The Master of Ballantrae by Robert Louis Stevenson

My brother the scoundrel

The Master of Ballantrae, published in 1889, is a historical novel by Robert Louis Stevenson. The story begins in Scotland with the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, when Bonnie Prince Charlie rebelled against King George II. At the estate of Durrisdeer in Scotland lives Lord Durie and his two sons. Not knowing which side will triumph in the rebellion, the family decides to cover both bases. It is determined by the toss of a coin that the elder son James, called the Master of Ballantrae and the rightful heir of Durrisdeer, will go off to fight on the side of the rebels, while the younger son Henry will remain at home to support the incumbent king. Little does the family realize that this coin toss will spark a vicious quarrel over the possession of the family estate.

Film adaptations of The Master of Ballantrae seem to emphasize swashbuckling adventure, but there really aren’t a lot of swords clashing or guns blazing in this book. The Master of Ballantrae has more in common with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights than it does with The Three Musketeers or Rob Roy. Wuthering Heights is a book about a dysfunctional family who live in an isolated estate on the moors of Northern England. Bearing lifelong grudges, the family members devote themselves to making each other’s lives miserable, sometimes in darkly comic ways. Life at Durrisdeer is not far off from that. The plot of The Master of Ballantrae revolves around the bitter rivalry between the two brothers, each obsessed with getting the upper hand over the other. James and Henry each takes pleasure in the misfortune, destitution, or humiliation of his sibling.

Unlike the denizens of Wuthering Heights, however, the characters in The Master of Ballantrae do not stay confined to their manor. This story runs farther afield, with chapters taking place in Paris, India, and the United States—mostly in the woods of upstate New York, home to savage Natives. This globetrotting aspect of the book, coupled with flashbacks of the Master’s wartime escapades, qualify this book as an adventure novel, but by no mean a conventional one.

Stevenson’s books remind me of Joseph Conrad. Both authors write adventure novels that transcend genre fiction to achieve the heights of fine literature, never settling for a formulaic adventure narrative but instead pushing the envelope to defy readers’ expectations. Both tell stories set in exotic locales, or tales of sea travel, painted with loads of vivid local color. The difference between the two is that Conrad’s prose is often confusing, obscure, tedious, and pretentious, whereas Stevenson’s prose is smoothly flowing, clear, lively, and mellifluous. Stevenson is one of the English language’s consummate storytellers. It’s no wonder that he was revered by so many writers of the late-nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

About the only thing I don’t like about Stevenson’s writing is that he assumes a good deal of knowledge of Scottish history and politics on the part of the reader. Not having that knowledge myself, I usually feel like I’m not quite getting everything that he’s saying. There are a couple points in The Master of Ballantrae where I wasn’t quite sure of the political or legal ramifications of James or Henry’s strategy. But for those few instances, however, this novel remains remarkably fresh, accessible, and entertaining over a century after it was published. Sir Walter Scott, another author of Scottish historical adventures, wrote prose that reads as if it were written 200 years ago. Stevenson’s writing, on the other hand, reads as if it might have been penned last week. The Master of Ballantrae is a work of classic, timeless storytelling that can still move, amuse, and excite readers of the 21st century.  

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1LQIQWILKRIX8/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

John James Audubon: The Making of an American by Richard Rhodes

The artist as immigrant entrepreneur in the early republic

American author Richard Rhodes won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1986 book The Making of the Atomic Bomb. He has subsequently written a few more books on the Cold War, the arms race, nuclear energy, and nuclear terrorism, thus carving out a niche for himself in that area. In 2004, however, Rhodes played against type by publishing a biography of John James Audubon (1785–1851), the French-American artist and ornithologist whose paintings of American birds comprise what may be the greatest coffee-table book ever published, The Birds of America. In his ambitious biography John James Audubon: The Making of an American, Rhodes provides a complete life and times that not only recounts the fascinating events of this great artist’s life but also reveals much about American society and westward expansion during Audubon’s lifetime.

I had previously read William Souder’s biography of Audubon, Under a Wild Sky, which was also published in 2004. Souder concentrates more on Audubon as a naturalist, and places much emphasis on the making of The Birds of America book. Rhodes’s book is more of a full cradle-to-grave biography that leaves no stone unturned. All periods of Audubon’s life, from birth to death, are treated with more or less equal attention. Rhodes clearly wants to write the definitive biography of Audubon and is therefore hesitant to leave anything out. As a result, Audubon’s early business ventures and extensive travel itineraries are covered in great detail, whether those ventures were fruitful or not. The text is also peppered with plenty of mini-biographies of every brother-in-law, cousin, or casual acquaintance. This comprehensive omit-nothing treatment reminds me of Ron Chernow’s biographies of Alexander Hamilton and George Washington. The advantage is you learn a lot, but a compelling narrative can sometimes get bogged down in too much encyclopedic detail.

