"Man's Fate" by Andre Malraux (1934)

"Ch'en could not move.  Finally he put out his arm, pulled the brief-case towards him, without the slightest difficulty.  None of these men had had the sensation of death, nor of the failure of his plot; nothing - a brief-case which a clerk had pushed towards the edge of the counter and which its owner pulls back...  And suddenly everything seemed extraordinarily easy to Ch'en.  Things, even actions, did not exist; they were dreams, nothing but dreams which take possession of us because we give them force, but which we can just as easily deny...  At this moment he heard the horn of a car: Chiang Kai-shek."

Andre Malraux was a French novelist active from the 1920s to the 1970s.  Something of an adventurer, quite often a liar given to exaggeration, Malraux wrote Man's Fate after visiting China briefly in 1931.  After WWII, French President Charles de Gaulle appointed Malraux Minister of Information, and later Minister of Cultural Affairs.  He died 1976, succumbing to lung cancer after a lifetime of heavy smoking.

Man's Fate outlines the personal struggles of several communist agitators after the united front between the Chinese Nationalists and the communists begins to fall apart in Shanghai.  The title is a reference to death, and also to the idea that every man can only meet it on its own terms.  The character Ferral, president of the French chamber of commerce in the novel, can be seen as a stand-in for Malraux.

This novel is definitely the best known of Malraux's books.  It's very French in tone, with characters often pausing during improbable moments to have conversations about free will, the inevitably of political revolution, or some other subject that captured the author's fancy at the time.  It seems deep at first, but the conversations never last very long, or involve much heavy lifting on the author's part.

While reading it I thought often of J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun, another novel dealing with the collapse of republican China just before World War II.  I think Man's Fate suffers by comparison to J.G. Ballard's more thought-provoking work, and one never gets the feeling that Man's Fate is telling a story of the same scope.

Graham Greene's The Quiet American also came to mind.   But where's Greene's character Fowler says so much about fading European dreams of empire in the East, none of the characters in Man's Fate really make that same connection, or at least with the same level of resonance.  Greene, of course, wrote with an economy that Malraux can't match, and all the philosophizing in the world can't make up for a lack of dramatic conflict.

Is it good?  Let's say I'll give it a pass.  It's definitely not long, at any rate.  Yet if you're looking for a meaningful look at China before the communist takeover, you'll be disappointed by Man's Fate.  It fails to connect to either the Occidental or Oriental aspects of its story, and theories of revolution aren't enough to describe the complicated politics of the period.

Related Entries:

"The Brothers Karamazov" by Fyodor Dostoevsky (1880)

"The American" by Henry James (1877)

"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee (2017)

"The Bridge Over the Neroch and Other Works" by Leonid Tsypkin (2012)

Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 Novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" Presented as a Reader's Theater Script

I'm an American guy living in Taiwan and teaching English here.  I've been so employed for over 20 years, with lengthy tours of duty in private kindergartens, vocational schools, cram schools, public junior high schools, public elementary schools and universities.  I'm not laying out my resume to brag over it, but rather to set the stage for something far more masturbatory.

In the public elementary school where I work I have to deal with a Reader's Theater competition every fall semester.  What, you ask, is a Reader's Theater competition?  For those blissfully unaware of it, Reader's Theater started out as a teaching strategy wherein students read and perform from a script as a means of improving their literacy.

Sounds pretty straightforward, right?  Yet in Taiwan, where even the most trivial academic activities are turned into competitions, the idea of Reader's Theater as just a teaching strategy wasn't enough.  In Taiwan this teaching strategy was transformed into a fully-fledged competition, wherein students are forced to memorize (and later pretend to read) a script over a period of weeks.  These students are then forced to memorize a series of movements to accompany their script, and after about two months' time teams from different schools come together in the hope of winning first place in their respective city or county Reader's Theater competition.  Thus classmate is turned against classmate, child is turned against parent, and teacher is turned against teacher.

What's that, you say?  Sounds like the U.S. Civil War?  Why yes it does, though the Reader's Theater competition is far more polite.  And where it might be said that Stowe's Abolitionist novel Uncle Tom's Cabin helped ignite the War Between the States, we can't blame her for Reader's Theater.  No, for that we must blame other powers, perhaps far more sinister in nature than the slaveholding states represented in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Narrator: Hello everybody!  I'm Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of this book!  I might be a little racist, I might be overwhelming in my missionary zeal, and I might not be the best at constructing tight, well-paced plots, but just the same here's the story of Uncle Tom!

Uncle Tom: Hi guys.  I'm Uncle Tom.  I'm a God-fearing slave in Kentucky.  I love my wife!  I love my fellow slaves!  And life is alright if you have Jesus!

Tom's Owner: Sorry Tom, I have to sell you down the river.  I don't have enough money to keep you!

Uncle Tom: That's sad!  What will happen to me now?  How will I get back to my wife and children?

Narrator: Uncle Tom gets sold down the river, to a man named St. Clare and his young, evangelical daughter.

Uncle Tom: Hey, life isn't so bad down here!  I miss my wife and children, but this St. Clare guy is nice!

St. Clare: I'm one of the good slave owners!  I don't beat my slaves!  They all love me!

His Daughter: And I'm good too!  Maybe we could set our slaves... free?

Uncle Tom:  Great idea!  What could go wrong?

His daughter: Oh no, I'm dying!

St. Clare: Oh no, I'm dying too!

Uncle Tom: Time to get sold down the river - again!

Narrator: Yes, Uncle Tom has a third owner, and this one is the worst of all!

Legree: Ha ha ha.  I like molesting these slaves!  I like whipping them!  Life is great!

Uncle Tom: Oh no!

Legree: Take that!  And that!  And that!

Narrator: Uncle Tome gets whipped to death!  But don't worry - he believes in JESUS, so he's going to heaven!  What's a whipping compared to eternal life?

Uncle Tom: Thanks, Jesus.  That whipping he gave me was bad, but hell is much worse!

Jesus: No problem, Uncle Tom.  Now if we could just solve this slavery problem...

THE END

Related Entries:

"The American" by Henry James (1877)

"Dust" by Hugh Howey (2013)

"Shift" by Hugh Howey (2013)

"Pebble in the Sky" by Isaac Asimov (1950)

IN CONCLUSION: Uncle Tom's Cabin is a badly written piece of Abolitionist propaganda.  You could argue that its heart was in the right place, but Harriet Beecher Stowe was a terrible writer and Uncle Tom's Cabin is kinda racist.  Historic?  Definitely.  But also a real chore to get through.

