Elsie's Stuff and Nonsense

Well Fit

2012-02-14T08:31:00.000Z

A few years ago the at-the-time new Home Secretary made headlines by declaringthat his ministry, the Home Office, was “Unfit for purpose”,which everyone, judging by the press response, considered just aboutthe most appalling thing which could have been said.

I differ. If something is not fit for its purpose, you know whereyou stand with it. You probably know what to do ~ or at least whereto start ~ to correct the problems, even if the solution is asradical as scrapping everything and starting afresh. Worse in myopinion, at least for now, is that which is only just fit forpurpose; that which works, but very nearly doesn’t, or only some ofthe time. This is worse because, in view of the fact that it isworkable, there isn’t enough of a demand to change it, to improveit, yet every time it fails the frustration level mounts. I am, ofcourse, driven to this view by a particular, so i’ll move to thatfrom this general.

Every day at work i, obviously, deal with quite a bit of change,counting it, storing it, and delivering to my cashiers. The issuearises with the way that, in this country, that change is stored,which is barely fit for purpose. There are two, closely linked,methods of storing change; the first is that provided by the Mintwhen it issues coins, they come in small, sealed plastic bags with afixed value for each different coin; the second is similar in thatbanks provide small bags, more like tiny sandwich bags than anythingelse, in which they will accept coin for deposit or sell it aschange. Both these methods are poorly conceived.

The first, what one might call the official bags, are so poorly madethat frequently they break, spilling coins, potentially losing them,certainly causing frustration. Curiously, the bags which break themost often, in mine experience, are those containing 2p pieces. Ihave no idea if 2ps tend to have slightly rougher edges, or if apound’s worth (the value of a bag of coppers) is slightly heavierthan the bags should be asked to hold, or if there is some otherreason altogether. The point is, i have spent, wasted, more timethan i care to think about picking up spilt coins, recounting to makesure i have them all, hunting for those which have rolled away, morethan i ought to have to.

Sandwich bags are great for sandwiches: They fit each other: Thesandwich stays fresh for a few hours, it doesn’t get shaken aroundwithin the bag and so lose its filling, and the top folds over tohold the sandwich inside. Think of a bag two inches by two inches,of exactly the same design, and consider if that would be your firstchoice for storing heavy coins in. Yet that is precisely what thesecond, the unofficial or do-it-yourself bags are. And, as you mightwell expect, they are completely useless, unfit for the purpose. Andi find myself getting angry, not just frustrated, but positivelyangry with whoever was stupid enough to imagine that a bag with anopen top is well designed for this task.

The reason i get more than frustrated, but reallyalmost-to-the-point-of-strong-language angry is that there is aperfectly good design for this job. And i have used it, for years,with no complaints, no frustration, no anger. In North America, bothin Canada, where i first came across them, and in the USA, where iworked with them for nearly two decades, coins come from the mint inpaper-wrapped rolls; these are machine wrapped, very tight, so withno play to them, and no possibility of losing any coins until theroll is broken, which generally only happens as the middle of theroll is hit on an edge, of a table, for example. At that point, thecoins are released, generally a few into your hand, the rest still inthe roll but easily accessible for whatever container you are puttingthem into.

The second situation, filled in this country by open-top plasticbags, are also rolls; it is possible to get from the bank, or to buyfrom a stationers or department store, empty coin rolls. I rememberstruggling as a little fellow, having saved hundreds if not thousandsof pennies, on the landing of our house trying to roll them intothese self-forming paper tubes. Difficult, but doable, and i wasrewarded with real cash when i was done, so it was worth it. Today,the ones you can get are even easier, preformed tubes, so all youhave to do it drop the correct number of coins into them and sealthem.

I used these on a daily basis, counting them, storing them, makingand opening them, bringing them from the bank to the shop, for over adecade and a half; is it any wonder that i am thoroughly annoyed andfrustrated with the attitude in this country that, “This is goodenough, it just about works”; i have experienced better, and thesesandwich bags are just barely fit for purpose.

2012-01-31T09:21:00.000Z

Pandora’sSeed; The Unforeseen Cost of Civilisation

SpencerWells

Thisturned out to be a little different from what i had expected orthought that i was reading but, to be fair, Wellscompletely fulfils his title and the expectation i ought to have hadraised, so points to him, not to me. I had, somehow, got it into myhead that the book was going to be purely about the cost of thechange in lifestyle in the Neolithic age, the agricultural revolutionwhen men stopped being hunter-gatherers and started being farmers. In fact the scope of Wells’ vision is greater than that, as hecovers all sorts of consequences stemming from actions other thanthat revolution (though, in the end, i suppose, it is fair to saythat the whole of civilisation stems from that change ~ perhapsthat’s how i got my mistaken impression of the book’s scope tobegin with), up to the latest, climate change. Overall, i found thebook very enjoyable, in scope, style, and content, though i could,perhaps, have done with a little less of Wells travelling tofar-flung places at the beginning of each chapter (particularly withregard to his concentration on anthropogenic climate change!). Afascinating subject, and one that probably could (and likely will) bethe focus of more books as other writers decide to mine it.

Not so happy

2012-01-18T08:14:00.002Z

Predator

PatriciaCornwell

Ihave to admit that i have been sorely disappointed by this book: Without having gone back to look at their reviews,i seem to remember having enjoyed the (i think) two of Cornwell’sprevious works about Kay Scarpetta, a forensic pathologist (is thatthe term?) who is Cornwell’s primary detective. That ought to bodewell for Predator,same author, same characters, same concept.

Thistime, though, it is completely different. I was at least a hundredpages in before it was even clear that i would continue reading, andmore than a hundred and fifty before i began to understand enough toeven begin to care about any of the characters (any! even the onesi’d encountered in the previous books) and whether they lived ordied. That’s not a good result for an author! I think that a goodportion of my disappointment is with the style or writing Cornwelluses here; she changes perspective, plot, and characters veryfrequently, and i found it difficult to understand what was happeningwhere to whom, much of the time.

Inaddition, many of the characters, even the positive ones, are ~ orappear to be ~ unlikeable, and i didn’t like them. Furthermore,and this can be an issue with many authors who have written a numberof series books, it may be that too much links to previous books, too much is assumed to be understood by the reader, when the firsttime (or close to it) reader even of a book well into a series stillneeds to be brought in and helped to understand. That did not happenhere. All in all, unsatisfying and, i’m afraid, by my criterion,not a success: I won’t read another Cornwell based simply on hername and mine experience here; to be sure, i may well read another ofher books, but such an action would be based on the success of othersof her works i’ve read, not this one. Sad.

Up & Down

2012-01-09T05:51:00.001Z

WhyBalloons Rise and Apples Fall; The Laws that make the World Work

JeffStewart

I’mtorn by this book.

I would really like to have liked it a lot; i’mnot certain, however, that i can report that i did. Alsofind i’m torn in deciding who the target audience is; i cannot tellif it is really, as i assumed upon beginning, intended for theintelligent adult with little particular physical knowledge but asufficiency to understand the complex concepts presented, or if itshould be read by children ~ teenagers, perhaps ~ who are learningscience for the first time. Both seem to be possibleinterpretations.

To go back to my first point: Though i would have liked tohave liked it, there were several issues that i found interruptingmine enjoyment of WhyBalloons Rise. For example, though he generally did a good job of building on theprevious concepts he had introduced, i found at least a couple ofoccasions when Stewart seemed to bring something in that i ought tohave known (and probably actually do) but that he had no reason toassume i knew based on his apparent assumptions about his readers. In the end, the pleasure i get from reading about things i don’tknow or don’t fully understand, attempting to further my knowledgea little, outweighs the annoyance (it didn’t really rise to thelevel of aggravation) i found in the writing style and lack of focus. A near run thing, however, and i’m not certain i’d pick upanother book based purely on the name of the author; it would have todepend partly, as well, on the subject matter, if it lookedinteresting, a subject i wanted to learn more about.

Language lists!

2012-01-02T21:31:00.002Z

False Friends; Faux Amis
Ellie Malet Spradbery

Whoops, i wrote this a few days ago and never got around to posting it. No time like the present to correct that error!

A curious review to write, as it is a little contrary to mine usualpractice in that i have not fully read the book; this is acceptable,however, as it is a reference book, and thus not really subject to acomplete reading such as i usually give the books i review. In fact,the only reason for this writing is that i received the thing fromthe publisher via the Early Reviewers programme of LibraryThing, and am therefore morally bound to write and post a review. Nevertheless, i give it my best, as if i’d actually read everyword.

The purpose of this little tome is to guide the visitor to France ~or at least the infrequent speaker of the language ~ into not makingembarrassing slips, led astray by similar words & phrases withdifferent meanings. As i am not likely to visit France, or need tospeak that language, at any time in the close future, it is a littlepurposeless for me, yet full of fascination anyway.

I am reminded as i look at the book of one i used to own (possiblystill do, in New York State, among those i fear i shall never againsee) which was similar in concept, and because of the situation inwhich i acquired that one, this one gives me happy feelings. It wasas we were getting ready to move to Rome that i bought a book alsocalled, if i am right, False Friends; it aimed to help thelearner of Italian not be caught out by words which are similar insound and spelling ~ etymologically related words ~ yet withdifferences in either meaning or precise structure. The catch,however, was that this was written for people who already spokeFrench and were likely to be caught out by Italian’s resemblancesto that language. The one pair i remember with glee was formaggio,with the same meaning but a subtly different spelling from fromage. The difference here, of course, is the target audience, the Englishspeaker speaking French.

Lists, in and of themselves, are innately interesting (that’s mineopinion, and i’m sticking to it!); lists of words and, perhaps evenbetter, phrases, are more so, clearly. Where this book possiblyfails is not in its structure, but in the fact that, as betrayed bythe subtitle Book Two, there has been a previous book, inwhich probably Spradbery mined most of the more obvious false friends,so here she is left with some which i cannot really see peopleconfusing (entraîner/to train, armoire/armoury), which ratherdefeats the purpose, i fear. She has filled out the book withseveral other sections, giving French expressions and their Englishequivalent and vice versa, and nice series of lists of varioustypes of word (insects, football, diseases).

All in all, a worth-while book, though perhaps a little less usefulthan i imagine Book One to have been; the back cover blurbtalks about “this series” which leads me to wonder if there is aBook Three in the works, and if it also will be a shorterlist, with more padding. The problem is that despite their partiallycommon ancestry, English and French are not really that similar; myFrench/Italian book makes perfect sense because, seen in the broadpicture, the two languages are almost just different dialects, soshare a huge number of potential pitfalls. One could imagine asmiliar series of books between German and Dutch, or Danish andSwedish. Unless one goes down the English/North American Englishroute, our language doesn’t lend itself hugely to this, because ofits highly eclectic history.

Casual violence for children

2011-12-20T10:47:00.001Z

Viking’sDawn

HenryTreece

Therewas a time when i read everything i could get my hands on by HenryTreece; it must have started at least fortyyears ago, because i know that i was at Shrewsbury House when i firstread any of his books; i can also remember in the very early 1970s,in Vancouver, visiting the book bus that came around to West PointGrey, and desperately searching for any of Treece’s works ~ usuallyunsuccessfully. It is thus now at least thirtyfive years since i’veread these books i loved, and i almost jumped for joy when i cameacross this one in the Machynlleth market; in fact, i had tophysically restrain myself so that the stall-holder wouldn’tsuddenly raise the price (50p ~ can you beat it!) knowing she had alive one. Of course, i could have bought all of them at any time(assuming i had money!) in any bookshop or on-line, but how much morejoy has been brought to me by this method than that. Furthermore, aparticular joy of this book is that i think it could well be theexact edition i read previously; certainly, the cover art looks veryfamiliar, it is a Puffin book, and is price-marked at 3/6 (verbalisedas “three and six” meaning three shillings and six pence, orrather less than half the very good price i just paid for it [50p equates to ten shillings, old style]!), soclearly this volume dates to prior to 15 February 1971,Decimalisation Day. So, the book itself? Well, what can there beother than joy in rereading something one has held in rosy memory forso long? To be sure, it’s simple: It was written for children;it’s more story than history: It is fiction; it’s casuallybrutal: It was written prior to the contemporary concern withcorrectness and concern for “lesser” peoples. But these are notreally faults, merely descriptions of what, why, and when it waswritten. It is also a great story, exciting, based in truth, asuperb introduction to an era of history, and, to put it simply,extremely enjoyable. I’d like to read this aloud to JAG.

Parody, but not completely successful

2011-12-04T05:36:00.002Z

The Chronicles of Blarnia

Michael Gerber

A parody along the lines of The Va Dinci Cod (itself essentially a parody of a parody), so much along the lines, in fact, that it’s probably published by the same people, possibly written by the same person (though the name is completely different). I have to say, however, that this one is not quite as clever, and definitely more tedious, than the other, so not nearly as successful by my estimation. To be honest, i found it dragging at points, much as the Wide Witch’s sledge dragged and fought against travel, particularly towards the end of the novel, when the repetitions of the jokes became merely annoying (thinking here, for example, of the beavers’ log babies, the hairballs Asthma brought up, even the mock-Tudor speech of the children once they became kings and queens).

At first, though, i have to say i enjoyed the book; it is quite clever, though i should think that the original, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is quite an easy target for the author, with nice touches such as children living in the present, but still thinking that the Second World War is raging, being sold for human experimentation to a mad professor, and the Beavers as a lesbian couple. Indeed, i did not not enjoy the thing, i simply found it going more slowly than i wanted; for, when the reader (in this case me) starts looking at page numbers and working out how many more are to be read, it is surely a bad sign for the author.

Quality Rules, OK?

2011-11-09T09:41:00.002Z

The Treehorn Trilogy

Florence Parry Heide

A book from the Library Thing Early Reviewers programme. To be truthful, a trilogy from the.... I’m reviewing it as one, however, since each book is short and i received the three together. Before i start on the books themselves, i have to comment what a pleasure the Early Reviewers is; i had a note in my letterbox from the postman, indicating they’d tried to deliver something but it was too big and i hadn’t been there, so i walked to the other end of town, to the sorting office, wondering what it could possibly be. Then walked back, carrying a parcel, having no idea what was inside it, actually shaking it, trying to make deductions about the contents!

First things (almost) first, then. The three books come as a box set; and what a box it is! Unlike many i have or have had, it is solid, well constructed, a container that will take a lot of beating from a child who is likely to treasure these books for years; it has a different colour on each face, reflecting the use of these attractive, gentle (not the bright, sharp colours popular with children’s publishers) pastels on the covers of the books within; there are also three illustrations by Edward Gorey, a foretaste of those to come, as the drawings in the books are by him.

The books, then. Again, like the box itself, the quality is high; it’s been a long time since i have bought books for children of the age these are aimed at (a good half dozen years, i should think, with the prime book buying several years earlier, as JAG tended to have his sisters’ books recycled, rather than new ones bought), but i do not remember many that were of this quality: Good strong covers i imagine could take quite a beating; pages of thick paper which won’t fold or tear as easily under little fingers; a slight gloss to the surface which might well protect the content by aiding in slowing down staining by juice spillages.

The content, then. I do not remember reading any of these books when our children were younger; i’m not saying it didn’t happen, just that i don’t think it did. The point is that i’m pretty sure i’d have recalled them (even apart from my very good memory for books i have read) because they are lovely. Treehorn is a young boy, maybe eight or ten years old, though his abilities seem to vary at times; he has parents who are, while physically present, in any meaningful sense absent, having no understanding of his life, nor any ability (it seems) to even hear him when he speaks ~ at least, what he says makes no impact at all upon them, and it ought to, because he reports some fairly strange happenings in his life. These happenings are, of course, the point of the book as Treehorn tries to make sense, and take value from, a tree which temporarily grows money, a genii in a jar, the sudden and inexplicable downsizing he goes through. In each case the reader can see he acts rationally (at least from his point of view) and the people around him cannot because they don’t understand, being caught up too much in their own lives ~ surely how some adults much appear to children much of the time. As i mentioned earlier, the drawings are by Edward Gorey, for as long as i can remember, one of my favourite illustrators. They add hugely to the value of the stories, as always with good illustrations, as they help to interpret what is happening, often with a delightful humour.

All in all, this is a lovely set, beautifully produced, written, and illustrated; Heide died last month, but i hope that she had the opportunity to see what this publisher had done with her trilogy, as it much surely have made her happy. The opportunity to receive and review it has certainly made me happy, and i look forward to the time (perhaps not too soon in the future, thank you) when i can read these to grandchildren.

Another winner

2011-11-04T19:57:00.002Z

The English Parliament

Kenneth MacKenzie

Neither an history of Parliament, nor a description of how it works, this book is more an history of how it developed the functions it has from the precedents allowed it under the feudal system. One of the great strengths of the British Constitution, unwritten, but not undefinable, is that everything in it can be traced back, mostly to the late mediæval period and the structure of the England’s governance under the feudal monarchy. It is for this reason that attempts such as those by the current Labour and Liberal Democrat parties to essentially remove the House of Lords are so wildly misguided, to be resisted with all Parliament’s ability, and why any attempt to make the United Kingdom into a republic are (it is devoutly to be hoped) doomed to failure. This continuity of the feudal state, which in some measure we still live in, is almost unique among the world’s nations; i don’t know of another which has the same ability to trace back all the forms of government to the system of seven or eight centuries ago, though it may be possible in the case of, perhaps, Japan, whose history is something i am largely unaware of.

I'm really fortunate; i've been going through a patch of good books lately ~ of the last twenty i've read i'd say there're only about two i haven't enjoyed. Yay! Yay for good books. Yay for clever authors. Yay for me for finding them.

Grammar Rules, OK?

2011-10-31T09:54:00.002Z

What, precisely, does this say about me? My boss visited me at work the other day, to give me a letter from someone high up in the company, changing somewhat my working conditions, and to cover those changes with me; he gave me the letter to read, then asked if i had any comment. The very first thing i did was to point out a grammatical error in the letter (“lot’s” for “lots”) and laugh that the higher up clearly doesn’t have a proof reader like my boss (i perform that task for him quite regularly). In fact, there were three errors in the letter ~ which in itself surely says something about the value that higher up puts on us more lowly types!

What got my curiosity going, however, was my reaction to the letter. The changes are not really dramatic, nothing that will badly affect me, though i am going to have to work a little bit later twice a week, which could be a problem if i were with someone also working full-time and we had young children at home ~ and there are bound to be some of my colleagues affected in this way ~ so i didn’t really have to question the content of the letter; nevertheless, it is surely a little odd that my first reaction is to examine the form of the message, not the message itself. In truth, errors such as these stand out to me when i read something, stand out so dramatically that i struggle to overcome them (doesn’t mean i cannot make them myself, however, so don’t bother pointing out any of mine own!) and move on to the meaning.

This confusion (though that isn’t quite the right word, since i know what i am doing, and can tell the difference) between medium and meaning affects me at other times, too. One of the most obvious is reading books. If i come across an error of spelling, grammar or (heaven help us) fact in something i am reading i am confounded by it. I am truly amazed that, whatever it is, it was not picked up by the author in proof-reading, or by his editor, or by a copy-editor or someone paid to do the job at the publishing house. How, i wonder, can such carelessness have been allowed to slip through? Frequently, if i go back and read my book reviews, i have been so incensed by a series of such errors that i have had to mention them in the review; on occasion, such an error is almost all i can recall of a book i have read: There was a book i read in seminary, for example, by a man called McBeth, and though i know i enjoyed the book, the single thing i remember about it (other than its physical dimensions and feeling, of course) is that there was an error in which he mis-dated the Glorious Revolution, or misspoke in naming the participants. How silly of me, for the subject of the book was Church (specifically, Baptist) history, not secular, and the actual error made no difference at all to his argument, yet now, some twentyfour or five years later, that’s all i recall.

Thus comes the real joy of reading articles on Wikipedia, the on-line encyclopædia: If i come across a nasty spelling or grammatical mistake, i can correct it. Immediately. What a lovely feeling of accomplishment; what a super way to learn. And, indeed, a large number of edits that i have made to Wikipedia are corrections of such simple errors. Usually i say that i am doing a “Typofix”, which seems kinder in implication than something along the lines of “Correction of grammatical ignorance”. The latter, though, is sometimes closer to the truth!

People who ought to know better

2011-10-25T10:59:00.002+01:00

I am annoyed on occasion by people saying or writing something that they really ought to know better than. It happened not that long ago (in the great scheme of things) listening to BBC Radio 4, usually a source of intelligent conversation ~ except when politicians are interviewed in the morning on the Today Programme ~ but not this time. I was listening to a woman talking about books and, to aid her in talking about The Screwtape Letters, she brought in a literate vicar (i believe those were her actual words, though i could be mistaken). In the process of saying that the Letters had once been one of his favourite Christian books but now was not, he mentioned that one of the things he dislikes about C.S. Lewis is the way he condemns Susan, in the Narnia books, because she likes lipstick and make-up.

Now this is just plain false, and it annoys me to hear it. I do not know if this literate vicar is misremembering, or not as literate as the presenter apparently thought, or if he and others (including Philip Pullman) whom i have read or heard making the same point are consciously and purposely misrepresenting the facts. Certainly Pullman, if none other, is intelligent enough to know the truth. That truth is, of course, quite different from what is said, and i am annoyed because this gives an incorrect idea of Lewis and Aslan and of the God who stands behind both those two, which, certainly in Pullman’s case, suits his intentions.

The truth is, clearly, that Susan has chosen to be a grown-up, which is symbolised by the cosmetics, rather than to retain the childlike faith in and desire to be close to Aslan. Peter, when asked by Tirian, who remembers that there were four children, about his sister, says, “My sister Susan...is no longer a friend of Narnia”; their cousin Eustace adds that Susan claims the others are merely “thinking about all those funny games we used to play when we were children”. Clearly, if one reads the text, the grown-up interests of Susan are simply a symptom of her attention and focus, which is being in this world fully, rather than the reason she is condemned.

