Reviews and Comments

I don't usually write reviews of books that I didn't finish. It seems unsporting, like I didn't give the book a full chance. I'm making an exception here because I want to finish this book but I just can't bring myself to read any more.

The main reason I don't get this book seems to be that it's a parody of (or homage to) other books that I, uncultured pleb that I am, haven't read; a lot of the ways this rubbed me wrong are deliberate deflations of tropes from classic picaresques like Tristam Shandy and Tom Jones.

The reason I wish I could keep at it is that this book is often engaging and very funny! It reminds me of a Coen brothers movie in the way the language is precise, the characters are all half-brilliant schemers and scoundrels, and the chapters are strung together connected more often by theme than plot. One chapter in particular, in which a couple of prostitutes insult each other with various synonyms for prostitute in both English and French for five (5) straight pages without repeating, is a clever and impressive stunt of writing.

Clearly this is not meant to be engaged with straight-facedly. It's ironic, and while I don't prefer irony in fiction (true life provides more than enough), I can enjoy a joke. Unfortunately, the punch line of this joke is often rape.

This book is chock full of rape. One of the recurring gags is that the protagonist Ebenezer Cooke, who has sworn himself to virginity, takes every opportunity he can to rape, but always fails through some narrative intervention. There are other scenes of rape and mass rape. I'm aware of the prevalence of sexual violence in history (and the present), but I just couldn't convince myself that the reason for all this rape was something other than Jon Barth really likes describing rape.

The other theme that the narrative revolves around is fluidity of identity: Cooke remains an insensible prat as he idiots his way around London and colonial Maryland in a variety of stations and guises, while his intermittent companion sometimes called Burlingame seems utterly self assured even while constantly changing identities and names. Cooke accidentally changes places with his randy servant Bertrand during the Atlantic voyage and much is made of how well they fit in each other's shoes despite the gulf between their standings.

This stuff is great, and I wanted more. In particular Burlingame was a fascinating cypher to me: how much of his philosophical screeds does he actually believe? Does he believe anything, or does he just use words as covering fire for his hidden goals? Are his jokes on Cooke, or on me the reader?

But I think I get it at this point, or if I don't get it at this point (~2/3rds of the way through) I won't ever get it. Either way, it's not worth finishing.

This is a florid, romantic, and Romantic retelling of the story of the Percy rebellion against Henry IV.

It's outside my normal comfort zone in reading, because it focuses as much on exploring the depth of emotion that these (mostly historical) characters inspire in one another as it does on the grim mechanics of politics and war, but I still liked it quite a bit.

I did get a little impatient waiting for the bloodshed, but the interpersonal drama informed the action and made it powerful when it came.

It helps that the writing is so strong. It's not the most engaging style; Pargeter's sentences are complicated and overwordy, and she doesn't stint on them. But the destination is worth the journey, since they convey complex meanings with nuance and precision.

For my taste, the book spends too much time on the pseudo-romance between Hotspur (one of the three principals in the war) and his Welsh ally, since that sort of thing just doesn't turn my gears, but it gives many opportunities for wonderful, transporting descriptions of late medieval Shrewsbury, at a time when old social orders are giving way to new.

This might be the only book I've read with such a positive (though elegiac) view of chivalric social order. Hotspur, the honor-driven knight, is a leftover in a modernizing world. He knows it, too; he knows that the archers that dominate the battlefields have rendered him obsolete. But the book treats him fondly, as something great being lost to time.

For my part, I usually side with the modernists when reading about the ends of eras, but for the time I was reading this I couldn't help feeling for Hotspur too. That's the kind of thing the best historical novels do.

There are books that, while they're long, don't feel long. This isn't one of those.

After I'd read the last page, I sat for a while and reviewed in my head the vast sweep of things that had happened. There are ideas and settings in this book that are interesting enough to support an entire novel, but are introduced and abandoned in a few chapters. Some of those are great, some less so.

Full disclosure: I'm a fan of Neal Stephenson's writing. When I tell people that, they usually respond with some variation of, "But all of his characters are stick figures who spend pages and pages lecturing each other about whatever Stephenson has been researching lately!" To which I reply, "Yeah, and I love it!"

