As anybody who has paid even the least little bit of attention to world news lately knows, the popular protests in Egypt that I wrote about in a previous post succeeded in forcing long-time dictator Hosni Mubarak out of power, and other popular protest movements are ongoing elsewhere in the region. There were major protests in Iran (though there haven't been many reports on Iranian protests in the past week or so), Yemen, Bahrain, and Libya, where the situation has deteriorated into a civil war between long-time dictator Muammar al-Gaddafi and many of his people.
At the moment, only the Bahrain situation looks like it has a good chance of ending with a victory for democratic forces but without large amounts of bloodshed. The police assaults on the protesters last week were disgraceful, but the ruling family seems to have backed down from its attempt to violently suppress the protests, and is now allowing the protests to proceed, though they haven't given into demands that the government (including the long-time prime minister, who is the king's uncle) be forced out. The US made moderately strong statements deploring the violence against the protesters, and one would hope strong pressure was put on Bahrain's government behind the scenes to stop the violence. If so, this would be to the credit of the Obama administration. Unfortunately, it's hard to be sure as I haven't seen any detailed reports on the US role (and we may never know what was said behind the scenes, unless the relevant diplomatic cables get leaked like the ones Wikileaks has been releasing).
The situation is Iran is unclear, as the government has succeeded in blacking out most news of the protests there (and reports from the official news agency are filled with absurd propaganda, judging from one I read). In Yemen, the situation is somewhat chaotic; the protests have been smaller than elsewhere, but are complicated by the different types of opposition to the regime (for example, many protesters in the south want to secede from the country, while those in the capital simply want to force the president out). Libya is now dominating the news, despite a news blackout as pervasive as Iran's, since Gaddafi has not shown even the minimal restraint other regimes have shown, instead ordering full-scale attacks on protesters, and in turn encouraging even more people, including some of the army and his government, to turn against him. Reportedly the anti-Gaddafi forces now control the major cities of eastern Libya, while violence continues elsewhere, and Gaddafi in a speech that by all accounts was somewhat unhinged vowed to keep slaughtering his opponents. Hard to say how this one will end, though one would hope that enough of his remaining supporters will desert him so that the opposition can take control without too much more violence (unfortunately Gaddafi's use of foreign mercenaries may make this difficult).
Unfortunately, the US can't influence events in Iran and Libya to the extent that it could in Egypt and Bahrain, as the latter two are long-time US allies and the former two are long-time enemies (the rapprochement with Libya being far too recent and limited to give the US much leverage). At least the Obama administration did make a statement in support of the protesters in Iran that was stronger than the ones they made during the post-election protests in 2009. Admittedly there are reasons for caution; the Iranian government -- and indeed all the governments in the region -- is prone to claim anti-government protesters are backed by foreign governments, largely to play on the nationalistic feelings of the rest of the populace so they will side with the government. In a country like Egypt, government attempts to blame the protests on the US were not so likely to be believed by the people, as everyone knew the US had long supported Mubarak, but in a country like Iran, the government might easily succeed in painting the protests as a foreign plot. I still think the US is obligated to make a strong statement, but it does have to be careful not to lend the government too much ammunition to use against the anti-government demonstrators. In Libya, the most the US can do is lend its support to action at the UN Security Council, such as declaring Libya a no-fly zone so Gaddafi can't use his air force to attack protesters or fly in any more foreign mercenaries. But even there, I have read the US has felt restrained by its need to evacuate US citizens first, apparently fearing that Gaddafi might make them targets if the US works too strongly against him.
It probably won't be until the dust has settled from all the changes taking place in the Middle East that we can assess the US role and what should have been done differently. Some have been highly critical of the administration's role in Egypt, one reasonable criticism being the inconsistency of some of the statements it made, at times seeming to support the protesters fully and at other times expressing a desire for Mubarak to stay in office for at least a while longer. Others have been more positive about the administration's role, such as this piece. Incidentally, having previously mentioned Glenn Beck's bizarre rants about Egypt, I found this article about how even fellow conservatives criticized his claims interesting. The most amusing bit was at the end, where there was a quote from this piece by Jeffrey Goldberg, though I've read elsewhere that Goldberg himself promoted the only somewhat less delusional fantasy that Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda were allies. Still, his parody of Glenn Beck's conspiracy theories is hilarious.
In other news, the Republican House has persisted in its insane budget cutting, slashing large amounts from important programs while refusing to raise taxes on the rich even slightly or to make more than minor cuts to the truly bloated parts of the budget, such as defense. I may want to write about this at length in the future, but for now this article and even better this article make a number of good points about how their approach makes little sense. But then the Republicans have rarely shown much sense, carrying their partisan approach to governing almost to the point of their portrayal in this parody from the Onion. I just hope that between them Obama and the Senate can rescue enough of the vital programs from the budget slashing crazies, though as long as the latter refuse to consider any tax increases, serious cuts in the defense budget, or measures fixing problems with Medicare and Medicaid, the deficit will only get worse.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
What I've Been Reading -- Dec. 2010 to Feb. 2011
I've read a lot of good books in the few months since I last talked about what I've been reading, so here's a rather lengthy post covering my reading from that period (up to a little over a week ago, more or less).
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
This novel by Czech author Milan Kundera tells the tale of a Czech doctor, his wife, his favorite mistress and the latter’s boyfriend in the aftermath of the Prague Spring. It is as much a book of philosophy as a novel; Kundera makes frequent philosophical asides and uses his characters to illustrate different ideas. He opens with a reference to Nietzsche and his idea of eternal recurrence, then goes on to discuss the opposite idea, that everything happens only once. Since Nietzsche argued that eternal recurrence gave our actions weight, if the opposite is true and each of our actions happens once and never again, our lives and actions are “light” rather than “heavy”. But since people would like their lives to have some sort of transcendental meaning, this “lightness of being” is “unbearable”. Despite the serious nature of Kundera’s philosophical musings and the various tragedies that strike the characters of the novel, however, the novel is quite readable and frequently enjoyable as well as thought-provoking.
The main protagonist, the Czech doctor Tomas, serves as an illustration of this lightness. He has to make several major decisions that dramatically alter the course of his life, but no matter how important the decision, he can only decide based on how he feels at the time, because , as Kundera says “there is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison.” Much of what happens to him is the result of strings of coincidences, as are many of his own actions. His decision to start living with and marry Tereza, a young woman he met in a hotel restaurant, where she worked as a waitress; his decision to follow Tereza when she suddenly leaves the safety of exile in Switzerland to go back to occupied Czechoslovakia and his refusal to recant an article critical of the Czech Communists written before the Russian invasion, even though it means losing his job as a top surgeon all are choices that change his life completely, but despite his intelligence, Tomas bases them as much on intuition and feelings as logic, in part because logic ultimately is insufficient when there is no knowing the consequences of any choice.
Kundera also discusses the inability of people who have completely different backgrounds and outlooks on life to truly communicate. Tomas’s favorite mistress, Sabina, like him ends up in exile in Switzerland, but unlike him she does not return to Prague. She ends up in a relationship with a married Swiss man named Franz. Though the two of them enjoy each other’s company and have a long relationship, they frequently misunderstand each other because the words they use represent completely different ideas to each of them. In some ways their whole relationship is built on mismatched expectations, which is why it falls apart in the end. Tomas and Tereza’s relationship also has to overcome mismatched expectations, notably Tomas’s belief that there is nothing wrong with sexual infidelity and Tereza’s expectation of a monogamous relationship. However, their relationship proves to be more solid than that of Sabina and Franz.
Another concept the novel deals with is what Kundera calls “kitsch”, which as he uses it is essentially an idealized worldview (an “aesthetic ideal”, as Kundera says) based on some ideology or other, under which all negative aspects of existence (i.e., all that doesn’t correspond with the ideology in question) are denied. Kundera offers examples of different types of kitsch, including Communist kitsch (as typified by May Day parades) and American anti-communist kitsch. In some ways, what Kundera calls kitsch might also be described as the oversimplification of an event or a life into an often inaccurate slogan, image, or sound bite, such as in the case of two of his characters, where all that remains of them is the inscriptions on their tombstones, written by others and not truly representative of their lives or beliefs.
However, despite the sometimes gloomy and pessimistic aspects of Kundera’s philosophical musings, the novel is frequently humorous and ends positively, with Tomas at peace with his fate and finally in tune with Tereza. One thing that ties them together towards the end is their mutual affection for their dog, Karenin. In the last part of the novel, Kundera talks about the relationship between humans and other animals. Though his view of the selflessness of affection between a human and an animal like a dog is somewhat over idealistic, he makes a number of good points, as well as some cleverly biting comments, such as when he introduces his theme with the observation that: “The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course Genesis was written by a man, not a horse.” When Karenin becomes ill with cancer, it creates a number of new stresses in Tomas and Tereza’s relationship, but they eventually overcome these, so that the novel can end on a hopeful note.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a collaboration between two top-selling authors, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, though one that was begun before either was as well-known or popular as they have become since. The talents of both are on full display, with Pratchett’s usual sardonic humor leavened by Gaiman’s slightly darker (though not humorless either) touch. The novel tells the story of Armageddon, complete with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist, as prophesized in the 17th century by a witch named Agnes Nutter, in a book written before she blew herself up at the stake. The cast of characters includes one of Agnes’ descendants, a pair of Witchfinders (dedicated to hunting down witches), a gang of kids who call themselves Them, and an angel and demon who have been on Earth since the Beginning (the former was the guard at the gates of Eden with the flaming sword, and the latter was the serpent) and have developed a mutual sympathy and an appreciation for life among humans to the extent that they aren’t eager to see the Apocalypse come.
Good Omens is entertaining, fast-paced and frequently hilarious. Much of it was to me more obviously reminiscent of Pratchett than Gaiman, in part because I’ve read more of Pratchett’s novels (at least half a dozen as opposed to one of Gaiman’s), in part because his style is more instantly recognizable, and in part because he really did write somewhat more of it. The one thread that in reading it I definitely recognized as more Gaiman’s style was the Four Horsemen (though one of the Horseman seemed to be straight out of Pratchett’s Discworld), and I later read that Gaiman was indeed mainly responsible for that part, while Pratchett was mainly responsible for Them and entirely responsible for Agnes Nutter, with everything else being written by both. Apparently it began with something Gaiman wrote, though Pratchett wrote between three fifths and two thirds of the final work, and most passages had at least some contribution from both.
There are far too many things going on in the novel for me to mention all of them, but I’ll note a couple. One is a running gag about Queen (the rock band). The demon Crowley has a tape deck in his car, and he is always listening to a Best of Queen tape, not necessarily by choice but because “all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums” (as fans of the band should be aware, there is no official Queen compilation called Best of Queen, but that doesn’t really matter for the joke). So later in the novel, when the angel Aziraphale is riding with him and puts in a tape labeled Tchaikovsky, he hears a thumping bass beat which Crowley identifies to him as “Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust.’” To be sure, this might all seem a bit odd to Americans who are unaware of how ubiquitous Queen’s music is in Britain, to the degree that some Britons get a little tired of it (I’m a Queen fan myself, but perhaps I wouldn’t be as much of one if I had to hear their music constantly). Another good bit is a few pages on the infamous Bibles, most of which were actually real, including the Wicked Bible, in which the “not” was left out of “Thou shall not commit adultery.” But as funny as some of the real ones were, they can’t match the fictional Buggre Alle This Bible (which is too lengthy to quote here, so those who are curious will just have to read the book). All in all, Good Omens is probably the most entertaining book about the Apocalypse you are ever likely to read.
The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks might well be the best contemporary British science fiction author; he’s certainly one of my favorites. He has also written many non-sci-fi novels under the name Iain Banks, many of which have won considerable critical praise (the two I’ve read are both quite good). The Algebraist is the one of his few science fiction novels that is not obviously set in the universe of the Culture, a galaxy-spanning utopian society, and is the first that I’ve read that clearly couldn’t be in the same universe as the Culture (a couple of others are limited in scope to one world that is not in communication with the rest of the galaxy, so they could theoretically be existing alongside the culture; in one of them, in fact, the Culture’s presence is strongly implied). Whereas the Culture is a basically benign, liberal society (though one with a tendency to paternalistically – and sometimes damagingly – interfere with less advanced civilizations, a theme explored in several Culture novels) in which highly advanced artificial intelligences known as Minds play a major role, the civilization that dominates the galaxy in The Algebraist, the Mercatoria, is considerably more autocratic and very hostile to artificial intelligence.
Like many of Banks’s other sci-fi novels, this one begins by switching between several apparently unrelated story lines, taking place in widely different locations or different points in time, and only after some time does it become clear how they are all connected. The protagonist, Fassin Taak, is a Seer, specializing in researching the Dwellers, the members of a gas-giant-based civilization that is billions of years old but notoriously difficult to communicate with. He unwittingly becomes caught up in a search for a mysterious secret that every power in the galaxy is willing to fight tooth and nail for. Complicating this is his own background, which has left him with a somewhat equivocal view of the Mercatoria. The reader, meanwhile, is made aware that as bad as the Mercatoria is, their chief opponent, a megalomaniacal tyrant who rose to power when a section of the galaxy was cut off from the Mercatoria and is like Stalin or Hitler with the power to lay waste to entire planets from space, seems to be even worse. Nevertheless, it’s easy to get caught up in the story, especially in the last half of its six hundred plus pages, when things really start moving fast.
