Tag Archives: Book reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Painted Word by Phil Cousineau

Posted on by
2

The Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their OriginsThe Painted Word: A Treasure Chest of Remarkable Words and Their Origins by Phil Cousineau

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

The Painted Word is a collection of interesting words with definitions, insight into each word’s origins and evolution, and interesting or humorous usages. These aren’t all GRE words (massive and mostly useless words that have little value beyond impressing admissions committees.) Many of the words will be familiar to readers without huge vocabularies. On the other hand, there will be words that are new to even New York Times crossword puzzle solvers.

As the title suggests, there’s a little bit of an art-related theme. However, I’m not sure I would have noticed this if it hadn’t been for the title. There are a number of colors included among the words—colors known mostly to interior decorators and not to most heterosexual men. There are also a few artistic styles (e.g. intimism.) However, the bulk of the words aren’t clearly related to the fine arts. Many of the entries are loan words, i.e. words that have been used in English literature or other English-language media but which are of foreign origin.

I’ll include a few of the words that captured my own interest:

Autologophagist: one who eats his / her own words
Bafflegab: language that misleads—intentionally or not
Cataphile: a lover of catacomb crawling
Inkhorn: an over-intellectualized word
Lambent: shining with soft light on the surface of something
Millihelen: the amount of beauty that would result in the launch of a single ship.
Monogashi [Japanese]: the sigh or sadness of things
Sonicky: A great sounding word—coined by Roy Blount Jr.
Oculogyric: eye-rolling
Phlug: belly-button lint
Snollygoster: a shrewd but corrupt politician
Ubantu [Bantu / Xhosa]: the interconnectedness of all things

This book is full of fun insights and statements. I learned that “hush puppies” were literally carried to throw to noisy dogs to get them to stop barking. There are many interesting and humorous quotes. For example, Brendan Behan said, “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how it’s done, they’ve seen it done every day, but they’re unable to do it themselves.” Brief vignettes are used to help give depth of understanding to words. One such story is about a Luddite looking upon the operation of a steam shovel who said to his friend, “Were it not for that steam shovel, there would be work for hundreds of men with shovels…” to which his friend replied, “or thousands of men with teaspoons.”

I enjoyed this book. You don’t have to be fascinated by the minutiae of semantics to find it readable and interesting. It’s not as much like reading a dictionary as one might suspect.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Wit and Wisdom of Master Yoda by Yoda

Posted on by
Reply

The Wit and Wisdom of Master Yoda: Master Yoda QuotesThe Wit and Wisdom of Master Yoda: Master Yoda Quotes by Yoda

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

[I normally put a link here to the books I review, but wouldn’t want anyone to accidentally buy this one by mistake.]

This review is the same rant I put in my weekly reading review today. If you saw it there, don’t bother reading onward.

This book was a stinker, and I can’t recommend it for anyone–though its saving grace is that it’s slim and thus only wastes a tiny bit of one’s time. What the author apparently did was to watch a Star Wars movie marathon and pull every Yoda line out and collect them together. This is a sad effort in two ways. First, while Yoda isn’t a lead in the movies (and, therefore, has a limited number of lines), there’s a vast canon of Star Wars books, and it doesn’t look like the author trolled any of them for quotes. Second, some of the lines are neither witty nor wise. Occasionally, Yoda has a line equivalent to, “take a left at the second light,” and the author includes such banal quotes. Furthermore, some of the quotes appear a second time in either reduced or extended form. Beyond all these complaints, the author doesn’t even take the time to put together meaningful front matter to tell the reader something interesting that they don’t already know, and thus doesn’t establish his worth in producing such a book. (Also, he doesn’t seem to know accepted protocol for writing quotes inside quotes–i.e. use of single quotes. Which I guess means he probably didn’t just cut and paste all the quotes because then they would have been grammatically correct.) He also could have at least provided told us which movie each quote was from. It’s a lazy effort. It succeeds spectacularly in being lazy. If you’ve seen the movies (or have basic cable so that you can readily do so by way of one of the frequent Star Wars marathons) you’ll gain nothing from this book.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The New Rules of Posture by Mary Bond

Posted on by
1

The New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern WorldThe New Rules of Posture: How to Sit, Stand, and Move in the Modern World by Mary Bond

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This book’s author, Mary Bond, was a UCLA-trained dancer who became an Ida Rolf-trained Rolfer. If that sentence makes no sense, you’re probably unaware Dr. Ida Rolf and her self-named system. Rolfing was popular decades ago, but fell out of favor—possibly owing to its reputation for being agonizing. (However, I did recently read an article suggesting renewed interest in this practice.) Rolf’s system is generically called Structural Integration, and it’s intended to better align the body with respect to the force of gravity. The heart of the practice (though not addressed in this book) is a massage-like system that focuses on fascia (connective tissue) rather than musculature (as massage generally does.)

