A Visit to Earthsea, Part I: A Wizard of Earthsea

Mass market paperback, 198 pages
Published 2004 (originally 1968)
Acquired November 2007
Read September 2012

A Wizard of Earthsea
by Ursula K. Le Guin

Considering my love of Le Guin's sf, which I first encountered back in 2003 or so, it baffles understanding that it took me nine years to get around to reading her fantasy. But here it is. It is simpler than her sf is, very much a bildungsroman of a very uncomplicated sort, I think. That doesn't stop it from being good, but one ends up suspecting that the Le Guin who gave us The Left Hand of Darkness could have given us something a little more striking than this. We don't get into Ged's head the extent to which we do other Le Guin protagonists.

All that said, Earthsea is of course an awesome and well-delineated environment, and the dark climax of the novel is fantastic.

Review: The Essays of “George Eliot”: Complete: Collected and Arranged, with an Introduction on Her “Analysis of Motives” by Nathan Sheppard

Kindle eBook, 288 pages
Published 2009 (contents: 1852-68)
Read May 2013

The Essays of “George Eliot”: Complete: Collected and Arranged, with an Introduction on Her “Analysis of Motives” by Nathan Sheppard

Nathan Sheppard's anthology collects ten essays by George Eliot, which mostly seem to come from early in her career, pulled out of the literary magazines. The best of these is probably "The Natural History of German Life," which can be seen as a manifesto for the way Eliot approached social ills; traces of it have been noted by many critics in Middlemarch, amongst other novels. She argues that observation is of utmost importance, but also that is a difficult, fraught process, especially when it comes to human beings: Eliot says that if we could see what image of the working classes was meant "by many who theorize on those bodies… we should find that they indicate almost as small an amount of concrete knowledge-- that they are as far from representing the complex facts summed up in the collective term" as someone whose rides a train sometimes is able to represent the complexities of railroads. The danger of sociology when it comes to reforming society is that it is not able to see people with the complexity that they possess.

Eliot does not suggest, however, that all observation is impossible, or even that observation's imperfection ultimately makes it unusable. She believes that statistics can be useful in solving social problems, but appeals made on their basis "require a sympathy ready-made, a moral sentiment already in activity," which art-- such as the novel-- alone can provide; this is why "the unreality of their representations is a grave evil." What Eliot ends up suggesting here is an alliance between the novel and science. The distance of science can be combined with the closeness of the novel to make truly useful observations, for a true understanding of character will "check our theories, and direct us in their application." The novelist’s knowledge of character is necessary to all society.

But people are so complex that the more we investigate, "the more thoroughly we shall be convinced that a universal social policy has no validity except on paper, and can never be carried into successful practice." People are not particles; their movements cannot be reproduced by a set of physical laws that apply universally.

If observation is flawed, and if no theory can ever be universal, what are we left to work with in creating a better society? Eliot suggests that wise social policy will be based "on the natural history of social bodies," but if one cannot even know one’s neighbors or even one’s self (as many of her novels suggest) then how can such social policy be put into practice? In her essay, Eliot suggests that W. H. Riehl responds appropriately: he is "able and willing to do justice to the elements of fact and reason in every shade of opinion and every form of effort" even when the larger picture is not immediately apparent. Eliot suggests that when we ally sympathy with observation, we can do good, and even if we have misunderstood the situation, our good can be good enough anyway.

All of this feels like a rebuttal to Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences by George Henry Lewes, her husband, which posits that we can know people well enough to create a social theory that will generate a utopia. Eliot, I would argue, is skeptical of all this.

Of the other essays here, I particularly enjoyed "Evangelical Teaching: Dr. Cumming," where Eliot skewers a particularly bad example of a particular sort of preacher, and "Silly Novels by Lady Novelists," where she skewers several particularly bad examples of a particular sort of novel. Apparently, I like my Eliot being mean (and she does do a great putdown), but I like her even more thoughtful, and this book showcases her at her thoughtful best.

There's an overly lengthy essay by Sheppard about Eliot's characterization, and of course I agree with his statement that "if the analysis of human motives be her forte and her art, she stands first, and it is very doubtful whether any artist in fiction is entitled to stand second." But I'll save my full thoughts in that direction for my reviews of her novels.

Review: The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens

Trade paperback, 801 pages
Published 2003 (originally 1836-37)
Borrowed from the library
Read September 2012

The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club
by Charles Dickens

This book just isn't funny. It is on rare occasions, but on the whole, it's not. In a book of 801 pages, though "rare occasions" is not often enough. There were moments I really liked it-- Pickwick's supposed ancient artifact, Pickwick's stay in prison-- but on the whole I was reading quickly to try to end it quickly.

