Terminally Incoherent

It is very easy to write an entertaining review of a really bad book, or a bad movie. Conversely it is hard to write anything meaningful about something that is really good without sounding a tad boring. Thus I am at a strange predicament here. I’d love to rip Life of Pi apart, and make fun of it but I can’t because it’s actually good. For that reason I’m going to skip plot synopsis since you can read that on Amazon, or on the back of the book. I’m going to talk about the guts of the book, and the ideas it contains because they are rather interesting - so they may sort of counterweight the lack of cruelty and toilet humor in this post.

The style of the novel is light, modern, eloquent and quite accessible. It sort of reminds me of Cory Doctorow in the way the author tackles certain subjects but Yann Martell seems to be more focused while Doctorow sometimes starts rambling and looses focus in a sea of pop culture, gadgetry and gimmicks. Let me give you an example - the book starts with tangential discussion of the habits and adaptations Sloths. Martel goes on for about 10 to 15 pages describing these animals in painstaking detail, and with a large dose of humor. Sloth’s are not really part of the story, but they are animals which made a big impression on the main character so we get so we learn quite a bit about them in the very first chapter. This sort of very in-depth, seemingly off-topic tangent was rather characteristic of Cory Doctorow’s style. Martel however seems to be much more adept at making his tangents an integral part of the story, and disguising their nature. I believe that the similarity here is completely incidental, and superficial - and probably completely in my head. But that was the first association that popped into my head when I started reading the book.

It’s probably also worth mentioning that these few initial pages about Sloths were what cemented my decision to buy this book. If the author could ramble about these particularly un-interesting animals in such an amusing and engrossing way, I definitely needed to check out the rest of the novel.

Life of Pi is one of those stories that was designed from scratch to piss off the reviewers who like to categorize literature using easy to comprehend tags such as “drama”, “scifi”, “romance” and etc. There is really no easy way to easily categorize this book. It is part Robinson Cruzoe like survival story, part fairy tale, part religious story and finally part animal planet documentary. Martel has this amazing ability to shift between these completely different themes without you even noticing and weave them into a cohesive whole.

On top of that, the novel is chock full of interesting, thought provoking ideas. For example Martel makes a passionate defense of zoo system that made me change the way I think about these institutions. A lot of people consider consider zoo’s to be a bit cruel places where poor animals are imprisoned for our entertainment. They look at a lion in his enclosure and see a fallen king of the jungle, broken, enslaved and yearning to regain his freedom with the every fiber in his body. Martel on the other hand claims that the very same lion is absolutely happy and content to live in that enclosure simply because he never understood the abstract concept of freedom. Animals are usually very territorial and once they find a place they like, they are very reluctant to move. Out of necessity their territories in the wild end up being quite big because it is not very easy to find a spot that has both plenty of water, food, and a place to sleep. Usually these things are spatially separated, and thus every day the animal must trod around from the watering hole, to it’s favorite hunting/grazing spot and back.

Now if you take that territory, shrink it down in size you have a typical zoo enclosure. The animal has a place to sleep, a place to drink and a place to eat all within reach. On top of that, the food is plentiful, and magically appears out of nowhere every morning, the water is always clean and there are no dangerous predators in sight. Could an animal ask for a better accommodation? Freedom is an abstract concept has inherent value to us humans, but there is no reason to think that an animal would comprehend and understand it’s value - or desire it the same way we do if all it’s needs are being met.

You may or may not agree with this point of view but it is interesting angle, and it made me think. The book would be worth reading just to see this argument being presented by Martel. And trust me, he does it much better than me.

Another interesting topic tackled by the book is religion. The main character is a practicing Hindu, Christian and Muslim all at the same time. He gives all the religions equal time and mind share and considers them compatible and complimentary to each other. Each offers to him a different facet of religious experience, but only combined together they let him express his faith to the fullest. How does this work considering the fact that both Christianity and Islam are exclusive religions? I’m not even going to attempt to explain this. You will have to read the book - but Martel’s religious discussions are worth at least a cursory look. As with the zoo bit, his unique point of view makes you think, and re-evaluate your own preconceptions about religion.

Finally, there are the bizarre, loopy parts that really made an impression on me. I personally think that (note this is a spoiler) [ROT13: gur pneavibebhf vfynaq] an awesome concept. Completely unreal, original but also quite unsettling in a subtle way.