As with Banks’s other novels, the characters are interesting and have psychological depth (even when they are not so pleasant), the dialogue is well-written and often witty, and different environments are imaginatively described. Also like in many of his novels there are some surprising revelations and plot twists, something I personally am quite fond of (which may be one of the main reasons I like Banks’s books). Most of the loose ends and story threads are tied up by the end, though a few minor ones are left dangling. Overall, a very good read, and along with Consider Phelbas, Player of Games, and Look to Windward, it is probably one of the more straight-forward introductions to Banks’s science fiction work (his other sci-fi books, while just as good, are in different ways more experimental). Interestingly, I discovered that not only is it Banks’ only novel to be nominated for the sci-fi industry’s Hugo Award (though he has twice won British Science Fiction Association’s award for Best Novel), but it was nominated in the same year (2005) as another book I recently read, China Mieville’s Iron Council, and that I had also recently bought a copy of that same year’s winning novel, which, after a short break for Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (clearly a major inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes), I proceeded to read next.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke
I had seen mentions of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell here and there over the past few years, so when I came across a used copy a number of months ago I picked up. As noted above, I discovered that two of my recent reads, Iron Council and The Algebraist, had been nominated for a Hugo Award in the same year. At the same time, I noticed that the winner that year was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, so I decided to read that next. Though I knew it was a fantasy novel, I had no idea what to expect otherwise; I suppose I expected something vaguely similar to Harry Potter. However, except in the broadest sense, the two works have little in common. In certain ways, it could be said that Clarke’s book has as much in common with Tolkien’s work as with J.K. Rowling’s, though there is even less superficial resemblance. In any case, it is an impressive work of fiction.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell is set in an England where magic is, or at least was, real (this is about as far as the similarity to Harry Potter goes). The time period is the Napoleonic era. Though magic had once played such a major role in the country that northern England had been under the rule of the greatest of the magicians, a somewhat mysterious figure commonly known as the Raven King, at the time the novel opens, it has been centuries since there have been any known practical magicians actually able to do magic, though there are many gentlemen who consider themselves theoretical magicians, as they publish learned treatises on magic and its history. But in York, a couple of these theoretical magicians go to meet Mr. Norell, a gentleman who lives in a remote manor and possesses a large library of books on magic, and Norell informs them that he is a practical magician, something he subsequently proves with an impressive display of magic at the cathedral in York.
As news of Norell’s feat travels south, he himself moves to London with the intention of restoring English magic to its former glory, largely by offering his services to the government in its war with Napoleon. At first the government ignores his offer, but when he performs another impressive feat of magic (though one that proves to have serious negative repercussions), they change their minds. However, Norell is a bookish, introverted character who is somewhat misanthropic. He is also highly jealous of his status as England’s only real magician, going to great lengths to discourage others who make any pretence to magical skills and buying up every copy of all magic books he can get his hands on, not only so that he can have them himself but also to keep them out of the hands of others. He also has a tendency to be somewhat pedantic. His poor social skills mean that most of what might be called his public relations work ends up in the hands of two rather amoral gentlemen, though his servant Childermass also plays a vital role.
Through a fortuitous series of events, a young gentleman named Jonathan Strange decides to take up the study of magic and is able to make a considerable start despite a lack of books (most of them of course being in Norell’s possession. Norell and Strange meet, and despite his previous attitude, when Norell actually sees Strange do magic he is intrigued and offers to take Strange on as a pupil, and after some hesitation Strange agrees. But as Strange is very different from Norell in personality and outlook, being younger, fairly extroverted and charming, and much less conservative in his thinking and his approach to magic, the inevitable clashes turn them into rivals again, a situation complicated by a powerful fairy who Norell had made an unfortunate bargain with earlier in his career.
Besides Strange and Norell themselves, important secondary roles are played by Stephen Black, the black head servant of cabinet member and friend of Norell and Strange Sir Walter Pole; theoretical magician John Segundus, street magician Vinculus, Norell’s servant Childermass, and Strange’s wife Arabella. As the novel is as much an alternative history or even a historical novel as a fantasy novel, a number of actual historical figures appear as well. Though Napoleon remains off-stage, his greatest opponent, the Duke of Wellington, appears in quite a few scenes, as Strange travels to continental Europe to lend his assistance to Wellington in his campaigns. One key scene features the mad king, who despite not being named is obviously George III, and his sons – including the Prince Regent, later George IV – also make a brief appearance. The poet Lord Byron also makes an appearance late in the novel.
Clarke made a special effort to make the magic realistic (she said her ambition was for it to be as realistic as that in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels) and I would say she succeeded quite well in that. But perhaps the most impressive part element of the novel is the detailed background of magical scholarship and history. Throughout the book there are numerous footnotes referencing works by earlier English magicians or relating various tales and legends about magic and the land of Faerie. The fictional bibliography is surprisingly extensive, and a few of the legends and tales could easily stand as short stories in their own right. This gives the novel a feeling of historical depth reminiscent of Tolkien’s work. Her portrayal of Faerie is at times reminiscent of that in a few of Tolkien’s stories, such as “Smith of Wootton Major”, though Clarke’s Faerie is distinctly darker, in part because the fairy that plays the most prominent role in the story is a rather sinister figure.
While Clarke has said she was inspired by fantasy writers such as Tolkien, Lewis, and Le Guin, she was obviously inspired by non-fantasy writers as well. The author most often cited by reviewers (as much or more than any individual fantasy author) is Jane Austen, whose works I have unfortunately not yet read. But the style is certainly reminiscent of 19th century English novels, including Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters. This fits well with the temporal setting, of course, giving the book an extra authenticity. Perhaps to add to that feeling, Clarke deliberately uses obscure, archaic-seeming spellings for a few common words (“surprise” and “chuse” are the ones that come to mind). While I’m not sure that this is entirely necessary (the 19th century atmosphere is strong enough without it), it is only distracting at first, and to some degree it does make the atmosphere feel even more genuine.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell is a massive novel; the edition I read was just over a thousand pages long. As indicated above, much of the plot focuses on the relationship between Strange and Norell, and it is only later in the book that a more conventional struggle between protagonists and antagonists begins, though due to the complicated nature of the story and of the characters’ personalities, it is not always clear who the “good guys” are, and only a couple of characters are obvious “bad guys”. I might have preferred a slightly lengthier denouement, but though there were a few loose ends, the book resolves in a generally satisfactory manner. Overall, the book is definitely worth reading, particularly for those who like fantasy but want something different from the more standard fare. As for the Hugo Award, I would have had a tough time choosing between this book, Iron Council and The Algebraist if I had been a judge (for one thing, they are all quite different, making comparison difficult), but Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell was certainly a deserving winner of that prize and the numerous other prizes and top 10 listings (Time, People, Salon.com, Washington Post Book World and Chicago Tribune, to name a few) it got.
The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera
This novel by Czech author Milan Kundera tells the tale of a Czech doctor, his wife, his favorite mistress and the latter’s boyfriend in the aftermath of the Prague Spring. It is as much a book of philosophy as a novel; Kundera makes frequent philosophical asides and uses his characters to illustrate different ideas. He opens with a reference to Nietzsche and his idea of eternal recurrence, then goes on to discuss the opposite idea, that everything happens only once. Since Nietzsche argued that eternal recurrence gave our actions weight, if the opposite is true and each of our actions happens once and never again, our lives and actions are “light” rather than “heavy”. But since people would like their lives to have some sort of transcendental meaning, this “lightness of being” is “unbearable”. Despite the serious nature of Kundera’s philosophical musings and the various tragedies that strike the characters of the novel, however, the novel is quite readable and frequently enjoyable as well as thought-provoking.
The main protagonist, the Czech doctor Tomas, serves as an illustration of this lightness. He has to make several major decisions that dramatically alter the course of his life, but no matter how important the decision, he can only decide based on how he feels at the time, because , as Kundera says “there is no means of testing which decision is better, because there is no basis for comparison.” Much of what happens to him is the result of strings of coincidences, as are many of his own actions. His decision to start living with and marry Tereza, a young woman he met in a hotel restaurant, where she worked as a waitress; his decision to follow Tereza when she suddenly leaves the safety of exile in Switzerland to go back to occupied Czechoslovakia and his refusal to recant an article critical of the Czech Communists written before the Russian invasion, even though it means losing his job as a top surgeon all are choices that change his life completely, but despite his intelligence, Tomas bases them as much on intuition and feelings as logic, in part because logic ultimately is insufficient when there is no knowing the consequences of any choice.
Kundera also discusses the inability of people who have completely different backgrounds and outlooks on life to truly communicate. Tomas’s favorite mistress, Sabina, like him ends up in exile in Switzerland, but unlike him she does not return to Prague. She ends up in a relationship with a married Swiss man named Franz. Though the two of them enjoy each other’s company and have a long relationship, they frequently misunderstand each other because the words they use represent completely different ideas to each of them. In some ways their whole relationship is built on mismatched expectations, which is why it falls apart in the end. Tomas and Tereza’s relationship also has to overcome mismatched expectations, notably Tomas’s belief that there is nothing wrong with sexual infidelity and Tereza’s expectation of a monogamous relationship. However, their relationship proves to be more solid than that of Sabina and Franz.
Another concept the novel deals with is what Kundera calls “kitsch”, which as he uses it is essentially an idealized worldview (an “aesthetic ideal”, as Kundera says) based on some ideology or other, under which all negative aspects of existence (i.e., all that doesn’t correspond with the ideology in question) are denied. Kundera offers examples of different types of kitsch, including Communist kitsch (as typified by May Day parades) and American anti-communist kitsch. In some ways, what Kundera calls kitsch might also be described as the oversimplification of an event or a life into an often inaccurate slogan, image, or sound bite, such as in the case of two of his characters, where all that remains of them is the inscriptions on their tombstones, written by others and not truly representative of their lives or beliefs.
However, despite the sometimes gloomy and pessimistic aspects of Kundera’s philosophical musings, the novel is frequently humorous and ends positively, with Tomas at peace with his fate and finally in tune with Tereza. One thing that ties them together towards the end is their mutual affection for their dog, Karenin. In the last part of the novel, Kundera talks about the relationship between humans and other animals. Though his view of the selflessness of affection between a human and an animal like a dog is somewhat over idealistic, he makes a number of good points, as well as some cleverly biting comments, such as when he introduces his theme with the observation that: “The very beginning of Genesis tells us that God created man in order to give him dominion over fish and fowl and all creatures. Of course Genesis was written by a man, not a horse.” When Karenin becomes ill with cancer, it creates a number of new stresses in Tomas and Tereza’s relationship, but they eventually overcome these, so that the novel can end on a hopeful note.
Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch is a collaboration between two top-selling authors, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, though one that was begun before either was as well-known or popular as they have become since. The talents of both are on full display, with Pratchett’s usual sardonic humor leavened by Gaiman’s slightly darker (though not humorless either) touch. The novel tells the story of Armageddon, complete with the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse and the Antichrist, as prophesized in the 17th century by a witch named Agnes Nutter, in a book written before she blew herself up at the stake. The cast of characters includes one of Agnes’ descendants, a pair of Witchfinders (dedicated to hunting down witches), a gang of kids who call themselves Them, and an angel and demon who have been on Earth since the Beginning (the former was the guard at the gates of Eden with the flaming sword, and the latter was the serpent) and have developed a mutual sympathy and an appreciation for life among humans to the extent that they aren’t eager to see the Apocalypse come.
Good Omens is entertaining, fast-paced and frequently hilarious. Much of it was to me more obviously reminiscent of Pratchett than Gaiman, in part because I’ve read more of Pratchett’s novels (at least half a dozen as opposed to one of Gaiman’s), in part because his style is more instantly recognizable, and in part because he really did write somewhat more of it. The one thread that in reading it I definitely recognized as more Gaiman’s style was the Four Horsemen (though one of the Horseman seemed to be straight out of Pratchett’s Discworld), and I later read that Gaiman was indeed mainly responsible for that part, while Pratchett was mainly responsible for Them and entirely responsible for Agnes Nutter, with everything else being written by both. Apparently it began with something Gaiman wrote, though Pratchett wrote between three fifths and two thirds of the final work, and most passages had at least some contribution from both.
There are far too many things going on in the novel for me to mention all of them, but I’ll note a couple. One is a running gag about Queen (the rock band). The demon Crowley has a tape deck in his car, and he is always listening to a Best of Queen tape, not necessarily by choice but because “all tapes left in a car for more than about a fortnight metamorphose into Best of Queen albums” (as fans of the band should be aware, there is no official Queen compilation called Best of Queen, but that doesn’t really matter for the joke). So later in the novel, when the angel Aziraphale is riding with him and puts in a tape labeled Tchaikovsky, he hears a thumping bass beat which Crowley identifies to him as “Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust.’” To be sure, this might all seem a bit odd to Americans who are unaware of how ubiquitous Queen’s music is in Britain, to the degree that some Britons get a little tired of it (I’m a Queen fan myself, but perhaps I wouldn’t be as much of one if I had to hear their music constantly). Another good bit is a few pages on the infamous Bibles, most of which were actually real, including the Wicked Bible, in which the “not” was left out of “Thou shall not commit adultery.” But as funny as some of the real ones were, they can’t match the fictional Buggre Alle This Bible (which is too lengthy to quote here, so those who are curious will just have to read the book). All in all, Good Omens is probably the most entertaining book about the Apocalypse you are ever likely to read.
The Algebraist by Iain M. Banks
Iain M. Banks might well be the best contemporary British science fiction author; he’s certainly one of my favorites. He has also written many non-sci-fi novels under the name Iain Banks, many of which have won considerable critical praise (the two I’ve read are both quite good). The Algebraist is the one of his few science fiction novels that is not obviously set in the universe of the Culture, a galaxy-spanning utopian society, and is the first that I’ve read that clearly couldn’t be in the same universe as the Culture (a couple of others are limited in scope to one world that is not in communication with the rest of the galaxy, so they could theoretically be existing alongside the culture; in one of them, in fact, the Culture’s presence is strongly implied). Whereas the Culture is a basically benign, liberal society (though one with a tendency to paternalistically – and sometimes damagingly – interfere with less advanced civilizations, a theme explored in several Culture novels) in which highly advanced artificial intelligences known as Minds play a major role, the civilization that dominates the galaxy in The Algebraist, the Mercatoria, is considerably more autocratic and very hostile to artificial intelligence.
