What I've Been Reading: Mid to Late 2017

As has been the case for a couple of years now, I haven't been able to read nearly as often as I would like to, and so I haven't read all that many books this year. All the same, I have finished a number of interesting books since the last time I wrote about my reading, which has also been a rather long time. As has sometimes been the case in the past, it has been so long since I finished some of these books that I no longer all the things I originally planned to comment on, and it's even possible that there are a few books that I've read in this period that I completely forgot to comment on at all. But these are the main books I've read over the past seven months or so; I only finished the last two on the last day of the year.

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
This is a well-written sci-fi novel that is set in a near-future world in which the world is recovering from a ecological and economic collapse which almost completely destroyed global trade. While exactly what happened is not laid out in detail, it seems that not only has global warming raised sea levels around the world, but harmful genetic modifications of crop diseases and pests have run rampant, decimating the world's food supply and creating a situation where a handful of Monsanto-like "calorie companies" dominate the world food market with their proprietary food products that have been genetically modified to resist the new diseases and pests, though these same companies are deservedly viewed with great hostility in much of the world, as they seem to have been at least partly responsible (whether intentionally or out of negligence) for many of the problems in the first place. The story takes place in Thailand, one of the few countries in the world to have mostly stayed free of the economic power of the calorie companies, as the kingdom has its own gene bank generating food that is mostly disease free.

One interesting aspect of the story is that while the story focuses on a number of characters, the only one who is totally sympathetic is Emiko the windup girl herself, who is an android somewhat reminiscent of those in Blade Runner, though considerably more vulnerable. Anderson Lake, the "calorie man" who the story opens up with, seems less sympathetic as the story goes on, and as noted above he is working for a company that resembles a more powerful and even more evil version of Monsanto. His Malaysian Chinese subordinate Hock Seng gains sympathy for his past, in which his entire family was murdered in a genocidal massacre, but despite having been the victim of racism he is very racist himself, and has only limited empathy for others. The Thai environmental enforcement officer Jaidee is a more positive character than the main non-Thai characters, but he is rather self-righteous and his role in the latter half of the book is limited, for a reason that I will not mention here. His subordinate and protege Kanya is also fairly symapathetic, but she has her own issues. On the other hand, there are several characters who are pretty thoroughly unsympathetic, particularly a couple of high ranking Thai officials. But given human nature, especially when faced with a grim, dog-eat-dog world like the one the story is setting in, I have to say the characters seemed rather more realistic than not. The portrayal of the local cultures - right down to inclusions of words and phrases from Thai and occasionally other languages such as Mandarin Chinese as well - struck me as quite realistic too, speaking as someone who has spent a fair amount of time in Thailand (and Malaysia, a country which of course figures in Hock Seng's background), speaks Chinese and a bit of Thai and has at least some degree of knowledge about the cultures and history of the region, though I do wonder whether it is likely that so little would have changed culturally given all the other major changes between our present day world and the world of the book. It's not only the Thai characters who behave very much like the Thai of today; the farang (Western expats like Anderson) are similar to characters you might see in Thailand in the present. Hock Seng, in turn, is almost a throwback to an early era, as he seems at times to be a bit of a stereotype of a 20th century (formerly) wealthy ethnic Chinese chauvanist, though again there are most likely still people like that in the region today. Despite these caveats, both the characterisations and the portrayals of the local cultures are overall among the book's strong points, and are part of the reason that I recommend it to pretty much any kind of reader.

The Kingkiller Chronicle Day One: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss
This is a fantasy book that I picked up a number of years ago, as I'd heard some favorable mentions. I'd even gone ahead and bought its sequel, but I only got around to reading it recently. It proved indeed to be quite good, with a well-realized world and a compelling story. The main character, Kvothe, does hover at the edge of unbelievability due to his incredible range of talents, but then he is supposed to be an exceptional individual, and as an added twist, he himself acknowledges embrodiering stories about his deeds to boost his reputation. In any case, he is an interesting character, and not without his flaws, so while this could be characterized as heroic fantasy in the tradition of Conan of Cimmeria, it is heroic fantasy told with flair and style. Kvorthe's own tales of his life are invariably entertaining, and the prelude and interludes to his recital are equally engrossing and draw the reader deeper into the world the characters inhabit. In fact, the biggest downside that I discovered to the novel is one that is not part of the book itself. I knew that the book was the start of a trilogy and as I noted I had already bought a used copy of the second book. Having found that the first book matched its rave reviews, I decided to look for the third book, even if I had to get it new (though in paperback form - aside from price considerations, my overstuffed bookshelves really don't need any massive hardbacks stacked onto them). But I discovered to my surprise that even though the second book was published in 2011, the third book is not out yet, and there isn't even a prospective release date for it. I discovered that there was a lot of comment online among fans about this, with many complaining about the long wait (often making comparisons to George R.R. Martin, whose Song of Ice and Fire series is also coming along rather slowly), though others have defended Rothfuss's right to take as long as he needs. In general, I tend to sympathize with the author, since I realize that producing any kind of writing, let alone a literary masterpiece, on demand is very difficult, and Rothfuss may want to take especial care to ensure that the ending of his tale meets the expectations raised by the rest of it. Nevertheless, I also hope he manages to finish soon, and as much as I enjoyed the first book, I'll probably hold of on reading the second one until there's a clear prospect of seeing the third in print not too long afterwards. Nevertheless, I would strongly recommend the book to anyone who enjoys fantasy or well-written adventure fiction in general, with the caveat that at this point the story remains unfinished.

A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
A wide ranging science fiction novel that directly or indirectly encompasses many centuries of time, numerous star systems and a number of different civilizations. The main story takes place over a period of decades in an unusual star system where the parent star goes through peculiar but regular dormant states in which its only planet goes into a deep freeze. This star, its planet, and the developing alien civilization that lives there become the object of attention from two human civilizations, one a long-lasting, wide-ranging trading civilization and one a newer, well-organized but essentially tolitarian civilization just beginning to expand. The collision between the two human groups, the growing pains of the alien civilization and the increasing contact between the aliens and the humans drives the plot. Among the intriguing aspects of the novel are its portrayal of a biotechnologically based form of slavery, its picture of life on a planet with a very unusual climate and its portrayal of human efforts to understand a truly alien civilization. Though at times Vinge seems to betray a rather excessive faith in the power of trade and the so-called free market, this doesn't interfere greatly with the story which remains entertaining throughout. One thing I would have liked to see is a little more clarity on the fate of a couple of the main characters, though from an artistic standpoint I can see the virtue of leaving a few things unresolved.

The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
I read this classic American novel of the Dust Bowl era many years ago (in high school, I believe), but I had forgotten most of it. The Joad family's situation remains pretty grim throughout, with only brief periods of relief, but Steinbeck makes a point of portraying their resilience and that of their fellow refugees from the Dust Bowl, even as he also paints a blacker picture of how they are exploited and despised by those that they encounter. The novel ends unresolved, though its final image is one that reinforces a theme that runs through the novel, that being the recognition of the need to help those in distress, even while those providing the help are themselves are in little better condition. It should be noted that while Steinbeck is certainly trying to make a political point here, his characters are not one-sided; whether among the Joad family itself or among their fellow "Okies" (the disparaging term given to them by the people of California) the willingness to help their fellows is not universal and even those that do help do not always do so without reservation. While those that exploit or oppress the refugees tend to be more one dimensional, even there occassional glimmers of humanity show through, such as when the inspection station officer allowed the Joads through without inspection because he believed Granma was sick. Overall, the novel is a keen portrayal of a bleak part of America's history, one that many would do well to be reminded of, particularly now, when climate change threatens to create many desperate refugees like the Joads, not only outside the US but, if current trends continue, within the country as well.

Paradise Lost by John Milton
This famous epic poem from the 17th century has left a number of marks in later literature from the frequent appearance of quotes like "Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven" to inspiring entire works, such as Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Regarding the latter, while superficially Pullman approaches the subject matter from the opposite direction than Milton, who conspicuously remains an orthodox Christian in his beliefs, it is worth noting that William Blake once said of Milton that he was "of the Devil's party without knowing it." It is certainly true that Milton's portayal of Satan is not lacking in sympathy, and in fact he shows Satan himself reflecting philosophically on his fate and even feeling some regret about taking the path he has taken. While Milton clearly did not consciously side with Satan in any way, many readers are left with a more equivocal view. Another interesting aspect of Milton's poem is its more obvious equivocation between a Ptolemaic (Earth-centered) and Copernican (heliocentric) view of the Solar System, or rather the universe, as the distinction between the two was not clear at that time. Galileo is mentioned a couple of times, including a reference to his telescopic observations. There's even a reference to the possibility that there may be life elsewhere in the universe, though ultimately Adam is told he should concern himself too much with such things. This brings up a more obviously negative aspect of the poem, and that is its almost unremittingly sexism. Both before and after the fall, when Adam is visited by angels serving as messengers from God, Eve is expected to remove herself (during the earlier visit, though she does listen in some, as she is still close by) or is actually put to sleep while the angel explains things to Adam. There are numerous references to women's intellectual and spiritual inferiority and their duty to submit to the lead of their husbands. Of course this view of women as inferior and submissive to man was widespread in Milton's time, but it is still rather off-putting to read, especially as it crops up constantly. Despite this, the poem is worth reading (though it is not a particularly easy read, as the language is quite different from today's English and less straightforward than the slightly earlier works of Shakespeare), as it remains an important and influential work of English literature.

