Review of "Altered Carbon" by Richard Morgan

Gouting action and mystery like a severed artery, Richard Morgan’s 2001 Altered Carbon holds no punches.  Its worldview cutting to the bone of human vice, the novel’s content is a combination of a variety of sources.  The storyline has the shape of a Raymond Chandler detective novel; the technological creativity has the intuition of Greg Egan’s sci-fi; and the world has the overall feel of Neuromancer.  More visceral than Gibson, however, Morgan combines these influences into a blood-soaked, tech-feast that will divide readers along a few different lines.

Altered Carbon is the story of Takeshi Kovacs, an ex-military convict brought out of storage to solve the mystery surrounding the suicide of a wealthy entrepreneur.  Human bodies like hardware and personalities like software, the USA of 500 years in the future features up- and downloadable personas.  Called ‘sleeving’, Kovacs wakes up to find himself occupying another man’s body, assassins and Meths (people who’ve sleeved for centuries to keep themselves alive) hot on his trail.  In typical noir fashion, a variety of busty dames and gutter girls arrive on the scene to provide valuable input - the sexual side of what is otherwise a very violent existence for Kovacs.  The gory details unabashed, Kovacs shoots, stabs, is tortured, and slowly blasts his way, one death at a time, to the heart of the mystery.

And many have noted the explicit nature of the novel.  Rightfully so; few chapters pass without a drop of blood or sweat.  Morgan’s philosophical view forms the foundation of the novel’s content: humanity will forever be subject to its vices, no matter the century or degree to which technology has integrated itself.  It is here that an interesting point can be made regarding the book’s nihilistic worldview.  While Gibson’s Neuromancer – a book Altered Carbon is often compared to – remains indifferent, leaving the door open for discussion regarding the fundamental nature of humanity, Morgan closes it, pushing the storyline of Altered Carbon steadily forward under the assumption humanity’s base desires for sex and violence will forever be its motivation.  Depending on the reader, this aspect will either amuse, disgust, or enthrall, no matter how justifiable the actions of Kovacs are.

Its thematic disposition aside, there are other criticisms of the novel.  As with most detective noir that attempts a complicated story, there are bound to be plot holes, and Altered Carbon is no exception.  In lieu of dropping spoilers, its perhaps best to simply say that while reading, the attentive reader will on several occasions shake their head and say something to effect “Well then, why didn’t Takeshi just…..” or “If that bit of tech is in place, shouldn’t they have been able to….”.  Those reading for fun will not notice; logicians will cringe.  The other missing aspect of the novel is mood.  While the scene at hand is sketched by Morgan in detail that nicely balances the flow of story, the feel for San Francisco 500 years in the future, however, is lacking.  There are no short passages scattered throughout which establish the tone of the story.  There are only pockets of setting based on where the action happens to be for the moment, the hotel, the whorehouse, the mansion, etc., nothing more to build the world.

Light on theme, but dripping, breathing, bleeding heavy with action, Altered Carbon is a plot driven novel to the core.  In fact, its plot structure could be the carbon copy of a 50’s pulp detective novel if it weren’t that Morgan dresses the story up with the mouth watering-devices of sci-fi - a techy/who-dunnit arising in the mix.  Thus, for action junkies looking for a rollercoaster, (knife) twisting, both barrels blazing, ride of a mystery in the 24th century, by all means have a go.  But for those who enjoy having their ingenious futuristic devices fleshed out for their relevance to the human condition or moral imposition, perhaps you should look elsewhere.  Those who can handle both will at least say the novel was interesting, but perhaps never read it again.

Review of "Panpsychism in the West" by David Skrbina

In existence since pre-Socratic times and undergoing sporadic retreatment throughout the millennia since, panpsychism is one of the oldest ideas regarding the interrelationship of substance, material, and life.  A meta-theory, panpsychism does not seek to define life or matter scientifically, religiously, or psychologically—as the name might imply—rather, it is a statement about theories.  From Anaximenes’s pneuma to Leibniz’s monad, Lovelock’s Gaia Theory to Bohm’s Implicate Order, these and similar theories which to various degrees deny the linear, mechanistic view and attribute more life-like or “thinking” qualities to all matter—not just that in animate or human form—are examples to be found under the umbrella theory of panpsychism.  In his 2009 Panpsychism in the West, David Skrbina offers the most recent reworking of the subject. 

