Fights a Never Ending Battle for...What?

Historical counterfactuals, when well done, can be both quite entertaining and thought-provoking.  (When poorly done, they are just silly.)  That being said, it is hard to know how seriously to take such things.  On the one hand, a historical (“an historical” for the pedantically inclined—I have always thought the “an” before “h-word” rule was absurd—perhaps that is because in properly spoken English (i.e. California English) one pronounces the “h”) “What if?” can be a great parlor game; on the other hand, there is literally no way to ever figure out what would really happen if some small thing in history had changed; history has many cunning passages, and as a result we really aren’t smart enough to figure out all the implications of a small change.  Moreover, if one is a determinist, then the whole counterfactual thing is inherently problematic.

But, nonetheless, I read a fantastic counterfactual.  Though, come to think of it, I am not sure “counterfactual” is the right word.  What do you call a counterfactual, when the historical episode being rewritten was fictional?  Counterfictional?  That just sounds odd.  But, rewriting a fictional story is not a counterfactual, since there is no fact to counter.  I suppose you could just call it “fiction,” but that doesn’t really describe it.  I think we need a new word here.

Semantics aside:  if you like comic books, Mark Millar’s Red Son is a keeper.  The premise:  Superman’s ship leaves Krypton 12 hours later than in the canonical story.  As a result, the earth has rotated, and Superman’s ship lands on a collective farm in the Soviet Union.  And suddenly we have Superman, the Soviet hero.  And does he ever make a fantastic Soviet hero; a well-meaning Big Brother, who can make the world safe for everyone, and with his superpower hearing and X-ray vision, nothing escapes his notice.  He is quite good at reforming all those malcontents to make them see the beauty of the Soviet way.  Superman is a perfect benevolent totalitarian dictator who is happy to run every aspect of your life for your own good.  Who stands against Superman?  Lex Luthor, naturally—Luthor, the Great American Hero.  The cleverness of this story runs from the big picture to the smallest details.  Seeing how Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Green Lantern all fit into the story is fun.  There are great jokes everywhere you turn as the most routine things in the canonical Superman story are suddenly flipped around.  There is even a great riff on this.  Like I said, if you like comics, this is a must read.

There is one serious failure in the book, though, which almost detracts from the whole story.  The story is 151 pages long.  It really should have ended on the last panel of page 143.  Had it ended there, it would have been the perfect ending to a well told tale.  But, like far too many authors, Millar wanted that extra little kick, so he added a really lame twist starting on page 144.  Fortunately, the twist has no relevance to the story that came before; it is really just tacking on what could have been the ending to any old Superman story, and it would have been just as silly as an ending to any other Superman Story.  Why didn’t someone, anyone, tell Millar that he shouldn’t mess with perfection?  And that last panel on page 143 is perfection—subtle and satisfying.

And, speaking of Superheroes, Emma, Clara and I saw X-Men: First Class on Father’s Day (which was the same day as Emma’s turned 18).  It was a great superhero film.  Better than Thor  (don’t get me wrong; I liked Thor).   Alas, Green Lantern is sounding like a Netflix movie. I am still hoping for great things from Captain America, though.  I have absolutely no hope for Conan, but maybe it will surprise me. 

Dancing in the Rain

A bleak day prompts a review of a bleak book.  An excellent bleak book, though.

Henning Mankell’s The Return of the Dancing Master

I was unaware of Mankell’s existence—I think he was the Swedish author someone once mentioned to me over lunch at a conference, but I am not sure.  A former student (who graduated in 1996) stopped by my office earlier in the year and while chatting about books, she asked if I had ever read Mankell.  I said “No,” and then about a week later, a couple of his books (and a biography of Wodehouse) were in my mailbox.  All I can say, is that I am really glad I had never heard of Mankell, because it isn’t often you get the great joy of discovering a new author who writes really good books.

The book is a detective story, but a detective story with literary merit. The bleakness in this book is strong.  It takes place in rural Sweden at the outset of winter, so the landscape is cold and bare.  (That was one of my big surprises in moving to New England, by the way.  I had always assumed mid-winter with snow on the ground would be the bleakest part of the year, but it isn't even close.  Late November, when the leaves are gone and there isn't yet snow is much bleaker.  The snow actually brightens things up.)  The protagonist of the novel (the detective) has just been diagnosed with cancer (on his tongue) and he despairs.  The whole novel takes place in the time between his diagnosis and the time he goes in to start treatment.  The murder is all wrapped up in the legacy of Nazi activity in Sweden, so either the murdered or the murderer is a Nazi and there is a steady stream of aging Swedish Nazis who may or may not know something about the murder.  Bleak.  Yet shockingly well written and thoughtful throughout.  I eagerly look forward to reading the rest of Mankell’s work—and nicely enough, I already have another one on my shelf.

