What I've Been Reading -- Dec. 2010 to Mar. 2011

I do most of my reading while commuting to and from work, and for reading material during commutes I generally take novels. I also do some reading while sitting around the house and before bed, but on average I spend much less time reading at home than I do while on trains and buses. I also I am less likely to stick constantly to a particular book when reading at home, instead alternating between two or three, sometimes even setting one aside for a few months before picking it up again. So most of the books I read at home take me much longer to finish. The books I read at home tend to be bulkier books that it is less convenient to carry around, or non-fiction that it's easier to dip in and out of (and perhaps a little less riveting and so not ideal when I'm on a train for a long distance and feeling sleepy). One such book that I read recently was the first book I will discuss here, A History of God by Karen Armstrong. I began reading this toward the end of last year and finished it in February, so I was reading it at the same time as several of the books I discussed in my post last month. Some of the other books I'll discuss here I read while commuting, and some others I read at home, or some of both (that is to say I read them partly at home and partly while commuting). None of this is really important; I mention it by way of explanation for the overlap in dates between this post and last month's post on books I've read recently.

A History of God by Karen Armstrong

A History of God by Karen Armstrong is an account of the changing views of God in the three major monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Armstrong traces the intellectual history of monotheism, beginning with the pagan historical background to the beginnings of the Israelites’ development of a monotheistic religion around Yahweh, all the way up to the views of twentieth century philosophers and thinkers. For the most part, she restricts herself to developments in Judaism, Christianity and Islam, but she does touch on Hinduism, Buddhism and Greek philosophy in drawing parallels with developments in the three monotheistic religions (and, especially in the case of Greek philosophy, because these ideas had a direct effect on those religions).

The first chapters of the book focus largely on the Bible, the Talmud and, later on, the Koran, and what those particular texts tell us about the evolution of the idea of God. Some of her observations simply confirm things I had noticed in reading parts of the Bible and the Koran, though there were also things I had missed. Needless to say, many Jews, Christians and Muslims would disagree with some of her assertions about their religious books and what certain things in them mean, but while a few points may be debatable, for the most part I found her exegesis well supported by the evidence of the books themselves.

But the original holy books of the various religions were only the beginning. In the following centuries, many different views developed in the three religions about God. All the different approaches are too numerous to go into here, but a number of major themes are apparent in her description of them. One is the tendency of the mainstream of all three religions (and others such as Hinduism) to become hid-bound and obsessed with form over substance, in turn inspiring new thinkers to break with the past and try radical approaches (though as she shows some of these radical approaches echo those of others centuries earlier).

Another theme is that two of the major ways to look at God have been the rational approach and the mystical approach. The rationalists have tried to understand God through logic and philosophy, while the mystics have argued that God is ineffable, beyond the ability of the human mind to understand. A related theme is the idea held by many that God has an independent existence “out there”; that he may be the “Supreme Being”, but he is a being nonetheless, who acts and thinks like a person writ large. Conversely, others, particularly many mystics, have argued that God is not a being in the normal sense, but is rather “No Thing” or at the same time everything. Stated another way, there has been a conflict over the centuries between the idea of a personal God who exists as an objective fact and that of God as a subjective experience.

It is clear that Anderson herself has more sympathy with the mystical approach which sees God as ineffable and as a subjective experience that each individual has to explore for him or herself. She points out that in the medieval period, mysticism was an important part of Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam, but that it was largely neglected in the West. For instance, the Eastern view of the Trinity was to consider the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit to be the exterior expressions of an ultimately ineffable God, while the Westerners such as Augustine attempted to logically explain the three persons within the unity of God, an approach seen by the Greeks as overly anthropomorphic. Later Western thinkers such as Aquinas also attempted a mostly rationalistic approach. For most of medieval times, Eastern Christianity, Judaism and Islam had strong mystical traditions. Some of the more enlightened Sufis even argued that all the religions were simply different ways of approaching the same God, and therefore were equally valid.

In Anderson’s view, the rationalistic Western approach caused later reformers such as Luther and Calvin and Renaissance men such as Newton to attempt to explain God on purely rational grounds. It also supported a very literal view of the Bible, despite what in Anderson’s view is the clearly metaphorichttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifl nature of parts of it, such as the creation story. It also encouraged a literal interpretation of the idea of heaven and hell (whereas some Muslim thinkers argued that heaven and hell were within each individual). The idea of a personal God, also implicit in Western Christianity, caused Christians to simply project their own ideas and prejudices onto this anthropomorphic God. [Update (2011/0406): Here's an interesting opinion piece relating to the topic of Biblical literalism.]

