Exuberance! Exitement! Reading Log!!!

Eliot Rosewater

"The characters in this books are fictitious. The historical circumstances which determined their actions are real. The life of the man NS Rubashov is a synthesis of the lives of a number of men who were victims of the so-called Moscow Trials. Several of them were personally known to the author. This book is dedicated to their memory."

Of Hungarian birth, Arthur Koestler falls into a long line of Eastern European writers from the mid-twentieth century who abandoned the collectivist ideology of their countries of birth to move West. Darkness At Noon, Koestler's best known work, was published in 1940 and is an cutting indictment of the totalitarian system of government practiced in the USSR.

The lead character, NS Rubashov, is a former member of the governing regime who has fallen out of favor due to his transition towards a more humane way of viewing individual people. He is arrested and sent to prison to be tried for fabricated crimes. His brief but torturous experience of captivation is described, as well as his previous life of loyalty, portrayed through his memoirs and interrogations. We thus get an image of the regime from both sides.

As the dedication states, the book is based on the Moscow Show Trials. The Trials were to become notorious for the orchestration that sustained them, whereby dependents were tortured into submission and then put on "show" for an international audience. The novel explores this, and through Koestler's pen we get an honest glimpse of Soviet totalitarianism and the solidarity of those cast against it. A primary influence for George Orwell's Nineteen eighty-four, Darkness At Noon is well worth the consideration of anyone interested in the times it describes.


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Eliot Rosewater

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (sol-zuh-neet-suhn) is, like Arthur Koestler, a member of that class of author who had to leave their Eastern European homeland under the threat of authoritarian government. Solzhenitsyn's exile was not voluntary, however. In the closing stages of World War Two, in which he commanded a "sound ranging" battery, he was arrested for writing a letter critical of Stalin to a friend. He was sentenced to 8 years in a labour camp. After his release and temporary exile in Kazakhstan he worked in Russia and wrote in his spare time. The KGB discovered he was writing what was to become the infamous The Gulag Archipelago, and upon the death of Nikita Khrushchev he was banished from the Soviet Union.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a story based upon Solzhenitsyn's experiences of Soviet labour camps. It describes the typical day of a prisoner. The power of the book lies in its honesty and in its plainness. The actions and motives of the prisoners are laid bare with a cunning sense of normality. The fact that a prisoner would cherish a single bite of sausage enough to que in a line for half an hour is portrayed without any sense that this is something strange, something extraordinary. But that it is makes the prisoners' lot seem so much more horrific.

I'm very tempted to compare One Day to the previous book I reviewed, Darkness At Noon. Both books are attacks on totalitarianism, specifically the Soviet type, but they each take a different angle. Darkness At Noon is concerned with exposing the official processes in all their perversion, while One Day simply seeks to portray the inhumane cruelty done to the average man, by the regime, though the gulag. Both good books, but One Day manages to strike harder.


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Valmont

Fantastic, I have the last three books you reviewed on my shelf waiting! Great stuff, Eliot.

Eliot Rosewater

Yevgeny Zamyatin, like Arthur Koestler and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, was one of those dissenters of Eastern Europe that were exiled from their countries of birth. His dystopian novel We is, however, far more of a science fiction than the books of the other two. It was apparently written under the influence of HG Wells.

The novel is set over a thousand years into the future in a city separated from the barbarian world by an enormous wall. The society is highly authoritarian: people do not have names but rather numbers; they live in apartments whose walls are made of transparent glass; people live their day by means of a state-mandated timetable, and even sexual encounters are dictated by means of a coupon system. The central protagonist, D-503, has been conditioned to be happy with the state of affairs. In fact his main qualm is that the timetable contains 2 hours of "free time": too much, in his opinion. His existence is shook when he means I-330, who goads him into a rebellion.