What I've Been Reading: Early 2017

While my reading pace has been slow for the last few years, with too much time taken up by going through emails (mostly from political and environmental organizations and politicians), reading the news, and various other projects, I still manage to get through roughly a book a month, though I'm often reading more than one simultaneously. I always have one book, generally a novel, in my bag when I go out, even though many days I never get a chance to read it, and another one or two books - usually non-fiction or less gripping or more difficult fiction (e.g., Ulysses, The Sound and the Fury, etc.) - at my bedside to read before going to sleep, and I'll occasionally read bits out of various non-fiction or very familiar fiction during the day. The following are books I finished in the first four months or so of this year. The first of them I actually read most of in late 2016, as mentioned in my last post about my reading, but as I quite hadn't finished it then, I'm including my brief commentary on it here. A lot more could be and perhaps should be said about it, and the other books here as well, but I'd recommend that readers with sufficient time on their hands and interest in the topics covered read the books themselves.

Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
A very interesting look at the question of why the historical pace of development has varied greatly in different parts of the world. Why has Eurasia and the Mediterranean area, rather than sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas or Oceania, been the home of the world’s most dominant civilization throughout historical times? Diamond explores a number of different factors in considerable detail, and makes a strong argument for his basic premise, that geography was the determining factor. For example, the West Asian region was home to a variety of grains and several animals that were particularly suitable for domestication, which is why it was the first to develop agriculture and civilization. Other parts of the world had much fewer easily domesticated crops, and many had no animals that could be domesticated for transport and as livestock (for instance, while the horse, native to Eurasia, could be domesticated, its relative the African zebra could not. Eurasia’s east-west orientation made it easier for crops domesticated in one part of the continental mass to spread to other parts, whereas the north-south orientation of the Americas and other geographic obstacles elsewhere made it harder for crops to spread. A similar series of factors resulted in Eurasians having more endemic disease germs that could devastate populations newly exposed to them with transmissions in reverse being much less common. While it’s possible that Diamond oversimplifies some points or exaggerates the importance of some factors, or that there are some alternate explanations for some of these things that I am not aware of, in general he makes a convincing case. One important takeaway is that the relative success of certain civilizations or ethnic groups has nothing to do with any inherent superiority they possess, but is due to a combination of factors that ultimately lead back to geography. All in all, it’s definitely a book worth reading.

The Martian by Andy Weir
In general, if a movie is based on a novel, I prefer to read the novel first. This is not always possible, of course, particularly if I hadn’t been aware of the novel until the movie came out, in which case I usually wouldn’t have time to read the book before the movie’s theatrical run ended, assuming I was even able to find a copy. Such was the case with The Martian. The movie was quite good, and when I came across a used copy of the book, I snapped it up (even though the copy I got had a cover based on the film, something I dislike). The book turned out to be as good as the movie, which was pretty faithful to it. The parts of the story that take place on Mars are told through a journal written by the Martian himself, astronaut Mark Watney, with other parts told in third person from the viewpoint of various people at NASA as well as Watney’s fellow astronauts. The story is engaging, and Weir manages to get quite a bit of technical and scientific stuff in without slowing things down appreciably. Watney’s wisecracking personality is perhaps not what one would expect in a scientist-astronaut on a mission to Mars, but then it is in large part that same characteristic that keeps his journal entries more readable than one might expect from the typical scientist or astronaut, even one in such a dramatic situation. All in all, the book is an entertaining read as well as a pretty realistic-seeming look at what it might be like trying to survive on Mars.

Balthasar’s Odyssey by Amin Maalouf
This historical novel is set in the 17th century (in the years 1665 to 1667, to be precise) and its geographic setting ranges from Lebanon to Istanbul to the Aegean to Italy to London and back to the Mediterranean. As the title implies, the book follows the journeys of the protagonist Balthasar, who tells his story through a series of journals (it was an interesting coincidence that I read this just after The Martian, which also featured journal entries by the titular protagonist). Despite his first name, Balthasar is not of native Lebanese ancestry but is a descendant of a Genoese family that arrived in the Levant during the Crusades and ended up staying, though unlike his early ancestors, who were lords of an entire town, he is a seller of antiques, though still a respected member of the community. A mysterious book is the initial impetus for his journey, but events along the way lead him on a much longer trip than he had originally planned on. Balthasar himself is a rationalist who nevertheless becomes infected with superstitious worries about an impending apocalypse, though he constantly tries to maintain his rational outlook. Though he suffers all sorts of unexpected setbacks – some due to his own mistakes, others due mostly to bad luck – he mostly keeps his head, though he often suffers self-doubt, especially when faced with major dilemmas. In general, he’s a character that most readers will find easy to relate to. His story is gripping and the book paints a fascinating picture of the world of that time. The only minor disappointment for me was that the ending left a number of loose ends unresolved. However, this minor flaw doesn’t detract much from what is otherwise a quite good historical novel.

Breakfast at Tiffany’s by Truman Capote
This novella by Truman Capote is one of his best-known works, and the basis for the well-known movie starring Audrey Hepburn (which I haven’t seen). It is centered on the young woman Holly Golightly, who the narrator became fascinated with when the two were living as neighbors in an apartment building in New York. Published in the late 1950s and set in the early 1940s during World War II, it has a definite mid-20th century feel, but is a lot more straightforward about sex than I might have expected for a book from that era, though admittedly it only takes place off-camera, as it were – the narrator and Holly are comfortable enough with each other to be nude in the other’s presence at points in the story, but they are never lovers and the narrator’s occasional fits of jealousy over Holly are more like those of someone who worries about another stealing away their best friend (in fact, one gets the feeling, though it is never stated, that the narrator may be gay, like Capote himself was). While Holly is perhaps almost too much to be wholly believable, she is certainly a memorable character, and this short novella paints evocative picture of her. The book I have also includes three similarly evocative short stories by Capote, “House of Flowers”, “A Diamond Guitar”, and “A Christmas Memory”.

Life in a Medieval Castle by Joseph and Frances Gies
As the title states, this non-fiction book describes different aspects of life in a medieval castle. It talks about the structure of a typical castle, the lords and ladies of the era, their households, a typical day in a castle, hunting, the villagers who worked for the castle’s lord, knights, warfare involving castles, and how castle life varied over a course of a year. As it happens, the castle they use as their prime example is one of the few I have actual been to, Chepstow Castle, on the border between Wales and England (and a cool castle it is). While the book may not be as engrossing as an adventure story, it is still quite interesting, and worth a read for anyone interested in castles or medieval times.

What I've Been Reading (Late 2016)...and a Brief Farewell to 2016

This year has been a strange one. Not all of it has been bad: Taiwan's elections turned out pretty well, quite a few major discoveries were made in astronomy, some progress was made in fighting climate change, and on a personal note, my music related endeavors (such as my radio show and my Taiwanese aboriginal music related activities) mostly went well. But there's been a lot of bad news as well. Personally, I suffered a broken leg (perhaps more on that another time - at any rate I am mostly recovered), climate change is becoming much more serious, and much of the international political news has been bad or downright terrible. There have also been what seems like an unusual number of deaths of famous people: aside from many people in the world of popular music, some of whom I've written about in my music blog, people ranging from King Bhumibol of Thailand and Fidel Castro of Cuba to the recent deaths of actress/writer Carrie Fisher and her mother, actress Debbie Reynolds. Of course people die every year, and it is pure coincidence that these people died in a year in which many other things have gone badly. Still, it's no surprise that many people are saying that it's been a terrible year and are in a hurry for it to end. Unfortunately, there's no guarantee that 2017 will be better. In fact, it may be worse, since we have yet to face the real consequences of at least one of the worst events of 2016, the US presidential election. But rather than dwell too much on all this, I am going to talk instead about a few of the books I've read over the latter part of this year, as promised in my last post on my reading. This doesn't quite cover everything; I wrote about Keith Richards' autobiography in my music blog, and I'm almost finished with Jared Diamond's fascinating and educational Guns, Germs and Steel, but that will have to be covered in a later post.


The Elric Saga by Michael Moorcock
Elric of Melnibone is one of the classic characters of fantasy (more precisely, its subgenre swords and sorcery). The original saga was published in bits and pieces and out of chronological order, but was later organized into six books, though most of them consist of essentially separate episodes, reflecting the way they were originally published. These books, in internal chronological order, are Elric of Melnibone, Sailor on the Seas of Fate, The Weird of the White Wolf, The Vanishing Tower, The Bane of the Black Sword and Stormbringer. Elric of Melnibone, though first by internal chronology, was published later than the other material, and was also the first full-length Elric novel, as the other books consist of novellas and short stories originally published separately. Many years later, Moorcock wrote several additional Elric books, but as I don’t have any of these, they aren’t considered here.

