Love and desperation: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy has developed a reputation as a writer who specialises in dark novels about desperate people.  This apple, though one of his most recent, could have given root to the whole tree.  Set in some vague, largely depopulated post-apocalyptic future where clouds and ash have blanketed the world, killing plant life and bringing global temperatures crashing (suggesting it could have been a nuclear war that triggered the cataclysm), it is about a father and his young son traveling south along tarmacked stretches of highway in search of warmer weather and more hospitable environs, and the horrifying difficulties they encounter along the way.

For all the setting and the recounting of the travails of the characters (they are nameless, known only as “the man” and “the boy”), this book is, at its core, a love story: a father’s overpowering, uplifting, burdensome, compelling, beautiful love for his son.  It drives him ever onward and is the motivation for every single action he takes in the book: he’s ill and, with no medical care available, he wants to get to where his son will have the best chance of survival before what he obviously feels will be his inevitable passing.

They have little choice at any rate, as life has become essentially untenable in the places through which they travel; food has become so scarce (since plants can no longer grow, there is no vegetation and also therefore no animals, and any reserves of canned or otherwise preserved food are either gone or spoiled) that the only recourse left to most survivors — such few as still exist — is cannibalism.  The man and the boy manage to scrape enough to avoid descending to that level, but the price they pay is almost constant near-starvation.  Combined with always being in danger of freezing to death, this means they endure a brutal existence.  Also, it means that every single encounter they have with other people is a matter of life and death: people trying to kill them (for food and/or clothes – shoes are a particularly hot commodity), or meeting someone and wondering if the person(s) will try to kill them, or abandoning someone to circumstances that must mean their death.  It’s dark and depressing, but utterly compelling, leaving you wondering until the end whether the man will manage to get his son to a warmer, safer place.

*  *  *  *  *  *

This book is brilliant on so many levels, but the way it speaks to me the most is as a father.  McCarthy captures both the love and the relationship between the man and the boy so perfectly.

Before I had kids of my own, I thought I knew love: for friends, for family, for my wife.  On the day my first child – my son – was born, though, I realised that these were but pale imitations of what true love really feels like: a parent’s love for their child.  Nothing even comes close to touching this.  Most parents would tell you this.  When I held him for the first time, I looked into his eyes and I was utterly, irrevocably dragged under by a riptide of emotion, and I delighted in drowning in it, as if I’d never known the taste of air or what it was to be standing on firm, dry ground.  On that day I rang my mother, and I apologised to her for any and all of the crap I had done or put her through when I was growing up, because I finally understood: this was how she felt about me, and no loving parent deserves any of the heartache, stress and strife that their kids subject them to as they as they grow and mature (and oh, you get that in spades).

Which is not to say that, when your kids are at their supreme naughtiest, there aren’t moments you feel like literally murdering them (which is probably why we are programmed to love them so intensely: survival of the species).  Even then, though, you still love them with every fibre of your being, and all it takes is an “I’m sorry,” an apologetic hug, and a little grin, and all is forgiven.

It is this love that drives the man ever-onward and informs his every action.  I (and most parents) would quite literally do anything to protect my children, and the man reflects this.  Starve myself that my child might eat for even one more day?  Check.  Sacrifice warmth, comfort and sleep if it means my child can have them instead?  No question.  Withhold food or aid from other people if it means ensuring the health and safety of my child?  Absolutely.  Kill someone to protect the life of my child?  Without a moment’s hesitation or an ounce of remorse.

[Maybe I'm a bit on the fringes of society on this, but if someone came up to me and said, "Press this button to blow up that bus full of people or we will kill your children," I would jab that button until my finger broke.  I'm not sure what that says about my relationship with society as a whole, but there you go.  Of course, maybe I shouldn't admit that in a public forum, as I've just sent up a red flag to terrorists and criminals everywhere: "Hey, guys!  Kidnap my kids and I'll do anything you want!  Seriously, come and get 'em!"  Ah well, live by the sword...]