Much discussion is devoted to Audubon’s marriage. The artist was separated from his wife, Lucy Bakewell Audubon, for years as he finished and promoted The Birds of America in Europe while she remained in America. Lucy earned a living as a teacher and raised their children, often facing financial hardship, while Audubon pursued his dream project in the hopes of future financial security. Souder makes Audubon out to be the villain in that story, a man who basically neglected his wife and kids. Rhodes, on the other hand, paints Audubon as a lonely lover constantly begging his wife to join him in Europe, only to be inexplicably refused again and again. Either way, I got more marital drama than I really wanted. Both Souder and Rhodes mine the couple’s prolific correspondence to provide blow-by-blow accounts of this transatlantic marital tug of war, when really some more concise summarization would have sufficed.

Rhodes’s biography of Audubon is not just for bird lovers. (In fact, bird lovers might prefer Souder’s book). As the subtitle indicates, this book will also appeal to readers of American history for the light it sheds on the Early Republic and the antebellum South. Rhodes doesn’t so much emphasize Audubon the artist or the ornithologist but rather Audubon the entrepreneur. Like many immigrants, Audubon came to America for a better life but found more struggle than manna from heaven. To pursue his American dream, Audubon had to navigate the frequently unstable and precarious economic climate of a young nation with growing pains. In John James Audubon, Rhodes delivers almost a dual biography of the man and the nation growing up together. Though the narrative sometimes gets dry at times, it’s an informative history lesson.  

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R3QXCKWHGHABWZ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz

OCD: The Novel

Witold Gombrowicz (1904-1969) is widely considered one of Poland’s greatest modern writers. His novel Cosmos was published in 1965. It won the Prix International (International Prize for Literature) in 1967. I read the 2005 translation by Danuta Borchardt, who did a very fine job of interpreting Gombrowicz’s avant-garde prose into lively, smooth-flowing English.

The narrator of Cosmos, also named Witold, and his friend Fuks are scholars of some sort. They leave Warsaw for a sojourn in Zakopane, a Polish vacation destination, where they hope to relax, study, and write. In a sort of B&B arrangement, they take up lodging with a family in their country home. As they enter the grounds of their new home, the pair discover a dead sparrow hanging from a string. Who would do such a thing? This is seen as a bad omen and immediately sparks paranoia in the two young men. After taking up residence in the household, Witold and Fuks notice other possible “signs” of what they perceive to be some intelligent design concealing a message or a warning. These signs could be as esoteric as water spots on a ceiling that form the shape of an arrow, an arrow that the two can’t resist following until it leads them to other clues, real or imagined, to this mysterious puzzle. Katasia, a member of their host family, has a disfigured lip that Witold fixates on and inexplicably becomes obsessed with until he sees the form of this woman’s mouth just about everywhere he looks. Any repetition of visual or audial cues, such as two straight lines, two pieces of string, or two banging noises, are interpreted by Witold and Fuks as part of a sinister pattern. The pair are compelled to decipher this secret code that may only exist in their paranoid minds.

Not being a psychologist, I don’t know the textbook definition of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), but my amateur diagnosis would be that these two are suffering from an extreme form of that behavioral malady. Cosmos is quite comic in its initial chapters, as the lengths to which Witold and Fuks obsess over every detail of their surroundings is absurd, ridiculous, and delusional. The strange humor and Gombrowicz’s creative use of language reminded me a bit of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels. The book takes a darker turn at about the midway point, however, as Witold’s obsessions become sexual in nature. His attraction to one of his housemates is as obsessive as his compulsion to establish patterns where there are none. One not only fears for his sanity but for the safety of those around him.

Written from the point of view of Witold, the prose reflects his obsessive-compulsive nature. The text is riddled with the constant repetition of key words and phrases, basically all the “signs” over which Witold is obsessing. Usually I don’t care much for modernist writers who play a lot of word games, but there’s a method to Gombrowicz’s madness that I appreciated and enjoyed. His style is not just verbal masturbation but actually enhances the narrative rather than obscures it. The best thing about this novel is that it is so unpredictable. The plot could just as easily end in violence as in comedy, and the reader can never be sure if the grand design that Witold and Fuks are pursuing is real or imagined. With so many options on the table, I was disappointed with the ending, which felt like a weak resolution to a fascinating novel. Overall, however, I found Cosmos to be a very thought-provoking and satisfyingly original work of literature.

