I haven’t had a chance yet to read Nicola Lacey’s “biography”:http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0199274975/qid=1110056861/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-3107565-2133731 of H.L.A. Hart, but it’s not every day you see this kind of exchange in the “London Review of Books”:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n04/letters.html#1. Unfortunately, Nagel’s initial “review”:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n03/nage01_.html is only available to subscribers. (Brian Leiter had a link “posted”:http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2004/11/gardner_reviews.html to some comments from John Gardner on Lacey’s biography, but it doesn’t seem to be working now. Maybe Gardner has published his comments?)
From the category archives:
Books
I’m reading Ronin Ro’s Tales To Astonish, about "Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and the American comic book revolution." So far I’m not finding it clearly written. Of Jack "Jacob Kurtzberg" Kirby’s early days:
It was a difficult time to be a twelve-year old boy. Everywhere, kids were forming gangs. Kids on Suffolk Street became the Suffolk Street Gang and fought the Norfolk Street Gang. Then they fought Irish and black gangs. Some of his peers started running with the well-dressed mobsters hanging around the neighborhood. If he couldn’t become an actor, Jacob figured, he’d do this, too, or become a crooked politician, like the ones he saw holding conferences and spending money in neighborhood restaurants.
But thoughts of the future had to wait. For now, he had to maintain his reputation and look out for his brother, David. Their mother wanted David to wear nice clothes, but velvet pants, a lace collar, and shoulder-length curly blond hair (at the height of the Depression) had made the kid a perpetual target. Five years his junior and over six feet tall, David was stocky and tough, but no match for the street-hardened gangsters stepping up to confront him. David did what he could when the gangs attacked, but sometimes Jacob would leave school, see his brother under a pile of opponents, and leap at them with both fists swinging.
Lessee: David, aged 7, over six feet tall, stocky, dressed in … Can you even BE stocky if you are over six feet tall? I’m getting a Little Lord Fauntleroy Smash! vibe off this. Gangs of New York era tyke, Bruce Banner, after inheriting a fortune and being exposed to gamma radiation, is taken by "Dearest", to live with … It’s the sort of thing only Kirby could dream and draw. [If Mary Pickford is unavailable, I think ‘Dearest’ could be a sort of ‘Motherbox’, like Orion has got.] The gangs, the kids, the bizarre monstrosity. Clearly Kirby grew up with it all.
Kirby dating Roz: "Her father worked in a factory as a seamstress on women’s dresses." Now this is not clearly wrong. See this definition. But I think ‘worked sewing womens’s dresses’ would avoid the problem.
On Jack Kirby’s war experience: "War was a series of events." That’s right up there with "And, inevitably, the years passed."
Still, I’m such a Kirby fan. I’m enjoying it despite the stylistic lapses.
A plucky gang of writing chums thwarts the plots of nefarious vanity publisher – and a few others besides. Plots, that is. It’s A Nest of Ninnies meets Carl Hiassen and John Grisham and they all drink each other under the table together. Here’s how it all happened. Here are links to supporting documentation. It’s "certain to resonate with an audience." A selection from chapter 2:
British bookselling chain Waterstone’s “have sacked employee Joe Gordon from one of their bookshops in Edinburgh”:http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/weblogs/story/0,14024,1388466,00.html . Gordon’s offence seems to have been remarks made on his blog, “The Woolamaloo Gazette”:http://www.woolamaloo.org.uk/. Charlie Stross, “who seems to know quite a lot about this case”:http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blosxom.cgi/2005/Jan/10#scandal-1 , reports that Gordon has been an enthusiastic and valuable promoter of science fiction over many years and that this looks like a really nasty attempt at corporate restraint of speech. Our campus bookshop is a Waterstone’s, but there are many alternatives nearby (and online). I shan’t be providing them with my reading lists or buying books there (despite enjoying a 10 per cent academic discount) until this case has been satisfactorily resolved. Others should do as they think fit.