If the love the man has for the boy drives the plot, the relationship they share is the heart of the book.  In much the same way that men tend to hang out with other men and women generally have other women for friends, so too do fathers and mothers tend to have slightly different relationships with their children depending on whether they’re boys or girls.  This is a father-son relationship in the classical mold: not necessarily a lot of talking, but then there doesn’t necessarily need to be.  Quiet understanding is the order of the day – they know each other intimately from having spent the entirety of the boy’s young life together, constantly on the move or on the run, living quiet lives of desperation punctuated by brutality. If they do talk, it is either situational – that is, revolving around events about to happen, occurring now, or just past – or else a brief conversation that the reader gets the idea is little more than cud-chewing, recycling past material: generally the boy wondering what will become of them, and his father having little or no words of real comfort to offer him.

The boy is, in a sense, the tragic figure in this Greek play: brought into a situation not of his choosing, subject to forces beyond his understanding and out of his control.  This horrific existence is all he has ever known, and it has left its indelible mark on him, announced by his reticence, described by his silences, played out in his solemn demeanour.  A world that so savagely smothers a child’s laughter is a dead world, and this one passed to ashes long ago.

*  *  *  *  *  *

“While there is life, there is hope” – Cicero

Though the situation is bleak, it is not entirely without hope.  If they can just get a little bit farther, perhaps the weather will pick up enough to at least remove the threat of freezing, or maybe they’ll manage to find some lost stash of supplies that will keep them going a few days longer, or chance upon someone who might actually help them.  It is hope against reason, but then hope ever was, else it would be called expectation.  “The audacity of hope” is something that applies to few people in our oh-so-civilised Western society; rather, it is reserved for the truly desperate and down-and-out, those for whom it would seem to make more sense to long for death and a quick ending than to bother hoping for respite, especially of the sort that only drags out the suffering rather than improving the dire nature of the circumstances.  Hope, in that instance, is the ultimate luxury, the pinnacle of audacity.  Yet hope the man does, because his love for his son won’t permit him to do anything else.  There are days when hope fails him – they have a gun, but almost no bullets, and they are reserving the last two for themselves in case they are ever captured (there are places even hope will not follow, and better a quick death in those circumstances) – and the man contemplates giving his son that final, tender mercy rather than subject him to another day of their tortured, depressing lives.  His love is too strong, though, and hope wins out: so long as his body and his illness allow, he will continue to do everything in his power to secure some sort of future for his son, whatever that might be.

*  *  *  *  *  *

This is a heartbreaking, uplifting book about the beauty and power of a father’s love for his son.  As such, it speaks to me on levels some people couldn’t possibly understand.  Which is not to say that it can’t be read and thoroughly enjoyed by anyone; it’s a brilliantly written book that would be accessible to anyone with love in their hearts.  Oprah even featured it in her book club.  But certainly if I’d read this before becoming a father, it would have been an entirely different experience for me.  Every father (or, indeed, mother) ought to read this, as should anyone wanting to understand their father better: just because he mightn’t talk to you as much, doesn’t mean he wouldn’t sacrifice everything – everything – for you if the need arose.  Read it, and think: this could be my father; this could be my child; this could be me.

Recommended further reading by Cormac McCarthy:  I haven’t read any of his other books, but of course his No Country for Old Men was made into a much-acclaimed movie by the Coen Brothers and is meant to be an excellent book; his novel Blood Meridian, according to Wikipedia, “was among Time Magazine’s poll of 100 best English-language books published between 1925 and 2005 and he placed joint runner-up for a similar title in a poll taken in 2006 by The New York Times of the best American fiction published in the last 25 years.”

Next up: I haven’t decided yet.  I’m about to go on holidays for 2 weeks, though, so I’ll see you when I see you.

All the best,

M

Fisheries in peril: Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina

Carl Safina is a world-renowned marine ecologist and fisheries biologist.  He has campaigned for marine ecological causes (including banning drift-net fishing) and helped craft U.S. fisheries law and international fisheries treaties.  There are probably few in the world who can rival his expertise on such a wide variety of marine ecology topics as he has studied, written about, and campaigned for.

And he also happens to be one hell of a writer.

