The Gentlemen's Book Club

The Winter of Our Discontent

2011-10-30T16:55:00.000-04:00

John Steinbeck -- 267 pps.

What a relief to read Steinbeck after Flaubert. His writing at first seemed clumsy and I was laughing at it, but I then realized the influence of Flaubert's dickishness was upon me. Soon I was lost in the excellent character of Ethan Hawley (who provides first-person narration, which Steinbeck does rarely), engaged by the complicated bank robbery plot, interested in the highly unusual (that is, sexual) descriptions of Margie, and Steinbeck's imagination, which really must be his best attribute. (If only Flaubert could have taken note!)

Winter is most like The Wayward Bus which was also a later book, but the most notable aspect is Ethan, who is a walking embodiment of virtue and the canon. His descent into "depravity" is subtle and rapid, and Steinbeck achieves the concluding scenes with power and grace. Nothing like Grapes of Wrath but still inspiring -- if other writers could turn out ones like this, Franzen wouldn't need to write essays about how nobody reads novels!

Guess you figured it out, bud!

The first thirty pages are slow and there are a few slip-ups there (Steinbeck's characters like to explain central themes in dialogue apparently) but the dignity afforded to these people makes you want to keep reading. I would guess Steinbeck was a good person. I love this book and everything it means to me.

Most of all, it got the awful taste of Flaubert out of my mouth.

A Sentimental Education

2011-10-30T16:07:00.005-04:00

Gustave Flaubert -- 460 pps.

After reading Madame Bovary, Bouvard and Pecuchet, and two of Three Tales, that is, much of Flaubert's oeuvre, I have concluded Guastave Flaubert was an asshole whose writing is characterized by disgust, disdain, contempt, and superiority. It seems easy to trace Joyce, Borges, and the many, many intellectual writers crowding up contemporary fiction back to him. His endless details, his contempt for "cliché" and "conventional" plot and characters, and self-conscious efforts to avoid "familiar" sentence structure are the hallmarks of his style, and are the traits most copied by contemporary writers.

Many of these writers miss what makes Flaubert worth reading. That is, in his self-conscious, nervous, unlikable, and choleric way, Flaubert destroyed an entire genre, Romanticism, in a typical Flaubert style, meaning that Romanticism was his favorite genre.

You only hurt the ones you love

But aside from intellectual gratification (in the most dry, stunted sort possible, since literature has nothing of the symmetry or rigorous beauty in mathematics) there are few other grounds on which to recommend Flaubert. His humor is excellent when he it isn't feeling bitter or overly sarcastic and several of his scenes and techniques are rightly famous; the bouncing carriage or the agronomist's speech from Madame Bovary or the floating parrot from A Simple Soul. Yet much of Flaubert's famous detail now comes across as oppressive, something I feel when reading David Foster Wallace essays about tennis, however "perfect" it may be.

Wonder if he'd played baseball

whether he'dve written about tennis

The exception is A Sentimental Education, or it would have been. The main character, Frédéric, is clearly Flaubert, as this is one of the few characters who is not treated with unending scorn in the Flaubert works I've read. That is, except for several other characters in Sentimental such as Frédéric's best friend, Deslauriers, and other members of his circle such as the bohemian Hussonnet and the painter Pellerin. In fact, every character in Sentimental flashes some sympathetic side -- even Frédéric's rival Arnoux can occasionally be admired by the reader as much as by Frédéric.

The plot's superficial sentimentality is another strength. Though Frédéric's lifelong pursuit of Madame Arnoux seems to be the perfect "Romantic" structure for a story, Flaubert treats it with realism but also with grace -- a feature absent from Madame Bovary. Seemingly because of his affection for the people and places in Sentimental, the failures of the main characters strike us as realistic and well understood, not false and bitter.

Indeed, Flaubert seems to have thought Sentimental was another attempt at destruction along the lines of his other works, this time of the moral character of his generation. But the man who spent so much time destroying actually created something pleasant here, and with the clever mirroring of historical events (the French Revolution enters into all conversation, and even claims a few friends as victims) with the romantic plot Flaubert creates about three hundred pages worth reading.

C'mon boys, true love is dead ahead

The end, however, is terrible. Frédéric reveals his callous regard for human life with his disregard for his child and Flaubert makes a similar revelation in his treatment. In a meeting far too vague to elicit catharsis, Frédéric then dismisses the woman he has loved his entire life on uncertain grounds, though a light and poetic image reminiscent of the floating parrot appears at the book's end revealing Flaubert's intentions. At this point, however, it seems much too difficult to care about Frédéric, Deslauriers, or even the virtuous, perfect Madame herself.

Flaubert is famous for laboring weeks on his sentences. After the end of Sentimental one wishes he had allotted himself equal for cohesion or pacing. The worst casualty of this devotion, however, was evidently Flaubert's humanity, which his writing possesses so little of. The grace and affection in the beginning of Sentimental made me understand why Woody Allen as Isaac Davis lists the novel as one of the reasons worth living in Manhattan. The end makes me understand why Woody Allen loves the book. Bitter, out of touch, and callous are critical descriptors of the overwhelmingly influential Flaubert style.

If reading is conversation,

is this the guy you'd like to chat with?

"Without form, art is nothing," Flaubert wrote. Only if he explained what makes writing worth reading.

-Heathcliff

The Stonewall Brigade

2011-10-11T00:34:00.002-04:00

James I. Robertson, Jr. -- 247 pps.

This is a historical account of the Stonewall Brigade, the legendary brigade "likened to the Macedonian Phalanx of Alexander, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the Paladines of Charlemagne, the Ironsides of Cromwell, and the Old Guard of Napoleon." Its leader, "Tom Fool" Jackson -- compared to the likes of "Alexander the Great, Caesar, Charlemagne, Napoleon, [and] Lee" -- is given good coverage and so are many other notable characters associated with the brigade. But this story is really about those men and they terrible hardships they faced right from the beginning.

The first few months or so were fine. Bull Run, where the "Rebel Yell" was first unleashed, was excellent for the Confederacy, and raised spirits. Occupying the area around Winchester was also great (men would approach the militia Jackson had commissioned to watch the town, tell the militia men they were there to wrangle up sneaks, and would then go drink and pillage) for the graycoats. But once the winter of '61 hit, the suffering began.

Suffer my snowball!

Robertson has an exceptional eye for interesting characters and anecdotes. A favorite is Robert Lewis Dabney, chaplain and Jackson's chief of staff, who was somewhat portly, could not control his horse, and spent much time attempting to keep his coonskin cap on his head and his Prince Albert jacket on his torso. Some of the more memorable tales include Jackson's men collecting whiskey in jars while Jackson forced their comrades to pour the "vile juice" off a cliff and a giant snowball fight in the winter of '64. "If all battles would terminate that way it would be a great improvement on the old slaughtering plan," remarked Chris Casler, famous for his autobiographical Four Years in the Stonewall Brigade.

Asides like this help the reader through the occasionally gruesome depictions of violence (people's faces getting shot through; horses being eviscerated; men being burned alive with the dead) and absolutely horrible conditions the men faced in camp, on the march, and during the winter. The admiration of the men for their leader allows us to accept his recalcitrant approach to discipline. Early in the campaign Jackson never allowed his men to take leave -- even to see their wives only a mile or two away -- and throughout his career he treated deserters without mercy, favoring death as punishment.

Desserter? I thought you said deserter!

These dark details, however, are overwhelmed by Robertson's respect for his subjects. He is very sincere and honest in his depictions, and while there is romanticism in his telling, the end of The Stonewall Brigade is truly special. In 1891, at a dedication of a memorial to Stonewall Jackson, the veterans were assembled in Lexington. After the townsfolk arranged a surprise celebration they went to find the men, but came up emptyhanded wherever they looked. Finally they went to Jackson's statue and found the old soldiers, one of whom stood up and announced: "We've slept around him many a night on the battlefield, and we want to bivouac once more with Old Jack." And bivouac they did. What a difference a century makes.

-Heathcliff

Madame Bovary

2011-10-03T14:18:00.003-04:00

Gustave Flaubert -- 321 pps.

Is this story interesting because of the plot and "scandalous details"? Certainly not, because adultery has so pervaded American soiciety that it's now easy to speak of betrayal and completely ignore any of the moral implications of the word. Politicians in the school administration buildings, lawyers in houses lobbying, and overzealous farmers (on big money farms where machines do the work) would suppress Flaubert's famous carriage scene, but nobody takes these people seriously, including themselves.

Is it the "intense realism", the creation of which Flaubert agonized over for years, from his obsessive dodging of cliches to the level of research exceeding that done by even the most abused graduate student? The oppressive style so ruthlessly imitated by modern writers and taken to ridiculous extremes by David Foster Wallace which, in the hands of less talented writers, is so cold, mechanical, unfeeling, dehumanizing, depressing, pointless and infuriating?

The redeeming aspect must be the humor. Flaubert destroys the entire Romantic genre, as well as a host of ridiculous characters. Or attempts to -- several such characters still exist; Richard Dawkins c'est Monsieur Homais and Old Roualt is Lindsay Lohan's father in any number of movies.

But the joke is on ourselves; the characters are "uncomfortably real," making the reader either question his own frivolity or assume a superior air allowing himself to ridicule the "simpletons" all about him, thus providing feats for future Flauberts.

This could be you

The technique in this novel is incredible and its influence is pervasive. But the best part of Madame Bovary is the template: embarrass writers in their own medium and get them to participate in the farce. So many aging postmodernists are calling for renewed "sincerity and compassion" in the New Literature that stems from their perpetually checked sentiments, and ingenue youngsters are happy to indulge them out of their own carefully crafted ingenuousness -- if only they knew how silly they all looked.

-Heathcliff

Tortilla Flat

2011-03-10T23:29:00.019-05:00

John Steinbeck - 207 pps.

There are three main aspects to John Steinbeck's myth-making: 1) The "non-teleological thinking" of his characters 2) The self-contained worlds his characters find themselves in and 3) His allusions to major works of Western literature. All three of these aspects are present in Tortilla Flat, if not yet fully realized.

"Non-teleological thinking" is a type of thinking (seemingly unique to the philosophy of Steinbeck and his friend Ed Ricketts) defined by not being concerned about "the why" of an action. Steinbeck's characters not only embrace this way of thinking themselves (seemingly explaining their socially unacceptable drinking, sexual, and work habits) but so does the narrator seem to embrace this type of thinking: we are never told why Danny and his friends do anything, nor is the narrator interested in any sort of psychological probing. The paisanos drink a lot because that's what they do, and why would anyone think that they would do otherwise?

By embracing this type of thinking, the narrator portrays characters very similar to those of ancient myths and folk tales; characters who do what they do because what they do is quite literally who they are. While this style of storytelling will likely come across as unsophisticated to most "serious" readers, it seems to be quite effective (we still read the myths, we still read Steinbeck)--and, we should note, the same method was adopted to some degree by the existentialist writers of the 20th century.

Steinbeck, like his contemporary Faulkner and quasi-influence Sherwood Anderson, is an author associated strongly with a particular place, namely Salinas and, more generally, southern California. While Tortilla Flat takes place in Monterey, more importantly it takes place within a well-defined social world where each character's needs are satisfied by some other character within his world. We are forced, therefore, to meet the owner of the supermarket, Torrelli, the many lustful women of Tortilla Flat, and the various vagabonds that are counted as friends of the paisanos. In this world, not only does everyone have their role (because of the non-teleological thinking aspect) but they can never abandon that role because that would require them to leave their world (which usual signals a major event in a Steinbeck novel).

Again, we find similarities with myths and folktales where the characters are tied to their roles in their community and interact almost exclusively with other community members. This approach has many benefits (which is why authors often use this technique) as it allows for recurring characters, naturally establishes relationships between characters, and facilitates the use of local color. Most importantly (and the aforementioned characteristics derive from this principle), however, it allows the author to define the world in which the story takes place in any manner he chooses: Faulkner creates his world in the deep South, in a community populated by eccentrics--wealthy and poor--which closely resembles the modern world in terms of the psychology, actions, and circumstances of the characters. Steinbeck's world is a bit more fanciful: a place where food is easy to come by, not working is the preferred way of life, jail sentences are a vacation, and nobody stays angry for more than twenty-four hours. Both approaches, however, share that self-contained approach of myths and folk tales; when the world is self-contained the author can set any rules he wants, and the reader, not knowing any better (and wanting a fun ride anyway), accepts them.

The final aspect is naturally more common of contemporary writing than of older myths but it is all part of the larger tradition of storytelling, that is, the allusions to the canon present in Tortilla Flat, namely to Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur. As a composer quotes older works in his pieces but still creates something new, so does Steinbeck check up on Malory in Tortilla Flat. The main plot quite obviously borrows from Malory: the paisanos (the knights) are united around Danny (Arthur) at his house (the round table) and once united go on various adventures with one another. Both stories end with the death of the leader and the disbandment of the knights. Yet, though still there, the other references to Malory are perhaps not as direct and Steinbeck is reported to have done this on purpose. Steinbeck, it seems, alludes to King Arthur in Tortilla Flat not just because of the excellent and enduring story of Arthur but also to place Tortilla Flat on that same timeless plane as King Arthur while still creating something new. Why should an optimistic and confident author do anything less?

The three aspects discussed here are present not just in Tortilla Flat but also in two of Steinbeck's other works, The Pastures of Heaven and Cannery Row. By incorporating these aspects into his work, Steinbeck attempts to place his efforts in the realm of timeless literature--and imitating other timeless works is no bad place to start.

-Heathcliff

Beyond Batting Average

2010-12-26T22:52:00.001-05:00

Lee Panas - 142 pps.

Brandeis University researcher Lee Panas has written the primer on advanced baseball statistics that I so badly needed when I began studying the sport seriously this summer. As many readers will know, websites such as FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus do have glossaries but they often lack adequate explanations or are incomplete. There are extraordinarily useful websites such as Sabermetrics Library but these are difficult for the Sabermetrics Newbie to find. Even popular books such as Baseball Between the Numbers and The New Historical Baseball Abstract either lack lucid explanations of sabermetric ratings or do not treat them deeply enough or are not organized in a useful manner. Others, such as The Book, are too specialized for the casual fan.

Panas's book, on the other hand, does an excellent job treading the territory between superficial and deep treatment of the major sabermetric topics of the day, and it arranges those treatments in quite a clever way. Beginning with a brief history of the development of sabermetrics, starting with Alexander Cartwright and Henry Chadwick and ending with Bill James and Moneyball, Panas then reminds us that the goal of baseball is to score more runs than the other team, something that is easily forgotten by many amateur analysts. After giving us the Big Picture, Panas slowly moves from basic hitting to advanced hitting statistics, repeating the process for pitching, then for defense, wrapping things up with contextual considerations and total player contribution metrics (so you can finally understand what that WAR row on ESPN means). In clearly expressed language, Panas reminds shows us the many ways in which baseball players fit contribute to helping their teams win. The result is an accessible and insightful read.

There are, however, some shortcomings. I would have preferred a “mathematical” appendix including explicit formulas for the metrics mentioned and some relevant explanation. I would have also liked a comprehensive glossary with definitions for easy reference. The book also has the appearance of a children's coloring book and the title sounds a bit too much like Baseball Between the Numbers for my taste. A small paperback with slick cover design and a title like Sabermetrics for the Practical Man would make this book instantly more attractive, as would removing Curtis Granderson from the cover and replacing him with someone a bit more relevant—Kevin Youkilis, perhaps?

That said, what is in the book deserves to be there. What Panas does best is explaining the meaning of the various statistics, showing how they relate to one another, and defending the older, more mainstream statistics such as ERA and batting average on the grounds that they do tell us something. Over and over again he emphasizes that the reader understand what a statistic means and that, nearly always, there is not one single stat that tells the whole story, not even WAR; evaluating players is a complicated and evolving task. The completeness of the book, however, is its primary strength: if you patiently read this Beyond Batting Average—which, at 142 pages filled with graphs and tables, should not take long—you will be up to speed on the modern analysis of the game. As Panas writes in the introduction, “My goal is to explain the new world of baseball statistics in a way that any knowledgeable and curious baseball fan will comprehend.” Beyond Batting Average accomplishes that goal.

