Books and literature – Page 38 – a sibilant intake of breath

Blood and Belonging

While flying home, I finished Micheal Ignatieff’s Blood and Belonging. The main subject of the book is the examination of a number of contemporary examples of ethnic nationalism, both more and less violent in character. As he intended, it is a fairly chilling depiction of some of the uglier elements of human relations, in the more disputed parts of the world today. His description of the use of chemical weapons against the people of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq makes his initial support for the American led invasion more comprehensible.

At the same time as this book makes one fearful about the kind of world we will inhabit in twenty years, it also provides some hope. While I have not personally visited Quebec or Northern Ireland, it seems, on the basis of the coverage I have seen, that things are not as bad as they were when this book was written in the early nineties. Economic prosperity and civic forms of nationalism have the capacity, at least in theory, to slowly erode the bases of hatred and violence. Let us hope that this trend can win out in the long run over the one that seeks to define nation by something as arbitrary and damaging as an ethnic notion of identity.

I started reading this book in order to get a better sense of Ignatieff as a thinker and as a prospective leader. While my new sense is not sturdy enough to be definitive, I definitely think more of the man than I did in the period before I had read any of his writing. His understanding of difficult issues seems to have a subtlety and a compassion that is definitely not the mark of your standard politician. I will have to read more of his thinking, however, before I can issue or withhold a final endorsement.

Canadian Liberal leadership race

Despite having lived in Canada for more than twenty years, and being interested in all matters political for much of that time, I really don’t know a great deal about Canadian politics. This is especially true of the raft of individuals who comprise Canada’s political elite; I could definitely tell you more about, say, Tom Daschle and Barack Obama than any of their Canadian equivalents. References that people like Tim, Tristan, Spencer, and Emily make regularly leave me with no idea of what they are talking about. That probably has something to do with a lifetime in which I have skipped straight to the ‘international’ section of the newspaper, followed by ‘United States,’ and then ‘science.’ I rationalize it to myself on the basis of the general hope that Canada will muddle through on its own and that if something really spectacular is going on, I will hear about it anyway.

In a bid to partially reverse this long time trend, I have decided to learn a bit about Michael Ignatieff: at least to the point where I can endorse or reject him as a possible leader for the federal Liberal party and, by extension, a possible Prime Minister. To that end, I am now reading his book Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. It seems to be more about the world in general than about Canada specifically, but it should at least lay bare some of his assumptions and modes of thinking.

To those much more aware of this contest than I am, which of the other potential Liberal leaders are worthy of some examination?

On digitized books

For years, Project Gutenberg and related endeavours have been seeking to produce digital copies of books that are no longer under copyright. The Gutenberg people have already digitized 17,000. Purposes for doing so include making machine-readable copies available for those with disabilities, allowing for their use with e-book readers, and even in more creative applications – like printing books onto scarves, so that you can read them on flights from the UK to the United States.

In the grand tradition of huge companies incorporating the results of smaller enterprises, many (if not all) of the Gutenberg books are now available through Google Book Search. Figuring out which Jane Austen book a particular passage stuck in your memory is from has thus become a far simpler task. For years, I have been using The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, provided by MIT, to search through plays.

Admittedly, not many people want to sit in front of a monitor to read an entire book. With the development of electronic paper that has high resolution, high contrast, and no requirement for power consumption while displaying static information, perhaps this will all become a whole lot more useful.

Desert Island Discs

A friend of mine challenged me to come up with the collection of items that I would submit to ‘Desert Island Discs’ – a British radio show in which interview subjects are questioned about what they would bring along to soften the experience of being stranded on a desert island:

“Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Sue Lawley to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island.

The discussion of their choice is a device for them to review their life. They also choose a favourite book (excluding the Bible or other religious work and Shakespeare – these already await the “castaway”) and a luxury which must be inanimate and have no practical use.”

First off, I must complement the erudite Gideons who have already stocked the world’s islands not only with Bibles, but also with Shakespeare’s works. Am I allowed to bring Paradise Lost or a book with spiritual importance for me as my “Bible or other religious work?”