Like many of Banks’s other sci-fi novels, this one begins by switching between several apparently unrelated story lines, taking place in widely different locations or different points in time, and only after some time does it become clear how they are all connected. The protagonist, Fassin Taak, is a Seer, specializing in researching the Dwellers, the members of a gas-giant-based civilization that is billions of years old but notoriously difficult to communicate with. He unwittingly becomes caught up in a search for a mysterious secret that every power in the galaxy is willing to fight tooth and nail for. Complicating this is his own background, which has left him with a somewhat equivocal view of the Mercatoria. The reader, meanwhile, is made aware that as bad as the Mercatoria is, their chief opponent, a megalomaniacal tyrant who rose to power when a section of the galaxy was cut off from the Mercatoria and is like Stalin or Hitler with the power to lay waste to entire planets from space, seems to be even worse. Nevertheless, it’s easy to get caught up in the story, especially in the last half of its six hundred plus pages, when things really start moving fast.
As with Banks’s other novels, the characters are interesting and have psychological depth (even when they are not so pleasant), the dialogue is well-written and often witty, and different environments are imaginatively described. Also like in many of his novels there are some surprising revelations and plot twists, something I personally am quite fond of (which may be one of the main reasons I like Banks’s books). Most of the loose ends and story threads are tied up by the end, though a few minor ones are left dangling. Overall, a very good read, and along with Consider Phelbas, Player of Games, and Look to Windward, it is probably one of the more straight-forward introductions to Banks’s science fiction work (his other sci-fi books, while just as good, are in different ways more experimental). Interestingly, I discovered that not only is it Banks’ only novel to be nominated for the sci-fi industry’s Hugo Award (though he has twice won British Science Fiction Association’s award for Best Novel), but it was nominated in the same year (2005) as another book I recently read, China Mieville’s Iron Council, and that I had also recently bought a copy of that same year’s winning novel, which, after a short break for Poe’s “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” (clearly a major inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes), I proceeded to read next.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell by Susanna Clarke
I had seen mentions of Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell here and there over the past few years, so when I came across a used copy a number of months ago I picked up. As noted above, I discovered that two of my recent reads, Iron Council and The Algebraist, had been nominated for a Hugo Award in the same year. At the same time, I noticed that the winner that year was Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, so I decided to read that next. Though I knew it was a fantasy novel, I had no idea what to expect otherwise; I suppose I expected something vaguely similar to Harry Potter. However, except in the broadest sense, the two works have little in common. In certain ways, it could be said that Clarke’s book has as much in common with Tolkien’s work as with J.K. Rowling’s, though there is even less superficial resemblance. In any case, it is an impressive work of fiction.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell is set in an England where magic is, or at least was, real (this is about as far as the similarity to Harry Potter goes). The time period is the Napoleonic era. Though magic had once played such a major role in the country that northern England had been under the rule of the greatest of the magicians, a somewhat mysterious figure commonly known as the Raven King, at the time the novel opens, it has been centuries since there have been any known practical magicians actually able to do magic, though there are many gentlemen who consider themselves theoretical magicians, as they publish learned treatises on magic and its history. But in York, a couple of these theoretical magicians go to meet Mr. Norell, a gentleman who lives in a remote manor and possesses a large library of books on magic, and Norell informs them that he is a practical magician, something he subsequently proves with an impressive display of magic at the cathedral in York.
As news of Norell’s feat travels south, he himself moves to London with the intention of restoring English magic to its former glory, largely by offering his services to the government in its war with Napoleon. At first the government ignores his offer, but when he performs another impressive feat of magic (though one that proves to have serious negative repercussions), they change their minds. However, Norell is a bookish, introverted character who is somewhat misanthropic. He is also highly jealous of his status as England’s only real magician, going to great lengths to discourage others who make any pretence to magical skills and buying up every copy of all magic books he can get his hands on, not only so that he can have them himself but also to keep them out of the hands of others. He also has a tendency to be somewhat pedantic. His poor social skills mean that most of what might be called his public relations work ends up in the hands of two rather amoral gentlemen, though his servant Childermass also plays a vital role.
Through a fortuitous series of events, a young gentleman named Jonathan Strange decides to take up the study of magic and is able to make a considerable start despite a lack of books (most of them of course being in Norell’s possession. Norell and Strange meet, and despite his previous attitude, when Norell actually sees Strange do magic he is intrigued and offers to take Strange on as a pupil, and after some hesitation Strange agrees. But as Strange is very different from Norell in personality and outlook, being younger, fairly extroverted and charming, and much less conservative in his thinking and his approach to magic, the inevitable clashes turn them into rivals again, a situation complicated by a powerful fairy who Norell had made an unfortunate bargain with earlier in his career.
Besides Strange and Norell themselves, important secondary roles are played by Stephen Black, the black head servant of cabinet member and friend of Norell and Strange Sir Walter Pole; theoretical magician John Segundus, street magician Vinculus, Norell’s servant Childermass, and Strange’s wife Arabella. As the novel is as much an alternative history or even a historical novel as a fantasy novel, a number of actual historical figures appear as well. Though Napoleon remains off-stage, his greatest opponent, the Duke of Wellington, appears in quite a few scenes, as Strange travels to continental Europe to lend his assistance to Wellington in his campaigns. One key scene features the mad king, who despite not being named is obviously George III, and his sons – including the Prince Regent, later George IV – also make a brief appearance. The poet Lord Byron also makes an appearance late in the novel.
Clarke made a special effort to make the magic realistic (she said her ambition was for it to be as realistic as that in Ursula Le Guin’s Earthsea novels) and I would say she succeeded quite well in that. But perhaps the most impressive part element of the novel is the detailed background of magical scholarship and history. Throughout the book there are numerous footnotes referencing works by earlier English magicians or relating various tales and legends about magic and the land of Faerie. The fictional bibliography is surprisingly extensive, and a few of the legends and tales could easily stand as short stories in their own right. This gives the novel a feeling of historical depth reminiscent of Tolkien’s work. Her portrayal of Faerie is at times reminiscent of that in a few of Tolkien’s stories, such as “Smith of Wootton Major”, though Clarke’s Faerie is distinctly darker, in part because the fairy that plays the most prominent role in the story is a rather sinister figure.
While Clarke has said she was inspired by fantasy writers such as Tolkien, Lewis, and Le Guin, she was obviously inspired by non-fantasy writers as well. The author most often cited by reviewers (as much or more than any individual fantasy author) is Jane Austen, whose works I have unfortunately not yet read. But the style is certainly reminiscent of 19th century English novels, including Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters. This fits well with the temporal setting, of course, giving the book an extra authenticity. Perhaps to add to that feeling, Clarke deliberately uses obscure, archaic-seeming spellings for a few common words (“surprise” and “chuse” are the ones that come to mind). While I’m not sure that this is entirely necessary (the 19th century atmosphere is strong enough without it), it is only distracting at first, and to some degree it does make the atmosphere feel even more genuine.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell is a massive novel; the edition I read was just over a thousand pages long. As indicated above, much of the plot focuses on the relationship between Strange and Norell, and it is only later in the book that a more conventional struggle between protagonists and antagonists begins, though due to the complicated nature of the story and of the characters’ personalities, it is not always clear who the “good guys” are, and only a couple of characters are obvious “bad guys”. I might have preferred a slightly lengthier denouement, but though there were a few loose ends, the book resolves in a generally satisfactory manner. Overall, the book is definitely worth reading, particularly for those who like fantasy but want something different from the more standard fare. As for the Hugo Award, I would have had a tough time choosing between this book, Iron Council and The Algebraist if I had been a judge (for one thing, they are all quite different, making comparison difficult), but Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell was certainly a deserving winner of that prize and the numerous other prizes and top 10 listings (Time, People, Salon.com, Washington Post Book World and Chicago Tribune, to name a few) it got.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
The Egyptian people versus Mubarak
Having been away on vacation for a while, I haven't yet commented on the events that have taken place over the last few weeks in Egypt. The protests in Egypt are one of the most positive aftereffects of the popular revolt against Ben Ali in Tunisia, having been largely inspired by the success of those protests. Of course, as noted by some commentators in the aftermath of the events in Tunisia, Egypt's situation is somewhat different in that its people are on average less prosperous and well-educated, and the military has heretofore been seen as solidly behind Egyptian president/dictator Hosni Mubarak. But despite these differences, the protests have been remarkably successful in forcing the Mubarak regime to make concessions, even if it is still unclear whether they will win out in the end.
One positive aspect of the protests is the fact that they were not led or organized by any particular political group or faction of society. The protesters are mostly young, and include both Muslims and Christians (despite the recent problems between these communities in the past) and many secular liberals as well as the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the latter group is now relatively moderate for an Islamist organization, having given up armed struggle in favor of political means, I would find it hard to give unqualified support to a protest spearheaded by them. They joined the protests not long after they started and now play a prominent role, but they are just one part of the overall movement, which is the way it should be (I don't think they should be excluded either, just not in charge). It's true that the lack of any obvious leadership for the protests is beginning to create some problems in that there is no one person or group of people who can reasonably claim to speak for all or even most of the protesters, which makes negotiations with the government trickier and opens up the possibility that the regime could prevail with a divide and conquer strategy. But the inclusive, democratic nature of the protests is still something to admire.
An interesting sideline to these protests has been the reaction in the US. The Obama administration's initial response was mostly commendable, if a bit overly cautious. Obama and Clinton spoke in support of the protesters and against any attempt by the government to suppress them. Of course this should be the minimum that we'd expect from them, but considering the longtime ties between the Mubarak regime and the US, a even more tepid response, while deserving of strong criticism, would not have been surprising. Their reluctance to call outright for Mubarak's resignation is less praiseworthy. Of course they are worried about what might happen if he goes, something which does need to be considered, but even his early departure could be managed in a way that avoided immediate chaos, and would show the Egyptian people that the US fully supported their aspirations.
But regrettably, not everyone in the US does support their aspirations. Oddly, and yet in some ways predictably, some on the right have spoken against the protests and in favor of Mubarak, despite his terrible human rights record and complete lack of respect for democracy. Sure, many of these same people railed against Saddam Hussein in support of George W. Bush's war to supplant him, and talked about how important it was to replace evil dictators with democracy. But then Hussein was no longer an ally of the US (though he had been), and as far as the right (or at least much of it) is concerned, dictators are only bad if they aren't allies of the US. This can be seen in the strong support given in by the American right to past dictators like Pinochet's Chile, the Shah of Iran, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) in China and later Taiwan, and so forth (of course not only the US right is guilty of disgracefully staunch support for dictators; witness Margaret Thatcher's show of support for Pinochet when he was threatened with prosecution for his crimes). Some on the right are already criticizing Obama for abandoning Mubarak, much like earlier right-wingers attacked previous administrations for failing to adequately support the Shah, the Batista regime in Cuba, or Chiang in China. Apparently they fail to see the irony in their railing against people like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, the post-revolution Iranian leadership, or the rulers of China and North Korea and supporting someone like Mubarak (I am also frequently critical of China's leadership, but I don't give people like Mubarak a free pass either, and I certainly wouldn't support him over a popular revolt like this one). Of course, some of them are so far out you have to begin to wonder about their sanity, an example being Glenn Beck who I hear went on some bizarre rant about the Egyptian protest being part of a global leftist conspiracy.
However, though there is no question that no support should be given to a regime with as poor a human rights record as Mubarak's, it is not unreasonable to be concerned about what might replace him. As other examples from Yugoslavia to Somalia to Iraq have shown, sometimes the chaos that erupts after a dictator falls may be nearly as bad as he was or even worse. On the plus side, despite the tensions between the Coptic Christian minority and the Muslim majority, Egypt doesn't have the serious communal divisions of countries like Yugoslavia and Iraq, so it is less likely to face the same kinds of problems. The danger that another dictatorship may arise has to be considered, as well as the possibility of a mostly democratic but still radical regime under a group like the Muslim Brotherhood (though they are not al Qaeda or even Hamas, they are less likely to be tolerant of minority groups like the Christians and are likely to enforce more rigid conformity to their vision of Islamic law). But with sufficient pressure from inside and outside the country, there is a chance that Mubarak and his cronies can be pushed aside and replaced with a moderate, democratic government. Of course, there is also still a chance that Mubarak will ride out the storm and possibly even renege on some of the promises he and his government have already made, or that things will deteriorate into chaos. But in any event, what the protests have accomplished so far will be an inspiration to other liberal, democratically-minded people in the region, just as Tunisia's were.
One positive aspect of the protests is the fact that they were not led or organized by any particular political group or faction of society. The protesters are mostly young, and include both Muslims and Christians (despite the recent problems between these communities in the past) and many secular liberals as well as the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood. While the latter group is now relatively moderate for an Islamist organization, having given up armed struggle in favor of political means, I would find it hard to give unqualified support to a protest spearheaded by them. They joined the protests not long after they started and now play a prominent role, but they are just one part of the overall movement, which is the way it should be (I don't think they should be excluded either, just not in charge). It's true that the lack of any obvious leadership for the protests is beginning to create some problems in that there is no one person or group of people who can reasonably claim to speak for all or even most of the protesters, which makes negotiations with the government trickier and opens up the possibility that the regime could prevail with a divide and conquer strategy. But the inclusive, democratic nature of the protests is still something to admire.
An interesting sideline to these protests has been the reaction in the US. The Obama administration's initial response was mostly commendable, if a bit overly cautious. Obama and Clinton spoke in support of the protesters and against any attempt by the government to suppress them. Of course this should be the minimum that we'd expect from them, but considering the longtime ties between the Mubarak regime and the US, a even more tepid response, while deserving of strong criticism, would not have been surprising. Their reluctance to call outright for Mubarak's resignation is less praiseworthy. Of course they are worried about what might happen if he goes, something which does need to be considered, but even his early departure could be managed in a way that avoided immediate chaos, and would show the Egyptian people that the US fully supported their aspirations.
