Latest Readings

Again, a pile of stuff has formed on my desk. And so I idly pick through the stuff, hoping that it doesn't testify too badly to my state of mind or testify badly to that state.

I have about twenty books. I was going to list them but the computer ate my list. And so it goes.

What... ?

"What have you been reading these days?" asked the old friend.

"Do you really want a list?" I replied.

"Just tell me what's in the piles at your desk," said she.

And so, here:

1. Earnest Lau, From Mission to Church.
2. H.E. Wilson, Social Engineering in Singapore.
3. Andy Kirkpatrick, English as a Lingua Franca in ASEAN.
4. Tu Wei-Ming, Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity.
5. Robert Winston, The Human Mind.
6. Robert Winston, Bad Ideas?
7. Sheri S Tepper,  The Waters Rising.
8. Gregory Maguire, What the Dickens.
9. Stephen Hunt, Jack Cloudie.
10. Alan K. Baker, The Martian Ambassador.
11. Alan K. Baker, The Feaster from the Stars.
12. Christopher Fowler,  Bryant & May and The Memory of Blood.
13. Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Collected John Carter of Mars (in 3 volumes).
14. Antonio L. Rappa, Globalization: An Asian Perspective on Modernity and Politics in America.
15. Emrys Chew (ed.),  Goh Keng Swee: A Legacy of Public Service.
16. Michael J. Sandel, Justice.
17. Theodore Gray, The Elements.

They're all in various stages of being read, having just been read enough, or being prepared for reading. Sometimes, I drive myself mad, working on stuff that has nothing to do with what I'm reading. Sigh.

The Pile On My Desk

Sometimes you think of a post title, and then it occurs to you that 'The Colour Out Of Space' would be an equally good title. It does funny things to your mind.

But here I have in front of me a pile, indeed. And the pile is full of stuff which I am reading, have been reading, or will have read in a while. Besides the obvious fiction, which includes much Peter Beagle (an interest rekindled by a unicorn), Philip Reeve, Andrea Camilleri, China Miéville and Gail Carriger, I also have much not-so-obviously-fiction which might even be non-fiction.

It is this latter class which I will now describe.

I have the following on and around my desk right now, all partly read:

• Michael Sandel's Justice;
• Bryan Turner's The Routledge International Handbook of Globalization Studies;
• Tu Wei-Ming's Confucian Traditions in East Asian Modernity;
• Simon Winchester's Atlantic;
• John Kay's Obliquity;
• Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto;
• Nassir Ghaemi's A First-Rate Madness; and
• Lee Kuan Yew's My Lifelong Challenge: Singapore's Bilingual Journey.

I have no idea what will emerge from this confluence, but the last time this kind of stuff interacted, I found myself two book chapters and a thesis to the good. I cannot wait to see strange beast will soon slouch its way through the Internet to be born.

Language as a Way of Knowing

Lector, si argumentum requiris, circumspice. Or something like that.

Readership

Some person or persons unknown decided to spend a significant amount of time on this humble non-blog yesterday. I am certainly grateful to have such avid readers.

Yet I am mindful of my responsibilities. I do try to write as well as I can, but the quality may very a lot from day to day. Some days, I'm less coherent or witty or stylish or helpful than on other days. Some days, I'm frankly not very (or any) good at all.

This is not a very focussed place. The point was never to target a segment of population or to drive the readership up by spamming keywords. It's just a repository for stuff, a non-blog, a dump, so to speak. Some of it is like toxic waste — I have had to get things off my mind, and this is where those things have ended up.

So, for those of you with the patience to bear with all that: thank you very much. May you be inspired or at least entertained!

Bibliophobia

People are afraid of books, people worship books blindly, people are attempting to do away with books, the tide of young people who are not comfortable with books is rising. These are some impressions I've received over the last few years.

I think a lot of this stems from one common root. People are unfamiliar with books.

The child who doesn't like to read is one who has had the reading behaviour displaced, most often by some other kind of visual and/or tactile input. If you keep a child bored and put him in a library, he will eventually succumb to bibliophilia because that is his only useful choice.

Instinctively, most parents resist such manipulation when it comes to books, although they are not averse to using other kinds of manipulation with respect to food, sleep and toilet training. It is part of the mystique of the book — some will worship, some will fear, most will set aside as special.

But the book is still the best way to deliver content. It is a compact and persistent data source in which comprehension is delivered not by point-and-click but by the enforcement of a specific kind of cognitive process that is the foundation of the entire education system of the world. It requires symbol recognition and processing at several levels, and metacognition above that.

My prescription is that if you want a child to have a lower chance of being ADHD, subliterate, or just plain barbaric, you should take most of the toys and games away and leave him in a library or bookstore. When you meet, talk about books, model the intelligent reader, and (if you like) teach him to discard trash about Blue Ocean Strategies and suchlike.

Literature By Formula

I remember that in my second lecture on Science (which I've mentioned a couple of times in my last few posts), I had occasion to talk about the science of literature. Famous fellows like Robert Graves and Joseph Campbell (and of course, their great thematic ancestor, Sir James Frazer) have of course attempted to codify the origins of human narrative in their own ways. You can also add to their number people such as Robert Heinlein of SF fame and many others.

