Niles Eldredge. The Triumph of Evolution (2000)

     Niles Eldredge. The Triumph of Evolution (2000) A rehash of the tired old arguments by creationists, and their refutations. Eldredge points out that all their modern arguments are more or less updated versions of the ones used in the mid-19th century, when Darwin’s book was attacked by people with the same mindset as those who attack evolution today.
     Eldredge writes well, but his tone is occasionally shrill; I suppose the American Christian Fundamentalist obtuseness on the question must be exasperating. He notes that the real argument is not about science, but about politics, for conservative self-styled Christians want their vision of the truth to prevail. Like all true believers, they lack faith, and cannot tolerate anything that would call their superstition into question. They really do believe that morality is not possible without divine fiat, therefore that if evolution is true, the humans would act like animals. Eldredge doesn’t make the easy point that animals in fact are more rigidly constrained in their behaviour than humans are, and that it might be a better world if humans did act more like animals, instead of doing what they want when they want (and claiming divine approval for their actions, besides).
     At present, the conservative Christian world view dominates US politics and especially their foreign policy. He is correct to focus on the teaching of science as a method of understanding the material world. He claims that the method presupposes nothing about the existence or non-existence of God; and that science by definition cannot investigate the supernatural. He quarrels both with the creationists and those scientists who believe that science entails the assumption that nothing exists beyond the material phenomena that science investigates. There may or may not be something else, but science can never settle that question. Good point; and I find it ironic that many Biblical literalists, believing that the truth of their beliefs depend on the historical accuracy of the Bible, invoke the methods of science to prove the historical truth of the Bible. See, for example, the “scientific” expeditions to find the remains of Noah’s Ark on Mount Ararat.
     The focus on the American version of this debate may seem to limit the usefulness of its arguments, but the entanglement with politics and hence with schooling is unavoidable, even in Canada. Here, too, we have conservative Christians (many of them pastored by American or US-trained ministers) who want to bring about a theocratic state. Throw fundamentalist Muslims and Hindus into the mix, and the controversies can get ugly; they expand well beyond the evolution versus creation argument. The main appeal of the Alliance Party, after all, is that it promises to do the right thing, and what’s right is not defined by a consensus arrived at by thoughtful debate and discussion, but is known absolutely, from revelation. This is a politics that ignores practical evils, insisting that it’s better to do the right thing and cause certain harm, than to do the usually harmless wrong thing and let someone get away with something.
     What’s interesting here is that no matter what the religious tradition, fundamentalists share the same trait: they are unable to handle uncertainty. Consider the unwillingness to give chance a role in producing order: one of the arguments against evolution is that it operates by “blind chance”. The argument reveals both a profound misunderstanding of what “chance” is, and a need for certainty. The fear of uncertainty drives these people; they lack the faith to handle the doubt that maybe they are wrong, and that God isn’t what they think he is; isn’t at all, perhaps. And worse, that if God isn’t what they think he is, then they can’t be sure what is the right thing to do. I go with Luther on this question; he knew that we can’t be certain. His vision of the faith that justifies is that if we act with the best knowledge and understanding, and with the right motives, God will forgive our inevitable mistakes.
     There are few too many typos. *** (2003)
     This is a repost because the original disappeared.

Colin Dexter The First Inspector Morse Omnibus (1991)