This is a powerful combination: he speaks about issues that he knows inside out, some of which could affect thousands if not millions of people worldwide, he writes about each one as if it were the single most important thing in his life, and his prose is so beautiful, passionate, and poignant that even if you had all the emotional detachment of a bull moose, you would still be left fighting to refrain from weeping bitter tears at humans’ capacity for wanton destruction — not only of the environment, but of our own humanity itself.

Song for the Blue Ocean is Safina’s first book, and in it he catalogues his journeys of discovery through a variety of fisheries: Atlantic tuna — predominantly bluefin — as well as cod and swordfish; Pacific Northwest salmon (near and dear to my heart); and Pacific coral reef fish (especially live capture for the home aquarium fish trade).  As an ecologist, his writing is of course informed with a conservationist slant; however, he spends extensive time talking to, going to meetings of, and going out on boats with “the other side”: the fishermen themselves as well as their industrial representatives.  For the most part, most especially when it comes to the fishermen themselves, Safina treats them with dignity and respect (indeed, Safina himself fished from a young age and so has a great love for it himself).  Because of that, you come to understand them as ordinary people with ordinary problems — mortgages to pay, families to feed, bills in arrears with no sight of relief on the horizon — and the reader comes to see it isn’t necessarily a black-and-white issue.  In fairness, it’s easy to like most of the fishermen as they tend to be realistic about the state of their particular fisheries; that is, they recognise the fish are in decline and that something has to be done.

Unfortunately, other people don’t have the luxury of being open and sensible: industry representatives tasked with protecting fishermen’s jobs; corporate representatives who look after the pocketbooks of the companies they work for; national representatives who must protect the economies of their countries.  Sadly, it is these people who wield power and influence in places where laws and treaties are enacted and who therefore must be overcome.  It is nothing short of shocking how blinkered they can be when it comes to denial and refutation of what one would assume to be incontrovertible scientific fact.  It is because of these people that some of the world’s most important fisheries stand on the brink of ruin.  If the fish are to be saved and restored, if will be because of the efforts of men like Safina.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Safina’s journey starts in the Northeastern U.S. (he hails from New York himself).  Interspersed with his accounts of meeting with various fishermen and industry representatives are hard scientific facts charting the decline and fall of fish populations important to the area’s fishermen: bluefin tuna, swordfish, cod.  He also discusses the industry’s and various governments’ hardline opposition to these facts.  Opponents point to things like record tonnes of fish caught, while ignoring mitigating factors: more and bigger boats in the water utilising greater technology (sonar, spotter planes, huge nets) than was previously available means that greater overall effort is needed to catch the same unit of fish; and the fish being caught are, on average, smaller than they have been historically, meaning they aren’t living long enough to reach full size because they’re all getting caught, which is a problem in larger fish species that reach sexual maturity later and thus may have had few (or no) opportunities to reproduce by the time they’re caught.

For the fishermen on the ground (or, rather, on the water), there are no easy answers.  Should the government invest millions to buy their boats to be retired, re-train the fishermen for some other job, and relocate them to where the jobs are?  And what about the small towns, the communities that support them?  If the fishermen go away, how do the people left behind support themselves?  With the fishermen gone, would tourists bother visiting in enough numbers to keep alive local businesses?  And, of course, for many fishermen, their chosen vocation is a lifestyle choice: they have a great love and respect for the ocean and couldn’t conceive of doing anything else.  It would be like… well, it would be like telling a dedicated ecologist, “We don’t want you to do that any more, so instead we’re going to train you to sell car insurance.”  The difference, to say the least, would be jarring.

For everyone involved in the bluefin tuna trade (as an example), one major obstacle is that the economic incentives are overwhelming: landing just a couple of good sized, good quality (free from scratches and scars) bluefin can set up a fisherman for months or even a year, as these fish sell for many thousands of dollars.  They are the most sought-after fish in Japan, being served as sushi in the most exclusive and expensive restaurants in the country.  The irony is, the Japanese claim it is part of their national heritage and they couldn’t possibly agree to reducing worldwide catch limits, yet bluefin is so expensive that the only people who can afford to eat it are the wealthy… such as the people lobbying to keep the limits where they are or even increase them, the government ministers refusing to bow to international pressure, the companies profiting from the trade, and of course the wealthy friends, associates, corporate board members and campaign contributors of said lobbyists and government officials.  Such is the economics of politics (and vice versa).