The ending is unconventional as well. It sort of killed me, but at the same time made the story more profound as it was. The way this ending implants a seed of doubt in you is insidious. It bothered me for days, until I realized it didn’t really matter what what actually happened to Pi. Important thing was that the story he told carried the messages it did - that it entertained me, amused me and made me think. So I will go ahead and agree with Pi - I like the story with animals much better, and I’m glad I read it.

As you may or may not know, I’m a big fan of Frank Herbert’s work. I own all six books in the Dune saga, and I more or less consider them an epic Science Fiction masterpiece. Dune is my yard stick by which I use to measure greatness of other SF novels.

You may say what you want about Herbert, but his books pack more thought provoking ideas about philosophy, religion and life per page than any other work in the SF genre. They are incredibly smart, eloquent and while the plot usually moves at a glacial pace, each paragraph is loaded with mind blowing revelations, or interesting ideas. Dune had so many incredibly potent ideas condensed into it created a similar effect that Tolkien’s Trilogy did for Fantasy - almost all science fiction written after Dune echoes or copies it’s themes and ideas.

Even Herbert himself didn’t seem to be able to escape from being overshadowed by his own success. I recently picked up one of his non Dune related novels titled Hellstrom’s Hive and it does seem like a faint echo of Dune. When I first started reading the book I actually thought that this was one of his earlier novels, and that the familiar themes (ecology, eugenics, social conditioning) were simply indicative of authors primary interests which were later expanded and fully fleshed out in Dune. This is however not the case. Prior to writing this review I checked the publishing dates, and it turns out that Hellstroms Hive (I will abbreviate it as HH if you don’t mind) was first released in 1973 which is 3 years after Dune Messiah hit the book shelves and 3 years before the Children of Dune.

Messiah is widely considered to be the weakest book of the Dune saga, so it puts HH right at the lowest point of this great authors form and it shows. Still, Herbert at is worst is still a hell lot better than most writers at the pinnacle of their creative performance. The book is still smart, eloquent and very well written. The concept behind it, and the general setting however are simply not as gripping or fascinating as those of Dune.

The action takes place in the present - or rather Frank Herbert’s present, which is the the earl 70’s. A ultra secretive governmental agency intercepts schematics for some incredibly potent weapons system, and links them to a known insect specialist and film maker Nils Hellstrom. Agents are immediately sent to covertly investigate his remote and secluded farm compound where most of his nature films are being produced. What they find there goes beyond their wildest dreams - they uncover a bizarre social experiment: a human hive. Inhabitants of the compound built a vast network of tunnels and caverns beneath the ground, and their society is modeled after that of social insects like ants of bees.

In a way the Hive is simillar to Huxley’s Brave New World Society with humans being breed and chemically altered for their jobs. There are mute drone workers chemically stripped out of free will, grotesque and sterile science specialists with withered bodies but superhuman intellect, inbred dim witted and docile hulks used for heavy lifting and etc. The Hive is essentially an alien world with it’s own philosophy, goals, and agenda.

Herbert skillfully switches between the two factions and tells the story both from the perspective of the members of the agency and the hive inhabitants. So we get a unique look on what really drives Hellstrom and his people, and how they view the outside world. But while the description of inner workings of the hive, and the psychological portrait of it’s people are compelling there are no where near as complex and layered as for example the Fremen culture Herbert portrayed in Dune.

While the Dune books usually are overflowing with really catchy, memorable ideas and themes that we keep imitating to this day (the spice, the space guild, the Bene Gesserit, Kwisatz Haderach, the Golden Path, Sand worms, personal shields, the Sardukar etc..), HH is essentially a one trick pony. The hive is the central idea - it is the science fiction element and that’s it. The same painstaking level of detail, and slow methodical progress of the plot that actually worked well in Dune is actually painful at times. While it was fascinating to read about court intrigue, or observe Bene Gesserit political maneuvers, the lengthy passages dealing with the Agency going through the motions, and dealing with bureaucratic hurdles are actually a bit dull. They lack that deep insight, religious reflection, philosophical contemplation, and the Zen of Dune.