[This paragraph is background, but isn’t about the book per se. Feel free to skip it if you are familiar with structural integration or don’t care.] It should be noted that Rolfing is controversial. I’m not sure what to make of this controversy. On the one hand, the system hasn’t been helped by zealous advocates and practitioners. In any such system, zealots often suggest their beloved system is a panacea for all that ails one. Furthermore, the more hippie-esque practitioners try to reconcile / unify Structural Integration with ancient systems like Ayurveda or Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM.) This neither helps to validate those ancient systems nor improves the case of Rolfing as a methodology rooted in science. On the other hand, not even yoga has been free of haters. There is a sector of humanity that is openly hostile to the notion that the only way for many people to feel better is for them to do the work of improving their bodies (e.g. posture, range of motion, strength, etc.) (i.e. If your problem is rooted in your shoulders not being over your hips or you have an imbalance in your core between your ab and back muscles, there is no pill nor surgery to cure you—you’ve got work to do. And—it should be noted–both of my examples can cause a person to feel like crap in a number of different ways.) Another element of controversy is that Structural Integration places special emphasis on fascia (connective tissue.) While it’s not clear from scientific evidence that fascia deserve special attention, I’m also not sure that Rolfers don’t have a point when they note that everyone else completely ignores this tissue.

Having written all that, The New Rules of Posture isn’t a book about Rolfing as massage-like practice. Instead, as its subtitle (how to sit, stand, and move in the modern world) suggests, this is a book about how one can improve one’s posture, breathing, and movement (i.e. most notably walking). It’s arranged as a workbook, and it contains over 90 exercises and observations for the reader to perform. The author calls these exercises “explorations” and “practices”; the latter are more extensive and are more likely to require revisiting.

The ten chapters are arranged into four parts: awareness, stability, orientation, and motion. Each part has two or three chapters. The author divides the body into six zones (pelvic floor, breathing muscles, abdomen/core, hands, feet, and head)—the first three of which are associated with stability and the latter three with orienting the body. The six middle chapters (parts 2 and 3) are each tied to one of these zones. The book uses vignettes and side-bars in an attempt to make the material more palatable to readers who aren’t deeply interested in the topic.

The author gives attention to a wide variety of modern-day activities that can have an adverse impact on bodily alignment such as driving, computer time, and rushing about. I suspect this book will offer something useful to almost anyone.

The book’s graphics are line drawings—some are anatomical drawings and others demonstrate postural problems or exercises. The drawings are clear, well drawn, and useful. In addition to the usual front and back matter, there’s a brief bibliography and a resources appendix.

I’d recommend this book for yoga teachers and those interested in the body generally and movement and postural improvement specifically. If you’re having problems that you think may be linked to postural problems, this isn’t a bad place to start thinking about how one might improve one’s situation. It’s very readable and clear.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Why Do People Get Ill? by Darian Leader and David Corfield

Posted on by
Reply

Why Do People Get Ill?Why Do People Get Ill? by David Corfield

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This book’s title might suggest that it’s about the germ theory of disease or genetic anomalies, but it’s actually about why some people exposed to germs or carcinogens don’t get ill, while other people become ill at the drop of the hat—even when they have no exposure to the immediate cause of illness. (e.g. A Japanese study found that hypersensitive subjects had skin reactions when exposed to a harmless leaf when they were told that it was from a lacquer tree [i.e. that it was mildly toxic.]) It’s well established that stress plays a role in one’s level of health. Of course, it’s not merely the presence of stress, but the nature of it and how it’s dealt with that matter. Our bodies are supremely skilled at conquering invaders and repairing damage as long as our parasympathetic nervous system is engaged sufficiently for our body to do the work of fighting infection and healing. Leader and Corfield’s core argument is that it’s how we worry rather than what we worry about (or even whether we worry) that influences proclivity to become ill. More specifically, the authors propose that the inability to communicate feelings can play a significant role in one’s propensity for illness.

The authors review many interesting studies from medical literature. For example, rhinovirus may be a necessary condition for a cold, but it’s not a sufficient condition. In other words, many exposed individuals never become symptomatic. The same has been shown for tuberculosis, malaria, and a host of other ailments. (It may be true for all ailments.) Another fascinating study found that sporadic bombing in London’s suburbs correlated with higher ulcer rates than the constant bombardment in the city. This suggested that the predictability of a stressor was important vis-a-vis its health effects—apparently more important than the presence or severity of the stressor. Also, there are the many studies about the correlation between certain times / events and disease onset (the most well-known of these is that the most frequent time of death from heart attack is between 8 and 9 in the morning on a Monday.)

Leader and Corfield make a compelling argument in support of their thesis that’s rooted in an extensive review of the scientific literature on the quirky complexities of illness. I’m not certain that I’m completely convinced that what they believe is most important is what is in reality most important. (To be fair, it’s not a matter of deficiency of approach so much as the complexity of disease onset and the difficulty of establishing a hierarchy of importance.) However, the beautiful part of the scientific approach is that even if one doesn’t buy the authors’ arguments hook-line-and-sinker, the book is still a valuable read because it presents a great deal of research–as well as some interesting food for thought on the present state of the medical establishment. I suspect the authors didn’t win many friends with medical doctors, given the strong critique they present. Leader and Corfield point out, what most of us have long suspected, that the money-makers in healthcare are expensive pharmaceuticals and surgery, and that this has created a dangerous incentive. Of course, the authors’ point is that this has undermined the value that psychological approaches might have, but the same could be said to be true for postural realignment therapies or other neglected approaches to treatment. The last chapter is a searing critique of the state of the medical profession that suggests that doctors are disproportionately ill-conditioned to listen to patients and to get to the root causes of their ailments.