*  *  *  *  *  *

Safina next goes to the Pacific Northwest to explore the region’s salmon fishery and associated problems.  It is here that his narrative is, in a way, at its most bleak, yet also its most uplifting.  For the salmon fishery has, in many areas, more or less completely collapsed.  Yet the community-wide efforts to restore them show just what can be accomplished when people from both sides of an issue can pull together.  Which is not to say there are not still individuals who insist on protecting their own interests (or those of their employers) at all costs, but at least there is cause for hope.

A big part of the problem for salmon is the dual nature of its life cycle.  Salmon lay their eggs in freshwater streams; when the eggs hatch, the juvenile fish remain for a time in the stream; at some point, then, they make their way out to sea, where they live out their adult lives; eventually, they return to their native streams to spawn, after which they most often die (within a few hours or days).  The pressures on salmon happen at both stages of their lives: not only are they overfished in the ocean as adults, but their native streams are decimated by logging, damming, farming, or other factors, meaning even those salmon that survive that long are unable to return “home” to spawn.

It is this weakness, however, that is turning into a strength.

Whereas on the East coast, where the fish are purely ocean-going, the fishermen only have two choices — fish, or don’t — the Northwest fishing community has come to realise they can be an active part of the solution.  Along much of the coast, they literally don’t have a choice: when you’re lucky to catch even a couple of fish per day, you literally can’t make enough to live on, pay the bills with, and do upkeep on your boat with.  Some have turned to recreation — taking tourists out for sportfishing or whale watching or sightseeing (or all three).  Others have tried to get licenses to fish off of the Alaskan coast.  Some, though, have taken a different road, joining teams of conservationists trying to restore salmon streams and make them fit for spawning again.

The hills and mountains of the western region of the Northwest are (or were) covered by vast pine forests, many of which would be classed as temperate rain forests: cooler than tropical rain forests, but receiving just as much rainfall.  Logging is a common business, and the modus operandi is to clearcut: the forest is literally stripped bare, right down to the ground.  This affects all running water downstream of the cut, which in turn affects the salmon.

Salmon need stream conditions just so when they spawn: they need nice, loose gravel to lay their eggs in, which will shelter and protect the eggs yet still allow water to flow around them; they need tangles of loose wood in the stream, which create eddys that serve as nice resting spots for adult salmon returning upstream and also sheltered spots for juvenile salmon to hide in, as well as helping slow the flow of water during the rainier seasons; and finally the salmon need the stream to be sheltered by trees and not run too slow, so the water is just the right temperature for the eggs.  Clearcut logging destroys all of these aspects of the stream:

• Rain washes the topsoil into the streams and rivers, silting them up and slowing the flow.
• During heavy rains, the lack of groundcover causes the water to pour off the clearcuts and into the streams, causing them to flood and scouring them clear of gravel (not to mention eggs) and fallen logs and branches that otherwise gather in the streams.

Both the silting and the scouring render the streams unusable to salmon: the silting covers up the gravel, so there is nowhere for the salmon to lay eggs (or covering up eggs that have already been laid, smothering them, depriving them of oxygen); the slowing of the normal water flow due to silting plus the lack of covering trees means the water heats up until it is too warm for the eggs, killing them (keep in mind this can affect the entire waterway dowstream of the clearcut, not just the area immediately adjacent to it); and floods scouring the wood and gravel from the streams means that the salmon have nowhere to hide, nowhere to rest, and (again) nowhere to lay their eggs.

This is where the conservationists and fishermen come in: they have undertaken to make some streams fit for use by salmon again.  From replanting cleared-out areas (and not just with more fir trees) to depositing logs and other dead wood into streams to create new tangles, they’re slowly giving back to the salmon what they’ve lost.  They are also counting the salmon in the stream — especially juveniles heading downstream — to track what kind of an effect their efforts may be having.  Through this, it’s easy to see that these aren’t just people out to make a buck; they truly have a love and a care for this creature around whom they have built their lives.  It’s amazing to see.

