As I said in my post on Grave Peril by Jim Butcher, the book's hero, Harry Dresden has a working partner, Michael, in this particular story who is a morally unambiguous soldier of God. I think this particular musing by Harry sums up Harry's character, especially in contrast to Michael:
But I don't understand God. I don't understand how he could see the way people treat one another, and not chalk up the whole human race as a bad idea.
I guess He's just bigger about it than I would be.
...Right behind you Harry!
Coming next: My thoughts on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John Le Carre
Friday, December 30, 2011
Thursday, December 29, 2011
Grave Peril by Jim Butcher
Book 3 of The Dresden Files
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher is an entire series (currently at 13 volumes) of Books I Should Have Read by Now. Grave Peril is the third book, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the ride so far.
Harry Dresden, in case you have yet to meet him, is a wizard. His services are for hire in modern-day Chicago and he is a special consultant for the police force there. He is very skilled at his chosen profession, though he rarely looks the part, opting for sweatpants instead of flowing robes and carrying magic potions around in sports bottles. Skeptical? So, apparently, is just about everybody else, because Harry is perpetually broke.
Harry isn’t short of difficult supernatural situations in which to be embroiled, however, and in Grave Peril, he goes up against ghosts, vampires and his own faerie godmother. This time he’s got a working partner named Michael, a positively paladin-esque soldier of God, who is a wonderful compare-and-contrast tool for Harry. While Our Harry is occasionally morally confused and/or ambiguous (especially compared to Michael), he’s never a jerk to anyone who doesn’t deserve it and we can always trust him to do The Right Thing. In fact, even his bitter enemies count on him doing The Right Thing.
Grave Peril is wholly enjoyable to read, although I recommend reading the books of this series in order. (They’re relatively quick reads, so you could easily catch up.) Along with the usual action and adventure you might expect from an urban fantasy story, Butcher provides a great deal of humor, largely straight from the mind or mouth of Harry Dresden himself. I like his treatment of ghosts and vampires in this particular volume (a treatment that’s not the least bit sparkly, if you know what I mean), and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens with some of the unresolved situations left on the final page.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher is an entire series (currently at 13 volumes) of Books I Should Have Read by Now. Grave Peril is the third book, and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the ride so far.
Harry Dresden, in case you have yet to meet him, is a wizard. His services are for hire in modern-day Chicago and he is a special consultant for the police force there. He is very skilled at his chosen profession, though he rarely looks the part, opting for sweatpants instead of flowing robes and carrying magic potions around in sports bottles. Skeptical? So, apparently, is just about everybody else, because Harry is perpetually broke.
Harry isn’t short of difficult supernatural situations in which to be embroiled, however, and in Grave Peril, he goes up against ghosts, vampires and his own faerie godmother. This time he’s got a working partner named Michael, a positively paladin-esque soldier of God, who is a wonderful compare-and-contrast tool for Harry. While Our Harry is occasionally morally confused and/or ambiguous (especially compared to Michael), he’s never a jerk to anyone who doesn’t deserve it and we can always trust him to do The Right Thing. In fact, even his bitter enemies count on him doing The Right Thing.
Grave Peril is wholly enjoyable to read, although I recommend reading the books of this series in order. (They’re relatively quick reads, so you could easily catch up.) Along with the usual action and adventure you might expect from an urban fantasy story, Butcher provides a great deal of humor, largely straight from the mind or mouth of Harry Dresden himself. I like his treatment of ghosts and vampires in this particular volume (a treatment that’s not the least bit sparkly, if you know what I mean), and I’m looking forward to finding out what happens with some of the unresolved situations left on the final page.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
The Physics of Christmas by Roger Highfield
From the Aerodynamics of Reindeer to the Thermodynamics of Turkey
This is a fun book for Christmas-time reading. Highfield addresses, scientifically, just about every aspect of the holiday season that you can think of, from why Rudolph's nose is red (probably a parasitic infection) to how alcohol contributes to the holiday spirit. He digs into traditions and speculates on the technical and biological requirements of many of our Christmas myths and beliefs.
The fun part (aside from all the science if you're into that kind of thing), is that Highfield doesn't use the limitations of physics, genetics and history as we know them to prove that myths and traditions like Santa Claus and his ultra-famous midnight ride are a lot of hooey. Instead, he makes the effort to cheerfully describe the ways in which all the seemingly impossible "magic" of the season could be real.
This is a great book to read if you like the holiday season, but could use a break from drippy sentimentality. It's also a good resource for convincing the skeptic in your life to give Santa, reindeer, the star of Bethlehem, or genetically modified and cloned Christmas trees and turkeys another chance.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
This is a fun book for Christmas-time reading. Highfield addresses, scientifically, just about every aspect of the holiday season that you can think of, from why Rudolph's nose is red (probably a parasitic infection) to how alcohol contributes to the holiday spirit. He digs into traditions and speculates on the technical and biological requirements of many of our Christmas myths and beliefs.
The fun part (aside from all the science if you're into that kind of thing), is that Highfield doesn't use the limitations of physics, genetics and history as we know them to prove that myths and traditions like Santa Claus and his ultra-famous midnight ride are a lot of hooey. Instead, he makes the effort to cheerfully describe the ways in which all the seemingly impossible "magic" of the season could be real.
This is a great book to read if you like the holiday season, but could use a break from drippy sentimentality. It's also a good resource for convincing the skeptic in your life to give Santa, reindeer, the star of Bethlehem, or genetically modified and cloned Christmas trees and turkeys another chance.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
Friday, December 16, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
As I mentioned in my post on The Prague Cemetery, the shady main character, Simone Simonini is in the midst of some pretty wicked situations. Here is what he thinks of a couple of them:
On murder:
I realized that the most irritating aspect of a murder is hiding the body, and it must be for this reason that priests tell us not to kill, except of course in battle, where the bodies are left for the vultures.
And on conspiracies:
This led me to think, even then, that if I wanted to sell the story of a conspiracy, I didn't have to offer the buyer anything original, but simply something he already knew or could have found out more easily in other ways. People believe only what they already know, and this is the beauty of the Universal Form of Conspiracy.
On murder:
I realized that the most irritating aspect of a murder is hiding the body, and it must be for this reason that priests tell us not to kill, except of course in battle, where the bodies are left for the vultures.
And on conspiracies:
This led me to think, even then, that if I wanted to sell the story of a conspiracy, I didn't have to offer the buyer anything original, but simply something he already knew or could have found out more easily in other ways. People believe only what they already know, and this is the beauty of the Universal Form of Conspiracy.
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Translated from the Italian by Richard Dixon.
I am a huge fan of Umberto Eco, but the world always appears a little weirder after I read something by him. My experience with The Prague Cemetery, Eco’s newest novel, was no different. It follows Simone Simonini, a forger, as he writes a diary of his strange life in an attempt to regain lost memories.
