for legal reasons.)
The notions of marriage in THE PAINTED VEIL seem very similar to Jane Austen's: Kitty is pressured to marry by her mother because, as she ask, "How long can you expect your father to support you?" Also, her younger sister gets engaged and Kitty feels she must marry, or be "shamed" by her continued spinsterhood. This is expressed more explicitly in the novel, which gives more of Kitty's history, rather than just the few days before her wedding.
To order The Painted Veil from amazon.com, click here.
TWILIGHT AT THE WORLD OF TOMORROW by James Mauro:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/03/2010]
TWILIGHT AT THE WORLD OF TOMORROW: GENIUS, MADNESS, MURDER, AND THE 1939 WORLD'S FAIR ON THE BRINK OF WAR by James Mauro (ISBN 0-345-51214-6) covers a lot of material that other World's Fair historians seem to have overlooked. For example, considering the amount of material written about the 1939 New York World's Fair, I was surprised to discover that there was a terrorist bomb planted in the British Pavilion on July 4, 1940, that exploded when it was discovered and removed, killing two policemen. You would think that all the various articles, books, plays, and so on might have mentioned it.
Mauro spends most of the book, in fact, talking about things other people haven't covered much. Other people write about all the "World of Tomorrow" science and technology exhibits, but Mauro spends more time talking about the various countries' pavilions. There was no Germany pavilion, for example, and the Austria and Czechoslovakia pavilions had the dubious distinction of being country pavilions without a country by the time they opened. And the staff of those pavilions, as well as of the Poland pavilion, apparently ended up as refugees when the fair closed in 1940, as they had no desire to return to their homelands.
Mauro also talks about the financial aspects a *lot*. Between escalating costs and disappointing attendance, the Fair lost money. (Actually, this seems to be true of most World's Fairs.) The profits were supposed to go into developing Flushing Meadows into a park after the Fair; that never happened. Oh, and about the Trylon and Perisphere: people often ask why they were torn down. The answer is simple: There was a war on and they and most of the rest of the iron on the site (20,000 tons total, with 4000 tons from the Tryon and Perisphere alone) went for the war effort.
To order Twilight at the World of Tomorrowx from amazon.com, click here.
THE INVISIBLE COUNTRY by Paul McAuley:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/02/2004]
Paul McAuley's THE INVISIBLE COUNTRY was another collection of short fiction by a British writer, although I was more familiar with McAuley because of his alternate history, PASQUALE'S ANGEL, which won the Sidewise Award in the first year those awards were presented. Both PASQUALE'S ANGEL and THE INVISIBLE COUNTRY are recommended--I am glad to see collections being published, since I think that too often short fiction gets ignored as soon as the magazine or book it appeared in is pulled from the racks.
To order The Invisible Country from amazon.com, click here.
PASQUALE'S ANGEL by Paul J. McAuley (AvoNova, ISBN 0-380-77820-3, 1997 (1995c), 374pp, paperback):
This is the second "alternate Leonardo" I read in quick succession (Jack Dann's Memory Cathedral being the first, though this actually predates the Dann by about a year). In this, however, Leonardo is not one of the major characters on-stage. He does appear but mostly he is talked about as the "Great Engineer" in the tower. So far as I can determine, he got that way because Savonarola's revolution of 1498 succeeded and Leonardo turned from concentrating on art to concentrating on invention. The result is a Florence well into the Industrial Age in Leonardo's lifetime.
Let me start out by saying that I enjoyed this book and that I recommend it. I want to say that up front, because my comments might lead you to think I had a negative opinion of Pasquale's Angel, and that's not true.
One of my complaints has to do with the premise: I doubt the Industrial Revolution could have proceeded this fast this early. In twenty years, Florence seems to have gotten to the technological level we achieved around 1900--considerably more than twenty years after the Industrial Revolution started.
Another problem is that Pasquale's Angel starts with a "locked-room" (or rather "locked-tower") mystery whose solution, alas, should be obvious to most of the readers who would be attracted to this book.
Given that McAuley wanted a murder mystery, I wish he had designed one less derivative. He does a good job of describing his characters and making them come alive. (Of course, most of his characters were alive, at least in some form.) His use of the politics and conspiracies of the time is the most interesting aspect of the novel, and more emphasis on that, with less on detailing more technical advances than seem likely or are necessary, would have made me happier. But as they say, your mileage may vary, and even with my reservations, I still strongly recommend Pasquale's Angel.
To order Pasquale's Angel from amazon.com, click here.
THE ROWAN by Anne McCaffrey:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/11/2006]
THE ROWAN by Anne McCaffrey (ISBN 0-441-73576-2) was chosen for our science fiction group for July. Someone described it as a "good quick summer read," which I suppose it is. However, that is in part because it seems to be aimed at a teenage (or perhaps slightly older) audience, and more specifically at teenage girls. It is basically the coming of age and romance of a girl/woman called (annoyingly) "the Rowan", after her home planet. Why not just "Rowan"? Who knows? Anne McCaffrey has a lot of fans, but her writing does not work for me.