The book’s organization is reasonable, but could have been improved. There’s a great chapter on the immune system, but it’s chapter 11 of 15 chapters. It would have been useful to move that text closer to the front of the book so that readers would have access to this primer as they considered why the solution might be found internally rather than in the medicines and surgeries that they are conditioned to believe are in virtually all cases necessary.

Of course, I understand that the authors’ thrust is on the psychological rather than the biological/physiological front, and this undoubtedly played into the organizational decisions. It may be true that the book isn’t about how a body can knock out ailments, but why it occasionally fails to; however, understanding how we defeat illness is an important part of the backstory.

There are important chapters on heart conditions and cancer. These are important not only because those diseases are major killers, but because these are the nasty diseases that many will be skeptical of the relevance of mind-body factors. In other words, many will accept that our attitude and approach to stress may be relevant in whether one breaks out in hives, catches the flu, or gets an ulcer—but may not except that a force as powerful as cancer can be swayed by one’s mindset and behaviors.

I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in how good health can be fostered.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Book of Ninja [The Bansenshukai] Trans. by Anthony Cummins and Yoshie Minima

Posted on by
Reply

The Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai - Japan's Premier Ninja ManualThe Book of Ninja: The Bansenshukai – Japan’s Premier Ninja Manual by Antony Cummins

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

The Bansenshukai is a 17th century manual of ninja tradecraft and fieldcraft compiled by Fujibayashi Sabuji. If you’re doing related research or are a geek about historic warriors and / or spies, you’ll likely find this book intriguing–and parts of it even fascinating. However, it’s important to note that this translation’s title The Book of Ninja may conjure up expectations of stories of derring-do and assassinations set in medieval Japan. This isn’t that book. This book contains an extensive discussion of morals, guidance as to how commanders should employ ninja, how to don a disguise and impersonate your way into enemy territory, technical discussion of how to infiltrate long-obsolete fortifications, insight into how to pick medieval Japanese locks, and instructions for how to make torches and rope ladders. This book won’t teach you how to be a ninja. (a.) I suspect no book could do that, b.) This one holds back a lot of secrets, and c.) Most of the information is obsolete from a practical stand point. (However, it’s likely to have many ideas of a strategic or philosophic nature that one might find thought-provoking.)

Why is this book important and interesting (though–as I’ve suggested–some of its content seems patently boring)? We live in an era of information overload, and it’s difficult to fathom how little is truly known about the ninja of medieval Japan. We live during a time in which even the most secretive agencies document everything always (even if they sometimes manage to shred or burn that information.) In their heyday, the ninja weren’t big on writing down true and interesting information for fear it would fall into the wrong hands. Lack of documentation and false documentation were key elements of security. There are only a few manuals like this one in existence, and the Bansenshukai is considered by many to be chief among them by virtue of being the most extensive. (FYI- The other well-known manuals are the Shoninki and the Ninpiden, both of which also have English language translations available. Beyond these manuals, there are some surviving familial scrolls.) It should be noted that these manuals were written after the warring states period (though before the Meiji Restoration) when there was a fear that this information might be lost precisely because it was historically conveyed via word of mouth. And, it should be noted, throughout the work there are frequent statements to the effect of “there is an oral transmission”—meaning that key parts haven’t been written down and are only to be taught in person by hands-on instruction.

The Bansenshukai is organized into 22 volumes. The first volume is background and introductory information. The second and third volumes are more philosophical, dealing with achieving the “correct mind,” the former dealing with morality and the latter offering perspective on life and death.

The fourth through seventh volumes are designed to educate military commanders about how they might get the best use of ninja.

The next group of volumes (8 – 10) cover Yo-nin, which is the act of infiltrating enemy territory in the open through use of disguise and deception. The Japanese term yo is the same as the Chinese term yang, or sunny side—as opposed to yin (in in Japanese) which means the shady side. So these volumes offer advice for operating out in the open—in the light of day, so to speak. The previous volumes are contrasted with the next set of volumes (11-15), the In-Nin, which deals with covertly breaking into enemy houses and castles. Together the Yo-nin and In-nin chapters are likely to be the most interesting to the general reader–excepting the last of these (vol. 15, which deals with lock picking.) While I said that this book isn’t full of stories of legendary exploits, I don’t mean to suggest Fujibayashi didn’t use vignettes to reinforce his points (there are plenty of them)—just that these stories aren’t told to entertain but to educate.

The next two volumes are entitled Tenji I and Tenji II, and they discuss what the author considered the opportunities bestowed by heaven. The first of these chapters is mostly Chinese astrological hokum in painful detail. The second is a primitive primer on meteorology—which I suspect is a mix of good and bad advice based on the science of that time and place. (These people were exceptionally observant but the product of superstitious times, and so one can imagine fact and fiction being muddled together.) At any rate, I found the second chapter to have some quite interesting information of which I’d like to know more about the veracity.