We has achieved fame as one of the first dystopias and because of the huge influence it had on George Orwell, who acknowledged it, and Aldous Huxley, who didn't, but who has been accused of lying by various personalities such as Kurt Vonnegut. The novel itself is, in my opinion, nothing special. Though I can see the merit in it, and how it broke ground, it is really eclipsed in the dystopian sense by Nineteen Eighty-four etc, and in the political sense by books like Darkness At Noon. The only lasting impression I got from it was of the rebellion that started with the breaking of the wall around the city, a prophecy of the way in which communism would fall in Berlin nearly 70 years later.


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Eliot Rosewater

"We were somewhere Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold." As an opening line, it's pretty much a success in defining the tone for the whole novel. As a prime example of the Gonzo/Faction genre, the novel combines elements of fact with fiction. It is based upon two journeys to Las Vegas that the author, Hunter S Thomson, characterised as the narrator, took with his attorney, who is referred to as "The Samoan" in the book.

The first port of call of the duo is to a 24hr rally in the Nevada desert, which the narrator is reporting for Rolling Stone magazine. However they immediately get taken off track, and begin to roam about Las Vegas continuing the drugs binge ("We has two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powdered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi coloured uppers, downers, screamers, laughers ... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of Budweiser, a pint of raw ether and two doze amyls"). The next day they report to a police convention about tackling drug abuse.

I found Fear And Loathing to be enjoyable and well-written with its nice and easy prose style. It's a light and often funny read, emotions accentuated, no doubt, by the fact that when I read it I was just after three books on Soviet totalitarianism; the break was nice. I don't know if I'd put much more stock in it, frankly!


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Eliot Rosewater

(Full title: The Cathedral and the Bazaar: Musings on Linux and Open-Source by an Accidental Revolutionary)

The phenomena that prompted the title essay in this collection was the unprecedented growth of the open-source Linux kernel project*. To say the project was organised in such or such a way would be to give the impression of a tight organisation; in reality anyone and everyone was free to contribute. This conflicted with the usual production model (in open- and closed-software alike) whereby by a manager/owner retained close control of development and planning. Despite a lack of such centralised control and direction, and of paid developers, the Linux kernel developed into a high-quality product in an extremely short space of time.

Within the metaphor, the Linux organisation is the bazaar, free for all to help out, whereas the traditional method of development is the cathedral, centrally planned and closely controlled. The author set up his own project to test the bazaar method, and saw a repeat of the Linux phenomena: great innovation and quality development. So convincing are the arguments made for the bazaar method in this essay (published 97) that in 1998 Netscape made its Navigator browser open-source, a move that would lead to the modern day Firefox browser.

The other equally brilliant essays in the collection deal with how this bazaar model operates in terms of sociology and economics. The author, Eric S. Raymond, is a programmer himself, so I wasn't expecting the essays to be academic and "learned". It was a surprise to see him refer to people like Plato, Nietzsche and FA Hayek. In one essay he successfully compares open-source culture to Lockean land tenure. But yet the essays still brim with common sense and are very digestible. An intriguing book for anyone interested in economics/sociology and an absolute must-read for followers of open-source.

*Linux, in its broadest sense, is an open-source operating system (like Microsoft Windows). The Linux kernel is the core of the operating system that communicates with the hardware and performs other "low-level" tasks.


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Eliot Rosewater

I read much of Babbitt in public - sitting on a wall in my local park and on a train to Dublin - which probably looked a little strange to those around because I couldn't hold back the many smirks that this book forces upon its reader.

The main target of Sinclair Lewis' satire is the conservative middle class mindset of the 1920s and the society it exists within in. This mindset is represented by the central protagonist George F Babbitt, a real-estate agent and devout Republican, Presbyterian and supporter of Sound Business and Good Fellows. He is also immensely mediocre and constantly contradicting himself. Babbitt believes that the US should never interfere in foreign government, and that the US should invade Russia. He believes that black people should rise up in society, and that they should stay within their current social position. The novel goes beyond the main character and explores the society as a whole, with its social tiers, its competitiveness and its people fighting to conform.

