It's been a while since I read this, and my memory of it is a little hazy. The question being answered is, in short, why is it that some countries are so wealthy, and others are so poor?
Now, Landes wrote this as emeritus professor of history at Harvard, so that in itself should lend some credence to the book. I do recall, that I felt a little unconvinced at the end of the book - his position that the values and attitudes that led to and sustained the industrial revolution are the drivers of success felt glib and pat, but presented with such a tone of self-assuredness that I can't help but think that he is, rather than having a good think about things, regurgitating in book form the convictions that he's developed over however many years as a distinguished academic.
I don't really disagree with most of his observations. It's more the lack of any indicators of success besides wealth. The other thing I didn't really agree with was his estimation of sustainable wealth generation - e.g., the wealthy countries today are growing sustainably because their growth has been sustainable for the last couple of hundred years. Glib, pat, and debatable.
It's a historical tour de force, and I'd say a good point to start chatting about the issues raised, but by no means should it be held as the final word.
Saturday, October 15, 2005
Friday, September 30, 2005
City of the beasts - Isabel Allende
This is a really engaging mystical story. In broad strokes, young American boy has to go hang out with his grandma on the other side of the country during a family health crisis. Grandma's scheduled to go to the Amazon - she's a writer type for National Geographic or something. So, junior has to go along. The Amazon, in reality as well as in this book, is equal parts unknown mysterious and scary wonderland, and a place for unscrupulous people to try and boost their egos and bank balances at the expense of the indigenous folks.
Junior learns to adapt, to be brave and live up to his totemic animal's reputation (I kinda want a totemic animal. With my luck, it'd be something like a cricket.) Anyway, he learns to see with his heart and accept the rythm of the jungle.
Books translated, as this one is, into English run the risk of losing some of the qualities of the original language (Spanish, in this case). Either the translator was brilliant, or the original book has huge qualities that some could get lost and it is still wondrous to read - or both.
The book isn't supremely spiritual and metaphysical as to be impenetrable - on the contrary, it makes the (perhaps mythologized and romanticised) Amazonian wonder accessible. It makes the point of the plight of indigenous people without being preachy.
A good read, and recommended.
Junior learns to adapt, to be brave and live up to his totemic animal's reputation (I kinda want a totemic animal. With my luck, it'd be something like a cricket.) Anyway, he learns to see with his heart and accept the rythm of the jungle.
Books translated, as this one is, into English run the risk of losing some of the qualities of the original language (Spanish, in this case). Either the translator was brilliant, or the original book has huge qualities that some could get lost and it is still wondrous to read - or both.
The book isn't supremely spiritual and metaphysical as to be impenetrable - on the contrary, it makes the (perhaps mythologized and romanticised) Amazonian wonder accessible. It makes the point of the plight of indigenous people without being preachy.
A good read, and recommended.
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Down under - Bill Bryson
This is my first Bill Bryson book, and I'm still not sure if I like it or not. He's definitely good at writing from the point of view of the tourist. There are parts of the book, such as when he's describing the diversity and vastness of the continent, or the way the blackfellas been treated, when he demonstrates a sensitivity as well as an awareness of his own lack of deep understanding of things, when I really admire his style and observations.
Other times, he just sounds like a dumb American who lived as a whingeing Pom for twenty years, and who's been to Australia, likes it, and wrote a book about it.
Oh, he makes fun of cricket... nothing new there. It's not a terribly interesting story he tells, that's all. He seems to like it, but like so many journals of where people have gone and seen wondrous things, it's hard to really care about it.
Sure read the book, there's some flashes of brilliance, but over all, a pretty light read.
Other times, he just sounds like a dumb American who lived as a whingeing Pom for twenty years, and who's been to Australia, likes it, and wrote a book about it.
Oh, he makes fun of cricket... nothing new there. It's not a terribly interesting story he tells, that's all. He seems to like it, but like so many journals of where people have gone and seen wondrous things, it's hard to really care about it.
Sure read the book, there's some flashes of brilliance, but over all, a pretty light read.
Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Five past midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre & Javier Moro
Sucks to be poor and unimportant as the waves of the global market splash and ebb capital around, doesn't it? One day you're sitting there wondering if the damn rice is ever going to grow and the little power brokers in your remote province will ever cut you a bit of a break, when lo! some nice guy wanders around and gives you super duper seeds and an amazing cow, and life is going to be fabulous when the super seeds get eaten by little buggies and the cow doesn't have enough to eat so it keels over, so you have a really nice steak with no salad and then bugger all.
Act 2. Things get worse! So, you pack up the wife and kiddies and leave the nice little rural area you've been scratching by in for ever, and go to a city, where, as we all know, the streets are paved with gold. Well, maybe they were, because now there's just mud and more grinding poverty. Oh, but the kiddies can go make matches and cigarettes by hand in dark, close buildings, or scuttle over trains looking for things to salvage or maybe beg a couple of units of currency...
And lo! A wondrous thing happens. Out of nothing but concern for fellow human beings, and the boost in the pocketbook is really just a nice side effect, some big company which makes batteries, has decided to conquer the little buggies mentioned above, so the rice can grow proud and strong, the people can eat, prosper, and buy more bug-icide.
That company looks to your country which has lots of hungry people, and a history of climactic difficulties when it comes to feeding them, and decides that it'd be a heck of an idea to build a big factory right in your new city to manufacture this bug-icide. Right on, dude! Work, money and more food to buy with the money... a dream come true.
The factory gets built, people get good work, and training in handling the dangerous chemicals that go together to make their bug-icide. Your little slum even gets a television! Happy days!
Remember that bit about the pocket book? Turns out it's more important than we thought. So, things go downhill in the shiny new factory, as a couple of currency units here and a couple over there are saved... until... things go really wrong, and lots of people die, and no one really is assigned responsibility; the survivors and the victims' families never get compensated - and the compensation that they were supposed to get was minimal anyway.
Pretty crummy story, huh? It's a true one. A chemical plant blew up because it wasn't maintained, and killed 30 000 people in India.
This is by the same fellow who wrote City of Joy, and it's just as sensitive and disturbing.
Read it.
Act 2. Things get worse! So, you pack up the wife and kiddies and leave the nice little rural area you've been scratching by in for ever, and go to a city, where, as we all know, the streets are paved with gold. Well, maybe they were, because now there's just mud and more grinding poverty. Oh, but the kiddies can go make matches and cigarettes by hand in dark, close buildings, or scuttle over trains looking for things to salvage or maybe beg a couple of units of currency...
And lo! A wondrous thing happens. Out of nothing but concern for fellow human beings, and the boost in the pocketbook is really just a nice side effect, some big company which makes batteries, has decided to conquer the little buggies mentioned above, so the rice can grow proud and strong, the people can eat, prosper, and buy more bug-icide.
