Collected Miscellany

Allow me to get my lack of knowledge and bias on the table: I haven’t read Bram Stoker’s Dracula and I am not a big fan of the horror genre. Nevertheless, I was intrigued by John Marks latest novel Fangland. Here is the teaser from the back cover:

Evangeline Harker, Associate Producer on television news magazine The Hour, is sent to Transylvania to scout out a possible story on a notorious Eastern European crime boss named Ion Torgu. But she finds the true nature of Torgu’s activities to be far more monstrous than she could have imagined.

In the New York office that once stood in the shadow of the Twin Towers, Evangeline’s disappearance causes uproar and a wave of guilt and recrimination. Then suddenly, months after her disappearance, she’s found convalescing in a Transylvanian monastery, her memory seemingly scrubbed. But then who was sending e-mails in her name? And what do those crates delivered to the office contain? And why does the show’s sound system appear to be infected with some strange aural virus? As a very dark Old-World atmosphere deepens in the halls of one of America’s most trusted television programmes, its employees are forced to confront a threat beyond their wildest imaginings.

Marks, a former producer for 60 Minutes, is clearly trying to update or re-imagine Dracula and use his own experience as a backdrop/setting. This is an ambitious undertaking and Marks deserves credit for “thinking big.” But in the end, he loads too much onto the project and it sort of collapses from the weight.

More below.

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Conn Iggulden’s final book in the Emperor Series, The Gods of War, is a fairly good ending to a fine series on the Roman times of Julius Caesar. Iggulden is a great storyteller who will keep you turning the pages of this book.

Here is a description of the book from the cover:

The year is 53 B.C. Fresh from victory in Gaul, Julius Caesar leads battle-hardened legions across the Rubicon river–threatening Rome herself. Even the master strategist Pompey is caught unprepared by the strike, and forced to abandon his city. The armies of Rome will face each other at last in civil war, led by the two greatest generals ever to walk the seven hills. Thus begins Conn Iggulden’s towering saga of Julius Caesar as he approaches his final destiny—a destiny that will be decided not by legions but by his friend Brutus and an Egyptian queen named Cleopatra, who will bear his only son….

For Caesar, the campaign against Pompey will test his military genius and his appetite for glory to their limits, as the greatest fighting machine the world has ever seen divides against itself in a bloody conflict that will set brother against brother until victory or death. But for Caesar, another kingdom beckons—a world of ancient mysteries and languid sensuality, where a beautiful, bewitching woman waits to snare his heart.

The Gods of War follows Julius Caesar through politics and passion, ruthless ambition and private grief, and into the corruption of power itself. Those he has loved will play a part in his triumphs—as will the jealousy and hatred of his enemies.

From the spectacles of the arena to the whispered lies of conspirators, Conn Iggulden brings to life a world of monumental drama. And at its heart is one extraordinary friendship—marked by fierce loyalty and bitter betrayal, with dark events shrouded in noble ideals.

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I have some more reviews to post, but in the meantime let me offer some links for your reading enjoyment:

– Preston Jones discusses Christopher Hitchens new book God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything and, as you might expect from Christianity Today, has a few quibbles:

It’s true that readers would expect a review of a book titled God Is Not Great, published in a place like this, to be unfriendly. But if Hitchens had anything new and persuasive to tell us, I would say so. Alas, as the preceding paragraph suggests, we are dealing with a very intelligent and well-read author who, when it comes to “religion,” is simply incapable of reason. Hitchens admires Socrates’ claim to be certain only of his own ignorance. The reader wishes that Hitchens would exchange admiration for emulation. The effect of his not doing so is the feeling that one is rather in the presence of an exceedingly angry sophist, and that is sad. But it also sometimes evokes a brief giggle, as when Hitchens writes that “many religions force themselves to think of the birth canal as a one-way street, and even the Koran treats the Virgin Mary with reverence.” (It must have seemed funny at the time.)

– Also at Books and Culture John Wilson, in the course of a discussion translated fiction, comments on the Words Without Borders recent anthology:

Words Without Borders is an online magazine which seeks “to promote international communication through translation of the world’s best writing—selected and translated by a distinguished group of writers, translators, and publishing professionals—and publishing and promoting these works (or excerpts) on the web,” as well acting as “an advocacy organization for literature in translation.” Their cause is a noble one, and seriously underfunded; you should consider sending them a check.

I say that even though the anthology just published with their imprimatur—Words Without Borders: The World Through the Eyes of Writers (Anchor Books)—is a disaster. The trouble begins right off the bat, with the introduction by Andre Dubus III, who recalls how Americans responded to the 1979 embassy takeover in Tehran and again after 9/11 with orgies of violence against immigrants. (You don’t remember it happening quite that way? Maybe this book isn’t for you.) The publicity material for the anthology features a helpful interview comparing censorship in Iran and North Korea with censorship in the United States. (You always wondered why so many people in airports are toting blockbusters by James Patterson and his ilk, and so few are carrying novels from Iran? Now you know.) Over the project there hovers the notion that reading literature in translation is a quasi-political act. You want to strike a blow against American fascism? Read a novel from the Hungarian and accrue virtue, distinguishing yourself from your dreadfully provincial fellow Americans.