Simonini is a wholly odious character full of epic levels of hatred and deceit. “Not that he felt any particular love for himself, but his dislike of others induced him to make the best of his own company.” At the beginning of the book is a series of rants by Simonini about his various hatreds of various races and peoples. In the hands of a less skilled author, I don’t think Simonini’s story could have captured my imagination, and, more than once, I marveled that I somehow wasn’t being induced to throw the book across the room.
Simonini’s “I hate therefore I am,” attitude merely lays the groundwork, however, for a twisted tale (with many twisted characters) of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, hoaxes and fabrications, multiple personalities and murder. It’s all very strange, but not at all improbable. In fact, the whole story is based on real history, and is merely a fictionalized suggestion of how the seeds of actual significant events could have been planted. Of course, not being an adequate student of history, I didn’t know any of this, and had to rely on the author’s notes at the end of the book.
The Prague Cemetery has left me feeling the way I usually do after reading one of Eco’s novels. I feel kind of mind-freaked, and just a teeny bit paranoid, now that I’ve been introduced to a strange, unfamiliar underbelly of the world. I feel wholly entertained, often by a kind of black humor that I’m not sure is really supposed to be amusing. I’m a tiny bit confused, largely because the historical nature of the story is beyond my feeble knowledge. Most of all, however, I feel complete and total awe for the author, who can put together something of this magnitude and scope, unique style (I love and am bewildered at the same time by the long lists that often appear in Eco’s work), absolute brilliance, and historical and societal relevance. Someday, I hope I am good enough to be able to even write about Eco’s work in a way that does it justice.
…and the world just got a little weirder.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
I am a huge fan of Umberto Eco, but the world always appears a little weirder after I read something by him. My experience with The Prague Cemetery, Eco’s newest novel, was no different. It follows Simone Simonini, a forger, as he writes a diary of his strange life in an attempt to regain lost memories.
Simonini is a wholly odious character full of epic levels of hatred and deceit. “Not that he felt any particular love for himself, but his dislike of others induced him to make the best of his own company.” At the beginning of the book is a series of rants by Simonini about his various hatreds of various races and peoples. In the hands of a less skilled author, I don’t think Simonini’s story could have captured my imagination, and, more than once, I marveled that I somehow wasn’t being induced to throw the book across the room.
Simonini’s “I hate therefore I am,” attitude merely lays the groundwork, however, for a twisted tale (with many twisted characters) of conspiracies and counter-conspiracies, hoaxes and fabrications, multiple personalities and murder. It’s all very strange, but not at all improbable. In fact, the whole story is based on real history, and is merely a fictionalized suggestion of how the seeds of actual significant events could have been planted. Of course, not being an adequate student of history, I didn’t know any of this, and had to rely on the author’s notes at the end of the book.
The Prague Cemetery has left me feeling the way I usually do after reading one of Eco’s novels. I feel kind of mind-freaked, and just a teeny bit paranoid, now that I’ve been introduced to a strange, unfamiliar underbelly of the world. I feel wholly entertained, often by a kind of black humor that I’m not sure is really supposed to be amusing. I’m a tiny bit confused, largely because the historical nature of the story is beyond my feeble knowledge. Most of all, however, I feel complete and total awe for the author, who can put together something of this magnitude and scope, unique style (I love and am bewildered at the same time by the long lists that often appear in Eco’s work), absolute brilliance, and historical and societal relevance. Someday, I hope I am good enough to be able to even write about Eco’s work in a way that does it justice.
…and the world just got a little weirder.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, December 9, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel is loaded with great and wonderfully written lines. Here are a few of my favorites
This is what Manguel has to say about the World Wide Web:
Its virtue (or virtuality) entails a constant present - which for medieval scholars was one of the definitions of hell.
All I can say is "!!!!"
This one amused me greatly:
Books lend a room a particular identity that can, in some cases, usurp that of their owner - a peculiarity well known to oafish personalities who demand to be portrayed against the background of a book-lined wall, in the hope that it will grant them scholarly lustre.
Here's one that I hope applies to me more than does the one above:
What makes a library a reflection of its owner is not merely the choice of the titles themselves, but the mesh of associations implied in the choice.
And here are two that seem to have been written just for me to ponder:
In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. Like nature, libraries abhor a vacuum, and the problem of space is inherent in the very nature of any collection of books.
I have no feeling of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me until the end of my days.
This is what Manguel has to say about the World Wide Web:
Its virtue (or virtuality) entails a constant present - which for medieval scholars was one of the definitions of hell.
All I can say is "!!!!"
This one amused me greatly:
Books lend a room a particular identity that can, in some cases, usurp that of their owner - a peculiarity well known to oafish personalities who demand to be portrayed against the background of a book-lined wall, in the hope that it will grant them scholarly lustre.
Here's one that I hope applies to me more than does the one above:
What makes a library a reflection of its owner is not merely the choice of the titles themselves, but the mesh of associations implied in the choice.
And here are two that seem to have been written just for me to ponder:
In a library, no empty shelf remains empty for long. Like nature, libraries abhor a vacuum, and the problem of space is inherent in the very nature of any collection of books.
I have no feeling of guilt regarding the books I have not read and perhaps will never read; I know that my books have unlimited patience. They will wait for me until the end of my days.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
Every once in a while, I find a book that inspires me by making me wish I was as intelligent, well-read, knowledgeable and wise as the author. The Library at Night is one of those books. It is a history of and a tribute to public and private libraries and an exploration of the philosophies and practices of collecting, organizing, storing and reading books.
Since I’ve created this Web journal to help myself organize and get the most out of my own library as well as books outside my home that I “should have read by now,” it probably comes as no surprise that I was particularly enamored with this book. It is organized into chapters with titles like “The Library as Order,” “The Library as Space,” “The Library as Identity,” and so on, with each theme having histories, anecdotes and explanations of its own. It is so well and wisely written, that I wish I could memorize the whole thing, so I could quote it at will. (Since I can no longer even memorize my mobile phone number, this is not going to happen.)
There are stories here about Manguel’s own private library (in which he likes to linger at night) as well as the ancient library of Alexandria and other large and important repositories of books and writing. The Library at Night, however, is not just about libraries as buildings or rooms with books in them, but also about how they reflect their readers, how readers imagine them, how readers persist in preserving them, or in some cases destroying them, an how the hopeless cause of collecting and organizing all that has ever been put into words has been pursued throughout all of human history. This process has been exhausting, frustrating, brilliant, and a little bit mad. If you’re a book lover, however, it’s a whole lot delightful.