"The Island of the Day Before" by Umberto Eco (1995)

"'Sir,' the libertine replied, 'You cannot present to us ideas that all of us consider true, then demand that we not draw from them the ultimate consequences.  I suspect that at this point we no longer need God or His infinity, because we already have enough infinities on all sides reducing us to a shadow that lasts only an instant without return.  So, then, I propose banishing all fear, and going - in a body - to the tavern.'"

Umberto Eco, when he wasn't being unbearably pretentious, was a writer and Professor of Semiotics at the University of Bologna.  He wrote 7 novels, and countless works of non-fiction.

In The Island of the Day Before, a young Italian nobleman meditates (endlessly) on the meaning of life, time, and other topics while trapped on a boat.  About 3/4 of this novel could be described as "trapped on a boat," and the remaining 1/4 could be described as "everything that happened before."

The island mentioned in the title is an island somewhere in the South Pacific, located near the "antipodal meridian," or the 180th parallel of longitude.  We might define this antipodal meridian as a kind of International Date Line, where one assumes that the island, sitting as it does on the opposite side of the line, is actually inhabiting a previous day.

All of which makes The Island of the Day Before sound like it could be a fun, lighthearted nautical adventure, but in Eco's hands it becomes a ponderous, often nonsensical diatribe consisting of obsolete philosophical topics.  The "everything that happened before" parts of the book are actually pretty good, and offer an interesting window into medieval thought, but the "trapped on a boat" portions contain so little in the way of plot twists, character development, or actual emotion that this book quickly becomes a real chore to get through.

Judged against other pretentious books like Infinite Jest, Gravity's Rainbow, or (in my opinion, the prize-winner) The Flounder, The Island of the Day Before isn't unreadable.  It just isn't very interesting.  If you liked In the Name of the Rose (as I did), you'll find some redeeming features in it, but if you struggled to get through Foucault's Pendulum (as I did), you'll find The Island of the Day Before even slower going.

Atonement by Ian McEwan (2001)

"She was skeptical, because she knew the tricks the mind could play."

Ian McEwan is a British author, and several of his books have been adapted into films.

In Atonement, a young girl's jealousy creates a scandal that divides two lovers.  Shortly thereafter Britain is embroiled in World War II, and the three individuals are distanced from both their respective families and the estate where all three grew up.  It is the young girl's attempt to atone for her transgression that gives shape to the narrative, and as the story progresses she comes closer and closer to this goal.

Atonement consists of three parts, with a short epilogue.  In the first part, which takes up half the novel's length, the author outlines the events which lead up to the scandal.  In the second part, he describes one of the lover's experiences in wartime France.  In the third part, he details the young girl's journey to adulthood, and her trials as a nurse serving in London.  The epilogue brings the reader into the modern day (or 1999, anyway), and serves as a postscript for the first three sections.

Taken as a whole, I wasn't that impressed by this book.  It's the kind of thing that professional book critics gush over, and the kind of novel prominently displayed (and promoted) in the New Releases section of the local bookstore.  It is, in other words, the kind of book you're supposed to like, regardless of whether it's really good or not.  It's not by any means terrible, but it's less an organic whole than a book stitched together from disparate parts.

This said, the second and third sections are actually quite good.  It's just a shame that the first section is so tedious, and resembles a kind of warmed-over Jane Austen.  And given that this first section forms the spine of the book, it's hard to overlook it in favor of the much shorter sections which follow.  This is really too bad, because the third section, which describes Briony's time as a nurse, is very good.

Given that Atonement is Ian McEwan's most celebrated novel, I doubt that I'll be delving into his bibliography again anytime soon.  I've had enough of books featuring Britons lost in their own internal monologues, and the story behind Atonement, in the hands of another author, could have been so much more than that.

"50 Great Short Stories" by Milton Crane, Editor (1952)

"Young people who need a love potion very seldom have five thousand dollars.  Otherwise they would not need a love potion."

I bought this book because it was winter vacation, I was bored, and it was the only book in the English Literature section that even vaguely interested me.

All of the big names in capital-L-Literature have a story in this collection.  Joyce, Faulkner, Steinbeck, James - they're all here.  I was happy to discover, however, that I had previously read only one of the stories in this book, the one by Joyce.  All of the others were new discoveries, and all of the others - save perhaps one - I liked.

It's difficult to pinpoint a favorite out of 50 stories - all written by the world's most famous English-language authors - but "The Gionconda Smile," by Aldous Huxley is great, as is "Putois" by Anatole France.  But I only mention these stories because they were the most memorable, not because they were definitively better than the others.

I would recommend this collection to anyone looking for lesser-known authors of "serious" fiction.  Yes, there are a lot of big names in it, but it's the stories by the lesser-knowns that make it most rewarding.

Some of My Favorite Authors

I thought I'd offer this selection of my favorite authors.  Make of it what you will, and no, having seen a movie adaptation doesn't count!

   
Douglas Adams

I've read all his Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.  At his best the guy's hilarious.  At his worst he's still a very polished writer.

J.G. Ballard

I've read Empire of the Sun and Crash, both of which inspired movies of the same names.  He writes (wrote?) with an intensity that few authors can surpass, while at the same time using themes and subject matter that other writers wouldn't touch.

Jose Luis Borges

Like the South American answer to H. P. Lovecraft, Borges was a quiet, extremely literate man who wrote some of the strangest stories ever.  All of his fiction can be found in a single volume.

Arthur C. Clarke

I've read all of his 2001 series, Childhood's End, and several of his short stories.  I have no doubt that some of his later work was astonishingly dull, but his early work is science fiction at its best.

Joseph Conrad

There's a lot more to this guy than Heart of Darkness.  He was also one of the most adventurous, most experimental writers ever.  My favorite of his books is probably Nostromo.  Who else could write a two page long description of the sun setting upon the ocean, and make you sorry that it was only two pages long?
  
Philip K. Dick

I've read, I think, over 20 of his novels.  The V.A.L.I.S. Trilogy, A Scanner Darkly, and the Transmigration of Timothy Archer are all classic.  He was a brilliant, paranoid, emotionally disturbed man who wrote some excellent books.

