Tag Archives: fiction

Shame List: 25 books I should have read by now

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To force myself to get cracking on more of the best books, I’m baring my shame. Below is a list of some of the books that it’s downright appalling I’ve failed to read as of yet. This is by no means a complete list. In fact, the initial list I compiled was about three times as long. (And it still wasn’t all-inclusive.)

I had to apply a few selection criteria to get to a reasonably-sized list. Some of these criteria are unique to a particular book, and will be noted under the book’s listing. However, there are also general criteria. If a book is commonly referred to in pop culture and I haven’t read it, that’s a cause for concern. In other words, if I’m not getting the literary references on The Simpsons, I’m a little embarrassed.  (Or pop science references made on Big Bang Theory.)

Also, I believe that one should read broadly and outside one’s comfort box. This means that one should read the counter arguments to what one believes, so as to not be happy stewing in one’s ignorance. This is part of becoming wiser and trading one’s narrow view of the world for one which is broader.

Some of these choices are idiosyncratic to myself– as opposed to being classics or masterpieces. For example, I was trained as a Social Scientist, so books on that subject might not make most people’s “essential reads” list. Also, I’m a martial artist, so my bonus picks are tied to that interest.

So, in alphabetical order, without further ado:


Brief history of time

1.) A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking

This may be an odd choice as I’m fairly certain I wouldn’t understand anything Hawking says beyond the Acknowledgements page. I once read that this book had the distinction of being “the most unread book on everybody’s bookshelf.” (I don’t know whether that’s urban legend or established fact– but I can believe it.) An Engineering PhD student from a very prestigious technical university once admitted to me that he couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. I did read The Universe in a Nutshell, which has a lot of pictures and, thus, is more my speed; it was kind of “A Brief History of Time … for Dummies.”


Confederacy of Dunces

2.) A Confederacy of Dunces by James Kennedy Toole

The backstory behind this book is fascinating and has an important moral. Toole killed himself, presumably because he couldn’t get it published. Then, posthumously, it became a critically-acclaimed hit after his mother took it around and forced literary types to read it. NEVER GIVE UP!


Farewell to Arms

3.) A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

I’m a big Hemingway fan. I’ve read a few of his novels, many of his short stories, and even some of his non-fiction. This is my elusive great white Hemingwhale.


As I lay dying

4.) As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

I was a late comer to Faulkner. I’d always heard that his writing was wordy and that it straggled. As those are bad habits of my own, I figured I should feed myself more Hemingway-esque writing. However, after reading several of Faulkner’s stories and his novel Sanctuary, I developed a man-crush on his use of language.


Beloved

5.) Beloved by Toni Morrison

Like many books on my list, I’ve got a copy of this on my bookshelf, and I even started it once. I’m not sure what distracted me. I picked it up originally to see how Morrison wrote accented dialogue. This is part of my advice to self to read outside my own history and experience.


cloud atlas

6.) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

I like cross-genre books. Furthermore, I’ve heard good things about the organization of this as a series of incomplete stories that are tied together in the final part.


crime and punishment

7.) Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

This is another one that is on my bookshelf and that I started. It’s not that I didn’t like the opening (though like most all literature of its era is not exactly punchy.) Rather, it’s that I tend to end up with too many books up in the air at once. Therefore, if one takes over, the others get dropped.

I hope I don’t have a subconscious aversion to Russian literature, but–I must admit–I’ve read far too little Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Pushkin, Turgenev, and (to a lesser extent) Chekhov. (I’ve read quite a few Chekhov short stories.)


Don quixote

8.) Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

Again, I own this one. I don’t believe that I ever started it. However, anything with a sense of humor is a winner in my book.


GunsGermsSteel

9.) Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

While doing my Masters in International Affairs, I almost took a course  that used this as a textbook, but I had a conflict with a required course. The question of how some civilizations progress (when others don’t) is fascinating to me–as is the subject of Diamond’s more recent book Collapse, which looks at why certain civilizations unravel.


Heart of Darkness

10.) Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

This one is particularly sad because: a.) I own it. b.) I’ve started it on more than one occasion. c.) It really does seem like a fascinating story, and d.) [the kicker] It’s extremely short. It’s not even properly called a novel, but more a novella or–maybe even–a long short story.


