tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54107054364423775942024-03-17T02:17:38.158-07:00Matthew Gordon BooksMatthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.comBlogger405125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-39517123219669403042023-12-14T09:48:00.000-08:002023-12-14T09:49:20.664-08:00When We Walk By<p style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">When We Walk By</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> by Kevin F.
Adler, Donald W. Burnes et al.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Social Issues (2023 - 235 pp.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><i>When We Walk By</i> is a
brand-new part-monograph, part-activism book by San Francisco-based social
entrepreneur Kevin Adler, academic Donald Burnes, and two assistants,*
exploring the causes and effects of homelessness in the United States, as well
as possible solutions. Being from Toronto, a city in the midst of a housing
crisis, I compared the situations in my hometown, San Francisco and Los Angeles as I read the book, as well as the (so-far) attempted solutions.<span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">At the heart of the book’s message
is Kevin’s company Miracle Messages, which has reunited 800 unhoused people since
2014. Among their innovative methods include attaching body cameras to unhoused
volunteers, which allows their stories to be told in real time, and the
extensive use of social media to locate family members across the United States.
On a personal note, the book is dedicated to Kevin’s uncle Mark, who lived on
the streets of Santa Cruz for three decades, and is sadly no longer with us.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">The book flows easily, with each
chapter exploring a different facet of homelessness. From Kevin’s personal
story in the introduction, the book shifts into a more neutral tone, covering
topics like relational poverty, paternalism, and transcarceration. Relational
poverty is straightforward, in which people can experience homelessness not so
much due to financial or logistical concerns, but due to the lack of a social
network, which isolates them from their peers. The authors divide paternalism
into <i>progressive paternalism</i>, which is making someone else’s decisions
out of a misguided belief that they are being helped, and <i>punitive
paternalism</i>, which is making someone else’s decision as though the decider
is handing out a criminal sentence. (64) The authors point out a particularly
bizarre instance of paternalism, in which a person experiencing homelessness
received a “Blue Apron-style” package of food; the package contained tuna and
peanut butter, and the recipient was allergic to both. (72) Depending on the aid
offered and what the unhoused person needs, a supposedly humanitarian gesture
may actually be harmful.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Transcarceration is a relatively new
word within the sociological lexicon, so I’ll post <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/transcarceration">the Legal Information
Institute definition</a> in full:</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 72pt 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Transcarceration is
the transfer of prisoners or persons institutionalized for mental illness from
one facility to another of the same type. Through transcarceration,
prisoners are moved to another prison, and the institutionalized mentally ill
are moved to another psychiatric hospital.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Entering the public eye during the
dismantling of <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2018/08/julys-book-one-flew-over-cuckoos-nest.html">the
often-horrifying state mental asylum system</a>, transcarceration saw the
mentally ill shuttled to prisons or the streets. As the authors note, this
process causes them to frequently lose social connections (for example, if they
are transported to a different part of a large state) or lose access to
necessary medical treatment. (119, 151-152)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">The invisibility of homelessness is
striking. Contrary to the stigmatized stereotypes of disheveled, reeking
addicts rabble-rousing on street corners, over half the unhoused live in
shelters, and a significant portion are families. (2) These shelters often
separate families due to stringent gender requirements, and in some cases are
even less safe than life on the streets. (97)</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">My favourite of the authors’
recommended solutions is the tiny home village movement. Having lived in a
Toronto-sized apartment, and being familiar with the similar Canadian concept
of <a href="https://bunkielife.com/ontario-cabin-bunkie-kits/">“bunkies”</a>,**
I thought immediately of how relatively simple tiny homes are to construct.***
Ranging from 100-200 square feet or thereabouts, tiny houses can provide people
a place to sleep and store their belongings while taking up very little space.
They’re not just for the homeless either – I have a friend in Alaska who is
currently planning a tiny home village for people on fishing vacations. What
surprised me, as the authors point out, is that tiny homes were one of the
solutions San Francisco employed following the 1906 earthquake, which displaced
250,000 of the city’s the 400,000-person population. The San Franciscans of
that age were more than likely to go from<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>squatting in rubble to living in tiny houses, through, as the authors
emphasize, no fault of their own. (212-213) As an erstwhile student of American
history, that tale of tiny houses, right in Kevin’s back yard, brought a smile
to my face.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Less convincing are the discussions
of wages. Unexplained is why a single earner making the minimum wage should be
able to support a family of four (108); as a Torontonian, it would puzzle me to
see this idealistic scenario play out in my city when many middle-class people
here can barely support themselves. The growth of CEO salaries relative to
average worker salaries is also mentioned (109), but the wealthiest CEOs make
relatively little in base pay compared to their benefits, stock, stock options
and restricted stock units. People living paycheck to paycheck frequently need money
<i>right now</i>, as opposed to stock options that may take years to vest.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">A further research direction that
could be useful in the broader housing crisis discussion is the work on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness">learned helplessness</a>,
broadly defined as “the behavior exhibited by a subject after enduring
repeated <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aversive_stimuli" title="Aversive stimuli">aversive stimuli</a> beyond their control.” If
someone’s repeated attempts to secure housing are met with draconian
restrictions, or they are subjected to constant paternalism by well-meaning (or
not-so-well-meaning) authorities who never listen to them, why should they keep
trying? Why shouldn’t they give up and resign themselves to life on the
streets? True help may come in the form of giving someone hope.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">My own volunteer experience is
adjacent to Miracle Messages and other unhoused-supporting charities; I have
put in over 120 hours in 2023 at my local food bank.**** There, I work in the
community kitchen, cooking meals that are frozen and then distributed to over
180 locations across Toronto. I am certain I have met some people experiencing
homelessness during my time there, and others living in precarious arrangements
that could lead to homelessness. However, at staff and volunteer lunches I eat
the same meals I cook for anyone who stops by, no questions asked. Vegetarian
options are always available, and only foods containing known ingredients are
used in order to avoid accidentally giving someone an allergic reaction. This
food bank also accepts medication donations, which are often more necessary to
sustain those experiencing homelessness than a can of tuna or a free burger
from McDonald’s. In Toronto, a wealthy city by any stretch of the imagination,
I meet people all the time who have at least some of the same needs as the
people whose stories come onto the page throughout <i>When We Walk By</i>.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Those stories make the book
different from a pure academic monograph. They humanize homelessness, not
through attempts to cherry-pick the direst situations possible, but to show who
the authors actually met on their journeys. Talk to a person experiencing
homelessness, and you might meet Adam, Ray, Gabe, Lainie, Jeffrey, Linda,
David, Timothy, Rand, Tom, Elizabeth, Joseph, Angelo, or any of the others.
(Ronnie, sadly, passed away while awaiting senior housing.) Some of them no
doubt just want to re-meet their families, shed the stigma of homelessness, and
get out of the cold.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Ease of Reading: 7<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Educational Content: 7</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">*Amanda Banh and Andrijana Bilbija,
two recent graduates.<span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">**It’s tougher than you’d think to
find bunkie websites unaffiliated with any particular seller. I myself have no
stake in the bunkie industry.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">***Given the high cost of
“frequent-flyer” hospitalizing, policing and prosecuting the unhoused, it may
actually be cheaper to just build them all tiny houses. (122-124) I’m a lawyer,
and <i>I</i> would appreciate a tiny house, if only to have a place downtown I
can stay at instead of paying for taxi fare home. For someone with no home, the
need is far more acute.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">****The Daily Bread Food Bank at
Islington and Lake Shore, for those interested in seeing how a large-scale food
bank works. A nice young man recognized me from there at a restaurant in Guelph
in early December. Two middle-class people, in a city an hour outside of
Toronto, and the food bank was our common ground.</p>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-81516369028529102802022-10-04T08:20:00.000-07:002022-10-04T08:20:02.595-07:00King's Steel<p style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0cm;">King’s Steel</i><span style="font-size: x-large; text-indent: 0cm;"> by John Morris</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Fantasy (2022 – 645 pp.)<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">John R. Morris’s </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">
is a brand new release in the epic high fantasy genre. Morris’s protagonist,
Major Kallan Garrik, investigates a rash of soulstealers who threaten his home
kingdom, while the mysterious but beautiful Vala and a cadre of loyal soldiers*
join him in uncovering a long-held, deep-seated, magical grudge. While </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s
Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> doesn’t break new ground, it zips along at a pace rivaling even the
pulpiest airport novel, making its considerable length (approximately 154,000
words) more manageable than most books of that length.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">A historical division within the
fantasy genre is often between sword and sorcery (exactly what it sounds like),
typified by series like</span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;"> The Chronicles of Prydain</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> and </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">Conan the
Barbarian</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">, and fantasies more contemplative of the social and cultural
conditions in which the characters live. In </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">, Morris
balances both ends of the spectrum. The book opens with Kallan immediately in
swashbuckling mode, which establishes him as a formidable fighter, but also
demonstrates the teamwork that will be necessary to overcome the soulstealers
(or “hexen”, depending on which character is speaking). Starting at Chapter 28,
a semi-major character is a dressmaker. Morris describes the ladies’ dresses**
in sufficient detail that if </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> were ever optioned as a movie,
limited series or stage production, the costume designer would have plenty to
work with. Fans of the more Renaissance Faire style of fantasy will surely
enjoy those descriptions, all the way from Chapter 9 onward. Then, of course,
there are plenty more battles to be had.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Magic comes with rules. One of the
dictates of the fantasy genre is that no matter how much disbelief is
suspended, once the rules of the world are in place, the author must obey them.
Morris does this almost perfectly. Innate powers (tau) and crystals can heal,
but they drain the subject of energy. Kallan suffers grievous injuries that lay
him up in hotel rooms (well, it’s fantasy, so a room above an inn) for days at
a time. Although Kallan and Vala have a certain amount of plot armor, as one
expects in this genre, they never appear invincible, even when they are
enchanted. The one exception is the abrupt appearance of the portals, which are
crucial to transporting Vala and her compatriots across South Reach*** and
Urdan. The first instance of the word “portal” occurs in Chapter 19, and
completely threw me for a (hyper)loop.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Morris simultaneously employs and
subverts the quest theme. While Kallan’s story arc starts as a seemingly
straightforward quest to find out what the hexen are plotting against South
Reach, it quickly goes astray based on the shared goals of South Reach and
Urdan. Characters like Vala, Relenki and Bartholomew generally support Kallan
but insist on having a say in the overall goals of the quest. Magistrate
Allistrando of Urdan, by contrast, is extremely wary of exposing Urdan to other
kingdoms, acting in Chapter 39 as an isolationist who is initially opposed to
outward engagement. He eventually realizes he will need to form an alliance to
succeed over the hexen, completing his arc. Characters’ goals in </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s
Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> are rarely opposed or orthogonal, instead usually consisting of North
versus North-North-East. The primary exception is Andor, who is exposed as an
ostracized pariah who manipulates subjects from a distance.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">The only scenes I found wholly
unrealistic**** were the ring scene leading up to Chapter 45 and the courtroom
scene in Chapter 66. In the former, one of the characters requires an
engagement ring, so his first idea is to detach the gemstone from his sword’s
pommel. This is despite him belonging to a royal family, which presumably owns a
number of family heirloom rings that would be perfectly suited to the young
man’s upcoming engagement. Morris gives no reason as to why this character does
not first inquire about the family’s collection. The courtroom scene is typical
fantasy fare, complete with self-represented parties, sloppy court procedure,
and general proclamations of characters’ intentions. My qualm here is not with
Morris specifically, but rather with a time-honored tradition that needs to
perish. No more fantasy trials.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Otherwise, though, Morris makes the
world realer than many another fantasy author might have. Magistrate
Allistrando’s brother Luggio, for example, reveals in Chapter 40 that he is the
owner and proprietor of a restaurant. This is the ultimate illustration of how an
at least somewhat democratic country would differ from a top-down autocratic
kingdom; in democracies, merchants are prized for their successes, whereas in
autocracies they are typically not. One of my favorite characters, meanwhile,
is Yantz, who is a magical doctor. As mentioned above, characters’ injuries in </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s
Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> are bloody, debilitating, and result in extended infirmary stays.
Without Yantz, the whole troupe***** would probably be dead in the first third
of the novel.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">After unofficially retiring this
blog, it is fitting that my lone review of 2022 so far is a Fall 2022 release
full of adventure, romance and theme. </span><i style="text-indent: 0cm;">King’s Steel</i><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> is quick-reading
fantasy fun that should please both the martial and social fans.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">Ease of Reading: 10</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0cm;"><o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">Educational Content: 1<o:p></o:p></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;"><span style="text-indent: 0cm;">*There’s a Captain Greenway. The
chief editor of the book, who also wrote a foreword, is named William Greenway.