Charles Dickens 

Early Dickens is what you want to read first.  Oliver Twist, Great Expectations - all of that.  His later books, while good, amplify the social commentary at the expense of his sense of humor.  I've read a lot of his books - maybe more than 10 now - but Oliver Twist remains my favorite.
 
Alexandre Dumas

Dumas is one of the great French authors, having penned (at least part of) The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, and The Man in the Iron Mask.  His books aren't just great adventure stories.  They're also quite funny.

James Ellroy

Ellroy the writer is a lot like many of his characters.  He finds something that works, and then proceeds to beat it to death.  His L.A. Quartet and Underworld USA Trilogy are all excellent books full of sex and violence.

William Faulkner

The archetypal Southern writer, Faulkner was a functioning alcoholic who wrote sprawling sagas about Southern towns, Southern families, and Southern life.  Go Down, Moses is probably my favorite of his books, though if he ever wrote a bad book I've yet to read it.
 
Graham Greene

If you ever want to read something tortured, I'd highly recommend The End of the Affair.  I've also read Journey Without Maps and The Quiet American, both of which were great.

Frank Herbert

Yes, he wrote some bad books, but his best books are imaginative works that will stand the test of time.  I've read his entire bibliography, and I highly recommend God Emperor of Dune, The Jesus Incident (written with Bill Ransom), and The Godmakers.

Rudyard Kipling

I believe I've read all of his fiction.  The Jungle Book and his other writings are good, but Kim blows them all out of the water.  Kipling had a lot to say about the British Empire, and man's relationship with the natural world.

H.P. Lovecraft

An awkward, sickly New Englander who worshiped another awkward, sickly New Englander by the name of Edgar Allan Poe.  Not everything Lovecraft wrote was good - some of it was derivative, some of it was also racist - but no one re-imagined other dimensions, ancient cults, and bizarre, galaxy-spanning horrors with greater skill.  At the Mountains of Madness is probably his best story.

Gabriel Marcia Marquez

Undoubtedly my favorite South American writer, and I've read books by quite a few South American writers.  100 Years of Solitude is one of my favorite books, and Love in the Time of Cholera is also very good.

George R. R. Martin

Everyone fawning over the Game of Thrones TV series really ought to read the books.  How Martin writes such long, complicated, morally ambiguous books is beyond me, but I'm glad that he does.  I'm very much looking forward to his next novel.

Cormac McCarthy

Something of a latter-day Faulkner, but McCarthy writes in a style that is very much his own.  I cannot praise his Border Trilogy enough, and he continues to impress me with both the quality of his writing and the erudition necessary to flesh out his plots.  There is also a lot of depravity in his novels, and I enjoy that.

Herman Melville

Moby Dick might still be the quintessential American novel.  It remains my favorite of his books, though Melville's other books are sadly overlooked.  His first book, Typee, is also very good, as are some of his later, more experimental works.

Edgar Allan Poe 

Like Melville and Hawthorne, Poe was one of the first great American writers.  His style of writing was at once more verbose and more conventional than either of those writers, and he is sometimes credited with inventing both the detective and science fiction genres.  Like his acolyte Lovecraft, he's had more than one reader pulling out the dictionary.
 
Philip Roth

Roth has received a lot of attention within the past decade or so, but his earlier works, much like those of Cormac McCarthy, were largely overlooked when they were first published.  His books can be extremely depressing, and his fiction has a masturbatory side that grows tiresome, but even so he's written some great books.  American Pastoral is my favorite.

Jules Verne

Verne is another famous Frenchman, and he may have also invented the science fiction genre.  His characters are paper-thin, his plots are ridiculous, but no one wrote an adventure story like Verne.  I recommend starting from his more famous books and branching outward from there.

Happy Year of the Goat!! 新年快樂!!

Chinese New Year is coming!  Happy Year of the Goat!  春節快到了!  羊年快樂!

This will be my last entry for a while.  After this week I'll be on vacation until February 24.  I'll resume writing this blog then.  這是我這個學期的最後一篇文章.  這個禮拜以後開始放寒假.  我寒假後再開始動筆.

Here's wishing you a prosperous Year of the Goat, and a happy 2015!  See you next month!  祝你有一個幸福的羊年和快樂的2015!  下個月見!

20 Great Novels

In the spirit of listing things, here are 20 books that I happen to think are great.  I know that listing things can be a frivolous occupation, but I really did put some thought into this list!

American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis

The story of a serial killer, or a man who thinks he might be a serial killer, told from the serial killer's point of view.  Often cited as an example of "transgressive fiction," this book is still banned in many countries, and remains controversial today.  It is, nevertheless, a great book, and is much better than anything else Ellis has written.

Ubik by Philip K. Dick

"Ubik" is derived from "ubique," the Latin word which gives us ubiquitous.  The plot is hard to describe, and the ending of the book feels like a hallucination.  It's not Dick's weirdest book (I'd give that honor to "Lies, Inc.), but it is probably his best.

The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas

I've read a lot of books set in the 1700s, but this is one of the few that made me feel like I was somehow present during that time period.  It's also a great adventure story with some gruesome turns.  Based (to some extent) on an actual person.

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maughaum

Maughaum wrote several great books, and his life has inspired a literature of its own.  "Of Human Bondage" is regarded by most critics as his masterpiece, and many of the story elements present in this book are autobiographical.  It is the story of a man born with a club foot who joins the medical profession.

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

During his lifetime Theodore Dreiser was perhaps more famous for another novel, "An American Tragedy," but in my opinion this novel is far better.  It is the story of a girl from the country, the man who loves her, and the consequences of a robbery.  It is often cited as an example of "naturalism" in fiction, and there is a realism to the motivation (or lack of motivation) behind the characters that continues to elude many modern authors.

Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy

The last book in McCarthy's Border Trilogy, this book explores a doomed love affair in Mexico.  In this novel McCarthy combines the literal elements from "All the Pretty Horses" and the more existential elements from "The Crossing" into a powerful story of human frailty.  The climax of this book has stayed with me.

Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne

Verne wrote a lot of great books, but this one is probably my favorite.  I will agree that in "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" Verne found both a more interesting protagonist and a more fully realized villain, but something about "Journey to the Center of the Earth" seems more essentially Verne.  The album by Rick Wakeman is also pretty good.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Devil visits Soviet Russia with hilarious results.  This novel is my favorite Russian novel ever, and it's only too bad that its creation was surrounded by so much personal tragedy for the author.  Parts of this book are so over-the-top they had me laughing out loud.  An absurd book with a lot to say about human nature.

Jazz by Toni Morrison

I think that Toni Morrison is slightly overrated, but "Jazz" is nonetheless an excellent book.  It is the story of a love triangle that develops between three black New Yorkers with deep ties to the South.  The more impressionistic passages mimic the style of music that gave the book its name.

Solaris by Stanislaw Lem

With regard to Stanislaw Lem, one of my favorite science fiction writers, I am torn between "Solaris" and "Peace on Earth."  "Solaris" is a more serious meditation on how mankind might interact with a truly alien consciousness, while "Peace on Earth" is a more comedic book exploring the theme of paranoia.  This book will have you thinking.

The Godmakers by Frank Herbert

"God Emperor of Dune" is perhaps my favorite of Frank Herbert's many books, but this one is great as well.  The title describes the story perfectly: the making of a god.  Herbert was perhaps at his best when exploring more philosophical themes, and in this book he writes to his own strengths.  Very original and thought-provoking.

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

If you were an extraterrestrial visitor wanting to understand Western science fiction, I would heartily recommend "Foundation."  More a loosely connected series of short stories than an actual novel, it remains one of the most influential science fiction novels ever written.  Asimov certainly had his faults as a writer, but this is a great book.

Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkein

Required reading for anyone into Fantasy, and still one of the best examples of world-building in literature.  The "good vs. evil" motif might wear on modern readers, but I think that Tolkein was in keeping with the sagas that inspired his books.  The decades of abysmal fantasy writing that followed would only be relieved by George R. R. Martins "Song of Ice and Fire."

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene

This is one of the most tortured books you'll ever read, describing a doomed love affair between the author and another man's wife.  Graham Greene wrote a lot of great books, but this one would have to be my favorite.

The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

Something of a dark horse here, James Ellroy is famous for his crime/noir novels.  He has often described himself as "a modern-day Tolstoy," and while I wouldn't agree I do think he's a great writer.  "The Black Dahlia" is by far the best of his books, and is somewhat autobiographical in nature.  Don't waste your time with the movie.

Life, the Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

This book is part of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" series.  All of the books in this series are good, but I think "Life" is the funniest.  The plot for this book was originally intended as a six part story for the Doctor Who television show, but the BBC rejected it.  Proof that TV executives don't know much about anything.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

Probably Faulkner's best known book, and another look at the decaying South.  This is also an early example of how Joyce's stream of consciousness technique translated into an American context.  This book is often singled out as being "difficult," but it's nothing compared to some of Faulkner's other books.

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Despite his reputation, Fitzgerald really didn't write all that much.  He left behind five novels - all of which I've read - and "The Great Gatsby" is the only of his books that I would describe as "classic."  It is, nevertheless, a great book.  Hemingway vs. Fitzgerald?  In my opinion, Hemingway never wrote anything half this good.

1984 by George Orwell

Orwell's prophecy about the future of authoritarianism.  Several million North Koreans are living this book right now.  It's dark, it's political, and it's very human.  Even so many decades after its first publication, this book packs quite a punch.  Let's just hope that 1984 remains in our past, and not in our future.

"Silas Marner" by George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1861)

"I suppose it is the way with all men and women who reach middle age without the clear perception that life never can be thoroughly joyous: under the vague dullness of the gray hours, dissatisfaction seeks a definite object, and finds it in the privation of an untried good."

George Eliot was a pseudonym used by Mary Ann Evans, the woman who wrote "Adam Bede," "The Mill on the Floss," "Middlemarch," "Daniel Deronda," and this book, "Silas Marner."  She wrote as a man in the hope of being taken more seriously.  Her book "Middlemarch," which I haven't read, has been described as the greatest novel in the English language.

"Silas Marner" is set in England in the early 19th century.  Silas, a weaver by trade, is shunned by the community in which he was born, and he afterward takes up residence in Raveloe, a town some distance away.  He is held as an object of suspicion by the people of Raveloe, until the discovery of an orphaned child brings him into closer contact with his fellow townspeople.

As Victorian novels go, this one is very short.  It is also very well written, though at times the author tries too hard to make grand, sweeping observations about life in a small town.  Just the same, this novel is largely free of the improbable coincidences that mark other novels of the era, and the narrative flows quite smoothly.  I enjoyed "Silas Marner," and never grew bored of either the characters or the story.

If you are the kind of reader who still has the patience for Dickens or the Brontes, I would recommend this novel.  It never becomes taxing, and the plot advances briskly toward a satisfying conclusion.

"The Mysterious Island" by Jules Verne (1874)

"'I was within the law and within my rights,' he added.  'Throughout all my travels, I did whatever good was possible, and whatever evil was necessary.  Justice does not always mean forgiveness!'

"'These words met only with silence, and again _________ spoke:

"'What do you think of me, gentlemen?'

"Cyrus Smith stretched out his hand and answered gravely:

"'__________, your mistake was to believe you could bring back the past.  You struggled against progress, which is a good and necessary thing.  This is an error that some admire and others condemn, but God alone can judge of its virtue, and human reason can only pardon it.  A man who errs through what he believes to be good intentions may well be denounced, but he will always be esteemed.  Some may find much to praise in your error, and your name has nothing to fear from the judgment of history.  History loves heroic follies, even as it condemns their consequences.'"

"The Mysterious Island" is one of Verne's later novels, presaging a string of darker, less popular works that you're not likely to find in your local bookstore.  By the time it appeared on Paris bookshelves, Verne was already a man celebrated throughout France, and his "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea," "Journey to the Center of the Earth," and "Around the World in 80 Days" had found an eager audience in both Europe and the United States.

The novel is largely a story of survival, pitting four Americans against the island where they find themselves stranded, against the predations of pirates, and against a mysterious, reclusive figure who assists them at certain key points in the narrative.  If you haven't read the novel, you might already know who this reclusive figure is.  If you don't know, and don't want to know, I suggest avoiding both the Wikipedia entry on this book and the book's introductory sections.