Two or Three Things I Know for Sure

2010-11-04T20:44:00.000-04:00

Dorothy Allison - 93 pps.

Two or three things I know for sure, and one is that Two or Three Things I Know for Sure is intense and beautiful. Honest and moving. Disturbing and profound. Dorothy Allison's short memoir washes away the dull and leaves only the poignant and powerful; being raped and abused by her step-father, appreciating the beauty of her body while watching a ballerina, learning to love again after giving birth to her son. Dorothy Allison is hurt, angry, conflicted, but mostly honest. She tells the truth and people love her for it.

Centered around the saying of her aunt Dot ("Two or three things I know for sure...Of course it's never the same things, and I'm never as sure as I'd like to be.") Allison's memoir is presented chronologically and episodically. We follow her from her childhood as an "ugly" girl, to her troubled and promiscuous 20s and 30s, to her parenthood, healing, and acceptance in later years. Along the way we meet her colorful and painfully lonely aunt Dot, her tough-because-she-has-to-be mother, her womanizing, childlike uncle Brice (no relation), a lover who is embarrassed by the fact that she sells cleaning products, and her son. To know a person so fully after 93 pages is amazing.

One of Allison's strengths is her brutal honesty but so is her skill as a writer. She introduces the really heavy stuff at just the right time in the book; about a quarter of the way through--late enough to not shock the reader, early enough to draw us in. Her language is often poetic ("She had a body that had never forgotten itself...Watching, I fell in love--not with her but with the body itself...being the creature that is not afraid to fall down but somehow doesn't anyway.") and the way the theme of healing builds throughout the work is understated and well done. Mostly, though, she is honest and that is why people love her. "Two or three things I know for sure," Allison writes, "and one is that I would rather go naked than wear the coat the world has made for me."

All The Shah's Men

2010-09-21T19:17:00.002-04:00

Stephen Kinzer - 228 pps.

"Do you still the think the U.S. is a great country?" my research advisor asked me as I returned to him his copy of "All the Shah's Men." I was taking a class called "Violent Political Change" at the time, a class which covered the Iraqi invasion, the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua, and the El Salvadorian Civil War. "The more I learn about the U.S.'s history, the less proud I am of it," I told him.

The British are the primary villains for most of "Shah's Men," but the U.S. arrives in the nick of time to make sure you haven't forgotten it. After a few introductory chapters--the first of which I think should have been saved for later, though it serves its purpose--Kinzer tells the story of the epic struggle for freedom between the oppressive, and British controlled, Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and the Iranian government. It is a story that touches on many themes--the provision of justice, tyranny versus democracy, the death of colonization--but at its crux is the struggle of one man, Prime Minister Mosaddegh of Iran, against the forces of oppression and corruption.

Mosaddegh is surely one of the most fascinating political figures of the 20th century. He was extremely emotional, often fainting and crying during his speeches, but also highly intellectual, trained in Europe and apt to give his emotional speeches in eloquent French. His political career began at a young age and in every post he took he demonstrated his unrelenting passion for democracy, freedom, and justice. These traits naturally made him an enemy of Shah Pahlavi who ruled Iran as a monarch for much of Mosaddegh's later life and, more importantly, they angered the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) which was intent on robbing Iran blind and turning the requisite number of Iranians into its slaves.

"What? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about that time you fled the country after I nationalized the oil company."

The AIOC in Iran was one of the last vestiges of British colonialism. The company not only insisted on paying Iran a slim percentage of its profits--especially in comparison to the deals other petroleum companies had with the nations they dealt with--lying about its revenues in order to avoid payments and then denying it; shutting Iranians out of its books, administration, and general business dealings; and forcing its menials to live in subhuman conditions while violating promises to improve their quality of life, but its representatives also responded with petulance and ridicule when anyone suggested it rethink its business practices. Indeed, the stubborn insistence of both British and AIOC representatives that AIOC was not only justified in its actions but was doing Iran a favor by "sucking it dry" make for some of the funniest parts of "Shah's Men." And by "funniest" I mean "most horribly depressing."

"Heh, heh. So, you get it now? OK, I'll explain one more time why you are a complete idiot."

When Mosaddegh nationalized the AIOC in 1951 he achieved a major victory for democracy in the Middle East. Needless to say, the British were quite upset, and after the election of Eisenhower in 1953, they finally got the Americans to see things their way. Only a few months after Ike took office, Mosaddegh was deposed in a CIA-led coup which serves as an excellent symbol of American disrespect for Iranian and Middle Eastern self-determination, made all the worse due to the fact that Mosaddegh was democratically elected. Of course, the U.S.'s actions may not have been so motivated by evil as by equally profound levels of ignorance and arrogance--I'm looking at you Dulles brothers--but that's not really the kind of thing you consider when asked what you think about U.S. foreign policy since 1950.

Kinzer is certainly a fan of Mosaddegh. The postscript examines his life after the Doctor's three year imprisonment by the Shah and subsequent lifelong house arrest. In this period of his life, Mosaddegh worked tirelessly to improve conditions in his town in terms of medicine, agriculture, and safety. One anecdote recounts the elderly Dr. Mosaddegh pinning a corrupt policeman against the wall with a cane and telling him never to harass the people in his town again. Though he may have been naïve, lacking in some administrative abilities, and perhaps overly emotional, Mosaddegh's moral courage is inspiring. Kinzer made a wise choice in making him the focus of "Shah's Men."

As for whether the U.S. is a great country or not, they say the best way to judge a man is to observe how he treats those weaker than himself. Of course, everybody makes mistakes and in the U.S.'s case, mistakes have been a way of life as far as foreign policy goes from 1950 to the present. But I am willing to forgive and look to the future for my answer. So, here's hoping that U.S. officials currently deciding Iranian policy keep President Bush's famous quotation in mind: "Fool me once, shame on, shame on you...Fool me twice, won't get fooled again."

-Heathcliff

Sweet Thursday

2010-07-25T13:38:00.003-04:00

John Steinbeck - 260 pps.

"Sweet Thursday" is the sentimental sequel to "Cannery Row" and never really does approach the greatness of the earlier novel. I still like "Thursday" better than almost anything else I've read which says a lot about my soft spot for Steinbeck. In my defense, however, "Thursday" features memorable characters such as the loyal, articulate, and homeless Mack, the world weary marine biologist Doc, and the Oprahesque whorehouse owner Fauna, the wonderful world that they live in, and a realistic romance. "Thursday" succeeds in reiterating a few of Steinbeck's favorite themes: the power of love, the interconnectedness of people and their relationship with their environment, and the uniqueness and value of every person. "Thursday" also suffers from the vices of nostalgia and sentimentality.

A real place

"Thursday" is about the power of love--between brothers and friends as well as romantic love--to give people a reason to keep going when things suck. This theme is developed well for most of the book, especially in the parts which feature the inhabitants of Cannery Row going out of their way to help their beloved friend Doc. But instead of being content with promoting the kind of love shared by friends, "Thursday" ends up endorsing romantic love in a disappointing the-guy-gets-the-girl fashion.

Not only do Suzy and Doc know nearly nothing about each other, but any love-at-first-sight bond they may share pales in comparison to the love and self-sacrifice shown by Doc's friends Old Jingleballicks, Mack, Hazel, and Fauna. Suzy's decision to give up her independent life to be with Doc was also disappointing and undid any of the changes her character underwent. Finally, by not forcing Doc to undergo any real changes in order to fix his problems, Steinbeck let Doc, who was based on Steinbeck's best friend Ed Ricketts, have the easy way out. After reading 250 pages of a wonderful novel I got cheated in the last 10.

Doc

"Thursday" is funny and sweet and engrossing. It lacks the desperation, loneliness, and epic scale of its predecessor, however, which makes it the lesser book. In "Cannery Row" Steinbeck created a very special place that he never wanted to leave. When he went back he forgot what made it great.

-Heathcliff

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

2010-06-23T18:50:00.002-04:00

Richard Feynman, ed. Ralph Leighton - 352 pps.

An inspiring book for anybody who's ever been interested in science, "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" comes from taped conversations between Ralph Leighton and the famous physicist Richard Feynman and is presented as Feynman's own work. There is certainly a lot of character in the anecdotes, from Feynman's seeming penchant for married women to his compulsion for science. That compulsion, for science, not married women, is the defining characteristic of the Feynman presented in "Surely." The man was driven simply to know more about the universe, not to ask deep questions about meaning or purpose or anything of that sort. Feynman was too no-nonsense for that.

Not a problem for Richard

And "Surely You're Joking" is written in a very no-nonsense style. The way Feynman discusses his exploits seems so straightforward and judgement-free that you'd swear he was scientifically examining himself. But this isn't to say that the work is boring because it's incredibly exciting. Feynman's passion comes through on every page: his experiments on ants, his forays into safe-cracking, his conversations with Princeton topologists, and his work on the Manhattan project make up some of the more memorable passages. No, Feynman simply seems detached, as the physicist Freeman Dyson put it: "That was what impressed me most strongly--that [Feynman] was a sort of Bhagavad-Gita ideal of somebody who was engaged in action but at the same time totally detached."

Richard Feynman

But Feynman is not the Joe-six-pack-science-machine-Bhagavad-Gita-ideal-of-somebody he makes himself out to be; there was nothing ordinary about him. He was exceptionally gifted at mathematics (he was a Putnum fellow and reportedly scored the then highest marks on the entrance exam to the Princeton physics department ever), an obsessive student (he taught himself calculus in the beginning of high school and habitually performed experiments), and incredibly talented (a modestly well-known painter and a gifted drummer). In addition to being superhuman, Feynman also had a human side, as seems to be demonstrated by the collection of letters "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track," his memories of his first wife, Arline, in "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" and his brief mention of crying at the thought Arline's passing in "Surely." Yet even if he's not as simple as "Surely" makes him out to be, the work still conjures up as much excitement about science as can be reasonably expected. And us nerds would prefer to believe that Feynman was superhuman, anyway. We need a hero too.

-Heathcliff

The Tipping Point

2010-05-18T21:45:00.012-04:00

Malcolm Gladwell - 280 pps.

Gladwell is a great writer but not a great scientist. "Tipping" is a quick read, covering -- in typical Gladwell style -- an abundance of ostensibly unrelated anecdotes, all linked by the central idea of the book: the tipping point, that magical number of participants necessary to turn small-scale activities into popular trends. "Tipping" does a great job explaining how the various "epidemics" it discusses came to pass--Paul Revere's ride worked because Revere was exceptionally personable, Airwalk sold a lot of shoes because its marketing team exploited teen trends. "Tipping" does not attempt, however, to explain how to predict future tipping points -- turning "Tipping's" descriptions of tipping points into predictive theories is left as an exercise for the reader.

But "Tipping" tries to point the reader in the right directions. The strongest chapters are those concerning "The Power of Context." Of these, the passages concerning the effectiveness of the "Broken Windows" strategy for preventing crime are particularly interesting, probably because the "Broken Windows" strategy is a clearly stated sociological theory which, at the very least, can be refuted. The chapters on "Mavens" and "Connectors" are just as interesting but lack enough evidence to be convincing. The case studies on suicide and smoking at the end of "Tipping" stretch the tipping point theory to its limits. Here the ideas of what a Maven can be (anyone, including someone who may as well exist only in your imagination, like James Dean) or what "stickiness" is (death, or the amount of nicotine in cigarettes) are made exceedingly vague. Vagueness is, of course, engaged in a deep love/hate relationship with the social sciences.

What is Jacques Derrida talking about? Nobody knows.

Where "Tipping" succeeds is in dropping interesting tidbits. Did you know that the very presence of a charismatic person can raise your mood? The many passages suggesting that our emotional state is largely shaped by external, not internal, conditions are just as fascinating. Some of the best material concerns the production of "Seasame Street" and "Blue's Clues." Who knew how calculated the making of these shows was? The brief passages about Micronesia's suicide problem and Bernhard Goetz are gripping. Most surprising was "Tipping's" insistence that our choices are much less rational than we typically believe. The implications of this idea may be more far-reaching -- in economics, politics, finance, and so on -- than any other in "Tipping."

Steve: Marketer Extraordinaire

The best parts of "Tipping" are what do the most to weaken its conclusions. Yes, all of the information in "Tipping" is fascinating, but there's not much to the theoretical framework holding that information together. I am still waiting for someone to tell me how to spot trends before they become big, principally so that I become very wealthy, but also so I can better understand why people behave the way they do. It is natural that "Tipping" did not solve that puzzle -- we're probably a very long way off from getting that one -- but at least it tries. Sure, I would like to see a more technical work, offering specific theories and testing them, but I'm also not a Maven-Connector. And the readership numbers for the GB club support me on that theory.

-Heathcliff

Long Walk to Freedom

2010-05-06T02:40:00.008-04:00

Nelson Mandela - 630 pps.

Nelson Mandela and the Africa National Congress (ANC) had a huge effect on history. With Mandela’s release from prison, the supports of the racially divided apartheid government of South Africa began to crumble. In 1994 the development of a new South African constitution prompted the first free election in South African history, with Mandela emerging as victor. Mandela assumed the role of President and inherited problems ranging from insuring the economic stability of the county to protecting minority rights. Mandela published his autobiography, "Long Walk to Freedom,"during the first few years of his presidency, both for a greater understanding of his party and ideology and a way to quiet fears of a new black majority government in South Africa. The book, while informative, is biased, but can still be appreciated for its historical significance.

To understand the themes in the book and how it portrays the ANC, South Africa, and the racial tension under the apartheid government, one needs to understand the progression of events presented in the book and Mandela's ideological changes. Mandela was born in a small town in a central-eastern region of South Africa called Mvezo. He describes his idyllic childhood by remembering the sweeping landscape and flora of the region, and the peculiar customs of the Thembu dynasty. After being pulled into the royal family he was able to get an education and eventually wound up working as a lawyer in Johannesburg. There Mandela got his first taste of an ANC meeting, discussing politics and becoming one of the ANC's leading members. Even then Mandela had a strong sense of racial equality, calling for support from the Communist Party as well as political organizations for Coloureds and Indians. At this point in the story we see the ANC start to change, going from a peaceful protesting organization to the creation of the militant Umkhonto we Sizwe wing of the ANC, a group set on the sabotage of apartheid buildings and infrastructure. Mandela spends time underground avoiding authorities but eventually is caught, put on trial, and sentenced to life in prison. Mandela spends a great portion of his book describing his life at Robben Island, the relationships built and broken there, and his changing views on race. Under pressure from the rest of the world, the apartheid government under Frederik Willem de Klerk released Mandela and peacefully organized a ceasefire and a transitional government to favor universal suffrage and the abolishment of a white government. Core themes as presented in "Long Walk" became ever-present in Mandela’s career; the most significant being racial equality and ideological tolerance.

I have mentioned several times the extent to which Nelson Mandela promotes not only a black majority but equality for all races in South Africa. During his tenure as head of the ANC, Mandela promoted the acceptance of the Communist Party, Coloureds, and Indians. At first he was apprehensive of the role they would play in the ANC, stating in his memoirs “while I had made progress in terms of my opposition to communism, I still feared the influence of Indians.” Mandela progressed from this thinking toward a more universal ideology once these racial issues came up in constitutional revisions. The idea of racial equality was highly favored by the minorities in South Africa and the apartheid government. The assurance of safety and rights after a transfer of power is always a major worry, so reiterating it in interviews, speeches, and finally his published autobiography proved to be a successful public relations move. The move also eased the nerves of the international community by showing that a dictator or terrorist was not gaining control of the country, but the level-headed ANC.

