What I've Been Reading: January 2014 to April 2014

Here are some comments on some of the books I read over the first four months of this year.

The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper
This children’s fantasy novel is considered a classic, if not quite on the level of books like The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia or the Earthsea series, and my impression is that it deserves its reputation. The story takes place across time, as Will Stanton, the boy protagonist, travels through time to face agents of the Dark with the help of the Old Ones (Will himself is said to be the last of the Old Ones). Cooper draws mainly on Celtic and other forms of mythology connected with Britain. While to some extent it seems as if Will himself is rather passive, simply going with the flow much of the time and occasionally needing to be rescued by others on the side of the Light, this in some ways makes the novel feel more realistic, as it would take considerable time for a boy in his situation to adjust and learn to use his newly discovered abilities. While I wasn’t so taken with the book that I will go far out of my way to track down the rest of the related series, I will be keeping an eye out for them and will read them if I come across them.

The Pride of Chanur, Chanur’s Venture, The Kif Strike Back, Chanur’s Homecoming and Chanur’s Legacy by C. J. Cherryh
While reading a “space opera” style science fiction novel (Compass Reach) late last year, I was reminded a little of C.J. Cherryh’s novels (though only a little, as there are a lot of differences between her novels and Tiedemann’s). On impulse, I pulled Pride of Chanur, the first novel of her Chanur series, off my shelf, originally intending just to refresh my memory of it, since it had been quite a few years since I’d read it. I ended up re-reading it, and decided to go through the entire series, though I broke it up a little by reading other things between books. The first Chanur novel can be read as a standalone novel, but the next three are one continuing story, with both Chanur’s Venture and The Kif Strike Back ending on in cliffhanger-type situations (oddly enough, the omnibus paperback edition Chanur Saga that I have only has the first three novels, which meant that when I first read it I had to ask someone to help me acquire a copy of the fourth book, Chanur’s Homecoming, from the US in order to find out what happened. The fifth novel, Chanur’s Legacy, was another standalone, featuring mostly different characters, and I had not read that one yet, so I decided to do so after re-reading the other four books.

Cherryh has an a somewhat odd, clipped prose style that takes a little getting used to, and her characters often talk in a shorthand that leaves the reader a bit unsure about what’s going on. Nevertheless, her plots are fast-paced and engrossing, making her books real page-turners. What I found particularly impressive about the Chanur books was that they feature an impressively detailed alien society, or rather group of societies, as there are several alien races involved. Humans are involved, but only tangentially (only one human is a significant character, and rather than be more specific about his role, I’d suggest that readers just read the first novel from the beginning, without looking at the plot summary on the back), and none of the story is told through human eyes. Admittedly, the hani, the alien race whose point of view is central to the novels, are not all that dissimilar to humans, but even their society is distinct from ours in many important ways (they resemble an intelligent, tool-wielding race of big cats, lions in particular). But several of the other races are truly alien. Some are so alien that the hani characters – and therefore the reader – never understand much about them. But with some of the others, particularly the kif, Cherryh has given them a very different mindset that we gradually come to understand through the course of the series. At first they seem to simply be stereotypically villianous – cruel, power-hungry, and generally unpleasant – but eventually we see that while they are all those things, they have a certain kind of innocence too. For instance, they are seemingly incapable of holding a grudge; once they have joined your side, any former enmity is simply forgotten, but of course other races find it hard to do the same, which creates a lot of problems. With the hani themselves, Cherryh explores gender discrimination – but in this case, it is the males who face it. While the strongest males are the pampered lords of their clans, the others are outcasts, and males in general are considered unreliable, violent, and incapable of any work requiring skill or intelligence, which means that all hani spacefarers are female. When Pyanfur Chanur, the captain who features in the first four novels, attempts to challenge this prejudice against males, she runs into strong resistance from other hani, adding to the challenges she faces from threatening kif, scheming stsho and her not entirely trustworthy allies, the mahendo'sat.

Chanur’s Legacy, which I read for the first time after re-reading the other four books in the series (also after reading the two books discussed below), further explores the nature of the kif, the stsho and the mahendo'sat and the struggle to change hani attitudes towards males (a male spacer is one of the books main protagonists). It involves some plot twists that might come as a surprise to readers expecting the conflict to follow generally the same lines as that in the other books, and while it only features one character who was prominent in the previous novels (and a couple of others who had previously appeared), it is a worthy follow-up. As for the series as a whole, with a fascinating set of alien races, some well-developed characters, fast-paced plots and even a few thought-provoking elements, these novels are a solid example of good space opera. Cherryh is unlikely to win any literary prizes, but her books are good fun, which is enough for any reader looking for some solid entertainment.

