Couple of Reviews

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

Harry Potter I

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

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

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

501 Books

501 Must-Read Books
edited by
Emma Beare

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

Two Reviews

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


Riotous Assembly
by
Tom Sharpe

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

Enjoy that?  Good, then there's:

The Way it Was
by
Ken Walters

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

Fat, Bald, and Worthless

Fat, Bald and Worthless
by
Robert Easton

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

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

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

26 Tales from the Testaments

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

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

Gents

Gents
by
Warwick Collins

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

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

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

Baroness Cox

Baroness Cox; A Voice for the Voiceless
by
Andrew Boyd



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

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

The Janus Effect

The Janus Effect
by
Alan Cash

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

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

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

Darwin's Angel

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

John Cornwell

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