Anyone who loves books cannot read The Library at Night and avoid coming away with a new and even greater appreciation for libraries, books and reading. Compared to the scholars at Alexandria, who Manguel says, “never mistook the true nature of the past; they knew it to be a source of an ever-shifting present in which new readers engaged with old books which became new in the reading process,” or the counsellors at the Birkenau Concentration Camp who had learned children’s books by heart and would recite them to help give the children some hope, I do not seem like a very noble collector of books. If, however, I am so bold as to call my dusty, half-neglected jumble of books and my growing collection of e-books a “library,” and treat it with the respect I believe it deserves, perhaps I can be humbly counted among my betters.
Coming soon: The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Since I’ve created this Web journal to help myself organize and get the most out of my own library as well as books outside my home that I “should have read by now,” it probably comes as no surprise that I was particularly enamored with this book. It is organized into chapters with titles like “The Library as Order,” “The Library as Space,” “The Library as Identity,” and so on, with each theme having histories, anecdotes and explanations of its own. It is so well and wisely written, that I wish I could memorize the whole thing, so I could quote it at will. (Since I can no longer even memorize my mobile phone number, this is not going to happen.)
There are stories here about Manguel’s own private library (in which he likes to linger at night) as well as the ancient library of Alexandria and other large and important repositories of books and writing. The Library at Night, however, is not just about libraries as buildings or rooms with books in them, but also about how they reflect their readers, how readers imagine them, how readers persist in preserving them, or in some cases destroying them, an how the hopeless cause of collecting and organizing all that has ever been put into words has been pursued throughout all of human history. This process has been exhausting, frustrating, brilliant, and a little bit mad. If you’re a book lover, however, it’s a whole lot delightful.
Anyone who loves books cannot read The Library at Night and avoid coming away with a new and even greater appreciation for libraries, books and reading. Compared to the scholars at Alexandria, who Manguel says, “never mistook the true nature of the past; they knew it to be a source of an ever-shifting present in which new readers engaged with old books which became new in the reading process,” or the counsellors at the Birkenau Concentration Camp who had learned children’s books by heart and would recite them to help give the children some hope, I do not seem like a very noble collector of books. If, however, I am so bold as to call my dusty, half-neglected jumble of books and my growing collection of e-books a “library,” and treat it with the respect I believe it deserves, perhaps I can be humbly counted among my betters.
Coming soon: The Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, December 2, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
I'm not quite finished reading The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel and I already have scribbled down and bookmarked enough favorite lines for many Fridays. Today, I thought I'd share one about quoting itself.
[T]o quote is to continue a conversation from the past in order to give context to the present...to quote is to reflect on what has been said before, and unless we do that, we speak in a vacuum where no human voice can hear a sound.
And here I just thought I was collecting lines that were amusing to me, stated something more elegantly than I ever could, or sounded cool. Who would have thought my purpose was so noble? Of course, there's plenty of irresponsible quoting that is unfortunately not spoken in a vacuum. I'll endeavor to avoid being like that!
[T]o quote is to continue a conversation from the past in order to give context to the present...to quote is to reflect on what has been said before, and unless we do that, we speak in a vacuum where no human voice can hear a sound.
And here I just thought I was collecting lines that were amusing to me, stated something more elegantly than I ever could, or sounded cool. Who would have thought my purpose was so noble? Of course, there's plenty of irresponsible quoting that is unfortunately not spoken in a vacuum. I'll endeavor to avoid being like that!
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Blackout by Connie Willis
A Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel
It’s hard for me to even calm down enough to gather my thoughts and write about Blackout. It’s just that good. At least, as a pretty longtime fan of Connie Willis’s work, I knew that something this awesome was coming before I opened the book.
Blackout is a return to Willis’s creatively imagined future in which academics time travel from Oxford University to observe history as it happens. Of course, the story doesn’t stay at Oxford for long, but instead follows a few of these historians as they duck and weave their way through England during World War II. Things don’t go so well for them, of course, and all of their foreknowledge and confidence in the laws of time travel might not be enough to get them out of their sticky situations.
This book is tense with furious action, but not all of it is avoiding bombs during the Blitz or trying to avoid changing history at Dunkirk. Willis manages to make events as simple as someone looking for someone else exciting. There’s a lot of running around and trying to figure out what’s going on, and what has gone wrong. Of course there’s not a little bomb-dodging as well.
I really loved this book, which I found not only entertaining and fun to read, but also downright informative (the historical research is fabulous). It was very hard to get anything else done before I had turned the last page. There’s only one thing disappointing about Blackout: the story doesn’t end on that last page! I’ve been left hanging! All Clear is the continuing volume, but I don’t currently have my hands on a copy! I can’t stand it!
A Year Of Books I Should Have Read By Now
It’s hard for me to even calm down enough to gather my thoughts and write about Blackout. It’s just that good. At least, as a pretty longtime fan of Connie Willis’s work, I knew that something this awesome was coming before I opened the book.
Blackout is a return to Willis’s creatively imagined future in which academics time travel from Oxford University to observe history as it happens. Of course, the story doesn’t stay at Oxford for long, but instead follows a few of these historians as they duck and weave their way through England during World War II. Things don’t go so well for them, of course, and all of their foreknowledge and confidence in the laws of time travel might not be enough to get them out of their sticky situations.
This book is tense with furious action, but not all of it is avoiding bombs during the Blitz or trying to avoid changing history at Dunkirk. Willis manages to make events as simple as someone looking for someone else exciting. There’s a lot of running around and trying to figure out what’s going on, and what has gone wrong. Of course there’s not a little bomb-dodging as well.
I really loved this book, which I found not only entertaining and fun to read, but also downright informative (the historical research is fabulous). It was very hard to get anything else done before I had turned the last page. There’s only one thing disappointing about Blackout: the story doesn’t end on that last page! I’ve been left hanging! All Clear is the continuing volume, but I don’t currently have my hands on a copy! I can’t stand it!
A Year Of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, November 25, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
Here is a great line I read from Johannes Kepler in A More Perfect Heaven by Dava Sobel:
Regard the Holy Spirit as a divine messenger, and refrain from wantonly dragging Him into physics class.
I also liked this quote from Georg Joachim Rheticus:
It is characteristic of the honorable mind to love nothing more ardently than truth, and, inspired by this desire, to seek a genuine science of universal nature, of religious, of the movements and effects of the heavens, of the causes of change, not only of animated bodies, but also of cities and realms, of the origins of noble duties and of other such things.
It's really too bad that Rheticus couldn't know about modern uses of mathematical modeling, because he mostly just used his number-crunching skills to tell fortunes and try to predict the future.
Regard the Holy Spirit as a divine messenger, and refrain from wantonly dragging Him into physics class.
I also liked this quote from Georg Joachim Rheticus:
It is characteristic of the honorable mind to love nothing more ardently than truth, and, inspired by this desire, to seek a genuine science of universal nature, of religious, of the movements and effects of the heavens, of the causes of change, not only of animated bodies, but also of cities and realms, of the origins of noble duties and of other such things.