That company looks to your country which has lots of hungry people, and a history of climactic difficulties when it comes to feeding them, and decides that it'd be a heck of an idea to build a big factory right in your new city to manufacture this bug-icide. Right on, dude! Work, money and more food to buy with the money... a dream come true.
The factory gets built, people get good work, and training in handling the dangerous chemicals that go together to make their bug-icide. Your little slum even gets a television! Happy days!
Remember that bit about the pocket book? Turns out it's more important than we thought. So, things go downhill in the shiny new factory, as a couple of currency units here and a couple over there are saved... until... things go really wrong, and lots of people die, and no one really is assigned responsibility; the survivors and the victims' families never get compensated - and the compensation that they were supposed to get was minimal anyway.
Pretty crummy story, huh? It's a true one. A chemical plant blew up because it wasn't maintained, and killed 30 000 people in India.
This is by the same fellow who wrote City of Joy, and it's just as sensitive and disturbing.
Read it.
Monday, September 12, 2005
Drylands - Thea Astley
Cool - a fiction book, the first one in a long time. Shortish story shorter: The lives of a bunch of people in a fading Australian rural town are intertwined.
This is a pretty darn good book - it's readable AND it's technically interesting. There's a bunch of Aussie-centred subtexts I'm sure, but I've not been here long enough to pick up on all of them. I do know that chronology, psychology, economics and ecology are very believably dealt with in this book. The characters are not too complex; just enough so that they're interesting. The plot is the focus of writerly effort, I think, and it was worthwhile.
Good stuff, worth reading.
This is a pretty darn good book - it's readable AND it's technically interesting. There's a bunch of Aussie-centred subtexts I'm sure, but I've not been here long enough to pick up on all of them. I do know that chronology, psychology, economics and ecology are very believably dealt with in this book. The characters are not too complex; just enough so that they're interesting. The plot is the focus of writerly effort, I think, and it was worthwhile.
Good stuff, worth reading.
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Collapse: Why societies choose to suceed or fail - Jared Diamond
We're not as screwed as David Suzuki thinks, but we're still pretty screwed.
This is a damn big book. I started it on a flight from Ottawa to Sydney, and just finished it. Diamond seems like a pretty rigorous researcher, and he's generally a pretty good writer.
(Very) long story short: there's lots of factors that contribute the demise of civilisations. The environment is a really important one, but it operates in concert with other things, not the least of which is the decisions made by the civilisation. That's why the Easter Islanders died off, but the Icelanders and Inuit managed to stick around.
Well worth reading, this one.
This is a damn big book. I started it on a flight from Ottawa to Sydney, and just finished it. Diamond seems like a pretty rigorous researcher, and he's generally a pretty good writer.
(Very) long story short: there's lots of factors that contribute the demise of civilisations. The environment is a really important one, but it operates in concert with other things, not the least of which is the decisions made by the civilisation. That's why the Easter Islanders died off, but the Icelanders and Inuit managed to stick around.
Well worth reading, this one.
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Public Relations - A matter of spin: N E Renton
This is basically a little collection of how-to tips for the public relations practitioner in Australia, from planning press releases to spinning and timing stories so that the media covers it the way you want to.
Trouble is, I think people are too damn good at this sort of stuff, and the PR folks have a grand old time getting away with little massages of news and so on.
There's not a lot to this book - it's more of "another treasure of wisdom" from "a renowned leader in Australian PR" blah blah blah. It's just a manual.
Trouble is, I think people are too damn good at this sort of stuff, and the PR folks have a grand old time getting away with little massages of news and so on.
There's not a lot to this book - it's more of "another treasure of wisdom" from "a renowned leader in Australian PR" blah blah blah. It's just a manual.
Monday, August 22, 2005
Naked Ape to Superspecies - David Suzuki and Holly Dressel
We're screwed, folks.
Well, that may actually be a glib interpretation. There's a lot of things going wrong with the world, and David Suzuki is a heck of a guide through the dystopia that we're turning our planet into. You know, we're kind of like dogs that haven't learned not to pee in the house, or stupid kids who get their own place and just have fun and trash the joint. Actually, I think we're more like the kids than the dogs - we're supposed to have some sense, being human and all.
About the book. David Suzuki, in case you haven't heard of him, is a geneticist turned environmentalist, and he's pretty darn good at it. His story is that he was having a grand old time down at the genetics lab, and one day he found out about some worrying goin's on over in corporate genetics ville, and had a fundamental re-thing about what was going on.
Essentially, there's no argument that humans (and their ancestors, and all the other creatures great and small) have an effect on the environment. But to use this argument as a panacea against the doom and gloom of the enviro-lefties is disingenuous. Humans, as superspecies rather than naked ape of days gone by, is able to cause enormous environmental change in such short periods of time that ol' Mother Earth can't keep up with cleaning up after us.
Sometimes we're pretty clueless: I think it was this book (though it could be one of the other envirodoom books I've read lately) that tells the story of some wonderful bio-engineered microorganism that was supposed to do something particularly handy, like eat pollution and turn it into sunlight, or make loaves of bread appear on wheat stalks or something like that. Neat, and readily commercialisable. The way things worked, in order to get approval to release this into the wild in the States, the FDA said to the company "Make sure this gizmo won't do anything real bad, m'kay?" And the company said "Sure! We'll run some tests." So they sterilized some soil, put the gizmo in the lab in the soil, and lo and behold, it sat there kind of bored cos there was nothing to do. Some bright young grad student had an idea. Soil isn't sterile, he thought to himself. So he wandered out on his lunch break, grabbed a bucket of soil and brought it in to the lab. He put in some of the genetically engineered wonder, and nearly pooped himself when in short order there was nothing left alive in the 'natural' soil. The wonder-organism killed off every other biotic element in the sample. Ergo, release this into the wild and... it's gonna kill off all the microorganisms, upon which everything that grows in the soil depends... and that we depend on to, you know, live.
It was a fluke that there's still stuff growing in North America, dudes. One bright young fella with a bucket of dirt made a big difference.
That's the story that's stuck with me after finishing the book. The book's typically well written, and is rigourously researched. I can't fault Suzuki's motives or persuasion.
The only problem is, it's the enviro-left again. The folks making the money off GMOs and wrecking our house have control of the discourse, and the regulations. The arguments that their technological wizardry is going to save the earth is drowning out the little pesty voices suggesting that they're mucking up more than their fair share of it.
Righto, here's a whack of links from the back of the book. I've updated URLs that I've been able to find.