The final set of volumes are on ninja tools (i.e. ninki.) These include chapters on climbing tools like rope ladders, water crossing devices like inflatable seats, breaking and entering tools, and many recipes for incendiary and explosive materials. Like the chapter on locks and lock picking, these chapters will mostly be of value to individuals with a heavy interest in the history of technology—with a particular focus on Japan and / or East Asia. In many ways the ninja were by necessity technologically advanced by the standards of that time in Japan’s history (keeping in mind that because of literally centuries of war, Japan wasn’t at the cutting edge of a spectrum of technology in the 17th century as they are today—though they made swords that at least rivaled if not surpassed those anywhere else in the world, but swords were on the way out or passé by that time in many places.)

There’s an additional text on strategy that forms an appendix to The Bansenshukai. To the front, there’s an explanation of Japanese locks of the time, written by a historian of such minutiae. There’s also front matter by the translator, providing valuable background material. Each chapter is heavily endnoted. These endnotes are generally explanatory in nature. While the text is quite readable given its era, there’s much that requires further explanation. Sometimes the notes elaborate on a statement in the text and sometimes they suggest that an explanation is unknown—either way that information can be quite beneficial. The graphics are simple drawings (I believe they come from the original text), and in some cases they wouldn’t be useful without the explanation of the text.

One will note a heavy Chinese influence in The Bansenshukai. There are frequent references to Sun Tzu and many of the vignettes use to illustrate points involve tales from China—though there are also many that feature Japanese warriors as well—e.g. Kusunoki Masashige, a samurai famous as a paragon of loyalty but who was also known for his use of ninjutsu and unconventional tactics, features prominently throughout the work—though it’s unknown how many of these tales are fact and how many legend.

If you’re still curious about the contents of this book after hearing what it is and isn’t, I’d highly recommend it. There’s a lot of thought-provoking information in the book, and if you’re doing research on the subject this book is essential reading. I should also point out that while I’ve suggested that much of the information is obsolete in the modern era, it’s not all so. There are some interesting perspectives on strategy, tactics, philosophy, and ethics in this book. [Plus, if you want to be the office ninja, it’s a must-read along with Machiavelli’s The Prince.]

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Antifragile by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Posted on by
Reply

Antifragile: Things That Gain from DisorderAntifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Nassim Nicholas Taleb has a gift for uncovering simple and fascinating topics that have remained buried–not because they are unfathomable, but–because of the institutional blinders and group-think present in academia (at least within the social sciences.) I don’t mean to diminish what Dr. Taleb does by saying these are simple ideas, it takes a great intellect to not only recognize the ideas others have missed but to clarify them for a broad audience and to unravel the challenging ideas that must be made clear as one moves beyond the crux of the idea. Furthermore, it takes a bold writer to push these ideas out into the open against brute institutional antagonism. (If Taleb hadn’t written books that were highly readable and that presented the ideas in a manner readily digested by a broad audience, he’d likely still be being completely ignored by academicians.)

By “simple” I mean ideas that can be captured in a single sentence—often a pithy one at that. In his second book (his first work for popular audiences), Fooled by Randomness, the idea was that randomness is more pervasive than most people imagine and that false explanations are often built for chance occurrences. Black Swan told us that statistical forecasting fails catastrophically when one has “800 pound gorillas” in the data set (e.g. if one is comparing countries—a situation in which one will virtually always be in, as Taleb calls it, “Extremistan.”) The book in question, Antifragile, is built around the notion that some entities get stronger when subjected to stressors and disorder.

One can see many “antifragile” elements in one’s own body. A muscle subjected to exercise often gets tiny tears in fibers, but when the body does its repair work those fibers will be stronger than ever before. Wolff’s Law tells us that bones subjected to an increased load will increase their density. In fact, our bodies are testaments to the concept of antifragility on many levels. For this reason, Taleb uses many examples from the field of medicine—in addition to those from disciplines more closely related to his own, e.g. finance, economics, and risk. A lot of the medical discussion deals with the proclivity of Western medicine towards interventionism (in contrast to the “first, do no harm” motto often heard.) An example with which many people are familiar is that of the over prescription of antibiotics. While there are obviously cases for which antibiotics are necessary and beneficial, prescribing them willy-nilly robs the body of antifragility (i.e. if the body defeats the infection itself, it has inborn resistance.)

As with other of Dr. Taleb’s writings, I found Antifragile to be interesting as well as informative. The author does a good job of providing examples to elucidate and bolster his arguments and puts it all together in a readable package. He also does a great job of pulling examples and discussions from a number of different fields. This book doesn’t read like it’s about an Economics or Business subfield as much as it’s a book that can teach you something applicable to whatever your field might be. The book also covers a number of other critical but related ideas, such as the value of heuristics in decision-making, how antifragility can be increased (and fragility reduced), and the ethical issues involved.

My primary criticism is that the book overdoes the jabs at scholars and economists. I can understand where Taleb might have some pent-up rage against many academics. He has certainly had to weather a lot of equally petty assaults from the academics who loath him. The work of many a social scientist and economist looks pretty silly to those who grasp the concepts Taleb is presenting. Still, we got it. Halfway through the book, one wonders why Taleb is still so vigorously and maniacally whipping such a skeletal horse. While it’s hard to imagine anyone less strong-willed than Dr. Taleb could get these messages out in the face of the institutionalized opposition he faced, the flip side is that he will probably strike you as a pretentious jackass on occasion.