I may have to give it another shake someday, though. I was forced to read it quickly because it was exam reading, and maybe reading at a more leisurely pace, I would have appreciated it more.

Review: A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation by John Stuart Mill

Hardcover, 622 pages
Published 1970 (originally 1843)
Borrowed from the library
Read September 2012

A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive: Being a Connected View of the Principles of Evidence and the Methods of Scientific Investigation
by John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill is a smart man. Maybe even too smart, as this book reveals, with its 622 pages on the workings of science. Mill traces how science can go from observations to inductions to deductions.  It's solid, if exhausting, work, never missing a step, concept, or idea along the way. I find it interesting the way that Mill splits out the act of observation from logic, saying that it precedes reasoning. A useful warning, I think, for those of us who might want to think that all scientific acts are logical ones.

His dedication to the human and the ethical in all this is the most striking; he hopes science will show us that men and women are not all that different, and he argues that many generalizations about man and society assume that human nature never changes-- an argument that would later be one of the bases of On Liberty.

I used a lot of judicious skimming to get through this book quickly (I was reading it for my qualifying exams), but when I read some of the prose aloud to explain its tortured quality to comrades, I realized it wasn't tortured at all. Despite some difficult, theoretical subject matter, Mill writes attractively. Who else could make logic sound so beautiful?

Reading Roundup Wrapup: May 2013

Pick of the month: The Ring Goes East by J. R. R. Tolkien. A hard month to make this call: I read a lot of good books.  Both The Ring Goes East and The War of the Ring were seriously contenders, but ultimately I gave the nod to this one because of the awesomeness of Frodo, Sam, and Faramir. Who would have though that a book about slogging through a swamp could be so good? Other favorites, though, included Birds of Prey: Trouble in Mind, Superman: Miracle Monday, and Iris: Abroad (probably my favorite Iris Wildthyme anthology thus far).

All books read:
1. Birds of Prey: The Death of Oracle by Gail Simone and Marc Andreyko
2. Birds of Prey, Volume 1: Trouble in Mind by Duane Swierczynski
3. Superman: Miracle Monday by Elliot S. Maggin
4. Caesar’s Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century by Ignatius Donnelly
5. The Ring Goes East: Being the Fourth Book of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
6. Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume One by Gardner Fox with John Broome
7. Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman by Mark Tyler Nobleman
8. The Partisan Leader: A Tale of the Future by Nathaniel Beverley Tucker
9. Enter Wildthyme by Paul Magrs
10. A, A′ [A, A Prime] by Moto Hagio
11. Red Planets: Marxism and Science Fiction edited by Mark Bould and China Miéville
12. The War of the Ring: Being the Fifth Book of The Lord of the Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien
13. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Volume Ten: War by John Jackson Miller
14. The Essays of “George Eliot”: Complete: Collected and Arranged, with an Introduction on Her “Analysis of Motives” by Nathan Sheppard
15. Iris: Abroad edited by Paul Magrs and Stuart Douglas
16. Crisis on Multiple Earths: The Team-Ups, Volume Two by Gardner Fox and John Broome with Mike Friedrich

All books acquired:
1. Girl Trouble: Panic and Progress in the History of Young Women by Carol Dyhouse
2. Star Wars: Knight Errant, Volume Three: Escape by John Jackson Miller
3. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Volume Ten: War by John Jackson Miller
4. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception by Michel Foucault
5. The Jack Kirby Omnibus, Volume Two: Starring the Super Powers by Jack Kirby with Joe Simon, Dennis O’Neil, Martin Pasko, Steve Sherman, Michael Fleisher, Joey Calvieri, Bob Rozakis, and Paul Kupperberg
6. Time & Space Visualiser: The story and history of Doctor Who as data visualisations by Paul Smith
7. Star Wars: Adventures: Chewbacca and the Slavers of the Shadowlands by Chris Cerasi

Books remaining on "To be read" list: 512

Review: The War of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien

Hardcover, 197 pages
Published 2000 (originally 1955)
Acquired February 2011
Read May 2013

The War of the Ring: Being the Fifth Book of The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien

Each installment of The Lord of the Rings escalates over the previous one: The Ring Sets Out sees very little action happening in the Shire, The Ring Goes South features the Fellowship in some encounters, and The Treason of Isengard moves us to the scale of battles. The War of the Ring, as the title promises, brings us up to all-out war. (However, there's no Ring, oddly enough.) The entire book depicts one long battle, beginning with its buildup, spending several chapters on its actual duration, and then its aftermath. As someone who is not super-into heroic fantasy, I was trepidatious when I realized this, but it turned out to work (more on that later).

