Tom Cahill. How the Irish Saved Civilization

     Tom Cahill. How the Irish Saved Civilization (1995) Cahill backs up his claim with an imaginative reconstruction of why and how the Irish adopted (and adapted) Christianity. St Patrick, a romanised Christian Briton, appealed to their Celtic gloom and sense of martyrdom. They had a tradition of killing a man as a sacrifice to the terrible forces that would otherwise overwhelm them. Jesus’s crucifixion was to them a confirmation of their sense of indebtedness to the gods; he was an analogue of the dying Gaul, a central sacrificial figure in their mythology.
     They also had a great sense of history, and a grand tradition of oral literature. Patrick taught them letters, and they used this new technology not only to record their own traditions, but even more to absorb the knowledge and traditions of the peoples over the seas. In this way they preserved classical literature and philosophy as well as early Christian theology and the scriptures. The adapted the Eastern practice of solitary hermitages into sociable groups of like-minded men (and women, and sometimes both), thus founding the monastic tradition. They founded monasteries all over Ireland and Scotland, and then moved south and east into England and Europe. They christianised Europe north and west of the Alps, and that’s how they saved civilisation.
     Cahill writes wonderfully well; he has the Irish/Celtic gift of smithing words. He quotes enough original sources and provides enough hard data that his thesis rings true. The book’s a history of the imagination rather than a history of ideas. In constructing it, Cahill reminds us that ideas without imagination are stillborn. Read it, you’ll enjoy it even if your skepticism is aroused. ***

Alan Bullock. Hitler: A Study of Tyranny (1962)

     Alan Bullock. Hitler: A Study of Tyranny (1962) This is the second, revised edition, in which Bullock has taken advantage of documents that weren’t available for the first edition, published in 1952. The story of Hitler’s life and career is fascinating, as a train wreck is fascinating. In the 1920s some entertainment entrepreneurs staged locomotive collisions. That’s what Hitler’s career looks like: the locomotives accelerate, they reach top speed, and then they collide. Hitler’s career accelerated, he got everything he wanted, and then he crashed, taking about 50,000,000 humans beings with him.
     I won’t summarise Bullock’s story. It does clarify a number of things that I had a muddled knowledge of, such as the sequence of events that led up to the destruction of Czechoslovakia. There’s no question that Hitler understood and exploited other people’s weaknesses; he was a master at probing the pressure points that would enable him to manipulate people into doing what he wanted. Then, when he achieved all his political goals (all outlined in Mein Kampf), he began to follow his fantasies. For a man who claimed to have read and understood history, he was remarkably ignorant of actual structures of governance. Bullock several times reminds us that Hitler disliked the work of governing; this no doubt explains his weird ideas about the power of the English King, and especially of his bete noir, “the Jews”. He himself expected things to happen simply because he wanted them to. “Will” was his Leitmotif. I don’t think he ever understood how his program was in fact implemented, how much organisational and logistic work was needed to realise the results of political maneuvering, still less what had to be done to make his political campaigns possible. This was, I think, the main reason he never understood how impossible his military plans were. Compare him to Churchill, who had had practical experience at precisely that level of organising the logistics of war during his time at the Admiralty in the first World War
     My impression of Hitler is that he was a psychopath in the grip of a fantasy. “Psychopath” is a word Bullock doesn’t use; it wasn’t in wide circulation when he wrote his book, nor was the concept. The research that firmed up the concept was really just beginning to gain respectability. But Bullock’s portrait of the man shows us all the traits of psychopathology. Narcissism, egomania, inability to empathise, tendency to erupt in fury when crossed, use of other people as instruments for ego-gratification, blaming others, etc. He was also fundamentally lazy.
     A good book, albeit a profoundly depressing one. ***

A. A. Fair. (Earle Stanley Gardener). Bachelors Get Lonely (1961)

 

     A. A. Fair. (Earle Stanley Gardener). Bachelors Get Lonely (1961) Not a Perry Mason tale, but a simple pulp fiction, with lots of breezy dialogue and innuendo of the kind the pulp fiction reader might consider daring. There’s an odd kind of innocence about this genre: although the matter is crime and vice and sleaze, the PI is unaffected by the evil he plows through. I can see why Gardener wrote this stuff under a pen name, it’s not up to his Perry Mason stories in plotting. But otherwise, it’s of a piece with them: They’re “clean”, in the old fashioned sense of zero profanity and decidedly ungraphic sex, what there is of it. Pleasant enough, but not the kind of book I want to read more of, even at ten cents a used copy. *½ (2010)

Agatha Christie. The Moving Finger (1942)

     Agatha Christie. The Moving Finger (1942) A poison pen letter writer prompts what appears to be suicide, but of course it’s not. The perpetrator wanted his wife out of the way so that he could marry the governess, who hadn’t a clue as to his feelings. The story’s told from the p.o.v. of a convalescing fighter pilot, who’s moved to the village with his sister. An awkward young colt of a girl figures as his love interest, and a nice friendly doctor as his sister’s. Like many of these early Christies, the husband is a charming devil, the marriage is dysfunctional, and young lovers find the proper mates. I think Christie really wanted to write romances (which she did, as Westmacott), and provided romances disguised as crime stories because her readers expected detective puzzles. But the smuggled in as much romance as she could. Nicely done. The video with Jane Hickson gives us much better insights into the characters, so I'd recommend seeing this story instead of reading it. Unless you're a diehard Christies fan, which I am. **½ (2010)

