The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches

Okay. Here it goes. My first review of an audible book. Perhaps I should have waited for a more opportune tome.

My latest listen was to Robert Stanek's
The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches. I've seen some reviews on this book that talk about it being the next Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Those observations are not completely unfounded; there is a young protaganist who is Harry Potter-like. There are large, epic events occuring that are seen through the eyes of a few individuals.

But that's where the comparions end, at least for me. Since I listened to this book, I'm not 100% sure what the writing is like from the perspective of a reader, but as a listener, I was not impressed. At all. It was completly cliché and predictable. The characters had no personality. And despite the large, epic events that I mentioned earlier, it wasn't until about three-quarters of the way through the book that something adventurous and exciting happened.

Now, one might think that Stanek may have used the first three-quarters of the book for character development and setting the stage for upcoming events. If he did, I missed it.

Perhaps I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to accept the story. Maybe the book just didn't translate well into an audio book (the narrator was utterly distracting, in my opinion, as his accent — from somewhere in Great Britian; I can't be sure where — did nothing for the cliché dialog.

If you are looking for adventure and a fantastical medieval universe, there are better choices: Your first stop should be
Across the Nightingale Floor:Tales of the Otori, Book One, which is an incredible, well written book and would probably be as wonderful a read as it is an audio book (the audio production is quite fantastic and in my estimation brings the book to a whole new level ... but that's for another review at another time).

Grade: D+

Reading vs. Listening

Inspired by an article in The New York Times (registration required to read the article), I decided to write a little bit about books and different ways to consume them.

I would consider myself an avid reader. At least I have been in the past. We have quite the book collection at the house and I can say that I have honestly read the vast majority of the books on the shelves.

However, I will also admit that I did most of my reading prior to 1998. After that I just didn't have a lot of time on my hands. And since Aidan was born, well, let's just say that it's hard to find a quiet hour or so to do anything besides the next thing on the to-do list.

Since 2002 (the year Aidan was born), I've read the following books (all reviewed here on this site):

1. Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino
2. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
3. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
4. The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

That's not very impressive for someone who consideres himself an avid reader, even with the cumbersome Foucault's Pendulum thrown in there. Cosmicomics and Einstein's Dreams are very short (less than 150 pages) and all except Eco's work are relatively easy reading (Calvino might be an exception, too). And I'm currently reading The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares, which is about 100 pages long, and it has taken me months to get through it (and not for the subject matter or writing style). I have still not finished the book, although I only have perhaps another 20 pages to go....

Basically, I just don't have the time to read any more. I just can't find the couple of hours in a day or even in a week to sit peacefully with a book. And when I do, I'm too anxious about the other things that I need to get done around the house.

Enter the audio book.

I've been listening to audio books for about one year now (since exactly June 7, 2004, according to my Audible.com account). I've been able to listen during my commute back and forth to work. I've been able to listen while painting rooms in the house. I've been able to listen while doing yard work. I've been able to brush up on my Spanish and listen to special radio shows that I wouldn't have ordinarily even known about, let alone listened to.

Over the last year, I've listened to the following books, almost all of them are unabriged:

1. A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn
2. A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
3. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
4. America (The Audiobook) by Jon Stewart
5. Brilliance of the Moon by Lian Hearn
6. Double Star by Robert Heinlein
7. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (while painting our bedroom)
8. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco (the very abridged edition)
9. Grass for His Pillow by Lian Hearn
10. Hegemony or Survival by Noam Chomsky
11. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
12. Minority Report and Other Stories by Philip K. Dick
13. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson (while doing a graphic-intense project at work)
14. Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein (while painting Aidan's bathroom)
15. Art of War by Sun Tzu
16. The Basque History of the World by Mark Kurlansky (while mulching the yard)
17. The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown (my first audio book; I wanted to see how different it was from a book that I recently read)
18. The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
19. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
20. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky
21. The Known World by Edward P. Jones
22. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd (while painting the new baby's room)

This is, quite obviously, a tremendous increase. That's 22 books in one year (not counting Spanish lessons and radio programs) compared to 4 over the course of about 3 years.

Still, listening and reading are not the same. I would prefer to read a book, and there are some books that I refuse to listen to, mostly because I hope that I'll be able to read them someday. In fact, I was a bit dubious about even listening to books to begin with, as I considered it a "lesser" medium than the written page.