The message of racial equality alone is good, but when looking at the audience of the book, some discrepancies arise. Mandela was worried that the new ANC-lead government would fail in its mission. For decades prior to the end of the apartheid sanctions and economic trouble has plagued the country. Foreign investment was leaving at an alarming rate as the racist government seemed doomed to fail, and the security of any investment went sour. Mandela catered his autobiography on the populations abroad in hopes of giving insight toward his policies. He saw that without new investors, getting the white minority to buy into the government, or other countries for that matter, his plan for South Africa would fail. A book has always been a great way to convey ideas and hopes in a subtle manner. Mandela’s book was successful in this regard because it brought skeptics on board with his new regime. Whether Mandela’s beliefs truly changed from his early leadership of the ANC or he was being the classic Machiavellian is unsure, but this book did much to help stabilize the early days of Mandella's presidency.

Mandela also took care in making sure that the ANC got credit for most of the policy changes while he remained a figurehead. In many cases in the book, Mandela downplays his significance stating that he was simply chosen due to his orating skills or his renown. He also made sure to downplay any talk of militant action by arguing it was his last recourse. When at an ANC meeting he finally argued that “the state had given us no alternative to violence…It was wrong to subject our people to armed attacks by the state without offering them some kind of alternative” few were surprised. Many foreign nationals were scared that the man coming to power was a former terrorist and saboteur. He downplayed the actions of the Umkhoto we Sizwe as minor, necessary, and with minimal human life loss. Evidently, his rhetoric was successful.

Nelson Mandela catered "Long Walk" too much to his audience. Mandela should have been more matter-of-fact, given the importance of his role in South Africa. The fact that nearly every statement in "Long Walk" was written to ease the minds of the people affected by the change in government, casts aspersions on whether or not the events in "Long Walk" are portrayed accurately or to give the ANC the best face. Mandela described the leaders of the ANC as moderate and continually showcased their peaceful demonstrations and peace talks. He carefully skirted around the fact that he brought a military regiment into the country to bomb buildings. He ignores his early ideas of a black South Africa. He only describes one white person as being despicable, and that was the despicable Suitcase. While the book gives historians a great piece of a puzzle of the death of the apartheid, there is still much that had reduced significance or was only referred to in a page. If Mandela had written this as a reflection piece today, the details of not-so-savory events would prove invaluable to the understanding of the outlawed political movements in South Africa. While serving his own purposes, Mandela leaves historians with much to desire.

Gripes aside, Long Walk to Freedom is a well-written, informative autobiography. The story of Mandela doing the seemingly impossible in bringing about a peaceful change in government while gaining support from outside nations and from the inside from the minority remnants of the government is undeniably compelling. Though biased and particularly tailored to naysayers, the book has significant historical importance and does a good job showing the political theory and actions of the ANC and their rise to power. Without it, the intimate knowledge of the individual situation would have been unseen or unappreciated and the opinions and ideas of a great political mind and leader would have gone unnoticed.

-Maj. Major Major Major

Nine Stories

2010-03-17T01:15:00.015-04:00

J.D. Salinger - 200 pps.

It was a shock to go from Vonnegut to Salinger. Vonnegut is a master of elaborating on ideas and concepts, Salinger the lives of people. While Vonnegut saw people as walking test tubes, Salinger would evidently have found it impossible to not tell two people apart. In a few paragraphs Salinger typically reveals more about a character--through his tics, his clothing, his speech--than Vonnegut does in a novel. They are both great writers, but Salinger is more compassionate (sentimental?) and much more my style.

The longing and regret of Eloise in "Uncle Wiggly in Connecticut", the crushing end of "The Laughing Man", the tenderness of "Down at the Dinghy", and Seymour Glass's tragic insanity in "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" are some of the highlights of "Nine Stories." Great comedic timing, imagination, and quite a few memorable lines ("[The] most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy is a liquid. Mine started to seep through its container as early as the next morning.") make the work all the more charming. I also cannot overlook the fact that the characters are almost exclusively very intelligent, mid-to-upper class, well-dressed, and disaffected, something that appeals to the elitist in me (and in Wes Anderson. Hey, you think Wes Anderson has read much J.D. Salinger?). At the heart of these stories, however, is a deep respect for the protagonists, no matter how strange and screwed up they may be.

Seymour Gla...I mean, Richie Tenenbaum

Despite my praise, "Nine Stories" did not always work. The apparently much acclaimed "For Esmé with Love and Squalor" was maybe over my head, though the portrayal of the narrator's emotional problems was well-done. "Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes" is cheap. (Dude's wife is cheating on him with his best friend? Never heard that before.) Also, what is with "Teddy?" Evidently Salinger was dismissive of the story though I was quite into until the philosophical bits started and it is revealed that Teddy is a seer. Despite these criticisms, even these stories would stand out in most collections, but they did not affect me in the same way the others did.

I am guessing "Nine Stories" would be quite popular with people my age. Salinger "almost always [writes] about very young people," and as anyone who has read "Catcher in the Rye" can tell you, the hopes and fears of young people have not changed all that much since Salinger was active. Most importantly, and mentioned earlier, Salinger has a deep respect for his characters, no matter their circumstances. Indeed, as long as people are looking for acceptance, "Nine Stories" will be read.

-Heathcliff

Cat's Cradle

2010-03-14T23:06:00.017-04:00

Kurt Vonnegut - 287 pps.

Like the buds of spring blooming on the trees, so did my spirit jump to life as I finished "Cat's Cradle". Cheery, uplifting, and life-affirming, it is filled with jubilant lines such as "What Can a Thoughtful Man Hope for Mankind on Earth, Given the Experience of the Past Million Years?"..."Nothing." and chapter titles like "Julian Castle Agrees with Newt that Everything is Meaningless". "Cradle" is a testament to the power of the human spirit and the simple joys life holds for us all.

"Cradle" is about the narrator, known only as John, and his zany efforts to write a book about what several prominent people were doing when the first atom bomb landed. His work entangles him with the family of deceased physicist and father of the atom bomb, the fictional Felix Hoenikker. After getting mixed up with the Hoenikkers, John ends up going to the fictional island of San Lorenzo where he encounters the religion of Bokononism, founded by Bokonon, and eventually witnesses the heartwarming end of human civilization.

Don't you feel all tingly?

The writing is very good. Absurdity is used to great effect; Bokonist hymns consist of Bokonon's calypso songs and John's responses of "Um." to the ridiculous things that people around him say are hilarious. Critiques of humanity's insatiable bloodlust and consistently terrible political systems are made concisely and effectively. Felix Hoenikker is one of the most fascinating characters I have encountered. And the appearance of the mythical Bokonon at the end is surprising and well-executed. All this and "Cradle" is a page-turner to boot.

Yet "Cradle" still came up short in some ways. The existential nihilism that is at the heart of many of the characters makes it difficult for the reader to empathize with them. And the characters who are not total nihilists tend to not resemble actual people. It's hard to like them too. Also, scenes seemingly designed to elicit emotion do not always work. When Ambassador Minton gives his passionate speech, a scene with great potential for drawing emotion, the reader has a hard time making Minton's pleas for compassion and peace jibe with the nihilistic tones of the work. How can we have compassion when there is no one and nothing to care about?

They believe in nothing

This lack of sympathetic characters and emotionally stirring moments makes "Cradle" a highly intellectual affair--and even in that department it does not always deliver. The worst failure concerns Bokonism. "Cradle" suggests that Bokonism offers hope for the human race, especially in the closing scene where Bokonon reiterates that if life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Yet if there is no true meaning, then there are no "foma that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." There is no lemonade.

This ultimately makes the end of "Cradle" far less stirring than it should have been. In the last chapters there is a remarkable convergence of all the important themes of the work, yet the ending still did not work for me. Either humanism, thinly veiled as Bokonism, has some intrinsic meaning or it doesn't, but it can't have both qualities. That just doesn't make sense. In the lovely words of Newt Hoenikker: "See the cat? See the cradle?"

-Heathcliff

Armageddon in Retrospect

2010-03-12T18:28:00.014-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut - 232 pps.

Published posthumously, "Armageddon" collects eleven short stories, one letter, and one speech written by Kurt, and an introduction by his son, Mark, which is possibly the best part of "Armageddon." In it, Mark describes his father as being "like an extrovert who wanted to be an introvert, a very social guy who wanted to be a loner, a lucky person who would have preferred to be unlucky."It is hard to believe that the author of "Breakfast of Champions" and "Cat's Cradle" was happy-go-lucky, but that is much easier to believe about the author of "Armageddon". The latter Kurt Vonnegut seems to be happy with playing it safe.

Those familiar with Vonnegut through "Breakfast of Champions" or "Slaughterhouse-Five" will be surprised by "Armageddon." Nearly all of it is conventional and subpar. "Great Day" features a cop-out of an ending, "Brighten Up" never really clicks, "Just You and Me, Sammy" could have been shortened, and "The Unicorn Trap" suffers more from being set in the Middle Ages than it gains. Worst of all, the rapid pacing, anger, pessimism, and insanity characteristic of Vonnegut's best work is largely absent.

From the man who brought you "The Unicorn Trap"

"Armageddon" does, however, contain a few gems. "Guns Before Butter" features a great and humorous ending to an otherwise bleak tale about American POWs in Dresden. The title work features some bizarre and effective science fiction elements; the protagonist is a physicist who works to eliminate evil by eliminating the Devil. Captain Donnini from "The Commandant's Desk" and "Guns" is a truly likeable character. The speech reveals how hilariously scatterbrained Vonnegut became. And in all the stories we see his deep hatred of violence and war.

I got through "Armageddon" more easily than Vonnegut's other work. Fatalism and sarcasm is less present in these works than in the more popular ones. Yet without these features the stories lack bite. "Armageddon" should be seen as a record of Vonnegut's shortcomings, and will probably be best appreciated by those interested in his growth as a writer. For the rest of us, however, it is encouraging to know that even a master made a few missteps.

-Heathcliff

Breakfast of Champions

2010-01-01T13:39:00.008-05:00

Kurt Vonnegut - 303 pps.

Once when asked where his ideas came from, Kurt Vonnegut responded "I was goofing around like everybody else in Indiana, and all of a sudden stuff came gushing out. It was disgust with civilization." Written after a 4 year "retirement" from writing, "Breakfast of Champions" reads very much like it was gushed out, and it is certainly not lacking in disgust with civilization. It also reads, however, like the work of an out-of-practice writer: "Breakfast of Champions" can get quite philosophical, and this is where it is most disappointing.

"Breakfast" is about successful businessman Dwayne Hoover's descent into insanity and science fiction writer Kilgore Trout's journey to Midland City where he finally pushes Hoover over the edge. True to the narrator's remarks within the novel, "Breakfast" seemingly brings "chaos to [the] order" of conventional stories, meaning that there is not much of a plot.

Despite this, "Breakfast" does a good job of keeping the reader engaged. The already short chapters of the book are made shorter by section breaks, illustrations, and short sentences which makes them quick to read. The humor--though often too morbid to really be funny--makes "Breakfast" easy to get through. This is, however, a serious novel.

A serious man

The conflict between determinism and free will is central to "Breakfast". Determinism is assumed to be true in the beginning of "Breakfast", and the rest of the novel seems dedicated to finding meaning for the human race while facing this assumption. This makes "Breakfast" oftentimes appear more like a philosophical treatise than a novel. This is especially true in the sections where the narrator says that he no longer seeks to create change--whether that be through writing, criticism, or otherwise--because the way things are is the way things are. This makes other philosophical sections of the book, such as those that criticize the US government and artists and storytellers, seem hypocritical.

Toward the end of the novel (and hinted at in the introduction) the narrator claims that he will only tell the reader facts about humans as if they were robots, yet "Breakfast" is essentially a story about the sacredness of every human being. Indeed, the section in which consciousness is described as the only sacred thing in the universe is moving. Yet the other sections of the novel are not rewarding enough for "Breakfast" to be called a success. In those sections, the anger and wit that are two of the novel's strengths often lead to contradictions and create a pessimistic tone that borders on whining. When that anger and wit are combined with compassion for the human race, as in the section about consciousness, "Breakfast" is at its best. "Breakfast of Champions" then, is like so many flawed novels and stories in that it started off as a great idea but fell short in execution. But if you want to get depressed, it sure is a great place to start.

-Heathcliff

Cat Power: A Good Woman

2009-11-28T03:08:00.017-05:00

Elizabeth Goodman - 295 pps.

Elizabeth Goodman draws inferences left and right, confuses schizophrenia with multiple personality disorder, and occasionally insults her subject, but Cat Power is nothing if not interesting. The only existing biography on Chan Marshall, a.k.a. Cat Power, is well-researched, addictive, and even challenging -- especially for those who really like Cat Power, a.k.a. everyone who will read this book (and book review).

Though psychological analysis is generally frowned upon in the biography world, I enjoy it, so long as it is done tastefully. Many, fervent Cat Power fans in particular, will argue that in Cat Power the line of tastefulness is crossed many times -- particularly in later chapters where Goodman portrays Cat Power more as a savvy businesswoman and less as an artist -- but I would not (except for where Goodman's aforementioned confusion of mental illnesses occurs). Cat Power is less of a factual biography and more of a speculative one. In Cat Power, Goodman advances an argument based on the available evidence, not unlike the many critical essays I'm sure our readers (just kidding) have had to write for English class. Whether her argument is valid or not is up to you, but I don't think it is distasteful so much as surprising.

Not surprising so much as distasteful

So what's all the fuss about? Cat Power was apparently a huge deal to indie kids in the 90s. In the same way that 60s dissidents viewed Bob Dylan as the voice of their generation, the disaffected youth of the 90s seemed to have seen Cat Power as a voice for their loneliness and alienation. Cat Power filled that role for good reason: her early songs are disturbingly personal, and her lonely and difficult childhood seems to pervade them. But, like Dylan, Marshall's personal life has not remained consistent with the music she recorded over ten years ago. Marshall is no longer the woman of constant sorrow that her fans want her to be, and Goodman's exposure of that fact has upset Cat Power fans.

If you believe the usual Cat Power story, then you see Marshall as a drug abuser and heavy drinker since 18, a smoker since 2nd grade, and general troublemaker since the womb, and as someone whom, in their mid-30s and after a stint in a mental ward, finally found salvation in soul music. This is a good story, but as Cat Power makes clear, Marshall's life has not been quite so mythic in scope. Her early life was terrible, and that was likely the inspiration for much of her early music, and she did try to drink herself to death after a bad break-up, but besides that, things were pretty normal, even for a quasi-rock star. She gave out popsicles to neighborhood kids while living in Cabbagetown, Georgia, worked "three or four jobs" while living in the Lower East Side, and, when she returns to her home in Atlanta, she throws parties to which friends are encouraged to bring their whole families. She has also remained relatively healthy for most of her life, though that thing about smoking since the 2nd grade is true. She has also been in a movie, been a Chanel model, and had her music appear in several commercials. So much for being the Crown Princess of Sadness.

She feels your pain

That Marshall is not a total wreck, and is in many ways normal, is, to me at least, more amazing than the mythic story that is usually told about her life, and it should not detract from whatever fans may feel about her music. Her successes, however, should not be seen as the end of her story. Cat Power emphasizes the contradictions in Marshall's life. Her shyness and her career choice. Her desire to start a family and her inability to stay in one spot. Her tendency to waver between mental stability and insanity. As Goodman mentions, the current arc of Marshall's career -- partial sobriety, work as a model, and concerts that resemble concerts instead of drunken meltdowns -- will probably not last (according to Goodman, Chan's recently been drinking again). In other words, the Cat Power story is not over. When it is, however, I hope Goodman, with her ability to cut through the bullshit, will go through the effort of writing a second edition.

-Heathcliff

Jimmy Page: Magus, Musician, Man

2009-11-26T19:14:00.019-05:00

George Case - 267 pps.

When I was sixteen I bought my first guitar and the guitarist I wanted to be was Jimmy Page. His playing was the fastest (seeing videos of Eddie Van Halen playing faster was like waking up when your mom puts the tooth-fairy-money under your pillow), the most expressive, and the baddest -- as in defiant, as in evil -- I'd ever heard. Sloppy perhaps, yet sublime. As with all my other heroes, I had to find out as much as I could about Jimmy Page, but all that was out there was Hammer of the Gods (which may mostly be a work of fiction, but is nonetheless still recommend). Five years later and still desperate for information, I read the book that I hoped would give rest to my Page-hungry mind. Good thing hope springs eternal in the human breast.

