The Great Books Of The Western World

Next up after ELANTRIS, which is keeping me guessing in the final chapters...

WHY WE SLEEP by Matthew Walker. I'm expecting to feel like I'm being lectured with this one... I don't get enough sleep and I drink a lot of coffee.

Several chapters into WHY WE SLEEP by Matthew Walker. It's undoubtedly a readable, lucid book about the health benefits of sleep... It's a testament to how widely disseminated many of the ideas have become in recent years, however, in that there is little here that I wasn't more or less aware of already.

Sleep adequately to soften painful memories, physically recover, ward off illness both mental and physical... Sleep inadequately and invite problems with all of these. Caffeine bad, melatonin and sleeping pills bad. That's about it really.

What Walker does not (and in fairness cannot) address is the fact that I don't sleep 6 hours a night by choice. I'm in a ridiculously busy period of my life, the last ten years... Career on the up, young children at home, pushing the envelope in other regards too... There's no part of my lifestyle at the moment that lends itself to a restful 8 hours a night. I'm averaging 6 I suspect, which is better than a year ago. It's 1 hour off the 7 that Walker recommends as a bare minimum.

From what I can tell he's not TRYING to make us all feel tremendous anxiety. In the foreword to his book he actually warns that if you're prone to worrying and not getting enough sleep then reading his book may not be the best idea...

I don't doubt for a second he's right there's a chronic sleep deficit across the western world, and it's causing all kinds of problems. I don't doubt that it's related to our highly addictive screen technology, and the 24 hour news cycle. The nature of modern work probably doesn't help.

What's the answer? Some kind of societal reset, I suspect, but I don't know what that looks like. If we had nothing better to do than sleep that might mean things were pretty messed up in other regards.

Finished WHY WE SLEEP last week, reading the second CULTURE novel, Iain M Banks' THE PLAYER OF GAMES.

Still a peerless imagining of the future, I suspect some of the 'shock' of Banks' advantaged technology has been diluted compared to how these felt when they were read in the 90s - some of the concepts that were cutting edge then are more common in SF now - but they still hold up very well.

The SF future is probably still the only place anarcho-communists can truly live out their fantasies. The Culture is an imagining of the future where there is a cornucopia of abundance enabling each citizen to be truly free, economically, socially and culturally. Banks is probably correct in admitting significant numbers will still be unhappy or feel a malaise, of course, and he wouldn't have much fodder for his books if this were not the case.

If our future looks like the Culture then it's probably the best outcome imaginable, even there is still war with non Culture elements on a galactic scale.

BACK IN MOTION by Stefi Cohen, a mostly theoretical book on back injury rehabilitation.

Timely, as I have hurt my lower back / sacroiliac joint doing some ill-advised deadlifting earlier in the week.

I'm old enough now not to catastrophise when these kinds of things crop up, but it's still demoralising.

God, USE OF WEAPONS was my favourite Culture novel when I was younger, now I find it a bit all over the place. Broken timelines, Zakalwe a lot less convincing as a character than teenage me found him, it's a bit so so compared to PLAYER OF GAMES or CONSIDER PHLEBAS.

Finished USE OF WEAPONS.

It's funny how time changes your perception of a book. For me, MIDDLEMARCH was unreadable in my late teens, now it is one of the finest novels I've read.

USE OF WEAPONS used to be my favourite Banks CULTURE novel, but on the re-read it doesn't stand up as well as either CONSIDER PHLEBAS or PLAYER OF GAMES. The latter is a markedly stronger book, probably my favourite of Banks' now.

What changed?

Nothing, I guess... Other than me.

The ending, the unreliable narrator reveal, just felt like a bit of a damp squib. It's not just that there was no shock value this time around, I think Banks just sort of fluffed it. Zakalwe has a breakdown, someone else tells the Culture who he really is, The End.

I'm a chapter in Frank Herbert's DUNE, another re-read.

It's been some time. Still holds up remarkably well. It doesn't feel like it was written by a man born in... 1920?

It strikes me that one of the reasons the far-future setting of DUNE is so compelling is that it does feel alien the first time you're exposed to it. Now, some of its tropes have been stolen and re-engineered and there's an echo of familliarity because of that, but in the beginning... This was pristine futurism, shocking and weird, albeit it's a very capitalist future that's rooted in our history as a species.

It does pull on deep themes of religion, politics and history, but I've love it if the writers of today could understand that in sketching a future, part of the reason Herbert succeeded so well was that he felt he did not have to leadenly link it to the social struggles of today, and make it a 'learning opportunity'. One can't help but feel that if a contemporary author were to have written DUNE, it would at least half concerned with race relations in the U.S, or the question of gender, or the Ukraine / Russia conflict. All valid topics to write about, but all of them dating the work instantly to present day.

Most people are aware DUNE is considered one of the greatest, if not the greatest, SF novels of all time. They're less keen on Herbert's direct sequels, and I must admit when I read a few myself I got somewhat lost in them. Probably safe to say they are considered inferior to DUNE but they also have their quiet champions.