A thorough survey of panpsychisms’s evolution to date, the book summarizes the millennia of panpsychist theories and suppositions, bringing the author to conclude that panpsychism is a view verified by modern holistic science.  However, rather than seeing panpsychism as “the view that all things have mind or mind-like quality” (2), Skrbina discards the term “mind” in favor of “experience” and claims that “all objects or systems of objects, possess a singular inner experience of the world around them” (16).  This idea is elaborated upon with three distinctions:

(1) Objects have experiences for themselves; that is, the mind-like quality is something internal or inherent in the object. (2) There is a sense in which this experience is singular; to the extent that a structure of matter and energy that we call an object is one thing, this one-ness is reflected in a kind of unitary mental experience. (3) An object is a particular configuration of mass/energy, and therefore any configuration or system of mass/energy should qualify in the same sense. (16)

While the majority of Skrbina’s book surveys the millennia of theories which impute mind or soul-like qualities to matter, from the Greeks to modern science, the idea that objects have “a kind of unitary mental experience” remains central.  Skrbina’s explains that “the panpsychist asks us to see the ‘mentality’ of other objects not in terms of human consciousness but as a subset of a certain universal quality of physical things in which both inanimate mentality and human consciousness are taken as particular manifestations” (17).  He explicitly states “discussions of panpsychism should avoid the most heavily anthropocentric terms, which cloud the discussion more than they provide clarity” (18).  

Religious fundamentalism and conventional science’s main thrusts of criticism fall upon the question: to what extent does panpsychism assign consciousness or mind-like qualities to inanimate objects?  Reflecting perennial philosophy as well as the revelations of modern science, in response Skrbina outlines a hierarchy of all matter in the following four categories: 1) humans: self consciousness, cognition, 2) all animals: thought, consciousness, 3) animals and plants: sense awareness, sentience, emotion, 4) all animate and inanimate: experience, mind, mental state, what-it-is-like, qualia, nous, psyche. (18)

In the end, of interest is that this hierarchy does not lower humanity to the level of inanimacy, as many conventional scientific theories of a mechanistic, unthinking world do; rather, it elevates the position of inanimate objects to a minimum of “experience” quality: rocks remain incapable of decision-making, but gain a degree of participation in the overall experience of existence.  Students and scholars in need of research material on panpsychism, as well as those interested in the subject in general, will benefit most from Skrbina’s thorough and lucid survey, historical to modern day representation.

Review of "The Confusion" by Neal Stephenson

The Confusion picks up where Quicksilver left off, the themes and characters introduced in the first volume fleshed out in more detail.  Numismatics, Alchemy, the history of European commerce, metallurgy, daily life in the world at the turn of the 18th century, and political intrigue drive their influence even deeper into the reader’s understanding of this, the second installment (or 4th and 5th, depending on perspective) of Stephenson’s epic Baroque Cycle.

Daniel Waterhouse once again appears as a focal point, and, as usual, plays the important role of acting as a window into the political, scientific, and philosophical happenings of the British nobility.  His role is far out-weighed in page time by the doings of Eliza de Zeur and Jack Shaftoe, however.  A behind the scenes wheeler and dealer, Eliza continues her devious speculation and chess moves on European markets, trying to influence the larger political and economic picture of France, Germany, Holland, and England.  While triumphing on certain occasions, she suffers irrevocable personal loss at others, the reader getting a clearer picture of the exigencies of life the people of the time – rich or poor – had to be wary of and prepared for.  Though starting as a barbary slave in the Mediterranean, Jack’s plight quickly picks up speed as he and his cabal cast off their fetters in a high risk plot to capture Spanish gold – a specific batch of gold whose progress has been carefully followed every wave across the Atlantic by not only bankers, but by some of the leading minds of the time, Sir Isaac Newton among them.  The adventures Jack and his gang subsequently become a part of take them around the world, the precocity of the gold explained without.