Les Miserables

11.) Les Misérables by Victor Hugo

I hate to admit that I might have some subtle anti-French bias because I’ve never read any Hugo or Camus.


Leviathan

12.) Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes

This is another one that is about balanced reading. I’ve always tended toward a libertarian view of governance. So I’ve read John Locke and many other arguments for why government should stay small and limited. Leviathan is the granddaddy of counter claims. It’s about why the government must be involved in everything. I’ve read a lot of commentary on the Hobbes-Locke divide, but not this book. While I may not agree with Hobbes, that’s exactly why I should have read him. I have read Marx and others who’ve made more modern arguments for the primacy of governing over the governed.


Life of Pi

13.) Life of Pi by Yan Martel

I read the cover blurb of this when it came out and thought it would be interesting. When the movie was coming out, I thought about it again, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.


Lolita

14.) Lolita by Vladimir Nabakov

I saw the 1962 movie, but have never read this book. This is one that is often cited in pop culture. I know the general premise, but it would be good to read it.


Meditations

15.) Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

I’ve read quotes from this book, and I once started it from the beginning. I agree with the life philosophy espoused in it, so I should have finished it by now. I particularly like the quote, “It is not death that a man should fear, but he should fear never beginning to live.”


lives of a cell

16.) The Lives of a Cell by Lewis Thomas

I began it once, and it’s tiny. So double shame on me for not finishing this one yet.


Origin of species

17.) The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

I’ve read a lot of commentary on Darwin’s ideas, but not this book– at least not in full. I include it because it’s one of the seminal works on the biological world as we know it. It contains many ideas that should be considered when reflecting on the nature of man and animal alike.


Satanic Verses

18.) The Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie

Any writing that makes someone take a hit out on the author must be powerful stuff. Enough said.


The Stranger

19.) The Stranger by Albert Camus

This is one whose pop culture references, I suspect, elude me.


things they carried

20.) The Things They Carried  by Tim O’Brien

I’ve just heard that his is an outstanding and very readable book. It’s supposedly a great example of a sparse but evocative style. I’m interested in the literature of war, so it’s right up my alley.


Tipping point

21.) The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell

This is really a stand-in for a number of pop social science titles by Gladwell that examine the behavior and decision making of individuals and groups. Blink might have been a choice as well, but I’m a little more interested in the tipping point phenomena.  I’ve read vast troves on behavioral economics and related fields, but Gladwell is such a household name that I should probably be more familiar with his work.

 


The Trial

22.) The Trial by Franz Kafka

Another one that I own, I’ve started, which has many pop culture references, but which I’ve never gotten through.

 


wisdom of crowds

23.) The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

This is sort of a counter claim social science book. I once read an old book entitled Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds by Charles MacKay. MacKay suggests (as Tommy Lee Jones did in Men in Black) that in groups otherwise intelligent people are stupid and panicky.


to kill a mockingbird

24.) To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Again, there are tons of pop culture references out there on this one. I’ve heard it’s a well-crafted book, but–for whatever reason– I’ve never read it.

 


Ulysses

25.) Ulysses by James Joyce

I have no illusions that this would be fun reading, but some consider it the best English language novel of all time. Also, I have read some of James Joyce’s shorter stuff, and I dig his use of language. My fear is that it will be like “the greatest American novel,” Moby Dick, which I did read and would rate far lower.


Bonus Shame Picks

I just realized that my list was appallingly Western-centric, and so I’ve added a couple bonus picks  to rectify this because I’m too lazy to go back and cut a couple of the others.


Tale of genji

26.) The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu

Written in the 11th century, this Japanese work is considered by many to be the world’s first novel–or at least the first modern novel.


Water Margin

27.) The Water Margin by Shi Nai’an

This 14th century Chinese novel is one of the four classics of ancient Chinese literature. It also supposedly contains a lot of kung fu flick elements.

 


Your turn. Come on,  confession is good for the soul. What books are you ashamed that you haven’t gotten around to reading yet?