I think Babbitt (the book!) is everything a social satire should be. It's composed of funny subtleties and delivers its point in a clever indirect manner. Lewis doesn't say "Conservatives are hypocrites because..." He doesn't say "Consumer society is bad because..." He merely describes that society as he sees it, lightly emphasising the silliness at its heart. He resists the urge to be melodramatic and outrageous, things which are the downfall of many unrealistic satires. Babbitt is balanced, convincing, witty, and very funny.


(Find the links yourself )

Eliot Rosewater

...lest I forget. I may write reviews for these later, if I can motivate myself.

Pincher Martin - William Golding
Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut
As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

Eliot Rosewater

When The Lord of the Rings films came out in the early 00s I joined the craze with gusto. The principal remnant of this is over a thousand euro worth of Warhammer models in the attic. But the craze also left me with a very soft spot for JRR Tolkien that I have maintained despite the fact that, up to a week ago, I hadn't read any of his books in at least two and a half years. My girlfriend had suggested that this may simply have been a subconscious nostalgia; a positive shadow of the past, if you will.

I decided to re-read the novel (The Lord of the Rings is a single novel, remember!) to see if there was truth to this, and to see how it would fare now that I had read a lot of 'classic' literature. (Back in the day 'twas only Harry Potter and the like that I had read, so it was no surprise that Tolkien won out.) And the result was, well, mixed.

Previously, the book's length and its 'difficult' writing style overwhelmed me and, because of this, held me in awe. Not being able to easily digest the novel used enhance that fantastic depth of history that pervades throughout. Reading The Lord of the Rings this time was easy, a breeze even, and the quick reading that resulted somewhat dulled the impact of the book had on me.

Yet, I still found The Lord of the Rings very good. It never feels like Tolkien is writing his own story, but rather that he is noting down some proper history external to himself. The depth of world (the diverse peoples, the history, the geography) is thorough believable, and it is amazing precisely because of that. The plot is exciting, and deep with meaning.

In the two and a half years that have passed, the effect of The Lord of the Rings on me, personally, has shifted. However, I can still appreciate its glory and what makes it so great. The book, itself, hasn't changed. Rather, I have.

Denerick

I re-read Lord of the Rings last year and rather than having drifted away from it, I felt that I was able to engage with it even more, to find even deeper analyses and a window into a thoroughly beautiful and enviable moral absolutism; it still remains as one of my favourite books (Even after the fourth reading!)

Eliot Rosewater

If I've drifted away from it, it's only because when I was younger I was inordinately attached to it. But I don't think my appreciation has lessened, I think it's just has changed. Before, I was like "wow, this is amazing; so exiting etc" whereas now I've a more intellectual appreciation of it. Certainly it assumed a greater moral importance for me during this latest reading.

I'll be reading the Simarilion again, for sure.

sponsoredwalk

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

In Franny and Zooey, a short story and a novella respectively, we once again meet with Salingers infamous Glass family. Although independent entities, the two pieces take place on the same weekend and are, by and large, concerned with the same themes and the same characters.

Franny, a 20 year old girl and the youngest member of the Glass family, has come home for the weekend from college. Emotionally distraught, she finds no solace in her boyfriend, instead sparking a bitter row told in typical Salinger fashion: sharp dialogue, self-interested characterization and sorrowful realism. It is not until the subsequent novella, Zooey, that the source of Frannys unhappiness is discovered. Zooey is her next oldest brother and an actor based in New York. The two siblings have shared a similar childhood - recklessly controlled by the intellectual endeavors of the two eldest brothers and cut apart by suicide and war.

Like many of Salingers pieces, the character and plot development is primarily based on events that preceded the story, even by years. Though an isolated weekend in terms of the narrative, the strength of the work lies in the heart-wrenching way in which Salingers ties up the characters' troubles with their distant childhood. This is ultimately an emotional collection that moves one to genuinely sympathize with the contents of a printed page.


