rip's books

The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick

2012-01-05T20:42:00.000-08:00

The Information is a terrible title, but it disguises a brilliant book. With clear storytelling and thoughtful analysis, James Gleick demonstrates the power of information and traces its development throughout history. While the prologue mentions the invention of the transistor and the "bit" in 1948, Gleick begins his story with information that was passed along in a pre-literate society through African "talking drums," metaphorical message bearers that share some characteristics of encoded messages today. From there, he expounds on cuneiform tablets that contain what we would call algorithms, compares the first dictionary ever compiled to the modern online Oxford English Dictionary, and devotes a poignant chapter to the story of Charles Babbage and Ada Byron Lovelace, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron. The pair theorized about programming as part of an exchange centered around a mechanical "difference engine" in the 1800s, before electricity was well understood. Ms. Lovelace died young put peered briefly into the future, and Mr. Babbage never did complete his engine. Still, they were precursors to modern day computing. The hero of the book is Claude Shannon, the inventor of information theory (a mathematical concept of information that reveals it to be a lack of predictability) and the bit (a unit of information that can be expressed as a binary choice between one state and another -- 0 or 1). Gleick traces the scientific and mathematical development of information theory, then explains how that theory informs and enlivens the sciences and culture from 1948 forward. The explanation of the mathematical theory requires an in-depth look at Turing's hypothetical machine, but Gleick does not focus on the advances in hardware throughout history. Instead, he describes the "software" of information, from the telegraph operator's codes and compressions through to Google's search engine algorithm, which views links among web pages as "recommendations." In the process, he illuminates science and several scientific theories in a new way -- the gene, for example, is seen as information, while quantum mechanics make an appearance in a chapter on quantum computing. Gleick's ultimate goal is to guide readers to an understanding of information as a whole, and in the process he puts us through our paces in our efforts to understand him. It's hard to keep up, but the driving intellect behind this book keeps aiming at a higher and higher understanding of the concept. Ultimately, he makes his case that information is the key discovery of the 20th century, based on advances in science throughout history, and leading to a "flood" of information in the 21st. Similar to Newton's discoveries in the 16th century, the "discovery" of information promises a sea change in history.

The PEN / O. Henry Prize Stories 2011

2011-11-29T21:02:00.001-08:00

This short story collection is surprisingly political. I only sampled a few of the stories, and aside from one top pick, "Your Fate Hurtles Down at You" by Jim Shepard, they all had a political edge to them. All in all, I liked them for being "fierce" stories, as editor Laura Furman writes in her introduction to the collection, but after a while it became obvious that the panel that picked the stories had a bit of an axe to grind. They chose stories with liberal themes or preoccupations -- one story, for example, imagined a world after global warming in which food was scarce in Britain, complete with an attempted rape and many other unexpected horrors in a world with few resources; another imagined a horror of horrors in Budapest at the end of World War II. Rape or the threat of rape seemed to hang over many stories. One story I skipped was entitled "Melinda" -- just from the title, I feared that it would be about rape, but from the description at the back of the book it seems to be about a meth addict. I'm not sure I need to be exposed to this kind of fiction, no matter how adult I am or sophisticated as a reader. The most important short stories are about people who break rules. I understand that. I just don't see the need to be badgered in fiction. The story I liked the best was the aforementioned "Your Fate Hurtles Down at You," which studiously avoids the politics of the Alps in the 1930s (not very pretty politics, I assure you). It is a fierce story without being polemical or obvious. It continually surprises with subtlety and tension in a set of family dynamics that matches the tension in the snow before an avalanche. The extended metaphor of the avalanche dominates the story, and it makes for compelling reading. I am glad I bought the book just for that story, but I can't say I recommend the whole collection.

People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks

2011-06-22T11:15:00.000-07:00

This novel traces the roots of a remarkable book, the Sarajevo Haggadah, through several hundred years of history. More importantly, it brings the creators of the book to novelistic life through the imagination of the author. It also tells a taut, dramatic story about the restoration of the book in the modern era, centering around a young fictional Australian expert named Hanna Heath. Hanna's story could stand alone as a novel all its own, and it provides quite a bit of drama in the end parts of the novel. It also allows us to see the survival of the book through to contemporary times, and that it is always more complicated than we would expect for something like the Haggadah to survive. The "people of the book" are Christian, Muslim, and Jewish, and the survival of the Sarajevo Haggadah tells of the complex interplay between these faiths. First of all, the book is Jewish, but it is illustrated in a style influenced by Christian prayer books, or books of hours. It ended up in the hands of Muslim caretakers, and the novel ultimately traces the art back to a Muslim source, although that supposition is not proven as it would be in a non-fiction work. The creators and preservers of the book come into the book through artifacts that are found in the binding or on the pages when Hanna restores the book -- she finds a butterfly wing, for example, that leads into a story of survival during the Nazi era.
One of the most dramatic of these stories, about a Venetian censor and the gambling rabbi who hopes to save the book from destruction, centers around wine stains. The book survives in this instance because the Christian censor has a secret, and there are many similar situations and almost melodramatic escapes for the Haggadah in the novel. This interweaving of the faiths and the fate of the book bring the book's theme to light -- that people who love art and literature and faith are all connected in some ways, and without those connections, there could be no art or literature or faith. This book aims to tell a story more than to teach a lesson, but the novel demonstrates the power of faiths that interplay in the way the story unfolds. The cosmopolitan ideal of interfaith dialogue is symbolized by Sarajevo, as well as the failure of interfaith dialogue, because of the Christian-Muslim conflict that virtually destroyed the city in the 1990s. At the end of the novel, Sarajevo has begun to recover from the ravages of war, but there is an unexpected twist that threatens the Haggadah's safety once again. Brooks weaves a compelling story of survival in the novel, and while in some senses the story she weaves is a little too dramatic, that drama is necessary to capture how unlikely the Haggadah's survival really is, and for that matter, how unlikely its creation was. In addition, the human stories behind that survival are told well, and the people of the book really do come to life through this dramatization of their story.

Decision Points by George W. Bush

2011-06-04T22:39:00.000-07:00

The 43rd US President's memoir conveys quite dramatically some key decisions of his time in office. The transformation of the Presidency from peacetime to what the former President calls a "war footing" is striking. The first few chapters focus on Pres. George W. Bush's family life, the decision to run for President, and stem cell research. Then, he describes learning of the attacks on September 11 while attempting to promote testing in public schools, and the book shifts into a different gear. The former President attempts to describe the way September 11 forced him to confront some stark realities, in a chapter entitled, "A Day of Fire," but it skirts some other important issues. The use of what Pres. Bush terms "enhanced interrogation techniques" and others have called torture gets some explanation, but Abu Ghraib and the abuses there get about one sentence -- an off-hand reference when someone says Guantanamo is "no Abu Ghraib."

The book is organized thematically, rather than chronologically, but it does focus key chapters on Afghanistan and Iraq. Its key feature is to focus each chapter on some decisions the President made, and to argue that the country or the world is better off because of that decision. The stories usually start in the middle of a crisis or problem, as most good stories do, and resolve nicely with a set of facts or figures that are helpfully reassuring. The more disturbing aspects of Pres. Bush's time in power are sometimes ignored, sometimes deflected -- the potential for abuse in the Patriot Act is acknowledged, but Pres. Bush says that the one big flaw with the act is its name, for example. The ending of many of the stories is really still being written, though, and Pres. Bush seems content to "let history decide."

Overall, I did feel I got a better sense for how Pres. Bush arrived at some of his decisions in office. The overall strategy of the Iraq war and Pres. Bush's sense that he was always speaking to the military as one of his audiences, for example, come through. I'm not sure that he really makes a case for his decisions being right, but no one can deny that his decisions were important.

Deal Breaker by Harlan Coben

2011-03-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

I found this book at the local bookstore -- they were featuring the author at one of the front displays. It is the first novel in a crime series that centers around sports, specifically through the detective/investigator in the case, sports agent Myron Bolitar. The novel made me want to keep reading, and really was a page-turner in the best sense of the word. The plot centers around the disappearance of a young woman from a college campus -- she was the cheerleader dating the star quarterback, who happens to be Myron Bolitar's first big client as a sports agent. Myron is funny and sarcastic in the first scene, in which he negotiates with the team's owner over the quarterback's contract. This disarming humor throughout the book helps keep readers on Myron's side, even as he and his sidekick/enforcer, Win, descend into some dirty business and commit acts that could be called morally questionable. The morality level isn't too heavy in this one, though -- it's clear there are good guys and bad guys, and the scenes showing prostitution and drug dealing go out of their way to make those crimes seem completely unappealing. The author does the standard crime novel trick of releasing just enough information to leave readers guessing, right until the very end. The twist at the end was a surprise, at least to me, although I probably should have seen it coming. I am not very good at guessing these things, but I had some hunches that turned out to be right. Overall, this novel is a very entertaining read. I noticed a few details from the early 90s that stick out now as outdated, but the novel holds up pretty well with all the changes we've been through since then.

Anne Frank: The book, the life, the afterlife by Francine Prose

2011-02-21T18:30:00.000-08:00

This interesting book re-introduces Anne Frank as an intelligent, observant writer and her diary as a work of art. The author divides her book into three sections -- the life, the book, and the afterlife -- and devotes a final section to teaching the diary in classrooms and college. The book made me want to attempt to tackle the diary in the classroom again -- the closest I got was showing a film called Anne Frank Remembered (a more complete version of her story than other documentaries) as part of a non-fiction unit. It is a complex work, though, and putting it in historical context is difficult. Reading the diary as a whole is something I've never really done -- I've been informed mostly by a dramatic version I saw in high school and excerpts from various textbooks and study books, and I agree with the author of this book that the play oversimplifies the realities of Anne's life and the reasons she was in hiding. I may go back to the original diary and read it if I get a chance now. Reading this book inspires a healthy respect for Anne Frank as an author with a self-conscious desire to be published. A key revelation in the book is that Anne Frank herself went back and revised her diary, intending it to be published at some point. She recognized that, even if she were "an oridinary girl" in extraordinary circumstances, her story has relevance beyond the walls of her "secret annex." Her observations of herself and her companions in the annex make for vivid stories, and they symbolize what was lost in the Holocaust in very personal terms. But beyond that, the work of her diary is to record the humanity and civility of a group of people, the vast majority of whom did not survive the Holocaust, and to document in terms of daily life the privations they endured. She also explores herself and wishes for things to be different than they are, as most adolescents do, but in a specific context that crystallizes her wishes in very concrete ways. The fact that her final entry, in which she wonders what she would be like if there were no one else in the world, is her final entry, reminds us that her story ended not in the way she wished but in Bergen-Belsen, a horror of horrors. It is not enough to wonder what kind of writer Anne Frank might have been had she lived; rather, we have to wonder at the kind of writer she already was, and at the inhuman extermination edicts that placed her in such difficult conditions. Anne Frank is not an easily reduced author. She is not the poster-child for optimism that is represented in the play and film versions of her diary, nor is she a saint or a sex-obsessed teenager, as some have made her out to be. Instead, she is a human being, a Jew, an author who lives on in her work. That message came through in clear, direct language in Prose's book, and I am grateful for the portrait she offers of Anne Frank, the author.