If you did this, you'd play sloppy too

In Jimmy Page, Case has managed to make the notoriously debaucherous career of Led Zeppelin seem like a borefest on par with ESPN8's 4-day uninterrupted coverage of the 2009 Senior PGA Championship (no pun intended). When Case isn't running through the laundry list of every concert Led Zeppelin ever played in the ten-plus years of the band's existence, he is focusing on the most boring Led Zeppelin character of all, Jimmy Page. The fact that Page comes off as a surprisingly uninteresting person in this book is perhaps not Case's fault -- it could be Jimmy's, I guess -- but Case's writing style does not help. Jimmy Page is written as a piece of journalism, as a Reuters reporter would type up one of their bulletins, except that it is filled with a lifetime's worth of bad Led Zeppelin puns. Case does almost no editorializing, and what little there is consists of his writing something along the lines of "perhaps Jimmy Page met Jeff Beck when Page was 14, but I think Jimmy Page met Jeff Beck when Page was 18." To be short, Case takes no risks in this biography, and since his research consists of few original interviews, and none with people close to Page, there is little of interest here to fans who have done even the most basic of Jimmy Page research.

Jimmy Page distills the (mostly already available) facts about Jimmy Page and all the facts point to the same conclusion: Jimmy Page as the public knows him is boring. Yes, he was into the occult, but it's possible that Page's interest could've been strictly academic. Yes, he was the architect of Led Zeppelin's sound, but it seems as if Page's passion only extended far enough to seek out an engineer who would agree to keep his name off of the album credits. And about that debauchery, yeah, Jimmy Page consumed enough alcohol, cocaine, and heroin for ten men, but as far as we know, Page's recovery from those things was as dramatic as a sunny afternoon spent with the Cleavers.

Pagey's Polar Opposite

But I'm not going to let Case off the hook just yet, and for an important reason. If I say that it wasn't Case who caused this book to be drier than the Gobi, I'd have to concede that it's my hero, Jimmy Page himself, who is too dreary to make even 100 pages of this 267 page book interesting. And I just can't accept that the man who made me want to be good at guitar is boring. Maybe I'm in denial, but when I hear the "Stairway" solo or "White Summer" I hear a man who is inspired, not a panderer only intent upon satisfying his audience. I also cannot believe that all of the shadier parts of his history -- his affinity for the occult, his penchant for girls a third of his age, his hedonistic tendencies -- were in truth so mundane as to only warrant 20 or so pages of coverage each. So sorry, George Case, but there is a much better version of Jimmy Page's biography waiting to be written, and it will have to be done by someone who takes a cue from the Sorcerer himself: someone who is willing to take the risks necessary to create enduring, or at the very least, interesting, artwork.

-Heathcliff

Farewell, I'm Bound to Leave You

2009-08-09T14:43:00.014-04:00

Fred Chappell - 228 pps.

The third entry in the Kirkman saga concerns a group of people largely absent from the first two books: women. The structure of Farewell is much more similar to I Am One of You Forever (You haven't read it yet?) than to Brighten the Corner Where You Are; it is a collection of short stories concerning life and death, music, and the fairer sex. Except for a few chapters, these stories are presented as conversations between Jess and his mother and grandma in which the latter two recount stories of "the good people" or rather, the good women, of previous generations. To avoid trite hyperbole concerning womanly strength, I will say simply that this book will make you want to hug your mom.

Like the uncles of I Am One of You Forever, the aunts of Farewell are plentiful and fascinating. There's the daughter of a deadbeat alcoholic dad whose surrogate grandpa teaches her to fly fish, the town's resident genius who arranges a picturesque life for two young lovers, and the charitable Anglea Newcombe, whose kindness extends beyond the living world. The most charming story in the work centers around two lovers who, as the woman is preparing to kill the man in a duel, render themselves unconscious and collapse on each other. When they awake, they embrace and their quarrels are put aside. The work is not always so happy, however. Almost all of the aunts have passed away by the time Jess hears their stories, loss lurks in nearly every episode, and the death of Jess' grandma frames the work. The pervasiveness of death makes the beautifully written stories bittersweet. As Mama Kirkman remarks, "sometimes it seems all the really good people are gone."

Women: The New Men?

Equally important to the work is music. In my favorite chapter, the fictional anthropologist Dr. Holme Barcroft travels with Jess' mother and grandma to a hoedown hosted by the Lafferty family and its legendarily skilled square dance calling patriarch. The writing in this chapter brilliantly captures the mystical feeling of unity that come with listening to really great music. As Chappell writes, "[While listening to the music, Dr. Barcroft] felt that he was standing near the origins of a strength that helped to animate the world, a power that joined all things together in a pattern that lay just barely beyond the edge of comprehension." Musical references crop up throughout the work, notably in a chapter about Jess' impetus to write and in the work's title, which comes from an Appalachian folk song. Indeed, the lyrics of that song crop up throughout the work, particularly when the characters find themselves in times of need. It's clear that Chappell sees music not just as a source of joy, but also of comfort, and his writing on the topic occasionally borders on profound. Mostly though, he sees music as a link through time and place, and that is wherein its solace is found.

A real life Dr. Holme Barcroft

This book is not I Am One of You Forever. The storytelling is not quite as tight in places (The story about the courtship of Papa and Mama Kirkman seemed forced.), the humor is not as sharp, and it sometimes borders on Rockwell-esque wholesomeness. That last assesment isn't totally fair though, because this book does cover adultery, rape, and murder remarkably candidly. Also, these criticisms are mostly stylistic. The substance of this book is remarkable. It is about remembering loved ones and letting them go. It is about the strength of friendship and understanding. Mostly though, it is about the human capacity to endure and heal, in particular, the female human capacity to endure and heal. If you're a guy, read it and feel a little more appreciation for the females in your life. If you're a girl, then you can pat yourself on the back; you inspired a fantastic book.

-Heathcliff

Arctic Drift

2009-06-12T18:15:00.010-04:00

Clive and Dirk Cussler - 515 pps.

Not yet gone are the days of cheap action fiction that you can buy in airports, subways, and other kiosks around the world. Today you see new people trying to either bank on the success of The Davinci Code or the success of CSI. You do not see characters like Jack Reacher from the Lee Child books or Dirk Pitt written from Clive Cussler being woven into these action fictions anymore. Chivalrous, intelligent, and remnant from the days of knights, these characters tend to stick with you through the thick and thin the more you read them.

Interestingly enough, I first started reading about the adventures of Dirk Pitt and NUMA long ago with the first book of the series, The Mediterranean Caper written back in the hey day of the 1970's. Since then , Cussler has written dozens of books with Dirk Pitt and his sidekick Al Giordino saving the day, including the joint work of Cussler and his son Dirk Cussler in Artic Drift.

As other readers of the series know, when Dirk Cussler began to assist in the writing of the last three books, there was in the introduction of Pitt's long lost children Dirk and Summer. (If you are confused bout the all the Dirks, let me sum up. Dirk Cussler (Author), Dirk Pitt Sr (referred to as"Pitt" and Dirk Pitt Junior (referred to as "Dirk"), Hopefully that helps) Basically in my opinion, the write in of these two new characters that we were supposed to start loving from the get go was a shock and to this day I find myself skimming over the Dirk and Summer scenes to find out what Pitt has been up to.

Sadly I guess this is what is supposed to happen as Pitt has aged appropriately since the first novel in the 70s. I really hope that Pitt doesn't become a "Hey lets get Dad's help since he is too old to partake in our adventures" character but the way these stories are going I can't imagine it happening in any other way except maybe Pitt dying in a blaze of glory in a sword fight with a super villain after saving the world and being the hero he is to me. Now yes, that will never happen, but hey, I can wish can't I?

Overall if you are a fan of the series I would recommend this book. If you are starting out in the adventures of Pitt, then I suggest that you start with the earlier novels and read your way through them. Without having read Pitt's early adventures, I don't think I could fully appreciate the subtle humor and references to previous novels and how deep the Pitt character actually is. This novel continues the great line of stories being written by Clive Cussler and on a personal note continued the development of Dirk Pitt as I know him on the page.

PS. Heathcliff if you touch this post I will destroy you. Whore.

-Maj. MajorMajorMajor

Brighten the Corner Where You Are

2009-05-26T14:15:00.014-04:00

Fred Chappell - 212 pps.

The second entry in the Kirkman Tetralogy (the first one was I Am One of You Forever, which was superb), Brighten the Corner Where You Are finds Kirkman patriarch Joe Robert playing Galileo to rural North Carolina's Catholic Church. Joe Robert taught evolution in his high school science class and from the beginning, the reader is fairly sure of his fate. The book follows what will presumably be Joe Robert's last day as high school teacher; the day when the school board finds him guilty of committing treason against the church.

Joe Robert drives this book. The writing is not as rich as that of I Am One of You Forever, but it is still frequently chuckle-inducing and contains several brilliant poetic flourishes. However, from the beginning you will be entranced by Joe Robert. He is a bit different in this book, a more grizzled and intellectual version of the overgrown teenager from I Am One. To stimulate the minds of his students he does everything from host Socratic seminars (During one of these seminars - which is the funniest scene in the book - Joe Robert shouts "Goddammit, Socrates, you don't understand a thing!" at a boy who has inherited the philosopher's spirit.) to playing pranks on them. Joe Robert is intent on one thing, kindling the fires that are the minds of his students, as Plutarch insisted. His stubborn pursuit of this goal is his primary character flaw.

So. Crates.

As expected, a conflict between spirituality and science is at the heart of the book, though not in the way I anticipated. For instance, the trial before the school board, which I thought would be reminiscent of the trial in Inherit the Wind, never occurs, because Joe Robert quits before it can. Instead, the conflict delicately simmers up in the episodic structure of the book. In one episode, the literal-minded Joe Robert engages in an argument with the school janitor over the difference between looking at things and seeing them; an argument that is actually about whether explaining events or accepting them is more important. In another, Joe Robert's faith in reason leads him to conversing with an escaped goat named Bacchus. As Joe Robert argues, the only way to get someone, or some goat, to do something is to make them believe that it is in their best interest. In the strangest and most powerful chapter of the book, Joe Robert engages in a legal defense of Charles Darwin during which he delivers an elegant speech on the compatibility of Christianity and the theory of evolution. In each of these episodes, and indeed throughout the entire book, a subtle and stunning treatise on the nature of truth is developed. By the end, it becomes clear that it is not just science and religion that are up for debate, but the nature of truth. What is it? How do we find it? Chappell doesn't answer these questions, but he's guaranteed to make you scratch your head over them at least once.

You can't handle this book review!

The title for Brighten the Corner Where You Are comes from a hymn about inspiring others by being virtuous in daily life. Joe Robert is not virtuous in the classical sense. Actually, he lies like a dog on a cheap rug. But these lies do more for the people around him than the truth ever does. As a teacher, Joe Robert is universally loved and is adept at reaching his kids. But when he finally embraces the truth, in his defense of Darwin, he ends up destroying that which is most precious to him. It seems that Joe Robert is locked into a life of horrible paradox. His deep love for the human race manifests itself through his pursuit of the truth, and his stubborn pursuit of the truth causes suffering for those he cares about most deeply. When he finally realizes this, Joe Robert simply leans over to his wife and asks her if she gets the joke. I have to say, I am still working on it.

-Heathcliff

Odd Man Out

2009-05-19T15:12:00.013-04:00

Matt McCarthy - 294 pps.

Could someone explain the controversy surrounding this book to me? McCarthy's manager embellishes his sentences with more profanity than a Bob Saget routine, the Dominicans and the Americans don't get along, and the players are using everything from Red Bull to cocaine on a regular basis. Maybe I am jaded or maybe the implication that most professional baseball players are arrogant overgrown adolescents isn't shocking anymore. I have to admit, McCarthy's one year stay with the Provo Angels didn't seem all that different from my four year stint with the Yorktown High School Patriots, except that the players on the Patriots drove nicer cars.

McCarthy's writing has its weak points. Apparently more than a few of his facts are incorrect - he gets game results wrong and it seems that an incident involving Larry King's child punching McCarthy's teammate in the groin was fabricated - and his frequent allusions to his time at Harvard Med can get annoying. However, McCarthy is mostly a compelling storyteller, so long as he sticks to vignettes about his teammates hitting on T.J.I. Fridays waitresses or his manager's Dice Clay impressions.

McCarthy's initial interactions with Chris Young, currently of the San Diego Padres, and the Yale baseball team made me think McCarthy was simply a baseball playing Tucker Max. I was wrong. McCarthy is more or less a straight man who is also highly affable; he also turns out to be frequently hilarious. My favorite line comes from early in the book "In mid-May...I received a call from a scout for the New York Yankees named Cesar Presbott. He began the conversation by announcing, 'It is I, Cesar Presbott, scout for the New York Yankees.' His self-importance oozed through the phone."

It is I, Monty Python Reference

Despite the factual errors, I know what McCarthy means when he says he continues to maintain the veracity of his book. If I were to write my memoirs of middle school summers spent in mini-vans and scalding southern Virginia ball fields, I'm sure I would misquote my manager more than once. But my readers would still know that he looked like a trimmer Wilford Brimley, he turned a blind eye when we were off the field, and facilitated what my apparently lifelong love of baseball. Ultimately, the spirit of the message is more important than the mean old facts.

Odd Man Out isn't for those who didn't play baseball, because it reinforces the negative stereotypes about baseball players that are turning so many people off of the sport. For those who did play however, you will find this book snappy, exciting, and nostalgic. You will see that the Provo Angels are comprised of ghosts from your baseball past - the crotchety old manager, the prima donna all-star, and the unstable fireballer - and you will be reminded of baseball's timelessness. The drug usage and (gasp!) underage drinking will deteriorate the already embattled image of the modern baseball player. But nobody should get mad at McCarthy for sharing this information; he is a first-hand reporter, after all. The good needs to be taken with the bad, even when we baseball players are on the losing end.

-Heathcliff

The Painted Veil

2009-05-11T23:02:00.011-04:00

W. Somerset Maugham - 289 pps.

You know what most men aren't good at? Figuring out what goes on inside the minds of women. You know what W. Somerset Maugham isn't good at?

Published in 1925, The Painted Veil tells the story of Kitty Fane, a vapid British socialite. She moved with her new husband, Walter, to the British colony of Hong Kong, where he is a bacteriologist. But this is no honeymoon story. Kitty does not love Walter, who is socially awkward and aloof, but married him because she was getting too old to be single. He inexplicably adores her, even though she's vain and silly. Unfortunately for Walter, she falls head over heels for the charming, powerful, and married Charles Townsend and they begin a passionate affair. Eventually Walter catches on and she asks for a divorce. He says he will agree to it if Kitty can get Charles and Charles's wife to make written statements that promise that they will divorce and that he will marry Kitty. If they won't do that, Kitty will have to accompany Walter to his new post in a remote village where he will be treating a cholera epidemic. Charles won't do it, of course, because the scandal would ruin his career, and Kitty is devastated. Not only has her lover abandoned her, he's sent her off to certain death.

That's about the first hundred pages. It's a pretty big wind-up just to get to this little village, and even when we get there, nothing much happens. Or it does, but it's all inside Kitty's mind and heart. The problem with that is that the author is a man and he doesn't seem to understand women very well. Or even like them.

This is supposed to be the story of a woman finding herself, but all this woman finds is that she needs a man. Maugham paints most of the women as petty, vapid and needy, and Kitty is the worst of all of them. When she finally realizes how shallow she's been, she explains it to her husband in this awful self-deprecating way that not only demeans her, but all women. The only strong females are a group of French nuns who run a mission in the village.

