book review - The Gutenberg Elegies

This is a book that, even with a 2006 edition, has been overtaken by events. When Sven Birkerts sat down to write his original draft the individual could still have a degree of choice towards technology and decide to opt-out of a fair proportion of it.

However, as his 2006 postscript admits, by the time this book had been around for a while that situation had largely changed. The pace of technological development was supported by a hunger among most people to take advantage of the benefits it could offer. So emailing rather than letter writing has become the norm, using the web as a research tool something that students are now expected to do as a matter of course.

But crucially in terms of reading there is still a degree of choice about how far the individual goes. If you strip it back to that question, and Birkerts often makes it a much wider debate which can be unhelpful, then the choice seems to be a straight one between electronic reading and sticking with paper.

Unlike email and social networking the pressure on the individual to move to electronic reading is not as great as in other areas and along with Birkerts there are going to be plenty of people, myself included, that are happy sticking to paper.

But the crux of his argument is slightly deeper and what Birkerts is arguing is that in a society where concentration spans are shortening and more and more information is consumed via a screen the art of “deep reading” is being lost. What he refers to as “deep reading” is the ability of the reader to sit in isolation, distraction free and allow themselves to become absorbed in a book to the extent that their dreams entwine with the author’s and they are lost in the worlds conjured up by the written page and their imagination.

Where Birkerts has a point is in highlighting the dangers, he refers a great deal to the soul, of what happens when this ability is lost. But the problem I have with this point of view is the blanket dislike of technology. In many respects technology has improved the experience for the reader. Finding out about authors and making those stepping stone connections between works is now much easier aided by the web.

There is also a sense of balance that needs to be stressed here that Birkerts is not too good at. For instance if I really enjoyed playing football on a PlayStation does that mean that I would stop having the urge or the ability to go and kick a ball around in the garden? Likewise the chances of paperbacks disappearing soon can be overestimated. Electronic book readers have broken through this year but to the extent that you see them on trains and in the hands of your friends there is still a long way to go.

There are valid points here about the society we live in and the impact that a digital culture could be having on the next generation of readers but in a way what this book shows is that the pace of the debate is moving so quickly it is far too early to make judgements.

book review - The Fatal Eggs

As might have become clear over the past year Mikhail Bulgakov is one of my favourite authors and this slime volume is a cracker.

It works on many different levels. On one level it is about science fiction with a professor discovering, quite by chance, a ray of life that gives growth and multiples the sizes of cells. But on the other it is a satire on the Soviet system.

The combination of the two produces a chilling end to a story that in the first half has an almost comical feel to it. Having discovered his ray of life the professor is still operating in his own world unaware of a plague that has wiped out the Russian chicken population.

However armed with the knowledge of the professor’s discovery and an ambition to climb up the party apparatus an official gets the backing to commandeer the ray of life and turn it to repopulating the chickens that have been wiped out due to the plague.

At the same time the professor, without the ray of life, has returned to his first love of reptiles and has placed an order for an assortment of eggs including crocodiles, snakes and alligators so he can hatch them and study them at his institute.

Of course it is those eggs that end up in the hands of the keen bureaucrat with terrifying consequences. The moment a 30 foot snake swallows the bureaucrats head any sense of humour disappears and as the country battles to stave off the attack from giant reptiles the professor eventually becomes the focus of the anger of the masses and pays for his discovery with his life.

What you take away from this book that feels in many respects like Heart of a Dog is that science and the state don’t mix too well. Of course that was one of the guiding principles of Stalinism that the state could harness the power of science and use things like the ray of life to overtake enemies and rivals.

But there is also a clear dig at the basic mechanics of the state with the chicken eggs going to the professor and the reptile eggs going to the chicken farm. How could that sort of elementary mistake happen in a perfectly run society? Of course the consequences of the cock-up can be measured in hundreds of deaths and maybe that last thought is the most powerful one.

In a country where people in their hundreds of thousands were sent into the gulag system the idea of pen pushing murderers is neither that far from reality or particularly funny. The fact that Bulgakov is able to attack them and undermine them in such a short number of pages is a testament to his satirical brilliance and his skill as a writer.

Norwegian Wood - post IV

Well at the end the moral seems to be that life is what you make it and amidst the unbearable sadness and death the hero Toru decides to live. He could have chosen differently but in that moment when he is on the beach far away from home it is the sense of enough being enough that drags him back to Tokyo.