At Canaan's Edge by Taylor Branch

2011-02-01T12:48:00.000-08:00

This third book in the monumental series depicting "America in the King years" offers an amazing look into the struggles and real-life complexities of Martin Luther King, Jr's life. The book does not shy away from awkward facts like the internal struggles against King's Poor People's Campaign in 1967-1968, or his "casual affairs" with women who were not his wife, but it does portray the civil rights struggle in such vivid detail as to give it new life. The author does downplay those affairs a little bit, sometimes failing to name the woman with whom King was having the affair. The overall effect of the book is to bring King into focus as a central figure in American history, who has failings like many others but whose doctrine of non-violent protest of injustice brought about sweeping change in the country. The villain of the story is definitely J. Edgar Hoover, who actively opposes King's campaigns, planting bugs and wiretaps to record his operations and glean embarrassing details, and often plants stories in the press in an attempt to discredit King. The book does venture into some explanation for the reasons why civil rights became such a struggle, but it mostly sticks to the narrative, which is compelling in various ways. First, there are the stories of pioneers who face hardship and suffer martyrdom in rural counties in Alabama in an effort to win voting rights. Second, the dramatic march for voting rights from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 is portrayed in vivid detail as the "last revolution" of the civil rights movement. King's oration upon finally arriving at Montgomery is particularly well described. Finally, there is the Vietnam War, which enters the story through the Johnson White House. Apparently, the White House was full of gloomy predictions about the prospects for success in this war, even as the President is asked for more and more troops to be committed. According to this book, the war comes to dominate thinking on a national level and eclipses civil rights as the Johnson administration's focus. The war is also one reason given for the failure of a protest march in Chicago to ignite a national debate on Northern racism. These stories are important to remember in our era of supposedly post-racial politics. It is true that we have come a long way from the 1960s, but we still have a long way to go.

The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (1/3 through)

2010-10-23T07:42:00.000-07:00

I took this book along on a recent trip, but only managed to get through about 1/3 of the book. It is a dense book, full of beautiful descriptions of scenery and the inner workings of a small, Midwestern family. I have had a few obstacles to enjoying this book -- first, it is a heavy book, meaning that the story it tells is not an easy one. People and dogs die, even in the very first scene, and the emotional weight of issues like infertility and living with a handicap can be felt early on, too. Second, the book jacket gave away a plot event that appears about 1/3 of the way into the novel. I was so disappointed that I read the book jacket and it gave away this plot point that I had to put the book down for a couple of days. Finally, it is a retelling of a classic story, which I only put together because of a hint my sister-in-law gave me. I think I sort of know what is coming next because of this, so it takes away some of the drama of the story. With all that said, though, I am determined to like this book. It is well-written, with intricate details and an imaginative take on the subjects of dog-rearing, death, and betrayal. The dogs are central characters, so some people may have a problem with that. One early chapter is told from the perspective of a dog, which is an attention-grabbing stunt but also an important clue as to what the author is trying to do. He's building layers of meaning into the story that go well beyond the plot points. It does seem to take a long time for something to happen, but the author is really building the emotional worlds of the central family and their dogs. Edgar Sawtelle, the central character, is born mute, and develops his own sign language that his family and friends (especially the dog Almondine) learn to read and speak. This is a fascinating way of recreating a character who is central to the plot (to give his name is to give away too much). There are hints throughout as to what story is really being told here, but I don't want to spoil anything for anyone else. Let's just say there is an Uncle Claude and a mom named Trudy. That may be enough for some people to put together the story that is being told. I'm looking forward to the rest of the story unfolding in this unique way.

Pillar of Fire (all the way through)

2010-08-09T17:16:00.000-07:00

This remarkable volume, the second of three books, traces the middle stage of Martin Luther King, Jr's civil rights struggle and contextualizes the struggle as part of a grand arc of history -- an arc that "bends toward justice," to apply a quote from Dr. King himself. The book describes efforts to gain rights we often take for granted now -- the right to vote, the right to eat in desegregated restaurants, the right to express ourselves without fear of government reprisal -- bringing the struggle to vivid life with well-researched details. The narrative centers around the movement in the South, but brings in perspectives from around the country and begins to indict Northern racism as well as the institutional racism of the South. Malcolm X's rise to national prominence begins with a violent episode in Los Angeles and ends with his death in Harlem. The detailed account of the often violent struggle for control of the Nation of Islam that Malcolm X engages in and his changing understanding of Islam and the need for a more "militant" response is an interesting counterpoint to Martin Luther King's struggle to make decisions in the best interest of the non-violent movement. President Lyndon Johnson's role in the book begins with a visit to St. Augustine, Florida, as Vice President, where he is the reason for an integrated dinner that sparks later movement activity, and ends with his battle for control of South Vietnam heading toward outright war. Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, and J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, spar toward the beginning of the book over turf within the White House, and Hoover's active opposition to King through FBI wiretaps is ultimately triumphant; these wiretaps are ultimately revelatory (see below) and essential to the history of the movement. The wiretaps reveal the inner struggles of the King circle, as well as some personal failings of King's, and they also reveal the Hoover FBI's ability to use "extralegal" means to control what Hoover considered subversive activity. The implacable opposition faced by nonviolent protesters attempting to overcome segregation astounded me with its vehemence, violence, and blatant injustice. The pivotal summer of 1964 begins with the murder of three Mississippi civil rights workers, and the efforts to bring these murders to trial face stunning opposition -- Mississippi authorities claim the nonviolent workers were faking the disappearance until the bodies are discovered, and even after the discovery of bodies, Mississippi authorities blame the victims for the crime. That outrage is just the beginning of the legal saga that is unwound in the epilogue of the book -- the FBI did get some convictions in the case after years of struggle, but no one goes to prison for life because of these murders. There are numerous heroic stories of pioneers in the civil rights movement who suffer punishment for their involvement in the movement -- one particularly tough pill to swallow is the story of Vernon Dahmer, who is murdered at the end of years of providing support for the movement, after the voting rights act is passed in 1965, essentially for offering to pay the $2 poll tax for those who can't afford it. The hero of the story, aside from Dr. King, is probably Bob Moses, the pioneering educator who begins a lonely campaign to bring voting rights to Mississippi in the early 1960s, then operates as a key leader in the "Freedom Summer" of 1964, which ultimately brought a Black delegation to the Democratic National Convention in a showdown that tested how far the country could go to accept Blacks voting in large numbers in the South. Moses is one survivor in the epilogue who makes a positive impact in the 1990s. Which does not mean this is a downer of a book -- gripping, yes, depressing in some ways, but also inspirational and true. The research and detail make for a compelling read. If you are willing and able to put in the time, it is well worth the read.

Pillar of Fire (halfway through)

2010-08-04T11:28:00.000-07:00

This book requires some extra concentration, so reading it before bed-time has resulted in my falling asleep many times. However, I had a chance to put a significant dent into it this weekend, and I really learned in great detail about the civil rights era and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, impact on it. The violence the book describes is astonishing, similar to the first installment, Parting the Waters, reviewed here. The book opens with a very detailed account of a violent incident in Los Angeles, which accompanied the rise of Malcolm X to national prominence. The first five chapters explore the connections between several disparate events, leading up to a climactic confrontation in Birmingham, Alabama, between King's non-violent volunteers (mostly youth) and police armed with dogs and fire hoses. The main arc of the narrative centers around the national civil rights struggle, and the cast of characters is immense. J. Edgar Hoover has a starring role as a vindictive, mean-spirited man haunted by the specter of American Communism well after its influence has waned. The tape recordings he has made using wiretaps and bugs in hotel rooms and offices, including one of King's extra-marital affair and private observations about the Kennedys, are devastating to those who see King as a modern-day saint, but the overall picture he paints of a real human being both buffeted by events and shaping them is worth the shock to the system caused by the revelations in King's private life. I have just reached the point of beginning the section on "Freedom Summer," a project to promote voting rights in Mississippi involving student volunteers from around the country, which spills over into national implications, and I am eagerly anticipating the rest of the book. The story is complex and filled with surprises, so I am enjoying learning so much about this history, which is not so distant in the past.

The Italian Secretary

2010-07-18T20:26:00.000-07:00

This short novel was a quick, entertaining read, but I expected a little more subtlety than I got in the plotting and the examination by the eminent Sherlock Holmes of the crimes committed. The author, Caleb Carr, was commissioned to write an additional mystery featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, and he did a workmanlike job of writing in Dr. Watson's old-fashioned voice and making it seem authentic. My favorite thing about the book was the setting -- the descriptions of Edinburgh and Holyroodhouse were intriguing, and helped to tell the story.

The most disappointing aspect of the book, though, were the clues that Mr. Holmes followed in deciphering the crime -- most of the clues dropped in the book turn out to be red herrings, and the ones that ultimately solve the case are not necessarily obvious, but not so subtle that they would require Mr. Holmes to use his highest powers of observation and experimentation. Also, there are some loose strings at the end that are not tied up, and Holmes and Watson are not involved in the final capture of the murderer in the direct way that I would expect.

Getting Organized in the Google Era

2010-07-11T19:56:00.000-07:00

I read the first few chapters of this book before getting discouraged. I decided that if I tried to write a book on getting organized (which is hardly my strong suit) I could do about as well as this guy. He doesn't have any secret formulas, just a set of principles that seemed pretty elementary. They didn't seem to match the promise of the book and seemed more as a transparent effort to cash in on the author's role as a former CFO at Google. Maybe after reading the whole book I would have more respect for the effort involved, but really, the book just annoyed me more than I could stand. The author does try to keep things light, but his attempts at humor really just got in the way.

Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew

2010-05-03T11:20:00.000-07:00

I re-read this long, intense study of an important German-Jewish poet over the last two to three weeks in honor of the professor who wrote it (John Felstiner), who is retiring this month from teaching at Stanford. This professor was the closest thing I had to a mentor at Stanford, but I really only knew him from taking two classes that he taught. He taught on poetry in a way that invited students to read poems closely, and his poetry selections were interesting and varied. He also taught a course entitled "Imagining the Holocaust" that attempted to put the Holocaust in context with the works of survivors as the centerpiece. That is where I first was introduced to Paul Celan's poetry, specifically "Todesfuge," or "Death-Fugue," which imagines the Holocaust very specifically in a German poem. The professor played a recording of the poem, which he reads closely in the book, and I remember being impacted by the reading. The poet was not very loud or overly dramatic, but the poem itself has a definite rhythm that adds an emotional charge. The book re-creates that charge, interestingly, by translating the poem into English, but working the original German words back into the poem -- the repetition of words in the poem allows this, and the "regression" so to speak back into German identifies the specific nature of the poem. The poem is about the death caused by Germans, so it is fitting that it should end with German language, even in translation. This kind of innovative yet true translation is at the heart of this book, which tackles Celan's life through his poetry. The book makes the poems come to life for those of us who don't know as much German as we would need to translate Celan's poetry. Celan's poetry is difficult because it is quite often very spare -- it uses so few words as to be mystifying. Yet still, the poetry speaks to the condition of the German language after the Holocaust, and attempts to bring the truth of the man-made disaster into the language without diluting its horror or softening its impact. The poet spoke in one of his speeches of the difficulty of writing poetry in German after "the thousand darknesses of death-bringing speech." This book clearly examines Celan's poetry to illuminate the process the poet went through in trying to accomplish this project.

Fearless by Max Lucado

2010-03-15T12:29:00.000-07:00

I read this book with relatively high expectations. I hoped to find answers to some of my problems with fear -- the fact that fear drives me to a certain extent, and that I feel constrained by fear, especially when it comes to money. The promise of the book is that it will teach us how to live a life without fear, and it delivers on that promise to a certain extent. However, it falls short of being a life-changing treatise that alters my worldview completely. The book does address specific causes of fear, including money, and the answer is always to turn to Jesus in some way. The simple Biblical truth that this book addresses is that every fear (except the fear of God, which is another word for faith) can be lessened if we look to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and God the Father for answers. That truth is expressed gracefully, with style, and with compassion. Still, I am hungering for more truth on the nature of fear. Why does God allow us to be so ruled by fear? The author does touch on the fact that fear sometimes plays a useful role in warning us of dangers. But he doesn't delve deep into the psychology of fear, how rooted it is in our experience. In a way, fear is the only appropriate response to the human condition. Still, I wonder if that's purposeful -- that the author knows not to dwell too much on the deep-rootedness of fear, because his philosophy and advice is simple -- trust God, no matter what.

American Rust by Philipp Meyer

2010-03-02T22:20:00.000-08:00

American Rust starts with a killing that could be called self-defense. The plot flows forward from this single event and remains taut until the final conclusions are reached. The point of view bounces back and forth in stream-of-consciousness style from the two main characters, 20-year-old Isaac and 21-year-old Poe, to their family members and the police captain, Bud Harris, who is charged with cracking their case. Isaac, a smallish, smart kid whose mother has committed suicide before the novel opens, lives with his wheelchair-bound father in southwestern Pennsylvania. His sister, who escaped to Yale shortly after her mother's suicide, also makes an appearance about a quarter of the way through the novel. The father's and the sister's perspectives don't add that much to the novel, but they are important in telling the story. Poe, a former star athlete, lives with his mother, Grace, who also becomes a focus of the narration. She becomes the wheel around which Bud Harris turns (they have an on-again, off-again relationship at the beginning of the novel). She ultimately shifts his actions toward the unthinkable. The setting dominates the novel -- the broken-down steel mills being reclaimed by nature, the beauty of the hills around the fictional town of Buell -- as every character takes note of the setting at various points in the novel. There are heavy overtones of American decline -- hence the title. The book creates many murky moral dilemmas and contains difficult, life-affirming or life-denying choices. It earns the category of serious literature because it doesn't shy away from these painful realities. The content of the novel is a little like John Updike's -- lots of sex, well-drawn characters who make bad decisions -- but without the comic turns. The novel opens with quotes from two existentialist authors (Kierkegaard and Camus), so there is a little too much existential angst in the novel. Still, the author does write a gripping tale, and I have to give him his due in drawing me in to a story that gave me plenty to chew on.

The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

2010-01-27T10:26:00.000-08:00

I read this book on a recommendation from my sister-in-law, an avid reader and middle school teacher. I enjoyed it, primarily because it fits all the action of a good fantasy novel into a relatively short, easy read, but I was disappointed with the ending. It's definitely a young adult novel aimed at teenagers, but it has appeal beyond young adults if you're okay with a little modern language and technology mixed in with your fantasy world. The plot of the novel centers around two twins, who find out they are working for Nicholas Flamel and his wife in separate shops at the beginning of the novel. Nicholas Flamel is the famous alchemyst of the title, who has been brewing a potion since the Renaissance in order to keep himself and his wife Perenelle alive until the modern day. Soon, the twins are transported into a fantasy world populated by Elders (including a vampire assassin on the good guys' side -- probably my favorite character) and other mythological creatures. The novel draws toward a close with a climactic battle in a parallel world almost entirely inhabited by these mythological creatures, which is inventive and different than other things I've read, but also a little disappointing because the battle doesn't resolve everything, and we're soon brought back to the "real world" without having every question answered. I'm being a little vague on purpose because I hate giving away endings, but just know that if you really like the book, you'll probably have to buy the whole series to get all the answers you want. The writing is pretty good and the pace of the plot is fast, so I recommend the book overall to anyone who wants to enjoy a new take on the fantasy genre from a young adult's perspective.

The Magician's Elephant

2010-01-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

I read this book over Christmas, in the midst of many distractions. It grabbed me from the first sentence, which I had read on Amazon before putting the book on my Christmas list, and continued to add layers as I read. The first chapter sets the stage for the rest of the book, daring to make its readers care about small things. A single decision focuses the chapter, allowing the author to weave in background and meaning while asking the question, What if?, which becomes a theme of the book. The young man who makes this small decision, with a musical name and a difficult childhood, resonates with Oliver Twist and other Dickensian characters. He also has at least one flaw (his earnestness), like every character in the book. The book brings out magical realities, an essential part of childhood, but it is not really a children's book. The elephant in the title becomes a key character in her own right, symbolizing alternately a war, a catastrophe, hope, despair, and creativity. The multi-layered symbolism keeps this from being a straight allegory, but every character certainly has representative qualities. I recommend the book for its poetic quality and thoughtfulness, even if the uplift the book is looking for isn't quite there in the end.

Parting the Waters: America in the King Years 1954-1963

2009-10-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

Reading this book affected my view of the civil rights struggle profoundly. First, it introduced me to the spirit of the non-violent movement, which was not orderly at all but somewhat chaotic and full of internal debates and rivalries. Then, it shocked me with the level of violence perpetrated against those who were demonstrating for rights I had taken for granted. The description of segregationist mobs who attacked the Freedom Riders, in particular, and out-and-out violence and intimidation against civil rights protesters in general made me think twice about my perception of an empathetic response to the civil rights movement. Many white Southerners were blinded by hatred and bigotry to the extent that they would justify atrocities to defend segregation; there was precious little empathy in the response to the protests. Finally, the book opened up the federal government's response, including anti-Communist paranoia at the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover and quite a bit of foot-dragging on the part of the Kennedys in responding to the civil rights movement's activities. The march on Washington, which established Martin Luther King as a national leader capable of swaying the nation, also resulted in very little specific progress on the civil rights bill, in part due to the Kennedys' dependence on Southern Democrats who were also segregationists. The chapter after the march on Washington is entitled "Dreams and Nightmares" and puts the "I Have a Dream" speech in context with the Birmingham church bombing that followed close on its heels. The story as a whole is gripping and intense, and despite the huge cast of characters (history isn't as simple as a novel), it provides a powerful insight into how this change in American life came to be.

Three Books I Haven't Quite Finished

2009-08-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

I started two books this summer and attempted to get through more of a third:

Personal History, by Katherine Graham, publisher of the Washington Post during the Watergate years and wife to a manic-depressive husband. As soon as I learned her husband was manic-depressive, I stopped reading the book. I guess I didn't want to know more about her husband's suicide and her "failures" to get to the bottom of his issues. The book was interesting enough, but it has a real sense of entitlement throughout. Ms. Graham really does believe the Post is the best newspaper in the world and that she was instrumental to that development, apparently. I didn't finish the book, but she was enormously proud of a business deal early on that I felt was more important to her than to the quality of the paper -- a merger, of all things, between two different Washington papers that gave the Post a dominant position in the "morning" slot. That may have been key to the Post's success, but it seems so prosaic compared to the romantic view I have of newspapers as guardians of the public trust, not as businesses. So this book opened my eyes to the business side of things, but it's not something I really wanted to have happen.

Next up was Ulysses, which I continued reading for a little bit before putting down again. I read up through a lengthy discussion of Shakespeare and some avant-garde interpretations that are more or less accepted as fact by the general public nowadays -- that Shakespeare was gay, that he was a Catholic, that he was a woman-hater. I do think Shakespeare was Catholic, but the "gay" concept is ahistorical, and the woman-hater charge is pure bollocks. Anyway, the lengthy discussion kind of wore me out as a reader, but I may try to get back into the swing of this novel again later.

Finally, there is Parting the Waters, a brick-sized volume on "America in the King Years" that is riveting in parts and mind-numbingly complex in others. The factual description of the violence perpetrated against the early Freedom Riders in particular is stunning. The book describes the chaos and confusion of the early King years, and I'm looking forward to the triumphant March on Washington. The complexity of the story, though, is threatening to overwhelm me as a reader. Maybe I'll take a page from Monty Python and "skip a bit."

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

2009-03-16T20:26:00.000-07:00

This book got really long about half way through. It didn't make a lot of sense to me until the end, when it all starts to come together. It's a reimagining of the Wizard of Oz, telling the life story of the wicked witch. The plot really drags in the fourth part, when the witch holes herself up in response to a devastating blow. This is definitely an adult-oriented story, with a few sex scenes, starting from the beginning. The very beginning is pretty catchy, and the scenes of the education Elphaba (the witch) receives at the school in Shiz are an enjoyable, much more sinister take on Harry Potter. This book gets a little lost in its own mythology, though, and the "serious" discussion of evil conducted in dialogue toward the end of the book seems a little laughable. If the book is concerned with the nature of evil, it ought to be expressed more in the plot of the story than in this one piece of dialogue. Throughout, the book is more political about evil than it is moral or philosophical. That can be a good thing, but in this case it is kind of a drag. The witch is sympathetic, but she doesn't really rise to the level of tragic hero or even anti-hero. The mistakes she makes at the end are tragicomic, though, I guess. The end almost makes up for the fourth part of the book, but I wish the author could have made more of Dorothy.