Anderson, following previous writers, makes the point that there were few or no atheists in the modern sense in the sixteenth century, as the idea of God was too pervasive. The term atheist was a pejorative for anyone who had unorthodox views about God, but the majority of those accused of “atheism” by their contemporaries expressed a belief in God (indeed, as she points out, the early Christians were similarly accused of “atheism” by the Romans for denying the traditional religion). But as the Enlightenment and the scientific method took hold, some people began to question the very idea of God’s existence. Anderson argues that earlier prominent Christian theologians had in a way invited such questioning by their logical “proofs” of God, whereas a mystical view of God would not have invited an attack on logical grounds.

In the final chapters of the book, Anderson sums up trends in the three major monotheistic religions over the last century or so, as well as the arguments of atheist or agnostic philosophers. She argues that the recent fundamentalist movements in all three religions have essentially created a new idolatry by putting their religious focus on historical and human concepts such as “family values”, “Islam” and “the Holy Land”. She concludes with a reiteration of the conflict between the rational and literal views of God as an objective fact and the mystic approach to God as a subjective experience, and emphasizes the advantages of the mystical view – though she also points out that it has its problems, particularly that it requires training and discipline.

I found the book very informative and thought-provoking. Like Anderson, I have more sympathy for the mystical approach, though I also find the view of God as ineffable to create a sort of circular reasoning, in that it argues that the human mind is incapable of explaining or understanding God, and yet assumes the existence of God (even as a subjective, individual experience). Nevertheless, mysticism does make more sense (to the extent that “making sense” is appropriate to mysticism) than the idea of God as a big, anthropomorphic Supreme Being.

Sherman Alexie, Sci-fi short stories, Watchmen and the writing of The Lord of the Rings

In the last month or two I took a break from reading long novels, instead reading a number of short stories and some non-fiction before going back to novels in the last couple of weeks. I read a book of short stories by Sherman Alexie, a Native American writer who is one of the more prominent modern American writers. Many of his stories, at least in the collection I read (War Dances), are at least partly autobiographical. Not only are the protagonists often Native Americans (often specifically Spokane or a mix of Spokane and Coeur d'Alene, like Alexie himself), but in one story the protagonists relates that he suffered from hydrocephalus as a child, as Alexie did. But there are exceptions to the more autobiographical characters, such as the protagonist who is the son of a Republican senator and the one who is a wealthy dealer in vintage clothing. Alexie often deals with serious themes like death, racism, and gay-bashing, but he manages to do so with a great deal of humor.

I also finished up a book of science fiction short stories that I had been reading off and on for over a year. The stories I had read previously were very diverse in styles and settings, and the last few were no exception to this. One was even a translation of a story by a Japanese author, about toy figurines that were so advanced as to be conscious. Perhaps the most memorable of the several stories I read this time was the last one, about a matriarchal society in a post-apocalypse New Zealand.

On my recent trip to Thailand, I picked up quite a few books, many of which I’ll be reading in the next year. Among them was one book I had read before, the graphic novel Watchmen by Alan Moore (writer) and Dave Gibbons (illustrator). This is probably the most critically praised graphic novel ever, appearing in a number of all-time best novel lists, and it certainly transcends the stereotype of comics as juvenile and shallow. The story and the characters are complex; the setting is well detailed; and the book is many layered, containing several stories within the main story. It addresses serious moral and philosophical debates, rather than being simply an adventure story. It is also bleak, violent and frequently depressing. The ending is a surprise, though I find myself wishing a certain rather arrogant character had gotten more of a comeuppance.

Another book I got in Thailand was The Treason of Isengard, the seventh book in the History of Middle Earth series edited by Christopher Tolkien. These books trace the textual history of J.R.R. Tolkien’s writing on Middle Earth. The first five are concerned with the stories and mythological background that later became The Silmarillion and the story of Numenor, but beginning with the sixth book, Christopher Tolkien presents the history of the writing of The Lord of the Rings. As it had been several years since I read the sixth book, The Return of the Shadow, which covered the earliest drafts of The Lord of the Rings up to the first version of the Fellowship’s journey into Moria (my apologies to those few people who aren’t familiar with the LOTR already and don’t know what I’m talking about), I skimmed through that one again before reading this one. These books may not be for everyone, but anyone who is big Tolkien fan or anyone who is interested in a detailed study of the writing process behind one famous author’s best known work will find these books interesting. I was impressed by Christopher Tolkien’s attention to detail and especially his conscientious in explaining exactly why he reached particular conclusions about his father’s texts and refraining from making definite claims when the evidence was inconclusive. I won’t go into all the fascinating little details that are revealed about the development of LOTR now, but perhaps I will do so someday, particularly if I get a chance to read some of the later books in the History of Middle Earth series.