In the noughties a huge amount of prequel novels were published, co-authored by a descendent of Herbert's along with another writer. They're billed as being based on Herbert's notes. I read half of one and then abandoned it.

They vary in terms of plot, and are more a series of trilogies, but they deal with things alluded to in DUNE such as the use of 'thinking machines' / A.I by humans, and the disaster that led to. Mentats, effectively 'human computers' capable of machine-like computations, replaced the use of A.I.

One of those prequel novels does contain an interesting snippet that I'd be curious to know if it comes from Herbert's notes directly.

The main bad guy in DUNE, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, is obviously grossly obese, and famously gets around with parts of his great bulk suspended by anti gravity floats. He is described as moving like a dancer, at times, because of this.

In the prequels it's stated that the reason he got so fat is that he raped a Bene Gesserit (A sort of sisterhood of advanced humans, engaged in a complex eugenics programme) and the rest of the sisterhood punished him by infecting him with a disease which slowed his metabolism.

Fair enough! I wasn't able to stay reading the sequel novels myself.

Have you seen the Denis Villeneuve movie, what did you make of that, any better? If you liked that then at least you know it was just Herbert's style.

Finished DUNE, the final scene in the Emperor's grounded spaceship was more of a neat tying-up of plot strands than I remember. It was a bit like a final scene in Shakespeare where you've got a large group standing around and they all talk and then fade away, one by one.

Fantastic book.

I need to re-watch the Villeneuve adaptation because the more I think back the more I think it got some of the sumptuous visuals and world-building completely correct, and had great casting... But I would struggle to remember whether it managed to hit some of the mind-bending prophecy and "inner eye" mysticism of the book.

It's key to the last third of the book that Paul is the kwisatiz haderach, and can see the future as well as the past lives of his male and female ancestors. Not all of the future, but certain paths.

In DUNE, the book, there's a lot of consumption of spice wine, and internal monologues where Jessica and Paul process what's happening to them, it's quite Aldus Huxley I guess.

The movie has not reached that point yet, but it's quickly approach and there should be strong elements of it in the second movie.

I'm curious how far into this they go with the representation of the kwisatz haderach. The trailer looks more straight-forwardly actiony.

Now back to reading MATERIAL GIRLS by Kathleen Stock.

Finished MATERIAL GIRLS. Finish could be stronger, but it's a 5/5 non fic recommendation from me.

For something upbeat (sort of) and light (kind of), reading a GAUNT'S GHOSTS omnibus.

When Warhammer 40k fiction is good, it's very very good. The Black Library is a bit of an antidote to the proclivities of contemporary SF and Fantasy publishing houses.

Finished THE DEATH OF ORDER.

A low point for the Recluce novels, I think. I haven't read any interviews or comments from the author about it, but it feels like the kind of direct sequel to THE MAGIC OF RECLUCE that he was probably badgered to write until eventually he did so, but without much heart in it.

I'm definitely going to swing towards some non-fiction or classics for a while, but I'm bridging that by dipping into the truly excellent THE BEST OF RICHARD MATHESON.

Matheson was just a tremendous writer. It's not accident that so many of these short stories were adapted into horror novels or thrillers. Many popular tropes and themes were spawned by Matheson stories.

Well, I'll expand a little bit on THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR and Victor Davis Hanson (VDH).

VDH's family are grape farmers in California (Raisins, not wine), so he married his practical knowledge of farming to his classicism.

He argued that hoplites were 'different' to the warriors that preceded them in several ways. Firstly, they had the vote, and it seems that middle class as well as wealthy upper class citizens could afford armour and join the phalanx. The fact that they had the franchise and were fighting for "their" city, and "their" property is presented as a major explainer of why they stood shoulder to shoulder and fought as they did.

He further argues that, being farmers mostly, the rest of the time, they had a vested interest in fighting hard and winning decisively in as few engagements as possible, in order to return to their farms.

This is a central argument in THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR, this idea that the preference for a decisive pitched battle to win the day and crush the enemy is a curiously western idea for the most part. VDH argues that we "all fought as Greeks" in the west thereafter, with some exceptions.

But he also presents a really interesting argument that the flat plains of Greece shaped the preferred mode of conflict, and argues that part of why the hoplite phalanx came about is that the landscape is favourable to heavy infantry being ABLE to trudge across flat plains to have their battles against other phalanxes.

He argues that, collectively, the Greeks had a ritualised approach to phalanx warfare, within certain boundaries, during this period. Later they developed into more of a combined arms approach, recognising that the use of cavalry and lighter troops in tandem with hoplites made them MORE effective, not less.

Fascinated to read about the othismos in THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR.

The term is generally translated as relating to pushing, and it is employed in primary sources and in classical studies as relating to conflict between phalanxes which meet.

There is a disagreement between scholars (Putting it mildly) about whether the othismos refers to literal pushing that went on between phalanxes when they met, or whether it is more metaphorical.

