Giles

Books what I read in 2007.

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 22:56:54 GMT

I haven't been sufficiently organised to keep a list, but from memory -

John Crowley - Little, Big and The Solitudes
Orhan Pahmuk - My Name Is Red
Phillip Roth - The Plot Against America
Hermann Hesse - The Glass Bead Game
Alan Moore - From Hell
Russell Hoban - Amaryllis Night & Day and The Medusa Frequency
Italo Calvino - Invisible Cities
Natalie Angier - Natural Obsessions
M. John Harrison - Nova Swing, Climbers, & Viriconium (The Pastel City/A Storm of Wings/In Viriconium/Viriconium Nights)
Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light
Ian McEwan - Black Dogs
Philip K Dick - Valis, Eye in the Sky & The Zap Gun
Kelly Link - Magic for Beginners
Mary Doria Russell - The Sparrow
Theodore Sturgeon - More Than Human
Gene Wolfe - The Island of Doctor Death & Other Stories & Other Stories, and The Book of the Short Sun (On Blue's Waters/In Green's Jungles/Return to the Whorl)
Michael Ondaatje - Anil's Ghost
Jim Crace - Continent
Jorge Luis Borges - A Universal History of Iniquity
Frederick Pohl & C. M. Kornbluth - The Space Merchants
J. G. Ballard - The Venus Hunters
Terry Pratchett - the last half dozen or so Discworld novels.
Laurence Durrell - Justine (part one of the Alexandria Quartet)
Ursula Le Guin - Orsinian Tales
Michael Chabon - The Yiddish Policeman's Union
Susanna Clarke - Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

- of which Little, Big, The Plot Against America, From Hell, Invisible Cities, Natural Obsessions, Nova Swing, Viriconium, Magic for Beginners, The Book of the Short Sun, Anil's Ghost, and Justine, were probably the most enjoyable.

This appears to have been a year of reading fantasy, which I must admit I had written off entirely a couple of years ago; apart from the obvious genre fiction suspects, there's JLB, Italo Calvino, Lawrence Durrell, and Jim Crace.

Probably some stuff from 2006 as crept in, and no doubt there are plenty of good things missing. Those authors will have to live without my recognition. For the rest:

Worst cover award goes to Tor, for On Blue's Waters. Random House made a brave effort for The Plot Against America, but the idea of an image of Yellowstone with a big swastika over the top is more ludicrous than their actual design. Must try harder next year.

Special mention to Hermann Hesse and Philip Roth for the cheesiest science fiction on the list not written by Phil Dick.

Ian McEwan gets the coveted "I just don't like Ian McEwan, I don't know why" prize, for the second year running.

Snark award to M. John Harrison, for his implied critique (Viriconium) of half of the other books on the list, and of me for reading them.

Michael Chabon, Pohl and Kornbluth, and Theodore Sturgeon - and of the course the legendary PKD - all managed to lose control of their plots. They could learn or thing or two from Kelly Link, who largely avoided the problem of having any to begin with. Well done to Roger Zelazny and Russell Hoban, who kept ludicrously elaborate contraptions built of ancient mythology and corny science fiction ticking over against all the odds, and even remembered the jokes.

Saving the best 'til last award to Gene Wolfe, for putting The Book of the Long Sun in between The Book of the New Sun and The Book of the Short Sun, thus ensuring that the middle third of what is essentially a single novel of over three thousand pages is mostly filler - comprising lots of "funny" accents, spelled phonetically.

The great many books I have only started reading are not on the list, to deflect questions about why I would finish The Space Merchants and not, say, Howards End, to which I have no good answer.

In summary: You just about have time to read Little, Big and The Solitudes before Love & Sleep comes back in to print.

Thu, 24 Aug 2006 16:17:07 GMT

Peace begins in the form of the meandering recollections of Alden Dennis Weer, an aged American who lived in the mid-west in the first part of the twentieth century, and with a somewhat oblique statement of intent. The circumstances of the opening scene - including a number of incidental details, such as Weer being dressed against the winter cold and even the presence of a melting candle - echo Descarte's Meditations. Some of Descarte's questions - in particular, how and whether we know that something which has changed remains itself - inform very strongly on Peace.

'Den' (Wolfe's favourite game, and the key feature of his writing, is leaving the referent of his symbols open, and then playing a kind of bait-and-switch on the reader) is trying, with the time that remains to him, to put together a coherent understanding of his life. He has suffered a stroke that may have demolished part of his memory and left him confused, or possibly may have given him the abilty to project his mind across time, or both. In any event, the narrative that follows moves back to the beginning of Weer's life, then forwards again through certain key passages - not so much important for being decisive, so much as offering illumination. However, for each period there is some possible means by which that incarnation may be relating the rest of the tale - it is possible that much of it may be a story told by a young Weer to his psychiatrist. The slightly rambling nature of the narrator leads to scenes following one another in a kind of free association, reflecting that possibility.

In addition to folding the main narrative around itself in this manner, Wolfe embeds other stories by various means, that help inform Weer's own interpretation of his world and also give Wolfe the chance to indulge in more overtly fantastic writing. There is a passage near the end, following a discussion with a man who has been forging copies of the Necronomicon, that is either direct quotation from Lovecraft or a note-perfect imitation - it made me laugh with delight. These structural devices are part of Weer's search for a story of his life, and allow Wolfe to explore how narratives inform the interpretation of events, and how both shift to accomodate one another. (Unsurprisingly, Neil Gaiman likes Peace.)