The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee is an interesting overview of the evolutionary history of humanity, the origins of the various characteristics that characterize us as a species, our effect on our environment, and our prospects for the future. He covers a lot of ground, ranging from our genetic closeness to the two existing species of chimpanzee (hence the title), the distinguishing characteristics of human sexuality and mating relationships and how they compare with those of other animals, the origins of human races and of language, agriculture, human use of drugs, the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, genocide, extinctions caused by humanity throughout its existence, and prospects for the future. A couple of chapters present an abbreviated version of another well-known book of his, Guns, Germs and Steel (or at least so I suppose, as I haven’t read it yet), explaining his (very plausible) views on why civilization developed more quickly in Eurasia than in places such as the Americas and Australia.

Given this wide range of topics, it is no surprise that he occasionally oversimplifies matters or comes to conclusions that some might contest. For instance, I think he has a slightly more negative of the capabilities of Neanderthals than I think is warranted. His view of them is slightly out of date, as there is now evidence that Neanderthals did in fact interbreed with modern humans soon after the latter left Africa, so non-African people appear to derive 1%-4% of their genes from Neanderthals (on the other hand, I did see a recent article about how Neanderthals were less creative than modern humans, which is more in line with Diamond’s thesis). While I find his arguments favoring sexual selection as the origin of human races logical, I myself an exception to his generalizations on how people choose their mates, at least in some respects. I also disagree to some extent with his pessimistic views on both the likelihood of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe and the wisdom of attempting to find and contact such life (though Stephen Hawking has expressed similarly pessimistic views on the latter). However, for the most part his reasoning is solid and his conclusions strike me as at least broadly valid. Certainly I would recommend the book to anyone who has any interest in the nature of humanity and any concern for its future.

Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler

After my short break from novels, I decided to read one that I had required a few months ago, Octavia E. Butler’s Parable of the Talents. However, since it had been several years since I had read Parable of the Sower, the book that it was a sequel of, I first went back and read that (and I later read that Butler had originally intended them to be a single book, and it was only when she was partly into the second that she split them up). Parable of the Sower is set in a near future dystopia, where the rich and what remains of the middle class live in walled neighborhoods and the places outside the walls are a nightmare of crime and poverty. The protagonist is a teenaged girl named Lauren Oya Olamina, the daughter of a Baptist minister and college teacher. She suffers from a rare condition, resulting from her mother’s abuse of a prescription drug, that causes her to feel the pain of anyone she sees hurt. Middle class neighborhoods in southern California like the one the Olaminas live in are walled but cannot afford to hire guards, so they are always in danger from more determined criminals who manage to climb the walls. Going outside the walls is extremely dangerous, and those who do so try to go in groups, and if they don’t, they go armed and only in the early morning, when most of the more dangerous people outside are asleep.

Lauren Olamina has learned a great deal from her father, but she privately concludes that his Christian faith doesn’t ring true to her, so she begins to create her own religion, something she calls Earthseed. Its central premise is that God is change. In many ways, as a number of other characters in the book argue, it is more a philosophy than a religion, as it does not involve worship. It has much in common with Buddhism and the more mystical varieties of the monotheistic religions, such as Sufism (in this respect, it reminded me of some of what Karen Anderson talked about in A History of God). Essentially, followers of Earthseed accept that change is inevitable and irresistible, but they also attempt to shape change through their own efforts, in order to help direct it in ways that are more beneficial. One thing that sets it apart from previous philosophies along the same lines is a belief in a Destiny for Earthseed, namely that humans should travel to other stars, spreading life (“Earthseed”) throughout the galaxy.

Obviously at first Olamina’s religion exists only in her own mind and a journal she keeps (the one that forms the basis for the first novel and most of the second one). But after a number of events that show an increasing danger to her neighborhood, at last a full scale assault is made on it by a band of addicts addicted to a drug that makes setting and watching fires more enjoyable than sex. The neighborhood is burned and most of the residents killed, but Lauren Olamina escapes and, along with two of her neighbors who also got out, sets out for the north, where conditions are said to be better, joining a river of people moving north on the old highways and interstates (which see little vehicular traffic due the extremely high price of gasoline). On the way north she begins to gather a band of followers, including a much older man named Bankole who she falls in love with. After much hardship, the group reaches a plot of land in northern California owned by Bankole, where they decide to settle and build a community called Acorn. This is where Parable of the Sower ends.