To order The Rowan from amazon.com, click here.
44 SCOTLAND STREET by Alexander McCall Smith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/27/2009]
44 SCOTLAND STREET by Andrew McCall Smith (ISBN-13 978-1-400-07944-5, ISBN-10 1-400-07944-5) is the first book in another series by the author of the "Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" books. This one is set in the art world of Edinburgh, and I did not find it anywhere nearly as enjoyable, but that is probably because I thought none of the characters were really interesting in the same way that the characters in the "Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" books were. The only interesting characters were Bertie and his pushy mother. What was intriguing was McCall Smith's discussion of what it was like to write a serial novel, which this was.
First, McCall Smith did not write the entire novel ahead of time, so although he started with several chapters written, he fell behind in his writing, and found himself up against a perpetual deadline. And he also discovered something perhaps less commonly thought of: he could not go back and make any changes in earlier chapters. So if he decides while writing chapter 15 that it would have worked better if the painting at the beginning was a still life rather than a seascape, that too bad--he's stuck with the seascape.
To order 44 Scotland Street from amazon.com, click here.
HEAVENLY DATE AND OTHER FLIRTATIONS by Alexander McCall Smith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/02/2011]
HEAVENLY DATE AND OTHER FLIRTATIONS by Alexander McCall Smith (ISBN 978-0-965-90442-1) is a collection of short stories about dating from the author of the "Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency" and "44 Scotland Street" series. These are quite unlike those, being more serious attempts at straightforward (one might almost say literary) fiction. They're okay, but Alexander McCall Smith will, I believe, suffer the same fate as another "three-name" writer, Arthur Conan Doyle. Conan Doyle tried to distance himself from his Sherlock Holmes stories and thought he would be remembered for his historical novels. He was wrong. I don't know if that is what McCall Smith is trying to do, but clearly his legacy will be his series.
To order Heavenly Date and Other Flirtations from amazon.com, click here.
THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY by Alexander McCall Smith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/29/2005]
Our book discussion chose Alexander McCall Smith's THE NO. 1 LADIES' DETECTIVE AGENCY (ISBN 1-4000-3477-9) for this month. It was a nice, amiable book, interesting more for the setting (Botswana) and characters than for any amazing detective work. It was popular enough that people expressed an interest in reading the next book for a future discussion. McCall Smith has also written a series of novellas about "Professor Dr. Moritz- Maria von Igelfeld", a professor of Romance Philology. (These are published as individual books: PORTUGUESE IRREGULAR VERBS, THE FINER POINTS OF SAUSAGE DOGS, and AT THE VILLA OF REDUCED CIRCUMSTANCES.) They are more in the tradition of screwball comedies, with such plots as von Iglefeld being confused with a professor of veterinary medicine, Professor von Igelfold, and invited to give a talk on daschunds in Arkansas, or being asked to transport stolen relics with predictably disastrous results. I read the first two--they're fast reads, but I'd recommend sticking with his "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series.
To order The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency from amazon.com, click here.
THE SATURDAY BIG TENT WEDDING PARTY by Alexander McCall Smith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/19/2011]
THE SATURDAY BIG TENT WEDDING PARTY by Alexander McCall Smith (ISBN 978-0-307-37839-2) is the twelfth book in the "No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency" series. McCall Smith has moved away from mysteries and detection, and into more philosophizing (and preaching). All the crises work out conveniently (although the election results seem left for the next book). As many others have noted, the children that Mma Ramotswe and Mr. J. L. B. Matekoni had adopted seem to have disappeared, to the extent that they never have any effect on Mma Ramotswe's schedule. I wish McCall Smith would return to the detection aspect that began this series.
To order The Saturday Big Tent Wedding Party from amazon.com, click here.
TEA TIME FOR THE TRADITIONALLY BUILT by Alexander McCall Smith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/28/2009]
As with most series, the "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" series is starting to run down. The tenth (and latest) is TEA TIME FOR THE TRADITIONALLY BUILT by Alexander McCall Smith (ISBN-13 978-0-375- 42449-6, ISBN-10 0-375-42449-X) and shows signs of being produced more because it is expected than out of the inspiration of a story. There are more--and more flagrant--red herrings than in the earlier books, as if it needed padding out. And the editing has gotten sloppy (assuming it has not been dropped altogether). For example, on page 20, Mma Ramotswe's appointment with Mr. Molofololo is at eleven o'clock; on page 29 it is at ten o'clock. (And why are some men "Mr." and some men "Ra"?) And who is writing the blurbs? "Irrepressible" is not an adjective I would apply to Mma Ramotswe-- it is far too frivolous for her. On the plus side, McCall Smith does finally give the younger apprentice a name. But the thinness of the plot makes me think it may be time for McCall Smith to put this series on hiatus, at least until he has a stronger basis for a book.