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R232PV8P1S6TWJ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

Mexico (Ancient Peoples and Places series) by Michael D. Coe

Great concise overview of everyone northwest of the Maya

In 1957, the London publisher Thames & Hudson began publishing a series of books on archaeology entitled Ancient Peoples and Places. These books were republished in America by Frederick A. Praeger. In most cases, each book synthesized the current research on a particular region or ancient civilization. These books are authoritative enough to perhaps be used in undergraduate courses but accessible enough to educate general readers. The series eventually included at least 112 volumes. Some of these books are still in print and have been updated over the years.

Mexico, the 29th book in the Ancient Peoples and Places series, was first published in 1962 and is now in its eighth edition. It was written by Michael D. Coe, a distinguished archaeologist of pre-Colombian Mexico and Mesoamerica. Of the major scholars of Mexico’s ancient peoples, Coe has perhaps done the most to educate non-academics by writing books accessible to the general public, such as his popular 1992 book Breaking the Maya Code, which won a National Book Award. The reader won’t find any Maya here, however. Coe explains that the Maya need their own book in the series, which he wrote and published a few years later. Here Coe makes a cultural distinction between Mesoamerica, home of the Maya, and Mexico proper, being everything northwest of the Yucatán. Much of the ancient history presented here centers around the Valley of Mexico, location of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan (site of modern Mexico City).

Later editions of this book are subtitled From the Olmecs to the Aztecs, but the book is really a broad overview of all the ancient cultures that inhabited Mexico from the first humans who walked down from the Bering Land Bridge thousands of years ago to the conquest of the Aztecs by the Spanish conquistadores in 1521. The Olmecs and the Aztecs only get one chapter each. (They both later got their own books in the Ancient Peoples and Places series.) The absence of the Maya and the brevity with which the Olmecs and Aztecs are treated may be perceived by some as a detriment to the book, but I actually see it as a strength. One can find hundreds of books on those three civilizations, while the rest of Mexico’s ancient peoples go ignored or neglected. Here Coe provides a concise but comprehensive overview that gives everyone their due consideration. Centuries before the rise of the Aztecs, Native Mexican peoples had already left monumental testaments to their great civilizations, such as the metropolis of Teotihuacán northeast of Mexico City, Monte Albán in Oaxaca, and El Tajín in Veracruz. An archaeologically curious traveler wandering around Mexico today will hear all about the ancient histories of the Toltec, Mixtec, Zapotec, and Chichimec peoples, and many more. It is hard to grasp the broader picture of where and when these different cultures lived, and how they interacted and influenced one another. This book provides a clear key to how they all fit together geographically, chronologically, and culturally.

The content is a combination of historical synopses and mini-field reports of what was found at particular archaeological digs. Although this is an introductory text, Coe doesn’t dumb down the subject matter. The reader is expected to quickly grasp archaeological terminology, for example the official designations for specific Ice Age periods, pottery cultures, or styles of spear points. The many photographs, illustrations, charts, and maps are helpful. I’m not an archaeologist, just a layman and tourist, but I have read much on Mexican history, and I still learned a lot of fascinating facts from this book. If this is an indication of the quality one can expect from the Ancient Peoples and Places series, then I look forward to reading many more of these books.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R1AP7MRHOLGQ2F/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

What Not: A Prophetic Comedy by Rose Macaulay

Intelligence-based eugenics in a future Britain

English author Rose Macaulay wrote her novel What Not during World War I, and it was published in 1918. The story is set in the near future following the end of the war. Of course, at the time of writing, no one knew when the war was going to end. This near future is far enough along to allow for flying cars and buses. Such mentions of future technology, however, don’t factor much into the story. The primary focus of the novel is a government-established program of eugenics and the political and popular reaction to it.

The Ministry of Brains, headquartered in London, regulates the intellectual development of every citizen in Britain. The government has determined that the best way to avoid another war is to elevate the intelligence of the populace. (That doesn’t seem logical to me, since I think greed and arrogance would be bigger factors to worry about than stupidity, but that’s Macaulay’s premise.) Each individual is given a grade for their mental acuity. A1 for the brainy, for example; C3 for the dense. In order to encourage the birth of more intelligent children, men and women are only allowed to marry partners who have a brain rating within a prescribed close proximity to their own. Some individuals with a history of mental deficiency in their families are forbidden from marrying at all. To discourage the disregarding of these laws, parents with stupid babies are taxed for their dumb offspring, while those with smart babies receive benefits. The Ministry of Brains also administers a system of Mind Training Courses, designed to raise the intelligence and mental efficiency of even the lowest rated brains. The government has made these courses mandatory, unless a citizen is able to obtain an exemption, usually given in cases of mental incompetence.