On Michael Crichton’s new novel, State of Fear, in which environmentalists use weather control to fake environmental disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis, a massive iceberg released from the Antarctic ice shelf) in order to convince the public that global warming is a genuine threat:
In “State of Fear,” it is money-hungry environmentalists whose illicit schemes are always being caught on tape. (As one environmentalist says to another, explaining the need for faked lightning and tidal waves, “Species extinction from global warming—nobody gives a shit.”) Meanwhile, the scientists who could reveal the truth are all co-conspirators; they suppress results that don’t support alarmist conclusions because they, too, are part of the “politico-legal-media complex,” or “P.L.M.” The P.L.M. wants to control free-thinking Americans by keeping them in a perpetual “state of fear.”
Hank Scorpio + Ralph Nader + every climate scientist in the world = PROFIT!!!1!
I sure hope that that’s bad reporting, but the “P.L.M.” thing is not; Crichton really talks like that. Like many intelligent people, Crichton seems to have a blind spot when it comes to conspiracy theories. There are fair criticisms to be made of the environmentalist movement, but international terrorism? Weather control? A shadowy conspiracy of hundreds of thousands of environmentalists, Hollywood, climatologists, the media, and trial lawyers… who’s prepared to swallow this? And have they ever tried to organize a friggin’ surprise party?
Answer here. Crichton is sticking it to the left, and that’s what’s really important in a work of art. We haven’t heard the last of this.
(Pretty good take on the novel from a weather site.)
UPDATE: Another, more detailed look at the novel via Chris Mooney. (I realize that I’m being a little one-sided, and will link to a serious-minded defense if it’s recommended in comments.)
The Washington Post finally gets around to “reviewing”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A46025-2005Jan3.html Neal Stephenson’s The System of the World, but makes a blunder. The reviewer, Gregory Feeley, commends Stephenson for his anachronisms.
bq. Stephenson’s tongue-in-cheek verbal anachronisms can be witty, as when he manages circumstances so that a character can speak plausibly of a “Routine Upgrade” or name a private tavern the “Kit-Kat Clubb.”
But the “Kit-Kat Club”:http://www.ourcivilisation.com/smartboard/shop/paganm/chap5.htm isn’t an anachronism; it was a real institution, and the epicenter of “Whig”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001721.html debate in the early eighteenth century. That said, Feeley shouldn’t be chastized too harshly for his mistake. It’s exactly this collision between present and past, so that you really can’t tell the one from the other, that makes for the fun in “System of the World.” And indeed, Stephenson’s depiction of the Kit-Kat as a sort of elevated girly-bar may not be entirely true to history. To “repeat myself”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/001362.html
bq. Stephenson uses anachronisms to jar our sense of the seventeenth century as a fixed stage along the progression that has led ineluctably to the modern world. He wants to bring home to us how the past was, like the modern age, a ferment of possibilities. It could have developed in many different directions. In Quicksilver, the past and the present are related not because the one has led to the other, but because they are both the same thing at different stages; vortices of possibility.
The plot creaks, the characters are a little thin, and (as always) Stephenson isn’t very good at endings, but there’s still a zip and verve to the book. It’s ambitious, chaotic, and sometimes falls flat on its face but picks itself up again by virtue of its sheer exuberance. The combination of geek sensibility and economic history is difficult to resist.
Addendum: since I’m linking to the Amazon page for SotW in this review, I should say that I’ve earned approx $100 through the Amazon link in the last several days, which I have sent on to the Red Cross. Not as much as John (no terabyte drives alas, although I’m grateful to the person who bought several classic movies) . I’ve decided to make this into a permanent feature – all earnings from links from my posts will be donated to charity from here on in.
Following my thoughtful and inventive co-bloggers, here’s a list of 2004 recommended reading with links to the Amazon Associates programme and my promise to match and forward any fees to the Red Cross for tsunami disaster relief. It may take a day or so for my Associates registration to work out, so please be patient. But now that I’ve finally set an account up, I promise to match and forward any Associates fees I receive in 2005 to the ICRC.