But regrettably, not everyone in the US does support their aspirations. Oddly, and yet in some ways predictably, some on the right have spoken against the protests and in favor of Mubarak, despite his terrible human rights record and complete lack of respect for democracy. Sure, many of these same people railed against Saddam Hussein in support of George W. Bush's war to supplant him, and talked about how important it was to replace evil dictators with democracy. But then Hussein was no longer an ally of the US (though he had been), and as far as the right (or at least much of it) is concerned, dictators are only bad if they aren't allies of the US. This can be seen in the strong support given in by the American right to past dictators like Pinochet's Chile, the Shah of Iran, Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi) in China and later Taiwan, and so forth (of course not only the US right is guilty of disgracefully staunch support for dictators; witness Margaret Thatcher's show of support for Pinochet when he was threatened with prosecution for his crimes). Some on the right are already criticizing Obama for abandoning Mubarak, much like earlier right-wingers attacked previous administrations for failing to adequately support the Shah, the Batista regime in Cuba, or Chiang in China. Apparently they fail to see the irony in their railing against people like Saddam Hussein, Fidel Castro, the post-revolution Iranian leadership, or the rulers of China and North Korea and supporting someone like Mubarak (I am also frequently critical of China's leadership, but I don't give people like Mubarak a free pass either, and I certainly wouldn't support him over a popular revolt like this one). Of course, some of them are so far out you have to begin to wonder about their sanity, an example being Glenn Beck who I hear went on some bizarre rant about the Egyptian protest being part of a global leftist conspiracy.
However, though there is no question that no support should be given to a regime with as poor a human rights record as Mubarak's, it is not unreasonable to be concerned about what might replace him. As other examples from Yugoslavia to Somalia to Iraq have shown, sometimes the chaos that erupts after a dictator falls may be nearly as bad as he was or even worse. On the plus side, despite the tensions between the Coptic Christian minority and the Muslim majority, Egypt doesn't have the serious communal divisions of countries like Yugoslavia and Iraq, so it is less likely to face the same kinds of problems. The danger that another dictatorship may arise has to be considered, as well as the possibility of a mostly democratic but still radical regime under a group like the Muslim Brotherhood (though they are not al Qaeda or even Hamas, they are less likely to be tolerant of minority groups like the Christians and are likely to enforce more rigid conformity to their vision of Islamic law). But with sufficient pressure from inside and outside the country, there is a chance that Mubarak and his cronies can be pushed aside and replaced with a moderate, democratic government. Of course, there is also still a chance that Mubarak will ride out the storm and possibly even renege on some of the promises he and his government have already made, or that things will deteriorate into chaos. But in any event, what the protests have accomplished so far will be an inspiration to other liberal, democratically-minded people in the region, just as Tunisia's were.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
The State of the World Revisited
Having talked about a number of negative events in the world news recently, I’d like to balance things a bit with some brief comments on two mostly positive events that have taken place in the past week or so in north Africa.
A few days ago, the Tunisian people succeeded in driving out the country’s long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali’s regime was corrupt and oppressive; his family blatantly enriched itself at public expense, and opponents of the government faced imprisonment and torture. The Internet police that the government used to crack down on dissident bloggers were as pervasive and technologically savvy as China’s. However, as a stable, pro-Western regime in one of the most prosperous African countries, Ben Ali’s Tunisia received relatively little pressure from the US and other Western countries to reform. It took street protest powered by the country’s educated youth to bring down Ben Ali, which they did with surprising swiftness, though not without bloodshed. The overthrowing of a dictator is always something to celebrate, and I’m glad to see it happened in Tunisia, a country I have a particular interest in (despite never having visited), due to my childhood fascination with ancient Carthage, located near Tunis, the modern capital. Unfortunately what’s not clear at the moment is what sort of government will replace Ben Ali’s, as most of those left in charge after his departure were his cronies, and the organized opposition is weak and divided after decades of oppression. A period of chaos is probably to be expected, but I hope Tunisia can eventually form a stable, relatively liberal government that respects the right to free speech.
Also in the past week, Southern Sudan completed its referendum on independence. Getting through the vote without any major problems is in and of itself a major accomplishment. Furthermore, it is probable that Southern Sudan has voted for independence, rectifying yet another idiotic early 20th century boundary drawing exercise by the British (Iraq being another classic example). Northern and Southern Sudan were never compatible and it never made sense for them to be part of the same country, which is why there has been almost constant conflict between the two regions for Sudan’s entire existence. Separating the two is the only logical thing to do However, in this situation there are still potential problems, some quite serious. One is the border region of Abyei, a region more sedentary residents are kin to people in Southern Sudan and want to be part of expected future state but which is also a traditional grazing area for nomadic Arab people aligned with the north. Another issue is the division of oil revenues, as most of the oil is in the south, but all the pipelines run through the north. Then there is the extreme poverty of the south, and its potential for internal dissension (the main unifying force being a desire for independence). All of these problems could potential lead to widespread conflict. Hopefully they can all be overcome or at least minimized, and what will be the world’s newest nation can become firmly established, incidentally showing once again the possibility of legitimate, peaceful separation from a larger nation, despite the efforts of countries such as China, Russia and Indonesia to deny that such a thing can be permitted.
A few days ago, the Tunisian people succeeded in driving out the country’s long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Ben Ali’s regime was corrupt and oppressive; his family blatantly enriched itself at public expense, and opponents of the government faced imprisonment and torture. The Internet police that the government used to crack down on dissident bloggers were as pervasive and technologically savvy as China’s. However, as a stable, pro-Western regime in one of the most prosperous African countries, Ben Ali’s Tunisia received relatively little pressure from the US and other Western countries to reform. It took street protest powered by the country’s educated youth to bring down Ben Ali, which they did with surprising swiftness, though not without bloodshed. The overthrowing of a dictator is always something to celebrate, and I’m glad to see it happened in Tunisia, a country I have a particular interest in (despite never having visited), due to my childhood fascination with ancient Carthage, located near Tunis, the modern capital. Unfortunately what’s not clear at the moment is what sort of government will replace Ben Ali’s, as most of those left in charge after his departure were his cronies, and the organized opposition is weak and divided after decades of oppression. A period of chaos is probably to be expected, but I hope Tunisia can eventually form a stable, relatively liberal government that respects the right to free speech.
Also in the past week, Southern Sudan completed its referendum on independence. Getting through the vote without any major problems is in and of itself a major accomplishment. Furthermore, it is probable that Southern Sudan has voted for independence, rectifying yet another idiotic early 20th century boundary drawing exercise by the British (Iraq being another classic example). Northern and Southern Sudan were never compatible and it never made sense for them to be part of the same country, which is why there has been almost constant conflict between the two regions for Sudan’s entire existence. Separating the two is the only logical thing to do However, in this situation there are still potential problems, some quite serious. One is the border region of Abyei, a region more sedentary residents are kin to people in Southern Sudan and want to be part of expected future state but which is also a traditional grazing area for nomadic Arab people aligned with the north. Another issue is the division of oil revenues, as most of the oil is in the south, but all the pipelines run through the north. Then there is the extreme poverty of the south, and its potential for internal dissension (the main unifying force being a desire for independence). All of these problems could potential lead to widespread conflict. Hopefully they can all be overcome or at least minimized, and what will be the world’s newest nation can become firmly established, incidentally showing once again the possibility of legitimate, peaceful separation from a larger nation, despite the efforts of countries such as China, Russia and Indonesia to deny that such a thing can be permitted.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Gabrielle Giffords, heated rhetoric, and guns
The big news from the US the past few days has been the shooting of Arizona congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. The greatest tragedy was the six deaths (personally I found that of the nine-year-old girl most affecting, though any death like this is a great tragedy), and these victims should not be forgotten (nor should the people who leaped to stop the shooter or help the wounded), but the serious wound suffered by Giffords herself is almost as terrible a tragedy as the deaths, and it is natural that as a political figure and the apparent target she is receiving the most attention. However, in many commentaries on the incident, discussion has focused on broader topics, such as whether heated political rhetoric is directly or indirectly to blame.
From what we know so far of the assassin, it doesn’t appear that the connection between heated political rhetoric and the shooting is very direct. As this writer points out, many past assassins in the US have had motivations quite different from what might have been expected. I don’t agree with his implication that both sides of American politics are equally guilty of using violent imagery in their rhetoric – far, far more of it comes from the right wing, as Paul Krugman argues in his piece on the subject (though of course he is a liberal, so conservatives will no doubt just dismiss him as biased), but I agree that there is probably not a direct connection between the recent use of gun-related imagery by right-wing figures and the actions of this particular deranged individual. However, this does not mean that those public figures shouldn’t be receiving flak for their irresponsible talk. Even if they are not responsible for setting off this particular lunatic, they might be responsible for the next (in fact, there’s already been one case of a violent Glenn Beck fan taking his words too much to heart, though he was stopped before anyone was killed). And whatever Loughner’s political views (indications are they were all over the place, as might be expected from someone so clearly mentally ill), violence-tinged rhetoric might have at least encouraged him to think violence towards politicians was acceptable.
On the other hand, at least all of the major right-wing figures and organizations condemned the attack (while denying they shared any blame for it), and no one publicly praised the shooter (though since I avoided reading any comment boards, I can’t be sure that some more warped individuals might not have done so). This is a noticeable contrast to Pakistan, where a number of radicals and conservative religious organizations openly celebrated the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Perhaps there is some hope for the US yet (though if it ever does reach the state Pakistan is in now with respect to political climate, we can pretty much write it off as hopeless). Still, from some of the bizarre statements of a few on the right (such as claiming that Loughner was a liberal because he liked the Communist Manifesto – even though he also like Mein Kampf and Ayn Rand), it may be too much to hope for a real cooling down of the rhetoric. Also, as pointed out in this article from Slate, Sarah Palin is a hypocrite for denouncing the idea of collective guilt and asserting that only the individuals who commit crimes should be held responsible for them, as she herself holds Muslims collectively responsible for the September 11 attacks, as shown be her opposition to any mosque being built near the WTC site, no matter which Muslims build it.
Another debate which the shooting has re-energized is the one over gun control. Amazing numbers of people still try to argue that incidents like this don’t show a need for more gun control. Some right wingers bizarrely have gone so far as to claim that if Arizona’s gun laws were less restrictive the incident could have been prevented, even though it’s almost impossible to have less restrictive gun laws than Arizona, where someone as obviously disturbed as Loughner could buy a particularly deadly gun. More sensible commentators have focused on that gun, noting that there is no rational reason why a gun that can shoot over 30 rounds without reloading should be available to the general public. This contrasts with the tired argument which I saw a few pro-gun people trot out again, that crazy people like Loughner are the problem, not the weapons they use, and that they can still kill with knives or clubs. Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to kill nearly as many people. In this particular case, if he had only had a knife, the attacker might have been tackled before he could do more than wound anyone, if that. The issue of potentially dangerous mentally ill people also has to be address, but any rational person can see that making it much harder to get a hold of guns that can kill many people quickly would at least reduce the body count. If the members of Congress can manage to think logically and lose their fear of the NRA for once, maybe this incident can lead to more rational gun laws in the US.
From what we know so far of the assassin, it doesn’t appear that the connection between heated political rhetoric and the shooting is very direct. As this writer points out, many past assassins in the US have had motivations quite different from what might have been expected. I don’t agree with his implication that both sides of American politics are equally guilty of using violent imagery in their rhetoric – far, far more of it comes from the right wing, as Paul Krugman argues in his piece on the subject (though of course he is a liberal, so conservatives will no doubt just dismiss him as biased), but I agree that there is probably not a direct connection between the recent use of gun-related imagery by right-wing figures and the actions of this particular deranged individual. However, this does not mean that those public figures shouldn’t be receiving flak for their irresponsible talk. Even if they are not responsible for setting off this particular lunatic, they might be responsible for the next (in fact, there’s already been one case of a violent Glenn Beck fan taking his words too much to heart, though he was stopped before anyone was killed). And whatever Loughner’s political views (indications are they were all over the place, as might be expected from someone so clearly mentally ill), violence-tinged rhetoric might have at least encouraged him to think violence towards politicians was acceptable.
On the other hand, at least all of the major right-wing figures and organizations condemned the attack (while denying they shared any blame for it), and no one publicly praised the shooter (though since I avoided reading any comment boards, I can’t be sure that some more warped individuals might not have done so). This is a noticeable contrast to Pakistan, where a number of radicals and conservative religious organizations openly celebrated the assassination of Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer. Perhaps there is some hope for the US yet (though if it ever does reach the state Pakistan is in now with respect to political climate, we can pretty much write it off as hopeless). Still, from some of the bizarre statements of a few on the right (such as claiming that Loughner was a liberal because he liked the Communist Manifesto – even though he also like Mein Kampf and Ayn Rand), it may be too much to hope for a real cooling down of the rhetoric. Also, as pointed out in this article from Slate, Sarah Palin is a hypocrite for denouncing the idea of collective guilt and asserting that only the individuals who commit crimes should be held responsible for them, as she herself holds Muslims collectively responsible for the September 11 attacks, as shown be her opposition to any mosque being built near the WTC site, no matter which Muslims build it.
Another debate which the shooting has re-energized is the one over gun control. Amazing numbers of people still try to argue that incidents like this don’t show a need for more gun control. Some right wingers bizarrely have gone so far as to claim that if Arizona’s gun laws were less restrictive the incident could have been prevented, even though it’s almost impossible to have less restrictive gun laws than Arizona, where someone as obviously disturbed as Loughner could buy a particularly deadly gun. More sensible commentators have focused on that gun, noting that there is no rational reason why a gun that can shoot over 30 rounds without reloading should be available to the general public. This contrasts with the tired argument which I saw a few pro-gun people trot out again, that crazy people like Loughner are the problem, not the weapons they use, and that they can still kill with knives or clubs. Yes, but they wouldn’t be able to kill nearly as many people. In this particular case, if he had only had a knife, the attacker might have been tackled before he could do more than wound anyone, if that. The issue of potentially dangerous mentally ill people also has to be address, but any rational person can see that making it much harder to get a hold of guns that can kill many people quickly would at least reduce the body count. If the members of Congress can manage to think logically and lose their fear of the NRA for once, maybe this incident can lead to more rational gun laws in the US.