Two or three times during the Chronicles Lewis makes it clear that Aslan does not have the power, or has chosen to limit his power, to break through someone’s unbelief: The dwarves in The Last Battle, for example, and Andrew Ketterly in The Magician’s Nephew are permitted to block out Aslan’s voice so completely that his goodness is unable to reach them. This limitation is obviously parallel with that of Jesus, who never gave up on those who didn’t believe him, but warned them about misascribing the actions of the Holy Spirit to the Evil One (Luke 11:14ff., for example).

It is important to recognise that i am not pretending that Susan is not condemned, having chosen a poorer way; i am, though, concerned that the truth be seen, that Lewis not be condemned himself, purposely or accidentally, for something he did not do. He himself passes no judgement on Susan in the narration: All the words against her are spoken by the characters in the books and, within the series’ world it is clear that she herself is responsible for her own poor choice. The fact is, just as Susan is not condemned for liking lipstick but for refusing to continue her friendship with Aslan, Lewis’s orthodox belief is that a person is not damned for doing evil but for turning his back on God. A subtle difference, but incredibly important.

Ah, how i love language.

2011-10-07T20:10:00.002+01:00

Lost English

Chris Roberts

Bought this for Chen for her birthday and, naturally enough, read it! It is different from the other books of words which have dropped out of common use in English because the words and phrases here are very much of recent vintage and loss, rather than the more usual centuries old words. Certainly, some of the entries i’ve read here i have used within my life, indeed, some of them i’m not sure i wouldn’t still use (which may speak more to my innate conservatism than anything else!), such as “Heath Robinson”, “blotting paper”, or “pell-mell”, for example. The book is nicely written, with good language (definitely necessary in a book about language) well controlled. In fact, the only real complaint i have about it is one i have run across previously, though i’m not sure if i have expressed mine aggravation in any of these reviews: Certain publishers (for it is a publisher stupidity, not anything to do with the author) seem to get mixed up between the “1” key and the capital “I” when writing dates, so here, in a book which frequently uses dates, i was often annoyed by things like this ~ “the late I950s” or “from I972 to I985” ~ which look really idiotic. Small point, but very annoying in terms of disturbing the flow of reading.

Curiously, just as i post this, i have read a review of this book on Library Thing (or Librarything ~ i refuse to follow the ridiculous trend of putting capital letters in the middle of words), and the person who wrote it was rather less appreciative of the book than i. And they claim to be an English expert. I'm a little disappointed ~ in myself or them? Not sure!

2011-09-27T07:48:00.003+01:00

Been too long; i'm not really much good at regular updating, which is silly, as i have a backlog of reviews that could be posted. Oh well, here's one now...

Are God and the Gods Still There? How Poetry Matters

John Newton

This is the most recent book i bought, about six weeks ago, and it’s taken me that long to read it, as opposed to the average of under four days per book over the past twelve years. Of course, i have been reading other things at the same time (it’s very rare for me not to have two or more [frequently up to half a dozen] books going at the same time), but i’m not claiming that as the reason; it is, rather, that i have taken my time to try and more fully understand what this book of criticism is about: If i want to write effectively, and oh i have longed for that most of my life, then it behoves me to pay attention to what people who read and think about what they’ve read for a living say. And so, what does this critic have to say about writing poetry and its place in the world?

Well, if i have understood correctly, Newton is saying that poetry (or perhaps all beauty; he may not wish to be restricted) is linked within us to the religious feeling or aspiration; tis is not to say that it is religious in origin, nor that the proper subjects of poetry are religious in nature, but that the impulsion towards religion in (at least some) people’s make up is similar, even related, to that towards poetry and beauty. He also argues, and this may be a different facet of the same point, that good poetry ought to be accessible to and appreciated by everyone, not just the special few: In fact, he is quite strongly against the current world of poetry ~ he calls it the poetry “scene”, with scathing quotes (those quotes are almost the only point of Newton’s style i disliked) ~ implying that it is incestuous, tasteless, and of no quality, or at very best, little quality. I have to say, i was quite happy as i read, as much i have read scarcely seems worthy of the name poetry, and i found on the couple of occasions when Newton compared various works that my judgement coincided with his prior to his giving his; of course, that could just mean that the two of us are wrong, but i enjoyed the feeling of being a bit vindicated with regard to my views of poetry.

Whether or not, of course, mine own poetry (as opposed to my views) meets Newton’s criteria of beauty is an entirely different matter. One with a resolution i’m not sure i’d be happy with ~ maybe one day i’ll get an objective view on it!

The Wicked Son

2011-09-17T06:32:00.002+01:00

Wicked Ernest: The Truth about the Man who was Almost Britain’s King

by John Wardroper

What an interesting book. I am unable, unfortunately, to judge just how speculative it is, as i have read nothing else on this Ernest (or Ernest Augustus, as he seems sometimes to have used both his given names). Whatever the truth, and i’ll look at that in a moment, Ernest seems to have been an appalling character, even by the extraordinarily low standards set by George III’s sons; i should think it must probably be universally acknowledged that the UK was quite fortunate that, for all her flaws, his older brother’s daughter Victoria was born and survived her uncle William to become monarch on his death. What would the Ernestian age have been like, with such a model as he, rather than Victoria for the Victorians? An age of open and complete depravity, perhaps; certainly a reactionary age, perhaps even the repeal of the Great Reform Act, and without any doubt no passage of further reform until substantially later in the century than it did occur, possibly even not until the next century.

So, on to the specifics of Ernest’s character and actions. Wardroper’s central contention is that the rumours which have swirled about Ernest for over two centuries are, in fact, more likely than not, true; in particular, the two rumours which state that he fathered his sister Sophie’s child, Thomas Garth, and that he was actively involved in the death of his valet Senlis, not subject to attack by him immediately prior to his committing suicide. I cannot possibly evaluate these claims, i haven’t the knowledge of either the facts or the current status of interpretation of those facts. All i can do is record that, in mine opinion, Wardroper seems to have done his research and not to be ashamed of it (a dozen pages of notes and bibliography) and, again simply my view or assumption, any future work about Ernest will have to take his research into view and answer the allegations.

Quotable

2011-09-08T06:07:00.002+01:00

For some years now i've been picking up quotes from various places and saving them. Wanna see a couple?

There never was a good war or a bad peace.

Benjamin Franklin

If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it.

Albert Einstein

I have always imagined that paradise will be a kind of library.

Jorge Luis Borges

At 50+, i find a new author...

2011-09-02T20:35:00.002+01:00

The Left Hand of Darkness

Ursula le Guin

For no reason that i can fathom, i have never previously read one of le Guin’s novels. I remember her name, probably from back in the day, when i was reading Asimov and Heinlein daily, rather than going to classes, and in the process failing Grade Ten at UHill. Despite my being aware of her, however, i didn’t read any, and i don’t know why. It certainly wasn’t for gender reasons, though generally men are better at the science fiction i have enjoyed, because Anne McCaffrey’s Pern series was one of my greatest loves. Not being able to pin down my motives then, some thirtyfive years later, i’ll put it down to the fact that she had an odd name that didn’t appeal to me ~ i mean, what else can i do?

So, having established my complete lack of experience with le Guin, what do i make of this, the first of her novels i’ve read? I picked it up in the library, i think, because i recognised it as one of the 501 Must-Read Books, and was ready to read another of them. And i am glad i have now done so. Pity i waited this long? Well, no, because now i have the option of finding and reading more of her work and developing an attraction towards a new author (new to me only, of course! She started writing back in the Sixties) is a great pleasure. It may not be immediate, but i reckon i will read more, perhaps from the same series, perhaps not; i don’t know enough about her work to know the ratio between the two categories, so i’ll just take them as they come, i suppose.

True-crime: I'll read anything!

2011-08-27T07:54:00.001+01:00

Couples who Kill; Profiles of Deviant Duos

Carol Anne Davis

One of those true crime books, though different from the ones i read at Bob & Fran’s because they (by Ann Rule, maybe?) are written more in a novelistic style and this is tending towards the factual, documentary style, though still intended to be entertaining. Also, of course, this is the stories of about a score or so pairs of people who have committed murder, once or more times, either together or, in a few cases, with some doubt about the involvement of one of the partners; the couples are not necessarily (though frequently they are) married, nor even lovers, though that is the first impression given by the title (“couple” is not a restrictive descriptor, but we do tend to use it that way: More often than not “a couple” in common parlance are sexually involved, if not more), which is perhaps a little misleading.

The book as a whole was quite interesting; Davis does not write badly, although she isn’t, perhaps, a natural writer ~ by which i mean that i can feel her struggling sometimes, trying to make the thing flow ~ but she is certainly interesting, and knows her facts thoroughly. The main issue i have with the book is the organisation; it appears that she has given some thought to how to arrange her couples, putting some of them into categories, and telling the stories of others in far greater detail in chapters by themselves. The problem is, however, that the categories don’t seem fully natural, and within the chapters that make up the categories, the flow ought to be broken a bit more clearly between couples, perhaps with a slightly bolder sub-heading, or a new page, or some other typographical device making it clear to the reader that the subject has changed. These are minor points, however, and i would not wish to belabour them. Another minor quibble i had was with Davis’ occasional habit of referring to her other books in the same series, i imagine, Women who Kill and Children who Kill; it has always seemed a bit like blatant advertising for authors to make such references (other than novelists, whose characters think about previous events, sometimes to be found in other books, but that doesn’t usually include the title of the relevant novel), and i half expect the author to continue, “Available for 3/6 from all good booksellers” which tips the thing over into comedy, if not farce, not at all the effect one wants in a work such as the current one. Overall, though, i did enjoy the thing, and might well flip through another with her name on the spine.

Who is that woman?

2011-08-20T08:18:00.002+01:00

The Masked Woman

Johnston McCulley

By the same author as the original Zorro book, and i bought it for the same purpose, to read to JAG, but we never got around to it, unfortunately. He would have enjoyed it, i think, with the same enthusiasm he gave Zorro, though the plot here is, perhaps, a little weaker, and the characters are definitely not as interesting.

The rôle of protagonist seems to be split between the eponymous masked woman and the professor she ends up with in a love match. Unfortunately, neither of them are particularly interesting, nor at all convincing: The professor, for example, at the very beginning of the book, decides with no visible thought to become a criminal simply because an unsuccessful burglar claims to have an annual income twice that of his; at the end of the book he, again with absolutely no reflection, gives up the life of crime to go back to academe. The masked woman, whose motivation is revenge largely against certain criminals, builds a gang around her with no effort at all, the criminals in question being, apparently, the most trusting of men. In addition it turns out, with no prior preparation for a revelation of the fact to the reader, that she is actually a twin; this rather smacks of concealment by the author, rather than the distraction or misdirection which is the stock in trade of the mystery writer, or deus ex machina to get himself out of a position he’d written himself into.

As far as the plot itself goes, it moves quickly, so much so that the one interesting, maybe even original, twist is given no time at all to develop, and the reader is left with the image of a man convinced he has been imprisoned for murder, when in fact no murder took place; that ought to have been developed. All in all, i’m glad i’ve read the book, because it’s been sitting on my shelves for several years now, but i’m less likely to seek another of McCulley’s works than i would be if this were up to the standard of Zorro.

Looking through a Glass Onion

2011-08-13T17:34:00.002+01:00

The Walrus was Ringo; 101 Beatles Myths Debunked

Alan Clayson and Spencer Leigh

I was delighted to find this in the library the other day; i’ve never heard of it before, that i remember, but the title alone grabbed me, and the subtitle made it clear that this was going to be a book i read soon and quickly. And so it proved. It does, for the most part, live up to its billing, though there are a few nits to be picked.

As Chenowyth mentioned after looking at it for an hour or so on the beach the other day, some of the “myths” aren’t really ~ i.e., they’re not well known ideas, or no one really believes them ~ and some of the “debunks” are rather petty, quarrelling with semantics in order to make the number up to 101. Nevertheless, though, sufficient are well known and countered well enough to make the book as a whole worth the time. There are a couple of other points, however, which i must make.

First, it’s rather poor form for a book which complains at least twice in its bibliography about other books without indices not to have an index itself; i suppose i can see the argument, “It would just be a lot of entries about John, Paul, George, and Ringo, so we won’t” but it’s hardly a convincing one.

Second, there is an Afterword, “Just Like Starting Over”, which seems to have absolutely no contact with the rest of the book, as it is apparently an imagined newspaper story anticipating the return to playing music of John Lennon in 1980, after not having played since being kicked out of the Beatles in 1962; no explanation given, no reason for the presence of this afterword, and really no point to it in the context of the book. Certainly as a bit of counter-factual history, interestingly imagined, but entirely useless here. I really do wonder, sometimes, about what authors are thinking as they write, or editors as they publish: Do they imagine that everything has value and must be inserted somewhere, even if it doesn’t fit?

In the end, though, despite both these points, which really are problems with the editing, which certainly needed to be done better, the book is sufficiently strong and interesting to overcome these weaknesses; i’m glad.

Classical (self-)education continues

2011-08-07T17:17:00.001+01:00

Cicero: Selected Works

Michael Grant, tr.

I have had this book since living in Rome thirty years ago; i’m pretty sure that i bought it at the second-hand shop just off Piazza di Spagna, the Paperback Exchange, i think it was called. And i remember having read portions (probably small portions, knowing my reading laziness when it comes to assigned reading!) of it at that time, while attending AUR, for a course on Latin Literature. And yet, here we are, nearly thirty years later, and i have just finished reading selections from one of the greatest of Roman orators and writers for the first time! My education really has been hopeless, all along! I don’t really have much of an excuse, either, because not only have i had the book ~ and had it with me for most of the time ~ but i’ve known i needed to read it, and now that i have, it has turned out not to be the chore i expected it to be. Certainly, parts of it were slower than i would have preferred; the correspondence in particular did not hold mine attention too easily; in the main, however, enjoyable, and i’m glad i have read it, added slightly to my continuing education, which is sorely lacking in classics.

Puzzling to Scary

2011-08-03T11:38:00.001+01:00

The Mourning Vessels

Peter Luther

As with Luther’s other book, i found this a bit difficult to get going, the first fifty pages or so were hard, possibly because i found it awkward to work out who was who and what was happening. After i reached the conversion point, however, something changed for me and i raced through the rest of the book. As with his other book as well, the themes and plot here are such as to make me wonder just what Luther (especially with a name like that) believes about the world of spirit; he has no difficulty writing about Satan and, to a lesser degree, God with none of the embarrassment that frequently seems to be found in modern writing which mentions those two entities. I don’t know, he may just be good at concealing it, or maybe is willing to force himself past it in order to tell the story he’s made up; either way, the plots in both novels are true horror stories, with Satan as the motive behind the horrible actions in each case. The plot here is quite convoluted, with a couple of twists that are probably foreseeable, though i didn’t as i was struggling to keep up, and revolves around a temple, of sorts, based on an old phrenological society which has been perverted into a bereavement counselling charity which, in its turn, is a front for evil to be done to people after they die. In some way, and for a reason never, as far as i recall, explained, the souls of some believers are captured in items they loved and held in this temple, perhaps for all time; maybe that’s the reason, to keep them away from God? The book follows three of these victims and their mourners, and the attempts to prevent the evil charity from capturing and preserving the dead. Sounds really bizarre as i realise what i’m writing, but it sure made compelling writing as far as i was concerned.

There's a tiger...

2011-07-29T09:23:00.001+01:00

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

It has taken me years to read this novel; i’m pretty sure Lynne bought it or gave it to me a long time ago, probably in the States, so perhaps it’s waiting there in the boxes i may never see again (sob), but i did take out this copy from the library here when i saw it, somehow the time was right for me to read it. And i’m glad i did, as it was very enjoyable Like much fiction it is more than just a story, though it’s hard to say for certain what the underlying themes are; certainly, there are questions raised about the meaning of story, or the ability to tell story, or the possibility of story to be true or not true, not to mention the question of how do we tell the difference between truth and fiction, when both are stories. I’m not sure about the framing story, though i accept that it is part of the novel; actually, if i think about it, i find that what i don’t quite get or like about the frame is the old Indian’s assertion that Pi’s story is one that will make you believe in God, or a god, which is not, it seems to me, at all the reaction drawn out by Pi. That incorrect assertion seems to grate a little, and that causes a discomfort within me, about the frame itself, somehow. Nevertheless, all in all, a lovely story, fiction or not, whichever story one might accept as truth in the end.

Cryptographically questionable ~ exciting plot, though.

2011-07-22T15:56:00.002+01:00

Digital Fortress

Dan Brown

We found all of Dan Brown’s books in the library when The Da Vinci Code first came out and caused a furore, and borrowed and read them, so i have read this previously; nevertheless, it was fun to go back and take another look at it, seeing what i remembered from before, and what i could work out as i was going along. Result? Brown provides an exciting read, as he can certainly plot with the best of them ~ so long as plausibility is not essential, and it’s not always, to be fair ~ though he does tend to use and reuse substantial elements of the one plot in each book.

The point i found most frustrating about Digital Fortress was the way that Brown chose to explain his background; an author does have a problem when something outside the experience of the majority of his projected readers is essential to the point of the story and, the more so as, in this case, it subsequently enters that experience. Brown’s plot focusses on computer codes and privacy and the ability of the NSA to break the latter by means of their expertise with the former. What Brown does is use his main character to help the reader understand codes: She realises and suddenly understands and so on things which she would have had no puzzlement about at all if she were really the cypher and code expert, but Brown has to explain to the reader about code keys and viruses and so forth; i think, though, he chose the wrong way to make his explanations, as i found myself irritated each time Susan needed something explaining she should have known ~ like a biologist needing to be reminded about sex when wondering why animals are in pairs. Trivial point, perhaps, but it did affect my reading experience.

All in all, as with each of Brown’s books, i found that the plotting is excellent, if extreme or a tad unbelievable, the characters are acceptable, though not of the same level, and the writing itself is very average, with much that does not recommend it. A shame.

I've got a secret

2011-07-18T03:40:00.001+01:00

Lady Audley’s Secret

Mary Elizabeth Braddon

There is a facet of my personality that is brought to the fore in the reading of this book. It’s not new to me, i’ve known it, and on occasion been frustrated by it, before; with this book, however, at one point it became dominant, and affected the reading of the book. The issue is that i sometimes have a tendency to become so involved with a book’s characters that i cannot bear to continue reading, for fear of what is going to happen to them. In Lady Audley’s Secret this happened at a point when Robert Audley is accused of madness for his beliefs; i didn’t want to know what was going to happen, and it was, in fact, probably a week, possibly more, before i picked up the book and finished it. The thing is, i knew the whole time, obviously, that in the end everything was going to be all right, i just couldn’t bear to face how the plot was going to reach a satisfactory ending, the struggles, trials, and tribulations that Audley was going to have to go through. I suppose that such a feeling by a reader for one or more of an author’s characters is one of the signs of real success in that author’s work. I’ll take it that way, anyway, rather than poking fun at myself for worrying about an imaginary person in a book written a hundred and fifty years ago. So, it quickly becomes evident, if that was my reaction, that i liked this book, that it is well written, a pleasure to read. In fact it is, to use a popular and almost meaningless word, a classic. It is listed in my copy of 500 Books you must Read, which is one of the reasons i was keen to buy and read it; it has an article of its own on Wikipedia; it has had films and plays and radio dramas made of it. None of these alone means much, but taken together they do lend an air of importance to Braddon’s work; that air is borne out by the book itself. Well worth picking up, reading. Even worth forcing yourself past the point where you worry about Robert Audley’s future!

The Puzzle of Meaning

2011-07-11T03:58:00.001+01:00

The Rosetta Stone: The Story of the Decoding of Hieroglyphics

Robert Solé & Dominique Valbelle

I had wondered before, just how the Rosetta Stone had been used, the process of finding out the meaning of hieroglyphics, and this book explains quite clearly the process; not in as much detail, perhaps, as Chadwick used with his explanation of Linear B, but enough that i now have a flavour of the difficulties involved, and a very small understanding of the method of hieroglyphic writing ~ and cumbersome it seems to have been! I’m tempted to point out just how straight-forward English writing is by comparison, there being fewer decisions about how to put down the meaning intended but, of course, i’d be deceiving myself, as the process of writing this very review is fraught with decisions, many of which have caused me to stop, pause, backtrack, even, to slightly change or shade what i have written.

On Not Living up to the Hype

2011-07-08T04:33:00.002+01:00

Does God Believe in Atheists?

John Blanchard

Quite a few things i need to critique about this book, ranging from the trivial to the potentially very damaging. A brief overview, first, to set the scene. Blanchard is writing to combat any possibility that atheists can make coherent or cogent arguments against the existence of God (or gods, i suppose). He begins by giving a very brief history of philosophy and religion; he then examines, again briefly, half a dozen or so major world religions; next comes a questioning of science and whether or not it has anything to say on the existence of God; he moves, finally to the Bible and orthodox Christianity and proves to his satisfaction that the only coherent option is a belief in the God of the Bible and Jesus.

Having raced, extremely quickly, over the book (at just over six hundred and fifty pages, with something like sixty of those as end matter, any single paragraph about it is bound to be perfunctory), i’ll pass on to some criticisms, starting with the trivial. The first is simply about the physical appearance of the printed pages; i don’t know if it the font at fault, or the size, or some other factor, but i found the superscript numbers linking to end-notes very frustrating; on several occasions i misread them as a form of punctuation, not a number, and i had to reread in order to be sure i had not misunderstood what Blanchard was saying. This is minor, but caring for the ease of your reader is quite important, if you plan on keeping the interest and attention of that reader for long periods. Perhaps we can put this down to the publisher, who did not realise the effects of his choices.