What Not isn’t so much about the science, philosophy, or morality of this eugenics program. This isn’t a science fiction novel like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s more about the public’s reaction to the program, as explored through debates between the characters. The story focuses primarily on four civil servants who work for the Ministry of Brains. They spend their weekends in a rural town outside of London called Little Chantreys, where we are introduced to a confusing array of what seems like dozens of minor characters. Most of the small-town residents are conservative in nature and object to the new-fangled ways of the government’s Brains program, while the employees of the Ministry are duty-bound to defend their department and its policies.

The purpose of all this is social satire, at least for the first half of the book. Every sentence of Macaulay’s prose is dripping with sardonic humor of a peculiarly British nature. She indiscriminately makes fun of the rich, the poor, the smart, the stupid, Christians, Atheists, government, clergy, and labor alike. Since so much of the satire is directed specifically towards British society, the jokes don’t always connect with the American reader. About the halfway point, the novel takes a more serious turn as it focuses more emphatically on a love story between a man and a woman forbidden by government policy to marry. This love story is a cut above the typical romance one finds in century-old English literature. In fact, the book’s romance is more successfully compelling than its humor is successfully funny.

In the end, Macaulay doesn’t really have anything profound to say about the subject of eugenics, but one can see how the intelligence policies of the Ministry of Brains could be a symbol of encroachments upon civil liberties in general. Macaulay would have certainly witnessed plenty of such encroachments during the Great War. Her viewpoint as expressed here leans to the side of liberalism. Macaulay never seems to take her subject too seriously, however, so why should the reader? It all just feels like an excuse to tell a love story, and not a bad one at that.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R3N05YO3X2NVNL/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

The System of the World by Sir Isaac Newton

The mathematics of planets, tides, and comets

The System of the World (De mundi systemate, in the original Latin) is the third volume of Sir Isaac Newton’s magnum opus Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy). The Principia, for short, is Western Civilization’s fundamental text on physics, including the mathematics necessary to establish and prove the physical laws that govern nature. Volume I of the Principia is written in the logical structure of mathematical proofs, much like Euclid’s Elements. Volume III: The System of the World, on the other hand, is written in plain prose text, for the most part. This foolishly led me to believe that The System of the World might be like the Principia for Dummies, that is, Newton’s attempt to interpret his findings to a wider readership. Alas, this was not the case. While I was certainly able to get the general gist of Newton’s astronomical conclusions, one really needs a PhD in mathematics or physics to fully appreciate all that the great genius has to say in The System of the World.

In this third book of the Principia, Newton demonstrates how the laws of physics that he defined in the earlier volumes are evident in the movements of astronomical bodies in our solar system. Newton focuses on three main topics. First he discusses planets and moons. Newton explains how gravity determines the movements of astronomical bodies, and how the relationship between such factors as mass, distance, speed, and density dictates the amount of gravitational force that these bodies exert on one another. This section of the book is the most accessible to the general reader, but it’s also the briefest. From here, Newton then moves on to an extensive discussion of tides and how they are affected by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. At this point, Newton’s still not speaking in logical proofs or hauling out geometrical diagrams, but he does use geometrical and astrophysical terms that are not common knowledge to laymen, such as “syzygies,” “quadratures,” and “librations.”

Newton reserves his longest and most difficult discourse for the third major topic of this book: comets, which occupies roughly the second half of the book. Newton begins by recapping much anecdotal and historical research from comet sightings of the past. He then proceeds into mathematical formulae for how to determine a comet’s speed or distance from the sun. Much consideration is given to the tails of comets, what causes them, and what their size and direction says about the comet from which they sprang. Eventually, Newton outlines the necessary mathematics for calculating the trajectories of comets, which was way beyond my understanding. By the end of the book, Newton has returned to the logical syntax of Euclidian geometry, outlining his arguments in the structure of problem, lemmas, and proof.