The Club Dumas

2008-10-15T17:08:00.001-07:00

I found this mystery intriguing enough from the beginning to read it quickly through to the end. The novel describes the world of rare book dealing as a cutthroat enterprise, peopled by misfits who end up going to extraordinary lengths in pursuit of certain antique books. The novel centers around Lucas Corso, who is a kind of bookworm-for-hire, willing to do just about anything to acquire the books his employers seek. In this novel, he researches a manuscript possibly penned by Alexandre Dumas, author of the Three Musketeers, for a friend. At the same time, he delves into a paid job researching an extremely rare -- only 3 copies are known -- book from the 1600s that got the publisher burned at the stake because it supposedly contained instructions on how to call forth the devil. Corso increasingly comes to feel that he is playing a role in a novel himself, as events transpire that mirror events in the Three Musketeers. This "metanarrative" is pretty distracting and seems like an obvious ploy by the author to get into the good graces of critics and academics. The mystery from the 1600s is more intriguing and seems nearly genuine. However, I don't really recommend this book because the ending is quite far-fetched, and the resolution of the mystery around both books is disappointing. Also, the female character that follows Corso around for half of the novel and with whom he develops a relationship is too much of a plot device and not enough of a character. For all its intricacy and careful plotting, this book just doesn't deliver in the end.

How to Listen to God

2008-10-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've had trouble finishing books this month, but I did start this one with all good intentions. Unfortunately, I found the book a little flat and orthodox. The stories Charles Stanley tells in this how-to guide are so vague as to be virtually meaningless. The how-to parts are pretty vague, too, but there is some helpful direction in them. I just haven't found too much to excite me in this book.

A Legacy of Ashes

2008-09-20T21:58:00.000-07:00

I'm almost halfway through this history of the CIA, and it is eye-opening how much the CIA has done with so little actual hard information to go on. The myth of Jack Ryan, the ultra-informed CIA analyst created by Tom Clancy, is the opposite of the CIA as it really existed, at least in the parts I have read. The CIA seems to have operated on some really bad ideas, wasting lives and money in a desperate attempt to change world politics in the U.S.'s favor. The CIA's purpose in the early years was more focused on covert action than on intelligence-gathering, and the covert action was remarkably cavalier and destructive. This picture of the CIA is backed up with pages and pages of footnotes, and the author's access to declassified documents seems to be extensive. Still, one wonders if one is getting the whole truth in this history. I don't know if this criticism is valid or not without having any other information to go on, but it is a lingering question as I continue to read the book. It's an interesting read, but I hope it's not the whole story of the CIA.

James Joyce's Ulysses Part 3

2008-08-17T13:35:00.000-07:00

Still slogging my way through this important novel. I'm beginning to pick up bits and pieces of the novel's themes, but it's a stretch for me to read this densely packed description of everyday Dublin. The character Leopold Bloom has so many mundane thoughts, mixed in with some absurd thoughts, that it's hard to discern exactly what the novel's trying to say. As I told my friend last night, though, that may be part of the novel's point -- that we are all part of this mundane world, and it really is a part of the human condition to be wrapped up in ourselves. I'm not very far in to the novel, but we'll see where it goes from here.

The Innocent Man

2008-08-05T18:54:00.001-07:00

I read this John Grisham true-crime story in a couple of days. It was a compelling story, and the author makes you feel for the "innocent man," Ron Williamson, who suffers so much at the hands of police and unscrupulous people in the prison system. Ron Williamson is prosecuted and convicted of murder and assigned the death penalty based on what the book describes as pretty flimsy evidence. He ultimately is exonerated by the efforts of a federal judge's legal team (spurred by a defense attorney's brief), and the Innocence Project spearheaded by Barry Scheck of OJ fame. There is irreparable damage done to the man when he is prosecuted and sentenced to death, and it is a true case of injustice in America. The book tells a one-sided story, though, that doesn't come close to explaining why the Oklahoma system of justice failed to address what Grisham sees as glaring errors in both the prosecution and defense of the case. Sarcastic comments throughout the book show that the author's sympathies extend only to Ron and his family. I get the feeling that Grisham never interviewed the chief prosecutor in the case, and he doesn't really attempt to get inside his head or explore the reasons for the police seizing on Ron Williamson as their chief suspect. He is mostly concerned with telling Ron's story. That story is dramatic and painful, and it gives those who staunchly defend the death penalty as justice some reasons to think again, but I wanted a few more answers about the prosecutors and police, and I think the author could have attempted a little more empathy with them.

Mountain in My Rear-View Mirror: A Guide to Overcoming Overwhelming Obstacles

2008-07-28T21:20:00.000-07:00

I included the subtitle to this book because the author, a guest speaker at church for the last two Sundays, said he preferred it to the eventual title above. I like to think of the book as a quick pick-me-up after a hard week or two. It focuses on Jesus and on telling stories (mostly funny stories) to illustrate points, much as a sermon series would do. The book is divided into four short chapters and takes about 3 hours to read from cover to cover. It really does a good job of encouraging readers, although I preferred the in-person storytelling to the written storytelling. I only got to compare the two for the last story in the book, though. Bill Butterworth, the author, is a funny guy, and he tells good stories. Anyway, if you're interested in learning some good Biblical principles in an accessible way, this is the book for you. It doesn't go as deep into emotions as I expected, but that's okay. It's meant to be an encouraging book.

Deadly Viper Character Assassins

2008-07-04T10:05:00.000-07:00

I picked this short book up at a church I attended recently. It is written by the pastor of that church and a friend of his who is in the design industry. It is aimed at leaders, but could apply to just about anyone. It is quick and quirky, taking a "kung fu" inspired approach to teaching Biblical principles of how to avoid character attacks. It's basically a repackaging of the seven deadly sins -- rage, pride, and avarice are in there for sure, plus some "new" deadly sins like busyness and self-deception. The authors have clever titles for their character "assassins," and I appreciate the effort to make the book look good and appeal to regular guys. Still, I felt the authors were a little too self-indulgent in their writing style and design work. They didn't spend enough time with the "masters" they interviewed and put in between the chapters in attractive two-page spreads. I wanted to know more about each of those masters. I also wanted more depth, and the Biblical basis for the book was almost obscured by the design. Overall, I'd give the book an A+ for style and a B for content.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid

2008-06-05T19:14:00.001-07:00

This "novel in cartoons" by Jeff Kinney made me laugh several times. It's a joke book that captures the many ironic twists of a middle-school life. My sister-in-law recommended it, and I saw it in Target along with a sequel, so I picked it up. I'd recommend it to anyone who wants to laugh and remember what middle school is really like, but especially to boys who are turned off to reading. It's a quick read, kids can relate, it has pretty good conflict development without getting too heavy. The only thing I didn't like was the back cover, which made the book out to be something it isn't. But that's hardly anything new.

The Audacity of Hope

2008-04-30T21:15:00.000-07:00

I'm about 50 pages from the end of this book and thought I'd post about it tonight. I've found much to like in the book -- a level-headed analysis of issues that matter: faith, race, foreign policy, as well as a well-woven tapestry of personal stories and political argument. In the faith chapter, though, I was a little disappointed in Obama's testimony about his conversion to Christianity. He does not seem to subscribe any more to the full doctrine of humanity's total dependence on God for any sense of righteousness. He believes more, as his mother did, he says, in the essential goodness of all people. While I don't disagree that people can be good, I believe it is only God in us that inspires any good. Otherwise, we are essentially evil. In the section on race, Obama confronts real problems such as the potential for an inner-city "underclass" created by the justice system, the economy, and cultural factors. He does not seek to blame anyone for these problems, and he does not absolve anyone of their responsibility to do the right things to rebuild urban areas, but rather attempts to offer solutions such as a focus on quality schools. His solutions, though, are short on specifics. I'm reading the foreign policy section right now and am struck by how much the Senator's experiences in Iraq shaped his view of the war. I think he would make good choices as President, and the fact that he listened to reporters, military officers, and Iraqi officials with respect, then made independent judgments about the information he gathered, bodes well for him. I just hope he sticks to that pattern of decision-making once in office.

Ulysses (James Joyce) part 2

2008-04-17T19:40:00.001-07:00

Slogging through Ulysses right now at a pace of about a page a night. I'm getting something out of it -- a fuller picture of Leo Bloom, the man who not only sweats and churns his way through life but also carries on some kind of affair by letter, mulls over death and life and reincarnation, and carries on much musing in the midst of mundanity; also, the book challenges me -- this book is a project, not an easy read, something I have to really chew on in order to understand. It sometimes takes me out of my comfort zone and sometimes puts me right to sleep, but I am looking more closely at the book and finding more each time I do. It's a dense read, but enjoyable in the language and the genius in each line. I do long for a place to discuss and debate the novel, but I need more information to piece together the whole thing. See my other post for my impressions of Part 1 and the early bits of Part 2 of the novel.

Prehistoric Journey: A History of Life on Earth

2008-04-05T13:47:00.000-07:00

I picked this book up at the Museum of the Rockies in Bozeman, and have read about halfway through. It is very readable for a paleontology text, despite the long names and the frequent discussion of strange flora and fauna. It also has beautiful color illustrations and photographs that might fool some into thinking it's a children's book. The book talks about a series of fossil discoveries that link together to form a comprehensive history of the development of life from an evolutionary standpoint. I don't believe in evolution as an explanation for God's creation -- I hold to the standpoint that God could have created the Earth in six literal days if he wanted to, although it doesn't appear to us humans that he did in fact take only six days to do it. The fossil record in this book challenges me to think in new ways about God's creation. Dinosaurs, for example, are fascinating creatures, but I want to think of them as part of the sixth day -- part of an explosion of life across the planet that involved all animal life. But if death didn't enter the world until after Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden of Eden, which was presumably after the sixth day in which they were created, how did the dinosaurs become extinct before humankind even makes an appearance in the fossil record? Was God's creation on the sixth day so powerful that it resulted in a huge number of species appearing and disappearing without ever really dying? Genesis puts the first day as the creation of light and dark. The second day is the separation of water below the sky from water above the sky. The third day is the creation of land. The fourth day is the creation of the sun and the moon and the stars. The fifth day is the creation of plants, birds, and fish. The sixth day is land animals and man. A scientific account of this creation would have to begin with the Big Bang, although some would argue that there had to be stuff before the Big Bang. The Big Bang led to the creation of the universe we now live in, so it could be considered the first and second days -- if you believe the "water above the sky" to represent heaven, as I do, as opposed to the universe. If land came next, then the planet Earth was created and placed in the universe like a jewel, because the fourth day is the creation of the sun, moon, and stars. (tracking with me?) The fifth day roughly corresponds with the creation of flora and fauna in the seas first, which gradually move onto land according to the fossil record. Flight, according to the book, develops as something of a mystery in the fossil record, and it occurs among fauna of the land and sea. The sixth day would be the creation of mammals and man. The problem with this correlation is it vastly oversimplifies the process described in the fossil record, with so many species living and dying and reaching evolutionary peaks and valleys before the arrival of man. Still, the rough correlation is enough for some to say that evolution and Creation can be combined. I know that evolution is not enough explanation for me -- I don't believe that my consciousness was created as part of a process driven primarily by random chance. That is a broad philosophical question, though, not one that can be answered by science. The scientific evidence in the fossil record is overwhelming that there were vast numbers of species created before the advent of man, but that evidence cannot explain the creation of a single human soul. God is responsible for our souls and for the vast abundance of life on this planet. I'm just not sure about the "how" part of the question. This book describes a process that I can't quite wholeheartedly agree with, but it makes a compelling read for its detailed account of what the fossil record shows about the nature of the development of life on Earth.

