Some books I'm reading or about to read

Another trip to Pulp Fiction, another haul of books (see my earlier trip). Coupled with some earlier purchases, my list of books to read is getting huge. Here are a few that I'm excited about:


The Political Brain, by Drew Westen - The Role of Emotions in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. Kansas, despite all reason or logic, vote strongly for the Republicans. Al Gore had all the arguments for the rational mind, but George W. Bush chuckled and appealed to the brain stem. It's baffling to most of us. Helpfully Drew Westen has done a great job of explaining how and why the Republicans have done such a great job of using emotion while their Democrat counterparts have failed to capture the hearts of American voters. I'm enjoying the history and the anecdotes, and trying to relate it to my experiences here in BC.


Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov - I joined an online book club at Pajiba, and this is the first book. I just picked up the 50th anniversary edition at Pulp Fiction. I've read, more than a few times in the past half year, that Nabokov is the finest writer of this century, a crafter of the best sentences ever written. Luckily I'm not given to high expectations.


Inverting the Pyramid, by Jonathan Wilson - The History of Football Tactics. I've been excited about this book for a while, and it finally arrived in the mail the other day. I just finished Raymond Chandler's second Philip Marlowe novel, Farewell, My Lovely (which was a tad more over the top than his brilliant first novel, The Big Sleep) and I am already enjoying this change of pace. Ever wonder why central defenders are called centre-halves in England? Or how Hungarian teams could ever dominate European football? Or why most teams play a flat four at the back? I do.


The Club Dumas, by Arturo Perez-Reverte - While planning our trip to Spain (spits on ground at Spanish thieves), we wanted to find good books by Spanish authors, preferably about Barcelona. We settled on The Shadow of the Wind, a fun literary mystery that took place right around where we were staying. On the short-list was a series about a swashbuckling 17th century Spaniard, Captain Alatriste, which looked light and fun. Today I saw some books from the series, along with The Club Dumas, by the same author. I can't really say why I chose it instead, other than that it is an earlier book and sounds more serious.

Dune, the part two: politics and humanity

The first half of Dune has motored along. It's fast-paced, crisp, action-packed and completely intriguing. The Atreides are having a little trouble settling on their new home, the desert planet Arrakis. Everything is about the new planet: the desert, the weather, the Fremen, the worms. At the behest of the Emperor, they replaced their arch-enemies the Harkonnens as rulers of Arrakis, aka Dune, the source of the most valuable substance, spice, which allows for space-travel.

Betrayed by the Emperor, the Atreides are forced to flee, their forces defeated, the Duke captured by the evil Baron Harkonnen, only Jessica the beloved Bene Gesserit concubine, Paul the prodigy and a few loyal lieutenants surviving. They turn to the Fremen, the people of the desert, for help. Paul has been undergoing some changes with exposure to spice, able to absorb and compute infinite amounts of data and see infinite future possibilities.

The complexity of the later books is only hinted at so far. What is evident right away is the careful observation by the characters, the almost unimaginable ability to read people and situations, and the intrigue that accompanies every action. This is politics at its most intense at every level, from personal interactions between family members to galaxy-spanning plots. And everyone is so good at it. This, probably, is why I love the book so much. I want to be Paul Atreides, with the ability to read and process minutiae and predict actions based on the data. I want to be able to know what my opponents will do before they know it themselves. And I want to ride a sandworm.

The first idea addressed in the book is this: what defines our humanity? What separates us from animals? Paul, at the behest of his mother, undergoes a test administered by a Bene Gesserit, one of the school of specially trained female advisors. (and Jessica's superior and teacher at Bene Gesserit school). Holding a poisoned needle to his neck, she tells him that it is a gom jabbar:

"It kills only animals."
Pride overcame Paul's fear. "You dare to suggest a duke's son is an animal?" he demanded.
"Let us say I suggest that you may be human," she said.

She forces his hand into a box, saying she'll kill him if he removes it, telling him that animals will chew off their legs to escape a trap:

"A human would remain in the trap, endure the pain, feigning death that he may kill the trapper and remove the threat to his kind."

His hand tingles, then itches, then burns, so much so that he imagines it crispy and blackened. Overcome with the intensity, the Bene Gesserit halts the test, exclaiming that no woman has ever endured so much (and internally wondering if he might be the Kwisatz Haderach, the chosen one).

