Freddy the Cowboy by Walter R. Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars The Porcine Cowboy vs. The Perfumed Cowboy, or Reputation, Racism, Gender-Bending, Cowboys, and Animals In Freddy the Cowboy (1950), Walter R. Brooks' 17th Freddy book, the mice are bored with the dull life on the NY state Bean farm, so Mrs. Wiggins the cow suggests that all like-minded animals head off in different directions and return in a week to recount their adventures. Freddy the pig (detective, poet, editor, banker, and pig of many interests) and one mouse, Quik, go northeast and quickly come upon a man beating a horse. Freddy, who can't abide cruelty to animals, intervenes and ends up buying the horse (called Cy) from the guy for $50. The man, Mr. Cal Flint, is a western cowboy who's running a dude ranch for easterners. Mr. Flint is also suspiciously interested in the First Animal Bank on the Bean farm when Freddy makes a withdrawal to pay for Cy. With great enthusiasm and Cy's encouragement and expert advice, Freddy learns how to play the cowboy, learning to ride, to lasso, to strum the guitar and sing cowboy songs, and to dress the part, wearing "a bright red shirt with a design of yellow and blue lightning flashes on it." But what about the threatening letter he's received from the "Horrible Ten" in which they threaten him with execution unless he turns over the jewels he stole—even though he has no idea about any jewels, let alone the identity of the Horrible Ten? And what will happen when Freddy, armed with a water pistol and a gun loaded with blanks, makes a bitter foe of a sadistic cowboy with real guns with real bullets? In Brooks' usual humorous, philosophical, and unpredictable way, he answers those questions and concisely develops some side-plots, like the black cat Jinx teaching a group of field mice how to avoid traps, Mrs. Wiggins working in an antique shop for a spell, and the Horrible Ten moving from the realm of prank into that of reality. The core plot of the novel is oriented around reputation. Freddy discovers the dangers of being taken for a tough cowboy. "You go and build a reputation for bravery, and then the first thing you know, there's a fight on your hands. And maybe you don't feel specially brave that morning. But you've got to act as if you did." The Horrible Ten play up their bloodthirsty reputation to feel empowered. Freddy's friend the Centerboro Sheriff is concerned about his reputation in town for making things too cozy in the jail for his prisoners. And Freddy's ad hoc attempts to resolve his feud with Mr. Flint involve reputation. The animals in this novel may be read as satirizing racial discrimination, as when Mr. Flint and his henchmen say things like, "Animals don't need money. They ain't got any right to money. That's what burns me up—that pig, talking as if he was people, with money in the bank and all." And even "this here feller ain't a man, he's a pig. And there wouldn't be any jail sentence for shootin' a pig." Most of the local humans don't find anything strange in animals having banks or talking etc., and Mr. Bannister (a wealthy man's butler) greets the animals as "gentlemen" and gives them (even Mrs. Wiggins) rides in his big car. Brooks also of course has great sympathy for animals as animals. As in his other books, in this one the bad guys are obvious by their mistreatment of animals (Mr. Flint beating Cy, kicking cats, eating squirrels, shooting at Freddy, etc.). Brooks sympathizes with small animals. The mice point out that they wouldn't get far walking off by themselves, so the big animals take one each with them when they go on adventures; Jinx saves a group of field mice from the extortions of a squirrel; one mouse, Howard, vitally helps Freddy by some bold action. And when Jinx is setting out on his adventure he has to be careful on the road, "For you never know what might be hidden by the turn and more than one careless cat has spent a week or two in the hospital by stepping around the corner too quickly. All small animals have to be careful about such things." As in the other Freddy books, this one has an appealing non-violent thrust. When Freddy shoots his gun while learning to be a cowboy, the bullet passes through his pigpen wall till it "smacked into a framed enlargement of a snapshot of Mr. and Mrs. Bean, taken on their honeymoon, smashing the glass and replacing Mr. Bean's pictured head with the round black hole." It's a scary (if comical) demonstration of how dangerous guns are around the home. No wonder Mr. Bean tells him, "Don't allow my animals to have firearms." Thereafter, Freddy shoots only blanks. Freddy learns through his adventures as a cowboy that "There are two ways of getting rid of people: one way is by shooting them; the other way is by making them look ridiculous." Freddy doesn't usually solve his problems with violence, and violent characters are usually villains. Freddy does learn how to look and act like a cowboy, but Brooks undercuts the violent core at the heart of the western genre in his novel's climactic show down, which takes place in the women's section of a department store and features strategically applied lipstick, rouge, eye shadow, and perfume. Finally, despite all its good parts, Freddy the Cowboy is not as good as the best Freddy books (e.g., Freddy and the Clockwork Twin, Freddy the Politician, and Freddy and the Popinjay). There is some sloppy writing, like when Brooks authoritatively says that bats are not social animals, and then a few pages later has Sydney the bat recruit the aid of countless other bats because his many relatives are having a big reunion party type gathering, to which many other unrelated bats have invited themselves. And the middle part drags a bit. Still, below average Brooks and Freddy are much better than most other children's books, and anyone fond of vintage talking animal stories or children's literature written with style and wit (much of which is only appreciable to adults) should enjoy this book. View all my reviews
