Walking on the Moon

John D’Agata and Jim Fingal present The Lifespan of a Fact as an encapsulation of their lengthy struggle between fact-checker and essayist, but it’s quickly clear that most elements of Lifespan are open to interpretation.  On the surface, Lifespan is a version of an essay by D’Agata annotated by the conversation between him and Fingal as Fingal checks his facts.  But that’s not really believable.  Any conversation between author and checker is necessarily iterative, with the checker raising an issue and the author responding; this reads as though Fingal made one pass through the article with D’Agata responding at points.  So what we have is a piece of art that represents that interchange over time, which is about dissecting the same issues in an earlier essay.

That sounds pretty intellectual and abstract, but the pair do a nice job of breathing life into author and checker.  Though both have clear positions about what’s being discussed, to the point of embodying those positions on occasion, there are enough cracks in the symbolism to believe that these are people who hold positions. The interchange is generally snappy and engaging, even when arguing trivia.

But fairly quickly it becomes clear that checker and author inhabit completely different worlds.  It’s also clear that they are exemplars of their fields.   Fingal is often pointing out errors in the second or third significant figure and D’Agata is rejecting the correction of any but the most egregious errors.  Eventually there is a breaking point (conveniently at a point that makes a climax for the book) where the two have it out in a passionate and intellectual argument about relating objective facts and creating art about events that is well worth the reading.

And then we get a nice elegiac ending from Fingal, our fact-based proponent that is haunting and honest.

Underlying all this is the clear point that everything said about the essay in the book is true about the book itself.  It’s obvious that this is an interpretation of a struggle, but exactly what struggle is unclear.  Is it the struggle with a particular fact-checker? With publishing in general? A completely internal struggle in the author’s mind – or authors’ minds? No questions are answered on that front, but the point is to trust the reader to chew on it.  If you like to chew on such things, this is a powerful gateway to the issues.

Recommended.

I first began reading Stross when a friend literally jammed a copy of Halting State into my hands and told me not to return it until I was done. Halting State was great stuff, and I liked the sequel at least as well.  I recently read one of his Laundry Files short stories, and though I liked it, I wasn’t blown away. I decided to give the Laundry another chance with The Jennifer Morgue.

This time I was blown away.

First the book is just plain fun to read.  There are lots of funny and exciting bits for everyone.  Then there’s all the techie and sci-fi in-references that seem like they’re just for me, but clearly reach a bunch of folks.  If that was all there is, it’s all done so well it would be worth reading.

But second, this book is a perfect critique and deconstruction of the James Bond series of novels, movies, etc. The Bond archetype and exploiting it is a plot point – which is already cool – but the extent to which Stross has thought about and worked through this deconstruction is a lot of fun.  There’s more to it than the characters seem to notice, and catching those points as they go by – as they go by in this witty thriller with a sense of humor – only enhances the fun.

But then the head of that thriller bites into its own tail and becomes an exemplar of the same genre it’s deconstructing while continuing the deconstruction and staying fun.  This is clearly the best thing ever.  And I won’t even mention the gender reversals.

Overall this is a fun thinking man’s thriller told with good humor and heart.

Strongly Recommended.

David and Joe Henry are Richard Pryor fans of the first order, and even they can’t make his life into a happy story. Furious Cool: Richard Pryor and the World That Made Him, tells the well researched and sad story of Pryor’s rise to become one of the most popular and respected comedians of the late 70’s and early 80’s and his subsequent decline. Though that long title promises some inquiry into the state of the world, Pryor holds center stage throughout.

The Henrys do a good job of describing the depth and honesty that made Pryor, briefly, one of the most dynamic and deep comedians in the world.  I am not a Richard Pryor superfan, but I remember seeing his concert films and realizing that his honesty and comedic chops made him something special.  With a reference or a few words from a bit, the Henrys bring those moments to life and reawaken the possibility of those clear, raw, moments.