Wolfe's basic method, here as in his better known The Book of The New Sun, is to narrate the concrete details of his story in a relatively straightforward fashion, but to allow the reader just long enough to settle before suggesting a change of perspective. Since this is never a matter of facts, but of interpretation, Peace builds up layers of meaning. It is the resonances of the recurring characters and places that give Peace an emotional depth beyond the poignancy of Weer's own struggles. In his later, more overtly fantastic fiction Wolfe's characters are often at least superficially grotesques that deliberately play off fantasy archetypes; here, as there, they are elegantly drawn and gradually reveal new facets to both the narrator and the reader, but they remain more realist in conception.

This is not so true towards the end of the novel, especially in a large section of narration by another character, later recalled by Weer. There is a pervading sense of unreality throughout the novel, partly owing to the losely flowing narrative, partly to passages of outright fantasy, and partly to an increasingly gothic setting. Weer's house, to which we return occasionally, is of unknown extent to the narrator following his stroke, but appears to contain replicas of rooms that feature elsewhere in the story - although again, Weer's grip on reality is either very weak or supernaturally strong. Various and increasingly macabre tales appear as the book progresses. This opening to more outlandish possibilities accompanies the increasing urgency and doubt that the narrator feels about the nature of the story he is looking for: he wonders if he is inadvertently telling another character's tale. There are other candidates too, other characters or the township itself.

If the connection with the Meditations isn't clear, the connection is explored in Borges' short story The Immortals (or whatever it's called. It's the one with the immortals). There's an argument that all Wolfe does is steal ideas from JLB and bring them up to novel length using genre techniques - the modern novel of character with a splash of gothic here, a sort of modernist science fantasy/planetary romance in the New Sun series, cod-historical epic in Soldier in the Mist. If so - there are worse ways to spend your time.

At a more immediate level, Peace is a moving account of its immediate subject: the life of someone who never quite feels he has found his place. (Put like that, it seems possible I may be allowing my own present concerns to bear and so arriving at a distorted interpretation.) Weer's own voice is beautifully realised, allowing much that is artificial and very carefulyl constructed to feel totally natural. This and everything in Peace is done, I think, with enough grace and interspersed with enough incidental pleasures - in particular, Wolfe's habit of inserting other stories, here fables and ghost stories - to be unequivocably recommended.

Mon, 21 Aug 2006 11:47:31 GMT

Just a quick note that anyone who wishes to drop round this weekend to drink our wine and eat our food is more than welcome to do so. But please knock before breaking in.

This may get a bit abstract.

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 11:21:56 GMT

To mark the planet having flung itself around the sun twenty-three times without launching me off into space to die cold and alone in the desolate nothing between the uncaring stars (or perhaps to be eaten by the dread elder beasts that lurk there), there will be a gathering in Cambridge on the 26th of August. There may be a barbecue of some sort: I gather that's what the young people are doing nowadays.

Those who wish to stay between the Friday night and the Sunday are of course welcome, with floor space and sofas available, as well as two beds if you seduce their current inhabitants. How hard can it be?

Meantime, for those in Cambridge, I'm going to the pub tonight, and thence to eat funny foreign foods. I'll be in the Vine from 5:30 for at least an hour.

Is anyone even reading this journal any more? If so, why?

Wed, 19 Jul 2006 14:50:29 GMT

As Tim rightly points out, in order to know when your birthday is you have to depend on other people, and other people are idiots. But, on the spurious pretext of maintaining the likely fiction that I was born on August 1st, 1983 - and, more importantly apparently, to provide Hester with cover for her crazy Who-a-thon - some sort of party in August has been suggested.

Unfortunately I only have the weekends of the 11th-12th and 25th-26th free that month. H has already tested the waters for the 11th: what's the latter like? (Adam and Oli especially.)

Fri, 30 Jun 2006 15:46:08 GMT

There is scope, I think - assuming it does not already exist - for the David Cameron Policy Generator. This device consists of two hats. In one hat are scraps of paper bearing iconic Tory policies; in the other, scraps containing trendy political causes. With the aid of such a gizmo, you too could suggest solving poverty in sub-Saharan African using vouchers.

No, really though.

In this scheme, we are told, "for the first time, ... aid agencies would have a direct and clear incentive to deliver effective services. Such an innovation would help show us what the poor really want - and who is most effective in meeting their needs".

Let us picture the response to an humanitarian crisis - but with vouchers! Crops fail. Gangs appear. Corrupt local officials siphon off state aid flows. Medical supplies are insufficient. So now we - inject vouchers. But we can no more expect vouchers to flow of their own accord to those most in need than we could money. So we have to get everyone to fill out a questionnaire. Perhaps points are awarded for having diseases, with extra points (perhaps some sort of bonus prize?) for combinations that kill you really quickly, like (say) anything and AIDS. Perhaps they are also available based on whether the region is a net importer or exporter of Kalashnikovs at the time. Once we have collated these, we can allocate the vouchers - somewhat simplified by everyone who was really needy having died in the meantime. Then the victims of famine simply jump into their four-by-fours, and head over to the local aid retail park, where, after shopping around between Medicins Sans Frontiers and Oxfam, discover that MSF has the cheaper vaccines. Then they head over to Oxfam for a quick byte to eat, but get removed by security when it turns out that they don't have any couchers remaining. And so forth.

You could talk about the problems this creates for aid agencies, having to decide whether to go into a crisis or not based on projected rate of return. You could mention that this system places far more, not less, power in the hands of the central governments. You could talk about the massively increased administrative load this will produce in the attempt to artificially create a highly dynamic efficient market from nothing in the most corrupt, and frequently lawless and wartorn, part of the planet. You could discuss how wide open it is to exploitation if the vouchers can be exchanged for anything valuable. But seriously. What. The. Fuck.