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The Mabinogion by Anonymous
My rating: 5 of 5 stars Rich Welsh Fantasy, Story, History, and Language The first three tales of Charlotte Guest's translation of The Mabinogion, "The Lady of the Fountain," "Peredur the Son of Evrawc," and "Geraint the Son of Erbin," are rather standard Arthurian romances: plenty of superlatives (e.g., "she was the fairest woman he had ever seen"), courtly conversations (e.g., “By my faith, sister . . . thou art a beauteous and lovely maiden; and, were it pleasing to thee, I could love thee above all women"), and knights errant and grasping earls, hoary men and black men, giants and dwarves, maidens and sorceresses, serpents and lions, tournaments and combats, magic chessboards and rings, and more. There is also humor, as when Peredur (more than once) says, "I came not here to woo," or Kai (more than once) insults the wrong person. One thing mostly lacking from the three tales is suspense, because the hero knights of each story, Owain, Peredur, and Geraint are so puissant. I liked Geraint best because he becomes quite human when he loves his wife too much and then suspects her too much and twice even requires a month of healing. The following older and more purely Welsh stories are stranger and more potent, unpredictable and funny, brutal and beautiful. In "Kilhwch and Olwen" young Kilhwch asks Arthur's aid in marrying Olwen, the daughter of the giant Ysbaddaden Pencawr. Having done his homework, Kilhwch asks his boon in the names of all of Arthur's many heroes (and their mothers, wives, and daughters) in an exotic, intoxicating, 2,300 word list, a who's who of Welsh legend, spiced by mentions of unique abilities or feats, like ". . . and Morvran the son of Tegid (no one struck him in the battle of Camlan by reason of his ugliness; all thought he was an auxiliary devil. Hair had he upon him like the hair of a stag)." Ysbaddaden Pencawr, who knows that he'll die when his daughter weds, then recites an exotic, stunning 3000-word list of impossible marvels Kilhwch must accomplish to win Olwen. The "hero" calmly remarks after each one, "I'll compass that easily," sits back, and lets Arthur's men get to work. In "The Dream of Rhonabwy," Rhonabwy, a retainer of Madog, stays the night in a filthy house with flea ridden beds and dreams of King Arthur and his chieftain Olwain playing gwyddbwyll (a chess-like game). Arthur scorns Rhonabwy and the men of his later era as puny, but though Arthur and Olwain may be giants in comparison, they sure don't behave well during the game! "Pwyll Prince of Dyved" features a year-long identity and role swap between Pwyll (a good-natured simple guy) and Arawn (deep lord of magical Annwn), funny interplay between Pwyll and Rhiannon (who highlights Pwyll's lack of smarts in some snappy lines), appalling ladies in waiting (who frame a mother for cannibalizing her child), and the appearance of a mysterious baby boy. "Branwen the Daughter of Llyr" relates the history of the Isle of the Mighty (Britain) and their Irish antagonists (who are depicted as duplicitous, pusillanimous, and incestuous), with cool fantastic elements, like a magical cauldron that restores dead warriors to mute life. If Branwen (British princess married to the Irish king) is not as impressive as Rhiannon, her half-brother Evnissyen is a fine anti-hero, thrusting a baby nephew into a fire one moment and sacrificing himself for his family the next. In "Manawyddan the Son of Llyr" Manawydan marries Rhiannon, the widowed mother of Pryderi, and sets off with them and Pryderi's wife Cigfa to find a town where they may live after their home is cursed empty of all animals and people. Because Manawydan and Pryderi excel too well at whatever trade they take up, wherever they go the local craftsmen (even mild shoemakers!) are soon plotting to kill them. The story climaxes with the attempted hanging of a pregnant mouse thief. "Math the Son of Mathonwy" is full of magical metamorphoses and illusions, deep loves, betrayals, and revenges, and neat origins. The trickster, storyteller, and mage Gwydion enables his brother to rape King Math's foot holder maiden (the king can only sleep with his feet in the lap of a virgin) by causing a devastating war by cheating Pryderi out of the first pigs in Wales. After three years punished as various animals, Gwydion helps Math get a new foot holder. No virgin, she immediately gives birth to twins she doesn't want. Gwydion spirits one away and later tricks the mother into naming him (Lleu). When she curses Lleu to never wed a human woman, Gwydion and Math fashion Blodeuedd from flowers to marry him, with unexpected results. "The Dream of Maxen Wledig" interweaves history and fantasy via Macsen the Emperor