BOOK REVIEW: World War Z by Max Brooks

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World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie WarWorld War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

World War Z, as the subtitle suggests, is written as a series of interviews of key (or in some cases typical) people involved in the Zombie War. The viewpoints addressed include various political leaders, military service members of various branches and nations, strategic planners, doctors, and even civilians caught up in the diaspora that resulted from the plague.

The approach of the novel is unusual. To the degree there is a lead character, it’s the UN employee who conducts all the interviews. However, we don’t experience the interviewer’s story arc and are left with very little insight into this individual. Rather, the story is a global arc of mankind’s experience of zombies from “patient zero” through the clean up in the years following the war. And, it is a global tale. The stories of these individuals take one to places like Chongquing, Meteora, the Amazon, Barbados, Johannesburg, the Alang ship breaking yard (an excellent choice for a post-apocalyptic setting, I must say), Denver, and even onto a ballistic-missile-toting submarine sitting on the ocean floor.

Where Brooks’s book excels is in making one think, and in that regard it does an excellent job. This isn’t about edge-of-the-seat adrenaline injections to which most Zombie book authors aspire. I don’t deny that there are emotional parts to the book, but the tension is reduced by virtue of being a collection of survivors’ tales. That is, we know the story-tellers survived more-or-less intact. Also, because of the intrusions of the interviewer and the authenticity of responses (some are more skilled and open story tellers than others), we never lose sight of the fact that this is a couple of people talking war stories.

That being said, we take a cook’s tour of gut-wrenching food for thought over the course of the novel. Consider a government that abandons its citizenry, and even uses some as bait to help save others. Brooks tugs at the readers’ heartstrings through an interview with a K-9 soldier who describes the role of man’s best friend. Brooks portrays the best and worst that mankind has to offer–as one would surely expect to experience them in such a world gone wrong.

I must admit, some of the topics may be more interesting to me as a social scientist than they will be to others. One interviewee discusses the mismatch between job skills needed and job skills available in a rapidly evolving post-apocalyptic landscape. This speaks to present-day society as much as it does to a dystopian future. The author devotes an interview to questioning the man responsible for reestablishing trust in the dollar in an economy that has by necessity reverted to barter. There is also discussion of revolutions in governance that find their catalyst in the Zombie War. There are intriguing turns of events such as the makeshift flotillas of U.S. citizens converging on Cuba because Fidel’s authoritarian regime was uniquely prepared to close itself off during the earliest days of the outbreak.

With the movie coming out this Friday (June 21), I will say that I can’t see much in common between the book and the trailers for the movie that I’ve seen to date. However, I can imagine the movie being an extension or outgrowth of one of the many vignettes expressed in the book. This is not to say that the movie will be bad (or that it won’t be), but if one sees the movie one will still be left with impetus to read the book.

I enjoyed World War Z because it makes one think–a feat that isn’t the strong suit of Zombie literature.

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Your Post-Apocalyptic Guidance Counselor Is In

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I’ve been reading World War Z because I had heard it’s an interesting book and because it went on sale–presumably in anticipation of the movie that comes out next week that shares a name (but probably little else besides Zombies) with the novel. I don’t usually read zombie or vampire literature because there’s so much of it and rarely does it offer anything new or intriguing. (Once one’s read Bramstoker and Matheson, what more is there to be said on the undead.) Brooks’ book is an exception. Told as a series of oral histories collected by a UN employee who serves as a quasi-protagonist–but not necessarily a central character–of the book, World War Z  chronicles the human dimension of the Zombie War.

The book tells a series of personal vignettes from the earliest sign of the pandemic through the cleanup afterward. One of the issues that is discussed is the mismatch between the skill sets the survivors had and the skill sets that were needed to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. In one of the interviews, a bureaucrat discusses the need for job retraining because they had all these information age analysts, managers, coordinators, etc. but few people who knew how to make new things, grow food, or repair damaged infrastructure. They had all these mid-level white-collar people and they needed blue collars.

This got me thinking. To be honest, I haven’t had a job that would be useful in a post-apocalyptic wasteland since I was a 22-year-old infantry-trained law enforcement officer. Everything since then has involved life in a cubicle or small office uncovering, creating, evaluating, analyzing, describing, modifying, and disseminating information. Then there has been writing, which I love, but which isn’t exactly going to pull humanity back from extinction. (Let’s not kid ourselves that “reading is fundamental” when society has to be rebuilt from the ground up–fed, clothed, etc.)