Next are the simple mistakes, the sort of thing which ought to have been caught by a fact checker or a copy editor or some such person (though, of course, they oughtn’t be made in the first place!). An example of this is that on page 288, in which Blanchard says Erasmus Darwin wrote the poem “The Temple of Nature”, and that it was “first published in 1903”; he did write it and, while it was published posthumously, it was a century earlier than Blanchard suggests. Lest one think i am being extraordinarily picky over a simple typographical error (“1903” for “1803”), i point out that less than a page later he assigns Pasteur to a time “[n]early fifty years before Darwin’s charming composition”, whereas, of course, Pasteur lived and worked contemporaneously with Darwin’s more famous grandson, Charles. Clearly, Blanchard is highly confused at this point of chronology, if at no other, which is worrying in a book claiming to deal so firmly in fact-based arguments.

Another couple of examples of this error are to be found on page 413, where Blanchard states that “slavery was eventually abolished in 1807” while speaking of the effects of scripture on William Wilberforce. Of course, it was only the British slave trade which was abolished in 1807; slavery in the British Empire was legal until 1833, and elsewhere in the world until 1848 (French Empire), 1865 (USA), or 1888 (Brazil). In the very same paragraph as this error, Thomas Barnardo is credited with founding the first of his famous homes at the age of five ~ in 1870, immediately after his dates are given as 1865-1905; in fact he was born in 1845. These simple mistakes (and there are plenty more than the examples given) do not fill the reader with any confidence that Blanchard is any more accurate in the rest of his writing and argument.

Perhaps the next most serious critique i have is that Blanchard stacks the deck at the very beginning of the book. He gets to make his definitions clear, and clearly his definitions are not the most usual senses of the words, so he aids his argument in this rather underhanded manner before he actually starts arguing. The most obvious definitions which are manipulated are those of “atheist” and “god” or, to be precise, in the reverse order. He defines God as “a unique, personal, plural, spiritual, eternally self-existent, transcendent, immanent, omniscient, immutable, holy, loving Being, the Creator and Ruler of the entire universe and the Judge of all mankind”. This is, in essence, the God of orthodox Christianity; unfortunately, as far as i can tell, giving such a definition completely begs the question, because his second definition is of an atheist as someone who does not believe in his definition of God. The vast majority of people, then, are atheists.

Another point that concerns me, linked with these two words, is the title. I could not understand, before i picked up the book, what exactly it meant, nor could i as i was reading it; it seems particularly pointless, a play on words which doesn’t really work because it only has one meaning, and that self-evident. In fact, the only time the title is even referred to in the book is on page 497 in a postscript to a chapter giving an extended analysis of a passage in the Epistle to the Romans which (the postscript) asks, “Does God believe in atheists?” then tries to define the meaning of the question itself. The problem is that the chapter this “P.S.” is tagged on to has not had anything to do with the issue and, secondly that Blanchard answers both yes and no, depending on the definition of terms. It is of no help at all, but appears to merely be something that was added at the last minute, shortly before press time, when someone realised that the book’s title made no sense within the book itself.

Moving on to a more serious criticism, in one of his main arguments for the existence of God, in which he uses science, it seems that on a number of occasions Blanchard misunderstands the position or arguments of those he disputes. On page 381, for example, in examining the source of morality, which he claims cannot be explained by any evolutionary processes; he tries to refute Peter Atkins, who attempted to show the possibility of evolutionary morality by the very fact that people survived with morality, he does this by asking, “where is the connection between survival and morality?” and then even adds, “what is the value of survival...?” Within evolution survival is the value in itself, it is the goal; and Atkins’ point that morality has evidently helped ~ or at least not hindered ~ that survival makes it a potential evolutionary point of differentiation. Blanchard thus clearly demonstrates that he does not understand evolution, which makes it difficult to imagine he can argue against it convincingly.

Later in the book, while he is discussing mankind and its rôle, having moved beyond trying and succeeding, to his own satisfaction, to prove the existence of God, on page 473 Blanchard makes the astonishing statement that “language...[is] something which can never be accounted for by evolution”. He offers no proof for this assertion, obviously because it is both unprovable and quite easily falsifiable; even i can see that communication between animals of the same species clearly has a survival value and would be selected for, and manifestly the more complex the communication possible the better the chance of survival, leading ultimately to language as the pinnacle. Even more plainly, if Blanchard’s assertion were true, it would already have been touted and proclaimed by all sorts of anti-evolutionists as proof of their position, and many linguists would be spending huge amounts of time questioning it, trying to resolve it; that that is not the case speaks against it. Thus i have to wonder in what way does Blanchard think that making false statements helps his case?

There are other critiques to be made, but i think i have gone far enough to indicate that the book does not live up to the billing it is given in the assorted quotes on the back cover, the inside flaps of the dust cover both front and back, in three and a half pages of affirmation prior to the title page, and in the foreword by a man with seven letters after his name! There is, it is true, much in this book to enjoy, much to learn from, much to cause the reader to think, but it is, i have tried to show, so poorly presented and argued that the job needs to be done again, by someone better qualified.

The book took days (to read)

2011-01-26T10:59:00.002Z

Book of Days

James L. Rubart

The most recent of the Early Reviewer books from Library Thing; the irony is that the previous book by this author, Rooms, is the first book i’ve not been able to finish in years, so how delicious that i have been asked to read and review this, his second work. I have to say that this is definitely an improvement on the other, at least i was able to finish it ~ though not, it must be added, without some procrastination and struggle. I’m not sure how to continue with this review, there’s quite a lot i want to write, and it seems to go in several different directions. Maybe first of all, reasons for my difficulty in reading it.

I was at least a hundred and twenty pages into the book before i had even a shred of interest in the characters or cared for them in the least; that in itself is a poor route for an author to travel down. If he doesn’t have the characters, though, maybe the author can offer a strong, believable, imaginative, seductive plot; maybe, but not this author. With neither plot nor characters just about all that’s left is the possibility of delightful, insightful, masterly writing style, near the quality of a Faulkner or a Sterne; sadly, Rubart does not have that ability, either. All that these lacks leave, as far as i can tell, for a piece of literature to have in order to be compelling, is its theme; here too, as i’ll detail below, the book fails.

Characters: The protagonist is a successful, on the cusp of being very successful, film-maker who is haunted by his father’s dementia-ridden death, with the belief that he is himself going down the same road of memory loss; secondary to him is his (also dead) wife’s foster-sister, who has her own issues revolving around her family’s identity and her past; together they are drawn to a small Oregon town, Three Peaks, where she seems to have come from, and his father had some experience involving the Book of Days, and once there they meet the other characters in the novel, each of whom seems to have a secret, though none has any reason for it to be secret and none keeps it in the end. The townspeople seem to revolve in several groups, each of which has its own take on the big secret of the town, that there is some spiritual or new age benefit there, perhaps involving the supposed Book of Days which Cameron and Ann are looking for.

The plot, then, revolves around this Book of Days, referring to Psalm 139:16, which Cameron is convinced is going to resolve his memory loss, Ann hopes will help her gain closure with her sister’s death, and Jason Judah, the chief prophet of the new age in town, imagines will confirm his leadership and empower and propel him to greater heights. Against them in their search is Taylor Stone, a man who appears to have some knowledge of the existence (or otherwise) of the Book, but is determined to extend the plot and keep his secret. Perhaps, at this moment i am being overly cynical, and Rubart does have a valid reason for Stone to keep his secret, other than prolonging the novel, but if he does it is never convincingly explained. Through assorted plots and counter-plots Cameron and Ann eventually discover that there is not a physical written book, but it is possible to have visions of the future, or a potential future, in a particular lake hidden in the valleys between the eponymous three peaks.

The problem with this plot, as i have indicated above, is that it is not compelling. There is no good reason to think that a book with everyone’s actions written in it is going to heal Cameron’s memory loss; the secrecy is purely a plot device; the ultimate solution, visions in a lake, is not shown to resolve any of the issues the imagined Book of Days is expected to. All in all, the plot, no more than the characters, gives no good reason to read the book.

Next reason, then, is style, writing ability. Here, too, i’m afraid that Rubart falls down. This book just isn’t likely to become a great classic, a book handed down from generation to generation for the sheer beauty and skill of the language. The language use is simple; not, however, the simplicity of Hemingway, but more along the lines of Dick and Jane ~ which is fantastic for beginning readers, but i don’t believe that group is the target audience.

Finally we could look to the book’s theme as its saving grace, the sole point that makes it worth while any and all trouble and time given to reading it, as it teaches a lesson never to be forgotten, it allows us to change our lives for the better, it carries a meaning beyond the simple characters, the unbelievable plot, the basic language. Except, it doesn’t. After i finished reading Book of Days i was talking with the other person in the household who has also read it, and i was challenged to come up with the message of the book, why Rubart wrote it. I was stumped for, literally, minutes; eventually i was able to say something along the lines of, “Be careful what you decide, because decisions have consequences” ~ surely a foolishly simplistic piece of advice to base a book on. Later, however, i read the note that Rubart put at the end of the book, explaining his purposes and reasons (hmm, maybe he also recognises that his writing needs clarification!); there i discovered that he wrote because, “my desire is you find hope in this story, that you will embrace the idea that not one of the treasured moments...is lost.” The problems with this are at least twofold. First, why should i “find hope” in a book of fiction, which clearly doesn’t offer hope? The hope that some people might (there’s no certainty in the visions) have some views of the future? That is no hope. Second, even within the confines of the story Rubart doesn’t offer hope, as Cameron’s memory loss is not addressed (how can it be, by a series of visions?), let alone cured.

In the end, it seems to me, the only hope that this book offers is that of the believer. If you already believe in a God who controls, or at least has seen, the future, you have hope, and that hope may be reinforced by this story (if you can force yourself through it). If not, it offers nothing.

2010-10-26T11:08:00.001+01:00

A few years ago i bought a book called Cursory Rhymes by an early twentieth century writer called Humbert Wolfe. It is lovely, simple, and briefly inspired me.


 Humbert Wolfe

It does not do,
 it is not well,
To now compare
 this Wolfe to El-

iot:  Good Tom
 who wrote The Waste
Land in such an
 amazing haste

He did not find
 good translations,
But left the quotes
 of other nations’

Pithy sayings
 in their own tongue,
And makes me feel
 like so much dung ~

My simple lack
 of savoir faire
And basic nous
 when i am there.

But Wolfe, he’s not
 like that at all:
His easy rhymes
 don’t cause a fall.

He wrote for child-
 ren, i would guess:
His gentle rhymes ~
 a Mum’s caress.

And just because
 they’re light and fun,
Doesn’t mean that
 on the tongue

They have no
 value, use, or
Worth; no less
 is he a bore.

This good Wolfe,
 unlike Big Bad,
Has nice rhymes,
 and makes me glad

I read him ~
  not like old Tom
Whose poetry
 is like a bomb

Shell hitting
 in my brain,
To end it all
 once again.

A Birthday Gift

2010-10-07T09:52:00.002+01:00

Thank you, Chenowyth.

The Story of the First Queen Elizabeth

L. du Garde Peach

A Ladybird book! Of all things! An old one, of the style dating back to my very young days, with a brown cardboard cover and a simple blue illustration on it. I’m certain i never owned this one, though i suspect i may have read it before (or had it read to me!), as some of the pages and pictures are familiar. Whether i owned it previously or not (and re-owning books isn’t as childish as it seems, is it?), am i delighted to have been given it for this recent birthday.

The story is, obviously, extremely simple, quick, and well known; it covers, though, all the major points of the Virgin Queen’s story (not including the reason for that nickname!) which are important for young English, or maybe British, children to know. There is a strong focus on the Armada, which covers about four of the fortysix pages of text; this is natural, as is the emphasis on Spenser and Shakespeare, among the greatest luminaries of the Golden Age. The only thing which is missing in any real detail, any explanation of the religious problems, is barely touched upon in passing, as the reason Elizabeth feared Mary, and Mary feared what Elizabeth would do after her death. I don’t think that one could write such a book today ~ this, and the other Ladybirds, is truly an artefact of its time ~ even with the same target audience in mind, and not give more explanation of the issues of religion, especially as they also impinge upon the Armada story.

The joy of this book, though, other than the simple joy for me of seeing something from my childhood, is the emphasis on story: The only way to interest children in history, in my opinion, is to make it memorable, to tell stories, to make the people interesting because of the stories they are part of; only then will they want to learn about the motivations and reasons and historical movements and interpretations. Too much taught history today, and yes, i’m looking at BBC History magazine, which i love receiving and reading, as well as schoolbooks and teachers, too much, i say, forgets the story in favour of sources, interpretation, explanation, and “understanding”. These latter parts of the subject are important, but they aren’t ~ shouldn’t be, cannot be ~ basic to a child’s grasp of and delight in history. Hoorah for Ladybird and their stories, i say!

"Early" Review

2010-09-30T08:43:00.002+01:00

Shadowland

Rhiannon Lassiter

Once again i am clearly not a member of the target audience of a book i received from the Early Reviewer programme of Librarything ~ which makes it interesting that i have a couple of times been given books aimed at juveniles (what i think the trade calls Young Adults); i suppose that it must be linked to the large number of books of that kind which we, as book loving parents of several children who have been or are young adults, own. At least one previous book of this genre (Sugarcoated) i seem to recall having quite enjoyed, at least, without going back and rereading my review; i wish that i could say the same of this one, but i have to be honest, and say i really struggled reading Shadowland.

There are just about two hundred pages here, and i was clearly halfway through (literally, in the actual meaning of that much misused word, page 100) before i fully grasped what was happening, let alone beginning to care about the characters. Of course, it must be admitted that a good portion of the problem i was having was related to the second way in which i am not a member of Lassiter’s target audience: This is the third book in a (projected) quintology, and i have not read either of the first two, thus i had no idea, going in, what was happening, who was involved, whom i should be cheering for. That disconnect is particularly strong in this book, perhaps in the series, much more than many series (Lord of the Rings and the Narnia Chronicles spring to mind immediately) where each book is sufficiently self-contained to stand alone.

Lassiter makes it clear, as i understand it, that the books are not really intended to be read apart from each other; in an Author Note [sic] at the end of the book she says, “These are not the kind of events that can be neatly wrapped up at the end of a book” (an overly broad statement, in some ways, as almost any conceivable book has some loose ends), making it clear that she understands the way her characters and plots are flowing from volume to volume of the series. It isn’t clear, however, that she understands how very difficult her particular method makes it for the casual reader to find his way into the individual volumes; i hadn’t, as mentioned above, any notion of the books, and it was horribly difficult to learn. A further difficulty, i found, was that there were several (even now i’m not certain) different groups of characters, linked in some way, though not clear in the narrative, with separate (but linked) plots, and Lassiter jumps between them very frequently, perhaps too frequently, before the reader has time to grasp and start to follow the current group.

All this ought not be taken to mean that i am ungrateful for the book ~ i haven’t yet been ungrateful for an Early Reviewer book (even Rooms, which was so appalling i couldn’t finish it!) ~ simply that i believe Lassiter was not well served by her publishers; though the final two volumes of the quintology appear not to have been written yet (or, at least, are unpublished), she might have been better advised to hold them all back until the whole was finished, to be published as one book. Certainly, if the others are of a size with this, at a thousand pages (of quite large print, going by this one) it would not be beyond possibility. The advantage of keeping her readers would probably outweigh (at least for an author) the financial benefits of publishing five books over one.

Old Poetry can be Fun

2010-09-20T04:25:00.000+01:00

A Preface to Eighteenth Century Poetry

James Sutherland

One of the most enjoyable books i’ve read in a long time, which is not what one would expect at all from the title. I think we got this book in Hay-on-Wye several years ago; as i recall it was one i bought simply because it was an Oxford University Press book, it had a bit of water damage, and i was sad seeing it outside, left to deteriorate further. Perhaps also the fact that i had to study Pope for A level English may have played into it, though certainly not any enjoyment of him, because i found his poetry very difficult to enjoy ~ indeed, i remember complaining about it to DCLS after we’d written the relevant exam, as presumably i figured it couldn’t matter any more what a teacher thought about what i thought! Reading Sutherland now, though, was a real pleasure, makes me want to get hold of some Pope, Dryden, Johnson, and others.

The primary message Sutherland is offering is one i certainly don’t remember from Loretto, though possibly it was and i failed to pick it up; he says that the poetry of each age is different, and current expectations are not necessarily met by a previous age’s literature. In particular, the Eighteenth Century was very different, and today we will struggle to read its writings if we do not take into account the differences in their expectations and demands, especially as our reading of literature is still affected by the Romantic movement, which is heavily to be understood as reaction to the Eighteenth Century: A double whammy. So, then, what are these differences, these demands? Boils down to an expectation of formalism, of appropriate style and content, of taking poetry seriously both in the writing and the reading which we seem to no longer have in the Twentyfirst Century. The writers of the Augustan Age generally wrote for classically educated men who could recognise and appreciate allusions and style and serious thoughts. This makes it all sound rather unappealing, yet as i mentioned above, Sutherland has made me want to read some again; he is clearly a skilful and challenging writer who loves his subject and is able to carry that love over to his readers. Enjoyable.

History by Novel

2010-07-29T08:37:00.001+01:00

The Death of the Red King

Paul Doherty

A novel, or an historical study disguised as a novel, certainly a piece of imaginative research and interpretation into one of Mediæval Western Europe’s mysteries, the accidental death of William II of England in the New Forest. Every schoolboy (and girl, but i have to go with the phrase) knows about the death of William Rufus, that he was killed while hunting, perhaps by one of his retainers, that his brother Henry raced to Winchester to secure the treasury and, hence, the crown (you know, sadly, as i write this i’m starting to wonder, do today’s children know this? are they taught this in school? i have a strong suspicion that JAG might well not know about Rufus, about either of the Conqueror’s sons, at all. Oh dear) before anyone else could usurp it. Doherty has written his novel as told by Eadmer, Anselm’s biographer and follower, during the last few days of Anselm’s life, as he conducts a brief investigation into the death of the late, unlamented king.

Unlamented, except, for Doherty, by Anselm, who claims that they were members of the same tithing and, therefore, he was responsible for Rufus, even though in dispute with him for much of the time. Clearly Dohety takes his history very seriously, as he gives a list of sources at the end of each chapter(!), often with little comments onthem, perhaps identifying their usefulness or reliability. His conclusion, while not completely new, is different from the usual received wisdom, and therefore pleasing. The denouement is clever, as Anselm has drawn todether all his suspects and he plays with them in a nice echo of someone such as Poirot, several hundred years early.

Shelley, Shelley, is that you?

2010-06-18T17:42:00.002+01:00

Poetic Lives: Shelley

Daniel Hahn

Another Early Reviewers book, this one from, i think, December. The fact that it has taken me six months to read its hundred and fifty pages would appear not to speak well for my reading speed; in fact, i completely lost the thing for about three months and had to start again when i found it magically back in a place i had previously looked the other day. Enough with the whining, what about the book?

Well, though i hate to, i’m afraid i’m going to have to whine a little here, too. I am a little confused about Hahn’s aims with this book (or the publisher’s aims, if he is writing to fit a series), as it could be viewed from a couple of perspectives, but without really resolving. At some points it seems as though Hahn is writing to about the Wikipedia level ~ general text, designed to be easily understood and in-depth solid information, at others, however, there appears to be a curious skimming over points, where the reader feels something is missing or lost; there are large quotations of Shelley’s poetry, which is very useful, but again a bit odd because any poetry readers who use the book will probably already have access to most or all of Shelley (since one would do the poetry before looking for the poet behind it), and any who come looking purely for biography of an important figure (i.e., non-poetry readers) will be stumped by the masses of poetry with no explanation or criticism.

Then there are his own individual quirks, those which form an author’s style; in Hahn’s case, one that i found especially annoying was his use of an ellipsis at various points, seeming to imply that there was much more he could say, but he was being stopped, or stopping himself, for some reason (this, on page 55, for example, speaking of Shelley and Mary and others in Geneva, “They took rooms at the Hotel de l’Angleterre as Sécheron, and before long Byron turned up at that very same hotel...” ~ the very next character is the first of a completely new paragraph; what inference is the reader supposed to draw from that?), which is never disclosed, but implies that information of some kind is being hidden from us.

In the end, this is not a bad book, don’t let my whining leave that impression; it isn’t, however, as good as it could have been, with a little judicious pruning and editing, and perhaps a firmer view of the goal.

Greater Joy

2010-05-18T09:30:00.002+01:00

The Whole Wide Beauty

Emily Woof

Apparently, so the blurb tells me, Emily Woof is a British actress; i looked her up on Wikipedia, out of interest, when i first began this Early Reviewer book, and discovered that her father was director of the Wordsworth Trust, based in the Lake District, and a well known scholar; it is surely of interest that the (female) protagonist’s father is director of a poetry based foundation, is lives in or near the Lake District, and is well known for constantly raising funds. I am moved to wonder just how much else of the book is based on reality. Katherine, the protagonist, became a dancer against the wishes of her father; Woof became an actress, and i wonder how Robert Woof felt about that. Katherine has an affair with one of the protégés of her father. One just has to wonder how much is imagination and how much confession.

Enough speculation, and on to the book itself. Did i enjoy it? Well, yes, i rather think that i did. There is a lot in it, some of wisdom, plenty of observation, and sufficient of reality in character-building to make it worth the read. In turn: Wisdom, Katherine has found it necessary to find her own way in life, in that she has been untouched by poetry, her father’s muse, to the extent that when she hears it, it really has no meaning for her, so her own creativity has been focussed on something entirely different, physical creativity, rather than intellectual, but this is not portrayed as simply an act of rebellion, more of the necessity of finding one’s own way in the world. Observation, both of a character (especially Katherine and David) and their motives, and of the world, is all through the book; i wonder if the fact that Woof is an actress impacts on that, as she has had to observe in order to reproduce in her work. Reality, especially, as i say, in building the characters, is rife: I found all the actions and reactions of the characters rang true, and i was able to understand why they did the things they did, even without explanations, because they were real people; that is a huge point for me, in a book, because all too frequently characters do not behave as you might expect ~ not because people don’t, but because they are poorly drawn and motivated ~ not an issue here.