Well, that may actually be a glib interpretation. There's a lot of things going wrong with the world, and David Suzuki is a heck of a guide through the dystopia that we're turning our planet into. You know, we're kind of like dogs that haven't learned not to pee in the house, or stupid kids who get their own place and just have fun and trash the joint. Actually, I think we're more like the kids than the dogs - we're supposed to have some sense, being human and all.
About the book. David Suzuki, in case you haven't heard of him, is a geneticist turned environmentalist, and he's pretty darn good at it. His story is that he was having a grand old time down at the genetics lab, and one day he found out about some worrying goin's on over in corporate genetics ville, and had a fundamental re-thing about what was going on.
Essentially, there's no argument that humans (and their ancestors, and all the other creatures great and small) have an effect on the environment. But to use this argument as a panacea against the doom and gloom of the enviro-lefties is disingenuous. Humans, as superspecies rather than naked ape of days gone by, is able to cause enormous environmental change in such short periods of time that ol' Mother Earth can't keep up with cleaning up after us.
Sometimes we're pretty clueless: I think it was this book (though it could be one of the other envirodoom books I've read lately) that tells the story of some wonderful bio-engineered microorganism that was supposed to do something particularly handy, like eat pollution and turn it into sunlight, or make loaves of bread appear on wheat stalks or something like that. Neat, and readily commercialisable. The way things worked, in order to get approval to release this into the wild in the States, the FDA said to the company "Make sure this gizmo won't do anything real bad, m'kay?" And the company said "Sure! We'll run some tests." So they sterilized some soil, put the gizmo in the lab in the soil, and lo and behold, it sat there kind of bored cos there was nothing to do. Some bright young grad student had an idea. Soil isn't sterile, he thought to himself. So he wandered out on his lunch break, grabbed a bucket of soil and brought it in to the lab. He put in some of the genetically engineered wonder, and nearly pooped himself when in short order there was nothing left alive in the 'natural' soil. The wonder-organism killed off every other biotic element in the sample. Ergo, release this into the wild and... it's gonna kill off all the microorganisms, upon which everything that grows in the soil depends... and that we depend on to, you know, live.
It was a fluke that there's still stuff growing in North America, dudes. One bright young fella with a bucket of dirt made a big difference.
That's the story that's stuck with me after finishing the book. The book's typically well written, and is rigourously researched. I can't fault Suzuki's motives or persuasion.
The only problem is, it's the enviro-left again. The folks making the money off GMOs and wrecking our house have control of the discourse, and the regulations. The arguments that their technological wizardry is going to save the earth is drowning out the little pesty voices suggesting that they're mucking up more than their fair share of it.
Righto, here's a whack of links from the back of the book. I've updated URLs that I've been able to find.
- GreenNet
- Friends of the Earth
- GreenPeace (Canada)
- The Population Institute
- Sierra Club (Canada)
- TWN
- Adbusters
- Redefining Progress
- Quebec Public Interest Research Group at McGill (QPIRG-McGill)
- Organic Consumers Association (Old site) (New site)
- Biotechnology.org
- Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
- International Centre for Technology Assessment
- Council of Canadians
- International Forum on Globalization
- Center for Media and Democracy - PRWatch
- CorpWatch
- David Suzuki Foundation
- Rainforest Action Network
- World Resources Institute
- Sea Sheperd Conservation Society
- Essential Information Encouraging Activism
- Health Care without Harm
- Environmental Rights Action
Saturday, August 20, 2005
Collateral language: A user's guide to America's new war - John Collins and Ross Glover, eds.
The trouble with lefty challenges to the way the world works is that for some reason, they can't get their position to be taken seriously either by the power elite nor the majority of the Joe and Jane Sixpacks. Heck, they can't even be heard. So what happens? A bunch of intelligent, concerned, and politically engaged people tell each other how misguided the people in charge are, how they're pulling the wool over the people's eyes, betraying the trust of democracy and freedom, and generally agreeing that something needs to be done.
Here we go again. This collection of essays, published shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, are fairly cogent and reasonable arguments against the status quo of the War on Terror(ism), and all the other things the US power elite does in order to ensure its global hegemony, like sponsoring the 'disappearance' of social democratic figures in South America in favour of despotic arseholes who'd rather kill off their own citizens in exchange for money and weapons from Uncle Sam.
The problem, and several of the essays get it, is that the discourse has been so effectively framed to support the dominant world view - America as a beacon of freedom and democracy, ill-defined terrorists (generally, whomsoever the American executive doesn't like) are threats, therefore high ho, it's off to war we go.
I had a rather leftish university education, and two things led to my distance from the cause, as it were: First, saving the world and advancing the cause of the proletariat, unless one is a suitably well-regarded professor or populist writer, does not the mortgage pay. Second, this problem of actually getting anything done sort of is disillusioning. Answers to the problem of being heard, of having an effect, are few and far between. The discourse has been so coopted and controlled by the elites, that when the lefties make a statment or organise a march, it's really easy for them to be marginalised as the nutters in the way of progress. Only the left takes the left seriously, unfortunately.
After that rather cynical rant, I must admit having a soft sport for the arguments in the book. Hell yeah, I think our civil liberties are being eroded in favour of a false sense of security. Hell no, I don't think bombing the bejesus out of poor hungry people is the way to global security. Hell no, I don't think accelerating the consumption of natural resources is the manifest destiny of the 'developed world'. Hell yeah, I think a nation ought to be able to protect its global trading interests (does anyone else want their copyright laws remodeled in America's image? Most Aussies don't seem to remember this part of the Free Trade Agreement). Hell yeah, I think people are being fooled by the power elites. Yeah, I think that innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Nicaraguans get just as dead as innocent Americans, and their families weep in sorrow and in anger just as much.
I am aware of populist resistance to the machinations of the global groups - WTO et al - but the stuff that doesn't make the headlines is the scary stuff. Genetic engineering and genome patenting and so on - we don't hear so much about that.
There's a bunch of non-mainstream news sources listed at the end of the book - I'll put in links to them here in the hope that maybe one or two more people see one of the alternative realities. The left needs to figure out how to play the power and discourse framing game with the big boys, though.
Interesting links from the book (page 223):
Here we go again. This collection of essays, published shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, are fairly cogent and reasonable arguments against the status quo of the War on Terror(ism), and all the other things the US power elite does in order to ensure its global hegemony, like sponsoring the 'disappearance' of social democratic figures in South America in favour of despotic arseholes who'd rather kill off their own citizens in exchange for money and weapons from Uncle Sam.
The problem, and several of the essays get it, is that the discourse has been so effectively framed to support the dominant world view - America as a beacon of freedom and democracy, ill-defined terrorists (generally, whomsoever the American executive doesn't like) are threats, therefore high ho, it's off to war we go.