I imagine this is 100% pure coincidence with absolutely nothing more to it.</span><span style="text-indent: 0cm;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">**At one point, there’s a
form-fitting lavender wedding dress. Clearly the era of Disney Princesses is
behind us, and we’re ready for our fantastical brides to wear more modern
designs.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">***I kept reading “South Beach”
here, but alas, there was no Bam Adebayo sighting.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">****Again, by the standards of the
world. Healing crystals and soulstealers, I can accept as being pillars of a
fantasy world.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-indent: 0cm;">*****There are some misspellings of
this word as “troop”. Similarly, there are some instances of switching “hanged”
and “hung”. While these editorial issues niggle slightly, they are a cup of
water in Lake Superior compared to the red pen I would take to the average
thriller novel.</p>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-38502024074401556782022-03-24T11:07:00.000-07:002022-03-24T11:07:01.235-07:00Ten Years In<p style="text-align: justify;">Although this blog hasn't been maintained since August for a variety of reasons (i.e. my life has been way too busy since then), I thought I'd mark what would have been a momentous occasion had I still been reviewing books.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">I've reviewed over 100 books on here. Some are long, some are short. Some are fiction, some are non-fiction. Some are old, some are new. Some are highbrow, some... not so much. Over <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/12/books-reviewed-2013-2019.html">the 2013-2019 span alone</a>, I reviewed 91 books and read many others.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">In 2021-2022, my reading hasn't let up. I picked up <i>The First World War</i> by Hew Strachan, a remarkable summation of one of history's most violent conflicts. Then I took on <i>The Habsburgs</i> by Martyn Rady, a fantastic whirlwind tour through a thousand years of Europe's first family. Then I read <i>The Dragonbone Chair</i> by Tad Williams, a book so voluminous at 275,000 words it could have supplied three months' worth of reviews. Then I read <i>Homegoing</i> by Yaa Gyasi, the first book I'd ever been recommended at work. Now it's on toward other fiction and non-fiction, in the roughly alternating order I tend to take. While I make no guarantee as to what I'll read next, especially in this post-review state, I'd like to point out that I do own a <a href="https://www.loa.org/books/617-american-science-fiction-eight-classic-novels-of-the-1960s-boxed-set">Library of America science fiction collection</a>.</p><p>I don't see myself ever returning to "full-time", i.e. at least once per month, reviews on this blog, but I'll keep it active as a repository of book recommendations. </p><p>As always, onward and upward!</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0mCZBA9O4OOoQNmOdj-PPtQxupEaiMj078pvauURKR06m2URc4LfCFae4RtQMjRDKNqDMFjuRAUQllTQVzaFXCsDUxewzcmoW9GWrj8qWz6yCg7dik0KovYIEkx3j7gHNUG982Au9-k7sMbf0S85_-J6qRqYFApkUDkhVi4TDQ7IomIGqseoRG_v/s3264/COLOR_POP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjw0mCZBA9O4OOoQNmOdj-PPtQxupEaiMj078pvauURKR06m2URc4LfCFae4RtQMjRDKNqDMFjuRAUQllTQVzaFXCsDUxewzcmoW9GWrj8qWz6yCg7dik0KovYIEkx3j7gHNUG982Au9-k7sMbf0S85_-J6qRqYFApkUDkhVi4TDQ7IomIGqseoRG_v/w400-h300/COLOR_POP.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMwxbPb2KOlzwNc-zD-uwzB_8t0hXcF0hzefHufnJaW-flVdIBOnu6KaOdaSQvz1H3BdBQoxpGX8Zeq_aOwl4FDdVNtg235BKnq2RuAGmfLuIbkcgfJtCeZSTAqMWZyBm5Gvbl7rrHsEVMRnTonbgOaRkA9IImeNEbIT_6CI-0erpN6L0gn6ZrGosB/s4032/PXL_20220323_203441334.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMwxbPb2KOlzwNc-zD-uwzB_8t0hXcF0hzefHufnJaW-flVdIBOnu6KaOdaSQvz1H3BdBQoxpGX8Zeq_aOwl4FDdVNtg235BKnq2RuAGmfLuIbkcgfJtCeZSTAqMWZyBm5Gvbl7rrHsEVMRnTonbgOaRkA9IImeNEbIT_6CI-0erpN6L0gn6ZrGosB/w400-h300/PXL_20220323_203441334.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: center;"><i>Pictured: Art Gallery of Ontario, yesterday. Not all art is written down!</i></p><p style="text-align: left;">Happy Ten Years, my 2012 self. I'd like to think I've made you proud.</p>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-52506987361681287282021-08-30T08:03:00.000-07:002021-08-30T08:03:12.455-07:00August's Book: The Luminaries<div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Luminaries</i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> by Eleanor Catton</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Western (2013 - 832 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Eleanor Catton is a Canadian writer, two years older than me, who won the 2013 Man Booker Prize for <i>The Luminaries</i> while I was still in law school. Bravo. More to the point, she was raised in Christchurch, New Zealand, and was evidently inspired enough by local history to set <i>The Luminaries</i> in 1866 during the New Zealand gold rush. Historically accurate gold miners, outlaws, and sketchy rural pharmacists abound, as a patchwork jury of 13 local men attempt to figure out who killed Crosbie Wells, why the opium-addicted prostitute Anna Wetherell was drugged, and who made off with all the money.</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Our protagonist, young lawyer Walter Moody, comes upon the scene to find twenty-four-year-old mining mogul Emery Staines vanished and presumed dead. Moody is convinced he hears Staines's ghost inside a nailed-shut wooden crate on board a ship, while charlatan madam Lydia Wells organizes a seance to communicate with the presumably deceased Staines. The other characters, such as my favourite back-alley chemist Joseph Pritchard and semi-sleazy banker Charlie Frost, have to watch all this unfold. Catton's strength is in creating lovable characters, whose stunned responses to the madhouse scenarios thrown their way echoes how readers would react to those same scenarios. The town's hospital is so useless, people with all manners of maladies are sent directly to Pritchard, sometimes in a wagon. Harald Nilssen, a commission merchant, seems ready to commission just about anything. (Non-spoiler: yes, this gets him in hot water.) In a tiny town far away from the rest of civilization, the most qualified person appears to perform any number of tasks. I shudder to think of myself providing tax law advice, but then, it's not like much was being taxed in New Zealand in 1866 anyhow.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The prevalence of the shipping industry in that era's New Zealand gives Catton the license to have characters appear, exit, or be totally transient. Stowing away on a cargo ship proves a cheap and easy way to see the world. Alternatively, Ah Sook's transportation from Kowloon to New Zealand ends up being the bane of his existence, as he tearfully confesses. Generalized ne'er-do-well Francis Carver, son of a wealthy merchant, becomes a fraudster who serves as the book's main antagonist. I use the term "antagonist" loosely, as none of the characters in <i>The Luminaries</i> appear to be nice people, exciting as their stories are.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The timeline jumps back from 1866 to 1865, so the reader has to be careful to watch for the date accompanying each chapter. At one point, the book travels exactly a year into the past, (656) which was initially confusing but quickly became clear. Catton's interrupted timeline allows the reader to see past events through the lens of their inevitable fallouts, which gives the last quarter or so of the book a very "aha!" feel.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Shockingly, in an 832-page book featuring a prostitute and taking place in multiple hotels, there is no sex scene. I am not entirely sure what to make of this, which means that in an already too-long book,* it is probably for the best that there is no additional material. Judicial clerk Gascoigne is certainly tempted by Anna, Staines is her lover for a brief time, and she frequently passes out high on opium in Ah Sook's den, but <a href="https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/Amber_Simpson">that's as far as it went</a>. In reference to Anna's initial recruitment to prostitution, I smiled upon seeing the term "euchred", (694) although <a href="https://www.parlettgames.uk/histocs/euchre.html">the card game was not yet cemented in its modern form</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The courtroom scenes fell flat for me. As someone who finds inevitably inaccurate courtroom drama interminable, I found the entire section on the trial wearing. Catton confuses some criminal and civil terms as well (why would a criminal case have a plaintiff?), although it's entirely possible New Zealand trials in 1866 were sloppy, haphazard affairs. Nonetheless, legal inaccuracy in media is an ongoing nuisance to me. By contrast, Wells's letters (469-479) were gripping. Reading faux-19th-century correspondence written with the knowledge it might never be returned is at once tragic and investigatory, as though I were an archivist pawing through old letters trying to solve the case. The closest comparison is to Adam Ewing's journal in <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/09/fall-into-my-summer-reading-list.html">Cloud Atlas</a></i>, which is my favourite part of that book.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't usually read westerns, but when I do, they seem to be <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2018/12/novembers-book-winter-family.html">written by Canadians</a>. What a fun genre. I think we could all use a few more gunslingers on our reading lists.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 9</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 3**</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*<i>The Luminaries</i> clocks in at a hideous <a href="https://www.artfuleditor.com/blog/2018/10/16/why-word-count-matters-when-you-submit-your-book">263,000 words</a>. By comparison, notable doorstopper <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2017/11/novembers-book-perdido-street-station.html">Perdido Street Station</a></i> by China Mieville (220,000 words) is approximately half a novel shorter than <i>The Luminaries</i>. I'd say someone should have hired Catton an additional editor, but she has a Man Booker Prize and I don't, so the point is taken.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**For a book that does not purport to contain any educational content whatsoever, <i>The Luminaries</i> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">provides a good overview of the New Zealand of the time period from 30,000 feet. While the book is about as realistic as Jack London's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/06/last-weeks-book-white-fang.html">White Fang</a></i> and <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/bonus-book-call-of-wild.html">Call of the Wild</a></i>, it captures the spirit of the times well.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-64859145320626736872021-07-13T14:55:00.000-07:002021-07-13T14:55:08.794-07:00July's Book: Tuesdays with Morrie<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Tuesdays with Morrie</i> by Mitch Albom</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Journalism (1997 - 192 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Having discussed Mitch Albom's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/02/januarys-book-time-keeper.html">Time Keeper</a></i> on here over eight years ago, and being a long-time fan of Albom's basketball writing, I figured it was high time to return to him. This time, it's a more philosophical bent, although the past year and a half of pandemic life has made us all a bit more philosophical. Albom's old professor, Morrie Schwartz, was dying of ALS at the time of writing, but was kind enough to share some profound life wisdom with Albom. The book is organized into a series of vignettes, featuring fourteen consecutive Tuesday conversations between Schwartz and Albom, as well as flashbacks to earlier time in Schwartz's life. Accepting one's imminent mortality, as Schwartz learned to do, leads to much-needed pondering about what is really important in life.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Schwartz spends much of the book railing against an America that is too obsessed with moneymaking at the expense of relationships. Although Schwartz waxes poetic, he is also unfailingly direct, making statements like "We are too involved in materialistic things, and they don't satisfy us." (84) Schwartz's core values of kindness, forgiveness and family transcend his own life,* influencing Albom heavily as the book progresses. Albom expresses regret for chasing too many dollars and not enjoying life enough, but when he shares these regrets with Schwartz, the teacher shares one of his last lessons, that we have to forgive ourselves "For all the things we didn't do. All the things we should have done." (166) As someone who has taken many of life's opportunities and passed up a few others, and is self-critical by nature, what could I have done differently? Living <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/08/bonus-book-mindful-day-mindful-scorecard.html">in the present</a> has helped, especially when it comes to exercising** and writing, but the question always remains of <i>what more should I be doing?</i> Ironically, Albom mentions that "America had become a Persian bazaar of self-help", (65) combining the images of materialism and salesmanship, but does <i>Tuesdays with Morrie</i> simply add to the heap?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As much as Schwartz's body failed him in those last months, he and Albom were always able to share a good laugh together. Albom's sense of humour emerges within the book's first few pages, when he gives a short physical description of Schwartz: "In his graduation robe, he looks like a cross between a Biblical prophet and a Christmas elf." (3) Having graduated from an American school that is known for its pageantry, there is a Henry VIII-level theatricality. One of the book's funniest moments comes when Schwartz is discussing his early career as a psychologist, when a woman told him how thankful she was to be in Chestnut Lodge mental hospital. When Schwartz is appropriately befuddled as to why someone would be thankful for being institutionalized, she quips back about the quality of the lodgings, "Can you imagine if I had to be in one of those cheap mental hospitals?" (110) Schwartz's jokes about needing to eventually have his behind wiped for him provides much-needed bathroom humour.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I would be remiss to read <i>Tuesdays with Morrie</i> as a cold, clinical document, as though it were some Elizabethan screenplay. Part of getting Albom's and Schwartz's full emotional spectrum is self-reflection during and after reading. I thought of my own experience with loss - at one point, I was losing a family member each calendar year. I also thought about all I've accomplished, and how excited I am to move forward with the rest of 2021. Schwartz draws considerable attention to the lack of meaning in peoples' lives when they live in the past, and how the mark of a meaningful life is the desire to always move forward toward the future. (118) As someone who always seeks new challenges, I like Schwartz's attitude. I'm trying to make each day even better than the last, complete with <a href="http://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2021/07/a-day-of-authentic-happiness.html">measurable happiness gains</a>. For Schwartz to have spent those last few months of his life always looking toward the future, even when he had a distinguished past and the future held a lifetime of ALS, is courageous. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div>In the spirit of my "giving credit where credit is due" tradition, I am pleased to credit Albom with teaching me a new word. Apparently, a <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lavaliere">"lavaliere"</a> is "an ornamental pendant, usually jeweled, worn on a chain around the neck." It is also a type of microphone.</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I read this entire book today, on a Tuesday.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 10</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 3</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*Other life guide-type books espouse similar values, sometimes with <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/09/bonus-book-subtle-art-of-not-giving-fck.html">even less subtlety</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**I will hit 1,000 miles on the treadmill later this week. I have lost 25 pounds in 2021, one 5-pound month at a time. I should have run yesterday, but I didn't, so I'm going to take Morrie Schwartz's advice and forgive myself.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-79803467951154616002021-07-08T11:08:00.001-07:002021-07-08T11:08:54.461-07:00A Day of Authentic Happiness<div style="text-align: justify;">For those who know me, I'm an <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/08/bonus-book-mindful-day-mindful-scorecard.html">extremely happy person</a>, I love being the subject of focus groups or research studies, and I <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/09/soup-diet-week-its-all-over-now.html">love arbitrarily defined Iron Man challenges</a>. I'm also an <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/09/designated-survivor-cornell.html">Ivy League graduate</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">Naturally, when I saw the opportunity to sign up for the University of Pennsylvania's Authentic Happiness tests, for free, I figured: <b><i>Why not complete all 26 tests in one day?</i></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I completed 24 out of 26, as one is for children, and one requires a workplace profile that is impossible to approximate <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-covid-19-menu-so-far.html">in these COVID times</a>. Some tests are north of 100 questions, while others are under 10. There are no wrong answers, except when an answer is telegraphed to make you look worse. The lot of them took me almost 4 hours, with frequent meal/phone/bathroom/<a href="https://www.quora.com/profile/Matthew-Gordon-7">social media</a> breaks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><a href="https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/testcenter">Test Center</a></b> link, for anyone interested in taking these tests themselves</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here are my results:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnnDgQeHeByGjrL_rHLrff4YZHy7N6_0dvsckVWXiTrGj4WunMBPI0kuWygK2EG7rpjfILJ4KnrD0At7QyHJ7AmLDgbxYik_fI-Bb2bB0fDJgFmmU20XWxO5Wq3V-KbDW4laRNLYGW9Y/s2048/95260be4313840e68725250d83e98224-0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisnnDgQeHeByGjrL_rHLrff4YZHy7N6_0dvsckVWXiTrGj4WunMBPI0kuWygK2EG7rpjfILJ4KnrD0At7QyHJ7AmLDgbxYik_fI-Bb2bB0fDJgFmmU20XWxO5Wq3V-KbDW4laRNLYGW9Y/w494-h640/95260be4313840e68725250d83e98224-0001.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkW3SVb9p7SZW2PN_bw50dLScy3yYlFUSCv1Xo6lH5Y8wHVpnbAN8FMpYgE81ee0rbIbLxESEgkI9BZ3ssCE_AaKhAwtlsWayjSEx06Ly-Fq4OGStkQXI43Wk8J7ZSsl0wD3YCKPlF8es/s2048/95260be4313840e68725250d83e98224-0002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1583" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkW3SVb9p7SZW2PN_bw50dLScy3yYlFUSCv1Xo6lH5Y8wHVpnbAN8FMpYgE81ee0rbIbLxESEgkI9BZ3ssCE_AaKhAwtlsWayjSEx06Ly-Fq4OGStkQXI43Wk8J7ZSsl0wD3YCKPlF8es/w494-h640/95260be4313840e68725250d83e98224-0002.jpg" width="494" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Key observations:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>I am apparently a happy person whose top strengths are Vitality and Love of Learning. I can get behind this.</li><li>I found the Optimism Test the toughest to take. Often, there would be two options for a statement I would associate with an event, when I would associate neither with that event. On the plus side, I have a distinct lack of Permanence-Bad perspectives on life.</li><li>I scored 41 out of 42 on Gratitude. I am a supremely grateful person, a reality for which I, to be circular, am quite grateful. (Admittedly, the low end is 6, not 0.)</li><li>On the Grit Survey, measuring "perseverance and passion for long-term goals", I scored relatively high (3.92 out of 5), but right around the median for people of my education level. I wonder whether people with advanced degrees see those degrees as the long-term goals requiring perseverance and passion in the first place, making their answers relative to each other a batch of white noise.</li><li>A few of the tests were so micro as to make me wonder about the extent of their usefulness. This was especially true with what I'll call <i>parrot tests</i>. A hypothetical parrot test question would be, "How happy are you on a scale from 1 to 5, with 5 being happiest?" Then, upon clicking the 5 button, the results page shows your happiness rating as a 5, based on that question alone.</li><li>I've always found joy contagious and sadness repelling. In the absence of clarity, I was left to wonder: <i>Do I have empathy?</i> It turns out there is <i>beneficial empathy</i> and <i>depleting empathy</i>. I appear to have the former but not the latter, which syncs with my own self-observations.*</li><li>The Approaches of Happiness test is interesting in that it divides meaning from pleasure. I tend to think more in terms of meaning, but <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-bacon-pepper-bind.html">I don't tend to turn down pleasure either</a>. I had never made such a sharp distinction before. Then again, I tend to go light on creature comforts.</li><li>My favourite tests were Jeremy Clifton's <i>Primals</i> tests, which assess individuals' core beliefs. Their general, interpretable, apolitical nature makes them more interactive than the typical political compass-type tests on these sorts of topics. The grueling process that went into designing the Primals tests is explained <a href="https://myprimals.com/primals-2/">here</a>.</li><li>Speaking of Primals, I bristled a little at the idea that the world is either something that can constantly be improved, or else it is "inanimate [and] mechanical... without awareness or intent". What if a lot of things in this world are perfect just the way they are? I don't feel the need to improve a <a href="https://www.quora.com/Would-you-rather-be-woken-up-by-your-partner-to-have-a-cup-of-coffee-together-or-know-that-they-let-you-sleep-in/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7">sunrise</a>.</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">These were fun! I wish there were more...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 6</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 8</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*According to the results page for the Stress and Empathy Questionnaire,</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="background-color: #f6fbff; border: 0px; color: #111315; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: normal;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></i></div><blockquote><div style="background-color: #f6fbff; border: 0px; color: #111315; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: normal;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If your score on this empathy assessment is <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">positive</span>, that means you have more beneficial than depleting empathy. Experiencing beneficial empathy maximizes a person’s health and well-being and predicts more charitable donations.</i></div><div style="background-color: #f6fbff; border: 0px; color: #111315; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: normal;"> </div><div style="background-color: #f6fbff; border: 0px; color: #111315; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: normal;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If your score on this empathy assessment is <span style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-weight: 700; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">negative</span>, that means you have more depleting than beneficial empathy. Experiencing depleting empathy has a negative effect on a person’s health and well-being and predicts less charitable donations</i></div></blockquote><div style="background-color: #f6fbff; border: 0px; color: #111315; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 1.3; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; overflow-wrap: break-word; padding: 0px; text-align: justify; vertical-align: baseline; word-break: normal;"><i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-weight: inherit; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"></i></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-25212945667289025852021-07-01T10:19:00.005-07:002021-07-01T12:53:33.371-07:00Happy Canada Day 2021! <div>As we gradually emerge from the almost year and a half that is the COVID-19 lockdowns, it's time to celebrate the 154th anniversary of Canada's independence!