Parable of the Talents is told in part by Lauren Olamina’s daughter, who has gathered portions of her mother’s journal as well as bits of writing by her father and introduces them with various comments as well as the story of her own life. While in the early part of the book it is clear that Acorn is not only surviving but even thriving, eventually it comes under threat, and the lives of Olamina (as she has come to be called) and her family and friends, and the existence of Earthseed itself, face dire peril that not all of them survive. I won’t go into detail here, but suffice it to say that Olivia Butler certainly can’t be accused of understating the capacity of humans to be cruel in either of these novels. Both feature the worst imaginable sorts of nastiness, and yet they are also ultimately hopeful books. While I don’t think Butler’s imagined future will happen, at least in the time frame presented, it is not entirely unimaginable either, since it basically involves extrapolating from some of the worst trends of the present.

Butler’s prose is clear and simple, without any of the complexity of writers like Dostoyevsky, Nabokov, or in science fiction, Gene Wolfe or even David Zindell. But simple doesn’t necessarily mean lacking in philosophical depth. In many ways, Butler resembles fellow female science fiction writer Ursula LeGuin, who likewise writes simple, clear prose that nevertheless is very thought-provoking. Both use science fiction to explore universal themes relating to society, gender and philosophy. Butler, who was the first science fiction writer to receive a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the Genius Grant), is even more unusual than LeGuin among science fiction writers in that she is not only female, but also black. Or rather “was”; I recently discovered that she died several years ago, apparently due to a fall or a sudden stroke (or a fall caused by a sudden stroke). It is unfortunate that she didn’t quite live to see Obama’s election as president, which I think she would have found encouraging (though whether she would have felt the same about either his actions since he took office or his opponents’ rhetoric is another matter).

Here is a particularly effective passage from the fictional scriptures written by Lauren Olamina, one which applies to a lot of people’s political rhetoric:

"Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, may be to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we’ve defended it, and because we cannot admit that we've embraced and defended an obvious lie. Thus, without thought, without intent, we make mere echoes of ourselves -- and we say what we hear others say."

At the end of Parable of the Talents, there is a “Reading Group Guide” including an interview with Octavia Butler about the books, and some questions for discussion. One thing Butler says in the interview I found an excellent summary of the terrible attitudes toward education taken by some people in the United States. It’s a little long, but one of these days I’ll type it up and post it.

Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks

Year of Wonders, written by former journalist and non-fiction author Geraldine Brooks, is a historical novel based on the story of the real life village of Eyam, which voluntarily sealed itself off from the rest of England in 1665 when it was stricken with the plague. It is narrated by Anna Frith, a young widow of exceptional intelligence and perception who works for the village rector (minister) and his wife. She becomes friends with the rector’s wife, who teaches her to read. When the plague strikes (due apparently to a bolt of infected cloth from London, though the villagers don’t realize this), the rector decides that the village should cut itself off from the surrounding countryside so they won’t spread the disease further. As the plague spreads, there are acts of self-sacrifice and kindness, as well as acts of ignorant violence and greedy selfishness. Aside from the protagonist herself, the noblest-seeming characters are the rector and his wife, though there are hints that there are hidden aspects to them, especially the rector. As the story begins at the time the plague has ended, killing over half the village, before going back to its start, the reader knows at least some of what will happen, but there are still plenty of surprises in how, as well as in the events after the plague has passed.

The story is well told, and for the most part Brooks captures the flavor of the times very well. She capably evokes the feeling of tragedy experienced by the villagers as they watched their loved ones die in great pain one by one. I did feel that as far as Anna, the rector and his wife are concerned, some of their thinking was perhaps a little bit more modern than was likely for the time, but even so it seemed at least plausible. It was also a little unusual to see a religious leader portrayed in a seemingly favorable light, though he is later revealed to have some darker aspects to his character. Interestingly, Brooks says the latter were purely her own invention, and the real rector, William Mompesson, was “heroic and saintly”, and that she changed the rector’s name to reflect the fictional aspects of her character. Anna Frith is essentially fictional, based only on Mompesson’s reference to his maid who survived the plague and was a great help to him.

Some of the above information on the background of the book comes from an Afterword by Brooks, and some of it comes from a "Readers Guide", which like that in Octavia Butler's Parable of the Talents, includes an interview with the author and questions for discussion. It's quite odd that two consecutive novels I read had these readers' guides, as I don't think I've ever seen them in any other novels I've read, except perhaps ones published particularly for use in schools and colleges.

It was only after I started reading this novel that I suddenly remembered that many years ago I had seen a non-fiction book by Geraldine Brooks called Nine Parts of Desire: The Hidden World of Islamic Women, which at the time I thought looked quite interesting (and now I may try to track down again). It seems that Brooks spent several years working as a journalist in the Middle East, among other places, which led to her interest in the lives of Islamic women. She even manages to work a little bit of her knowledge in this area into the novel, through a rather unexpected twist. But regardless, for any who enjoy well-written historical fiction, Year of Wonders is a worthwhile choice.