For sure, books in general were not written with the intention of reading them aloud. And just as there are better and worse interpretations of plays, such as Hamlet, the narrartor and the production values of an audio book can make or break even a great book. The Otori Trilogy by Lian Hearn (three books, starting with Across the Nightingale Floor) is a great example of a wonderfully executed audio book. I can't tell you if the writing was good or not. But the story was excellent, as were the performances of the two readers. I was completely excited about all three books, as Renee will atest. There aren't enough good things to say about this experience.

However, the book I'm listening to now, The Kingdoms and the Elves of the Reaches by Robert Stanek is not living up to expectations. The story received rave reviews from others, but the narrator is quite probably ruining the story for me. I just can't stand his voice. Hopefully the story will win out and it won't matter who's reading it. As of right now, I'm not very excited about this book.

One precious memory that books still evoke is the level of comfort and peace that a page conveys to me. Yet, as I once was connecting books with a particular moment of reading too late into the night (The Fountainhead), or coffee shop (Notes from the Underground) or with a certain period of my life, I have now been able to appreciate audio books in a new, but similar way. Actually, I've been able to make connections with audio books in a similar way that music evokes a particular memory for me.

For example, I equate mulching the yard with The Basque History of the World. And that's not a bad thing. Whenever I'm in the yard, looking at the mulch, I'm thinking about Guernica and how the Basque will likely never get what they want from the Spanish, but why they will most likely be able to survive.

After reading a book, I usually like to write a little something about it. It helps me digest the story and ideas and helps me to keep the book in my head. However, I couldn't do this with audio books, because I felt that the experience that one would have with the book would vary too greatly, as I wouldn't be able to simiply write about the words on the paper, but I would have to also talk about the performances, production, etc.

But no more! Audio books have found a new place in my literary life and from henceforth, I will begin to write my reviews of the audio books I come across. Hopefully, I will be able to go back (time permitting, of course) and write up something on the audio books listed above.

After rereading what I just wrote, that's an awful bold statement coming from a guy who's about to have a new addition to the family some time in the next 30 days or so ....

Cosmicomics

It's been a while since I've been able to read a book. I've been listening to a lot of audio books on my commute back and forth to work (and I may soon be doing reviews of those books). However, I recently was able to sit down with a short, relatively easy read that has a round-about connection to a couple of other books I've mentioned in some of my other book reviews, so I couldn't resist writing about it here.

A while back, I read a book entitled Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman. At the time, I was a little frustrated with that book, as it seemed to be trying to emulate the writing style of Italo Calvino and was missing the mark. Don't get me wrong, Lightman did a fairly good job with his subject matter. But it did make me long for a similar story by Calvino. It seemd like it would be right up his alley.

As it turns out, Calvino did write a book on a similar subject. Calvino's book, Cosmicomics, tells the story of the evolution of the universe through an entity narrartor (who goes by the name Qfwfq) who floats through the stories — sometimes as a disembodied consciousness; other times as a mollusk and everything in betwee. Somehow Calvino makes it work.

This collection of short stories does have its dull moments, but the gems really shine. For example, one story shares with us what it was like to be in the universe right before the "Big Bang." All of the consciousness of the universe was there, every entity. but it all existed in one point. Think of the gossip (which was all blamed on the housekeeper, who really didn't have much to do, since dust couldn't really enter the singular point).

In this particular story, Qfwfq has a crush on this one particular "woman" entity ... and so did all of the other guys. She was beautiful, but also generous and made each one feel special, so there was no jealousy among the group.

We got along so well all together, so well that something extraordinary was bound to happen. It was enough for her to say, at a certian moment: "Oh, if I only had some room, how I'd like to make some noodles for you boys!" And in that moment we all thought of the space that her round arms would occupy, moving backward and forward with the rolling pin over the dough, her bossom leaning over the great mound of flour and eggs which cluttered the wide board while her ams kneaded and kneaded, white and shiny with oil up to the elbows; we thought of the space that the flour would occupy, and the wheat for the flour, and the fields to raise the wheat, and the mountains from which the water would flow to irrigate the fields, and the grazing lands for the herds of calves that would give their meat for the sauce; of the space it would take for the Sun to arrive with its rays, to ripen the wheat; of the space for the Sun to condense from the clouds of stellar gasses and burn; of the quantities of stars and galaxies and galactic masses in flight through space which would be needed to hold suspended every galaxy, every nebula, every sun, every planet . . .

Calvio does a wonderful job throughout the book of not only bringing in the ideas of science, but humanity; maybe more accurately: the psychology of the universe. Everything is humanized and everything is brought about in such a way that the origins of the universe is not only poignant and interesting, but also funny — and at times sad.

This book will probably not help teach you much of astro-physics. But it is a wonderfully written tale that can teach us a lot about taking different perspectives to understanding even the most remote and outlandish ideas.