This isn’t to say that I would be altogether useless in a post-Zombie Apocalypse world. I lived years 0 through 18 on a working farm. That was a long time ago, but I’m sure I could remember something about how to engage in activities that are actually directly related to keeping people alive (as opposed to keeping them informed.)

So will you be useful post zombie apocalypse? What would you be interested in doing if your current Dilbert-esque work life became irrelevant?

BOOK REVIEW: Rules for Virgins by Amy Tan

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Rules for VirginsRules for Virgins by Amy Tan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Amazon page

This Kindle Single is written in the form of advice by a Madam to the newest member of her brothel. It’s historical fiction, and is set ambiguously in the past. It is presumably set in China, but I don’t recall that that is ever explicitly determined.

The Madam shows a mix of maternal protectiveness for the girl and straightforward, harsh candor. She tells the young girl how to game the men, and how to get the most out of them. She instructs the girl in how to defend her virginity until such time as it is sold to someone who can afford to richly compensate them for it.

There is nothing in the way of a plot in the book. It does read just like rambling advice, so there is also not a lot by way of setting. We do get character development of the Madam, but not so much of the title character.

It’s well-written and seems to be well-researched as well. While I don’t know a great deal about the subject, it rings authentic. Despite the subject, the book isn’t gratuitous in its talk of sex. However, don’t be surprised that the entire work revolves “around” the intertwined subjects of sex and money.

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BOOK REVIEW: Ubik by Philip K. Dick

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UbikUbik by Philip K. Dick

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

Philip K. Dick was one of the most imaginative writers and skilled storytellers of the 20th century. There’s a reason that so many of his stories and novels have been made into movies (e.g. Minority Report, Total Recall, Scanner Darkly, and–most famously–Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? [which was adapted into a less quirky and darker film called Blade Runner.])Dick’s works lend themselves to the screen because they lay out novel plots in engaging stories.

Ubik isn’t among the Dick works that have been made into movies, but it’s not for lack of trying. Dick wrote his own screenplay for a film adaptation of the novel, but the project fell through. Over the years, a few directors have talked of Ubik: the Movie, so don’t be surprised if you see it someday.

Ubik deals with the afterlife. It’s set in 1992 (Dick’s future–our past.) (You can’t blame a man who lived from 1928 to 1982 for over anticipating the futuristicness of the 90’s. In the year of his birth Amelia Earhart was making the first solo transatlantic flight by a woman–only a year after Lindbergh became the first ever to do it. The year Ubik was published (1969) the Concorde was making its first supersonic transatlantic flight.)

In the world of Ubik, the moon is being developed for human use, and there are many people with psychic abilities. The protagonist, Glen Runciter, runs a business offering services blocking psychic activity to prevent industrial espionage. He is working for a company that’s building a moon base.

Runciter’s wife is deceased; however, he often consults with her as the dividing line between life and death isn’t so clear in Runciter’s world as our own. There exists a state of “half-life” between life and being fully dead.

The inciting incident is a nefarious explosion on the moon base of which Runciter and his team are victims. At first it appears that Runciter is dead and that his team is alive and trying to rush him back to Earth to get him into a state of half-life (just like his wife.)However, as the novel goes on it becomes less clear who is alive and who is dead. All that is clear is that Runciter exists in a different world from his team members. As the story proceeds there are clues–most notably coins with faces on them that aren’t dead Presidents. Joe Chip (a team member) sees coins with Runciter’s face on them, and later Runciter sees coins with Chip’s face on them.

Ubik is a product that Chip and the others begin to see advertised in their world–which they have come to believe is the afterlife. (Some versions of the book have a spray can on the cover that represents this mysterious product that comes in many forms.) They begin to believe that Ubik is their only hope. There has been a great deal of discussion about the symbolism of Ubik. Its name comes from the word for “everywhere”– as in “ubiquitous”– but what (or who)it’s supposed to be is never clearly revealed. Some have said that Ubik is meant to be God. If so, Dick made an interesting statement because the product is always marketed like some cheesy consumer good.