Music

Starting with the choice of musical albums, this is no easy matter of selection. I have 667 albums in iTunes alone, and this is a time at which the term ‘album’ is rapidly losing meaning. Thinking about, for instance, how often artists have taken to re-organizing, re-mixing, and re-combining their tracks, the medium of album is becoming more like that of the playlist, of which I have only a few dozen. Of course, each of those is rather too long to fit on a CD (even as data files) and would most definitely not fit on a record, so I am back to the contemplation of albums.

One natural way to proceed would be to choose eight critical artists and then simply select either their best work, or the work that you think would stand up best to very frequent re-listening. In the interests of fairness, I will treat two-disc albums (such at Tori Amos’ To Venus and Back or the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie) as two albums, if chosen.

I have long treated music partly as a mechanism for altering moods. Given the dire desert scenario, it seems wise to think that way when planning.

In no particular order, then, my albums would be:

Jason Mraz – Live at Java Joe
This quirkly live album has an unusual ability to cheer me up, despite the fact that I have heard it so many times I know not only the words, but the timing of all the instruments, by heart. I expect this will be true of all the selections. This is a somewhat difficult thing to choose, because I think five of the thirteen songs are no better than mediocre, but I am going to stick with it for the moment.
Spirit of the West – Save this House
When going mad in the heat, it seems to me that it would be important to have some record of where you came from. Since Spirit of the West is from Vancouver, they get one such point. Given that they are a band and a style of music introduced to my brothers and I by my father when we were children, they get another. The fact that it’s an excellent album in and of itself cements the choice.
The Doors – The Doors
Choosing which Doors album to bring is awfully difficult. This is one of those situations where playlists are superior to albums. Likewise, it seems inappropriate to choose one of their many ‘best of’ collections. Despite the absence of some of their best songs, I would have to go with their 1967 debut album.
Simon and Garfunkel – Bridge over Troubled Water
Choosing a S&G album is even harder than selecting from among those of The Doors. Practically each has a song or two I would put on my own custom desert island disc. Choosing from among their original albums, this would be the one.
Idan Raichel – Mimamakayim
Bringing at least one album that isn’t in English seems well advised, and this is probably the best one I have heard. While I may not be able to speak a word of Hebrew at the moment, perhaps hundreds of hours of desert island listening would elevate my consciousness – or my imagination – to the point where I think I know what it is about. Even if such a thing doesn’t happen, it can be treated as a piece of classical music with an unusually versatile and emotionally engaging instrument.
Led Zeppelin – IV
This is an album that I feel myself growing into, to some extent. When I first got it, ‘Stairway to Heaven’ was the only song I could stand, and then only the relatively melodic bits. I would bring it in hopes that my steadily growing appreciation for the album as a whole would mature. I am almost tempted to bring an album that I flat-out do not like, but which friends rave about, but unfortunately haven’t the space for such an experiment.
Pink Floyd – Wish You Were Here
Not their longest or most celebrated language, I think it is their most sophisticated and intriguing. There is no denying that one would have time to sort out all the complexities given days and weeks.
Tori Amos – To Venus and Back (Live Disc)
All my friends will have seen this one a mile off. While I maintain that Tori Amos is a musical genius in general, she is especially capable as a live performer. While a recording cannot capture the energy of a concert, this one does an appreciable job.

Naturally, lots of albums were very close to making the cut. It is not necessarily that I think these are my eight best albums – the circumstances of where they are to be enjoyed have been taken into consideration. I have intentionally not considered classical or opera albums, because that would make the selection too daunting.

Book

This is a tough one indeed. The first obvious choice is between taking something you have read and enjoyed or bringing something new. I would opt for the former. Chances are, you will read this book many times. As such, however many times you read it before arriving will soon be trivial. Out the window goes Ulysses, then, which I have tried to read four times but never managed to progress more than fifty pages into.

I am fairly sure attempts to bring something like The Encyclopedia Britannica would defeat the purpose of this exercise, but if I could bring a really massive reference book on scientific, literary, and historical themes, I would definitely do so. I have always wanted an undisturbed chance to brush up on classical and art history, music, botany, and the many other topics about which I know little or nothing.