And yet, overall, the book surprised me with its plot developments and character interactions In the end, i have to say that this is a lovely experience, for me, of the Early Reviewers programme ~ unlike my previous!

Oh. My. Gosh.

2010-05-16T07:44:00.002+01:00

Rooms

James L. Rubart

I have eaten tripe. When i was taking a course on Early Sixteenth Century Poetry while at university we had a banquet, of sorts, and tripe was one of the dishes served. I seem to remember that it was chewy, tasteless, rather a struggle to eat, and not really worth it. I was not defeated, however, and ate it.

This tripe has defeated me. It thus enters very limited company: Over the past ten years i have read well over a thousand books and, in that time, i can think of four that i have not finished ~ it’s almost a point of pride with me to finish a book i start. Princess Casamassima defeated me so far, though i think i’ll probably go back to it again one day; Crichton’s Disclosure and Chesterton’s The Everlasting Man both dragged me down; and a book from Asimov’s Foundation series written by someone other than him just wasn’t worth it. And now this.

I’m some five chapters into Rooms and i don’t care if the protagonist lives or dies. Really. He has absolutely no interest for me. Oh, he’s an immensely successful software tycoon. So? Oh, someone’s given him a house. So? It’s perfect for him. So what: I don’t care. I don’t even know that it is perfect for him, because i don’t know anything about him. The author, James L. Rubart, i believe this is his first published work, has given me nothing to make me want to go on learning about Micah Taylor: He’s not an attractive character, he has some mystery in his past but what it is isn’t clear, he doesn’t know why he’s been given this house, doesn’t really seem to care, but is willing to put everything on hold while he explores it. Well, i’m not.

I have read ~ and finished! ~ books before where i have not cared for the protagonist, but in those cases the level of writing is enough to draw me it while i learn to care. Not here. This is written at just a hair above the “Dick and Jane” level of elementary school primer. The reader is told everything, shown nothing, which is precisely the reverse of the way it is taught in the most basic of writing classes.

I could go on, but why? I read The Shack, to which this is unwisely compared on the front cover, several times; it’s simple, unrealistic, but compelling. I’ve also read The Screwtape Letters, to which it is also compared, a number of times; it is funny, truthful (if not true), and immensly clever. Rooms is not.

Early Reviewer Book

2010-04-27T18:57:00.004+01:00

Once in a Blue Moon

Leanna Ellis

The latest in the series of books i have been able to get from publishers through the Librarything Early Reviewers. I’m not quite the target audience for this book, as i wasn’t for the first Early Review one i read; i think it’s rather more aimed at the young, female, Christian type, much as the books by Lori Wick and Robin Jones Gunn that Abigail likes so much. This is all right, as it happens, as Abby picked up the book while it was on the dining room table, and is now reading it; it will be interesting to see how she feels about it ~ if i can, i’ll get her to review it, too.

So, preliminaries out of the way, how did i feel about the book? Actually, despite my being well outside the target audience, i really quite enjoyed it, overall. There are points i can pick on, and will, but by and large, they are outweighed by the pleasure of the character development, and the quirkiness of some of those characters. There are some caveats, to be sure, such as the very title itself, which links to that annoying and recent definition of a “blue moon” as two full moons in a single calendar month, and says how very rare that is when, clearly, it isn’t. Also, the actual ending of the book is a little annoying as it tries to imply coyly that perhaps there is something to all the conspiracy theories, after all.

Mention of the conspiracy theories leads me to a point that i really liked about the book, and that is the lovely link it draws between the beliefs of the two main male characters: Howard used to work for NASA, and now lives convinced that a huge conspiracy of undetermined (or undefined, at any rate) form is the reason that they haven’t continued to go to the moon; his son, Sam, was (or is? it’s never quite resolved) a preacher, albeit a flawed one. This belief of the younger Walters is the key to the book, the reason why Ellis has written it, as it is the reason Wick, Gunn and others write: To promote their world-view as normal, whole, possible and, indeed, desirable.

It is in this purpose of promoting Christianity’s view, i have to say, i found Ellis quite good and pleasing. She does not by any means beat her readers about the head; Sam is clearly flawed ~ he’s divorced, after all ~ but he is capable of resisting temptation; Bryn Seymour, the protagonist, is self-aware, but not necessarily capable of stopping herself from doing silly or destructive things; the religion is, in fact, done with a very nice light touch. Bryn doesn’t even, for example, have to say the Sinner’s Prayer before Sam baptises her (in a hotel fountain, no less!); this lack, alone, is enough to give me pleasure, as i have had a great many qualms about that process/structure of Sinner’s Prayer ~ faith confession ~ baptism, over the years. All in all, i would have to say that Ellis probably succeeds in her goal of writing an enjoyable Christian romance for young ladies.

Next...

2010-03-13T04:58:00.001Z

Unnatural Causes

PD James

Curious that, with such an arresting opening as this book has (a handless corpse floating off the Suffolk coast), i should find it so difficult to get involved with. I think, more than anything, i found it a little tough to tell some of the characters apart at first. Once past that point, however, this became, like just about every other James, the best one she’s written. One grows to enjoy the little community she has created, the petty spites and jealousies, the sniping back and forth between these largely unsuccessful (at least in terms of importance) writers, at the death of one of them. Even Dalgliesh, in Suffolk on holiday, so the death is not his case, has trouble in his relationship with the local Inspector in charge of the case, they are overtly polite, but there is tension between them; he cannot hold himself back from doing some investigation on his own, however, and is able to show that murder has been committed, though not prevent another. The actual revelation of method and motive are interesting and unusual, in that James makes use of the murderer’s confession to show how it was done. Another classic James and Dalgliesh.

Dean Koontz’s Frankenstein: Prodigal Son

2010-02-25T15:26:00.000Z

by Dean Koontz & Kevin Anderson

I think that this is the first time i've read anything by Dean Koontz ~ though it's not altogether clear how much he was involved and how much this Kevin Anderson wrote. Be that as it may, i really enjoyed this; Koontz is known as a storyteller, i believe, and that is a truthful reputation. The plot is pretty simple: Frankenstein and his Monster have both lived to the present day; they hate each other, and are working for each other's downfall; some New Orleans cops are learning who and what they are. Of course, since this is the first book in a series, it stops at a terrible point; i daresay at some future moment i shall have to find the sequel and find out what happens next. I’m certainly engaged with the characters and the plot.

Harry

2010-02-13T09:09:00.001Z

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

JK Rowling

I read this again because i had forgotten some of the details, and that was annoying me as i thought about the book in the wake of the release of the fourth film. So, having reread it, i have a better grip on the details of the plot and some characters. The process has reinforced my belief that Snape cannot actually be still in the Dark Lord's camp; he is really too close to being a hero to be a villain. And Harry himself is becoming a less attractive character, or that is being revealed to me more than i understood in the previous books. Snape calls him a liar and a cheat, both of which are absolutely true accusations, and make Harry's actions questionable; does the end result justify unethical means? An old question which has been given different answers by different people; Harry would obviously answer that it does: His actions have proven many times that he has that Machiavellian slippery grasp of ethical logic; i wonder how Rowling would answer.

This was, obviously, some time ago, well before the final book in the series was published. Interesting to reread this now, knowing what we do about Snape and others.

Next Up...

2010-01-27T05:02:00.002Z

The Life of Greece

Will Durant

The problem is, i feel completely inadequate to write anything about this work; it has so much history to it (sorry about the pun), so much approval for the series, so much scholarship, that i cannot truly make a judgement of its value. On the other hand, in each of these reviews i try merely to give my own response to the books i read; that i am competent to do.

So, my response is...? I like the book (there’s a tentative quality to my voice, can you catch it?), for the most part. I’m not even sure i can put my finger on anything specifically that i question; perhaps it is simply the history of the book ~ i ought to like it, so much, so many times have i read about it, seen it held up as a classic. Maybe i just don’t like having something pushed down my throat ~ in which case the question arises: Why did i bother to read it? A more interesting question is, Will i, now or later, find another of Durant’s series and read that? I think so, yes; later. So, from that perspective, i must have enjoyed Greece. Some things I might have enjoyed a little more (better reproductions of more artworks), but overall, yes, i did enjoy it.

I am fascinated ~ have been for years ~ with the origins of peoples, especially those of the eastern Mediterranean; Durant has some excellent information there ~ of course, it is seventy years old; i wonder what scholarship has changed since then? At the very least, i know, Linear B has been deciphered, so that’s a new line of information to follow. Perhaps i shall find another, more recent, book i can pursue it in; another measure of success for Greece! In the end, then, the tentative tone must leave my voice as i reiterate, i enjoyed reading Durant.

Next Review

2010-01-24T04:47:00.001Z

How Now Shall We Live?

Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey

Fascinating explanation of how the Christian world has closed in on itself, partially to protect itself, and left definitions and understandings of religion, world-views, origins, beliefs to the "scientific" (that brought to full flourishing by the Enlightenment) world. Colson (he of Nixon's White House) has written to proclaim the necessity for Christians to reclaim a part of the defining of life. One of his biggest issues, as with so many conservative Christians, is a concern with the evolution/creation debate (a debate which is scarcely given the dignity of that name by the rationalist side) and the consequences (all negative) for Christians of ceding the terms to the rationalists. Colson and Pearcey's solution is to fully engage the world, refusing the allow it to set the agenda and bases of the world-view; instead they insist that Christians must understand that Christianity is not an overlay but an entire way of looking at the world, at culture, at life. Only in this way can we be complete Christians, rather than rationalists who have an extra belief.

The Last Enchantment

2010-01-19T10:11:00.001Z

Mary Stewart

Concludes Stewart’s trilogy of the story of Merlin. Well written, with characters you care about and a plot which can surprise you, though you know the story ever so well. Reinterprets parts of the story, to try and show how the legends could have arisen around a real person’s actions.

The Alchemist

2010-01-17T04:41:00.001Z

The Alchemist

Paolo Coelho

Yes. Well. The thing is, i don't like books like this, books with a message that is the sole purpose of the book, books that are supposed to inspire the reader to action, books that say that it's better to take a leap into the unknown than to be stable and secure, books that aim to change the reader's behaviour and don't bother to disguise that fact. And yet, to a degree, i did enjoy this. It is written very simply, in the style of Saint Exubery's Little Prince; maybe that is some of the appeal. The story is simple: It is a retelling of the search for treasure which ends up back at home where the true treasure is. In my background the locations are East Anglia, London Bridge, and East Anglia again. Here, the protagonist starts in Spain, goes to the pyramids, and returns to his home church where a treasure awaits him. The scoop here is that he picks up much wisdom ~ and the reader is supposed to along with him ~ in the journeying. All right, but it is heavy-handed, as these books almost can't help being. Why not be blatant about it and admit you're writing a self-help book? Because those have a different market; and because these things sell ~ God knows why, but they do. This is supposed to be one of the most successful books of the last decade or two. It's OK. Perhaps i needed to hear its message at the time i read it. It is not, however, ever going to be one of my favourite books, or styles.

Latest Review

2010-01-14T13:20:00.004Z

A Warrior's Life; A Biography of Paulo Coelho

by Fernando Morais

I should confess, in the interests of honesty, at the outset, i was prepared not to like this book. I have read only one of Coelho’s works, and i did not especially enjoy it (though i’ve not yet reread my review of it, to see exactly how i felt). I was not impressed, then, when on page four an egregious error such as calling Hungary a “part of the former Soviet Union” was made; i expected to be frustrated by reading a book which needed copy-editing properly. So, to continue with the honesty, i was pleased as i continued; there were not a lot more ridiculous errors, nor typos, nor other nonsenses the reader can do without. To be sure, there are points about the book i don’t like (more later on that), but the microlevel structure, to put it that way, was not one of them. What did i like?

Actually, i liked Morais’s writing style; he is very easy to read and, once i was able to devote a bit of time to it, i moved very quickly through the book. I found, as i have found previously, that the introduction of names is an awkward thing in biographies, as the choice seems to be either to overwhelm the reader with footnotes or reminders or to confuse him by hoping he remembers with no context a name introduced fifty pages previously; neither is a good choice, yet some biographers manage to make the process work. Not, i am afraid, Morais; i did not struggle as badly as i have in the past, but i was confused a couple of times as a name was mentioned without a reminder of who it represented ~ one time, especially, as the person was described as Coelho’s best friend on the flimsiest of evidence yet given. This complaint, however, is minor, when compared with the fine work that Morais has done on his authorised biography. There is much good here, evidence of a great deal of research : Eighty-plus people listed as interviewees, forty-odd years Coelho’s personal diary gone through in detail, over four hundred and fifty pages of text. All leading to quite a detailed biography.

The questions raised for me, though, are several variations on Why? Why is Coelho so successful? Why will the book be read? And why, oh why did Coelho allow this book to be written? To take them in order. Success as a writer was not overly quick in coming to Coelho, as told here. He was successful fairly early on in life as a lyricist for an outstandingly popular Brazilian singer, and wrote enough lyrics to keep himself and his partner of the day in sufficient luxury not to have to worry about the morrow. The immense success that he now enjoys, however, that he longed for from childhood, was much longer in arriving. While it has, it is purely a popular success; the critics almost universally despise Coelho and his writing, for a number of different reasons, from its quality to its content (and, one suspects, its very popularity). So why this popularity? The biography doesn’t enter into any real critique of Coelho’s writings, those since his popularity began in the late eighties, anyway, so it is perhaps outside the remit of this review; the closest Morais comes to giving a reason for the success is to report straight-faced that not long before that success began Coelho made a promise to a particular image of Jesus in Prague that, in return for huge popularity, he would give Jesus a new cape.

The premise of the first question answers the second: Why will the biography be read? Because the huge numbers of Coelho’s readers (over 100 million books sold throughout the world) will want to know more about their author, what makes him tick, how he writes what he does. Curiously, i think that many of them will be less than thrilled, because much more of Morais’ attention is given to Coelho’s presuccess than to any exploration of his writing technique or practice; indeed, when talking about the next book, at one point, Morais effectively just says, “He thought about it for a time, then sat down for a fortnight and wrote it all out”, which gives very little insight to the compulsive fan about methods. Perhaps this was done, as it is an authorised biography, with Coelho’s agreement, in order to maintain that air of mystery and mysticism which appears to be so important to him. Again, surprisingly little information is given about what must be the crux of the book, Coelho’s meeting with and training by a mysterious figure known as (but surely not called) Jean, Coelho’s spiritual master in Regnus Agnus Mundi, apparently an organisation within the Church of Rome (to which Coelho once again belongs) devoted to the individual’s journey towards truth. He is now, it seems, completely obedient to Jean, who at times makes varying demands upon him, demands requiring strict compliance, with the results we have seen.

Finally, i have to ask myself, why has Coelho allowed his biography to be written; more specifically, why is it this biography which, as mentioned above, is authorised? Because it does not present its subject in a flattering light. At all. The Coelho we meet in these pages is egotistical, a monomaniac about being a hugely successful writer, polygamous while apparently expecting monoandry from his women, mystical or spiritual without being careful about the source spirit ~ not a flattering portrait at all. We learn that he was three times put under treatment, including electroshock therapy, in what appears basically to have been an insane asylum, sent there by his parents, whom he was defying ~ to no greater degree than is to be expected from any teenager. We see that, even in the course of his mystical training in the work of RAM, he was faulted and held back by his enormous ego. And we are shown a picture, indeed, just about the first image we are given, of an author whose sole concern is with publicising himself and his books, for whom no amount of success is enough. I find this very odd in a biography written with the subject’s blessing. Maybe he is looking for some spiritual release in the permission for the dark side being shown. I don’t know. In the end, though, the important question is, Is this a book worth reading? And i am ambivalent, i’m afraid. I’m glad i read it, but i’m not sure that i’d pick up another by Morais and, for me, that latter is the single criterion upon which i decide i like a book.

And, finally, i ought to continue my opening honesty, and state that i have gone back and read the review of the one Coelho i have read, and i liked it more at the time than i remembered. Funny, maybe i should read another, and see if he’s better in the actual book than my recollection.

Obviously, this is not one of the series of reviews i am posting; rather it is the latest book i have received and read from the Librarything Early Reviewer programme. And it is a review i have struggled over (it's taken four different sessions over the five days since i finished it), so i am a bit tentative in offering it up. But i feel bound to.

I think i shall also put up the review of the one book of Coelho's that i have read, in the interests of completeness, if nothing else! Soon to follow...

Ann the Word

2010-01-11T04:15:00.001Z

by Richard Francis

Quite an unusual story. I did not previously know much about Ann Lee, beyond the basics that she had established (not founded) the Shakers, and considered herself somehow equivalent to Jesus Christ. This book carries all the knowledge of her i could need ~ except, perhaps, the cause of her beliefs and knowledge. Ann herself would answer, quite plainly, that God had given them to her; such an answer does not, quite, suffice for Francis.

Born in Manchester, illiterate, fluid of name (her maiden name was actually Lees), a cutter of velvet then an institutional cook, Ann became the most remarkable religious leader in North America between the Great Awakening and Transcendentalism, not excluding Joseph Smith, Junior, who was charismatic, but not original. The account Francis gives here of the remarkable decade she spent in New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut is almost unbelievable in that one person could effect so much in so many lives. Equally amazing are both the resistance she and the Shakers encountered, and the acceptance they found. Francis records several occasions in different locations in New England on which Ann was beaten or physically abused, and innumerable occasions on which the Shakers were subjected to mob attacks or threats. Remarkably, these did not slow down the growth of the group; indeed, they, like the blood of the martyrs, seem to have helped it grow by ensuring that everyone knew about the Shakers.

The Epilogue is interesting, if a little sad, as it shows Ann’s group floundering somewhat after her death, and then turning from her patterns of behaviour as they work out a permanent plan of survival. Never, though, did they turn from their understanding of Ann as the female counterpart to Jesus, and a woman who possessed in an abundant measure the power and presence of God. Francis has made that woman alive again for his readers, thus doing a great favour to us.

Sleeping Murder

2010-01-09T13:28:00.001Z

by Agatha Christie

Rather a well performed production here. It is a bit of a stretch, as so much Christie is, with coincidences here and there to make the plot flow the way she wanted/needed it to. Once you get past the major one of actually going back to the same house, which Christie does explain relatively satisfactorily, the rest fall into place. Miss Marple is, as usual, perceptive where others are blind; the villain is devious and obvious. Again, a classic production, evidently dating from the middle of her career, when she was at the peak of her form, though it is described as Miss Marple's last case; that description is deceptive, because it was marketed in the same way as Curtain, but they are not comparable; after all, Poirot dies in his last case.

Number Two

2010-01-07T04:42:00.001Z

There's Treasure Everywhere

Bill Watterson

I love Calvin and Hobbes. They are so funny, so real. Calvin is the six-year-old little boy; Hobbes the stuffed tiger who is real in Calvin’s mind and, hence, the pictures and their adventures. I especially like that once in a great while Watterson drew Hobbes from the outsiders’ point of view, and we see the stuffed toy, not the living, walking, talking tiger. Too bad Watterson stopped drawing this comic strip.

Songs of Distant Earth

2010-01-03T04:53:00.005Z

by Arthur C. Clarke

Once again, we discover that Clarke can write.

Again, as in others of his works, the heroes are not Earthmen ~ though descended from human genotypes, they are native Thalassians, and have been for generations. The Earthmen, the last in the universe, appear in the spaceship Magellan (no symbolism there, is there?), on their way to another star system, hundreds of years away, and it becomes doubtful ~ briefly ~ whether they will play the part of antagonists or behave themselves and fulfil their mission. The true antagonists, though, that will in generations to come challenge the Thalassians, are a previously unknown true native (not from Earth genotype) of the oceans of Thalassa.

Clarke’s imagination, knowledge, and ability to guess ~ accurately ~ where he does not know, is, as always, phenomenal. The picture of a colony of humans on a planet of water, struggling for survival in what could be a harsh environment, since it is not the original of their genotype, is brilliant. Though they struggle, they also live indolently, like the original South Sea Islanders, obviously the source of much of the picture. Yet there is something wonderful and scary in the idea of their founders ~ the Earth scientists who created their Mother Ship, loaded it, sent it ~ choosing for them the form of their culture, the portions of history, literature, Art, that they would have access to. The Thalassians are truly not Earthmen, for they do not have the history of Earth behind them. What we are shown is what a culture of humans would be like without Earth. Interesting idea.

1000 Reviews!

2010-01-01T11:57:00.001Z

Right, it’s the first of January, and the last book i read (as the previous entry on this blog shows) was the one thousandth since i began the process of writing a review of each book read shortly after finishing it. That surely makes this the perfect moment to offer a small selection of those reviews here. So i’ll post one every two or three days over the next month, till maybe twenty or so are on-line ~ about two percent of the total. Why not?

I’ll be honest about the reviews; i will randomly select them, and i won’t change the selection to choose a better review. In fact, to ensure mine honesty, i have just run a random number generator, so the reviews will be of books numbered: 162, 487, 566, 207, 34, 625, 155, 627, 618, 131, 541, 732, 588, 174, 133, 47, 583, 698, 22, and 42. I haven’t looked yet, so i hope these are good reviews. I’ll post them, either way. The only change i’ll make is in the unlikely event that there isn’t a review at the indicated number (there are a few, probably a couple of dozen, books without reviews, for assorted reasons, mostly to do with software messing up records); if that happens, i’ll take the next in line.