I had read Elric of Melnibone and The Weird of the White Wolf in the past, but it was only later that I acquired most of the other books in the series (I still don’t have The Vanishing Tower). I decided to read all five books that I had in internal chronological order. The most obvious comparisons to be made are to Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories and Fritz Leiber’s stories of Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. Elric is (I think deliberately) almost the polar opposite of Conan, as rather than a black-haired, muscular barbarian with a strong distrust of magic, Elric is a physically weak albino with substantial sorcerous abilities who is the last of a long line of emperors of a civilized but extremely decadent race. As such, he is certainly a more unique character, and in many ways a more interesting one. Moorcock’s stories also have the advantage of lacking some of the vaguely racist pseudoscience that Howard incorporated into his tales, such as the idea that humans or other creatures could “devolve” into less advanced species (though even Moorcock and for that matter writers like J.R.R. Tolkien rather overemphasized the idea of inherent racial characteristics). The female characters in the Elric stories are not completely helpless or incapable, though they still far too often end up needing to be rescued from villains who have kidnapped them. In this respect as well as others, Leiber’s stories are superior. One major distinction (though whether it makes one or the other better is of course subjective) is that Leiber’s tales have considerably more humor and plain fun. The Elric stories are suffused with grim melancholy, in keeping with the anti-hero who is their focus. Fafhrd and Grey Mouser are not exactly paragons of virtue – they are mercenaries and thieves – but Elric can be callous and cruel, even if he is more troubled by something resembling a conscience and has more of a sense of right and wrong than most of his people. His friend and companion Moonglum bears a bit more resemblance to the Grey Mouser in particular, but even he can’t keep up his optimism and wit in the face of some of the particularly unpleasant situations the pair encounter.

Ultimately, the Elric stories (and particularly their distinctive protagonist) are intriguing and present an interesting twist on standard fantasy fare, but while at least some of them should be read by anyone who wants to get a full grounding in classic fantasy, I wouldn’t put them at the top of my list of fantasy books to recommend to someone unfamiliar with the genre, unless I knew them to be the type of person who was likely to appreciate their dark and melancholy tone.

The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells
The Invisible Man is one of several classic novels by the early science fiction writer H.G. Wells, only slightly less famous than the two I’d read in the past, War of the Worlds and The Time Machine. Nevertheless, I was completely unfamiliar with the story, and was somewhat surprised by the character of the titular invisible man and the uses he makes of his discovery. Though he sometimes seems to be a bit exaggerated, and at times the very British behavior of some of the other characters may strike modern readers as a bit odd, they are all distinct and colorful. Wells also obviously gave a lot of thought to both providing a believable explanation for the process by which the invisibility formula was discovered and its potential consequences. The story is not exactly a cheerful one, but it is an interesting one, and the story is well worth reading for anyone interested in classic science fiction.

The Bridge by Iain Banks
This Iain Banks novel is not one of his science fiction novels (which were credited to Iain M. Banks), but rather one of his mainstream, “real world” novels. In fact, he first gained critical fame through the latter, and wrote both types of novels throughout his career (he once said literary types who were dismissive of science fiction would often assume that he wrote science fiction for the money and would be taken aback when he’d tell them that if anything the reverse was true: he wrote mainstream fiction for the money, but sci-fi was what he enjoyed writing most). I’ve read several of his mainstream novels, all of which I’ve found to be quite good, but this one might be the best. It is certainly the most imaginative. This is in part because while the basic frame story is set in the real world, the majority of the novel unfolds in settings that are not part of the real world at all, but part of what might best be described as a dream world, or rather multiple dream worlds folded into each other. As I’d rather not give away too much of the story, I will simply explain this by saying that much of the story centers around a character living on a bridge that seems to go on almost forever in both directions, and is basically a city in itself, with homes, offices, restaurants, hospitals, bars and more, densely populated by apparently normal people. The protagonist suffers from amnesia and doesn’t remember where he came from or what his original name was. From time to time, he experiences vivid dreams, including a series of them featuring yet another protagonist who appears to be a powerful but amoral barbarian warrior who tells his story in some type of Scottish dialect. Interspersed among the bridge-centered story and the dreams of its protagonist is the story of the other chief protagonist, who lives in our real world.

The real world protagonist has much in common with the protagonists of most other mainstream Banks novels. He is Scottish and politically leftist, though he struggles to reconcile his principles with his lifestyle and is often self-centered in spite of his ideals. He is a recreational drug user and is in a long-term relationship, though the relationship is not without its problems. While many of these characteristics are found in other Banks protagonists, each manages to be distinct, and this novel is even further distinguished by the other strands of narrative, which have only the most tangential relationship to the real world. Like Banks’s sci-fi Culture novels (or his occasional non-Culture sci-fi novels), The Bridge shows a highly imaginative writer at work, one who manages to be in turns clever, witty, and philosophical while telling a very engaging and entertaining story.

What I've Been Reading: Early 2016

As has been usual lately, I'm a bit behind on my blogging for various reasons. Since it's been ages since I last wrote about the books I've been reading, I want to at least go back and cover the ones that I read in the first few months of this year, other than Hillary Clinton's autobiography Living History, which I've already written about. Of course, I've managed to read a number of books since then as well, but those will have to be covered in a later post.

The Wizard of Oz by Frank Baum
Like almost everyone who grew up in the United States, I saw the Wizard of Oz film multiple times in my childhood, but also like most Americans today, I’d never read the book it was based on (which originally went under the full title The Wonderful Wizard of Oz). I finally rectified that recently, and I found that overall the book is as good as the movie, though they diverge in important ways. Baum’s original novel is quite short, but nevertheless there are a number of episodes that were not incorporated into the movie, such as the journey Dorothy and her friends had to take to see the Good Witch of the South (who simply showed up in Oz in the movie). Also, in the book the Winged Monkeys were not evil servants of the Wicked Witch, but compelled to obey the wearer of the Golden Cap; later they help Dorothy when she has the cap. There are other elements unique to the book here and there, such as the Wizard requiring everyone who enters the Emerald City to wear green-tinted glasses that are locked on to the wearer’s head until they depart. Another notable difference is that the Dorothy in the book is clearly much younger than Judy Garland (though Garland seemed also to be portraying someone younger than her actual age at the time the movie was made). But perhaps a bigger distinction is that many of the Kansas scenes in the movie are not from the book (Dorothy’s aunt and uncle are the only other Kansas characters, and the family’s life there is portrayed as much more bleak and impoverished), and the book does not imply that the whole thing may have been a dream. Despite their differences, the book and movie have a lot in common, including that they are both very good if not necessarily complex or profound pieces of entertainment. Certainly the book was good enough that I’d be interested in reading some of its sequels should I ever come across any of them.

Fallen Dragon by Peter Hamilton
This is a standalone novel by a science fiction writer who seems to be pretty prolific, judging by the number of books by him I’ve seen around. This particular book is set in a distant future where humans have mastered faster-than-light travel, which they’ve used to colonize a number of planets around our part of the galaxy, though at the time the novel takes place, the initial burst of colonization has ended. Since colonization ventures are expensive, they were mostly sponsored by large, powerful corporations under contracts which apparently entitled them a share of the colony’s production, and new colonization efforts have been largely abandoned as too expensive. In the novel, one giant corporation has bought up a lot of the founding corporations of the various colony planets. It sends fleets of battleships and highly trained soldiers to the planets and demands that they hand over a substantial share of their production, using force to take what it wants if there is resistance. The main story takes place on one of these planets, with the central character Lawrence Newton, whose background is revealed in flashbacks, being one of the soldiers in the corporate army, with a secondary protagonist being a woman in the colonial resistance. The story is fairly complex, with some interesting twists. It’s a good novel that combines elements of space opera with hard SF, and I enjoyed it enough that I’d like to eventually check out another book or two by Hamilton.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham
This well-known novel by W. Somerset Maugham is in the tradition of novels like Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield, in that it tells of the protagonist’s childhood and early adulthood, and his search for his place in life. However, there are some aspects that show that it belongs to the 20th century (though the early part of it), such as the much more prominent role of sexual relationships, which while not described directly are still made much more obvious than in older novels. Some elements of the novel are autobiographical, such as several points relating to the protagonist Philip Carey’s childhood, though often altered slightly from the reality of Maugham’s own life. Philip Carey can sometimes be a rather frustrating protagonist to follow because the reader really wants to shake some sense into him. Of course this is true for most good protagonists, as they are naturally flawed just like real people are, though in Carey’s case it gets a bit much, particularly when he falls for a woman who not only is clearly unattractive in terms of both her character and her appearance, but who even Carey himself thinks is unattractive even when he first meets her and who never does anything to change that initial impression. While it’s not unusual for people to fall for someone whose flaws they don’t originally see, or to gradually fall for someone whose attractive qualities are not obvious at first, neither of those situations is what happens here, so it’s a bit of mystery why he would fall for her at all. But that aside, the novel is generally deserving of its classic status, and is a much easier read than many others in that category.


The Later Roman Empire by Ammianus Marcellinus
This is generally considered one of the most important histories to survive from the late Roman Empire. The surviving portions cover several decades in the last half of the fourth century (up to 378 CE), though the missing books at the beginning covered the second and third centuries as well as the first half of the fourth, though presumably in far less detail, as there are more books extant then are missing, even though the period they cover is far shorter. In the existing sections, much of the focus is on Julian, an emperor who Ammianus clearly admired, though he also criticizes him in places. He paints a grim picture of the misdeeds of many Roman officials, from Julian’s half-brother, the Caesar Gallus, and several of the other emperors in the period covered to various high officials who lied, cheated, stole and murdered with or without the knowledge of the emperors they served. Like many ancient Romans, including earlier historians such as Livy, he believes in superstitious nonsense like portents, but in other ways he does a reasonable job of taking a fairly objective, rational view of matters. As a pagan, his admiration for the pro-pagan Julian might be considered mere prejudice, but he actually criticizes Juilian for one of his more anti-Christian actions (banning Christians from teaching rhetoric). He condemns many injustices, though occasionally is rather contradictory in this regard; for example, he acknowledges that it was the oppression of the local Roman officials that caused the Gothic rebellion that led to the disastrous battle of Adrianople which ends his history, but when a Roman leader in the east treacherously has his Gothic soldiers slaughtered before they can even hear about the rebellion, he praises that as a prudent act, if not a noble one. But while he is many ways clearly a product of his times in his prejudices and beliefs, he is a decent historian and one whose work is essential to anyone who wants to understand that period of history.