VDH is from the literal camp, and they believe that when the Greeks talked about the othismos they are saying that Greek hoplites fighting each other literally ended up in big life-or-death pushing matches. They suggest that the heavy armour, bowl shields and tactics of the hoplites were for closely-linked troops to literally run and smash into one another in a phalanx, and that the ranks behind the lead troops would literally push on the back of the man in front. The main in front, facing an enemy, would get a jab or two in on the way in, but thereafter would be shield-to-shield against the phalanx in front of him, and the two phalanxes would engage in a "reverse tug of war". It would be a colossal pushing match, and the phalanx that gave way and lost formation first would be split and broken apart, and would have to retreat. According to this camp, it is only then, when soldiers presented their backs, that they would be at a very high risk of being stabbed in the back and killed. Casualties, overall, were thought to be about 20% on the losing side, which is good by modern standards.

This othismos interpretation will claim that the design of Greek shields, the armour, the primary sources etc all conspire to verify it.

I was unaware before reading THE WESTERN WAY OF WAR that a lot of Greek sources don't really emphasise drilling and close order practice as of value, it's implied that there's very little skill required to be part of a phalanx, it's all about physical toughness and mental fortitude.

The other camp, the metaphorical camp, says that phalanx warfare was not a big pushing match, that in practical terms it would be absurd, and that in fact they approached in close order but thereafter the combat was likely more of a stood-off exchange of spears, stabbing and also thrown. This is probably more like what people outside of classical scholarship imagined phalanx warfare to be like, in that it allows for more individual skill and martial ability. In this view, the othismos reference to pushing just means something like driving the opponent off the battlefield.

A good summary here:-

The Othismos | The Hoplite Battle Experience (psu.edu)

"Xenophon, an Athenian historian and soldier, described Spartan and Theban phalanxes colliding at the battle of Coronea in 394 BC where the opposing forces were “shield against shield” and the same was described by Thucydides at the battle of Delium in 424 BC (see Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, 4.96). This is an example of the phalanx using the Othismos in the literal way. However there are many accounts that focus the Othismos on being more of a figurative push, and “shield against shield” describes the shield wall that occurred from the formation in which the hoplites were standing in. Some battle accounts, such as at the ‘Tearless Battle’ in 368 BC state that the Spartans inflicted their first casualties on the Argives once they were in range of their spears (see Xenophon, Hellenica, 7.1.31).  This suggest that until that moment, the armies had not touched each other, so a literal push could not be possible. The othismos at this battle seems to be a metaphorical push".

This seems, to me, to be the fairest POV: Sometimes the othismos is meant literally, sometimes it is meant figuratively.

It is logical to me that sometimes troops would collapse the distance with their opponents and they would end up in close-quarter battles, 'shield to shield', and it makes sense that there could be a lot of pushing and bashing that then went on to obtain a superior position or generate momentum to push their opponents off an objective or to cause them to stumble or have to fight moving backwards, which is always a significant challenge for soldiers of any kind.

But equally I can understand the scepticism that phalanx warfare would evolve into a situation where it was just a glorified 'reverse tug of war' where suddenly people are more focused on pushing with their shields than on finding ways to actually cut or bludgeon their opponents.

I am also sceptical that phalanxes would have been so feared by non Greeks if this was their central approach. VDH suggests that phalanxes would have run at non Greek forces (So far so good), protected from missile fire by their heavy armour (Still sounds good), smashing into the opponent's lines (Great) and ... Pushing them out of formation, causing them to retreat... (Hmmm). I just don't buy that they wouldn't primarily have been advancing seeking to use lethal force, rather than thinking in terms of just breaking positions and lines in order to cause a retreat.

You do find these theories cropping up elsewhere in historical re-enactment.

A lot of work has been done in recent years trying to re-construct how Vikings used their shields and hand weapons, and how medieval people used their sword and bucklers. In the case of the Vikings there are no primary sources left with illustrations, it's just based on archaeology and what's in the sagas. In the case of the sword and buckler there are some medieval manuscripts but they are very hard to decipher (I.33 if you're interested).

In the case of the Viking shield, some people have a theory that it was used as the primary tool in hand to hand combat, and that the centre-grip meant that it could swing 'open' and 'shut' and that the warrior would basically lick out with his hand weapon to either side, high or low, depending on the position of the shield. So some re-enactors have fought using this approach, and in competitive bouts they ended up developing it into their weird-looking exchange where it's almost delicate. The big, round shields lay flat on top of each other easily, and they started basically binding them and trying to push the other guy's shield out of the way with deft flicks and pushes. What they do works in the internal logic of how they've set up their bouts, and they then started staying that "this is what Viking shield combat looked like". The only problem being that, like a very literal theory of the othismos as a giant pushing match for the most part, it doesn't really square with how we know that the reality of human violence is actually very straightforward, aggressive and violent for the most part. It's hard to believe that Viking combat exchanges were in any way zen or tai chi like.

Similarly, there are sword and buckler systems put out by re-enactors which almost forget that the buckler was reportedly used as an aggressive pushing and stabbing tool, and the fact that a sword was in the other hand. Some of these systems, as with the Viking stuff, can end up looking very dance-like and delicate.