One test for whether you’ll like this book is whether you enjoy ambiguity in endings. Some readers really enjoy the thought-provocation of an ambiguous ending and the process of thinking out their own conclusions. (I am among this type of reader.) However, there are other readers who feel ripped off if the writer doesn’t tie all the answers up with a neat little ribbon at the end of the book. If you are this type of reader, you will likely hate this book. In other words, if you felt good leaving the theater when you saw Inception you’ll like this book, but if you left shaking your head and saying, “WTF, Chris Nolan?” then don’t bother.

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BOOK REVIEW: So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

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So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (Hitchhiker's Guide, #4)So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

My reviews of the previous books in the series are linked below:

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Restaurant at the End of the Universe

Life, the Universe, and Everything

This, the fourth book in the H2G2 trilogy, feels different from the others. First, it’s not so much about the ensemble cast featured in the other books. This is a book about Arthur, plain and simple. Arthur is reunited with Ford Prefect only in chapter 36 of 40, though there are Ford chapters interspersed preceding that reunion. Marvin the depressive robot makes it into the final chapter, but his appearance seems random and purposeless (except that it interjects a Marvin’s typical humor to nice effect.) Zaphod and Trillian are only mentioned in passing.

Second, romance plays a significant part in the story line, answering the previously perennial question, “Will Arthur ever get laid?”

It will be no surprise to readers of the earlier books that the title, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, was the final message of the dolphins before they jetted from the Earth–they being the only ones on the planet who knew the Vogons were about to destroy Earth to make way for a hyperspace bypass.

The story begins with Arthur being dropped on a planet that looks suspiciously like the Earth that he knows was destroyed. He hitches a ride with a young man and his delirious sister, Fenchurch. He develops an inexplicable connection with Fenchurch, and their burgeoning romance makes up a considerable part of the story. Fenchurch had had an epiphany right before what she can’t help feeling was the destruction of the world, and she is traumatized by her inability to remember.

The only difference between this planet and the one Arthur knows is that–he later finds out–this one is entirely devoid of dolphins. His house is even where he left it with a couple of months of dust and dirt accumulated. The only thing out-of-place is a new fishbowl engraved with “So long, and thanks for all the fish.”

The couple, once united, go to meet an eccentric scientist who claims to know what happened to the dolphins. The eccentric, who goes by the name Wonko the Sane, has a house built inside-out to symbolize that he is outside the asylum–the asylum being the rest of the world. Wonko shows the couple his engraved fishbowl, and they then realize that all three of them (including Fenchurch) received such bowls. Wonko tells them that they should have put their ear to the bowl’s mouth. They do so, and hear a message from the “Save the Humans” organization, which is a dolphin charity group whose name says it all.

Fenchurch wants to see the universe, and so when Ford lands back on Earth–having come to investigate why the Hitchhiker’s Guide entry for Earth has been expanded from “mostly harmless”–they go off together. Their first stop is to read God’s final message to His created. I’ll not tell you the message. So ends the book–well there’s a little epilogue which is nearly meaningless in isolation.

While it’s off-kilter from the other books, this one shares Adams’ usual absurdist humor. However, in keeping with the different feel, one of the best laughs I had in this book was not absurdist humor at all. That laugh resulted from a story told by Arthur to Fenchurch as an icebreaker. He had once bought a packet of crisps and a beverage and sat down at a table to work the crossword at a train station. The station cafe was crowded and so a stranger ended up sitting across the table from him. The man opened the package of crisps and ate one. Taken aback, Arthur didn’t know what to do. Being non-confrontational in a reserved British fashion, all he could manage to do was to ignore the man’s encroachment and take his own crisp to eat. The man, not to be out done, took another. They proceeded like this until the entire pack had been consumed. To Arthur’s mortification, when he got up to go to his train, he found that his packet of crisps was under his newspaper, untouched. Something about that struck me as hilarious.

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Here is the song from the movie of the same name.