Sun, 28 May 2006 15:20:38 GMT

Being somewhat behind the times, I picked this up second hand the other week. The book is a short story collection, converted into a novel by a structural trick. Each story breaks off halfway through, when a character encounters some record of the (chronologically) following story, until we get to the sixth story, which is completed by an encounter with a record of the second half of the fifth, and then we move back again by the same means to the conclusion of the first story. It's a little mind-twisting if you try to work out whether all the stories can inhabit the same fictional world - I feel as if they are intended to, though I cannot see how - but the book works either way.

The analogue of this within the stories is some vague stuff about reincarnation, transmigration of souls, and the invocation the Nietszchean concept of the "eternal return". My problem with Nietszche's philosophy when I encounter it is not so much that it doesn't seem to make sense as that I can't connect it with anything (for example, the "will to power" seems to me a possible metaphysic, just not to have anything to do with the world we are actually in). I had a similar problem with this conceit: it appeared to amount to nothing in itself, and the stories were strongly thematically linked and with plenty of resonant moments, so the justification of the structure didn't really add anything to the book's content. (It may have been intended to buttress the book's central argument, in which case I think it backfired: you can't use a fictional premise for such a purpose.)

It did, however, keep the thing moving along at a fair pace and sustain the tension, which brings me to the strong point of the book: the storytelling is excellent. There are six good stories in the volume, they each have their own voice, and they are all successful in their own terms. Consequently, nowhere did the book sag. All of the stories are something of a pastiche of various genres, and this weakens some of them a little (notably the political thriller). The conclusions of the outermost tales are also increasingly compromised by the need to serve as a coda to the book. The central story is probably the strongest, possibly by virtue of not being snapped in two, though I think it would be anyway. But the key point is that the variety, humour, and sympathetic narrators make the book as a whole simply fun.

By the same token, Cloud Atlas is packed with ideas. Not, I think any noticable original ones, but that isn't the aim. Mitchell aims to make a particular argument with this book, and he frames it six different ways. I admit that having the courage to so openly commit to a particular viewpoint, while acknowledging that it may be false, endears an author to me: this may just be personal preference. The attempt is moderately successful, but it swings wildly in subtlety, perhaps because it is sometimes neccesary to employ genre-derived shorthand (having a future consumerist society called "corpocracy" is just lazy). It can frequently be hectoring. This is exacerbated by the fact that Mitchell's arguments, while broadly correct, are not sufficiently nuanced. This would probably have bothered me far more if I disagreed with him: a cynic may well hate this book.

In some respects this is a virtuoso piece of writing, and the conviction that Mitchell brings to it prevents it being mere technical display. Unfortunately the sheer extent of ambition means that many of the stories and ideas need further fleshing out to adequately address the questions they raise. Cloud Atlas is left short of greatness but ultimately satisfying on more than enough levels anyway, and tremendously enjoyable.

Mon, 24 Apr 2006 19:12:56 GMT

I think that, if anyone hasn't seen it yet, this is worth a look.

I am personally of the view that Porter looks like the bigger idiot here: he deploys very vague hyperbole and only comes down to earth in so far as Tony Blair (Tony Blair!) forces him. On most of these issues Labour policy breaches liberal tradition only in a highly specific way. This in itself is clearly damaging enough without claiming that Blair is a "threat to democracy" when he obviously isn't - and in any case all the points raised (with the possible exception of the protest law) concern principles of just law-based constitutional government and have nothing to do with democracy.

The most extreme case is probably that of the jury trial, which has somehow become a totem of liberalism. I've got no idea on what theoretical or data-based argument one supposes that a handful of pseudo-random people deliberating in a closed room are better guardians of (just) liberty than trained legal professionals.

It also cannot be stressed often enough that this government has introduced judicial review of both legislature and executive against a standard of human rights. (While suspension is possible, the grounds for suspension are themselves subject to judicial review.)

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 16:33:27 GMT

1) What music do you personally listen to?

In classical music, perhaps my only general dislike is opera: I find that I cannot get much out of it. Insofar as I find it emotional, I find it simply overwrought. I also find it difficult to get any feeling for the whole of a piece of opera: I can’t grasp either the structure or the logic of how it develops from minute to minute. This may partly be a factor of performance, however: I am still entirely unsure how much the quality of a performance affects a piece, as I lack enough reference points. Oddly enough, choral music I’m fine with.

Other than this, I don’t listen to a lot of classical music prior to the beginning of romanticism: with the exception of Bach, most of the baroque and classical composers leave me cold, and yes, that includes Mozart much of the time. But many of the Romantics (I favour Beethoven of course, but Dvorak and Brahms and Mahler too) and the less abstract end of the moderns (Prokofiev, Britten, Shostakovich, Sibelius, Stravinsky…) I really love. Wagner I generally loathe, although Lohengrin is okay. If only he would show some restraint. I’m still finding my feet, of course: I know almost nothing about any music from the last 50 years. So my classical music taste has in some respects been conservative, but more because I’ve started from scratch quite recently than out of choice. I should add that any appreciation I have is arrived at almost purely by listening. I have no formal musical training: I paid no attention in school, and in any case I suspect I have no aptitude at all for it.

In pop music (in practice, mainly in rock), I also feel I don’t know as much as I should if I want to find things I like: perhaps partly because I don’t listen to the radio much, perhaps I just think that because I know Graham. I’m quite picky, there simply aren’t that many bands or individuals I like. I’m also constrained here by not annoying my housemates (my PC is hooked up to the main speakers in the living room, and that’s what I use to listen). I would pick out David Bowie, R.E.M., Bob Dylan, Radiohead, Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, The Flaming Lips, and The Beatles as the mainstays at the moment. Anything else I am much less likely to listen to in a sustained way. Lately I have been listening to what blues I have a lot: but I need more material.

