What I've Been Reading: April 2013 to June 2013

Hannibal’s Lieutenant by Robert Capps
It was with a bit of trepidation that I started reading this book, because I have thought about attempting to write a historical novel about Hannibal’s war against Rome, probably with one of his officers as the protagonist. If this had been exceptionally good and had been too similar to what I had in mind, I would probably have had to give up the idea. As it turned out, I had nothing to worry about. While until I actually do it, I can’t be sure that I am capable of writing a better book, if I can’t do better than this I won’t bother. For one thing, except for the background story of Gisco, the titular lieutenant, the book is basically a straightforward history. If you are going to write a novel, you might as well use that to create fictional incidents, imaginary dialogue or something. There is almost none of this here. Capps merely narrates events pretty much as they appear in the history books, which seems rather a waste of the novel form. Furthermore, Gisco is a very exaggerated character: a charismatic orator, an Olympic-quality athlete, and a military genius (as is Hannibal, but in his case there’s a historical basis for the characterization). What’s more, he is Greek. There’s nothing wrong with that in and of itself – I may be tempted to give my own protagonist at least a partly Greek heritage – but “Gisco” is a Carthaginian name, not a Greek one. When you throw in somewhat wooden prose, there isn’t really a great deal to recommend in this book, though I give Capps due credit simply for writing it – after all, I can’t claim to have written an entire novel of any sort, much less one about Hannibal. David Anthony Durham’s Pride of Carthage is a much better historical novel on the same subject, though his compression of the time scale is a significant weakness. Though there seem to be quite a few Hannibal-related novels around (I even have one of the more recent such books in my bookcase, though I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet), for now, I feel there’s still room for me to write something on the same topic, if I ever manage to do so.

Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
This is a non-fiction book exploring the reasons behind the success of the people at the top of their various fields. Gladwell brings up a number of interesting points, such as the statistical evidence that success in certain sports such as Canadian ice hockey is determined in large part by birthdate, the unusual opportunities that individuals such as Bill Gates had to put in long hours at their fields before becoming successful, the importance of socioeconomic background, the historical background that provided the opportunities for the industrial titans of the mid to late nineteenth century, Jewish lawyers of the mid twentieth century, and computer pioneers of the late twentieth century, the persistence of cultural characteristics over many generations and more. Many of the arguments he makes are pretty compelling. I was not completely convinced by some of them: For example, it seems hard to believe that the time of year a person is born can have that much effect on success in school (I was born in May, which is fairly late in the school year, and yet I was always at the top in terms of standardized testing). Also, I am not convinced that the 10,000-hour rule always applies in the case of artistic success. Even in the case of the Beatles, while their time spent in Hamburg was indeed very important to their success, it only indirectly applied to the main basis of their artistic achievement, their brilliant songwriting. The technical proficiency and broadening of musical horizons that they gained in Hamburg no doubt helped them write better songs, but without their innate talents, all the hours of playing in the world wouldn’t have made them able to write as they did. Likewise, I think that among artists of all fields you could find some who produced brilliant work very early, without spending long hours honing their skills. There also seemed to be a few errors here and there in the book. For example, in his story of the feud between the Howards and the Turners, “Little George” Turner was shot dead by Wilse Howard, but later Howard is said to have shot at “Little George” Turner and missed him, killing someone else (giving the confusing tangle of characters involved in the feud, probably Gladwell just miswrote one of the names). Despite these minor issues, the book is intriguing and thought-provoking.

Gifts by Ursula Le Guin
Ursula Le Guin has a writing style that is somewhat unusual in fantasy and science fiction. She doesn’t spend a lot of time on elaborate descriptions of her worlds. Her novels also don’t usually have the broad scope of many in these genres. Instead, they focus on individual people and their relationships with others, as well as their understanding of themselves. Despite this apparent narrowness of scope and the seeming simplicity of her prose, she creates very believable pictures of the societies in her stories and in some of her novels she addresses profound issues relating to these societies in ways that make the reader think about their own societies. For these reasons she is one of the best writers of the genre. Gifts is a novel for young adult readers (the same audience her famous Earthsea books were written for) that portrays a highland society partly inspired by real world ones such as that of Scotland, but one in which the different families have magical talents or Gifts that are inherited. But not everyone in a family inherits that family’s Gift, which is a source of concern for the leaders of the families. Also, many of the families feud with each other, using their Gifts to gain advantage in conflicts – if their Gifts are useful in such situations, which not all of them are. Some of the Gifts are more suited for peaceful purposes, and indeed most of them have peaceful uses as well as warlike ones. The novel centers on a teen named Orrec and his struggles with his Gift, his relationship with his parents, and the friendships and enmities between his family and their neighbors, as well as the stories of the Lowlands that he hears from his mother and a wandering Lowlander. It is a simple book, but a very good one. In the future, I will be keeping an eye out for the other two books that are part of Le Guin’s Annals of the Western Shore series.