Compared to Verne's other, more popular novels, I'd have to say that this one is really lacking in dramatic tension.  If Verne had only started the narrative much later, after the colonists had established themselves on the island, and just before their discovery of the fifth castaway, this book would have been so much better.  As it is, the story drags on for more than 100 pages, and it isn't until the second half that things really get going.  

There are also some scientific and chronological problems present in "The Mysterious Island," but I think that these can be excused.  Verne was, after all, writing this thing in the late 1800s, and it is easy to see how certain scientific inconsistencies might have got by him.  The chronological issues are perhaps more glaring, but don't appear until the end of the book, and don't really interfere with one's enjoyment of the story.

My greatest difficulty with this book was the psychology of the characters.  They spend four years on the island, and their desire to escape their confinement is, until the very end of the book, absent from their daily lives.  You would think that the colonists would be trying to escape the island from their first week there, but instead they spend much of the book contentedly building sheepfolds, and windmills, and planting wheat.  Wouldn't they miss the families they left behind?  Wouldn't they want to leave?  Even despite the vast distances they would have to travel, I think that a perilous sea journey would be preferable to a slow, lonely exile in the middle of the Pacific.

Aside from this question of psychology, "The Mysterious Island" is still a good book, and I would still recommend it, especially if you've read Verne's other, more famous novels.  As an adventure story it largely succeeds, and its flaws can be overlooked in most instances.

Books I Read During Summer Vacation

Made it to both Taipei and Kaohsiung this summer, and as a result I've acquired a lot of books.

"The Pilgrim's Progress" by Tom Bunyan

A primer on Christianity, couched within an adventure story.  This story is divided into two parts, and the second part is virtually identical to the first.  Incredibly tedious, though I'm happy to know that people don't bother with nonsense like this anymore.

"Spillover" by David Quammen

"Spillover" refers to the passing of diseases between animals and humans, often resulting in epidemics.  Consistently pretentious, often condescending, yet it does offer some fascinating insights as to how epidemics such as Ebola and AIDS come to be.  Could have been much shorter.

"The Savage Detectives" by Roberto Bolano

I have also read Bolano's "2666," and was intrigued enough to seek out "The Savage Detectives," a much earlier (and more complete) novel.  Unfortunately this book bored me to tears.  It's extremely long-winded, full of pointless details, and designed for those suffering from a certain amount of intellectual vanity.  Novels like this might make people feel "smart," but they sure aren't entertaining.

"A Field Guide to Radiation" by Wayne Biddle

A nonfiction introduction to radiation, written by a non-scientist.  It's not a bad book, though the author tries too hard to be funny.  He also displays a definite bias against nuclear power.  I think a more balanced account would have served the subject better.

"N-W" by Zadie Smith

A novel centered around four Londoners.  I have also read Smith's White Teeth, and this novel reminded me of that novel.  White Teeth is much better, but N-W is not bad.

"The Case for Mars" by Robert Zubrin (with Richard Wagner) 

A plea for a renewed program of Mars exploration, with particular emphasis on the author's Mars Direct program.  Robert Zubrin is an aeronautical engineer, formerly in the employ of Martin Marietta.  The first few chapters are very boring, but the later chapters on colonization and terraforming were interesting.

Thoughts on Literature

I like the Classics.  That's Classics with a capital "C."  The Classics, I suppose, would be Literature that has stood the test of time.  I don't know how professors of English Lit would define the Classics, but I would define them as more serious/intellectual/"important" books written before World War II.  These are the books that many people find frustrating and/or boring.

Which isn't to say that I like all of the Classics.  I couldn't get through the Marquis de Sade.  I have a low tolerance for Tolstoy.  Henry James just bores me.  For all the good Classics out there, one could point out some truly excruciating books, but I like to think that the good outweigh the bad.

And I also feel obliged to say that I do read stupid books on occasion, and occasionally I even enjoy them.  I liked "I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell," I like Dave Barry, and I even found Dan Brown tolerable.  I don't enjoy swimming in deep water all the time.  Sometimes I like to just wade in; I'm not looking for deep thoughts, and heartfelt commentary on the state of Western civilization.

As of now I'm reading "Hard Times" by Charles Dickens.  I like Dickens quite a bit.  The coincidences in his books are sometimes hard to take, but he wrote with a command of the English language and a feel for plot that few other authors can even approach.  I've also read "David Copperfield," "Great Expectations," "The Christmas Books," "Oliver Twist," and "A Tale of Two Cities."  Oliver Twist was probably my favorite.

My copy of "Hard Times" was published by Penguin, and is part of the "Penguin Popular Classics" series.  I own many of the books in this series.  I buy them because I usually like them, but I also buy them because they're cheap.  In the back of my book are listed all the other books in this series, about 1/4 of which I've already read.

"Aesop's Fables" is the first entry on the list.  This is a book full of strange stories that don't go anywhere, all hearkening back to the Greco-Roman world.  The mythical Aesop draws a lot of weird morals from his stories.

There are a few books by Jane Austen.  I read "Pride and Prejudice" a while back, and I also read quite a bit of "Mansfield Park."  I like the way in which Austen's characters banter, but they are often hard to sympathize with.  I realize that my being a dude is part of the reason I have trouble with Jane Austen.

Charlotte and Emily Bronte come next.  I've read both "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights."  I liked "Jane Eyre," but I found the characters in "Wuthering Heights" extremely annoying.  Again, part of the reason for this is my being a dude - I think.

Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" is OK, but I think it suffers from the treatments given to it by Disney and Tim Burton.  It's hard to filter out our modern perceptions of this book and what it should be.  It's an easy read, but the silliness of it seems kind of dated.

I can remember struggling through Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" in college.  I'd probably like it more now, but at the time it was a burden.

John Cleland's "Fanny Hill" was an entertaining read.  It's basically porn, but it's not explicit enough to be off-putting.  The descriptions of penises as "terrible machines" has stuck with me.  Unlike the Marquis de Sade, I really can't find anything offensive in "Fanny Hill."

Arthur Conan Doyle's "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is sitting on a shelf in my house.  I haven't read it yet.  I can remember reading "Hound of the Baskervilles" in high school, however, so I imagine "Adventures" is just more of the same.  The movie with Robert Downey Jr. is surprisingly good, though I'm not sure how much it has to do with any of Doyle's books.