For those looking for more action and less table-setting, then The Confusion will be of more enjoyment than the opener Quicksilver.  Detailed expositions on a variety of subjects, including watered steel, shipbuilding, and the Inquisition still exist, however, as the scene has already been set, events and action freely spill off the pages.  “Swashbuckling” is a word used on the book’s back cover, and upon reading Jack’s exploits, it’s impossible not to agree.  Eliza too, while not wielding a blade or navigating through pirate infested waters, nevertheless finds her life not as predictable as it once was, the political games and investments she makes holding just as much risk as Jack’s.  In the end, if you’ve read Quicksilver and are interested in continuing, then The Confusion will only make you want to finish the Cycle.  And so while the book wraps itself up all too fast – half a world covered in under 200 pages – and in rather implausible fashion, readers will nevertheless be satisfied with plot progression into the final volume, System of the World.

Review of "Integral Psychology" by Ken Wilber

Fully aware of the subtle nature of consciousness and mentality, Ken Wilber, the modern American psychologist and philosopher seeks to transcend both the ancient and modern perceptions of psyche and forge a new path towards acceptance, if not understanding of, the mind in all of its quantifiable and unquantifiable aspects.  In his 2007 The Integral Vision, Wilber founds his hope on the idea that “for the first time, the sum total of human knowledge is available to us—the knowledge, experience, wisdom, and reflection of all major human civilizations—premodern, modern, postmodern—are open to study by anyone” (16).  From this standpoint, Wilber intertwines the knowledge made available by conventional science, recurrent teachings, and the individual’s intuitive experience into one, all-encompassing theory of mind, a theory he calls Integral Psychology.       

 

Endeavoring to “honor and embrace every legitimate aspect of human consciousness,” Wilber draws upon important concepts of the mind, the perennial philosophies of the East, observations taken from the roots of modern psychology in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the more rigorous developments of present day psycho-dynamics and neuroscience in outlaying a totalizing theory of consciousness.  Believing that the “the whole discloses new meanings unavailable to the parts,” Wilber aligns the variety of psychological and philosophical theories and their supporting data alongside one another.  By doing so, he seeks to integrate the mind, body, spirit, conscious, unconscious, and dream states across every possible psychological spectrum—worldviews to ethical values, needs to self-identity, and others.  When comparing Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs with Vedanta Hinduism, for example, varying degrees of understanding, instinct, experience, awareness, and so forth are found inherent to each.  Analyzed graphically on a variety of axes, Wilber thus sets about finding the ideas and concepts fundamentally inherent to the whole of perennial philosophy and psychological theory to date.  

By interrelating the sum of these to date, drawing parallels and juxtapositions according to the individual stages and phases delimited by each, Wilber comes to the conclusion psychological development occurs in “waves.”  Preferring to call them waves because the term “emphasizes the fact these levels are not rigidly separate and isolated, but, like the colors of a rainbow, infinitely shade and grade into each other,”  Wilber understands human psychology to originate in the most basic of modes, such as egocentrism, archaism, or physiology, depending on the axis, with the potential to rise to great heights of supermind, self-transcendence, and transpersonalism (7).  As each wave builds upon and incorporates the former, all towards achieving the highest spiritual dimension, modes of operation, such as transpersonalism, are seen as being higher on the scale of development than altruism.  Wilber is, however, quick to point out that the spiritual dimension he purports as the highest plane achievable to the human mind is not religious by definition.  Rather, it is a transcendent mode which synthesizes altruism with personal awareness toward a better understanding of the nature of human existence.  

In the end, Wilber is a love-him or hate-him kind of writer/scholar/philosopher.  His fundamental view that the modern social paradigm is incapable of leading humanity towards greater spiritual heights is the reason he propounds Integral Psychology as a means of eliminating the issues currently facing mankind.  He states that his theory “is simply a great morphogenetic field that provides a developmental space in which human potential can unfold.” (27).  Thus, be warned that this book, though delving deeply into animism, religion, and modern psychology, nevertheless moves to the next level of universal spirituality.  Practical rather than mystical, however, thankfully no crystals or chanting are admonished.

Review of "A New Science of Life" by Rupert Sheldrake

It was Jung who conceived of the collective unconscious and the archetypes embedded universally in humanity, from mythology to psychology.  Synthesizing the results of mechanistic science with an intuitive stance on evolution and the interconnectedness of life, Sheldrake asserts that a similar concept can be found in biology.  In A New Science of Life, the British scientist theorizes that an immeasurable field superimposes and patterns biological structures of life and the reproductive process of all living things.  Despite encountering continued skepticism since its publishing in 1981 (it was nominated as a “book for burning” by Nature), the idea has been developed in subsequent books and achieved wider acclaim and validity in the years since.  