BOOK REVIEW: You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

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You Only Live Twice (James Bond, #12)You Only Live Twice by Ian Fleming

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When the film Casino Royale came out, it was panned by Roger Ebert, but not because it was a bad film. What Ebert didn’t like about that movie was that it looked and felt a lot more like the lead should have been named Jason Bourne rather than James Bond. In other words, Daniel Craig portrayed the super-suave secret agent with a license-to-kill as a gritty brawler and not the superman who could take on a swarm of SPECTRE henchmen without getting dust on the labels of his impeccable Armani. The latter is the archetypal James Bond.

The problem for film-makers is that the old Bond hasn’t aged well and seems a more suitable basis for Austin Powers’ style parodies than gripping thrillers.

You Only Live Twice is an entertaining read, but it’s best described as delightfully campy. However, it wasn’t meant to be camp when it came out. That being said, the film–which bears only a superficial resemblance to the novel–made changes specifically to make the storyline make more sense (that’s an odd twist for Hollywood.)Specifically, the arch-villain’s motivation doesn’t seem to make much sense in the novel. We are supposed to accept that the fact that the man is mad and evil to the core is sufficient for him to do something randomly quasi-evil, even if it offers him no benefit.

The synopsis is as follows: At the beginning, we find James Bond in turmoil. His wife died in the last book (within 24 hours of their marriage), and Bond has taken it hard. Since then he’s botched a couple of missions. He’s called into M’s office and thinks he is about to be canned. (He’s almost right.) Instead, M sends him on an assignment to Japan. It’s a challenging mission, but–theoretically–one of a diplomatic nature. Bond is to get Japan to turn over information from a code breaking technology they’ve developed. The Japanese only give this information to the U.S., and America is spotty at passing on relevant information to Britain.

Bond strikes up a friendship with “Tiger” Tanaka, who has no use for the bargaining chip which Bond has to offer. However, Tanaka agrees to hand over the information if Bond will take care of a delicate situation for Japan. In the country’s remote south, a European has set up a “toxic garden” of poisonous plants, animals, and insects. This garden has become a Venus flytrap for (the apparently infinite waves of)suicidal Japanese people.

Bond agrees to the proposal, and latter finds out that the European horticulturist is actually none other than the arch-nemesis who killed his wife, one Ernst Stavro Blofeld. Bond spends a couple of days in a fishing village reconnoitering and establishing the book’s romantic interest in the form of Kissy Suzuki–a pearl diver who was for a brief time a Hollywood starlet.

Bond makes his ninja-like infiltration of the Blofeld castle. I won’t get into how the climax of the book unfolds, but needless to say our hero wins the day.

The most thought-provoking part of the book may just be what happens after Bond finishes his mission. At the mission’s end, he develops amnesia as a result of a head injury. This amnesia makes the book’s title apropos.

There are some interesting themes addressed in the book. For example, there is considerable discussion of the difference of perspective on suicide between the West and Japan. Japan retains some of the samurai era notion that suicide can be used to restore honor, while Bond defends the Western view that suicide is a cowardly out. Still, while the Japanese attitude toward killing oneself when added to the stresses of a Japanese lifestyle (e.g. salaryman living) has resulted in a somewhat heightened suicide rate, the issue is greatly exaggerated to make the premise of Blofeld’s “Death Garden” seem remotely credible.

There’s also a great deal of discussion of Britain’s decline and America’s rise. Great emphasis is put on the fact that the Pacific is “America’s domain” and that the Brits have to be sneaky to operate there–lest they be at the mercy of their former colony.

This novel (and its film) introduced many exotic elements of Japanese culture to an audience beyond the Japanophiles for whom they were no surprise. This exotica includes ninja (spies of medieval Japan), fugu (poison blowfish–a potentially lethal delicacy), and Geisha (female entertainers and escorts.) It’s clear Fleming put some research into these matters. However, it also seems like he picks every element of Japanese history and culture that Westerners would find odd and unusual. At some points, one wonders what stereotype Fleming will next exploit.

