What I've Been Reading – September 2011 to December 2011

Here are some comments on the novels that I read in the last few months of the past year. I also read various short stories and bits of different non-fiction books, but I won't go over those this time.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was notable for me as the first (and so far only) novel I ever read on a phone (an Android that I’d recently been given as a present). There were a few obvious glitches in the transfer of the book to digital form, mostly words and letters that the software misread, but these were minor. More generally speaking, while I still prefer the real thing, I can’t say that I found reading an e-book to be all that different from a physical book, and I wouldn’t rule out reading more books in that form, though I also intend to give most of what little financial support I can afford to books published in the standard format (this particular e-book came free with the phone, so I didn’t have to buy it).

As for the novel itself, the book was perhaps easier going than I expected, and gave an interesting picture of life among the middle and upper classes in Austen’s time. The love story might seem something of a cliché nowadays, but it was less so in Austen’s time, and the characters were interesting. I can see why comparisons have been made between Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell and Austen’s work, though the former is still different in many ways (not least in telling a completely different kind of story), and also why a history book that I coincidentally was reading from about this time referred readers to this novel as a good second choice after Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones for a view of life in the 18th century (though Pride and Prejudice is technically set at the turn of the 19th century, no doubt the writers of the history book figured that is close enough). I would have to say I personally liked Tom Jones (and Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell) somewhat better than Pride and Prejudice, but the latter is certainly worth reading too (now I need to get a hold of a copy of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies…).


Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is one of the most massive and complex novels I’ve read in recent years. One reviewer characterized it as four novels in one, and while four may be a stretch, there are certainly at least three novels contained within its thousand-plus pages. One focuses on life in a top tennis academy attended by many of the country’s top junior tennis players. The protagonist for this part of the narrative, and arguably the novel’s central character is Hal Incandenza, a tennis and academic prodigy. The second, initially unrelated tale is set in a halfway house for recovering drug addicts. The main character in this portion of the novel is the brawny former addict and burglar Don Gately, who next to Hal receives the second most narrative attention. The third novel is a science fiction-tinged thriller revolving around the search for the film Infinite Jest, the last work of Hal’s late father James Incandenza, which is so intensely pleasurable to watch that it is deadly.

It is very difficult to characterize this novel. At first glance, it seems like a modern day version of James Joyce’s Ulysses, with its immensely length, its hundreds of end notes (some of them constituting entire chapters worth of material themselves), its extensive use of difficult vocabulary and local slang, and its rather bizarre opening (which turns out to take place many months after everything else in the novel). But in fact the novel is for the most part quite readable despite its heftiness, though I certainly wouldn’t characterize it as light reading. Overall it is probably less bizarre in its content than, say, Samuel Delany’s Dhalgren. It is still quite bizarre in places, however, and it has a distinct absurdist tone at times. For example, it is set in a near future in which the traditional calendar has been done away with and replaced with what is known as Subsidized Time, where each year is named after a product whose producer has bought the rights to the year (much of the novel takes place in The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment). The US president is a former crooner with an obsession with cleanliness and hygiene (he is the founder and leader of the Clean Party). Much of New England has been turned into a toxic dump and foisted on Canada, which is part of the US-dominated Organization of North American Nations. And the terrorist group which is seeking the film Infinite Jest to use as a weapon against the US is a Quebecois separatist group known as the Les Assassins des Fauteuils Rollents, or Wheelchair Assassins, as they are all legless and use wheelchairs.