August Derleth. The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1930-51)

     August Derleth. The Memoirs of Solar Pons (1930-51) Foreword by Luther Norris. Derleth, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and minor US novelist, was an admirer and imitator of Conan Doyle. His Solar Pons is one of the best pastiches of the inestimable detective. The stories work well as puzzles, although the occasional Americanisms can jar, and the style is often too florid and elaborately Victorian for my taste. Doyle wrote in a middle-high register, very difficult to imitate, since it is marked primarily by vocabulary, not syntax. Another’s lexicon is the most difficult of all to imitate. On the whole, a good read, but not a keeper for anyone other than a serious student of Holmesiana. Which I do not aspire to be. Derleth admired the tediously overwrought fantasy of H. P. Lovecraft. I think his own detective stories are better done. See Wikipedia's article on Derleth for more. **½ (2010)

C. S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (1942)

     C. S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters (1942) Rereading these letters reminds me once again of Lewis’s clear thinking, and psychological insight. He understands that moral theology is about our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours. So this book is not only a wonderfully clear exposition of Christian moral theology (and theology generally), it is also a wonderfully astute exploration of how we behave, and how we delude ourselves about the motives and consequences of our behaviour. It’s also a very topical reminder that Satan is the Father of Lies: most of Screwtape’s letters deal with ways of deflecting the “patient’s” thinking away from truth into confusion, which is the first step towards falsehood. It’s not really Wormwood’s fault that he’s incapable of the subtlety required to do this well. He lacks experience, and seems a bit of an enthusiastic dimwit. This dooms him to become food for the elder demon, for in Hell only results count, not intentions and abilities. Rather like “objective testing” in schools.
     One of my favourite theological insights (based on a psychological one) is that Satan is incapable of producing pleasure, joy, happiness, and contentment: these are gifts from God. The best Satan can do is produce imitations, and delude us into thinking (not feeling, please note) that these imitations are the real thing. Nor is Satan capable of pleasure and joy himself. Poor devil! **** (2010)

Ruth Rendell. The Best Man To Die (1969)

     Ruth Rendell. The Best Man To Die (1969) On the eve of a wedding, the best man dies violently. The groom was the only one who truly loved the man, everyone else saw him for the self-centred little sod he was. He’d overreached himself, blackmailing a dentist, who in return does him. A hit and run fatal road accident is the link between them. The usual well done Wexford, light on police procedure, heavy on the kind of interview that was already obsolescent in the amateur detective tales of the ‘30s and ‘40s. Rendell doesn’t play quite as fair as Christie with the clues, but she’s much better on character. I can’t recall whether this was one of the Wexford videos, which showed a gentler Wexford than here, but gentleness is not incompatible with ruthless pursuit of the evildoers. **½ (2010)

Agatha Christie. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955)

 

    Agatha Christie. Hickory Dickory Dock (1955) [Hickory Dickory Death in USA]A postwar London student hostel is the setting for a clever puzzle, and an excuse for Christie to object to the after-effects of WW2. Well plotted, but the characters are flatter than usual, mostly stereotypes, and even Poirot is sketched rather than drawn. The narrative rhythm is that of a serial story, Christie has the exit lines and end-of-chapter punch lines down pat. She also caters to the goggle-eyed when she shows the murderer in action, without naming him or her, a trick that stands out because she so carefully names all her characters in the rest of the scenes. A rather perfunctory performance, IOW, which would no doubt be fleshed out satisfactorily in a full length (2 or 3 part) video. ** (2010)
     Update: the story was made into a feature length TV show in 1995.
 

R. Buckman. Can We Be Good Without God? (2004)

     R. Buckman. Can We Be Good Without God? (2004) Of we can. Buckman argues the case with material from a variety of sources, but his main argument is for atheism. He does a good job, but his style is somewhat breathless and often pedestrian (a curious combination, come to think of it). The book would have done better in half the length, and its two main theses might have been more gracefully argued in medium length essays. He points out that religion is a social good, but is often perverted into an excuse for evil. Persing’s work indicates that the right brain is responsible for religious and spiritual experiences, which agrees with other research that it’s the integrator of experience and knowledge: seeing the whole picture could well lead to the kind of ideas we label spiritual. Because like all human propensities, religious experience and insight can be used for both good and evil, Buckman is inclined to argue that we should at the very least be as skeptical and critical of our religious impulses as of our other ones. Good advice. The book won’t convince the believer, but it may help him or her to develop a more thoughtful and empathic expression of it. Because of the style, only **½ (2010)

Ursula Leguin. The Compass Rose (1982)