There are a lot of patently ridiculous happenings in the book. At one point while Bond is hiding out on the grounds of the garden in a manner reminiscent of the ninja of old, biding his time, he decides that he simply must have a cigarette. Now, I’m not going to get into the plausibility of someone with that bad of an addiction having been able to swim a mile through waters with treacherous currents after having spent a few days rowing out to pearl dive. However, the notion that a special operative would light up in the middle of a covert operation is pretty far-fetched. It’s like saying, “I don’t care if this mission succeeds or even if you kill me, I’m going to have my Marlboro moment.” Some readers may think I’m engaging in hyperbole, but not those of you who’ve been in the military. The scent of cigarette smoke is extremely potent, and then there’s the glow. You don’t get out of boot camp without learning that you don’t smoke on LP/OP (Listening Post / Observation Post,) let alone into Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Bond’s transformation through makeup into a person who looks passably Japanese is another point at which credulity is strained. This make up survives ocean swims, fights, and even after the mission when Bond has amnesia, he can’t recognize that he, himself, looks nothing like the villagers of his hometown hamlet. (Tiger Tanaka has a card printed that says that Bond is deaf and dumb to get around his inability to speak the local language. [Props to Fleming for not going the Hollywood route and making his spy fluent in every imaginable language.])

The most ridiculous piece of the book involves an elaborate machine works that Blofeld uses to make the volcano let off liquid hot magma every 15 minutes like clockwork. He has this ready in anticipation of a need to test whether a victim can understand his instructions to get up and walk out to avoid being burned with hot lava. If Bond understands, he must not be deaf and dumb like the card says, and if he stays put–oh, well, he’s just a deaf and dumb coal miner who went sleepwalking in his ninja suit and ended up inside the heavily guarded castle retreat of the SPECTRE leader. What’s more, he puts the control for this Rube Goldberg contraption where the interrogated can see it (a fact that Bond later puts to use), and even though it’s inside a box, Bond knows exactly what it must be (he’s just that good.)

And, of course, in the most mocked device in this genre, Blofeld gives a long speech when he should be killing Bond.

You’ve got to read this with a certain mindset, and if you want a realistic, gritty thriller you’re not in the right mindset.

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As I said, the movie doesn’t have a whole lot to do with the book besides borrowing some character names and a few scenes. However, below is the trailer for the movie.

CLASSIC WORKS: Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

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Slaughterhouse-FiveSlaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

If you’re like me, you had to read this in high school. I reread it as an adult because the first time its awesomeness was tarnished by the fact that it was mandatory. Being a pessimistic youth, my thought was, “How good could it be if they are making me read it?” They don’t make you read Batman; they make you read Moby Dick. I’m glad I reread it as an adult. Little did I realize, my knee-jerk rejection of the book as something forced upon me, beyond my control, was mirrored by the theme of the book.

Slaughterhouse-Five tells the story of Billy Pilgrim, an optometrist who survived the Dresden fire-bombings was abducted by an alien race and became “unstuck in time.” If you didn’t get this impression, the book is strange. As the term “unstuck in time” suggests, there isn’t a chronological sequencing of events. Instead, the story leaps around from Pilgrim’s adult life as an optometrist to his time as a young soldier in the military to his time as an exhibit in a Tralfamadorian Zoo.

While the novel covers a lot of life, many of the important themes are seen in protagonist’s war experience. It should be noted that there is an autobiographical component to this book. Vonnegut was a prisoner of war who was ordered to help dig for survivors in the wake of the fire-bombing of Dresden. This gave Vonnegut a unique perspective of war and how similarly it is experienced by the enemy. An important line of tension in the book is between Pilgrim’s character and that of the jingoistic Roland Weary.

The Tralfamadorian subplot has a lot to do with being out of control, and learning that perceptions of control are illusory. This is exemplified by the time jumps, which leave Pilgrim completely unable to predict what will happen next. Then there is Pilgrim’s experience being exhibited in an alien zoo, what  could be less in control than that.

Like most of Vonnegut’s work, Slaughterhouse-Five is a dark comedy. There is humor throughout, but humor wrapped in the macabre. For example, whenever anyone dies there is a chorus of “So it goes.”

Everyone should read this, and reread it if necessary.