The other way in which each installment has shifted is viewpoint characters over time. The Ring Sets Out is driven by Frodo, while The Ring Goes South adds the other members of the Fellowship. The Treason of Isengard removes Frodo and Sam so we just have Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli, with occasional peaks at Merry and Pippin. The War of the Ring largely removes Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli as viewpoint characters-- meaning it's largely the Merry and Pippin show! This was what really made this big epic battle work, to tell it from the perspective of two ordinary hobbits.

The War of the Ring's best moments are, as a result, the ones in Pippin's plotline. Pippin has come a long way from the "fool of a Took" that Gandalf used to berate in The Ring Goes South; his service in Minas Tirith comprises one of the best subplots in The Lord of the Rings so far. I was impressed with the newfound maturity he demonstrates in offering his service; it's a very touching moment. All of his interactions with the Gondor military men are great (I love the rumors that spread about warrior-hobbits) and his struggle to stop Denethor from killing Faramir is fantastic. Poor Faramir! You're still the best, no matter what your dad says. The scenes where Denethor tries to kill Faramir and then dies himself are chilling, and though the films let me know that Faramir wouldn't be dying, I can't deny a sensation of suspense at the whole sequence.

Merry gets his own action, of course, contributing to the death of the Witch-King of Angmar. Can I say, though, that the revelation that Éowyn is secretly riding with the Rohirrim is kinda anticlimactic in the novels? She's had like three lines of dialogue as herself. And those happened two books ago. And then Pippin gets in again at the end, which layers a couple good cliffhangers: have Frodo and Sam been killed over in The End of the Third Age, which is happening simultaneously? Is Pippin about to die (even though he's just killed a troll, the little bad-ass)?

There are times where it's men riding horses in manly ways (though Tolkien subverts that) or Aragon talking to ghosts or pirates or something (seriously what was that?), but on the whole The War of the Ring makes an enjoyable masterpiece of fantasy warfare, and I am looking forward to the conclusion. Can't believe I'm there already!

(So is it just a coincidence that Denethor and Théoden are near-anagrams? They're like the same guy. In that they're both old kings.)

Faster than a DC Bullet: Prose Fiction #5: Superman: Miracle Monday

Mass market paperback, 205 pages
Published 1981
Borrowed from the library
Read May 2013

Superman: Miracle Monday
by Elliot S. Maggin

I really enjoyed Maggin's first Superman book, Last Son of Krypton, and his second is not quite as good, but it is still very good. If there's anything I didn't like, it's just that the plot takes its time getting off the ground; we're over halfway into the book before Superman even finds out that there's a problem he needs to be solving.

But aside from that, this is essential Superman. Maggin has a way with all the characters, one that makes me regret the fact that I don't think I've ever read a Maggin comic book. I'll have to get on that! He gets them all perfectly, but especially Superman and Lex Luthor.

Though I might disagree with the way Maggin phrases it, that Clark Kent is just a pretense for Superman, the way it plays out in practice is great. I haven't read any of the comics from the era where Clark is a newsanchor for WGBS Metropolis, but the way that Maggin shows him juggling his Clark and Superman roles is perfect. As a big Lex Luthor fan, I also love the way that Maggin writes Luthor: the smartest man in the room, at all times, just never quite grasping an essential moral truth. He's funny, in the sense that the Master on Doctor Who is funny: his plans stagger the mind, but have a certain twisted logic to them.

Also, here's a bit from a description of the prison where Lex Luthor is incarcerated: "Haskell was the ninth warden at this prison in eight years. Four had been fired; two had had nervous breakdowns; one had had a heart seizure after seven months here [...]; and one had turned out to be one of Luthor's many fictional alter egos" (49). That's my Lex!

Lois isn't a big figure in this book, but the scene between Lois and Superman after the Superman/Clark duality has been revealed to the world is the best summation of Lois's character I've ever seen. Even Jimmy Olsen gets his bit!

The triumph of the book is of course in the ending. I don't know if Maggin actually grew up reading Superman comics, but I suspect he did. This book is the work of a man who grew up believing that Superman is the essential, archetypal hero, and that is absolutely right.