It's really too bad that Rheticus couldn't know about modern uses of mathematical modeling, because he mostly just used his number-crunching skills to tell fortunes and try to predict the future.
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
A More Perfect Heaven by Dava Sobel
How Copernicus Revolutionized the Cosmos
I was not surprised to read in A More Perfect Heaven about how Nicolaus Copernicus (or Niklas Koppernigk before he Latinized) “revolutionized the cosmos.” I already knew about that. He was the guy who first published something suggesting that the earth was not the center of the universe, but that it went around the sun instead. What was new and impressive to me was that Copernicus was a church canon, a medical doctor, served as a bishop’s secretary and personal physician, and made his famous astronomical observations and worked out the rigorous mathematics that explained them in his spare time.
Throughout Sobel’s account of his career, Copernicus never fails to come across as a source of reasonable, tactful and intelligent calm in a storm of chaos. He managed to make himself an all-around smart guy, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation and counter-reformation, invasions of his homeland by the Teutonic knights, and all kinds of other unreasonableness, violence and bad behavior. And he seemed to recognize that he was an island of intelligence, because he didn’t have much desire to publish his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. He may have known that it would just have been declared heretical, and banned, and get him into all kinds of trouble.
Somehow, and that somehow has been lost to history, a mathematician and astrologer named Georg Joachim Rheticus convinced Copernicus to take him on as a student and eventually convinced him to publish his revolutionary new theories. About a third of A More Perfect Heaven is a play that Sobel wrote as an imagining of how Rheticus may have talked Copernicus into publishing, which is a pretty fascinating turning point in history. Copernicus suffered a stroke while On the Revolutions was being printed and didn’t live to witness the reactions, positive or negative, to his revolutionary work.
Of course now we take for granted that the earth goes around the sun and that others from Kepler and Galileo to Einstein and Heisenberg have built upon what Copernicus started to get us even closer to understanding the universe and how it works. It seems strange from this vantage point that Copernicus wasn’t inclined to shout about his brilliant work from the rooftops (remember, he didn’t just have a good idea, he did all the math to back it up), that he stayed pretty quiet about it and didn’t try to forcibly jar the world out of its ignorance. I’m pretty convinced that I’ll never exhibit the level of brilliance that Copernicus did (although I did make some pretty delicious cookies recently), but I hope to someday have the grace that he seemed to have when making his practical comments on matters domestic and universal.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
I was not surprised to read in A More Perfect Heaven about how Nicolaus Copernicus (or Niklas Koppernigk before he Latinized) “revolutionized the cosmos.” I already knew about that. He was the guy who first published something suggesting that the earth was not the center of the universe, but that it went around the sun instead. What was new and impressive to me was that Copernicus was a church canon, a medical doctor, served as a bishop’s secretary and personal physician, and made his famous astronomical observations and worked out the rigorous mathematics that explained them in his spare time.
Throughout Sobel’s account of his career, Copernicus never fails to come across as a source of reasonable, tactful and intelligent calm in a storm of chaos. He managed to make himself an all-around smart guy, in the midst of the Protestant Reformation and counter-reformation, invasions of his homeland by the Teutonic knights, and all kinds of other unreasonableness, violence and bad behavior. And he seemed to recognize that he was an island of intelligence, because he didn’t have much desire to publish his On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres. He may have known that it would just have been declared heretical, and banned, and get him into all kinds of trouble.
Somehow, and that somehow has been lost to history, a mathematician and astrologer named Georg Joachim Rheticus convinced Copernicus to take him on as a student and eventually convinced him to publish his revolutionary new theories. About a third of A More Perfect Heaven is a play that Sobel wrote as an imagining of how Rheticus may have talked Copernicus into publishing, which is a pretty fascinating turning point in history. Copernicus suffered a stroke while On the Revolutions was being printed and didn’t live to witness the reactions, positive or negative, to his revolutionary work.
Of course now we take for granted that the earth goes around the sun and that others from Kepler and Galileo to Einstein and Heisenberg have built upon what Copernicus started to get us even closer to understanding the universe and how it works. It seems strange from this vantage point that Copernicus wasn’t inclined to shout about his brilliant work from the rooftops (remember, he didn’t just have a good idea, he did all the math to back it up), that he stayed pretty quiet about it and didn’t try to forcibly jar the world out of its ignorance. I’m pretty convinced that I’ll never exhibit the level of brilliance that Copernicus did (although I did make some pretty delicious cookies recently), but I hope to someday have the grace that he seemed to have when making his practical comments on matters domestic and universal.
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, November 18, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
In my post on Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke, I discussed the miniature physics lesson the reader gets whether she likes it or not. Here's a great line from that lesson:
Davidson [an astronomer] could not tolerate this sloppy talk. "No such thing as centrifugal force. It's and engineer's phantom. There's only inertia."
This is likely an expression of the frustrations of physics enthusiasts everywhere. (But what about the angular momentum?)
And, having recently moved my own collection of hard copy to a new home, I could really appreciate this line, spoken by Commander Norton.
"You know Jerry Kirchoff, my exec, who's got such a library of real books that he can't afford to emigrate from earth?"
This is not only a sobering reminder of the laws of physics, but also a cautionary soundbite to biblio-gluttons like myself who hope to have a place in the spacefaring far future. Eh, I get carsick enough that I probably wouldn't be able to travel by rocket anyway.
Coming next: My thoughts on A More Perfect Heaven by Dava Sobel
Davidson [an astronomer] could not tolerate this sloppy talk. "No such thing as centrifugal force. It's and engineer's phantom. There's only inertia."
This is likely an expression of the frustrations of physics enthusiasts everywhere. (But what about the angular momentum?)
And, having recently moved my own collection of hard copy to a new home, I could really appreciate this line, spoken by Commander Norton.
"You know Jerry Kirchoff, my exec, who's got such a library of real books that he can't afford to emigrate from earth?"
This is not only a sobering reminder of the laws of physics, but also a cautionary soundbite to biblio-gluttons like myself who hope to have a place in the spacefaring far future. Eh, I get carsick enough that I probably wouldn't be able to travel by rocket anyway.
Coming next: My thoughts on A More Perfect Heaven by Dava Sobel
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke
A Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novel
Just as there are classics in world literature there are classics in science fiction as well. Where the writers of literary classics are lauded because they beautifully explore the human condition, pressing or even extending the limits of language to do so, great science fiction writers apply the known laws of the universe to unique situations that are as yet beyond the human experience. I think sometimes quality science fiction doesn’t get as much recognition because not enough people understand the science, which is a shame.
Rendezvous with Rama is a terrific example of this application of science to something we have never seen in the real universe. Rama is an object visiting our solar system from some unknown place and the lucky crew of the spacecraft Endeavour gets to explore it. It is the distant future and much of the solar system has been colonized and space travel is relatively commonplace. The setting itself is exciting enough, but Clarke doesn’t skimp on the real science, or the realistic people.