In jazz, I really love Miles Davis and John Coltrane: but once they pass a certain point of experimentalism I get less from it than I do from something like Kind of Blue. Here I think it would be a matter of putting in some time to get to know something: Bitches Brew is excellent but it took me a while to be able to hear what was musical about it. I’m even more at sea in jazz than elsewhere: apart from a few famous names I know nothing. I frequently hear classic vocal jazz, as it makes acceptable or even desirable background noise to my housemates: but I rarely really listen to it. I find it quite pleasurable in the right mood and in moderation.

2) Why did you apply to Cambridge?

There were plenty of rational reasons, but I think that at the time it seemed the natural thing to do anyway (although I don’t think I assumed I would get in). My father was at Emma, so it was always somewhere I had been conscious of. The fact that Cambridge leads the field in biology didn’t hurt.

3) Would you ever consider going back to your home town to live there?

Well, it’s more of a home village, verging on hamlet. There’s no shop, for example. It’s really not where I want to be right now: but as for ever - I wouldn’t rule it out. I gather they have electricity in North Yorkshire now.

4) What's your dream job?

I’ve no idea. More accurately, I have many vague ideas, but they don’t add up to an ideal. I like the idea of scientific research, but I think I may have precisely the wrong temperament to do it productively.

5) Are you going to vote in the local elections? Why?

At this point I am not sure. My knowledge of local politics is woefully poor, so I couldn’t cast an informed vote: and there are no issues of any personal importance to me involved (as far as I’m aware). The manifestos of both the main local parties are moderately attractive in general outline, but simply repeat the policy foci of the national parties: I couldn’t judge the merits of their specifics.

Sex, drunken posting again.

Sun, 23 Apr 2006 00:58:22 GMT

Has anyone since the metaphysical poets (Donne etc.) written poetry on the subject of sex with the requisite mix of wit, passion and tenderness? Because at this point we can't do better than Leonard Cohen. No, seriously.

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 12:31:20 GMT

1. Who would you prefer as a brother? Me, Tim or Hitler. Why?

I can’t imagine that blood relations would make much of a difference to my relationship with any of the three. I think the question is: who is the most likely to devise a genetically targeted virus that wouldn’t infect them and unleash it in the general population? That’d be you.

2. If you had a choice between playing no games, and watching no films, which would you choose to remove from your life?

Films. They’ve been going through a bad patch in the last few years, but games are more exciting to me than films. I mean this particularly in the sense that I think the next few decades in the games industry are going to be absolutely fascinating, and definitely outclass what we have seen so far – the medium still seems very immature. I don’t think the same is true of films, but I must admit that I don’t know enough about it to be confident of that.

3. What's your favourite kind of biscuit?

Silicon wafers.

4. If you could kill people with no repurcussions, would you do it? Or only when drunk?

I was talking to Tim about this a few years ago: we thought that Robert Mugabe would be one of the very few candidates for political assassination. The damage in Zimbabwe is now probably so great that it wouldn’t help, but I think there was a time when he was a lone crackpot busy causing catastrophy in a more-or-less functioning democracy. At that time I don’t think it was axiomatic that he would have been replaced by someone as bad or worse (unlike in most dictatorships).

But I’m very unsure about this theory, and it’s best not to do drastically ethically dodgy things unless you’re very sure it’s an exceptional case.

5. When did you stop buggering herons?

When didn’t I?

Sat, 22 Apr 2006 11:28:17 GMT

1. Your work. What exactly is it that you do?

I’m Office Monkey Butler for the Insolvency Service offices in Cambridge. For the usual spectrum of depressing reasons, bankruptcies are sharply rising at present: they desperately need to expand, so they’re taking on temps to fill in lowly jobs.

The IS’ main work – which I don’t really do, but I do eavesdrop on – is interesting in its way, but not something I can get excited or passionate about, since it is essentially damage limitation. It’s remarkable the depth of denial some people can reach over the fact that they have run out of money, and can’t go on spending as they have: and then, of course, they attempt to shoot the messenger. Others are very subdued by the experience.

2. Lesbians! What exactly is it that they do?

Today’s modern, forward-facing lesbian is not limited to the traditional, staid lesbian paradigm of elephant wrangling, centrifuge construction or even unbending paperclips. Instead, harnessing increased granularity synergistically with positive people-oriented low-overhead just-in-time manufacturing, they can project a spot on the moon, or at closer range cut through solid metal.

3. Favourite Morrisism from The IT Crowd?

The dancing from the end of the series.

But verbally, the “I am declaring… WAR! on STRESS!” speech. Especially “In the time I have been speaking, over 80 million people have died… of STRESS!” Clicks his fingers. “That’s another one.” Click. “That’s another one.”

4. Worst thing that Alan Moore has ever done ever ever?

This is cheating a bit, since he didn’t do it intentionally, but: his one-man attempt to save the entire comic book industry, in particular superhero comics, may have partially succeeded, but in the process he unleashed an epidemic of “serious”, “adult”, “gritty” or irritatingly arch and knowing “postmodern” writing in conventional superhero comics. This fad achieved absolutely nothing but meant that the idea of writing a straightforward superhero comic well fell by the wayside. The nadir of this approach was Marvel dressing all the X-Men in black leather because the brightly coloured costumes were regarded as childish. Presumably it didn’t occur to anyone that there might be a reason for traditional comics looking the way they did. It took Joss Whedon and John Cassady to put that one right. Moore’s recent (ABC) output has ironic layers to it, but he has never assumed that this in itself elevates the writing. Whether his total refusal to compromise exacerbated the situation or not I don’t know.