Happy Miracle Monday!

Review: A, A′ [A, A Prime] by Moto Hagio

Comic digest, 207 pages
Published 1997 (contents: 1981)
Borrowed from  the library
Read May 2013

A, A′ [A, A Prime]

by Moto Hagio
English adaptation by Matt Thorn

This collection brings together three works of shōjo manga by Moto Hagio, whose work I previously enjoyed in A Drunken Dream and Other Stories. The works in that collection spanned her entire career (1977-2008), whereas these three all come from 1981, and are all set in the same future milieu, where Earth's colonization of the solar system was aided by a genetically engineered raced called "unicorns." Unicorns have a distinctive mane of red hair (hence, apparently, the name), as well as adaptations to make them good early settlers: they can see in infrared, for example, and they are also emotionally detached. The race is largely extinct at the point the stories in A, A′ occur, but they interbred with normal humans, and occasional throwbacks ("atavisms") exist.

In "A, A′ [A, A Prime]," Addy (one of these atavisms) has died after three years on a distant science outpost, and her clone is dispatched to take her place. She and a man there had been in love, and now they must negotiate what it's like for both of them when she doesn't have any memories of their relationship. It's the best story in the book, with a couple standout moments that are both beautiful and melancholy, such as when Addy alone can see a solar flare in the infrared. I'm not sure what to think of the ending, but I think it works in context.

"4/4 [Quatre/Quarts]" is about a teenage boy named Mori who has strong telekinetic potential, but can't seem to harness it except when in the presence of a very isolated unicorn named Trill. The two are drawn to each other, somehow creating a whole in union that neither of them can achieve alone, two emotional isolates who only respond to each other. It's a darker and more disturbing story than "A, A′," with much more tragedy. The unicorns are shown to experience emotions, just not in the way others expect, which leads to tragedy.

The second half of the book is taken up by one longer story, "X + Y," which focuses at first on a unicorn named Tacto and then a college-age Mori. Tacto seems to be male, but his genes indicate that he is XX, but he seems uninterested in his gender anyway. Meanwhile, Mori finds himself falling in love with this boy despite himself. The two face prejudice as well as their own uncertainties, and some dark secrets in Tacto's past. I liked this one, though Tacto's habit of talking in the third person took a lot of use getting used to. Again, much of the difficulty centers on Tacto's own emotional processes, which exist, but aren't quite like a baseline human's. There's some interesting stuff going on with gender here, as well as some beautiful moments involving kite-flying, which Mori has taken up as a hobby since "4/4." The last two pages are gorgeous.

Moto Hagio's art is great throughout, though I think I'm not quite enmeshed enough in the manga tradition to make the character distinctions that are sometimes required of me. Her sf works in a different register to the one than I am used to, and I am glad that I am getting to know it; I look forward to picking up more of her translated work in the future.

Review: Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman by Marc Tyler Nobleman

Hardcover, n.pag.
Published 2012
Acquired August 2012
Read May 2013

Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman

by Marc Tyler Nobleman
illustrated by Ty Templeton

Bill the Boy Wonder is an odd book. It sort of promises to be a biography of Bill Finger, the man who created Batman along with Bill Kane and wrote many, many of his early stories. But it seems that we don't really know all that much about Bill Finger. Much of the book ends up focusing on the credit dispute between Finger and Kane-- if "dispute" is the right word, given that Kane always asserted that he solely created Batman and Finger rarely said anything to contradict that. It's appalling the extent to which Bill Finger's role in the creation of the Bat-Man has been elided, but I don't know if a children's picture book is the place for that dispute to be played out.

It's immaculately researched, though, as the Author's Note at the end makes clear, and it seems unlikely that we'll ever known enough about Finger to create a full-length biography of the man. So this is a nice little tribute, and I'm glad I read it, even if I'm uncertain as to what to do with it beyond that. Ty Templeton's illustrations are great. I've only encountered his art sporadically, but I've always liked it when I've seen it.

Review: The Ring Goes East by J. R. R. Tolkien

Hardcover, 189 pages
Published 2000 (originally 1954)
Acquired February 2011
Read May 2013

The Ring Goes East: Being the Fourth Book of The Lord of the Rings

by J. R. R. Tolkien

The only members of the Fellowship that we see in The Ring Goes East are Frodo and Sam, hacking slowly and meanderingly through mountains, wastelands, swamps, and caves. Seriously, there's a lot of swamps in this book, and I went into it knowing that and dreading it.