In this case, the worst aspect of this book is that there aren't enough of those lectures. The chapters of the book revolving around the rights of the dead to be preserved and the technical processes being developed to do so are fascinating, well researched and detailed. The social and political groups that enact and react to the simulation of the dead (in "Bitworld") are surreal yet plausible.

But as the action moves to Bitworld and takes on a more biblical and eventually high fantasy tone, the book increasingly drags. I love high fantasy, but this stuff is mediocre. There's still some fun to be had reading about the weird ways Meatspace interacts with Bitworld, and there are some interesting ontological points made, but it's weak, and it makes up about half the book, and this book is not short.

The problem is how derivative the fantasy themes are. Given a chance to literally create a new world from nothing, the simulated post-death characters in Bitworld recapitulate (slightly tweaked) myths and stories from Meatspace. It's a depressing failure of imagination on their part, and seemingly on Stephenson's.

It's not all boring though, not by a long shot. Stephenson retains his ability to present complicated issues clearly and his ever improving ability to write action and drama (without the benefit of much character depth) has reached a new height. This book is also funnier than his books often are. The character of Corvus was a delight, and brightened up the lamer later chapters.

So, if you like Stephenson's writing (especially his later tomes) then I give this one-and-a-half thumbs up (or 4 stars, in the land of Goodreads). If you're iffy on him, then pick it up but be ready to skim chapters when necessary. If you're here for the fantasy, then pass it by.

I continue to adore this series. Though The Widow’s House has notable flaws (and note them I‌ will), it still has the delightful characters that I was glad to revisit and the interesting ideas that make this series unique.

Those ideas are even more relevant than ever. The way that false certainty (spread via ancient magic) has plunged the world into an unending war, and the same kings and priests that perpetuate that war can’t recognize the evil that they’re doing strikes a chord with anybody who has watched the endless pointless American wars of the last few decades.

Much of The Widow’s House shows us the consequences of that war:‌ it’s unsustainable, but the religion of the Antean Empire won’t let them see it. The Empire lacks the manpower to control all the territory its increasingly worn-out army is conquering, and famine looms. Meanwhile, the religion itself begins to fracture as it spreads to new cities and their dogmas diverge. It’s clear to everybody except those who matter that this holy war is about to turn into a civil one.

It’s always a pleasure to revisit these characters. The soldier and captain Marcus’s dry professional wit is the obvious star, but Cithrin and Clara are also compelling as they struggle to change the world using the non-military tools available to them. Geder has grown into a villain for our current age:‌ a man-child driven by insecurity and self-pity to acts of towering horror.

I greatly enjoyed the dragon Inys, who plays a large part. His disdain for humans and morose navel-gazing (if dragons had navels) contrast amusingly to the increasing desperation of the mere humans who need his help.

I’m less enthused about Cithrin’s grand scheme to (effectively)‌ invent a modern financial system as a bulwark against the Empire’s expansion. We have that in the real world and while its merits are debatable, prevention of wars and empires isn’t one of them.

The writing is even clunkier than the previous books. There were several passages that I‌ had to reread several times to parse. I‌ enjoy these books enough to soldier through, but it would have benefited from a closer edit.

Also worse than the previous books was the structure as a novel. The beginning feels like a continuation of the last book, and there isn’t much of a climactic ending. There is drama in between, but there’s nothing like the stinging cliffhangers of the previous books.

But that doesn’t matter too much, because I am certainly going to read the next (and final) book. I love the world and characters and the spin on fantasy tropes is still fresh four books in.

This one was a let-down for me.

I, Claudius is stellar, one of the best historical novels ever written. While Claudius the God shares some of the qualities that made its predecessor great, it lacks others.

In particular, it lacks the scope. I, Claudius boasts a colorful roster of heroes and villains that cycle into and out of the narrative and keep the proceedings fresh, with the only constant being the passive Claudius. Claudius the God is driven by now-Emperor Claudius himself and his immediate circle of sycophants, as well as Herod Agrippa (who gets so much attention that the book would be better named Claudius the God and His Pen Pal Herod).

Claudius, once again the narrator, spends a lot of time discussing his acts as emperor, which (with one exception) are just not that interesting. He initiated several major public works, such as new aqueducts, a new harbor at Ostea, and so forth, but in the narrative it boils down to "I told my engineers to do it, and they did it". It's undramatic.

