What I've Been Reading – January 2012 to April 2012

On the Beach by Nevil Shute
Nevil Shute’s On the Beach, published in 1957, is one of the earlier and better-known of a kind of post-apocalyptic science fiction novel that was understandably common during the Cold War, namely those set in a world where a nuclear war has taken place. While in some such novels the war takes place in the course of the story (for example in Pat Frank’s Alas Babylon) and in others the war has taken place many years previously (such as in The Road or Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Wild Shore), in On the Beach the war ended only a few months previously. The war itself seems to have been the result of a combination of nuclear proliferation (such that even several small nations have nuclear weapons), misunderstandings, and opportunism, such that almost everyone with nuclear weapons used them (interestingly, though the book was written before the Sino-Soviet split in the days when most in the West thought of communism as a monolithic menace, in the novel the USSR and China also attacked each other). What’s more, most of them used bombs with cobalt that made them even more radioactive than standard nuclear weapons. The result is that most of the world is so radioactive as to be uninhabitable, and the radioactive fallout is being gradually carried southward to the as yet untouched regions of South America, southern Africa, and Australia, where the story is set.

The novel focuses on a small group of people and the ways in which they cope with the impending threat. Peter Holmes is an Australian naval officer who serves as liaison officer with American submarine captain Dwight Towers, who commands the last functioning vessel in that part of the world. Towers is introduced to Moria Davidson, a friend of Holmes and his wife Mary, and they become attracted to each other. Holmes and John Osborne, a scientist who is a distant cousin of Davidson, join Towers and his crew on two trips with the submarine to investigate conditions in the irradiated north, with the second voyage going as far as the American coast. After this voyage, the various characters, like everyone around them, are left to find ways to fill their time as the end approaches.

For much of the novel, many of the characters act as if there is no disaster looming over them, doing things such as planting gardens that won’t grow until after the radiation comes or in Towers’ case buying presents for his children in America, who are certainly dead. The same characters at other times acknowledge the coming end; it’s almost as if they are consciously avoiding thinking about what will happen by living their lives in as normal a manner as possible. A few people, such as the almost absurdly naïve Mary Holmes, really do find it difficult to believe that the radiation threat is real; others, such as Davidson and Osborne, are more realistic but still find ways to cope. Of course, as the radiation gets closer, it becomes harder and harder for people to act as if everything is normal, and things begin to break down, but not into violence (except in the form of dangerous auto racing like Osborne and some others engage in), just fewer and fewer people bothering to show up for work or keep things clean.

Shute’s portrayal of the way people might face an unavoidable looming disaster does at times seem a bit optimistic. I am inclined to think there would be a bit more riotous living. Not that there isn’t any in the novel; Moria Davidson at first spends a lot of time drinking, only quitting because she falls in love with Towers, and an elderly relative of her and Osborne joins with other members of his club in an effort to drink up the club’s entire store of alcohol. But Towers, for instance, continues to faithfully follow the regulations of the American navy even when his submarine is all that’s left of it and he’s the highest ranking American naval officer in the world. What’s more, he insists on remaining loyal to his dead wife and so even when he takes a fishing trip to the hills with Davidson when the end is near, he refuses to sleep with her. Interestingly, when the book was made into a successful movie starring Gregory Peck, Ava Gardner, and Fred Astaire, this was changed, constituting perhaps the movie’s biggest deviation from the novel. Shute apparently was quite upset with the change, and even Peck (who played Towers) apparently argued against it. They do have a point in that Towers’ devotion to duty is a major component of his character, and this is violated by his having sex with Davidson. But nowadays it does seem a little difficult to believe even a man like that would turn down sex with a woman he is strongly attracted to if he also knows his wife is dead and he himself only has a short time to live. But perhaps it would have been more likely in the more conservative era in which the book takes place (there are a number of other little things in the book that indicate how much has changed in the decades since, such as how much smoking goes on – the officers even smoke in the submarine! – and in the roles of women, though Davidson is refreshingly intelligent, helping to make up for characters like Mary Holmes).

