"Kingdom Come" by Mark Waid and Alex Ross

"Kingdom Come" is already a bit old by comic book standards, having been first published in 1996.  I can remember reading parts of it when it first came out, but it wasn't until last week that I really sat down and read this one from cover to cover.

"Kingdom Come" follows the exploits of an aging Superman, as he tries to reunite the Justice League and defeat a new generation of enemies.  Having been publicly disgraced in a trial following the Joker's death, Superman has gone into retreat within his Fortress of Solitude.  It remains for an increasingly lawless band of superheroes to draw him out of retirement.

This comic book quotes Genesis a lot, and even though it was very inventive for the time, I found it completely depressing.  I never felt like I wanted Superman to win, and I often wondered whether the alternative to anarchy that he represented wasn't just as bad as letting the "bad guys" rule the world.

"Kingdom Come" also pursues the love interest between Superman and Wonder Woman, though this part, in my opinion, fell a bit flat.  Frank Miller, for example, explored this love interest more successfully in his "Dark Knight Strikes Back."

If you want to read one of the most influential comics of the 1990s, you'll have to read this one.  Even so, there are better comics out there, and moreover comics that don't take themselves quite as seriously.  I don't have anything against biblical themes, but likening Captain Marvel to the angel of death is kind of silly - even for DC.

"Post Captain" by Patrick O'Brian

"Post Captain" was first published in 1972.  It is the second novel in Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey/Maturin series.  It is also the sequel to "Master and Commander," which was made into a movie.

I read "Master and Commander" about a year back, and thought it was an excellent book.  I liked it even more than the movie.  Patrick O'Brian had a definite command of his subject, and of the time period in which the Aubrey/Maturin novels are set.  Reading his books, one would have thought that he was writing in the 1800s, rather than in an age of satellites, telecommunications, and supersonic aircraft.

Compared to "Master and Commander," "Post Captain" is more of a mixed bag.  There are some great chapters in this book, and the naval action never fails to impress.  Jack Aubrey presides in all his militaristic, womanizing splendor, and Stephen Maturin is the kind of right hand man we all wish we had.  Maturin is, in this novel, a much more complex character than in their first outing, and this is at least one area in which "Post Captain" surpasses its predecessor.

Nevertheless, this book has some boring patches, and the Jane Austenesque beginning to this novel doesn't quite convince.  This book has too much backstory for its own good, and the plot is about as unseaworthy as Aubrey's ship, the Polychrest.

If you were dazzled by "Master and Commander," you will certainly find a lot within "Post Captain" to like.  If, however, you are looking for less labored accounts of nautical drama, then you might pass this one over.  Patrick O'Brian was a superb writer, and I'm certain other installments in the Aubrey/Maturin series are better.

"The Next Fifty Years" by Various Scientists

This book was published in 2002.  It is a collection of essays on the future of various scientific disciplines, and how advances in these disciplines might shape the world of tomorrow.

I think, however, that the title needs to be revised.  Given that this book first appeared in 2002, which is almost ancient by modern scientific standards, the title ought to be changed to "The Next Forty-One Years... and Counting."  This title would also better reflect the fact that any collection of essays, like this one, is never going to be much more than a sandcastle, threatened by the constant tide of new discoveries.

So what did I learn from this book?  Answer: not much.  Very few of the essays go into any kind of detail, and those that do are either indecipherable or incredibly contentious.  I'm not really sure what the editor of this book, a Mr. John Brockman, was thinking.  Perhaps he thought that quantity would make up for quality.  Or perhaps he thought the handful of better-known authors represented here would make up for all the lesser-known, far less insightful authors that penned the majority of this volume.

Or, put another way, what I learned from this book was:

• Psychology is stupid.  It is not a science, and it is not likely to become scientific anytime in the near future.  Psychologists, almost as a rule, pick what they like from Science, much as one would pick from a buffet table, taking what they like and leaving anything potentially contradictory.
• Professors of mathematics, no matter how hard they try to put things in "plain language," will almost always fail to do so.
• The Human Genome Project is going to crack everything wide open, even though no one seems to know exactly how or when.
• Physicists might just discover the Answer to Everything any day now, or they might not.
• Authors as accessible as Paul Davies are wasted on books like this.  It would be better to read other books, possibly written solely by Paul Davies, instead.

And that pretty much sums up what I got out of this book.  I would only recommend this book if you are a fan of idle speculation, and of books written by so-called experts who are writing both outside their field and outside their depth.  In other words, I wouldn't recommend it.

"Revolutionary Road" by Richard Yates

"Revolutionary Road" was first published in 1961.  It was later adapted into a movie starring the attractive couple from the movie Titanic.  I haven't seen the movie, but judging by the promotional materials, I doubt it has much to do with the book.