I do reserve the right, however, to edit them before i post them, but that’s nothing new, they are always edited, lightly or otherwise, before being moved to their permanent location in the computer storage.

In the meantime, let’s take a brief look at the statistics (always a fascinating subject), of the books i’ve read and recorded since 1999.

By genre, first, always remembering that these genre choices are purely subjective and somewhat arbitrary (are Jeeves stories humour or short stories, for example):

Autobiography 22
Biography 56
Criticism 26
Drama 5
History 117
Humour 9
Language/Linguistics 11
Reference 3
Religion 26
Children’s fiction 25
Juvenile fiction 74
Historical fiction 27
Humorous fiction 24
Mystery 202
Science fiction 54
Short stories 33
Other fiction 177
Poetry 4
Assorted non-fiction 78

That doesn’t actually total 1000. Oh well; probably to do with my skills, or lack thereof, in manipulating formulae and spreadsheets. Still, it’s a large enough sample to get a picture of what i like to read.

Next, the view by year:

1999 29
2000 113
2001 127
2002 79
2003 85
2004/5 197 (computer error lost about ten months of dates)
2006 136
2007 93
2008 78
2009 63

Again, interesting: Some pretty productive years there, though i wonder if the “big” years tend to have shorter reviews. Last year, 2009, not such a good year for volume, but i read some quite large and detailed books, so that requires more time and devotion. Anyway, there it is.

An Early Review!

2009-12-28T10:57:00.003Z

A Marvelous Hundred Square Miles: Black Hills Tourism, 1880-1941

Suzanne Barta Julin

This is the one thousandth book i have read and recorded since i started writing these reviews almost eleven years ago. In some ways that is quite an impressive milestone; in others, it really doesn't seem to mean much at all, in that it is less than a hundred books a year, and i would have guessed i read more than that, and the writing is of a patchy quality and quantity; of course, it is designed to please no one but myself, and originally planned just to provide an aide-memoire since i kept on forgetting if i had read something previously. That being said, what about this book, which i must write a review for, as it was a gift from the publisher under Librarything’s Early Reviewers programme, and one of the (very loose) conditions for that is that a review be written.

The book has a very limited scope, being focussed solely on the Black Hills area of South Dakota before the USA’s entrance into the Second World War; with such a narrow focus it is curious that there is a simple assumption that the reader knows about the area of interest, many of the personalities, the specialised knowledge that ought to be explained before beginning the history. To that end, a map of the Black Hills would have been useful, locating them within the United States; there is a small and not terribly good map showing the location within South Dakota and Wyoming, and placing some of the points of interest within the Hills, the eponymous hundred square mile, but i found it curiously unuseful as a reference, being little more than blobs of colour with a few circles and squiggles as towns and roads. One may argue, saying that any map could be described that way; i merely point to the difference between these two and any production of the Ordnance Survey.

Unfortunately, the quality of writing seems to be of a similar calibre, giving the information promised in the subtitle, but with little of the flair or style which a skilled historical author might have brought to it. (Disclosure: The book may be suffering by comparison, as i am also currently reading Frank Stenton’s volume of the Oxford History of England, Anglo-Saxon England, which is brilliant.) The truth is that Julin gives information, and quite a lot of it, but seems to find it difficult to put that information into any context, other than that she went on holiday in the Black Hills as a child and vowed to write about them one day. Perhaps the most interesting part of the book to me was the recounting of Calvin Coolidge’s holiday in South Dakota in 1927; but that oughtn’t have been the case.

Children's book

2009-12-16T13:49:00.001Z

How the Loon Lost her Voice

Anne Cameron

Funny. Had i been asked, i would have said that i had read this book, until i picked it up to enter it on the list of books we own and realised i hadn't. So i did. Short, a retelling of what appears to be a First Nations (to be Canadian PC) legend retold for children, it is sweet and friendly. I liked it; i have always been pleased with stories that hook into reality cleverly, and this does by explaining why ravens like shiny stuff, why loons are almost silent, why stags' antlers fall off annually. The artwork is lovely; reminiscent of West Coast Indian artwork, but not copied from it at all, it adds a dimension to the story nicely. And this must stop, or be longer than the book.

Odds & Evens...and Five.

2009-10-18T12:40:00.001+01:00

Following on, then, from thinking about treven, trod, and trud numbers, i have been thinking about odd and even ones. And realised something a bit, well, odd.

An even number, of course, is a whole number that is divisible by two exactly, with no remainder. Obviously, an odd one is one of the rest, leaving a remainder of one. It is easy to tell an odd number from an even one, as they always end in 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9; in addition, any number which ends with one of those digits is also odd, which is not quite saying the same thing. The reverse is, of course, also true: All even numbers end in 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8.

Except...except this is only true for as long as we use base ten. Let's switch for a second to base five, that is we can use only the first five digits (counting from zero) to represent numbers. We count this way in base five: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 20 (that's zero to ten). In this system, while the same definition of odd and even apply (divisibility by two), the representation is different. The even numbers are 0, 2, 4, 11, 13, 20 (that's zero, two, four, six, eight, ten). Evidently, in base five, the sum of the digits can be used to tell if a number is odd or even. Or, to be more precise, because it's all i've really shown here, the sum of the last two digits of a base five number shows if the number is even.

What about treven numbers, then? Is there an easy way in base five representation to tell if a number is treven, trod or trud? Well, the three times table, base five, is 3, 11, 14, 22, 30, 33, 41, 44.... I may be mistaken, but i don't see an obvious method. Why not? What is it about base ten which makes it work for three, but not base five? What numbers might it work for, base five? And what about other bases? Oh, so many questions, and all of them beyond me.

Films

2009-10-14T08:52:00.001+01:00

Hmm, well tried watching a film recently that i had to give up on. Really annoying, too, because it was an excellent book, Children of Men by P.D. James. Chenowyth talked about the film when she visited, so we rented it to watch with her. Goodness, what a waste of time.

What is wrong with directors who make films ~ and are apparently proud of it ~ which don’t entertain? Why in the world do they keep having money thrown at them by studios? And, for goodness sake, what am i missing, why do audiences continue to watch their films?

This man, Alfonso Cuarón, can obviously make good films, because he made the third of the Harry Potter series, which was perhaps the best of the bunch so far. Certainly he had a different vision of Hogwarts and the world of wizardry than the preceding director. It was, however, an acceptable vision, reasonably close to the books, and at least as well received, as i recall, as those of the “family friendly” director of the first two, Chris Columbus. What, then, went wrong with Children of Men?

Well, let's see. Part of it is my great frustration with directors who hide facts, especially plot details, forcing the audience to work hard at understanding what is going on. Another part is the fallacy that they can fall into of thinking that their primary purpose is to make great art, and using special tricks and techniques is an essential point on the path to art. A third part, though lesser and subject to a different complaint, is the changing of perfectly good books' plots and/or characters to make a film.

First, then, the hiding of plot details. There are valid reasons, i suppose, to keep certain things hidden ~ in a detective mystery, for example, you don't want to know before the point of revelation who the murderer is. In the average film, however, the audience needs to be able to follow the plot in order to understand what is happening, let alone why it is happening. In Children of Men there were too many scenes, too early in the film, when it was not clear what was happening, nor why. I felt lost and confused, which are not good feelings, not what i would expect a director to be aiming to induce in me.

Second, changing plots and characters, sometimes (though not in the case of Children of Men, i admit) so greatly that there is nothing in common with the original book except the title. If they enjoyed the book in the first place enough to want to make a film, for heaven’s sake, why not make a film of what they enjoyed?

Third, though perhaps first in terms of cause and effect, is the desire to make “art” and the (perceived) necessity to therefore be complicated and difficult to understand. In my opinion, admittedly an uninformed one, but i hold to my right to hold it, is that art develops out of the real that a creator produces, and the real comes from his (or her, remember 'his' is an inclusive word) desire to communicate something with his audience, viewer, reader. A true creator, maker, poet from the Greek ποιητης, is one whose first concern is making, and a long way second is to be an Artist. The problem then arises when you have a film director or a painter whose first desire is to make “Art”, because they lose the focus on communication, and thus lose touch with their prospective audience. And i find very little tolerance in myself for such pretensions, so looking at a crucifix in urine, for example, i see no attempt to communicate but simply pretension by the maker, and i am gone. The same is true with a film that has forgotten that i need to be brought into it, to be communicated with, to be, almost, wooed until i am hooked. Push pretentiousness at me before i'm committed, and i have no desire to stay. And won’t; i still neither know nor care how Children of Men ends.

Threes

2009-10-08T14:27:00.001+01:00

So, i'd like to offer three new words ~ new to me, at any rate; probably someone has previously used and defined them ~ which the language seems to lack. They are formed along the lines of odd and even, as you'll see: They are treven (pronounced 'tree-vən), trod, and trud. I define them like this: A number which is perfectly divided by three (i.e., with no remainder) is treven; a number which, when divided by three leaves a remainder of one is trod; obviously, a number which divided by three gives a remainder of two is trud. (As a mnemonic, a trod number is one over a treven number, a trud number is one under.) As i say, these, or others with similar meanings, may well have been created and used for years, by mathematicians if no one else, but i have not come across them, and found the need for them in thinking about some ideas today.

Everyone knows that a number divisible by three has digits that add to three or to another number divisible by three. For example, 345 is evenly divisible by three because 3+4+5=12 and 12 is divisible by three because 1+2=3. Thus it is clear that a number is treven if its digits add to 3 or 6 or 9 or any other treven number.

So i wondered, is there a way to tell, if a number is not treven, is it trod or trud? Well, let's look at a few examples. 749÷3=249 remainder 2; it is trud, and 7+4+9=20, which is a trud number, and 2+0=2, which is also trud. 157942=52647 remainder 1; it is trod, and 1+5+7+9+4+2=28, a trod number, and 2+8=10, also a trod number. 6847004 is trud; 6+8+4+7+4=29, which is also trud; 2+9=11, trud again, and 1+1=2, also trud.

There are seven example numbers (749, 20, 157942, 28, 6847004, 29, 11) seeming to follow a pattern which suggests itself: Just as a treven number's digits add to a treven number, a trod number's digits will add to a trod number, and those of a trud number to a trud number. A lovely, clear pattern, something i love to find in numbers. But, along the lines of single swallows and summer, four numbers do not a law make. Therefore, i need someone clever to tell me, is this a known law? And, more importantly, why does it work?

'Nother Early Review

2009-08-15T20:00:00.003+01:00

Blest Atheist
by
Elizabeth Mahlou

Difficult review to start writing. I wanted to like this book, for a couple of reasons: One, it was a freebie, an Early Reviewers copy through Librarything, and when i'm given something my tendency & desire is to like it; two, i like the theme, an atheist who ends up forced to accept God's existence and presence in the world. Trouble is, i found it hard to like it, though it has very definitely got good points.

One of my problems, to be perfectly fair, was of my own making. It has taken me several months ~ at least four ~ to finish the book, and that is because i lost it twice: “Tidied” and put away, i had no idea where to find it, and nor did anyone else apparently. That makes it a bit more difficult to keep focussed on a book, its characters, its themes. I am fairly confident, however, in mine ability to hold books in my mind for lengths of time exceeding that which i took here; Crime and Punishment, for example, i held as a whole, though it is much bigger and more complex, for the stretch it took me to complete it.

A second problem i found was a lack of focus in Mahlou: She uses one story in the first part, that of a Siberian boy she takes under her wing to bring to America for healing, as a framework for the whole of her life up until she left atheism, but it is, in some ways, an unfortunate choice, as too much has to be told outside the frame, and the effort to reënter it is rather more than i could easily manage. I felt as though i was being pulled and pushed to fit her narrative desire, and being bullied is almost never a good position to be a reader in. It was almost as though, once she had decided to use Shura's story, she was unwilling to let it go, even when it was not helping the narrative, hindered it, even. Admittedly, it was a good story for her purposes, in that is consists of a whole lot of coincidences, which Mahlou uses to imply the existence of God ~ often through a sly sarcasm which i found a little jarring. I have to confess, until the end of the first part, which is easily the majority of the book, i was completely unconvinced about Mahlou's conviction that God exists, as her proofs really seemed to be just the series of coincidences i already mentioned.

The second part is much more convincing and, to be completely honest, far more interesting; it's hard to see, really, why she gave it comparatively so little space in the book. In this section, Mahlou has a total, ongoing, and intimate experience of the presence of a personal God. This is the heart of the book; this is what is compelling about her story; this is what ought to have been the majority of the book, perhaps with her previous lifestory abbreviated to set the scene. All in all, then, i'm afraid that i found this an unsatisfying book.

Mumbo-Jumbo

2009-07-28T09:14:00.002+01:00

How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
by Francis Wheen

     Rather an annoying book, at times, this. Not, i fear, in the way that Wheen probably intended for it to be annoying to certain people (those at whom he is poking fun), but annoying in the way that he has written it. The design is to explore how people turn off their minds and fall for all sorts of evident nonsense for assorted reasons, especially because it makes them feel good or meets some ulterior motive.
    There are several problems with the book; one is that i don’t think Wheen is quite certain of what he wants to do ~ or, rather, he is certain of his ultimate goal, but not so sure of the means he ought to use to attain that goal. He would like to destroy the foolishness of other people’s minds and obsessions; he is not sure whether ’tis best done through humour or argument, and thus he uses both, and neither to its full effect. Jeremy Paxman has made his choice: On the cover his one word review is quoted, “Hilarious”; evidently he has been able to overlook the parts of the book which are not hilarity-provoking, which do not even approach the humorous, and focus on what amused him. I cannot. Interestingly, neither did the writer of the back cover blurb, who calls it both “hilarious and [a] gloriously impassioned polemic”.
    Another problem i have is that Wheen is not, in the passionately polemical sections, an especially good arguer. One simple example suffices: Wheen gives a quote often attributed to Chesterton which he then argues against. First, though something like the quote as he gives it is universally attributed to GKC (though no one seems to know from where), Wheen uses a form somewhat different from that usually given ~ “When a man ceases to believe in God he does not believe in nothing; he believes in anything” as opposed to something like “The danger when a man ceases to believe in God is not that he will believe nothing, but that he may believe anything” ~ now while with an untraceable quote one may be free to use any form, the fact that the one Wheen selects is different from and has a slightly different meaning to the usual form is significant. More significant is that he then equates anything and nothing which, even in the form he has quoted, clearly are not the same thing. He then suggests that the aphorism would be better phrased as, “If you believe in God, you’ll believe anything” which is stupid on so many levels that i find it hard even to start to criticise it.
    A third problem i found is that, despite my frustration with both Wheen’s style(s) and argumentative capacity, i agree strongly with what he wants to say. At the time, for example, i found the whole Princess Diana fiasco an embarrassing (even for a Briton in America) reflection on mindless emotionalism; much of the chapter entitled “Us and Them” which ponders the younger President Bush’s world-view as an example of much of America’s, is highly relevant to the way the nations and peoples of the world views themselves and each other. That is frustrating, a problem for me, because i agree with Wheen, and find myself asking why he couldn’t have done better on such important and interesting issues.

Early Review

2009-07-12T06:18:00.002+01:00

Seth Bullock; Black Hills Lawman

David A. Wolff

A fascinating book about a minor character of American history. I suppose that he is of interest to most people because there is a character based on him in Deadwood, a television series of a few years ago; i dare say that is even the stimulous behind Wolff's writing of the book ~ that, and correcting the errors of the series' portrayal. Since i, however, had never heard of the programme, certainly never seen it, this book was my first (and only) introduction to Seth Bullock, and for that purpose it serves admirably.

Wolff has evidently done an immense amount of research; the notes are thirty pages of the two hundred page book, and the bibliography is another eight, and i have no fault to find with his scholarship. In fact, i'm not certain, at this point, that i find fault at all with the book, save perhaps, that the latter years of Bullock's life seem rather skimmed over, when compared with the detail given on the earlier, pre-Roosevelt shall we say, ones. This might be a reflection of the sources available, i suppose, though i suspect that if more was to be found on the man's earlier, less public life, that would be quite unusual in historiography. I would rather guess that it is the influence, perhaps without Wolff realising it, of the programme mentioned above, which i imagine focusses more on the Wild West aspects of the town of Deadwood and its leading citizens. Still, this is a minor complaint in a good book, and one i really didn't intend to focus upon.

The main point, as far as i am concerned, is that i have read a fascinating book about a man i never knew existed, about a time of history i really didn't (and don't) know very well, other than the basic “cowboys and indians” ideas that one obtains by osmosis from childhood, and now i have a slightly better feeling for the people of the Wild West. Not all of them came are portrayed by Wolff as real people, but there is enough life in the biography for the reader to grasp a flavour of it, and to be reminded that, yes they were actual people, the miners, the cowboys, the sheriffs, the hardware store owners, and all the rest, not just myths or characters on television and the silver screen. And that realisation of the reality of history is, in my opinion, sufficient justification for any history book to be called a success.

Another Early Review

2009-03-31T04:43:00.001+01:00

Mother Teresa's Fire

Joseph Langford

A very interesting exploration of what it was that made Mother Teresa Mother Teresa. The short answer is that she had an encounter with God one day, in which she was given a new understanding of one of Jesus' words on the cross (“I thirst”), an understanding that she was able to keep with her, meditating on it almost continually it seems, for the rest of her life, such that she moved out of “regular” Christianity into the realm of becoming one of the (from our perspective) chosen saints. Very briefly, Sister Teresa was travelling for some religious or vocational purpose on a train in India, when God showed her that in Jesus statement he was not making a physical statement primarily (though surely it was also true), but was pointing out that the reason for his whole life and current suffering in crucifixion was that he thirsts for love. This is not a new insight; many of the saints, as well as theologians, have made it previously. The novelty in Sister Teresa's experience, that which influenced her entire life so completely as to make her Mother Teresa, was that she found a way to daily meditate on that statement, on the “thirst” of Jesus for people's love, her love specifically, that her character was transformed and deepened.

Langford, a priest who knew and worked on some level with Mother Teresa, has written this book with, i should guess, two purposes: First, he preserves her insight and experience, which is valuable in itself, for historical/biographical reasons; second, and surely more important, he wants to make that insight available to all Christians, in order that all may grasp Jesus' thirst for love and respond to it as she did. To that, latter, end two guided meditations are included, one on Jesus' thirst specifically, one based on the Woman at the Well episode from John 4 (curiously, the former is included twice: Once in the text, once as an appendix; i suppose its importance is such that it must not be missed or lost in the body of the book).

So, overall, was this a good effort, worth my reading time? To be sure. To be honest, it is a rare book i can't find some value in (three i can think of in the past ten years, out of a total of just under one thousand, that i haven't been able to finish), but not that “basic value” alone adheres to this book; i found the meditations useful, as an exploration of that love i need in my life at the moment, along with the explanation of Mother Teresa's powerful will and determination to daily recreate in herself the mystic experience she had. There were points i disliked, to be clear, about the book and Langford's writing: One is the tendency which he has, perhaps as a priest in the Roman Church, to beatify Mother Teresa and make everything that she said and did especially holy and valuable. This is another expression of the same behaviour as that of Benedict, who appears to be set on “fast-tracking” John Paul II into sainthood, and i find it cheapens, rather than enhances, the subject. A second feature of the book i found less valuable was the insistence, to the point of including a complete appendix (there are four) of quotations from saints, spiritual writers, and doctors of the Church, on the orthodoxy of the insight into Jesus' thirst; i fear that here Langford has allowed himself to be drawn aside into the question of whether Mother Teresa should be declared a Doctor of the Church, and it is clear on which side he falls. These caveats to one side, however, i enjoyed this book. Yes.

New Review

2009-03-23T10:27:00.002Z

They Came to Baghdad

Agatha Christie

Rather a long review for a book that might be thought to be a bit of a light-weight. Well, i enjoyed it.

Quite a strange experience here. I picked this volume up in the second-hand place recently assuming i had read it, because i think that i've read all of Christie's works ~ at least, all the fiction published under her real name. When i read the first paragraph, though, i didn't remember it, so i bought the thing, fully expecting to start remembering when i started reading. I didn't. In fact, i finished it this morning still not sure whether i have read it previously or not. There is one moment, one quick event, right towards the end of the book, which made me think that i had read it before, but even there, looking back at it, i'm not sure. What about it, then, so that i don't have this curious experience again?

It is a spy novel, of a sort, a thriller, rather than a murder mystery. There are none of Christie's regular or even semi-regular characters; the entire cast is new, though a number of the types are those she has used previously. The plot itself is the rather hackneyed Cold War standard of a world stumbling towards global catastrophe, urged by a group planning to use the disaster for their own nefarious purposes. This time, to be sure, the conspirators are ~ or think they are ~ the men of the future, the youth planning a better world, rather than the military-industrial complex so frequently used; they are, however, much of a part with the armaments crew, just as the good guys are fairly stock secret service types, and the protagonist a typical Christie heroine.

All this is not to say, however, that i didn't enjoy reading it; i did. Why? Partly from the joy of having worked out beforehand a portion of what was to follow, including the identity of one of the leaders of the plot ~ something that often doesn't happen with me and a Christie that i've forgotten (or not previously read). Partly, also, from the pleasure i took in the descriptions Christie gave of her villain: She calls him Lucifer, in what is the most explicit use of Biblical imagery and quotation that i remember in her works, and dwells rather nicely on the way that his pride appears on his visage for all (whose eyes have been opened) to see. She has taken things from the Bible in other books, i immediately remember a cat called Maher-shalal-hash-baz, and Miss Marple and other elderly ladies often speak of the divine in vague ways, but this is the only real reference i recall to the deep Biblical knowledge which all people of that generation, and several on either side of it, had, and i like it.