Nemesis by Isaac Asimov
In Nemesis, humanity has spread out from Earth, with many people living in space colonies scattered around the Solar System. Earth is still home to the vast majority of humanity, but it is looked down upon as something of a backwater by those living in the space colonies. One of the most isolationist of the latter discovers a red dwarf star close to the Sun, setting the plot in motion. Isaac Asimov’s biggest strength as a science fiction writer was one that he shared with Arthur C. Clarke: Not only did they have scientific backgrounds, but they engaged in imaginative speculation about scientifically-based possibilities, resulting in some interesting story concepts. Asimov’s biggest weakness, on the other hand, is dialogue and to a lesser extent characterization. His dialogue is sometimes wooden and unnatural, and his characters sometimes seem to lack much depth. Nemesis is better than some of his other books in these respects, though it is not without its weak parts. The concept is interesting and the story is reasonably engaging, though some elements stretch the reader’s credulity a bit (not so much the scientific ideas as some of the character’s actions and reactions to them). One of the more impressive bits of scientific speculation was Asimov’s inclusion of a gas giant planet orbiting close to the red dwarf, years before the discovery of the first “hot Jupiter”, which are now known to be a very common type of planet. Overall it is a decent novel and a pleasant diversion, though nothing truly exceptional.

The Golden Ass (Metamorphoses) by Apuleius
Metamorphoses, also known as The Golden Ass, is one of the oldest novels in existence. Written in Latin by Apuleius, a native of North Africa, it dates to the late 2nd century CE, at the height of the Roman Empire. Apuleius is said to have based it on a Greek text that is no longer extant. The main story, set in Greece, features a young man named Lucius who foolishly gives rein to his curiosity about magic and ends up being turned into a donkey. While the adventures of Lucius form the central tale, much of the book is taken up by various tales that are told to him or that he overhears, the longest and most famous of which is the story of Cupid and Psyche.

There is much that is grim and unpleasant in the book. If Greece had half as many murderous thieves and robbers as depicted in the book, public safety was a serious problem. There are stories of nasty murders and brutality, not to mention misuse of power by the wealthy. Then of course there are the tales of extremely powerful and very malicious witches. These at least obviously didn’t reflect reality, though perhaps Apuleius and his readers believed in such things. Interestingly, though Apuleius also relates a brief story of a supposed fortune teller being found out for a fraud, so he at least was aware that not all those who claimed supernatural powers had them (the effeminate priests who con people with their statue of a goddess reflects a similar cynicism about some religious groups). Women are not depicted very positively in the book, with many of them being murderous schemers, but there are some exceptions. Despite the often unpleasant nature of many of the things that are related in the novel, there is a fair amount of humor as well, though even some of that is a bit on the cruel side. One example is the elaborate practical joke played on Lucius involving inflated wine skins. By a strange coincidence, just after reading this episode, in the course of rereading Don Quixote I came across the part of the book where Don Quixote attacks some wineskins that he mistakes for a giant, an episode clearly inspired by Apuleius. The book does end happily, though the conclusion comes across almost as a missionary tract for the cult of Isis, through which Lucius finds salvation.

It was somewhat unfortunate that the version of Metamorphoses that I read was an Elizabethan translation dating to 1566 that had only been slightly updated in the 20th century. While this version was readable, a completely modern translation would no doubt be far more so. Nevertheless I am glad I read the book. While it is quite different from a modern novel, it is well-written in its way, and not a mere historical curiosity. As an important piece of the history of literature and compilation of many famous and interesting (if not always cheerful) tales, Metamorphoses is certainly worth reading, especially for anyone with even a passing interesting in ancient Greece and Rome. However, I would recommend seeking out a modern translation if possible.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
This brief play by Oscar Wilde features plenty of his famous wit, and is very entertaining to read. On the surface at least it doesn’t deal with any serious topics; indeed it flaunts its “triviality”. However, its depiction of the English upper classes as being frivolous and downright silly may have been intentional on Wilde’s part. In any case, it is well worth the relatively short time it takes to read it.

Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes
In preparation for my recent trip to Spain, I decided to reread Miguel Cervantes’ famous novel The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, original published in two separate volumes in 1605 and 1615. I say reread, because I had previously read a version of the novel that was included in a Cervantes omnibus, but as that one was slightly abridged, this was really the first time I read the entire book. Don Quixote has appeared more than once at the very top of lists of the greatest novels of all time, and so much has been written about it already that all I can do is relate my own general impressions.