</div><div><br /></div><div>Here's the view of the CN Tower from Tollkeeper's Park at the northwest corner of Bathurst and Davenport, taken by yours truly today, one of the most underrated views in Toronto:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUtR7f-BkpoPm31ViB8HinajAxl-j3VH6iFb7Mj-Nt5zJQgH9KfaDCPPmmzp9fzMGvr5qGRsREalv5xZT0wf8mUSYgieqQqX08Ev15CPnu-i53_XKVGe8paqeZTyj-Hl_wYx1TLQMLCwE/s2048/PXL_20210701_164342963.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUtR7f-BkpoPm31ViB8HinajAxl-j3VH6iFb7Mj-Nt5zJQgH9KfaDCPPmmzp9fzMGvr5qGRsREalv5xZT0wf8mUSYgieqQqX08Ev15CPnu-i53_XKVGe8paqeZTyj-Hl_wYx1TLQMLCwE/w640-h480/PXL_20210701_164342963.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Accompanied, of course, by the Unicorn flavour from Toronto's iconic Dutch Dreams ice cream parlour:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43LSOp7wA9jTMyR43m7eygUNabSLqIjJmGNd1L-vRac1IdtTqmckvWFxxXszsMspTLtOSgdGSQIcyAL1BYcM1bpFO1H4UGyKxgwttc40V8cfX9XqV5E23Sp2aYjcDGdURKjJ1VolDz4c/s2048/PXL_20210701_163556188.MP.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj43LSOp7wA9jTMyR43m7eygUNabSLqIjJmGNd1L-vRac1IdtTqmckvWFxxXszsMspTLtOSgdGSQIcyAL1BYcM1bpFO1H4UGyKxgwttc40V8cfX9XqV5E23Sp2aYjcDGdURKjJ1VolDz4c/w640-h480/PXL_20210701_163556188.MP.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Here's today's Google search screen in full rodential commemoration:</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVI5OYHZbsZd4v0I_sHQ7C_2VyBbv-R6oKbRhpwZ91MdUipKk3WjjXEf3WV7BisclMyfsotV5RgaiLR6XTP6kG4EUEtSr3-evqG1SWfl5_sH3AJfkHIV6jlYxZksELJV3MQQmpiG18Es/s2048/Google+Canada+Day+2021.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1212" data-original-width="2048" height="378" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHVI5OYHZbsZd4v0I_sHQ7C_2VyBbv-R6oKbRhpwZ91MdUipKk3WjjXEf3WV7BisclMyfsotV5RgaiLR6XTP6kG4EUEtSr3-evqG1SWfl5_sH3AJfkHIV6jlYxZksELJV3MQQmpiG18Es/w640-h378/Google+Canada+Day+2021.png" width="640" /></a></div><br /><div>Canada Day is an ongoing feature on this blog. Here's <b><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/07/happy-canada-day-from-silent-lake.html">2019</a></b> from beautiful Silent Lake Provincial Park, 2016's <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/maple-leaves-pictures.html">maple leaf picture day</a> and <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/07/happy-canada-day-2016.html">Google theme</a>, and some less admittedly inspired posts from <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/07/happy-canada-day.html">2013</a> and <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/07/happy-canada-day.html">2012</a>. Then there's my Quora post from Christmas break 2017, which shows <a href="https://www.quora.com/Could-you-post-at-most-6-pictures-to-show-the-entire-history-of-your-country/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7"><b>six pictures that sum up Canada</b></a>.</div><div><br /></div><div>With so much to be happy about and so many sources of pride, let's all celebrate one of the greatest nations in the world!</div><div><br /></div><div>Happy Canada Day!</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-24960254215192732402021-06-28T15:52:00.000-07:002021-06-28T15:52:24.609-07:00Incidental Haunted House Month! Hell House<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Hell House</i> by Richard Matheson</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Horror (1971 - 301 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The year 2021 marks <i>Hell House</i>'s 50-year anniversary. What a perfect time for more Richard Matheson on this blog, after 2013's entry on <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/11/novembers-book-i-am-legend.html">I Am Legend</a> </i>and 2019's entry on <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/05/mays-book-somewhere-in-time.html">Somewhere in Time</a>.</i> It also marks the second haunted house-related entry in June 2021, after Shirley Jackson's <a href="http://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2021/06/bonus-book-we-have-always-lived-in.html" style="font-style: italic;">We Have Always Lived in the Castle</a>.*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>Hell House</i>, physicist Lionel Barrett, his wife Edith, spiritual medium Florence Tanner and physical medium Benjamin Franklin Fischer are offered $100,000 by aging plutocrat William Reinhardt Deutsch to investigate the Belasco House, the apparently most haunted house in the world, in Maine in 1970. Previous attempts in 1930 and 1940 had been catastrophic, with most of the investigators dying; a young Ben was part of the 1940 team. Lionel comes armed with the Reversor, a machine that is supposed to negate the electromagnetic energy he believes to be causing the haunting, whereas Florence is more concerned with connecting with the house's energy on a spiritual level. Ben, drawing on his terrifying past experience, wants to use his physical energy to draw out the haunting more gradually. Edith is given no qualification other than being Lionel's wife.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The family patriarch Emeric Belasco had apparently been an early 20th century man of some importance, had many guests, murdered or disfigured many of them, and murdered his son Daniel. As in any <i>Clue</i>-style mansion, the action occurs not only in such mundane rooms as bedrooms, but also in the steam room, swimming pool and chapel. In what I sincerely hope is not a spoiler, the house is indeed haunted.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><br /></div><div>Matheson's language is middling in description, sticking to the main characters while offering few details about the house's architecture. By the middle of the book, I could imagine Florence standing right in front of me, but I could not imagine what any of the bathrooms look like. Matheson makes the action work by using short, choppy sentences during horror scenes, such as Florence's descent to the cellar in search of Daniel Belasco's body:</div><div><blockquote>She cried out as unseen hands clutched her by the throat. She reached up and began to grapple with the hands. They were cold and moist. She yanked them away and staggered to the side. Regaining direction, she lunged for the wall. (116)</blockquote></div><div>Matheson uses similarly staccato wording when spirits chase Edith later in the book, keeping up the tension, which produces horror that is actually scary:</div><div><blockquote>Darkness fled; she was acutely conscious, knowing even as she flung herself into the empty doorway that she hadn't been allowed to faint. She lunged into the corridor and headed for the stairs. The air was thick with mist. (270)</blockquote></div><div>Other linguistic intrigues include the use of pseudoscientific language to add to the eeriness, such as Lionel referring to "teleplasmic" (93) energy used by his Reversor machine, as well as intense descriptions of gore best left to the reader (184, 267).</div><div><br /></div><div>Although <i>Hell House</i> has an ensemble cast, Florence is arguably the protagonist. She is the primary victim of the book's grisly body horror, nearly torn to shreds by the book's end. Early on, Edith demurs at how beautiful Florence** is, while Florence's naked body is described in a moderate amount of detail. (95) Florence's body, beautiful as Edith finds it, ends up being a "living puppet", which leads to a scene even I was surprised to read. (242)</div><div><br /></div><div>When Florence ends up with teeth marks around her nipples, purportedly made by the spirit of Daniel Belasco, the other investigators struggle to believe her (120-121); after a similar attack to her head, they openly wonder whether she is injuring herself during psychotic breaks. This raises a question that I was shocked was never answered. Find a solid chocolate bar, such as a Dairy Milk or Jersey Milk, and take a bite out of it. You'll see that the marks made in the remaining chocolate are shaped differently based on your top and bottom teeth, which are shaped differently. If Florence had bitten her own breasts, the bite marks would appear upside down, as she would have to bring her breast up to her face, so that her top teeth marks would be below her nipple. If the bite marks were right-side up, with the top teeth marks above the nipple, someone else must have done the biting. Matheson's narrator never tells the reader the direction of the bite marks, nor do the characters seem to bother inquiring.</div><div><br /></div><div>Although <i>Hell House</i> was filmed as <i>The Legend of Hell House</i> in 1973, with Matheson writing the script, <i>Hell House</i> would likely be unfilmable*** today. <i>Hell House</i>'s first 50 pages are relatively uneventful, making any properly proportioned movie a slow burn like <i>Psycho</i> more than a modern thriller. The characters' social norms are firmly rooted in Matheson's era, resembling Robert Heinlein's <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/12/this-weeks-book-stranger-in-strange-land.html" style="font-style: italic;">Stranger in a Strange Land</a> more than <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/captain-marvel-is-about-female-power-not-empowerment/">anything a modern feminist might appreciate</a>. The Florence body horror scenes would especially shock 2021 audiences' consciences, or else they would have to be so toned down they would lose what makes them scary. (Not because of the gore, to which we are all properly desensitized in this post-<i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh90ihu6dBk">Saw</a></i> world, but in the way the scenes sensationalize the abuse of women.) <i>Hell House</i>'s gruesome combination of sex and gore could have worked in the '80s and '90s slasher heyday, but would be seen as retrograde now. For a truly retro comparison, think of how the naturalistic, gory <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Guignol">Grand Guignol</a> theatres of 1920s France would not have been seen as appropriate fare during the straight-laced 1950s.</div><div><br /></div><div>Not only does <i>Hell House</i> feel set in the past because it is too edgy for the present, even the characters' names reflect this. <a href="https://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=edith&sw=both&exact=false">Edith</a> and <a href="https://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=florence&sw=both&exact=false">Florence</a> are names people would have had in 1971 - if they had been 80 years old. (<a href="https://www.babynamewizard.com/voyager#prefix=lionel&sw=both&exact=false">Lionel</a> is slightly more modern, peaking in the 1920s before making a surprising resurgence in the 21st century.) Each of the characters is in his or her 40s, though. Ben is the most pointed example, having been named directly after Benjamin Franklin, (146) who far predates any of the book's events. The Franklin comparison is apt for Ben's calm, patient style of physical medium practice, which can be compared to Franklin's <a href="https://www.fi.edu/benjamin-franklin/kite-key-experiment">kite experiment</a>, finding ambient electrical charge by relatively simple means.</div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although Matheson often straddles genres, at times writing what appears to be science fiction without using any science (Matheson was a journalist by training, for reference), the science fiction nerd in me has to ask: how on Earth does the Reversor work? Although there are vivid descriptions of Florence's medium work during times when the Reversor is operating, a blood and guts description of the Reversor's mechanisms would have been fun. Then again, if the Reversor were so readily describable, we'd all have to live with a different horror: that of some smart young engineer making a homemade Reversor.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Although Hell House isn't as strong a work as <i>Somewhere in Time</i>, and especially not as strong as Matheson's classic <i>I Am Legend</i>, it reads even faster. Once you get past page 100, you won't put it down. As much as I'd recommend <i>Hell House</i> for Halloween, the events take place from December 20-24, 1970. Step aside, <i>Nightmare Before Christmas</i>. It's tough to imagine scarier Christmas entertainment than <i>Hell House</i>.</div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 9</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 1</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*In a strange coincidence, this is the second consecutive June featuring an incidental theme. June 2020 was Incidental Japan Month, when I read Haruki Murakami's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/06/junes-book-1q84.html">1Q84</a></i> and James Clavell's <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/06/incidental-japan-month-shogun.html" style="font-style: italic;">Shogun</a>. Each of these books addresses a very different Japan, whereas each of June 2021's haunted house books are set in 20th-century New England.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**Florence is described as being 43 years old at the time of the investigation. This may be a feather in the cap of the <a href="https://www.google.ca/search?q=older+models+are+pretty+too&source=hp&ei=xUfaYIDNA8e5-wTfnpiQDA&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYNpV1UobS8dBwBdzhdSOQM7IXREV1d0_&oq=older+models+are+pretty+too&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABOggIABCxAxCDAToFCAAQsQM6CwguELEDEMcBEKMCOgIIADoCCC46CAguELEDEIMBOg4ILhCxAxDHARCjAhCTAjoFCC4QsQM6CwguELEDEMcBEK8BOg4ILhCxAxCDARDHARCjAjoLCC4QxwEQrwEQkwI6CAguELEDEJMCOggILhDHARCvAToFCAAQyQM6BQguEJMCOgYIABAWEB46CAghEBYQHRAeUJQLWIIyYOQzaABwAHgAgAGBAYgBzxKSAQQyMi41mAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpeg&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwjAw_qMq7vxAhXH3J4KHV8PBsIQ4dUDCAo&uact=5">"older models are pretty too"</a> movement. However, it also makes the casting choice of 23-year-old Pamela Franklin in the 1973 movie <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Legend_of_Hell_House">The Legend of Hell House</a></i> a curious one. I haven't yet seen the movie, but it looks like it'd pair well with my popcorn machine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***New word? It might just be! I need to post a lexicon of all the words I improvise. What they all have in common is that they're close enough to existing words that their meanings are easy to derive from context.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-71927043538065979692021-06-19T12:53:00.000-07:002021-06-19T12:53:20.708-07:00Bonus Book! We Have Always Lived in the Castle<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</i> by Shirley Jackson</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Horror (1962 - 186 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Of Shirley Jackson's work, I was previously only familiar with "The Lottery", which I read - and loved - years ago, as well as the fantastic Netflix adaptation of <i>The Haunting of Hill House</i>. According to Jackson's biographer Judy Oppenheimer, when Jackson's physical and mental health deteriorated, her protagonists' own health went with it, in an extreme version of <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealLifeWritesThePlot">Real Life Writes the Plot</a>. As <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle </i>is Jackson's last, and purportedly best, work, it stands to reason that protagonist Mary Katherine ("Merricat") Blackwood is completely psychotic. Jackson does not disappoint.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The narrator, 18-year-old Merricat, lives with her 28-year-old sister Constance, their elderly uncle Julian, and, for a brief period during the book's second half, their 32-year-old cousin Charles. They inhabit the family home, located on a sprawling estate somewhere in New England, where Constance and Julian never leave. It falls to Merricat, and later Charles, to go shopping in the nearby village for books and groceries. Merricat is shunned by the villagers. The reader quickly finds out why; six years prior to the book, most of the Blackwood family died by arsenic poisoning, leaving only Merricat (who was not at dinner), Constance (who did not eat any poison) and Julian (who ate a small portion of poison, leaving him permanently disabled). Constance was charged with the murders but acquitted, although that helps her little in the local court of public opinion. The home dynamic resembles the classic 1962 movie <i>What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?</i>, making 1962 a year marked by uncomfortable home drama creepiness.*</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I saw the reveal (143) coming from essentially the start of the book, yet I was still impressed with Jackson's foreshadowing. Without spoiling any plot point, Merricat's frequent info dumping of her likes and dislikes, her predilections, and her deep-seated but unexplained hatreds come through numerous times. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Where my perception of the book differs more from the traditional critical take is that I consider Charles to be a genuine good guy. He is preoccupied with the family fortune, but given how much longer Merricat and Constance have to live, the sisters <i>should</i> be thinking about money more. By contrast, in one scene, Merricat buries a substantial sum under the lawn, which Constance laughs off as an expression of Merricat's love of burying things. (115-116) Charles is frequently furious at the other characters, and rightly so; Merricat attempts to ward him off using magic, Julian calls Charles "John" after the deceased family patriarch, and Constance considers all of this and more to be perfectly tolerable. Meanwhile, Charles is so perplexed by Merricat's hostility toward him that he asks Jonas, "How can I make Cousin Mary like me?" (90) When Charles finally gives up on restoring the family relationship and finances, there is nothing left for Jackson to write. The Charles/Constance break is more of a game over for the Blackwood family than the original deaths or the housefire.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A subject that gripped me throughout the book is just how small the house's inhabitants' worlds are. For a book released contemporaneously with the Cuban Missile Crisis, there is no mention of the Cold War, no hint that any of the older characters could have been World War II veterans, and no mention of any place outside the small, unnamed New England village where Merricat shops. At the very start of the book, when Merricat passes the general store, she notes that "[i]n this village the men stayed young and did the gossiping and the women aged with grey evil weariness and stood silently waiting for the men to get up and come home." (13) It borders on preposterous that any character within Merricat's reclusive perception would ever think outside the boundaries of the village, which may as well be on a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific.** This geographic isolation presents the Blackwoods' situation as retrograde, so <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</i> would be believable as a period piece set as early as the American Civil War. More currently, it calls to mind pandemic-related isolation, as well as <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2021/04/aprils-book-gentleman-in-moscow.html">life in a hotel</a>. Would Zoom have helped the Blackwoods, or would it have simply been another medium for shunning them?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was stunned to learn that <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</i> was never released as a feature movie until 2018. With its film-friendly horror genre and deranged narrator, clocking in at <a href="https://www.readinglength.com/book/isbn-0141191457">a svelte 48,140 words</a>, it seems like a logical choice for the big screen. On top of that, <i>We Have Always Lived in the Castle </i>would have virtually zero special effects. Of course, the movie is not available in Canada on any of the streaming services I have, so the question is moot anyway. Merricat's narration*** is scary enough.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 9</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 2</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*1962 is also the release year of Philip K. Dick's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2015/10/septembers-book-man-in-high-castle.html">The Man in the High Castle</a></i>. By pure coincidence, 1962 was apparently a good year to release a novel ending in the word "Castle".</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**Ironically, it is easier to imagine <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b50p_Axod3I">various science fiction characters who roam the galaxy</a> jumping from solar system to solar system than to imagine Merricat, Constance or Julian walking two villages over.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***For a 1962-written comparison (what a year!), Ken Kesey's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2018/08/julys-book-one-flew-over-cuckoos-nest.html">One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest</a></i> intersects unreliable first-person narration with palpable mental illness. Books are arguably the best media at entering a narrator's head, especially with narrators like Merricat, who never even tell the reader what they look like, and tend to smash mirrors anyhow.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-89378291860679853012021-06-16T06:32:00.001-07:002021-06-16T06:37:04.222-07:00Up Close with Ontario's 2021 Gypsy Moth Explosion<div style="text-align: justify;">2021 has seen one of the largest incidences of gypsy moths in Ontario in recent memory, eclipsing last year's gypsy moth bonanza. They're <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/gypsy-moth-infestation-invasive-species-burlap-soapy-water-solution-1.6035662">eating foliage</a>.* They're "everywhere", causing <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/windsor-sarnia-lambton-shores-gypsy-moths-1.6037086">"the worst infestation since the eighties"</a>. In a particularly scathing assessment, the Ottawa Citizen called gypsy moths, their caterpillars and their eggs <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/gypsy-moth-infestation-another-cataclysmic-insult-to-eastern-ontario-forests">"a cataclysmic insult"</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Gypsy moth caterpillars <a href="https://barrie.ctvnews.ca/they-literally-rain-down-out-of-the-sky-gypsy-moth-outbreak-torments-simcoe-county-1.5447142">"literally rain down out of the sky"</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They sure rained on me in the North Kawarthas earlier this month:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdy43QpV9Fyf1g1e1glohiDqz-4lVU351fysMfSoKEE08syXNJlIeml_wZU3vKuKxujKCJ8o9wNSswfs98s1QfYQeMHN2fZWlKFqO-d9b-R-awecqNWAzAkz4aqQBsTDnlRcyv2Fgsb4/s2048/PXL_20210607_185135963.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmdy43QpV9Fyf1g1e1glohiDqz-4lVU351fysMfSoKEE08syXNJlIeml_wZU3vKuKxujKCJ8o9wNSswfs98s1QfYQeMHN2fZWlKFqO-d9b-R-awecqNWAzAkz4aqQBsTDnlRcyv2Fgsb4/w400-h300/PXL_20210607_185135963.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBf47IRRUpHv6z-xof5KJgY06XegMKCoqwnStKrrQP9mfGlcJgAwU70qXGdKcymXKhv0qQc-CnZrd_kzSssjCLj3OfybBAXxOx6HC6HuGZaHVFzUPTUzBpA9E2hEA6CWFQn9BVjojWLhA/s2048/PXL_20210607_185140647.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBf47IRRUpHv6z-xof5KJgY06XegMKCoqwnStKrrQP9mfGlcJgAwU70qXGdKcymXKhv0qQc-CnZrd_kzSssjCLj3OfybBAXxOx6HC6HuGZaHVFzUPTUzBpA9E2hEA6CWFQn9BVjojWLhA/w400-h300/PXL_20210607_185140647.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUyccqFuyTXK1VWviQ_l0InUb8ht8FiZwdtIbCcbUBEfqClh6fLyoyj-EtLGMLULNfA5AIVz0V8Ifs2-NUBoyRBEZZIJAKURWei3qb50p7dAGXUvpZVJlbqhI_DdfkbasrdQqc1kyg40/s2048/PXL_20210607_185330650.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgiUyccqFuyTXK1VWviQ_l0InUb8ht8FiZwdtIbCcbUBEfqClh6fLyoyj-EtLGMLULNfA5AIVz0V8Ifs2-NUBoyRBEZZIJAKURWei3qb50p7dAGXUvpZVJlbqhI_DdfkbasrdQqc1kyg40/w400-h300/PXL_20210607_185330650.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They crawled on my skin only briefly, so I didn't suffer any <a href="https://www.myhealthystate.org/itching-for-relief-how-to-treat-a-gypsy-moth-rash/">gypsy moth rash</a>. They were actually kind of cute, as they periodically rear their front legs like tiny horses. Besides, who can resist something so small and fuzzy?**</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nonetheless, a pest is a pest, and a generally anti-pesticide person except when it's absolutely necessary, I thought: do any birds eat these critters?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The answer is that yes, they do, including some of Ontario's most iconic bird species. According to <a href="https://www.canr.msu.edu/uploads/files/e2700.pdf">this Michigan State University bulletin from all the way back in April 1999</a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Many birds do not like to feed on large, hairy gypsy
moth caterpillars, but other species seem to relish them!
Yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos, blue jays, orioles
and rufous-sided towhees are among the species that
feed on gypsy moth caterpillars. Some birds, such as the
black-capped chickadee, will also feed on egg masses
and can sometimes cause substantial egg mortality.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's a closeup I snapped of a chickadee last October:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlf60pziX_fINqkPJbm5UiNtjULZPoQn9kGU3v0e6mRWWPP6CrP35kXiWryWDI5cHyEscmcr1Xao-rPUOg3fq-oILEICu-u7r1m4Wf0vjNyBNFhzXWdOvQrC_NiR-dQHeAGCRCznGarBM/s2048/PXL_20201014_131521761.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlf60pziX_fINqkPJbm5UiNtjULZPoQn9kGU3v0e6mRWWPP6CrP35kXiWryWDI5cHyEscmcr1Xao-rPUOg3fq-oILEICu-u7r1m4Wf0vjNyBNFhzXWdOvQrC_NiR-dQHeAGCRCznGarBM/w300-h400/PXL_20201014_131521761.jpg" width="300" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Either this one, or a similar chickadee, was so friendly it landed on my shoe - while it was on my foot. It was unfortunately too quick for me to get a picture, but these adorable chickadees apparently consider Eastern Ontario so familiar they're willing to land on its human inhabitants.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've seen more blue jays farther south (in Toronto - how fitting), so it'd be nice to see them up in cottage country. I can't recall the last time I saw a cuckoo, a towhee or an oriole, but they'd be welcome.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">One final issue: Terry McGlynn, the ecologist and conservationist who named the completely unrelated gypsy ants, <a href="https://smallpondscience.com/2019/06/06/fixing-a-racist-common-name-that-i-coined/">regrets using the racist term "gypsy"</a>. In the interest of naming things, let's rename gypsy moths! Here are a few fun ideas:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Destroyer moth, based on its Latin name <i><a href="https://www.thefreedictionary.com/Lymantria">Lymantria</a> dispar</i></li><li>Day moth <i>or</i> Sun moth, based on the fact that it is <a href="https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/gypsy_moth#Description">unusually diurnal</a></li><li>Striped tree moth, based on its <a href="https://kawarthanow.com/2020/07/29/how-to-deal-with-the-gypsy-moth-explosion-in-the-kawarthas/">jagged stripe markings</a></li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm open to more ideas and fewer moths. Let's cross our fingers for an increase in the presence of local avians.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*I don't usually toot my own horn, but here, I must: my pictures are better than these Canadian Press pictures. Matthew Gordon, Ontario's new nature photographer?</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**Remember <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weepul">Weepuls</a>? Gypsy moth caterpillars are like living, elongated Weepuls.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-60448738632247650602021-06-06T12:35:00.002-07:002021-06-06T12:35:51.920-07:00June's Book: The Red Badge of Courage<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Red Badge of Courage</i> by Stephen Crane</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">War (1895 - 79 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>The Red Badge of Courage</i>, Stephen Crane tells a quintessential story about 18-year-old Henry Fielding, a fresh recruit in the Union army in the Civil War. Crane was born in 1871, too late to serve in the Civil War, although he conducted an impressive dive into archival war research. He later served as a war correspondent in Greece during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, a conflict perhaps best known in the United States for being covered by Crane. His other experiences include being stranded in a dinghy for 30 hours.* After all this, Crane died at age 28 in a sanatorium in the Black Forest. I rarely discuss authors' lives in such detail on here, typically preferring <a href="https://writcrit.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/an-understanding-to-intrinsic-and-extrinsic-approaches-to-literature/#:~:text=Therefore%2C%20intrinsic%20approach%20to%20literature,text%20is%20complete%20in%20itself.">intrinsic analysis</a>, but Crane's life is asking for a biopic. How I had somehow managed to read so much literature without encountering his work is a mystery to me, especially considering I have completed a course on American literature up to 1900.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Red Badge of Courage</i> is reminiscent of other turn-of-the-century** American adventure stories like <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/06/last-weeks-book-white-fang.html" style="font-style: italic;">White Fang</a> and <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2015/08/a-few-thoughts-on-ambrose-bierces-short.html">"A Resumed Identity"</a>, in terms of pulpy style and boundless optimism. Crane lived and wrote in arguably the most wide-eyed, forward-thinking era in American history, which shows in his use of the Civil War as a backdrop for camaraderie, wit, and the ability for a young man to learn how to take charge. Later Civil War stories showcase the war's brutality, such as in <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/04/marchs-book-bring-jubilee.html">Bring the Jubilee</a></i>, but Crane is content to have his teenage soldiers learn militaristic values. Fielding and his friend Wilson are shuttled around to different battlefields, at times carrying rifles or bearing standards. In a<i> Looney Tunes</i>-esque series of incidents, Fielding is whacked with a rifle, shot in the head just enough for it to hurt, and taken aback at how new some of the Confederate uniforms are.^ </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Crane's writing is fast-paced and magazine-like, with plenty of imagery. An early example of a battle scene could have been used as a US Army recruitment ad:^^</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Bullets began to whistle among the branches of the trees. Showers
of pine needles and pieces of wood came falling down. It was as if a
thousand axes were being used.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lieutenant of the youth’s regiment was shot in the hand. He
began to curse so magnificently that a nervous laugh went through the
regiment. It relieved the tightened senses of the men. (60)</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Red Badge of Courage</i> is such an easy read, especially by the standards of often dense 19th-century fiction, I am stunned it is not in more educational curricula. That said, I have only ever attended high school in Ontario, where those inhabitants who do ever think about the US Civil War look on in horrified apoplexy. The phrase "Civil War" is just as likely to refer to the English Civil War here, or to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=isCh4kCeNYU">the Guns 'N' Roses song</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Crane may be a difficult author to explain, values-wise. Before World War I, heroism in battle was so vaunted that soldiers would invite their own wounds: "At times he wished he were wounded. He believed persons with
torn bodies were unusually happy. He wished that he, too, had a
wound—a red badge of courage." (77) Although honour and duty are likely not completely expired virtues, it is difficult to identify with someone who sees the world the way Fielding sees it. Now, of course, veneration of 1890s-era values is confined to<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-80XwUcmoToJUT-lINIYuv6_hq2A6SNUFgpmvCKLVgv_ulGozPtCYMAsn8KS6Yh3zv7Zi5H51XiP1PJ6oiFos6te3dprrmn9p3ITgSr9FSwX6usK7_mK8T91UCtPSEc95bSwryb47Yek/w1688-h1266-no/?authuser=0"> memorabilia collections</a>. Perhaps an <a href="https://www.artsy.net/article/artsy-editorial-art-nouveau">Art Nouveau</a> revival is in order.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Thanks to the magic of the public domain, the book is available in its entirety <a href="https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/the-red-badge-of-courage-chapters-1-22.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 9</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 3</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*Back in 2018, I was trapped in an elevator for an hour. This is the closest I have come to such a predicament. I also had a phone on me, which, suffice to say, someone in the 1890s decidedly did not.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**It never ceases to amaze me that, even after another century has turned, we still use the phrase "turn of the century" to describe the period surrounding the year 1900.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">^It is unclear whether Crane's depiction of jaunty new Confederate uniforms (114) belies a lack of understanding of <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/05/mays-book-battle-cry-of-freedom.html">just how ragged Confederate uniforms tended to be</a>, or whether Fielding lucks out by seeing what few new uniforms there were.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">^^The Spanish-American War was fought three years after <i>The Red Badge of Courage</i>'s release, and was portrayed using some of the same types of images. Teddy Roosevelt's charge up San Juan Hill could have been devised by Crane as a plot point.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-23742812011376426302021-05-24T09:22:00.004-07:002021-05-24T09:22:32.662-07:00Happy Victoria Day! With Happy Days All Around<div style="text-align: justify;">Happy Victoria Day!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwybvQVU-GVdlT3Jl19jimB6h3DmS1ykLa6S-8l3Djaz-qlLFnc8azpuqO2TpK_h2l7EDHz-MjMSDTE4WJzgn6HWK1ptXb3BBifoCND803fbKPPHIUg0sP79naNWKl17GjAu1E6SzKcsI/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1380" data-original-width="1035" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwybvQVU-GVdlT3Jl19jimB6h3DmS1ykLa6S-8l3Djaz-qlLFnc8azpuqO2TpK_h2l7EDHz-MjMSDTE4WJzgn6HWK1ptXb3BBifoCND803fbKPPHIUg0sP79naNWKl17GjAu1E6SzKcsI/w480-h640/image.png" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>A view of the sky, Victoria Day 2020.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />For those of us in Canada, where Victoria Day is a statutory holiday, that much was obvious. However, it turns out that there have been many other commemorative days this past week. My social media feeds are teaching me something, it seems.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On this holiday Monday of gorgeous weather and relaxing outside, on a day commemorating the monarch when Canada gained independence, let's also reflect on:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>International Museum Day:</b> Celebrated on <a href="https://members.museumsontario.ca/programs-events/advocacy/mmm-imd">May 18th</a> every year, International Museum Day gives tourists and locals alike as good a reason as any to delve into the world's rich physical and cultural history. Sadly, I wasn't at a museum on May 18th in either 2020 or 2021 due to COVID-19-related restrictions, but the spirit lives on.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>World Bee Day:</b> Celebrated on <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/bee-day">May 20th</a> every year, World Bee Day is a time to give thanks for all bees do for us, from pollenating flowers to creating delicious honey. I admired my houseplant while eating my homemade honey mustard dressing; I don't know a more festive way to celebrate from home. Remember, colony collapse is <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpCfEwQJ9Xo">a science fiction-level disaster</a>. Buzz on!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>World Turtle Day:</b> Shellebrated* on <a href="https://www.worldturtleday.org/">May 23rd</a> every year, World Turtle Day lets us all watch <i>Franklin</i>, dream of post-pandemic Galapagos adventures, and withdraw into our shells at the end of a long, exhausting day. I wasn't sure how to mark the occasion, so </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">On some other year, Victoria Day may fall on any of these days. Victoria Day is, by definition, the Monday on or before May 24, meaning it will always fall on May 18-24. I like it best this way, celebrating four days instead of three. If you've heard of these other fine days, now you get to see them all in one place.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Bzzzt!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*The World Turtle Day website encourages the use of this groan-worthy pun. Don't shoot the messenger.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-78045425636490001912021-05-04T15:06:00.000-07:002021-05-04T15:06:22.990-07:00May's Book: The Road<div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large;">The Road</i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> by Cormac McCarthy</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Post-Apocalypse (2006 - 287 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Cormac McCarthy's <i>The Road</i> became <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_2">a feature film</a> within three years of its release (2009). I saw it when it came out, at the <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/place/Hot+Docs+Ted+Rogers+Cinema/@43.6655555,-79.4126575,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x882b3493cf9b1e27:0x167c9890f3771cc5!8m2!3d43.6655429!4d-79.4104653">Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema</a> in Toronto. Usually, I read a book before watching the movie. In the case of <i>The Road</i>, watching the movie first helped me read the book.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Road</i> follows the lonely story of a man and his son travelling by foot across an unnamed portion of a post-apocalyptic United States of America. No character is ever named, even in memories, but there's never an everyman feel to <i>The Road</i> because of how non-relatable the experience is. <i>The Road</i> is perhaps best told as a movie, aside from Viggo Mortensen's terrific acting job, because of how blurred together the various buildings and stretches of road become in McCarthy's novel. McCarthy's dialogue and imagery are intense, drawing the reader into the story, but in a disembodied way that makes it feel like the reader is never really in those haunted houses or huddled under a beaten-up scrap of tarp.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">McCarthy's refusal to reveal the cause of the apocalypse is crucial to <i>The Road</i>'s appeal, yet he weaves the story so vividly I never bother to wonder what happened. Different eras worry about different apocalypses, from <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/09/septembers-book-days-of-infamy.html">foreign takeover</a> to <a href="http://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2021/04/bonus-book-burn.html">mutually assured destruction</a> to <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/11/bonus-book-invented-knowledge.html">who knows what</a>. The unstated apocalypse of <i>The Road</i> focuses instead on the contrast between the before times, which the father remembers constantly but exist only as a haze to the son, and the after times, which are so rife with danger that survival is the only goal. When the father recalls the before times early on, when the mother is still alive, "She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the tops of her stockings through the thin stuff of her summer dress. Freeze this frame." (19) McCarthy presents it as though it is a still from an old movie, the film wearing away with time as the owner frets over losing a memory. The after times are so bereft of options that the reader never stops to wonder what the father used to do for a living or where the son would have gone to school. <i>The Road</i> must have been simultaneously easy and difficult to write: easy in that a lot of character background can be omitted, difficult in that each scene has to shuffle the deck in terms of ways to portray life on the eponymous road.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The tensest moments are when the father and the son encounter other people. The floor hatch scene, (in)famous for how scary it is in the movie, makes the reader's heart beat faster just as the characters' hearts do. For all the monotony that most of the road entails, the main challenge being the stripped-down version of nature the characters endure, human threats present some of the greatest difficulties: "Run, he whispered. We have to run." (111) Conversely, the father and the son stay for short stretches in various abandoned houses, where the presumably deceased former inhabitants leave behind canned foods for our heroes' taste treats. Coca-Cola, canned pears, and canned tuna are among the best finds. As <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2015/01/my-six-favourite-campbells-soups-in.html">canned food evolves</a>, a more futuristic take on <i>The Road</i> could feature anything from canned tom yum to canned butter chicken soup - but that would be cold (heated-up?) comfort to future characters.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For all the harshness of nature, whether it's the burnt-out ex-farmland or the oncoming winter, wildlife never seem to be a concern. Bears and wolves, if they still exist, don't appear tempted by the stacks of supplies people leave out while they go for walks on the beach. Humans, not animals, are the scavengers. The lack of corporeal wildlife makes the mere mention of animals as a conversation topic into spiritual subject matter. When the father and the son discuss the phrase "as the crow flies", the conversation quickly turns toward crows' lack of need to follow the road, charting their paths all over (but not as far as Mars), prompting the boy to ask: "If you were a crow could you fly up high enough to see the sun?" (158) It's refreshing to see some of the <a href="http://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/08/augusts-book-are-we-smart-enough-to.html">world's smartest avians</a> presented as stand-ins for dreams of freedom rather than as <a href="https://www.richardalois.com/symbolism/dead-crow-meaning">stand-ins for death</a>. Euphemistically left out of the corvid banter is that if people, who can open cans for food, are so starving, crows' situations must be at least as bad, if not worse.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The relationship between <i>The Road</i>'s characters and freedom is a strained one. With society destroyed, there's no one left to tax, compel, or otherwise corral the characters. There's also nothing left to fight for. There's no freedom <i>to</i> do anything, as anything worth doing is irreparably lost, like a <a href="https://www.quora.com/How-will-viewing-sports-as-a-fan-be-forever-changed-because-of-the-COVID-19/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7">Toronto Raptors game during the COVID-19 pandemic</a> but for all time. It also means that anytime a possession is lost, whether it's an article of clothing or a frying pan, replacing that item is a morbid scavenger hunt. Some of the people the father and son pass on the road stink and are wearing rags.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Amorality reigns in <i>The Road</i>, but the father grounds the son by repeatedly insisting that they're "the good guys". The bad guys are highway robbers, so by refusing to rob from others, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6QXs4oMayc">do anything worse</a>, while repelling any robbers they meet, the father and the son become good guys by default. The son, who has few memories of the before times, ingrains the good guys/bad guys duality as his morality, in the absence of anything else. Near the end of the book, he asks a kindly stranger on the beach:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>How do I know youre** one of the good guys?</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The stranger answers:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>You dont. You'll have to take a shot. (283) </blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The guessing game the father and son play - deciding which houses to enter, which people to approach or avoid, which places to sleep - is totally encapsulated in those two lines.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Neither good nor bad, <i>The Road</i> is verbose. McCarthy uses words I didn't know frequently enough that I didn't bother looking up many of them, as I can generally tell what he means through context. Sometimes, the terminology creates a darkly medical atmosphere, as in <a href="https://www.dictionary.com/browse/rachitic">"rachitic"</a>; at other times, entire sentences are composed mainly of 7+ letter words. The density of the language adds to the book's dreamlike quality, as a first-person narrator would never describe the world with such arcaneness.