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Such an amazing book, I went out of my way to find the book "The Way of
the Pilgrim" & read about his travels. I just got side-tracked & never
finished it but it was going good. I was more interested in the idea, it
seemed to me like it offered some sort of biological satisfaction,
i.e. the rhythm was like a soothing mantra in time with his heart & acted in
a similar fashion to that of listening to music. I think the idea of Franny
really illustrated how a person in pain will go to great length's to seek
solace & indirectly try to heal their wounds, eventually though, just as in
this book, it requires admitting the problem, talking it through & I was really
moved to find how she ultimately found her problems lay in her own fears
and felt changed upon this recognition. I think everyone has those
moments. There is a great lecture on the book here.

Eliot Rosewater

History Of Western Philosophy is, as the name so profoundly suggests, a history of Western philosophical thought. It begins with Ancient Greece, circa 550 BC, and finishes with John Dewey, who was a contemporary of Russell. The book was published in 1946.

I wish to comment on the book from two perspectives: firstly, what it is in and of itself, and secondly what my personal experience of it was.

I approached the History Of Western Philosophy as a novice, and as such I can't comment on its accuracy. What I can say is that the book is accessible to the new reader and (I imagine) is about as light as a book on philosophy could be. Russell's writing style is nice, and I especially liked the witticisms that are peppered throughout. He dedicates a number of chapters to history in order to contextualise the philosophical arguments; this is great.

Now, my subjective experience. The book gives you as much as you're willing to put in. Initially I didn't give it much attention, reading it as one would read the newspaper, and I got nothing from it. Then about halfway through I took out a pencil and got really stuck in, and the enjoyment started in earnest.

The first thing I realised is that philosophy is not one homogeneous thing. It consists of "two parts inharmoniously blended: on the one hand a theory as to the nature of the world, on the other an ethical or political doctrine as to the best way of living." Each of the two parts is subdivided again.

I far preferred the ethical and political parts, principally because of my science background. I found the Greek theorising about the nature of existence, while notable for its time, to be boring and irrelevant in a world where such knowledge is collected by scientists. "Facts have to be discovered by observation, not by reasoning; when we successfully infer the future we do so by means of principles which are not logically necessary, but are suggested by empirical data."

But for all the lows there were highs to more than compensate - in particular I loved the chapters in and around John Locke. I think the success of the book can be concretely measured in two ways. The fact that my reading list has bulged is proof that the stuff inside is very interesting, and that it is presented in an equally interesting manner. In addition, I have come away from the book feeling genuinely better informed than I was before I read it, and I feel I've learned some important things about humanity and the world.

Denerick

Damn you Eliot Rosewater, now I have another juggernaut on my ever expanding reading list.

Eliot Rosewater

The Sea - John Banville
The Turn of the Screw - Henry James
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

Eliot Rosewater

I recently signed up for an optional module in college, History and Philosophy of Science, and Patricia Fara's book was assigned as the course textbook. Well, it isn't a textbook, it's written as a narrative. The book begins about the time of Babylon, and continues up to the present day.

In the introduction Fara makes it clear that she wants to challenge some of the preconceptions of scientific history; in particular, she criticises Eurocentricism and the lack of acknowledgement of the role of women.

The facts themselves are presented well enough. Considering that the book is meant to be an introduction to scientific history her writing style is good: easy, almost conversational, but still effective at communicating the ideas.

The problems develop once Fara starts stamping her own personal biases on the story. As I said, she seeks to challenge the dominance of men and Europe, but in doing so she goes to other extreme and gives credit where credit is most certainly not due. For instance, the Islamic world, which was very involved in science from the 8th century, effectively gave up on the pursuit of it around the 12th. From the standpoint of someone interested in science this is definitely a Bad Thing as it stalled progress. But Fara disagrees, and tries to portray the Muslim's abandonment of science to be a Good Thing. Why? Well, by praising the Islamic world she's effectively having a dig at Europe. So the book assumes a reactionary stance: in seeking to remedy the overstatement of Europe's role in science she ends up attempting to understate it.