Given the length of time, the book should be a thick and complicated one. Much as I adore Lolita, it really doesn’t have the kind of physical bulk a person would want for a desert island book. In the end, I think I would go with Anna Karenina. I’ve only read it twice, so there is plenty of depth into which I could yet descend. Also, there might be a good market for an autobiography of someone who slowly went mad reading Anna Karenina, provided he is at some point rescued in a condition sane enough to write subsequently.

Luxury

To me, this is by far the least important. Luxuries are not useless items, but useful ones that are unusually fine. A fancy pen is a comprehensible luxury, as is a fine meal or expensive audio equipment. I assume, if I am being allowed to bring albums, that the audio gear is provided and acceptable.

Ultimately, I think I would choose a musical instrument. I have never learned to play one, and have long wanted to. Naturally, doing so alone on a desert island is not ideal. I would have no scores, no instruction, and no audience. Nonetheless, it would certainly help pass the time – and perhaps express the many longings and madnesses that are certain to arise in such a place. As for which one, the relevant considerations would be resistance to sun and sand, and a low need for maintenance. Anything that needs tuning or new parts is out. Given that I cannot think of any instrument that I would trust to survive the conditions and trust myself to learn, I am abandoning this idea in mid stride. The idea of myself stranded with a clarinet that I have no idea how to play is actually quite heartbreaking.

No musical instruments, then. Writing materials are both useful and not a luxury (at least in this day and age). A fruit tree would be both useful and animate, while the same goes for an olive bush.

Perhaps the thing to bring along is a corrosion resistant razor of a variety that will not dull for many years. In the first instance, it would provide a daily ritual that would help in the recording of the passing of time. In the second, imagine the surprise of your rescuers when they find you clean-shaven and very well versed in Shakespeare!

[Update: 25 February 2007] Since so many people were looking for them, some Idal Raichel lyrics translated into English have been added.

Banville’s The Sea

I bought John Banville’s The Sea in Dublin because I so enjoyed Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire: the last Man Booker Prize winning novel I had read. Actually, I note with some surprise that, upon looking it up, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty won the Booker Prize, while Hazzard’s book did not. Nonetheless, from the moment I bought Banville’s book to the instant I checked the list a moment ago, I believed the converse. As such, my expectations for this book were established by Hazzard’s work and not Hollinghurst’s, with which I have very different associations. Primarily, those had to do with arriving in Oxford not expecting it to have moved beyond the Thatcherite era.

I hadn’t known that Banville was Irish, or that the book was set in Ireland, so it ended up being rather more appropriate than reading Hazzard’s account of Asia after the second world war in the break room of the West Vancouver Staples location. Despite the appropriateness of the setting, this book did not quite live up to the expectations I had of it.

Told as a kind of layered story with a less than entirely sympathetic narrator, Banville‘s novel describes the life of a man who experienced a strange and tragic series of events as a child, followed by the sickness and death of his wife, and then a troubled relationship with his daughter. While some of the writing is undoubtedly fine, it is not a story that particularly resonated with me.

At a few points, in tantalizing fashion, the narrative voice breaks down in order to reveal the way in which it is an artificial abstraction on the part of the narrator. At one point, it does so in proper dramatic, provocative Joycean style. While these glimpses are certainly exciting, they are never followed up. We are left with proof that we are having a hollow tale spun around us, but no hope of seeing anything more solid.

Final, literary, Dublin day

I tried to make my last day in Dublin as literary as possible – the bits not spent traveling back from Galway, at least. I finally found a decently priced copy of Joyce’s Dubliners and an assembly of Wilde’s more political works. This happened within a few minutes of my return to Dublin, a city that seems enormously grimier after having spent a day in Galway and another on Inis Mór.

Books in hand, I wandered to Merrion Square. Beside the grotesque statue of Oscar Wilde in one corner, I read his Ballad of Reading Gaol. As an appreciator of Coleridge’s Rime of the Ancient Mariner, I saw the many thematic and poetic semblances. That said, I think Coleridge’s theological position – based on the virtue of appreciating all living creatures – is rather more promising that Wilde’s despairing hope that God will set it all right in the end. God as a balancer of worldly injustices is very appealing, since it saves us from the need to ever fight for our beliefs, insofar as that means forcing them on others. When we no longer have that conceptual crutch, difference becomes much harder to deal with. In any case, I had to use my hostel earplugs to reduce the strain from a massive throng of talkative Spanish tourists on my ability to appreciate this most sonic poem acoustically.