Saturday, January 8, 2011
The State of the World
A lot has been happening around the world as we enter 2011. Many of the notable events of the past few weeks, unfortunately, have not only been bad in and of themselves, but are negative signs for the future.
One crisis that's been dominating international news for some time now is the situation in Ivory Coast (or Côte d'Ivoire, to use the official French name). The incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo, is still refusing to accept that he lost the recent election to Alassane Ouattara. He and his supporters in the Constitutional Council used reports of violence and intimidation in regions that favored Ouattara to invalidate votes from those regions. While it is certainly possible that there really were problems in those areas, they are unlikely to have been any worse than similar problems in areas dominated by Gbagbo. Independent observers agreed that the elections were substantially fair, and the country's election commission declared Ouattara the winner by a large margin. Notably, before and immediately after the election, Gbagbo and his campaign preemptively complained about problems in three pro-Ouattara regions, seemingly with an eye to declaring votes from those regions invalid. While this alone doesn't prove that their complaints weren't valid, what gives it away is that when the results had actually been tallied by the election commission, Gbagbo's supporters on the Constitutional Council had to belatedly add a fourth region to the three they had originally said had problems, because if they had only invalidated votes from those three regions, Ouattara would have still had more votes.
But while it is blatantly obvious that Ouattara won the election, it's still not clear that he will be able to take power without major violence breaking out, whether in the form of civil war or intervention by Ivory Coast's neighbors to force Gbagbo out. What's more, this whole mess, as at least one commentary I read pointed out, shows that once more the US and other Western powers have foolishly treated the simple act of having elections as a panacea for a deeply divided country. Elections are good in principle, but if the underlying divisions aren't addressed, they won't solve anything. Indeed, they may even exacerbate the problem. Granted, there is no simple solution to deep ethnic or religious divisions like those that plague many countries, but the international community has to recognize that in situations like this, elections alone aren't enough. For now, we can only hope that Gbagbo cedes power soon and without a violent struggle, and that Ouattara has the sense to conciliate Gbagbo's supporters once he is in charge.
Another reason for pessimism about the future of human rights and freedom of speech in Russia came with the conviction of former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, already in prison for alleged tax evasion, on charges of stealing oil from his own company, clearly exaggerated if not made up entirely, especially since by some accounts the amount he was accused of stealing exceeded his company's production (and it isn't as if his customers didn't receive any oil), and his earlier conviction was for evading taxes on oil profits (which came from selling the oil he supposedly stole). Whatever Khodorkovsky may really have been guilty of (and there probably aren't many rich Russian businessmen who are completely clean), virtually all neutral observers agree the real reason he is in prison is because he challenged Putin by funding his opponents and opposition media. Even before the judge handed down his ruling (much of which simply copied prosecutors' arguments), Putin publicly stated his opinion that "a thief should be in prison", earning a rebuke from current President Medvedev (though the final judgment led most to believe it's still Putin who's calling the shots) and causing one critic to remark that Putin himself is the biggest thief, as he essentially stole Khodorkovsky's whole company. But as farcical as the whole spectacle was, it's still a sign that not only is the more authoritarian Putin in charge, but Russia has a long ways to go in terms of respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Of course Russia is hardly the only country to have wrongfully convicted someone recently. A number of other recent cases didn't get nearly as much attention (I didn't know about them myself until the last couple of days), but are just as disturbing, if not more so. Unsurprisingly China, now the only country to be keeping a Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison, is one of the guilty countries, recently sentencing three Tibetan writers to prison terms of three to four years for "inciting activities to split the nation" (in other words, legitimate expression of opinion in favor of their people's freedom from Chinese colonial rule). Worse yet, China also sentenced a young Uighur woman to death in a secret trial for supposed involvement in the riots in Urumqi, when by some accounts she was merely a bystander, and the real reason she was chosen to have an example made of her was because her grandfather was a freedom fighter.
But such behavior from China, while terrible, is to be expected. However, even supposedly democratic India had a recent case of a questionable and seemingly politically motivated conviction. As related in this article from the Washington Post, pediatrician Binayak Sen is a long-time activist who has worked for years to help refugees from civil conflict and those displaced by government land seizures. He was recently sentenced to life in prison for supposedly aiding Marxist rebels, even though he is dedicated to non-violence. Many found the accusations less than credible, including a former attorney general, who called the ruling "shocking". As the article notes, Sen has been imprisoned by the Indian government in spite of widespread support before: "In 2008, an effort led by 22 Nobel laureates failed to secure Sen's release on bail so he could travel to Washington to receive the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for his efforts to reduce the infant mortality rate and deaths from diarrhea." Even if it is true that Sen gave some moral support to Marxist rebels (which though unlikely would be somewhat understandable as from his perspective they may seem better than the government, despite their violent behavior), the sentence was clearly excessive, especially in light of all the good he has done. That a country like India would still have this kind of blatant injustice going on is disturbing, to say the least.
Other recent news items illustrate the continuing problem of Muslim extremism, and bode ill for the countries they took place in. Before going into specifics, however, let me note again that religious extremism -- even violent religious extremism -- is not limited to Islam. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism also suffer from this problem, and extremists from these religions cause severe problems in some countries. It's also worth pointing out that historically speaking, Islam is not more extremist or violent than Christianity, for example. In fact, a millennium ago, it was in many senses notably more enlightened. However, it is also an unfortunate fact that today violent Muslim extremism is a more widespread problem than similar problems in other religions.
One recent tragedy took place in Egypt, where a bombing (by some accounts a car bombing, though the government said it was a suicide bombing) outside a Coptic Christian church killed over a score of people (21 in the initial attack, though more died later from their injuries) and injured nearly a hundred. This is not the first instance of violence being directed at Christians in Egypt over the past few years, though it is the worst in terms of fatalities. Muslim extremists inside and outside Egypt have been agitating against Christians for some time, and while the Christians may not have been totally innocent in some of the previous clashes, a murderous attack like this one is completely indefensible by any standards.
Unfortunately, Egypt's authoritarian government, already well known for its ruthless suppression of any opposition, has shown little real interest in the plight of the Christians (who make up somewhere around 10% of the population, though estimates vary widely), and has in some cases directly oppressed them, such as when it slaughtered all of the country's pigs (which formed the livelihood of many Christian families) in an absurd overreaction to the "swine flu" scare. What's more, Egyptian law is biased against Christians in a number of ways; for instance, it is legal to convert from Christianity to Islam but not the other way around. Ironically, the Coptic Christians' history in Egypt goes back well before Islam even existed. The Coptic church split off from the Eastern Orthodox church in the mid-5th century under the Eastern Roman (also known as Byzantine) Empire. The Coptic language, still used in services though not as a daily language, is descended from ancient Egyptian. Of course even if the Copts, as they are known, had only recently appeared in Egypt, their rights would be equally deserving of protection, but their historical presence in the country makes the attempts of radical Islamists to destroy them or drive them out even more reprehensible, if that is possible. The Egyptian government's neglect of this issue is just another reason (if one was needed, considering their brutality towards dissidents) the US should rethink its massive expenditures in their favor (only Israel receives more in military aid than Egypt). In any case, this bombing, the ethnic and religious tension behind it, and the government's unwillingness or inability to do anything about it are not a good portent for Egypt's future.
The recent atrocity perpetrated by Muslim extremists in Pakistan, while less serious in terms of its toll in human lives, may be an even worse sign for the future of its country. Salmaan Taseer, the governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, was assassinated by a police officer assigned to guard him. Taseer, while a Muslim, was an outspoken defender of secular values and religious freedom. Most notably, he was the most prominent politician to speak out strongly against Pakistan's absurd blasphemy law, which has been used frequently by reactionary Muslims to persecute religious minorities, and most recently has resulted in a Christian woman receiving the death sentence because some Muslim women, some of whom apparently held a grudge against her, claimed she had blasphemed Muhammad. Apparently, Taseer's assassin was angry at his defense of the convicted woman and his criticism of the blasphemy law. What's even more disturbing is that a substantial number of similarly deranged people openly praised the assassin, though he was also condemned by many. Some hope the assassination will cause more people to stand up against extremism, but many fear that it will have the opposite effect, as even fewer will dare to speak out against the lunatic fringe that increasingly dominates discussion of religious issues in Pakistan (come to think of it, it's like a more extreme, more violent version of the US, where the lunatic fringe also gets far more attention than it should). This is certainly not a good sign for the future, especially considering Pakistan's size and strategic importance. Though there is no simple way to do it, the US, as Pakistan's main ally, should do its best to push Pakistan away from extremism, and particularly encourage it to do away with the abusive blasphemy law.
I have to hope that all of the above events are not signs of worst to come as well as tragedies in their right. It's difficult to be very optimistic, considering the deeply ingrained nature of the problems behind them. But there is still some hope. If these events help motivate more liberal and moderate people to take stronger action, then maybe things will improve in the long run in all of these places.
One crisis that's been dominating international news for some time now is the situation in Ivory Coast (or Côte d'Ivoire, to use the official French name). The incumbent President, Laurent Gbagbo, is still refusing to accept that he lost the recent election to Alassane Ouattara. He and his supporters in the Constitutional Council used reports of violence and intimidation in regions that favored Ouattara to invalidate votes from those regions. While it is certainly possible that there really were problems in those areas, they are unlikely to have been any worse than similar problems in areas dominated by Gbagbo. Independent observers agreed that the elections were substantially fair, and the country's election commission declared Ouattara the winner by a large margin. Notably, before and immediately after the election, Gbagbo and his campaign preemptively complained about problems in three pro-Ouattara regions, seemingly with an eye to declaring votes from those regions invalid. While this alone doesn't prove that their complaints weren't valid, what gives it away is that when the results had actually been tallied by the election commission, Gbagbo's supporters on the Constitutional Council had to belatedly add a fourth region to the three they had originally said had problems, because if they had only invalidated votes from those three regions, Ouattara would have still had more votes.
But while it is blatantly obvious that Ouattara won the election, it's still not clear that he will be able to take power without major violence breaking out, whether in the form of civil war or intervention by Ivory Coast's neighbors to force Gbagbo out. What's more, this whole mess, as at least one commentary I read pointed out, shows that once more the US and other Western powers have foolishly treated the simple act of having elections as a panacea for a deeply divided country. Elections are good in principle, but if the underlying divisions aren't addressed, they won't solve anything. Indeed, they may even exacerbate the problem. Granted, there is no simple solution to deep ethnic or religious divisions like those that plague many countries, but the international community has to recognize that in situations like this, elections alone aren't enough. For now, we can only hope that Gbagbo cedes power soon and without a violent struggle, and that Ouattara has the sense to conciliate Gbagbo's supporters once he is in charge.
Another reason for pessimism about the future of human rights and freedom of speech in Russia came with the conviction of former Russian oil tycoon Mikhail Khodorkovsky, already in prison for alleged tax evasion, on charges of stealing oil from his own company, clearly exaggerated if not made up entirely, especially since by some accounts the amount he was accused of stealing exceeded his company's production (and it isn't as if his customers didn't receive any oil), and his earlier conviction was for evading taxes on oil profits (which came from selling the oil he supposedly stole). Whatever Khodorkovsky may really have been guilty of (and there probably aren't many rich Russian businessmen who are completely clean), virtually all neutral observers agree the real reason he is in prison is because he challenged Putin by funding his opponents and opposition media. Even before the judge handed down his ruling (much of which simply copied prosecutors' arguments), Putin publicly stated his opinion that "a thief should be in prison", earning a rebuke from current President Medvedev (though the final judgment led most to believe it's still Putin who's calling the shots) and causing one critic to remark that Putin himself is the biggest thief, as he essentially stole Khodorkovsky's whole company. But as farcical as the whole spectacle was, it's still a sign that not only is the more authoritarian Putin in charge, but Russia has a long ways to go in terms of respect for human rights and the rule of law.
Of course Russia is hardly the only country to have wrongfully convicted someone recently. A number of other recent cases didn't get nearly as much attention (I didn't know about them myself until the last couple of days), but are just as disturbing, if not more so. Unsurprisingly China, now the only country to be keeping a Nobel Peace Prize winner in prison, is one of the guilty countries, recently sentencing three Tibetan writers to prison terms of three to four years for "inciting activities to split the nation" (in other words, legitimate expression of opinion in favor of their people's freedom from Chinese colonial rule). Worse yet, China also sentenced a young Uighur woman to death in a secret trial for supposed involvement in the riots in Urumqi, when by some accounts she was merely a bystander, and the real reason she was chosen to have an example made of her was because her grandfather was a freedom fighter.
But such behavior from China, while terrible, is to be expected. However, even supposedly democratic India had a recent case of a questionable and seemingly politically motivated conviction. As related in this article from the Washington Post, pediatrician Binayak Sen is a long-time activist who has worked for years to help refugees from civil conflict and those displaced by government land seizures. He was recently sentenced to life in prison for supposedly aiding Marxist rebels, even though he is dedicated to non-violence. Many found the accusations less than credible, including a former attorney general, who called the ruling "shocking". As the article notes, Sen has been imprisoned by the Indian government in spite of widespread support before: "In 2008, an effort led by 22 Nobel laureates failed to secure Sen's release on bail so he could travel to Washington to receive the prestigious Jonathan Mann Award for his efforts to reduce the infant mortality rate and deaths from diarrhea." Even if it is true that Sen gave some moral support to Marxist rebels (which though unlikely would be somewhat understandable as from his perspective they may seem better than the government, despite their violent behavior), the sentence was clearly excessive, especially in light of all the good he has done. That a country like India would still have this kind of blatant injustice going on is disturbing, to say the least.