Some of her views are also a little bizarre. Among the things she bemoans are: the introduction of the metric system into France, the increased dominance of scientific medicine and the industrialisation of Britain. The last becomes especially ludicrous when she later praises the industrial production of birth control. As the book develops her Marxist rubbish takes on a bigger chunk of the narrative, and she firmly establishes herself as one of these people who moan about everything on the mystical presumption that her undefined way will be better. At one point she criticises capitalism's propensity to pollute, a fair point, but she conveniently disregards the fact that her Marxist system has historically been a far worse polluter.

The book is also interlaced with some Feminist nonsense. In the chapter on DNA she goes off on an uncharacteristic rant about James Watson, which came as a surprise. It makes sense later on when she explains that Watson and Crick effectively beat a woman researcher to the answer. As a Feminist Fara cannot take this, so she attacks Watson on unscientific grounds.

My final criticism is that the book is too short. Yes, it's an introduction, but it could have been a little deeper, especially in regard to the sociological context and the changing attitudes of the world. Saying that, I still think this book is good enough; it's generally interesting, often informative and a good motivator. You just basically need to to ignore the Marxist and Feminist bollox.

Denerick

Ah... The dangers of anti Eurocentrism... When will people accept that all biases are equal, to denounce the west means to praise the orient, which accompanies all sorts of 'noble savage' quandries of their own...

metrovelvet

I just don't understand how you can be a feminist and praise Islam in the same book.

Am I missing something? Was I sleeping in that day in college?

Eliot Rosewater

Denerick wrote: »

Ah... The dangers of anti Eurocentrism... When will people accept that all biases are equal, to denounce the west means to praise the orient, which accompanies all sorts of 'noble savage' quandries of their own...

Well, the awkward fact for Fara is that the West has dominated science for most of recent history, though if pushed I think she'd say there's no such thing as universal science, that it means different things to different cultures, or something. There were a few little subtle excuses she had planted throughout.

metrovelvet wrote: »

I just don't understand how you can be a feminist and praise Islam in the same book.

Yes, I suppose it's like those people who praise Castro because he's anti-America: what you're trying to be against is more important than what you support.

Speaking of feminism, there was an extract I meant to quote that I forgot about. It's something like: "Scientific advances have had negative effects. DDT boosted crop yields, but severely damaged the eco system. Atomic physics resulted in sustainible energy, but caused much damaging radiation. The internet has connected people together, but hasspread pornography."

Because, you know, pornography and the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster are directly comparable things.

sponsoredwalk

I'd just like to add that the Rosalind Franklin story has merits not simply
because you think it's due to her personal beliefs or due to some
feminist ideology but because this has been a contested issue for 50
years, especially with Watson admitting how much she contributed to
their discovery. However, she does not deserve most credit for she didn't
acknowledge Watson & Crick's work for what it was but no doubt if she
wasn't there things would have been very different. They didn't "beat
her" because she was never looking at DNA in the way they were.
I assure you that if you read up on this story you'll see how it's not just
her unscientific biases that are the root of this story. She wasn't
considered for the nobel prize for nothing, she was an
integral part in the discovery due to her own personal work albeit it
was not being used by her to form a theoretical explanation.
Also, read Watson's own book to find the sexist undertones overtly
present, and admitted by him... I'd be surprised if she hadn't brought
in a little feminist critique to understand the situation at the time, but
that said feminism has nothing to do with the discovery of DNA.

There is no doubt that Franklin's experimental data were used by Crick and
Watson to build their model of DNA in 1953 ...

...
Franklin was probably never aware that her work had been used during
construction of the model,[106] but Maurice Wilkins was.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin#Nobel_Prize
(quoted in reverse order for cogency)

His more recent book kind of apologises for it, and rightly so. The new one
is highly recommended to learn why IQ tests are a joke steeped in
racial profiling & lacking a lot of justification

As for her praise of the East, the roots of this belief explain so much about
contemporary society. I was shocked when I first read this book called
Occidentalism: the West in the Eyes of it's Enemies. This book is laced
with stories of Voltaire, Turgenev, Chernyshevsky, and plenty of
other people who take the view that this "materialistic stance" of
the West is the root of all evil and reverting to our old ways is best.
Contrast this view with nationalism or any ideology for that matter &
you'll be shocked, the stories of the youth of today being all about
sex and drugs etc... is not a new one by any stretch of the imagination.