The System of the World is no doubt a work of genius, but for non-geniuses it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. I’m sure the knowledge that Newton presents here has proven invaluable to scientists, mathematicians, and astronomers for the past three centuries. I’m very glad he wrote it for them, but this was way more than I ever wanted to know about tides and comets. While I won’t blame Newton for my ignorance, I can’t really recommend his book either since 99 percent of the people reading this review will probably find this as mystifying as I did. If you’re part of that other 1 percent, good for you.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R30S8NNDHBWZZ9/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

The Master of the World by Jules Verne

Slow-moving story about fast-moving vehicle

Jules Verne spent his life writing a series of adventure novels known as his Voyages Extraordinares. Published in 1904, the year before his death, The Master of the World is the second-last of the 54 novels in that series published during Verne’s lifetime (Verne’s son wrote a few after his death). The novel is narrated by John Strock, an agent with the USA’s “Federal Police.” Some mysterious occurrences have taken place on a mountaintop in North Carolina, leading some to believe a volcanic eruption may soon take place. Strock is sent to investigate. He leads an exhibition to summit the peak, but can’t reach the top. Not long after, a superfast automobile is spotted tearing down America’s roads at speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, terrifying those who encounter it. Who is this mad motorist, and how could he build such an advanced machine? Could this vehicle be related to the strange lights and sounds on that mountain in North Carolina?

This novel takes place entirely in America, but Verne doesn’t just settle for adventure in New York City or Washington, DC. As you read through The Master of the World, you can just see Verne poring over his atlas to pick out lesser-known locations from the map. For example, the plot features an automobile race across the state of Wisconsin, from Prairie du Chien to Milwaukee. In this book, Verne pays similar attention to the Great Lakes, the Atlantic Coast, and the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. On the other hand, however, he inexplicably invents a fictional lake in the nonexistent “mountains of Kansas” that is large enough to support a fishing industry and steamship traffic.

This is very slow-moving story which teases the reader in anticipation of a few reveals at the end of the novel. There are only two surprises in this novel, or intended surprises anyway, because the first one is so predictable you can see it coming as early as chapter one. This revelation has to do with the vehicle, and there’s a good chance the cover art of whatever edition you’re reading has already spoiled that surprise. The book’s second surprise is that it’s actually a sequel to an earlier Verne novel. I won’t tell you which one, because that would be a spoiler. I had not read that previous novel, but it really wasn’t necessary because here Verne spends a chapter summarizing that earlier book.

The character who calls himself “The Master of the World” is the most boring James Bond villain imaginable. Sure, he has a secret high-tech lair hidden in a remote location, and he drives a cool, technologically advanced vehicle. He doesn’t actually do anything nefarious with his vehicle, however, except drive really fast and scare people. At least Captain Nemo sunk ships with the Nautilus in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Speaking of which, the villain here seems like just a watered-down redux of Nemo, inferior in every way. One really gets the idea that here at the end of his career Verne had run out of ideas. The title itself is ridiculous, in that how can someone aspire to world domination with just one superior vehicle? Maybe if The Master had a fleet of hundreds, he might be a serious threat, but that idea is never even suggested.

I like the geographical aspect of Verne’s adventures, how he provides his (usually) informed take on various locations of the world. Even if he’s never traveled to the place he’s describing, one can always sense the joy of travel and exploration in his writing. That element of his fiction is even more prevalent in his body of work than the science fiction for which he is now famous. His adventure plots, however, are hit and miss, and The Master of the World is a hard miss. You’d be better off rereading one of his Nemo books, Twenty Thousand Leagues or The Mysterious Island.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon and leave me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R3UHREJZJC8JBQ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

The Code Book: The Science of Secrecy from Ancient Egypt to Quantum Cryptography by Simon Singh

An intelligent mix of history and how-to

In The Code Book, British author and physicist Simon Singh provides a history of cryptography from ancient times to the present. This is a popular science book aimed at general readers, so the text is accessible and isn’t bogged down with incomprehensible mathematical jargon. It’s still an intellectually challenging read, however, and those who are interested in the arcane details of this subject will find it quite entertaining. Singh explains that The Code Book is really more about ciphers than about codes, but The Cipher Book just wouldn’t sound as cool.

Every time someone writes a book about cryptography for the general reader, some fundamentals must be covered. First of all, the author must explain how a simple alphabetic substitution cipher works (each letter in the alphabet is substituted for another). Then, the writer must explain how to solve such a cipher using frequency analysis (the most commonly used letter in the ciphertext, for example, is likely to represent E, the most common letter in the English alphabet, and so on). Anyone with an interest in cryptography already knows about these elementary matters, but they must be included in order to lay the foundation for the discussion and to educate newcomers to the subject. It’s no small feat that Singh manages to explain these basics in an articulate way that novices can understand but won’t bore the pants off those who already know what he’s talking about.