The descriptions of the interior of Rama, which is a spinning cylinder, have been created in such detail that I have to be careful to remember that this thing isn’t real. Embedded in this story of adventure and exploration is a miniature physics lesson in which Clarke has spelled out in concise language how things would work or wouldn’t work in Rama, and how reasonable and reasonably well-equipped people might adjust to it.
There are, however, more than just adventures in artificial gravity and cylindrical seas in Rendezvous with Rama. There’s also the excitement of exploration and discovery, of observing something no one on earth has seen before. Even though William Norton, the commander of Endeavour, is a veteran space traveler, he recognizes the significance of this unique situation. “There was also a sense of danger that was wholly novel to his experience. In every earlier landing, he had known what to expect; there was always the possibility of accident, but never of surprise. With Rama, surprise was the only certainty.” (Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I was particularly tickled that Norton recognized his similarity to Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb.)
Rendezvous with Rama is speculative fiction at its finest, although there’s no death and/or destruction if that’s what you’re looking for. Even if you’re afraid of the details of the science, you can just take in the novel as you might an amusement park in a place that is just being explored as you ride along. I, however, particularly enjoyed the scientific details, which allow me fully suspend my disbelief and be entertained.
Of course I was left wanting more, but the reader is allowed hope of a sequel or two in the final line of the book: “The Ramans do everything in threes.” (Spoiler: there are sequels.)
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Just as there are classics in world literature there are classics in science fiction as well. Where the writers of literary classics are lauded because they beautifully explore the human condition, pressing or even extending the limits of language to do so, great science fiction writers apply the known laws of the universe to unique situations that are as yet beyond the human experience. I think sometimes quality science fiction doesn’t get as much recognition because not enough people understand the science, which is a shame.
Rendezvous with Rama is a terrific example of this application of science to something we have never seen in the real universe. Rama is an object visiting our solar system from some unknown place and the lucky crew of the spacecraft Endeavour gets to explore it. It is the distant future and much of the solar system has been colonized and space travel is relatively commonplace. The setting itself is exciting enough, but Clarke doesn’t skimp on the real science, or the realistic people.
The descriptions of the interior of Rama, which is a spinning cylinder, have been created in such detail that I have to be careful to remember that this thing isn’t real. Embedded in this story of adventure and exploration is a miniature physics lesson in which Clarke has spelled out in concise language how things would work or wouldn’t work in Rama, and how reasonable and reasonably well-equipped people might adjust to it.
There are, however, more than just adventures in artificial gravity and cylindrical seas in Rendezvous with Rama. There’s also the excitement of exploration and discovery, of observing something no one on earth has seen before. Even though William Norton, the commander of Endeavour, is a veteran space traveler, he recognizes the significance of this unique situation. “There was also a sense of danger that was wholly novel to his experience. In every earlier landing, he had known what to expect; there was always the possibility of accident, but never of surprise. With Rama, surprise was the only certainty.” (Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I was particularly tickled that Norton recognized his similarity to Howard Carter, the discoverer of Tutankhamen’s tomb.)
Rendezvous with Rama is speculative fiction at its finest, although there’s no death and/or destruction if that’s what you’re looking for. Even if you’re afraid of the details of the science, you can just take in the novel as you might an amusement park in a place that is just being explored as you ride along. I, however, particularly enjoyed the scientific details, which allow me fully suspend my disbelief and be entertained.
Of course I was left wanting more, but the reader is allowed hope of a sequel or two in the final line of the book: “The Ramans do everything in threes.” (Spoiler: there are sequels.)
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, November 11, 2011
Words I Wish I Wrote by Robert Fulghum
A Collection of Writing that Inspired my Ideas
This isn’t so much a Book I Should Have Read By Now. It’s more of an Idea I Wish I Had. I picked it up from the library when I was looking for my own inspiration in writing about other people’s writing. It is so chock-full of great quotations and personal commentary by Fulghum that I thought I’d post my thoughts about it on what would normally be Favorite Lines Friday.
In this volume, Fulghum has collected the words of others who have inspired him and helped to create his ever-evolving philosophy and world view. I’m glad that Fughum has not been afraid to allow his personal philosophy to change over time. It gives me some hope for the future of my own sanity. I suppose one could say that I’m finishing up a sort of philosophical boot-camp phase in my life. That is, I’ve torn down most of the dumb and wrong-headed ideas I’ve had, or was told to have, and am ready to rebuild. Since I’m fully aware that I’m unlikely to have an idea that someone else hasn’t already had, and that someone has undoubtedly expressed it much more eloquently than I ever could, I like the idea of scribbling down the words of others that strike a meaningful chord as Fulghum has for much of his life.
Here are some lines quoted by Fulghum from John W. Gardner:
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
I couldn’t agree more…unless you replace the word philosophy with politics and theories with policies.
I also jotted down a few good words from Fulghum’s own reflections. Here’s what he wrote about reading Joseph Heller:
The books are not about death and horror, but about what the system does to the better inclinations of human nature. I laugh when I read Heller, fully understanding that what I’m reading isn’t funny.
And on a similar note:
Nothing connects me with a person quicker than knowing what he laughs at. Nothing is more valuable in a relationship than loose and easy laughter.
Ha!
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
This isn’t so much a Book I Should Have Read By Now. It’s more of an Idea I Wish I Had. I picked it up from the library when I was looking for my own inspiration in writing about other people’s writing. It is so chock-full of great quotations and personal commentary by Fulghum that I thought I’d post my thoughts about it on what would normally be Favorite Lines Friday.
In this volume, Fulghum has collected the words of others who have inspired him and helped to create his ever-evolving philosophy and world view. I’m glad that Fughum has not been afraid to allow his personal philosophy to change over time. It gives me some hope for the future of my own sanity. I suppose one could say that I’m finishing up a sort of philosophical boot-camp phase in my life. That is, I’ve torn down most of the dumb and wrong-headed ideas I’ve had, or was told to have, and am ready to rebuild. Since I’m fully aware that I’m unlikely to have an idea that someone else hasn’t already had, and that someone has undoubtedly expressed it much more eloquently than I ever could, I like the idea of scribbling down the words of others that strike a meaningful chord as Fulghum has for much of his life.
Here are some lines quoted by Fulghum from John W. Gardner:
The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity, and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because philosophy is an exalted activity, will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy. Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.
I couldn’t agree more…unless you replace the word philosophy with politics and theories with policies.
I also jotted down a few good words from Fulghum’s own reflections. Here’s what he wrote about reading Joseph Heller:
The books are not about death and horror, but about what the system does to the better inclinations of human nature. I laugh when I read Heller, fully understanding that what I’m reading isn’t funny.