(By the way, on page 48 it is "Mafeking" and on page 52 it is "Mafikeng", but this is *not* a typo--the first (on a tea tin) was the old British spelling, the second is the current South African spelling.
To order Tea Time for the Traditionally Built from amazon.com, click here.
BLACK BIBLE CHRONICLES: FROM GENESIS TO THE PROMISED LAND interpreted by P. K. McCary (African American Family Press, ISBN 1-56977-0000-X, 1993, 190pp, ):
Perhaps best described as "the Torah for homeboys," this is the first of a series of books translating (or "interpreting," to use McCary's term) the "Bible" into urban language. This volume covers the five books of Moses ("Genesis", "Exodus", "Leviticus", "Numbers", and "Deuteronomy"); a second volume has already been published covering the four gospels (called "Rappin' with Jesus"). But as a Jew I was understandably more interested in this volume.
This translation omits large sections of these books, particularly the genealogies (the "begats"). Since the footnotes reference this translation back to the chapters in the complete version, I don't consider this a big fault. More problematic is McCary's somewhat loose translation. The use of the term "church" to refer to the Temple may not be too unreasonable (though it points out the Christian focus of this translation, rather than a Judaic or Islamic one), but the translation of "Sabbath" into "Sunday" in several spots is irksome and deceptive. And, for example, the translation of Leviticus 18:21 as "he can't put her children on the altar to be burned 'cuz that'll cause the ultimate in punishment" may not be an accurate rendering of what the original says: the King James translation is "And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the Lord," and Maimonides says this refers to passing an old practice of passing a newborn child through the smoke of a fire as a pagan rite ("The Guide for the Perplexed", Part 3, Chapter 37). On the other hand, "Don't mess with someone else's ol' man or ol' lady" is probably a better rendering of the intent than "Thou shalt not commit adultery." (The latter seems to lead to all sorts of hair-splitting over the precise definition of adultery.)
I notice, by the way, that while most of the Laws in "Leviticus" are retained, the prohibitions against homosexual behavior between men seem to have vanished. Not only does McCary include all the other sexual prohibitions ("And the Almighty didn't want folks peeping on people they had no business seeing naked"; "It was especially uncool to get down with any animals"; "The Almighty didn't want kissin' cousins getting hitched, and brothers weren't to sleep with their mothers or any wife of your dad's, whether she's your mother or not. Granddaughters, daughters, and half sisters are out of the question for doing the wild thing, just as your aunt or your sister-in-law"), but even the clothing ones ("Mix matching clothes, like wool and linen, isn't just a fashion downer, it ain't happening here"). One can only conclude that political correctness is at least partially responsible for this omission.
"Black Bible Chronicles" is certainly an unusual translation, and one that is surprisingly engaging. It manages to bring a life and a directness to the story that traditional translations don't. Whether it will reach its intended audience is not clear, but it could well find a favorable reception with an audience looking at it as a literary work rather than an inspirational one.
To order Black Bible Chronicles from amazon.com, click here.
GLOBISH: HOW THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BECAME THE WORLD'S LANGUAGE by Robert McCrum:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/23/2010]
GLOBISH: HOW THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE BECAME THE WORLD'S LANGUAGE by
Robert McCrum (ISBN 978-0-393-06255-7) attempts to explain why
English is "the world's universal language". There is a very
favorable blurb on the back by Malcolm Gladwell (author of THE
TIPPING POINT), but John McWhorter's review in THE NEW REPUBLIC
(
Briefly, McCrum seems to believe that it is something inherent in
English that makes it suitable as a universal language rather than
just the fact of English and American culture being so pervasive
(English through the 17th to early 20th centuries, followed by
American). He says, "Language ... is intrinsically neutral, but it
is no contradiction to claim that English ... is unique." He then
spends most of the book recounting the history of English, and
England, and the United States--it's not clear that one needs dozen
pages about slavery to explain why so many Chinese speak English
today. McWhorter's review also points out many errors in fact as
well.
But McWhorter is most critical of McCrum's underlying reasoning.
McCrum attributes the popularity of English to its "being light on
conjugation suffixes ... and not having gender." But as McWhorter
notes, Russian has the opposite of these characteristics and other
complexities as well, yet is (or was) spoken by a vast number of
people as a second language. The reason is simple--Russia was the
superpower in Communist world just as the United States was in the
West. (The effect of the British Commonwealth in spreading English
should not be completely ignored either, obviously.)
McWhorter points out that McCrum also assumes that simplicity
causes universality, while (according to McWhorter) it is actually
the other way around.
To order Globish from amazon.com, click here.
"The Ashbazu Effect
by John McDaid:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 08/12/2005]
John McDaid, "The Ashbazu Effect" (REVISIONS, ed. by Julie
Czerneda and Isaac Szpindel, ISBN 0-7564-0240-9): This assumes
that the idea of embossing whole pages at a time onto clay
tablets has been discovered in Sumeria, and shows the next stage.
