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.