And on a similar note:
Nothing connects me with a person quicker than knowing what he laughs at. Nothing is more valuable in a relationship than loose and easy laughter.
Ha!
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Wednesday Word
stele (stē' lē, also stēl) 1. an upright stone slab or pillar engraved with an inscription or design and used as a monument, grave marker, etc. 2. Archit. a prepared surface, as on a facade, having an inscription, carved design, etc. 3. Bot. a central cylinder of vascular tissues in the stems and roots of plants
Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I'm mostly interested in the first two definitions (although I listed #3 for completeness).
Imagine you are thrashing your way through the thickest jungle and you come across a great big rock carved with ornamentation and figures that are unlike anything anyone has seen or recorded in known history. This is just what happend in the late 1830's to John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood as they were searching for the Mayan city of Copán in what is now Honduras:
Stephens and Catherwood themselves now took machetes and set about getting a clearer view. They found themselves before a stele, a high and richly carved slab of stone. In artistry of execution there was nothing in Europe or Asia to compete with it. Such sculpture had never been even remotely suspected on the American continent.
The ornamentation on the stone likeness was magnificent beyond description.
Stephens and Catherwood eventually found thirteen more of these magnificent stones. Since they could not haul them out of the jungle (and I, for one, am glad of that) it was left to Catherwood, an experienced draftsman to make a drawing of one of the darn things. The images before him were so beyond his experience that he nearly drove himself crazy trying to create an accurate depiction.
I suppose the next time something like this could happen it would have to be on another planet...or in a far, far future when super-evolved humans try to figure out why us ancients carved out so many sets of golden arches. And in either case the discoverers will probably have digital cameras.
Having recently read Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram, I'm mostly interested in the first two definitions (although I listed #3 for completeness).
Imagine you are thrashing your way through the thickest jungle and you come across a great big rock carved with ornamentation and figures that are unlike anything anyone has seen or recorded in known history. This is just what happend in the late 1830's to John Lloyd Stephens and Frederick Catherwood as they were searching for the Mayan city of Copán in what is now Honduras:
Stephens and Catherwood themselves now took machetes and set about getting a clearer view. They found themselves before a stele, a high and richly carved slab of stone. In artistry of execution there was nothing in Europe or Asia to compete with it. Such sculpture had never been even remotely suspected on the American continent.
The ornamentation on the stone likeness was magnificent beyond description.
Stephens and Catherwood eventually found thirteen more of these magnificent stones. Since they could not haul them out of the jungle (and I, for one, am glad of that) it was left to Catherwood, an experienced draftsman to make a drawing of one of the darn things. The images before him were so beyond his experience that he nearly drove himself crazy trying to create an accurate depiction.
I suppose the next time something like this could happen it would have to be on another planet...or in a far, far future when super-evolved humans try to figure out why us ancients carved out so many sets of golden arches. And in either case the discoverers will probably have digital cameras.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram
The Story of Archeology
Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram is a popularization of archeology, an engagingly written account of that science for the uninitiated, for the rest of us. Cream tells us by way of introduction in the book’s Foreword, “My book was written without scholarly pretentions. My aim was to portray the dramatic qualities, the human side.” It is, in short, a work of non-fictional adventure.
I must stand up and be counted among those who fell in love with archeology after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in the 1980s. If I had been able to follow up the pulp-style fictional adventures of Indiana Jones with Gods, Graves and Scholars I may have been hopelessly smitten for life. Instead, I had to wait until my freshman year of college when I took my one and only archeology class. All I really remember was learning how some bits of broken dishes proved that a certain group of Scandinavian immigrants lived in a certain area of Upper Michigan. Not exactly swashbuckling.
But Gods, Graves and Scholars is, and it’s not even fiction. It’s an exciting account of the way some of the most important discoveries came about:
Archeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth.
These stories are filled with compulsive scholars, obsessive dreamers, tireless adventurers, code-breakers, murderers, sadistic one-eyed villains, and an entire town full of tomb-robbers. Ceram takes the reader by the hand through accounts of J.J. Winkleman’s creation of a systematic approach to the new science of archeology in the mid-18th century before he was murdered; Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the city of Troy (and its treasure) by following his favorite fairy tale; Jean-Francois Champollion’s obsession with the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics; the breathless climax of Howard Carter’s entrance into Tutankhamen’s tomb; and John Lloyd Stephens’s securing for study the ruins of the Mayan city of Copan by purchasing the whole thing for fifty dollars.
At the risk of sounding like an infomercial host, I’ll just say, “and there’s much, much more.” The reader rides along to discover statues and steles, pyramids and tombs, crumbled towers and buried treasures, to so many places where, “that piquant combination of research and adventure, of scientific success and treasure-hunting, of that romantic éclat which comes when the excavator’s spade suddenly strikes a find of great material and intellectual value.” We watch over the shoulders of archeologists and other scholars as they struggle “to make dried-up wellsprings bubble forth again, to make the forgotten known again, and cause to flow once more that historic stream in which we are all encompassed.”
This book is, in a word, fascinating! I’m still a little out of breath from taking this armchair stay-cation with Ceram, who wrote, “In truth no science is more adventurous than archeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed.” After having read his book, and when I consider that it was originally published in 1949 (in German), several years before Sputnik gave us new frontiers rather than the remains of forgotten ones, I have no choice but to agree.
Coming soon: My thoughts on Words I Wish I Wrote by Robert Fulghum
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram is a popularization of archeology, an engagingly written account of that science for the uninitiated, for the rest of us. Cream tells us by way of introduction in the book’s Foreword, “My book was written without scholarly pretentions. My aim was to portray the dramatic qualities, the human side.” It is, in short, a work of non-fictional adventure.
I must stand up and be counted among those who fell in love with archeology after seeing Raiders of the Lost Ark in the 1980s. If I had been able to follow up the pulp-style fictional adventures of Indiana Jones with Gods, Graves and Scholars I may have been hopelessly smitten for life. Instead, I had to wait until my freshman year of college when I took my one and only archeology class. All I really remember was learning how some bits of broken dishes proved that a certain group of Scandinavian immigrants lived in a certain area of Upper Michigan. Not exactly swashbuckling.
But Gods, Graves and Scholars is, and it’s not even fiction. It’s an exciting account of the way some of the most important discoveries came about:
Archeology, I found, comprehended all manner of excitement and achievement. Adventure is coupled with bookish toil. Romantic excursions go hand in hand with scholarly self-discipline and moderation. Explorations among the ruins of the remote past have carried curious men all over the face of the earth.