What I've Been Reading: A Political Autobiography (Late 2015 to Early 2016)

Not only have I gotten behind on my reading lately; I've also gotten behind in writing about the few books I've managed to read. This is a small step towards getting caught up, but only a small step, because in this entry I only cover one book. I originally intended to cover all the books I finished in the first few months of this year, but due to this particular book's current relevance, I decided to talk about it at some length and save the books I finished more recently for a future post.

Living History by Hillary Clinton
This, of course, is Hillary Rodham Clinton’s autobiography, covering her life from her childhood to a little after the end of her husband Bill Clinton’s second term as US president and her own election as US senator from the state of New York. Given that she has a better than even chance of becoming US president herself after the next election, it seemed like a good time to find out more about her from her own perspective (to be sure, when I read the book at the beginning of the year the presidential race was still packed with candidates, but despite Bernie Sanders’s impressive performance and the train wreck on the Republican side, Hillary has remained the candidate with the best chance of winning pretty much throughout). I can’t say that the book dramatically changed my views of her, either for better or for worse, but it was informative nonetheless.

Unsurprisingly, I couldn’t resist comparing Hillary’s autobiography to the book written by the man she wants to succeed. Based on these two books alone, he is a much better writer and his story is much more colorful. This isn’t to say she’s a bad writer (or rather she and her co-writers, as she had three ghostwriters help on her book) or that her story wasn’t interesting, just that where she is competent, he is brilliant. In a way, this reflects one of the biggest problems that has plagued her in her political career; she has a great grasp of details and is good at explaining things, but she has difficulty generating inspiration. However, as I have noted before, in governance if not in literature, inspiration isn’t everything, and in some ways it’s more important that a president be competent than that they be inspirational. Anyway, it’s not really a fair comparison. Hillary’s is a solid political biography, whereas Obama’s book is really literature, the sort of life story that would be considered an excellent book even if the person who wrote hadn’t gone on to become president of the United States. What’s more, when he wrote it, even he probably didn’t have any definite ambitions on the national political stage, as he hadn’t begun his political career. In other words, Obama was not writing as a politician who has to watch every word lest it damage his future prospects. Hillary, on the other hand, was, and the difference is readily apparent.

Despite the success of the American right wing in painting Hillary as fundamentally dishonest, her account for the most part rings true. The story of her mother, though told very briefly, is particularly interesting, as is her account of her own evolution from young Republican to Democrat. This particular part of her background has become a club for some on the left to beat her with, as they like to cite her admission that in high school she was a “Goldwater girl”. Having undergone a similar political evolution I find such attacks absurd, especially since someone who has proved open minded enough to change their views through a rational comparison of the different sides is in fact rather more convincing than someone who has been a true believer all their lives. A more legitimate angle for criticism is that in describing the period of Bill Clinton’s governorship and presidency, she expresses support for many of the problematic centrist positions he supported. However, even here there are some points that her critics seem to miss. For instance, in talking about the various welfare reform bills, she says that she told Bill and his staff that if the bill was too harsh, she would publicly oppose it. In the end, the final bill that came out of the Republican Congress had enough protections for the most disadvantaged to satisfy her, so she didn’t oppose it, but that was only after Bill had rejected more draconian proposals. Granted, it came be fairly argued that the bill that passed was still far too harsh, and Bill and to a lesser extent Hillary can be faulted for going along with it. What’s more, those who insist that she is untruthful may not accept her assertion that she pushed behind the scenes for a moderate bill. But while the first point is reasonable, the second is not, as her account is consistent with the rest of her record, even if it to a certain degree punctures the view of her as bearing major responsibility for the negative aspects of welfare reform.

While at times she seems to take pains to portray herself a pragmatic centrist, providing ammunition for her progressive critics, she also makes clear her advocacy for a number of progressive positions, from improving the status of women to protecting the environment. I also appreciated her positive remarks about the Dalai Lama and her account of confronting Jiang Zemin, then president of China, on the issue of Tibet. On a less serious note, the book constantly brought to mind her appearance on The Colbert Show, which amusingly poked fun at her tendency to drop names. Though they were talking about her book about her time as US secretary of state, in this book she also seems to make an effort to mention almost everyone who crossed her path, famous or otherwise. In most cases, she also makes an effort to say something positive about them, though there are several notable exceptions. While she praises Dick Morris’s political skills and says she encouraged Bill to consult him, she also acknowledges that he worked both sides of the political aisle and that he has “the people skills of a porcupine”. Unsurprisingly, she has nothing good to say about Kenneth Starr and her comments about Newt Gingrich are largely negative. I share her views about Starr and Gingrich, but while I can appreciate her inclination to otherwise follow that old rule “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all”, especially if you are in politics, in retrospect she might have been wiser to, for example, more strongly emphasize the autocratic nature of Hosni Mubarak’s rule in Egypt as a counterpoint to her more positive remarks about him. Likewise, her relationships with people like Mark Penn and Rahm Emmanuel don’t look so good in retrospect. But all in all, given that she knew everything she wrote would be gone over for intemperate remarks that could be used against her, the caution that governs much of what she says about people is understandable.

Despite the cautious nature of most of her account, all the more inevitable given her personality and her political ambitions, Hillary still manages to get in flashes of the personal. Her stories of her childhood and college years give a revealing look at her background. Her discussions of some of the troubles she got into on the couple’s first political campaign are candid and occasionally show flashes of humor. Her defenses against the attacks launched against her and her husband, both during the campaign and during her husband's presidency, are generally quite credible, not surprisingly considering the outrageous nature of some of the attacks. Even at the time, it was clear to me that Whitewater, for instance, was much ado about nothing, and the partisan nature of Starr’s “investigations” (or, rather, desperate digging for the least little thing that could be used against the Clintons) were obvious to anyone with an ounce of objectivity. Certainly anyone who thinks there is anything to the “scandals” the right wing attacked Hillary and her husband for should read her account of them, and those who have acquired a vaguely negative view of her in general might find themselves seeing things differently after reading her book. While the dyed-in-the-wool Hillary haters will not believe anything she says, and even those on the left who dislike her will find as much to confirm their views of her as to contradict them, those who are more open minded but less knowledgeable about her are likely to emerge from the book with a picture of her as a person who, despite some missteps and occasional questionable viewpoints, is extremely talented and knowledgeable, and who has come through a lot of political fire to get where she is today. While the book is unlikely to convince readers that she’ll be an inspirational president who will institute dramatic changes, it may help persuade them that she would at least be a solidly competent one who will in general move things in the right direction, which is enough to make her vastly preferable to the potential disaster that her prospective opponent represents.

What I've Been Reading: July 2015 to November 2015

As was the case for the first half of this year and much of the previous one, my reading pace has been slowed down by my tendency to use my commuting time to check my email on my phone and work on various projects on my laptop rather than to do my reading. However, I still have managed to get some reading in. The books described below are ones that I've finished in the latter half of the year, and there are a few others that I should manage to finish soon.

Voices and Powers by Ursula K. LeGuin
These two novels are sequels to LeGuin’s Gifts and the second and third in her Annals of the Western Shore series. Each novel has a different main protagonist, though Orrec and Gry from Gifts play a major role in Voices, and the two of them, together with Memer, the protagonist of Voices, appear briefly at the end of Powers. In terms of dramatic setting, Voices is probably the most “typical” of the three books, as Memer is an adolescent girl living in a city occupied by a hostile army, and she comes to play a role in the effort by the people of the city to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. But as might be expected of LeGuin’s thoughtful writing, Memer learns that things are not completely black and white and that violence is not always the best way to accomplish things. Powers tells the tale of Gavir, a young man who grows up as a slave in a city-state somewhat reminiscent of ancient Greece or Rome that is at almost constant war with its neighbors (though which ones varies due to constantly shifting alliances). Though at first glance, the family that Gavir belongs to treats their slaves very well, almost like members of the family, we soon learn that there is a dark side even to the best master-slave relationships. This novel has less conventional action than Voices, being more of a tale of personal discovery, but it has its share of drama and terrible tragedy.

All three books share to some extent the central theme of the power of books and the written word, as the protagonists are all readers living among people who mostly read less well than them, or not at all, and their reading ability plays an important role in the story, particularly in Voices and Powers. Reading is at the center of Memer and Gavir’s lives and their interactions with both the literate and the illiterate people around them. As for these other characters, many of them are also quite complex and well-developed. Interestingly, the most one-dimensional characters in any of the three Western Shore novels are the chief villains. Even more complex than most of the characters are the pictures of the societies, which, as in all of LeGuin’s novels, are drawn in vivid detail. Overall, both these books are up to LeGuin’s usual high standards and are well worth reading.

Freedom in Exile by the Dalai Lama
The autobiography of the man who was born Lhamo Dondrub but is now better known as Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, is very interesting reading. While I knew the basic outline of his life and, having read one of his books (Beyond Religion) and heard a few of his speeches, I knew something about his views on many issues, it was quite fascinating to learn the details. Of course anyone who knows even a little about his life knows that the Chinese claims that he is an inveterate anti-Communist and anti-Chinese radical are complete nonsense, but it was interesting to learn the details of his attempts to reach some sort of accommodation with the Chinese Communists, including his meetings with Mao Zedong and other leaders, and of his opinions of various political and economic systems – as he also says in his other book, he considers himself half a Marxist in terms of ensuring that wealth is distributed fairly, though he found that Communism as practiced in China fell far short of its lofty ideals. I only recall one occasion in the book where he slips into negative (though understandable) stereotyping of Chinese people in general; for the most part he bends over backwards to make the point that despite the terrible way the Chinese government has treated his people, he bears no ill will toward the Chinese. Though of course he regards Tibet as a country that was historically independent of China, which it in fact was, he reiterates a willingness to compromise with China on the issue of Tibet’s status, even though justly he could (and some might say should) insist on full independence.

