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.
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