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My emotional connection to the book revolves around the growing awareness of just how much I have, as does everyone I know. Something as mundane as a dish towel - there are four of them hanging in front of my oven - borders on unthinkable in <i>The Road</i>'s world. I'm surrounded by outlets, which power all manners of electrical devices that occupy my time during the stay at home order; in <i>The Road</i>, electrical power is non-existent. When I lock my door, I feel content that I'm safe from whomever may lurk beyond my premises... but, as in <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/11/novembers-book-i-am-legend.html">post-apocalyptic fiction more generally</a>,* the father and the son don't even feel safe when they're barricaded in a basement.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">They have nothing, yet the pass the time they have, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Pail_of_Air">just like we all do</a>. I'm just thankful for all the lighting, shelter and fresh food.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 8</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 1</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*Now there's a good novel study project: comparing the highway robbers in <i>The Road</i> to the vampires in <i>I Am Legend</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**At various points, McCarthy omits apostrophes in contractions. It makes the book feel more scrawled down, although the presence of apostrophes in other places confuses the matter.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-22248549990146508812021-04-30T11:36:00.001-07:002021-04-30T11:36:37.645-07:00Bonus Book! Burn<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>Burn</i> by Patrick Ness</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fantasy (2020 - 371 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I don't usually read young adult fantasy novels, but when I do, the back cover of Patrick Ness's <i>Burn</i> sets up a clear winner of a premise:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>On a cold Sunday evening in 1957--the very day, in fact, that Dwight David Eisenhower took the oath of office for the second time as president of the United States of America--Sarah Dewhurst waited with her father in the parking lot of the Chevron gas station for the dragon he'd hired to help on the farm...</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My mind brimmed with possibilities. Historical labour relations fiction, like <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/06/late-mays-book-at-long-last-in-days-of.html">In the Days of the Comet</a></i>? A sleek, sober take on the '50s, a la <i>Queen's Gambit</i>? A fresh take on dragons, like <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/02/februarys-book-his-majestys-dragon.html">His Majesty's Dragon</a></i> and <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/04/aprils-book-throne-of-jade.html">Throne of Jade</a></i>? <i>Burn</i> is also a very impressive book physically. My hardcover copy has <a href="https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/burn/9780062869494-item.html?ikwid=Patrick+Ness+Burn&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=1#algoliaQueryId=c5bba14b7940db0761532f9dd82175d1">a beautiful black dust jacket with flames and a stylized dragon on it</a>, thick card stock-like paper, and fully black pages starting Part 1 and Part 2. It was all there for the taking...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">...and to an extent, Ness takes it. The rural Washington State setting feels real. Sarah Dewhurst and Jason Inagawa, two misunderstood teenagers who aren't the right race at the right time, develop a palpable emotional connection. FBI agents Dernovich and Woolf, tasked to track Malcolm, have a good rapport for the first hundred pages. Kazimir the blue dragon, named as a "<a href="https://www.thebump.com/b/kazimir-baby-name">famous destroyer (of peace)</a>", has a bouncier personality than his role as an independently contracted farmhand would suggest. The deal at the start of the book, in which Sarah's father Gareth negotiates Kazimir down to a quarter of the asking price up front because he can't afford the rest, immediately sets off a lightbulb in the reader's head that maybe there aren't a lot of good guys in this world.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The characterization falls apart whenever a character is only required to display a certain stereotype. Deputy Sheriff Kelby is a non-character, needlessly cruel and with no discernible motivation. Miss Archer, the librarian, seems to exist for the purpose of relaying plot-related gossip to the reader. Sarah herself is prophesied* to be present when potentially world-destroying events occur, signaling the presence of religious fanatic-slash**-assassin Malcolm and his newfound lover Nelson. Everyone is misunderstood and finding him- or herself, which I understand is a staple of young adult fiction, but I really wish they'd get on with it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ness succeeds with the '50s setting when it captures atmosphere and technology. With the advent of <a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/how-horror-movies-get-around-cell-phones-1829919774">the smartphone rendering entire genres obsolete</a>, writing a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_XTFjvvcnQ">period piece</a> is a convenient way to have characters be unable to reach the outside world. The agrarian setting also works in the '50s, given the Cold War <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/cold-war/domino-theory">uncertainty toward anything farther than house and home</a>. The more Ness leans on these topics, the less on characters' soliloquies on social issues, the better.*** Ness's most incisive comment about his chosen time period comes right at the end of the book, capturing the spirit of Mutually Assured Destruction and the ambient buzz of paranoia that came with it: "All annihilation was mutual in the end." (367)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Similarly, when Ness discusses dragons, he clearly enjoys it, contrasting Russian blue with Canadian red, and dragon-cleared farmland to the interior British Columbia wasteland they call home. However, there are only two dragons with speaking parts in the entirety of <i>Burn</i>. The book has a dragon on the cover, and is ostensibly about dragons. As a reader, I want less chatter amongst the humans, more dealing with dragons. Call this the <i>Snakes on a Plane</i> Effect: when I see a movie called <i>Snakes on a Plane</i>, I want <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZ2QFmJ7h0A">motherfucking snakes on a motherfucking plane</a>. Similarly, when I read a book called <i>Burn</i>, that has a picture of a dragon on the cover, I want <b><i><u>dragons</u></i></b>. On the plus side, in a bizarrely academic turn, a dragon-turned-human explains Schrodinger's theory of alternate universes. (202)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ness pulls off one-liners that keep <i>Burn</i> entertaining. Shortly after Malcolm and Nelson meet, Nelson says the eerie, "A world where you never wake up? Sounds like paradise." (82) This foreshadows the alternate universes existing in Part 1 and Part 2. When Agent Dernovich's daughter Grace notices Malcolm's movements toward the Dewhurst farm, he says to her, "Your eyes, sweetie... I should have them insured, they see so much." (289) Ness is clearly a talented writer, which makes <i>Burn</i>'s highs high and its lows all the more head-scratching.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In Part 1, Gareth receives a blackmail letter that Ness never tells us who sends the letter or why, although we can certainly guess. Some questions are never meant to be answered, and <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/02/some-thoughts-on-jo-rodericks.html">some reader itches are never meant to be scratched</a>. I like the lack of knowing; <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/11737-the-oldest-and-strongest-emotion-of-mankind-is-fear-and">it's scarier that way</a>. The triangle of tension between Sarah, Gareth and Kazimir jolts the story forward, putting our main characters in danger for the first time. That visceral, up-close danger is far scarier than a regular teenager having to save the world for the 34757039509th time. Ness hints at subverting that <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/05/this-weeks-book-hunger-games.html">Hunger Games</a></i>-esque trope when Kazimir tells Sarah, "What you must remember throughout all of this... is that you are not special", (119) but then she is. Of course she's special. You, reader, are too.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 9</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 1</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*I'm not even bothering to have <i>Burn</i> take the <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-fantasy-novelists-exam-and-wizards.html">Fantasy Novelist's Exam</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**This is a brilliant pun. When you read far enough into <i>Burn</i>, you will know why.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***At one point, Ness, via the third-person omniscient narrator, teaches the reader the years in which Oregon and Idaho legalized interracial marriage. <i>Burn</i> is not set in either of those states.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-20796593301993254732021-04-19T11:05:00.000-07:002021-04-19T11:05:04.019-07:00April's Book: A Gentleman in Moscow<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>A Gentleman in Moscow</i> by Amor Towles</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Historical Fiction (2016 - 462 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>A Gentleman in Moscow</i>, Amor Towles follows the life story of the fictitious Count Alexander Rostov, sentenced to life imprisonment in the Metropol Hotel in Moscow by the newly formed Soviet Union in the aftermath of World War I. The book spans the 1920s through the 1950s, featuring characters as diverse, and hilarious, as Emile the head chef, Audrius the bartender, Anna the actress, Nina the young girl who takes Rostov on a tour of the hotel, and an antagonist known as the Bishop.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I tend not to say this, but I wish I'd thought of<i> A Gentleman in Moscow</i>. Considering my love of old architecture and of European history, it seems like a natural fit. I especially love that Towles stayed at luxury hotels while writing the book. That said, Towles was 56 when <i>A Gentleman in Moscow</i> was released, and I'm only 33, so there is time yet. Much of the Metropol looks as it would have in that era. The next best thing, of course, is that I'm a discussion leader for the University of Alberta Alumni Association book club, where many of my fellow alumni <a href="https://alberta.pbc.guru/c/a-gentleman-in-moscow/9/none">are discussing the book</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Reading <i>A Gentleman in Moscow</i> during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the associated lockdown orders, made me simultaneously identify with Rostov and feel as though his experience is alien to mine. On the identifying side, I've certainly been cooped up, although thankfully, I purchased a treadmill in December and have run over 665 miles on it. On the other hand, the simple joys Rostov experiences at the hotel restaurant and bar, which form much of the action, are now foreign to me.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXBWnyeUVDipXZxfvkBcMf7qAQFB6gQNt5TcDZE9wLz-_5huiVU2ZkOlW9z_NknDTJf305z4dVXr3caBO4jUR6mg5WKz0ZC_RJcx7xRkAEi-4snXwoi9X7sxfYiWSt8M4OPfWhWP16Tg/s4032/PXL_20210126_164128135.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="3024" data-original-width="4032" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaXBWnyeUVDipXZxfvkBcMf7qAQFB6gQNt5TcDZE9wLz-_5huiVU2ZkOlW9z_NknDTJf305z4dVXr3caBO4jUR6mg5WKz0ZC_RJcx7xRkAEi-4snXwoi9X7sxfYiWSt8M4OPfWhWP16Tg/w447-h335/PXL_20210126_164128135.jpg" width="447" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">My apartment in downtown Toronto: decidedly <i>not</i> the Metropol Hotel, but then again, Rostov doesn't have my laptop, exercise equipment, or access to online shopping. With a little work and some creative ergonomics, it's cozy enough, though.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As I said last week to the U of A book club, Rostov starts the book surprisingly unexcited to explore the hotel, <a href="https://alberta.pbc.guru/t/thoughts-on-themes-for-a-gentleman-in-moscow/819/2">which is the first thing I would have done</a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.008px; text-align: start;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.008px; text-align: start;"></span></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.008px; text-align: start;">At first, he seems at a loss as to what to do. The fact that he needs Nina to inspire curiosity in him, despite him still being quite young at the time (he starts the book as a 33-year-old), made me sad when I read it. If I’d been imprisoned in the Metropol, I would have been darting around the place like a weasel.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.008px; text-align: justify;">I can relate to the “gilt cage” feeling in a big way. The lockdowns and stay at home orders effectively erased my lifestyle. My ROM membership is pointless. Last month, when retail stores were more open, I frantically used up my Winners/Homesense gift cards, having no clue when I’d be back. (I did actually need the items, though!) That said, I spend every day being thankful I have a nice apartment, my parents’ house and the cottage, plus enough money in the bank to survive, fitness equipment, kitchen gadgets, all the books and movies I can manage, and online shopping.</p></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15.008px; text-align: start;"></p></div><div style="text-align: justify;">When staying in hotels, I make a point of exploring them, from any available fresh air (why is Rostov not constantly on the balconies?) to every amenity the hotel offers. I also love climbing stairs, which Rostov doesn't seem to take too seriously until four years into his stay.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The historical context is jarring; by being imprisoned in the Hotel, Rostov is effectively insulated from World War II. While millions of his countrymen were perishing on the Eastern Front, led by a government the polar opposite of what Rostov believes, he can lounge in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_Metropol_Moscow#/media/File:Moscow_05-2017_img36_Hotel_Metropol.jpg">the hotel restaurant</a> with his old friend, the poet Mishka. To think that Rostov is almost executed at the start of the novel, but then is able to salvage a charming but silly life story including a lengthy stint as a waiter, makes the power plant scene all the brighter. (414) For all those decades, though, Rostov is incapable of visiting anyone else, so he is entirely at the mercy of his visitors' schedules, especially Anna's and Nina's.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Towles's prose flows effortlessly, replete with one-liners. Some of Rostov's funniest observations occur when he runs into his ever-changing cadre of friends. He first meets Anna in the hotel lobby, where she is incapable of commandeering two large wolfhounds that chase the hotel's one-eyed cat to the edge of the carpet. The dogs, suddenly on tile, slide almost all the way out of the hotel. (111) The Bishop always moves diagonally. (220) A <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peppered_moth_evolution">peppered moth</a> is used as a metaphor for the lightning-fast industrialization of the USSR. (336) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A Gentleman in Moscow </i>jumps around a bit, but is otherwise written in an easy, accessible way. I learned a fair bit about the Metropol Hotel, which made me feel transported to Moscow in a way <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-extends-stay-at-home-order-restricts-interprovincial-travel-as-province-loses-battle-against-covid-19-1.5390016">I can't go anywhere right now</a>. Nonetheless, fans of <i>The Grand Budapest Hotel</i> should like A Gentleman in Moscow well enough.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 8</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 3</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-1473065871417323412021-04-11T10:27:00.001-07:002021-04-11T10:27:35.649-07:00On Louder Sound's Top 20 Metal Albums of 1992<div style="text-align: justify;">As Louder Sound <a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-top-20-best-metal-albums-of-1992">recently pointed out</a>, 1992 was a huge year for heavy metal. Mostly in the USA but also in Europe, metal bands ruled the pop music roost in a way rarely seen before or since. Megadeth's <i>Countdown to Extinction</i> hit #2 on the Billboard Album Chart, for example, and Alice in Chains's <i>Dirt</i> hit #6. Other highlights include alternative metal acts like Faith No More, rap metal like Rage Against the Machine, crossover thrash like Body Count, groove metal like White Zombie, and the utterly chilling black/death metal of Darkthrone's <i>A Blaze in the Northern Sky</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I get ahead of myself, though.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><a href="https://www.loudersound.com/features/the-top-20-best-metal-albums-of-1992">I repeat, here is the list.</a></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's Louder Sound's list, stripped of all the descriptions (follow the bolded link above for those). Note that <i><u>this list is unranked</u></i>. I think that's a smart move given how diverse metal had become by 1992; while you say with confidence that Iron Maiden was greater than Saxon, how do you compare them to a thrash or death metal act?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">Alice in Chains - Dirt</div></blockquote><blockquote><p style="text-align: justify;">Body Count - Body Count</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Cannibal Corpse - Tomb of the Mutilated</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Dream Theater - Images and Words</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Exhorder - The Law</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Faith No More - Angel Dust</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Godflesh - Pure</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Helmet - Meantime</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Kyuss - Blues for the Red Sun</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Ministry - Psalm 69</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Napalm Death - Utopia Banished</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Pantera - Vulgar Display of Power</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Rage Against the Machine - Rage Against the Machine</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Rollins Band - The End of Silence</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Stone Temple Pilots - Core</p><p style="text-align: justify;">White Zombie - La Sexorcisto</p></blockquote><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There they are, all twenty.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Here are <a href="https://rateyourmusic.com/collection/ReddishSkink/strm_relyear/1992/1">my RateYourMusic ratings for 1992 albums</a>, for reference as I set out my thoughts. I've also mentioned <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/12/bonus-book-master-of-five-magics.html">Megadeth</a> and <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/11/alice-in-chains-self-titled-turns-25.html">Alice in Chains</a> on this blog, referencing their 1990 song "Five Magics" and their 1995 self-titled album respectively.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In the spirit of this entry being about a list, here are my thoughts, in bullet point form, as they come to me. Of course, they're unranked:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>If EPs are eligible for this sort of list, Tool's <i><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5JeArVBC56s&list=PLfUV806q_Ri427-2-1LojxfNMekMRhXLf">Opiate</a></i> is a glaring omission. Its running time is 26:52, only a minute and a half shorter than Slayer's iconic 1986 album <i>Reign in Blood</i>. Longer EPs are more like albums than singles, so I'd put <i>Opiate</i> on the list.</li><li>For extreme music, I'd like to have seen Brutal Truth's <i>Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses</i> and Demolition Hammer's <i>Epidemic of Violence</i> included. They're both better than<i> Utopia Banished</i>. For a more obscure pick, Aversion's <i>Fit to Be Tied</i> is great, but given most of the entries on the list, I suspect it's meant for more widely known names.</li><li>Why 1992, why now? Thematically, it seemingly makes more sense to pick a notable anniversary, so the 1991 list would be released now, the 1992 list a year from now, and so on. I consider 1992 arguably the best year in recorded music history, though, so here we are.</li><li>I'd pick Fear Factory's <i>Soul of a New Machine</i> over Godflesh's <i>Pure</i>, but they aren't far apart, and the industrial metal scene is covered either way.