Cracking India by Bapsi Sidhwa
This is a very interesting historical novel (originally published under the title Ice Candy Man) about the Partition, when British India became independent and at the same time was split into India and Pakistan, told from the viewpoint of Lenny, a young Parsi girl living in Lahore in the Punjab (where the boundary between the two nations was drawn and the worst violence took place), it shows the gradual deterioration of initially amicable relationships among people of different backgrounds as independence and partition approach. It sometimes makes for grim reading, though since the main character herself does not personally experience the worst violence – though some close to her do – it is not as dark as a novel like A Thousand Splendid Suns. She does have to deal with sexual harassment, as do many of the other female characters, but unfortunately this seems to be all too common in much of South Asia, to the point where the women seem to simply regard it as normal, and a man prone to molest the women of the household is otherwise one of the more positive characters. Other characters are more disturbing as religious fanaticism takes hold, and yet even those who commit terrible atrocities in the chaos of Partition are not portrayed as thoroughly evil. The prose is clear and highly readable, and the story, if sometimes bleak, keeps the reader’s attention. One thing I wondered about is to what extent the novel reflects the personal experiences of Sidhwa, who, like Lenny, was a young Parsi girl who had been crippled by polio and was living in Lahore at the time of Partition. Be that as it may, it is a good novel and highly recommended to anyone with an interest in that part of the world.

Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
This classic adventure tale, a novelization of a play by Barrie, is pretty enjoyable, though more than some novels from the same era it seems a bit dated in places – the portrayal of “Indians” (Native Americans), for instance, is far from politically correct. There is a bit more real violence than I might have expected, though admittedly a lot of it takes place offstage, as fights between the Lost Boys and Hook’s pirates involve actual fatalities. From what I recall, the Disney version was somewhat more cartoonish (not surprisingly, I suppose). In any case, it's a decent and fairly quick read though not quite essential.

War Returns to Iraq

The big story internationally in the past week has been the sudden sweep through large parts of Iraq by the radical Islamist group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (or alternately Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant or the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham). ISIS (or ISIL) has taken over a considerable amount of territory, including Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's hometown. The Iraqi army in the area simply collapsed, and ISIS has executed hundreds of captured Iraqi soldiers (from what I recall, the group has performed even more brutal killings in Syrian territory it controls). This is clearly a nasty bunch, so much so that even al-Qaeda, a former ally, has disowned them (in fact, al-Qaeda allied Islamist groups in Syria have in places teamed up with secular rebel groups to fight ISIS, though unfortunately such in-fighting among rebels has helped Syria's leader Assad). Though rivalry no doubt has played a role in al-Qaeda's disapproval, from what I remember al-Qaeda specifically condemned some of ISIS's most brutal acts in Syria, much as they condemned Boko Haram's kidnapping of the girls in Nigeria. This isn't to say that al-Qaeda is a bunch of nice guys. Rather, it shows how horrible ISIS is, since even al-Qaeda thinks they go too far.

Unsurprisingly, many, including apparently the Iraqi government, are urging the US to consider airstrikes against ISIS. What's more, many American right-wingers are blaming US President Barack Obama for the Iraqi military collapse. As Jon Stewart quite reasonably (and of course amusingly) pointed out, many of these critics have in the past been so completely wrong about Iraq that we have no reason to listen to them anyway. Even if we ignore the fact that these American neocons are ultimately responsible for the chaos in Iraq because they led the US into invading it using false justifications such as WMDs and al-Qaeda connections, we should question their current assertion that if some US forces had been left in Iraq – and of course they blame Obama for not ensuring that some stayed, even though it was Bush who first signed the agreement setting the withdrawal date and it was the Iraqis who refused to agree to negotiate an agreement letting some American soldiers remain – this wouldn't have happened. While the US troop surge probably played a role in dampening down the insurgency in Iraq, the main factor was the co-opting of Sunni leaders who were persuaded to join in the fight against the radical groups. What has caused many Sunnis to now welcome, or at least not resist, ISIS is the behavior of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in recent years. His rule has been very divisive, clearly favoring the interests of his fellow Shiites over the Sunnis, as noted in this article. Human rights violations have also been severe, and again Sunnis have suffered disproportionately. The mere presence of a few US troops would hardly have been enough to counter the resentment that the Maliki government has generated with their heavy-handed behavior. If Obama should be blamed for anything, it should be for failing to strongly criticize Maliki's behavior, even at the risk of driving him even closer to Iran than he already is, or for failing to put pressure on him to step aside when Iyad Allawi out-polled him in the 2010 elections.

Leaving the question of blame aside, what should be done now? A number of organizations I receive emails from have been active in petitioning against US airstrikes, but I have been reluctant to sign on, not because I support airstrikes, but because I'm hesitant to completely rule them out. ISIS is clearly awful; based on what I've heard, they are probably worse than the Taliban. Some have talked about a diplomatic solution, but if by that they mean one involving ISIS, I think they are dreaming. However, there is certainly room for diplomacy involving both the Iraq government and local Sunni leaders. In fact, I think the US should insist that any substantial support that it gives to the Maliki government be contingent on Maliki taking immediate, concrete steps to improve the lot of the Sunnis and reduce sectarian tensions. Unfortunately, the fact that his allies are even now trying to pin responsibility for the Iraqi army's collapse on the Kurds, and Maliki's own wild hints about conspiracies and foreign meddling, indicate that he hasn't learned anything from this disaster. Until he does, or he is replaced by a more sensible ruler, it's hard to hold out much hope that Iraq's situation will improve any time soon.