       Colin Dexter The First Inspector Morse Omnibus (1991)
      The Dead of Jericho (1977) Morse meets an interesting woman, Anne Scott, at a party. A few weeks later he’s in the neighbourhood and looks her up, but the house, though unlocked, appears to be empty. Later that same day he discovers she’s dead, an apparent suicide. It takes a while for the police to accept the reality of murder: it’s not until there’s a second victim on the same street that a tentative inference of a connection between the two deaths brings Morse into the case. There follows the usual convoluted path to the truth, with the usual complicated interplay between Morse and Lewis. An early Morse, with the tics showing. Sex, money, and reputation motivate our lives; character flaws convert these into motives for murder. Character is Dexter’s weakness. He’s quite good at setting up character revealing scenes, but nevertheless relies more often on telling rather showing. The video treatment of this book was more convincing because the medium shows character by default. **½
     Service of All the Dead (1979) Murders and apparent suicides in the Parish of St Frideswide lead Morse and Lewis through a labyrinth of sex, embezzlement, brotherly love and hate, and psychopathology. Unusually the chase ends with a thriller-like near-lethal encounter, when Morse is nearly killed after he unwisely tracking the killer to the roof of the church tower. Dexter has a habit of multiple twists which can get somewhat tiresome. The result is too often stereotyped characters; even Morse and Lewis can’t escape from the pattern Dexter has created for them. For readers who like to focus on the puzzles, this is not a serious flaw. For me it is. I want more from a book than from a couple of hours of television. When character and motivation are merely clues to the crime, the puzzle may be plausibly resolved, but we don’t really care about the people whose lives are destroyed by it. Again, the video was better than the book. **
      The Silent World of Nicholas Quinn (1981) Quinn is a “graduate” at an examination service that certifies educational achievements of students from round the world. He’s profoundly deaf, but has developed very high lip-reading skills. He’s able to observe conversations from across the room; one of these indicates that one of the members of the syndicate is selling exam questions. This knowledge leads to his murder. The puzzle is more convoluted than usual. People try to hide facts for both good and bad reasons, but this not only misleads the police and delays the solution, it also puts them in peril. **½
      This is a repost because of some error that occurred on the page, which somehow inserted a link that consisted on the above text..

Alison Gordon. Prairie Hardball (1997)

     Alison Gordon. Prairie Hardball (1997) Kate Henry, baseball reporter, travels to the Battlefords to celebrate her mother’s induction into the Prairie Baseball Hall of Fame. Her mother was a Racine Belle, playing ball during the 40s and into the early 50s. The occasion is a belated honouring of the women who played baseball back then. The ladies meet and enjoy themselves until a murder spoils it. Kate’s boyfriend, Inspector Andy Munro of Toronto, helps investigate, but it’s Kate who stumbles on the truth, which has its roots in the past, and which reveals a surprise for Kate’s family.
     Modestly written, with enough byplay among the characters that the creakiness of the plot doesn’t bother much. The small town atmosphere and loving but emotionally restrained family atmosphere is nicely done. None of the characters is memorable, not even Kate (who narrates most of the chapters; of necessity some of the story is told in the third person, but the shift does not jar as much as one might expect). The reader will spot the killer before Kate does, but that’s no great loss. A pleasant entertainment. **½ (2003)

Ursula Bloom. Rosemary for Stratford-on-Avon (1966)

     Ursula Bloom. Rosemary for Stratford-on-Avon (1966) A gossipy memoir of Stratford in the early 1900s, presumably the time the author was a young girl. Most of the story deals with Marie Corelli, who arrived in Stratford and promptly made a damn nuisance of herself. Bloom has no qualms imagining dialogue, thoughts, and feelings; the book reads like an episodic novel. Apparently it’s now rare; Mother sent me this copy for Christmas 1998. She annotated it with brief marginal references to people. Uncle Paul noted that the photograph of the Rev. George Arbuthnot was taken by Uncle Peter. The book covers the beginning of the commercialisation of S-on-A, but Bloom spends so much time on her history of the evil Corelli that we don’t get much sense of how this proceeded. But in general it’s an interesting sidelight on the town, and its references to some of my ancestors makes it important in our family history. No index, and no indication why the selected photographs, rather than others, were included.**½ (2003)

Margery Allingham. Mr Campion and Others (1950)

     Margery Allingham. Mr Campion and Others (1950) Thirteen stories starring Albert Campion, gentleman sleuth, and his old friend Stanislaus Oates, a copper who rises from chief inspector to superintendent in a somewhat haphazard chronology. The stories are charmingly written, all take place in that never-never land of the upper middle class and minor nobility between the two world wars, and none involves murder. Instead we have frauds and thefts of various kinds, feckless youths and maidens, terrifying maiden aunts, avuncular coppers, devious but socially impeccable villains, and so on. Wooster country, in other words, but closer to reality than Wodehouse’s happy fantasies. The stories occasionally strain one's credulity, but no more than those of Christie and Sayers. I like their tone, generally light and amusing, with sly touches of social comedy. The characters are sketched rather than drawn, and engage one’s sympathies enough that one wants more than just a solution to a puzzle. Some of the Campion novels have been adapted for TV, but they haven’t the cheerfulness of these short stories, all of which are delightful confections. ***(2003)

Dashiell Hammett. A Man Called Spade (1944)

Front and back of original paperback version.

