What I’ve Been Reading: January ’09

Books I've finished reading this month:¹

1. The Photographer's Eye: Composition and Design for Better Digital Photos, Michael Freeman.

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   This was so excellent that I am going to write about it at greater length at some stage.
2. The Subterraneans (and Pic), Jack Kerouac.

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   I suspect that The Subterraneans displays Kerouac at his worst, and I don't (just) mean in an artistic sense; without the journeys and discoveries of On the Road or The Dharma Bums, all we can see is the deeply sexist, racist, irresponsible, selfish artist as he portrays himself (with unflinching honesty, to his credit). Pic is more tolerable but at the same time appalling in its ignorance; "this is what black folks are like", says the "other"-fetishising white guy.
3. Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan.

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   Beautiful.
4. The Book of Three, Lloyd Alexander.

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5. The Black Cauldron, Lloyd Alexander.

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6. The Castle of Lyr, Lloyd Alexander.

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7. Taran Wanderer, Lloyd Alexander.

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8. The High King, Lloyd Alexander.

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   The Chronicles of Prydain were fun to read over a couple of days. I liked the setting's inherited Welshness, and would have enjoyed the real series more if I had read it at a younger age; I tend to be much more demanding of fantasy fiction nowadays and found the simplicity a little wearing, especially towards the end (with its not-surprising-at-all big reveal and ensuing consequences, sigh).
9. Lost Boys, Orson Scott Card.

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   This is not as good a book as a three-star rating suggests. I enjoyed reading it not because it is a good book, but because it is a fascinatingly bald-faced piece of Mormon propaganda that betrays much more of Orson Scott Card's terrible values than any of the Ender series I have read so far. The whodunnit/ghost story wrapped around the outside simply gives the novel an excuse to exist; antagonists and plot points are set up with great care and little sophistication, and the real value of the book lies in immersing oneself in such an alien, intolerant set of values, presented with all the goodwill in the world.

   What I learned from reading this book: the place of a woman is to make babies (LOTS of babies) and take care of the home, while also serving the community as much as is asked of her by people in the church who are more important; people who play Dungeons and Dragons are socially retarded savants who probably like to molest children; mentally ill people cannot function as normal members of society — HOWEVER, psychiatrists are malignant, religion-hating witch-doctors who think they know everything and basically aren't real doctors at all; personal concerns are unimportant and must always be secondary to the demands needs of the church hierarchy; women are weak and cry about things while men are strong and bear their burdens nobly, perhaps becoming angry sometimes; it is okay to behave in an abhorrent manner if you are righteous. Oh, and good always triumphs over evil.

10. The Reality Dysfunction, Peter F. Hamilton.

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    Would have rated higher if it weren't for the woeful clumsiness of the writing. Comma splices everywhere, semicolons where there should be commas, impenetrable forests of adjectives with nary a comma in sight, bizarre overuse of the verb "to boil" in various forms, and such poor expression generally that I fervently hope Hamilton has since found a better editor. However, the story was much better than the first couple of pages indicated, even if not much that happened at the end of the book rang true for me. A fairly fascinating universe and an interesting enough story to overcome the significant handicap of an author who does not write especially well, but I couldn't face reading the next in the series right away. (Sorry, Luke.)
11. Night Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko.

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    Vampires and wizards and magical goings-on in post-Soviet Russia. Unlike unread-but-surely-abominable vampire stories like Twilight or anything by Anne Rice, Night Watch is fun to read, perhaps because it is not actually a vampire story (it just has vampires in it). The writing is smooth and unobtrusive (as is the translation, incidentally), a real relief after reading Orson Scott Card and Peter F. Hamilton, and the world Lukyanenko has built offers an interesting blend of updated mythology (all that stuff about garlic and silver was encouraged by the bad guys, because it doesn't actually work) and a supernatural Cold War (a treaty binds good guys and bad guys alike, and much quibbling and rule-bending ensues), with all of the drinking and train stations and name-and-patronymic addresses that I've come to expect from everything written by Russians.
12. Day Watch, Sergei Lukyanenko.

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    Unfortunately not up to the standard set by Night Watch, Day Watch is still not a bad read. Perhaps because there is not much mileage to be had from introducing the universe after so much of that was done so effectively in Night Watch, or perhaps because it focuses on the "bad guys" who make up the Day Watch,² Day Watch seems to meander a little despite the high stakes and soul-searching it contains. I did like the journey of the mysterious Vitaly, and overall Day Watch is not bad at all - just not as good as Night Watch.
13. The Hand That Signed The Paper, Helen Demidenko.

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    I have only the vaguest of memories of the Helen Demidenko/Darville controversy that raged years ago, mainly because I was in primary school at the time and thus didn't have my finger on the pulse of the literary world. As a result, I came to The Hand That Signed The Paper without too many preconceived ideas. I was struck by the way it humanised people on the "wrong" side in eastern Europe during World War II; the anti-Semitism of many (most) of the characters was hard to stomach, but so was the unavoidable question raised: can anybody really know that they would do the "right" thing, faced with starvation and torture and the absence of hope? It's easy to sit on a moral high horse when you've been comfortable all your life. That being said, the overarching theme of the book seemed to be that people responsible for atrocities during wartime should not be prosecuted for war crimes, which I can't agree with, and I can't quite believe that none of the characters' hatred originated in the hatred of the author. Uncomfortable reading, and absolutely worth my while.

At the start of this year I thought I would aim to read one book each week. I suppose I've built up quite a buffer against the inevitable burst of apathy that will come.

1. Confession: I started reading the first two in 2008. [↩]
2. Despite the refreshing lack of clear victors in Lukyanenko's plotlines, perhaps he is not too comfortable taking the side of evil after all? There is certainly plenty of focus on Night Watch characters in this book, although the reverse is certainly not true. [↩]