As seems to be very popular, within the story someone talks about
alternate histories ("fiction-that-continues-a-line"), including
of course our own timeline. This gets extra credit for a more
interesting setting and divergence point than one normally finds.
(I commented on the entire collection in the 10/01/04 issue of
the MT VOID; click here for that review.)
To order ReVisions from amazon.com, click here.
OMEGA
by Jack McDevitt:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 12/05/2003]
Jack McDevitt's OMEGA is apparently the *third* book in a series
preceded by CHINDI and DEEPSIX, though there is no indication
anywhere on the dust jacket or facing the title page. It stands
moderately well on its own, but I kept getting the feeling that I
was supposed to be getting more out of some of the references than
I was. The premise of clouds that travel through the galaxy
destroying all signs of civilization was intriguing, but the
geometry was all wrong. That is, it was claimed that they looked
for right angles, which don't appear in nature, but there are in
fact crystal forms that have right angles. In addition, an
artifact called a "hedgehog" was described as having a lot of
right angles, but the description made it sound more like
something with spikes that were more like tall pyramids stuck on
the central piece, and as such would have a lot of obtuse and
acute angles, but few right angles.
To order Omega from amazon.com, click here.
BRASYL
by Ian McDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/25/2008]
BRASYL by Ian McDonald (ISBN-13 978-1-591-02543-6, ISBN-10
1-591-02543-5) is a Hugo nominee, but it has a major strike
against it--the book comes with a six-page glossary (and a
suggested reading list, and a playlist of songs). It also has a
long description of a soccer game (which I can't follow). The
only one of the three threads it follows that I could understand
was the one taking place in 1732. Maybe if I studied the
glossary first.... Or maybe not. I *really* wanted to like
this one, but it didn't happen. (In fairness, I will add that I
gave up around page 60.)
To order Brasyl from amazon.com, click here.
CYBERABAD DAYS
by Ian McDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 04/09/2010]
CYBERABAD DAYS by Ian McDonald (ISBN-13 978-1-59102-699-0) is a
collection of short stories (well, probably closer to novelettes)
set in the world of McDonald's RIVER OF GODS, the India of 2047.
India has split in several warring states. What is interesting is
how McDonald has managed to address so many current issues:
"Sanjeev and Robotwallah" is about combat by telepresence (not
unlike the film SLEEP DEALER), class and ethnic differences in
"Kyle Meets the River", genetic engineering in "The Dust Assassin",
gender imbalance in "An Eligible Boy", and so on. All of these are
played out in the Indianized world of the future. For example,
McDonald doesn't write about "A.I.", he writes about "aeai" (just
as people in India have names like "Vijay"). And people watch
"tivi". McDonald manages to capture the feeling of India. He
lives in Belfast; either he travels a lot or he spends his days
watching Bollywood movies.
To order Cyberabad Days from amazon.com, click here.
"The Little Goddess"
by Ian McDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/12/2006]
"The Little Goddess" by Ian McDonald (ASIMOV'S Jun 2005) is set on
the near-future Indian subcontinent. India has splintered into
several nations, all jockeying for position and power. The
narrator begins as a goddess, chosen after a series of spiritual
tests, but this is a position that will end after a few years, not
with her death, but with puberty. She then finds herself trying
to become a normal person again, but having been a goddess creates
certain drawbacks. I really enjoyed this, both for the story, and
for the milieu. (In general, I recommend McDonald's work. I have
not had a chance yet to read his Hugo-nominated novel from 2004,
RIVER OF GODS, but I am looking forward to it.)
"The Tear"
by Ian McDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/29/2009]
"The Tear" by Ian McDonald (GALACTIC EMPIRES): I read this last,
because it was not made available as part of the electronic Hugo
packet until version 2.0. It has all the faults of Rosenbaum &
Doctorow's "True Names" with none of the virtues. One problem with
reading something electronically (for me, anyway) is that it is
harder to skip through it and sample bits--not that a story should
be read that way, but it can encourage one to stick with something
because it seems to get better.
"Vishnu at the Cat Circus"
by Ian McDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/25/2010]
"Vishnu at the Cat Circus" by Ian McDonald (CYBERABAD DAYS) was the
one new story in the collection CYBERABAD DAYS, and frankly, the
least engaging. In fact, I had started it, given up, and was about
to return the book to the library when the Hugo nominations were
announced. So I went back and read it, but still could not managed
to get enthused about it.
HOLY COW
by Sarah MacDonald:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/16/2008]
HOLY COW by Sarah MacDonald (ISBN-13 978-0-7679-1574-8, ISBN-10
0-7679-1574-7) is the story of a journalist's stay in India, and
her quest for religion, or spirituality, or God, or something
like that. What is not clear is when or how she decided this was
a spiritual quest--that was not why she went to India to start
with, yet it is clear that this becomes her goal, or why else
would she be so diligent in seeking out every possible religion
to find out what they have to offer.