The Dalai Lama’s stories of his childhood are quite fascinating. He grew up mostly secluded from the general populace, though he did occasionally slip out and from an early age showed a keen interest in ordinary people and their lives. While it must have been quite strange to be treated as almost a living god, it seemingly didn’t turn his head, and once his situation was transformed by first the Chinese invasion and eventually exile, he was quick to eliminate many of the formalities that had grown up around his positions. Possessing a lively curiosity and a rational mind, he unsurprisingly developed an interest in technology and science. He isn’t entirely free from unscientific beliefs, however; he expresses some faith in the powers of soothsayers, though he also makes it clear that he knows not everyone shares his belief – indeed, his own expressions of belief have a bit of ambivalence about them. Certainly for the leader of a religion who grew up surrounded by a considerable amount of what I would frankly regard as superstition, he has a much more logical and scientific mind than would be expected; indeed more so than most Westerners. While one might learn as much or more about the Dalai Lama’s philosophical views from other books he’s written, this autobiography is an excellent way to learn about his own take on his very eventful life and about the recent history of Tibet.

MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
MaddAddam is the third and final book in Margaret Atwood’s trilogy about a dystopian near future, continuing the story that started in Oryx and Crake and continued in The Year of the Flood. Like those two novels, MaddAddam is told partly in the post-apocalyptic present and partly in flashbacks to the time before the plague that wiped out most of humanity, causing the collapse of civilization. In this novel, the focus is on Toby, who also was one of the two main protagonists of The Year of the Flood, and Zeb, who also played a major role in the second novel. The parts of the novel set in the present are told from Toby’s viewpoint, and they are interspersed with Zeb’s account to Toby of his life up to the time they met as members of the group called God’s Gardeners, founded by Adam, Zeb’s brother (though there is some question as to their precise genetic relationship). Jimmy and Ren, the main protagonist of Oryx and Crake and the second main protagonist of The Year of the Flood, also appear, though Ren’s role is relatively minor.

All in all, MaddAddam meets the standards set by the previous two novels, and if anything may be slightly stronger than The Year of the Flood. There is at least one apparent minor inconsistency between this book and the previous one regarding the fate of Adam, presumably because Atwood simply changed her mind, but this is insignificant and could perhaps be explained away. The only bit I found slightly disappointing was the way the fate of the three characters who disappeared on an expedition at the very end of the novel was handled. Even if the group believed that the explanation of what had happened to them was accurate, you’d think they’d send another group out to check, just in case there were (perhaps injured) survivors on either side. It seemed a bit odd for them to just make an assumption and leave it at that. However, despite this flaw, the book is otherwise a good conclusion to an excellent trilogy of novels, one that I’d recommend to readers of any sort.

Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
Ecotopia, first published in 1975, is a very interesting book that in some ways is more of a manifesto for an ideal society than a standard novel. The basic premise is that part of the United States, specifically northern California, Oregon and Washington, has broken away and formed the nation of Ecotopia. The new country is founded on radical, idealistic principles with respect to ecology, politics, economics and indeed virtually every element of society. A journalist from the United States visits Ecotopia several decades after its independence to do a series of investigative reports on the country, which has been largely closed to Americans since it was established.

Ecotopia, as the name implies, embodies ecological principles under which humans’ use of nature is kept in careful balance. Highly artificial materials (such as most plastics) and exploitative materials such as metals and fossil fuels are dispensed with and replaced by natural materials. While animals are still eaten, they are hunted with simple weapons like bows and arrows, and care is taken to avoid over-hunting. Wood is used for a lot of things, including construction, but forests are planted to replace all wood used.

The society of Ecotopia is likewise very different from that of the US. Women and men are completely equal; indeed, women were the main driving force behind the country’s establishment. Social relations have been completely transformed, including everything from sexual relations to the raising of children. Government is highly decentralized, and large cities have been broken up into more manageable sizes. People are guaranteed basic necessities, and work to get luxuries. Schools involve a lot of independent, hands-on work by the students, including spending time exploring nature. Even relationships are quite different, with American prudishness about sex largely dispensed with, though people still form strong pair bonds (it’s even mentioned that there is no stigma about same sex relationships).

What plot there is in Ecotopia has to do with how the American journalist, William Weston, grows in his understanding of Ecotopian society and particularly how he gets involved in a relationship with an Ecotopian woman who aids him in this process. But the plot is not really the point here. The main purpose of the book is to present a comprehensive picture of a possible society founded on principles of environmental sustainability and social and economic equality and stability. While some aspects of the book date it somewhat – for example, while fossil fuels are rejected by the Ecotopians, this is because of their polluting and unsustainable qualities, not because of climate change, which is not even mentioned (the concept was known long before the book was published but had not really seeped into the public consciousness) – it is also remarkable prescient in some ways, including some of the products the Ecotopians make and some of the ways they obtain energy. Some of the changes in the way people behave strike me as a bit dubious, not so much because they would be undesirable, but because, as author Iain Banks said with regard to his futuristic society the Culture, they seem a little difficult to obtain without some sort of genetic engineering to fundamentally change some of the negative aspects of human nature. But with a few exceptions most aspects of Ecotopia do seem like they’d be a vast improvement over modern, capitalistic society. In general, the book is a thought-provoking look at some ways society could be made more sustainable and equitable, and could provide the starting point for some interesting debates.

What I've Been Reading: January 2015 to June 2015

As is evident from the length of time since my last post on my reading and the limited number of books in this post (though I should point out that one of the entries below is a trilogy of books), it should be obvious that I am getting even less reading than I did last year. This is in large part because I've acquired a laptop computer and have been trying to get some work on my various music and other projects done on it while commuting instead of reading as I did in the past - and as has been true for an even longer time, going through emails on my phone also takes up some of my commuting time. But I still manage to a bit of reading at home or on other occasions, so here are a few of the books I read earlier this year (more recent books will have to wait for a future post).

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Set in Istanbul in the late 16th century at the height of the Ottoman Empire, My Name Is Red is a historical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (indeed it seems to have been one of the main reasons he won the award). The story is a murder mystery, a tale of intrigue among miniaturists working to illustrate manuscripts for the Sultan, told in the first person through the eyes of a rotating cast of characters. While the use of shifting viewpoints to tell a tale is common enough, here not only do we hear much of the tale from the perspective of the obvious protagonists like Black, who is asked to solve the mystery by his maternal uncle and former mentor Enishte Effendi, or Shekure, Enishte’s daughter and the woman Black loves, but also through the eyes of the murderer, the three chief suspects, various minor characters and even non-living characters such as the murder victim, who opens the story with the declaration “I am a corpse” and several of the illustrations themselves, the latter brought to life by a storyteller in a coffee shop frequented by many of the miniaturists (though interestingly enough – and probably not coincidentally – we never hear the voice of the storyteller himself).

The story is engaging, and the characters are well drawn. The reader also learns a great deal about the art of illustrating manuscripts in the Islamic world and its historical development. The tension between the miniaturists and the sometimes capricious rulers who make use of their talents on the one hand and those who follow a stricter interpretation of Islam on the other hand forms one of the central underlying conflicts in the story, along with the struggle between those like Effendi who want to incorporate Western influences into Ottoman art and those who are repelled by the idea. It is surely not a coincidence that Pamuk chooses to build his novel around conflicts such as religion versus secularism and tradition versus modernity that continue to roil society in Turkey and in the wider Islamic world. There is also a strong element of metafiction, as the characters often express awareness that they are part of a story. In addition, not only is the name of Shekure’s younger son Orhan, like that of the author, but his older brother Shevket shares his name with the real Orhan’s older brother, and Shekure herself has the same name as the author’s real mother. Furthermore, Shekure reveals at the end that it is Orhan who has written down the final version of the story. She warns the reader that Orhan may have distorted some of their characters, concluding: “For the sake of a delightful and convincing story, there isn’t a lie that Orhan wouldn’t deign to tell.”

Cleverly written and yet more readable than most consciously “literary” novels, incorporating both interesting historical information and themes with modern parallels, My Name Is Red is worthy of its reputation as a Nobel Prize winning novel without being overly difficult or lacking in entertainment value. Readers interested in murder mysteries, Turkey, history, Islamic art, conflicts between tradition and modernity or good literature in general will find it worth reading.

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
This series of dystopian science fiction novels (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) for young adults is probably one of the best known of the genre, not only due to the best-selling status of the novels themselves but also due to the movie adaptations, which have also done very well at the box office. The novels are certainly entertaining and generally pretty well done, though they aren’t without their flaws. They are not very deep or literary, and there are some story elements that slightly strain credulity. There is also sometimes a touch of melodrama in the way Katniss Everdeen (the protagonist from whose point of view the reader follows the story) sees what is happening to her. For instance, when she realizes that her fellow Hunger Games contestant Peeta has not given up on surviving the games, she automatically assumes that he’s planning to kill her. Admittedly, given the rules, he couldn’t win without her dying at some point, but as is made quite clear once the games start, even if winning the games was actually his goal, the chance that he would have had to kill her himself would have been very small. In fact, I suspect Katniss’s tendency toward melodrama arose mainly through Collins’s deliberate effort to keep drawing the reader on. Virtually every chapter ends on, if not a cliffhanger, a dramatic revelation or other statement designed to get the reader to continue on to the next chapter to see what happens.