Then they have to talk about the relentless drug abuse and lure of big money and bad films that turned Pryor into a has been too soon. It’s hard to decide which is sadder, the personal self-destructive urge to light himself on fire in mid-binge or presenting a shadow of himself in awful film after awful film just to get the money.

Through it all the Henrys keep the narrative moving though the tone can be grim.  There are a few spots than could stand to see more aggressive editing, but overall the book holds your attention keenly and pulls you along.

Recommended.

What a strange and beautiful world it is in which I get to reread Cosmic Laughter. Laughter is a collection, edited by Joe Haldeman, of light hearted science fiction and fantasy that I first happened on when I was 10 or 12 years old.  I borrowed it on more than one occasion from the Steele Memorial Library in Elmira and read it back to back. Rereading it was more polishing the memories than reading a book.

So, it’s not like this will be unbiased.

Each of the stories has a nice twist to it, or a great setup.  For instance, “Gallagher Plus,” by Henry Kuttner remains one of the great set-ups of all time – man who is a brilliant inventor only when drunk wakes from a bender with a strange machine humming, no money, and a few clues to indicate he’s taken more than one commission – some of whom are already angry.  The execution doesn’t live up to the possibilities, but oh the possibility of it.  Andrew J. Offut’s “The Black Sorcerer of the Black Castle” hits the perfect spot between send-up and homage to R. E. Howard, and Damon Knight’s “To Serve Man” is everything it’s known for.  The best of the lot is Haldeman’s own “Eye of Newton” in which a mathematician summons a demon and uses logic to get out of it.  It’s breezy and just long enough to build up some suspense without overstaying its welcome.

All fun stuff.

Recommended.

Bill Bryson has a knack for taking disparate facts and building them into an interesting narrative.  in 1927 he does this with significant aplomb, picking a few larger than life people and watching how their lives and times mesh and unmesh.

1927 is a good year for such a study of America.  It’s the year that Lindberg crossed the Atlantic, that the Yankees fielded perhaps the greatest baseball team ever – led by Babe Ruth, and that’s just the beginning. Bryson is a natural raconteur and he both provides the color commentary on the larger than life protagonists, and he generates the overarching narrative the pulls the whole thing together.

He doesn’t stay completely in 1927, of course.  There are activities that set context for what happens in ’27.  There are activities that have their real repercussions after 1927, though their roots are there.

Along the way Bryson shows us how 1927 reflects our time – show trials and pointless celebrity – and how it differs.  It’s compelling to see how much and how little we have changed as a nation.

Strongly Recommended.

Jonathan Fetter-Vorm’s Trinity is a history of the development of the atomic bomb told in comics.  It shows off comic’s power in relating history rather than providing escapist entertainment very well.  It’s strengths are comics’ strengths and so are its weaknesses.

The main weakness is that compared to a pure text history of the same subject, there are less technical and historical details.  Everything is told primarily through images, not as text or illuminated manuscript, so details must be thinner.  The content difference is similar to the difference between reading a history and watching a documentary.

The strength is in the power of those images to draw the reader into the narrative.  Fetter-Vorm does a great job conveying the times through his depictions of places and events, and of capturing the minds of the protagonists through showing their faces and staging the various scenes.  While few statistics and dates come through, Trinity communicates more context and personality.

In addition to capturing the humans involved in this drama, Fetter-Vorm uses his images and layouts to make the science behind the bomb intuitive.  By using the sorts of images and analogies that were used at the time, he also keeps his sense of time and place intact, even while he is explaining abstract physics. It’s a nice, powerful use of the medium.

If you’re unfamiliar with the Manhattan Project and the personalities involved but have an interest, Trinity will draw you into that world powerfully.  It may spur you to read in more depth later to get additional details.

Strongly recommended.

I did read A Christmas Carol, and I do like to write at least a capsule here about everything I read.  Honestly, Carol has become so much a part of the popular culture that there’s not much at all to say about it.  In fact, the thing that struck me most is that the source material brings so little to the story that the movies, plays, comics, etc. have not.