I think that the core plot and ideas could easily be compressed into 20-30 pages and would make for an excellent short story. As it is, it is merely a mediocre novel which plays around with 3 of the themes known from dune: ecology, eugenics (selective breeding for special purposes) and social conditioning. All of them were already pretty well covered in the two Dune books that preceded HH and the author really had given them a much better treatment in the 4 Dune books which followed it. In my mind this book seems to be a light warm up or perhaps a much needed combo breaker that helped Herbert to get into the mood for Children of Dune.

If you are a big Frank Herbert fan like me, pick it up. It is well written, and uses that distinct 3rd person, objective, omnipotent narration style that you know and love from the Dune books. Just don’t expect any conceptual fireworks. Just sit back, and enjoy the ride. If you fell asleep reading Dune, and then fell asleep again watching one of it’s movie adaptations stay clear of this title. You have to appreciate Herbert’s specific, slow, deliberate and detailed style to fully enjoy this book.

I have this strange fascination with post apocalyptic stories. I love zombie movies, and MadMax like pictures despite their obvious cheesiness. I loved Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake, and I’m glad that I picked up I am Legend after watching that unfortunate Will Smith movie which btw had nothing in common with the book, with exception of the title and the name of the lead character. So when I have seen the blurb for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road and looked through it’s glowing reviews I was sold immediately.

The book paints a vivid and yet disturbing picture of a world in which civilization has collapsed. Some unnamed, and unreferenced cataclysm has scorched the earth and changed the world forever. The novel starts many years after the catastrophe but the planet still haven’t recovered. The conditions are essentially those of a nuclear winter - the sky is shrouded, sun is never clearly visible, and the temperatures rarely climb above the freezing point. When it’s not snowing, it’s raining. When it’s not raining, the wind is blowing around fine grained gray ash, that makes breathing difficult. All the life is gone - there are no birds in the sky, no fish in the rivers and all the vegetation either withered away due to the perpetual twilight, or got scorched away by raging firestorms years ago.

Cities are populated by hollow, plundered, rusting, roting or burned buildings. Every store, and house has been looted years ago and everything is in the state of decay. A man and his son are traveling through this empty, sad and desolate world trying to reach the sea. They are always on the verge of starvation, as finding food is becoming more difficult every day. What is worse, they are not the only survivors. There are other people out on the roads, and they are also starving and are ready to do anything to survive. Anyone they meet is a potential threat - as the last human remaining communities seem to sustain themselves either by warfare and banditry or through cannibalism.

Unlike most of stories that deal with post apocalyptic scenarios, The Road is not some moralizing cautionary tale. We never find out what destroyed the world. It could have been a nuclear war, but it could have also been a force of nature - for example an asteroid impact akin to the one that wiped the dinosaurs in the past. No one knows, no one cares. This is not what the story is about - the story is about the human condition. It is a moving tale about survival, love, fatherhood and growing up in a world that has gone mad. It it is about desperately preserving the very essence of humanity against all the odds.

It touches upon many interesting topics - for example strange form of generation gap that exists only in this new reality. The father still remembers the world as it was before the catastrophe, but his young son has never experienced it. He only knows it from his fathers stories, and he suspects that he made up or embellished half of it. Contrasted with the bleak and harsh reality he knows, the fairytale sunny, overpopulated world full of teeming wildlife, and technology seems as alien to him, as the reality described in the book is alien to us. As the two travel together they see starkly different worlds.

Furthermore, how do you instill morality, goodness and kindness in a child in a world in which these values are only faint memories of a temperamental old man. Especially if this man can be as savage and brutal as the bandits and cannibals, when he is forced to defend his child.

There are no names in this novel - nameless characters move through nameless places. McCarthy stripped all the unnecessary geographical details from his narrative. The world is dead, the cities stand vacant, the rivers are empty - who cares what they are called. It wouldn’t make a difference - not to the characters at least. He concentrates on things which are important to them - like the weather conditions, the food they eat, or are able to find, the overpowering sense of danger, the omnipresent decay or the evidence of unbelievable depravities committed by the other survivors.