Hmmm.  That is a pretty bleak blog post.  I’d like to throw in a cheery detail or two, but come to think of it, there aren’t really any cheery details in the book.  It is really good at maintaining its tone throughout.  There is an interesting moral dilemma at the center of the tale—one with far too many modern applications—does the murderer of a murderer deserve punishment?  If a political radical of some stripe had tortured and killed a relative, and escaped punishment, would you a) be justified in killing the murderer, b) be willing to do so, and c) be justified in torturing the torturer first?  The last question is the easiest.  The first question is a nice staple of discussions of justice.  It’s the second one which is the hardest. 

This is getting bleaker by the moment.  And it’s raining outside.  Again.  I suppose I should go read some more Shelley:

I met a Murder on the way—

He had a mask like Castlereagh—

Very smooth he looked yet grim;

Seven bloodhounds followed him:

All were fat; and well they might

Be in admirable plight,

For one by one, and two by two,

He tossed them human hearts to chew

Which from his wide cloak he drew.

Yeah, that’ll cheer things up…

Old Mortality

Having spent the last week cobbling together a paper on Percy Bysshe Shelley, it is nice to return to writing about a different author.  I have developed quite a love/hate relationship with Shelley, and I still have another 10 days to spend in his company before the deadline arrives and he leaves.  In the meantime, however, I am seriously behind in the book review department, and while being seriously behind in said matter does give me ample material on which to write meaningless ruminations, it also presents the problem of selecting which matter upon which to ruminate, a not particularly terrible problem, but nonetheless it does lead to digressions like this one (though, come to think of it, is it possible to digress before you start the subject at hand?) which will probably end only when one of the books in the stack in front of me rises up and says, “Enough is enough; write about me,” not, dear Reader that said book will actually speak, but you know what I mean.

Scott wins out.  Which isn’t really a surprise—he is the Grand Old Man of the lot, and I would really like to refile the book on the shelf in my library devoted to Scott.

As I mentioned earlier (long ago, it seems), I read Scott because Anne Fadiman mentioned uncut pages and my edition of Scott’s novels has many novels with uncut pages.  The book:

Old Mortality

An oddly named book because the title character is really just a ploy to launch into the story itself, but I suppose authors are allowed to give books odd titles in much the same way that bloggers can do the same.  Speaking of odd, I just read this morning that Marx is reported to have had a fondness for this particular book by Scott but he never mentioned the book in any of his writings.  This is the sort of useless trivia which I find far too intriguing and you, Dear Reader, simply stand astounded that anyone would ever bother to mention in a blog post—but then, as long-time readers of this space surely know, one does not come to this blog for useful information.  The best thing about the Marx anecdote is that, if true, it shows that Marx had good taste in books—though why he would like this particular Scott novel above all others is not something I can fathom—then again, Marx was presumably had more interests than Marxism.  But enough about Marx.

Scott is easily one of the most underappreciated Great Book authors in the modern age.  Once upon a time, he was The Man—he was bigger than Jane Austen.  And, as I have noted often before, I am not sure why Scott is not beloved of those who are fanatical for Austen.  Austen’s best novel is better than anything Scott wrote, but nonetheless, Scott’s best is as good as Austen’s other work.  He has fantastic characters in romantic locations doing heroic and chivalrous deeds.

Old Mortality is about one of the many conflicts between the Scotland and England.  But, it is a multi-sided affair, with the Scots divided between the radical and moderate Presbyterians, and the English divided between the accommodating and harsh overlords.  Our hero, a moderate Presbyterian, is seeking to navigate his way between the bloodthirsty radical Presbyterians and the English who want to stamp out the radicals.  Our hero's love interest is torn between our hero and an English soldier, whose loyalties are torn between Crown and the fact that he owes his life to our hero.  The leader of the radical Presbyterians is alternately trying to convert and kill our hero.  The leader of the local English army troop is alternately trying to hang and enlist the aid of our hero.  There are a host of memorable minor characters, some of whom speak in marvelously fun Scottish brogue.

The central conflict of the book is figuring out how to navigate in a world where the extremes are constantly threatening to tear everything apart. 