  Dashiell Hammett. A Man Called Spade (1944) Reprint as trade paperback, with Introduction by Ellery Queen, who informs us that there are only four Sam Spade stories: The Maltese Falcon, and three short stories, which are included in this book. Two other Hammett stories add to the bulk, and make the book worth printing and publishing. The stories are reprinted in chronological order, and one can see Hammett’s skill improving, especially his skill at characterisation, and the last story, told in the first person by a boxer, is as much a character study as a crime story.
     Queen claims that this is what sets Hammett apart from other writers, especially the “effete, namby-pamby” English ones. Symons echoes Queen’s claim in his Bloody Murder. On the strength of the stories in this book that’s nonsense. Like other crime fiction authors, Hammett provides just enough characterisation to carry the plot. Like other escapist fiction writers, his aim is to sketch the outline of a character that the reader can fill in with his favourite traits: his own. As puzzles, these stories are weak, too; the solution provided by Spade is not deduced so much as invented. Queen is right to stress the “realism” of Sam Spade, by which he means his ordinariness and his taste for violence, but whether these make the character more realistic is debatable. I think the equation of realism with the dark side of human nature is just as romantic as its opposite.
     I also don’t see why Hammett is considered such a great stylist. The writing in the Spade stories is flat and tedious. The only interest is the plot, such as it is, and I for one don’t feel any urge to reread, not even “His Brother’s Keeper,” the only piece in which a character is realised fully, as fully as can be done a few thousand words, that is. Those who followed Hammett’s innovations took the style several steps further, and Symons claim that Ross MacDonald, for example, overwrites misses the mark. * (2003)

    Update 2020-10-22: Original paperback cover images added.

Julian Symons. Bloody Murder. (1974)

     Julian Symons. Bloody Murder. From the Detective Story to the Crime Novel: A History (1972. Rev. 1974) On the whole, Symons gets it right. His tracing of the development from the precursors (Poe, Godwin, Collins) to the masters at various periods, and the changes brought about by dissatisfaction with formulas, is first rate. There is a great deal of excellent information here, and his guesses at future developments have in general been borne out. He did not foresee the reinvention of the police-procedural as the forensic procedural (because he finds technical details tedious), neither did he foresee that the police procedural as such could develop a good deal further in the direction of social comedy and criticism. Nor did he foresee the development of the crime novel into historical romance. But his guesses are wrong more in degree than in kind: he expected the crime novel’s future to be essentially more of the same. The book predates P D James, Ruth Rendell, Colin Dexter, Ellis Peters, and other recent masters of the form.
     It’s his lingering debt to F R Leavis that grates. He definitely rates crime fiction as less valuable than the Serious Novel. Yet his invocation of “art” as a criterion does not convince me. His real criterion is moral improvement. Because crime fiction is intended to entertain rather than improve the reader, it cannot be as good as the real thing, whatever that is.
     The same Leavisite narrowness also causes him to savage Sayers, whom he accuses of snobbery and worse. Yet his own preferences reveal a similar snobbery, especially when he expresses his distaste for the Mickey Spillane school of sadism, or his thinly veiled contempt for the “semi-literate reader” of these novels, in whom he assumes a taste for sadistic sensationalism merely because they presumably don’t want to read Milton. And the books he does reveal as being among his favourites are all (based on the ones I’ve read) marked by a refined version of that same sadomasochism that he attacks in Spillane and company.
     Never mind. The history is valuable, and most of the criticism reveals a genuine taste for the genre. For the most part I agree with his assessments, and he mentions a number of authors whose books I intend to find. **½ (2003)

The Self

New Scientist recently published a series of article on the self, available here. The link will work for a short time, so check it now.