of Rome's falling in love with Helen, a maiden of Britain, in a dream. The story expresses the beauty and puissance of Britons. "The Story of Lludd and Llevelys" mixes history and fantasy as the brother of the king of Britain goes to France to marry an available queen, and the British king gets good advice from his brother on how to deal with three plagues in Britain (unstoppable invaders, miscarriage-inducing screeching, and vanishing food). "Taleisin" begins by recounting how the famous bard was born three times and came by his prodigious foresight and omniscience and climaxes with the confident and wise kid participating in a bard contest for which he causes his rivals to blow raspberries at their king and then sings an impressive list of all he has experienced, from the Biblical to the British. It's a pity that the Ukemi audiobook version of Guest's translation is missing her introduction and notes, but the reader, Richard Mitchley is excellent. He reads the many exotic Welsh names smoothly, consistently, and accurately (as far as my ignorant ears can tell). He reads "ur" as "ear," as in Arthear (Arthur) and Peredear (Peredur), and "ll" as a slight "th," as in Caertheon (Carelleon) and Theu (Lleu). And he enhances the tales with enthusiasm. The strange and compelling stories of The Mabinogion are full of interesting historical and fantastic characters, developments, artifacts, and places, and demonstrate the richness of Welsh culture and language and the depths of the human heart. Fans of Lloyd Alexander's Chronicles of Prydain will find here the sources of many of their names, characters, and artifacts. View all my reviews
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Galactic Empires, Sentient Ships, Fragmented Identity, Estranged Gender-- Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice (2013), winner of the Hugo and Nebula and other awards, is a mostly original, thoughtful, and moving space opera. The setting is the millennia-old galactic Radch Empire. For a long time the Empire was bent on constant expansion, the annexation of new worlds and cultures fueling its growth and requiring more annexations, until the Lord of the Radch, Anaander Mianaai, who had divided herself (himself?) into many different bodies so as to better rule the far flung galactic empire, started warring against himself (herself?), one side wanting to stop the aggressive expansion, the other wanting to continue it. This, by the way, is similar to how the ancillary system works: the crew and soldiers of each sentient Radch starship are comprised of up to thousands of human bodies (taken from annexed civs), each simultaneously controlled by (possessed by) the ship AI. In the present of the novel, the protagonist Breq is the sole surviving "ancillary" of a sentient starship called the Justice of Toren which one Mianaai avatar (probably an expansionist) destroyed 19 years ago when its loyalty was sorely tested by being made to kill an officer the ship liked. Breq, then, narrates chapters that alternate between the past and the present, the flashback chapters growing ever closer to the present ones till they merge for the climax of the novel. My favorite part of the book was early when I had no idea what was going on: who Breq was or what had happened or what she was up to or why he/she/it had rescued a former Lieutenant (Seivarden Vendaai) of the Justice of Toren or what connection there was between the two time streams or why Breq referred to everyone as her/she. The delicious disorientation of good sf. As I learned the answers to those questions and everything started to make sense, the freshness of the novel began to thin. This was especially so during the climax, which is more like a standard, albeit exciting, space opera with a civil war breaking out on a space station between a (so far) obviously bad side and a (so far) obviously good side. If the plot ultimately felt a little typical, one thing did continue to estrange, gender, because Leckie defamiliarizes our own "standard" view of gender. Despite having two genders and procreating in more or less the standard human way, the Radchaai, have no differences in gender roles or traits or status, to the extent that they don't use different gendered pronouns, but only "English" feminine ones. Because Breq regularly offends non-Radch people by mistaking their genders (and feels relief among other Radchaai when she doesn't need to care about such distinctions) and never describes people with the gender-coded signs that we use when describing people in our culture, we can't know the gender of most of the characters most of the time. Seivarden is probably male, according to how Strigan (a person from a gender difference culture like ours) refers to "him." Strigan also categorizes Anaander Mianaai as male. And someone else from Strigan's culture says to Breq, "Aren't you a tough little girl." But those could be mistaken perceptions from a gender-divided culture like ours, so I finished the novel still not 100% sure even of Seivarden, Mianaai, or Breq's genders, and no idea of most other characters'. Leckie, then, makes us the aliens and our "normal" gender roles and divisions the bizarre exception. As happened when I read The Left Hand of Darkness, I ended up reading Leckie's characters as human beings without caring about their genders. So Leckie is doing something similar to what Le