This was enjoyable but quite why it stirred all the fuss it did is not something I can picture immediately. Perhaps there was a shock caused by the sexual scenes in the book and the relatively casual attitude that the characters have towards sex. Maybe the theme of suicide was very cutting edge for the time and stirred interest? Not sure about either of those but it does seem dated.

What perhaps makes it more so is the decision to date it in 1968/69. But reading this in 2008 when most of the subjects tackled by this book appear in the weekly run of Eastenders it is no longer that shocking.

What does succeed is the writing around the main character. This is a coming of age book where the main character has to cope with death, isolation, loneliness and the oddities of other people. But it is the lack of a supporting cast that heightens the sense of loneliness. A memorable read for that aspect alone. Where are you he is asked at the end of the book and you had to wonder how that question gets answered.

A review will follow soon…

Beedle the Bard - post II

I tried but I think you do have to be a fan and there was a feeling for me that this was like one of those jokes that only works well when you were there at the start.

That is not to say it is a waste of time and this collection of tales has a point that is not just about witches and wizards and there are some questions and lessons that younger readers would do well to ponder and learn.

But for me there is too much catching up to do with the Harry Potter series and had I finished them all no doubt I would have been hungrier for any crumbs that came from the table of J.K.R.

A review will follow all the others…

Saturday's top ten - reading gifts

The top ten this week has a festive feel because it is about the sort of gifts that appeal to readers.

A booklight
Book rest
Penguin mug
Library chair (see one of these for a jaw dropping £1,300 at Liberty)
Book mark
Book token
Books I’ve Read album to fill in
1001 Books to read before you die to inspire and depress
Subscription to a reading magazine – ie. Slightly Foxed
Prod to join the library if they haven’t already.

book review - The Free Fishers

If you had to summarise a John Buchan book you would use a few words including “adventure, pace and drama” and it is no different here.

But for those that loved the 39 Steps there is a slight difference in the amount of time it takes for the story to become clear and the action to get going. This is a slightly more convoluted story and it takes getting past the history of the Free Fishers group and the misunderstanding about a duel before things get going.


When they do get going this is a story about a plot to kill the prime minister and leave the finger of blame pointing at an abused woman who is too weak to fight her own corner.

Instead an odd selection of characters emerge to defend her led by the hero a professor and priest, Anthony Lammas, who manages to surprise even himself as the plot develops and the violence increases. He is supported by some of the Free Fishers as he speeds down to Norfolk to smash a gang run by a maverick nobleman who has turned against Britain.

It takes a long time for the story to emerge after Lammas is initially asked by a friend to step-in and stop his son from letting himself down by chasing after a woman that he has deemed to be unsuitable. That then puts Lammas on the road and caught up in a plot that is quite different from where you initially expect it to be going.

Once it beds down and the focus of the action emerges it does gain the pace you recognize from 39 Steps. As the two groups head towards their date with destiny Lammas is the link between all sides meeting the enemy before the others and then acting as a catalyst for action.

What reminds you strongly of 39 Steps is the way that no one seems to believe Lammas and he is often alone in wild countryside struggling in the darkness both literally and metaphorically to fins the light.

At the conclusion there is a hint, with the growing feelings of love that Lammas has developed for the rescued heroine, that this has been more than just an adventure for the minister but a Damascus type conversion of character.

What keeps you going with this book is the pace, the plot and the sense of surprise that Buchan can conjure up when something happens that you did not expect. For instance Lammas gets captured, something you did not expect, shows bravery that you are not prepared for based on his description at the beginning.

There are some things that don’t quite work with this book, sometimes the language is too dated and the sense of honour something that is very alien in today’s society. But overall this is a great adventure story and although the length gives more opportunity for weakness – the story does take too long to get going – it is well worth reading.

Merry Christmas to you one and all

Hope you have a great day and get some good books from Santa!

Priorities, priorities

Very far behind with posting reviews, finishing books and generally feeling comfortable about things. But Father Christmas is very shortly going to be here and in my position as a parent blogging, reading and enjoying myself will temporarily have to be put on hold.

Normal service will resume when I can find a key to the bedroom and lock myself away…

Shelves full of seasonal tripe

Looking round the bookshops at this time of year is surprisingly disappointing. Along with the usual 3 for 3 offers, which seem to run the whole year long, there are other seasonal books populating the shelves.

Unlike last year, when you couldn’t move for celebrity biographies this year it seems to be cookery books and hardcover tripe. Cookery books vie for attention with large books that don’t seem to exist any other time of year than this one. Mind you it seems to work. Looking in Waterstone’s with a colleague he picked up a brick about the history of Marvel comics and made a face and noises that reminded me of my six year old.