That quibble aside, it seems as though every attempt by MacDonald
to find something meaningful in India runs up against what can
only be termed "loonies". This includes the Jews, who seem to be
all Israelis or Americans, and more interested in hugging,
dancing, and smoking hash than in anything that I would consider
an expression of Judaism. After reading this section, though, I
end up basically discounting all her other encounters with the
extremes of each religion. (Trying to get the essence of
Hinduism by attending the Kumbh Mela in Allahabad is, after all,
like trying to understand the essence of Christianity by standing
in St. Peter's Square on Easter Sunday, or understanding Islam by
making the Hajj.) HOLY COW does give you a sense of India, but
often a somewhat deceptive one.
To order Holy Cow from amazon.com, click here.
FILM CRAZY
by Patrick McGilligan:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/08/2006]
FILM CRAZY by Patrick McGilligan (ISBN 0-312-28038-6) is
presented as a collection of interviews with famous directors and
writers. However, for a few of the people, there is no
interview, but just an article by McGilligan about the subject,
with some quotations. (The entry for Reagan is an article rather
than an interview, and was written early in his political
career.) As articles in a magazine they would be interesting,
but they make for a rather lightweight book.
To order Film Crazy from amazon.com, click here.
"Eight Miles"
by Sean McMullen:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 07/15/2011]
"Eight Miles", Sean McMullen (in ANALOG 09/10) is a steampunk-meets-
Edgar-Rice-Burroughs story. It's okay, but nothing special, and
not what I would consider Hugo material,
"The Precedent"
by Sean McMullen:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 09/10/2010]
"The Precedent" by Sean McMullen (F&SF,
Jul/Aug 2010) is a rather over-the-top story about climate change.
Set in 2035, it is all about "climate crime", where basically
everyone born before the turn of the millenium ends up on trial for
such specific crimes as denial, squandering, greed, and gluttony.
McMullen does think up all sorts of apropos Dantesque punishments,
and indeed there are explicit references to Dante in the story. I
suppose if one takes it as a parable one might accept it, but it
still has a somewhat weak ending. I will say, though, that it is
memorable.
FILM FLAM: ESSAYS ON HOLLYWOOD
by Larry McMurtry:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/01/2007]
I was reading the foreword to FILM FLAM: ESSAYS ON HOLLYWOOD by
Larry McMurtry (ISBN-10 0-743-21624-5, ISBN-13
978-0-743-21624-1), but was taken aback when I read, "As the ante
for each picture goes up the old fever of excitement gives way to
the constant low-grade fever of dread. What if we spend $30
million and it flops?" Just how old was this book?! It turns
out it is from 1987, those halcyon days when $30 million was a
lot of money in Hollywood. (SPIDER-MAN 3 just cost $250
million.) These essays reflect McMurtry's experience both as an
author whose novels have been filmed, and as a screen-writer.
His filmed novels include HORSEMAN, PASS BY (filmed as HUD); THE
LAST PICTURE SHOW, TERMS OF ENDEARMENT, and perhaps his best known
novel, LONESOME DOVE. McMurtry takes a refreshingly practical
approach to the business of screen-writing--and, yes, to him it is
a business. In the essay "The Fun of It All" he says that far too
many screen-writers have an inflated sense of their own
importance, and need to gain some perspective. (Among other
points, he notes that "if writers play limited roles in Hollywood,
they also bear limited responsibilities. They don't have to foot
the bill when a picture gets made; and nobody's going to blame
them if a picture flops.") This attitude puts him at the far end
of the spectrum from, say, Harlan Ellison. McMurtry is in favor
of treating screen-writing as a craft, working with deadlines,
being open to input from others and changes to the script, and not
insisting on being on set through the entire shoot.
Of having one's novels turned into movies, he writes, "When
Hollywood entered my life I was sitting in a tiny room in Fort
Worth eating meatloaf. The phone rang, and I was informed that
some people I had never heard of had just bought the movie rights
to my first novel. Three nights later I was sitting in the best
restaurant in Fort Worth, eating my first chateaubriand--a steak
so thick that in most parts of Texas it would have been called a
roast--and discussing title changes with a gentleman from
Paramount. At the time it never crossed my mind to wonder
whether the movie would turn out to be better than the book; what
I knew for a certainty was that the steak was better than the
meatloaf." (page 36) (Stephen King tells a similar story about
hearing about the sale of the movie rights to CARRIE.)
But what about the notion that a bad movie hurts the author of
the source book? Regarding RAGTIME, McMurtry says, "In my view
it is preeminently silly for Doctorow to give a damn about what
happens to RAGTIME as a film. His work is done, and his tale now
belongs, most properly, to its readers, not to him. The film De
Laurentiis may eventually make of it is another problem, but it
is clearly De Laurentiis's problem, no Doctorow's." (page 71)
McMurtry's implication throughout all this, never stated, and
perhaps just my conclusion, is that if the author is going to
care that much about what a film made from the book will be like,
he should not sell the rights. (Returning to Steven King,
however, it is generally agreed that the best films made from his
works are those he had the least involvement with, and
conversely.)