Coming from the other side — land users who have no particular tie to the fish — are a group of farmers in northern California.  It is their tale that, if anything, is even more inspiring.  Many of them grew up in the area and remember fishing in the streams as youngsters; the fish are gone now, and they mourn that lost part of their childhood (and the fact that their children will never get to have that experience).  Therefore, they’ve undertaken to bring the salmon back to their lands.

Farming can have similar effects on a stream to clearcutting: removing cover causes the stream to heat up; animals (namely cows) coming to use the water can cause the stream banks to collapse, silting them up (covering gravel and also slowing the flow thus contributing to warming), as well as polluting the water with their waste (fertilizer runoff can contribute to this as well); and lack of adequate cover can help contribute to flooding and scouring.  The farmers, therefore — at their own time and expense — have also taken their own measures to restore and protect the streams on their land.  For all the ill will Safina encounters in his travels, this chapter more than any other fills one with hope for humanity and for our common future.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The final leg of Safina’s travels (and travails) takes him to various islands in the Pacific and to Hong Kong.  The islanders here are dependent on the reef fish for their livlihood — either to ea,t or to sell for food or for the live aquarium trade, or as a draw for tourists.  They are all experiencing problems, to a greater or lesser degree.

For instance, one of the time-honoured methods of fishing that had been brought to these islands was the use of dynamite.

It certainly made the fish easy to catch, but it decimated the reefs the fish live on, meaning the fish no longer had anywhere to live, meaning no more fish.

Another popular method — and one still in common use when this book was written — was the use of cyanide. The men would dive down, release a bit of cyanide near the fish, the fish would become unconscious and the men could catch them easily.  The problem with this is two-fold: first, cyanide would kill the coral, again ruining the reef as a habitat for the fish; second, the fish would actually be severely damaged by the cyanide, but it often wouldn’t show until the fish ate some food for the first time after being poisoned, at which point they would die.  So the fish would be kept for up to a week without being fed while they made their way to market in Hong Kong (or wherever), at which point some unsuspecting customer buys them and feeds them, and they die.  Meaning the customer has to buy even more fish, thus fueling the cycle.

And, of course, this isn’t even taking into account possible ill effects exhibited by the fishermen from exposure to the cyanide.

Again, though, the fishermen themselves have started to recognise the downside — primarily the damage to the environment and thus the threat to their own livlihoods — and initiatives are underway to teach about the ills of fishing that way and also to instruct them in alternative methods of catching the fish.

*  *  *  *  *  *

The full breadth of this book — the time and research that went into it — is simply awe-inspiring.  It is the people that inhabit it, though, that ground this work, making it accessible.  Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Safina also has a gift for writing that captures the imagination.  Unfortunately, due to the subject matter, it is generally more downbeat than upbeat, but there is also enough there to give cause for hope.  While I was in university, I was lucky enough to meet Safina around the time this book came out (he gave a guest lecture at one of my classes) and to actually go and meet firsthand some of the people he mentions in the book and see the work they are doing to restore streams and track the numbers of fish passing through.  They and their work are no less amazing on paper than they are in the flesh, and that is down to Safina’s brilliant, poignant writing.

The one major downside of this book is that it was first published in 1998, leading one to wonder, “What now?”  What has happened in the last 11 (so far) years?  Are things any better?  Worse?  He could really do with writing another chapter, an epilogue, briefly catching the reader up on developments (if any) on each of the issues covered in the book in the years since.  Even if it was only released as a purchasable, downloadable pdf, I’m sure a lot of people would be interested enough to fork out a couple of dollars (or three, or four) for that. I know I would.  And it would be easy enough for him to keep updated every couple of years with any further developments.