The Code Book is a fascinating mix of cryptographic history and practical knowledge on how ciphers are created and cracked. Singh doesn’t just talk about how ciphers were used in the past and show you some examples. He really gives you an understanding of how each cipher works and the motivation behind its development. There’s an entire chapter, for example, on the Nazis’ World War II code machine named Enigma. The reader comes away with a pretty thorough understanding of that mechanism’s cryptographic process. This is followed by another chapter about how the Allies cracked the Enigma cipher. From there, Singh goes into digital cryptography. To some extent, computer-generated ciphers are too complex for the unaided human mind to unravel, but Singh still does a great job of explaining the methods and mathematics behind today’s digital encryption. Finally, Singh moves into quantum cryptography and quantum computing. In order to discuss these topics, he has to give the reader a nutshell overview of quantum mechanics, which he manages to do quite eloquently.

Singh goes off on some digressions that feel unnecessary. In the first chapter, I don’t think I needed a complete biography of Mary Queen of Scots to figure out how her cipher worked, and the discussion of cryptography really got lost amid all the historical context. Singh also spends half a chapter on the decipherment of ancient languages, such as Egyptian hieroglyphics and Linear B. While I’m interested in that subject, it feels out of place here because it ventures more into linguistics than cryptography.

The Code Book was published in 1999, so it only covers the history of cryptography up to that point. A lot has happened since then. Singh writes about identity theft and personal data leaks as if they were events bound to happen in the future, not the common occurrences of today. Although he covers the initial scientific investigations into quantum computing, further developments have occurred in the past two decades. This is a history book, after all, and the present never stays the present forever. As a historical summary of cryptography up to the year 2000, it’s hard to imagine a better one-volume treatment than this.  

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.
https://www.amazon.com/review/R2RA3N728FZS19/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

Werewolf by Aksel Sandemose

The private lives of postwar Norwegians

Aksel Sandemose was born in Denmark, where he began his writing career. At about the age of 30, he moved to Norway and continued his literary career there. He published books in both languages. His novel Werewolf (Varulven), published in 1958, is a distinctly Norwegian narrative. The English translation of this book was published in 1966 by the University of Wisconsin Press as part of their Nordic Translation Series. These books are available for free download at the website of the University of Wisconsin Libraries.

Erling Vik is a Norwegian writer and an alcoholic. The love of his life is Felicia, whom he first met in 1934. He took her virginity when she was 17, and he 34. This created a lifelong bond between them, though they often went their separate ways in life. He married another woman, was involved with many others, and had an illegitimate daughter with a prostitute. Felicia, likewise, had relationships with other men before marrying Jan and settling down at his farm named Venhaug. Now Felicia is in her early forties, and Erling in his late fifties. He is a frequent visitor to Venhaug, where he and Felicia carry on their sporadic love affair, with the approval of Jan. In addition, Felicia has essentially adopted Erling’s daughter Julie, who also resides at Venhaug. When the Nazis invaded Norway, Erling, Felicia, and Jan all had roles in the resistance movement. They all took a part in the “liquidation” (assassination) of Nazi collaborators and spent time in exile in Sweden. Now, years after the war, Felicia (with Jan’s blessing) encourages Erling to move to Venhaug. Erling, however, doesn’t know if he’s ready to settle down to such a permanent arrangement and give up his personal freedom.

It takes an awfully long time to figure all of that out. Sandemose doesn’t present the narrative in chronological order. Thus, the lives of these characters are a puzzle that the reader has to piece together. I see no good reason for this strategy, other than it’s the kind of thing that literary critics like and expect from modernist writers. It certainly doesn’t do the reader any favors, and seems a pretentious gimmick that actually hampers one’s understanding of the characters.

As one can tell from the synopsis above, this book is not about a werewolf. The werewolf here is metaphorical, much like the wolf of Hermann Hesse’s Steppenwolf. The way Sandemose haphazardly throws around the word “werewolf” in this novel results in a very ambiguous metaphor indeed. He seems to use the word as a euphemism for the personal demons that people face (particularly males), such as alcohol, insanity, a death wish, or a violent streak. At one point he seems to be using the word to describe the Nazis or those who sympathize with them.

At first I was drawn into the lives of these characters, but I really found myself losing interest at about the halfway point. Unlike the other books in the Nordic Translation Series, which are rather short, this novel is a long haul. One wishes there were more about the Nazi occupation and the characters’ resistance activities. Most of the book is concerned with the characters’ sex lives, but not in a graphic way, which might have been more interesting. Sandemose goes off into unnecessary digressions involving minor characters and treads water with dream sequences, strange pointless anecdotes, and quotations of poetry that don’t contribute much to the plot. The last ten percent of the book is actually very good, but one wishes the reader didn’t have to wade through so much needless excess to get there. Despite being published in 1958, Werewolf reads as if it might have been written within the past few years. One the one hand, it feels very contemporary in its open-minded liberalism, but on the other hand, it displays a propensity for self-indulgence common to many of today’s literary figures.