Other recent news items illustrate the continuing problem of Muslim extremism, and bode ill for the countries they took place in. Before going into specifics, however, let me note again that religious extremism -- even violent religious extremism -- is not limited to Islam. Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism and Hinduism also suffer from this problem, and extremists from these religions cause severe problems in some countries. It's also worth pointing out that historically speaking, Islam is not more extremist or violent than Christianity, for example. In fact, a millennium ago, it was in many senses notably more enlightened. However, it is also an unfortunate fact that today violent Muslim extremism is a more widespread problem than similar problems in other religions.
One recent tragedy took place in Egypt, where a bombing (by some accounts a car bombing, though the government said it was a suicide bombing) outside a Coptic Christian church killed over a score of people (21 in the initial attack, though more died later from their injuries) and injured nearly a hundred. This is not the first instance of violence being directed at Christians in Egypt over the past few years, though it is the worst in terms of fatalities. Muslim extremists inside and outside Egypt have been agitating against Christians for some time, and while the Christians may not have been totally innocent in some of the previous clashes, a murderous attack like this one is completely indefensible by any standards.
Unfortunately, Egypt's authoritarian government, already well known for its ruthless suppression of any opposition, has shown little real interest in the plight of the Christians (who make up somewhere around 10% of the population, though estimates vary widely), and has in some cases directly oppressed them, such as when it slaughtered all of the country's pigs (which formed the livelihood of many Christian families) in an absurd overreaction to the "swine flu" scare. What's more, Egyptian law is biased against Christians in a number of ways; for instance, it is legal to convert from Christianity to Islam but not the other way around. Ironically, the Coptic Christians' history in Egypt goes back well before Islam even existed. The Coptic church split off from the Eastern Orthodox church in the mid-5th century under the Eastern Roman (also known as Byzantine) Empire. The Coptic language, still used in services though not as a daily language, is descended from ancient Egyptian. Of course even if the Copts, as they are known, had only recently appeared in Egypt, their rights would be equally deserving of protection, but their historical presence in the country makes the attempts of radical Islamists to destroy them or drive them out even more reprehensible, if that is possible. The Egyptian government's neglect of this issue is just another reason (if one was needed, considering their brutality towards dissidents) the US should rethink its massive expenditures in their favor (only Israel receives more in military aid than Egypt). In any case, this bombing, the ethnic and religious tension behind it, and the government's unwillingness or inability to do anything about it are not a good portent for Egypt's future.
The recent atrocity perpetrated by Muslim extremists in Pakistan, while less serious in terms of its toll in human lives, may be an even worse sign for the future of its country. Salmaan Taseer, the governor of the Pakistani province of Punjab, was assassinated by a police officer assigned to guard him. Taseer, while a Muslim, was an outspoken defender of secular values and religious freedom. Most notably, he was the most prominent politician to speak out strongly against Pakistan's absurd blasphemy law, which has been used frequently by reactionary Muslims to persecute religious minorities, and most recently has resulted in a Christian woman receiving the death sentence because some Muslim women, some of whom apparently held a grudge against her, claimed she had blasphemed Muhammad. Apparently, Taseer's assassin was angry at his defense of the convicted woman and his criticism of the blasphemy law. What's even more disturbing is that a substantial number of similarly deranged people openly praised the assassin, though he was also condemned by many. Some hope the assassination will cause more people to stand up against extremism, but many fear that it will have the opposite effect, as even fewer will dare to speak out against the lunatic fringe that increasingly dominates discussion of religious issues in Pakistan (come to think of it, it's like a more extreme, more violent version of the US, where the lunatic fringe also gets far more attention than it should). This is certainly not a good sign for the future, especially considering Pakistan's size and strategic importance. Though there is no simple way to do it, the US, as Pakistan's main ally, should do its best to push Pakistan away from extremism, and particularly encourage it to do away with the abusive blasphemy law.
I have to hope that all of the above events are not signs of worst to come as well as tragedies in their right. It's difficult to be very optimistic, considering the deeply ingrained nature of the problems behind them. But there is still some hope. If these events help motivate more liberal and moderate people to take stronger action, then maybe things will improve in the long run in all of these places.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Bad Bargains, Moral Bankruptcy and Negotiating with Blackmailers
Even though it's now pretty much a done deal and much of the relevant ground I've been over before, I'd like to comment a little on the tax plan that President Obama and the Republican leadership came up with. There are two major questions here. One is whether the deal in of itself is a good one; the second is whether it would have been better to have no deal at all than to have the one we ended up with. The answer to the first question, taking both the good and bad parts of the plan into consideration, is no. The answer to the second question is maybe, depending at least in part on how the passage of the tax plan ultimately affects several other key measures.
The centerpiece of the tax plan is the two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts. As I have said before, there is no sense in extending the tax cuts for earners in the highest income bracket. They don't need the money, most of them won't spend it anyway but will save it (meaning it won't stimulate the economy), and allowing them to continue to pay lower taxes increase the budget deficit by a large amount (far more than many of the programs the conservatives want to cut). The assertion that higher taxes would hurt many small businesses is wrong, as few fall into this category (and many that do are law partnerships, private medical clinics and so forth), and in any case if a small business has a need for an additional employee, they aren't going to refrain from hiring one just because they are paying slightly more in taxes. The Republican refrain that no one should have their taxes raised in a recession is just a nonsensical sound bite, one which attempts to imply, aside from the questionable economic arguments mentioned above, that everyone is suffering equally and we don't want to see anyone hurt by more taxes, like someone who makes half a million dollars a year is really going to suffer because they have to pay twenty thousand dollars more in taxes. It's also worth reiterating that even had tax rates for the highest income bracket gone up, they would have still been under 40% (as compared to the current rate of a little over 35%), which is not very high compared either to other countries or past tax rates in the US.
However, as bad as the Republican insistence on lower tax rates for the relatively well-off is, this isn't the worst part of the tax plan. That "honor" has to go to the estate tax. The estate tax had also been cut temporarily, but without this bill it would have gone back to the old rate, which if I recall the numbers correctly was 55% on estates of more than US$1 million. But the Republicans insisted on cutting it drastically, making the rate 35% on individual estates of US$5 million, or US$10 million for married couples. This will benefit a very tiny percentage of Americans, and it won't even be the people who actually earned the money, but their heirs. I know if I was going to inherit $US2 million I wouldn't complain if I had to give up half of it. Sure, a million dollars may not be what it once was, but it's still a pretty decent sum, especially if you don't have to earn it yourself. So why on Earth should we do this tiny percentage of wealthy people's children a favor when it'll add substantially to the deficit? It's absurd. This once again shows that the Republicans really are the party of the rich, or at least of the selfish rich (quite a few wealthy people have said they should pay higher taxes, whether income or estate taxes).
Then there was the temporary payroll tax cut. Obama apparently supported this idea as a stimulus measure that would benefit a much wider segment of the population than the Republicans' cuts for the rich, but it has its problems too. The payroll tax pays for Social Security, which for the time being is in the black. But having made the cut, there is a danger the Republicans will try to make it permanent (by once again crying tax increase if the Democrats try to allow it to go back to the original rate, just as they've done this year with the income tax rates). If that happens, Social Security will not remain solvent for nearly as long as it would have, and the Republicans will have an excuse to try to cut or privatize it (when the best way to boost Social Security in the long term is to increase the payroll tax -- not by raising the rates, but by raising the ceiling, since it is currently only taken out of the first US$100,000 in salary). If this doesn't happen, fine. But if it does, the payroll tax cut will also turn out to be a big negative.
Perhaps the only significant positive in the deal is the extension of unemployment benefits. Allowing them to expire would leave a lot of people with no income at all, and despite right wing assertions to the contrary, most of them are not just freeloaders who won't go out and look for work (though of course there are some people like that), as most businesses simply aren't hiring. Giving those out of work some money to spend will also stimulate the economy (more than lower taxes for a few wealthy people will), besides allowing them to put food on the table.
I seem to recall that there are also a few tax incentives for alternative energy and things of that sort in the bill, though I don't know the specifics. If so, that's a good thing. But given its bad parts, I can't say that the deal sounds like a good one overall. If there were no other considerations, I'd say it'd be better to let everyone's taxes go back to the old rates, which at least would cut the deficit by a large amount (or rather keep it from getting bigger, as past budget projections have assumed that all the cuts would expire). It's worth noting that keeping income tax rates the same won't stimulate the economy either, as people aren't getting more money, just keeping the same amount as before. The only substantial stimulus will be from the payroll tax cut and the extension of unemployment benefits.
As I stated earlier, given that this deal was overall more bad than good, does that mean Obama and the Democrats would have been better off rejecting it in its entirety? If the only things at stake were what the tax plan itself covered, I would have said yes. I would certainly prefer not to sacrifice those who are living on unemployment benefits (as I implied in the previous paragraph, letting taxes go back to the old rates for everybody would not necessarily be a bad thing), but considering the long term problems that this deal may cause, problems that will eventually affect everyone, that might have been the better choice if they were the only people to be sacrificed to the Republicans' intransigence. But aside from blocking any tax deal that didn't favor the wealthy, the Republicans -- even the few supposedly more moderate ones -- had pledged to block all legislation in the Senate until the tax plan was passed. This meant that a number of very important measures were in danger of not getting through. When I started writing this just after the tax deal was passed, it was still not certain which of them would make it. Now votes have been taken on two of them, with a third due to voted on any time now.
The first of these measures was the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell". This was something that should have been done a long time ago, and with the Pentagon having completed a study showing that repeal shouldn't cause any major problems, there was no longer any excuse for waiting, especially since the law would probably get overturned in the courts sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, there was still substantial Republican opposition, led by the increasingly erratic John McCain (even those who are disappointed in Obama's performance should be happy McCain didn't end up as US President), even though he once said he'd support repeal if the military leadership was in favor (apparently he has decided since that even if a majority of the military leadership, including the very top officials, are in favor, that isn't good enough; the entire leadership has to approve). But even worse, if the Republicans had continued to block all measures because of a lack of an agreement on taxes, repeal would have depended on the next Congress, where it would probably have failed. So one positive of the tax agreement was that a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" has now been approved.
The second major measure was the Dream Act. This would have provided a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were children if they went to college or joined the military. To put this into perspective, many of these people were toddlers or preschoolers when they came to the US, so they have no memory of any other home. Some of them were not even aware until they were nearly grown that they weren't American citizens. And yet the vast majority of Republicans voted against this bill. One idiotic member of the House from Texas (Barton, if I recall correctly) made some statement about not "rewarding criminals". Only someone too stupid to understand the type of situation the bill covered, or, more likely, someone completely morally bankrupt, without the least shred of decency, could call someone who was brought to the US (the vast majority of them had no choice in the matter) as a child -- and as I said, in many cases at an age where they weren't even aware of what was happening -- a "criminal". Even calling their parents "criminals", while technically accurate, is a sign of perverted moral sense, as it seeks to put people who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families in the same category as murderers and rapists (not much different from 19th century England, where a father could be hung for stealing a loaf of bread for his children -- as if such a person was the same as a criminal who committed robbery and assault out of pure greed). But to call the children "criminals" is beyond disgusting.
Yet, unbelievably, the Dream Act didn't pass (actually it won a clear majority, but as usual, its Republican opponents were filibustering it, and there weren't quite enough votes to overcome the filibuster). Frankly, in my opinion, this is worse than if "don't ask, don't tell" hadn't been repealed. Gays in the military were being deprived of their careers, which is bad enough, but the young people covered by the Dream Act are in danger of losing their homes and getting deported to countries that in many cases they have little or no memory of. This is a terrible injustice, and Obama's agreeing to a bad bargain on taxes didn't avert it. So that's one more strike against the tax deal.
The third major measure is the ratification of the New START treaty with Russia. Again, there is no reason not to pass this and many reasons to do so, not least of which is without ratification, there will no longer be an arms control agreement between the world's biggest nuclear powers. The agreement that has been signed is by pretty universal consensus among experts and US military leaders, a good one from the US's perspective. In a misguided attempt to win over Republican opponents, Obama even agreed to spend more on upgrading the US's nuclear arsenal (once again, when it comes to things like this, the deficit doesn't seem to matter to the Republicans). One laughable complaint is that under the treaty the US will have to cut more than the Russians, because it has more weapons to begin with. That's like a situation where two people are pointing guns at each other, and the one with ten shots on his gun (as compared to, say, seven for the other guy) is reluctant to agree that both reduce the number of bullets they have loaded to four each. Both sides can still kill each other many times over, so who cares? In any case, this seems to have a good chance of passing, which would be a point in favor of the tax plan which cleared the way for it.
Of course one big problem with judging the merits of Obama's deal with the Republicans by the success or failure of other measures is that essentially the Republicans (who ironically criticize anyone who negotiates with "terrorists") are being rewarded for committing blackmail. Like other such situations, such as kidnappings for ransom, whether or not it is ever wise to give in is debatable. However, if Obama was going to submit to Republican blackmail, he should at least have fought for a better deal. Either he should have gotten a better tax deal, or he should have asked for a commitment from the Republican leadership not to support filibusters on any of the above three measures. As it turns out, at least one and quite possibly two of them will pass anyway, but considering the importance of the one that didn't, and the fact that even those that did pass might well not have, a bargain with the Republicans that didn't include such a commitment was not a good deal. Some say the mere ability of Obama and the Republicans to come to an agreement on anything is a positive development is a good thing, and there is something to that argument. But if all their agreements favor the Republicans this much, it might be just as well to not to make one in the first place. If the arms treaty is ratified, that combined with the end of "don't ask, don't tell" might just barely make the whole thing worthwhile, but not by a large margin. We'll have to hope Obama learns to bargain harder once the new, more right-wing Congress comes in.