For more information:  There is an excellent Safina bio (though from 2005, so again a tiny bit out of date) at the H.W. Wilson website.  Safina also is co-founder of the marine conservation organisation The Blue Ocean Institute (www.blueocean.org).  On the website you can view (or download) their excellent Seafood Guide, which is a guide to ocean-friendly seafood: a list of most seafood species generally consumed and whether it 1) has a healthy enough population that it is considered sustainable and 2) is fished (or raised) in a manner that is both sustainable and ecologically friendly.  It was only just updated in March 2009, and it goes into extensive detail on each species covered, giving it an overall score and then breaking down each component of that score.  If you don’t already wonder where that seafood you just ate came from, you will.  A must-read for anyone, not just the ecologically conscious.

Recommended further reading by Carl Safina: He only has two other books published at the minute (though another is due soon): Eye of the Albatross and Voyage of the Turtle, neither of which I have read, though I fully intend to.

I haven’t yet decided which book I’ll review next, though I’m leaning toward The Road by Cormac McCarthy.  Actually, upon looking I only just saw now that they’re making a movie of it starring Viggo Mortensen.  If it was anyone else in the lead role, I would likely cringe and run a mile in the other direction.  With Viggo, though, at least there is hope; if anyone could bring the proper dignity, gravitas and ennui to the role, it is him.  In any case, it looks like my mind has been made up about the next review.  It promises to be shorter than this one, don’t worry. ;)

All the best,

M

Lord of Light review correction

I’m currently re-reading Lord of Light (it had been a couple of years since I last read it), and in doing so I’ve found that Zelazny did, in fact, mention (albeit only in passing) how the bodies used for reincarnation were produced.  I have therefore edited my review to reflect this fact (though it didn’t require much of a change, to be fair).

-M

Buddha for a new world: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

As has been previously established, my favourite book is Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.  Published in 1967, it won the Hugo award for best novel in 1968 and was also nominated for the Nebula award.  In it, Zelazny re-imagines the tale of Buddha in a science fiction setting.  Set on a far-away planet that was long ago colonised by people from Earth, it is a journey both exciting and spiritual.

The original colonists on the planet possessed an amazing array of technology, not least of which is reincarnation: they have the ability to transfer a person’s consciousness from one body to another (even a non-human body).  Zelazny completely skirts the morality of the issue.  He mentions in passing that they are vat-grown and also about egg and sperm banks, growth tanks, and “body lockers”  — paraphernalia of the trade.  He passes no comment on it, though, presenting it merely as an accepted part of the society.  If this book were written today, it would probably be very different, as things like GM foods, stem cell research, and cloning are much more in the public (and political) consciousness than they were when the book was first published.  And, of course, if the Church and other opponents were opposed to abortion, they would have an absolute field day with the notion of growing entire people solely to be used as host bodies for other people’s consciousnesses.  However, while on the one hand Zelazny ignores even the existence of a moral debate on the issue, on the other hand he has a simple, elegant justification for the existence of this technology in his world’s society: Hinduism.

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” – Arthur C. Clarke

As I said, the original colonists had very advanced technology (as you would expect, considering that they crossed the void of space to establish a colony on another planet).  Gradually, however, many of those original colonists and some of their chosen few (usually progeny of theirs) came to hoard this technology for themselves, and the current technological level of the planet’s society is actually quite low (pre-industrial revolution it seems, more or less).  What advanced technology they do possess (most notably the reincarnation machines), they only operate; they don’t understand how it works.  The original colonists, meanwhile, have set themselves up as the Hindu pantheon of gods over the planet, utilising their technology to give themselves the appearance of having great powers and thus cow the general populace into serving them.  Sam, our hero (and also one of the First, as they’re called), takes a dislike to this and takes on the role of Buddha in opposition to the gods.

*  *  *  *  *  *

At this point, perhaps it is time for a Reader’s Digest condensed version of Hinduism and Buddhism, for those who aren’t familiar with their doctrines.  Amongst the different sects of Hinduism, there are something like a grand total of 330,000 gods (yes, you read that right) of one stripe or another.  Generally, they are usually considered to be different aspects or manifestations of one central god.