I had dinner at a place called Cornocopia, on Wicklow Street, recommended as an all-vegetarian restaurant. I had a kind of sweet potato curry dish and their red pepper soup, both dishes I was likely to appreciate, but found both uninspiring. The service was curt, bordering on sharp, and the general atmosphere was one of hasty expulsion for the milking of new customers. Vegetarians in Dublin should steer clear; try Gruel, on Dame Street, instead.

After dinner, I read half of Dubliners on the grounds of Trinity before attending quite an excellent performance of Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at the Player’s Theatre, within that campus. It was an emphatic, emotive, and effective production. P.J. Dunlevy was especially effective as the bald-headed and over-emphatic Pozzo. At several points, he struck the exact expression of the despairing mayor from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I had never seen the play before, but the interplay between Vladimir and Estragon reminded me both of the drama of Steinbeck and Tom Stoppard.

All told, it was a worthwhile day of additions to my Dublin set of memories. I might be able to squeeze one quick final visit in before my bus to the airport tomorrow, but that depends somewhat on my ability to fight of the demons of sleeplessness for another morning.

I should be back in Oxford late tomorrow.

Dynamic first day in Dublin

Today was superb; I’ve found my bearings in Dublin as quickly as I have come to realize what a great place it is. Despite the sheer length of the period of time I shall denote ‘yesterday,’ I got up in timely fashion this morning. Within an hour of doing so, I had acquired some needed provisions and set off for the day’s explorations. They would prove both extensive and diverse.

To start, I crossed the O’Connell Street Bridge into what is now central Dublin. Close by is Trinity College, where I had a look at the general grounds and the Douglas Hyde Gallery before going to see the famous Book of Kells. Despite grave warnings about Vatican Museum-class lines, I waited no more than three minutes to get into the gallery. The exhibits that precede the book demonstrate beyond dispute what an enormous amount of effort must have gone into the tome, though it’s really hard to comprehend in a post-Gutenberg era.

Above the Book of Kells is the spectacular Long Room: a barrel-roofed library made of dark wood. While other people milled about looking at the busts of great thinkers and a few volumes on display, I read Sweetness in the Belly. Between there and The Pavilian – an on campus pub beside the cricket pitch where I wandered for a bite to eat afterwards – I finished Camilla Gibb’s very engaging book. I will write a more comprehensive review once I return to Oxford.

At ‘The Pav,’ as the students apparently call the place, I met a group of physicists working on applied nanotechnology and the development of magnetically based random access memory for computers (the big upside of which is that it maintains the information in it without a current being applied). One of the nicest things about Dublin is how easily you can insert yourself into the conversations of strangers in pubs, or be drawn in, as I would later learn.

Other excellent things about Dublin include the size – no more than a fifteen minute walk from the farthest point I reached today (St. Patrick’s Cathedral) to the internet cafe near my hostel. Complimenting that are the pedestrian-only streets: a truly excellent element of urban planning anywhere. I haven’t used Dublin’s public transit, though trams and buses seem to be frequent and popular. After only a day here, I am willing to speculate that I could live here happily for some time.

After leaving Trinity, I went for a bit of a wander. I saw both cathedrals (Christ Church and Saint Patrick’s, both smaller than expected for such a traditionally religious place) before crossing over eastwards past Saint Stephen’s Green. At the suggestions of people I consulted before leaving, I then dropped in for a while at a pub called Kehoe’s. Over the span of a couple of hours, I had conversations with Americans about Arabica coffee beans, a fellow Canadian about Irish history, and a pair of native Dubliners about our respective countries. That pair very heartily endorsed the plan to visit the Aran Islands and Galway, suggesting that the smallest of the three islands is definitely the one to visit. One of the men also showed me a pub, about thirty metres away, where the protagonist of Ulysses famously had a gorgonzola sandwich and a glass of burgundy for lunch.

As the night is still fairly young, I may have a wander past the hostel to see if I can find anyone who is interested in a bit of additional exploration. I have the sense that most of those with whom I spoke last night – including an aggressive ‘Young Republican’ American woman, intent on proving the virtues of gun ownership and and sheer villainy of the Democratic Party – have already departed. That said, the place is positively crawling with curious travellers.