The book is organized into seven sections (each of multiple chapters.) It begins by describing antifragility and then proceeds through relevant concepts like optionality, nonlinearity, via negativa, and ethics. The book has handy appendices for those who prefer graphic or mathematical representations. (Like all popular science / social science works, there’s an attempt to keep the overly technical and visually intimidating material out of the body of the work.) There is also a works cited section.

I’d recommend this book for those interested in wonky type books.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes by Jamyang Norbu

Posted on by
Reply

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and TibetThe Mandala of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventures of the Great Detective in India and Tibet by Jamyang Norbu

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Amazon page

I gave this book the lowest rating that I’ve ever given a book I reviewed. However, there’s a selection bias at work. I don’t finish (and rarely start, for that matter) books that are so horrible that they’d get a lesser rating. Ergo, any book that I finish and review has some redeeming qualities. I’ll leave it to the reader to determine whether these redeeming qualities will outweigh the deficiencies of story in this book.

The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes takes our beloved detective out of London and onto a trip from Bombay to Shangri La by way of Shimla (India) and Lhasa (Tibet.) It’s one of several pieces of Great Hiatus fan fiction out there. (I recently saw an addition that took Holmes to Japan.) Fans of Sherlock Holmes will be aware that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle became tired of the character at one point and killed him off (along with Professor Moriarty) at Reichenbach Falls. Holmes was “revived” several years later due to popular demand (and—perhaps—Doyle’s need for funds), leaving fans / authors to speculate what the detective did during his time in hiding (i.e. the so-called Great Hiatus.) This particular work tells us that Holmes spent his time in the Himalayas. It’s as good a setting as any, given that fascination with the esoteric Himalayan world was building in the West during this time. In an interesting feature, Norbu’s book brings in a fictional character from Rudyard Kipling’s Kim, Hurree Mookherjee, to serve as Holmes’s sidekick. (FYI: Kim was published during the Great Hiatus years.) The story involves shadowy plots against both Holmes and a young 13th Dalai Lama (this was the predecessor of the current Dalai Lama) that are incidental to obtaining a powerful mandala.

I’ll begin with the strengths of the work before I tear into what I found objectionable about the book. The author, Jamyang Norbu, clearly did his research, and there are some fascinating tidbits and insights into that era of South Asia history. As a Tibetan, Norbu, paints an intriguing travelogue of the territory that Holmes and Hurree traverse. Also on a positive note, I’d rate the readability of this work to be high. It doesn’t follow the 19th century so closely that it falls into the purple prose and general verbosity of that century’s literature, and I think that’s a good thing. The author manages to create a bit of the feel of 19th century literature without falling off the abyss.

The book’s negative qualities are disproportionately loaded toward the back of the book. (Part of what keeps one reading and engaged is that it seems like the book could turn out well.) Let me begin with one minor character defect of the book which is that not all of the chapters advance the story; a few are descriptive like travelogues. However, most of said chapters are so short that it’s not that problematic.

I should note that one star that might’ve been obtained for originality must be forfeited because there’s no shortage of books following the same general premise.

But the story’s major flaw is that devolves into supernatural speculative fiction done poorly. Let me say, I’m not against the supernatural genre in theory. However, as with stories about Superman, these tales are exceedingly easy to do poorly and extremely difficult to do well. In the real world, tension is easily created because the reader knows many of the limits that characters face, and a good writer forces his characters up against some of those limits. However, when characters seem to be limited by the laws of physics, but then just start pulling magic rabbits out of their hats, the tension drains. We assume our protagonist will prevail and the antagonist will be thwarted. The odds stacked against our hero(es) don’t matter if one expects they’ll pull out a—proverbial or otherwise–magic wand and claim a cheap victory. If one wants to do the supernatural well, one needs to not only make the antagonist stronger (which Mr. Norbu does), but one has to know what everybody’s limits are. Otherwise, it’s just a cheap spectacle. [I should point out that Hurree does engage in a non-magical action that is critically timed during a key moment of the story, and some readers may feel that this absolves the novel of its ham-handed introduction of the supernatural.]

There’s another problem with the degree to which the book hinges on the supernatural, and that is specific to the domain of Holmes. The supernatural is usually something to be debunked in the Holmesian domain. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes is a product of the dawning of the age of rationality, and he is a man of science. [Want to know more? See this Tor article entitled “No Ghost Need Apply.”]Doyle’s Holmes may accept the possibility of the supernatural and apparently supernatural elements may make appearances, but Holmes is always looking for an explanation rooted in logic and favoring the possible. While Norbu goes to great lengths to capture the flavor of Holmes in many aspects, he abandons the character altogether in favor a world that looks neither like our own nor the one Arthur Conan Doyle created.

The disappointment of this book is that it looks like it’s on a trajectory to hit its mark, but then sails wildly off target.

If you like supernatural fiction and you don’t mind that magic suddenly pops up to shape the climax of the book out of the blue, by all means pick this book up. Otherwise, I can’t say that I’d recommend it for Holmes’ fans.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The Pyjama Game by Mark Law

Posted on by
Reply

The Pyjama Game: A Journey Into JudoThe Pyjama Game: A Journey Into Judo by Mark Law

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Mark Law’s book contains two types of book in one volume, unified by the theme of judō. On the one hand, it’s a microhistory of the martial art and sport of judō–and, no, it’s not redundant to say the martial art and the sport because while these aspects overlap they aren’t identical. On the other hand, the book presents a personal account of Law’s experience as a judōka who began his practice at the ripe age of 50. The two elements of the book are interwoven together, and aren’t forced into distinct sections by the book’s organization. The history is obviously organized in a chronological fashion, but personal accounts are peppered throughout, and sometimes stories appear in history chapters.

