What Are You Reading?

[jtur88]

Decided to reread Robert Ruark's "Something of Value"---45 years later and after having spent some time in East Africa, to see how my thoughts have changed. Its longish but I'll see how it goes.

[bigheadache]

I'm reading Xenocide, 10 years (or longer) after I read Speaker for the Dead. It's been too long and I'm finding it more difficult than it should be because I just don't remember enough of what went on before.

[dlb]

I just finished Pearlstein's Before the Storm. With apologies to those who like liverwurst, it's like a liverwurst sandwich on great rye bread - two tasty, chewy, savory parts surrounding a center of rather unpalatable mush. It's good points outweigh its bad ones enough for me to give a B- and my recommendation to anyone who enjoys reading about the history of the last 50 years.

I just started re-reading Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72. I first read this in '73, when it first came out. I had mixed feelings about it then but am liking it much more now.

[dlb]

About 2,435 years ago, a man sat down to write out the results of his inquiries into what he considered the most important event of his era. In his opening paragraph, he states that he has undertaken this project “in the hope that the achievements of men should not be obliterated by time, nor that the great and wonderful deeds of both Greeks and barbarians should not be without their due fame, and also for what reason they fought each other.”

As I sit here at a remove of about two and a half millennia from the date those words were written, having just begun reading my copy of the recently published Landmark Herodotus – a volume of nearly 1,000 pages, containing not just Herodotus’ words but copious annotations, maps, footnotes, illustrations, a glossary and no fewer than 21 scholarly essays about the man, his subject and his time – I marvel at just how well he achieved his purpose.

Being a Greek, he titled his work with his native language’s word for “inquiry” – “historiai” – and it is from this usage that we get our word, “history.” There is some controversy among scholars as to whether Herodotus or his immediate successor and rival, Thucydides, should be honored as “the father of history.” Herodotus may have been the first to embark upon an analytical inquiry into past events, but as an historian, he has some problems.

First, his interests swept far beyond the topics with which histories as we know them generally concern themselves. More than just a narrative of events, Herodotus offers ethnographic studies of the peoples involved in those events, as well as a good deal of information that would nowadays be the proper province of geography. What’s more, he’s not above including fantastic tales, myths and legends in his account. In his discussion of Egypt, he tells of flying snakes; in India, he finds giant gold-digging ants. And like all ancient writers of the Greco-Roman tradition, he puts a good bit of stock in the sayings of oracles, especially the famous priestess at Delphi.

As one who loves the written word, I have a special affection for ancient texts. For one thing, I find them wonderful because so few have survived. Scholars estimate that less than one percent of ancient writings have been preserved. Luck has certainly played a role in this preservation, but more important, I think, has been the part played by value. For a text to have survived from the time of the ancient Greeks to today, it had to have been copied by hand for about 1,500 years, and in that process translated into the languages of subsequent cultures, which also found them worthy of preservation and transmission.

As sources of reliable knowledge, however, ancient texts are problematic. They were not the product of cultures that valued strict fidelity to what we would consider facts. They are shot through with the biases and prejudices of their producers. Thus, to the extent that they are windows on the past, they are windows that can distort as much as they reveal. An informed reading, then, must be guided by modern scholars who can tell us when what we are seeing is, in fact, a part of time long past and when it is just a bubble, contaminant or discoloration of the glass. As noted above, The Landmark Herodotus goes to great lengths to provide this guidance.

There are also the problems of translation. A text that has been copied, in longhand, many times over almost invariably includes the additions of later scribes (though from what I can tell, Herodotus’ Histories suffer very little of this). Another difficulty comes from the skills of the translators themselves, who are rarely writers whose talents match those of the work’s creator. Puns, wordplays, sarcastic and ironic tones can be lost or obscured. In an attempt to be faithful to the original language, the translator can obliterate the artfulness of the writing, leaving us to muddle through a stiff, stodgy and uninteresting mass of words. Critics of The Landmark Herodotus cite a pedestrian translation as its primary problem, but I, unable to read ancient Greek and unfamiliar with the great English translations of the past, have no quarrel here.