It’s thought provoking, moving and disturbing - and in a sense beautiful. The only thing that I didn’t like about it was the ending - the very last page or two [spoiler]where the boy is taken in by the strange man he meets on the road and his familly[/spoiler]. It just seemed anticlimactic. After all the stuff they went through [spoiler]he just finds a “normal” family, and lives happily ever after[/spoiler]? I don’t know, to me it just didn’t gel with the rest of the book. Perhaps I was really expecting either a very morbid, or very ambiguous ending - for example [spoiler]the boy taking the road alone this time, walking off into the gray ashen wasteland - this marking his passage into adulthood[/spoiler]. But alas, this is what we get. And since this conceptual glitch doesn’t show up until the very last 2 pages of the novel, I really think it’s not that bad.

If you haven’t read it, and you like this sort of post apocalyptic stories, definitely pick it up. But here is a word of warning - despite the premise, there is actually not that much action or suspense in this book. Or rather the suspense builds very gradually over many pages, and it is subtle. If you are looking for an action packed page turner, you will probably be disappointed.

Banking on the success of the adaptation of McCarthy’s other novel “No Country for Old Men” Hollywood already decided to create a movie based on “The Road” supposedly with Arragorn Viggo Mortensen in the lead role. I’m not really sure if Stareagorn could really pull this off.

I can’t wait to see how they fuck this one up. I wouldn’t be surprised if they decided to animate some of the cannibals and make them all monstrous and mutated, or made the father an ex navy seal and have him carry an M4 instead of the pistol. Most likely the movie will totally suck - but then again, we’ll see.

Continuing with my reader participation streak. There will be time for more single sided rants later on. This time I’m flipping it around and hopefully letting everyone, both tech oriented and non-technical readers to have a chance to contribute. Let’s talk about literature! I hereby designate this as the book recommendation thread.

What are you reading right now? Alternatively what was the last book that you have read that has either profoundly affected you? I’m mostly looking for fiction recommendations, but if you have some good non-fiction titles that are a must-read in your mind, I would love to hear about them as well.

You can usually see what I’m reading at the moment in the little status thing in the sidebar - but I forget to upgrade it half of the time. For example, right now I’m reading The Road by Cormac McArthy but that thing still says Night Watch because I was to lazy to change it. I’m 3/4 through the book, and I can tell you, it is good. Profound, disturbing and thought provoking. And I can’t put it down. Great read. You should see a review of it appearing here very shortly - I just need to finish it and gather my thoughts on it.

I have a few titles on the back burner. I’m around half way through Helstrom’s Hive by Frank Herbert (creator of Dune) but I’m not really feeling it. It’s one of his early novels and it shows. I will trudge through it after I’m done with Cormac out of respect for the author and likely post a review as well.

I have Stranger in Strange Land sitting on my shelf, lined up to be next on the reading list because I’m apparently not allowed to use the word grok until I finish it. After that, I’m open to suggestions. Here is what I got so far from various sources:

1. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
2. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
3. House of Leaves by Mark Danielewski

I haven’t read any of these yet, but they all seem interesting, each for different reasons. After that, I’m out of reading material. This is where you come in. What should I pick up next? This is the time to pimp your favorite book, or plug your favorite author.

The other day my dad saw me dog ear my book to save my place, and he made a comment about it. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I also sometimes make notes on the margins, and mark interesting quotes and passages in the books that I own. It seems that a lot of people get hung up about these things. No dog earing, no putting an open book face down on the table, no scribbling in the books and etc… And these are not just pet peeves of few bibliophiles - these are quite widely held beliefs.

But why is that? It is just a hard copy! A $5 paperback edition and there is a million of copies just like this one. A book is just a storage medium - it is designed to store information in a human accessible way. The data which it contains is the important and valuable commodity. The paper based container however - is for a lack or a better word disposable. And it comes with a built in bookmark functionality. Why not use it?

In fact I would argue that by adding my notes, scribbles and permanent dog-ear bookmarks I’m actually adding value to my copy. Now it has annotations that will help me find interesting passages, or remind me about the parts that I found worth remembering when I pick up the book second time around. It’s almost like having a time capsule - as you re-read the book that had a profound impact on you, you see what used to be important to you in the past. So the paper medium is not only containing data but also my markup and notes.

So I guess this is just a difference of the point of view. Which one are you? Do you dog ear and scribble in your books, or do you keep them in pristine condition? Are you one of the people who think dog earing is a criminal offense? Let me know. I’d love to hear arguments from both sides - to see how people treat their reading material and why.