Don Quixote’s reputation is founded on a number of things, perhaps the most important of them being the very well drawn characters in the book. It is a little harder to appreciate the achievement of Cervantes in this respect today, but as the introduction to one of the versions I have points out, character development was essentially unknown in Western literature prior to Don Quixote. While some of the ways in which Sancho Panza, for example, grows in the course of the novel could possibly be attributed to simple inconsistency on Cervantes’ part (Sancho not only gains in wisdom, but he also seems to gain somewhat in intelligence, which is rather improbable), it does seem that Cervantes had a very modern grasp of characterization; in fact he helped create the concept. There are definitely a few inconsistencies in the novel (Cervantes himself refers to several inconsistencies in the first volume in a metafictional episode early in the second volume where Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are told about the publication of their adventures by a neighbor), but this is not surprising in a lengthy work written under somewhat difficult circumstances. A few episodes are a bit dull (though not unreadably so), and some characters are rather unappealing, such as Don Fernando from the first volume (as more than one commentator pointed out, his change of heart from a philandering cad to a generous lover is rather implausible, a rare example of a failure of characterization on the part of Cervantes) or the Duke and Duchess in the second volume, whose somewhat cruel jokes on Don Quixote (and rather casual attitude toward others) get to be a little much. Nevertheless, most of the novel is thoroughly enjoyable, and a few episodes are downright hilarious. Many of the more serious things Cervantes has to say are also thought-provoking, though I certainly don’t agree with him on all points.

Cervantes was a product of his times, and so it should be no surprise that he, or at least some of his characters, have some attitudes and opinions that would be considered reactionary today. Cervantes’ views on censorship certainly fall into this category, though much else of what he says about literature is remarkably perceptive (particularly the view that even fiction has to be plausible, if not by the rules of the real world at least by those in which it is set). Sancho Panza is shown to have some clearly racist views about blacks and Jews, though these may not necessarily have been – I’d even say probably weren’t – the views of Cervantes himself (Sancho was after all a fairly ignorant peasant, with similarly ignorant views on many topics). The most obvious prejudices depicted in Don Quixote are not racial but religious. More than once a Moorish convert to Christianity is depicted in a wholly positive way, implying that if a Moor became a sincere Christian, they could be fully accepted. Even non-Christian Moors are not portrayed completely negatively, however. Interestingly, the entire novel is presented as the translation of an account of Don Quixote’s life by a Muslim named Cide Hamete Benengeli. In the second volume, Ricote, the Moorish neighbor of Sancho Panza who admits to not being much of a Christian (though he rather incongruously prays to become one) is portrayed positively and his longing for Spain, the native home he was forced to leave when the Moriscos (the remaining Moorish population in Spain) were expelled in 1609, is depicted with sympathy. Ricote does make an absurd and unlikely speech approving of the expulsion despite the suffering it caused him personally, but whether Cervantes really believed this or felt obligated to include it for fear of getting into trouble himself is not clear.

In any event, aside from the entertaining nature of Don Quixote’s adventures, one of the novel’s great virtues is the very realistic depiction of life in Spain at the beginning of the 17th century. The characters come to life, and the reader can easily imagine the scenes which Cervantes creates. While I would not say Don Quixote is my favorite book, and I’m not even sure that I agree with those who rank it among the greatest novels ever, I can certainly understand why it is so highly praised. Even if it isn’t the greatest novel ever written, it is unquestionably great, and not to be missed by any serious reader.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
This novel is actually a children’s book, told through a combination of prose and pictures. It was a gift from a friend to my daughter on her fourth birthday. Though aimed at much older children, she seemed to enjoy it when I read it to her, though she occasionally got impatient with the more lengthy prose passages. Nevertheless, she followed most of it pretty well. The book is historical fiction, as a number of the key characters and the basic setting are historical, though the protagonist Hugo Cabret, his friend Isabelle, and the majority of the tale are fictional. It is a good tale regardless, and the unusual way Selznick tells the story is quite inventive. The book was made into a movie that I have not seen yet, but it received excellent reviews and several Academy Awards.

Inverted World by Christopher Priest
This novel is an interesting one containing one of the more original concepts in science fiction. The protagonist Helward Mann has grown up in an enclosed city where most of the inhabitants are prevented from going outside or even getting a good look at the exterior. After becoming an apprentice guildsman and thus one of the few who goes outside, Mann, along with the reader, slowly learns the reasons for these restrictions, as it turns out the city exists in a bizarre, surreal world and itself is highly unusual in nature. The concept (which I won’t reveal here) is a fascinating one, though there seemed to me a few possible holes, at least in Mann’s perception of the situation. It seems a bit odd that in all his speculations about the world he never really thought much about the nature of the local inhabitants, which it seems might have provided some clues to the reality of the city’s situation. Stylistically the book has a slightly old fashioned feel common to many novels of the period from the fifties to the seventies (it was published in 1974). The ending is also somewhat abrupt and ambiguous. Nevertheless, the book is an enjoyable one and I would recommend it to anyone who likes interesting concepts. (A side note: I started reading this book while in Spain, which turned out to be kind of appropriate.)