The parallels with Jungian archetypal theory obvious - particularly in how it informs across a variety of tiers - Sheldrake describes morphogenetic fields as being: 

responsible for the characteristic form and organization of systems at all levels of complexity, not only in the realm of biology, but also in the realms of chemistry and physics.  These fields order the systems with which they are associated by affecting events which… appear to be indeterminate or probabilistic. (13)

It is Sheldrake’s dependence on these unquantifiable aspects—the intuitive, non-rational nature of morphogenetic fields—which cause a stir in the community of evolutionary biology and science in general.

Not the first to use the idea of morphogenetic fields, Sheldrake’s theory is, however, the first to accord the idea unequivocal palpability.  In explaining how current morphogenetic fields are derivative of past fields, he writes “the structures of past systems affect subsequent similar systems by cumulative influence which acts across both space and time” (13).  Similar to Bohm’s theory of implicate order, morphogenetic fields are thus omnipresent and immeasurable, transcending time and space to inform the present.  Based on the cumulative influence contained within morphogenetic fields, Sheldrake thus explains how an animal or a plant is both similar to and different from its predecessor, the newest variety more adapted to its surroundings yet possessing nearly entirely the same structure, the similarities a result of morphic resonance within the omnipresent morphogenetic field.  Rooted in evolutionary biology, he breaks this transfer down into four levels: instinct, sign stimulus (a life form’s interaction and reaction to its environment and circumstance), learning (the manner in which organisms permanently adapt to new environments and perpetual circumstances over time), and memory (the morphogenetic aspect which allows a life form to transmit adaptations to succeeding generations).  

In the end, Sheldrake’s theories remain on the dark side of Popper’s demarcation problem: it is unprovable in the terms of rational science.  Sheldrake details some interesting experimentation in his book involving subsequent generations of rats and pigeons taught to perform certain tricks, yet his results are corroborated only to varying degrees by external research.  That being said, rational science is neither able to offer provable explanations for the phenomena Sheldrake delves into, thus rendering his theories at least a step forward in the discovery of what truly lies beneath.  Only time will tell, and so for now A New Science of Life remains interesting, alternative theory worth a read into the yet mysteries details of biological evolution.

American Corner – Wroclaw’s English Language Library

Overlooking the main square, the City of Wroclaw’s English language library may be small but it bursts with variety.  Called American Corner (beware, you are greeted by a life-size cardboard cutout of Obama as you enter), it is actually only a part of the larger Lower Silesian Public Library.  The majority of items available are donations from expatriates or social and library programs in the US.  As such, a person can find a light but healthy selection, including novels, biographies, poetry, language learning materials, reference books, young adult, children’s, history, magazines, and more.  Non-paper media available includes a nice selection of DVDs, as well as a computer area which features approximately ten consoles, a printer, and internet access. 

The selection of books on hand small but quality, it would be impossible for any reader not to find something to enjoy.  Library staff all speak excellent English and are most helpful in locating what you need.  The card catalog is digital and can be accessed either in the library or online. (www.dzb.pl)  The comfortable reading area with soft, plush chairs available while you peruse a book you’d like to borrow is a nice touch, the sounds of the main city square drifting in from the window.  (As a side note, the Lower Silesian Public Library also features the Goethe Institute - a German library - and Romanian and Korean libraries alongside its Polish collection.) 

Though I have not (yet) been to the British Council Library located nearby, I can say I’m more than pleased to have American Corner as part of my city.  To be a foreigner living in Poland, yet have access to public books in my language is a small blessing I’m appreciative of.  As such, I recommend stopping by 58 Rynek in the heart of Wroclaw (between Literatka and Jazzda as in the photo in the upper left) to have a look around and support the library.  If you have English language material in good condition but want to throw it away, by all means donate it to American Corner instead.  Perhaps someone else might gain some enjoyment from it?  

American Corner is a luxury which mostly depends on its community for survival.  Even if paling in size to many American libraries, I’m proud to support it.  So if you’re a foreigner spending time in Wroclaw, I guarantee it’s worth a look.

Click here for library website (note: website only in Polish, so it's better to visit the library in person).