For example:

“You are right,” said Claverhouse, with a smile; “you are very right—we are both fanatics; but there is some distinction between the fanaticism of honour and that of dark and sullen superstition.”

“Yet you both shed blood without mercy or remorse,” said Morton, who could not suppress his feelings.

“Surely,” said Claverhouse, with the same composure; "but of what kind?—There is a difference, I trust, between the blood of learned and reverend prelates and scholars, of gallant soldiers and noble gentlemen, and the red puddle that stagnates in the veins of psalm-singing mechanics, crackbrained demagogues, and sullen boors;—some distinction, in short, between spilling a flask of generous wine, and dashing down a can full of base muddy ale?”

“Your distinction is too nice for my comprehension,” replied Morton. “God gives every spark of life—that of the peasant as well as of the prince; and those who destroy his work recklessly or causelessly, must answer in either case.”

The extremes are so nicely done that rather than simply viewing them as extremes which can be dismissed, both of the extremes are allowed to make their case in a thoroughly persuasive manner.  After all, if the radical Presbyterians are right in their theology, then surely any compromise with the Crown and the Anglican church is siding with Evil.  And if the English are right that order needs to be preserved in a state, then surely the uncompromising radical Presbyterians need to be ruthlessly suppressed—after all there is no way to compromise with them.  So, in the face of that, is it right to try to craft a middle ground or is such a middle ground simply a wishy-washy attempt to muddle the Truth?  And how far does a personal debt of honor extend?  What compromises must be made when one owes something to an individual on the other side of a grand debate?  Those debts of honor lie everywhere in this book, and the grand causes keep intruding.

In the end, I think the book teaches the importance of Honor.  A much neglected virtue, that.  Perhaps it is time for a Scott revival. 

How to Treat A Book?

Anne Fadiman likes to read.  I know this because she tells us so (not explicitly (all the time); mostly by example) in just about every paragraph of her collection of essays, Ex Libris.  We have here a book about reading, which is always a curious beast.  Reading is the only hobby in which the act of reading about one’s hobby is also the act of engaging in it. 

There is thus a natural charm for those who like to read books when reading a book about how nice it is to be the sort of person who likes to read books.  And Fadiman's essays are most certainly charming.  Reading it is a process of getting that warm feeling of knowing that there are others like you in the world, others for whom reading is a compulsive pleasure.  And what do you learn in a book like this?  Sadly, this is where reflection is the enemy of pleasure.  I liked this book.  I enjoyed reading the essays.  But, all in all, most of the essays were mere fluff—nicely written fluff, charming fluff, fluff I am glad I read, but in the end, just fluff.  I don’t think Fadiman would disagree—this is a book that reads like blog entries; it is the reflections of a well-read person about her hobby and not a sustained argument of any particular sort.  I should have known this would happen when I finished the first essay; it was all about how Fadiman and her husband finally combined their two libraries.  Cute, to be sure. 

There were a few essays which made me think.  The most interesting, by far, was “Never Do that to a Book,” where Fadiman distinguishes between Courtly lovers and Carnal lovers.  Courtly lovers treat their books like sacred objects, keeping them pristine and looking like new.  Carnal lovers (like Fadiman) abuse their books, writing in them and bending pages and leaving them open face down on a table.  Who loves books more—the courtly lover or the carnal lover?  Each type of lover views the other with deep suspicion and disdain. 

Which type am I?  Oddly, and disturbingly, I am a bit of both.  I don’t venerate my books, I don’t mind writing in them at all, I leave them lying around all over the place in piles on the floor and my desk, but I do hate cracked spines and I never dog-ear pages.  (Actually, I recently started dog-earing the pages of Wired magazine—I still have a twinge of guilt every time I do that to a magazine which I only read once and don’t save.)  Being something in between and reading Fadiman’s essay made me feel like I need to choose a side in this grand debate.  I need to either treat my books better or worse.  I am in the no-man’s land of lovers, and I am not sure what kind of lover lives there.  Courtly love is a beautiful thing.  Carnal love is a beautiful thing.  In between are those milksops who are afraid of commitment and shy away from contact and never are bold enough to act.  Those in-betweeners are cowardly types, fools and imbeciles, those unworthy of love.  Which damsel ever loved the knight who was neither dashing nor roguish?  And yet, despite my newfound fear that I am neither courtly nor carnal with my books, I cannot decide which I would rather be.