As a history of judō, Law begins with the pre-history of the art in its ancestor martial art of jujutsu, he travels through the arts influence on off-shoots like Sambo and Brazilian Jujutsu, and he examines how the art has contributed to mixed martial arts—the 800 pound gorilla of present-day combative competitions. Particular emphasis is given to Kanō Jigorō’s role as founder of the art and the evolution of judō as an Olympic sport. Interestingly, besides founding Kodokan Judō, Kanō’s other claim to fame was in being the first Asian member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, he never saw judō become an Olympic event, and—ironically–at least a few among those close to him doubted that Kanō would’ve been pleased with his art’s inclusion in the international games.

While Japan dominated judō when the sport first entered the domain of international competition, it wasn’t long before there were a number of other countries including the Netherlands, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Cuba, and Korea that were producing first-rate judōka. Law devotes considerable discussion to the global blossoming of this sport, including entire chapters on some of the more prominent nations. The book discusses the double-edged sword that Japan faced. On one hand, the Japanese were heart-broken when other nations started beat them at their own game. On the other hand, it was clear that this had to happen for the sport to retain a global following. (Otherwise, the sport might have gone the way of baseball—being pulled out of the Olympics because only a handful of North American, Caribbean, and East Asian nations had any interest in it.

There are also chapters on women’s judō, a development that no doubt faced a good deal more misogyny than many sport’s bi-genderifications. There’s always been resistance to encouraging women’s participation in combative activities—even judō, a martial art whose dangerous edges were supposed to have been rounded off through rules, equipment (e.g. sprung flooring), weight classes, and close monitoring. Law discusses the hard fought evolution of the women’s side of the sport.

As a personal narrative, Law talks about the lessons he learned from training in judō and from testing for rank—an arduous process that requires beating other rank-pursuers in randori (free-form grappling, i.e. the grappling version of sparring.) Many of these lessons will be familiar to anyone who has practiced a martial art (e.g. while it’s more intimidating to fight someone who’s much more experienced in the art, it’s usually vastly more safe—both because senior players are more in control of their bodies and because they have less need to prove anything—i.e. they won’t injure an opponent to protect a fragile ego), but much of this discussion is specific to the culture and practice of judō.

If you’re interested in the history and development of judō, I’d recommend this book. I found the book to be at its most interesting when it addresses the history and globalization of the sport. However, those who haven’t practiced martial arts may find Law’s personal insight to be useful—particularly if you’re considering taking up judō and all the more if you intend to take it up past mid-life.

It should be noted that—judging by the identical table of contents and subtitle—this book was also released under the title Falling Hard: A Journey into Judo. The book does is annotated and provides references. Law is a journalist, and the niceties of that discipline are followed throughout.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Vol. 1) by Alan Moore

Posted on by
1

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. 1 by Alan Moore

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

For those unfamiliar with this series or the movie featuring Sean Connery, this graphic novel assembles a team of heroes from 19th century science fiction and adventure novels. Specifically, the team includes: Mina Harker (of Bram Stroker’s Dracula), Allan Quatermain (of H. Rider Haggard’s King Solomon’s Mine series), Captain Nemo (of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and other Jules Verne novels), Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde (of the Robert Louis Stevenson novel featuring their names), and Hawley Griffin (of the H.G. Wells novel, The Invisible Man.) The team’s principle nemesis is Professor James Moriarty of Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series.

Interestingly, this book follows the same general plot progression as the movie, but is much different in tone, settings, and character details. The plot progression of which I refer is that the team is assembled (with no small amount of mutual animosity) and they bond into a team as they face a grandiose threat of steampunk industrialization run amok. That plot progression aside, you’ll find an entirely different story otherwise. First, those who favor gender equality will appreciated that Mina Harker is in a leadership role in this volume, the role played by Quatermain in the movie. (That being said, this isn’t a group of individuals who take readily to being led.) Second, those who like darker, grittier tales will find this book more appealing than the movies. Allan Quatermain is found by Harker wasted in an opium den. Griffin is captured after having moved into a girl’s school to use his invisibility to lecherous advantage and the head mistress of said school is decidedly dominatrix like. I generally liked the grittier tone better, though it was hard to reconcile Griffin’s abhorrent behavior with heroism—anti-heroes are a challenge, particularly one who can disappear at will. Third, the team in the book is smaller and more manageable, with the movie having taken on two more characters (Dorian Gray and Tom Sawyer.) Finally, the book doesn’t get around so much. The movie features at least four major settings—not counting the high seas, but the book takes place mostly in Victorian London.

You don’t have to have read all the classic works from which the characters derive to get the story, but it does make it a little more fun. (Yes, I realize that I’m using “classic” for books–some of which–were considered the pulp fiction of their day. However, if your book is still in print after 100 years, I’d say you deserve the status and respect.) Those who’ve read the books will get some subtleties that aren’t critical to the story but are kind of nifty. That being said, don’t expect the characters to match their originals perfectly. The novels covered are wide-ranging, some rely on supernatural elements and others are more realistic, some are futuristic while others reflect the times more accurately. One can’t bring all these individuals into one world and have them be exactly as they were in their original domains.