5. Which record, beloved by one of your housemates, irritates you the most?

For a while it was the Killers album, which I found soporific inside ten seconds of hearing any part of it. Roger mostly seems to have stopped playing it (outside his room at least) now. Other than this I have mostly beaten them into submission. I’m more frustrated by the fact that I can’t put on, say, Nick Cave or Tom Waits without annoying both of my housemates.

Obviously, anyone wants questions from me, ask away. I'll answer the other interviewers soon-ish.

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 22:42:27 GMT

Apologies for this entry, I'm not in command of my faculties.

This evening was one of those where I, influenced by alcohol and an ignorance of what else to do, attempted to introduce one group¹ of friends to another such group². In brief, two of my closest friends, to two random chaps from my current, transitory, workplace (one a former Petrean, the other a former Planetarion player). Perhaps this is the misguided approach that results from spending longer reading Rawls than in nightclubs: I tend to make intellectualism, rationalism and liberalism (pluralism?) a precondition of my friendship, and this leads me to assuming that, say, Mark and Graham will hit it off.

Perhaps I should just ask

(i) Do you like David Bowie?
(ii) Do you like Bob Dylan?

1. Okay, pair.
2. Yes yes, pair.

Mon, 06 Mar 2006 23:51:22 GMT

Is it me, or is Microsoft's latest piece of marketing just plain creepy?

Sat, 04 Mar 2006 23:04:02 GMT

Apropos my last post, Tim was complaining that I've been reading interesting books lately, while he is doing a literature degree and therefore isn't allowed to. So I thought I'd post a couple of short reviews that might cheer him up a bit.

Perdido Street Station. Hackneyed plotting, inept characterisation, stupid metaphors, cod-philosophy and pseudo-scientific bullshit in spades - a big block of wasted potential. 900 pages of pretty cool stuff in search of a decent novel to be in.

Vellum. Almost totally unmitigated drivel. I eagerly await the sequel.

Thu, 23 Feb 2006 09:06:40 GMT

A Fistful of Euros offers some context on why the Austrian state still feels it needs to vigorously pursue holocaust deniers like David Irvine.

(I read afoe in lieu of being able to work out an easy way of keeping up with news from the continent - the British media not being much use on the this score.)

Tue, 21 Feb 2006 18:48:56 GMT

Enlightenment, by Roy Porter. This short history attempts to cover the English Enlightenment, from the end of the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth – the Scientific Revolution to the Romantics. It is justified by the author’s claim that the English contribution to that movement is something of a blind spot: that the Enlightenment is seen as a continental (primarily French) affair, with a later Scottish contribution at a stretch. I will have to take Porter’s word for the existence of such an assumption, but it seems to me that this book would refute it entirely. It is intended as a popular account, and is certainly nicely written, but popular accounts on academic topics are dangerous things: I probably now think I know far more than I actually do.

Organised thematically rather than chronologically, the book attempts to cover all the major intellectual elements of the English enlightenment, linking together upheavals in religion, with those in government and theories of government and economics, epistemology and psychology, in the context of radical social upheaval. This leads to a fascinating but confusing read, which is fairly heavy going, even though I was already familiar with some aspects of the period.

Porter’s approach is probably mandated by the need to remain above the fray (it really is a fray, if impeccably polite), but the historian’s approach to providing a purely causal account of intellectual movements means he is no more prepared to endorse as true Newtonian mechanics than Piers Plowman. Approaching science as just another belief system is productive, but grating, at least to me. Porter’s account stops short of outright statements of postmodernism, however – from his other work I think quite intentionally.

That said, this book does not function as an account of why a particular view occurs at a particular time, or among a certain group: this may be quite intentional, since one implicit point of the analysis is that in the Enlightenment, no particular strand of thought disappeared once it emerged – and indeed most persist up until today. Most of the individual thinkers were committed to a rationalist pluralism themselves, perhaps chiming with their tendency to work in many different fields of knowledge (exemplified by Joseph Priestly, theologian, eminent chemist and political radical, and Erasmus Darwin, botanist, evolutionary theorist, poet, and, inevitably, political radical). These aspects in particular have lead me to my annoyance at the recent rash of articles imputing to Enlightenment thinkers a monolithic, nuance-free dogmatism on free speech.

For all its readability, this is a very dense book: a problem exacerbated by the fact that it consists of a series of essays, evidently only ordered after they were written, so that a passing reference is sometimes made to a minor figure or event that receives a proper introduction later on in the book. The book is comprehensively end-noted and referenced, but in the main these buttress its academic merit, rather than assist the casual reader (or at any rate they didn’t help me much). So it is difficult to recommend it as something to dip into, or as an introductory text. In short - probably one for people who finished The System of The World willingly.

The Book of The New Sun, by Gene Wolfe.This is formally a four-book fantasy epic, which did not inspire high hopes. The back of the first volume informs me “In the great Citadel of the City Imperishable, Severian, Apprentice of the Torturer’s Guild, betrays his oath. Exiled, Severian begins his odyssey” – and so in the same vein. Nevertheless, I picked it up on the strength of Wolfe’s novella The Death of Doctor Island. I’ll try to give a brief account, but the thing is huge and I’m still digesting it.

Severian narrates the story, recalling events from some unspecified time in the future, but he possesses a perfect and gapless memory (or claims to; but I do not think we are intended to doubt this). He is also, I think, completely honest in his narration. This gives Wolfe a completely reliable narrator, which turns out to be no help whatsoever in rendering what follows any more straightforward. Instead, it serves as misdirection: with this and so much else, the reader is watching the wrong hand. The book resembles a conjuring trick.

