The Player of Games, Iain M Banks
(The cover of my edition is much nicer than this orange ugliness.)
What happens when an outsider plays a game designed to reflect life in an alien empire? Are games, like language, a reflection of our values and assumptions?
This is another fun sci-fi story from Banks. No real twist, not a lot of character development, but a steady pace and lots of detail about both the Culture and the Azad way of life. As with Consider Phlebas, there’s no good guy/bad guy or a moral to the story, just shades of grey and some pithy observations about what happens when there’s a clash of cultures.
I loved the drone Flere-Imsaho and really enjoyed the night on the town with the ambassador Za. The game sequences were interesting, and I thought they were better for being revealed in terms of strategy rather than as detailed lists of pieces and moves. It let me use my own imagination to see the board and pieces. The Emperor’s actions at the end were surprising but made sense in hindsight.
I’ll definitely be following up with the rest of the Culture series.
Consider Phlebas, by Iain M Banks
My first Culture novel, and the first in the series. The universe as set up is creative and wide open to future possibilities. The Idiran-Culture war makes a good backdrop for the plot, which is a straight heist/adventure even though it’s got an ending which questions the point of what the protaganist is trying to do. Drawbacks were the thin characterisation and a few detours to set-pieces that didn’t seem to advance either the plot or the characters’ development. The Palace of Light and the Eaters seemed like great concepts that just held everything up. I didn’t mind the introduction as much as some other reviewers - it seemed like a Bond movie cold-open to me.
I’m interested to see where the rest of the books in the series go - often the first in a batch isn’t representative, but I like the idea of the Culture and the Minds enough to see what happens next.
Breath, Tim Winton
Not my cup of tea. This was my first Winton novel, and I enjoyed the beautiful, masterful writing. But coming-of-age stories and the macho environment of surfing in the 70s don’t appeal to me.
The twist (not really a twist, I guess, just a revelation about a character) that some reviewers dislike so much was interesting. I felt that it punched through the main character’s blithe assumption that his thrill-seeking behaviour made him tougher and more special than other people. Winton uses it to show what’s really messed up about what they do, without judging or sentimentalising. But I felt that the effect it had on the main character’s adult life wasn’t really justified by the events in the book - it seemed mismatched, somehow, and the remainder of the story felt rushed.
That said, I can see why people rave about Winton. If all his other books are so blokey I’m not sure I’ll seek them out, but if they come my way I’d be happy to give them a chance.
Solar by Ian McEwan
Protagonist? Unrepentant arsehole. Plot? Minimalist. Ending? Unresolved, almost a cliffhanger. This is really a 2.5 star rating: normally I’m fine with being forced to choose between 2 or 3, but I just can’t with this one.
I’d been meaning to read some Ian McEwan for a while, but didn’t pick any up until Tim Minchin (excellent comedian, check him out) raved about Solar.
The main character, Michael Beard, might just be the world’s last best hope. He’s clever and resourceful and has come across a really great idea to save the world from climate change. Unfortunately, he’s a gluttonous, arrogant, selfish bastard, and lets his short-term personal desires outweigh the long-term interests of humanity. But isn’t that like us all? Michael Beard is all our worst habits rolled into one.
And if you take my view that Beard represents us all, our reaction in the face of climate change, then that cliffhanger ending looks pretty grim. There’s still hope (there’s always hope), but it needs a change of heart that Beard has resisted for his entire life. There is no ending to this story, because it’s our story, and that hasn’t ended yet either.
So: point well made, McEwan. And so well written too, concise and elegant. But since it’s all from a first-person point of view, and that person is so horrible, it makes this a really difficult book to read. I put it down several times, drawn back by the suspense: would Beard ever get it right? But the ending leaves me hanging.
There are people who love it, and they’re probably right. It’s just that it was both one of the best books I’ve read lately, and the most annoying, and the irritation was the point. So I’m giving it 2.5 stars to represent my ambiguous response :)
PS: things I still don’t understand: the relevance of the ‘stranger on a train’ incident; what happened to his penis - was it fixed? Not sure I can handle re-reading to find out.
Bad Science
Bad Science by Ben Goldacre
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Borrowed this book from a friend. Lots of useful information and advice on how to understand scientific research, in the context of health issues in the UK.
Goldacre points out the absurdities of homeopathy, nutritionism and the MMR scares in a way that makes it easy for anyone to understand the problems. He’s also fierce in denouncing the lazy and often dishonest approach the media takes towards scientific research.
However, he has a tendency to generalise from the journalists and media staff he’s really attacking to the more general ‘humanties graduates’, which seems unfair to me. I’m sure there are perfectly lovely historians, librarians, etc out there who wouldn’t have any problem with understanding scientific papers!
His style is a bit patchy, jumping from one topic to the next then back to the first. He’s giving a practical overview of why alternative healthcare is a problem alongside an attack on scientific illiteracy, and it might have been better if he’d split those topics into two books instead. I’d certainly read either one.
I like his fiery advocacy for honesty and rationalism where public health issues are concerned. His very short ‘further reading’ section at the end looks like a goldmine and I’ll definitely be checking those books out. I’d also add that Michael Pollan’s ‘In Defense of Food’ tackles the nutritionism issue from a different angle and makes a good companion to that section of Goldacre’s book.
Making Animals Happy
Making Animals Happy: How to Create the Best Life for Pets and Other Animals by Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
This is a fascinating book about the psychology(? neurology?) of animals and how that relates to taking care of our pets, farm animals and wild animals. We know how to provide adequate physical care of animals, but how can we know if we’re taking care of their mental health when they can’t speak to us about how they feel?