There are some extra features at the end including a short story featuring a time traveling Allan Quatermain and some art from the series.

I’d recommend this book for those who read comics and graphic novels—especially if they’ve read the stories of at least a few of the 19th century characters. (If you haven’t read any of the novels, you should probably go back and hit some classics before you read anything else. Just my opinion.) It’s an intriguing concept, and it’s done well.

The movie trailer is here.

View all my reviews

BOOK REVIEW: Yoga Body by Mark Singleton

Posted on by
2

Yoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture PracticeYoga Body: The Origins of Modern Posture Practice by Mark Singleton

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

I was excited to stumble across this book because it proposed fresh insights into the history and development of posture-centric yoga. Singleton’s premise is that yoga as it’s practiced in studios around the world today (i.e. practices focused heavily on asana, or postures) has almost nothing to do with historic yogic traditions and is to a large extent European (or Western) fitness practices fed back to the world with a patina of Indian-ness instilled by a few Indian fitness teachers (e.g. T. Krishnamacharya and students.) This is a bold and stunning hypothesis. The problem is that Singleton leaves plenty of room to doubt his thesis. I’m not saying that I’m certain Singleton is wrong, but after reading the book I’m no more inclined to believe his hypothesis than when I first read the book blurb.

The book consists of nine chapters:
1.) A Brief Overview of Yoga in the Indian Tradition
2.) Fakirs, Yogins, Europeans
3.) Popular Portrayals of the Yogin
4.) India and the International Physical Culture Movement
5.) Modern Indian Physical Culture: Degeneracy and Experimentation
6.) Yoga as Physical Culture I: Strength and Vigor
7.) Yoga as Physical Culture II: Harmonial Gymnastics and Esoteric Dance
8.) The Medium and the Message: Visual Reproduction and the Asana Revival
9.) T. Krishnamacharya and the Mysore Asana Revival

One can see the flow of the book in this chapter listing. It begins by describing the ancient yogic traditions (e.g. Jnana yoga, Bhakti yoga, and Karma yoga.) Singleton then goes on to put immense weight on very few voices that were speaking globally about yoga in the late 19th century—largely European but notably including Swami Vivekananda. (This, by the way, is where I noticed the most glaring weaknesses of the book. There seems to be an assumption that what the most vocal people were saying during this time was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.) One will note that the late 19th century is an arbitrary point to make the critical juncture for a study of yoga—this era’s sole importance seems to be in that that’s when Europeans started entering the scene (and documenting it in English and Western languages to a large extent.) I understand that there may have been a dearth of information previously; however, I’m also skeptical of equating the sum of truth with the sum of what is documented.

The book then shifts into the early 20th century when Singleton proposes the proto-postural yoga is beginning to coalesce with both Western and indigenous Indian influences. Singleton writes extensively about this period, and presents what he believes is the path by which postural practice evolved over a short time into modern yoga as we know it. The book ends in the mid-20th century with an extensive discussion of T. Krishnamacharya and his pack of brilliant students (i.e. B.K.S. Iyengar, Pattabhi Jois, T.V.K. Desikachar, and Indira Devi) who are responsible for a lot of how yoga is practiced today (for virtually all of modern yoga by Singleton’s reckoning.)

It should be noted that this book is put out by an academic press, Oxford University Press, and there’s all the front and post matter that one would expect of a scholarly press publication. This includes an introduction, notes, and a bibliography.

So, you might be wondering how I could have so much doubt about the veracity of the book’s central claim—a book written by a Cambridge educated scholar and published by Oxford University Press. It’s, after all, chocked full of facts that are designed to bolster Singleton’s argument. I’m certainly not suggesting that Singleton lied or presented false facts (however, I have–and will further–argue that he frames facts throughout the book to diminish those statements and facts that run counter to his argument while wholeheartedly accepting statements that validate his argument—even when the people whose statements he leaves unchallenged would seem to have their own agendas. I don’t know, perhaps T. Krishnamacharya was—as Singleton intimates though never explicitly accuses—lying when he claimed to have received his sequence and approach from a scripture he was taught by a Himalayan master. However, interestingly, he would be lying to minimize his role in the development of yoga rather than to increase his fame. This stands in contrast with the European authors who Singleton readily accepts who were seeking to build their bona fides as experts in the esoteric systems of India and the Himalaya, who arguably had a lot to gain from being seen as having a full understanding of these systems.)

The best way to understand the root of my skepticism is to tell a make-believe story. Imagine a race of aliens came down to Earth. For whatever reason, they want to understand (presumably among many other things) the Roman Catholic Church. One astute alien scholar notes that, after having reviewed not only the entire Bible but a vast canon of theologian discourse, there is scant mention of sitting or kneeling. However, when cameras came around, there came to be clear evidence of pews and kneelers in the church. The aliens conclude that Catholics had always stood during worship, but with the advent of the camera they began to sit and kneel. The aliens, having big and bulbous butts, conclude that the Catholics have become concerned that their own big, bulbous butts will be captured for posterity (pun intended) by the cameras and have, thus, opted to adopt postures that would more adequately provide cover. In the present day, sitting and kneeling are the bulk of what Catholics do with their bodies when [overtly] practicing their religion, and so it must be those postures–rather than abstract notions like achieving “grace” are now the most critical part of the practice. (Besides, the earliest photos of kneelers came from Protestant churches, so perhaps Anglicans taught Catholics how to kneel.)