Review of "Neuromancer" by William Gibson

There are specific moments in literary history that define future generations.  Neuromancer is one. As The Lord of the Rings was a watershed event that shaped the decades of epic fantasy to come, so too has William Gibson’s novel of a console cowboy riding through cyberspace shaped and influenced a myriad of science fiction since the 80s.  Richard Morgan’s Takeshi Kovac's novels, Ian McDonald’s River of Gods, the Wachowski brothers’ The Matrix, Dan Simmons’ Hyperion Cantos, Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, Masumune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell, Iain Banks’ Culture novels – just to name a few - all owe varying degrees of recognition to the seminal influence that is Neuromancer.

An underground success when it was released in 1984, building to a huge readership in the years that followed, Neuromancer is no worse for the wear.  Gibson’s vision remains as penetrating into technology and society then as today.  In direct opposition to the squeaky clean laboratory visions of the future presented by Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov, and Gene Rodenberry, the novel is set in a bleak, grittier version of a future earth.  Corporations rule and the consumption of commodities – legal and illegal - have overtaken quotidian life.  A virtual world of data superimposes and permeates the fabric of society.  In fact, the saturation of technology and commercialism so replete, few hints of nature remain.  Life is instead channeled through electrodes, simulators, and designer drugs – existence carried on in rundown urban conglomerations and jacked into the matrix.  In true Philip K. Dick style, this line between reality and virtual reality blurs to the point the reader themselves at times does not trust their senses.

The novel’s plot centers on the cyber cowboy Case and his struggles in his chosen profession of data thief.  An outright drug addict, Case lives with one eye over his shoulder, the other looking to stay ahead of the dangers that trail his under-the-table, high risk dealings.  Encountering an offer to sweet to turn down, the uncertainties fade in the neon hope of achieving a long-dreamed of escape from life on the run.  But the deal isn’t what he expected.  Case’s advanced cyberspace skills take him places out of the atmosphere and deep into his dreams.  And his nightmares.  Bombarded with holograms, fake memories, and constant switches between realities – virtual, simulated, and otherwise - he begins losing touch.  But when AIs enter the picture, the game is taken to another plane.  Based on the psychological, sociological, and technological dimensions Gibson stretches the story across, literature has never had such equivocal view of life.  

Though the latter two books in the Sprawl series, Count Zero and Mona Lisa Overdrive, offer tighter, more polished prose, Neuromancer is no slouch.  Gibson’s first novel is a mature offering and better than the majority of sci-fi published by established writers today.  It offers a powerful, highly-unique style, lingual innovation the neon burning through the light.  A simple look at the terms coined - “jacked in”, “matrix”, “cyberpunk”, etc. – indicate the integral role the text has played not only amongst sci-fi geeks, but everyday society and the language it uses to describe techno reality.  Few today in the Western world are unaware of the term “cyberspace”, yet most probably do not know of its root in Neuromancer.  

In the end, nobody calling themselves a fan of science fiction in the 21st century can go without reading this novel.  A quick look at the titles it has influenced in the opening paragraph (no slouches, themselves) and the book’s significance becomes readily apparent.  Picking up the mantle PKD left with his untimely death in 1982, Gibson, though less prolific, has evolved the genre for a new generation - it’s stimuli possessing the same innovative bite but in higher literary form.  Beyond entertainment, Neuromancer is an artistic statement with vision into the reality of technology’s integration with humanity.  It is a book that will endure for generations.

(If you have read the whole Sprawl trilogy and are interested in reading more, you may like to read my essay entitled The Uncertainty of Reality: William Gibson's Sprawl Series.)

Review of "Quicksilver" by Neal Stephenson

The ideas of numerology, encryption, and early computer infrastructure came to life in Stephenson’s 2001 Cryptonomicon.  Quicksilver – and the entire Baroque Cycle, for that matter – find the author digging even deeper into these histories to strike at the root of modern economy, commerce, and primitive computing.   Tipping the scales at more than 900 pages, the volume is divided into three parts: the eponymous Quicksilver, King of the Vagabonds, and Odalisque.