Despite the absurdist elements and some quite funny bits, I wouldn’t characterize the novel as a comedy, as there are far too many dark parts, a few of which can be pretty grim reading (the bits about the effects of severe depression and suicide are made all the more compelling by Wallace’s own fate, though this is only in hindsight – after all, the novel also talks in great depth about drug addictions that Wallace himself never had). But then, as I said before, it is very difficult to characterize this novel in any way, as it is so many things at once. In addition to receiving fulsome critical praise (and a few harsh attacks), it has generated a vast number of thesis papers and derivative works (including a music video for "Calamity Song" by the Decemberists based on a strange, elaborate game played by students at the tennis academy). It should be noted that anybody expecting a conventional ending in which everything is neatly tied up and explained will be sorely disappointed in this book. In fact so much is left unexplained that the novel has prompted extensive discussion and debate among readers about various points (what caused Hal’s breakdown, whether Madame Psychosis is disfigured or not, the content and location of the film, and more). In some ways, my reaction upon finishing it was similar to that when I finished Dhalgren; I asked myself “What the hell happened?” and immediately started flipping back through the book to try to figure out some kind of answer. In the case of Infinite Jest, I was even tempted to join some of the fan debates I mentioned above, as while some of them pointed out things I’d missed or that hadn’t occurred to me, there were points that I thought some of them had missed (though by now my memory is faded somewhat, so if I really wanted to contribute to the various arguments, I’d have to reread much of the book again). So even though I found the sudden ending slightly jarring, I’m by no means sorry I read the novel. It is a weirdly fascinating, virtuosic work that is ultimately entertaining, if not as fatally so as the eponymous film.

I, Claudius by Robert Graves
I, Claudius, written by Robert Graves, is one of the best known historical novels of the 20th century. As the title indicates, it is written in the form of an auto-biography by Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, generally known as Claudius, who was the fourth Roman emperor. The novel covers his life up to his unexpected accession to the position of emperor, as well as a substantial period before his birth that Graves (speaking as Claudius) covers in order to give the reader some background on his family.

From birth or at least a very early age, Claudius suffered from some sort of disability (what exactly it was is still debated) which caused him be physically weak and to stammer, such that when he was young he was thought to be mentally deficient. The rest of his family engaged in sometimes murderous in-fighting, and the fact that Claudius was seen as harmless helped save him from falling victim to jealous relatives. But as portrayed by Graves, Claudius was in fact very intelligent, though socially somewhat inept, and proved to be one of the more sensible and capable members of his family.

Graves seems to have based his novel closely on the works of ancient Roman historians like Suetonius and Tacitus, though he takes a more favorable view of Claudius himself than they apparently did (I have not read their histories myself, though have read some of the works of early Roman historians like Livy, who appears briefly in the novel). Their accounts portray many of the members of the ruling Julio-Claudian family as murderous schemers, and in some cases, particularly that of Claudius’s predecessor Caligula (proper name Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus), as homicidally insane. Livia, the wife of Augustus and grandmother of Claudius, is accused of having had many of her own family murdered for political reasons and is the villain of the first part of the novel, though she is also acknowledged to have been a good administrator and appears much more positively later in the novel, if only in contrast to her son Tiberius (the second emperor) and great-grandson Caligula. However, modern historians regard many of the more lurid assertions made by the ancient historians as dubious or even wholly fictional (for one thing, it is improbably that everyone who was rumored to have been poisoned actually was, and some of the stories about Tiberius and Caligula are certainly exaggerated). Therefore, readers should be wary of accepting Graves’s characterizations of the members of the imperial family, well done though they are, as historically accurate. Despite this, I would certainly recommend the book to those who like historical fiction or indeed those who like good literature, and if I have a chance I will pick up Graves’s sequel, Claudius the God.

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
Joe Haldeman’s The Forever War, a science fiction novel first published in 1974, was by Haldeman’s own admission inspired by his experiences in the Vietnam War. The protagonist, William Mandella was a physics student drafted along with other highly intelligent, well-educated young people to fight in an interstellar war with a newly discovered alien race. Due to time dilation effects (somewhat exaggerated, as I recall, since the starships would have to spend most of their time traveling at over 95% of light speed for the effect to be as pronounced as it is in the novel), Mandella and his fellow soldiers (the few that survive) return from their first two year tour of duty to an Earth where over two decades have passed and dramatic changes have taken place. It isn’t long before Mandella and his girlfriend (who had served with him) decide they can’t adapt and rejoin the military, originally under the condition they be posted to the Moon but almost immediately ending going back to the frontlines of the war. As more subjective years pass (from Mandella’s point of view), he encounters more senseless death and destruction while centuries go by on Earth, and he eventually learns how pointless the war itself was.