But here is a summary of the various basic plots that a story can consist of, and what they might mean in terms of the seasons of a man's life, or the tone of it, or the politics of it. It makes for bitter-sweet reading, but also farce and beauty. Without further ado, I present to you...

Literary Formulae

Mar-Apr:

• Boy meets girl
• Spring
• Comedy
• Liberal-Conservative

This is the most innocent phase of the hero's life; it's all about beginnings, ideals, and youth.

May-Jun:

• Boy grows up
• Early Summer
• Comedy-Romance
• Conservative

This part is mostly innocent, but it's also the season in which things begin to get serious.

Jul-Aug:

• Boy goes questing
• Late Summer
• Romance
• Anarchistic

This is the phase in which things begin to turn, and the hero questions his identity and purpose.

Sep-Oct:

• Boy saves world
• Autumn
• Tragedy
• Anarchistic-Radical

This is when the hero discovers what he thinks his purpose is, and his ideals and ideas are tempered by bitter experience.

Nov-Dec:

• Boy comes home
• Early Winter
• Tragedy-Satire
• Radical

Of course, when the boy returns, he is not the same boy, and neither is his home the same home...

Jan-Feb:

• Boy grows old/dies
• Late Winter
• Satire
• Liberal

By this time, our boy has reached the point in what's left of his life at which he feels he can say anything and do anything.

(Sources: Campbell, Frye, Gellis, Heinlein, White et al)

There's an interesting afternote to all this. The infamous David Eddings was very frank about how his best-selling novels were written to prove that books could be written to a formula and make lots of money. To prove it, he wrote five fat books, then wrote the same thing again a different way, and made twice as much money. If you were one of those suckers who enjoyed the Belgariad and the Malloreon as much as I did, consider yourself a victim of literary science.

Folio 2009/2010

It's that time of year again, when I have to make decisions between Impossible Journeys (Matthew Lyons) and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (John Le Carré), between The Authentic Gospel of Jesus (Geza Vermes) and The Persian Expedition (Xenophon), between Lord of the Flies (William Golding) and The Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton), between James Watson's The Double Helix and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines.

How does one choose between Dorian Gray and Robin Hood? Or The Great Game (Peter Hopkirk) and Empires of the Word (Nicholas Ostler)? It is always difficult, and yet it is always easy. You buy them all, realising that for the earnings of two hours' work, you will gain eight hours of pleasure, repeatable at will.

So now... Bede or Xenophone? Short stories or poetry? Argh... those who have always sneered at the hypothetical choice of books or food have obviously never been enthralled by a book that keeps you reading until you forget you're supposed to have had dinner, gone to bed, or met your date.

But those are other stories, and I shall not say more for now.

Literary Reserves

It's like the fine wines that one keeps in the cellar for a first and special opening during a grand occasion. I have a stash of books, still in pristine condition, that I have kept for times when I really need a good book.

Sometimes, I already have a copy of the book, well-thumbed, much loved and much read. In such a case, the book in the stash is normally a Folio edition, sometimes a numbered copy, still in its shrink-wrapped virginity.

Sometimes, I have very much wanted to spend the time the book requires, but I have not found that time yet. In such a case, the book is new, but often large and/or complex.

Sometimes, I know the book in the stash is not one of those classics, nor is destined to be. But I know I will have fun with it, and enjoy it, given the right circumstances.

Sometimes, I don't keep the book in the stash very long, because it just begs to be read at the nearest available opportunity. These books help me to stay away from those that need to be 'aged' a little longer.

Right now, my stash includes these:

• Powers: Secret Histories, compiled and edited by John Berlyne; limited edition, #881 of 1000;
• The Weather Makers, by Tim Flannery; paperback;
• Bomb, Book and Compass, by Simon Winchester; mass market paperback;
• Stories, by John Buchan; Folio edition;
• Practical Endgame Play—Beyond the Basics, by Glenn Flear; paperback;
• You Can Understand The Bible, by Peter Kreeft; paperback;
• A Thousand Deaths, by George Alec Effinger; hardback;
• Communitarian Ideology and Democracy in Singapore, by Chua Beng Huat; hardback;
• The Prefect, by Alastair Reynolds; mass market paperback;
• The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon; mass market paperback.

It's a terrifying list, and there are at least 15 more books in the stash.

The great thing is that there are books for every occasion! I feel truly blessed to be able to reach out and entertain any of my varied interests from the small space around my desk. Only in this age of mankind has the written word been so available to so many with so little effort. But that's both a blessing and a curse.

Discovery Channel Blues

I was just leafing through my awfully tall stack of unread reading material. Journals, magazines, books... about 30 items all told. Then I came across the October issue of the Discovery Channel magazine. Interesting headlines.

• THE MAKING OF AN F1 RACER
• EVOLUTION GONE WILD: Spore Takes Gaming To New Heights
• MAN vs NATURE: Jungle Survival Tips For The Urban Male
• WATER WORLD: The Rise And Fall Of The Angkor Kingdom
• HIGH-RISE FARMING: Agriculture Grows Up

For some reason, I thought immediately of Singapore, a city-state to which all these headlines seemed to point.