Eliot Rosewater wrote: »

Speaking of feminism, there was an extract I meant to quote that I forgot about. It's something like: "Scientific advances have had negative effects. DDT boosted crop yields, but severely damaged the eco system. Atomic physics resulted in sustainible energy, but caused much damaging radiation. The internet has connected people together, but hasspread pornography."

Because, you know, pornography and the radioactive fallout from the Chernobyl disaster are directly comparable things.

I think it's obvious she's talking about the positive and negative aspects of
science, after all she is writing a book about the history of science.
You don't have to be a feminist to dislike pornography, in fact I think you'll
find feminists champion feminism. If we're talking about the charicature of
feminism, which I feel is the one you've been presenting here then yes
feminists hate men/porn/science etc...
You have to understand that because some feminists dislike porn etc...
It does not mean they all do.

Eliot Rosewater

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

They didn't "beat her" because she was never looking at DNA in the way they were.

Well, that's not the story Fara tells. She makes a complete "us vs them" scenario of the thing, and spends a few pages outlining why Franklin is better than Watson and Crick. And some of her reasons aren't even scientific. So if there's a problem with my knowledge of the story then that's because of Fara, which only re-emphasises my point that she is willing to distort the facts to further her ideological beliefs.

I'm not denying Franklin's work, by the way. I'm just criticising Fara's portrayal of the that work.

sponsoredwalk wrote: »

I think it's obvious she's talking about the positive and negative aspects of science

By phrasing it the way she does Fara makes a direct comparison between nuclear fallout and the proliferation of pornography. This is ridiculous on two counts. Firstly, pornography being inherently bad is a matter of opinion, as opposed to nuclear fallout being bad, which is a matter of fact. Secondly the difference in scale is enormous. Even if pornography was bad the damage from nuclear fallout is much much worse.

So the only reason she sticks it in is to make some kind of political anti-pornography point. She's certainly not doing it to make a genuine criticism of science.

sponsoredwalk

Well if she presented history in a way that is incorrect & you feel you've
been lied to you should e-mail her. I haven't read it & don't really have the
time to but if you read up on the history of dna, which is damn interesting,
and find flaws in her work I'd e-mail her out of spite tbh

A lot of people hate James Watson though, he's made racist, misogynistic
and hurtful comments to people all of his life & paid for it so if she let
that interfere with her writing I'd call her on it.

I recommend the interviews with Charlie Rose as a starter to see what
the guy is like, personally I see genius and the fact he apologises &
recognises his stupid comments is something you can't hold against him
but you'll see how people could hate him if taken the wrong way.

As for the porn comment, I hate any argument whatsoever against
pornography so don't get me wrong, I'm just saying it's not feminism as
an ideology that's causing her to argue this point it's her own opinions.
If you want to argue it is in fact a feminist agenda then at least
clarify that it's descended from a particular strand of radical feminism
in the late 70's and can't be representative of the explanatory theory
known as feminism simply because of the existence of these movements
within the movement within the ...

That said I just don't believe it's a political argument, more like a
personal bias coming out. If you replace the word porn with child
abductions or some other negative aspect of the internet then you've
got a criticism of western technology but she let her own personal bias
come out there. It's very similar to the following story:

I ordered Ray Comfort's book "How to Know God Exists - Scientific Proof
of God" for the laugh, it was free & I got it signed too! Well on page 3
after hilarious analogies he matter-of-factly states that the bones in
average joe atheists feet are miraculous because they were designed by
god. Here he's just let slip how f'ing biased his whole book is but it's not
like he's purposely put that in, it's just what he really believes.
I think the situation with her talking about porn is the same, it's just
what she believes. Similarly when she distorts history to further her
agenda I think that's just what she believes, if the facts are wrong
after you research it (assuming you do ) then call her on it
I don't care if she's actually doing this tbh, just the point about it
being a feminist agenda was something I couldn't let slip,
apologies if I came across accusingly or anything

Eliot Rosewater

Creatures of the Earth is a collection of stories by Irish author John McGahern which was produced shortly before his death in 2006. It covers the whole span of his literary career.