     Back when I was teaching literature, the question of the “real person” came up frequently. Many authors write from an omniscient point of view: they tell us what characters think, what they remember, how they feel. This information isn’t available to other characters in the story unless and until it is expressed in speech or (more rarely) in action. It’s remarkably difficult to know exactly what someone else is thinking, or what the world looks and feels like from his or her point of view. We often know a fictional character better than we know the real people in our lives. We also believe that because we know our own experience better than anyone else can, we know our real selves better than anyone else can. In this we are mistaken.
     What is the real self? I don’t think there is one that claim greater authenticity than any other. Our sense of self is the result of massive computation by the brain, which integrates both external and internal sensory inputs (heavily filtered), and emotional responses, to create a model of the world around us. We feel we are at the centre of this model, looking at it from “inside.” The model is just that, an image, a picture, a multi-sensory illusion. Work with optical and other illusions demonstrates how much of that image is computed using rough-and-ready rules about what should be there instead of what’s actually there. We see what we expect to see. Magicians make use of this. A good magic trick sets up expectations that are so powerful that we cannot help seeing what the magician has directed us to see.
     What then is the self as we experience it? It’s the experience of the world which we inhabit. But that world is an illusion: so the self is an illusion, too. What’s the self we ascribe to other people? It’s part of that world; it’s built from expectations which combine both generalised and often hard-wired expectations about what other people’s behaviour means, and our knowledge of their history with us, modified by what we know or can infer about their history with other people. It’s here that our sense of privileged information about our own experience misleads us. We believe that because we know our self from the inside, we have a better knowledge of how that self, “my real self”, will behave in future. That’s simply not true. We know perfectly well that we often have a better insight into a friend’s behaviour than he has; that we are better able to parse the odds of a future behaviour than she can. Why should we believe that our friends have less insight into us than we have into them?
     Part of the illusion of the self is “I”. What is that “I”? I think it’s a point of view. It can be disturbed. The “I” can be located outside the body, it can be split so that it believes the other part(s) are aliens or gods, it can disintegrate to the point that it takes heroic efforts by doctors and family and friends to put it back together again. And drugs, trauma, illness, fatigue, extreme emotion, meditation, and so on can undermine or alter our sense of self so much that we may doubt whether our current self is the real one or not.
     So what metaphor might help us understand what this “self” is? Who or what is “I”? One thing’s for sure: whatever else “I” may be, “I” am a process, a something-that-happens. “I” change constantly, and yet maintain a basic shape, much as a fountain changes constantly, yet maintains a basic shape.
     Or perhaps it would be better to say “I” am one of those fountains that cycles through many shapes, for as long as the water flows. So “I” too cycle through many shapes. “I” behave differently with different people, in different places, at different times, when performing different tasks. Some of those shapes “I” can control: “I” learn manners, language, skills. “I” learn when and when not to express my “inner feelings”, and how to shape that expression. And often “I” am surprised at what “I” do.
     “I” am an interaction with the world around me. “I” am an interface, a mask that shapes the space behind and in front of it. There is nothing else besides that mask. Yet “I” persist in believing that “I” am the reality behind the mask, the real self that the mask hides. Believing this, “I” don’t notice that all “I” know of my self is what the mask looks like from one side, the side “I” believe faces towards the real me.

 [2013-03-12 to 15]

Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)