In today’s often polarized and hyper-partisan environment conservatives will be tempted to simply write off Moshin Hamid’s The Reluctant Fundamentalist as just another anti-American screed masquerading as fiction. Those on the opposite end may want to label it in a similar fashion but approve of the politics. That would be a mistake. Yes, the book does contain anti-American sentiment and passages that are, to my mind, rather banal leftist complaints about the xenophobic and destructive nature of the American “empire.” But to categorize this book as simply a political rant dressed-up as art is to deny both its aesthetic merit and the cultural insights it might offer.

Fundamentalist takes the unique form of an extended monologue – one half of a conversation really – given by the central character, a Pakistani man named Changez, to an unnamed American in a Lahore outdoor cafe. Changez recognizes the man as an American and, after recommending a spot for tea, begins to tell the stranger of his own experience in America and the events that led to his return to Pakistan.

There is a great deal of ambiguity involved as Changes relates his story: exactly who is the American and why is he in Pakistan? There is a sense of foreboding surrounding the stranger; a peculiar bulge is noted under his sport coat and he admits to experience with violence and perhaps even war. Does he mean harm to Changez – has he come to Pakistan to seek him out? Hamid never directly reveals the answers; even the ending is ambiguous. Instead, the reader is left to come to his own conclusions about what is happening and why.

This one sided conversation is a risky and difficult format to pull off, but Hamid succeeds for the most part. The story moves at a good pace and Changez/Hamid proves to be an adept storyteller. The tension builds steadily but Hamid smoothly uses the mundane interruptions at the cafe (the waiter taking their orders, bringing food, drinks, desert, the activities of passersby, the darkening evening, etc.) to allow the reader to catch their breath.

Changez’s story is a sort of rags to riches to rags again tale. Immigrant from a well respected – but economically deteriorating – family gets accepted to Princeton and parlays that into a job at a famous valuation firm in New York City and entering the high pressure world of international finance. Along the way, he falls for a beautiful, but troubled, young American from a wealthy family. His future seems bright and exciting.

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Not all that surprisingly given my rack record on these things, I have not produced the promised review of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. I am close, but want to try and bring a little more clarity to my thinking and writing before I post on it.

In lieu of this, I am sure, heavily anticipated review allow me to offer something a little different. There have been a number of debates and discussions – some quite heated – on book blogs regarding the potential conflict of interest involved in getting free books. There are a lot of sides to this debate and its implications. You have some professional critics slamming blogs as ignorant gossip sites kissing up to each other. You have some lit blogs standing up for the medium. But you also have some bloggers expressing a great deal of concern that blogs have been co-opted into becoming unpaid marketers and publicists just by the allure of free books and recognition.

I don’t intend to get into a lengthy discussion of the issue here, but I wanted to take a look at this idea through the lens of some reviews of the same book. While doing some background surfing on the recently released
Ladykiller by Lawrence Light and Meredith Anthony I was struck by the wide divergence of opinions on this book. What follows is sampling of reviews and then a discussion of both my take on the book itself, the reviews, and the issue of free books.

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I knew nothing about Val McDermid before I received The Grave Tattoo in the mail. But it looked to be an interesting blend of literary historical mystery (plus, I liked the cover). And it was that. The problem was not so much with the conception as the execution.

Start with the plot. Chauncey Mabe at Pop Matters describes it this way:

Struggling Wordsworth scholar Jane Gresham is waiting tables in London to make ends meet when a tattooed “bog body” turns up in the Lake District where she grew up. The body, also dating from the 17th century, bears tattoos suggesting a sojourn in the South Seas, reviving a local legend that Fletcher Christian, leader of the Bounty mutineers, returned home from Pitcairn Island before he died.

Gresham has a theory that Christian shared his story with childhood chum Wordsworth, who turned it into an epic poem. Now she takes a break from her university teaching assistantship to go home and try to find the lost document in the family papers of longtime Lake District families. Almost as soon as she gets home, people start dying under suspicious circumstances.

Meanwhile, Tenille, a 13-year-old from the tough London neighborhood where Gresham rents a bed-sit, runs afoul of police after her aunt’s troublesome boyfriend is murdered. Beguiled by Tenille’s love of poetry, Gresham befriended the girl, who now follows her to the country and becomes involved in hiding from police and helping search for the lost manuscript

Others searching for the valuable document include Gresham’s charming, greedy ex-boyfriend, while River Wilde, a beautiful and ambitious young pathologists, has taken an interest in producing a television series about the bog body.

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