The book of air and shadows

When I started reading this book I didn't think I'd like it, and wrote some initial thoughts on my blog, here The book of air and shadows | Khanya. But it seemed to improve as it went along, and in the end I rather enjoyed it.

In a way it reminded me of [b:The de Vinci Code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] in that the characters go running around in search of a myterious artifact, pursued by shadow villains, with secret ciphers that need to be solved. But [b:The book of air ans shadows] seems to be better written, and the plot holes are not quite so crass and annoying.

I suppose one of the reasons I found [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] annoying is that history is my subject, and that book was based on obviously bogus history. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283] the plot revolves around accidentally discovered ancient documents that seem to point to a hitherto unknown play of Shakespeare which might be found if only the coded letters can be deciphered. Perhaps the difference is that I know more about history than I do about Shakespeare and dramatic art generally. I mean I've read some of Shakespeare's plays and seen some of them performed on stage and screen and found them enjoyable enough but truth to tell I found author Samuel Beckett]'s [b:Waiting for Godot|17716|Waiting for Godot|Samuel Beckett|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327910301s/17716.jpg|2635502] or [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The Balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004] just as enjoyable, if not more so. No doubt this will mark me as a Philistine among the true devotees of Shakespeare, but I'm just saying that this is why my bullshite detectors were more sensitive to [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101], and if there was similar nonsense in this book, I was less able to detect it.

But [b:The da Vinci code|968|The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon, #2)|Dan Brown|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1303252999s/968.jpg|2982101] was simply ludicrous. A character who was supposed to be an expert cryptographer could not detect simple mirror writing, and they went on puzzling about it for several pages while the reader is urging them not to be so thick and just get on with it. In [b:The book of air and shadows|609801|The Book of Air and Shadows|Michael Gruber|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1401761829s/609801.jpg|596283], by contrast just about every character has a go at deciphering the coded letters, and somehow manage to solve the puzzle with ridiculous ease.

Though there are plot holes, they are not quite as annoying as in some other books, and it is generally better written, and there are some occasional quite astute observations.

There are two main characters: a rich intellectual property lawyer, Jake Mishkin, and a poor book shop assistant, Albert Crosetti, who dreams of being a film director. They only meet about halfway through the book, and the lawyer's story is told in the first person, while the film fan's is told in the third person. At one point after they have met they are discussing movies and life, and Mishkin is interested in Crosetti's view that movies really determine our sense of how to behave, and more than that, our sense of what is real.

'surely not,' Mishkin objected. 'Surely it's the other way around -- filmmakers take popular ideas and embody them in films.'

'No, the movies come first. For example, no one ever had a fast-draw face-to-face shoot-out on the dusty Main Street of a Western town. It never happened, ever. A screenwriter invented it for dramatic effect. It's the classic American trope, redemption through violence, and it comes through the movies. There were very few handguns in the real Old West. They were heavy and expensive and no one but an idiot would wear one in a side holster. On a horse? When you wanted to kill someone in the Old West, you waited for your chance and shot him in the back, usually with a shotgun. Now we have a zillion handguns because the movies taught us that a handgun is something a real man has to have, and people really kill each other like fictional Western gunslingers. And it's not just thugs. Movies shape everyone's reality, to the extent that it's shaped by human action -- foreign policy, business, sexual relationships, family dynamics, the whole nine yards. It used to be the Bible but now it's movies. Why is there stalking? Because we know that the guy should persist and make a fool of himself until the girl admits that she loves him. We've all seen it. Why is there date rape? Because the asshole is waiting for the moment whem resistance turns to passion. He's seen Nicole and Reese do it fifty times. We make these little decisions, day by day, and we end up with a world. This one, like it or not.'

It's bits like that that make the book worth reading, and that particular bit reminded me of [a:Jean Genet|29952|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1226526836p2/29952.jpg]'s [b:The balcony|667483|The Balcony|Jean Genet|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1347324100s/667483.jpg|1506004].