Like the novels of his that I've read, the short stories are saturated with Irishness. All of them are set in Ireland, or set amongst Irish communities in Britain. Many of them deal with distinctly Irish issues - the Christian Brothers, Catholicism as a culture, Irish funeral rites, Irish Trade Unions - but many also tackle broader themes - romantic relationships, for instance - in which Ireland is merely the specific context.

My favourites were those that dealt with Irish issues and those that dealt with strong themes and strong characters. John McGahern's writing style seems to be based a lot on suggestion and concealed meaning, which can make some of the stories seem slow and meandering. The more open ones - Korea, Love of the World, Creatures of the Earth etc - were all the more striking as a result.

I enjoyed this collection mildly. That it took me so long to read (more than a few months) shows that it didn't consistently hold my attention. Some of the stories were noticeably good though. Some favourites: Wheels, The Recruiting Officer, Crossing the Line, Eddie Mac, The Conversion of William Kirkwood, Creatures of the Earth, Love of the World and The Country Funeral.

Eliot Rosewater

This is the one of the Penguin Great Ideas books. It contains two essays by Nigerian author Chinua Achebe, An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad's Heart of Darkness and The Trouble With Nigeria.

---

The first (written 1975) is a controversial analysis of the novella Heart of Darkness. Achebe makes three claims: that Heart of Darkness is a racist book; that Joseph Conrad is inseparable from this racism and is thus a racist himself; and that Heart of Darkness is, as a direct consequence, a bad book.

The first "charge" is immediately obvious to anyone who has read the book with an open mind. The Africans are described as soulless person-less entities: "phantoms", "shrouds", "black shadows of disease". Simply put, the book portrays Europeans and Africans as differently as a regular writer might portray men and cattle. Achebe then goes on to argue that, despite the insulation of two narrators, the views on race in the book are directly those of Conrad, primarily because "he neglects to hint, clearly and adequately, at an alternative frame of reference by which we may judge the actions and opinions of his characters." And I think the point has merit.

However, Achebe fails on the third point, in my opinion. Though Heart of Darkness does describe and even endorse racism, there is no convincing argument given by Achebe as to why this makes it a bad book. I think the argument relies a little on treating the message of a book and the way that that message is described as the same thing, but to this point I cannot agree. Despite this, it is still a generally well-argued piece of writing and is a stellar companion to any reading of Heart of Darkness.

---

The second essay, The Trouble With Nigeria, written in 1983, is a frank and honest examination of the problems that have prevented Nigeria from reaching its potential and developing into a mature country. Achebe's candid tone is simply amazing. He accepts, as a Nigerian, that he has a responsibility towards his country, and he calls himself a patriot, yet he has no problem being open about his county's problems: "Nigeria is not a great country [...] It is one of the most corrupt, insensitive, inefficient places under the sun." The essay centres around a failure of leadership and discipline, and the ways in which Nigerians collectively conspire to ensure they remain members of a poor and underdeveloped country.

I don't know how much of it is still directly applicable to Nigeria, but even if it is not, the essay is still a stunning explanation of problems within societies - most societies - and how politicians can abuse these for their own ends. And Achebe partly blames the population, in particular the intellectual elite, for allowing these abuses to propagate. A really really fantastic essay!

---

I totally and unreservedly recommend this book.

sponsoredwalk

Yeah I've heard about Conrad's racism, I bought that book a long time ago
before I'd heard all these claims, never read it but have always meant to
just to see how overt the racism was. The book can't be that bad though
seeing as Apocalypse Now is partially based on it.

As for Nigeria, Fela Kuti's life is an example of Nigeria around the time Achebe wrote, crazy!