Centuries in the past rather than decades, the scene is the late 17th century, Britain's Reformation in full swing.  While Protestants and Catholics war in politics and on the streets, a growing number of scientists appear, bent on defining the phenomena of life in less fantastic terms.  Funded and ennobled from on high, a group of these aristocratic nerds form London’s Royal Society for Natural Philosophy and carry out a wide variety of experiments on anything they can lay their hands on, live dogs, menstrual blood, and kidney stones turning no stomachs.  Newton hangs on the fringes, and his, along with Leibniz’s mathematical discoveries, move Europe toward the values of empirical science.

Into this accurate historical setting (which includes many characters who truly lived and breathed), Stephenson weaves a handful of fictional characters.  Foremost is Dr. Daniel Waterhouse, who acts both as witness and participant in the wide variety of social, political, religious, and scientific happenings of the day.  Action occurs elsewhere, as well.  The characters Jack Shaftoe and Eliza de Zeur traipse about mainland Europe (predominantly Germany, the Netherlands, and France), getting into adventures more swashbuckling than Waterhouse’s ecclesiastical circumstances allow for.  Each a window in time, it is through these character’s eyes that the history of the era unfolds as only Stephenson’s wit could allow.

Quicksilver certainly more historical than fictional, the author allows the movements of textbooks to direct the story.  Waterhouse’s perspective is chock full of the political movements and court intrigue of the time, as well as the philosophic and religious disputes that marked the early stages of the modern scientific revolution.  The second and third books, King of the Vagabonds and Odalisque, respectively, contain more action, however.  Jack and Eliza’s turns through silver mines of Bohemia, stock markets of Amsterdam, and squalorous streets of Paris, ratchet the excitement level a little higher and keep the pages turning.  

In the end, Stephenson has done his research.  The pages of Quicksilver are bursting with esoteric cultural and historical facts that most modern day people are unaware of.  The origins of words, place names, and former political allegiances will surprise the reader and have them checking up on Stephenson’s facts in a more trusted source.  The fictional characters thrown into the mix liven what would otherwise be dry reading.  Further jazzing up the 900 pages, Stephenson breaks narrative form on several occasions to introduce alternative formats.  Socratic dialogue, letters, theater, and info dumps all bump and jostle the story along.  At times seeming more educational than entertainment, the book is true nerd-dom. Thus, readers who prefer linear, action filled narratives should look elsewhere.  Quicksilver is infotainment with a heavy focus on the history of money, mathematics, and the daily life of 17th century Europe.

Review of "The Etched City" by K.J. Bishop

Reading K.J. Bishop’s 2003 The Etched City is like bathing in warm honey.  There are times the aroma is fresh and the taste sweet, no other cares in the world.  Then there are others when one wants to get out of the bath, wash their skin of the sticky, cloying substance, and feel a cool breeze on their skin.  One lost in the moment, the other knowing where it’s going, such is the paradoxical experience of Bishop’s first and only published novel to date.

 The Etched City is sure to cause a split among readers, especially those coming from a strong Tolkien-esque fantasy background.  Though a couple scenes and happenings warrant the categorization, most other aspects remain equivocal parallels to the genre at best.  There are no magic swords, wizards, or dragons; only the occasional supernatural event sneaking into the storyline.  More in the vein of magic realism, flowers sprout from wounds, humans birth crocodiles, and cigarettes are conjured from thin air - these are the greatest journeys the story takes into the fantastic.  Thus, dungeons and dragons fans seeing the awards the book has garnered, be warned.

Whether The Etched City is a novel in the classic tradition, however, is debatable.   A second-reading needed to discover if in fact a spine exists, the book is more a collage of vignettes than straightforward storytelling.  The narrative describes rather than tells of the lives of Raule the healer, Rev the priest, Lisbeth the artist, and Gwynn the mercenary.  Bishop constantly keeping readers at a distance from the characters, substance moves to the forefront.  Philosophic dialogue on the nature of religion, metaphysical speculation, and art and the pull of the soul leisurely fill the pages, instead.  The narrative is motivated in patches, however.  Gang warfare, drugs, prostitution, and other social ills occasionally emerge from the waters below to nudge the plot forward, but overall the book floats rather than swims.   

Taking advantage of the set up, Bishop arranges some interesting oppositions: the worldviews of the Rev and Gwynn, the moral orientation and gender roles of Gwynn and Raule, the life’s devotions of Lisbeth and Raule, and so forth.  These opposites presented rather than directed, the book is undoubtedly for the reader who prefers the stasis of muse to linear plot movement.