To my great surprise and greater relief, it was better than that. Though the presence of a chapter called "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" didn't bode well, the book is livened up considerably when Gollum shows up to accompany our heroes, stopping it from being a straightforward journey of two people. Gollum is a great foil to our heroes, and funny too; I had to resist the temptation to continuously read all his lines out loud in a funny voice to my wife. The "Of Herbs and Stewed Rabbit" chapter is actually a good one, and I did not know that Sam saying "Po – ta – toes" wasn't an invention of the film. (Unfortunately, "boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew" is.)

Anyway, then Faramir shows up. I love Faramir. Faramir is awesome. That is a guy without pretensions who just does his job. If Denethor had sent him to Rivendell, this whole Ring-destroying business would have gone ten times as good-- the Fellowship may not have even broken! I cursed Sam for his foolishness when he revealed Frodo's possession of the Ring to Faramir, but the scene where Faramir reveals that he's not even tempted is great. He's probably my favorite character in The Lord of the Rings who's not a member of the Fellowship.

Though it's not my favorite book of the story, so far, it has what is definitely my favorite sequence: Sam fighting Shelob. Everything in this section is fantastic: Sam's determination, his reaction to the "death" of Frodo. The whole last chapter is a class act; everything in the book up until this point has shown you what an undertaking it is for three people to carry the Ring into the fire, and here, Sam decides that he's going to do it alone. But then Frodo's not dead! Poor guy. And I loved the bit where he charges around the corner to reclaim Frodo from the orcs only to realize that they were much further off than he thought, and they don't even notice him. The Ring Goes East is really the installment of The Lord of the Rings that elevates Sam from comedy assistant to developed, forceful character, and I love it.

There are a lot of other things to like in The Ring Goes East, when they're not slogging through swamps. On the other hand, what's with the totally racist depiction of the Southrons? That's a little troubling. I love Sam's search for an oliphaunt.

But best of all is the page where Sam and Frodo discuss stories. This I'm going to quote in full, because it's all good:

'And we shouldn't be here at all, [said Sam] if we'd known more about it before we started. But I suppose it's often that way. The brave things in the old tales and songs, Mr. Frodo: adventures, as I used to call them. I used to think that they were things the wonderful folk of the stories went out and looked for, because they wanted them, because they were exciting and life was a bit dull, a kind of sport, as you might say. But that's not the way of it with the tales that really mattered, or the ones that stay in the mind. Folk seem to have been just landed in them, usually – their paths were laid that way, as you put it. But I expect they had lots of chances, like us, of turning back, only they didn't. And if they had, we shouldn't know, because they'd have been forgotten. We hear about those that went on – and not all to a good end, mind you; at least not to what folk inside a story and not outside it call a good end. You know, coming home, and finding things all right, though not quite the same – like old Mr. Bilbo. But those aren't always the best tales to hear, though they may be the best tales to get landed in! I wonder what sort of a tale we've fallen into?' 

'I wonder,' said Frodo. 'But I don't know. And that's the way of a real tale. Take any one that you're fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don't know. And you don't want them to.' 

'No, sir, of course not. Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that's a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it [...]. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! [...] Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?' 

'No, they never end as tales,' said Frodo. 'But the people in then come, and go when their part's ended. Our part will end later – or sooner.' 

[...] 'Still, I wonder if shall ever be put into songs or tales. We're in one, of course; but I mean: put into words, you know, told by the fireside, or read out of a great big book with red and black letters, years and years afterwards. And people will say: "Let's hear about Frodo and the Ring!" And they'll say: "Yes, that's one of my favorite stories. Frodo was very brave, wasn't he dad?" "Yes, my boy, the famousest of the hobbits, and that's saying a lot."' 

'It's saying a lot too much,' said Frodo, and he laughed, a long clear laugh from his heart. [...] 'Why Sam,' he said, 'to hear you somehow makes me as merry as if the story was already written. But you've left out one of the chief characters: Samwise the stouthearted. "I want to hear more about Sam, dad. Why didn't they put in more of his talk, dad? That's what I like, it makes me laugh. And Frodo wouldn't have got far without Sam, would he, dad?"' 

'Now, Mr. Frodo,' said Sam, 'you shouldn't make fun. I was serious.' 

'So was I,' said Frodo, 'and so I am.' (pp. 149-51)

I didn't mean to quote that much (is that fair use?), but now I have, and I stand by it. It's a lovely passage-- from meditation on the nature of storytelling to deep emotional revelation. And every word of it is true.