Guin does, though from a linguistic-cultural rather than a biological-cultural angle. Until the two time streams of the plot merge, Leckie's novel is also interesting because of its fragmentation and multiplication of identity, as in this scene narrated by the Justice of Toren: "My bodies sweated under my uniform jackets, and, bored, I opened three of my mouths, all in close proximity to each other on the temple plaza, and sang with those three voices, 'My heart is a fish, hiding in the water-grass…' One person walking by looked at me, startled, but everyone else ignored me--they were used to me by now." In addition to her interesting approaches to gender and identity, Leckie does neat things with religion, singing, memory, and especially love. The love of a sentient ship for its officers, the love of an ancillary (supposedly a non-human entity conditioned to obey) for one of its spaceship's officers, the love of a human soldier for something non-human, the love between people from high and low social classes, and so on. With her subtlety and restraint (and lack of sentimentality), Leckie writes potent scenes that give all the technological wonders and political schemings and galactic empire trappings in her novel a heart, as when an officer is ordered to kill a group of civilians, or Seivarden falls and Breq jumps off a sublime alien bridge, or Breq reveals to a young officer that the ancillary knew her as a child. Fans of intelligent space opera like that by Iain M. Banks (galactic empires, sentient ships, ID fragmented into multiple bodies, dual narrative time streams, less is more world building, etc.) should like this book, though keep in mind that it's the first volume of a trilogy. View all my reviews
The Man Who Would Be King and Other Stories by Rudyard Kipling
My rating: 4 of 5 stars Comedy, Tragedy, Romance, Ghosts, Adventure, and Kids in the British Raj The Naxos The Man Who Would Be King collects 12 Kipling short stories originally published between 1885 and 1890. The tales are varied in quality, mood, and genre. A few are classic, a few forgettable, the rest strong. There are two adventure stories (one brutal, one surreal), two ghost stories (one straight, one comedic), three supernatural stories (one straight, two comedic), three romance stories (one comedic, one tragic, one political), and two boy stories (one comedic, one excruciating). They are unified by Kipling's authentic depiction of life in the Raj (British Empire in India); by his criticism of and sympathy for the Anglo rulers and their indigenous subjects; by his ability to write compelling stories, characters, and settings that reveal the human condition; by his first-person narrators and nested narratives; and by his concise, dynamic, and flexible style. Here follows an annotated list of the stories. 1. The Man Who Would Be King (1888) Two British con man "loafers" plan to become kings in Kafiristan, a mysterious, mountainous corner of Afghanistan, by smuggling in guns and training the locals in soldiery, agriculture, and infrastructure. How they succeed and fail makes an absorbing and appalling adventure story that satirizes the ignorant attempts of "superior" civs to force enlightenment on "inferior" ones, not unlike the Raj project. 2. The Phantom Rickshaw (1885/1890) In this morbidly funny and moving psychological study of guilt Jack Pansay comes to see the phantoms of a rickshaw, its coolies, and the woman he wronged as more real than the living people around him. The doctor diagnoses overwork and indigestion, but the narrator figures that "there was a crack in Pansay's head and a little bit of the Dark World came through. . ." 3. My Own True Ghost Story (1888) The narrator has never experienced any of the many ghosts in India, until he stays the night in a dak-bungalow. Convinced he's heard a spectral billiard game in the next room he's planning to write a ghost story with which to paralyze the British Empire-- until he takes a peek into the room. 4. The Strange Ride of Morrowbie Jukes (1885) After riding out into the desert to kill a wild dog, feverish engineer Morrowbie Jukes comes to his senses in a sandy crater. He finds himself among dozens of skeletal and smelly Indians dumped there after failing to die from fatal diseases. Rather than give Jukes his due respect as a white Sahib, the living dead laugh at or ignore him, and one ex-Brahmin even tries to master him. There is no escape from the pit. The vivid details and surreal horror--existence pared down to eating roast crow--prefigure Kafka or Kobo Abe. 5. The Mark of the Beast (1890) "The gods of the heathen are stone and brass, and any attempt to deal with them otherwise is justly condemned." Everything in this story contradicts that sentiment, after a drunken Brit stubs his cigar out on the forehead of a statue of the Hindu god Hanuman and starts behaving bestially. A doctor diagnoses hydrophobia, but the narrator and the policeman Strickland suspect the curse of a leper priest. 6. Without Benefit of Clergy (1890) John Holden is a British bachelor civil servant in India by day, an unsanctioned husband of a 16-year-old Muslim Indian girl by night. When Ameera bears a son, the couple experiences "absolute happiness," but "The delight of that life was too perfect to endure." There is great beauty, love, and pain in the story: "It was not like this when we counted the stars." 