PS. After finishing Sweetness in the Belly, I picked up a hardback copy of John Banville’s The Sea for half the normal price of a paperback copy, at a discount book store near Trinity. After I finish that, I will take another stab at finding a used copy of Dubliners, or possibly fork out the Euros for a crisp new edition.

Something New Under the Sun

Happy Birthday Zandara Kennedy

Extensively footnoted and balanced in its claims, John McNeill’s Something New Under the Sun is an engaging and worthwhile study of the environmental history of the twentieth century. It covers atmospheric, hydrospheric, and biospheric concerns – focusing on those human actions and technologies that have had the greatest impact on the world, particularly in terms of those parts of the world human beings rely upon. People concerned with the dynamic that exists between human beings and the natural world would do well to read this volume. As McNeill demonstrates with ample figures and examples, that impact has been dramatic, though not confined to the twentieth century. What has changed most is the rate of change, in almost all environmentally relevant areas.

The drama of some documented changes is incredible. McNeill describes the accidental near-elimination of the American chestnut, the phenomenal global success of rabbits, and the intentional elimination of 99.8% of the world’s blue whales in clear and well-attributed sections. From global atmospheric lead concentrations to the depletion of the Ogallala Aquifer, he also covers a number of huge changes that are not directly biological. I found his discussion of the human modification of the planet’s hydrological systems to be the most interesting, quite probably because it was the least familiar thing he discussed.

Also interesting to note is that, published in 2000, this book utterly dismisses nuclear power as a failed technology. In less than three pages it is cast aside as economically non-sensical (forever dependent on subsidies), inherently hazardous, and without compensating merit. Interesting how quickly things can change. The book looks far more to the past than to the future, making fewer bold predictions about the future consequences of human activity than many volumes of this sort do.

Maybe the greatest lesson of this book is that the old dichotomy between the ‘human’ and the ‘natural’ world is increasingly nonsensical. The construction of the Aswan High Dam has fundamentally altered the chemistry of the Mediterranean at the same time as new crops have altered insect population dynamics worldwide and human health initiatives have changed the biological tableau for bacteria and viruses. To see the human world as riding on top of the natural world, and able to extract some set ‘sustainable’ amount from it, may therefore be unjustified. One world, indeed.

Euphoric

In my mind, the return to Vancouver has already become a mythic journey – far more exciting than the prospect of going anywhere else could be. It’s a return to arche, in both senses with which that word is impregnated.

On a seperate note, I am coming to realize that Mortal Engines may be the most interesting thing I have read entirely by chance since Ender’s Game. The translator, Michael Kandel, has been added to the list of people I hope to meet. I assume the author of the stories is already dead.

Science fiction fairytales

Between attempts at thesesial ponderation, I have been reading Mortal Engines: a book of short stories by Stanislaw Lem. It is one of a collection of books abandoned by departing graduate students that I have come to possess, and which has been mocking me on the basis of being unread among so few books I possess here. When one only has a few dozen books in one’s entire room, it is really intolerable to have not read them all.

Written in the form of the science fiction fairlytale, Lem’s stories remind me of certain parts of Orson Scott Card‘s superb collection Maps in a Mirror, as well as some of Isaac Asimov‘s more lighthearted work. On a beach on Hornby Island, many years ago, I remember a story of Asimov’s that involved the following response from a ‘wizard’ who gets exposed to a dragon:

“Of all things, an Apatosaurus!,” [the wizard exclaimed.] But he often spoke nonsense, and was ignored.

If anyone can recall the name of the story, I would be much obliged to learn it. Since I was stealing the book from Kate at the time (racing to finish stories before she demanded its return), perhaps she will be able to enlighten us.

Going back to Lem, the most notable thing about the stories is how he combines the eminently plausible (even scientifically necessary) with the fanciful and allegorical. Being able to forge subjects out of uranium so that their coming together in conspiracy automatically makes them explode in a chain reaction is doubtless a fantasy that has appealed to a monarch or two. When I finish it, I will quote some of the cleverer bits here.