And so, to assuage this tension, I started reading Sir Walter Scott.  In another essay Fadiman notes with horror that she found a book with uncut pages—an old book which nobody had ever read.  So she promptly cut the pages and read it.  I have the complete novels of Scott on my shelf—my mother found them at a flea market and gave them to me for Christmas years ago.  Much to my surprise, many of the novels had uncut pages—it was the first time I had ever seen uncut pages in a book.  I’ve been reading the novels over the years, duly cutting the pages when needed.  After reading Fadiman's essay, I looked for one of the Scott novels which still had uncut pages, and started reading it.  I figured if I cut the pages and read the foremost author of the Romantic age, perhaps I could solve my dilemma of how to be a better book lover.  It didn’t work.  (But, at least I had the occasion to read Scott—review forthcoming.)

And so, after reading a book of charmingly fluffy essays about my favorite pastime, I am left with little more than a deep angst which may well persist for the rest of my life.  Curse you, Anne Fadiman.  Curse you.

Mingy Stingy

George Eliot’s Silas Marner suffers only from the inevitable comparison with Middlemarch.  What is one supposed to do with an author who wrote a masterpiece “Cross-Section of a Town” Novel which is long and seemingly all-encompassing, when that same author also wrote a shorter, quicker novel doing much the same thing?  Had Middlemarch never been written, Silas Marner would seem even more brilliant than it is.

(Speaking of Middlemarch, I ran across this.  Things like that seem interesting to me, but that particular example doesn’t tell me anything new about Hamlet and so I eventually realized it only seems interesting—it actually isn’t interesting at all.  But, then I got to thinking.  I would really like to see a picture like that for Middlemarch.  (Without the red lines, of course.)  Who is the central character in that town?  Is there anyone who unites all the parts of the town?)

But, to return to Silas.  After finishing the novel, I feel like I could walk into Raveloe and know everyone in town.  Yet, surprisingly, the book is short, very short.  My copy is 151 pages.  You know you are in the hands of an expert novelist when she can paint a picture of a town so completely in a book of that size.  You don’t actually meet that many characters in this book, but it sure seems like you know the whole town by the end of the book.

The big theme:  children are more important than money.   This would have been an interesting message in 1861 with the Industrial Revolution in full swing;  indeed, the destruction caused by the Industrial Revolution shows up at the end of the novel—we are glad to see that Silas has escaped the fate of the factory by mummifying himself in a small town.   Today, the message still resonates, of course.    While reading a book like this, it’s hard not to look at your own daughters with a bit more fondness.

Curiously, (curiously, because this band keeps popping up in my life over the last few weeks) The Who even wrote a song loosely based on this novel.  It’s here.  I’ve listened to that song many, many times in my life, but I never knew the Silas in the song was named after the protagonist of this novel.  It was a rather jarring shock of discovery when I was reading about Silas stashing away his gold and I could suddenly hear John Entwistle crooning, “Once upon a time there was an old miser man by the name of Silas Stingy…”

In short, if you have never read Middlemarch, read this short novel and then you will want to read the long novel.  And if you have read Middlemarch, then why haven’t you already read this book?  I am asking myself that very question—I’ve read Middlemarch twice, but before now, I never read another Eliot novel.  Why ever not?

1 of 6

Tedium

1.  Emma graduated from High School on Saturday.  I had planned to review the graduation ceremony here in much the same manner as I reviewed the recent MHC graduation, but, alas, I am afraid that the High School graduation did not hold my attention enough to make the speeches contained within the ceremony memorable enough to allow for a considered critique.  Suffice it to say:

a) the student speeches all seemed like the sort of thing a graduating high school seniors would be expected to give;

b) the speech by the teacher was a disaster—an extended and thoroughly mangled attempt to turn The Wizard of Oz into an allegory of life and graduation, but the comparison was incoherent when it wasn’t clear who the students were in this allegory or whether they were in Kansas or Oz or the Emerald City or where they should even want to live or what they were supposed to be doing or even what was the point of the whole extended exercise in wrapping platitudes into allegory in a futile attempt to sound deep—a surprising speech in that the students selected this teacher of all teachers to give an address, so surely said teacher knows how to talk to high school students—perhaps the pressure of having to give The Speech caused said teacher to forget that the first mandate of a speech is to engage the audience;

c) the band was good, quite good in fact;

d) the process of handing out diplomas was about as inefficient as possible—the economist in me was incredibly annoyed—I wanted to go up on stage and tell them they could really speed things up with a bit more efficiency.

But, Emma graduated, so all was good.