</li><li>Although <i>Fear of the Dark</i> has the anthemic title track, it doesn't have enough other strong songs to place it in my Top 20. Sorry, Iron Maiden, but 1992 wasn't the '80s for you. Similarly, Helmet's <i>Meantime</i> isn't strong enough front-to-back, despite the awesomeness of "Unsung".</li><li>The only one of these albums I haven't yet heard in full is the Rollins Band's <i>The End of Silence</i>. I was about to rectify that situation while writing this entry, but the album is somehow not on Spotify. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4">Fiddlesticks.</a></li><li>For more tripped-out music, Melvins' <i>Lysol</i> and Neurosis's <i>Souls at Zero</i> would have been good editions. While neither was a chart hit, both were at least as notorious as Exhorder's <i>The Law</i>, which I'd omit, considering Pantera and White Zombie are both clearly better groove metal bands. I'd also take Melvins or Neurosis over Sleep, but that's a stylistic choice.</li><li>For more death metal, Obituary's <i>The End Complete</i> and Solstice's self-titled album should both find a way onto this list. The lack of FLDM is another omission. Fun fact: Solstice singer/guitarist Rob Barrett joined Cannibal Corpse in 1994. In one of the more puzzling decisions in death metal history, the band didn't prod him into singing. I consider Barrett a better singer than George Fisher. That said, we're still in 1992 here, when Cannibal Corpse still had Chris Barnes...</li><li>Is <i>Core</i> really metal? It's certainly at the hard end of hard rock, especially in songs like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1QEWLpELM9M">"Crackerman"</a>. Although Core might be a top 5 album from 1992 in rock music in general, it's tempting to disqualify it here in order to open up a spot for a more purely metal album. I'll leave it on, if only because albums like <i>Angel Dust</i> are often softer than <i>Core</i>. Seeing two California alternative bands headline a Best of 1992 list doesn't offend me in the least.</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My drops:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Exhorder - The Law</li><li>Godflesh - Pure</li><li>Helmet - Meantime</li><li>Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark</li><li>Napalm Death - Utopia Banished</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wouldn't include Rollins Band if I were making my own list from scratch, but I can't recommend dropping an album I haven't heard in full.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">My adds:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ul><li>Brutal Truth - Extreme Conditions Demand Extreme Responses</li><li>Demolition Hammer - Epidemic of Violence</li><li>Melvins - Lysol</li><li>Obituary - The End Complete</li><li>Tool - Opiate</li></ul></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Genre-wise, I've kept the distribution roughly the same. Think of replacing Exhorder with Demolition Hammer as maintaining the thrash/groove balance, replacing Helmet with Tool doing the same for alternative, and the rest being a slight tilt toward sludge and doom metal. Obituary is mandatory.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">It'd be a failure to not include some auditory evidence for my adds, so here's Demolition Hammer's "Skull Fracturing Nightmare":</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="326" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NDUwK5bbqhU" width="393" youtube-src-id="NDUwK5bbqhU"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Here's Obituary's "The End Complete", which, unbeknownst to me until now, has a music video:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="329" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rE34z7uVjSM" width="395" youtube-src-id="rE34z7uVjSM"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Not top 20-worthy, you say? Well, you'd be wrong.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hopefully I didn't miss anything...</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-53065790679545979112021-03-28T15:00:00.000-07:002021-03-28T15:00:26.598-07:00March's Book: The Scar<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Scar</i> by China Mieville</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fantasy (2002 - 638 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In China Mieville's <i>The Scar</i>, the story picks up off where his 2000 novel <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2017/11/novembers-book-perdido-street-station.html">Perdido Street Station</a></i> ends, but with completely different characters and settings. Bellis Coldwine is an exile from the city of New Crobuzon, where she is on a ship containing Remade* cargo destined for slavery abroad. The ship is captured,** making Bellis, the Remade Tanner Sack, and a host of other passengers into unwilling inhabitants of the floating city Armada, which is on a mysterious mission across multiple seas. Along the way, they encounter strange species, are involved in multiple intrigues, and have to endure characters of unknown loyalty such as Silas Fennec (Simon Fench), the professor Johannes Tearfly, and the elite mercenary swordsman Uther Doul. Unlike <i>Perdido Street Station</i>, the urban setting takes a back seat, as do the Remade. The human characters' internal demons and the open seas are what move <i>The Scar</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Being stuck inside during the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdown orders made me more than ready to read a book that takes place on a floating city. The ship seems to lack any jurisdiction other than its own, going even farther than the walking cities in <i>Mortal Engines</i>, to the point that Armada is a piratical denizen of international waters more than it can be identified with any nationality. Fittingly, the ship is teeming with characters who may be working for the Lovers, who are Armada's mysterious captains, or for New Crobuzon, various other factions, or simply for themselves. Doul, my favourite character, is so cloaked that Bellis can never guess his intentions despite having multiple one-on-one meetings with him, discussing seemingly sensitive information she genuinely does not know why he is sharing with her. Then he uses his Possible Sword to hack and slash all the possible cuts into his enemies, though, so at least that part is clear. When Bellis first boards Armada, the woman of the Lovers explains to her, "In Armada you are not distinguished. Here you are free. And equal." (79) The characters' ragtag equalities reminds the reader of the Royal Navy or of conquistadors, adventuring without a care as to where they came from.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mieville's interest in economic issues shows throughout <i>The Scar</i>, which, with my industrial relations background, is one of my favourite aspects of the book. During one of the Doul-Bellis discussions, Doul tells her that "You have no idea of the <i>liberation</i> of selling your services, of doing what your employer tells you. I am not a leader." (386) In a world in which characters often own their own ships (e.g.: the Lovers) or are slaves (e.g.: the destiny of the human cargo at the start of the book), Doul loves being an employee. Ironically, piracy lends itself more to boom-bust propositions than to a steady salary, but Doul never appears to struggle financially throughout <i>The Scar</i>. Armada is wealthy in general: "Poverty was less likely to kill. Fights were more likely to be fueled by booze than desperation. A roof was likely to be found, even if it drizzled plaster." (263) It is never made entirely clear who is poor on Armada, but the main characters all have money and freedom, which is all they ask for. Even Bellis and Tanner are constrained mainly by their inability to leave the floating city.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">With the Armada drifting in all sorts of directions, fueled by a creature called an avanc that is never completely described but calls to mind a whale/giant sea slug hybrid, everyone is powerless, even the powerful. When Bellis and Silas engage in conduct detrimental to the ship (no spoilers), Doul invokes <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor">Hanlon's Razor</a> in his remark to Bellis that "You weren't trying to destroy us; you were just stupid." (503) While Bellis comes off as highly intelligent, there is always a sense that there is more to the story that neither she nor the reader knows. This is not limited to the other characters' intentions; her own letters are to "Dear ____", with the blank never filled. While Doul points out that the unknown identity of the recipient robs her of using any inside jokes, she counters that she is more able to bear all her secrets. By the end of the book, inspired by Doul's adventures and reasoning, she writes that "I am very powerful right now. I am ready to mine all of the possibilities, make one of them fact." (637) I love this letter to no one concept, as it has all the personality of a diary but also the explicit intent to be displayed at some undisclosed future point.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Throughout <i>The Scar</i>, Mieville loads the reader with vivid descriptions. Characters' weapons include a statue that can turn its owner into a snakelike creature living outside the existence of time. Characters themselves can have anything from <a href="https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8lO4q6">tentacles sprouting from their chest</a> to a gigantic proboscis. The veining cracks spreading across a submarine's portholes create suspense in a way pure action can't. One particularly beautiful description is of the lightning elementals emerging from the storm over the sea, "metamorphosing in arcs of current, trailing a slew of ghost shapes formed in their discharge, mimicking the outlines of the city's buildings, mimicking fish and birds and faces." (409) Earlier on, when the reader is still getting used to the characters' disparate heroics, Tanner's escape from the bonefish reminded me of the giant Pacific octopus eyeball I saw at the New England Aquarium in 2009.*** On the flipside, the language is so dense at times it would be almost impossible for an ESL reader. I have no idea if a translation of <i>The Scar</i> is even possible. I usually give nods to when a book I read teaches me a new word, but <i>The Scar</i> contains so many obscure or fabricated words it's best to set aside the dictionary and read through for context.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There are two roadblocks for beginning readers looking to dive into <i>The Scar</i>. One is the sheer number of characters, species, ship names and place names. Imagine <i>Game of Thrones</i> but also having to remember which characters have wings, gills, more than four limbs, or <a href="https://www.pinterest.ca/pin/213780313540274029/">some similarly crazy setup</a>. A Dramatis Personae-style itemized list of characters could have arguably helped here. The other is the extremely slow start. Bellis is unmentioned until page 9, after a prologue that consists of nothing but description. Then when she does appear, it starts in the form of a letter containing contextless people and places. Although Bellis's letters make increasing sense as <i>The Scar</i> goes on, the first one is a difficult read. <i>The Scar</i> has the polar opposite of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLF3XDHKm9Y">in medias res</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Like <i>Perdido Street Station</i>, <i>The Scar</i> is a long book, clocking in at 180,000 words. If you've read Mieville before, this is to be expected, so plan your locked-down evenings accordingly. If not, start at the beginning. The possibilities are many.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 3</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 1</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*Remade are explained in the linked November 2017 entry on <i>Perdido Street Station</i>. From that link, "Remade [are people] who have animal parts grafted onto them for various reasons". For example, someone might be remade with eagle wings to be able to fly, or gills to be able to breathe underwater.<br /></div><div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**This piece of information spoils the first 50 or so pages, but is completely unavoidable, as most of the book's events make no sense without knowing that the entire book isn't spent on the <i>Terpsichoria</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***The only pictures I could find of this ocular marvel have so much light shone on them that the effect is lost. Imagine a shimmering silver disc, the size of a dinner plate, the only thing visible against a field of blackness. That's what I saw.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-72705485024721618552021-03-19T09:11:00.001-07:002021-03-19T09:11:29.686-07:00Happy March Madness Kickoff Day!<p style="text-align: justify;">It shocks me that I haven't posted about March Madness on here before, but here we go.</p><p style="text-align: justify;">Every year since the '90s, I've watched the NCAA Division I Men's basketball tournament. I spent hours on my bracket this year, analyzing each individual matchup. That <a href="https://www.quora.com/What-made-your-blood-boil-today/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7">may all be for naught</a>, but I thought I'd share it with the world nonetheless:</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWLMYLfcD2Xz7yPX8s17DiPYUohktx0w7SLyoplpntnDvJWWczLsyghY7N1fHg1DDcLeKsHUiRkDfBOjpn4NiQm0Qv0YtzPxxUBGAUBIrRuxCI7whjdvAPudBV2A33sOfxFvFwUvWekI/s2048/0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1583" data-original-width="2048" height="494" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNWLMYLfcD2Xz7yPX8s17DiPYUohktx0w7SLyoplpntnDvJWWczLsyghY7N1fHg1DDcLeKsHUiRkDfBOjpn4NiQm0Qv0YtzPxxUBGAUBIrRuxCI7whjdvAPudBV2A33sOfxFvFwUvWekI/w640-h494/0001.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br /><p style="text-align: justify;">Go Winthrop, Liberty, and especially Gonzaga!</p><p style="text-align: justify;">My NBA Draft-crazy mind will be going nuts over all this.</p>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-14329323808598519502021-02-22T05:39:00.001-08:002021-02-22T05:39:10.410-08:00Arriving Late to the Alice in Borderland Party<div style="text-align: justify;">For the first time ever, since January 2021, I've been <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">a Netflix subscriber</a>. Although I've <a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">discussed Netflix shows on here before</a>, this new Netflixing is special because I have a treadmill, I use it a lot, and it's made me way too tired to discuss Netflix shows on this blog with any regularity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Alice in Borderland</i> just needs to be discussed, though. I watched four episodes of Season 1 on back-to-back days, marking a punishing three hours per day of treadmill.</div></i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">If you're unfamiliar with the show, this trailer should give you an idea of what it's all about:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/49_44FFKZ1M" width="320" youtube-src-id="49_44FFKZ1M"></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Arisu and friends find themselves in a mostly abandoned, dystopian vision of modern Tokyo. In order to extend their visas, they have to play - and win - potentially fatal games based on the draw of a card. Number is difficulty, as well as the number of days the visa is extended for all winners. Suit is the type of game: spades is a physical challenge, clubs is a team game, diamonds is a battle of wits, and hearts are games that pit the players against each other. It's <i>The Running Man</i> meets <i>Saw</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Awesome show. Why discuss it now specifically, though?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I've read a lot of reviews, yet not once have I seen these discussion points: (quasi-spoilers, I suppose?)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div><ol style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: justify;">Part of what makes <i>Alice in Borderland</i> so great is the one game per episode format. When the 10 of hearts game extends over the last three episodes, the show drags.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">We need more diamonds! Only one diamond game came up, and it only lasted a couple minutes because most of Episode 5 is an explanation of the beach. Diamonds should theoretically be the most fun suit to watch.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">The two hearts games are the only two games Arisu plays that are a 7 or higher, whereas all the other suits are only ever seen at a 5 or lower. (We never see a 6.) It would have been fascinating to see, say, a really difficult physical challenge. I presume we'll see this as one of the face cards in Season 2.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Dead or Alive may actually be the most difficult game. It's the only one that can be failed by all the participants so quickly and violently. I had to go back over it in a way I didn't with the other games. Arisu's spatial sense, awareness and quick thinking that'll keep him alive really shine in this one, which is fitting for the first episode.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Tag combines some of everything, despite being the only spades game so far: teamwork, physicality, the ability to betray people, and the need to solve a puzzle. It also introduces at least two recurring characters.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">The botanical garden game is so full of red herrings I love it. Various online theories of how to save everyone aside, I really liked the "sheep chasing a wolf" angle, as well as the comically mismatched weapons that don't seem to have a purpose other than to make the players into worse people. Well, it is a hearts game...</li><li style="text-align: justify;">The bus game is such a knee-slapper, which I don't like because it doesn't show Arisu at his best. I get that he was rattled by the aftermath of the botanical garden game, and that no one's perfect, but surely <i>looking at the outside of the bus</i> could have been foreseen.</li><li style="text-align: justify;"><b>Spoiler alert:</b> I had always wanted to write a murder mystery that was actually a suicide, but never had the rest of the plot. Thanks, <i>Alice in Borderland</i>, for taking this story off my hands.</li><li style="text-align: justify;"><i>Alice in Borderland</i> is just asking for fan fiction. Make your own games! Not to mention it'd be really easy to introduce a new character, as people pop up every so often.</li><li style="text-align: justify;">Netflix has gone really international recently. In addition to <i>Alice in Borderland</i>, I've also seen other overseas productions recently, such as <i><a href="https://rateyourmusic.com/film/w_lesie_dzis_nie_zasnie_nikt/">Nobody Sleeps in the Woods Tonight</a></i> (Poland) and <i><a href="https://rateyourmusic.com/film/mortal_engines/">Mortal Engines</a></i> (New Zealand). Also of note: RokuTV is going international too, including my recent watchings of <i><a href="https://rateyourmusic.com/film/attack_the_block/">Attack the Block</a></i> (United Kingdom) and <i><a href="https://rateyourmusic.com/film/metropolis/">Metropolis</a></i> (Germany).</li></ol><div style="text-align: justify;">On a less serious note, how was Stacey Q's "Two of Hearts" not on the soundtrack?</div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfBdGT4dn4E" width="320" youtube-src-id="lfBdGT4dn4E"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-13355622055090781572021-02-21T10:46:00.000-08:002021-02-21T10:46:24.209-08:00Bonus Book! The Comanche Empire<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Comanche Empire</i> by Pekka Hämäläinen</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">History (2008 - 361 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Comanche Empire</i> was published the year I started my final year of my Bachelor of Arts in history and English. I don't usually open these entries by discussing myself, so here's why: one of my capstone history courses was a full-year seminar consisting of a book each week in the fall, culminating in a literature review, before an article-length paper in the winter. The course title? Europe and the Overseas World. Reading <i>The Comanche Empire</i>, I felt like I was back in Joyce Lorimer's class. Oh, how the time goes...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Pekka Hämäläinen's argument begins with a trend that was finding its way into mainstream historiography during the first decade of the 21st century: "Moving beyond conventional top-down narratives that depict Indians as bit players in imperial struggles or tragic victims of colonial expansion, today's scholarship portrays them as full-fledged historical actors who played a formative role in the making of early America." (6) I fully agree with this statement, for good (the Comanches' culture is worth commemorating) and for bad (the Comanches were notorious slave traders). The book spans the hundred years from the Spanish colonial era, to the newly independent Mexico, up to the Mexican-American War and the US Civil War, making it simultaneously a bible and a difficult read. From the slave fairs in Taos from 1742-1752, to the Comanches' early military disasters, (42-47) the Comanches would emerge stronger than ever, eventually holding a loose hegemony over what is now Texas and New Mexico.