Couple of Reviews

2009-01-03T14:47:00.004Z

It's been so long, perhaps i ought to simply give up; but, maybe while i think about that, here are a pair of reviews of fairly recently read books.

Sophie’s World
Jostein Gaarder
This is the first book i have read knowing that it was on the list out of 501Must-Read Books ~ in fact, i read it because it was on that list: It wasn't long after i had finished and written the review for the list that Lynne came home with a second-hand copy of Sophie's World, and i decided that at some point fairly soon i would have to read it. So i have. The question, then, for me is, Is it a must-read book? Regretfully, i have to answer, No, it is not. Clearly, for me, anyway, it is not a wish-i-hadn't book, either. No, i'm glad i've now read it; i'm just not certain i'd recommend it completely to most people. Certainly not, considering the age of the protagonists (they're just coming up to their fifteenth birthdays), to the probably target audience. What are my problems with it?

Well, it starts out very abruptly (an odd thing to say, because in some sense all books obviously do) with an almost immediate plunge into the purpose of philosophy and the thoughts of the pre-Socratics. We are really given no time to get to know, let alone to begin to like, the first of two protagonists, Sophie, a Norwegian teenager; and that is, maybe, best, because she is actually not very likeable at all, i found, functioning at first, and indeed most of the way through the book, merely as a peg to hang the philosophy lessons on ~ she is drawn into philosophy by a mysterious, unknown at first, teacher who would run the risk in today's society of being labelled (unfairly, i hasten to add) a possible pædophile. Sophie is disobedient, not especially kind, but like the proverbial sponge soaks up everything she is offered, and is able to remember and review all the philosophers and philosophies she has run across at a moment's notice, making surprising correlations as she does so ~ quite unlike most teenagers i have run into.

The story develops somewhat, as Sophie starts getting messages for a girl she doesn't know, and the mystery is apparently solved as we learn that Sophie and her teacher are characters in a book, written by her father for this unknown Hilde, the other protagonist. At this point the book starts playing the standard games of what is real and what is not that authors like to be clever about, and the whole primary story (Sophie's) degenerates into a party which reminds me of nothing so much as Petronius' Satyricon, as Sophie and her teacher attempt to escape from their book. The other story also turns absurd, and i have to confess that i lost a certain amount of interest ~ never overly strong. The strength of the book is that part which will be most uninteresting to the audience, the philosophy lessons given to Sophie; they are interesting, and clearly Gaarder put a great deal of effort into them; i wish he had also worked that much on the surrounding stories.

James Joyce's “Ulysses”; A Study
Stuart Gilbert
In a curious twist i bought my copy of this book at the same time and place as a copy of The Odyssey which i am now reading aloud with Chenowyth. I can’t remember now if the one purchase was influenced by the other or if, which is more likely, i saw both and wanted both. At any rate, whatever the cause, i bought this and read it over the next couple of weeks.

The problem, of course, is that i have not read Ulysses completely for twentyfive years, about, and none of it for three years, since it’s that long since i saw our copy, currently still boxed in the USA. Clearly, i will one day have to reread Joyce with this book sitting nearby, since it is painfully obvious just how much i either have forgotten or never understood in the first place ~ probably the former, since i did read it in a literature class during which, one would hope, the latter would not happen. I wonder, incidentally, how much Joycean scholarship has travelled on past Gilbert in the past seventy years (this is a 1960 reprint by Faber and Faber of a 1952 reissue of the 1930 edition); perhaps a long way but, then again, perhaps not, as Gilbert did have the benefit of Joyce himself in writing his Study.

So much is packed in here that it is hard to focus my memory on any one part and “review” it, recall it in writing, my reaction to it, as i try to do in these little snippets; one of the benefits, the points i enjoyed, about it is that that Gilbert does quote quite extensively from Joyce, so although i haven’t read it for so long, i am reminded of various parts of Ulysses, which is a definite plus. On the opposite side, however, Gilbert has the habit i know i have mentioned in other authors too of assuming that my Latin, Greek, French, and German are the equal of his; yes, it is a compliment, but not accurate now, if it ever was, and it causes a certain amount of loss to his argument, as one of his primary sources is a French examination of the Odyssey as an Hellenic interpretation of Phœnecian geography and stories. Bother.

Harry Potter I

2008-07-17T09:52:00.002+01:00

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone
by
J.K. Rowling

Bought this the other day for a pound because our othr copy is stuck in the USA and not likely to be here for months or more yet. This is the second time i have read the first book in the septology, and it was very interestng to go back after eight years and do it again. Doing so, i found that there is one character who, to me, is permanently coloured by the portrayal given in the films, and that is Hagrid; when i think of Rubeus Hagrid as i read, i find i automatically think of him as portrayed by Robbie Coltrane, which is rather interesting, as Coltrane was apparently Rowling’s conception of Hagrid from the beginning ~ obviously, her writing reflected her conception, and the actor and directors have interpreted her well. There isn’t another character for which i can say the same thing; none of them is simply appalling, but none of them, going back to this book and then thinking through the lot, has the same resonance with my imagination as Hagrid.

Moving on, what can i say about this book this time through? Well, it was interesting to me to see how much i had forgotten. If you had asked me before i read it, i would have said that i remembered pretty much all of the book, the characters, the twists, the developments of the plot; after all, i haven’t fully reread it since we bought it, but i’ve seen the film several times, read all other six books, and read portions of this one numerous times. And, to be fair, i did remember the main structure of the book; i was surprised, however, several times as i read it this time, at what i had forgotten: There was more than i expected gone from my memory, which gave me some pleasant surprises as i read. It was, indeed, a pleasant expereicne to reread this book, which is a brilliant introduction to the septology: Rowling benefited from the editing she apparently didn’t get later on; she did not cram more between the covers than they could comfortably carry; the charactrs are presented to the reader in the best way possible, we are allowed to like or not each one correctly as we meet them, several times someone is introduced with humour (Fred, George, and Percy, for example). All in all, i really had a fun time racing through this book again. A pound well spent!

501 Books

2008-07-13T08:57:00.002+01:00

501 Must-Read Books
edited by
Emma Beare

Sometimes i like lists like this, other times, not. This time, it’s not too bad; i disagree with some of the choices ~ what kind of a reader would i be if i didn’t! ~ but i agree with a lot. I took a couple of highlighters to the book as i read through it, one to indicate if iv’e read the book listed, another to show that we actually own it, here; there’d be even more showing if i had cheated and highlighted the ones i know we have back in America, but i didn’t, because that felt like cheating (after all, i don’t know that we’ll ever see them again [pause here to weep]). I once started keeping a list of books i wanted to read for one reason or another, usually because a writer i enjoyed or respected recommended them; i have not yet added any from this book to that list, and may find that i don’t ~ perhaps because there are too many, perhaps because it is a little against my principles to read something because i ‘ought’ to, and that is what this feels like. Nevertheless, there are several in here that i have been tempted to attempt to find and read. We’ll see, a couple of years from now perhaps, how this list of reviews looks: Will there be many more on it that i was urged to read by 501 Must-Read Books?

Two Reviews

2008-06-26T14:32:00.002+01:00

Two, because i've been quite slacky about posting lately ~ though not about writing. Let's go then, first with:

Riotous Assembly
by
Tom Sharpe

It seems to me that the last time i read one of Tom Sharpe's works i was less than pleased with it; let me place it firmly on the record now, that that is not the case this time around. Not at all. This was the first Sharpe i ever read, and i clearly remember being in the library at Loretto, sitting in the window beside the newspaper stand, devouring it. It was just as funny this time around, or more so. The absurdity is so overwhelming that really i cannot even begin to describe any of the plot machinations or characters, except to say it takes place in the South Africa of the National Party, with all that implies; the actual events are, perhaps it is to be hoped, just a little too extreme even for that country at that time, but the farcical nature of the policemen who try to prevent crime by committing it, cover up death by causing it, and show respect by destroying the object of respect is a joy to read for anyone who ever has had reason to doubt the efficiency of ~ let alone the philosophical basis for ~ a police force. I hope that one day i may cause someone as much pleasure as they read something of mine as i have gained from Tom Sharpe here.

Enjoy that? Good, then there's:

The Way it Was
by
Ken Walters

A collection of eleven sermons by Ken Walters, until last year Warden of the Church of St. Michael and all Angels, Aberystwyth. I have heard him preach a few times, though none of these sermons, and reading them i can hear his voice: He has a very distinctive style which comes through in each selection in the collection. Perhaps it arises from being a professor in a complicated subject ~ applied mathematics, what i think is called engineering in North America ~ which needs slowly and carefully explaining to occasionally half-witted students; he is thereby prepared to spend time explaining to a slow congregation the particular points he feels led to make. Several of the sermons i have heard, and all in this collection, are what you might call character studies, a small autobiographical snippet from, usually, a lesser known character of the New Testament; Ken has an ability to draw all the known facts of, for example Silas, together, and present them as a coherent whole, giving what might well be new insight into how and just why Silas acted as he did at certain points in his story. Well worth listening to, and worth reading, as well.

Fat, Bald, and Worthless

2008-06-11T13:31:00.001+01:00

Fat, Bald and Worthless
by
Robert Easton

Light reading, for the average reader who picks up the book just on the basis of the title. Not, in other words, to be taken as a final source for research results, though an excellent place to start such hypothetical research, because it has, amongst fifty pages of end matter, ten small print pages of bibliography.

I really make no comment on the accuracy of the stories Easton gives; some of them seem a bit dubious, and in some cases he strives for a cuteness not really suited to a history book (see, for example, “John the Wizard”, who “simply lacked the magic needed to prevent his homeland from tumbling into vassalage after his death”). A second point which i shall comment upon, is the questionable names some of the subjects are given: I don’t suppose that i have read everything, nor do i imagine that i am aware of all the many and varied names given the nobles of Europe; i do think, however, that it is surprising that i haven’t ever heard of a British monarch’s primary nickname, and yet that is the case with Edward the Caresser ~ the admittedly appropriate name Easton gives Edward VII. “Tum Tum”, Bertie, “the Uncle of Europe”, Edward the Peacemaker ~ all these i have heard or read previously; but the caresser? I wonder to myself where Easton found it? It didn't even turn up in the biography i had previously read. And, curiuosly, the very next name is another Edward, “Edward Carnarvon”, to whom i have always given a medial “of”, a minor point, to be sure, but odd.

These caveats aside, i did enjoy the book, and would certainly keep it for light reading, and a good bibliographical source.

26 Tales from the Testaments

2008-06-01T07:48:00.002+01:00

26 Tales from the Testaments; An Alliterated Bible Passage in Every Letter of the Alphabet
by
Cameron M. Semmons & Marc Rader

Lovely retellings of some Bible stories in verse ~ of a sort ~ with the primary catch that almost all the words in most of the poems are alliterative, so Semmons works his way through the alphabet. Sometimes the work is, as one might expect, a bit forced, though never painful and, i should think, still good in performance; many of the stories, however, are brilliantly retold, with new insights and ideas pushed forward because of the need to avoid or emphasise certain vocabulary. I particularly enjoyed the sound effects in the story of the wise and foolish builders (letter F words) and Pentecost (P) ~ especially interesting to me in that i have always linked flowing water with the sound of F, as in my poem “The Fountains of Rome”, and now perhaps i’m not alone. This will be a good source for our Church drama group to draw from; i’m sure that we can bring a newness to an occasional reading with one of these poems. Certainly a good thing that Andrew lent me the book.

Gents

2008-05-30T08:29:00.002+01:00

Gents
by
Warwick Collins

This also came from the Librarything Early Reviewer programme; it was my allocation in the February batch of books ~ apparently the publisher had some difficulties delivering; it has not taken me three months to read it! It is quite a sweet book, taking after the main character, who seems to be a very sweet man.

Ez, for Ezekiel, is an immigrant from Jamaica, living in London with his wife and son; we follow him as he makes his way to his new place of employment, a public convenience near an Underground station; there, he meets the two other major characters, his fellow employees, who have already had experience in the business of keeping the place clean and acceptable. As it turns out, under the Council's direction, a large part of that “acceptable” means keeping the cubicles free from homosexual encounters, which appear to be the norm between random strangers in the book's London. The problem for Ez and his colleagues arises when, on the orders of the Council's representative, they start to clamp down on the homosexuals, whom they call “reptiles”, the income from the place goes down quite substantially, to the point, in fact, that the place is going to be closed down completely. In between all this and the working out of a final solution to the problem, we read of Ez's home life, and his relationships with his two co-workers, none of which is perfectly smooth, but each of which Ez is willing to work at, to differing degrees.

All in all, this is a nice portrait of a man who is willing to go through life as it comes to him, not pushing it, accepting what it gives, and making lemonade from the lemons that sometimes come his way. One leaves the book liking Ez and his wife, hoping that things work out for them, and their son, and the new business of the Gents.

Baroness Cox

2008-05-17T14:42:00.002+01:00

Baroness Cox; A Voice for the Voiceless
by
Andrew Boyd

A birthday present, this biography, because we enjoyed Baroness Cox’s speaking so much when she visited St. Mike’s last year. This is not a conventional biography (as, perhaps, Cox is not a conventional baroness), but more a look at three of the conflicts of the the world today and the work that Cox has done in alleviating some of the suffering they have caused. Nagorno-Karabakh is an Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan; the Karen are a people in the eastern part of Burma; Sudan is split into several warring factions, one of which is the official government. In each of these places atrocities have been performed, by both sides; in each place, the people charged with keeping the peace, having the responsibility to all the peoples of the country, the government, have failed in that task, and have persecuted a minority; in each of these places Baroness Cox and the British branch of Christian Solidarity International, now Christian Solidarity Worldwide, after a split of the charity, have gone in to relieve some of the suffering of the persecuted people. Obviously, her care for the persecuted has lead to a great deal of criticism, not least by the persecutors, and the book reflects some of that, usually defending her from it, or pointing out the illogicality of it, or refuting it altogether; Boyd is certainly not an unbiased biographer.

Nevertheless, it is a well-written biography, annotated properly (though i hate end of chapter notes), with plenty of valid source material, which is essential for a programmatic study of a controversial person. The most interesting part of the book (the rest are horrific, not interesting) is the first, which is as near as the book gets to conventional biography, and which outlines the first portions of Cox’s life until she was made a baroness by Margaret Thatcher. I was astonished to read of the vitriol that existed in British society in the Sixties and, especially, the Seventies, aimed towards anyone who was perceived by the self-proclaimed revolutionaries as being a part of the old way; the portrayal of the students and Marxist teachers at the North London Polytech is of a part with the portrayal of the oppressors in the rest of the book, and clearly shows how self-important and -aggrandising groups can quickly lose their focus and turn from correcting wrongs (always their proclaimed goal) to perpetrating them.

The Janus Effect

2008-05-11T07:08:00.002+01:00

The Janus Effect
by
Alan Cash

It has been less than two years since i read this book previously; let's review, why did i read it again so soon? It could have been one of a few reasons: It had a huge effect on me the first time i read it (The Shack); i didn't get all i could from it last time (The Bible); i loved the writing style and wanted to revisit it just for that pleasure (John Galsworthy); it was a really easy read and i'm a lazy reader (Agatha Christie). Any of these is an acceptable (to me) reason for rereading; the problem is that my reason doesn't really fall into any of these groups. The closest, i suppose, is the Bible group, that there was more to get from it than i did last time; but i would put it a bit more bluntly: I didn't really understand everything in the book last time, because it seemed a bit incoherent and needlessly puzzling.

All right, then, having read it again, what do i think? Well, i still have some of the same feelings of vague dissatisfaction that i had previously. I have learned since reading it before that Dinas, the imprint under which it is published by Y Lolfa, is their self-publishing unit, though not quite (as i understand the term) a vanity house; the book does show evidence of slightly poor copy-editing ~ at one point one character's name is clearly accidentally substituted for another, a sigh elsewhere is spelled with a zero instead of a capital 'o' ('0hhh' instead of 'Ohhh') which looks odd on the page ~ though certainly not enough to affect enjoyment of the book. The biggest drawback, i fear, to this style of publishing is that the publishers are less involved and it is a less urgent task for them to polish the story and make it as clear and saleable as they can. In this case, that means that the plot is a bit more convoluted than it ought to be, with a couple of the characters really being superfluous to requirement (Elnac and Bartok seem to be little more than deus ex machina characters, introduced early as simple, but not consistent in that characteristic depending on the need Cash has for them), and some of the conflicts between characters not fully developed (Camille and Veema, for example) or explained. In addition, the ending seems to be more of an ending than a resolution; perhaps reflecting a belief of Cash that life doesn't resolve, even with time travel.

Overall, how do i feel having given the time to the book again? Well, not badly ~ it wasn't wasted time ~ but not altogether happy, either: I would be happier with a bit more understanding of Cash's purposes, which seem hidden in the convolutions of plot, or with a bit more polish and professionalism on the dystopic themes. The ultimate test, as far as i'm concerned, however, is whether or not i would read another book by the same author, if i knew nothing about it other than the author. Here, i have to admit, The Janus Effect passes the test; if Cash writes again, if Y Lolfa publish, i will certainly read.

Darwin's Angel

2008-05-04T07:25:00.002+01:00

Darwin's Angel: An Angelic Riposte to The God Delusion
by

John Cornwell

Another of the many responses to Richard Dawkins’ book The God Delusion. This one has the conceit that it is written by a guardian angel, specifically that of Charles Darwin and Dawkins himself. Cornwell has not written at all angrily but, as one would expect from an angel, rather he writes with affection and concern for Dawkins and his complete misunderstanding of the situation. In this, it is much like most of the other reviews of Dawkins i have read, which have approached the issue as one of logic and thought rather than emotion, which it seems to me it is, at heart, for Dawkins himself. He is, for whatever reason, so repelled by religion, the revulsion is so deep, that an unthinking emotion is at the root, as it is at the root of so many of our most deeply held positions, and all his logic and thought has been bent to the task of justifying that emotional response. If this is the case, i wonder if it isn’t so much wasted energy to write books such as this ~ at least if one truly writes with the hope of engaging Dawkins in dialogue, which Cornwell probably doesn’t ~ because the past has clearly shown that Dawkins doesn’t participate in dialogue in his books (no matter what he may do in personal sessions), perhaps because he doesn’t wish his audience to become confused, perhaps because it is easier to set up straw men and beat them down to great applause than to actually engage in legitimate argument. Be that as it may, this little book is quick, easy, and clear though ultimately, i fear, unsuccessful.

Torchwood

2008-04-30T15:15:00.003+01:00

Torchwood: Trace Memory
by
David Llewellyn

Abby borrowed two of these Torchwood books from friends, i suppose because she has seen the television programme and wanted to read the book. Perhaps the programme is necessary, because for me, not having seen it, this was not a good investment of time.

The story was all right, though difficult to follow because it jumps about in time rather disconcertingly; there is a sort of resolution, though not by any means a happy ending, and no real explanation of all the events, including the antagonists, who seem to be some sort of creature from primeval time, yet are nattily dressed in suits and bowler hats from last century (and the reason they are even vaguely humanoid in form is...?). The characters, likewise, are all right, though there is no real definition or development ~ i suppose Llewellyn is depending on the reader already knowing them from the programme, which is pretty sloppy writing, as far as i’m concerned ~ i certainly don’t care about them or their futures any more at the end of the book than i did at the beginning.

Another problem for me, again more than likely a leftover from the appeal of television, is that all of a sudden, out of nowhere, two of the characters are indulging each other in sex which, at the very least, has to be seen as exploitative on the part of the main character, Jack Harkness, who sleeps with the completely lost young time-traveller whose appearance triggers the entire plot.

Overall, it is pretty easy to see that i won’t be reading another of this series, as it’s not done a thing for this television non-watcher.

Sugarcoated

2008-04-19T11:39:00.003+01:00

Sugarcoated
by
Catherine Forde

I got this through the Librarything Early Reviewer programme, which works with publishers to offer a few copies of a number of books each month to people who will read and (it is hoped) review them. So, here's the review.

I received Sugarcoated on 17 April and started reading it more from a feeling of obligation than anything else ~ i am not in the target audience group (mid- to late-teenaged girls), this was not the book i had been hoping to receive, i already have several other books going ~ so i could still feel a part of the programme. Well! I was wrong in my low expectations, i am happy to report. After a few minutes i took the book to bed and, almost before i knew it, was reluctantly finishing for the night on page ninetyeight. Last night i did the same thing, and completed the book less than two days after i received it; such speed is not really unusual for me, often a book can be done in one sitting, but is so far removed from what i anticipated that it deserves comment.

The narrator of the story, Claudia but called Clod by almost everyone from her parents on, witnesses, and wishes she didn't, a particularly nasty murder in a Glasgow shopping mall. Urged by the police to speak of what she saw, she doesn't and is rapidly met by the most gorgeous guy she's ever seen. Swept off her feet, blinded by this man's beauty of character and body, she is rapidly drawn deeper into a situation she can neither understand nor control ~ though the reader understands all too easily, hence a nice layer of suspense which permeates the books pages. The end of the story is quite unusually done, in that Forde stops before we expect her to (i was flipping pages, not quite understanding), without spelling everything out for us, though leaving us to hope that all has ended well, or satisfactorily at least, for a heroine we've grown accustomed to, if not actually fond of.

All in all, this was an excellent introduction to Early Reviews for me, as it allowed me to meet a novelist i've never run across before, gave me two evenings of pleasure, and added a book to my shelves; three superb results.