That one exception is Claudius's conquest of Britain. In those passages, the book surges with comedy, drama, and wit. Claudius' generals' underestimation of him allows him to revive his old underdog persona for a while and it's a reminder of what made him so engaging in the first place.

The thing that is so sympathetic about Claudius is the way everybody around him thinks he is an idiot because of his physical limitations. It's a reaction he deliberately encourages in the first book as a survival strategy. But in this book he actually seems to be an idiot. The way he is gulled by those around him and stays oblivious to his own tyranny frustated me throughout the book.

His constant protests that he intends to restore the Republic become feeble after the first year of his reign, and laughable after the tenth. Perhaps it's indeed a joke by Robert Graves, or perhaps it's a concession forced on Graves by the historical fact that the real Claudius did not restore the Republic.

Still, Graves gives Claudius a mordant wit and several memorable turns of phrase, and the early days of the Roman Empire are a fascinating topic. There are gems in the dross here, if you want to wade in after them.

Too Like the Lightning is a good book, but hard to recommend.

Though the story takes place in the future, it’s written in a faux Enlightenment-era style. The pace is glacial, the narrator has regular dialogs with the reader (putting words in the reader’s mouth), and the characters speechify to each other about abstract concepts even during unrelated activity. This style obscures the details of the world and the action of the plot to the point that I almost set the book aside after a hundred pages.

I persevered, though, and the book rewarded me with a brilliant future world full of progressive ideas and lively characters.

It’s not traditional science fiction: this society is built on extremely advanced technology that is barely described, and the many questions I have about how it works are never acknowledged. It’s beside the point of this book, which is about a society that has moved beyond geographic division.

I’ve wondered if we (here in 2019) are watching the end of the nation-state as our tribal boundaries get demolished by mass media and the internet. In Too Like the Lightning, this is ancient history, nations are long gone, and people organize themselves by outlook and skillset. War and strife are averted by public servants using statistics and social engineering reminiscent of Foundation, and religion is taboo.

It’s not plausible, but it is fascinating. Like in the works of the Enlightment writers that the book’s characters revere, believability takes a back seat to rhetoric. There are only a few named characters in a world of billions and they are all practical philosophers, representing a worldview and sometimes advocating it. They’re not believable, and often not likable, but they are memorable and compelling.

So the book is difficult in style and content. It also contains some scenes of extreme violence and fetishistic sex which felt out of place to me (though I’m sure the author, like de Sade, would say that pushing those boundaries is part of the point). That’s why it’s hard to recommend.

But I plan to read the sequel. In the end I was captured by the fresh perspective on the future and a stinger of a cliffhanger. After this set-up, the next book might be either a disaster or a triumph, and that’s exciting.

If you loved The Passage, you’ll like Station Eleven. The parallels between Cronin’s book and St. John Mandel’s are so strong that a character in the latter even mentions the former (though not by name). The comparison flatters Station Eleven.

The story follows various characters before, during, and after a superflu epidemic that kills almost everybody. The narrative jumps back and forth in time, following people living their mundane lives in the years before the outbreak and trying to live any life at all in the wasteland afterward.

St. John Mandel’s prose is fluid and sometimes poetic, and her characters unfold at a comfortable pace. The book is about half contemporary character study and half post-apocalyptic survival story, and the contrast between the two worlds kept me interested when the plot didn’t.

That plot is arbitrary and mostly nonsense. Characters who don’t know each other end up having unlikely (but narratively convenient) connections to each other, and the cartoonish villains perform impossible feats in order to antagonize the heroes.

I’m pretty good at suspending my disbelief, but the setting raised too many questions for me. How could a flu virus with 24-hour lethality spread across the entire world in days? The survivors of the plague must hide from starving marauders within days of the outbreak, so what happened to all the canned food and solar panels? Why do people, 20 years later, avoid the cities? It doesn’t follow.

This all bothered me, but the book has real pleasures too: St. John Mandel’s writing flows, she strikes memorable notes of horror and grace, and her characters have life. In particular the Traveling Symphony, a troupe of actors and musicians that travel the fallen world playing concerts and performing Shakespeare “because survival is insufficient”, is a charming idea.

Its flaws sometimes obscure its merits, but if you’re a fan of both the kind of insightful character development called “literature” and post-apocalyptic survival stories, this is a pretty good instance of both.