(The title of this book, FILM FLAM, is a (perhaps unintentional)
example of how books and movies are different. No one would use
this phrase in a movie, because it is virtually unpronounceable.)
To order Film Flam from amazon.com, click here.
SACAGAWEA'S NICKNAME
by Larry McMurtry:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/01/2007]
Larry McMurtry is best known for LONESOME DOVE--indeed, for most
people, that is his only work they could name (but see the review
of FILM FLAM below for a list of others). However, he has also
written a fair amount of non-fiction, mostly in the form of
essays. These have been collected into several, one of which is
SACAGAWEA'S NICKNAME (ISBN-10 1-590-17099-7, ISBN-13
978-1-590-17099-1). This includes twelve essays from "The New
York Review of Books", covering such diverse aspects of the West
as Buffalo Bill, the Zuni tribe, John Wesley Powell, and Angie
Debo, as well as (obviously) Sacagawea. McMurtry places his own
view of the West between the triumphalists and the revisionists.
(I would summarize these as "manifest destiny" and "noble
savage", but that is my shorthand, not McMurtry's, and even I
will admit that both are more complex than that.) McMurtry has
been involved in the popularization of "the West", yet he still
retains the ability to look at how that popularization has done a
disservice to both the West and those who are perceiving it.
To order Sacagawea's Nickname from amazon.com, click here.
THE POWER OF BABEL: A NATURAL HISTORY OF LANGUAGE
by John H. McWhorter:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/11/2010]
THE POWER OF BABEL: A NATURAL HISTORY OF LANGUAGE by John
H. McWhorter (ISBN-13 978-0-7167-4473-3), written in 2001, could be
considered the companion book to his Teaching Company course, "The
Story of Human Language." I started reading it, but found that it
duplicated the course almost completely. Ironically, when
McWhorter talks about how change is inevitable, he says, "It has
gotten to the point that saying I don't have a 'cell' lends me, I
suspect, the air of a sequestered holdout that we sense in people
who do not have VCRs." Now, only a few years later, *lots* of
people do not have VCRs--they have become "old technology".
It you don't have access to the Teaching Company, I recommend this
book, but the course is much better. For one thing, when McWhorter
is talking about how words change, vowels shift, and consonants
drift, *hearing* the comparisons is so much more meaningful than
just seeing them written phonetically.
To order The Power of Babel from amazon.com, click here.
DEADLINES PAST
by Walter Mears:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 02/13/2004]
Walter M. Mears's DEADLINES PAST is the reminiscence of Mears's
forty years covering American Presidential campaigns and
elections. I suppose I found it particularly interesting because
these elections are precisely the ones I remember (I was ten years
old in 1960). But certainly his descriptions of some of the older
campaigns and how they differ from the current ones would be of
interest even if you don't remember them. The "informality" of
the earlier campaigns, done on buses with no security staff (or
often any staff) to speak of contrasts sharply with the structure
of today's campaigns. And this period is also that of the rise of
television as a major force. Mears had to rely on his memory for
what wasn't archived in his columns, however. He explains in his
introduction that he didn't think it was important to keep his
notebooks, but strongly encourages young reporters not to make the
same mistake. (This may be an unnecessary warning: I was under
the impression that the notebooks serve as primary documentation
for the facts of a story, and the newspaper or magazine would
probably insist that they be kept for several years any way.)
To order Deadlines Past from amazon.com, click here.
MOBY DICK
by Herman Melville:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 06/09/2006]
MOBY DICK by Herman Melville (ISBN 0-812-54307-6) is a much
misunderstood book. People talk about how long it is--but at 470
pages (in the Norton Critical Edition) is shorter than a high
proportion of science fiction, fantasy, or thriller novels
written today. (Tom Clancy and Robert Jordan write novels
*twice* as long.) It has a reputation for seriousness, yet it is
full of wit and humor. For example, in chapter one, Ishmael
talks about how he goes to sea: "I always go to sea as a sailor,
because they make a point of paying me for my trouble, whereas
they never pay passengers a single penny that I ever heard of.
On the contrary, passengers themselves must pay. And there is
all the difference in the world between paying and being paid.
The act of paying is perhaps the most uncomfortable infliction
that the two orchard thieves entailed upon us. But *being
paid*,--what will compare with it? The urbane activity with
which a man receives money is really marvellous, considering that
we so earnestly believe money to be the root of all earthly ills,
and that on no account can a monied man enter heaven. Ah! how
cheerfully we consign ourselves to perdition!" (The two orchard
thieves are, of course, Adam and Eve.)
And later, in chapter 55, when he is describing how whales are
portrayed, he says, "As for the sign-painters' whales seen in the
streets hanging over the shops of oil-dealers, what shall be said
of them? They are generally Richard III whales, with dromedary
humps, ...."
