What I've Been Reading: January 2015 to June 2015

As is evident from the length of time since my last post on my reading and the limited number of books in this post (though I should point out that one of the entries below is a trilogy of books), it should be obvious that I am getting even less reading than I did last year. This is in large part because I've acquired a laptop computer and have been trying to get some work on my various music and other projects done on it while commuting instead of reading as I did in the past - and as has been true for an even longer time, going through emails on my phone also takes up some of my commuting time. But I still manage to a bit of reading at home or on other occasions, so here are a few of the books I read earlier this year (more recent books will have to wait for a future post).

My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
Set in Istanbul in the late 16th century at the height of the Ottoman Empire, My Name Is Red is a historical novel by Nobel Prize-winning Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk (indeed it seems to have been one of the main reasons he won the award). The story is a murder mystery, a tale of intrigue among miniaturists working to illustrate manuscripts for the Sultan, told in the first person through the eyes of a rotating cast of characters. While the use of shifting viewpoints to tell a tale is common enough, here not only do we hear much of the tale from the perspective of the obvious protagonists like Black, who is asked to solve the mystery by his maternal uncle and former mentor Enishte Effendi, or Shekure, Enishte’s daughter and the woman Black loves, but also through the eyes of the murderer, the three chief suspects, various minor characters and even non-living characters such as the murder victim, who opens the story with the declaration “I am a corpse” and several of the illustrations themselves, the latter brought to life by a storyteller in a coffee shop frequented by many of the miniaturists (though interestingly enough – and probably not coincidentally – we never hear the voice of the storyteller himself).

The story is engaging, and the characters are well drawn. The reader also learns a great deal about the art of illustrating manuscripts in the Islamic world and its historical development. The tension between the miniaturists and the sometimes capricious rulers who make use of their talents on the one hand and those who follow a stricter interpretation of Islam on the other hand forms one of the central underlying conflicts in the story, along with the struggle between those like Effendi who want to incorporate Western influences into Ottoman art and those who are repelled by the idea. It is surely not a coincidence that Pamuk chooses to build his novel around conflicts such as religion versus secularism and tradition versus modernity that continue to roil society in Turkey and in the wider Islamic world. There is also a strong element of metafiction, as the characters often express awareness that they are part of a story. In addition, not only is the name of Shekure’s younger son Orhan, like that of the author, but his older brother Shevket shares his name with the real Orhan’s older brother, and Shekure herself has the same name as the author’s real mother. Furthermore, Shekure reveals at the end that it is Orhan who has written down the final version of the story. She warns the reader that Orhan may have distorted some of their characters, concluding: “For the sake of a delightful and convincing story, there isn’t a lie that Orhan wouldn’t deign to tell.”

Cleverly written and yet more readable than most consciously “literary” novels, incorporating both interesting historical information and themes with modern parallels, My Name Is Red is worthy of its reputation as a Nobel Prize winning novel without being overly difficult or lacking in entertainment value. Readers interested in murder mysteries, Turkey, history, Islamic art, conflicts between tradition and modernity or good literature in general will find it worth reading.

The Hunger Games Trilogy by Suzanne Collins
This series of dystopian science fiction novels (The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay) for young adults is probably one of the best known of the genre, not only due to the best-selling status of the novels themselves but also due to the movie adaptations, which have also done very well at the box office. The novels are certainly entertaining and generally pretty well done, though they aren’t without their flaws. They are not very deep or literary, and there are some story elements that slightly strain credulity. There is also sometimes a touch of melodrama in the way Katniss Everdeen (the protagonist from whose point of view the reader follows the story) sees what is happening to her. For instance, when she realizes that her fellow Hunger Games contestant Peeta has not given up on surviving the games, she automatically assumes that he’s planning to kill her. Admittedly, given the rules, he couldn’t win without her dying at some point, but as is made quite clear once the games start, even if winning the games was actually his goal, the chance that he would have had to kill her himself would have been very small. In fact, I suspect Katniss’s tendency toward melodrama arose mainly through Collins’s deliberate effort to keep drawing the reader on. Virtually every chapter ends on, if not a cliffhanger, a dramatic revelation or other statement designed to get the reader to continue on to the next chapter to see what happens.

Despite these issues, it’s easy to see why the books are popular. Katniss is an interesting character, if not always very likeable, and the story moves at a dizzying pace. There are quite a few dramatic plot twists and surprises that keep readers on the edge of their seat, eager to find out what else may be in store. The world of the Hunger Games is also interesting, though it is less detailed than some other fictional worlds and there are occasionally believability issues. Overall, The Hunger Games books are not exactly great literature, but as pure escapist entertainment, they are a good option for readers of all ages.

[Side note: The popularity of The Hunger Games books led to an influence on real world events, as anti-coup protesters in Thailand used the defiant salute from the books (and the movies) to express their opposition to the military takeover, in some cases getting arrested for it.]

Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi
Pinocchio is one of many characters from children’s literature and folk tales that is regrettably most familiar from the Disney version. Unlike characters from folk tales like Cinderella, Snow White, or Briar Rose (Sleeping Beauty) but like Peter Pan, Pinocchio comes from a more modern novel, in this case a 19th century book by Carlo Collodi. This means that there aren’t numerous different versions of the story, so without reading the original novel most people will only be exposed to the Disney version. On the other hand, it also means that there is a definitive original, which is not the case for most folk tales, whose origins are usually lost in the mists of time. In either case, while the Disney versions of the stories are not bad, their tendency to so vastly overshadow earlier versions is not a good thing (Disney’s propensity for using and essentially taking over public domain characters while going to great lengths to protect their own original copyrights is also hypocritical, but that is another issue). So I was curious to find out what the original Pinocchio was like, though to tell the truth it’s been so long since I’ve seen the Disney movie that my memories of it are rather vague.

Pinocchio is initially extremely mischievous, even nasty, to his creator Geppetto and to the Talking Cricket (who he kills early on, though the cricket reappears as a ghost), but he soon resolves to turn over a new leaf. Unfortunately, he keeps getting tempted and returns to his mischievous ways. The series of adventures Pinocchio has have a slightly old fashioned feel to them, vaguely resembling earlier folk tales or perhaps the adventures of slightly more modern (but still older than Pinocchio) characters such as Don Quixote or Tom Jones. Many of the adventures were used in the Disney version, though I don’t remember enough of the latter to determine how much they were changed. The cricket at least underwent a fairly drastic transformation in the Disney version. But overall I really can’t judge whether the Disney version of the story was much worse or better that the original. The latter at least is reasonably interesting and entertaining, though there are better books around.

The Ghosts of Cannae: Hannibal and the Darkest Hour of the Roman Republic by Robert O’Connell
As I think I have mentioned previously on this blog, one of my favorite subjects as a kid, aside from astronomy and planetary science, was ancient history, and in particular the Punic Wars between Rome and Carthage. So of course my favorite historical figure was the great Carthaginian general Hannibal, and I read pretty much every book on him and his home city of Carthage that was available at any of the local libraries. While I also read plenty on other historical topics (general histories of Greece and Rome and so forth), Hannibal and the Punic Wars was my main focus. While today the scope of my historical reading has broadened considerably, I still can’t resist picking up any interesting looking new take on Hannibal and his career, and so when I saw this book in a used book store on a visit to the US a few years ago, of course I had to get it. Interestingly, subsequently I saw a Chinese translation of this book placed prominently on a display table in a bookstore in Taiwan, which surprised me a little, because as interesting as I think Hannibal is myself, the topic is a little esoteric and so not something I’d expect to attract a particularly wide audience.

The Ghosts of Cannae, as the title suggests, takes as its centerpiece Hannibal’s most famous and most complete victory over the Romans, the Battle of Cannae in 216 BCE, but it also covers the background and aftermath of the battle. It is a lucid, well done account, though I don’t necessarily completely agree with all of his interpretations and conclusions. For example, he concludes that Hannibal made a mistake by failing to march on Rome after the battle, though he admits that it was a long shot and acknowledges that the majority of modern scholars think Hannibal’s decision was the right one (assuming that there was even any debate about it, as Livy claims with his story about the Carthaginian officer Maharbal’s urging Hannibal to go to Rome). Of course we can’t be sure that such a march, long and difficult though it would have been, especially considering exhausted state of the victors and the substantial casualties they had suffered, wouldn’t have somehow caused Rome’s will to collapse, and we know that Hannibal’s chosen strategy of breaking up Rome’s alliances ultimately failed. But considering the difficulties of an immediate march on Rome, it’s likely that Hannibal didn’t even seriously consider the idea, and it’s probable that it was not a realistic option anyway for the reasons mentioned above. For that matter, if a few things had gone differently later in the war (for example, if Hasdrubal had defeated the Scipio brothers and go on to march on Italy in 215 BCE), it is possible that Hannibal’s strategy could have been successful. But all in all O’Connell’s account is a solid addition to the body of work on Hannibal and his war against Rome.