7. The Sending of Dana Da (1888) Kipling mocks Anglo theosophy and spiritualist religious types via a mysterious (con) man's supernatural "sending" of kittens to an ailurophobic foe of the narrator. 8. Wee Willie Winkie (1888) The 6-year-old son of the regimental colonel follows the foolish fiancé of Lt. Coppy across a verboten dried riverbed into Afghanistan, the land of the "Bad Men" ("goblins"). His little boy-talk is almost too cute (e.g., "Vis is a bad place, and I've bwoken my awwest"), his awareness that he is the "child of the dominant race" repugnant. And the bandits know that if they harm the captives, the British regiment ("devils") "will fire and rape and plunder for a month till nothing remains." 9. On the City Wall (1889) A prostitute, her admirer, a political prisoner, a Muslim festival in a Hindu part of Lahore, and the narrator's perceptions of all those. Love, faith, India, changing times, and the difficulty (and hypocrisy) of British Raj rule. This is a great story: funny, ironic, sensual, romantic, political, and moving. 10. The Education of Otis Yeere (1888) In this comedy of manners, Mrs. Hauksbee feels empty and wants power, so she applies all her formidable strategy and style to make a man. She molds boring Otis Yeere, whose career in the Raj is going nowhere, into a smart Man on the Rise. With its many Wildean lines (e.g., "A man is never so happy as when he is talking about himself"), the story is funny, but Otis' broken heart and Mrs. Hauksbee's ego sting. 11. The Judgment of Dungara (1888) When a well-meaning but ignorant German missionary husband and wife succeed too well in converting the Buria Kol, a nude and lazy folk who worship a God called Dungara, the sly priest of Dungara takes action. 12. Baa Baa Black Sheep (1888) This fictional account of the experience of Kipling and his sister uproots 5-year-old Punch and 3-year-old Judy from their idyllic lives with their parents in Bombay and inserts them for five years into the Dickensian hell of Downe Lodge in England. The reader of the audiobook, Sean Barrett, greatly enhances the stories, handling the many characters--young or old, male or female, British or Indian, sane or mad--all just right. If you've read Kipling's Plain Tales from the Hills, you know what to expect here, though the stories in this collection are longer and fewer. Both sets of stories provide a vision of British rule in India (and of "civilized" rule of "uncivilized" peoples anywhere) more complex than merely, "Kipling was an imperial apologist." His humane interest in all kinds of people--from prostitutes to priests, from 6-year-old British Colonel's sons to aged Sikh revolutionaries--shines through. View all my reviews
Freddy the Pied Piper by Walter R. Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars A Dispersed Circus and a Concentration of Mice? Call a Pig! It's deep in a long cold snowy winter on the Bean farm in NY State when Jerry the rhinoceros of Mr. Boomschmidt's Colossal and Unparalleled Circus appears there, having traveled from Virginia to seek the advice of Freddy: poet, editor, banker, detective, and pig of many disguises and interests. The problem is that the harsh wartime economy drove Mr. Boomschmidt to retreat his circus to Virginia to wait out the hard times, but he ran out of money for animal food, so he had to disperse the animals and workers across America to join zoos or to live off the land. Freddy really wants to help Mr. Boomschmidt because the circus has often helped the pig in the past. At the same time, the nearby town of Centerboro is experiencing mouse trouble, with houses and even the bank being infested. Will Freddy be able to solve both problems? The title of the book, Freddy the Pied Piper (1946), hints at his plan . . . But how will the four mouse cousins who live with him on the Bean farm (Eek, Quik, Eeny, and Cousin Augustus) take it when he recruits a gang of abandoned cats and starts charging $5.00 per house to drive the Centerboro mice (including the aunt of the four farm mice) out into the snow? And will Mr. Boomschmidt, who has his pride, accept Freddy's nearly $2,000 of resulting mouse money to put the circus back in business? And even if he does, how will all the scattered circus animals be found? The novel answers those questions in author Walter R. Brooks' usual entertaining and unpredictable ways. In addition to Jerry, Freddy is helped in his plans and adventures by Jinx the cat, Old Whibley the owl, Leo the lion, Willy the boa constrictor, Phil the vulture, Mrs. Church (a wealthy and eccentric and generous woman), and Mr. Weezer (the money-loving but reasonable Centerboro bank president). He is hindered by some unpleasant people, including Gwetholinda Guffin, an exploitive pet shop owner who sells fake canaries, and Mr. Bleech, a greedy man who rides a lean and fast cow. Brooks imagines a world in which all animals (including birds, insects, and reptiles) can speak with each other and with humans (though the creatures tend to avoid startling humans with speech). He also creates a moral system whereby anyone who abuses animals or looks down on them is in store for some narrative punishment, while anyone who likes animals and tries to help them or communicate with them is in store for some reward, even if it's only having their lives enriched by widening their vision and circle of friends. (The uncaged animals of