As my father was always fond of saying “fools and their money….”

Beedle the Bard - post I

The problem with this time of year is that you don’t get those extended times to read so you end up picking at things. It was in that spirit I opened and digested the first couple of stories in Beedle the Bard.

I have read some of the Harry Potter books and enjoyed them but this, although harmless fun, just didn’t work as well. In some respects it falls victim to that old cliché of not only trying too hard but also a book very much for the fans. If you are immersed in the world of Harry Potter then presumably this is a must have.

In much the same way I used to pursue Cure b-sides when I was a younger, and arguably more fashionable, man this has the same feel.

Might change my mind with the second half but not sure…

Norwegian Wood - post III

A clear choice is emerging for Toru as he hangs out more with the weird but likable Midori and writes once a week to Naoko. But the letters are pining for a love and a relationship that might never happen rather than the fun that is on offer in the present.

Midori lets Toru in on her life as she introduces him to her dying father in hospital and then reaches out for him as she works through her grief. The relationship is not sexual but neither of course is the one with Naoko. In between them is Toru who is seeking happiness and meaning in life and as he sits between the two his options are becoming clearer – the past or the present?

More tomorrow…

Saturday's top ten - books and locations

These are not necessarily books where the City becomes a character in itself, although that does happen with a few of them, but these books are set in these locations and remind you of those cities.

Dublin – Ulysses, The Dubliners
St Petersburg – Crime& Punishment
Kiev – The White Guard
Stockholm – The Martin Beck Series
New York – Catcher in the Rye
Chicago – The Jungle, Sister Carrie
Paris – The Maigret books
London – Dickens
Brighton – Brighton Rock
Tokyo – Norwegian Wood

Norwegian Wood - post II

At moments this reads like the sort of erotic fiction that populates certain parts of the internet. But there is a method in the madness and the use of sex, however casual, is all part of the jigsaw.

At the heart of the puzzle seems to be the challenge of picking up the pieces after a loved one has committed suicide. In fact you start to suspect this is the big question at the heart of this book about not only why someone dies but what it says about the world.

After he visits Naoko in the sanatorium Toru hears from her how she felt when her boyfriend and his best friend Kizuki died. But she also reveals that her sister had hanged herself and that she had found her body.

The moments they are together are intense and move at a different pace but back in Tokyo Toru has struck up a friendship with an odd girl in his university, Midori. She is completely different from Naoko in that she has a different attitude to death having lost her mother and survived but in some respects is the same struggling to adapt to “normal” life.

There is one moment when Toru is accused of wanting to sound like he is speaking like a character in Catcher in the Rye and there are other similarities with the university setting and the sense of not fitting into the mainstream.

More tomorrow…

Print is Dead (Books in Our Digital Age) - post I

As you read the introduction you find that you are nodding your head as Gomez points out that the world has fundamentally changed as a result of technology. But he is clear about the boundaries of his study but keeps making reference to the educational and legal issues surrounding e-books and the Google moves to disseminate them.

That has the unfortunate impact of making you wonder if that is not a debate that is an interesting and slightly hotter because of its currency in the current debate about digital literature.

Still back to Print is Dead and the message seems to be that things have changed and there is no stopping them and although the book brigade argue that there is nothing that can top the design and experience they are fighting against an unstoppable tide. He makes none of the judgments that Birkerts makes about whether that is good or bad but comments that it is a fact.

The first chapter establishes the impact of the Mp3 on music and concludes that a similar change is going to happen with books.

“To see where words are headed, simply follow the evolution of music’s various technological leaps from one format to another: wax cylinder, vinyl, eight track, cassette, compact disc, MiniDisc, Mp3. What’s important to note in this sequence is that the last format - Mp3- doesn’t necessarily exist. It’s a file format, a way of digitizing and storing information. It’s not a physical thing that you necessarily hold or trade…the majority of printed material will eventually undergo a similar transformation, ending up as a digital file instead of a physical thing.” Page 16

The race to the finish

Things start to get a bit tense this time of year as you look at the days left on the calendar and try to work out how many more books you can squeeze in. Once I stop work, on the 19th, the daily commute goes and the chance of getting through any serious reading goes with it.

So for the next two days its a case of cramming as much Murakami as I can and trying to get another couple in before the 31st. I know that reading should be fun but there is always the race - with yourself - to see how many books you can get through in a year and in that race we are now entering the sprint finish and after 11 and a bit months its the exciting part.