     Ursula Leguin. The Compass Rose (1982) This collection of short stories displays a range of fantasy, psychology, naturalism, realism, satire, and more, that one does not expect after reading Leguin’s more conventional novels. But whatever mode or genre she chooses, Leguin manages to make the central character real to us: the naive, task-centred young psychiatrist who treats a political “patient” in a near-future fascist state, and slowly comes to understand the nature of the oppression that she serves, is especially well-done (The Diary of the Rose). But even the most strange notions, such as that all worlds are the dreams of souls who don’t know they are dreaming (The Pathways of Desire), and that our objective reality results from our dream-selves becoming independent of the dreamer, is made plausible because the characters in the story come to that insight. By keeping her narrator strictly objective, Leguin presents us with what the characters know and understand, which makes us take on their p.o.v., and by the time we realise how fantastic is the idea that Leguin is working out, we’re hooked, and believe it – at least while we read the story. *** (2010)

Judith Merril. Survival Ship and Other Stories (1973)

Judith Merrill. Survival Ship and Other Stories (1973) Merrill’s selection of her own stories, published in Canada. The title story proposes the then daring notion that women are a) better suited to running a starship; and b) that the few men they bring along are their sex toys and inseminators. Several other stories deal with gender roles and relations, an issue that must have bothered Merrill, who had three husbands, all SF writers, and all (judging from the limited biographical knowledge I have) rather immature when it came to gender roles.
     Still, the stories are all interesting, as much as a reminder of the themes that exercised the SF writers of the 60s and 70s, most of whom did not write space opera or hi-tech action pulp, but preferred to speculate on variations on human cultural notions and values. Merrill was also a better than average imaginer of aliens, and her stories about human-alien contact are all worth reading. The saddest is about a race of humanoid giants who love all lifekind as a child does, just because it’s there. But when they come out of stasis and begin to make contact with the (very low-ranking) pilot who is moving the ship towards the docking station, the military man in charge of the operation gives the signal to destroy the ship, aliens and human and all. **½ (2010)

Ursula Leguin. Planet of Exile (1968)

 

     Ursula Leguin. Planet of Exile (1968) One thing Leguin does extremely well: She imagines whole societies, from the inside out. In this book, we have the terrans, marooned on a planet with a 60 year orbital period; and the local aboriginals, the hilfs (“highly intelligent life forms”).
     The plot involves a mating between Jakob Alterra, the leader of the dwindling human colony, barely holding out in the city by the sea, and facing probable extinction after 100 generations on the planet; and Rolery, the granddaughter of Wold, the hilf chieftain of the Tevara (both place and tribal name), who had a terran wife (she died in childbirth). The coming winter, with attacks from the Gaals, another race of indigenes, complicates the story, and provides the opportunity and impetus for the terrans and the hilfs to co-operate in holding off the Gaals, who have, for the first time ever, united under one leader, and destroyed the allies of Tevara, and want to loot it of grain and people on their migration south.
      The book feels thin and incomplete, it’s hardly more than a novella. We would like to know a good deal more about the hinted at undercurrents of desire and conflict in both societies, and a good deal more of the back story. There is a brief speculation that the star’s radiation has pushed humans into adapting to the local bio-chemistry, and that Jakob and Rolery will have children. The last line makes clear that Jakob thinks of the planet as his home. It is no longer a Planet of Exile.
     Leguin gives us the events from several human and hilf points of view, which enables us to feel and imagine living on an alien world in contact with an alien society. Of course, the hilfs aren’t really that alien. Leguin (the daughter of anthropologists) invents both societies as variations of human ones. Still, the POV trick works: we briefly engage in the lives of the characters, and we care enough about them to be glad that Jakob and Rolery will found a family, that terrans and hilfs will produce a hybrid race. This compensates for the skimpiness of the narrative as a whole. **½ (2010)

Judith Merril. Tesseracts (1985)

     Judith Merril. Tesseracts (1985) Judith Merril (1923-1997) was known as “the mother of SF.” Born and raised in the USA, she moved to Toronto, and spent the last third or so of her life there. More on Wikipedia's page about her.
     She wrote a number of stories and novels herself, but she will likely be remembered as a first class anthologist. This collection of SF stories by Canadian writers shows why. Merril was not afraid to go beyond the conventional modes, tropes, and motifs of the genre. The result is a collection of tales, anecdotes, classic SF, experimental writing, poetry, satire, and surrealistic pieces that defy classification.
     In one story, the old people decide they are birds, and take to perching in trees. The story ends when they migrate south. In another, the reality of the story changes every few sentences. In a third, society has devolved (my term, deliberately) into a mass of “enclaves”, each of which represents a social experiment. In the most conventional story, a burglar discovers the apartment’s owner hooked into a joy-terminal, and rescues her from what may be attempted murder, or attempted suicide.
     As might be expected, the most common tones are irony, cheerful acceptance of the crazy, and elegy. Since the mid-80s, SF has moved more towards elegy and terror. This collection can be read as one of the last examples of an SF that, at least indirectly, offered hope. An excellent collection. *** (2010)