Mr. Boomschmidt's circus help run the show.) There is much humor in the book: Jinx trying to paint himself while he's sleeping; Freddy posing like a lion so Jinx can paint one to show migrating birds; Freddy's four mice friends giving him the "silent" treatment after his mousing business does too well; a feckless duck courting duck sisters Emma and Alice at the expense of their pompous Uncle Wesley; a camel, cow, goat, and rhino running a $200 race; Madame Delphine telling dodgy fortunes with coffee-grounds; a cookie-loving buzzard receiving a special circus job; and more. In the novel Brooks really enjoys animal behavior and human foibles (sometimes at the same time) and provides fresh perspectives on them with a good-natured wisdom underpinning everything. Here are four examples: --"What I don't understand," Freddy said, "is why we're always superstitious about things that bring bad luck. Why can't we be superstitious about good luck? I mean, instead of thinking it's bad luck when you spill the salt, why not think it's good luck when you spill the pepper?" --"I don't know why people always have to bring pigs into it when they want to say something mean about somebody." --"Jinx had decided to come along. He had got so interested in painting that he hated to leave his studio, but as he said, he had the rest of his life to paint in, while a chance to have all sorts of adventures in good company didn't come very often." --"'Well, Leo, don't just stand there! Tell me what money is!' 'It's the root of all evil, chief,' said the lion. 'And boy, how you dig for it!'" The black and white illustrations by Kurt Wiese are, as usual, just right: realistic, funny, beautiful, and blessedly un-cute. From 1927 till 1958, Brooks wrote 26 stand-alone books featuring the pig. They may be read in any order, though the first few books depict animals who can talk with each other but not to people, whereas the later ones show animals and people talking together, and the early books introduce characters who recur in later ones. Apart from some repetition, as when Brooks has Freddy comically disguise himself as a little old lady in multiple books, throughout the Freddy books he is remarkably good at writing different plots, themes, and wise and witty lines about animals, people, and life. As I continue reading or re-reading them 45 years after I originally enjoyed some of them in the 1960s, their humor and wisdom continue to impress me. And the whole series has been brought back into print by Overlook Press and are being made into audiobooks perfectly read by John McDonough. View all my reviews
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars To Sublime or Not to Sublime-- Iain M. Banks' tenth and last Culture novel Hydrogen Sonata (2012) is all about Subliming. For millennia the Gzilt have felt superior to other galactic civilizations because of their scientifically prescient holy book, and now only 24 days remain till they Sublime. In theory this happens when a civ has nothing more to achieve technologically and culturally and involves nearly everyone abandoning possessions, desires, and ambitions etc. and transcending from the Real to a Childhood's End-like nirvana in multiple unknown dimensions. But are the Gzilt really ready for Subliming? Why does one of their warships atomize a diplomatic ship sent by the already Sublimed civ who helped them develop by giving them their holy Book of Truth? The destroyed ship was carrying a message, and if it was, say, "The Book of Truth was an experiment on the Gzilt by an advanced civilization," what would the Gzilt do if they found out? Will the two scavenger civs eagerly waiting for the Gzilt to Sublime start fighting over the abandoned technology too soon? What role should the Culture (the preeminent galactic civilization comprised of disparate societies guided by near divine AI ship Minds) play in all this? Their ship Minds don't like to interfere with other civs, but they also like to get to the bottom of mysteries and want to do the Right Thing. If they confirm that the Book of Truth was an experiment, should they tell the Gzilt? And what is the connection between the Gzilt Subliming and the legendary QiRia, a 10,000-year-old Culture man whose memories are encoded in his body, and the nearly unplayable and unlistenable to Hydrogen Sonata, which the Gzilt woman Vyr Cossont has decided to play as her life work (to the extent of adding a second pair of arms onto her body)? For that matter, what IS Subliming? It is an act of faith, because information is scarce, because (typically) no one returns from the Sublime or communicates from it to the Real. Is it as most Gzilt believe a promotion to "the most brilliant lucid dream forever" in the "Happy land of good and plenty," or is it as many Culture Minds believe a kind of retirement into an old people's home or an act of collective insanity and annihilation? Banks, who died before he could write another Culture novel, isn't telling. Whatever happens once you say "I Sublime" and vanish from the Real, it has no connection with ethical behavior. The Gzilt are no angels. Their politicians are amoral, their military leaders inhumane, their artists decadent. All that may be Banks' point. As QiRia puts it, "my heart is broken with each new exposure to the idiocies and cruelties of every manner of being that dares to call or think of itself as intelligent." But