Horrible History

2008-04-18T16:06:00.003+01:00

The Barmy British Empire
by
Terry Deary

It was quite odd to me, reading this book: I really felt that i had been dumped back into the 1970s, perhaps, and was reading something written in the throes of guilt by a Briton undergoing passionate regret for everything that the British Empire stood for and did. Now, i am not one who will say that it was an unadulterated good thing for civilisation in general, and for the colonies in particular, that the Empire was built. Neither, however, will i permit it to be seen as an unmitigated evil that held the world groaning in slavery until the colonies could be wrenched from greedy Britannia's grasp and given their freedom. The truth of the matter is that immeasurable amounts of evils were done, as well as positive actions; many people suffered because of the Empire, and some still do today, and yet more are probably in a positive position today as a result. For Deary, however, the second part of each phrase just doesn’t seem to exist: Everything he says, with the exception of small mentions of positives at the end of the book, is negative. Even at the moment of mentioning a positive ~ the extinction of the slave trade, for example ~ he cannot but subsume that in a far more powerful negative which essentially devalues completely anything positive said. Certainly Bristol and Liverpool were built by the blood of slaves; certainly the trade was not stopped until two hundred years had passed; certainly hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Africans died in the Middle Passage. On the other hand, the fact was that the trade was stopped; British Christians of different varieties saw and recognised the evil and worked for years to correct it; Sierra Leone was set up with the best of intentions to provide for men and women torn from their homes and families. It is, maybe, fine rhetoric to ignore certain facts in order to improve your case; it is poor writing, however, not to mention intellectually dishonest to pretend that shades of grey are all black ~ especially in a book for children, who are less likely to be able to pick out the illogicality and dishonesty for themselves, and thus will imbibe an incorrect view of the past. Not, i am afraid, one of Terry Deary's better outings.

Revival!

2008-04-13T08:56:00.001+01:00

Revival! A People Saturated with God
by
Brian H. Edwards

The first thing i want to write is that this is such a challenging book; then, of course, i start to second-guess myself and think that it’s not, because the challenge, if any, is to God: Is he, or is he not, going to bring revival to this town (or any in this country); and obviously we cannot manipulate him into it as it is his decision. Then again, i think, ah, but there is a lot in this book which does challenge us, as we look for revival, because our behaviour can make it less likely, though not impossible, as nothing is for God, that he will grace us with his presence in a particular and especial way.

Edwards does an excellent job of unfolding the revival of Hezekiah’s reign, mostly as given in II Chronicles, and the things that he, the king, did which prepared the nation for a huge and successful revival. These things, prayer, preaching, repentance, worship, &c., he links to other revivals over the past seven hundred years, including the Welsh revivals, Borneo, the Great Awakening, Korea, the Waldensians, and others. And, yes, there is a challenge in it: Are we going to pray and repent, and desire God to visit us, here, today?

I enjoyed Edwards’s writing style; he is didactic without being heavy-handed (something i could aim for!), and easy to pick up and read quickly. I used this book, along with Selwyn Hughes, Why Revival Waits, as support when i preached a few weeks back, and thoroughly enjoyed the process from beginning to almost the end.

Byzantium

2008-04-11T18:59:00.003+01:00

Byzantium; the Early Centuries
by John Julius Norwich

Well, i certainly don’t feel competent to pronounce on this book, written as it is by perhaps the leading historian of Byzantium, and as well known as it is. But it is not may way to simply roll over and play dead when it comes to these reviews, so i shall give my opinion, though remaining well aware that it may not have a lot of value, in the scheme of things. Having said this, actually i have very little to say against this book. Only the one thing, actually: I could have wished that in the text there were more specific dates to hang some of the events and emperors on, or at least to peg them near. The text flows so beautifully that perhaps no one wanted to interrupt it with anything so prosaic as dates, but i certainly find history easier to pull into a big picture if i have a bit of the context to fix it in, and i’m sure i’m not alone in that. It would have been enough to put a date in the margin every page or two or in a running header, just something to look at. Certainly, there is a dated list of emperors at the end of the book, linking both Eastern and Western Empires; but then the genealogical tables (utterly vital in this book) are at the opposite end of the book, and there are no dates with the emperors in them. Altogether, the dating issue was a bit frustrating to me. Other than that, however, can i say enough about this book and the ease with which it teaches about the lesser known Roman Empire? Probably not. Let this suffice: We went to Hay-on-Wye, where i bought Byzantium, on the first of April; i finished reading it on the ninth, and that’s with still reading the other two or three books i’m involved in at the moment. I really enjoyed this, though not the eye-poking and nose-slitting per se, all the way through; i learned, as i knew i would, a lot of detail about the East; and i truly look forward to the time when i can find, buy, and read the second and third books. Roll on the next trip to Hay!

The English Language

2008-04-09T14:33:00.001+01:00

This was one of the most satisfying books i have read in a long time. Everything about it was pleasing, from the most basic physical appearance (it's one of the Folio Society books that we bought) to the notes at the end of the volume. It pointed up, once again, for me the irony of a powerful interest in linguistics, which i have, combined with an appalling ability to learn languages, which i also have ~ despite the fact that i am currently struggling to learn two! Burchfield has made a lovely analysis of English, from Anglo-Saxon times to the very recent present, both in England and in other versions spoken. He explains much, in fairly simple terms, of why we speak the way we do, how it developed, touching on basic linguistics as he goes, and with a nice number of illustrations to help make his points. Burchfield speaks with great authority, as he was the editor of the OED for some years, at least during the publication of the latters portions of the Supplement, and possibly during the consolidation of the same. Obviously, he knows of what he writes, but he never ~ literally, not once ~ lost my interest by becoming too technical or resorting to jargon; as far as i am concerned, he is a fluent writer, as well as a knowledgeable one. Thus the time in this book was time very well spent.

Today's Review

2008-03-27T14:48:00.001Z

If This is a Man
by
Primo Levi

This ought to be required on every reading list in every school in Europe, in the whole Western World, in fact. It is too easy to allow, even for those who accept the fullness of all the reports and historicity of the Holocaust, the numbers and figures and descriptions to swill over and blur the fact that the victims were actually human beings. Reading the narration of one man's experience must surely remind even the most jaded of readers that Levi, and the other six million, were people, not numbers, not cyphers. I am reminded, and horrified. Of course one reads it and thinks, “How could such a thing happen? How could anyone permit such treatment?” Yet still, it is too easy to forget that the Gulags lasted fortyfive years after Auschwitz, that the Middle Kingdom still treats people as disposable in the cause of its progress, and that Guantanamo Bay hosts a camp (even the same word!) where people are purposefully by government policy made into less than human beings. Levi's writing must be passed on, understood, taken to heart by all men, and renewed each generation, so that the evil can be prevented from recurring. Of course, this is a blindly optimistic thing to write, because we can be absolutely certain that the evil will continue, until the end of time. The book itself, disregarding the subject matter, is very easily read; i shall recommend it to Abigail, who is seventeen, and even JAG, eleven, as an excellent introduction to the Holocaust, because it is so simple and facile. I wonder if it was that way in the Italian, or if it is the translator's skill triumphing; certainly, the very ease of the writing is a benefit to the subject matter, by not distracting a whit from it. (Except for the small matter of the title, which niggles me: Why is it not If This Be a Man?)

Through Changing Scenes

2008-03-20T15:36:00.001Z

Through Changing Scenes by David C. Potter.

The history of Prospects, the parent organisation of Plas Lluest, and thus of great interest to both of us. We had known previously that Lluest was the first residence set up by the charity, but not the manner in which it had happened; i had assumed, which is as we know dangerous, that the Alfred Place members whose daughter was the first resident were the prime movers behind the charity, but i was quite wrong. David Potter was a minister in the south of England; he and his wife had a Down's syndrome daughter for whom they had to work out the future; in the process of doing so, they were put in contact with Geoff Thomas of AP, and events moved on from there. As Potter tells it, Thomas was more deeply involved than his parishioners, though that may be simply his recollection; certainly he was admirably interested in and working out the needs of his congregation. Apparently much as Christians Against Poverty, the story in Nevertheless, which i read recently, the charity grew more than expected, though a little more slowly than CAP, and God was clearly in control of the process ~ allowing some purchases, forbidding others, and guiding the board of directors. The interesting thing about Potter and Prospects is that he has taken a very real step back from the running of the charity, perhaps forced to by the health issues which have attacked him, perhaps because he has been able to recognise that there were far more capable men available and involved, and he was sufficiently in tune with God to hear Him and allow them in. Quite admirable.

Friends...'Til the End

2008-03-16T06:57:00.002Z

A new idea; i think, for a while anyway, i'll post my reveiws as i write them. Here's the current:

I am in two minds about this, mostly, i think, because i am reminded that i enjoyed the show Friends when it was on ~ though i never made it a passion to watch it, and have, indeed, been caught by surprise by a number of things i’ve read about here ~ and i now have a mild urge to watch all the episodes in order, and yet i found the book itself rather annoyingly smug about its insider knowledge and overwhelmingly gushing about the actors, writers, caterers, indeed everyone with any connexion to the programme. And, of course, the simple grammatical mistake in the title (the title!) of the book just irks me further. Overall, though, i would have to regard this as a successful book, because it has, as i said, re-interested me in the show. I suppose that’s the best that can be hoped for of a TV book like this, from a non-TV person like me!

Review.

2008-03-08T10:09:00.002Z

This is actually two reviews put into one, so does not flow perfectly smoothly; nevertheless, it's worth posting, i think:

This has been a hard review to write; it is, in fact, right now a week and a half since i finished the book, and i'm still not sure what i want to say about it. Apparently it affected Dad & Susan well, too, because they bought and sent copies to all nine of us, a couple of months ago. I don't know which (if any) of the others have read it, but i have ~ twice now since Christmas ~ and so has Lynne.

Let's see; the book starts quite unpromisingly, i think. I don't mean the death of Missy, the little daughter of the protagonist, though that is painful it is not a bad beginning; somehow, i found that the narration was a bit difficult to get myself into. There was no question that i was going to continue with it ~ i was committed to it, probably because D&S had spoken highly of it ~ but despite that commitment i slogged just a bit at first. Nevertheless, once i was into it, certainly by the time Mack, the protagonist, returned to the place of his daughter's death, and met the three persons there, i found it moving quickly enough to hold my interest and desire to know what was going to happen, what they were going to say.

“Say” because much ~ almost all ~ of what is important in the book is contained in the dialogue between Mack and the other Three. It is not a straight exposition, but it could have been that way and quite boring; Young, however, has done a great job, in my opinion, of avoiding any theological or doctrinal prose, and allowed his beliefs and understanding of God to come to the fore through the narration, just as in the Bible story God is revealed. It has always been clear, i have previously preached, i think, that God reveals himself through story, not through theology and doctrine; this book has simply made this point clearer to me, as i have read and meditated on the story in it.

It is, in fact, a story pretending to be true; and truth masquerading as story. Perhaps the words and the phrasing aren't perfect, but i can't really think of a better way to describe the book I was more moved the second time that i read it ~ if this is a linear relationship, a couple more times through it and i will be weeping openly from beginning to end; that might not be a bad thing, i suppose, so long as i understand, and am better able to live in, the reality of the relationship within God and between me and God.

The experience of Mack with the God revealed as Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu is glorious; the way that Papa talks with him, leads him to the point of forgiveness, and helps him to understand, is wonderful; the image of Jesus snickering as Mack gets his shoes and socks wet walking on the lake is lovely; and Sarayu is now, more than ever, a person i want to know and experience. Together these stories make this one of the most enjoyable books i've read recently; and certainly the most exciting for me: I have taken to Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu, and i am finding that my prayers are a bit realer for me. A Good Thing. Once again, the grace with which Papa, Jesus, and Sarayu open themselves to the possibility of loss, and the joy with which they reclaim their beloved Mack fills me with emotion i don't understand, but i want the reality behind it. Yes, Papa, more of you; more of Jesus; Sarayu.

Music Madness

2008-02-08T20:10:00.000Z

I was, i confess, disgusted at work recently. Doesn't happen a lot; i'm usually pretty tolerant of the foibles and eccentricities of customers ~ and, trust me, some of them have foibles! This time, though, what i saw was a bit over the top.

There were two young mothers in the shop; i say young mothers, but if they hadn't been pushing prams i'd have called them girls: Neither of them can have been far into her twenties, if at all, both were dressed in typical “girl-clothes” rather than “mum-clothes”. The key point, however, the thing that so greatly surprised me, was that each of the girls had some kind of an MP3-player sitting near their babies, playing music, loudly enough to be heard from some feet away.

Now so far, you might think, this is just the story of two exceptionally rude youngsters, not terribly unusual i fear, who needed their music with no regard to politeness or thought for fellow customers (for they weren't alone in the shop). There is more, though, which makes the story, to my mind, just a bit stranger.

First, their music was particularly tinny sounding, evidently being played through a speaker that really wasn't designed for music, but probably for voice, while being held close to the ear ~ a mobile 'phone, in other words ~ and, as such, it wasn't doing the music any favours at all.

Second and, perhaps, even stranger, we have music playing at all times in the shop. Not Muzak; not classical stuff; not even old-time pop. GPHQ central office sends out CDs to be played, with relatively new, modern music, of a variety of popular genres. So, apparently, it was so important to these two girls that they keep hearing their own music that they were willing to put up with it in competition with two other music sources, and played in poor quality. Now, perhaps it is my age speaking, but i don't understand that, i confess.

Nor do i understand, and this is the part that i really found distasteful, the attitude that said that their own pleasure was so important that they were willing to subject everyone else in the shop ~ including each other, their friendship notwithstanding ~ to their ridiculous behaviour. I know that technology today is working quite hard at reducing us from people in relationship with our surroundings to individuals out of contact with all around, by mobile 'phones, by music players, by laptops, all of which say, “I am too involved in myself to have any relationship with you” ~ and say it far more effectively than a book or even a newspaper held up to the face can. I know it, i say, but i don't understand it, and nor do i, most assuredly, approve of it; we people only in relationships, denying them we lessen ourselves. Thus, though what they did was completely tasteless, in the end i am sorry for those two young mothers, because they are the sufferers for their own behaviour.

A Newish Review

2008-02-03T21:36:00.000Z

Global Jihad, by Patrick Sookhdeo.

Patrick Sookhdeo spoke in St. Mike's about a month or so ago, and we bought this at that time, as it is his latest book. Interesting it is, if somewhat frightening.

Sookhdeo was raised in a Muslim family, as i understand it, and became a Christian around the time that he left home, and has, evidently, made the study of Islam one of his life's works. His has written this book primarily for those in power, the decision-makers in such countries as the US, Western Europe, and further afield though, the blurb assures us, it is useful to “any reader who seeks to understand Islamic violence in the world today.”

The basic, general thesis of the book is that violence is inherent in Islam, and has been present in just about every manifestation of the religion since Muhammad, so it is thus almost impossible to work against the violent interpretation of jihad until and unless there is a true reform of the religion, perhaps to the original Mecca-period suras of the Koran that have, by most interpretations been abrogated by the later, Medina writings. And, of course, anyone who writes on, promotes the cause of, or attempts to reform the religion is branded heretic, with the distinct possibility of being killed for that crime.

Interestingly, and quite contrary to many contemporary commentators, Sookhdeo does not go down the road, far from it, in fact, of trying to redeem Islam as a whole by condemning the few who are preaching jihad and practising war and terrorism, but he rather insists that the submission the word Islam refers to is to be forced (in the view its adherents) if there are any who will not submit willingly. This use of force is shown very clearly to go all the way back to the time of Muhammad, who was not above the judicious use of murder to enforce his will on the tribes of Arabia, even when claiming to be respectful of the people of the book (Jews and Christians), whom he actually killed as he chose.

The biggest issue i have with the book is nothing to do with the content, but the presentation. I know nothing about Isaac Publishing, but suspect that they are a minor operation, or a vanity house, because there are a number of errors in the style or presentation that a good editor or publisher ought to have caught. For example, the format of Arabic names is not consistent, as some are given as X bin-Y and others X b. Y, where the b. can only stand for bin. There are words or phrases used which are not defined in the glossary, though i would think that in a work like this, written to persuade, any and all means ought to be used to aid in that end. These, and others like, are minor irritations, i admit, but enough that i noticed them, and therefore they are flaws. Otherwise, however, this is a fine book, with detailed notes, a huge bibliography, a fairly comprehensive index, and seven appendices, four of which are quite substantial themselves. In over six hundred and fifty pages, well worth the almost unbelievable ten pounds we paid for it.

What'm I Reading?

2008-01-27T07:32:00.000Z

A review for you, of a recently read book: Arthur; the Seeing Stone.

We went to a meet-the-author event at the Arts Centre late last year to see Kevin Crossley-Holland, and were surprised that JAG was the only person under twenty there, and even more surprised to discover that the author enjoyed in this household for his Arthur books was actually better known for being a poet and Anglo-Saxon scholar. The upshot was that we all enjoyed it ~ including Crossley-Holland, who had the, possibly unexpected, task of making it interesting for a group of adults and one child with varied expectations ~ and it was, for me, a learning experience.

I now know that i enjoy some of Crossley-Holland's poetry; i would like to get his translation of Beowulf and compare it with that of Heaney which Chen and i read and liked; and i was, eventually, stimulated to read this book, the first of the Arthur trilogy, and therefore the rest which will follow for me. I found this a much quicker read than i had expected ~ probably i'd have read it before if i'd realised ~ which was partly facilitated by the style of having a lot of very short (less than two pages, most) chapters, and jumping the action quite quickly (though not usually within the chapter) between the past and the present so that neither ever grows tedious. Arthur-the-narrator, as opposed to Arthur-in-the-stone, is a lovely character; sufficiently precocious to be able to be writing and holding my interest at age thirteen, yet naïve enough to be worried about a “devil part” his body is growing, he tells us everything, but he doesn't know everything, so we are both left partly in the dark, as the book progresses. Lovely; it only remains to be seen if Crossley-Holland can keep it up for another three books ~ yes, another “trilogy” with more than the requisite number of books!

I go to...?

2008-01-21T15:40:00.000Z

There is a youngster who works with me at GPHQ whom it is so easy to tease that really it's no challenge at all. As well as our mutual employment, she also is taking a course at the local 6th form college. Her goal is to complete this course, then apply to and attend a university, and emerge with some form of employable degree. The teasing ~ and my interest in it today ~ comes from the fact that, as in so many other areas, our language use is slightly different.

Here, apparently, it is an insult to call all places of education schools, the word being reserved solely for use with those institutions which actually have the word in their name ~ Penglais Secondary School, or Rhydypennau Primary School, for example ~ and not for other places. Thus, since although my friend is still involved in her secondary education she is attending a college, not a school, all i have to do is to ask her when i see her how school is going for her to be annoyed.

This is, to me, a funny distinction to make, as in the usage i am used to (Canadian?, American?, i don't know) school is used to all levels ~ primary, secondary, and tertiary ~ with no derogatory implication. Thus, i have talked about doing this or that “at school” referring to the post-grad university course i'm taking. In fact, my friend usually tries to tease me back when i ask her about school by saying something along the same lines to me, but it has no effect ~ to her further annoyance.

The reason that i find this interesting is that it seems to me to run ~ in both parts of it ~ counter to the stereotype. One expects, according to type, North Americans to be quite concerned with status, especially their own, and thus if they were attending a university to be sure all know that fact, rather than allowing it to be called school or, as is also often the case, college. The British, however, have a reputation for understatement, for allowing the wrong impression to gained by people they meet. How curious it is, then, that my British friend is so concerned (apparently as a cultural influence) that her college be recognised as such.

Goes to prove, i suppose, that stereotypes are merely a guide to what can be expected, not graven in stone guarantees of what people will be like. Maybe that's what makes them dangerous.

Language Loveliness

2007-12-17T13:02:00.000Z

I find it difficult to overstate my interest in language, how it works, the relationships between different ones, how we can learn them, similar words with different meanings, and vice versa. One of the fascinating things, therefore, about being here is the interplay between the two languages, English and Welsh, and the people who use them under what circumstances, and, especially, the process of learning the second.

With regard to the latter, Jacob is of particular interest. When we arrived, we were told that although it is really an English-speaking school, the local primary school uses Welsh as the medium of instruction; obviously, this concerned us a little, because we were arriving in the middle of the school year, and Jacob had absolutely no Welsh. We were assured that he would learn it, that there were a few pupils new in the system each year and the council provided a language centre which he would attend for several months. And, indeed, he did. The remarkable thing now is that he is fluent ~ which by my definition means that he can communicate with anyone at any time, with the means to ask them to repeat or rephrase if he happens not to understand something. So much so, in fact, that there are things he now knows in Welsh that he does not know in English!

An interesting illustration of his fluency, the totality with which he thinks in Welsh, arose the other day. I am taking lessons, struggling to learn it, a bit at a time and, to help, have a simple children's picture book that i'm getting Jacob to read with me. We came across the word roedd as we were reading, and i asked what it was, as it wasn't in my vocabulary. The closest he could get to telling me was that it is a word that means that something happened or existed, in the past. I asked if it were like once upon a time, an almost meaningless phrase just used to indicate a story in the past; he agreed, but said it meant a bit more, happened a bit more often, but he couldn't give me a more precise meaning. It turns out that roedd is the third person singular imperfect indicative active of the verb bod (to be), which is absolutely essential; it translates almost exactly as (he or she) was. Try telling a story without using was and you'll see its importance. Yet to Jacob it was just a word that he knew, without being able to be more specific. To me, that is a sign of fluency!

There is far more to comment on, especially the interplay between the language, so i'll hold off now, since i'm getting close to my (self-imposed) post limit, and write more another time.

Consequently...

2007-11-29T09:32:00.000Z

I read an interesting children's book to JAG a week or two ago. It's quite a simple tale, but one that was just right for us to read. It's a funny thing, though, that we only heard about it because someone tried, officially, legally, to censor it. The law of unintended consequences came into play again.