In ideological terms, most people, at least, are familiar with the notions of Karma and reincarnation.  Be good in this life, and you rack up Karma points and will be reborn to a higher station in your next life.  However, this is not the full story.  In the culture of India, there is a strict, regimented caste system.  It is not known definitively how this originated, but it is intrinsically woven into the fabric of Hinduism (some Christians and Muslims also adhere to it, but the caste system — and of course Hinduism — pre-date either of those beliefs by a country mile) and the concept of Karma: whatever caste you were born into, you deserve it because of something you did in a previous life.  Behave well within the strictures of your caste in this life, and you will be rewarded with birth into a higher station in the next; fail to do this, and you risk being reborn into a lower caste, or even as an animal or insect.  “Do as you’re told, like a good peon, or you’ll come back in the next life as a toad!”

[As an aside, this is why some embrace the doctrine of ahimsa, refusing to kill anything, even sweeping the ground in front of them so as to not step on any bugs: you never know if that ant you just crushed was one of your ancestors reborn.]

Thus are the lower castes — who vastly outnumber those above them in the caste pyramid — kept in their proper place by the higher castes.  Modern Indian society is starting to shrug out of the caste yoke, in the bigger cities at least, but there’s a long way left to go.

In around the 5th or 6th century BC (or BCE, if you prefer), there arose a prince named Siddhartha (in a kingdom in what would eventually become Nepal), the man who would eventually become Buddha.  He was extremely sheltered by his parents, never even being allowed to see anyone sick or elderly; people weren’t even allowed to discuss anything related to illness or aging in his presence.  He was kept locked away in the palace, surrounded by young, healthy, beautiful people, completely ignorant of the outside world.  One day, though, he saw an old man, and things snowballed from there.  Long story short, he eventually became an ascetic monk, living in the wilderness on his own, spending all his time meditating, sometimes not eating for days, seeking enlightenment.  Ultimately he achieved this, of course, teaching his followers to follow the middle path of moderation in all things (rejecting not only over-indulgence but also under-indulgence).  It was his hope that all of his followers would achieve enlightenment and, when they eventually died, ascend to Nirvana and thus – and here’s the main point – escape the cycle of reincarnation. For if one can escape that cycle — if you no longer have to worry about what you might be reborn as in your next life — then you are not limited to the strictures of your caste or beholden to those of a higher station than yourself.  Thus Buddha’s teachings were not simply a different belief system, but were actually a revolution (if a peaceful, spiritual one) against the very foundations of Indian society: no one is better than anyone else, all are equal, anyone is capable of achieving Nirvana, you are not bound to this life and this cycle of rebirth, therefore make of this life what you will.

*  *  *  *  *  *

Sam, then, undertakes to do the same on his world, becoming a spiritual leader and teaching people to let go of the need to be reborn and instead embrace eternal peace.  This, of course, puts him in direct opposition to the self-styled Gods, who control reincarnation through the priesthood (they also have technology to “read” your memories from the last few months and use this to “judge” people coming in for reincarnation, thereby deciding in what sort of body [beautiful or ugly, carrying any deformities or infirmities, etc.] you will be reborn, or even *if* you will be allowed to be reborn).  In Sam’s case, though, the world’s gods are rather more present and active than the ones Buddha was acting against, and so Sam’s revolution is ultimately a more temporal one.

That being the case, there are parts of this book that are quite exciting.  However, there are also passages devoted to Buddhist learning, and they are slotted seamlessly into the narrative.  It is these that elevate this book from the merely good to the sublime: not only that Zelazny does it, but that he does it so well.  His prose is truly beautiful.  The worlds he creates and the characters that inhabit them are perfectly formed.  Had he written books that were more fiction rather than sci-fi/fantasy, he undoubtedly would have been hailed as one of the leading lights of his generation.  Instead, he was just one of the greats of his genre (winning the Hugo award six times and the Nebula three times), and I must content myself with being his apostle and proselytising the masses in his good name.

Recommended further reading by Roger Zelazny: A Night in the Lonesome October; the first 5 Amber books; Unicorn Variations (one of his collections of short stories).