Undaunted Courage

2008-03-30T14:03:00.000-07:00

Mariellen and I listened to this audiobook on the drive back from Lewis and Clark country, Bozeman, Montana. The author, Stephen Ambrose, tells Meriweather Lewis's life story, focusing of course on his monumental exploration of what became the western U.S. The ending comes as a surprise, and I hate to ruin endings, so I'll leave it at that. It was interesting to hear the full picture of what became of this man along with the detailed description of what exactly happened on the Lewis and Clark expedition. The narrative relies primarily on Lewis and Clark's journals to describe what happens on the exploration. This fact is a problem, as my history professors would say, because an over-reliance on one source tends to make a history one-sided. Still, it may be a fault which is inescapable due to the nature of the exploration. It was the first American exploration of the Louisiana territory, going by water in a search for the Pacific ocean. The explorers reach the Pacific, but the genius lies in the voyage itself, not the destination. Getting back was almost as difficult as getting there, and there were fewer resources for the return journey. Ambrose is a military historian, and his description of the military nature of the expedition is one of the best features of the book. It puts the exploration in context as part of Jefferson's dream of what Ambrose calls "empire" and as an encounter with unknown and potentially hostile people -- the Native Americans that Lewis and Clark encounter throughout the journey. The tension in the meeting between the explorers and the Sioux is really brought to the forefront, and it is not the last tense meeting between Lewis and Clark's expedition and the Indians, as Ambrose correctly calls them. (Correct for the timeframe in which the exploration took place -- late 18th century America, not the U.S. we know now). Ambrose does not analyze the journey in light of the multicultural issues familiar to academia -- he simply tells the story of the journey and puts it in a context of a life story. He cites President Jefferson's backword-looking praise for Lewis as the end of the story -- praise that brought chills up my spine for their inspirational quality. It's not often that books inspire in the best sense of the word, but this is an inspiring book.

The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11

2008-01-04T18:58:00.001-08:00

I read this non-fiction work by Lawrence Wright in paperback, hoping to find clues as to which administration was more to blame for 9/11 -- Bush or Clinton. Instead of finding those answers, I found much more: a history of the al-Qaeda movement from its beginnings in Egypt and Saudi Arabia; a portrait of one of the top cops tasked with tracking Arab terrorism, who happened to have died in the towers on September 11; a description of the "wall of separation" between intelligence and police work (the CIA and the FBI) and how it stopped some crucial information from getting to the right people. Some big questions, though, go virtually unanswered -- how did these guys become so ruthlessly effective? They bungled a few early operations, but then they succeeded spectacularly in bombing two African embassies and the U.S.S. Cole before 9/11. Also missing in the description of how Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri transformed themselves from, on the one hand, an Arab millionaire with strong family ties to the Saudi government, and on the other, an Egyptian doctor, into ruthless killers is an in-depth discussion of the psychology of terrorism. The book describes many factual things about life in al-Qaeda. They took credit for stopping the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, even though they had little to do with the military defeat; bin Laden had four wives and many children living with him in miserable conditions in Pakistan. Still, it is hard to understand how they justified the murders to themselves. Perhaps this is a good thing. The book participates only tangentially in the myth-making surrounding bin Laden and in fact deflates some myths -- he is not as tall as many thought, nor does he likely have a kidney condition, as has been reported in various media outlets. The ending of the book, though, allows for some myth-making of a sort. All in all, it is an interesting and worthwhile read for those trying to understand al Qaeda's roots in a specific way.

Thirteen Moons

2007-11-12T18:55:00.001-08:00

I put this book down several times, reading it in fits and starts, but it ultimately grabbed my attention and led me into a different world. I loved Cold Mountain for its nineteenth-century rhythm and patient storytelling, and this second novel by Charles Frazier has the same incantatory feel and attention to detail. This time around, the love story is unbalanced, intentionally so, toward the male point of view. The narrator, Will Cooper, is an adopted Indian, a "bound boy" who finds his identity among the Cherokee clan run by his eventual adopted father, Bear. The love story is a deep, patient one similar to Cold Mountain in that it is a lifelong love, but the circumstances that separate man and woman differ from the previous novel -- Will falls in love with a married woman, not knowing she is married. Will does continue his love affair even after he finds out, but the transgression seems slight in Will's estimation. Claire is an enigmatic part of Will's life, more absent than present in Will's long life line. At the turning point in the novel, Will finds himself squarely in the center of the struggle for his Cherokee clan to remain in western Tennessee mountains, rather than be forcibly removed to Western territories (Oklahoma, I think). The decision Will makes to try to maintain an Indian home in the midst of major historical change separates him from his love. The central struggle of the novel is between this homeland and the forces of change, whether that be white settlers, the government, internal struggles, war, or even technology, which shows up at the very end in the form of the daguerrotype, the locomotive, and the automobile. Charles Frazier imagines this homeland -- it is not a real place -- but it feels authentic and important, and the history Frazier tells through his fiction is more true than the history in textbooks.

Ulysses (James Joyce)

2007-10-20T13:04:00.000-07:00

Checked this out from the library and have to return it today to avoid late fees. I didn't get very far in, but I found it pretty fascinating so far. That is, despite being nearly and famously impenetrable, the writing is quite beautiful. The part I read is part 1, about Stephen Dedalus (sp?), recognizable as the hero of Joyce's The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, now slightly more grown up and teaching at a private school of some sort, I believe. The plot is slightly hard to follow, as it involves both events and non-events, and the narration is a panoramic stream-of-consciousness, slipping in and out of thoughts and insights either had or missed by the characters. Confused yet? Wait til I get to Leo Bloom, who is the hero of part 2 (some would say antihero, but I'm reserving judgment until I've read the whole thing). I only read about 20 pages in to part 2, and the parts I read were pretty fascinating. I understand the basic premise of the book is to describe the events of a single day, keeping to a classical unity, but there are more non-events than events, which turn a classic story like Ulysses (Latin for Odysseus) on its head. Instead of a heroic battle for life and death or a string of adventures, the novel depicts ordinariness in classic detail and with modernist techniques. So we are treated to an intimate portrait of Leo Bloom's bowel movement, shocking in its own way yet somehow of a piece with the novel as an examination of ordinary life. Also, we have the funeral that Leo decides not to attend and a conversation which ends with Leo expressing his desire not to talk to the man he just ran into. Leo is therefore very much an anti-hero, but I'm wondering if there is something redeeming in his ordinariness or if it is a literary device that just expresses despair. I think it's probably somewhere in between or beyond those two poles.
Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. I'll let you know if I get any further in the novel.

Books I Sold Today

2007-09-29T17:23:00.000-07:00

I sold books to the used book store today and thought I'd record the ones I remembered I had and that they actually wanted:

William Burroughs -- Naked Lunch
Christopher Marlowe -- (three plays)
Aristotle -- Poetics
Plato -- Symposium
Marx -- Communist Manifesto
Weiland (an early American novel)
Whitman -- Leaves of Grass

Each one of these books is a part of my past that I surrendered for a meaningless dollar amount. Still, it feels somewhat good that someone else might find value in some of the books I owned. I hung on to a book from my travels in Germany, which is more of a souvenir than anything. It led to some storytelling with the owner of the book shop, which was nice. I may tell the story I told her later.

The Bottom Billion

2007-09-22T12:31:00.000-07:00

World Bank economist Paul Collier attempts to first define and then resolve the problems of the poorest countries in the world through this ambitious economic argument of a book. He uses a broad economic analysis to define six traps that economies in what he calls the "bottom billion" fall into -- comparing economies across countries in a unique way, usually using statistics and lists originally compiled by other people, which he references in the back of the book. Collier offers some new insights based on this approach, and his packaging of the information is engaging. He avoids sounding academic or too analytical while offering a policy position. The book relies too much on international charters and similar measures as solutions, but the definition of challenges facing the poorest countries in the world is useful reading. He also provides a useful chapter on why aid or the wrong type of aid can make problems worse for these countries, which I hope will help shape aid packages in the future instead of being used as an argument against aid. Collier himself cautions that aid should still be given, though it probably needs to be more targeted and tied to specific "governance" goals, he says. All in all, a useful book, although I didn't finish it because the solutions he offers seem like too much "weak tea" in response to such major problems.

Bucky Katt's Big Book of Fun

2007-08-30T20:52:00.000-07:00

I got this book from my brother for my birthday, and read it cover-to-cover. It had me laughing out loud often and for a variety of reasons. The characters are loosely based on a cat, a dog, and their "pet parent," Rob Wilco, who indulges his cat and his dog, takes them around to places, and generally treats them pretty well for all the messes they make. Darby Conley draws the cartoon strip "get fuzzy," and this book is a collection of his strips, I think. The cat is appropriately menacing and self-absorbed, the dog is lovably dopy like dogs are, and Rob Wilco is the straight man. It's great comedy, with subtle wit and not-so-subtle interspecies jokes. I like the relationships between the characters and the way they are just slightly exaggerated versions of recognizable cat, dog, and human characteristics. Bravo, Mr. Conley!