If you haven’t figured it out, in my little scenario, the late 19th century Europeans who were writing the English language tracts that formed the heart of Singleton’s research material are the aliens with big, bulbous butts. I would propose that the Europeans aren’t viewing yoga completely objectively but through the lens of their own experience and desires. Furthermore, they are also only giving weight to what they see and hear (which may or may not be a full picture.) I would further argue that just like Catholics don’t devote much text to discussing sitting and kneeling in the documents of the Vatican library doesn’t mean there isn’t a long history of those practices. Postural practice is:

a.) not the critical end result that everyone is concerned with even if it takes up the bulk of one’s time in [overt] practice. It’s certainly true that there are a vast number of yoga practitioners whose only interest is in the fitness aspect of the practice. However, there are also many who spend most of their yoga reading time learning from Vedas and reading yogic philosophy even though the bulk of their practice time is asana.
b.) extremely difficult to convey via text but readily conveyed through demonstration and hands-on teaching. If you were a Catholic and wanted to teach someone kneeling, would you write them a three paragraph text description of the process, or would you just demonstrate how to kneel and correct any glaring (albeit unlikely) deficiencies in form.

At no point does Singleton get into the postural details of individual asana. He mentions another scholar that supposedly has done some of that work, but Singleton feels it’s not critical. However, it’s very hard to prove what he’s trying to prove without getting into that level of detail. Yes, there will be similarities between various systems of stretching because of the nature of the body. For example, European stretching systems had a forward bend that looks reminiscent of paschimottanasana (the body folds that way and stretching the hamstrings is one of the most important functions in any stretching regimen), and it shouldn’t be surprising or revealing if the first photograph of this posture was in a European gym (the fact that Scandinavians had cameras before Himalayan yogis isn’t a sound basis to conclude that Himalayan yogi’s learned to bend forward from Scandinavians.) A there are a lot of postures that two systems might reasonably independently discover, but one also can’t rule out that the Indian yogi taught the Europeans and not the other way around. (I know it’s hard to comprehend in the era of FaceBook, but failure to be documented does not equal failure to be true. The farther one goes into the past, the less of what happened is going to be documented, and some cultures are going to be more likely to document events than others. e.g. Would our aliens be right or wrong if they concluded that 85% of humans are females between the age of 12 and 24 years old because 85% of the selfies posted on the internet are among that group. )

Singleton’s book does have some graphics. They didn’t always help his case, however. I was struck by how few of the fine details of the European postures correspond to practice as we know them, while some of the very old paintings look almost exactly like present day asana. (If one accepts that the fact that they didn’t have the greatest grasp of capturing perspective back then isn’t indicative of how flat the postures and people were back then.) I’ll readily admit that I wouldn’t definitively count Singleton wrong on my subjective observation of the pictures, but it does leave me with a lot of room for doubt.

I suppose the next question is why I didn’t completely pan the book. Three stars isn’t a tragic rating. I thought the book contained a lot of good information and food for thought (even if it fell far short of proving its central hypothesis.) I particularly enjoyed the chapter on T. Krishnamacharya and his now-famous student body. I’ll also say that part of why I came away from the book with such a muddled perception of this history is that Singleton doesn’t hide facts that are damning to his case, but rather presents them and then tries to marginalize them. A prime example would be the Hatha Yoga Pridipika (HYP), a 15th century text that mentions a number of the asana considered classic yoga postures today (some of which form the core of a Hata practice)—though admittedly HYP emphasizes the importance of only four seated postures.

I can’t say that Singleton didn’t help give me pause to wonder about the truth of the received understanding of yoga’s evolution. I’ve practiced yoga in places as varied as India, the U.S., Thailand, and Hungary, and I found it shocking how similar the practice is around the world. This bodes well for the argument that yoga as it’s practiced today has coalesced recently. By way of contrast, there are many myths about how one martial art is the ancestor of another but the two systems often look nothing alike. (e.g. I’ve studied Kalaripayattu, which many believe was the ancestor art taken to China by Bodhidharma through Southeast Asia, but which today looks nothing like Kung fu or Muay Thai. Furthermore, Kung fu styles usually look quite unlike the Korean and Japanese martial arts that they are said to have inspired.) If the latter among these martial arts did come from the earlier, they evolved apart quickly. While the evolution into different martial art forms is quite possible, it raises the question of why yoga should be so similar internationally. A skilled yoga teacher would likely give a given student the same alignment adjustments for, say, Warrior I, regardless of whether the teacher was in Prague, Manila, Tokyo, or San Diego.

I can’t say that I’d endorse Singleton’s argument. It would take much more precise information for me to buy it (and it’s likely that said detailed historical information doesn’t exist.) However, if you’re interested in the history of yoga, you might want to check out this book. Your conclusions may differ from mine, but even if they don’t I suspect you’ll learn a thing or two of interest. Yoga Body was reasonably priced as a Kindle book when I bought it.

View all my reviews