Or, "For as in landscape gardening, a spire, cupola, monument, or
tower of some sort, is deemed almost indispensable to the
completion of the scene; so no face can be physiognomically in
keeping without the elevated open-work belfry of the nose."
But of course Melville has his serious moments, and much of what
he says remains as true today as it was in 1851: "[However] baby
man may brag of his science and skill, and however much, in a
flattering future, that science and skill may augment; yet for
ever and for ever, to the crack of doom, the sea will insult and
murder him, and pulverize the stateliest, stiffest frigate he can
make." It was true sixty years after Melville with Titanic, and
it was true a hundred and fifty years after he wrote as it was
with the fishing boat caught in the "perfect storm."
And in keeping with my noting of disparaging references to Jews
in older literature, let me note that in chapter 89 Melville
says, "What is the ruinous discount which Mordecai, the broker,
gets from poor Woebegone, the bankrupt, on a loan to keep
Woebegone's family from starvation; what is that ruinous discount
but a Fast-Fish?" On the other hand, he does somewhat
counterbalance this by saying in chapter 92, "[Nor] can whalemen
be recognized, as the people of the middles ages affected to
detect a Jew in the company, by the nose."
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 01/21/2011]
When I tell people that MOBY DICK by Herman Melville (ISBN
978-0-140-62062-7) is full of humor, they look at me like I'm crazy, so I
will just have to give some examples. (All page references are to
the "Penguin Popular Classics" edition.)
"Now, when I say that I am in the habit of going to sea whenever I
begin to grow hazy about the eyes, and begin to be over conscious
of my lungs, I do not mean to have it inferred that I ever go to
sea as a passenger. For to go as a passenger you must needs have a
purse, and a purse is but a rag unless you have something in it.
Besides, passengers get sea-sick--grow quarrelsome--don't sleep of
nights--do not enjoy themselves much, as a general thing;--no, I
never go as a passenger; nor, though I am something of a salt, do I
ever go to sea as a Commodore, or a Captain, or a Cook. I abandon
the glory and distinction of such offices to those who like them.
For my part, I abominate all honourable respectable toils, trials,
and tribulations of every kind whatsoever. It is quite as much as
I can do to take care of myself, without taking care of ships,
barques, brigs, schooners, and what not. And as for going as
cook,--though I confess there is considerable glory in that, a cook
being a sort of officer on ship-board--yet, somehow, I never
fancied broiling fowls;--though once broiled, judiciously buttered,
and judgmatically salted and peppered, there is no one who will
speak more respectfully, not to say reverentially, of a broiled
fowl than I will. It is out of the idolatrous dotings of the old
Egyptians upon broiled ibis and roasted river horse, that you see
the mummies of those creatures in their huge bake-houses the
pyramids." (page 23)
"He looked like a man who had never cringed and never had had a
creditor. Whether it was, too, that his head being shaved, his
forehead was drawn out in freer and brighter relief, and looked
more expansive than it otherwise would, this I will not venture to
decide; but certain it was his head was phrenologically an
excellent one. It may seem ridiculous, but it reminded me of
General Washington's head, as seen in the popular busts of him. It
had the same long regularly graded retreating slope from above the
brows, which were likewise very projecting, like two
long promontories thickly wooded on top. Queequeg was George
Washington cannibalistically developed." (page 65)
(I have a dozen more, but that would make this column much longer
than most people want, so if you're interested, go to
http://leepers.us/evelyn/moby_wit.htm.)
But people also say that Melville practically writes a textbook on
whales, without mentioning what he gets wrong. Or, to be fair,
what we know is wrong based on another 150 years of study.
For example, Melville writes: "Furthermore, as his windpipe solely
opens into the tube of his spouting canal, and as that long canal--
like the grand Erie Canal--is furnished with a sort of locks (that
open and shut) for the downward retention of air or the upward
exclusion of water, therefore the whale has no voice; unless you
insult him by saying, that when he so strangely rumbles, he talks
through his nose. But then again, what has the whale to say? Seldom
have I known any profound being that had anything to say to this
world, unless forced to stammer out something by way of getting a
living. Oh! happy that the world is such an excellent listener!"
(page 357)
But of course, whales do speak, or sing.
And later, Melville says: "Though so short a period ago--not a good
lifetime--the census of the buffalo in Illinois exceeded the census
of men now in London, and though at the present day not one horn or
hoof of them remains in all that region; and though the cause of
this wondrous extermination was the spear of man; yet the far
different nature of the whale-hunt peremptorily forbids so
inglorious an end to the Leviathan. Forty men in one ship hunting
the Sperm Whales for forty-eight months think they have done
extremely well, and thank God, if at last they carry home the oil
of forty fish. Whereas, in the days of the old Canadian and Indian
hunters and trappers of the West, when the far west (in whose
sunset suns still rise) was a wilderness and a virgin, the same
number of moccasined men, for the same number of months, mounted on
horse instead of sailing in ships, would have slain not forty, but
forty thousand and more buffaloes; a fact that, if need were, could
be statistically stated." (page 437)
Here, Melville seems to believe that whaling would never get any
more efficient than it was in 1851, or that more ships would go out
each year.