I think the biggest failure of this novel is the underdevelopment of the setting. There are so many opportunities missed. We see almost nothing of Chinese culture. Kitty can't speak Chinese, so she only ever has conversations with white people. There is one scene where Kitty talks through a white translator to a Chinese woman, but it's brief and nothing is really established by it. There is no comment made on the imperialism, good or bad. These white people are getting carried everywhere in sedan chairs! Come on!

Maugham misses the game-winning pass

But I'm not being entirely fair. I didn't hate it. The novel has its good points. The writing is nice, detailed but not tedious, and it flows well. It's short and easy to read, especially because of the short chapters that give you the impression of progress and encourage you to keep reading. It could easily be finished in a day.

My favorite part of the novel was the dynamic between Kitty and Walter. Walter still cares for Kitty, but can't bring himself to trust her, or even tolerate her, again. Kitty is desperate for Walter to forgive her because his anger is running him into the ground. Also, she realizes Walter is the only person in the world who cares for her at all. Their dialogue is tense and revealing of both their characters. The relationship has a suspense built into it in that it could change at any moment.

The problem is it doesn't! It doesn't change, nobody changes, or really learns anything, if their actions are any indication. Kitty has a thousand little revelations on the nature of existence that ultimately lead to nothing. The only thing that noticeably changes about our heroine is that she is now able to see into the motivations of others. But this only leads to more philosophizing on Maugham's part about the selfish nature of relationships and how little people really mean to each other.

It was a really depressing book. It was so disappointing, mostly because it had so much potential to be great, and it missed the mark. The plot could have gone somewhere. The main character could have been less of a caricature. I could have come away a better person! But no, I just learned a lot about Maugham's issues with women.

I hear the recent movie adaptation with Edward Norton and Naomi Watts has a different ending and is, in general, a more worthwhile venture. So if I were you, I'd stick with the movie.

Edward Norton > W. Somerset Maugham

-Daisy Buchanan

The Kings of New York

2009-05-07T20:54:00.008-04:00

Michael Weinreb - 278 pps.

There's a point in every man's life when he finally realizes that he's never going to go pro. This realization is crushing. It means that that man knows he's stuck with his crappy job and will spend the rest of his life listening to "Glory Days." I hated that song when I heard it at baseball games, but the older I get the more I understand why people take solace in it. It reminds them of high school, where every little action could've meant life or death and the real world consists of American Idol and Survivor. It's kind of unfair when you think about it. If you're good at throwing a football, you get to be god of your entire universe for four years. After that, you become mortal, and the change ain't easy.

Keeping the faith

At least the kids in Kings of New York knew what they were getting themselves into, sort of. Competitive chess was never a lucrative vocation to begin with, so playing it in high school shouldn't have given them false hope. It just doesn't seem right though, that a game so mentally challenging, so difficult -- a game whose best players are regarded as geniuses after all -- provides almost no pay off for those who excel at it. Chess got Sal Bercys a full ride to UT-Dallas and it got Willy Egard enough money to get by without a summer job, but it by no means secured them a future. That doesn't mean the team members didn't play chess like their lives depended on it when they were in high school. Sal and Willy -- like most of the Edward R. Murrow high school team chronicled in Kings -- believed chess would save them from the realities of the world. For as good as they were, you can't blame them.

Kings of New York chronicles the journeys of the Edward R. Murrow chess team during the 2005-2006 school year. Though Weinreb's writing is sometimes clumsy and the book's organization is unclear, his passion for the kids he follows and his awe for chess are what carry the narrative. That, and the remarkable people affiliated with Murrow's chess program. Compelling enough is the fact that the two best young players in the nation, Sal and Alex Lenderman, both play for Murrow. In addition, there is silent Nile, Oscar the hustler, and Ilya the workaholic. Each of these young men undergo huge changes as their run at a national chess championship progresses. The hardest stories to swallow are those of Oscar, Willy, and Ilya. Neither Oscar nor Willy graduate despite their proficiency for chess and Ilya gets denied admission to all of his top choice schools. The easiest is Sal's. He changes from aloof genius to inspired leader. Yet for all of Sal's efforts, Murrow cannot muster a victory in the 2006 championship. When school lets out the kids go their separate ways. If it weren't for the chess team, you'd think they didn't even know each other.

Photographic evidence

But the book isn't about failures, it's about chess. An idiosyncratic cast of characters slides in and out of Kings, from chess guru Bruce Pandolfini to International Master Irinia Krush. We see Alex find success in an international tournament and see chess get Oscar Santana a chance at an education that otherwise would've been denied. Though in the end it's unlikely any of these people will find the kind of fame that most high school athletes dream of, at least they'll be able to convince laymen that they are geniuses by whooping them in chess. If not that, they can always make a few bucks hustling in Washington Square. Maybe there's a future in chess after all.

-Heathcliff

Fingersmith

2009-04-30T23:19:00.020-04:00

Sarah Waters - 582 pps.

Perhaps this isn't the most glorious debut for the GB Club, but...oh well. Let me start with a story: On my 20th birthday, my uncle Mike gave me a paperback. He said, "Happy birthday, Daisy! I think you'll really get into this." The cover art looked pretty spiffy, and I am a sucker for historical fiction, so I figured I'd give it a try. Besides, my uncle seemed to think that I'd really enjoy it.

The novel is immediately engrossing. The voice of the first narrator (there are two) is lively and enthralling. Sue Trinder introduces herself as a clumsy, but lovable fingersmith (read: pickpocket), a poor girl raised in a family of thieves in a dodgy part of London in the mid-19th century. At seventeen, she lives for the excitement of London and helping her adoptive parents with their petty scams. When a friend asks her to help him in an elaborate scheme to cheat a rich young lady at an isolated mansion in the countryside, she has no idea what she's getting into.

Dangerous countryside

So here I am, getting completely involved in this book that, while not high literature, is a great mystery/thriller/historical fiction piece. All I could focus on for days was figuring out what the twist was going to be. No joke, ask Heathcliff. Imagine my surprise as I keep reading and reading and I slowly start to realize...this is a lesbian book. I started doing my research then on the author, Sarah Waters, and it turns out that all her books are lesbian books. One of her novels, Tipping the Velvet, is even named after a Victorian-era term for cunnilingus.

I mean, I'm cool with lesbians. I'm progressive. But my uncle did say he thought that I'd really like it. Hmm...Whatever, but finding that out definitely made me read the title in a different way.

Double entendre

Anyways, the story is excellent. The plot is very tight; it's masterfully constructed. It's filled with twists and turns, each one as surprising and satisfying as the last. Despite the expert storytelling, the novel reads as a sort of guilty pleasure, and not because of the lesbian romance. There's something more salacious than a little fingersmithin' going on here. The romance itself is very well done. It's not too sudden or too maudlin, and it's genuinely touching. The characters are compelling and odd, especially the females. Women play a much more prominent role than the men, so it's just a touch feminist. That's not to say that the males are demonized or flat, because they're just as interesting as the women except with less to say.

The only real complaint I had with Fingersmith was the change of narrator for the middle section of the book. The book is divided into three parts and the first part is told charmingly by Sue Trinder in the first person. The second part switches to the first-person perspective of Maud Lilly, the wealthy heiress Sue and her friend are trying to rob. Maud's voice is much more educated than Sue's. Because of this, Maud's voice is unfortunately also more sterile and less endearing. Maud is infinitely less likable than Sue and this section of the book drags because of it. I don't argue that the perspective change was unnecessary, but the way it's done leaves something to be desired.

It's a great book. It doesn't have much to say about life, or even really about love, but it's a fun read. The atmosphere of 19th century England is captured in an engrossing way and all the sex, lies and turnabouts keep the pages turning.

In summary: Fingersmith is no Grapes of Wrath, but it's definitely worth a read. Also my uncle thinks I'm gay. Sorry, Heathcliff.

-Daisy Buchanan

The Catcher in the Rye

2009-03-09T22:52:00.011-04:00

J.D. Salinger - 214 pps.

Holden Caulfield, our troubled protagonist, is a disillusioned American youth whose distaste for the aristocratic status quo defines him. Holden, in my humble opinion, is ahead of his time. He is a young, confused, progressive trying to put the pieces of life together. He precipitates the ideals of the counterculture movement, and though his disdain for the wealthy and the phony is oftentimes unwarranted or misguided, it is always passionate. His biggest struggle is that he perceivecs a lack of support for his ideals from the society that surrounds him. Though the academics in his life see his potential, without an effective and formal education, he is just a lone wolf with a problem and no cause.

Caulfield is a likeable guy because he embodies so many different characteristics and elements. In one sense, he's a smaller, slightly more intelligent, Lenny from Of Mice and Men. His lack of a complete formal education causes him to make broad generalizations in his rather folksy voice. Other times though, Holden, although unadmittingly, tries to become a figure like Jay Gatsby. His strong hatred for the phony hides his secret reverence for fakeness and the power "fake" people obtain. He hates the lifestyle of the phony, but envies how much women want to be part of such a lifestyle. The idea of an aristocrat who hates the rich that is, "pretty people with problems," originates from this novel. This book adds new ideas to the American cultural consciousness; no longer are the themes of poverty, class struggle, and a rise to the top the sole foundations of the American dream. This novel opens presents the cultural and social struggles of the outsider who has all of life's necessities and who, on the surface, should be happy.

Holden's hat looks much better on Phoebe

I would say that the overriding theme of this novel is man's struggle to find a purpose and a calling that makes him happy. When the world seems fake and empty, and you're an outcast all on your own, there's not much to keep you going, except whatever that source of happiness is.

-Caulfield

The Watchmen and Others

2009-02-19T14:47:00.010-05:00

Well I had a sexy post, but Heathcliff is completely fail with internet and editing and life, so it was deleted.

I'm currently reading a really fun novel by Clive Cussler whom I love dearly, so shortly that will be up, and Langerhans and I have something special prepared for a book coming soon.

Keep Reading!

-Maj. Major Major Major

Einsten's Dreams

2009-02-14T15:31:00.012-05:00

Alan Lightman - 179 pps.

Why would one man endeavor so tirelessly to change how people think about time? In 1905, moments where Einstein wasn't thinking were as rare as ones where Russians weren't revolting, and of these moments few were for friends, none for his wife. The prime of Einstein's life was spent imagining. The source of ridicule for many young men instead made Einstein the most identifiable scientist of all time. By 26 he had already constructed that equation more indicative of intelligence than any other, E=mc^2. What was his reward? If we are to believe what Alan Lightman writes, it was emptiness.

Most of Einstein's Dreams is comprised of short fictional portraits of various conceptions of time. The most familiar one paints time as an absolute, the same in all locations for all people and things. From talking to others, this seems like the most common perception. It's quite a feat then that Lightman was able to come up with around twenty conceptions of time which differ from this one. It's even more impressive that Einstein was able to come up with the conceptions that inspired Lightman, including one which he was able to convince most physicists was correct.

Nice Try

The rest of the book is Einstein meeting with his friend Besso. On around forty hours without sleep, these sections were a joyous relief (author's note: if you wish to know hell on Earth, enter into the MCM). They were plot-driven and thus easy to comprehend. However, they were not completely lost on me. What they did was elucidate the extent to which Einstein's dreams were sucking him out of the real world and into his own head. On a fishing trip they take together, Besso tells Einstein it's a nice little break from work that he's taking. Einstein tells him he's already been fishing all day.

I was initially drawn to this book because of the educational background of its author, Alan Lightman, who is a professor of physics and English at MIT. As a writer, Lightman's talent is in getting his points across. His prose is sparse and when he speaks of love and lovemaking, which he does with surprising frequency, his words are sterile. The ideas certainly get out there though. Think of time as literally being a bird, the longer you go without hanging around a nest the more wrinkled you get, or as a force emanating from the center of the Earth, the farther you are from it, the slower you age. Lightman's true skill is that he makes these stoner worthy conceptions seem plausible.

Einstein's true skill is that he took the time to consider them with scientific rigour. The moral of the story: imagination is as important in science as it is in other fields. The other moral: don't spend your whole life chasing a bird while ignoring the scenery. The resulting feeling may be emptiness.

-Heathcliff

In Cold Blood

2009-01-28T23:25:00.016-05:00

Truman Capote - 343 pps.

More badass than Clint Eastwood, better researched than a NASA mission, and more unsettling than any murder documentary produced by the History Channel, In Cold Blood is one hell of a mystery novel. Truman Capote, with the help of Harper Lee, supposedly produced around eight-thousand pages of notes for this novel and the product is astounding. Capote recreates not only numerous conversations between detectives, the victims, townspeople, and the suspects themselves, but also delves deeper into the mind of a killer than any psychology class I've ever taken. The result is the arousal of several conflicting emotions, the most jarring being simultaneous disgust and empathy for the criminals. As Perry Smith recounts for Capote in the most shocking line of the book, "I thought he was a very nice, gentle man. I thought so right up until I slit his throat."

It only took a few sentences in the New York Times to inspire Capote to write In Cold Blood. Perhaps it was the idea of the near perfect Clutter family being killed for no reason that grabbed him. The trouble in paradise theme is clear in the novel, no doubt. More pervasive though, is the fear generated by the Clutter murder. After their death, neighbors lose trust for each other, the town doesn't sleep for a week, and the killers themselves consider turning on each other more than once. But before I get too caught up in abstracting deeper principles about human nature, I will say that the plot is enthralling enough on its own. Capote relentlessly switches his focus from the killers, the detective, the post woman, the jail warden, to what seems like a thousand other characters while maintaining suspense. The genius of this is that the whole time we know more than everyone involved. This doesn't make things any easier to digest however and the primary question of the novel persists; what drove two men to slaughter a totally innocent family for essentially no gain? They must've had some rational motivation right? Right?

Crazy on you

Perry Smith is a great guy except that he killed a bunch of people. His kindness keeps Dick from robbing an old man and his son and his passion for music, adventure, and life is without bound. But he is violent, desperate for acceptance, and highly unstable. The journey Capote takes through his life and mind is amazingly interesting. We see a man who could entertain your family by playing guitar all night and take your lives as a nightcap, without so much as taking the cash out of anyone's wallet. He's heartless and his actions are unspeakably evil, but damn it if I can't empathize with him. Maybe this is Capote's doing but maybe you can imagine yourself living the horrible life Perry lived; cold, dangerous, and devoid of meaning.

Symbolism

So my advice now is, ignore all the philosophical and psychological rambling I just committed to blog paper. Read the book for its plot, for its characters, and the astounding level of detail. Get something more out of a mystery novel than you're used to. And for Godsakes lock your door when you read it. You don't know if there's a Perry Smith lurking outside.

-Heathcliff

A quick note...

2009-01-26T22:04:00.005-05:00

It has been too long since my last post! Thankfully, Heathcliff has come to my rescue. I have two important updates for our readers:

1) William Easterly, author of The White Man's Burden (the review of which you may remember), has recently joined the Economics blogosphere. His blog, aptly named "Aid Watch" can be found at http://blogs.nyu.edu/fas/dri/aidwatch/

2) I recently finished reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and I am currently reading The House of Mirth, so expect some fresh new book reviews in the next few days.

Thanks to all of our readers. We wouldn't be where we are today if it weren't for your loyal support!

-F. Darcy

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

2008-12-27T13:26:00.027-05:00

Hunter S. Thompson - 204 pps.

After reading Hunter S. Thompson it seems like no matter what I say I run a huge risk of sounding naive. But like Hunter I have a job to do, so I'll give it a shot.

It's tempting to view Fear and Loathing as a document, an important document no doubt, but as part of some long lost era, of a culture that folks today, our generation in particular, can't relate to. Eh, well part of that is true. I've never personally known anyone with a drug collection posessing the mythical proportions of the one described in the beginning of the book, "two bag of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half-full of cocaine..." (you get the idea) but that doesn't mean I don't think I'll run into such a person soon enough. And the fact that people can project their faces onto hundred foot high TV displays in Vegas isn't as shocking to me as it was to Hunter. But, you know, maybe that's the problem...