The Forever War widely regarded as the one of the most notable anti-war science fiction novels, and the first prominent one that was an allegory for Vietnam. Many regarded it as a response to the extremely pro-military Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (which like a number of Heinlein’s novels promotes some rather disturbing ideas), but Haldemann has supposedly downplayed this idea, declaring himself a fan of Heinlein (who was indeed a major figure in early sci-fi, despite the extreme views which he displayed in many later novels). Regardless, the novel certainly takes a bleak look at warfare and soldiering, and coveys Mandella’s alienation from the Earth he is supposedly fighting for quite well.

Some aspects of the novel come across as rather problematic today, however. Most notable is the way sexual orientation is treated (some people might also have issues with the way the military handles sexuality in the first part of the book – I doubt many women would consider such an arrangement ideal, and some men would also have objections – but I’ll have to admit I personally would not have a problem with it). When Mandella returns to Earth after his first tour of duty, overpopulation has become so extreme that the world’s governments promote homosexuality, such that most people are homosexual. Later in the novel, homosexuality has come to predominate such that heterosexuals are considered abnormal (it is even suggested to Mandella that he could be “cured” of his orientation). The problem with this is of course that we now know that sexual orientation is largely inborn, and while under certain circumstances primarily heterosexual people will engage regularly in homosexual activity, either due to lack of members of the opposite sex (prisons, ships at sea) or societal encouragement (ancient Greece), it would not be possible to completely change the primary orientation of the whole population without some type of genetic engineering, and people certainly can’t be “cured” of a sexual orientation (whatever Michele Bachmann may think). But in the 1970s the idea that homosexuality was a choice was more prevalent, and with that in mind it is a little easier to ignore this flaw in what is generally a good book.


The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams
The Dragonbone Chair is the first book in Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams (actually in paperback there are four books, as the last book was so long it was published in two parts). The world is an invented one, but a number of elements are closely based on real world history, most notably the human ethnic groups and the dominant religion. There are lands and peoples corresponding to the Vikings and the ancient Roman Empire, the religion is closely modeled on Christianity, and there is a figure much like the Pope. In other ways, of course, Osten Ard (as it is called) differs greatly from our world, such as the presence of magic and fantasy races. Though only two of these play major roles in The Dragonbone Chair, others are mentioned and may appear in later books. The most important non-human race is the Sithi, an immortal, pre-human race who most closely resemble fairies or elves (particularly as portrayed in Tolkien). The other race that plays an important role is the trolls (actually just one troll), who are more like gnomes or pixies than the large, dangerous trolls that populate most fantasy works.

The story opens towards the end of the long reign of Prester John (a name that appeared in medieval legends in our world), who first came to power by successfully slaying a dragon whose bones were used for his throne (thus the book’s title). As the king nears death from old age, we learn that his sons have some strong differences of opinion, with the younger son Josua particularly objecting to his elder brother’s reliance on a sinister priest named Pyrates as an adviser. Things basically deteriorate from there, though I won’t go into any details of the plot here. The main protagonist of the novel is a teenaged kitchen scullion named Simon, who was raised as an orphan in the castle. Judging from this book and the one other Tad Williams book I’ve read, The War of the Flowers, he likes using flawed protagonists who are forced to mature by the experiences they go through. Simon initially is almost unbelievably immature and flighty (even granted that he is around 15 years old and many teens are immature and flighty), though he shows improvement by the end of the book.

I obviously can’t pass judgment on this series as a whole yet, but based on the first book, Williams has woven an above average fantasy epic with a gripping plot and an interesting world behind it. The novel is not as distinctive as some others I have read (China Miéville’s novels, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norell, Gideon’s Wall, George R.R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire, or even Williams’ own The War of the Flowers), containing as it does a lot of standard fantasy elements, but if the remaining volumes keep up the standards of the first, it is still worth recommending as good fantasy reading.