Many of Joseph Conrad's books are to be found in the Popular Classics series.  I have read "Heart of Darkness," "Lord Jim," "Nostromo," "The Secret Agent," and "Victory."  "Nostromo" would have to be my favorite.  I found "Lord Jim" difficult to get through, and "Victory" is strangely philosophical.  Conrad is one of my favorite authors, and he led a fascinating life.  he also had (and continues to have) a big influence over Central and South American authors such as Borges and Gabriel Marcia Marquez.

"The Last of the Mohicans" is a straight ahead adventure novel, but it's a good read.  Compared to anything by Conrad it's light reading, but that's not always a bad thing.  The movie with Daniel Day-Lewis is also good.

Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage?"  I know I've read it, but I can't remember anything about it.

Defoe's "Moll Flanders" and "Robinson Crusoe" come next.  I had a hard time with Robinson Crusoe, despite the fact that I'd been wanting to read it for a long time.  It gets very religious near the end.  I liked "Moll Flanders" much more, even though that book requires patience.  I would imagine that "Moll Flanders," written in the 1700s, scandalized a great number of people.

Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment" is a famously difficult book.  I started this one three or four times before finally finishing it a couple of years ago.  I'd have to say that yes, it is a boring book, but it is also the kind of book that makes you think.  The "punishment" undergone by the protagonist is more mental/internal than anything forced upon him by society, and in the end the punishment enacted by his government serves to release him from feelings of guilt.  An inventive book, to be sure, and worthy of its reputation.

I believe F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in the 20s and 30s, though I might be off by a decade.  It's been a while.  I've read all of Fitzgerald's books, and he is one of my favorite authors.  "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" has to be one of the strangest short stories ever, and I'm surprised no one has ever tried to make a movie out of it.  Much is made of his rivalry with Hemingway, but in my opinion Hemingway is highly overrated macho bullshit.

"King Solomon's Mines" was written by H. Rider Haggard.  It was stories like this one that inspired Indiana Jones.  The main character in this novel, Allan Quatermain, is often mispelled as "Allan Quartermain."  Anyone who likes more pulpy sorts of fiction should like Haggard.

I've read two of Thomas Hardy's books: "Jude the Obscure" and "The Return of the Native."  "Jude" is the story of a man who wants to live an unconventional lifestyle, but finds himself thwarted at every turn.  I enjoyed it a lot.  "The Return of the Native" wasn't as interesting to me, though it touches on similar themes of infidelity and individualism.

"The Scarlet Letter" is a good novel.  Nathaniel Hawthorne was a big influence on Herman Melville, who is also one of my favorites.  Many would point to Hawthorne as the beginning of "mature" American fiction, and I would not disagree with that assertion.

Henry James, as said above, bores me.  I had a hell of a time getting through "The Turn of the Screw."

James Joyce is fantastic, one of the truly revolutionary writers.  His first three books ("Dubliners, "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," and of course "Ulysses") are must-reads.  I couldn't get anywhere with "Finnegan's Wake," however.  That has to be the most obscure novel ever.

As much as I like Joyce, I might like Rudyard Kipling just as much.  Kipling was a lot earlier than Joyce, and many of his books chronicled the British Empire at its height.  "The Jungle Books" offer a fascinating alternative to the creation myth, and "Kim" is a book of unquestionable depth.  "Kim" is also one of the most "Eastern" Western books I have ever read, right up there with Herman Hesse's "Siddhartha."

I can recall reading Gaston Leroux's "Phantom of the Opera," but that was a LONG time ago.  There is a cool bit at the end where the protagonist is placed inside a "mirror prison."  Ever since I read that book I've wanted to make a mirror room in my house.

Jack London is The Man.  He was a lot more socialist than most of the other writers mentioned here, and he was also more concerned with nature and man's relation to it.  "Call of the Wild" and "White Fang" take the concept of civilization in opposite directions.

Herman Melville is THE MAN.  Probably the greatest American writer ever, and no, I don't say that lightly.  "Moby Dick" expanded my mind, and got me reading fiction again after a multi-year gap.  I've read everything he wrote except "Pierre," which I've never been able to track down.  One of the more surprising facts about Melville is that "Moby Dick" was a huge failure for him.

A long time before Melville, John Milton wrote "Paradise Lost" (and "Paradise Regained"), his epic poem about the fall of Satan.  This poem is great if you just throw the commentary it out the window.  I really enjoyed Milton's descriptions of Hell.  Critics often point out that Satan is a more sympathetic character than God in "Paradise Lost," and Blake contended that this was because Milton was a poet, and thus "of the devil's camp."

I loved Edgar Allen Poe when I was in high school, but I can't say that I like him as much now.  He definitely had a fantastic vocabulary, but many of his stories leave me a bit flat.  He was a big influence on H.P. Lovecraft, whose stories I enjoy much more.

"Ivanhoe" and "Rob Roy" were written by Sir Walter Scott.  I loved the former, and found the latter overlong.  Aside from his questionable historical origins, the real source of the Robin Hood legend is Scott's "Ivanhoe."  It's not a heavy book by any means.  It is concise, full of action, and to the point.

Shakespeare?  Well, just about anyone from an English-speaking country has had to sweat their way through "Romeo and Juliet," "Julius Caesar," or "Hamlet."  "Othello" is probably my favorite of Shakespeare's plays, primarily because it's not as overexposed.

Mary Shelly's "Frankenstein" was my favorite book for YEARS, though I have to admit that it is somewhat overwrought.  Movie adaptations always fail to capture the obsessive, revengeful nature of Shelley's creation.

I read "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson not so long ago.  It is a classic adventure story if there ever was one.  His "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" is a more adult-oriented work, with perhaps a more wide-ranging influence.

I didn't like Bram Stoker's "Dracula" at all.  In my opinion it is a terrible book.

Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" is, however, a thoroughly absorbing work of fiction.  A lot of people get fixated on the Lilliputians, but the "giant Gulliver" is only one part out of three in this book.  The second part describes another island of intelligent horses, and the third part describes a race of beings that live in the clouds.  His metaphors might be a bit too obvious, but he was a great writer.

"Vanity Fair," by W.M. Thackeray, is well worth seeking out.  In some ways it resembles Defoe's "Moll Flanders," but it has a much wider scope than Defoe's novel.  The protagonist, Becky Sharp, is one of the truly memorable characters in English literature.