The Clean Power Plan, Presidential Candidates in the US and Taiwan, and Jimmy Carter

There are a number of current topics that I’d love to have to time to talk about in some detail, but due to lack of time I will just offer a few brief comments on each. In some cases, I may find a chance to come back to them and talk about them in more depth in the future. In my last blog post I talked about the Iran nuclear agreement, which, as I observed, is imperfect but worth supporting, especially given the lack of realistic alternatives. Aside from the nuclear agreement (which is the work of a number of countries, not just the US and Taiwan), US President Barack Obama has announced another important initiative in the last few weeks, one which is at least as important as the Iran deal, and that is his (or rather the EPA’s) Clean Power Plan. This takes a big step toward fighting climate change and reducing pollution by setting strict limits on carbon emissions. As might be expected, there has been loud opposition from polluting industries and the right wing politicians in their pockets, but the truth is if put into effect the plan will be to the benefit of almost everyone except those who directly profit from polluting industries like coal. It won’t even be that difficult for most utilities to comply with the plan, and of course it will make the air much cleaner, not to mention reduce the US’s carbon emissions and thereby help reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change. In fact, if anything the plan may not be ambitious enough. The truth is we need to quickly reduce emissions of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and methane if we are to avoid warming that will have dramatic (and in the near term at least mostly negative and even highly destructive) effects all over the world.

Speaking of President Obama, much of the news from the US has been focused on the candidates to take over for him when he leaves office, even though the actual election isn’t until late next year. Taiwan is also having a presidential election, though it is at the beginning of the year, so the similar focus on election politics is a little more justifiable. In both races the most likely winners are women who are imperfect but acceptable choices, if not super exciting (Hillary Rodham Clinton in the US and Tsai Yingwen in Taiwan). On the other side there are some completely awful choices (the entire bunch of Republican candidates in the US and Hong Xiuzhu and James Soong in Taiwan). The US race also has at least one quite exciting candidate and a couple others who have some excellent positions on certain issues (Bernie Sanders, Martin O’Malley and possibly Lawrence Lessig), though their prospects for actually winning are uncertain. At some point in the future, I would like to go over these races in more detail. For now regarding the US race I will just note that while I think Clinton has said many of the right things on numerous issues and I expect that I will vote for her if she ends up winning the Democratic nomination as expected, Sanders is better than Clinton on the majority of issues and offers a much better prospect of real change – if he could get elected. O’Malley stands out especially on the environment, having gone into even more detail than Sanders on the steps he would take to deal with climate change (though what Sanders has said so far on the issue has also been great, whereas Clinton has been good but regrettably vague on a few key points). Lessig, who only announced his prospective candidacy, is running on the single issue of making a radical overhaul to the US election system, promising to resign once he gets his program passed. Though the seems like a rather quixotic campaign, he is perfectly correct about the need for major reforms, and I’ll admit that the idea that someone I’ve met and briefly spoken to (I helped translate for him in an interview session with a few reporters in Taiwan when he came to promote Creative Commons) may run for president of the US.

Talking of US presidents, a sadder piece of news is that former US President Jimmy Carter announced the other day that he has cancer that has already spread through much of his body. Since he is already 90 years old, his prospects of surviving advanced cancer are probably not very good. But he has done a lot of excellent work since leaving office in 1980, and indeed is one of the best ex-presidents the US has ever had, so he can look back on a life of real accomplishment. The job he did as president is not highly rated by most people, but even this is a bit unfair. He did have some flaws, particularly his inability to delegate well and his difficulty in establishing good relations with Congress, though some of the fault for that was on the side of Congress. Carter was a true outsider, unlike some politicians since who have run under that label, and that made it harder for him to get things accomplished. But many of the problems that he faced in his presidency were not his fault and it is questionable whether he could have done much else about them. Many of his ideas were good, such as making human rights a more important factor in foreign policy, even if the execution left something to be desired. In fact, if he had been reelected it’s quite possible that in a number of areas the US (and even the world) would be considerably better off. In Carter’s day there were some prospects of a move away from rampant capitalism and excessive reliance of fossil fuels, for instance, but with the election of Ronald Reagan that all went out the window and instead the US got supply side economics and severe backsliding on the environmental front, not to mention an overly aggressive foreign policy. Movement toward renewable energy basically came to a halt for the next two decades. The parody newspaper The Onion captured the contrast well on its faux front page from 1980. Under the article headline “Campaign ‘80” there are pictures of Carter and Reagan and quotes representing their political agendas. Carter’s is “Let’s Talk Better Mileage” while Reagan’s is “Kill the Bastards”. In the article, Carter talks about renewable energy, urban renewal, mass transit, job, infrastructure, and job training programs for disadvantaged minorities while criticizing Reagan’s proposed cuts to social programs and tax breaks for the wealthy, but Reagan just keeps repeating “kill the bastards.” The article is subtitled “Which Message Will Resonate with Voters?” Of course we know which one did, but even granted that the article greatly exaggerates the contrast for comic effect, I can’t help wondering what the world would be like if things had gone differently. Perhaps we wouldn't even need a Clean Power Plan. In any case, today Americans would do well to heed some of President Carter’s recent messages, such as his warning that the US has become an oligarchy. Maybe the US really does need to elect someone like Bernie Sanders, who at least would attempt to put America back on the path towards a greener, more egalitarian and more democratic society.