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">As the eighteenth century advanced, Comancheria became more integrated with European colonial societies. The Comanches traded with Spain, France (Louisiana) and <a href="http://encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1085">British West Florida</a>, at times possessing greater economic and military resources than entire provinces of New Spain. (72) A Spanish governor of Texas was in shock at the Comanches' ability to acquire British and French horses, guns, and other items:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Domingo Cabello y Robles, governor of Texas, reported in the 1780s that western Comanches sold guns, powder, balls, lances, cloth, pans, and large knives to their eastern neighbors on the Texas plains, who in turn supplied western Comanches with horses and mules, some of which were then traded to Wichitas, Pawnees, Cheyennes, Kiowas, Kansas, and Iowas. Moreover, in a reversal of the typical roles of colonial trade, western Comanches started to sell guns and other manufactures to Spanish New Mexico. (73)</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Comanches' early alliance with the Utes helped them vanquish the rival Apaches. The other nations mentioned above turned into crucial trading partners, forming the linchpins of an indigenous international relations system in some ways comparable to the long-distance game being played by the European powers. The "open field" in the American West, nominally Spanish and then Mexican but falling increasingly into Comanche hands, saw the ascent of the Comanche Empire in c. 1793. (140)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Comanches were rarely victims, most often firmly in control of their destinies, much to the chagrin of the nascent Mexican state. Historical maps can deceive, because they do not always show effective control; Pekka points out that the <a href="http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~hsa23/images/maps/rep18242.jpg">nominally massive newly independent Mexico</a> was so unable to stop Comanche raids that the Comanches wrecked the Mexican economy. When Mexico attempted to have Americans settle Texas and New Mexico, Stephen F. Austin complained to the Mexican government that peace with the Comanches was impossible because the <i>norteamericano</i> settlements were undefended and easily raided for heir horses. (194) By the time of the Mexican-American War, American soldiers frequently remarked that the Mexican lands they proceeded through were desolate. Many of those soldiers followed Comanche guides.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Comanches' decline went hand in hand with the settling of the American West by more permanent, less nomadic settlers. Comanches followed bison, rode horses, and generally did not farm as much as their American counterparts. The tributary Spanish and Mexicans were replaced by farms: "But by the 1820s, the traditional raiding domains had become either exhausted or unavailable. Decades of on-and-off pillaging had wrecked the pastoral economy of Texas, whereas New Mexico, the site of intense raiding in the 1760s and 1770s, had attached itself to Comancheria through a tribute relationship." (223) </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The Comanche Empire was as multifaceted as any other. It was political (chieftains), geographic (nomadic, fuzzy borders), faunal (extremely horse-based since their first acquisition of horses from the Spanish), economic (trade relations with sedentary nations, e.g.: Apaches, and with various colonial powers), and social (importance of rituals). It was a lot of information to take in for someone who didn't have a background in the field. Luckily, I knew enough general American history to be able to become conversant quickly. I also had the skills I needed, from my undergraduate seminar courses, to be able to absorb unfamiliar material.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Comanche Empire</i> won <a href="https://library.columbia.edu/about/news/libraries/2020/2020-03-17_2020_bancroft_prize_winners.html">Columbia University's prestigious Bancroft Prize</a> in 2009. As <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/09/designated-survivor-cornell.html">an Ivy League alumnus</a> who lives part-time near Bancroft, Ontario, I couldn't help but smile.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 4</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 10</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-75723024113093784612021-02-14T18:54:00.002-08:002021-02-14T18:54:22.164-08:00February's Book: The Great Unknown<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Great Unknown</i> by Marcus du Sautoy</span><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Math/Physics (2016 - 428 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"How puzzling all these changes are! I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from minute to another." -Lewis Carroll, <i>Alice's Adventures in Wonderland</i>* (153)</div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In <i>The Great Unknown</i>, Oxford University mathematics professor Marcus du Sautoy outlines seven of the greatest questions in math and science that may never be solved. Between his introduction and his conclusion, there are seven "edges" of our current scientific understanding: Chaos, Matter, Quantum Physics, The Universe, Time, Consciousness, Infinity. The seven edges overlap in some of the scientists named,** as well as in framing devices used (such as du Sautoy's trusty red casino dice), but each tackles the boundaries of a different question as it has advanced through the history of scientific research. Du Sautoy readily admits his own blind spots, as must we all; in the introduction, he states that "I must admit that the arrogance of youth infused me with the belief that I could understand all that was known...", but then, as he has grown older, "Time is running out to know it all." (7) As someone almost a decade removed from my master's degree, I identify with that feeling.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Much of "Chaos" considers the early modern giants of math. Girolamo Cardano, a noted Lombardian mathematician of the 16th century, was "an inveterate gambler" (24) who spent much of his time devising strategies to win at dice games,*** (with mixed results, much to his family's chagrin) before correctly predicting his death date, in quasi-<i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2014/03/februarys-book-this-is-how-you-die.html">Machine of Death</a></i> style. The origin of Pascal's triangle as a betting aid is less of a surprise when viewed through this lens, as its original application was to decide how a pot should be divided when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_points">the problem of points</a> is incomplete; (28) in an inspired moment during 11th-grade math, I invented Gordon's Triangle, which provides far less insight.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AFWIfL2vXeT1Wun9krQgHl9L-u9Cvk0ff3rlXiflQKwLIqhWnV22S7_yHllfG5bDjqIBuFFHc3Ia0dP6M1q2PGTPhn3KtOSDeT6iAnxxxw3u_RbiuMhEJiEgqaebECTBN81hxza4898/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="204" data-original-width="248" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0AFWIfL2vXeT1Wun9krQgHl9L-u9Cvk0ff3rlXiflQKwLIqhWnV22S7_yHllfG5bDjqIBuFFHc3Ia0dP6M1q2PGTPhn3KtOSDeT6iAnxxxw3u_RbiuMhEJiEgqaebECTBN81hxza4898/" width="292" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Rows 0-7 of Pascal's Triangle, from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_triangle">Wikipedia</a>. Note that each number is the sum of the two numbers directly above it.</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />In "Matter", the world's atomic, and even subatomic, building blocks comes to life, whizzing around and through each other with such startling speed we don't even notice them. Du Sautoy explains the development of particle theory, from 19th-century descriptions of atoms, followed by subsequent understandings of what makes atoms heavier than others (protons, neutrons), what orbits them (electrons), and what all of those are made of (quarks). Dmitri Mendeleev's part-discovery, part-invention of the periodic table (87) figures large here, including the use of octave theory to explain why elements repeat each other every eight atomic numbers, a recurring trend in <i>The Great Unknown</i>: what fills the gaps? Just as irrational numbers fill gaps between rational numbers, as in the case of the square root of 2, Mendeleev's discovery of the absence of an element with an atomic number of 31 inspired the later discovery of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9DEjE8jiwT8">gallium</a>. I have to disagree with du Sautoy's cello/trumpet metaphor to explain the duelling schools of thought regarding whether matter is continuous, like a cello's glissando, or discrete, like a trumpet's staccato. (119) As a classical and jazz trained trumpet player, I have played series of notes lasting 4+ bars when I tongued only two or three notes, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SPG1JQiNBA">despite playing entire scales at various volumes</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In "Quantum Physics", du Sautoy delves into realms that intimidate the average reader but are full of charming stories here. During Albert Einstein's <i>annus mirabilis</i> of 1905, he conducted significant amounts of work on photons; this, not the theory of relativity, would be the subject of his 1921 Nobel Prize. The question of whether light moves in waves or in quasi-particles stumped scientists until then. Du Sautoy makes the colourful analogy that waves would be like a series of taps on the shoulder, each incapable of knocking down the recipient, whereas a particle would be like one good push. (133-135) Oddly, a scientifically inclined friend brought this up during elementary school by asking me on the school bus one day, "would you rather receive a million taps on the shoulder or receive one huge tap with all the force of them combined?" I thought it was a silly question while having no idea he was (unintentionally?) quoting Einstein.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In "The Universe", du Sautoy educates the reader on all manners of cosmological bodies, including the fascinating observation that stars appear to be different colours and brightnesses depending on their distances. Measuring between them therefore requires a combination of trigonometry and colour theory - score one for art class? The 1915 sighting of Proxima Centauri, the closest star to our own, by Scottish astronomer Robert Innes, (192) is one of my favourite discoveries; he had the same name as one of my friends. Fittingly, beyond this edge, "Time", "Consciousness" and "Infinity" start collapsing into themselves...</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Illustrations abound in <i>The Great Unknown</i>. Two of my favourites are ones that were either familiar to me in concept, or familiar to me as in I had seen that exact illustration before. The latter is when du Sautoy shows the mathematical underpinning of human existence via the <a href="https://xkcd.com/435/">xkcd comic "Purity"</a>, (332) which surely connects with the Millennial crowd (full disclosure: I am a Millennial). The former is when du Sautoy demonstrates the limitation of Euclidean geometry to flat plane. Those of us who have studied any level of math take for granted that the sum of a triangle's angles is 180 degrees, but this axiom no longer holds true when the measurements take place on a curved surface. The best example of all is <a href="http://slittlefair.staff.shef.ac.uk/teaching/phy115/session3/page1/page1.html">when a triangle is drawn on a sphere</a>. (381) The ability to draw line segments and polygons on a sphere is crucial to <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/januarys-book-blue-latitudes.html">navigation</a>, flight paths, and nearly anything involving the curvature of Earth. This seemingly obtusely abstract concept is so obviously applicable to everyday life it is a testament to scientific education.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Back to dice: in the conclusion, du Sautoy mentions that there is a finite number of six-sided dice in his house, between his casino dice, his Monopoly set, and wherever else there might be dice, including stuck in the couch. He mentions that he does not know whether there is an odd or even number of dice, although he could find out if he wanted to count them. (418-419) This scenario made me reflect on du Sautoy's earlier observation of what might happen if he rolled a die (or threw magazines) into a black hole, beyond the event horizon, so that its result would be completely unknowable to him. (282) What if, as in the black hole example of the particles bouncing off the event horizon containing some aspect of the die, du Sautoy took his real-life dice and ground them into dust? Reassembling the particles would be practically impossible, and measuring dice powder on a scale could be defeated simply by wetting the dice into a sort of dice sludge, so... could du Sautoy theoretically know how many dice he has <i>then</i>?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The one thing I would have liked to see more of in <i>The Great Unknown</i> is a one-paragraph definition of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_hypothesis">Riemann hypothesis</a> and the <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1365/s13291-012-0039-x#:~:text=Graham%20Higman's%20PORC%20conjecture%20is,n%20over%20a%20field%20F.">PORC conjecture</a>, two unsolved mathematical problems du Sautoy hints at many times near the end of the book but never explores. While I understand they are more useful as stand-ins than as illustrations of the book's ideas, their sheer complexity would have benefited from the book's clear, accessible language.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The world during, and since, <i>The Great Unknown</i>'s release in 2016 contains themes present in the book. When du Sautoy frames the relationship between acceleration, gravity and time by using a thought experiment that sends one of his twin daughters into space at near-lightspeed while the other stays on Earth: "Ina returns younger because she has to accelerate to get to her constant speed." (264) This is an almost exact telling of the 2014 science fiction movie <i>Interstellar</i>, in which a father engages on a potentially Earth-saving interstellar mission while his daughter stays home; <a href="https://youtu.be/t6kqaip7WS4?t=822">later in the movie, they are the same age</a>. (Warning: movie spoiler!) The movie was released the year before the book's publication, making me wonder if du Sautoy read it while writing. Even more recently, Isaac Newton's isolation during the Great Plague of 1665,**** at age 22, marked the moment when many of his theories' seeds were planted in his head. (32) As someone currently in a jurisdiction with an emergency order due to COVID-19, but who hasn't felt particularly brilliant for much of that time... I hope someone's working on zeta functions as I write this.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lastly, there's a great deal of material on scientists' and philosophers' beliefs in God, or lack thereof. How would God construct a black hole? Has God planned out the past, present and future, or does he "reset his watch" at certain intervals? All I have to say to these math plus science plus God questions is what The Great Unknown reminds us of our infinitesimal selves all the time: I don't know, and you don't either.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 5</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 8</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*In 18th-century novel style, du Sautoy opens each edge (chapter) with a quotation from some scientific or literary figure who has influenced our understanding of the unknown. Who better than Lewis Carroll, who wrote the most famous fiction book ever that was about abstract math? (I've blogged about <i>Alice</i> on here not <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2015/11/alices-150-year-anniversary.html">once</a>, but <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2019/01/alice-opens-door-at-toronto-reference.html">twice</a>. No, not the <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2020/11/alice-in-chains-self-titled-turns-25.html">heavy metal Alice</a>.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**For example, Albert Einstein is mentioned during the third edge for his work on photonics, and the fifth edge for his theory of general relativity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***<a href="http://www.columbia.edu/~pg2113/index_files/Gorroochurn-Some%20Laws.pdf">This Columbia University article</a> contains a probability chart of rolling a total of 9-12 with three dice on page 5, Table 1. A similar chart appears in <i>The Great Unknown</i> at page 25.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">****The Great Plague of 1665 differs from our present conundrum in that it was an outbreak of bubonic plague, the same bacterium that caused the Black Death and subsequent outbreaks. That said, there was <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/canadian-research-shows-plague-spread-accelerated-in-centuries-after-black-death-1.5151468">an October 2020 news report using the bubonic plague as a case study</a>, and <a href="https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/teenage-boy-dies-of-bubonic-plague-in-mongolia-1.5023298">a teenage Mongolian boy died of bubonic plague last July</a>.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-77050059427157596142021-01-18T09:20:00.003-08:002021-01-18T09:20:44.446-08:00January's Book: The Poisoner's Handbook<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;"><i>The Poisoner's Handbook</i> by Deborah Blum</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Journalism (2010 - 278 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Poisoner's Handbook</i> takes the reader to the earliest incarnation of public health in New York City, from the creation of the Chief Medical Examiner's office, to Prohibition and its related ills, to a number of high-profile criminal cases. Interspersed with the human interest stories are vivid descriptions of the various elements and compounds used as poisons, each with at least one chapter named for it. The more I read, the more I felt like this was an eerie book to be reading during a pandemic.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Blum is a professor of science journalism, not a historian, so <i>The Poisoner's Handbook</i> reads more like a series of true crime stories* than like an academic monograph. This presentation style keeps the book reading as quickly as an airport novel while being more interesting and far more educational. Journalistic flourishes follow characters' presumed inner thoughts or scenes where their capers may have been set; the quasi-biography of Charles Norris, NYC's first Chief Medical Examiner, reads like a Lost Generation novel: "He left for home with mist gathering on the river behind him and the cobalt sky of evening deepening to black." (223) The sensational retelling of the infamous Ruth Snyder case, which I had heard of before reading, is accompanied by <a href="https://time.com/3808808/first-photo-electric-chair-execution/">the photo of her in the electric chair</a>. (165-174)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div>Norris weaves in and out of the book's loose storyline. The originally political position of coroner had attracted such incompetence and turnover that Norris was horrified at the laziness in pronouncement of deaths: "But 'more than probable' was hardly a professional opinion, Norris said." (35) Norris pioneered the meticulous tracking of causes of death at a time when medical examiners were extremely sloppy, to the point that Frederic Mors, a poisoner working in an old-age home, was able to stuff the residents full of chloroform almost completely undetected. (25) If NYC started the 20th century in dire straits, though, Blum makes sure to let the reader know how persistently Norris sought his goals: "But full-time leisure didn't suit Norris. He was happiest with a cause to fight for, a challenge to overcome." (221) This was even so when he expressed difficulty gathering $10 of public funding and a city car; the idea of a Chief Medical Examiner not having use of a car would be unthinkable to us now.