If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RSGV0D7X9HHG9/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

Concerning the Spiritual in Art by Wassily Kandinsky

Embracing the psychological effects of color and form

The Russian-born artist Wassily Kandinsky emigrated to Munich, where he became a leader in the movement of German Expressionism. He was a member of the group of Munich artists known as Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider), named after his painting of that title from 1903. Kandinsky’s art was more abstract than his Expressionist contemporaries, and he is now regarded as a pioneer in abstract painting. Kandinsky was also a teacher of art, and he published a few books during his lifetime, including the book or woodcuts entitled Klänge (Sounds) and educational texts like Point and Line to Plane and Concerning the Spiritual in Art, the latter published in 1910.

Don’t let the word “Spiritual” scare you away. Kandinsky was a follower of Theosophy, a religion established by Russian mystic Madame Helena Blavatsky in the late 19th century that placed a heavy emphasis on colors and geometric forms as symbols of spiritual qualities. One need not subscribe to any such color cult, however, in order to appreciate what Kandinsky is saying here. Even atheists and materialists can understand and accept Kandinsky’s theories of “spiritual” art by simply substituting the word “emotional.” Essentially what Kandinsky is saying is that certain colors and shapes carry specific psychological and symbolic baggage with them that inspires particular emotional effects in the viewer of a work of art. An artist should embrace and utilize these emotional effects to create art that engenders a deeper psychological experience in the viewer than that attained through mere camera-image representation.

One aspect I don’t like about Concerning the Spiritual in Art is Kandinsky’s constant denigration of representational art. One must remember that, at the time, the academic art establishment and modern artists were basically at intellectual war with one another, the latter often being disparaged as “degenerate,” “naive,” or just plain terrible artists. The more abstract the art, the more the artist in question was a target for such invective. These days, however, I think we can recognize that there is a place in our lives for both representational and abstract art, just as there is a place in our lives for classical, jazz, and pop music. Each genre has its share of good and bad artists. There’s no reason why a realist painter couldn’t employ the ideas that Kandinsky imparts in this book, and doing so would probably result in a more effective and powerful end result.

As far as these artist manifestos go, I tend to judge them on three criteria: 1) Is the writing articulate? 2) Is the author saying something that’s actually useful to artists? and 3) Is it inspiring? Does reading this book make you want to paint? Kandinsky’s Concerning the Spiritual in Art is pretty successful on all three counts. Despite the rather abstract subject matter, Kandinsky’s writing is clear and accessible. Readers who know nothing about modern art will come away from this book with a better understanding of the theory behind abstract paintings and how to appreciate them. Kandinsky’s teachings are practical and applicable to artists working today, even those who are in no way spiritually inclined. Much of the most useful information is contained in Chapter 6, The Language of Form and Color, which should be assigned reading for undergraduate art students. Lastly, reading this book really does make you want to pick up a brush and go to work. Kandinsky’s advocation of freedom from pictorial conventions is liberating, and he reminds the artist that art is an ongoing experiment in which there are still discoveries to be made.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RBHELBCIDRCGJ/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo

Dead man talking

Victor Hugo’s third novel, The Last Day of a Condemned Man, was published in 1829. By that time, Hugo had already established a reputation as one of the world’s great poets. He had previously published two novels that were not received with earth-shattering acclaim, Hans of Iceland and Bug-Jargal. With The Last Day of a Condemned Man, however, Hugo proved himself not just a fine poet but also a formidable writer of prose fiction.

Hugo wrote The Last Day of a Condemned as a literary argument against capital punishment. In particular, he speaks out against the brutality of the guillotine, the prevalent means of execution in France at the time. The novel is presented as a series of “papers” left behind by a death row inmate. In these writings, the unnamed prisoner narrates in the first person the story of his trial and incarceration and notes down for posterity the thoughts and feelings he experiences as he contemplates his impending death.

Hugo is known as the leading figure in the Romantic school of literature. This novel is an example of Romanticism in that it focuses on the interior turmoil of the lead character. Its description of the penal system and process of execution, however, is realistic to France at this time in history, and the plot is blunt and straightforward. Though Hugo is known for epic novels like The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Les Misérables, and Ninety-Three, The Last Day of a Condemned Man is a brief and intimate work that opts for a deep psychological portrait of its principle character, a common man in a cruel and unusual situation.