Despite these issues, it’s easy to see why the books are popular. Katniss is an interesting character, if not always very likeable, and the story moves at a dizzying pace. There are quite a few dramatic plot twists and surprises that keep readers on the edge of their seat, eager to find out what else may be in store. The world of the Hunger Games is also interesting, though it is less detailed than some other fictional worlds and there are occasionally believability issues. Overall, The Hunger Games books are not exactly great literature, but as pure escapist entertainment, they are a good option for readers of all ages.

[Side note: The popularity of The Hunger Games books led to an influence on real world events, as anti-coup protesters in Thailand used the defiant salute from the books (and the movies) to express their opposition to the military takeover, in some cases getting arrested for it.]

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Pinocchio is one of many characters from children’s literature and folk tales that is regrettably most familiar from the Disney version. Unlike characters from folk tales like Cinderella, Snow White, or Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) but like Peter Pan, Pinocchio comes from a more modern novel, in this case a 19th century book by Carlo Collodi. This means that there aren’t numerous different versions of the story, so without reading the original novel most people will only be exposed to the Disney version. On the other hand, it also means that there is a definitive original, which is not the case for most folk tales, whose origins are usually lost in the mists of time. In either case, while the Disney versions of the stories are not bad, their tendency to so vastly overshadow earlier versions is not a good thing (Disney’s propensity for using and essentially taking over public domain characters while going to great lengths to protect their own original copyrights is also hypocritical, but that is another issue). So I was curious to find out what the original Pinocchio was like, though to tell the truth it’s been so long since I’ve seen the Disney movie that my memories of it are rather vague.

Pinocchio is initially extremely mischievous, even nasty, to his creator Geppetto and to the Talking Cricket (who he kills early on, though the cricket reappears as a ghost), but he soon resolves to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, he keeps getting tempted and returns to his mischievous ways. The series of adventures Pinocchio has have a slightly old fashioned feel to them, vaguely resembling earlier folk tales or perhaps the adventures of slightly more modern (but still older than Pinocchio) characters such as Don Quixote or Tom Jones. Many of the adventures were used in the Disney version, though I don’t remember enough of the latter to determine how much they were changed. The cricket at least underwent a fairly drastic transformation in the Disney version. But overall I really can’t judge whether the Disney version of the story was much worse or better that the original. The latter at least is reasonably interesting and entertaining, though there are better books around.

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert O’Connell
As I think I have mentioned previously on this blog, one of my favorite subjects as a kid, aside from astronomy and planetary science, was ancient history, and in particular the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. So of course my favorite historical figure was the great Carthaginian general Hannibal, and I read pretty much every book on him and his home city of Carthage that was available at any of the local libraries. While I also read plenty on other historical topics (general histories of Greece and Rome and so forth), Hannibal and the Punic Wars was my main focus. While today the scope of my historical reading has broadened considerably, I still can’t resist picking up any interesting looking new take on Hannibal and his career, and so when I saw this book in a used book store on a visit to the US a few years ago, of course I had to get it. Interestingly, subsequently I saw a Chinese translation of this book placed prominently on a display table in a bookstore in Taiwan, which surprised me a little, because as interesting as I think Hannibal is myself, the topic is a little esoteric and so not something I’d expect to attract a particularly wide audience.

The Ghosts of Cannae, as the title suggests, takes as its centerpiece Hannibal’s most famous and most complete victory over the Romans, the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, but it also covers the background and aftermath of the battle. It is a lucid, well done account, though I don’t necessarily completely agree with all of his interpretations and conclusions. For example, he concludes that Hannibal made a mistake by failing to march on Rome after the battle, though he admits that it was a long shot and acknowledges that the majority of modern scholars think Hannibal’s decision was the right one (assuming that there was even any debate about it, as Livy claims with his story about the Carthaginian officer Maharbal’s urging Hannibal to go to Rome). Of course we can’t be sure that such a march, long and difficult though it would have been, especially considering exhausted state of the victors and the substantial casualties they had suffered, wouldn’t have somehow caused Rome’s will to collapse, and we know that Hannibal’s chosen strategy of breaking up Rome’s alliances ultimately failed. But considering the difficulties of an immediate march on Rome, it’s likely that Hannibal didn’t even seriously consider the idea, and it’s probable that it was not a realistic option anyway for the reasons mentioned above. For that matter, if a few things had gone differently later in the war (for example, if Hasdrubal had defeated the Scipio brothers and go on to march on Italy in 215 BCE), it is possible that Hannibal’s strategy could have been successful. But all in all O’Connell’s account is a solid addition to the body of work on Hannibal and his war against Rome.

What I've Been Reading: May 2014 to December 2014

In the last few months, I have gotten way behind on my reading, but even further behind in writing about my reading. So here's my effort to cover the majority of the books I've read over the last eight months in one go. As usual, there's a lot more to be said about all of them, but in all but the last case I've kept my comments short - admittedly in part because for some of the books I've already forgotten much of what I'd originally thought of saying about them.

The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
This fantasy novel from Germany is rather different from most other books in the genre. It tells of a boy who enters a fantasy world, which is a common enough concept, but its similarities with other novels with such stories ends there. Fantastica, the fantasy world that the boy Bastian reads about in the book he stole from a seller of old books, is truly fantastic, and when he enters it, it turns out that he can shape it according to his desires, though this turns out to have a downside as well. But the fantasy world itself has virtually limitless possibilities, which is one of several ways in which the title is fitting. Another is the hints at many other possible untold stories that are scattered throughout the book. Basically, when a character’s part in the main story comes to an end, Ende often provides a brief hint at their future, concluding: “But that is another story and shall be told another time.” Of course, stories can be spun off in many directions from most novels that cover a lot of ground, especially in a fantasy world, but Ende makes it explicit that there are if not infinite at least a great number of stories that could be told. The main story itself is interesting and entertaining, if a little strange and unconventional in its twists. Bastian himself ends up as more of an anti-hero than a hero in much of the book’s second half, which makes an interesting twist, and Fantastica is a fascinating and unpredictable setting. While I’ll admit that my own preference is usually for somewhat more Earth-like fantasy worlds, if only because they are easier to get a mental grip on, a creation like Ende’s shows greater inventiveness. Overall, I found the book enjoyable, and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys fantasy or just inventive storytelling.