</div><div><br /></div><div>More exotic poisons like cyanide and thallium make later appearances. Most cyanide deaths were either suicide or accident, including hydrogen cyanide gas leaks during fumigations. One high-profile gas leak killed a couple staying in a hotel that was being fumigated. Thallium is a stunning element, bright, leafy green when exposed in a chemical test, but did not appear to be used as a frequent murder weapon, despite being "colorless, odorless, and tasteless." (254)</div><div><br /></div><div>While the mercury and radium chapters are interesting for the science nerds in all of us, they don't contain much crime. Neither appears to be practical as a murder weapon; mercury is too obvious, and radium takes too long. Arsenic, by contrast, was such an early favourite among murderers that Alexander Gettler, the Hungarian-American scientist responsible for much of the Chief Medical Examiner's early research, devoted much to his time to arsenic testing, such as in the murder of Charles Avery. (94-96) The Mary Creighton conviction, for murder committed by way of <a href="http://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz/tm/scholarly/tei-NHSJ07_02-t1-g1-t8.html#:~:text=Rough%20on%20Rats%20was%20a,was%20easily%20obtainable%20from%20chemists.">Rough on Rats</a>, brought arsenic into the spotlight again.</div><div><br /></div><div>One thing that surprised me was the book's almost complete lack of mention of Calvin Coolidge, who surfaces only once. (124) "The federal government" as an entity is discussed plenty, and then Herbert Hoover is discussed in particular, calling Prohibition "the noble experiment"** before ducking to the Belgian embassy for a glass of wine. (157) I emerged from <i>The Poisoner's Handbook</i> having no clue what Silent Cal thought of Prohibition, although <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calvin_Coolidge#Legislation_and_vetoes_as_governor">his mild opposition toward it</a> is not very exciting subject matter. Blum may have simply thought the wood-alcohol-induced death of Mike Malloy was more entertaining subject matter - and she would probably be right.</div><div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A criticism any historical book is known to receive is, <i>"How is this applicable in the present day?"</i> Although history and its offshoots contain more contemporary usefulness than the cynics among us suspect, in <i>The Poisoner's Handbook</i>, the usefulness faces the reader head-on. The chapter on carbon monoxide poisoning includes in-depth descriptions of poisoning symptoms, which are invariably useful in a world full of smoke detectors. Prohibition, in turn, caused an uptick in contaminated goods, sometimes intentionally on the parts of governments; this is analogous to the <a href="https://www.ccsa.ca/sites/default/files/2020-04/CCSA-CCENDU-Adulterants-Contaminants-Co-occurring-Substances-in-Drugs-Canada-Report-2020-en.pdf">whopping 91% contamination rate among illegal opioids in British Columbia</a>. What is amazing to us now is that Prohibition was a largely bipartisan effort, with the House of Representatives vote coming down with essentially two-thirds support on each side. It would have been nice to see bipartisanism for more productive pursuits than Prohibition, but hey, at least Canada's prime minister and premiers coordinated their <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVVeqnfusw4">pandemic responses</a> and <a href="https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/feds-ontario-ante-up-millions-to-produce-electric-vehicles-at-ford-s-oakville-plant-1.5137615">electric vehicle strategy</a> somewhat.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2020 was the first year in recent memory when I didn't get to go to the United States, thanks to the pandemic and the related emergency orders. As someone who hasn't been to NYC since 2011, it was nice to go there in spirit.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 8</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 8</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*See, for example, Erik Larson's <i>Devil in the White City</i>, Richard Zacks's <i><a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/06/this-weeks-book-island-of-vice.html">Island of Vice</a></i>, or Max Haines's <i>True Crime Stories</i>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**I suppose this is the inspiration for <a href="https://www.winerack.com/product/The-Noble-Experiment-Cabernet-Sauvignon">The Noble Experiment</a> winery in Ontario. It's a fun name, but understandably tongue-in-cheek, as I doubt local winemakers consider Prohibition to be noble at all.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-51028203230259951182020-12-31T23:59:00.003-08:002021-01-01T00:00:49.016-08:00Bonus Book! Master of the Five Magics<div style="text-align: justify;">Happy New Year 2021! Here's one last entry for this crazy 2020. What better than a classic fantasy novel with a pop culture twist? More metaphysical thoughts can wait until January.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>----</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large;"><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large;">Master of the Five Magics</i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> by Lyndon Hardy</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fantasy (1980* - 397 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Lyndon Hardy's <i>Master of the Five Magics</i> is a buried gem: first published by Del Rey in 1980, fallen out of print despite having a substantial following, only to finally see its second edition unearthed in 2016. Its hero, Alodar, is the son of disgraced nobles who proves himself in all five arts - thaumaturgy, alchemy, magic, sorcery, wizardry - to become the leading suitor to Queen Vendora. Unlike the trope of a quest being forced on a reluctant hero, Alodar is so proactive the other characters frequently attempt to stop him from achieving his goals for his own safety - but Alodar is determined.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Hardy's explanations of the five magics, what identifies and differentiates them, and how Alodar learns them, could be the subject of a trilogy.** Each of the book's first five parts is named after a magic art Alodar learns, until the final part, "The Archimage",*** which explains what Alodar has become by learning all of them. Only through using the five magics, plus whatever other tools Alodar has at his disposal, can he repel a demonic invasion that comes closer and closer as the story advances. Hardy has broken down all six parts, 18th-century style, into chapters so short it is almost impossible to finish reading one without starting the next. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The maxims of the magics are reflections of the difficulty Alodar has learning them. For example, when Cedric the Warmaster challenges Alodar to reproduce an alchemical potion, Alodar explains that "Using exactly the same ingredients in the same formulas does not necessarily produce identical results". (102) Sorcery's emphasis on removing the mind from the body is invaluable in a way other genres, like science fiction or any genre involving mysticism, would involve without any attempt at magic. Through the clues Alodar receives, in the form of a magic script, orbs and an artifact, he progresses through these lessons, much like <a href="https://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-most-unfortunate-scientists-of-all-time/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7">a gentleman scientist learning sequentially more difficult areas of math</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The language in <i>Master of the Five Magics</i> is intentionally archaic, making the book surprisingly difficult to read at times yet in a way that fits the story perfectly. As Alodar finds understanding of the story his life tells, the reads finds understanding of the story Hardy writes. A line like "Thinking more rapidly than he thought possible, he worked the equations to produce four non-equivalent variations" (212) explains the workings of magic (including <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_square">magic squares</a>) well, but is tiring to read after a while. This is in stark contrast to the action scenes, which Hardy zips like an action movie, making me wish this <i>were</i> a movie. In "The Thaumaturge", Alodar and Aeriel have to escape a ruined castle: "Alodar's muscles tensed. His breathing turned to shallow gasps. Run, run, take the only chance that you have, his body said." (65) This may not seem like the most heroic passage, but much of the book consists of Alodar being <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlMoHLd0EYc">humbled into greatness</a>. Once Alodar has learned all five magics, he must battle demons: "Lightning flashed. Deafening thunder cracked through the air. As Handar reached Alodar's side, a cloudlet formed over the blaze." (317) Then there is the final battle, which is the highlight of the book, but who would dare spoil <i>that</i>?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Master of the Five Magics</i>' enduring influence on pop culture extended into the '90s. In 1990, Megadeth released "Five Magics", a song blatantly based on the book, with certain changes made as artistically warranted:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="370" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ttJAb61N0rA" width="553" youtube-src-id="ttJAb61N0rA"></iframe></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">In addition to this song, which made the rounds on my teenage-era CD players too many times to count, there's the enduring influence on <i>Magic: the Gathering</i>. Richard Garfield repeatedly cited Hardy as the inspiration for having five colours of mana, five different magics, in <i>Magic</i>. That paradigm has persisted to this day. You can see the colour wheel, of five different colours (magics), on every single card:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrdEGfQ6kv5sZ01J4vDobncTCGK3E4icLMCIRLSc-A3q_RZEInn3WCVnguiZ3epjW75QnET9wxaoEQre2e6-0aU-42M4P8A0F6uB97SJQXxErg5tzquBlvHPVCIox9dLbYzDPsFzvXvc/s310/Image.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="223" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjYrdEGfQ6kv5sZ01J4vDobncTCGK3E4icLMCIRLSc-A3q_RZEInn3WCVnguiZ3epjW75QnET9wxaoEQre2e6-0aU-42M4P8A0F6uB97SJQXxErg5tzquBlvHPVCIox9dLbYzDPsFzvXvc/w288-h400/Image.jpg" width="288" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The lag in securing the second edition is one of the book's faults. Hardy had to self-publish it; I do not know who his editor was, but there are a few typographical errors (e.g.: "Aeriel" clearly autocorrected to "Aerial") and the Wikipedia links in the glossary are islands. The Times New Roman text reads like it came straight from Microsoft Word. The cover has a basic Microsoft Word font on it. By contrast, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_the_Five_Magics#/media/File:Master_of_the_Five_Magics.jpg">the cover of the first edition</a> looks like what <i>Master of the Five Magics</i> is: the dawn of the classic '80s fantasy novel. On the plus side, the back matter contains an interview with Hardy in which he explains his thought process behind the creation of the laws of the magic, a novel concept for the time. It's like listening to a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e0VvHZMaTs">Venom</a> album: while the source material is good, you know the best was yet to come.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Now for a lyric from "Five Magics" that may sum up <i>Master of the Five Magics</i> without spoiling it:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Magic if you please</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Master all of these</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Bring him to his knees</i></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><i></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 6</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 2</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*I am reviewing the 2016 edition, but the original release date remains important considering the influence the book had.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**There were two later books with different characters and the same magic system, but they are largely forgotten. The point is that the subject matter of <i>Master of the Five Magics</i> could have easily filled three books.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***In order:</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Thaumaturge" </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Alchemist" </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Magician" </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Sorcerer" </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Wizard" </div></blockquote><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">"The Archimage" </div></blockquote>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-44526630749295941442020-12-25T22:11:00.000-08:002020-12-25T22:11:15.582-08:00Merry Christmas 2020 with an Album to Show!Merry Christmas 2020!<br /><br />It's been a trying year, but here are a few of Toronto's greatest shots, all courtesy of me: <b>https://myalbum.com/album/4ACpSvxmseGY<br /></b><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO5bNe1OQXZ57Dkh9Xwr7nKzob2xwLL2IrGzvF5B8EQwpI49nkPbHPLuQ-2sbG2DvZTRfNlq5Bo_3T2b3ojV1_pLY8xnjysQgKnfRzVDfRSabOlp8f2YhpaIWg2Swf5_C21X06i7QhC4c/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1536" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO5bNe1OQXZ57Dkh9Xwr7nKzob2xwLL2IrGzvF5B8EQwpI49nkPbHPLuQ-2sbG2DvZTRfNlq5Bo_3T2b3ojV1_pLY8xnjysQgKnfRzVDfRSabOlp8f2YhpaIWg2Swf5_C21X06i7QhC4c/w480-h640/image.png" width="480" /></a></div><br />Arguably the most iconic. Casa Loma on March 5, 2020, less than two weeks before the city would see an unprecedented lockdown.<br /><br /><b>Which is your favourite picture?</b>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5410705436442377594.post-73652951506074066562020-12-10T10:19:00.000-08:002020-12-10T10:19:06.191-08:00December's Book: 4 3 2 1<div style="text-align: justify;"><i style="font-size: x-large;">4 3 2 1</i><span style="font-size: x-large;"> by Paul Auster</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Fantasy (2017 - 866 pp.)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Astoundingly, <i>4 3 2 1</i> is the first novel by Paul Auster I've discussed on this blog, and the first of his I've read in fifteen years. After being assigned his fantastic 1987 dystopian novel <i>In the Country of Last Things</i> as an undergraduate English student in 2005, and recommending it ever since, I somehow managed to evade the rest of his lengthy literary career until now. Why, I have no idea. Whereas <i>In the Country of Last Things</i> reminds me of <i>1984</i> and <i>Brave New World</i>, <i>4 3 2 1</i> reads more like <i>Barney's Version</i>. For an author to have that breadth of writing, from the chillingly dark to the heartwarmingly hilarious, is almost unheard of.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>4 3 2 1</i> begins on Ellis Island, as so many stories of American immigrant families do. Auster's invented family, ex-Russian-Empire Jews who eventually land in New York City and New Jersey, resemble so many other families of the first half of the twentieth century... until Archie Ferguson* comes along. From that point, <i>4 3 2 1</i> follows four different paths Archie's life could have taken, from his birth on March 3, 1947** until the dawn of the 1970s. From a topsy-turvy childhood in the 1950s, to growing into LBJ/Vietnam-era political activism in the 1960s, Archie develops as a writer and student, sometime lover of various people,*** and conflicted family member, in four distinctly different ways.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Slotting <i>4 3 2 1</i> into a genre is of considerable difficulty. If you accept that there is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/By_His_Bootstraps">some sort of multiverse theory</a> at work, it is arguably science fiction. If you <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HandWave">handwave</a> the reasoning behind the different lives, it can be <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2012/08/last-weeks-book-night-circus.html"><i>Night Circus</i>-style low fantasy</a>. If you truly do not care why Archie has these four storylines but simply enjoy Auster's sharp sense of humour, <i>4 3 2 1</i> is pure comedy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Archie's timelines go back to the age-old question we all ask at various points in our lives: <i>if I had made an important life decision differently, who would I be now?</i> Archie's circumstances and decisions change drastically, from whether Amy Schneiderman is his girlfriend, his friend, or neither; which school he attends (Princeton or Columbia: not a bad set of options!); or even something as monumental as the duration of his young life. As I have explained <a href=" "Gaming Your Protagonist"">using a decision tree</a>, this is an insightful way to craft a character, seeing through the eyes of who that person could have become at any given time. Auster dumps four of those stories on the table, providing the hook for <i>4 3 2 1</i>, making the reader think back to so many important life events. Like many a New York City-based writer, Archie never becomes a Republican: is this <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealLifeWritesThePlot">real life writing the plot</a>?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>4 3 2 1</i>'s best scenes are dramatic, comedic, or both. Auster packs 47 years of Ferguson family history/lore into the introduction, (1-29) which comprises the first 3.35% of the book; some of <i>4 3 2 1</i>'s most charming moments, all squashed together. Auster's description of a young Archie braving a rainstorm at Camp Paradise is one of the best uses of pathetic fallacy - a lightning strike - I have read in recent years. (184) Archie's early literary forays are described in detail, some with excerpts, such as the cute "Sole Mates", but the most all-encompassing is "Right, Left, or Straight Ahead?" (492) In that story, the protagonist Lazlo Flute takes three different paths at a key crossroad, much like Archie does in <i>4 3 2 1</i>, much like Archie's writing (he's always a writer) is so drastically different in his four storylines. On a less introspective note, college humour takes the form of Archie and his roommate creating fictional character tennis matches, which, naturally, descends into a <a href="https://matthewgordonbooks.blogspot.com/2016/01/december-2015s-book-tender-is-night.html">Dick Diver</a> joke, (586) as <a href="https://www.quora.com/Why-were-authors-such-as-Friedrich-Nietzsche-and-D-H-Lawrence-more-popular-among-youth-of-the-1960s-than-they-are-among-Millennials-and-Gen-Z/answer/Matthew-Gordon-7">1930s fiction wasn't that old in the late '60s</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">For all its emotional directions, <i>4 3 2 1</i> drags. It clocks in at an estimated <a href="https://www.readinglength.com/book/isbn-1627794468">320,885 words</a>, making it approximately thrice the length of a typical book in its genre. Its 866 pages move quickly, but Archie's girlfriends in different timelines often blur together, making the reader pause to wonder whether all their lovers from ages 19-22 were really just different varieties of student. When the storylines share common events, notably the political tumult of the 1960s, two of those storylines become almost interchangeable.^ Then there is the interminable obsession with sex: I don't recall my teens and early twenties being dominated by sexual thoughts, so is this simply how Archie sees himself? Lastly, the ending is unsatisfying, which after that much inkshed^^ feels as though the reader is being robbed. Without spoiling the book, the ending is abrupt, at an age when Archie's story is just beginning, and contains a "gotcha!" moment that arguably changes the book's genre.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">How would I finish this entry? <i>Ikh hob fargessen!</i>^^^</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ease of Reading: 6</div><div><div style="text-align: justify;">Educational Content: 2</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">*They are Jewish and their last name is Ferguson. This is explained in detail in the book.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">**Paul Auster <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Auster">was born on February 3, 1947</a>. The vividness of the current events discussion in <i>4 3 2 1</i> lends credence to the idea that, even if the book isn't semi-autobiographical, Auster was very much inspired by the events of his youth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">***Exactly who Archie loves depends on the storyline.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">^I am not alone in this observation. On Goodreads, one reader went so far as to use <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/questions/997226-i-m-reading-this-book-right-now-and">four different-coloured Post-It notes</a> for the four storylines.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">^^Like bloodshed but with ink.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">^^^When you read the first page of <i>4 3 2 1</i>, you will understand this reference.</div>Matthew Gordonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13300409979234748244noreply@blogger.com0