These stories are filled with compulsive scholars, obsessive dreamers, tireless adventurers, code-breakers, murderers, sadistic one-eyed villains, and an entire town full of tomb-robbers. Ceram takes the reader by the hand through accounts of J.J. Winkleman’s creation of a systematic approach to the new science of archeology in the mid-18th century before he was murdered; Heinrich Schliemann’s discovery of the city of Troy (and its treasure) by following his favorite fairy tale; Jean-Francois Champollion’s obsession with the translation of Egyptian hieroglyphics; the breathless climax of Howard Carter’s entrance into Tutankhamen’s tomb; and John Lloyd Stephens’s securing for study the ruins of the Mayan city of Copan by purchasing the whole thing for fifty dollars.
At the risk of sounding like an infomercial host, I’ll just say, “and there’s much, much more.” The reader rides along to discover statues and steles, pyramids and tombs, crumbled towers and buried treasures, to so many places where, “that piquant combination of research and adventure, of scientific success and treasure-hunting, of that romantic éclat which comes when the excavator’s spade suddenly strikes a find of great material and intellectual value.” We watch over the shoulders of archeologists and other scholars as they struggle “to make dried-up wellsprings bubble forth again, to make the forgotten known again, and cause to flow once more that historic stream in which we are all encompassed.”
This book is, in a word, fascinating! I’m still a little out of breath from taking this armchair stay-cation with Ceram, who wrote, “In truth no science is more adventurous than archeology, if adventure is thought of as a mixture of spirit and deed.” After having read his book, and when I consider that it was originally published in 1949 (in German), several years before Sputnik gave us new frontiers rather than the remains of forgotten ones, I have no choice but to agree.
Coming soon: My thoughts on Words I Wish I Wrote by Robert Fulghum
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
Friday, November 4, 2011
Favorite Lines Friday
Here's a quote from The Phantom of the Opera that made me smile...
"None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learnt to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy."
Coming next: my thoughts on Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram
"None will ever be a true Parisian who has not learnt to wear a mask of gaiety over his sorrows and one of sadness, boredom or indifference over his inward joy."
Coming next: my thoughts on Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Wednesday Word
I came across the word pierrot while reading The Phantom of the Opera:
"With his face in a mask trimmed with long, thick lace, looking a very pierrot in his white wrap, the viscount thought himself most ridiculous."
First off, I have to agree that the viscount (Raoul de Chagny, Our Hero) probably looked pretty ridiculous in this get-up. At the risk of baring my ignorance for all of cyberspace to see, I have to admit, however, that I didn't know the word pierrot.
Pierrot (pē' ə rō', Fr. pye rō') a stock comic character in old French pantomime, having a whitened face and wearing loose pantaloons and a jacket with large buttons
While the trusty Second College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary that I got for Christmas from our dog, Flash, in the late 1980s gives Monsieur Pierrot a captitalized first initial, Leroux (or at least his translator) did not. I can only assume this means that pierrot no longer refers to a name, but rather a type and has lost its status as a proper name.
(This wikipedia entry has images of Pierrot. This and a Google image search might just lead to something that looks pretty familiar.)
"With his face in a mask trimmed with long, thick lace, looking a very pierrot in his white wrap, the viscount thought himself most ridiculous."
First off, I have to agree that the viscount (Raoul de Chagny, Our Hero) probably looked pretty ridiculous in this get-up. At the risk of baring my ignorance for all of cyberspace to see, I have to admit, however, that I didn't know the word pierrot.
Pierrot (pē' ə rō', Fr. pye rō') a stock comic character in old French pantomime, having a whitened face and wearing loose pantaloons and a jacket with large buttons
While the trusty Second College Edition of Webster's New World Dictionary that I got for Christmas from our dog, Flash, in the late 1980s gives Monsieur Pierrot a captitalized first initial, Leroux (or at least his translator) did not. I can only assume this means that pierrot no longer refers to a name, but rather a type and has lost its status as a proper name.
(This wikipedia entry has images of Pierrot. This and a Google image search might just lead to something that looks pretty familiar.)
Monday, October 31, 2011
The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
A “Ghost” Story for Halloween
This novel offers just what I expect in an old-fashioned thriller: a naïve damsel in distress, a young, lovesick hero, a dangerous and elusive villain, and a grandiose locale. It also offers what I hope for in a scary story: a ghost that is no less frightening when he is revealed to be not a phantom, but a criminally insane individual of rare talents, a “very curious genius” with a dark, nefarious past.
The novel is narrated by a man who wishes to prove that:
The opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants, or the concierge. No, he existed in flesh and blood, though he assumed the outward characteristics of a real phantom, that is to say, of a shade.
The story reads like a reliable piece of investigative journalism (Leroux was an experienced journalist) that doesn’t leave out the dramatic (sometimes even melodramatic) points of view of the characters or the suspense and tension of a mystery with a phantom/dangerous criminal at its center. The reader is taken on a fast-paced ride through the Paris Opera House, its grand public areas, complex behind-the-scenes workings and dark and mysterious cellars. Neither the superstitious nor the skeptical are safe from the Opera Ghost, and our heroes and their supporting cast are constantly kept on their toes, oscillating between hope and despair, always at the mercy of the villain.
My favorite scene comes early in the story. We get a glimpse of just how talented, at sneaking and manipulating as well as at beautiful music, the Opera Ghost really is. We see just how an otherwise reasonable if inexperienced young lady could become enthralled by such a terrible individual. While most of the action of the story is set at the Paris Opera House, this scene, which is possibly the most theatrical in the book, takes place in a churchyard where, “Dead men’s bones arranged in rows, like so many bricks, seemed to form the first course upon which the sacristy-walls were built.” The phantom makes a rather dramatic appearance as an Angel of Music to our damsel in distress, and a formidable rival to our shaky hero.
I was intending to treat The Phantom of the Opera simply as a Book I Should Have Read By Now, a piece of literature that inspired more popular works of entertainment (none of which I’ve seen…shame on me). Instead, I found myself experiencing it as an enjoyable work of drama and suspense. The setting of the Opera House is fascinating, with all its secret passages, mysterious underground tunnels and caverns, and unusual characters, especially behind the scenes. The details are amazing. Leroux either had a good working understanding of such a place, or a very vivid imagination.
He also seemed to have a good working understanding of the criminally insane and the vortex of confusion and terror such a villain can create. The Opera Ghost is capable of anything from blackmail to murder, from great art to complete obsession. While perhaps a person of flesh and blood, he is truly a monster. But is he unsympathetic? Is he wholly irredeemable? That’s something the reader will have to determine for herself. As for the hero and heroine of the story, you’ll get no spoilers here. The reader will have to find out for herself what happens to them as well.
Coming soon: Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
This novel offers just what I expect in an old-fashioned thriller: a naïve damsel in distress, a young, lovesick hero, a dangerous and elusive villain, and a grandiose locale. It also offers what I hope for in a scary story: a ghost that is no less frightening when he is revealed to be not a phantom, but a criminally insane individual of rare talents, a “very curious genius” with a dark, nefarious past.