The Prince of the City

2007-08-23T18:07:00.000-07:00

I got this audiobook from the library and listened to it off and on for about a week. It's an interesting description of Rudy Giuliani's tenure as mayor of New York from a conservative perspective. I have never heard of the author, Fred Siegel, but I know he's conservative based on his frequent expressions of conservatism throughout the book. Siegel gives Giuliani credit for the remarkable turnaround in New York over the 1990s, and he's probably right to give him some of that credit. Better policing helped turn the city around, and Giuliani helped to create that police policy. Giuliani isn't depicted as perfect in the biography -- the author faults Giuliani for the way he handled his personal struggles in his second term, as well as letting small-time feuds get in the way of governance. But he constantly asserts that Giuliani was responsible for the turnaround in the city. The book helps buttress the image of Giuliani as a "strong leader," one of the key aspects Americans look for in a President, according to many polls. It convinced me that the Giuliani years in New York weren't all roses, but that Giuliani got many things right about city government. He bucked the system and won on many fronts, and his calm in the crisis of September 11 made him a national hero. Whether that makes him a leader I can get behind is still up for debate for me.

Perfume

2007-08-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

I read this thing through to the end, even though I was disgusted at one point by a certain act of cruelty to animals that made me say, "This book is sick," and throw it across the room. The opening chapter is funny and intriguing, but it's really downhill from there as the infant with no smell, who really may also be without a soul, grows up into a murderer and expert perfumer. He is gifted with an astounding sense of smell, which ultimately leads to his greatest triumph and his undoing. The novel is subtitled "The Story of a Murderer," so readers should not be surprised at the violence in the novel. Still, the artistic conceit of a person with a gifted nose but no human scent doesn't really justify the level of violence in the novel. Toward the end, this fictional conceit overwhelms all sense of decency and the novel really does reach the level of horror, in the old-fashioned sense of the term. Patrick Suskind has done his research on perfuming, and it shows throughout the novel, but the premise on which he has built his fictional world is askew, and I don't think it can hold the weight that Suskind puts on top of it.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2007-07-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

This novel takes place outside the friendly confines of Hogwarts, except for the climactic battle at the end. It places Harry and his friends in mortal peril from about Chapter 4 on, and there are so many close shaves that it really feels like reading an adventure story this time. JK Rowling keeps the plot moving for the most part, except for a part in the middle where the plot bogs down a bit as Harry, Ron and Hermione go underground by Apparating to various remote forest locations. This wandering, though, serves the plot by forcing the characters to confront life on the fringes of society without the support network of other witches and wizards. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are forced to grow up in these circumstances, and it's a great pleasure to see Harry develop into a leader, Hermione display her toughness, and Ron confront his darkest fears in the form of a Horcrux in this section. Harry confronts the choice whether to pursue the Horcruxes or the Deathly Hallows about two-thirds of the way into the novel, and his choice in this matter decides the outcome of the battle at the end. It also allows JK Rowling to display Harry's character in the best sense of the term and brings the magical world she has created to its fruition. Harry's decision seems both authentic and important, and only the best of writers can make this type of fictional moment happen. Cheers to JK Rowling for creating such an interesting fictional world and for bringing it to such a satisfying conclusion. I don't want to spoil the end for anyone, so I won't comment on it here. Let's just say it's a just end.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

2007-07-18T19:31:00.000-07:00

This novel takes Harry Potter fans in some long-awaited directions -- Harry has lessons with Dumbledore that reveal more of Lord Voldemort's past, and Harry develops a real, vivid love interest in the form of Ginny Weasley. The unexpected ending throws a wrench in fans' desires to see Harry happy and whole, though. This novel throws open the relationship between Harry and Dumbledore, marking Dumbledore as an adventurer and Harry as more than just Dumbledore's favorite. Dumbledore mentors Harry in many ways in this novel, and it's good to see the relationship reach such a high point. In Dumbledore's final lesson with Harry, Dumbledore expresses what makes Harry different from Lord Voldemort eloquently and with care, allowing Harry to see the differences for himself. This exquisite fictional moment makes all the other stuff in the novel almost superfluous. The new teacher at Hogwarts, Professor Slughorn, is not as distinctive as other new teachers have been, perhaps because Snape fills the role of Defense against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry confronts Snape's duplicity directly in this novel, and JK Rowling's sharp pen positively quivers with Harry's anger at the end. This next-to-last chapter in the series leaves much unresolved, but it is a satisfying read nonetheless.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2007-07-08T19:13:00.000-07:00

The plot of this novel drives toward a powerful conclusion that knocks the stuffing out of readers who have come to care about the characters. Professor Dolores Umbridge is a near-perfect enemy for the students at Hogwarts to rebel against, and her intrusion into their lives makes for entertaining reading. The way she intrudes makes her like so many well-meaning adults who underestimate teenagers, and she is recognizable in some ways as the government nanny. This reader couldn't wait for Umbridge to get her comeuppance, and the many "withering looks" and other polite confrontations in her encounters with Professor McGonagall in particular are fun to read. There are many other comic elements in this novel, which buoy the reader just enough throughout the novel to make the tragedy at the end surprising and painful, just like a real tragedy often is. This isn't a great tragic novel, though, with pity and fear and all that Aristotelian tragic hero stuff -- it is a largely comic novel with a tragic twist at the end. The good parts still outweigh the bad, and Harry's heroism and his humanity come out in the end, as readers have come to expect. Dumbledore's final revelations at the end of the novel are very well-tuned to Harry's problems, and bring it to a satisfying conclusion, even though the events of the plot are not as readers would wish them to be. I read this one quickly and couldn't put it down, even though it is just as long as the fourth book. I didn't find this one overlong at all.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

2007-07-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

This fourth book in the series starting draggin' for me (pun intended) in the middle of the book. I had a hard time motivating myself to read it, maybe because I had a Harry Potter overdose. Once I laid it down for a while then picked it back up, though, I managed to finish it off fairly quickly. I like the drama in this one, and the ending really is pretty chilling, with Cedric Diggory being called "the spare" and all that. The Yule Ball is a nice twist, with Harry facing mortification along with dragons. It's really a pretty good book, if a bit overlong, though I'm not sure what I would cut.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

2007-05-26T19:30:00.000-07:00

This third book in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series deepens the relationship between the audience and the world that the author has created, filling in significant details about Harry's past while offering whole new ways for Harry and his friends to misbehave, get themselves in danger, and ultimately fend off death itself. The concept of a dementor and the link between Harry and his father as a Hogwarts student are particularly strong inventions. Dementors are part of the popular culture now -- I once had someone say something like, "I thought a dementor had taken over" in the waiting room of a hospital. She meant it as a joke, but it's a sign of how deeply embedded these inventions have become that she would attempt that kind of joke with a stranger. This may be the best book of the series -- not over-long, but with a complex plot and a satisfying ending. The mysteries are somehow less dark, in part because Harry is less alone than in the second book, and the Quidditch Cup is a more important part of Harry's adventures. Seemingly insignificant details get tied in to the main story at the end in a surprising twist or two, and the book really does represent Harry's coming-of-age in a unique way (and I don't use the word "unique" lightly.) I like the movie almost as much as the book this time, in spite of all the changes. It captures the coming-of-age story and takes viewers on a fun ride. The book is still more satisfying for a chance to celebrate Harry's triumphs in private.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

2007-04-26T22:03:00.000-07:00

I have very little to add to the glowing reviews that JK Rowling's Harry Potter series has generated, but again, I found this book much more entertaining than the movie and worth the read. In this second novel, the world of Harry Potter again bridges the gap between fantasy and reality in breathtaking ways, yet it is still somehow grounded in its details -- Hogwarts feels like such a real place in the novels, with its recognizable personalities and slight exaggerations of people types. Rowling is almost Dickensian in her ability to skewer people's vanity or self-absorption, while still letting most of her characters get off lightly enough for comedy. The adventure is really pretty stirring, even if a reader knows the plot from watching the movies. There are enough telling details that are changed for the movies to keep one's interest alive. And again, the experience of the book is much different, with imagination working instead of just the eyeballs. I certainly wouldn't have figured out the mystery without having seen the movie, but I don't think her stories follow the rules of mysteries. They break genre, too. Plenty of adults will enjoy these books.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

2007-04-06T19:15:00.000-07:00

I have finally gotten around to reading this book, JK Rowling's first Harry Potter novel, and I thoroughly enjoyed it, even after seeing the film about 100 times. The book is much, much better than the movie, and I enjoyed picking out the ways in which the novel differs from the movie and seeing how much of an improvement each change is. For example, having Neville go with Hermione and Harry into the Forbidden Forest instead of Ron makes for a much more interesting, dynamic scene than the one in the movie, with its focus on the three main "stars." I love the satire embedded in the portrayal of the Dursleys -- "normal" people whose main concern is appearing normal and accumulating things, rather than on treating people kindly. We so often lose sight of what's important when those concerns creep up on us. The magical world is better when imagined, rather than seen, so I hope I can get caught up on the book series before the next movie comes out. I will see the movies, because I'm curious about the whole process of turning a book into a movie, but my expectations are much higher for the final installment of the books, due out in July.

Moral Politics

2007-03-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

I bought this book by UC Berkeley professor George Lakoff after a long study of the politics rack at Barnes & Noble. I was looking for something to help me solve a problem I'm having in reconciling my politics and my overall belief system. Every election cycle, I feel torn between conflicting beliefs -- on the one hand, I believe that government CAN and SHOULD be a force for good in society by addressing problems that affect Americans and people in general unequally -- including things like health care, poverty, and racial inequality. Not that the government always IS a force for good, but it at least has the potential to do the right thing by people in general, and that it should try to address some of the major problems in our society. I believe that makes me somewhat of a liberal. I also believe in the authority of the Bible and that it is a guide to everyday decision-making, that the Bible teaches that life begins at conception, and that abortion is a threat to the moral fabric of the country. This book helped to make clearer some of the reasons why I am so torn, but it didn't help resolve the tension I feel between the conflicting moral choices in politics. The book looks at political discourse as a set of conflicting metaphors and attempts for about two-thirds of the book to represent those metaphors in an unbiased way. However, toward the end, the author drops the pretense of being merely descriptive and promotes his own views, the views of a "committed liberal." His thesis is basically that the country is split into conservative and liberal camps based on metaphorical understandings of the government as either upholding "Strict Father" morality or "Nurturant Parent" morality. He attempts to explain how conservatives can believe in both pro-life and pro-death penalty positions, while liberals support both abortion and Head Start. He argues that the two sides arrive at their positions based on their understanding of the ideal family, which support either "Moral Strength" or "Nurturance" as their overriding value. I have to simplify his argument here, but it's really not all that complex of an argument, and it appears to be based primarily on a cognitive/linguistic approach looking at the way people talk about morality. Toward the end of the book, Professor Lakoff takes on Dr. James Dobson directly, arguing that his moderate advice on parenting is not accurate, and that his "Strict Parent" morality does not necessarily result in "better" children. But he seems to have wandered here into a classic blunder, using empirical results to make a metaphorical point. Regardless of whether Dr. Dobson's prescriptions for child-rearing work, they still make a potent metaphor for millions of people who want to believe that the government, Hollywood, or other forces in society are "anti-family." And the fact is, liberals ally themselves with people who work against the traditional family as a "nominal mode" in our society. I probably lack the theoretical backing in political philosophy to make the best argument against this book, but I think it really oversimplifies the conservative point of view, while creating a coherent set of metaphors for the liberal view to gravitate around. His caricatures of Christian faith in particular are pretty insulting to a thinking Christian who holds both liberal and conservative views. So, I'm still searching for that guide for Christian liberals who want a coherent ideology. I hope someday I find it. Maybe I'll have to write my own.