By the same convention, the narrator has the benefit of hindsight: he gives us the benefit of knowing how the story is to end (“There is nothing up my sleeve!”). Severian is to rise to rulership of Earth (‘Urth’) by the time his account is written, some unspecified distance in the future. The book is very heavily concerned with the passage of time, both in the course of the narrative and in the setting: some millions of years into the future, when the Sun is a dim red star. Civilization on Earth is decayed in many respects, but past technologies and knowledge remain, not necessarily recognised as such.

In trying to describe the story, I feel I am enumerating clichés. There are plenty more, but I think their treatment is original, the narrative elements serving as magician’s props. Apparently plain facts almost always carry an implicit interpretation that later proves foolish: to avoid being fooled would require a degree of critical distance and care that I am incapable of, especially over a thousand pages or more. I think it would make the book less enjoyable in any case.

There is much to enjoy here: the prose is in a pseudo-archaic fantasy idiom, but remarkably fluid and occasionally inspired. I suspect that it is one of the main pleasures of fantasy in general is a large and full world of wonders: many such are on display here, and more are hinted at. There is a continuous parade of striking scenes, images and events, and considerable variety of tone, high seriousness to low comedy (though Severian himself is practically humourless). At times this lends the chapters an episodic feel, and can disrupt the flow of the narrative. Some sections are far less interesting than others. I kept reading such passages in the hope that the next would be excellent, as it usually was.

Characterisation is a weak spot, and at times the book feels uncomfortably misogynist. I cannot tell whether this is sincerely meant, as Severian appears to be bordering on the psychopathic in his lack of expressed empathy sometimes (and possibly paranoia as well). Or it could simply be reserve. I am inclined to give Wolfe the benefit of the doubt at the expense of his narrator.

I haven’t really conveyed here the complexity of the novel, or made any attempt to tease out what is actually going on under the surface. Nor have I discussed its treatment of the main themes in any depth. That would take a far longer essay and a far sharper reader. I find that I can enumerate a lot of flaws, but that my overwhelming impression was of a fantastically ambitious novel that justified its twelve hundred pages.

The Spire, by William Golding.Two hundred pages from this rather sinister-looking Nobel Prize winner, and probably the weakest book so far. The plot is Grand Tragic Folly: Dean of spireless cathedral has vision, attempts to build said enormous spire to praise His glory, cathedral cannae take the strain, everybody runs away, Dean is isolated, learns his lesson but too late! and so he dies, a pathetic broken figure. Did anybody see that coming?

The novel itself is sufficiently well written to be enjoyable despite this fault. In particular, the stern, almost austere prose conveys the oppressive atmosphere of the doomed, collapsing church and the increasingly fragmentary state of Dean’s doomed, collapsing mind vividly. The basically simple story is economically told, although the inevitability of the ending sadly reprives it of any lasting tension. Additional narrative elements that could have provided such tension are held back, not even hinted at, until the final unravelling of the Dean’s vision, presumably in order to increase their surprise value. In a novel predicated to some extent on fatalism this seemed a bit of a fudge to me.

The main flaw, however, comes from the various thematic and psychological elements, that could have lead (for example) to a treatment of the conceptual frameworks that surrounded mental illness (some kind of delusional schizophrenia?) in the period, or something else interesting – but instead resolve themselves into a rather trite psycho-sexual metaphor. This was of course unavoidably a component, but turns out to be the main point. All of which leaves the book interesting in some of its details, but fundamentally dull.

These reviews are getting far too long, so I’ll leave the rest for tomorrow, when, God willing, I will still be unemployed and loafing. No, wait, that’s not good.

Sat, 18 Feb 2006 23:06:16 GMT

It's possible that I'm far, far behind the times: but I've just come across Musikcube, an open-source music player "inspired" by iTunes. It hit RC1 earlier this year, and looks promising in that it combines iTunes-style library indexing (but not file management per se) with support for a wide range of file formats and Winamp levels of system resource use. Subjectively it is no quicker than either of the other players in most uses: but unlike iTunes, it doesn't seem to have significantly more difficulty with larger music folders (up to 51 gigabytes anyway). MC has no video functionality: the trend is towards convergence between music and video players, but personally I find having one application handle both creates more problems than it solves.

Musikcube supports a variety of plugins, although there aren't many available yet. This means, for example, no DSP so far. The project has the potential to attract plugin developers, but I suspect that Songbird will make the running here, since it is linked to both Winamp and Firefox, the two most plugin-laden apps I know of. Musikcube is likely to suffer in general from the greater publicity that will inevitably accrue to Songbird: an open source app without community backing is in trouble.

The MC UI is pretty good, but it has the irritating attribute of looking like iTunes but behaving subtly differently: this means that if you're at all used to iTunes you'll find it slightly counter-intuitive. I do. Meanwhile, it lacks Winamp's superb playlist management/organisation tools and comprehensive keyboard shortcuts. In particular, the "randomize playlist" function - as distinct from "shuffled playback" - is sorely missed (EDIT: mc does have this function after all, it's just in a stupid place). Shell integration is essentially non-existent in MC too.

If you're like me, you've been wanting to move to iTunes for some time owing to its UI, which is far slicker in normal use than Winamp's, even though Winamp strictly speaking has all the same features. I've been held back by iTune's lack of functionality, principally its inability to handle ogg and FLAC files, and to a lesser extent other formats (mpc etc). My hope is that as MC matures, it will address the issues I have mentioned above, in which case only an equally mature Songbird will be able to compete with it, since Winamp development has essentially ended and Apple's design approach runs counter to every nerd bone in my body.