Speaking of which, the next book I’ll (probably) review is Song for the Blue Ocean by Carl Safina.  It’s a much bigger one, so you’d better get cracking.

All the best,

M

P.S. Many thanks to Wikiperdia for helping solidify the background and historical information for me.

Bowing to the Inevitable

For someone with my chosen avocation, it’s a small bit of irony that, for all my friendly, outgoing nature, I’m actually something of an introvert.  Try to engage me in idle chit-chat about nothing in particular (i.e. make small talk) and I’m useless, generally running dry of things to say within about 5 minutes.  And yet, get me going on a specific topic, and I can talk away for ages.  Indeed, just try to stop me.

In that vein, there are times when something arises which I’m just choking to comment on, and I find myself without an outlet to vent my thoughts.

Until now.  ::cue dramatic chord::

This all started because of a Facebook application called “Pick Your 5,” where — you guessed it — you pick your top 5 of whatever: books, movies, albums, you name it.  You can even make it more specific: my favourite Sci Fi books, my favourite 80s TV shows, the top 5 albums that influenced me as a musician.  Whatever floats your boat.  So I, being a bookish sort, decided to name my top 5 books.

Only I couldn’t.

I managed to get it to 10 — 2 separate top 5 lists — but even then, my heart was crying out, “More!  We need more!  How could you possibly forget Fredric Brown, you heathen, you philistine?”  As well, I couldn’t tell everyone why I loved those books so much, what about them affected me so deeply that I couldn’t possibly exclude them from my life, never mind my really rather inconsequential list.  It was decided, then: I needed a forum to lay down these thoughts, whether or not anyone ever actually ended up reading it.  And what if I wanted to write about something else, heaven forbid: a movie that struck my fancy, or a TV show, or — heaven forbid — something in the news or a matter of politics?  (Don’t worry, that won’t happen too often.  Yay, Obama!  There, I’ve said it, I’m done now.)  Therefore, I wanted to be able to organise my posts nicely in an easy-access sort of fashion (i.e. use tags etc.), something I couldn’t really do (not the way I envisioned it, anyway) on Facebook.

No, I had to face the rather ugly truth of it: it was finally time to start a blog.

I’m not a big blog follower, as I’ve never found one with much worth saying, or not on a regular basis, anyway.  Five sentences of text and a link to a video?  That’s your entry for the day?  No thanks.  [Note: that's also why I've never had the slightest interest in Twitter, so don't even ask.]  I’ll try to hold myself to my own exacting standards: I’ll only post if there’s something I need to get off my chest.  That means this will likely be only infrequently updated (of course my work and home life will be contributing factors as well), but at least you know that when something goes up here, I mean it.

I’ve got some things to get me started, anyway: the aforementioned books (I plan on covering a lot more than just 10 in here).  I’m not going to limit myself to just books on here, but I imagine it’ll be a high enough proportion of my output, and at least I’ve got some material to keep this ticking over initially.

Also, have a look at the “About” page, as I’ve put up not only a description of the blog (a sort of condensed version of what I’ve said here) but also some info about where I chose my username and the blog title from (for those of you who don’t know).

I’ll leave you with that for now.  Welcome, and thanks for reading.  And tell anyone else you think might be interested. :)

BTW,  your first reading assignment is the book I’ll cover in my first review: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny, which also happens to be my favourite book.  I’d better warn you about this book, though: There are 7 chapters, and chapters 2-6 comprise the bulk of the narrative and happen in sequential order.  The first chapter, though, happens 53 years after the events in the main narrative, and chapter 7 follows on (timeline-wise) from the first chapter.  I only mention this as there’s only an incredibly vague mention of this in the text, so the first time you read the book, it can be a bit jarring: you read the first chapter, fine, grand, then you start the second chapter… and the narrative changes gears completely, leaving you wondering what the heck just happened.  Well, the author just jumped 53 years back in the narrative to show you the events that lead up to chapter 1.  So, my advice to the first-time reader is: read chapter 1, then — keeping in mind the narrative shift — read chapters 2-6, then *go back* and read chapter 1 again (it will make a lot more sense now), then read chapter 7.