There is also the problem of literary form. When we modern folk read a history, we expect a linear narrative of events. Herodotus disappoints this expectation, not through lack of skill, but because he made a conscious choice to tell his tale in a much different way.

His narrative tends to circle around and spiral deeply into the causes of the events, taking us on so many detours that we are always at risk of losing our bearings in the dizzying blur of information. For example, early on in his story he introduces us to Croesus, king of Lydia, who initiates the struggle that is the main topic of the story by taking up arms against the Persians.

In introducing this character, Herodotus takes us back four generations, to Croesus’ great-great-grandfather Gyges, who was the favored bodyguard of the then king of Lydia, Kandaules, to tell us the rather bawdy tale of how Croesus’ family came to power. Kanduales, according to the tale, thought that his bride and queen was the most beautiful woman in all the world; her beauty so great that it surpassed his ability to describe. So, he invited Gyges to hide in the royal bedroom and watch his wife undress, so that he, by his own witness, would be convinced of the queen’s comeliness.

Gyges does not want to take part in this plan, as it is “against all decency” for a woman to be seen naked. But the king persuades him by convincing him that the queen will be completely unaware of his presence. As you might expect, the queen does see Gyges lurking in the shadows but rather than make a scene in the royal bedchamber, she calls the servant before her the next day. At this audience, she informs him that she knows he has seen her naked and she knows that her husband put him up to this violation of her honor. Then, she offers him a choice: he may kill Kandaules, become king of Lydia and her husband, or she will have him killed. A simple choice: become absolute monarch of your homeland and share your bed with the most beautiful woman in the realm, or die. Gyges frets about it for a bit, and then makes the decision that any reasonable man would make.

Of course, committing regicide and installing oneself in the place of one’s victim is never quite as easy as choosing to do so. When the queen announces Gyges as their new monarch, the people of Lydia are “up in arms.” Eventually, they agree to accept Gyges on one condition: that his right to rule is affirmed by the oracle at Delphi. Gyges goes to the temple and, along with being affirmed, is told that Kandaules’ family will not avenge itself until four generations have passed. Overjoyed at the first part of the oracle’s proclamation, he ignores the second.

It is the second that is the point of the story. Croesus, of the fourth generation after Gyges, makes his own trip to Delphi to ask the oracle whether he should attack the Persians. She replies, “If you attack Persia, you will bring a great empire to ruin.” Accepting this as a positive portent, Croesus hurries home to execute his war plans, never once considering that the great empire to which the oracle referred might be his own.

As this tale is told, the annotations direct the reader to Appendix P for a discussion of oracles, religion and politics; then to Appendix U for a treatment of the lives and roles of women in Herodotus’ work. And so it goes, from character to character, event to event, first Herodotus and then the modern scholars taking us on a tour of contexts and causes; a look at the world behind the glass and a consideration of the glass itself.

The effect is like peering into the distant past through the peephole of a kaleidoscope. With each turn of the page, new fragments fall into place and existing ones shift position, creating an animated mosaic that may not always be in sharp focus, but is always bright, multifaceted and wondrous to behold.

[dlb]

In September of 1973 I had just turned 17 years old and was beginning my first senior year of high school (I dropped out in February of ’74, just four months short of the prize I no longer cared to claim). Having given up on institutional education, I spent my schooldays hiding on the back rows of classrooms, slumped over my copy of Hunter S. Thompson’s recently released Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72.

Watergate was the great story of ’73, and each evening, just before dinner, Walter Cronkite delivered yet another confirmation of “our” conviction that the Nixon administration was the avant garde of American Fascism. To be on the verge of adulthood in that year was to see oneself as the heir to a hopelessly corrupt and rapidly deteriorating political culture, one that would likely soon slide into military dictatorship or, you might hope, answer the clarion call of revolution and ascend into Socialist Utopia. The easier choice, the one most of us opted for, was to retreat into drug-soaked apathy, occasionally raising a cheer for the Forces of Good from our cheap seats in the political arena. At this point, we were mostly motivated by the realization that the last chance for honest democratic reform had been ground under the thug’s heel with McGovern’s historic ’72 election loss.