World War Z by Max Brooks
I’ve never been particularly into zombies, but I have to admit a long-time attraction to post-apocalyptic tales, and that’s what this is. The disease that causes victims to become zombies is given a reasonably scientific-sounding explanation, and the stories of the various survivors are sufficiently gripping. While admittedly it has little relation to the merits of the novel as a whole, I have to say I also liked the treatment of China (the disease’s point of origin), where the government due to its exceptionally poor handling of the situation (starting with excessive secrecy similar to its handling of SARS in the real world) is eventually overthrown, and Tibet, which has become an independent, democratic and relatively prosperous independent country. A few things are not sufficiently well explained, and I would have preferred a little more about the overall course of events, as not everything is made clear through the disconnected stories. But while it’s not an exceptional piece of literature, the novel is good entertainment and a decent choice for reading on a trip or at the beach.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
This novel is often ranked by scholars as one of the greatest English-language novels of the 20th century. Like the similarly critically-revered Ulysses by James Joyce, it makes extensive use of stream of consciousness, and as such is not an easy read by any means. It tells of several decades in the lives of the highly dysfunctional Compson family through the eyes of various family members. The first section is told through the eyes of Benjy, the mentally disabled son of the Compsons. The narrative is a highly disjointed stream of consciousness that jumps around in time, so it takes quite some time to follow what is going on. The second section is narrated by the older Compson son Quentin, who was sent to Harvard using the money obtained from the sale of Benjy’s beloved pasture, which is turned into a golf course. Both Benjy and Quentin are in different ways obsessed by their sister Caddy, who is intelligent but willful. She becomes pregnant by one of her several lovers, and rushes into marriage with a man who later dumps her when he discovers the child is not his. Quentin’s part of the tale also jumps back and forth in time between his life at Harvard in an increasingly depressed mental state and his past, particularly his relationship with Caddy. His part of the narrative, while far more articulate than Benjy’s, is just as hard to follow and becomes even more so as his mental state deteriorates. The third section is told from the point of view of the third brother Jason, who is the most stable but the least likeable of the siblings. He is a racist and basically a sociopath who takes after his equally unlikeable mother, a hypochondriac who cares nothing for anyone else in the family except Jason, because he takes after her. Jason’s section is dominated by his running conflict with Caddy’s daughter (confusingly also named Quentin), who he has blackmailed Caddy into making him the guardian of, and whose money from her mother he is embezzling. The last section is narrated by the family’s black servant Dilsey, who does much to help the disintegrating Compson family hold together, though ultimately she can only watch them collapse. All in all, the novel is an impressive piece of work, one that paints an intriguing picture of life in the American South in the early 20th century, and it is an interesting challenge to read, but it isn’t something to read for fun.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
This is one of the most well-known retellings of the Arthurian legends, in part because it presents a feminist and pro-pagan version of the stories. This is a commendable approach, as the original stories certainly have a patriarchal and decidedly pro-Christian bias, and it is refreshing to see them re-interpreted in this way (Bradley herself apparently sees the book not as anti-Christian, but as opposing the traditional, patriarchal view of the religion). Bradley’s telling of the story is for the most part sufficiently interesting to keep the reader engaged through a quite lengthy novel. However, the book is not without its flaws. For one thing, some of the characterization struck me as unbelievable and inconsistent. Whether it was Igraine’s apparent transition from non-Christian to seemingly pious believer back to non-Christian; Morgause’s initial portrayal as scheming and ambitious, then basically sympathetic (and content with her situation) if somewhat hedonistic and then as cold-bloodedly scheming again; Arthur’s surrender to his wife Gwenhwyfar on the issue of the banner he carried into battle and his oath to Avalon; the relationship between Gwenhwyfar and Morgaine; or a number of other actions of the characters, there was much that didn’t ring true. Of course, people are complex, they can change over time, and they often hide their true feelings, and some consider that sufficient explanation for these elements in the story. But to me, it didn’t seem so much as if the characters were evolved or revealing hidden parts of their personalities, but more as if they had split personalities or had become entirely different people. Some scenes were a little hard to believe, such as one where Morgaine gets into a very heated argument with Arthur and Gwenhwyfar and aims at least one very strongly worded insult at the latter (the sort which normally would cause a complete rupture in a relationship), and yet a few minutes later they are all talking almost calmly. Also there were occasional lapses in the writing, such as where the exact same phrase was used to describe Arthur’s reactions several times in the space of a few paragraphs. At times it seemed that Bradley overemphasized the conflicting points of view at the expense of the story, somewhat like Ayn Rand did in Atlas Shrugged. Bradley’s tendency to do this was not nearly as egregious as Rand’s, and her writing is much better, but it still pales in comparison to that of a more subtle writer like Ursula Le Guin, who can make a point about a profound issue with much less preaching. These flaws were not enough to make me want to stop reading the book, but they do detract from it. Overall, in the field of Arthurian fantasy, I’d have to say that I’d rank Mary Stewart’s Merlin series as clearly superior to this book, though admittedly having first read Stewart’s books when I was in my teens and re-read them more than once since then, I’m somewhat biased in their favor. I would still recommend The Mists of Avalon to fantasy fans, particularly those interested in tales relating to King Arthur, but I’d recommend reading the Stewart novels first.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood
This is a sequel of sorts to Atwood’s excellent apocalyptic novel Oryx and Crake. I say “of sorts” because in fact the two for the most part overlap in time, though this book extends to a later point in time than the first. This novel follows two women who were members of an environmentalist cult of sorts, and like the previous novel it skips back and forth in time between the protagonists’ lives prior to the collapse of civilization and their efforts to survive afterward. Generally speaking, it is also a very good book, well-written and engaging, with interesting characters. Some of the coincidences (mainly how various characters just happen to encounter each other in very different places and situations) do stretch believability somewhat, which is a bit of weakness – though the coincidences are not more of stretch than those in Dickens novels, which are still regarded as classics. Atwood also seemingly engages in a bit of re-writing of her previous novel, at least with respect to Ren, one of the protagonists of this one. While a character named Brenda is mentioned briefly in the first novel as a girl that its protagonist Jimmy dated briefly, as is one specific incident between them, there is no hint that Jimmy had especially strong feelings for her, as is stated in this novel (two of Ren’s close friends from this novel also figure in the first novel, somewhat more prominently than Brenda, Atwood doesn’t have to change as much about the nature of their relationships with Jimmy). Atwood also adjusts the timeline of some events to fit the new story. However, this sort of thing is sometimes a necessary evil in writing a series of connected books (J.R.R. Tolkien had to literally re-write the encounter between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit to fit the story that later developed in The Lord of the Rings, though since all editions of The Hobbit published since the 1950s feature the later version of the story, few readers are aware of this), and the few inconsistencies that result can mostly be explained away, this is a minor issue. All in all, The Year of the Flood is a worthy follow-up to Oryx and Crake, though perhaps not quite its equal.

Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
One interesting thing for me about this novel is the way it triggered my slightly vague memories of the historical event it is based on. In the novel, a group of terrorists attack a party being held at the home of the vice president of an unnamed South American country, taking the guests hostage. Not too far into the novel, it is mentioned that the country’s president is of Japanese descent, which immediately called to mind Alberto Fujimori, the former president of Peru, which in turn reminded me of an actual incident that took place in Peru. I didn’t remember where the actual incident took place (it was at the Japanese embassy), and I suspected (correctly, as far as I could tell from what I looked up afterwards) that many key elements of the novel were fictional, but it was still obvious that the historical event served as inspiration for the novel. In the book, the party is a birthday party for the chief executive of a powerful Japanese electronics firm that the hosts hope to persuade to build a factory in their country. He has no plans to do so, and was only persuaded to attend the party because the host country arranged for his favorite opera star to perform at it. Of course everything is disrupted by the hostage-taking, but as a stalemate between the hostage-takers – who had originally expected that the president, their actual target, would be at the party – and the country’s military develops, the hostages and their captors end up stuck together inside the house, and all sorts of strange relationships develop. The novel in essence is an exploration of human relationships in an extraordinary situation, one that is far removed from the real world, and the tone of much of it is positive, sometimes humorous, and even uplifting. Unfortunately, the outside world hangs like an ominous cloud over all the blossoming relationships in the house, something I felt perhaps even more strongly than a reader who didn’t know of the historical incident would. This is because one thing I remembered most clearly about the incident was how it ended, including how the military’s behavior in the final assault had later come into question. Patchett hints at how things will end through foreshadowing, but since the actual assault takes place so fast it isn’t quite as dark as it might have been. Still, readers shouldn’t expect a very happy ending, though a few of the main characters are able to salvage something from the destruction. Despite the relatively bleak ending, the book as a whole is a pleasure to read, and it’s worth recommending.

The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio (Translated by Peter Bondanella and Mark Musa)
This famous book is one of the earliest works of prose fiction to appear in post-medieval Europe. In structure it is quite similar to The Arabian Nights, as it consists of a series of mostly unrelated stories told within the context of a frame story. The frame story itself is not particularly eventful, though its background is fascinating. Boccaccio wrote the book in the mid 14th century, soon after the bubonic plague commonly known as the Black Death struck Italy, including his home city of Florence (Firenze), and the novel’s introduction includes a very vivid and grim description of the ravages of the plague. The premise of the book is that a group of ten young people, seven women and three men belonging to the upper classes, decide to escape to the countryside together, where they spend their time singing, dancing and telling stories. As they decide at the beginning of their trip to leave all bad news behind them, it is not surprising that for the rest of the book, the plague is rarely mentioned, to the point where one could easily forget their motivation for embarking on what seems like a rather idyllic holiday of idle pleasure. But then the frame story is not really the point, and anyway the introduction was no doubt enough unpleasantness for the readers who were Boccaccio’s intended audience (mainly women looking for something to while away their spare time). The main point is the stories told over a ten day period, with each of the characters telling a story in turn, usually based on a theme set by the member of the group whose turn it is to be Queen or King for the day.

The stories themselves come in a wide variety and for the most part are highly entertaining and often funny. Most are set in contemporary or near contemporary Italy, but others range farther afield, all over the Mediterranean and even to Cathay (though the characters in the story set there are Hebrew and Persian rather than Chinese), and back in time to Lombard Italy and even in one case the time of the Roman Empire. The obvious difference between these stories and those of The Arabian Nights is that there is much less swashbuckling adventure and magic (although there’s a bit of both) and a lot more sex. The amount of the latter (occasionally graphic, though mostly through use of earthy metaphors) may be surprising, until one recalls that not every Western culture of the past has been as repressed about sex as, say, the English of the Victorian era or Americans of almost any era. The Romans, for instance, frequently wrote very forthrightly about sex. Nevertheless, some of the (often hilarious) stories of various lovers’ escapades – one story involves a man who ends up sleeping with all the nuns in a convent, and another ends up with two couples making a permanent spouse swapping arrangement – make the reader wonder if the Italians of Boccaccio’s day really were that open-minded. Not that everything took place out in the open; in fact, though many of the stories involve adulterous affairs, it seems that being caught in one red-handed could have serious consequences (in fact much of the humor involves the efforts of various lovers to avoid getting caught). Homosexuality is rarely alluded to, and when it is it is treated negatively, though the mild disapproval in The Decameron is nothing like the virulent homophobia in a book like Fanny Hill. I should also note, though that it would be a mistake to assume that all the stories involve love affairs and sexual escapades. In fact, most told on the first and last days do not involve anything of the sort, and many of the others do not either. Many revolve around reversals of fortune, or clever remarks that put someone in their place, or get the speaker out of trouble.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is its view of women. At times, the book presents the sort of attitude toward women that one might expect to see in a very patriarchal society, that is to say, quite negative about both the abilities and the rights of women. Even at the beginning, when the group of seven women is discussing fleeing the city, one of them gives a speech that is very derogatory about women and their ability to manage without men, leading them to decide to ask the three young men to come with them. A few of the stories repeat attitudes of this sort. Several of the sexual escapades described are essentially rape, as the woman is described as submitting to the man’s advances unwillingly. In one of the stories featuring the rather stupid Calandrino and the pranksters Bruno and Buffalamaco (some of the few characters who appear in multiple stories), the former beats his wife rather badly, though in a later story she is able to take revenge. The most extreme example, however, is a story told by one of the women on the ninth day that not only once more contains a speech about women’s inferiority to men, but directly advocates the beating of wives by husbands (though it seems that not all the women approved of the message, as the story evoked “murmuring” among them).