Hugo’s intention is to bring the horror of the death row experience to his readers, so that they recoil at the reality of capital punishment. In order to do so, however, he must make his protagonist somewhat sympathetic to his audience. By identifying with the condemned prisoner, readers can view his plight with a “There but for the grace of God go I,” attitude. Hugo makes the prisoner such an everyman, however, that the reader ends up knowing very little about him. He has a daughter whom he loves, and a wife who doesn’t seem to care much about him. The nature of the prisoner’s crime is never revealed to the reader, which is not the wisest choice on Hugo’s part. The lack of specificity to the prisoner’s story sometimes veers the narrative into the realm of a generic sob story. One can only assume that the narrator has been condemned for a seriously heinous act, probably a murder, in order to merit the death penalty. This vagueness hinders one’s ability to feel for the prisoner. Nevertheless, Hugo succeeds in illustrating the inhumanities of the prison system and the disgusting barbarity of public beheadings by guillotine.

While on death row, the prisoner meets a fellow inmate whose life of crime began with the theft of a loaf of bread. This immediately calls to mind Jean Valjean, the hero of Les Misérables. The Last Day of a Condemned Man also reads like a prototype of later existential psychological novels of crime and punishment like, literally, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, or Albert Camus’s The Stranger. In terms of literary importance and sheer impressiveness of narrative, The Last Day of a Condemned Man may not quite measure up to Les Misérables or Notre-Dame de Paris, but it is nevertheless a powerful work by one of world literature’s all-time greats.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/RINWRN2W6E72O/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm

Enchanted Pilgrimage by Clifford D. Simak

The best of Simak’s D&D-ish fantasy novels

Clifford D. Simak is one of my favorite science fiction writers. I set myself the task of reading his complete works and have almost completed that task. In addition to science fiction, Simak also wrote a few novels in the fantasy genre, along the lines of Dungeons & Dragons or The Lord of the Rings. The most obvious examples are The Fellowship of the Talisman and Where the Evil Dwells, but to a lesser extent The Goblin Reservation, Destiny Doll, and a few other Simak novels also contain elements from this fantasy genre. For the most part, Simak’s sword-and-sorcery novels are not my cup of tea. I think he is much better at science fiction, and other writers handle this brand of fantasy better than he. However, of his fantasy works, Enchanted Pilgrimage, published in 1975, is clearly his best foray into the genre.

The story is set in medieval times. Mark Cornwall is a scholar at Wyalusing University. While studying in the university library, he discovers a mysterious page of manuscript parchment hidden in a book. Although he isn’t clear on exactly what the written message means, he is convinced of its importance. Other parties must be convinced as well, because they are willing to kill to get their hands on the parchment. To decipher the meaning of the manuscript, Cornwall ventures on a journey away from civilization, through the perilous Wastelands, to seek out the legendary Old Ones, who may be able to help him understand this mysterious message. Through various circumstances, he assembles a party of traveling companions that includes a goblin, a gnome, an intelligent raccoon, and a hobbit or two (though Simak never uses the word “hobbit,” that’s pretty much what he describes). Together, these brave adventurers face a host of monsters and perils in the Wasteland, while fleeing the murderous pursuers who aim to get their hands on the valuable piece of parchment.

For the most part, this book is a Dungeons & Dragons-style quest narrative, but it does incorporate some science fiction elements towards the end. That’s really what makes this book a cut above The Fellowship of the Talisman and Where the Evil Dwells. The fact that Simak is able to incorporate some of his visionary science fiction concepts into the narrative elevates it above a typical romp through the D&D Monster Manual. The oddest thing about Enchanted Pilgrimage is that the much-coveted sheet of parchment that everyone’s fighting over ends up being rather irrelevant in the end. It merely serves as an impetus to start the adventurers on their journey. What’s most important is the quest, and what they find at the end. The events that punctuate the travelers’ trek are sufficiently exciting and suspenseful to keep the reader keenly interested throughout, and despite the presence of fantastical and mythical beings, what occurs rarely steps outside the boundaries of a reasonable logic that Simak has established for this fantasy world.

Readers familiar with Simak’s body of work will recognize some of the themes and concepts employed here from other books in the author’s oeuvre. Nevertheless, this is a significantly original story that uses those ideas in new ways. Enchanted Pilgrimage is by no means a masterpiece, but it is a good, solid entry in the fantasy genre. Though not among his best works, Simak fans and fantasy enthusiasts alike should find this a fun and entertaining read.
If you liked this review, please follow the link below to Amazon.com and give me a “helpful” vote. Thank you.

https://www.amazon.com/review/R2N080GKJWBRE0/ref=cm_cr_srp_d_rdp_perm