The book's title, Olympic Mind Games, was the point at issue with the censors. The book is set just slightly in the future, at the time (and partially at the location) of the 2012 Olympic Games in London; the Games themselves don't really feature in the story, other than as setting for the action: The key is that the Olympic Village is apparently the most secure place in Britain at the time, and security is one of the protagonist's needs. While he is in the Village, through the aid of the alien he is working with, he discovers he is in telepathic communication with his twin sister, who is also in the Village, as a competitor. Thus the title. Quite clever, actually.

The problem arises because the organisers of the 2012 Games have trademarked the word Olympic. As if one can claim that the use of a word which, in assorted languages, has been used since at least 1896 and, in its original language, since about 800 years before Christ. And yet, at utterly stupid as it seems, the law has not firmly slapped the organisers and told them (in suitably restrained language) to get a stronger grip on reality, and behave themselves in the public arena; still no one ever said that the result of law is fair.

Instead, the author was given some kind of legal restraint on using the word in his title, presumably in case any of his potential readers should be mistaken and think that his book was authorised by or in any way tied to the 2012 Olympic Games. Of course, no one could possibly make that mistake, not least because the book's cover conspicuously features an alien face, and nowhere is it tainted with the monstrosity that is the official logo of their games. In the end, thanks to someone whose common sense must have recoiled at the sheer effrontery of what they were trying to do, Ronsson, the author, was permitted to use the title of his book.

So why do i write this now? Because i heard a news story on BBC Radio 4 one day, about the conflict between Ronsson and his would-be censors and, immediately, with no real knowledge of the book, not even exactly what age-group it was aim at, i ordered it. There is no way that an intrusive, out of control, bureaucratic organisation ought to be allowed to prevent anything from being written or published, particularly not for such an appallingly asinine reason. The amusing point and unintended consequence here is that i had never heard of the book, and was unlikely to, except for the actions of the censors; they stimulated action directly opposite to what they intended.

I enjoyed the book, as it happens. Both of us did, in fact. If you'd like to read the review, you can.

House Resolution

2007-11-20T15:22:00.000Z

An end to the saga of our house in America. Briefly to recap: We abandoned it, after no help from the mortgage-holder, when we were unable to sell it; they tried to auction it, asking some thirty thousand dollars more than the remainder of the mortgage, but it did not sell at auction. Now, though, a resolution has been reached; like the rest of the story, though, it is not altogether straightforward.

The house has been sold, finally. Not at auction, not surprisingly, but as the result of foreclosure proceedings. One of the ironies is that it sold for between twentyfive and thirtyfive thousand, when we had a cash offer for fifty thousand that our bank wouldn't let us accept, and about sixty thousand was still owed on the property. Sadly, in the end, the bank probably didn't lose any money over it, despite their appalling behaviour, as i expect their mortgages are insured in some way to prevent loss. (Of course, just because they didn't lose money, it doesn't mean they aren't losers.)

There are a couple of rather curious features in the process; we have been able to find and access an inspector's report on the property, which has given rise to several questions. The report claims that there were no appliances in the house; we left a stove, refrigerator, washing machine, tumble drier, dishwasher, and garbage disposal unit. The same report also indicated holes in the walls; when we left the house, twenty months before the date of the report, there weren't holes. Not only that, but the report also says that there are no fixtures in the downstairs bathroom; again, when we left, the bathroom was complete.

It rather makes me wonder if, after we left, because it was empty for such a long time, somebody didn't break into the house and do some structural damage as well as removing the appliances. The only other alternative i see is that our good bankers themselves had the items removed, but i find that a little hard to imagine, as they could hardly have recovered much that way; everything was clearly used ~ well used, most of it!

Another curious finding is to be found in another report we located, this on referring to the lead paint inspection. Apparently the inspector “determined that there is deteriorated lead-based paint in the property and lead hazard reduction activities will be required”; that is, obviously, a concern, because we raised three young children there ~ indeed, our son lived there from the time he was born until he was almost nine. You'd think that the report before we purchased the house would have revealed that toxic paint. You'd have hoped so, anyway.

Anyway, the final resolution has been reached. The only interaction i can now foresee as possible is if, as some distant point in the future, one or other of our children returns and visits the house, as i have done to some of the ones i grew up in. I admit, i'm curious about what will happen to it; i had a number of happy years there, but it's gone now.

The Value of a Contract

2007-10-10T14:50:00.000+01:00

There is a truly remarkable (to me) set of differences between my work here and in the USA. This is the matter of contracts and work conditions.

Here, at GPHQ, i have signed a contract, agreeing that i will work eight hours a week and be paid for that. They cannot schedule me for less than eight hours, and i do not have to work more, though i sometimes do. In America, at Big Al’s, an hourly paid employee, the equivalent of my position at GPHQ, had no contract, no set number of hours a week, no guarantee of permanence. What they had was the knowledge that they would work more than 32 hours a week, if they were full-time, or between twenty and thirty, if part-time. No one was asked to work less than twenty, as a rolling average (though a specific week might be less), unless they specifically asked for it, because of their particular circumstances. On the face of it, this would appear to be a win for the British method.

After all, a contract is a contract, one would think, and is a good indication of what working conditions will be like. Curiously, however, in my opinion, Big Al’s treats its employees far better than does GPHQ; all sorts of things happen at the latter which would not have been tolerated at the former, which, indeed, would have led quickly to lawsuits and financial penalties.

As an example, Big Al's was unbelievably picky about making sure that employees were paid for the time they were working. I remember, when i was training for an under-supervisor position, being forbidden to remove some of the training materials from the store ~ not because Elzevir, the manager, was worried that his competition would get hold of it if it left the building, but because he didn't want me to read it at home, when he wouldn't be paying me. At GPHQ, by contrast, we are frequently kept locked in until fifteen or twenty minutes after the end of business (the time we are scheduled to end working), unable to leave until the closing manager finishes paperwork ~ and naturally we are supposed to be on the floor ready to work five minutes before the start of the shift. Over the course of a month, this extra time could easily add up to an hour or more, five or ten pounds, were we to be paid for it. But we're not. Not only that, but recently we had to make a special trip in, after business hours, to attend a meeting for fortyfive minutes; i have no expectation of being paid for that, either.

At Big Al's even Grace, the worst manager i had, made sure that the hourly employees took the breaks they were entitled to. The company would have fired her if she didn't. Andrew, however, at GPHQ, neither assigns breaks in the schedule, nor does he speak to us to ensure they are taken. In fact, we almost have the feeling that to request a break (which we are certainly sometimes entitled to) is to cause a disruption to the day's business and, though tolerated, should not be done by the best employees.

I'm really not sure that having signed that contract i'm better off than when i worked without one.

Newsiness

2007-09-15T11:30:00.000+01:00

A curious thing, listening to the news; it can give you odd feelings, even when you think what they say really shouldn't be going to affect you in any way. Two examples.

Yesterday i heard the head of BBC news say words to the effect that every normal person is eager for every scrap of information about Madeline McCann, which is the only reason that they have been covering it so completely, following every twist and turn of suspicion and horror. So, if i believe him, the only conclusion i can come to is that i am not normal, because i am heartily sick and tired of hearing about her parents, whether the Portuguese police think they are suspects, if the children were sedated while the parents left them alone, how many people have been question, and for just long ~ almost to the hour ~ it has been since the last break in the case.

Maybe i'm wrong, it has happened before, but it seems to me that, along with a concern for the missing child, much of the public's fascination with this case, as with any of this nature, is the very likely unconscious thought, Thank God it's not my child, not me that's suffering! We are taught today that we live in such an overwhelmingly dangerous world, especially towards children, that we are led to feel that since someone is going to be abducted, inevitably, then it's just as well that this time it's someone else's child. A horrible reaction, but not unreasonable given the falsity of the premise (the world is far fuller of danger today than ever before). And thus the continual news which plays to that feeling and reaction.

The second odd reaction i have had from the news recently is over the current crisis in the financial markets, leading to great difficulties for at least one British bank, among other institutions. The curious part about it is that, on many occasions, the blame has been laid at the door of defaulting Americans who are not paying their mortgages. What the media are trying to say, loosely, is that many banks lent much money to people who were poor credit risks, then sold the loans to groups, funds, or institutions which did not do due diligence in checking what they were buying, and the unpaid loans have then reverberated around a much larger segment of the economy than would otherwise have been expected. By phrasing it as they do, however, they make it appear that we are personally responsible for all the economic dislocation currently occurring; after all, as you know, we walked out on our mortgage. In America, too boot!

Nevertheless, i decline the honour, thank you very much.

Current Review

2007-09-13T14:30:00.000+01:00

A review of a book i have read recently, for the school-work. Just to show what kind of thing's going on here.

Edward I
  by
Michael Prestwich

     I attended a seminar given by Michael Prestwich at UWA on an entirely different subject, that of pictures and illustrated books of hours; it was very interesting, he spoke well. He also writes well.
     This is a fairly simple, but by no means unlearned, history of one of England’s more popular kings ~ within England: The Scots and the Welsh probably don’t have so much good to say about the “Hammer of the Scots”! That duality of vision about Edward made for quite curious reading here; Prestwich is obviously intrigued by his subject, and enjoyed writing about him, and there is evidently an enormous body of material about the King and his activities, but i find it awkward reading about him because i find so many of his actions of a lower quality than i would have hoped for from such a great man.
     I suppose that i am disappointed that Edward was as human as he was: I would rather that he had been the man of honour and quality and courage and chivalry and impeccable behaviour that he would have wanted to be remembered as. But, the truth is, he was proud, and greedy, and dishonourable, and selfish, just as other men, in addition to having, just as other men, flashes of brilliance, moments of wisdom, episodes of chivalry. And all intertwined around and through each other. Thus, it is hard to reconcile the man who hung his enemy’s sister and supporter in cages, exposed to view in towns, with the man who loved his own wife so much that he built a series of crosses where her dead body rested on its way to London; just as hard to reconcile the man who so desired to return to the East as a crusader with the one who built an Eastern-influenced castle in Caernarfon to intimidate and oppress a newly subject people. In the end, i am saddened by the reminder that even the greatest (among whom Edward must be numbered) of England’s sovereigns are and have been fully human, not semi-divine.

A Little Bit of Nonsense

2007-08-18T11:39:00.000+01:00

Testicular Elephantitis

Testicular elephantitis
has a remarkable ring;
Its rhythm is lovely and light yet
it's a terribly heavy thing.

An Unpleasant Discovery

2007-07-30T16:18:00.000+01:00

I regret to say that i have, over the past eighteen months, discovered something in myself that does not please me particularly. I have always been relatively proud ~ happy, at least, if pride isn't to be thought a good thing ~ that my parents brought me up, consciously or not, in a relatively prejudice-free manner. I never really noticed this, it was so ordinary, until i moved to the USA, and discovered a truly prejudiced society. For all the progress it has made as a country ~ and i can't imagine how awful it must have been before the 'Fifties ~ it is permeated with prejudice, racial/ethnic, financial, geographical, and cultural. I felt both appalled living there, and pleased with my own upbringing. Until i returned to the UK.

At that point i realised that i really have nothing to be proud of, as i discovered a prejudice within myself that i had never before suspected. I discovered that without realising ~ or planning ~ it, i judge people before i know anything about them, by the way that they speak. I have in me, apparently, an inclination towards Received Pronunciation, what used to be called the Queen's English. If i hear someone speak in an accent other than RP, i find that i am biased ~ not against them or what they are saying, but i make assumptions which i have no right to make, and which are very likely completely erroneous.

Now, to be perfectly honest, this prejudice does not really arise in everyday life ~ perhaps i unconsciously expect people to talk in more regional accents when i meet them. But when i have the radio on, which is frequently, and an interviewee or, worse, an interviewer or, worst, an announcer speaks English in a manner that indicates their regional origin as being somewhere other than the South-west of the country, oh then, then i just am appalled at their lack of self-respect, at the shame which must accrue to them over the dishonour of speaking that way in public.

And how foolish i am to think this way. I recognise it, when i think of it, because i don't judge my friends for having Welsh, West Country, or Birmingham accents. It makes no difference to me, the way they speak; why should it, they are still my friends, still who they are. So, then, why should it matter when i hear such accents over the air? It can only be because, in my mind, the way i was brought up (i assume), the person behind the radio microphone is an authority, educated, knows what he is talking about, and speaking with what i apparently think is an uneducated accent is not the way to demonstrate that authority. It isn't a regionalism, therefore, that i have found in myself, a disdain for all things Welsh, for example; rather it is an assumption that there is a proper English that everyone ought to try and use, and anyone who doesn't is, well, uneducated.

Now i can't say that i am proud of this discovery about myself. It was quite an unpleasant shock, in fact, as i realised it. What i can do, however, and do, is to actively remind myself that the accent on the radio is not, just as it isn't with my friends, an indication of the value of the person speaking, nor of what they are saying. It still makes me feel good, though, when i hear a newsreader using RP; i guess that's still something to work on.

Travelling Woes

2007-07-18T15:10:00.000+01:00

Well, home again after a fortnight’s trip to Canada to see various members of the family ~ and to perform my brother’s wedding ceremony! There’s an honour for you! So, what should i write about other than travel and its frustrations?

The trip itself, i hasten to add, was lovely. The journeys, though, were anything but. I suppose that’s the penalty we pay for living in a world in which we can travel so far so fast for so short a period. After all, i did travel about 4600 miles (or 7400 kilometres) from here to there, and the same back, in a matter of some hours, no matter how many years it seemed.

So, i was going to complain...well, i will. The trip there, actually, wasn’t too bad, other than the chap sitting next to me for over nine hours in the aeroplane ~ sitting i say, but it would be more accurate to say he was sleeping next to me for almost all of that nine hours (how did he do that?); the problem was not the arm he left on the armrest between us, but the shoulder attached to it that continually drifted over to the upper part of my (already small) seat back, giving me less room to twist myself into. And, of course, the fact that for two or three of the hours one of his feet stayed under the seat in front of me, giving me little choice with mine other than sticking them out in the aisle to trouble passers-by.

What i really wanted to complain about, though, was not my neighbour: I could have done something about him ~ or, rather, it would have been possible for someone more assertive than i to do something about him ~ what really frustrates me is the things about which nothing can be done, regarding which there is no appeal: The variant policies of travel companies, airlines and such.

My itinerary/e-ticket (incidentally, it's printed on a piece of paper; how can it be an electronic ticket?) indicated that i had twenty kilos weight allowance. Carefully, then, i travelled with about nineteen and a half, and commented on that to the woman at the check-in. Oh no, she said; you have twentythree, that twenty regulation is wrong. Great, i thought, and wasn't too worried about returning, even though i had a little more weight than going, what with gifts and so on. But, as you doubtless guessed, at the return check-in the lower limit was strictly enforced, and i had to pay a two kilo overweight charge. No use arguing that i had based my action on the airline's own employee; no use arguing at all in truth, not if i wanted them to bring me home.

The second frustration from the airline, also at the check-in counter, was the people who came up with two carry-on bags, despite clear instructions that only one was permitted, and a laptop case or a woman's handbag each counted as the allowable one. Came up, i say, to the counter, and then strolled on the aeroplane carrying two bags. If that were the case, i needn't have paid the excess baggage charge, but just used a handbag!

I suppose the question is, how can i tell which of their policies are the airlines going to be selectively enforcing the next time i fly?

Book Time

2007-06-13T12:26:00.000+01:00

Well, it's a shame, but we got some new books the other day. I ordered them about a week before, from a catalogue, through the post, and when i came home from school, there they were, on the dining table. All nicely wrapped in plastic, begging to be opened and examined.

As i say, though, it was a shame. The problem arises, because there are so many other things i would like to be doing, from working on the research for my dissertation, to writing one of these blog entries or a book review (i try [and fail] to write 500 words a day, altogether), to doing some dishes or picking up around the house a bit. But all these other tasks will have to go by the wayside, now, as i explore these new books!

I mean, who could stand to wash dishes when there are gems like Making Cocoa for Kingsley Amis, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, or High Windows waiting for them? Or, could you sit down to write, rather than read The Collector, As I Lay Dying, or I Capture the Castle? Of course not. No more can i. Nor would i find it possible to put aside a lovely series of poetry for young people, A Shame to Miss, nor the Horrible Histories which we ordered ostensibly for the children's benefit.

So all i wanted to do, as i walked in and saw them, was grab them, rip the plastic off, crack the backs, and start devouring (amazing how much violence was in that sentence!). And, having the will-power of lemming near a cliff, i did exactly what i wanted, and enjoyed it greatly. They are wonderful books.

The only positive to the situation ~ well, not the only positive, but a great one ~ is that two of the children have also started reading the new books. And i am delighted to have them reading classics. I have to confess, though, they haven't started on the poetry yet. And may not, since one of the poetry books is a collection of Seamus Heaney, some of whose work is an A Level text, and not, therefore, to be enjoyed (one is just finishing A Levels, the other will start in September).

So, if you'll excuse me for a while, i'm off to hole up with a pile of books...

Quotable?

2007-05-27T07:55:00.000+01:00

Another in a continuing series of quotations for you. I don't know whether it is a true attribution, but one of my favourite quotes comes with a lovely story.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr., was an American doctor and man of letters, and the father of the long-serving Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. He lived during the time that anæsthesia was developed and first used. In fact, he coined the word, though, being American, he may well not have spelled it the way i just have! He was instrumental in the spread within America of the practice and belief of the doctor aiding nature to heal, more along the lines of a passive treatment, and certainly disliked and countered the practice of blood-letting, one of the most ancient of treatments.

It is in relation to anæsthesia that the story is told: He was one of the first to be given an anæsthetic, either laughing gas or ether; as he was going under, he suddenly realised the most amazing truth, a matter that had to be spread abroad, because it would forever change our understanding of the nature of reality. Unfortunately, when he came round from the anæsthesia, though he remembered that the revelation had occurred, he no longer recalled its substance.

Holmes therefore arranged that the next day he should be anæsthetised again, but this time with a secretary standing by, with pen and paper, to record the words of revelation he would speak, were he graced with the understanding again. Indeed, he was so graced, and the words were written down for him to see when he awoke: The universe is permeated with the odor of turpentine.

So why, you may well ask, do i love this nonsense quote and its story? First, because of the sheer nonsense of it; obviously, as the story is told it is building up to some great climax, and though the fact that the revelation is rubbish is not a surprise ~ so many stories are told pricking the bubbles of the great and good ~ the rubbish itself is so bizarre that it tickles my fancy.

Second, i love it because it gives hope to all of us. If a man like Holmes, evidently quite a thinker, and a strong writer, can be so misled by his brain, how easy it is for us to be, and i needn't think that only wisdom and good writing is worth putting on paper (or disc), and recording for posterity. I am quite able to see myself straining and struggling to put my thoughts down in permanent form, and it is a relief to know that rubbish is as likely to come from the great as from the small.

And, third, the quote itself is a delight for the shape of the words in my mouth. Permeated, and turpentine, and universe ~ fully a third of the words have three or four syllables, they roll nicely off the tongue, and they sound precise, particular, and perfect. But they are nonsense; what a delight!

Reading Statistics

2007-04-12T12:11:00.000+01:00

In celebration of the upcoming anniversary of my book reviews, eighth anniversary, i think it is, here is a list of a few, completely random, books that i have read over the first seven years of the programme. I have written down a round dozen numbers under seven hundred, and will fetch and insert the corresponding titles and authors. Without having looked at them yet, i am guessing that this will probably give an idea of both my interests, and the rather eclectic list i draw from. Let's see:

Midwives, Chris Bohjalian
Fiction
The Mystery of the Blue Train, Agatha Christie
Mystery
True North, Kathryn Lasky
Juvenile fiction
Spinner's Inlet, Don Hunter
Short stories
Mistress Masham's Repose, T.W. White
Fiction
Star Maker, Olaf Stapledon
Speculative, or philosophical, fiction
Vintage Stuff, Tom Sharpe
Farce
Eichmann Interrogated, Jochen von Lang, editor
Modern history
Dead by Sunset, Ann Rule
Non-fiction mystery
The Five People You Meet in Heaven, Mitch Albom
Philosophical fiction/fluff
Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert, Stanley Weintraub
Historical biography
Op-Center; State of Siege, Tom Clancy & Steve Pieczenik
Fiction

Hmm, quite a lot of fiction on there; one or two history books; not as much variety as i had expected. No matter, this was my plan; this is what i'll stick with. I'll do it again sometime, perhaps, and see if we get a different result.

Book Review

2007-01-15T04:30:00.000Z

Darwin's Black Box by Michael Behe.

A very interesting writer, Behe; his thesis here is that because certain biochemical processes are of an irreducible complexity ~ that is, they have a number of factors, each of which is essential to the function or process ~ they point to an intelligent design at the origin of life. The idea is that, like a spring mousetrap (his explanatory image) these processes could only have been designed to work as a unit, as the trap without the trigger lever, for example, would be useless. A flagellum, for example, is a small biomechanical motor with several parts; if any of them, any one of the molecular elements, were not present, the flagellum would not flagellate. Behe is a convincing writer, though obviously writing to one side only of the evolution-creation argument; to his credit, though, he makes no claim about the identity of the Intelligent Designer. There are some questions that Behe appears to dodge, however, which are doubtless fully exploited by those on the other side of the argument. Among those are the possibility that it is merely that Behe hasn’t been able to think of a way that a flagellum could originate randomly and yet usefully at all stages; that would be evidence of Behe’s lack of imagination, rather than a designer. Another question is that surely, in some areas, the designs are rather less than perfect, so why would they have been sufficient for the designer? Overall, Behe’s argument seems to be a rehash of Paley’s proof of God from the watch found in the field, but on a more sophisticated level. Of course, i always found Paley’s argument fairly convincing; but then, i also don’t see a paradox in the Ontological Proof: That is convincing.