Regardless, On the Beach is an interesting and at times moving read. As might be expected, it doesn’t have what could be called a happy ending, but for the most part it isn’t overwhelmingly bleak or depressing. Nevertheless, it makes a strong case against the use of nuclear weapons (though some might dispute the accuracy of Shute’s portrayal of the dangers of radiation), so it’s no surprise that both it and the movie based on it played a major role in getting the anti-nuke movement going. It’s also thought-provoking; if the world was faced with an unavoidable disaster that would kill everyone at more or less the same time (highly unlikely, of course, but not completely impossible – an asteroid or comet on a collision course with Earth that was discovered to late to deflect would fit the bill), how would society react? Would most people live their last days with a degree of dignity, as they do in this book, or would everyone just go crazy? And how would they face the very end, particularly those with families including young children (an issue addressed poignantly in the novel)? For those who like a decently-written book that speculates on this kind of thing, On the Beach is worth picking up.

Traveling Music by Neil Peart
Among the non-fiction books I have read in the past few months was Traveling Music by Neil Peart, which is a travelogue, an autobiography and a book about music rolled into one. Peart, for those who don’t know, first gained fame as the drummer and lyricist for the Canadian rock band Rush, but he has also written a number of books that have been well received, though this is the only one I have read so far. Since he is a professional musician, it should come as no surprise that the book’s music theme is tightly intertwined with the other themes of the book. Nevertheless, it seems more appropriate to address what Peart has to say about music in my music blog, so I will mainly concentrate on other aspects of the book here.

The book has a rather ambitious structure, though that may not surprise those familiar with the music of Rush. The chapters are labeled Verse One, Chorus One and so on, and include an Intro, a Middle Eight and a Rideout. A line of lyrics introduces each one, and all these lines, with a few more lines between each of them, make up a song (or rather the lyrics for a song, since as far as I know they haven’t been set to music). The Verse chapters tell the story of a road trip Peart took from his LA area home to Big Bend National Park in Texas, and the music he listened to in his car on the way, interspersed with his recollections about earlier trips, often by motorcycle, to the places he was passing through or similar places elsewhere. The chorus chapters tell the story of his youth, from his childhood in Ontario and the development of his passion for music, to his move to England at 18 to pursue his musical dreams and his return to Canada where he joined Rush. The Middle Eight mostly covers the part of the road trip actually spent in Big Bend, with the following chapter (Verse Four) covering his return trip to California. The structure breaks down a little with the final chorus, as this leaps from his joining Rush to a bicycle trip he took in Africa, but as this is perhaps the most interesting part of the whole book, it is hard to object. The final verse covers events after his Big Bend trip, especially a big concert Rush played at along with bands like AC/DC and the Rolling Stones in Toronto to help the city recover from the problems caused by the SARS epidemic, and the Rideout is essentially an epilogue on how he put the book together.

It perhaps shouldn’t be a surprise that Peart is a reasonably decent writer, considering all the wordy, literate lyrics he has written for Rush. At first I felt he might be a little too wordy, as his prose occasionally felt a bit strained, but either it got less so further along or I just got used to his writing style (probably the latter). His travel stories kept my interest, as did his tales about his early life. Various little things stuck out for me. One was a place early in the book where he quotes himself from an interview as saying he’d read that “everyone has an inner age that they think they are, regardless of their actual age. I really think of myself as being about thirty.” As I have had similar thoughts (I certainly have trouble thinking of myself as forty), this resonated with me, as did another thing he said early in the book, in this case quoting from a letter to a friend: “I’m constantly tormenting myself over some dumb thing I said or did five, ten, or fifteen years ago. Actually flinching at the memory, and cursing myself. Like that helps.” I do exactly the same thing, so in some ways it’s nice to know that others do it too.