I had a rather leftish university education, and two things led to my distance from the cause, as it were: First, saving the world and advancing the cause of the proletariat, unless one is a suitably well-regarded professor or populist writer, does not the mortgage pay. Second, this problem of actually getting anything done sort of is disillusioning. Answers to the problem of being heard, of having an effect, are few and far between. The discourse has been so coopted and controlled by the elites, that when the lefties make a statment or organise a march, it's really easy for them to be marginalised as the nutters in the way of progress. Only the left takes the left seriously, unfortunately.
After that rather cynical rant, I must admit having a soft sport for the arguments in the book. Hell yeah, I think our civil liberties are being eroded in favour of a false sense of security. Hell no, I don't think bombing the bejesus out of poor hungry people is the way to global security. Hell no, I don't think accelerating the consumption of natural resources is the manifest destiny of the 'developed world'. Hell yeah, I think a nation ought to be able to protect its global trading interests (does anyone else want their copyright laws remodeled in America's image? Most Aussies don't seem to remember this part of the Free Trade Agreement). Hell yeah, I think people are being fooled by the power elites. Yeah, I think that innocent Iraqis, Afghanis, and Nicaraguans get just as dead as innocent Americans, and their families weep in sorrow and in anger just as much.
I am aware of populist resistance to the machinations of the global groups - WTO et al - but the stuff that doesn't make the headlines is the scary stuff. Genetic engineering and genome patenting and so on - we don't hear so much about that.
There's a bunch of non-mainstream news sources listed at the end of the book - I'll put in links to them here in the hope that maybe one or two more people see one of the alternative realities. The left needs to figure out how to play the power and discourse framing game with the big boys, though.
Interesting links from the book (page 223):
- Alternet
- Amnesty International
- Common Dreams News Center
- Food First
- FreeSpeech Television
- Global Exchange
- Guardian Unlimited (Mainstream, but a little more critical)
- Human Rights Watch
- The Independent (Hey, a competitor to the Guardian?)
- Independent Media Center
- The MediaChannel
- Media Workers against War - ah, this appears to be no longer working.
- Media Working Group
- Middle East International
- Middle East Research and Information Project
- Mother Jones
- The Nation
- Posters for Peace
- The Progressive
- Re:constructions
- United for a Fair Economy
- War & Peace
- Z Magazine
Thursday, August 18, 2005
The Race - Tim Zimmerman
Well, I found me another 'extreme sailing' book - in the theme of the Vendee Globe, except with more people and fewer rules.
Zimmerman starts in true round-the-world sailing story tradition, by nailing the highlights of the various races that have marked milestones in sailing - Slocum's circumnavigation, the trans-atlantic solos, the Whitbread, the OSTAR, et cetera, et cetera. Not a particularly innovative start to the book, but what are the options, really? In any event, I kind of liked his summary, as it moved along the chronology pretty quickly - good for me as I've read a couple of versions of sailing history, perhaps not so good for someone for whom this is the first introduction. Then again, a quick introduction could be appreciated. In any event...
"The Race" is essentially a race around the world in crewed boats. Competitors take off, and first one to the finish wins. Stopping in port for repairs nets a time penalty. Since they sail around Antarctica, the boats have to be pretty tough to survive in the Southern Ocean - but not so tough that they fall apart in rough oceans.
Zimmerman's storytelling is competent, but I didn't get the same urgency to turn pages as I did in reading about the Vendee.
Zimmerman starts in true round-the-world sailing story tradition, by nailing the highlights of the various races that have marked milestones in sailing - Slocum's circumnavigation, the trans-atlantic solos, the Whitbread, the OSTAR, et cetera, et cetera. Not a particularly innovative start to the book, but what are the options, really? In any event, I kind of liked his summary, as it moved along the chronology pretty quickly - good for me as I've read a couple of versions of sailing history, perhaps not so good for someone for whom this is the first introduction. Then again, a quick introduction could be appreciated. In any event...
"The Race" is essentially a race around the world in crewed boats. Competitors take off, and first one to the finish wins. Stopping in port for repairs nets a time penalty. Since they sail around Antarctica, the boats have to be pretty tough to survive in the Southern Ocean - but not so tough that they fall apart in rough oceans.
Zimmerman's storytelling is competent, but I didn't get the same urgency to turn pages as I did in reading about the Vendee.
Tuesday, July 19, 2005
Leviathan: The unauthorised biography of Sydney (John Birmingham)
So, right from Year Dot, the various groups that formed the elite of Sydney have been wangling things to best suit their interests – gaining money and power – and essentially not even bothering to flip the bird at the interests of the rest of the population, and the city in general. Naturally, when a bunch of people starts screwing another bunch of people, that other bunch of people starts getting a little grumpy, and there is conflict.
I dare say Birmingham has done yeoman's work in researching his book. It's long, full of detail, and in a book this size, most importantly readable. The only real quibble I have with the book is that it is inconsistent in style - it wobbles between a historical recitation of events and a more interpretive approach. Birmingham writes that his inspiration is "New Journalism" - a style in which writers strive to bring the readers into the story more than just relating a series of facts. The only problem is that the style can come off reading like a clichéd detective novel, given the subject. I suppose it's a writerly approach to a project, and Birmingham has the bona fides to go for it - he's written for a bunch of different pop cultural magazines and done some pretty hard core journalism - but... I half expected Sam Spade to wander around a Sydney street corner.
As for the content of the book, I'm astounded that with all the shenanigans and selfishness that Birmingham details over Sydney's history that it even resembles a decent place to live. I rather thought that I'd find myself getting shafted so some enterprising hood could develop a monopoly in some lucrative endeavour. However, my short experience of Sydney is that it's not as bad as Leviathan makes it out to be - perhaps things have improved over the last 200 years.
Of course, perhaps it's simply accepted that some powerful interests get to screw everyone else over. Recently, a state government portfolio was amended to afford the minister veto rights over environmental and other potential interferences to development projects worth over $50 million. That's state, not local though. I really think that the instinct to corruption is inherent in greedy little humans, and that it's not unique to a city or a time.
What this book seems to do then, is highlight the evil that lurked within the hearts of some Sydneysiders. Its focus precludes it from presenting the rosy side of the coin - all the nice things that Sydneysiders do for each other, which make for a pretty dire picture indeed.
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
Australia in a nutshell: A narrative history (Frank G. Clarke)
In a nutshell indeed. 386 pages from 60 or 70 thousand years ago right up to “Honest John” Howard’s government. Clarke’s book is a greatly appreciated resource – I wish that I could remember more of it! There is not a wasted word in the book, and the usually silly, occasionally idiotic antics of governments over the years are fairly evenly treated in terms of political bias.