Apparently the test sets humans free, to fully think, not reliant on machines as they once were:

"The Great Revolt took away a crutch," she said. "It forced human minds to develop. Schools were started to train human talents."
"Bene Gesserit schools?"
She nodded. "We have two chief survivors of those ancient schools: the Bene Gesserit and the Spacing Guild. The Guild, so we think, emphasizes almost pure mathematics. Bene Gesserit performs another function."
"Politics," he said.

Politics, indeed.



Future post ideas:

Spice as oil, the jihad of the Fremen, and the worms.
David Lynch's movie adaptation.
The Guild and the Bene Gesserit: gendered power-play to the nth degree.

Dune, the part one.

I'm going to start the Dune series tonight. I read them years ago, and they blew me away. Despite how much they drag, despite the long, long, long (millennium-length), meandering storylines, despite the departure from story to the extended philosophizing on time, potential and power.

Over at Pajiba, Cannonball Reads is rolling along. A short while ago Blonde Savant reviewed (favourably, even) the original Dune, enough to consider continuing with the rest of the series. t inspired me to go back and try it again. This was my comment from the review:

It's an amazing book that needs to be given time, and it's not for everyone. Like was written above, it can be read as an adventure, or as a treatise on any number of issues. What keeps me coming back is the complexity and world-building the Herbert accomplishes without forcing anything. I'm never skeptical of the plot or characters' actions.

The Dune series is like The Lord of the Rings with far greater depth but far fewer likable characters, and less sense of wonder, to be sure. While the LotR is a simple allegory about war and the environment (and superficially a few other issues), Dune dives into philosophical issues that drive me bonkers with their complexity.

As a one-off, Dune is the most accessible of the series, Blonde Savant, so I admire your fortitude and drive to continue reading the series. It reaches a low-point in book 3 (and book 2 isn't exactly scintillating stuff either), but after that it... I'm not even sure what it does, but I found the second half of the series far easier to read. It could be that by that time one is used to the style, complexity and universe that it seems natural.

It will be interesting to find out how much of this rings true as I re-read it.

Adult fiction for kids? Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

Or is it kids' fiction for adults? When my friend first recommended Ender's Game (VPL link), I thought it would be a normal sci-fi story: some technology, some aliens, some overarching theme about humanity. When I bought it, the cover was quite different than I expected (see below), and the jacket claims that it is an American Library Association "100 Best Books for Teens". It follows the main character, Andrew (Ender, no explanation why) Wiggins, from the age of 6 to 11, then wraps up the rest of his life in the final few chapters. So it's about a kid.

Which, with the cover I had and the "for Teens" claim, made it difficult not to think of the book as teen fiction. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But the book didn't feel like teen fiction, and I'm not certain Orson Scott Card intended it to be received that way. It's dark, vicious and at times nihilistic. It also delights in the seemingly simplistic relationships between children without condescending, and delicately portrays the love between a brother and sister.

The normal cover

The cover of the edition I read

Ender Wiggin is a remarkable child, chosen as a possible saviour for humanity. Plucked from his family at the age of six, he goes through Battle School then Command School, pushed to the edge of his sanity by trainers in the hope that he will be able to lead an army in a pre-emptive strike against the "buggers", ant-like aliens that invaded several generations ago but were defeated at the last by the genius of one commander.

Published in 1985 but based on a short bit written in 1977, the story and the language don't feel dated at all, which is especially impressive given the subject matter: Ender uses a personal "desk", similar to a laptop, and jacks into life-like first-person adventure game that incorporates aspects of real life and fantasy, originally with challenges but eventually allowing him to wander around at will. A sub-plot (or rather sous-plot, because it is quite significant) follows Ender's brother and sister as they scheme to eventually take over the world through inventing personas on the nets and becoming influential enough to shape public opinion.

In contrast, I'm reading Pattern Recognition by William Gibson, written in 2002, and already it seems dated. His descriptions of using the internet is at times too prosaic and a bit off: "When she returns to the forum page, her post is there" and "Hotmail downloads four messages..." and "She goes alone to an Internet cafe every other day and checks the new hotmail account she's acquired with her new email address, a .uk one that Voytek arranged."

The book is a bit too much of a morality play, but it still resonates. Like District 9, Ender's Game takes a simple idea about how we treat the other and builds a compelling narrative around it. Done poorly, it could have come across as heavy-handed, but the light language and optimism (at first) contrasts nicely with the subject matter.

Ender's Game was compelling, enjoyable, and novel enough to leave me thoroughly satisfied. Thanks for the recommendation, Marco.