A break from books...

2007-03-24T14:25:00.000-07:00

Check out this video if you've ever wondered what that song in Shrek is really about:

Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah covered by Over the Rhine

A beautiful song.

Surprised by Joy

2007-03-03T14:47:00.000-08:00

Over the last few weeks, reading C.S. Lewis' Surprised by Joy has offered some helpful insights into one Christian thinker's development. The book is a philosophical life story of the writer's early years, and so it is at times funny and insightful and at others stiflingly erudite. The author traces his development from a child whose life was filled with imaginative play and a love of books, particularly stories of Norse gods, into a Christian whose life is marked by mature understanding of God's identity and holiness. The last two chapters are particularly strong in describing a philosophical conversion, not one based on emotion or outward trials. Lewis simply narrates a free choice, or as nearly a free choice as he allows himself to admit, to follow God after first recognizing that he exists. I am vastly oversimplifying the philosophical and emotional bases of Lewis' conversion (for despite his protestations to the contrary, he did find an emotional connection to God in the presence of Joy), but it is a joy itself to see someone so steadfastly describe the process of conversion as an outgrowth of philosophical and literary questions. I particularly enjoyed a few lines: "It matters more that Heaven should exist than that we should ever get there"; "Total surrender is the first step toward the fruition of [enjoying art and nature]. Shut your mouth; open your eyes and ears. Take in what is there and give no thought to what might have been there or what is somewhere else. That can come later, if it must come at all"; and a quote or paraphrase from Johnson, "Where courage is not, no other virtue can survive except by accident." It felt good to get connected to these lines of thought, derived from an Oxford don's knowledge of English writing and his own experience. Still, I got a little lost in the name-dropping and connecting with other people's writing. Overall, the book is a good read with plenty to chew on, and it may appeal even to non-Christians. The only fault is an assumption that readers know more than we tend to know in this contemporary timeframe.

The Good German

2007-02-15T17:39:00.000-08:00

I read this page-turner a while back and enjoyed it quite a bit. I'm glad to see it's been turned into a movie, although I'm not sure I'll make it to the theater to see it. The setting is post-World War II Germany, Berlin specifically. I am somewhat familiar with that territory, having had the privilege to be in Berlin at the 50th anniversary of the end of the war. The book does not center around German struggles, despite the title, so not to worry for those Deutsch-o-phobes out there. It's basically a detective story with a few twists and turns set in the bombed-out center of a ruined totalitarian state. It had me guessing as far as the mystery goes, but I've never been good at figuring out mysteries. The novel does follow a fairly tried-and-true formula, but it's a well-crafted genre book with an interesting cast of characters. I found myself rooting for the good guys and against the bad guys, and I ask nothing more of a good detective story. There is a sex scene in the novel -- nothing Hollywood would find at all racy, but some more conservative readers might. This book is a follow-up to the more successful Los Alamos. Both novels are recommended. The author is Joseph Kanon.

Flags of our Fathers

2007-02-02T15:01:00.000-08:00

My dad got me this book for Christmas, and I read it through in about a week. It is a well-told story of the six men who raised the flag on Iwo Jima in the famous photograph that became a national symbol and ultimately, the Marine Corps memorial statue in Washington, D.C.

The book is engrossing in its detail and authoritative in style. It aims to set the record straight about the facts of the flag-raising and to memorialize the author's father, who was one of the flagraisers. It succeeds in those two goals. The author's account of his father's life and his lifelong silence about the photograph and all other aspects of Iwo Jima is eloquent. Like many father-son relationships, it is clear that in this non-fiction account, what is not said is more important than what is.

I have not seen the movie that was recently filmed based on this book's account of Iwo Jima, nor the counterpoint Clint Eastwood production, Letters from Iwo Jima. I would have liked to have seen more first-hand accounts from the Japanese side included in this book. It is very one-sided in its description of the battle, and not necessarily so. Toward the end of the book, there are a few hints that the author's father may have begun to come to terms with the Japanese side of the horrible battle. I would have liked to have seen the same willingness to try to understand the Japanese soldiers, who are mostly seen as the perpetrators of atrocities in the book, on the son's part. But perhaps that is one of the legacies of war -- an unwillingness to see history through the other side's eyes, especially when father-son loyalties are put to the test.

Kindred

2006-09-30T19:28:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this work of historical fiction written in the 1970s. It is based on the idea of a black woman traveling back in time to the 1800s, when slavery was a severe reality of life. It is interesting to try to infer how much has changed since the book was written. Perhaps the 1970s were more concerned with basic human rights than we are today. The countercultural movements of the 1960s were largely coopted by society in the 1970s, just as 21st century America has largely absorbed the gang violence of the 1980s and 1990s and made it more like an attitude that anyone can adopt. The peace movement, civil rights struggles, labor activism, and feminism were all still alive in the 1970s. Now, in the 21st century, war, racism, low wages, and sexism are still with us, but the protests seem muted compared to the enormity of the changes in the 60s and 70s. The power of activism seems focused on other things. But to get to the actual book, I really struggled to get through this one, even though the craftsmanship level is high and the subject matter is worthwhile. It felt like assigned reading. I don't think I've personally learned all the lessons this book has to teach, but I don't know if that's because of some inner struggle to empathize or just because the focus of my interests and society's interests have changed so much since the 1970s. It is a good book, ultimately, and it is relevant to today; I just wish I could give a solid reason for not liking it the way I do.

Defining the Wind

2006-09-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

I enjoyed this book thoroughly, especially its gorgeously-written first chapter about riding out a hurricane (before Katrina). It is a copy-editor's book, written by a former copy editor, so its focus on words may be too much for some people. Still, the story is intriguing enough to keep non-word-o-philes (copy editors are cringing right now) entertained. The book explains how a description of the wind that was created during the sea-faring age, at least partly as an aid to navigation, took on a life of its own and became a kind of poem, now found only in some dictionaries. I was first introduced to the Beaufort wind scale in a modern poetry class as a "found poem," and it is truly poetry -- both concrete and abstract, both physical and spiritual. The scale also has a history of its own, and this book lovingly traces that history. The analysis of the changes over time to the actual scale itself is interesting, but the most interesting fact may be that this little nugget of fine language has survived at all into the 21st century. It is really a miracle, and this book captures that miracle. I almost wish our news reports would use this scale instead of the exact figures they purport to give us, but that might cheapen the value of the words themselves. The words are the treasure. Look in your dictionary at home under "Beaufort" to see if the wind scale is there. Many no longer have it.

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

2006-09-08T11:00:00.000-07:00

Mark Haddon's British novel uses the voice of a near-autistic boy to tell a story of awakening. It is a rite-of-passage story with real resonance for anyone who has ever struggled to learn something or to try something outside the box. The hero of the story uses math as a kind of language throughout the story, which is effective. The rigidness of the prose fits a character who is bound up in his head, the way all creative types can be. The novel makes me wonder if autism and its related syndromes (Asperger's) are a sign of the times. We are creating children who can think and feel in different ways than what is normal, but they are no longer trapped in institutions or unable to communicate at all. Technology and disability legislation have made societies more open to people with illnesses like autism. Still, the biggest limits real people with autism have seem to be primarily with communication. Our society doesn't really seem to connect very well any more, even for normal people, so the children who are stuck in their own minds are probably doubly stuck. This coming of age story allows one such doubly stuck character to escape both the boundaries of his own mind and the boundaries of his society, and the world is a better place because someone has imagined this possibility.

Grendel

2006-09-05T16:08:00.000-07:00

Grendel is a 1971 masterpiece by John Gardner that retells the Beowulf story from the monster Grendel's point of view. I found it relevant to today's struggles in some ways. First of all, the novel describes a war that almost nobody wants, except perhaps Grendel. Even Grendel calls it an idiotic war, but that doesn't stop him from being a violent bully. Secondly ,the potential for the two sides of the conflict, monsters and men, to draw a truce exists in parts of the novel, but the two sides harden their positions until one side, drawing on the power of fate, is victorious. President Bush must feel a little bit like Grendel these days. He's entered into a conflict that he doesn't fully understand, and his identity is determined by the decisions he makes in that conflict. Grendel has the excuse of being a monster, but he is struggling to define himself just as we all are. In fact, the bulk of the novel is Grendel's struggle to understand himself and human society, which is built on war and conquest (and betrayal) in his eyes. I wonder how much Grendel's outsider's perspective on things is needed right now. After all, he sits outside of Western materialism in the world of myth. We need to be able to dislodge our preconceptions to get past this world war we're engaging.

1776

2006-08-21T09:10:00.000-07:00

I found this history a lot less gripping than McCullough's previous book, John Adams. Still, it had interesting details that helped me picture the beginning of the War of Independence much more vividly. For example, the ragtag nature of the "continental army," described through first-hand accounts, was revealing. Also, the importance of disease as a condition of war but also a potential weapon -- refugees sent across the American lines by the British were isolated because of the fear of smallpox -- was surprising. The history centers on George Washington, and McCullough does not question first-hand accounts that are particularly glowing toward the general. He credits him with the ability to "see things as they are, not as how we wish them to be," which helped him make critical decisions that allowed the American army to survive a brutal first year of combat. Other than a clear contrast between the status of King George III and the head of the continental army, the book does not address the political nature of the revolution. Both Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence are mentioned, but the declaration is given little weight in the history, while the impact of Common Sense is more acknowledged than delved into. 1776 is primarily a military history, and it adds very important detail to the account of the revolutionary war, while also balancing the scales a little bit to the side of the British, who are definitely not painted as incompetent blunderers in this account. It is a worthwhile book, but not quite as well-told as McCullough's account of John Adams' life, which is interesting and fresh at every turn.