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BOOK REVIEW: A Dead Hand by Paul Theroux

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A Dead Hand: A Crime in CalcuttaA Dead Hand: A Crime in Calcutta by Paul Theroux

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Amazon page

A Dead Hand opens with the protagonist, Jerry Delfont, receiving an unexpected and unusual letter. Delfont is a traveling writer who is temporarily in Calcutta. The letter is from an American businesswoman and philanthropist who seems to have gone native in India. The woman, Merrill “Ma” Unger, asks Delfont to investigate a mysterious event involving her son’s boyfriend, a young Indian man named Rajat.

Rajat claims to have woken up one night in his cheap hotel room to find the dead body of a boy on the floor. Rajat panicked and left, and is living in fear that he will be picked by the police.

The book in part traces Delfont’s investigation of this mysterious body, and in part describes his burgeoning relationship with “Ma” Unger. The former is slow going through the first 2/3 of the book, and at some points one wonders if Delfont has forgotten about the investigation altogether.

The title has a dual meaning. It describes both the writer’s block Delfont is suffering at the beginning of the book and the actual physical hand that turns up as the sole remaining trace of the dead boy who turns out really was in Rajat’s room.

Coming from famed traveling writer Paul Theroux, it’s no surprise that the development of setting is phenomenal. Theroux not only gives one a sense of the sights, sounds, and scents of Calcutta, he also gives the reader insight into the human dimension of India through a number of supporting characters. There is a passionate young woman who writes poetry and practices the Indian martial art of Kalaripayattu. She is a strong, bright, and independent woman but is stuck in a world of arranged marriages and sexual repression. Despite the official end of the caste system, we see completely subservient Indians as well as others who think they are beyond talking to a lowly writer.

The plotting is solid. It’s neither exceptional nor so flat or formulaic as to be boring. I, who am not particularly good at foreseeing plot twists, did anticipate the ending–at least in broad brush stroke terms. However, the book kept me interested and reading. There was a clear narrative arc and the main character definitely undergoes a change over the course of the book (more on that below.)

In my opinion, the book’s weakness is in character development, and specifically Delfont’s character. We are introduced to a Delfont who is having a tough time, but is essentially a likable guy with his head on straight. However, as he begins to fall for “Ma” Unger, he seems increasingly pathetic. Specifically, he falls into this weird relationship in which he seems to see her both sexually and maternally, and–like a schoolboy with a crush–he wants to do anything he can to please her and to gain her attention. Now, being pathetic is a little like being crazy. If the character knows or suspects they are crazy, then how crazy can they really be? Because Delfont recognizes he’s being pathetic, he remains a sympathetic character. However, I think Theroux over hammers the degree to which Delfont is smitten until we begin to think he is obsessed. The problem is that it makes his transformation and that of his relationship with “Ma”, which happens like the flip of a switch, less credible.

All and all, I would recommend this book. I think it’s particularly interesting for one who wants greater insight into India and, specifically, Calcutta.

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WRITING DEVICES: The Author Cameo in A Dead Hand

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I’ll soon finish reading a novel by Paul Theroux called A Dead Hand. I won’t get into the details of the book in this post because I’ll do a review later, but there’s a writing device in it that really intrigued me. Theroux inserts himself into the novel in a cameo role as a competitor to the protagonist. That is to say, the main character is a traveling writer who writes mostly magazine articles, while Theroux a prolific writer famous for travelogues such as The Great Railway Bazaar and Ghost Train to the Eastern Star,  as well as for many novels which are written with a travel writer’s sensibility for location. (A Dead Hand takes place in and around Calcutta, India.)

I enjoyed the author cameo. It would only work well for a writer like Theroux, one who is both well-known and, because of his nonfiction work, who readers have a feel for as a person. Still, I couldn’t think of another novel I’ve read in which this has been done. I’ve only read Theroux’s nonfiction so far, so maybe this is a running gag with him.

Inserting himself offers some opportunity for adding humor. For example, there’s a part in which the main character’s friend, who is also a go-between who introduces the two writers, says, “He [Theroux] said he wanted to take the train from Battambang to Phnom Penh.”

To which the main character replies, “He would. The bus is quicker!”

This technique also gives one the impression that we are getting some inside insight into the writer. When the main character mistrusts the author, how are we to process that?

Granted it’s a little like an actor looking into the camera and talking straight to the audience.

I’m interested to hear if this is a more widespread technique than I’m aware of? Who else does this?