Gentlemen of the Road, or Swashbuckle this, Brian

"All adventure happens in that damned and magical space, wherever it may be found or chanced upon, which least resembles one's home"

Rather than write a book review, I'm simply going to track the words that I have to look up as I read Michael Chabon's Gentlemen of the Road. It's a playful book, and Chabon's vocabulary might come across as pretentious except for that. I've skipped some words that are clearly singular items with little relevance beyond their place as a noun (though I've included some of the same).

p. 4 - bambakion - "In his quilted grey bambakion with its frayed hood" - A padded leather or cotton under-garment; Byzantine.

p. 17 - perspicacity - "Perhaps the span of breath remained to the intruder for the enjoyment of his perspicacity" - having a ready insight into and understanding of things; from Latin perspicac- seeing clearly.

p. 19 - fleam - "with their scalpels and bloodletting fleams" - a kind of lancet, as for opening veins; late Middle English fleme from the Greek phlebo meaning vein.

p. 20 - contumelious - "He was nearly as gifted at languages as the contumelious myna." - scornful and insulting; from Latin contumelia, perhaps from con- ‘with’ + tumere ‘to swell.’

p. 28 - mezair - "With a mezair and a cut to the left" - a movement in which the horse makes a series of short jumps forward while standing on its hind legs; from Italian mezzaria, middle gait.

p. 28 - caprioles - "and a cut to the left and a pair of caprioles" - a movement performed in classical riding, in which the horse leaps from the ground and kicks out with its hind legs; from Latin capreolus, diminutive of caper, capr- goat.

p. 38 - impasto - "squelching through mud that was an impasto of dirt and blood" - The process of laying on paint thickly, from the Italian for paste.

p. 42 - maunderings - "I would rather... than suffer through a month or more of listening to your maunderings." - talk in a dreamy or rambling manner, perhaps from the obsolete maunder, to beg.

p. 43 - affiant - " and affiant now to that failure and to the ruin of his gods" - a person who swears to an affidavit, from the Latin fidus, meaning trusty.

p. 57 - plangent - "and with it the plangent cry of a soldier-muezzin calling his saddle-weary brothers" - loud, reverberating, and often melancholy, from the Latin verb plangere, meaning to lament.

p. 108 - caviling - "though Joseph would hardly miss the Venetian's caviling or tendency to whistle tuneless tunes all day and night" - to raise irritating and trivial objections; find fault with unnecessarily, from L deriv. of cavilla: jesting, banter.

p. 112 - integument - "scrutinizing the elephant as if seeing through its rough integument to its giant organs" - a natural covering, as a skin, shell, or rind; from the Latin teg(ere) to cover

p. 113 - arrant - "he often finds himself in receipt of the most arrant gossip imaginable." - thorough; unmitigated; notorious; from Middle English, variant of errant.

p. 126 - gonfalon - "revealing a gonfalon of russet hair" - a banner or pennant, esp. one with streamers; from Italian gonfalone, from a Germanic compound whose second element is related to vane.

p. 126 - bartizans - "along the battlements and bartizans of the walls of Atil" - an overhanging corner turret at the top of a castle; from 17th-cent. bertisene, Scots variant of bratticing [temporary breastwork or parapet,] from brattice ; revived and reinterpreted by Sir Walter Scott.

p. 128 - caparisoned - "caparisoned in purple silk and cloth of gold" - be decked out in rich decorative coverings; from obsolete French caparasson, from Spanish caparazón ‘saddlecloth,’ from capa hood.

p. 147 - chiromancy - "a wandering eastern people skilled at chiromancy" - the prediction of a person's future from the lines on the palms of his or her hands; from Greek kheir hand.

p. 161 - dolmen - "Imposing and forlorn, a grave marker, a dolmen, the eyrie of some august raptor." - a megalithic tomb with a large flat stone laid on upright ones; from French, perhaps via Breton from Cornish tolmen hole of a stone.

p. 170 - attar - "a faint ribbon of some rank attar in the air." - a fragrant essential oil, typically made from rose petals; Persian from Arabic 'aṭir fragrant.

p. 171 - asphodel - "whose smell of bitter asphodel" - a Eurasian plant of the lily family, typically having long slender leaves and flowers borne on a spike; from Greek asphodelos.

p. 177 - tenoned - "a monstrous thing of heavy timber and tenoned wheels" - join by means of a tenon (a projecting piece of wood made for insertion into a mortise in another piece); from Latin tenere.