The centerpiece of the tax plan is the two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts. As I have said before, there is no sense in extending the tax cuts for earners in the highest income bracket. They don't need the money, most of them won't spend it anyway but will save it (meaning it won't stimulate the economy), and allowing them to continue to pay lower taxes increase the budget deficit by a large amount (far more than many of the programs the conservatives want to cut). The assertion that higher taxes would hurt many small businesses is wrong, as few fall into this category (and many that do are law partnerships, private medical clinics and so forth), and in any case if a small business has a need for an additional employee, they aren't going to refrain from hiring one just because they are paying slightly more in taxes. The Republican refrain that no one should have their taxes raised in a recession is just a nonsensical sound bite, one which attempts to imply, aside from the questionable economic arguments mentioned above, that everyone is suffering equally and we don't want to see anyone hurt by more taxes, like someone who makes half a million dollars a year is really going to suffer because they have to pay twenty thousand dollars more in taxes. It's also worth reiterating that even had tax rates for the highest income bracket gone up, they would have still been under 40% (as compared to the current rate of a little over 35%), which is not very high compared either to other countries or past tax rates in the US.
However, as bad as the Republican insistence on lower tax rates for the relatively well-off is, this isn't the worst part of the tax plan. That "honor" has to go to the estate tax. The estate tax had also been cut temporarily, but without this bill it would have gone back to the old rate, which if I recall the numbers correctly was 55% on estates of more than US$1 million. But the Republicans insisted on cutting it drastically, making the rate 35% on individual estates of US$5 million, or US$10 million for married couples. This will benefit a very tiny percentage of Americans, and it won't even be the people who actually earned the money, but their heirs. I know if I was going to inherit $US2 million I wouldn't complain if I had to give up half of it. Sure, a million dollars may not be what it once was, but it's still a pretty decent sum, especially if you don't have to earn it yourself. So why on Earth should we do this tiny percentage of wealthy people's children a favor when it'll add substantially to the deficit? It's absurd. This once again shows that the Republicans really are the party of the rich, or at least of the selfish rich (quite a few wealthy people have said they should pay higher taxes, whether income or estate taxes).
Then there was the temporary payroll tax cut. Obama apparently supported this idea as a stimulus measure that would benefit a much wider segment of the population than the Republicans' cuts for the rich, but it has its problems too. The payroll tax pays for Social Security, which for the time being is in the black. But having made the cut, there is a danger the Republicans will try to make it permanent (by once again crying tax increase if the Democrats try to allow it to go back to the original rate, just as they've done this year with the income tax rates). If that happens, Social Security will not remain solvent for nearly as long as it would have, and the Republicans will have an excuse to try to cut or privatize it (when the best way to boost Social Security in the long term is to increase the payroll tax -- not by raising the rates, but by raising the ceiling, since it is currently only taken out of the first US$100,000 in salary). If this doesn't happen, fine. But if it does, the payroll tax cut will also turn out to be a big negative.
Perhaps the only significant positive in the deal is the extension of unemployment benefits. Allowing them to expire would leave a lot of people with no income at all, and despite right wing assertions to the contrary, most of them are not just freeloaders who won't go out and look for work (though of course there are some people like that), as most businesses simply aren't hiring. Giving those out of work some money to spend will also stimulate the economy (more than lower taxes for a few wealthy people will), besides allowing them to put food on the table.
I seem to recall that there are also a few tax incentives for alternative energy and things of that sort in the bill, though I don't know the specifics. If so, that's a good thing. But given its bad parts, I can't say that the deal sounds like a good one overall. If there were no other considerations, I'd say it'd be better to let everyone's taxes go back to the old rates, which at least would cut the deficit by a large amount (or rather keep it from getting bigger, as past budget projections have assumed that all the cuts would expire). It's worth noting that keeping income tax rates the same won't stimulate the economy either, as people aren't getting more money, just keeping the same amount as before. The only substantial stimulus will be from the payroll tax cut and the extension of unemployment benefits.
As I stated earlier, given that this deal was overall more bad than good, does that mean Obama and the Democrats would have been better off rejecting it in its entirety? If the only things at stake were what the tax plan itself covered, I would have said yes. I would certainly prefer not to sacrifice those who are living on unemployment benefits (as I implied in the previous paragraph, letting taxes go back to the old rates for everybody would not necessarily be a bad thing), but considering the long term problems that this deal may cause, problems that will eventually affect everyone, that might have been the better choice if they were the only people to be sacrificed to the Republicans' intransigence. But aside from blocking any tax deal that didn't favor the wealthy, the Republicans -- even the few supposedly more moderate ones -- had pledged to block all legislation in the Senate until the tax plan was passed. This meant that a number of very important measures were in danger of not getting through. When I started writing this just after the tax deal was passed, it was still not certain which of them would make it. Now votes have been taken on two of them, with a third due to voted on any time now.
The first of these measures was the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell". This was something that should have been done a long time ago, and with the Pentagon having completed a study showing that repeal shouldn't cause any major problems, there was no longer any excuse for waiting, especially since the law would probably get overturned in the courts sooner rather than later. Nevertheless, there was still substantial Republican opposition, led by the increasingly erratic John McCain (even those who are disappointed in Obama's performance should be happy McCain didn't end up as US President), even though he once said he'd support repeal if the military leadership was in favor (apparently he has decided since that even if a majority of the military leadership, including the very top officials, are in favor, that isn't good enough; the entire leadership has to approve). But even worse, if the Republicans had continued to block all measures because of a lack of an agreement on taxes, repeal would have depended on the next Congress, where it would probably have failed. So one positive of the tax agreement was that a repeal of "don't ask, don't tell" has now been approved.
The second major measure was the Dream Act. This would have provided a path to citizenship for young people who were brought to the US illegally by their parents when they were children if they went to college or joined the military. To put this into perspective, many of these people were toddlers or preschoolers when they came to the US, so they have no memory of any other home. Some of them were not even aware until they were nearly grown that they weren't American citizens. And yet the vast majority of Republicans voted against this bill. One idiotic member of the House from Texas (Barton, if I recall correctly) made some statement about not "rewarding criminals". Only someone too stupid to understand the type of situation the bill covered, or, more likely, someone completely morally bankrupt, without the least shred of decency, could call someone who was brought to the US (the vast majority of them had no choice in the matter) as a child -- and as I said, in many cases at an age where they weren't even aware of what was happening -- a "criminal". Even calling their parents "criminals", while technically accurate, is a sign of perverted moral sense, as it seeks to put people who are simply seeking a better life for themselves and their families in the same category as murderers and rapists (not much different from 19th century England, where a father could be hung for stealing a loaf of bread for his children -- as if such a person was the same as a criminal who committed robbery and assault out of pure greed). But to call the children "criminals" is beyond disgusting.
Yet, unbelievably, the Dream Act didn't pass (actually it won a clear majority, but as usual, its Republican opponents were filibustering it, and there weren't quite enough votes to overcome the filibuster). Frankly, in my opinion, this is worse than if "don't ask, don't tell" hadn't been repealed. Gays in the military were being deprived of their careers, which is bad enough, but the young people covered by the Dream Act are in danger of losing their homes and getting deported to countries that in many cases they have little or no memory of. This is a terrible injustice, and Obama's agreeing to a bad bargain on taxes didn't avert it. So that's one more strike against the tax deal.
The third major measure is the ratification of the New START treaty with Russia. Again, there is no reason not to pass this and many reasons to do so, not least of which is without ratification, there will no longer be an arms control agreement between the world's biggest nuclear powers. The agreement that has been signed is by pretty universal consensus among experts and US military leaders, a good one from the US's perspective. In a misguided attempt to win over Republican opponents, Obama even agreed to spend more on upgrading the US's nuclear arsenal (once again, when it comes to things like this, the deficit doesn't seem to matter to the Republicans). One laughable complaint is that under the treaty the US will have to cut more than the Russians, because it has more weapons to begin with. That's like a situation where two people are pointing guns at each other, and the one with ten shots on his gun (as compared to, say, seven for the other guy) is reluctant to agree that both reduce the number of bullets they have loaded to four each. Both sides can still kill each other many times over, so who cares? In any case, this seems to have a good chance of passing, which would be a point in favor of the tax plan which cleared the way for it.
Of course one big problem with judging the merits of Obama's deal with the Republicans by the success or failure of other measures is that essentially the Republicans (who ironically criticize anyone who negotiates with "terrorists") are being rewarded for committing blackmail. Like other such situations, such as kidnappings for ransom, whether or not it is ever wise to give in is debatable. However, if Obama was going to submit to Republican blackmail, he should at least have fought for a better deal. Either he should have gotten a better tax deal, or he should have asked for a commitment from the Republican leadership not to support filibusters on any of the above three measures. As it turns out, at least one and quite possibly two of them will pass anyway, but considering the importance of the one that didn't, and the fact that even those that did pass might well not have, a bargain with the Republicans that didn't include such a commitment was not a good deal. Some say the mere ability of Obama and the Republicans to come to an agreement on anything is a positive development is a good thing, and there is something to that argument. But if all their agreements favor the Republicans this much, it might be just as well to not to make one in the first place. If the arms treaty is ratified, that combined with the end of "don't ask, don't tell" might just barely make the whole thing worthwhile, but not by a large margin. We'll have to hope Obama learns to bargain harder once the new, more right-wing Congress comes in.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
What I've Been Reading – 2010, Part 5
As I've gone through quite a few books since I last talked about what I've been reading, this time I'm only going to talk briefly about each book. I'm also skipping over some short stories and non-fiction I've read in the same period, even though much of it was good (e.g., Greg Egan's hard sci-fi short stories).
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
This novel focusing on the theme of female sexual desire was a huge seller when it came out. It was notable for being the first well-known novel by a woman to talk about sex from the female perspective (books like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill were of course written by men). As one might expect, sex is the dominant topic, though a lot of it is fantasies. While there is a fair amount of actual sex, there isn't as much as one might think (there's probably at least as much – certainly more variety – in Dhalgren, which is not mainly about sex) and as Erica Jong herself points out in the forward, it's usually somewhat disappointing. The novel also briefly touches on a theme of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, namely the difficulty people have in conveying their real feelings with words. Another interesting point is that the narrator's life has many points in common with Erica Jong's own, making the novel semi-autobiographical.
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Reading Fear of Flying reminded me that I had a copy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure that I had glanced at but not actually read, so I decided to read through it. This 19th century work is famous (okay, infamous) for its graphic depictions of sex, and its reputation in this regard is fairly well justified, though of course there are much more graphic descriptions out there nowadays. There is of course a lot of sex, though interestingly Fanny Hill is really more of a mistress to successive men than a sex worker who receives many customers. In certain ways Cleland succeeds in showing a certain sympathy for his female protagonist, at least for his time, though in other ways his work reflects a purely male and sometimes sexist perspective. Also, despite depicting positively, or at least not particularly negatively, a wide variety of sexual practices, including lesbian sex, group sex, and sado-masochism, there is an extremely venomous attack on gay male sex, reflecting the extreme homophobia of the times.
More Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The last two collections of stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords, are notable for being somewhat bleaker than previous stories (both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo significant suffering), being set mostly away from the city of Lankhmar (the main setting for many previous stories) and containing a few explicit depictions of sex (though sex was always clearly a major motivation for the characters, it wasn't explicitly depicted in earlier books – there was supposedly a sex scene in The Swords of Lankhmar which the publisher asked Leiber to cut out). Otherwise the stories are as entertaining as always.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
A futuristic science fiction novel in which geneticists have found a way to modify the genes of embryos so that the children they grow into do not need sleep and become super-intelligent partly as a result. The obvious superiority of the Sleepless causes resentment and hatred among the rest of the population (the Sleepers), resulting in conflicts and eventually causing many of the Sleepless to flee to a separate sanctuary they have created, at first on Earth but later in near-Earth orbital space. The main theme of the novel is the question of balance between the rights of the individual and their obligations to the society, or, as Kress explained it, between an Ayn Rand-type philosophy (which she said she ultimately found to be neither workable nor morally admirable, a sentiment I completely agree with) and the more communal societies depicted by Ursula LeGuin. Though I'm dubious about certain parts of the premise (I don't think eliminating the need for sleep would have such a dramatic effect on people) and I disagree with the arguments against secession made in the last part of the novel, the novel is interesting and the point that Americans in particular often resent intelligence, if perhaps slightly exaggerated, is nevertheless well taken.
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Only slightly less famous than its predecessor Alice in Wonderland, this cleverly told tale includes Carroll's famous poem "Jabberwocky" and a tale which is structured like an elaborate game of chess.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This is another brilliantly cynical novel from Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's style is unique and quite different from what I normally prefer, but he does it very well. It helps, of course, that I share a lot of his cynicism. I especially appreciate his mockery of things like patriotism, capitalism, and the type of history taught in schools. However, despite his liberal outlook, Vonnegut is not at all politically correct (not that that problematic term even existed at the time), so some liberals might have trouble with him as well (not me, however). Like a few of the other Vonnegut novels I've read, it's also metafictional, not only in that Kilgore Trout, one of the main characters (and a recurring character in a number of Vonnegut's novels), is a science fiction writer, but because Vonnegut himself appears in the novel.