By comparison, Tolstoy is a lot heavier.  I fought my way through "War and Peace," and while I can't agree with his views on predestination, I did like the book.  I've also read his short stories.  "The Death of Ivan Ilych" is possibly the most depressing thing I have ever read.

"Barchester Towers" was written by Anthony Trollope.  His books are somewhat comedic, and very, very British.  I found this book difficult to get into at first, but by the end I had decided that I liked it.

Mark Twain's "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" are both interesting, and it's hard to say which of the two I like better.  I've also read "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court," which offered the kind of satire common to both Twain and Swift.

"The Kama Sutra" by Vatsyayana is not nearly as sexual as the American publishing industry would have you believe.  Neither is it an especially enlightening book.  Much of the Kama Sutra discusses women as if they are just a step above cattle, and after finishing the book I felt very glad that I don't live in medieval India.  No worse than many Western books written at the same time, but not helpful for those seeking sexual or spiritual improvement.

Jules Verne is far superior, and he was far smarter than the semi-mythical Vatsyayana.  I've read all the books published as part of the Popular Classics series, from "Around the World in Eighty Days" to "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea" to "Journey to the Center of the Earth" to others that aren't included, such as "From Earth to the Moon."  Verne has the best claim to being the first science fiction author ever.

I read Voltaire's Candide, but for the life of me I can't remember what it's about.

Edith Wharton, like Henry James, is just boring.  I wanted all of the characters in Ethan Frome to die in the end, if for no other reason than to stop their whining and pining for one another.

Lastly, there is Virginia Woolf, who has three books in the Penguin series.  Of these three, I have only read "Orlando," which I enjoyed a lot.  The film they made of this movie was also quite good.

All of the above covers what I've read of the Classics... at least as far as the Penguin Popular Classics are concerned.  There are really only two or three books above that I wouldn't recommend.  The rest were both good and influential.

And what about you?  Do you like the Classics?  What would you recommend?  Below are my top ten, in no particular order:

1. "Moby Dick" by Herman Melville

2. "Vanity Fair" by W.M. Thackeray

3. "Gulliver's Travels" by Jonathan Swift

4. "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott

5. "Call of the Wild" by Jack London

6. "Kim" by Rudyard Kipling

7. "Ulysses" by James Joyce

8. "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

9. "Nostromo" by Joseph Conrad

10. "Oliver Twist" by Charles Dickens

Books I Read During Winter Vacation

1. More Penguin Science Fiction ***1/2

Great collection of sci-fi from the late 50s and early 60s.  Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov are among the contributors.  All of the stories are good, though some are better than others.  Suprisingly, the story by the guy who wrote "Spartacus" stands out even in this company.

2. Andromeda 2 ***

A British sci-fi anthology from the 70s.  I liked this one a lot.  None of the authors are famous, but the stories are all entertaining.  There's a great story at the end about an immortal living in a future Africa.

3. "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel **1/2

The first 100 pages of this book are tedious.  Entire chapters do nothing to advance the plot, and the protagonist, for all his New Age enlightenment, is surprisingly judgmental on a number of topics.  How does he KNOW that animals are happier in zoos?  How is an agnostic's life filled with confusion?  How are atheists devout?

It gets much better about a fourth of the way in, but 200+ pages aboard the lifeboat was still pushing it.  The shipwreck bit is good, and the ending is deftly executed, but this book is burdened with too many details, and too many similar scenes.  Had it been a hundred or so pages shorter, it would have been much better

4."The Sex Life of Cannibals" by J. Maarten Troost ***

About an American's two-year stay in Tarawa, an atoll which belongs to Kiribati.  It's quite a funny book, though it has little sex and NO cannibalism.  I don't read a lot of travel writing, but this book compares favorably to other travel books I've read.

5. "The 19th Wife" by David Ebershoff **

A mystery novel about Mormons which flashes between the days of Brigham Young and the present time.  The characters lack depth, and their actions are entirely predictable.  It's readable, but a more thorough writer could have done a lot more with the subject matter.

6. "Batman: Hush" by Jeph Loeb and Jim Lee *1/2

Jeph Loeb is a good writer.  In this TPB from 2003, he picked up where he left off in the landmark "Long Halloween."  Jim Lee provided the pencils, and his art made me miss Tim Sale.  You would think that someone as famous and technically proficient as Lee could avoid copying Frank Miller.  Parts of this TPB bear an unfortunate resemblance to "The Dark Knight Returns."

9. "Batman: The Long Halloween" by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale ****

This comic book was probably the single greatest inspiration for Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy.  A mysterious killer by the name of "Holiday" prowls the streets of Gotham, and Batman, Harvey Dent, and Jim Gordon team up to track him (or her) down.  Great art and writing.  One of the classics.

10. "Saga of the Swamp Thing: Volume One" by Alan Moore, Stephen Bissette, and John Totleben ****

Alan Moore's first appearance at DC, long before he would go on to fame as the writer of "Watchmen."  I am old enough to have read some of these when they first came out, and I can remember the the effect they had - and continue to have - on me.  It might not have seemed so at the time, but comic books like this one were truly revolutionary..

11. "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Gabriel Marcia Marquez ***

Marquez's "100 Years of Solitude" is one of the best books I've ever read.  "Love" is, as the title implies, more of a straight-ahead love story, and it lacks the sense of absurdity that made "100 Years" so memorable (for me, at least).  I liked it, but not nearly as much as "100 Years."

12. "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk ***1/2

One of those books that I've been meaning to read for a long time.  The movie adaptation, starring Ed Norton and Brad Pitt, was surprisingly faithful to the source material.  If you like this book, you'll probably also like Palahnuik's "Invisible Monsters."  The movie - which just about every white, heterosexual male has seen at least twice - spoils the ending, but it is still well worth reading.

13. "Marvel Comics" by Sean Howe ***1/2

I devoured this book.  It details the history of Marvel Comics from its beginnings in the 30s to the present day.  What emerges is a story of lawsuits, betrayals, and corporate backstabbing.  I found it completely absorbing, but I don't know how interesting it would be for those who didn't grow up reading comic books.