Eliot Rosewater

You see, Heart of Darkness is one of my favourite books. I love the narrative structure of it and the way it creates this image of Africa as some distance mysterious place. Even Achebe's essay describes some of the interesting literary techniques he used; comparing the Thames and the Congo, for instance. I wouldn't let the racism prevent you from appreciating it!

Valmont

I have to go on the record here and restate the greatness of Heart of Darkness. So dark and foreboding, always mention it when people ask me my favourite books. I think focusing on any racism therein is missing the point entirely.

/hijack

Eliot Rosewater

Incidentally I was watching Apocalypse Now! the other night which, as you're no doubt aware, is an adaptation of sorts of Heart Of Darkness. Great film. The main theme of self-destruction is carried through brilliantly. In fact, their whole attitude towards adaptation is brilliant. My friends were surprised to hear that HoD was based in Africa, but setting it in Vietnam makes perfect sense. The adaptation really places the emphasis on theme rather than plot. And the music!

Eliot Rosewater

Reflections on the Revolution in France was written in the early years of The French Revolution, in 1790 to be precise, by then British MP Edmund Burke. Burke was born in Dublin and raised mostly in Cork, but because he was Anglo-Irish, a supporter the monarchy, and generally calm and rational in outlook, he has been mostly abandoned and forgotten by the people of his country of birth.

Reflections is a criticism of the Revolution (it has been dubbed the "anti-manifesto"). It beings by challenging the views of the Revolution Society, a society set up in London to commemorate the centenary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and which endorsed the actions of the French Revolutionaries. Burke outlines the differences between the two revolutions, and makes many excellent remarks about politics in general. He defends the constitutional monarchy on the basis that it is the only system of government which reflects human relations, and thus the interests of human society. He argues for slow peaceful reform when it is available (as, he claims, it was in 1790), and rightly remarks that "any state without some means of change is without means of its conservation."

Burke promotes moderation, and criticises extremes. This is perhaps the defining ideology of Reflections. It offers a calm and sensible approach to politics, which many people would do well to learn from.

He makes many more excellent points throughout the book. Towards the end it assumes a more technical tone, as he challenges the budget of the Revolutionary Government etc, and so it becomes less generally applicable. But wisdom, experience and common sense are spread thickly throughout, so much so that it's hard to summarise the book in a few paragraphs. Suffice to say that Burke is an excellent writer and an extremely wise thinker and that this book merits everyone's attention.

The Penguin Classics edition opens with a fantastic introduction by Conor Cruise O'Brien. Recommended, etc.

Eliot Rosewater

After reading Burke's "anti-manifesto" it seemed fitting to read the actual Manifesto. Gareth Stedman Jones' introduction to the Penguin Classics edition is about three times as long as the Manifesto itself, so it arguably deserves as much attention here.

The composition of the introduction makes it quite clear that the approach to the Manifesto by its authors is mostly philosophical. One section of the introduction, for instance, is dedicated to the Young Hegelians' criticism of the Bible. Halfway through reading this section I had a moment of reflection in which I wondered exactly why an introduction to a political and economic text was discussing a particular group's attitude towards Christian religion.

This seeming irrelevancy isn't the sole fault of Stedman Jones (though I think the introduction is very poor, mostly because it completely ignores the average reader's motivation for reading this book: politics and economics). Simply put, the Manifesto has no grounding in reality. It preaches about man's "alienation from man", it makes many criticisms of the capitalist system and then offers, as a solution to the platitudes, the abolition of private property. It is little exaggeration to say that that is it. There is no description of how a communist country would work (beyond a vague simple notion that people could do what they like). No illustration of how resources or labour would be allocated. Nothing. Apparently if one abolishes private property a Utopia is immediately created.

The fact that so many people believed in this book would be hilarious if millions of people hadn't been killed as a result. (Not that the deaths are hard to account for: ambiguity breeds tyranny.) The Manifesto is a criticism of capitalism, but it offers no kind of alternative solution.