One thing I could not help being somewhat curious about was his political beliefs. It is well known that Rush’s first really successful album, 2112, was largely inspired by the work of Ayn Rand. However, while he only made a few isolated comments in the book that indicated his thoughts on political, social and environmental issues, it was clear that he was not by any means an extreme conservative or even a libertarian along the lines of Ron Paul. A few comments hint at an opposition to the invasion of Iraq, which had only recently occurred. While this is also a position that many libertarians like Paul held, Peart also expresses sympathy for conservation efforts, indicating a much “greener” bent than most libertarians, who are content to let developers and businesses do what they want to the environment. At one point, he calls himself a “homophile”, in reference to a particular fondness for gay people. In talking about his travels in Africa, he also talks about his efforts to support the promotion of birth control in Africa, as what he had seen made him realize birth control is essential to solving the problems of poverty in the region (as he points out, simply giving people medicine and food may prevent many children from dying, but unless the birth rate is cut, this means more people and thus greater strain on limited resources). He strongly criticizes a statement the Pope made against birth control in Africa, a great contrast to the stance of the right wing in America recently over the requirement that birth control be included in insurance plans at religious-affiliated institutions.

Peart only mentions Ayn Rand herself in a couple of paragraphs, where he talks about picking up a copy of The Fountainhead in London. He says it influenced him a lot, but also that he grew “into and, largely out of Ayn Rand’s orbit…along the journey to a more nuanced philosophy and politics.” Admittedly, it is not difficult to be more nuanced than Rand. Having recently managed to read nearly a third of her lengthy polemic in the guise of a novel, Atlas Shrugged (which I will write about when I finally force myself to finish it, or when I decide to give up), I know that her world view is almost completely lacking in nuance. Nevertheless, it is a credit to Peart’s sense as well as his intelligence that he has moved beyond her way of thinking. I learned later that he has been more specific about his political orientation in other places, referring to himself as a “left-leaning libertarian” or “bleeding-heart libertarian”, the latter in a blog post where he is expressing sympathy for undocumented immigrants and dislike for the excessive power of the Border Patrol. Aside from Rand, Peart mentions a number of other books and authors who influenced him, including, unsurprisingly, the Lord of the Rings and a little more unexpectedly a sci-fi novel by Samuel R. Delany. He also quotes Barbara Kingsolver, author of The Poisonwood Bible (who as a liberal feminist and advocate for equality and biodiversity is almost a polar opposite of Rand).

Peart does occasionally show traces of the kind of self-centeredness that one might expect from a disciple of Rand in that he sometimes seems to find it difficult to see things from the perspective of others. He mentions that someone called him “Machiavellian” for recruiting a guitar player he liked out of another band. Though the comment obviously stuck with him, he still seemed to have missed the point, as he remarks “I didn’t see the harm – I’d have a better guitar player, and the guitar player would have a better band.” True enough, but it was probably not so great for the other members of the guitarist’s original band. He also expresses little sympathy for fans who approach him in public. Though from what he says he isn’t actively hostile to them, he certainly seems uncomfortable with being recognized. To some extent, I can sympathize, as I can imagine that it gets tiresome eventually. I don’t particular care for being stared at or bothered while I’m engaged in something either, so I can understand why he wouldn’t like it. On the other hand, I think I might mind it a little less if people stared at me or approached me because they admired my personal accomplishments (rather than simply because I’m of European ancestry, which accounts for most attention I receive from strangers in Asia). It must be admitted that at least one of the "fans" Peart tells about was rather creepy, and encounters of that sort would certainly make most people more concerned about their privacy. Regardless, Peart doesn’t come across as the most easy-going person one could meet, though he would no doubt be quite interesting to talk to if you could engage him in a conversation (and for that matter, I can’t claim to be always be considerate or friendly towards strangers, so I can hardly condemn Peart for a few flaws of that sort).

All in all, I’d say Traveling Music is a successful book. Having found the part about one of his cycling trips in Africa (in which he and the small group of fellow cyclists he traveled with visited Mali and Togo, among other places) particularly interesting, perhaps someday I’ll check out his first book, which talks about his first African bicycle tour. I’m also curious about the book before this one, which tells of the tragedies that struck him in 1997 and 1998 when his daughter was killed in a car accident and his wife died of cancer, and of the long motorcycle journeys he took to help him recover. While if I had to choose one travel writer to read, I’d probably pick someone like Bill Bryson, Peart writes as well as many others, and while I may not make a special effort to search out his books, I would not be adverse to reading more of them.

Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn: The Stone of Farewell and To Green Angel Tower by Tad Williams
My fiction reading time over the past couple of months was mainly taken up by The Stone of Farewell and To Green Angel Tower, which make up the remainder of Tad William’s fantasy epic Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn (I wrote about the first book, The Dragonbone Chair, in an earlier post). Generally speaking, the later books fulfill the expectations set by the first. We see more of the people and creatures that populate the world of Osten Ard, and the plot becomes steadily more complex, to the point where I was beginning to wonder how Williams would manage to resolve all the plot threads and mysteries satisfactorily. For the most part, he does so, even though it means the last few chapters of the book are packed full of revelations and last-minute plot twists. But for most of these, there is enough foreshadowing throughout the epic that they are not completely jarring, and in a few cases I had more or less guessed what the characters would learn some time before they did. While some might find a few of the coincidences too neat, Williams handles them well enough that most readers will not mind, especially those who prefer to have all their questions answered at the end (the only minor thing that I didn’t see any explanation for was some of the items in the villain Pyrates’ tower).

In the course of the epic, Williams occasionally explores some deeper issues. The whole story is infused with a moral ambiguity that sets it apart from earlier epics like the Lord of the Rings. Several of the major villains only descended into evil as a result of misguided attempts to do what is right, and the heroes are also forced into morally ambiguous actions. Issues of racial prejudice and ethnic stereotypes crop up even among those supposedly on the same side. The protagonist Simon grapples with issues of maturity and self-identity, as well as broader social issues like when waging war with all its attendant horrors is an acceptable course to take. Simon is still sometimes maddeningly foolish, as is the princess Miriamele, who like Simon is still in her mid teens. At times the failure of Simon and others to fully share their knowledge with their friends is puzzling, though admittedly much of it is in the form of dreams which the dreamer may not always remember clearly upon waking. Miriamele’s uncle Josua, meanwhile, struggles with problems of leadership, with his tendency to feel personally responsible for every one of his followers sometimes interfering with his ability to make difficult decisions. Other characters struggle with various personal issues as well as the fight with the enemy. Though the characterizations are not perfect, they are good enough to make most of the characters more interesting than those that populate many other fantasy novels, and Williams’ handling of deeper issues, while not always subtle, is nevertheless subtler and defter than, say, R.A. Salvatore’s. The world of Osten Ard is also depicted fairly vividly. While it may not have the depth of Tolkien’s Middle Earth or the gritty realism of China Miéville’s Bas-Lag, it is nonetheless interesting and serves well as a setting for the novels.

I don’t want to delve into the plot here, in part because it is too long and complicated and in part because I don’t want to give anything away for those who haven’t read the books. I will say that while Williams is not as prone to kill off major characters as George R.R. Martin, he does do so on occasion, so the reader can never be quite sure who will survive. While the books are not as dark as some others I’ve read, the characters do sometimes get into some pretty nasty situations, and they don’t always escape unscathed. For the most part, the plot moves along fairly quickly. Occasionally the series does feel a bit like a “Bloated Epic”, as Williams himself called it in his acknowledgements, threatening to collapse under its own weight. But generally speaking Williams is able to juggle all the plot lines in a way that holds the reader’s interest. The series is definitely on the long side, with each of the first two books and each half of the last book being 700 to 800 pages long, so the whole thing totals somewhere in the neighborhood of 3000 pages. But then George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire series is already on its fifth book out of projected seven, each of them of about the same length as the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn books, and Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series will total 14 books when the last of them is published, so in comparison, the time investment required for Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn doesn’t seem like much. For those who enjoy lengthy fantasy epics but don’t necessarily want to spend half a year or more on one (or even longer waiting for the next volume in an unfinished series), Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn is a good choice.