If you weren’t politically aware in 1972, Fear and Loathing will give you a good dose of what all this felt like; if you were, it will bring back feelings you would probably rather forget. Since the psychological distance between the ages of seven and seventeen is far greater than the chronological span, I wasn’t really connected to the immediate historical context of the ’72 election. It had been less than 10 years since the assassination of JFK; only four since Martin Luther King and RFK had been gunned down. This Democratic Convention would be the first since the police-riot bloodbath of Chicago, also of 1968. The one event to which I did feel a personal connection was Kent State, which had occurred only two short years before. It was in the aftermath of that May day that I joined my first anti-war protest, a sit-in at the principal’s office of Somers High School, where I was attending the ninth grade.

Thompson’s account is not objective journalism. Early on, he heaps scorn on the very idea of objective journalism. A later quote, from another of his works, summarizes his position well, “Objective and ‘journalism’ are two words that should not be used in the same sentence by anyone who is attempting to make sense.” It is, however, an excellent personal account of the ’72 campaign. It’s all here: Muskie the brainless boob; Humphrey the fetid hack; Lindsay the lazy liberal; Teddy lurking on the sidelines; and the improbable rise of George McGovern. The only candidate who gets short shrift is George Wallace, covered briefly in Wisconsin and again in Maryland, in the aftermath of the assassination attempt. But more than simply presenting the news stories that can be gathered from any of a thousand sources, Thompson’s book accomplishes what only the great gonzo journalist could. It takes you into the emotional heart of the campaign, a teeth-gnashing hatred stimulated by a heart-pounding, hair-raising rush of adrenaline: Fear and Loathing, indeed.

Beyond that, there are some great gems of political commentary. Among the best are Thompson’s merciless cuts at Hubert Humphrey, such as:

“There is no way to grasp what a shallow, contemptible and hopelessly dishonest old hack Hubert Humphrey really is until you’ve followed him around for a while on the Campaign Trail.”

And:

“Any political party that can’t cough up anything better than a treacherous brain-damaged old vulture like Hubert Humphrey deserves every beating it gets. They don’t hardly make ‘em like Hubert anymore – but just to be on the safe side, he should be castrated anyway.”

And he was no kinder to Big Ed Muskie:

“It was not until his campaign collapsed and his ex-staffers felt free to talk that I learned that working for Big Ed was something like being locked in a rolling boxcar with a vicious 200-pound water rat. Some of his top staff people considered him dangerously unstable. He had several identities, they said, and there was no way to know on any given day if they would have to deal with Abe Lincoln, Hamlet, Captain Queeg or Bobo the Simpleminded …”

Ratchet the fear and loathing back a few orders of magnitude and there are more than a few parallels between the 2008 election and 1972’s. Hillary takes the role of Humphrey the Hopeless Hack. Obama comes in as George the Dragon-slaying Reformer. Though not up for re-election, Bush stands as Tricky Dick, the Quasi-Fascist Incumbent. And though he’s far more competent, McCain resembles Big Ed the Semi-psychotic Dolt in many ways.

This is a great summer read. It’s quick, fun, insightful and does a great job of transporting the reader to the now of 1972. If you’re looking for something to take to the beach, I recommend it. And if you’re renting your beach lodgings, I recommend leaving it behind in the communal chest of murder mysteries and romance novels, where it stands a chance of corrupting some unassuming teen.

[jtur88]

Just started T. Coraghessen Boyle's "Talk Talk". Boyle was very popular a couple of decades ago, but I never read much by him then, so I'll give him a try.
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Finished. Quite a nice read, quick. A book that explores several worlds that a typical reader (like myself) has little previous knowledge of. Enough things in the plot that are unexpected, so it never become predictable, but always remains believable. A grade of B for clever prose style, maybe Richard Ford level.