he also says (sounding like Banks) that one pleasure of benign misanthropes like him is watching the dolts repeat the same "fuckery." But Banks is no future downer. He exuberantly spins out small s sublime technologies and scales of time and space for his galactic post-scarcity playground, like sculpted planets, a 30,000 km-long city girdling a world, elevenstring instruments so big you have to sit inside and play them with two bows, hyperspace, anti-matter and anti-gravity, body implants, stored consciousnesses, eccentric drones, combat arbites, nano missiles, and smart battle suits. Not to mention the Culture AI ship Minds keeping an eye on things and deciding what to do in conference calls, with their different personalities, agendas, hobbies, capabilities, avatars, and quirky names: the Beats Working, Mistake Not. . . (ellipsis intentional), Smile Tolerantly, You Call This Clean?, A Fine Disregard For Inconvenient Facts, Empiricist, Caconym (which means an incorrect name), and more. Banks is not just parading awesome techs and sublime scales for the fun of it (although his book is fun), but to explore serious questions, like What is the meaning of life when there is no Meaning? What are the ethical and practical limitations of simulations? Should more advanced civilizations take a hands on or off approach to less advanced ones? Is intelligence connected to decency or to technology? Can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? What makes us human? What makes us individuals? Where does identity reside? And so on. Banks writes space opera about the human condition, as when an android in real danger says, "Happily, I am not human, and this is only a simulation." He writes snappy and humorous dialogue, like "Are you afraid of heights?" "No, just of dying generally." He writes sublime space opera comedy: "Back aboard the Passing By, the mind controlling both the systems vehicle and the avatar was doing the hyper AI equivalent of grimacing and mouthing the word, 'Shit.'" He writes straight space opera sublime, as in a description of the sound made by giant wind pipes, like "from an enormous choir of bases singing a slow sonorous hymn in a language you never understood." Peter Kenny reads the audiobook with verve and skill. He distinguishes among the many characters by changing the pitch of his voice (Vyr Cossont's familiar Pyan talks like an infant stuffed animal, a combat android like a cheerful machine, an Ronte prince like an insect, a mysterious ship Mind like a senile Merlin, etc.) or his accent (though I wonder why people or AI Minds from the same civ speak American, British, Scottish, or Australian English). Hydrogen Sonata is not perfect. There may be too many advanced technologies and point of view characters, some of which/whom finally don't seem so vital to the plot (like Tefwe, the Zoologist, and even the Hydrogen Sonata). True, Banks wants to freely exercise his imagination in a universe in which anything is possible, and at one point a "body enhancement artist" tells an interviewer that he recently had 53 serviceable penises on his body and that one should "never feel sorry for excesses, only for failure of nerve." But this novel seems to be more excessive and less satisfying than earlier Culture novels. The climax is exciting, but the resolution (deciding whether or not the Gzilt will Sublime and what will happen to some bad actors) is somehow disappointing. The last words of the novel nearly blow every prior thing away: "caught in the swirling breeze produced by the flyer's departure, [the elevenstring instrument] hummed emptily. The sound was swept away by the mindless air." View all my reviews
The Clockwork Twin by Walter R. Brooks
My rating: 4 of 5 stars "Ladies and gentlemen, friends, humans and animals..." Walter R. Brooks' fifth Freddy the Pig book, Freddy and the Clockwork Twin (1937) begins when Adoniram, an unhappy and lonely boy "about your age," is sent outside by his unloving and exploiting uncle and aunt to check the river level during a flood, he hears a voice calling "Help," mounts a summerhouse, and rescues a little brown dog clinging desperately to the railing. The dog can speak. His name is Georgie, and he's been swept away on the flooding river from his companion, another boy called Byram who strangely enough looks just like Adoniram. Before Adoniram can carry Georgie back to the riverbank, a large pine tree floating on the flood grabs the summerhouse and carries it off downriver. As they travel down the flooding river, Georgie cultivates Adoniram's optimism and sense of adventure (the boy's deprived childhood having made him pessimistic): "why don’t you think about how maybe they [all the awful things that may happen] won’t happen? Why don’t you think about nice things that may happen? It doesn’t cost any more." (The Freddy books are full of life wisdom like that.) Soon Georgie and Adoniram rescue a drowning rooster who speaks with a British accent (though he can also "talk American as well as you guys") because he was born as an egg in England but hatched in America. (The Freddy books are full of quirky humor like that.) The trio finally step from the summerhouse into the window of a flooded department store, where they meet Freddy the pig and his friend Jinx the black cat. The two animals were away from home (the Bean Farm in upstate NY) on a business trip wherein Freddy was