2.  And, while on the subject of things that were just there—neither particularly good nor particularly bad—I give you Isaac Asimov’s trilogy of Galactic Empire Novels:  The Stars, Like Dust, The Currents of Space, and Pebble in the Sky.  The hook is that these books are all set in the Universe of the Foundation Trilogy (which shall always be a Trilogy—yes, I know there were two books after the original trilogy, but those two books were so wretched and so destroying of everything that made The Foundation Trilogy a landmark in Science Fiction, that it would be better if we could all just forget they were ever written) before the events of that trilogy took place.  That, by the way, is all the unites these novels—and it isn’t much of a unifying theme, since the novels are not confined to any particular time or location of the Universe.  So, calling them Galactic Empire novels is really just a ruse to convince people that maybe they will be as good as The Foundation Trilogy.  They weren’t—not even close.  But, they were tolerable quick reads if you like science fiction.  The second one was the best—it had some political intrigue.  The third one had a nice scientific puzzle at its heart.  The first one was completely forgettable.  All in all, they are the sort of books that one picks up at a library book sale and throws on a shelf for when one wants to read some lightweight science fiction and then after reading, drops off on the free bookshelf in the MHC library so some poor undergrad stranded on campus all summer has something to read to pass the time.

3. I am not sure why I keep reading Asimov.  The Foundation Trilogy is fantastic.  At least I remember it as being fantastic; I am afraid to reread it after reading so much silly stuff by Asimov since I read it.  The Robot stories are a mixed bag, but some of them are extremely good—and there is no doubt that Asimov’s Robot stories are historically important.  You can’t talk about robots without knowing Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.  But, after that?  I have never read any of his other books which I really enjoyed—the rest ranged from tolerable to painful. 

Ra's al Ghul, Father of the Year

Now that Clara is getting old enough to watch movies not aimed at people with childish intellects (like, for example, children), I watched the Batman movies with her—the four from the 80s/90s and the 2 new ones (but, not the old 1960s one (movie or TV show)—I know what she would say about that era and it isn’t pretty).  There are some really good movies there—the two Nolan one are incredible, and I really like the Jack Nicholson as Joker movie.  (Clara, sadly was not fond of the new ones—too much plot—as Emma kept telling her, “Don’t worry, Clara, something is going to blow up soon.”  Perhaps Clara isn’t old enough for non-tweener movies yet—come to think of it the movie she is most looking forward to seeing this summer is Monte Carlo a “Selena Gomez looking for life after Wizards of Waverly Place” vehicle—how sad should I be that my daughter would rather see Selena Gomez as a “girl pretending to be a British heiress and then falling in love with someone who thinks she really is an heiress and I have seen this movie about 200 times before”—she would rather see that movie than Thor, Green Lantern or Captain America?  But, I digress.)

Batman Begins reminded me that I didn’t know a whole lot about Ra’s al Ghul; he is in that movie and he had an interesting role in Hush, but I never really knew the complete back story.  Then I discovered that DC Comics has prepared a book just for people like me (yes, there are obviously other people like me—else this book would not exist.  QED.). 

Batman: Tales of the Demon is a collection 11 Batman comics from 1971 through 1980 which introduce Ra’s al Ghul.  The stories were all written by Dennis O’Neil.  Typical 1970s comic books—so if you read it, don’t expect anything in the way of depth or artistic brilliance.  And reading these old Batman books is a stark reminder of how much Frank Miller reinvented the character.  You can see it in the difference between the Adam West/George Clooney Batman and the Christian Bale Batman.  (By the way, George Clooney, for all his cringe inducing portrayal of Batman was depressingly close to the way Batman was in the 1970s.)  (I liked Michael Keaton’s Batman; Adam West has charm; but I could do without Kilmer and Clooney.)  (Bale is obviously amazing.) (But, I digress again.)

Batman: Tales of the Demon,  to begin again, collects the comics which introduce Ra’s al Ghul (but you knew that if you read the previous paragraph).  On the whole, the stories are fun, but not deep.  Ra’s is a curious villain—super-smart, knows Batman’s secret identity, and manipulates Batman in overly intricate schemes intended to help Ra’s reach World Domination.  Ra’s daughter is a serious Love Interest for Batman.  Ra’s originally hopes to make Batman his son-in-law and heir to a vast worldwide criminal empire.  And all this potential for interesting stories simply fizzles—rather disappointing actually.  (And don’t say, “Well what did you expect? It is a comic book.”  I expect comic books to be great literature.)

Well, at least Batman Begins reinvents Ra’s in a rather intriguing way.