If all that sounds like an endorsement, then I suggest giving MC a go.

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:57:47 GMT

Another installment of "Kurzweil-watch". http://theinquirer.net/?article=29595. It's like he's living in 1995 or something. A "map" of the brain in the sense of the genomic data that go into its development would be interesting, but it would not constitute anything like complete understanding. Also, calling the genomic analysis of development "simple" is stretching credulity a little bit. Why does anyone pay attention to this crank?

Thu, 09 Feb 2006 09:19:46 GMT

This is only in v0.1 preview release at the moment, and it doesn't work very well. But it's got to be worth keeping an eye on.

EDIT: Songbird works much better if you install it in the default directory, it appears.

This post has attracted remarkably little comment from the Standard Nerds who read my LJ, so I'm going to claim that IE7 is going to be better than Firefox and WinXP is better than Linux. That's right, even Debian.

Sat, 04 Feb 2006 10:47:22 GMT

The "debate" over the publication of a cartoons - not very good ones - depicting the prophet Muhammed offers yet another compelling case for allowing a small cadre of qualified people to do all the thinking, and replacing everyone else with either robots or trained chimps. Or possibly robots operated by chimps.

The failure of many of those commenting upon the issue to grasp the point that just because you should have the right to say something doesn't mean you should say it is staggering. Take this chap, from the Guardian website:

"This is a freedom of speech/press issue. It's a cartoon. It's satire. I don't care who it offends or how loud they shout. Don't they realise not everyone in the world shares their beliefs?"

Of course it matters who it offends. No one thinks that going up to old people in the street and yelling "You're very old and very ugly and you're going to die soon!" is appropriate. Nor is giving one group of people the impression that another hold them in such contempt. This kind of thing falls under the heading of "political correctness", a term which badly needs to be reclaimed since, especially in the public sphere, neither being politic nor being correct is a bad thing. In any case, it is also simply a matter of courtesy. (I've just read a history of the British Enlightenment, which makes it clear that ideals of free speech and courteous, civilized discourse emerged simultaneously. The point was obvious two hundred years ago; I can't believe it is so no longer.) Portions of the European press are intent on proving themselves jerks in this matter, and the public is leaping to their defence?

At least it's getting all the idiocy and bigotry out in the open, where it can be addressed once the orbital particle beam cannon are in place. Take this chap:

"In the UK, we've developed a tolerant tradition where Christianity can be criticised and ridiculed. It's part of our culture - seen in Monty Python and numerous stand-up comedians. It doesn't mean we hate Christians, it means it's an ideology that can be deconstructed and challenged. Islam is not a privileged exception."

Well, err, not the best example, "Paul on the Guardian Unlimited website". In any case, this challenge isn't like this - it's closer to the level of this.

The second strand of defence is more persuasive, the "we shouldn't bow to fundamentalists/dictators/terrorists/angry bears" line. (In general this argument misses the point that actually we negotiate with such people all the time. It's the only way to stop them blowing things up, y'see. That's less the case here.) The problem I have with this is that what we actually should do is assess the rightness and reasonableness of the request completely independently of the source - any other approach being the most pernicious form of postmodernism. I've made my views on the reasonableness of the request perfectly clear, and I would still hold them if they happen to be shared by some total crank.

This line of argument of course leaves itself open to the possibility of exploitation, or at any rate the accusation of such. But I don't see any problem with allowing that offence should be the key consideration in cases of gratuitous speech, but not necessarily in other cases. If anyone asks "who gets to decide that?", I'll slap them with a fish.

At least it gives the UNSG something to do which he can't be attacked for. I've been feeling pretty sorry for him for about four years now.

Not a New Year's post, and barely a joke to be seen.

Wed, 04 Jan 2006 15:42:17 GMT

One of the pleasures and frustrations of coming home for a week is getting angry at the papers my parents take - the Telegraph and the Sunday Times. The Times is erratic and obsessed by celebrities, but the Telegraph is in a different class. For all the excellence of its reporting and writing when it manages to actually report the news, this paper reliably gets my goat by a combination of political bias and outright stupidity that would grace the Mail. And I'm not just referring to giving Simon Heffer a column (1). The headline was "Postcode lottery of speed camera fines", with accompanying article and commentary carrying a very strong subtext not only that it was a problem if the likelihood of being fined for speeding not only varied from one police force to another, but also that this was central government's fault. The obvious inference is that the Home Office should adopt measures to bring fines into line. This is so far from being consistent with any element of the paper's professed political philosophy that it beggars belief. And yet nearly every time I have read the Telegraph in the last five years, I have seen something like this. My suspicion is that the paper is so influential with the Conservative party that, along with the Mail, it is in large part responsible for the sclerotic state of that party for the best part of a decade. We saw exactly this kind of non-Conservative reactionary opportunism during the gas "crisis" at the beginning of the winter. These inconsistencies could be eliminated quite readily by abandoning the party's liberal rhetoric in favour of old fashioned paternalist Tory-dom, but this would be ditching the party's most effective line. Which brings me to what I actually wanted to talk about.

Up until relatively recently, David Cameron has had no policy positions by which it has been possible to get a handle on him. He has had a number of anti-positions, such as not ruling out tax rises, which may be wise but is hardly inspiring. He has also made a few gestures, such as bringing in Bob Geldof to shape the party's development position, which is not only meaningless but cribbed directly from Blair's "Commission for Africa". Putting someone as sharp and imaginative as Letwin in charge of long-term policy development is a good move, but only if he can be guaranteed not to say anything that Labour can exploit (such as suggesting that the NHS be fully privatised).