trying to figure out how to market his new invention, pockets for animals, when they were trapped by the flood in the department store. For a few days the new friends enjoy living in the store, sleeping on display furniture, playing games, reading books, and eating good food to their heart's content, with Freddy trying to teach Adoniram about jokes and how to laugh (the boy has never encountered anything funny in his grim life). The idyll ends when the flood waters begin receding, people start returning to that part of the city, and the boy and the animals decide to head for the Bean Farm where Freddy and Jinx live with other talking animals, because Freddy knows that Mr. and Mrs. Bean will be happy to adopt Adoniram. The novel then works out the attempts of the animals and the Beans to adopt Adoniram, a task complicated by the boy's uncle and aunt and by Mr. Bean's inventor brother Uncle Ben's construction of a clockwork boy called Bertram who looks just like Adoniram and requires a small animal engineer like a rooster to control him and speak for him from inside his hollow chest. (This is the first time Brooks plays with sf tropes in the series.) The story also concerns the attempts of the animals to locate Georgie's original boy Byram, a quest complicated by the participation of Boomschmidt's Colossal and Unparalleled Circus (whose uncaged animals help run the show), a generous wealthy woman called Mrs. Church (who has a good sense of humor), some gypsies (who are too conveniently villainous), and Byram himself (who has a phobia of houses). The novel has plenty of Brooks' varied humor. He writes amusing authoritative sounding aphorisms featuring animals and or people, like the following: --"Mrs. Wogus [a cow] was inclined to be philosophical. That is, she liked talking without thinking much what she was talking about." --"Most boys yell more than they talk, especially when they’re playing." --"Like all cats, and many people, he wasn’t much interested in any kind of work or game that he wasn’t good at." He writes comical scenes and situations, like Ronald explaining why he keeps his British accent, Ronald's wedding to the daughter of Charles the pompous rooster, Charles sneaking inside Bertram to give a deafening speech, Adoniram's uncle trying to spank Bertram, Uncle Ben trying to perfect an unignorable alarm clock, Freddy attending a meeting of the trustees of an orphanage in disguise (not for the first or last time in the series) as an old lady. He even writes dialogue fit for a Marx Brothers movie, as in the following conversation between Mr. Boomschmidt, a cow called Mrs. Wiggins, and Leo the lion: "Well, well, I guess we’ll have to go into conference about this." "Where is that?" said Mrs. Wiggins. "Oh, dear me, it isn’t a place; it’s a state. Like--what is it like, Leo?" "Like being in love," said the lion. "Or in difficulties. Or--" "Now you’re just being confusing," said Mr. Boomschmidt. "Good grief, being in love and being in difficulties--why they’re entirely different." "Not entirely," said Leo. "But, chief, I was just illustrating--" "Well, you’re not supposed to illustrate--not when you’re in conference. Now I call the conference to order. Anybody got any suggestions? No? Then what game’ll we play?" Fans of Freddy the Pig and readers new to the series should enjoy this book, especially if they like well-written, witty stories about talking animals that are underpinned by serious themes about human nature and life and are set in an idyllic rural small-farm New York State. Although Charlotte's Web (1952) has more pathos, the influence of Freddy and the Clockwork Twin on E. B. White's novel is discernable in much of the humor and style, as is evident when comparing two sentences from Brooks' earlier book with the famous last two sentences of White's: "You hardly ever find a pig who is an expert swimmer, but then you hardly ever find one who is a good detective. Freddy was both." And then, "It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both." View all my reviews |
Jefferson Peters
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Jefferson's books
by Sabaa Tahir
A Young Adult Epic Fantasy with Lots of Violence & Romance
Elias is an elite Martial soldier, Laia a naïve Scholar slave. As they alternate telling their stories (in trendy Young Adult first person, present tense narration), we soon rea...
"It must be due to some fault in ourselves"--
George Orwell's Animal Farm (1945) is an anti-totalitarian-communist allegory in which the exploited animals of the Manor Farm kick Farmer Jones out and set about running the farm. At first...
by Lu Xun
Perfect Stories of Life in Early 20th Century China
Chinese Classic Stories (1998) by Xun Lu is an excellent collection of seven short stories by perhaps the most important 20th century Chinese writer of fiction. Lu Xun (1881-1936) stu...
Fine Writing, Great Characters, Immersive World
The Surgeon's Mate (1980) is the 7th novel in Patrick O'Brian's addicting series of age of sail novels about the lives, loves, and careers of the British navy captain Jack Aubrey and the ...
An Overwritten, Oddly Compelling Gothic Father
Matthew Lewis' notorious and influential Gothic novel The Monk (1796) takes place during the heyday of the Spanish Inquisition. Ambrosio, the monk/friar/abbot/idol of Madrid, is nicknamed ...
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