The focus is on the government and economy of the colony turned nation, which means that the book doesn’t share the same degree of minute detail as the biography of Sydney – of course, it deals with a wider area in fewer (and smaller) pages. There are references to all the regions of
Thankfully, this history overview is well written, and the story flows fairly logically – it’s hard to screw up a chronological approach – but the logic between themes is fairly well presented.
Monday, June 27, 2005
Sydney: Biography of a city (Lucy Hughes Turnbull)
First the good: It is really comprehensive, and as a new resident of the city, I can appreciate more how come things are they way they are. I also really liked how connections are made between the past and the present – like when some one’s ancestor started a restaurant, and the third generation is now running the shop, and it’s still a great restaurant. Fully 500 pages of minute detail help bring the past to life.
Next, the not so good. I suppose it is a challenge to put together 200 years of history of a city into a comprehensive story, but not to let it stretch to thousands of pages. Unfortunately, in accomplishing a 500 page comprehensive history, readability was sacrificed such that it reads like research notes with capitals at the start and periods at the end of the point form scrawls. Continuity between paragraphs is often missing – a paragraph will end with someone being hung, and the next paragraph starts with quarrying sandstone for a town hall. No, that’s not an exact quote, but it may as well be. The staccato beat of the sentences within paragraphs was hard to get through to, particularly as the continuity issues surface in this context as well.
There are thousands of interesting tidbits in the book, and it has value for those tidbits and bringing together all the stories of the people and places of
Finally, the story occasionally shifts from simple declarative chronology to editorial – particularly surrounding the architecture of the 1960s and 1970s building frenzy. It seems strangely out of place in the midst of a litany of events to see the authors undisguised opinions on architecture and civil planning pop up.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Long time no update!
It’s not that I haven’t been reading since the last update; I’ve just been a little busy what with moving and all; plus I haven’t had really consistent Internet access. Since this blog thing wasn’t at the top of my priority list lately, it slipped.
Before I left
The last book was Robert Ludlum’s The Sigma Protocol. The typical Ludlum plot convolutions made it interesting enough, but for some reason the book wasn’t as gripping as some of his other, earlier books. Maybe he’s getting tired of writing, or after writing so many books he can’t help recycling. Anyway, it was a nice quick read that didn’t take too much thought to get through.
Before that were two books on the history of the First Nations in
The second book was much more painful to read. It was an edited volume, that is, different people wrote the different chapters. The volume concentrated on the history of Ontario First Nations, and had the potential to be interesting. The history is interesting (to me, anyway). The book was not. I found it to be more of a digest of the archaeological record than a history. The number of times the authors stopped short in a description or analysis claiming that “There is no archaeological record known to us” was immensely frustrating. The book is presented as a history – there’s more to the history than what a small number of white men have been able to surmise from pottery fragments. I recognise the rigour of the scientific method that they are applying to their archaeology and analysis, but couldn’t there be some correlation between the data and the oral history? The book really made First Nations history feel like some sort of dead or petrified artefact that gets looked really really closely so that someone can with great authority proclaim that it really was there, but we don’t know anything about it.
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Canada My Canada
Dayum, I liked Laurier LaPierre's 1992 book. Even though the English/French Canada thing has kind of lost its novelty for me, LaPierre got me to thinking that maybe I shouldn't be bored with it.
His basic premise, at least, such that I can figure out, is that the English/French thing is an oversimplification. Amen! There's a lot more going on than just Quebec and the ROC. His method is to identify about 15 major, formative moments in Canadian history - and props to LaPierre, he goes back to the Native peoples first showing up 15-40 000 years ago.
LaPierre's history is one that highlights the advantages of cooperation, getting along, respect, and all those good things that Canadians are supposed to be good at (but often stuff up really well.) I like that. He also finishes the book on a particularly hopeful note - he wrote the book after working in the round of consultations with citizens in 1991.
Finally, I've got to admire his stand of being a proud Canadien (his term for "French-Canadians) and being a Canadian. You can have it both ways: be yourself, in Canada.
I would suggest anyone aspiring to public office read this book. Three cheers, Laurier.
His basic premise, at least, such that I can figure out, is that the English/French thing is an oversimplification. Amen! There's a lot more going on than just Quebec and the ROC. His method is to identify about 15 major, formative moments in Canadian history - and props to LaPierre, he goes back to the Native peoples first showing up 15-40 000 years ago.
LaPierre's history is one that highlights the advantages of cooperation, getting along, respect, and all those good things that Canadians are supposed to be good at (but often stuff up really well.) I like that. He also finishes the book on a particularly hopeful note - he wrote the book after working in the round of consultations with citizens in 1991.
Finally, I've got to admire his stand of being a proud Canadien (his term for "French-Canadians) and being a Canadian. You can have it both ways: be yourself, in Canada.
I would suggest anyone aspiring to public office read this book. Three cheers, Laurier.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
Rogue Star
I finished Michael Flynn's book, and thought to myself, do I really want to read the books that come before and after it?
Sure, why not.
This is a tale in the not-too-distant future, which is a time-frame that can be hard to take on, because sometimes the predictions an author has to make look really silly just five years later in the context of the real world. Flynn does alright in this regard. It's all general and believable enough to suspend one's disbelief.
Summary: A space station is being built, there's a months-long manned space expedition to some asteroid, there's some competing commercial/political interests. The characters are a little clichéd, what with the stalwart Dominican rigger who's great at his job and follows an honesty as best policy approach, there's the other good ol' boys working on the space station, there's the range of lunacy within the 'save the world' group, there's the power brokers...
Flynn manages to bring in, besides visions of the near future, a sense of the magnitude of space projects, and the international cooperation (and rivalry) involved. The people in the book, and especially the main characters, are well developed - suprisingly so, to me, for a book of this genre.
I'd say it's pretty readable.
Sure, why not.
This is a tale in the not-too-distant future, which is a time-frame that can be hard to take on, because sometimes the predictions an author has to make look really silly just five years later in the context of the real world. Flynn does alright in this regard. It's all general and believable enough to suspend one's disbelief.
Summary: A space station is being built, there's a months-long manned space expedition to some asteroid, there's some competing commercial/political interests. The characters are a little clichéd, what with the stalwart Dominican rigger who's great at his job and follows an honesty as best policy approach, there's the other good ol' boys working on the space station, there's the range of lunacy within the 'save the world' group, there's the power brokers...
Flynn manages to bring in, besides visions of the near future, a sense of the magnitude of space projects, and the international cooperation (and rivalry) involved. The people in the book, and especially the main characters, are well developed - suprisingly so, to me, for a book of this genre.
I'd say it's pretty readable.
Friday, March 11, 2005
Go Figure
This is a translated book by Rejean Ducharme, where a fellow and his wife have lost their baby when something went wrong (I read this a while before I wrote this entry after was prompted by a library receipt in the car).