Post 9/11 Books Part 3 / Terrorist

2006-08-10T08:41:00.000-07:00

John Updike's Terrorist made me wonder if we really are living through the end of Western civilization as we know it. The two main characters of the novel, a high school guidance counselor and his Muslim charge, represent polar opposites. The "American" side of the equation is fat, lazy, decrepit, and morally equivocal, while the Muslim terrorist-in-training is slim, ambitious, pure, and convinced he is right on moral issues. The young Muslim is vain about his appearance, he is not a saint, but he does have some ground to stand on in his condemnation of American laxness. The neglect he sees all around him, from the ashheaps that surround his home to his mother's come-and-go lovers, confirms his belief that he is on the right path. The novel leaves open the terrifying possibility that the "American way of life" is being exposed as a fraud even among our own citizens, and that these neglected citizens could act out their revenge through terrorist acts. Updike tries to get inside the head of a potential homegrown terrorist, and he succeeds in this only so far. He repeats some phrases over and over, almost like a heroic epithet, in describing the terrorist mind. Other than that, the novel succeeds in painting a terrifying picture of neglect turned into tragedy.

Post 9/11 Books Part 2 / Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

2006-07-31T10:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading this book, published in 2005. It deserves a second read, so I may update this post at some point, but my first reaction is to marvel at the accomplishment of this novel. The author, Jonathan Safran Foer, weaves together three broken lives in engrossing detail, giving each character specific idiosyncracies that are both maddening and heartbreaking. The star of the show is Oskar Schell, an overly precocious, near-obsessive-compulsive eight-year-old whose father is killed on 9/11. His grandmother and grandfather also narrate portions of the novel, and their grief at losing their son, as well as their shared grief from living through the Dresden firebombing of World War II, is expressed powerfully in those chapters. But Oskar's grief and pain, together with his multifaceted attempts to put the pieces of his life back together, drive the story forward. The story centers around Oskar's quest to find a lock that fits a key he has found in secret, which he believes will tell him more about his father. The quest takes him to many places in New York, but the story doesn't dwell on the "I love NY" theme, it only uses New York as a patchwork background that adds interest in a primarily internal struggle. Oskar's quest is successful in many ways, although the key does not lead him in a direction that he expects; he makes friends, he meets people. Still, he is haunted by his father's death, and his grief is being worked out in the search for the lock. The grandfather character is another key in the story, and his presence becomes essential to Oskar working out his grief, though it is possible that in the end, neither of them achieves the emotional release they need. One very definite theme of the novel is to express the grief created by 9/11 and place it in both a personal and a historical context. The author achieves that goal while at the same time being bold and adventurous in the design and verbal inventiveness of the book. Foer is Vonnegut's heir in more ways than one here, and he is up to the challenge of taking Vonnegut's mantle on into the future.

Post 9/11 Books Part I / In the Shadow of No Towers

2006-07-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

I've read three books that I highly recommend that address the emotional landscape created after September 11. They each stake out different territory, and they all do it with intelligence and insight. I am reviewing them in the order in which they were published.

The first is In the Shadow of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman, which came out in 2004. It is a graphic autobiography, meaning it has the look of a hardbound comic book but very personal subject matter. Spiegelman expresses the shock, horror, and outrage of someone who can't understand the attack or the policies that he feels provoked it. He feels betrayed by his country, and sees President Bush as recklessly endangering American citizens, especially New Yorkers, by launching the war on terror. The graphic book makes a gradual shift from these present-day anxieties to the ancient-seeming comics of the early 20th Century, concluding with a section that reverts back to the form of those comic strips completely. This last section is dense and difficult to get through, but overall the book is worth it because of its artistic integrity and outsider's perspective. It doesn't feel like a lecture, but it is definitely a wake-up call to those who feel safe years after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The Namesake

2006-07-12T09:09:00.000-07:00

This Jhumpa Lahiri novel goes nowhere fast. Again, I found my attention wandering as I got into the first few chapters and never really finished the book. I bought the book because I had read and liked a version of this novel that appeared as a short story in the New Yorker. That story was a stereotypical New Yorker short story, but at least it crystallized the meandering descriptions of this novel into something resembling a plot. This novel seems to have padded that story to interminable length, delving into mysterious realms that have little bearing on real life. Sorry, but my limited attention span couldn't bear the long-windedness of this novel. Maybe if I had nothing but leisure time I could recommend this novel, but it's just not that absorbing of a novel, so maybe no matter how much time I had, it wouldn't be worth it. Not recommended (again, even though I only read the first few chapters).

Hamlet

2006-07-12T09:03:00.000-07:00

My wife and I read this classic together for a World Lit class she was taking. It really is a meditation on death and a powerful statement about the nature of human consciousness -- we can be a vacillating, revenge-driven, half-mad species, and Hamlet exposes some of our weaknesses as well as our greatest strengths. "Conscience does make cowards of us all." The great graveyard scene is to me the emotional climax of the play, where two men compete over the memory of a beloved sister and (for lack of a better word) lover. Hamlet intentionally distances himself from Ophelia, but his "antic disposition" is overcome in the graveyard scene when he wallows in his grief. This is a true grief, not an acted one, but Hamlet is the ultimate actor's role because he is both a director and an actor within the play itself. There is an insecurity to the role that is mystifying to some but powerful to others. Hamlet can sound like a whiny teenager at times, but he is capable of showing great resolve and emotional fortitude in others. It's well worth reading this play to get back to a sense of what it means to be human and to encounter such a compelling character.

The Da Vinci Legacy

2006-07-12T08:59:00.000-07:00

This was written before the Da Vinci Code became a big hit, but I think it's being repackaged as an answer to the Da Vinci Code. I couldn't get into it while reading it last spring, because the writing is pretty generic. The opening line, after all, is, "Killing made him happy." This kind of sociopath is a staple of 1980s movies, maybe, but it reads false to me. It sounds even more cartoonish than the bad guys in Da Vinci Code, who at least had a powerful motive besides simply enjoying killing. I can't really recommend the book or not recommend the book because I haven't read the whole thing, but based on the opening two chapters, it's a non-starter for me.

Small Avalanches and other stories

2006-07-06T16:33:00.000-07:00

Joyce Carol Oates has an ax to grind in this set of stories, but it may be an ax worth grinding. The stories are vivid and well-imagined, and I wish some of my high school students who are girls somehow find this book and read it, because it is a valuable study in conflicts they probably feel. The collection deals mostly with early relationships between guys and girls and the potentially terrifying outcomes of those relationships, meaning sexual violence or date rape.

Taken together, the stories seem to rule out the possibility of the "good guy." Guys reading the stories are likely to be depressed or angry because guys are not presented in a good light, generally speaking.

Still, it's hard to argue that guys don't deserve this kind of treatment. Date rape is an ugly reality, and it's brave in some ways for Oates to present a collection of stories that centers around that reality.

It would be nice, though, if at least one of the stories ended well. I'm not sure if that's the case -- I didn't read through the entire collection.

The Motive

2006-07-06T16:26:00.000-07:00

This is a murder mystery by John Lescroart that I really liked right up until the end. The plot starts with a fire in a famous San Francisco home that is being renovated, where two bodies are discovered. The first few chapters lay out the police and fire inspectors' procedures while pointing toward possible suspects. The investigation proceeds along several different avenues, eventually involving the main character, lawyer Dismas Hardy, as the case heads toward trial. I loved the mature characterization of Dismas Hardy as a veteran lawyer with a blessed family life and good friendships. I also enjoyed trying to figure out where the investigation was heading, which I'm never very good at anyway, but it was fun to try. The ending, though, was a little disappointing. It seemed too little justification for all the suspense leading up to it. I know that's vague, but I recommend reading the book, so I'm not going to give away the ending.

Da Vinci Code

2006-07-06T15:58:00.000-07:00

I read this novel very quickly and defensively, to be honest, because it includes an attack on some fundamental aspects of Christian religion. The story is well developed, although the bad guys are an obvious caricature of a real-life Catholic sect. I love the idea of using art as a tool to solve a murder, and an alternate version of Christ's life and history would create a strong motive for the bad guys. So the book is good, if it is taken as a simple mystery story.

The book fundamentally misunderstands Christ's significance and the role of the church in society, though. Biblically speaking, the church is designed to be the body of Christ. As such, it should strive to be fundamentally open to all sinners who acknowledge the need for a savior. The church is imperfect at this mission, but it is far from being the secret mafia that the Da Vinci Code makes it out to be. Furthermore, Christ was not just a man, he was the embodiment of God on Earth, completely human and completely divine. The Da Vinci Code wants to treat Christ as if he were simply human, and substitutes any divine characteristics he might have with the pagan symbology of male and female gods and goddesses. It creates a false version of Christ, which is no different than other versions that have been around for centuries, if not millennia.

The attractiveness of the other versions of Christ is that they are different, but I know that Christ was indeed both human and divine. He is the only living God, who was made flesh, crucified for the sins of the world, and rose again. The authority he has in heaven and earth is demonstrated in the true Biblical accounts of Christ. I know this is "accepted dogma," but that doesn't make it any less true.

The Da Vinci Code, for all its inventiveness, does not fundamentally offer anything new to discredit the Christian religion. It is a good read, but I would warn against reading it anyone who has never encountered the living God or who has not read the full Biblical accounts of Christ's life, death, and resurrection. The false version of Christ in the Da Vinci Code is enough to warrant a "thumbs down" recommendation from me.

Not a Nag!

2006-02-13T21:02:00.000-08:00

My wife has beaten me to the punch and is starting her own blog. Check out Not a Nag! for her thoughts.

Farenheit 451

2005-07-09T14:36:00.000-07:00

Some people probably think of this novel as a modern classic, and in some senses, it is intended to be taken that way. I can't help feeling that Ray Bradbury had future critics in mind when he was writing the book. I don't get a real good sense after skimming through the book, though, that Ray really gets it right.

His characters are flat, his style is stilted, and he is appallingly incorrect in terms of gender politics. The wife in the novel, after all, is never treated as an equal partner in any way. The girl, Clarisse, is disappeared, and women are apparently non-existent in the society that survives after the war, quoting great dead white men from memory.

I wonder what Bradbury has to say about modern identity politics? It doesn't seem like he has much to say about that at all, and that may be the problem.

Welcome!

2005-07-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

This blog will review a few books in my collection and that I am currently reading. I'm interested in many different kinds of books, and my wife is interested in many other kinds of books. I think we will both eventually be posting reviews. We shall see.