Not 100 feet high anyway

In Fear and Loathing, Thompson refers to himself as a Doctor of Gonzo Journalism. Without knowing too much about the term, Thompson's expose on the Kentucky Derby, or anything else concerned with something-out-of-nothing writing, it is possible to simply examine the word "Gonzo" and then draw meaning out of the phrase. Thompson's writing employs the ridiculous, the absurd, and contorts reality to such an extent that by the end of the book it is impossible to separate the real and the imagined. To avoid harping on an old theme, this makes Fear and Loathing great as well as the correct answer when someone asks you, "What exactly is creative non-fiction?"

Also accepted (review forthcoming)

It is true, I suppose, that Fear and Loathing is a document. But this by no means makes it irrelevant. There were times, admittedly, when I viewed Thompson as sort of a raving old man, as decrepit as the junkies he saw inhabiting run down offices in Sin City. But journalist or no, Thompson is also a writer. And like any good writer he has a point to his pontificating. He was in love, in desperate love, with the 60's, with brotherhood and freedom and all that. The war, his experience with the Hell's Angels, the corruption of the Nixon administration; all these things crushed Thompson's rosed colored glasses. They sent him spiraling into the drug swamped reality presented in Fear and Loathing. At the core of the animalistic consumption of substances ("Adrenochrome...There's only one source for this stuff...The adrenaline glands from a living human body"), warped violence (Thompson's naked, drug addled attorney suffocates a maid with an ice pack after she opens the door to discover the big Samoan vomiting), manipulation (the attorney picks up a girl at an airport, tells her he's a secret agent, and then ditches her at a hotel), and chaos is Hunter's disillusion surrounding the loss of his 60's dream. To cope, Hunter completely immerses himself in the 70's drug culture, the same one he decries toward the book's end. If you can't beat 'em join 'em, and if you're going to join 'em you might as well be the best damn drug abuser around. As Thompson writes, "once you get locked into a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can."

"There is nothing more helpless and irresponsible than a man in the depths of an ether binge."

Fear and Loathing is funny, surreal, and remarkably dense. There are deep ideas presented in the book, often without introduction or proper conclusion, and these give credence to the idea that there is something partly genius going on in this guy Thompson's brain after all. At book's end, the reader is left with a feeling of detachment and despair. It is a bit like watching a news report on a horrible train wreck which caused a fifty-seven car pile-up which delayed the progress of a repair crew which led to a dam collapse which flooded the whole town. At least you can flip off the TV and take solace in the fact that you weren't there. The problem is though, the world Thompson describes didn't disappear when Nixon was kicked out of office. Actually, it became more pronounced, considering the crime and drug problems that plagued the U.S. throughout the 80's and early 90's, not to mention that things aren't exactly going swimmingly nowadays.

But Thompson's book isn't about self-pity. It's about pushing borders and making people feel uncomfortable about the status quo. If the job of a journalist is to get people to see the plain truth, ends justifying any means to get there, then Thompson is one hell of a journalist. It's probably going to take a while to get through, but to see a version of America that you're not going to get anywhere else, Fear and Loathing is certainly worth it. To really appreciate it though, you've got to consider what Thompson was going through while he wrote it. The world as he knew it was collapsing. We were fighting a losing war, D.C. was controlled by a corrupt politician and his cronies, and selfishness was infesting the U.S. like the plague. Sound familiar? Then hey, maybe there's something to be learned from this drug eating loonie and his little book after all.

-Heathcliff

I Am One of You Forever

2008-12-03T15:17:00.015-05:00

Fred Chappell - 184 pps.

Finally, my coming of age novel. I know how it's supposed to be. The girls have Scout, the boys have Pvt. Fleming, and those more morose types can comiserate with Holden Caulfield. Well I still haven't read Mockingbird (review forthcoming), Red Badge's old age rendered it stale, and though Holden's angst will hold a special place in my heart, his despair is not exactly faith inspiring. For a bit I believed in The Red Pony, but it never really gripped me. Now I see it for what it was; a placeholder for Fred Chappell's poetic patchwork of stories. Maybe it's my sentimentality speaking or maybe I Am One of You Forever is the most vibrant, most exciting, and most moving book I have read in a looong time. The fact it was a coming of age novel is a nice bonus.

As Chappell remarks in the beginning, the book is a collection of short stories, some written prior to the novel's composition, centered around Jess as he tiptoes the line between boy and man. Through the filter of an older Jess' eyes we see a long line of visitors pass through his boyhood home. An uncle whose beard is long enough to make Rapunsel look like she has a buzz cut, a horse doctor who inspires more childhood fear than a clown-dentist-dark-crawl-space combination, and a hired hand whose tales are taller than Paul Bunyan all pay visits to Jess' farm. But the lessons they impart are never simple. I knew at the end of each chapter something profound had happened. I also knew I couldn't fully explain it. Like a Wednesday night at WVU, it's something you just have to go through to understand.

"And then we set it on fire!"

What really sets this book apart though, is the vitality, the excitement of it all. Perhaps I had a more "country" (hickish) upbringing than most people in Arlington, I don't really know (my dad is from Utah and my grandpa's family is from W.V., I guess that's it), but for some reason Jess seemed exactly like a young me. Fishing, baseball, nature, and storytelling all figure centrally in the novel, just as they did in my youth. The first few chapters are glorious. The mischieveous relationship of Jess, Joe Robert (his pop), and Johnson (the farm hand) is absolutely enthralling and reminded me strongly of the friendships of my youth. There was no link between the string of uncles in the novel and my own, but each of them reminded me of someone I met as a kid, back when life was no less confusing but just as mysterious. These stories are so well written that it seems likes every scrap of dialogue ends with a quotation witty enough for Shakespeare and every paragraph contains the purest similie you've ever read. But Chappell treats the lows of human emotion as equitably as its highs. The chapter "The Wish" in particular handles both with exceptional skill. It perfectly captures the mixed feelings that come with the loss of a friend, and, somehow, fishing with your dad, in a way that seems no less than absolute truth. That chapter, and the novel as a whole, represent everything that is good about writing.

Yours Truly

Chappell uses exaggeration to great effect in I Am One of You Forever. If Gabriel Marquez is the Mantle of mystical realism then Chappell is the Williams (sorry for the baseball reference but not really. Also everyone knows Mantle is good, but come on, Williams is the best). Hunter S. Thompson comments, "Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective journalism - which is true, but they miss the point." What Thompson was going for is the same thing that Tim O'Brien, that William Faulkner, that a whole long list of writers go for. Sometimes subjectivity, emotion, exaggeration, the realm beyond the logical, they all have more truth than the objective truth could pray (not that it would) to have. If you subscribe to this then I Am One of You Forever is right up your alley. If not, you'll become a believer.

-Heathcliff

The Writings of John Lennon

2008-10-25T12:44:00.014-04:00

John Lennon, 171 pps

You might well have heard of John

Lennon for his acting part in "How I Won The War." You maybee kwite supressed to heer he was also a bit of a writer in his spare time.

Lennon actually produced two works during his literary career. They were "In His Own Write" and "A Spaniard in the Works" published in 1964 and 1965 respectively. These books are both collections of short stories, poetry, and drawings which range from relevant to singularly random. The pieces are all connected by their absurdist, and I use the word tightly, nature. There is also a charming introduction by Sir Paul McCartney as well as a piece the Knight and Teddy Boy John authored together whilst touring as bandmates to support John's writing habit.

Pals

The two books collected here are distinctly different. The first, "In His Own Write" features much shorter stories, they are often less than a page each, and pastiches of shorts, including letters to admirers, a short play, many quick little poems, and Lennon's crude line drawings. The writing relies heavily on ward play, rhyme, and wot some may will call bizarre humor, and it is.

From "A Suprise for Little Bobby"

"It was little Bobby's birthmark today and he got a suprise. His very fist was jopped off, (The War) and he got a birthday hook!"

"A Spaniard in the Works" is written in much the same stile, though it relies even more heavily upon dialect (that being the dialect of Liddypool, supposedly) and the works are often much longer. This made it more difficult for me to get through but it also seemed more fully formed than "In His Own Write." There are many gems throughout "A Spanard" but these are some of my personnel favwrits.

"'One dave she woll go too farther, and I woll leaf her' he said to his fave rave horse. Of course the horse didn't answer, because as you know they cannot speak, least of all to a garlic eating, stinking, little yellow greasy facist bastard catholic Spaniard."

"'Eric Morely?' I ventured. He shook his bed. 'Oxo Whitney?' I queered, he knotted in the infirmary. 'Rygo Hargraves?' I winston agreably. 'No, my dear Whooper, it's OXO WHITNEY' he bellowed as if I was in another room, and I wasn't. 'How d'you know Womlbs?' I whispered excretely. 'Harrybelafonte, my dear Whopper.'"

"I poked the fire and warmed his kippers, when he had minicoopered he told me a story which to this day I can't remember." (The story in question ends here).

A Spaniard in the Books

When you read this book you will quickly be able to tell whether John's writing is your thing or not. I have shown it to a few people and all have commented that it's weird, which it certainly is, and one was so perplexed she wasn't interested in reading a single short story out of it. It was jarring for me at first as well. I often had to read aloud to understand what was written, particularly in "Spaniard," which contributed greatly to my John Lennon imitation. Lennon is highly talented when it comes to approximating the sounds and playing with the meaning of words and this talent is exercised to the extreme in both works. This makes his writing tough to underestand but utterly unique and entertaining.

As he said on several occasions, Lennon saw himself as more of an artist than anything else. Accordingly, his work reflects the chaos, strange connections, and bizarreness that is often prevalent in the works of great artists. It is said that "In My Life" was Lennon's response to the claim that his books were more revealing than his songs. Because it is clear and eloquent in the traditional sense, "In My Life" can be viewed as more pesonal and direct than anything Lennon wrote in these books. But I'm in the camp that believes the "Nonsense Literature" Lennon put in print is just as important as any song he composed when it comes to understanding him. It is as close a look into the inner working of his mind as anything ever released. Some may argue it is as hard to extract meaning from "The Writings of John Lennon" as it is to understand the man himself, but I'd say they're looking at things from the wrong perspective. When you search for meaning in a work that so firmly embraces chaos you're bound to fail. You will be best served by simply seeing the value of the work instead of searching for it.

-Heathcliff

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

2008-10-23T19:48:00.018-04:00

Tucker Max, 277 pps.

Everyone who reads the GB club has probably heard of Tucker Max. For those of you who haven't, it's likely you have heard of Plato (the philosopher, not the contributor) and his theory about the idea of a chair versus a chair in reality. Well not only is Tucker Max a man's man in reality, he is the same person you think of when you hear the words "drunkard", "womanizer", and "ridiculous". All apologies to Atilla the Hun.

There are those who will say they cannot stand Tucker Max's stories because they are illicit, immoral, and "throughly reprehensible" (thank you NY Times, a true pillar of morality). These are all things standing in contradiction to not liking something. Especially when it comes to tales of drunken rabble rousing. Tucker Max is nothing if not hilarious and illicit though his stories may be, they are honest, often at his own expense (read "Tucker Has a Moment of Reflection; Ends Poorly"). And that's what's endearing about Tucker. He may be an asshole but he doesn't bullshit.

Tucker Max telling his dad about last night's drunken evening

Another thing that Tucker Max has going for him is that he is a good writer. He is not a drunken frat brother who thinks doing a keg stand for 20 seconds and chanting "toga" three times afterward is hilarious. The guy is too smart for that. He has a J.D. from Duke Law, which places him in a long line of writers (Harper Lee, John Grisham, David Baldacci, etc) who forsake the creativity constricting legal profession for a literary career. Not only that, his writing is clear, easy to follow, and often absurdly hilarious. Though his stories alone are funny, Max's writing pushes them across the dividing line between rambling drunk idiot at party and memorable.

Examples:

"SlingBlade looked about as happy as a Mormon getting a lap dance."

"She is looking at me like I'm a toilet full of used condoms"

"Raise your hand up if you've ever heard a professional team mascot say 'What the fuck are you doing, you asshole?'"

The other likeable aspect of the book is that you can sense Tucker growing as a person as you read, as much from what he writes as the placement of the chapters. Yes, he still sleeps with, "more women than is safe or reasonable," and argues that, "alcoholism is highly underrated," but he does experience several revelations along the way (that women can play him too, that karma exists, etc), admits some of his past behavior was overly destructive, and constantly attests to the value of friendship. Like Bob Dylan said, to live outside the law you must be honest.

Bob Dylan: Pretty smart, for a city slicker

In the same way that Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" has inspired generations of environmentalists, Tucker Max's "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell" will hopefully inspire generations of young men to commit acts that can only be equitably described as insane. If it is not already abundantly clear, I highly recommend this book. It is entertaining and funny. It is ridiculous and well written. It is quick and a good conversation piece. It is something to live up to.

-Heathcliff

Catch-22

2008-10-20T22:53:00.008-04:00

Joseph Heller, 562 pp.

"There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, that specified that a concern for one's own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn't, but if he was sane, he had to fly them. Yossarian was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of the clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle."

Although the last two novels I read were both outstandingly successful, Catch-22 is the most highly acclaimed work I have had the pleasure of experiencing. With such prestigious acknowledgements as #11 on BBC's Big Read, I had high expectations -- which were immediately blown away. If the published acknowledgements weren't enough, I also empirically observed a lot of positive recognition of the novel. Three times on the bus commuting to class I was approached because I had said book in my hand, and two of the proponents of the novel indicated that they had read it twice. But, I digress.

The foremost thing to be said is that Catch-22 need not be compared with other novels, it is in a league of its own. The first unique aspect of this work is the setting; an island off the coast of Italy called 'Pianosa', which exists but is fictional in the sense that it was not used in World War II. One could classify this novel as historical fiction (although I really think it claims its own genre) , and subsequently the setting is crucial. The majority of the story takes place in Pianosa and Rome, at the end of World War II. The intricate plot deals with the trials and tribulations of a group of verifiably insane American Bombardiers currently stationed in Pianosa. While the progression of the story is not always completely linear, Heller gracefully portrays the seemingly constant struggle of Captain Yossarian to be relieved of his duties.

On one hand, this novel is absolutely hilarious. During Catch-22, you will frequently find yourself re-reading the last sentence, merely based on its abject absurdity. Heller introduces characters that are very strange, as well as characters with very strange names (usually both). Early on in the novel you will become acquainted with Major Major Major, who is as strange as his name, and is fittingly promoted to the rank of Major. If you haven't made the connection already, this unfortunate character is the namesake of one of this blog's contributors. Milo Minderbinder and Colonel Korn also soon join the cast, and the reader will be introduced to personages simply referred to as 'The Chaplain', 'Nately's whore', and 'Nately's whore's kid sister'. An important note is that while these names and characters are doubtlessly ridiculous, they do not detract from the intensity of the story at all.

On the other hand, this novel is extremely serious and emotionally capturing. One of Yossarian's overarching qualms is the 'dead man in [his] tent'. This 'dead man' is not physically dead in the tent, but rather had just entered the encampment and had been killed in a flight so immediately that he was not registered. Subsequently, his belongings remained in Yossarian's tent, and to Yossarian that was having a dead man in his tent. Such neuroses are common to the colorful characters of the novel, and the angst that Heller creates will feel very real. Joseph Heller's ability to descend from the extreme of riotous hilarity to utter depression abruptly, yet gracefully, is an art form which I had not experienced until I came across Catch-22.

One thing to note about Catch-22 is that it is not acceptable for all audiences. To say that the Bombardiers at Pianosa are lewd is an understatement. Yossarian and his comrades are very promiscuous and he samples quite a range of girls, from one of his nurses (that tends to him during his excessively long hospital stays) to the prostitutes he finds in Rome on leave. While the sexuality present in this novel is at times raunchy, Heller's excellent characterization would be incomplete without it. Irregardless of the circular conversations that illustrate the apparent insanity of the personages in the novel, some may find that the story takes a while to take shape. If the insanity of the early dialogues frustrates you, this may not be the book for you, although you are in the minority. As indicated on lists such as Big Read and personal testimonials you will hear, Heller's ability to infuse meaning into a humorous and ridiculous story is enjoyable to say the least.