[jtur88]

I'm finding Larry McMurtrey"s "Lonesome Dove" tuirns out to be disappointing. The first couple of hundred pages were spectacularly brilliant, but then it drifts into plodding pedestrian prose and all plot subtlety disasppears. Like Gunter Grass' "The Tin Drum", don't miss the first quarter of the book, but after that, don't bother to keep forcing yourself through it.

[jtur88]

"Citizen Vince" by Jess Walter. Short, entertaining, and offbeat. Not a classic, but a decent read. About a guy living in the witness protection program in Spokane Washington and continues his life of crime.

[Zen653]

On the recommendation of TopCat, Grandstander and Jtur, I purchased a copy of "Lonesome Dove" as well, and started reading it. I'm really enjoying the book thus far. I didn't think I would care much for a fiction book, let alone a Western, yet I find myself enthralled by the outstanding character development and witty (occasionally profound) prose. I already feel like I've known the characters my whole life. That's hard to achieve.

I'm also thumbing through a book titled, "How The States Got Their Shapes," by Mark Stein. It provides a basic summary of how each state acquired its current borders. I'm a bit of a geography buff, so I enjoy learning about all the egregious uncorrected mistakes made by surveyors, and about how close we came to a vastly different map.

The stories behind Maryland and Massachusetts are pretty interesting. If not for distrust of Catholics and very poor surveying (intentionally so?), Maryland would include about half of Delaware, a quarter of West Virginia and sizable portions of Pennsylvania (including part of Philadelphia) and Virginia.

As for Massachusetts, something odd happened in its border dispute with New Hampshire - the King of England rewarded more land to New Hampshire than even New Hampshire requested! Massachusetts wanted everything up to Concord (roughly), while New Hampshire wanted everything north of Manchester (roughly.) So what did the King decide? He drew New Hampshire's southern boundary an additional 25 miles south of Manchester, and gave New Hampshire a seacoast. This was retribution for the Puritans' disloyalty to the Crown and a reward for New Hampshire's sycophancy. The King again punished Massachusetts when it came time to formalize its borders with Rhode Island and New York. Massachusetts subsequently worked out an agreement with Rhode Island where certain towns were swapped along the jagged eastern border (for example, Fall River joined Massachusetts, East Providence joined Rhode Island.) Massachusetts also voluntarily ceded land away to New York in the 1800s because of poor road conditions in the southwestern corner of the state. The town of Boston Corners had become a haven for criminals because the Massachusetts authorities could not easily reach the state's one hamlet on the other side of the mountains.

[jtur88]

"Citizen Vince" turned out to be a nice little book, and a very quick read. GHoing back to google for reviews of it, I found that you can read almost the whole thing on line (apparently only the last 16 pages missing) at

Citizen Vince: A Novel - Google Book Search

I recommend at least having a look at it.

[NJpanther05]

I just finished reading Hotel RWanda. It tells the truth of what happened at the Mille Colline in Kigali Rwanda and how the 'hero' in the movie is a liar.

[lorentrook]

Originally Posted by bigheadache

I'm reading Xenocide, 10 years (or longer) after I read Speaker for the Dead. It's been too long and I'm finding it more difficult than it should be because I just don't remember enough of what went on before.

I love Cards stuff, though I've haven't read Xenocide yet.

[jtur88]

Now working through Adam Rapp's "Year of Endless Sorrows". A vast compendium of similes and metaphors, some (but not enough) of them very clever, in search of a plot outline.

[jtur88]

Raymond Chandler's "The Long Goodbye". Mickey Spillane era, but still a nice, fresh read. Style never goes out of date.

edit

I didnt like this as much as I thought I would. It was too much like reading a script for one of those 1950's movies where the private-eye narrated everything voice-over. Not nearly as bad as that, but it smacked of it in style.

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I enjoyed Zadie Smith's "White Teeth" enough, I'm starting on "Zadie Smith on Beauty".

[jtur88]

The death of a thread. The death of a forum.
goodbye.