There's also an example of mixed metaphor, or at least confused
anatomy: "... when beholding the tranquil beauty and brilliancy of
the ocean's skin, one forgets the tiger heart that pants beneath
it; and would not willingly remember, that this velvet paw but
conceals a remorseless fang." (page 463)
And what sort of compasses does the Pequod have?: "Standing behind
him Starbuck looked, and lo! the two compasses pointed East, and
the Pequod was as infallibly going West." (page 485)
And apropros of nothing, when I was re-reading MOBY DICK, it was in
a somewhat beat-up "Penguin Popular Classics" edition that sold for
œ2 in 1994 and has a notation that it was made from 100% recycled
newsprint and 50% recycled coverboard (which I take to mean the
pages are 100% recycled materials, the cover 50%). It seems to be
the equivalent of our "Dover Thrift Editions", though because it is
mass-market size rather than trade paperback size one is not
confronted with as intimidating a block of text as with the Dover
editions. The combination of the recycled materials and the fact
that it was already a bit dog-eared made it a very comfortable book
to read. The covers could be flexed without having a crease
cracked in them, the binding was loose enough that you could open
the book sufficiently to deal with the narrow margins, and there is
enough space between lines that the text doesn't look all crammed
together. All in all, a very comfortable book.
To order Moby Dick from amazon.com, click here.
To order Moby Dick in the "Penguin Popular Edition" from amazon.com, click here.
THE ELEPHANT AND THE TIGER
by Robyn Meredith:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 05/15/2009]
I recently listened to the audio book of THE ELEPHANT AND THE
TIGER: THE RISE OF INDIA AND CHINA, AND WHAT IT MEANS FOR ALL OF US
by Robyn Meredith (read by Laural Merlington) (ISBN-13
978-1-4001-0485-7, ISBN-10 1-4001-0485-8). I have two sets of
comments, one on the actual book, and one on the audiobook
experience.
The book is about the rise of India and China as economic super-
powers. Or rather, it is about the return, since Meredith claims
that both countries had been super-powers for most of the last
thousand years, and their "decline" in the 20th century was just a
blip. The chapters seem to alternate between China and India, and
the two seem very much like the hare and the tortoise, with China
leaping ahead rapidly, while India is taking a slower path which
may yet make it the ultimate leader. Both countries have achieved
massive gains in part because they insisted companies set up
research and development facilities (along with factories) in the
country. (Mexico, by comparison, seems content to accept factories
with no higher-level facilities to provide white-collar
opportunities.)
In the discussions of why India has been able to get millions of
service jobs (e.g., call centers), the widespread knowledge of
English was given as a major factor. It has been said that the two
good things England did for India were to build the railroads and
to wipe out the Thuggee. Perhaps one needs to add a third: to
introduce English.
Meredith claims that some jobs cannot be off-shored, and gives as
an example personal services like plastic surgery. But this is
wrong--people are more than willing to travel to India, or
Thailand, or the Philippines, to get major surgery done for a
fraction of what it would cost in the United States.
As for the audiobook experience, I have to say that long lists and
statistics don't work well in audiobooks. For example, a list of
the major United States companies served by an Indian call center
would be fine in a print book, but listening to the narrator
reading off dozens of company names is boring, and uninformative.
These seem to be filler in any case, along with such things as a
long description of how flax is made into linen.
And Meredith loves the word "tectonic".
To order The Elephant and the Tiger from amazon.com, click here.
THE MARTIAN WAR
by Gabriel Mesta:
[From "This Week's Reading", MT VOID, 03/17/2006]
THE MARTIAN WAR by Gabriel Mesta (ISBN 0-7434-639-9) is an
expansion of "Scientific Romance" and "Canals in the Sand" by
Kevin J. Anderson (who for some reason has adopted the penname
"Gabriel Mesta" for this book). This is actually two inter-
leaved stories, each of which could have stood on its own (though
since the two together are only 256 pages, each would have been a
bit skimpy). One story has Percival Lowell and Dr. Moreau
providing a signal in the Sahara to bring a Martian spaceship
there, and their subsequent adventures with the invaders. The
other has H. G. Wells, T. H. Huxley, and almost all the remaining
characters from the books of the real H. G. Wells traveling to
the moon and then to Mars to battle the Martians. In addition to
all these characters, Mesta re-uses themes and phrases, making
the book as much a game of "spot that reference" as a story in
itself. On the whole, this is a fairly lightweight entry in the
field of pastiches of Wells. (Though not labeled as such, I
suspect this is intended as a "young adult" novel.)
To order The Martian War from amazon.com, click here.
Go to Evelyn Leeper's home page.