As addressed earlier, even though this work is set in World War II, I wouldn't read it under the presumption that it is a World War II novel. While Heller vividly describes the internal aspects of a bomber plane, the battle content is limited. The story more centrally features the psychological and behavioral implications of the combat in addition to the physical ailments (both real and feigned) that the increasing number of missions bestow upon the men stationed at Pianosa. An interesting aspect of the story is observing the increasing number of missions required from both the enforcers and the victims. The thought processes of Colonel Catchcart as he perpetuates Yossarian's continuous struggle are made evident by his self-reassuring conversations with Colonel Korn.

In summary, Catch-22 really holds all the cards. Although the circular conversations and nonsensical behaviors may deceive you, this book will be a profound read. Most likely, you will see characteristics of those around you in the characters of this story, but hopefully they are less exaggerated in your own life. In conclusion, if Catch-22 doesn't appeal to you, I think you would be crazy enough to be sent home from Pianosa without flying your 80 missions.

-Langerhans

A Whole New Mind

2008-10-08T22:02:00.015-04:00

Dan Pink, 247 pp.

I just couldn't get through this book. When I first started it the premise was exciting. Pink advances the idea that success in business over the past few years has been directly tied to left-brain, or L-Brain, thinking, writing that, "[Workers excelling at L-Directed thinking]...have indeed shaped the character, leadership, an social profile of the modern age." Pink describes L-Directed thinkers as those who excel at analysis and logical thinking. In a rather overt way, Pink compares these people to human computers and explains their success in business by their ability to understand the scientific advances that have shaped our modern economy. Now, however, Pink argues that the three A's, Abundance, Asia, and Automation, are loosening the grip L-Directed Thinkers have on society. Our current globalized economy is making logical prowess less valuable and creativity much more so. Art history majors, you are now on the board.

Pink is very much not unlike Thomas Friedman. Both are firm believers in the global economy and its ability to cut down barriers between nations and both believe this will shape markets in developed nations, particularly the U.S., in profound ways. Ultimately they argue that the high standard of living present in the U.S. will allow us to excel in the financial sector because it will give CEO's, management types, and small business owners the opportunity to take risks on creative ventures that are not available in less developed nations. Whether this happens on the scale they are proposing remains to be seen but the implications of the theory are much more interesting. As Pink points out, admission to top MFA programs is now more difficult than admission to top MBA programs. It seems self-expression is becoming more valuable and, as the dismal science tells us, that should lead to an increase in the amount of people who engage in it for a profession.

Friedman is not the only author Pink has similarities with however. Malcolm Gladwell and the brothers Braffman both come to mind when reading Pink's right brain manifesto. Like these modern popular science journalists, Pink fills his books with notable examples supporting his points, the kind of anecdotes you will want to calmly pepper your dinner time discussions with in order to sufficiently conceal your dangerously thin academic credentials while still getting people to call you an egghead. Like that last sentence though, the examples are too much. By flooding the reader with sites to call, magazines to listen to, and experts to surf, things get a little too confusing and Pink's points get lost in the information. Each "portfolio" in the book contains around 10 suggestions for improving oneself in the section the "portfolio" is "filed under" (such as Design, Story, or Empathy). If that wasn't confusing enough already, most of these suggestions have sub-points. Pink wants us to be in about fifty places at once during each chapter and even the most big picture oriented of us can have trouble sketching a landscape of that size.

But the piles of information, instructions, and examples were not the main deterrent in my reading. Sure, I could complain that I understood Pink's premise from page 10 and that's why I couldn't stand to keep going, but I don't think that's quite it. Pink makes an argument that is beautifully simple and easy to swallow. Since a growing number of humans have the ability to do computational work, the value of that work is diminishing. The natural answer then, is to turn to creativity. Rather his argument is convincing or not is up to you, but I appreciate the sentiment. Creative thinking is important and that is often lost at the public education level. From the SAT to slashes in music budgets big enough to fly a warhead tipped missile through, you can see why people are wary of the government graduating an army of calculators instead of thousands of individuals from high schools each year. That said, let's not force those especially creative people onto the path toward art school and thereby strengthen the distinctions between left and right brained people our schools already make. Fostering creativity is important, yes, but so is reminding people it's o.k. to be an individual. Einstein didn't develop special relativity by taking 37 versions of a standardized test and The Beatles weren't so left brain incompetent they couldn't speak a second language. Let's remember it's just dandy to be a human.

Three cheers for Petrarch.

As I Lay Dying

2008-10-01T01:31:00.008-04:00

William Faulkner, 250 pp.

Heathcliff

I read the book. I read it for English class. I have English class with Suzanne Reisinger. The book was about the Bundrens. I write for the GB Club. I'm doing my course request and English homework. Such bad luck has never beleaguered e're a man. The Bundrens take a while to get to town including when they break the bridge and the coffin they're carrying falls into the river. I'm going home for fall break soon. David Letterman looks like a gopher wearing glasses. One time I tried to read As I Lay Dying and I fell asleep. Sleeping would be good right about now. I was supposed to read this book in 11th grade and didn't but this time I read the whole thing. It's pretty great, pretty funny. Faulkner was a genius. I always picture him sitting in his little shed of a house in Mississippi crouched over his type writer trying to write poetry and calling Ernest Hemingway a douche over and over. Too bad we don't have him on the GB club.

Well, the Bundrens basically are trying to get to town. You hear the story from the perspective of a bunch of characters, including the reverend who had a secret affair with Addie Bundren, an uneducated elementary school aged boy, the dead Addie Bundren herself, and Darl as he goes crazy. It can be hard to keep up with everything going on but if you keep going almost everything will be revealed. The song I'm listening to is dank. Nothing is tied up tightly but you will be satisfied. Faulkner is a genius like that.

Addie Bundren is a fish.

The Castle of Otranto

2008-09-25T17:06:00.006-04:00

This reviewer would first like to apologize for her woefully tardy first literary analysis. Seeing as she is in fact the sixth and only female member of an organization with the tagline “Five guys. One book club,” it would seem that she is already barely holding on to her position as a contributor to this blog. After receiving texts, late night phone calls, internet threats, and a rat carcass in the mail from as certain impatient Mr. Darcy, she has decided to finally get her act together, buckle down, and write something.

This review concerns a short novel called The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole. You most likely have not heard of this great novel, or the ingenious man who was its creator. That is because this book kind of blows. Hailed as the first truly “Gothic” novel, it started a genre of literature that depended on ghosts and bad suspense to carry on a plotline. When Walpole first had his short novel published, he claimed that it was actually a recently uncovered Italian manuscript from the early 1500’s. After his novel was shockingly well-received by the public, however, he decided that he might as well go ahead and actually take credit for it, revealing that it was really written in the mid-18th century, and that there was in fact no excuse for the novel's bad writing and convoluted plot.

One thing The Castle of Otranto cannot be denied the is its incredibly fast-paced albeit ridiculous story line. Within the first few pages, Conrad, the son of Prince Manfred of the Castle of Otranto, is literally squished to death when a huge metal helmet falls on him from the sky. I kid you not. Not only is he killed in this ridiculously hilarious manner, but the day he is smushed by a helmet also happens to be both his wedding day and birthday.

So Conrad’s dead. Naturally his father, like any good Dad suffering through an emotional mourning period, decides that since his son is dead, it’s time to make a move on the girl Conrad was supposed to marry. Shockingly enough, Isabella, the girl in question, is slightly opposed to the idea of marrying the father of her dead almost-husband, and ends up running away from him through the castle, and hiding out in the gloomy basement. Meanwhile, Prince Manfred scurries around the castle in a blind rage, and sends his guards to find her. While all of this is happening, Hippolita, Manfred’s current wife, is busy crying her eyes out for her lost son, and the servants are scampering around shrieking about seeing giant body parts, people moving in their portraits, and grisly ghosts.

Although The Castle of Otranto definitely doesn’t qualify as a great or even classic novel, there is something to be said for the fact that it’s the first of a totally new genre, which gives it some scrap of importance in its own right. If you’re looking for a convoluted story, pedophilia, ghosts, and damsels in distress, then this could just be the book for you. If not..steer clear.

Tobacco Road

2008-09-25T16:48:00.003-04:00

Erskine Caldwell, 184 pp.

Well first, I'm going to apologize for not posting about this book sooner. Had nothing to do with that I was busy or that sort, but It was because I could not think of what I wanted to say about the book. Coming out in 1995, I bought the book in 2004 and let it sit in my bookcase until just a few weeks ago. Picked it up, read it (very quick and easy read) and then I put it back. Nothing had changed, nothing was impacted, nothing was affected.

Well that remained the case until I let it soak in a few days, then got the itch to reread it. This time I started to pick up on themes and imagery I previously fell blind to and I also felt a tie to the main character, Jeeter. I then decided to reread certain passages one last time and now I think this is one of the best stories told. Dealing with only a short period in an area struck hard by the Depression in Central Georgia, the family described goes through drastic changes that to my eyes and most likely every reader's eyes, seem very story-esqe and fiction, but with hints of reality. Yes, that's a mouthful and probably in virtually non understandable except to me, so I will explain myself.

The events in the story seem like actions that are not characteristic of humans. In one particular scene, the family, instead of helping a family member that was just hit by a car, leave them in the road to rot. To me, it made me sick to my stomach but it get the dog eat dog world that was around during the depression. That theme of survival at all cost is apparent in the whole story and makes you really think about it after the book slaps you in the face with it multiple times. While the description of the scene where the family member (NO HINTS SORRY) was hit by the car was disturbing, the imagery in the rest of the story was fantastic. The description of the landscape, tobacco road near their home, the hovel they lived in, and the whole world they lived in was sad and yet amazingly descriptive to the point you could almost remember being there at one point in your life.

I know for once i have a lot to say about this book, but to me it hit right at home. While none of my family were similar in anyway to the personalities of the characters in the story, my family did have to live in a poor shack during the depression as sharecroppers. Some of the scenery described in the book reminds me of looking over family picture albums sitting in my living room as a child. Other than that I can't really say if the book was great or not. I defiantly enjoyed the book, but many people would probably not. I recommend it, and FYI: I got it used for only 4 dollars, so definitely cheap.

***If you do end up reading this, another book that I would recommend to go with it is "All Over But the Shoutin'" by Rick Bragg. Both are in the same time era and describe the lives during that time.***

-Maj. MajorMajorMajor

Sway

2008-09-17T12:25:00.012-04:00

Ori and Rom Brafman, 181 pp.

Sway, as its testimonials indicate, is similar in content and style to other recent coffee table psychology/economics books such as Blink by Malcom Gladwell and A Whole New Mind by Dan Pink (review coming soon). These books take extensive research projects, identify trends in those research projects, name those trends, and then present those trends with their new fancy names with many, many, many, examples. Sway chooses to examine situations in which people act irrationally, why they do so, and how that undesirable irrational behavior can be avoided.

The intrigue of irrational behavior, as Sway puts it, is that we often engage in it without being aware that we are behaving irrationally. In one of the more lasting examples from Sway, the Brafmans discuss the nucleus accumbens region of the brain, also referred to as the pleasure center. The pleasure center is activated by a variety of activities, including gambling, drug use, sex, and reaction to financial compensation. That's right, money can drive people crazy. And it did just that with a group of Swiss citizens who refused to let toxic waste be dumped in their town (this is an example of the kind of sentence structure you will find repeated throughout Sway). Initially about half of the town rejected the toxic waste idea but after the state offered them substantial financial compensation if they were to take on its waste, around three quarters rejected the offer. Whoa! As the Brafmans explain, the altruistic and pleasure seeking regions of our brain are distinct and not able to function at the same time. So the next time you find yourself drunk and in possession of a year's worth of mortgage payments inside a San Juan casino, consider this fact and turn to your sober friend, or better yet a stranger, and ask them if they would do the same thing in your position.

The striking thing about Sway is how clean it is. Each chapter is well organized, succinct, and a breeze to get through. They all have a title page of sorts, illustrating some variety of a flow chart progressing from random quote to random quote, each of which will hold more value once you finish the chapter. From this title page you are met with a topic sentence introducing questions which will cause you to scratch your head until the book sweeps you away to either the west coast of the U.S. or a European research laboratory where you will be met with around five to six examples, and finally an answer to that head scratcher you got in the beginning. As formulaic as I may be making this sound, and it really is, the Brafmans pack enough interesting tidbits and facts throughout their repetitively designed chapters to really grab the reader's attention. Once you start Sway, you're going to want to finish it right away, all structural concerns aside.

The real pull of Sway is how easy it is to relate the concepts it brings up to yourself. The mistakes of not speaking up in class because you think that everyone else is thinking something different than you, refusing to turn in an incomplete project for partial credit even though you're past your deadline, or signing up for 800 free CD's a month because the company rep was cute are all touched upon. The book will be especially popular amongst the business crowd because of the vast applications to management and marketing, but it's just as intriguing for those of us on the outside of the corporate world. Sway makes you aware of the tactics used by these corporations, and even by individuals you meet in your daily life, and thus hopefully less prone to the irrational behavior they seek to induce.

The Supreme Court structures its meetings to avoid groupthink.
If only they could get it together for pictures.

As far as armchair nonfiction goes, Sway is the best one I've read in a while. The mounds of examples will give you many conversation topics and make you appear sufficiently well read and scientific. But the book can also be enriching in the sense that it will make you more self-aware. In a best case scenario it will make you less judgmental of others or perhaps just less likely to blow money you can use later on a rhombusoidal (read: not square, read: unfair) deal. The real benefit of the book can really come through in conversation however. Talking to others about when you act irrationally and when they do the same can be enlightening or at least interesting (such as the time our friend Prometheus reached enlightningment after fleeing a soccer game this summer). You might come to the conclusion that many of my friends who've read the book have expressed, 'If I can justify my reasons for making a decision and still feel good about myself then I'll consider my choice, if not rational, at least okay.' So read Sway but don't feel bad about dropping a Benjamin on a roulette game where you can't even communicate with the dealer every now and then.

Know why everyone is smiling? Because the advertisers are trying to sway people into gambling??
No! Because roulette is fun!

-Heathcliff

A Lesson Before Dying

2008-09-14T23:50:00.036-04:00

Ernest J. Gaines, 282 pp.

“God, what does a person do who knows there is only one more hour to live?”

Grant Wiggins, a black-school teacher in the 1940’s South, ponders this question while considering the fate of his young friend in A Lesson Before Dying. Mr. Wiggins has done more than wonder about this young man, Jefferson, from afar; in fact Mr. Wiggins has frequently visited Jefferson over the past several months in an effort to improve a seemingly unsalvageable situation.

The time Mr. Wiggins invests, however, cannot change the reality that his friend faces: Jefferson, in the opening chapter of the book, was condemned to death by electrocution after an unfair trial for a crime he was an innocent bystander to. In two senses then Jefferson was in the wrong place at the wrong time: He was at the scene of an armed liquor store robbery, but more damningly, he was a black man on trial in a racist town during 1940’s America.

Such is background for Ernest J. Gaines emotionally compelling story that explores the many psychological hurdles Jefferson, his family and his mentor Mr. Wiggins grapple with following the sentencing. Although the most egregious part of the trial was the decision made by an all white-jury to recommend the death penalty, other shocking problems for Jefferson similarly find their origin at that “sick joke” of a trial. Most notably scarring was the argument made by Jefferson’s defense attorney, who was evidently attempting to convey to the jury in a rather undank manner that it would be inhumane to put Jefferson to death. The attorney asks the jury,

“Do you see a man sitting here? …Look at the shape of this skull, this face as flat as the palm of my hand—look deeply into those eyes. Do you see a modicum of intelligence? ….Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this.”

Thus, although fiction, one of the more apparent themes in A Lesson Before Dying is that it confronts the reader with the reality of racism. In 2008, a year honoring the 40th year since the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., it is possible to both commend and be comfortable with the progress of race relations in the United States. The unfair trial Jefferson received in the novel would never occur today and such a fact indicates progress.