One point I’d like to take issue with is the book’s back cover comparison to Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series and China Mieville’s Bas-Lag.  Undoubtedly a marketing ploy, the overall feel of the novel is wholly different than these two authors’ created worlds.  Though a hint of resemblance exists (particularly in the opening section’s desert setting to King’s world), the remainder of the scenes in the book are nothing short of an homage to Bishop’s native Australia.  The flora and fauna, monsoons and heat, streets and jungles of fictional Ashamoil have more in common with the Northern Territory’s Darwin and Kakadu than any of the filth and squalor of New Crozubon.  Secondly, while Mieville details his world a la Peake, Bishop wields her brush only enough to establish tone, the result being that the mind’s eye resides more in the imagination than on paper.  

In the end, The Etched City will undoubtedly disappoint readers expecting an oriented plot and empathetic characters.  Bishop’s thematic intentions ambivalent at best, an indifference should be expected on the part of the narrator and a vague, magic-realist atmosphere doing nothing to clearly delineate objectives.  Like realist novels, the reader should also expect a more than healthy dose of deliberation over a variety of social and human phenomena.  A climax of sorts does exist to end the book, but due to the aforementioned attributes, it lacks the impact many readers expect, and therefore must be reckoned with in alternative fashion.  Well written, the book is recommended for those who don’t mind a subtle, meandering read set in a surreal world more reminiscent of Kipling than Mieville, themes slowly flowering in afterthought. 

Review of "Homage to Catalonia" by George Orwell

Though Orwell’s name has been idiomized in reference to the totalitarian watchdoggery of 1984, his non-fictional works are no less insightful or intelligently crafted.  Written after having spent roughly five months volunteering for the Marxists in the Spanish Civil War, Orwell’s 1937 Homage to Catalonia is no exception.   

A breakdown of the extremely complex political situation in Spain before the outbreak of WWII, Homage to Catalonia is also a report on conditions from the war front.  Gaining the equivalent rank of corporal, Orwell saw first hand action in the trenches of the front lines in Spain’s northwest during 1936.  Both guarding against and attacking the Fascists who were attempting to control the region, Orwell lucidly describes daily life fighting alongside the poorly-fed, poorly-armed, and poorly educated Spaniards.  Their lack of the most basic of amenities, like firewood, fresh water, and food, even bullets, did not make the time any easier.  Orwell likewise found time to unravel the incredibly multifaceted internal politics causing the war - not only in Catalonia, but on the streets of Barcelona and beyond.  His clean, crisp sentences relaying information in precise strokes, the Communists, Marxists, Fascists, Socialists, Nationalists, and the conservative and liberal groups each subsist of are expounded upon in relevant detail, painting a clear (as can be) picture of the sides and their subsequent agendas.  With Franco’s regime beginning to show signs of taking power (as it ultimately did), Orwell’s allegiance dictates an interesting and somewhat suspenseful escape from Spain, a chapter which nicely closes the book.

In our modern day cultural-relativism-this and social-liberalism-that, perhaps most remarkable about Homage to Catalonia is Orwell’s unabashed passion in opposition of Fascism.  His willingness to pick up a rifle and take a shot at the “enemy” is something today’s journalists and writers would undoubtedly be skeptical in light of the political correctness permeating all regulated statements coming from the media these days.  Reading of the shocking and unique injury Orwell suffers while on the front lines is a sacrifice we rarely if never read of occurring to today’s social and political scribes.  All of this sets into motion interesting questions regarding not only the duties of the writer to make such situations known to the public, but also to what extent the public itself warrants involvement in pressing political situations and what exactly a journalist is.

For its comprehensive content related to civil war conditions and its scrupulous dissection of the political environment of Spain circa 1936-37, Homage to Catalonia is worthy of a special place among the 20th century’s wartime texts.  But that it’s written in a superb, detailed fashion that expresses informed (and occasionally) personal opinions on the general state of social and political affairs in Europe before WWII pushes the book near the front.  Orwell’s account of trench warfare, street fighting in Barcelona, and escape from the harrowing situation in Spain is a must for anyone interested in WWII, Spanish, or modern European history.   Simply a great, informative read.