p. 182 - termagant - "whether the Northmen were better endowed by their greedy and termagant gods for commerce or slaughter" - a harsh-tempered or overbearing woman, also historical, an imaginary deity of violent and turbulent character; taken to be from Latin tri- ‘three’ + vagant- wandering, and to refer to the moon “wandering” between heaven, earth, and hell under the three names Selene, Artemis, and Persephone.

p. 186 - carillon - "chiming over and over like some kind of bellicose carillon" - a set of bells in a tower, played using a keyboard; from Old French quarregnon peal of four bells, based on Latin quattuor four.

p. 192 - vinous - "his breath vinous and his emotion nettlesome" - of, resembling, or associated with wine (I guessed that but wanted to be sure); from Latin vinum wine.

So there you have it. He knows his words, he does.

Chabon tells a fantastic tale, but it's nothing particularly special. I had high expectations after Kavalier & Clay, but I think maybe I initially missed the point. It's "genre fiction", as he hates to say, and it is a swashbuckling adventure told well. He relies on some stock characters that tend to populate the genre, but with sufficient differences to keep them interesting (the big dumb warrior isn't so dumb and plays a mean game of chess-ish).

As usual (and as demonstrated above), Chabon demonstrates a playful attitude towards language. If he's not making up words he's mining history books and old dictionaries. His two merry men reminded me at first of Mr. Croup and Mr. Vandemar from Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, verbose and too clever, but thankfully their wordplay is toned down after their introduction.

This novel was fun to read, whereas Kavalier & Clay was inspiring and touching and fun and huge. Well worth it for fantasy fans, probably worth a go for all readers. I can't help but fall into the (I hope) old paradigm of genre fiction, and I hope this book inspires all readers to give fantasy fiction a go.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

Politics, schmolitics, I'm writing what I want to write.

I just finished reading a few books and watching some movies, so I think I'll get started on a few reviews.

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon

This is the best book I've read in a while. I quickly followed it up with a collection of essays by Chabon called Maps and Legends, about growing up, the creative impulse, boundaries, adventure, comics, writing, reading, and so on. Both are brilliant.

Chabon begins his collection of essays, Maps and Legends, with a bitter-ish treatise on the state of genre fiction. He believes all writing is for entertainment: “I read for entertainment, and I write to entertain. Period.” Fantasy, science fiction, detective, etc. All genres offer entertainment and insight, in varying degrees, and literature proper shouldn't have a monopoly on literary respect. He has stuck to his guns, producing a hard-boiled mystery (The Yiddish Policemen's Union) and a swashbuckling adventure in serial (Gentlemen of the Road) after his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.

The amazing* Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay is an epic American novel, spanning 16 years (1939-1955), in the lives of two Jewish cousins who meet in pre-war New York. Joe Kavalier escapes from the Nazis in Prague, makes his way to America, and with his cousin Sam Clay (anglicized from Klayman) collaborates on a brilliant Golden Age comic book, The Escapist. They also make small fortunes, fall in love, lose loved ones, then ostensibly fight more Nazis, and raise a family and fall in love all over again.


The origin of the Batman, from 1939. For a great intro to Batman, or any comic, check out this site.

I grew up reading comics, though none from the Golden Age**. First old Jonah Hex, ROM and Sgt. Rock comics that a family friend had; then the hero variety: X-Men, Wolverine, Spiderman and Batman; and finally darker, character-driven "adult"-oriented comics like John Constantine: Hellblazer, the Sandman, Preacher, and so on.

And while the subject matter is fairly dear to my heart (I still regularly read comics, but I don't buy many anymore), Kavalier & Clay is by no means a book about comics. Michael Chabon has done an amazing job of taking a childhood obsession for many of us and using it as a backdrop for a very human tale of heartache, loss, hope, amazement and love.

Chabon's writing fits everything in the book perfectly. There are sentences that are reminiscent of comic writing, Bam-Powing across the page. I wanted it to be a true story; indeed, Chabon has had people writing to him asking for information on the K&C's creation, the Escapist.

I am a little reluctant to recommend this to people that didn't grow up reading superhero comics, but if given half a chance it wraps you up in a world that you want to learn more about.


* I meant this first one. It is amazing.
** The late 1930s to late 1940s. From Wikipedia: "The period saw the arrival of the comic book as a mainstream art form, and the defining of the medium's artistic vocabulary and creative conventions by its first generation of writers, artists, and editors."