Iron Council by China Mieville
This is the third of China Mieville's fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag. The most prominent power in Bas-Lag is the city of New Crobuzon, a huge, cosmopolitan and oppressive place a little like a more deadly fantasy version of Charles Dickens' London (Mieville's Bas-Lag novels are often characterized as steampunk, reflecting the type of technology prevalent in them). New Crobuzon was the setting of the first Bas-Lag novel, Perdido Street Station, and much of Iron Council is also set there (the second novel, The Scar, is set elsewhere, but New Crobuzon still plays a major role). The government of New Crobuzon, though supposedly a parliamentary democracy, is ruthless and authoritarian, and much of this novel focuses on resistance to it from dissident elements inside and outside the city, once again resembling somewhat the struggle of 19th century laboring classes against unfeeling bosses and rulers, including the major divisions among the dissident groups themselves, though here the authorities are more powerful and sinister (Mieville calls his world "an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind"). While most of the main characters are human, Mieville's world contains a fantastic array of strange and often unpleasant creatures, though some are friendly or at least able to interact peacefully with humans (indeed, one of the main characters in Perdido Street Station is a khepri, a being with a human body but a head that resembles a giant insect). Even among the latter, there are some of extremely unusual appearance, thanks to New Crobuzon's punishment factories, which remake convicted criminals in bizarre and often unpleasant ways, such as making them part machine, attaching useless appendages to them, and so forth. The resulting creatures, called Remade, are looked down and discriminated against by everyone else, even the lower classes. There is also plenty of magic (here called thaumaturgy), which often takes nastily destructive forms. Another point that shouldn't really be worthy of note but still is somewhat unusual in much literature today is that two of the the main protagonists are gay (actually bisexual in one case), though this probably shouldn't surprise readers of the first book, in which the two chief protagonists are in a relationship which, though heterosexual, is even less conventional, as one is human and the other is khepri. I highly recommend the Bas-Lag novels, though with the caveat that Mieville doesn't seem to believe in truly happy endings; at best, the worst evils may be averted and some of the protagonists may survive after having won an incomplete victory over the various forces of evil.
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen is a mix of historical and modern fiction, with a dash of metafiction thrown in. The first half of the book is narrated by Lady Hyegyong, an actual historical figure who was born in 18th century Korea. As a child, she was selected to be the bride of the Crown Prince, and she survived intrigues, scandals, and the execution of her husband at the hand of his own father to see her son and grandson take the throne. She wrote four memoirs of her life, which I unfortunately haven't read (in fact I hadn't heard of her before – I must confess that I know less of Korea's history than I do of most other countries in the region), but which sound fascinating. In The Red Queen, however, she is relating her fictional fifth memoir in modern times, even though (as she mentions several times) she is long dead. Thus she mixes her narrative of her youth with very modern interpretations of the events. The second part of the book focuses on the woman that Lady Hyegyong calls her "ghostly envoy", the modern doctor who is in a sense possessed by her, having become fascinated after reading a translation of her memoirs while on the way to Seoul for a conference (a fascination shared by Drabble herself, who in a sense is Lady Hyegyong's real "ghostly envoy"). This part of the book obviously doesn't contain events to compare with those in Lady Hyegyong's life, but nevertheless there is one fairly dramatic and unexpected (despite some foreshadowing) occurrence towards the end. Interestingly, both the protagonists consider themselves to be rationalists and thus not big believers in the supernatural, and yet one is dead and the other is watched over not only by the first but also by guardian spirits. Despite this supernatural element, the book focuses more on psychology and human relations as well as Korean culture, making it very much a modern novel. Drabble herself makes an appearance in the last few pages of this unusual but very readable book.
The Stand by Stephen King
The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest and most epic novels, though it is not as massive as his Dark Tower series (actually the only other work by him I've read). The basic premise of the book is similar to that of George Stewart's Earth Abides, in which a plague wipes out most of humanity (and apparently King has said Stewart's book was an inspiration), though they take the idea in completely different directions. Though the first part of the book reads like post-apocalyptic science fiction, the supernatural soon makes an appearance (unsurprising, given that it's Stephen King), and the book becomes an epic struggle between good and evil (King was also inspired by The Lord of the Rings, a big influence on both this book and the Dark Tower books). This makes it a bit hard to characterize in terms of genre; it is sci-fi, horror and fantasy all in one. The horror elements come mainly from the very unpleasant symptoms of the superflu early in the book, the massive number of corpses scattered around in the subsequent part, and the diabolically nasty antagonist in the last half, but they are not overwhelming, so the book is enjoyable enough for those who aren't big fans of horror (like me). Having read this and the Dark Tower series, I can tell that King listens to a lot of classic rock, as a number of different songs are referenced in both works and one of the protagonists in this one is a R&B-influenced rock singer; he's a fan of Richard Adams and Watership Down, which is mentioned in both works; he often uses his home state of Maine as a setting (parts of both works take place there, though relatively brief parts overall); and he likes creating links between his various works (there are a number of connections not only between these two books but also with other novels he's written). In some ways the book hangs together better than the Dark Tower, which is a bit unwieldy in places, though even here there are certain inconsistencies and implausible moments (the former perhaps increased by King's frequent revisions – in the paperback edition that I read, the date of the story was changed somewhat from that in the original edition). But it is certainly an entertaining read, and it is understandable that, as King notes in his forward to the revised edition of the first Dark Tower novel, The Stand is the favorite of many of his readers, with only the Dark Tower rivaling it in the passionate devotion of its fans.
Fear of Flying by Erica Jong
This novel focusing on the theme of female sexual desire was a huge seller when it came out. It was notable for being the first well-known novel by a woman to talk about sex from the female perspective (books like Lady Chatterley's Lover and Fanny Hill were of course written by men). As one might expect, sex is the dominant topic, though a lot of it is fantasies. While there is a fair amount of actual sex, there isn't as much as one might think (there's probably at least as much – certainly more variety – in Dhalgren, which is not mainly about sex) and as Erica Jong herself points out in the forward, it's usually somewhat disappointing. The novel also briefly touches on a theme of Flaubert's Madame Bovary, namely the difficulty people have in conveying their real feelings with words. Another interesting point is that the narrator's life has many points in common with Erica Jong's own, making the novel semi-autobiographical.
Fanny Hill by John Cleland
Reading Fear of Flying reminded me that I had a copy of John Cleland's Fanny Hill or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure that I had glanced at but not actually read, so I decided to read through it. This 19th century work is famous (okay, infamous) for its graphic depictions of sex, and its reputation in this regard is fairly well justified, though of course there are much more graphic descriptions out there nowadays. There is of course a lot of sex, though interestingly Fanny Hill is really more of a mistress to successive men than a sex worker who receives many customers. In certain ways Cleland succeeds in showing a certain sympathy for his female protagonist, at least for his time, though in other ways his work reflects a purely male and sometimes sexist perspective. Also, despite depicting positively, or at least not particularly negatively, a wide variety of sexual practices, including lesbian sex, group sex, and sado-masochism, there is an extremely venomous attack on gay male sex, reflecting the extreme homophobia of the times.
More Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber
The last two collections of stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, Swords and Ice Magic and The Knight and Knave of Swords, are notable for being somewhat bleaker than previous stories (both Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser undergo significant suffering), being set mostly away from the city of Lankhmar (the main setting for many previous stories) and containing a few explicit depictions of sex (though sex was always clearly a major motivation for the characters, it wasn't explicitly depicted in earlier books – there was supposedly a sex scene in The Swords of Lankhmar which the publisher asked Leiber to cut out). Otherwise the stories are as entertaining as always.
Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
A futuristic science fiction novel in which geneticists have found a way to modify the genes of embryos so that the children they grow into do not need sleep and become super-intelligent partly as a result. The obvious superiority of the Sleepless causes resentment and hatred among the rest of the population (the Sleepers), resulting in conflicts and eventually causing many of the Sleepless to flee to a separate sanctuary they have created, at first on Earth but later in near-Earth orbital space. The main theme of the novel is the question of balance between the rights of the individual and their obligations to the society, or, as Kress explained it, between an Ayn Rand-type philosophy (which she said she ultimately found to be neither workable nor morally admirable, a sentiment I completely agree with) and the more communal societies depicted by Ursula LeGuin. Though I'm dubious about certain parts of the premise (I don't think eliminating the need for sleep would have such a dramatic effect on people) and I disagree with the arguments against secession made in the last part of the novel, the novel is interesting and the point that Americans in particular often resent intelligence, if perhaps slightly exaggerated, is nevertheless well taken.
Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
Only slightly less famous than its predecessor Alice in Wonderland, this cleverly told tale includes Carroll's famous poem "Jabberwocky" and a tale which is structured like an elaborate game of chess.
Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut
This is another brilliantly cynical novel from Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut's style is unique and quite different from what I normally prefer, but he does it very well. It helps, of course, that I share a lot of his cynicism. I especially appreciate his mockery of things like patriotism, capitalism, and the type of history taught in schools. However, despite his liberal outlook, Vonnegut is not at all politically correct (not that that problematic term even existed at the time), so some liberals might have trouble with him as well (not me, however). Like a few of the other Vonnegut novels I've read, it's also metafictional, not only in that Kilgore Trout, one of the main characters (and a recurring character in a number of Vonnegut's novels), is a science fiction writer, but because Vonnegut himself appears in the novel.
Iron Council by China Mieville
This is the third of China Mieville's fantasy novels set in the fictional world of Bas-Lag. The most prominent power in Bas-Lag is the city of New Crobuzon, a huge, cosmopolitan and oppressive place a little like a more deadly fantasy version of Charles Dickens' London (Mieville's Bas-Lag novels are often characterized as steampunk, reflecting the type of technology prevalent in them). New Crobuzon was the setting of the first Bas-Lag novel, Perdido Street Station, and much of Iron Council is also set there (the second novel, The Scar, is set elsewhere, but New Crobuzon still plays a major role). The government of New Crobuzon, though supposedly a parliamentary democracy, is ruthless and authoritarian, and much of this novel focuses on resistance to it from dissident elements inside and outside the city, once again resembling somewhat the struggle of 19th century laboring classes against unfeeling bosses and rulers, including the major divisions among the dissident groups themselves, though here the authorities are more powerful and sinister (Mieville calls his world "an early industrial capitalist world of a fairly grubby, police statey kind"). While most of the main characters are human, Mieville's world contains a fantastic array of strange and often unpleasant creatures, though some are friendly or at least able to interact peacefully with humans (indeed, one of the main characters in Perdido Street Station is a khepri, a being with a human body but a head that resembles a giant insect). Even among the latter, there are some of extremely unusual appearance, thanks to New Crobuzon's punishment factories, which remake convicted criminals in bizarre and often unpleasant ways, such as making them part machine, attaching useless appendages to them, and so forth. The resulting creatures, called Remade, are looked down and discriminated against by everyone else, even the lower classes. There is also plenty of magic (here called thaumaturgy), which often takes nastily destructive forms. Another point that shouldn't really be worthy of note but still is somewhat unusual in much literature today is that two of the the main protagonists are gay (actually bisexual in one case), though this probably shouldn't surprise readers of the first book, in which the two chief protagonists are in a relationship which, though heterosexual, is even less conventional, as one is human and the other is khepri. I highly recommend the Bas-Lag novels, though with the caveat that Mieville doesn't seem to believe in truly happy endings; at best, the worst evils may be averted and some of the protagonists may survive after having won an incomplete victory over the various forces of evil.
The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble
Margaret Drabble's The Red Queen is a mix of historical and modern fiction, with a dash of metafiction thrown in. The first half of the book is narrated by Lady Hyegyong, an actual historical figure who was born in 18th century Korea. As a child, she was selected to be the bride of the Crown Prince, and she survived intrigues, scandals, and the execution of her husband at the hand of his own father to see her son and grandson take the throne. She wrote four memoirs of her life, which I unfortunately haven't read (in fact I hadn't heard of her before – I must confess that I know less of Korea's history than I do of most other countries in the region), but which sound fascinating. In The Red Queen, however, she is relating her fictional fifth memoir in modern times, even though (as she mentions several times) she is long dead. Thus she mixes her narrative of her youth with very modern interpretations of the events. The second part of the book focuses on the woman that Lady Hyegyong calls her "ghostly envoy", the modern doctor who is in a sense possessed by her, having become fascinated after reading a translation of her memoirs while on the way to Seoul for a conference (a fascination shared by Drabble herself, who in a sense is Lady Hyegyong's real "ghostly envoy"). This part of the book obviously doesn't contain events to compare with those in Lady Hyegyong's life, but nevertheless there is one fairly dramatic and unexpected (despite some foreshadowing) occurrence towards the end. Interestingly, both the protagonists consider themselves to be rationalists and thus not big believers in the supernatural, and yet one is dead and the other is watched over not only by the first but also by guardian spirits. Despite this supernatural element, the book focuses more on psychology and human relations as well as Korean culture, making it very much a modern novel. Drabble herself makes an appearance in the last few pages of this unusual but very readable book.
The Stand by Stephen King
The Stand is one of Stephen King's longest and most epic novels, though it is not as massive as his Dark Tower series (actually the only other work by him I've read). The basic premise of the book is similar to that of George Stewart's Earth Abides, in which a plague wipes out most of humanity (and apparently King has said Stewart's book was an inspiration), though they take the idea in completely different directions. Though the first part of the book reads like post-apocalyptic science fiction, the supernatural soon makes an appearance (unsurprising, given that it's Stephen King), and the book becomes an epic struggle between good and evil (King was also inspired by The Lord of the Rings, a big influence on both this book and the Dark Tower books). This makes it a bit hard to characterize in terms of genre; it is sci-fi, horror and fantasy all in one. The horror elements come mainly from the very unpleasant symptoms of the superflu early in the book, the massive number of corpses scattered around in the subsequent part, and the diabolically nasty antagonist in the last half, but they are not overwhelming, so the book is enjoyable enough for those who aren't big fans of horror (like me). Having read this and the Dark Tower series, I can tell that King listens to a lot of classic rock, as a number of different songs are referenced in both works and one of the protagonists in this one is a R&B-influenced rock singer; he's a fan of Richard Adams and Watership Down, which is mentioned in both works; he often uses his home state of Maine as a setting (parts of both works take place there, though relatively brief parts overall); and he likes creating links between his various works (there are a number of connections not only between these two books but also with other novels he's written). In some ways the book hangs together better than the Dark Tower, which is a bit unwieldy in places, though even here there are certain inconsistencies and implausible moments (the former perhaps increased by King's frequent revisions – in the paperback edition that I read, the date of the story was changed somewhat from that in the original edition). But it is certainly an entertaining read, and it is understandable that, as King notes in his forward to the revised edition of the first Dark Tower novel, The Stand is the favorite of many of his readers, with only the Dark Tower rivaling it in the passionate devotion of its fans.
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