Racism and racial prejudices still are clearly issues in 21st century America however, and unfortunately in much more detrimental ways than assuming that our Asian friends can help us with our math homework. Sentencing statistics between different races presently are dissimilar to a statistically significant degree, as seen for instance when comparing the same crime committed by a first-time black offender to that crime committed by a first-time white offender.

Moreover, it is difficult to go a week on a college campus without hearing a racially derogatory remark made in a malicious rather than the more acceptable “humorous” manner. In a currently relevant example, the way in which Americans vote in the upcoming presidential elections may well highlight various preexisting racial prejudices among particularly the nation’s white and black racial demographics. Gaines’ defining novel then was thus a particularly appropriate read for me as a college student, as it helped me consider the implications of being part of a generation with both the opportunities and responsibilities that accompany living during a time with the best race relations in our 230 year history.

Lastly! And this was quite easily what was the most influential aspect of A Lesson Before Dying for your boy Prometheus. In my humble opinion (imho) it was the humanity that Gaines conveyed to the character of Jefferson as he awaited his death sentence. Although Jefferson is unrealistic in the sense that never in our judicial history have we intentionally condemned an innocent man to death, the fact that criminals face the same “waiting game” Jefferson did was eye-opening.

Despite his clout stemming from his prominence in the literary world, Gaines is known to be an impressively unassuming man. (If you think that’s an oxymoron, ya done.) Rather than using his fame as a platform to express his political views in press conferences and the like, Gaines resists the standard of egotistical Hollywood Liberals and remains characteristically humble. Case and point: In a literature forum, when asked whether he was against the death penalty, Gaines stood up, respectfully replied “yes,” and then sat back down. Pwned.

Gaines, in addition to having a last name that ends in an s (which makes it impossible to use his name in the possessive because I don't have a clue how to use apostrophes for names like that) uses his fiction to convey his ideas. The entirety of Chapter 29 for instance is Jefferson’s journal while incarcerated. For those who cry during Bambi, this chapter would certainly be classified as a tear jerker.*

This journal, all flippancy aside, truly exemplifies Gaines’ capability of being an emotionally gripping writer. At the end of the journal, Jefferson writes of the horror in the early morning of his execution day. The sleepless Jefferson notes as the sun begins to rise, “its quite quite an I can yer my teefs hittin. I can yer my hart.”

In conclusion, I would recommend reading A Lesson Before Dying if you are looking for something a little more serious than this review has been. It’s not an overly philosophical book; it concretely relates to “real life stuff.” It’s not exclusively about Jefferson and Mr. Wiggins; there are some other characters in there I figured I’d let surprise you. It’s not just about the Lesson; there are some subplots like a romance and a bar fight etc. (where some dude gets gged, no re’ed.) You evidently already have a good taste in what you read as is seen by the fact you’re reading our blog. Thus, as the virtuoso Gwen Stefani inquires of us all, “What are you waiting for chief?”

*The reviewer of this book in fact has not yet cried during Bambi.

-Prometheus

World Without End

2008-09-09T22:04:00.010-04:00

Ken Follet, 1014 pp.

World Without End was one of (if not the most) anticipated novels of 2007. It is a sequel to Ken Follett's extremely popular novel, The Pillars of the Earth, debuting in 1989. After greedily flipping through all 1014 pages, I can truly say that this masterpiece was worth the wait. The suspenseful plot of this book revolves primarily around the lives of four characters, first united as children. The children are first adjoined when they witness the pursuit of a knight in the forest, which subsequently results in a bloody altercation and the disclosure of the location of a secret letter to one of the children. From there, the plot takes off as all four of the characters pursue different walks of life in Ken Follett's epic portrayal of 14th century England.

Although all aspects of the novel were superb, the paramount strength is Follett's characterization. Naturally, a reader would expect to know the characters very well in such a lengthy novel, but Follett takes it a step further. By the midpoint of the novel you have such an intimate connection with the characters that you find yourself feeling as though you can foretell their responses and sentiments towards the plot unravelling around them. This intense characterization will also grip your emotions as the characters you love endure hardship and triumph. The bond resulting from Follet's extremely in-depth characterization is what makes a thousand-page novel revolving around a fictional town with a cathedral in it so absorbing that you will surely lose sleep.

One draw of World Without End, relative to its predecessor, is that it incorporates a historical and medical phenomenon; the black plague. The inclusion of the plague appealed to me as a pre-medical student, and I suspect would also attract readers who enjoy the historical fiction genre. An important struggle in the treatment of the disease is the practical application of medicine vs. the scholarly aspect of medicine which focuses on humors and bleeding the patients. Additionally, the reader is exposed to the feudal system, and all the exploitive abilities of those near the top of the hierarchy. Another feature of the novel is the intense romantic scenes that Follett depicts. He has a way of expressing intimacy that would be graphic if it were not so utterly elegant. Through his inclusion of intimate scenes, he paints a full picture of loving encounters in addition to sexual exploitation and the status quo of gender roles. The bottom line is that the setting alone is reason enough to indulge in World Without End.

Coming from a science fiction background did not hinder my enjoyment of this novel in any respect. Science fiction is most enjoyable to me because it takes you to a different and fascinating place. In that respect, I draw many similarities between a well developed piece of historical fiction such as World Without End and a depictive work of science fiction. The commonality is the manner in which they both take the reader to a place with unique regulating factors and let a story unfold. Although the novel is principally set in a town with politics revolving around a cathedral, the rivalry for power, political manipulation, scandal, and treachery will satiate your inner savage.

As far as I'm concerned, World Without End is a must read. Enjoying this novel is not contingent on having read The Pillars of the Earth, but when you have finished, I guarantee you will want to. Do not let the 1014 pages daunt you, there is absolutely nothing mundane about this work. Whether you waited 18 years for it or not, you will not want World Without End to end.

-Langerhans

Crabwalk

2008-09-08T01:58:00.006-04:00

Gunter Grass, 234 pp.

Terrible.

This one word best describes the atrocity that was passed off as a book. Okay wait, lets bring it back a second and let me clarify.

Crabwalk was written by 1999 Nobel Prize for Literature winner Gunter Grass in 2002. The book itself is not bad at all, in fact the story line is fantastic. The story starts out with a journalist, just know to us as the Narrator, and his understanding of his coming of being through a website he found on the Internet. As we soon find out he was born just after a terrific crash of the "Strength Through Joy", a German classless cruise liner created and named after Wilhelm Gustloff. As he learns more of the crash and his past from the fanatic website he soon realizes that the site is run by his estranged son.

The story deals with many issues such as Neo-Nazism and the importance of martyrs to ideals. On whole, if I was able to read German there would be little to criticize on the story. Yes, I said read German. This story had to be translated into English for reading here in the States.

For a Nobel Prize winner, you would expect to have an excellent translator to transpose your writing style. Instead he must have gotten the cheapest translator out there to completely obliterate his work. The writing style has been turned to a dry, non-flowing style that is almost incomprehensible. Also there were instances where there were in three lines five different timeline changes, without any way of knowing the timeline was moved under your feet except you becoming quickly lost in a matter of a paragraph. Constant rereading is all you can do.

If you speak German, you are lucky as hell to be able to fully enjoy this story. Reading German media reviews online show that the non translated version was a fantastic hit epically displaying the characters and the story in the way a Nobel Prize winner would be expected to. If the only German you know is "Volkswagen" (or if you did not even know that Volkswagen is German) then either learn German or do not waste your time.

And Gunter, if you ever read this: Fire whoever translated it. I will pay for a new one.

-Maj. MajorMajorMajor

The White Man's Burden

2008-09-07T02:25:00.006-04:00

William Easterly, 436 pp.

I should begin by mentioning that I did not read The White Man’s Burden all at once. At one low point in my life (last summer), I thought the extra inch it added to my embarrassingly thin bookshelf was more valuable than any benefit I might have gotten from continuing to read. For this reason, my memory of the first portion of the book is not great. I’ll talk about it anyway.

In The White Man’s Burden, William Easterly offers a scathing critique of Western attempts at international aid. The subtitle alone—Why the West’s Effort to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good—gives pause to most of us, who read regularly about international summits and conventions on international aid and poverty. Easterly does not hesitate to cast aspersions on a number of major players in the international aid community, including Bono, George W. Bush, and, most notably, his NYU colleague Jeffrey Sachs. Despite at times being long-winded, Easterly presents a fearless analysis of the foreign aid system in the West.

Early in the book, Easterly introduces the notion of Planners and Searchers. A Planner is a person who seeks to implement aid from the top down. Due to limited accountability, the Planners’ goals are often vague utopian ideals. A Searcher, on the other hand, is one who searches for bottom-up and generally market-based reforms for which there is consumer feedback. The Searchers’ goals are more modest and thus more attainable. This distinction feels natural, particularly considering the sheer number of aid (and AIDS) concerts and international summits since the turn of the century. His points are good, but Easterly tends to be long-winded, hammering home the same points for pages. Despite this shortcoming that led to my yearlong break, the first section of the book is valuable, as it lays the groundwork for Easterly’s arguments throughout the remainder of the book.

I decided to give Easterly a second chance while in a post-Joose induced stupor one morning this summer. My frail mind, not in a state to bear any heavy literary loads, would not have been able to take anything less than a thrilling read. And a thrilling read it was. Easterly illustrates the failings of utopian schemes and Western intervention through both anecdotal and statistical evidence. His breadth of knowledge is impressive and his attacks are pointed. Despite all of his cautionary tales about the IMF and World Bank, Easterly is an Economist at heart. He ends one paragraph halfway through the book with the question, “But is [$1200] too high to justify giving a person another year of life?” Such questions are uncomfortable and difficult to answer, but that doesn’t stop Easterly from making a well-founded point. He goes on to describe children with “intestinal worms, which spill out from [their] noses” whose parents ”in desperation [to save their children] pour kerosene down the children’s throats.” These children aren’t getting the extremely inexpensive treatment that would save them because AIDS is in vogue in the aid community. The cost-benefit analysis is not so cold and lifeless in Easterly’s hands. At many points throughout the book, skepticism about aid comes across in a more humorous light. Easterly sums up the silver lining of the American intervention in Ethiopia against Somalia in the following Onion-like passage:

“Live Aid concert to help Ethiopia in 1985 gave valuable experience to Live 8 musicians to help Africa twenty years later.”

The examples of how the West has failed, and in many cases, flat out wronged “the Rest” are abundant, and serve to bolster the case against top-down reform in the new age of Imperialism.

I recently spoke with the father of one of my co-authors-to-be about William Easterly and The White Man’s Burden. He said that many of Easterly’s points are good, but that he is too extreme in his criticism of Economics. As I see it, however, this book is a testimonial to the value of economic theory and analysis, not a condemnation of it. The fundamental criticism that Easterly offers is that humanitarian aid is not true to economic principles. Rather, aid comes from a paternalistic and myopic West that refuses feedback and does not embrace the market. And herein lies the fundamental irony. We live in a society that bends over backwards to promote democracy and capitalism, all while we are investing billions and billions of dollars in a system that is the foreign aid equivalent to the Soviet Union—Lenin style.

An online review of The White Man’s Burden suggests that Easterly is not constructive in his criticism of the aid community. The last section of the book, however, addresses this issue directly. Easterly acknowledges that nobody, not even he, has one simple answer, because it does not exist. He goes on to offer a number of examples of reforms to the aid system that have succeeded. My personal favorite is a website designed by a husband and wife in DC. They have created a market-based system—much like eBay—for international aid. I won’t attempt to do justice to what they have accomplished here, but you can see it for yourself at GlobalGiving.com.

In summary, I would highly recommend this book to pretty much anybody. Bear with the first hundred pages—at times it’s slow, but it’s a price well worth paying. I learned a great deal, and my perspective on the IMF, international aid and U2 has been greatly altered (although I never held U2 in particularly high regard in the first place).

-F. Darcy

When Science Goes Wrong

2008-09-03T10:43:00.001-04:00

Simon LeVay, 272 pp.

I guess it's time to get the party started... (cept some DICK took the first post!)

To start off, I just recently finished reading a nonfiction account of mishaps in many different fields of science called When Science Goes Wrong, by Simon LeVay. Initially my impressions were slightly off base. With the first reading of the title, in my mind I imagined similar TV title spoofs such as, "When Animals Attacks", or "When Buildings Collapse" and other such montages with Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture resounding in my skull. To my suprise, I was entertained with the 12 featured stories as well as I would have been if I watched any of the TV montages.

These stories take place in a variety of scientific feilds, such as Microbiology, Geology, Meteorology, and Nuerosciences. Each story has some distiguished or talented individual that in performing seemingly routine tasks and studies for their profession encounter a slight hiccup and pay for it dearly. The great thing about this book is not only does it tell the story of people dieing in Volcano Eruptions, or from a leak at a nuclear plant, but it also shows the scientific side to each story, showing the exact thought process to get to the climax, while not confusing you with scientific jaron.

Basically, it all comes down to this. If you like a book that will rip your attention and stimulate your mind, then this book would be perfect for you. If you are looking for non fiction short stories that have a slight gruesome side, you could do better, but this book will still satisfy. If you are looking for technical detail describing the mishaps of each story or lookin for fiction, you best find another book.

-Maj. MajorMajorMajor

The Kinks Kronikles

2008-08-31T23:03:00.002-04:00

John Mendelssohn, 208 pp.

The Kinks are the lost third of the holy rock trinity that came out of England in the 60's. Nowhere near as popular or revolutionary as the Beatles, not half as tough or overtly sexual as the Stones, the Kinks were the bookish, eccentric, and comparatively conservative reporters on English economics, social trends, and relationships that were sorely missing during that time. But don't let the conservative charge mislead you. As Mendelssohn makes quite clear, the band was not afraid to drink, fight, and womanize like any good rock band, it's just that lead singer and guiding spirit Ray Davies took little part in those activities.

Make no mistake, Ray, standing far right, is not posing for the camera

And that is precisely what makes him the most intriguing member of the Kinks and why Mendelssohn makes Ray the central focus of the book. As Alan McDougall remembers for Mendelssohn, "Ray was on the razor edge between genius and insanity...a true genius, but with definite tendencies toward going nuts." Much of the book then, is Ray trying to get a handle on his emotions long enough to be productive. First to get his band off the ground, second to live the normal life he so badly desires. Rather than being a biography of the whole group then, Mendelssohn writes primarily about Ray and his influence on the other members of the band and people in general. This is both the book's triumph and its downfall.

In one sense we get a case study of one of the most interesting and greatest songwriters of all time and in another we are never really able to get the whole picture. This is hurt further by the fact that Mendelssohn was not able to get access to the band for the book. What is put in print instead is a collection of band quotes not done originally for the book, a few interviews with personnel at one time affiliated with the band, events known through public disclosure, and accounts from Mendelssohn's time spent with the Kinks in the 70's. A positive of this lack of new first hand information is that Mendelssohn often evaluates the state of the band at various junctures by reviewing their music at that time. These reviews are almost always insightful (except the mid-70's album reviews) and the songs Mendelssohn picks out as being the best generally are, at least in my opinion.

The best parts of the book though, are when Mendelssohn lets his unfiltered thoughts about Ray, the band, and their music's effect on him and others come through. My favorite chapter was actually a short 'Dossier' on Ray which pieced together random facts (he is a pack rat) and observations ("[Ray is] a genuine and brilliant neurotic in a landscape full of sham psychotics," according to Rolling Stone writer Fred Schruer) of the King Kink with little organization save an impossible to hide affinity for the singer. In a sense, this chapter is much like the rest of book. Mendelssohn claims on the front to have produced an unauthorized, uncensored biography of the group. Instead he has produced a collection of snapshots that gives you an image of the group from the perspective of an adoring fan but leaves you wondering what the guys are really like. This is perhaps the best Mendelssohn could have done and knowing the paranoid nature of Ray Davies, the best anyone may be able to do. I was still left wanting more though. To Kinks fans out there, if you haven't already read this, you should do so, at least for the first hundred pages. To everyone else, go out and listen to the Kinks today. You could end up the next John Mendelssohn.

-Heathcliff