The book is co-authored, but written from Grandin’s perspective. She talks about her experiences growing up with dogs, horses and cows, her research into animal happiness, and her work creating more humane systems for agricultural businesses. Along the way she shares the best research done by other people and puts it into terms that non-scientists can understand.
And there’s plenty of animal trivia too, about zebras and chickens and pigs and gerbils and polar bears. I’ve got plenty of ideas for the next quiz night questions I write!
As a cat person, I enjoyed her chapter on them although some of it was already known to me. There were still good stories and things to be learned. As for the other chapters on dogs, farm animals and wildlife, there was so much I had no idea about and enjoyed learning.
I recommend this book to anyone who keeps pets, or eats meat, or visits zoos. Grandin is keen to share what she knows so that people can do a better job of caring for the animals in our lives. She’s clearly angry about people who deliberately mistreat animals, but even then she has good suggestions for what can be done about those kinds of people. Her passion for animal welfare is grounded and practical, and I believe more people should be paying attention to her ideas.
Jane Austen by Carol Shields
My rating: 3 of 5 stars Re-read in February 2010.
A short biography of Austen, focused on her literary work and not on digging through the minutiae of her life. You can tell Shields is a novelist herself, because she doesn’t waste time looking for the real-life equivalent of Mr Darcy or Emma or the Elliots. Instead she analyses how Austen’s circumstances could have led to differences between the published novels.
Austen drew on her imagination for her stories, and there are few details left about her life, so we are left speculating about her personality and long sections of her history. I don’t always agree with Shields’ conclusions, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading about them. Shields’ doesn’t romanticise Austen’s life, and (like Claire Tomalin, who also has an excellent biography of Austen) acknowledges the money and independence issues that lead to Austen deciding to pursue publication. Well worth a look for Austen fans.
Bait and Switch: The (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream by Barbara Ehrenreich
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
An interesting look at white-collar unemployment in the USA. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it much, but Ehrenreich brings a dark sense of humour to a bleak topic, and seems open to all the new experiences she encounters. I think anyone who’s been unable to find a white-collar job will be able to identify with the weird situation it puts you in, although the element of desperation might only be relevant to countries without a proper safety net for the unemployed.
The superstitious emphasis on positive thinking, conformity, likeability and religion reminded me of the Todd Haynes movie “Safe”. Although that’s a fictional story focused on a different topic, it still felt so familiar: that sense of victim-blaming for systematic injustice. People are aware that there’s no logic in the hiring and firing of people in corporate jobs, so they resort to magical thinking to get themselves through.
Between Enron, Goldman Sachs and AIG and their ilk, the ridiculous state of health care, the lack of any proper unemployment benefits, and the ludicrously high cost of education I really worry about my friends in the USA. The more news and non-fiction I read about it and the more documentaries I see, the more I think it’s turned into a plutocracy.
Ehrenreich is right - the middle-class is no longer protected, and they need to organise if they want to see any justice in their working lives. View all my reviews »
When we were orphans: Kazuo Ishiguro
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a challenging novel. It’s not a standard detective story, and it’s not a standard unreliable narrator tale either. There are clues, but they contradict each other, and Ishiguro leaves it up to you to decide if that even matters.
Banks is one of the most frustrating narrators I’ve read lately. His tunnel-vision drives me as batty as the not-quite-sure but no-really-he-must-be suspicion that he’s delusional.
I was determined to read to the end to see if there was any resolution here, but when I got it I didn’t believe it anyway. The real story is about how Banks and the other orphans deal with their loss (and what that says about international politics and war, if you want to get all metaphorical, and I think you do).
It helps a little to know that the battle Banks encounters on his return to Shanghai is the Nanking massacre, and that there are historical revisionists who claim it wasn’t all that bad as massacres go. It adds another dimension to the general theme of the unreliability of memory.
The little detail I most enjoyed was what happened every time Banks picked up his magnifying glass, or binoculars, or opera glasses. Very telling.
Ishiguro once again makes us think about how childhood experiences shape our lives, and wonder if there’s any point trying to resolve old wounds. This is certainly the most difficult novel of his that I’ve read, although I haven’t tackled The Unconsolable yet, so we’ll see how I go. View all my reviews »
Nation by Terry Pratchett
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
One of Pratchett’s few non-Discworld books, and one I really loved. It’s about what you do when everything you thought you knew gets turned upside down. And also about grief, and growing up, and culture clashes, and history, and tree-climbing octopuses, and milking pigs.
It’s set on an alternate Earth, similar but different from ours, maybe during the Victorian era in a not-quite kind of way. The geography and the history are recognisable without being quite the same as ours.
Mau, the island boy, and Ermintrude, the English girl travelling by sea, are both learning how to be grown-ups when a tsunami leaves them as the only two people on Mau’s island. More survivors show up, and look to them for guidance on how things are going to be done here and now.
Mau’s grief and his determination to understand the world around him are really touching and make you want so much for him to succeed. Ermintrude’s willingness to abandon her ideas of what’s correct and proper in favour of real practicality and compassion are great fun too.
And I loved the minor characters: Milo and Pilu make a great team, Cahle and Mrs Gurgle are fun, and the villains suitably nasty.
I guess when publishers stick a YA label on books, it’s more like a “you must be at least this tall to go on this ride” thing than a “only teens should read this”. Or I hope so, because this short novel is suitable for anyone over 13, in my opinion. View all my reviews »
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