     Sorry, Wrong Number (1948) [D: Anatole Litvak. Barbara Stanwyck, Burt Lancaster] Stanwyck was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in this film noir terror show. She’s bed-ridden Leona Stevenson, who overhears a phone conversation that suggests a woman is to be murdered, ends up she’s the victim. The story is told though flashbacks and phone conversations. Develops that she is a man stealer, her husband Henry (Burt Lancaster) is her kept man who wants to get out of the stifling marriage and job as VP in a chemical company owned by his father-in-law. He concocts a plan to steal some of the valuable chemicals, and involves gangsters to get rid of the stuff. These are annoyed when he and his co-conspirator decide to go it alone without paying the thugs their fair share. Leona’s life-insurance payout will supposedly pay the debt and free her husband of her and the job.
     The movie is dated as can be. It’s based on a radio play, and transfers well to the screen. All the things we have come to see as cliches of the genre are here: the selfish femme fatale, the suave mob boss, the crude business man, the self-centred handsome young man, the ineffectual good girl, the lonely derelict buildings by the sea shore, and the 2D characters, too obtuse to figure out the stupidity of their plans or the full implications of the revelations.
     I suppose that if I had seen this when first released I would been caught up in Leona’s developing terror, but at this remove the gears and pulleys of the plot are too obvious. The charm of this movie now is that it is such a near-perfect example of its type, a well-crafted entertainment offering a frisson of fear and a dollop of moral righteousness. The pacing is slow enough to suit the audiences of 65 years ago, who didn’t expect the jump cuts and minimal dialogue that we are used to today. The photography is slick and beautifully lit. the acting is very good. The whole movie is informed by a clear vision of its purpose, which is to deliver a thrill. It did that very well back in its day; now it’s an example of a genre that has developed in several different directions. As such, it has great historical interest, but only average entertainment value.**½

J. Burnley, ed. Penguin Modern Stories 1 (1969)

  J. Burnley, ed. Penguin Modern Stories 1 (1969) The date says it all: very mid-20th century “serious literature.” I read the first two stories by William Sansom, both rather depressing tales of people finding scraps of self-esteem in the midst of small defeats and smaller victories. The next tales, by Jean Rhys, begin in the same mode and mood, and I haven’t read them yet, and probably never will. David Plante’s stories (which I skimmed) are “experimental” in that self-conscious way that asks you to admire technique above content or insight. Malamud’s story concerns a father-son conflict of some sort (I skimmed it, too), typical again of the mid-20th century, when honest description of the dysfunctions of real families was considered brave.
     I suppose the 1950s and 60s were the last decade in which “educated” people took literature seriously as signs and signposts. This book, the first of a series that as far as I know never had a second, testifies to the belief that words on a page matter. They do, but discussion of their importance almost always misses the mark. In Julian Symons Bloody Murder, which I’m re-reading, I found a reference to F R Leavis; Symons accepts Leavis’s assumption that a story’s moral thesis is the criterion of its value. The stories in this collection all have value in the Leavisite sense, and that’s what makes them almost unreadable now. Leavis was wrong (Symons’ book is one of a number that disassemble Leavis’s heritage for our edification), and these stories demonstrate why. They are well written, the characters are well-observed, the pacing is just right, the insight into life’s little ironies is just so, and so on. But reading them feels like taking medicine. *½ (2003)

Gordon Dickson. The Alien Way (1965)

     Gordon Dickson. The Alien Way (1965) A first contact novel that seems to be one of Dickson’s early attempts. I suspect it was written well before 1965. Contact is made through “virus-sized mechanisms” that “infect” the aliens, and through a “collapsed space” channel that links the alien and the human directly. I didn’t finish this book. Its premise is intriguing enough, but the writing and characterisation are too clumsy to give much pleasure. The technology is inconsistent; surely a science that can build collapsed space drives and virus-sized devices can build high-powered miniature computers and store petabytes of data in a few sugar-lump sized cubes of collapsed space. The aliens, the Ruml, are a bear-like warrior race with a strong sense of honour (they have computers, by the way). They are in some ways prototypes for the Dorsai, in whom Dickson developed the warrior ethos so convincingly. I may pick up this book again some time this summer, but at present it will remain unfinished. ** (2003)
     Update 2013: I didn't finish the book, have tried it a couple of times since, but never got past the first 30 pages or so.