Anyway, last week's Sunday Times carried some Cameron puff pieces, including an interview with the man himself. The only substantial issue on which he even confessed an opinion was any form of smoking ban. The usual line about freedom was wheeled out (2). In general 'freedom' is one of those words that generates a positive response in the listener immediately, and no one wants to be seen to be against it. So this is probably politically smart, but smoking hardly constitutes a great test of principle. The other concern is that the value of this rhetorical device will be reduced if people appreciate a smoking ban - in particular, if Cameron talks about reversing a measure that ends up being popular. As with hunting, Cameron therefore talks about a parliamentary 'vote of conscience' on this matter, which also neutralises the charge that he smokes himself and is therefore biased. In other words, the new Tory leader appears to be slippery enough to take on Labour: but on matters of policy substance, I am more sceptical.

Though they seem largely to have dried up by now, early coverage of New Labour focussed on their use of spin, which was undoubtedly extensive and consumate. Unfortunately this was quickly elided into the charge of no policy substance, which was never really the case. The "Third Way" had extensive underpinnings from a variety of think-tanks, ideas inherited from the Clinton administration, and leading lights within the Labour party itself (including a number of advisors with research backgrounds). Consequently, on any particular issue the party usually had an excess of substantial viewpoints: the Blair view, triangulated for political effect, the No. 10 advisors view, more radical than either the treasury or the public could accept (often associated with Andrew Adonis or Julian Le Grand), the No.11 view (Brown and his advisors keeping an eye on the country and party they expected to inherit), and the view of the responsible cabinet minister, at least. Such a profusion carried with it problems, but it gave Labour a forward momentum that is only now being reduced. It is not obvious at this point that the Conservatives have any similar arrangement, perhaps because the American and European right have both failed to find any novel approach that works since Thatcher/Reagan. The current American administration, indeed, not only failed to give any substance to the term "compassionate conservative" but appears to have discredited it so thoroughly that the appalling "crunchy conservative" (3) has been suggested as a replacement.

Conclusions? It's too early to safely draw any.

(1) Heffer's column is a masterpiece. He proposes ten "New Year's Resolutions for the Prime Minister", remarking that it seems unlikely that he will actually go through with any of them. The first of these is to "initiate reform of the health service", which Blair not only seems likely to do but in fact has already done. I stopped reading after a couple more of these.

(2) I have some sympathy with generalised liberal argument, but it does have problems. I can't possibly cover everything here, but the basics of my view are as follows. If the preference for freedom is axiomatic, the point is inarguable but obviously can only win support by non-rational means. It is my view that generally, if left to their own devices, people do not act to increase their freedom but rather their comfort, including security. So I do not see that freedom can be justified on "original position" type grounds either. If freedom is then to be instrumental in advancing other values, these need to be specified, and assuming that these take the usual form of welfare etc, then the conflict between freedom and a smoking ban actually becomes an argument against a general presumption in favour of freedom. This is obviously a philosophical underpinning for the political consequences mentioned above.

(3) I know, what? It appears to have something to do with eating muesli.

Fri, 09 Dec 2005 21:30:02 GMT

Anyone have a copy of "They Do It With Mirrors"? I just discovered that mine was lost in that multiple-hard-disc crash of a couple of months back.

Sun, 04 Dec 2005 23:56:00 GMT

Thinksecret have a story about where Apple is going with digital content (such as films and TV shows, but presumably anything in due course) delivery - which I think is probably a good barometer of where everyone is going, even if they don't do it as stylishly. In particular, it suggests that the lesson learned from the uselessness of digital rights management (DRM) technologies will not be that data restriction is impossible in the current environment, but that it needs to be stronger.

The gist of the story is that they wish to replace the current one-time DRM-protected-file download approach (as seen in the iTunes Music Store), with a system in which content is provided on-demand, but never stored on any media belonging to the user. Unfortunately ThinkSecret would stop being allowed to break stories if it voiced a hint of criticism, so the article sugar-coats this a little.

The advantage of such an approach is that it allows access to purchased content anytime, anywhere, providing that the user has their Apple online services (".Mac") account details. The .Mac service incorporates storage space ("iDisc"), from which the content can be accessed. This is a purely presentational device, designed to make customers feel they are receiving something concrete when they buy. In practice they will simply be granted access to a file that was already on Apple's servers.

Make no mistake, this is a deliberately crippled system. Apple are accepting the vastly increased bandwidth use and server load that on-demand streaming entails in yet another desperate attempt to combat the proliferation of unlicensed distribution of copyrighted works. This has the ancilliary effect of vastly underusing the potential of the internet to distribute data - for example, it rules out use of bittorrent or similar swarming protocols. No positive aspect of this service could not be incorporated into the existing model.

Apple themselves probably aren't particularly interested in providing a deliberately crap service, and will do an excellent job in all the areas that don't matter for content protection. They are being locked into this as part of the deals that allow them access to the content in the first place. My suspicion is that the content providers have them over a barrel here: Apple have a finite window in which to capitalize on their lead and leverage the ITMS and iPod before the combination of Intel's Viiv platform initiative, MS' Vista operating system and the increasing commoditization of the MP3 player market - mostly using non-Apple DRM technologies - break their advantage.

For the forseeable future the illegal way of doing things will remain vastly superior to the legal one.

(Although there was one ray of light recently seen poking through the clouds.)

Sat, 03 Dec 2005 12:22:24 GMT

Strange and terrible things are happening. Sounds foreign to civilized man are heard. The crashes and thuds of some mighty machine. Vague mutterings, grunts, cracked laughter rising to a crescendo. Curses are hurled.

Roger is in the kitchen, making Duchesse potatoes.