Basically, he encourages her to traipse off with a mutual friend (of sorts...) while he fixes up a cottage over the course of a summer.
This is one of those books that is by turns impressive and irritating. The main character seems to love his wive deeply, and she returns that love, but they only seem capable of hurting one another.
It's a long, arduous story of emotions and psychological well-being (they're not nuts, just ... well, a bit like angsty teenagers). It's curiously easy to forget that the latest cause for their strife is a miscarriage - especially in the context of what we learn as the book progresses (that they're both neurotic to begin with).
Aside from the story, which isn't bad, I absolutely loved how, even through the translation, phonetics, mnemonics, and homonyms snuck in all over the place, making the text really writerly (Thanks, Barthes), and a whole lot of fun to read while the plot was depressing.
Basically, he encourages her to traipse off with a mutual friend (of sorts...) while he fixes up a cottage over the course of a summer.
This is one of those books that is by turns impressive and irritating. The main character seems to love his wive deeply, and she returns that love, but they only seem capable of hurting one another.
It's a long, arduous story of emotions and psychological well-being (they're not nuts, just ... well, a bit like angsty teenagers). It's curiously easy to forget that the latest cause for their strife is a miscarriage - especially in the context of what we learn as the book progresses (that they're both neurotic to begin with).
Aside from the story, which isn't bad, I absolutely loved how, even through the translation, phonetics, mnemonics, and homonyms snuck in all over the place, making the text really writerly (Thanks, Barthes), and a whole lot of fun to read while the plot was depressing.
Friday, February 25, 2005
The Elder Gods
Yay! A new book by David and Leigh Eddings!
I am amazed how these two can take a theme (Gods and people interacting to save the world from a really tough, malevolent creature) and make it nice, new, shiny and fresh all over again.
And it's a series too!
The gods seem to work in shifts - one batch of four does their thing whilst the other batch of four nap for a couple of gazillion years. As the story unfolds, it's coming up on shift change, and the Vlagh (that big, scary malevolent critter) is getting ready to bring it on. The gods start gathering up their resources (people of different races, who thankfully agree to get along with one another so long as there's plenty of gold) and they get ready to bring it on.
One of the things I like about the Eddings' books is the wise-ass dialogue. I remember one episode in... I'll say the Belgariad, but I might be wrong, where a bad guy is tossed of a really high tower. A wizard/leader of the group asks where so-and-so got to, and the character to tossed the bad guy says something to the effect of "He's learning how to fly." The wizard then asks how the new apprentice of flight is doing, as a couple of muffled thumps reach their ears. The response? "Does bouncing count?"
Ah. That was delicious.
I am amazed how these two can take a theme (Gods and people interacting to save the world from a really tough, malevolent creature) and make it nice, new, shiny and fresh all over again.
And it's a series too!
The gods seem to work in shifts - one batch of four does their thing whilst the other batch of four nap for a couple of gazillion years. As the story unfolds, it's coming up on shift change, and the Vlagh (that big, scary malevolent critter) is getting ready to bring it on. The gods start gathering up their resources (people of different races, who thankfully agree to get along with one another so long as there's plenty of gold) and they get ready to bring it on.
One of the things I like about the Eddings' books is the wise-ass dialogue. I remember one episode in... I'll say the Belgariad, but I might be wrong, where a bad guy is tossed of a really high tower. A wizard/leader of the group asks where so-and-so got to, and the character to tossed the bad guy says something to the effect of "He's learning how to fly." The wizard then asks how the new apprentice of flight is doing, as a couple of muffled thumps reach their ears. The response? "Does bouncing count?"
Ah. That was delicious.
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Blood Diamonds
I absconded into the realm of fluff for a while. Jon Land's novel is a fairly typical thriller - good guys, bad guys, secret weapons, and agents of good and evil who've attained some sort of super-human ability in their work of deduction, deception and combat.
The part I liked about this book was its relevance. "Blood Diamonds" are diamonds mined in Africa (typically) whose sale is used by governments and warlords alike to prosecute entirely self-defeating wars (as well as to enrich themselves) at the pathetic expense of the poor, dispossessed, hungry people in those countries, who would really, I think, have some livestock, arable land and a clean stream rather than being blown up, shot, and otherwise beaten upon.
I'm glad that this book was written, if only for the fact that it addresses real-life crap (slightly exaggerated for the story) in a forum outside of the normal preaching-to-the-converted arenas. Here's what I mean. I knew about 'blood diamonds' before reading the book. I knew that there are groups agitating to reduce the trade in those diamonds. However, and this is not to diminish the efforts of those groups, their voices seem to be lost in general tumult of voices clamouring for attention on behalf of ALL the world's problems. And the people that tend to listen to the merits of supporting a particular cause tend to be those who are already committed to some degree to helping that cause. It's hard to win new supporters, just because there are so many causes to choose from when decided to lend one's support. I suppose it's a supporter's market...
The political economy of international aid. I'll have to remember that for my Ph.D!
Anyway, good subject matter, somewhat above average writing, and thankfully a little thin on the combat-and-gear related jargon.
The part I liked about this book was its relevance. "Blood Diamonds" are diamonds mined in Africa (typically) whose sale is used by governments and warlords alike to prosecute entirely self-defeating wars (as well as to enrich themselves) at the pathetic expense of the poor, dispossessed, hungry people in those countries, who would really, I think, have some livestock, arable land and a clean stream rather than being blown up, shot, and otherwise beaten upon.
I'm glad that this book was written, if only for the fact that it addresses real-life crap (slightly exaggerated for the story) in a forum outside of the normal preaching-to-the-converted arenas. Here's what I mean. I knew about 'blood diamonds' before reading the book. I knew that there are groups agitating to reduce the trade in those diamonds. However, and this is not to diminish the efforts of those groups, their voices seem to be lost in general tumult of voices clamouring for attention on behalf of ALL the world's problems. And the people that tend to listen to the merits of supporting a particular cause tend to be those who are already committed to some degree to helping that cause. It's hard to win new supporters, just because there are so many causes to choose from when decided to lend one's support. I suppose it's a supporter's market...
The political economy of international aid. I'll have to remember that for my Ph.D!
Anyway, good subject matter, somewhat above average writing, and thankfully a little thin on the combat-and-gear related jargon.
Friday, February 18, 2005
Cosmopolis
Don DeLillo has written another pretty nifty book. Set in NY, NY, the last day on earth of a super-wealthy technology playa is delightfully surreal. The surreality (I don't know if that's a word - if not, it is now.) took a bit of getting used to, but in the end was a bit like reading one of those waking dreams, where things could make sense, but not from your particular perspective at the time. You sort of need to let all sorts of preconceptions slide - like since when is gravity a law, anyway?