This one reminded me a lot of Don Delilo's "White Noise."  Both books describe a kind of spiritual crisis in American culture, though Delilo's book is a lot more abstract.  I liked Yates' book more than Delilo's.  After a few chapters I found "White Noise" tiresome.

The story outlines the marital difficulties between Frank and Alice Wheeler, a couple living in Connecticut with their children.  Frank is a fast-talking drone in an office machine company, and Alice is his emotionally distant wife.  Their marriage is headed for trouble from the word "go," and things never really get better from there.

This book is depressing, but it's a great read.  I finished it in a couple days, and I only wish it had been longer.  The characters feel very real, and there are some great moments in this book.  I highly recommend it.

"Light in August" by William Faulkner

I have definitely read my share of Faulkner.  I've read "The Sound and the Fury," I've read "Sanctuary," and I've read many, many more besides.  I wouldn't even be able to name many of the Faulkner novels I've read, since they've all blended together in my mind.  I know I've read "The Unvanquished," but I wouldn't be able to differentiate this novel from "Go Down, Moses."

Faulkner is one of the great American novelists, and he is my second favorite after Herman Melville.  If you haven't read him, you should really give him a try.  His books can be demanding, and often require an extraordinary amount of concentration, but odds are that you won't be sorry you made the attempt.  Sometimes it can be hard to figure out exactly what is going on in his stories ("Spotted Horses" is an excellent example), but I don't think Faulkner was ever obscure for the sake of obscurity alone.  He was an artist, and he knew that the straightest path between two points is not always the most human way of getting there.

I believe "Light in August" was one of his later novels.  It follows the exploits of Lena, a young, pregnant girl walking all the way from Alabama to Faulkner's fictional locale of Jefferson.  It also follows the doings of Joe Christmas, a "foreign-looking" southerner of negro ancestry.  The book explores race relations in the American South, and also, at times, gets downright weird.

I can't say that this was one of my favorite Faulkner novels.  It doesn't hold a candle to "Go Down, Moses," but even Faulkner's less impressive novels still put most other books to shame.  If you've already read his more famous books, I would recommend this one.  It's shorter and less confusing than some of his other novels, and it still has a lot to say.

"A Suitable Boy" by Vikram Seth

"'So do I, so do I,' he said, 'I've always felt that the performance of a raag resembles a novel - or at least the kind of novel I'm attempting to write.  You know,' he continued, extemporizing as he went along, 'first you take one note and explore it for a while, then another to discover its possibilities, then perhaps you get to the dominant, and pause for a bit, and it's only gradually that the phrases begin to form and the tabla joins in with the beat... and then the more brilliant improvisations and diversions begin, with the main theme returning from time to time, and finally it all speeds up, and the excitement increases to a climax.'"

At 1,474 pages, Vikram Seth's 1993 novel, "A Suitable Boy" is the longest novel (published in one volume) in the English language.  This book took me a while to finish.

I'm no expert on contemporary Indian fiction, English-language or otherwise.  I've read Rohinton Mistry's "A Fine Balance," Vikas Swarup's "Q&A" (a.k.a. "Slumdog Millionaire), and Rudyard Kipling - if he can even be counted as an Indian author.  Seth's novel is less depressing than Mistry's, and is less jokey than Swarup's.  Given Kipling's stature within the world of literature in general, and in the world of Indian English-language fiction in particular, I wouldn't know where to begin in comparing Seth and Kipling.

Summarizing the plot of "A Suitable Boy" is almost as challenging.  In the personal sense, it follows the search for "a suitable boy" as a prospective husband for one of the novel's many, many characters.  It is also the story of India, and the struggle of the Indian people to free themselves of the cultural trappings of England.  Spiritualism is another theme that runs through the book, as is the ethnic tension between Hindu and Muslim in the wake of Partition.

The book takes place in the 1950s, after the British have left and Gandhi has died.  Nehru is President, and Pakistan has just been severed from India.  The Indian government is attempting a large-scale land reform, and wants to seize the estates won by British sympathizers from the previous government.  Many Muslim residents of the novel's fictional centerpiece, the city of Brahmpur, have migrated to Pakistan, and many of Pakistan's Hindu inhabitants have returned to Brahmpur after losing their properties and livelihood in Pakistan.

Vikram Seth is a fantastic writer, but I've got to say that "A Suitable Boy" cries out for an editor.  While I'm aware that this novel may appeal to non-Western models of fiction, there are portions of this book that do little to advance the plot, and many of the characters could have been discussed in less detail.  The digressions into the doings of Kedarnath and Haresh, for example, detract from the flow of the narrative.  Much of the legal and political goings-on could have also been left out.

Which is not to say that "A Suitable Boy" isn't a great read.  It is.  But like another famously long book, namely, "War and Peace," you may find yourself longing for the abridged version.

Incidentally, the sequel to this book, "A Suitable Girl," should be released soon.