The novel is narrated by a man who wishes to prove that:
The opera ghost really existed. He was not, as was long believed, a creature of the imagination of the artists, the superstition of the managers, or the absurd and impressionable brains of the young ladies of the ballet, their mothers, the box-keepers, the cloak-room attendants, or the concierge. No, he existed in flesh and blood, though he assumed the outward characteristics of a real phantom, that is to say, of a shade.
The story reads like a reliable piece of investigative journalism (Leroux was an experienced journalist) that doesn’t leave out the dramatic (sometimes even melodramatic) points of view of the characters or the suspense and tension of a mystery with a phantom/dangerous criminal at its center. The reader is taken on a fast-paced ride through the Paris Opera House, its grand public areas, complex behind-the-scenes workings and dark and mysterious cellars. Neither the superstitious nor the skeptical are safe from the Opera Ghost, and our heroes and their supporting cast are constantly kept on their toes, oscillating between hope and despair, always at the mercy of the villain.
My favorite scene comes early in the story. We get a glimpse of just how talented, at sneaking and manipulating as well as at beautiful music, the Opera Ghost really is. We see just how an otherwise reasonable if inexperienced young lady could become enthralled by such a terrible individual. While most of the action of the story is set at the Paris Opera House, this scene, which is possibly the most theatrical in the book, takes place in a churchyard where, “Dead men’s bones arranged in rows, like so many bricks, seemed to form the first course upon which the sacristy-walls were built.” The phantom makes a rather dramatic appearance as an Angel of Music to our damsel in distress, and a formidable rival to our shaky hero.
I was intending to treat The Phantom of the Opera simply as a Book I Should Have Read By Now, a piece of literature that inspired more popular works of entertainment (none of which I’ve seen…shame on me). Instead, I found myself experiencing it as an enjoyable work of drama and suspense. The setting of the Opera House is fascinating, with all its secret passages, mysterious underground tunnels and caverns, and unusual characters, especially behind the scenes. The details are amazing. Leroux either had a good working understanding of such a place, or a very vivid imagination.
He also seemed to have a good working understanding of the criminally insane and the vortex of confusion and terror such a villain can create. The Opera Ghost is capable of anything from blackmail to murder, from great art to complete obsession. While perhaps a person of flesh and blood, he is truly a monster. But is he unsympathetic? Is he wholly irredeemable? That’s something the reader will have to determine for herself. As for the hero and heroine of the story, you’ll get no spoilers here. The reader will have to find out for herself what happens to them as well.
Coming soon: Gods, Graves and Scholars by C.W. Ceram
A Year of Books I Should Have Read by Now
Friday, October 28, 2011
Preface
A Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now
I love books and have an overly ambitious reading list. I am also a very distractible person, one who jumps from project to project, from book to book, without getting nearly enough done. That may be all you need to know about me. Oh, yes, and I’m kind of hooked on this blogging thing.
You see, I wanted to start a year-long project in which I only read books I had already read at least once before. The problem was the groaning bookcases and boxes full of books that I hadn’t got around to reading for the first time yet. (I don’t know how this happened, except as a particular manifestation of my distractibility.) Some of these books I’ve neglected for ten years or more. Some are newer books from authors I’ve just discovered. Some are important pieces of literature that I feel pretty guilty about not having read. Still others are just for fun. It seemed impossible to put them all aside for a whole year, even to reread my favorite books.
But this stops now. I’m giving myself one year to read as many of these lonely, dusty books as I can. To keep me on track, and to make things a little more interesting, I’m going to record my opinions and other thoughts on these books on the pages of The Distractible Reader.
Now, I’m not a professional reader. By this I mean that I have no particular formal education in literature or book review. My post-secondary training has been in chemical engineering, a smattering of other sciences, and education. I’m reading these books purely as an armchair (or perhaps sofa or propped-up-on-pillows-in-bed) reader. It’s likely that I won’t have a clue about some brilliant symbolism in a novel. A good work of history is likely to all be news to me. I may gush more over a particularly creative work of science fiction than I will over the most important works of the most respected literary masters. In short, I might not appear to really know what I’m talking about. (I welcome comments, but please consider these guidelines.)
But nearly everybody learns to read even if almost nobody is an expert. In this Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now (and hopefully in other years with other themes) I intend to celebrate amateur reading by cramming in as many pages as my brain (and my eyes) can stand. Few genres are safe from such a distractible reader as myself, although my shelves are overloaded with science fact and science fiction, fantasy, classic novels, history, biography and memoirs. This could be a bumpy ride with many a swerve, curve and test of nerve, but those rides are always the most fun.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some reading to do.
Coming soon: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (my Halloween read) and Gods, Graves and Scholars by C. W. Ceram
I love books and have an overly ambitious reading list. I am also a very distractible person, one who jumps from project to project, from book to book, without getting nearly enough done. That may be all you need to know about me. Oh, yes, and I’m kind of hooked on this blogging thing.
You see, I wanted to start a year-long project in which I only read books I had already read at least once before. The problem was the groaning bookcases and boxes full of books that I hadn’t got around to reading for the first time yet. (I don’t know how this happened, except as a particular manifestation of my distractibility.) Some of these books I’ve neglected for ten years or more. Some are newer books from authors I’ve just discovered. Some are important pieces of literature that I feel pretty guilty about not having read. Still others are just for fun. It seemed impossible to put them all aside for a whole year, even to reread my favorite books.
But this stops now. I’m giving myself one year to read as many of these lonely, dusty books as I can. To keep me on track, and to make things a little more interesting, I’m going to record my opinions and other thoughts on these books on the pages of The Distractible Reader.
Now, I’m not a professional reader. By this I mean that I have no particular formal education in literature or book review. My post-secondary training has been in chemical engineering, a smattering of other sciences, and education. I’m reading these books purely as an armchair (or perhaps sofa or propped-up-on-pillows-in-bed) reader. It’s likely that I won’t have a clue about some brilliant symbolism in a novel. A good work of history is likely to all be news to me. I may gush more over a particularly creative work of science fiction than I will over the most important works of the most respected literary masters. In short, I might not appear to really know what I’m talking about. (I welcome comments, but please consider these guidelines.)
But nearly everybody learns to read even if almost nobody is an expert. In this Year of Books I Should Have Read By Now (and hopefully in other years with other themes) I intend to celebrate amateur reading by cramming in as many pages as my brain (and my eyes) can stand. Few genres are safe from such a distractible reader as myself, although my shelves are overloaded with science fact and science fiction, fantasy, classic novels, history, biography and memoirs. This could be a bumpy ride with many a swerve, curve and test of nerve, but those rides are always the most fun.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some reading to do.
Coming soon: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (my Halloween read) and Gods, Graves and Scholars by C. W. Ceram
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