Grade: A-

Einstein's Dreams

For years, one of the most puzzling mysteries to me was how do they keep track of time in Star Trek. Or Star Wars. Or any of those science fiction stories where they are flying about at tremendous speeds so they can galaxy hop.

According to Einstein's Theory of Relativity, time slows down the faster you go. Thus, galaxy hopping at tremendous speeds would mean that the traveller would come close to not aging at all, while all the people on the planet the traveller will visit are aging at a "normal" rate.

And that's the most obvious problem. What about commerce and delivering perishables? Maybe a vaccine that would expire under in three days (now, that begs the question, what would be considered "three days") might last twice as long (or even half as long) under a different scenario. How can anything be accomplished? And how can anything be coordinated?

These are the sorts of things that Alan Lightman explores in his book Einstein's Dreams. The premise of the book is based upon the days preceeding Einstein's publishing the Theory and what his dreams might have been like.

All of the dreams describe different aspects of time and how these aspects, if they were made more intense, might affect humans and our general affairs; in effect, humanizing the Theory of Relativity. For example, would we try to travel faster so we could age more slowly? Would we try to hold on to a precious moment by freezing time? How would we conduct business if each center of commerce was centered on a different moment of time?

But would we even perceive that the flow of time has changed, as everything is relative. If time stopped for you and then started again, would you know that you just spent a year embracing your child, or would it feel as though it lasted only seconds? How could you deliver a package to someone with any expectation that it would arrive when you want?

Each dream has its own situation, its own interpretation of Einstein's Theory. Lightman is, at this point, trying to humanize the Theory with each interpretation.

Yet it is in this particular mission that I feel that Lightman misses the mark. Some of the stories are good and illustrate the humanity of the theory fairly well. But other stories are more abstract and feel as though they were written by a scientist, not a humanist.

I have read where others have compared Lightman's book to Calvino's Invisible Cities, which I feel is really unfair to Lightman and Calvino. Perhaps a better comparison would be to Anderson's Winesburg, Ohio.

Calvino's writing is much more intricate and vibrant and there is, without any shadow of a doubt, more humanity in any one story of Invisible Cities than in the whole of Einstein's Dreams. Anderson is more similar to Lightman in writing style, but even with Anderson's relatively dry descriptions, he seems more able to humanize his stories than Lightman.

And perhaps that's the problem. Lightman is trying to humanize a scientific theory. So perhaps the subject matter doesn't really work with a humanistic style impossed on it. But I have a feeling that this is not true. Some of the best science fiction writers have made careers out of humanizing particular scientific theories. Therefore, I feel Lightman probably could have delved a little more.

Although I feel that Alan Lightman can write well and did a decent job of converting science into a (relatively and somewhat fantasic) pragmatic experience, this book really wasn't all that wonderful a journey for me. Perhaps it was because of my expectations (afterall, as I mentioned, I read that it compared favorably to one of my all-time favorite books). However, I really feel as though this could have been a much better book if there was just a little more "something" put into the writing. And what that "something" is, I can't say. More soul; more depth; more blood, sweat and tears; perhaps more humanity.

Grade: C+

Foucault's Pendulum

A couple of weeks ago, while reading Foucault's Pendulum on the beach, a man walked up to me. He was an older man, probably retired, and looked like the sort of person who had plenty of time to read books on the beach.

"Are you reading that book," he asked?

"I'm doing my best," I said.

"Are you understanding it? I mean, do you get it?"

"I think so," I replied.

"The only book that I can think of that is harder to read than the one you are reading now," he said to me, "is Ulysses."

Well, he definitely had a point. I may not be quite as well read as the man on the beach, but I do have some limited experience with Ulysses and it is a difficult read. Foucault's Pendulum isn't much better in this regard. After many failed attempts, I have never finished the former and I have to admit that I did have moments where I struggled through the latter.

It's a shame, really, that Umberto Eco couldn't have made Foucault's Pendulum more accessible. Ultimately, I think it's a relatively important book and should probably be read by more people. But, instead, people will turn to The Da Vinci Code, which has (one could argue) a lesser point of view.

Let me clarify. Eco's book covers much of the same subject matter as The Da Vinci Code, however Eco covers the subject matter in a much more complete way. Where The Da Vinci Code tells the story much as an Indiana Jones movie might, Eco delves into it and is able to connect the plot to virtually everything that ever existed.