My thesis advisor let me know about DeLillo all those years ago - thanks, Vinny! DeLillo's narrative realm is the city. He doesn't write about cities, per se, but writes about things that are informed by their occurring within the city. He's got postmodernism going on, what with the meaning of referants and empty signifiers and all that, he's got deconstructionism going; and the part that I kind of like, he's got a knack for picking up on little, seemingly normal parts of city life (I'm assuming - I don't live in New York. I'll keep an eye out in Sydney, and see if any of it generalizes down there), and troping them into narrative foils for some commentary or another.
Right now (I'm writing on 20 March 2005, backdating this because I didn't have time yet to make the captain's log) I'm reading another DeLillo. It's just as bizarre.
Anyway, I figure these books aren't for everyone's taste, but I'm pretty impressed by 'em.
My thesis advisor let me know about DeLillo all those years ago - thanks, Vinny! DeLillo's narrative realm is the city. He doesn't write about cities, per se, but writes about things that are informed by their occurring within the city. He's got postmodernism going on, what with the meaning of referants and empty signifiers and all that, he's got deconstructionism going; and the part that I kind of like, he's got a knack for picking up on little, seemingly normal parts of city life (I'm assuming - I don't live in New York. I'll keep an eye out in Sydney, and see if any of it generalizes down there), and troping them into narrative foils for some commentary or another.
Right now (I'm writing on 20 March 2005, backdating this because I didn't have time yet to make the captain's log) I'm reading another DeLillo. It's just as bizarre.
Anyway, I figure these books aren't for everyone's taste, but I'm pretty impressed by 'em.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
Whisper of the Ax
Richard Condon writes a wierd book - I didn't like it much at all. This is the same fellow that wrote the Mancurian Candidate, which was itself a little strange. The Whisper of the Ax did not leave me fulfilled or satisfied at all.
A brief summary: A bunch of people, whose characters are not wholly credible - that is, I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief - conspire to their different ends, and naturally, are thwarted from disrupting the flow of life in the United States and causing chaos for the greater good of their ideological perspective. Really, it was pretty boring.
After reading two of Condon's books, I'm starting to form the impression that he's mildly obsessed with the possibilities (or impossibilities) of, and cue the dramatic music here, mind control. In the Candidate, the principal is under mind control to assassinate the president, and in Whisper, there's a whole mind control industry dedicated to turning out good little guerrillas.
Not much to see here, carry on.
A brief summary: A bunch of people, whose characters are not wholly credible - that is, I had a lot of trouble suspending my disbelief - conspire to their different ends, and naturally, are thwarted from disrupting the flow of life in the United States and causing chaos for the greater good of their ideological perspective. Really, it was pretty boring.
After reading two of Condon's books, I'm starting to form the impression that he's mildly obsessed with the possibilities (or impossibilities) of, and cue the dramatic music here, mind control. In the Candidate, the principal is under mind control to assassinate the president, and in Whisper, there's a whole mind control industry dedicated to turning out good little guerrillas.
Not much to see here, carry on.
Friday, February 04, 2005
Camp Concentration
Holy mackerel, I'm going to read this one again before the library gets it back. The premise is pretty basic - in the context of some embattled, Orwellian society, one person (the main character) is imprisoned as a conscientious objector. Turns out he's a poet, and gets transferred to a top secret installation where nutcase scientists are trying to use a syphilus-derived treatment to get the inmates to achieve vaulting feats of genius.
Sure, why not. Blah, blah blah (It's a heck of a lot better than the book I'm reading now.)
What makes this book particularly interesting, is the intellectual name-dropping that Thomas M. Disch pulls off in the telling. I couldn't drop names with the same alacrity; the ones I do know he presents in a way that's familiar enough that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the other ones. It is a fascinating book. I'm sure that when I read it the next time (and look up the stuff I don't know) it'll be even cooler.
For example, I don't know who Ursula K. Leguin is, but she's just a little over the top in her fulsome praise, claiming that the book is a work of art and if you read it you will be changed. No: I don't think it's that kind of book. Notwithstanding, it's very interesting.
Sure, why not. Blah, blah blah (It's a heck of a lot better than the book I'm reading now.)
What makes this book particularly interesting, is the intellectual name-dropping that Thomas M. Disch pulls off in the telling. I couldn't drop names with the same alacrity; the ones I do know he presents in a way that's familiar enough that I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on the other ones. It is a fascinating book. I'm sure that when I read it the next time (and look up the stuff I don't know) it'll be even cooler.
For example, I don't know who Ursula K. Leguin is, but she's just a little over the top in her fulsome praise, claiming that the book is a work of art and if you read it you will be changed. No: I don't think it's that kind of book. Notwithstanding, it's very interesting.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
The Wedding
According to J. M. Coetzee, Imraan Coovadia's book is a tender love story rendered in prose of dazzling comic wizardry. Perhaps I don't have the same depth of wisdom as Coetzee (who I think is a fine writer) but this book kind of left me unsatisfied. I probably don't have enough personal experience (even second hand experience) of the Indian experience this century to really 'get' the book. There's a certain lovableness to the characters, but in the end, I didn't really care about them. The greatest pleasure I derived from the book was the presentation of what might be stereotypical patterns of speech; but after about the halfway point, even that wasn't particularly interesting.
This book is hailed on the covers as a brilliant first work; Coovadia certainly has skill as a writer, but I didn't feel the same affinity to the book as the authors quoted did. I thought the male main character was faintly dippy, the female antagonist was a pain in the ass, and the family interactions were typical.
I'm not saying don't read this book - I'm just saying that it's okay, not brilliant.
This book is hailed on the covers as a brilliant first work; Coovadia certainly has skill as a writer, but I didn't feel the same affinity to the book as the authors quoted did. I thought the male main character was faintly dippy, the female antagonist was a pain in the ass, and the family interactions were typical.
I'm not saying don't read this book - I'm just saying that it's okay, not brilliant.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
Omega
Jack McDevitt has a really interesting science fiction book here. Set a couple of hundred years in the future, with humans possessing faster-than-light travel, and all sorts of other nifty technological doodads, the story is of the "Omegas", big ol' scary interstellar travelling clouds that, well, home in on and destroy whatever looks like civilization - e.g., right angly stuff. Humans are looking for neighbours in the universe, and have found a couple - a bunch that like to fight, and a bunch that got walloped by the Omegas and went from some pinnacle of evolution to clubbing things with sticks.
Humans find another civilization because one of the clouds they're tracking noticed it and wandered over to beat up on it. Humans are also scared 'cos one of these clouds is coming to pay a visit in a few thousand years. Humans also know that they can't do much with these clouds - for example, they're not terribly bothered by a bunch of nuclear explosions inside them. Humans figure that this could be a good test run to fend off a cloud; besides, maybe they can make friends with the really nice civilization they found.