14. "The Dream of the Celt" by Mario Vargas Llosa **

Kind of boring.  Based on actual events, this novel explores Roger Casement's life as a homosexual and Irish nationalist.  Casement learns about the horrors of colonialism in both Africa and Peru, and is later imprisoned for treason.  I can't figure out why so many people raved about this book.

15. "Foundation and Empire" by Isaac Asimov **

The second book in Asimov's original Foundation Trilogy, which was later expanded to a series of seven books.  This book introduces The Mule, a powerful psychic whose appearance casts doubt on Hari Seldon's psychohistoric predictions.  The ending is completely predictable - even if you haven't read other books in this series - and this novel left me feeling disappointed.  I would highly recommend "Foundation" and "Second Foundation," but this one was pretty weak.

16. Marvel's "Civil War" **

The complete series incorporates over a hundred individual comic books, and every title in the Marvel line.  After the New Warriors accidentally cause the deaths innocent civilians, American public opinion causes discord within the ranks of superheroes.  Iron Man wants heroes working for the US government, while Captain America (oh, the irony!) tries to protect the individual liberties superheroes have taken for granted.  It's one of the better ideas for a "crossover event" that Marvel has come up with, but 106 issues was overblown - even for Marvel.  I STILL haven't read all of them!

17. "Moll Flanders" by Daniel Defoe ***

Defoe also wrote "Robinson Crusoe," which I read some time ago.  "Moll Flanders" is less religious in tone, and there is a moral ambiguity in it that is almost entirely absent in Defoe's more famous tale of the island castaway.  It requires patience to get through, but I found this story of a "fallen woman" much more compelling.

18. "The Swerve" by Stephen Greenblatt **1/2

This inadequately titled book illustrates the rediscovery of Lucretius' "On the Nature of Things" during the Renaissance, and how this rediscovery opened the door to modernity.  It is an interesting book, but I found the author's argument unconvincing.  As something of an Epicurean myself, I think "The Swerve" would have worked better as a commentary or appendix to Lucretius, and not as a work in its own right.

19. "I.O.U.S.A" by Addison Wiggin and Kate Incontrera **1/2

A primer on the ills of the U.S. economy.  Oversimplifies a great many issues, but this is the kind of book that more Americans ought to read.  This book makes frequent reference to another book, "Empire of Debt," that I'd like to read very much.  The second half of I.O.U.S.A consists of interviews with famous economists and other financial figures, and while it's more informative than the first half, it also proves the point that economists have trouble agreeing on anything and everything.

Books Read in the Vicinity of Chinese New Year

[no stars]	This book is unspeakably bad.  Don't waste your time.
*	Pretty much sucked, but had one or two redeeming features.
**	Good for long-distance air travel... if you're tired of watching the movies.
***	A good book.  Maybe a few flaws, but good nonetheless.
****	Excellent.  I'd count it among my favorites.

The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli ***1/2

A photojournalist journeys to Vietnam in hopes of making her career.  Torn between two men, she gets more than she bargained for.  A bit melodramatic, but beautifully written and marvelously thought out.   The only reason I'm not giving this four stars is the totally unnecessary last chapter.

Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury **

A suprisingly pretentious look at small-town nostalgia by one of American sci-fi's leading lights.  Made into a movie by Disney back in the 80s, and not nearly as good as either his "Martian Chronicles" or his "Illustrated Man."  Helped me to understand J.R.R. Tolkein's hatred of metaphors.

Second Foundation by Isaac Asimov ***


The third book in Asimov's groundbreaking "Foundation" series.  A very clever story, but it doesn't really pick up speed until the last fifty pages.  Made me remember why he was famous in the first place - and also made me want to forget later books such as "Foundation and Earth," "Caves of Steel," etc., etc., etc.

The Prestige by Christopher Priest **1/2


Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of this novel is one of my favorite movies ever.  The epistolary style of this book is a bit annoying, and the last few chapters verge on the cartoonish.  It's a good book full of clever plot twists, but there are moments when The Prestige reads like warmed-over Frankenstein.

Hellstrom's Hive by Frank Herbert ***1/2

This book bears comparison to Herbert's The Santaroga Barrier.  Both novels follow the discovery of a semi-secret, tight-knit community within the modern world.  Many of the ideas explored in this novel also bring to mind the Fremen of Herbert's Dune novels, though in Hellstrom's Hive one finds the crystallization of concepts only tangentially explored in those books. As far as Herbert's non-Dune novels go, this one is second only to The Godmakers.

When She Woke by Hillary Jordan **

It's the future, it's Texas, and in Texas getting an abortion is not only punishable by a month in prison, but they also turn your skin red for sixteen years.  Those who've read The Scarlet Letter will find much that is familiar within this book.  It's readable, but unconvincing.  For all the bitching and moaning the main character does over her "ordeals," they really don't amount to a satisfying or logical conclusion.

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk ****

The author also wrote Fight Club, which was of course made into the movie that all heterosexual men have seen at least twice.  In Invisible Monsters, a former model disfigured by a gunshot wound, a pre-operative transsexual, and an ex-detective beg, borrow, cheat, and steal their way through the northwestern U.S.  While this book has a lot in common with Bret Easton Ellis' Glamorama, it's a much shorter and much better novel.  Fucked-up and brilliant.

Little Princes by Conor Grennan **


An American helps reunite orphans in Nepal with their parents.  The first two chapters were interesting, but the rest of the book is LONG, repetitious, overly sentimental, and above all boring.  I praise the author for his devotion to these orphans, but this non-fiction account of his adventures could have been at least 50 pages shorter.

The End of the Affair by Graham Greene ****

 A writer struggles with his feelings of jealousy after ending a years-long affair with a married woman.  The plot resembles The Quiet American in some respects, but I found this book to be at once deeper and more human than that deservedly famous take on the Vietnam War.  Excellent.

The Places in Between by Rory Stewart ***

Non-fiction.  Just after the Taliban is kicked out of Afghanistan, a guy from Scotland takes a stroll through some very, very remote areas.  Keep in mind that for all anyone knew, Bin Laden was still hiding out in those same areas, and even the U.S. Marines tread very carefully in that part of the world.  A highly entertaining read. 

The Worlds of Frank Herbert by Frank Herbert **1/2

This is a short story collection first published after Children of Dune.   I tip my hat to anyone who can make sense out of the first story in this collection.  It's a good, short read, even if some of the stories don't really seem to go anywhere.