Despite these examples of blatant misogyny, however, much of The Decameron has a very liberated attitude toward women. Many of the stories feature women who are not afraid to speak their minds and very clever women who get the better of the men they deal with. Nor do the women only use their intelligence for love affairs. In a few stories, the female protagonists display capabilities in fields that in that era were generally reserved for men alone. One woman is a very talented doctor who successfully treats the king of France. Another, after narrowly escaping death at the hands of her husband, who falsely believes she was unfaithful to him, disguises herself as a man and displays such abilities in a series of situations that she ends up as a high placed member of the court of the Sultan of Egypt. Another woman, caught in an affair in a city with draconian punishments for unfaithful women, forthrightly declares to the judge that the law is unfair because women were not consulted in its drafting. These positive portrayals of women are enough to justify the statement in the scholarly introduction to the translation I read that The Decameron is notable for “almost revolutionary feminism” – certainly, despite the lapses mentioned above, on the whole women are portrayed much more positively and in much greater variety than in many other later novels, even many from only half a century ago (where the women are usually restricted the roles of secretaries and housewives).

The Decameron paints an interesting picture of Italian society of the times in other respects as well. At times the stories reflect the belief, unfortunately widely prevalent in pre-modern Europe, that people of noble ancestry were naturally superior. However, other stories directly contradict this, presenting a much more egalitarian view where characters of poor backgrounds can be at least as noble as those of high birth. Another aspect of the book is its generally very negative view of the Catholic clergy, all the way up to the Papacy. Friars are routinely mocked and lambasted for their greed and hypocrisy, and in one of the very first tales a Jew whose Christian friend keeps trying to convert him goes to Rome to see how the leaders of the Church behave, and in the end converts not because the Pope and other prelates behave well, but because the religion manages to thrive in spite of their scandalous behavior. Incidentally, while this tale implies the superiority of Christianity as a religion over Judaism, the Jew himself is portrayed positively, and in the following story, the only other to feature a Jew, he is again shown in a positive light – as is Saladin, who also features not only in the latter story but in a much longer one near the end. All in all, the book doesn't include many of the biases against various groups (except the one against the clergy, but then they were not a disadvantaged group) that are common in many stories from previous centuries.

The Decameron features a wide range of characters, from kings to peasants and everything in between, and all of them are very vividly drawn. While Boccaccio may not have written the stories themselves, like William Shakespeare (who also did not make up his plots), it is in the masterful way he tells them that his greatness lies. Also worth noting is his conclusion, in which he addresses criticism that his stories are too scandalous (i.e., too much sex) and contain language not fit for refined readers. He makes a very excellent argument that all the words he uses are appropriate to the stories he tells and furthermore that his tales, like so many other things, will be harmful or useful depending on the reader. As he says, fire and weapons and even the Bible can be used for good or bad, and while "a corrupt mind never understands a word in a healthy way", a healthy mind will not be harmed by words of any kind. With this concise defense of his masterwork, Boccaccio not only punctures contemporary prudes who objected to his stories, but the centuries of prudes that would follow. Today, however, most readers can simply enjoy what the introduction with good reason argues is one of the most readable of any of the world's masterpieces of literature.

What I've Been Reading: January 2014 to April 2014

Here are some comments on some of the books I read over the first four months of this year.

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
This children’s fantasy novel is considered a classic, if not quite on the level of books like The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia or the Earthsea series, and my impression is that it deserves its reputation. The story takes place across time, as Will Stanton, the boy protagonist, travels through time to face agents of the Dark with the help of the Old Ones (Will himself is said to be the last of the Old Ones). Cooper draws mainly on Celtic and other forms of mythology connected with Britain. While to some extent it seems as if Will himself is rather passive, simply going with the flow much of the time and occasionally needing to be rescued by others on the side of the Light, this in some ways makes the novel feel more realistic, as it would take considerable time for a boy in his situation to adjust and learn to use his newly discovered abilities. While I wasn’t so taken with the book that I will go far out of my way to track down the rest of the related series, I will be keeping an eye out for them and will read them if I come across them.

The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur’s Homecoming and Chanur’s Legacy by C. J. Cherryh
While reading a “space opera” style science fiction novel (Compass Reach) late last year, I was reminded a little of C.J. Cherryh’s novels (though only a little, as there are a lot of differences between her novels and Tiedemann’s). On impulse, I pulled Pride of Chanur, the first novel of her Chanur series, off my shelf, originally intending just to refresh my memory of it, since it had been quite a few years since I’d read it. I ended up re-reading it, and decided to go through the entire series, though I broke it up a little by reading other things between books. The first Chanur novel can be read as a standalone novel, but the next three are one continuing story, with both Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back ending on in cliffhanger-type situations (oddly enough, the omnibus paperback edition Chanur Saga that I have only has the first three novels, which meant that when I first read it I had to ask someone to help me acquire a copy of the fourth book, Chanur’s Homecoming, from the US in order to find out what happened. The fifth novel, Chanur’s Legacy, was another standalone, featuring mostly different characters, and I had not read that one yet, so I decided to do so after re-reading the other four books.

Cherryh has an a somewhat odd, clipped prose style that takes a little getting used to, and her characters often talk in a shorthand that leaves the reader a bit unsure about what’s going on. Nevertheless, her plots are fast-paced and engrossing, making her books real page-turners. What I found particularly impressive about the Chanur books was that they feature an impressively detailed alien society, or rather group of societies, as there are several alien races involved. Humans are involved, but only tangentially (only one human is a significant character, and rather than be more specific about his role, I’d suggest that readers just read the first novel from the beginning, without looking at the plot summary on the back), and none of the story is told through human eyes. Admittedly, the hani, the alien race whose point of view is central to the novels, are not all that dissimilar to humans, but even their society is distinct from ours in many important ways (they resemble an intelligent, tool-wielding race of big cats, lions in particular). But several of the other races are truly alien. Some are so alien that the hani characters – and therefore the reader – never understand much about them. But with some of the others, particularly the kif, Cherryh has given them a very different mindset that we gradually come to understand through the course of the series. At first they seem to simply be stereotypically villianous – cruel, power-hungry, and generally unpleasant – but eventually we see that while they are all those things, they have a certain kind of innocence too. For instance, they are seemingly incapable of holding a grudge; once they have joined your side, any former enmity is simply forgotten, but of course other races find it hard to do the same, which creates a lot of problems. With the hani themselves, Cherryh explores gender discrimination – but in this case, it is the males who face it. While the strongest males are the pampered lords of their clans, the others are outcasts, and males in general are considered unreliable, violent, and incapable of any work requiring skill or intelligence, which means that all hani spacefarers are female. When Pyanfur Chanur, the captain who features in the first four novels, attempts to challenge this prejudice against males, she runs into strong resistance from other hani, adding to the challenges she faces from threatening kif, scheming stsho and her not entirely trustworthy allies, the mahendo'sat.

Chanur’s Legacy, which I read for the first time after re-reading the other four books in the series (also after reading the two books discussed below), further explores the nature of the kif, the stsho and the mahendo'sat and the struggle to change hani attitudes towards males (a male spacer is one of the books main protagonists). It involves some plot twists that might come as a surprise to readers expecting the conflict to follow generally the same lines as that in the other books, and while it only features one character who was prominent in the previous novels (and a couple of others who had previously appeared), it is a worthy follow-up. As for the series as a whole, with a fascinating set of alien races, some well-developed characters, fast-paced plots and even a few thought-provoking elements, these novels are a solid example of good space opera. Cherryh is unlikely to win any literary prizes, but her books are good fun, which is enough for any reader looking for some solid entertainment.

Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
This is a very interesting historical novel (originally published under the title Ice Candy Man) about the Partition, when British India became independent and at the same time was split into India and Pakistan, told from the viewpoint of Lenny, a young Parsi girl living in Lahore in the Punjab (where the boundary between the two nations was drawn and the worst violence took place), it shows the gradual deterioration of initially amicable relationships among people of different backgrounds as independence and partition approach. It sometimes makes for grim reading, though since the main character herself does not personally experience the worst violence – though some close to her do – it is not as dark as a novel like A Thousand Splendid Suns. She does have to deal with sexual harassment, as do many of the other female characters, but unfortunately this seems to be all too common in much of South Asia, to the point where the women seem to simply regard it as normal, and a man prone to molest the women of the household is otherwise one of the more positive characters. Other characters are more disturbing as religious fanaticism takes hold, and yet even those who commit terrible atrocities in the chaos of Partition are not portrayed as thoroughly evil. The prose is clear and highly readable, and the story, if sometimes bleak, keeps the reader’s attention. One thing I wondered about is to what extent the novel reflects the personal experiences of Sidhwa, who, like Lenny, was a young Parsi girl who had been crippled by polio and was living in Lahore at the time of Partition. Be that as it may, it is a good novel and highly recommended to anyone with an interest in that part of the world.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
This classic adventure tale, a novelization of a play by Barrie, is pretty enjoyable, though more than some novels from the same era it seems a bit dated in places – the portrayal of “Indians” (Native Americans), for instance, is far from politically correct. There is a bit more real violence than I might have expected, though admittedly a lot of it takes place offstage, as fights between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates involve actual fatalities. From what I recall, the Disney version was somewhat more cartoonish (not surprisingly, I suppose). In any case, it's a decent and fairly quick read though not quite essential.