Fairly standard sci-fi stuff. What makes the book interesting (and I suspect it is contingent on the reader actually responding to these themes) is the way the story includes trenchant observations on ego, faith, epistemology, doctrine, and humanity.
I think I'm going to hunt down his "Polaris" and "Chindi".
Humans find another civilization because one of the clouds they're tracking noticed it and wandered over to beat up on it. Humans are also scared 'cos one of these clouds is coming to pay a visit in a few thousand years. Humans also know that they can't do much with these clouds - for example, they're not terribly bothered by a bunch of nuclear explosions inside them. Humans figure that this could be a good test run to fend off a cloud; besides, maybe they can make friends with the really nice civilization they found.
Fairly standard sci-fi stuff. What makes the book interesting (and I suspect it is contingent on the reader actually responding to these themes) is the way the story includes trenchant observations on ego, faith, epistemology, doctrine, and humanity.
I think I'm going to hunt down his "Polaris" and "Chindi".
Sunday, January 23, 2005
The Manchurian Candidate
Apparently this tale by Richard Condon has stirred controversy and debate over the past, what, 40 years or so. It's been somewhat on the fringe of my awareness for a while, so I finally decided to read it when I stumbled across it in the library.
The edition I picked up has a introduction including some manner of analyis, though clearly not in sufficent depth to cover the reactions of the whole period since the book was published. Clearly, though, the introduction's author knows far more about the book's and the author's circumstances than I do, making references to the screen-play qualities of the book, and the logic that it should have those qualities as Condon was in the midst of the Hollywood whirl while writing it.
The book is plenty readable - there are rough patches, where it's a little incomprehensible, and some of the vocabulary is inconsistent with the surrounding text. Of course, it is greatly appreciated when an author drops in an unusual, go-get-the-dictionary word; and it turns out to be the perfect word. That happens once in a while; occasionally, the word is not the perfect one, which just seems kind of embarrassing.
The story is just a little far-fetched, but appears to be based somewhat on real life events. The main character's patrol in Korea is ambushed, and brainwashed. The main character is moulded into the perfect assassin - once triggered, he completes the orders; once completed, he doesn't remember anything. Lovely fellow.
His mother is a scheming, despicable woman; and I have never really figured out where her allegiances lie. Most likely, to herself and herself alone. She mixes it up with a US Senator, and the arc of this duo's ascent not too subtly echos the black mould of McCarthyism - entirely understandably.
Blah blah blah, the story goes on, and comes to a logical, though not necessarily entirely pleasant ending.
I suppose this is one of those books that's a 'must read' from the American canon. Fortunately, it is a pretty good book.
The edition I picked up has a introduction including some manner of analyis, though clearly not in sufficent depth to cover the reactions of the whole period since the book was published. Clearly, though, the introduction's author knows far more about the book's and the author's circumstances than I do, making references to the screen-play qualities of the book, and the logic that it should have those qualities as Condon was in the midst of the Hollywood whirl while writing it.
The book is plenty readable - there are rough patches, where it's a little incomprehensible, and some of the vocabulary is inconsistent with the surrounding text. Of course, it is greatly appreciated when an author drops in an unusual, go-get-the-dictionary word; and it turns out to be the perfect word. That happens once in a while; occasionally, the word is not the perfect one, which just seems kind of embarrassing.
The story is just a little far-fetched, but appears to be based somewhat on real life events. The main character's patrol in Korea is ambushed, and brainwashed. The main character is moulded into the perfect assassin - once triggered, he completes the orders; once completed, he doesn't remember anything. Lovely fellow.
His mother is a scheming, despicable woman; and I have never really figured out where her allegiances lie. Most likely, to herself and herself alone. She mixes it up with a US Senator, and the arc of this duo's ascent not too subtly echos the black mould of McCarthyism - entirely understandably.
Blah blah blah, the story goes on, and comes to a logical, though not necessarily entirely pleasant ending.
I suppose this is one of those books that's a 'must read' from the American canon. Fortunately, it is a pretty good book.
Monday, January 17, 2005
Time Scout
Robert Asprin's tale of time tourism and adventure is remarkably entertaining and engaging, for what appears to be a pulpish sort of little paperback science-fiction diversion. Certainly not to be ranked among the Asimovs and Bradburys, the story has a core of sympathetic, albeit archetypal characters - the hardbitten, experienced elder statesman adventurer, a young woman with burning ambition and something to prove, an intelligent hippyish independent, a couple of lost souls, one or two unpleasant people, the requisite corporate entity that invites the derision of those involved at the lower levels, and, of course, an eccentric though brilliant seamstress/tailor/costume maker.
I particularly liked the way Asprin treated the issue of occupying the same space at different times, and vice versa; as well as the enormous emphasis placed on learning about different eras to which people may travel, and the fine detail that is required for time tourists to safely (e.g., anonymously) visit other times.
A fun little book.
I particularly liked the way Asprin treated the issue of occupying the same space at different times, and vice versa; as well as the enormous emphasis placed on learning about different eras to which people may travel, and the fine detail that is required for time tourists to safely (e.g., anonymously) visit other times.
A fun little book.
Saturday, January 15, 2005
Hot Plastic
Peter Craig has managed to write a book that I found interesting. The story follows the three major characters as they con their way around the US in the 1990s, elaborately purloining identities to gain funds, making fencing scams for the same purpose, shoplifting for the same reason... yep, all they do is flit around trying to hit the big one.
Why is it interesting? First, Craig manages to make the characters engaging. Second, he successfully uses the disjointed chronology technique, leaping between the end of the story and the backstory to hustle the plot along. Third, he rather comprehensively details the intimate details of the cons, but doesn't get overly concerned in technical details when it comes to the junior members forays into high-tech scams.
I'd say it's worth reading.
Why is it interesting? First, Craig manages to make the characters engaging. Second, he successfully uses the disjointed chronology technique, leaping between the end of the story and the backstory to hustle the plot along. Third, he rather comprehensively details the intimate details of the cons, but doesn't get overly concerned in technical details when it comes to the junior members forays into high-tech scams.
I'd say it's worth reading.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
Shampoo Planet
Douglas Coupland is overrated, in my opinion. This book starts like it has attention deficit disorder, and while I can see some of the social commentary regarding the importance of shallow concerns such as appropriate product choice, it's not nearly as incisive, telling, or astute as it would have to be to be a fantastic book. It's not terrible - don't get me wrong; it just is kind of laboured, like he's trying really hard. It could be that I just didn't find the characters that interesting, too.
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