For example, there's a passage in The Da Vinci Code where a couple of people get all excited over the Golden Ratio. In fact, they get more than a little excited over this number; it is the number. Yet the characters in Foucault's Pendulum, while interested and intrigued by such a connection, are further educated about them:

"Gentlemen," he said, "I invite you to go and measure that kiosk. You will see that the length of the counter is one hundred and forty-nine centimeters—in other words, one hundred-billionth of the distance between the earth and the sun. The height at the rear, one hundred and seventy-six centimeters, divided by the width of the window, fifty-six centimeters, is 3.14. The height at the front is nineteen decimeters, equal, in other words, to the number of years of the Greek lunar cycle. The sum of the heights of the two front corners and the two rear corners is one hundred and ninety times two plus one hundred and seventy-six times two, which equals seven hundred and thirty-two, the date of the victory at Poitiers. The thickness of the counter is 3.10 centimeters, and the width of the cornice of the window is 8.8 centimeters. Replacing the numbers before the decimals by the corresponding letters of the alphabet, we obtain c for ten and h for eight, or C₁₀H₈, which is the formula for naphthalene.

"Fantastic," I said. "You did all these measurements?"

"No," he replied. "They were done on another kiosk, by a certain Jean-Pierre Adam ... With numbers you can do anything you like."

It is with connections and explanations like this that Eco truly makes one think about the symbiotic nature of all relationships and how everything is tied together. Through the course of the book, Eco is able to explain the motivations of Napoleon and Hitler, anti-Semitism and conflicts in the Middle East in general.

By comparison, The Da Vinci Code explains why one particular historical artist is of some interest.

To that end, the story lines of both books are relatively complex, and I feel that Eco needlessly made the story more convoluted by telling it in a non-linear fashion. Additionally (this isn't criticism of Eco but insight into why I think the book was hard to read at times), since the book was originally written in Italian, I'm not sure how much was "lost in translation." That is, Eco already uses more than just Italian in his writing (there's French, Latin, Russian, and many others) and the translator only translated the Italian into English. Thus, there were some places where I just had to skip sections, hoping that if the section I was skipping was really important to the story line, it would be made available to me at some point.

I honestly don't know if information was withheld from me by the translator, but I do feel that I did end up with a pretty firm grasp of what Eco was trying to say. And, in my opinion, what Eco has to say is more substantial and empowering than what is to be found in The Da Vinci Code.

The truly funny part of this, at least to me, is that there are groups organizing to deconstruct The Da Vinci Code because apparently some people who have read it forgot that it was a work of fiction....

Yet Foucault's Pendulum gets lost in the background. Perhaps it's because the book was published some fifteen years ago. Perhaps it's because the book is somewhat difficult to read. Perhaps it's because of the secret that the book holds and is ultimately revealed at the end.

In respect for those who may read this book (and I do hope that is most of you), I will not reveal the secret. The secret in Foucault's Pendulum is not bigger than any other secret. There are no "bigger secrets," because the moment a secret is revealed, it seems little.

But this book is not little. Despite the level of difficulty, this is an incredible book that does have wonderfully fluid moments (some chapters just breeze by, but have just as much substance as any of the more "complex" sections).

If you are looking for a quick, easy read, this might not be the best book. However, I would recommend that you do visit this book the next time you want to see the world from a different perspective.

Grade: A

Invisible Cities

It's been far too long since I've done a book review here, so I've dug up one that I did a few years ago... I just don't have the time to get through books as quickly as I used to. Anyway, here's a really good one:

Invisible Cities is an extrordinary book. Italo Calvino has constructed a book so rare and impressive as to be virtually indescribable. As Gore Vidal said about this book in the New York Review of Books, "Of all tasks, describing the contents of a book is the most difficult and in the case of a marvelous invention like Invisible Cities, perfectly irrelevant."

Yet, my task, as I have defined it, will be to take on this nearly impossible task... so please forgive my lack of skill.

Invisible Cities is a collection of tales that Marco Polo is sharing with Kublai Khan and sometimes vice versa. The tales are almost wholly about the cities that Polo has visted, except that they are not. At first glance, it seems that the tales are just exquisitley tailored descriptions of real cities with fake names. While this is still theoretically possible, after a few pages, I became aware that this probably isn't the case.

I soon began to read the passages as fantasitcal prose decsribing cities that existed in Polo's mind. But this too, seemed like a rather superficial reason for the existence of such prose. It also became a less plausible theory once I began to notice that many of the cities contained modern appliances, elevators, airports, etc. How could Polo know about such things and why wasn't the Khan frightened, upset, or excited about these revelations?

The answer? I was reading the book with too simple a mind. Finally, I came across a section that made it all clear to me: The descriptions were not about the cities, but about people.