In other news, I have been accumulating copies of The London Review of Books, Science and Scientific American. I used to donate them to the teachers in the school at which I used to work. I wonder if anyone else wants them now. I still think teachers ought to learn as much as they can for as long as they can.

Word of the Day: Microtome

This is one of those elegant Hellenic neologisms. It comes from Greek mikro- meaning 'small' and -tomein meaning 'to slice or divide'. It's the same root as in 'atom', which means 'an indivisible thing'.

A microtome, then is a thing that slices fine. In biology, it's a device that makes thin slices of a sample so that they can be used in microscopy (heh, another one of those Greek words) or other peculiar biological analar processes.

But I like using the word 'microtome' to mean 'book reviews'; that is, 'small tomes' – books reduced to manageable size for people with no time to read or who want a summary so they can decide on what to read. And here again, I refer you to www.microtome.blogspot.com, which is where I keep the monthly reading list.

It doesn't show everything I read, but it does provide some of the highlights. And more so soon, I suspect, as I settle in to being a flatbound invalid for a while.

Better Than Rowling

I've always thought that Rowling was one short of Growling. Fortunately, there is an alternative. I am reading Walter Moers now. In fact, I am reading The 13½ Lives of Captain Bluebear... A Novel. It is the rambunctiously entertaining life of Bluebear, beginning with his life in a nutshell (yes, as an infant cast adrift in a walnut shell heading for the infamous and deadly Mälmstrøm) and continuing with his life with the Minipirates and other rather unusual characters. Read the linked review. I have no time to do a proper review yet – too busy reading. Heh.

Reading Lists

The summer break is almost upon us (or in some cases, has already begun). Here are a couple of lists borrowed (rescued?) from a coffee shop menu. People who haven't visited that (now slightly disused and dilapidated) coffeeshop can still find interesting things there.

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~autolycus says:

1) Which 20 F&SF books would I replace first if my entire library disintegrated one night?
Note: This excludes graphic novels and excludes some works (but not all) by authors included in the second list.
Here's a list, in order of physical distance from my desk. There might be some shocks...

1. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
2. The True Game, Sheri Tepper
3. One for the Morning Glory, John Barnes
4-6. The Earthsea trilogy (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore), Ursula le Guin
7. Bridge of Birds, Barry Hughart
8-10. The Planetary trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength), C S Lewis
11-13. The Dorsai trilogy (The Tactics of Mistake; Soldier, Ask Not; Dorsai!), Gordon Dickson
14. The Drawing of the Dark, Tim Powers
15. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
16. The Stress of Her Regard, Tim Powers
17. The Princess Bride, William Goldman
18-20. The 1st Uplift trilogy (Sundiver, Startide Rising, The Uplift War), David Brin
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~autolycus says:

2) Which author's books would I buy and read just on the strength of the author's name alone? (i.e. I would buy any book written by that author.)

Note: This includes authors who have written stuff which isn't F&SF, and whose books I have tried to obtain complete sets of. It excludes authors who have written books I have deliberately decided not to buy for one reason or another.
Here's the second list, in no particular order, except that it's convenient to follow the first list. More shocks? You decide...

1. Roger Zelazny
2. Sheri S Tepper
3. John Barnes
4. Barry Hughart
5. Tim Powers
6. Steven Brust
7. Terry Pratchett
8. Neil Gaiman
9. Tom Holt/K J Parker
10. Anthony Price
11. Isaac Asimov
12. Iain Banks
13. Larry Niven
14. Diana Wynne Jones
15. Mary Gentle
16. Arturo Perez-Reverte
17. Lawrence Block
18. Joe Haldeman
19. Greg Rucka
20. Kage Baker
21. Andrea Camilleri
22. Sean McMullen
23. Charles Stross
24. Michael Crichton
25. Jack Vance (I've actually bought a complete set of ALL his books.)
26. Alfred Duggan

Reading

Reading is a beautiful little university town in the south of England. It is also a pursuit which may bring wisdom, which offers material for reflection, which allows one to look at the thoughts of another and capture the resonances thereof. You can read music, you can read for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. One person can read another, by form, finger, face, or feeling.

And yet, we are overwhelmed with the visual image and the soundbite, day after day, dreary session after dreary session. To encourage people to read, you must sequester them; you must deny them cheap and easy recourse to the graphic, the acoustic, and the mundane. For whereas sound, action and visual image bring knowledge in their own ways, only the written word stands any chance at all of faithfully reproducing sequential, intelligent reasoning. And if this is what is required, we must read, make others read, and set up places where reading might be fruitfully accomplished.

It makes me feel rather unhappy when material which can be presented to the reading intelligence of people who presumably have the ability to read, and which is best perused carefully and referred to as necessary, is presented as quick slides and talk - especially when the slides are not optimised for knowledge transfer and when the talk is much the same in quality. One ought at least to get a performance equal to the combined power of the text and the intelligent re-enactment of it from the reader's mind. But one doesn't. And it galls. It galls in all three parts, as another Caesar might have said.