Agatha Christie. Towards Zero in The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1978)

     Agatha Christie. Towards Zero in The Mousetrap and Other Plays (1978) Adapted from the novel of the same name, the play moves briskly through the plot. The characters are well enough defined for good actors to give them credibility, even though their speech is not well-differentiated (Christie’s dialogue is true to class, but only vaguely evokes the individual). The stage directions are for a director, not a reader, and so they interfere; I have a hard time with “moves above table,” etc.
     Apparently amateur drama groups love Christie plays, and one can see why. They are “stagey”, though usually not in the bad sense of that word. Christie liked dramatic endings to scenes; she loves to drop the curtain on a plot point. Even the endings depend on a few lines of dialogue and action in the last two minutes or so. Her plays don’t wind down, they end with a bang. I don’t especially like a play that has a punch line, but many people do. Her plays for the most part are box office successes. Christie also likes realistic sets, “natural” props, and so on, and takes great care in describing them. In other words, they are the kinds of plays that people who like a good story will enjoy; but I doubt I would like them much; they are weak theatre. I can’t imagine these plays working on a bare stage, but it might be fun to try. As for the stories themselves: the scripts make it even clearer that Christie had a strong sentimental streak in her. These plays are romantic love stories with crime as the spoiler of true love’s deserved happiness.
     It’s also clear that she had an essentially dramatic imagination. Her novels rely a great deal on dialogue. This makes transposition into video easy, and often the video does a better job of presenting the story than Christie’s prose does. Or so it seems to me.
     I skimmed a couple of the other plays, but didn’t find them attractive reading. ** (2003)

Dorothy Sayers and Jill P. Walsh. Thrones, Dominions (1998)

     Dorothy Sayers and Jill P. Walsh. Thrones, Dominions (1998) Based on notes and drafts by Sayers of a novel she had planned and begun to write, this is a well done imitation of the Sayers style and form. Walsh has caught the Sayers adoration of Wimsey and her idealisation of his marriage with Harriet very well, perhaps to the point of gentle satire. The puzzle is satisfying, although the reader knows the perpetrator quite early on; but that’s common with Sayers, who was not much concerned with teasing the reader with red herrings until the denouement (except in Five Red Herrings, but even there, the murderer’s identity is fairly clear well before the end).
     The pleasure in this book comes from the characters, especially Wimsey and Harriet, and Walsh also shows a nice talent for social comedy. There are times when it seems she’s more interested in that than in the mystery, but Sayers’ notes justify her emphasis. Sayers planned the novel as having two main subjects, and Harriet and Peter’s adjustment to each other as husband and wife was to be one of them. Peter’s family should perhaps have been given more prominence; I think Sayers would have done that. But I suppose the publishers had some say I the length of the book. Considering the way Sayers expanded Gaudy Night and Nine Tailors into novels with a mystery element, Walsh would have been justified in insisting on a longer book.
     As it is, the marriage is charming. It clearly represents Sayers’ ideals, and certainly Walsh’s too, for she does these scenes so nicely. The Sayers reticence is there, but also the hint at passion unbounded and thoroughly enjoyed. Although the dialogue sometimes becomes a little precious, that’s Sayers' style, and Walsh is a sympathetic imitator of her prototype (whom, she says, she has admired since reading Gaudy Night in her early teens, a time when romantic novels and poetry can have a lasting effect). She must have read the couple of short stories of Wimsey as a married man and father very carefully.
     I found the puzzle well enough handled, though I would have liked to have seen the Wimsey-Parker relationship developed more; they are brothers-in-law, after all, not merely colleagues in detection. And Harriet and Mary will be excellent friends; I think more scenes between them would have added to the book, especially since Harriet isn’t sure she wants children at first. I guess I’m saying I could have read a book twice the length quite happily; I didn’t want it to end. Sayers usually wrote a lovely mix of social comedy, romantic love story, and adventure romance, and Walsh is an excellent pupil; I must look up her own published work.
     Sayers is very like Austen in her eye for the absurdities of social convention, but like Austen she also acknowledges the power of these conventions to cause real unhappiness. And like Austen, she believes that common sense, a disciplined heart, courtesy, kindness, and a strong moral sense will carry one through the worst of times. Also like Austen, Sayers rewards her heroes and heroines with great connubial happiness. It may be a fairy tale; but in real life, too, people can live happily ever after, or at least aspire to that state, and from time to time achieve it. **** (2003)