I’d been meaning to write a brief end-of-year post about books I’ve read recently. I’ll do it now and pledge (like Henry and John) that any Amazon Associates fees I get if any of you are moved to buy any of them (or anything else after clicking on the links) will go to tsunami disaster relief. Full post below the fold.
Like John, I’m going to be donating whatever’s in my Amazon Associates account already, plus whatever commission comes in from people buying over the next quarter (up to March 31). I’ll make the first payment, like John, after the weekend, to the American Red Cross, and will donate whatever comes in after that to a combination of the Red Cross, Medecins Sans Frontieres, and a charity dealing with long term reconstruction (suggestions gratefully received). I’d been thinking anyway of doing a round-up of books that I’d liked this year – a highly varied list of reading suggestions below. As John says, donate what you can directly – but if you want some holiday reading (and to give a little money to charity while you’re at it) use the links below.
I just finished “Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson, and I have to admit bafflement.
It’s great fun, with a great evocation of the period and plenty of sly digs at the modern reader (I liked the Duke of Monmouth as the Dan Quayle of the 1685 campaign). At the same time, I can’t help feeling I’ve completely missed the point here.
The style is that of fantasy, but the novel seems to be entirely historically accurate[1] apart from the fact that the members of the Cabal have been replaced by new characters with the same acronym, some of whom play a minor role in the story, and that one of the key characters comes from the island of Qwghlm[2], apparently a British possession.
I don’t know exactly what gives here: maybe a reader can point me in the right direction. A lot of readers had much the same reaction to “Jonathan Strange which I loved, so I’m open to the idea that there’s more here than I’ve seen so far.
There’s a whole Metaweb (a type of wiki apparently) about all this, which may be worth exploring.
fn1. I don’t claim to be an expert on 17th century history. There may be some other things I’ve missed.
fn2. Given my Manx heritage, the idea that Qwghlm is the Isle of Man seems appealing. Certainly the name has a certain resonance, though its disemvowellment makes it hard to interpret.
Prompted by Henry and other CTers, I’ve been reading, Susanna Clarke’s “Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, so I was very interested in Henry’s latest Since it’s too long for a comment , I’ve posted my draft review over the fold. Looking at Jennifer Howard’s review article, I think it’s clear that a lot of people are looking for “Harry Potter for adults” and are likely to be disappointed.
Robert Irwin “gets tough”:http://www.lrb.co.uk/v20/n17/irwi01_.html with Kahlil Gibran.
bq. As a thinker, Gibran is easy to liken to Madeleine Basset, characterised by Bertie Wooster as ‘one of those soppy girls riddled from head to foot with whimsy. She holds that the stars are God’s daisy chain, that rabbits are gnomes in attendance on the Fairy Queen, and that every time a fairy blows its wee nose a baby is born, which, as we know, is not the case. She’s a drooper.’ I cannot imagine Wooster falling for Gibran either, for he, too, was a drooper. Nowhere in his essays, short stories or dramatised dialogues is there any humour, sex or surprise. His writing conjures up fields of grey ectoplasm inhabited by plaintive souls. If Gibran is right about the universe, then we are all living in a banal and sentimental nightmare.
bq. He seems to be a favourite poet of those who don’t like poetry. Similarly, I suspect that Gibranian spirituality suits those who cannot face the more specific demands that a real religion might make. The only thing you have to do as a follower is read more Gibran, plus, of course, ‘see’ more deeply, ‘listen to the language of the heart’ and so on.
Or more succinctly: “Gibranian spirituality seems to be designed to get one out of going to church on Sundays.” Seems about right to me.
Since people on CT seem to enjoy book lists (of ones not read, favorites, ones every educated person should read, ones lesser-known) I thought I’d post a link to the OCLC Top 1000 list.