Those who arrive at Theka can see little of the city, beyond the plank fences, the sackcloth screens, the scaffoldings, the metal armatures, the wooden catwalks hanging from ropes or supported by sawhorses.

If you ask, "Why is Thekla's construction taking such a long time?" the inhabitants continue hoisting sacks, lowering leaded strings, moving long brushes up and down, as they answer, "So that its destruction cannot begin." And if asked whether they fear that, once the scaffoldings are removed, the city may begin to crumble and fall to pieces, they add hastily, in a whisper, "Not only the city."

Finally! I understood what Calvino was trying to say. Yet, somehow, I wasn't sure. As I read on, it seemed bigger, more encompasing than just descriptions of people. All good art is multi-faceted and can be understood on several levels. I was only just begining to understand the simple complexity of this work...

"From now on, I'll describe the cities to you," the Khan had said, "in your journeys you will see if they exist."

But the cities visited by Marco Polo were always different from those thought of by the emperor.

"And yet I have constructed in my mind a model city from which all possible cities can be duduced," Kublai said. "It contains everything corresponding to the norm. Since cities that exist differ in varying degree from the norm, I need only foresee the exceptions to the norm and calculate the most probable combinations."

"I have also thought of a model city from wich I deduce all the others," Marco answered. "It is a city made only of exceptions, exclusions, incongruities, contradictions. If such a city is the most imporobable, by reducing the number of abnormal elements, we increase the probability that the city really exists. But
I cannot force my operation beyond a certain limit: I would achieve cities too probable to be real."

And that's when I understood that I may never fully understand this book. It is about everything and anything. It is about thinking and not thinking. It is full of every contradiction and exception. It is about the universe and the molecules that make up the universe. It is about the construction and deconstruction of worlds. It is about looking deep into your soul with genuine introspection to discover who you are, only to realize that you should also consult with the extroverted world to find the answers that lie within.

This is a really good book.

Grade: A+

The Da Vinci Code

The Da Vinci Code, by Dan Brown, is a fine book with interesting ideas, if not wholly unoriginal (it seems to be based on another book, Holy Blood, Holy Grail). It has been on a lot of best-seller lists since its publication, and there are plenty of reasons why: It is a page-turner with an Indiana Jones quality and a gripping plot.

The book starts quickly: A murder of a prominent French citizen begins to unravel a secret that has been protected by a clandestine society since the days of Christ.

Brown does a great job of introducing this clandestine society, as the book is based almost entirely on this foundation. Without this first declaration, this book might not work:

FACT: The Priory of Sion—a European secret society founded in 1099—is a real organization.

In 1975, Paris's Bibliothèque Nationale discovered parchments known as Les Dossiers Secrets, identifying numerous members of the Priory of Sion, including Sir Isaac Newton, Botticelli, Victor Hugo, and Leonardo da Vinci.

The Vatican prelature known as Opus Dei is a deeply devout Catholic group that has been the topic of recent controversy due to reports of brain-washing, coercion, and a practice known as "corporal mortification."

Opus Dei has just completed construction of a $47 million National Headquarters at 243 Lexington Avenue in New York City.

All descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals in this novel are accurate.

This was enough to get me intrigued. Secret societies, in general, are not something I think about often. I guess, if I know about them, they aren't too secret. Finding out more about Opus Dei is easy; good luck finding out any consistent information on the Priory of Sion... But the idea of these secret societies was powerful enough to bring me through the entire book; in fact the book is really all about those ideas. If you are looking for strong characters, you've come to the wrong place.

The book has virtually no character development and is devoid of psychological intrigue (nobody in this book is having any moral dilemas, save perhaps one). Despite the great start of the book, and the powerful device implemented in the form of the secret societies, the story is left with a few cardboard-cutout characters running through (at time ridiculous) events, with a couple of puzzles thrown in for good measure. Unless you are familiar with the topic, solving the puzzles is hard, but not impossible (I was easily able to figure out several of them; others completely baffled me). One could argue that the puzzles have more depth than the characters, and that almost seems to be the point. It's the the "whole" and not the "individual" that's being explored here. Or, at least, that's the excuse that I'll give to Brown because the book is good, so there must be some reason that the characters weren't more fleshed out.

But don't try to solve the one major twist in the book; Brown just doesn't provide you with enough information to figure it out, which was a bit frustrating for me. That bit of frustration, combined with the lack of well-rounded characters was starting to wear on me. By the end of the book, the energy and momentum, which had been generated with a great beginning, had evaporated and ultimately detracted a bit from the overall experience. But still, it is a good, easy read.

Grade: B