Carol really is a simple, well-told story about a miserly old misanthrope who is led back to the path of righteousness by spectral visitors.  It’s been completely assimilated into the culture.  I didn’t get much new out of reading the original.

The classics are always difficult to meaningfully comment on. A Tale of Two Cities is primarily Dickens commenting on the Reign of Terror, as he commented on other injustices.  His literary chops are impeccable, so the work is brilliant.

Two things stand out to me.  First, he takes the position that the Reign of Terror was a predictable and natural reaction to abuses of power. It’s one thing to take that position academically.  Dickens constructed evocative characters and scenarios that bring these ideas home.  I wouldn’t say he creates believable characters and scenarios; there is quite a bit of high melodrama here.  High melodrama can be as much fun and have as much influence as more three dimensional construction.

That strong representation of how individual actions build to historic upheavals is enlightening and frightening. The feeling of both seeing how history happens and not being able to change it feels like a truth.

The greatest part of the book is the redemption of Sydney Carton. Again, this is melodrama of the first degree, including the uncanny likeness of Carton and Darnay as well as the relative merits of their characters.  And I know what happens – I’ve read Tale before. But Dickens’s ironic, mordant, determined prose moves me every time. The feeling of both the need for redemption and the seed of that redemption growing from that bad life is palpable and reassuring.  The allusions to Christ are not misplaced, despite them being a bit heavy.

That pure demonstration of the redemption of a man, and perhaps a nation, is what draws me back to A Tale of Two Cities.

Strongly recommended.

This is my third time through Zen and the Art, and I always find something new and interesting. Robert Persig’s work is a strange shaggy dog of a book that’s part philosophical treatise, part maybe-memoir, part reflections on the times.  I think some of it is indispensable, some of it is self-indulgent, some of it is brilliant, and some of it is misguided.  It’s a very open conversation with an interesting author.

The parts I invariably enjoy the most and get the most out of are the discussions of worldview and philosophy of seeing the world with a clear mind. Every time I’ve read it, I’ve found new and interesting insights and inspirations in these parts of the book, which are mainly the early parts.  These sections are an approachable, conversational description of, well, lots of things.  Of particular interest to me are the insights into how different people view technology, and how technologists (in particular) can benefit from arranging their thoughts on technology and problem solving.  There’s much more in here, and that description undersells it.

The parts I like less are the memoir and family drama associated with the main character coming to terms with the costs of acquiring this knowledge and trying to get recognition of that work from the academic orthodoxy. That’s certainly driven by my views on orthodoxy.  I don’t seek much validation from the orthodoxy about my worldview.  I try to keep an open mind when people smarter than me talk, but I really dislike arguments from authority.  The climactic parts of the memoir center around the author’s reaction to the authority unfairly crushing his attempt put forth his ideas.

I understand that the memoir wouldn’t be interesting if the system of thought wasn’t compelling. I empathize with the author’s sincere pain – and the pain of others rejected by the system. I understand that the 60’s and 70’s were different times, and that a frustrated philosopher couldn’t publish on the Internet and gain a following there.  But I still feel like so much of the angst and despair of the memoir was avoidable.

And then I wonder if that’s exactly the lesson Persig is trying to get across.  Zen and the Art is interesting because it does encourage looking at old things in new ways, probably including Zen and the Art. Or not.  I go back and forth.

Persig’s book remains a fascinating, consciousness-expanding work.

Strongly recommended.

Equoid is a novella by Charles Stross set in his Laundry Files world where he imagines unicorns as realized by H. P. Lovecraft. These things are all so distinctive that if you know the ingredients you’ll know if you’d like the pie.

I know Stross but not the Laundry Files, so this was a way to dip my toe in that water.  As a place for a new reader, it was a pretty good jumping on point.  I was intrigued by the references to other parts of the universe, but never distracted from the story.  The ideas were pure Stross, which is to say lunatic, inspired, and carried to their logical endpoints with gusto, detail and humanity.

Good fun.

Recommended.