OCLC Research has compiled a list of the top 1000 titles owned by member libraries—the intellectual works that have been judged to be worth owning by the “purchase vote” of libraries around the globe.
The complete list page has links to top lists by genre. The site also features a page with fun facts about the list plus pointers to other top book lists.
Hat tip: Neat New Stuff.
What can we do to get our BoingBoing on (since the kids all love that BoingBoing feeling)?
Here’s a link to a French SF site, Noosphere; but I’ll hustle you through the front door straight to the very best stuff: scans – covers and insides – from a series entitled Club Du Livre D’Anticipation. If you can’t read French (which is really just a mixed-up form of English, so give it a try) this page explains that this was a series of translations of classic English language SF, which you would have figured out anyway. It’s all here: Asimov, Van Vogt, C. S. Lewis, Heinlein, Hamilton, Dick, Moorcock, Smith, Farmer, Sturgeon, Brunner, Butler, Niven, on and on. Pages and pages of mostly charming, Gallic-style illustrations to accompany old familiar titles. Much Metal Hurlant-style goodness. The titles are fun, too. A la Poursuite des Slan. (Not sure what was wrong with plain Slan.) En Attendant l’Année Dernière. (That’s Now Wait For Last Year, but the other way sounds more Proustian than paranoid, no?)
Which is your favorite of the lot?
I’ll just presume to point out a few choice bits from elsewhere in the site. The 17 pages of Ace SF doubles are worth checking. In other news, George Clooney is The Demolished Man. These funny little guns are funny. Conan as you’ve never imagined him. A couple of the Italian covers give you that Gina Lollobrigida in space feeling. Nice horizon on that one.
My top pick is Salome, My First 2,000 Years of Love, by Viereck and Eldridge. The cover is so-so, but I delight in lavish blurbs by famous authors on cheesy editions from unknown authors. Here Thomas Mann does not disappoint: "A great book … a monumental conception … amazingly rich in world vision and in sensuous pictures." That Thomas Mann? Off to Amazon we go. All is explained, more or less. A repackaging of sorts. Sounds strangely fascinating. Does anyone know anything more about it?
I’m writing about reading right now; a response to a (draft) essay Mark Bauerlein has written about the NEA’s Reading At Risk survey. I’ll quote a bit from Mark:
These findings [steep decline across the board, especially among the young] won’t surprise those who have spent any time in an average college classroom. Professors have always griped about the lassitude of students, but lately the complaints have reached an extreme. English teachers note that it’s getting harder to assign a work over 200 pages. Students don’t possess the habit of concentration necessary to plow through it. Teachers say that students don’t comprehend spelling requirements. Spelling is now the responsibility of spellcheck. Last October at an MLA regional meeting, a panelist who specializes in technical writing observed that while his students have extraordinary computing skills, they have a hard time following step-by-step instructions for an assignment.
I tend to be a sunny optimist in the face of this bad news. First, I assume profs have been grousing extremely about students since forever. (It is such fun I can’t believe any generation of pedagogues has had the will to forego this perk of the job.) Second, I tend to assume that somehow the rich, strange new cognitive shapes young minds assume are all right in their way. Yes, they can’t spell. (I had always assumed Matt used voice recognition software and was dictating his posts. How else to explain his homonym trouble? Matt has a brain like a planet. If he can’t spell, that means spelling can’t be that important.) But mostly I am just so bookish, and everyone I know is, and everyone I grew up with was, and my schools were crammed with bookish teachers and kids clawing after books … I guess I just can’t quite believe that it could be true that less than 50% of the population has read any literature in the last year. (The idea that you can’t assign a 200-page novel in a college class? Preposterous. Can’t be.)
In this vein, Matt Cheney has a fascinating post about teaching Neil Gaiman’s American Gods to high school students. (And Gaiman is duly fascinated.) Matt hits upon the same hard limit as Bauerlein: "I knew that few of my students would ever have read a book of more than 200 pages." But the really interesting and baffling hurdle actually came next.