“People like it when you tell them things, in suitable portions, in a
modest, intimate tone, and they think they know you, but they do not,
they know about you, for what they are let in on are facts, not
feelings, not what your opinion is about anything at all, not how what
has happened to you and how all the decisions you have made have turned
you into who you are. What they do is they fill in with their own
feelings and opinions and assumptions, and they compose a new life which
has precious little to do with yours, and that lets you off the hook.
No-one can touch you unless you yourself want them to.”
"I can close my eyes and clearly see those lines, like shining arrows, and if I did not see them quite as clear that autumn day in Karlstad, I did know they were there, of that I am certain. And those lines were different roads I could take, and having chosen one of them, the portcullis would come crashing down, and someone hoist the drawbridge up, and a chain reaction would be set in motion which no-one could stop, and there would be no running back, no retracing my steps....
.... If I had punched the man in Karlstad, my life would have been a different life, and I a different man. And it would be foolish to maintain, as so many men do, that it would have come ot the same thing. it would not."
These are longer quotes than I usually include about a book, but I found myself musing over these passages after finishing the book and so I wanted to include them both.
I really enjoyed this book by Petterson. I loved the dual narrative positions of the Norwegian man in his 60's and his recollections of a significant summer when he was 15 years old. A few members of Slim Tomes book club found it slow moving and lacking in grace (compared to some of our other recent books). However I found this novel had a beautiful cadence and was filled with poignant moments and descriptions that evoked such a sense of place and atmosphere.
It would have been amazing to read this book in a cabin in a beautiful forest near a picturesque river. I think I need a reading holiday soon!
“They're animals, all right. But why are you so goddam sure that makes us human beings?”
"These things, they don't even bear the weight of conversation," he
said, "J.D. Salinger...John Knowles...even James Kirkwood and that guy
Don Bredes...they've destroyed being an adolescent, Garraty. If you're a
sixteen-year-boy, you can't discuss the pains of adolescent love with
any decency anymore. You just come off sounding like fucking Ron Howard
with a hardon.
A book that I found very hard to put down. I read it late into the night, with my eyes burning and my eyelids heavy. And yet, the knowledge that the characters in the story were experiencing a deeper, more intense fatigue than I am ever likely to feel made it impossible for me to put the book down. Also, I just had to know how long and how far the walk would go.
This is only the second King novel I have read, the first being "The Girl who Loved Tom Gordon". Neither of these books are classic King horror, but they both demonstrate that his author is a master story teller. He certainly knows how to get me hooked and keep me turning the pages. My husband bought me a copy of "On Writing" by King for my birthday. I am really looking forward to reading it. Although I doubt that reading it will improve my fiction writing to be anywhere near the quality of Kings.
“There are times when my father’s absence
is as heavy as a child sitting on my chest. Other times I can barely
recall the exact features of his face and must bring out the photographs
I keep in an old enveloped in the drawer of my bedside table. There has
not been a day since his sudden and mysterious vanishing that I have
not been searching for him, looking in the most unlikely places.
everything and everyone, existence itself, has become an evocation, a
possibility for resemblance. Perhaps this is what is meant by that brief
and now almost archaic word: elegy.”
This is the opening paragraph of this beautiful little book. (I had to look up the word elegy).
It is an absorbing story and very well written. I came to love Nuri, despise Mona, feel fondly about Naima, and miss the presence of the father. I think this indicates that Matar had done a pretty good job of engulfing me in his novel.
I am really looking forward to reading his first book In the Country of Men which was shortlisted for the 2006 Man Booker Prize, and generally received a better reception than Anatomy of a Disappearance. I found this book mesmerizing so I am expecting to be blown away by his first book.
"This is the crux of the issue, the crux of our story. For the shift in the American environmental movement from aesthetic environmentalism to regulatory environmentalism wasn't just a change in political strategy. It was the manifestation of a crucial realization: that unrestricted commercial activity was doing damage - real, lasting, pervasive damage. It was the realization that pollution was global, not just local, and that the solution to pollution was not just dilution..... To acknowledge this is to acknowledge the soft underbelly of free market capitalism: that free enterprise can bring real costs - profound costs - that the free market does not reflect. Economists have a term for these costs - a less reassuring one than Friedman's 'neighborhood effects'. They are 'negative externalities': negative because they aren't beneficial and external because they fall outside of the market system. Those who find this hard to accept attack the messenger, which is science." (Emphasis added.)
Phew! That took me a while to read. But it was well worth it. I was shocked, stunned, angered and incensed by the material I read. And this is for someone who already knew some of the dirty, underhand tactics the Tobacco companies used in the past - so I guess I should not have been so shocked to find similar techniques used by the anti global warming campaigners.
The book is very thoroughly researched and is extensively referenced. Unfortunately, it is not an easy read and is not likely to be become one of those best sellers that nearly everyone reads, or intends to read. I found I got a bit lost occasionally in all the names, abbreviations, historical facts and technical details. But the overall message comes through very clearly.
It you don't have the time, inclination or patience to read the book, you could instead check out the web site or watch the 4 minute interview below.
The web site is worth a look: http://www.merchantsofdoubt.org/index.html
It has a lot of information and links to interesting web sites. It also lists and links to the key documents referred to in the book.
The techniques commonly employed by the merchants of doubt include:
1. Fostering uncertainty and doubt about an issue long after a scientific consensus has been reached.
2.
Using the popular media to foster this impression of uncertainty by
debating the issue in the popular press rather than in the usual
scientific means of peer reviewed scientific journals, and in some cases long after a consensus has been reached in the scientific literature
3. Invoking the idea of fairness to demanding equal time for their views in the media.
4.
Attacking the messenger - mounting personal attacks against scientists
who have published work that
does not support the political agenda of the "Merchants of Doubt."
Recognize this fallacy anyone? It is the arguement ad hominem.
5.
Presenting information that has no real bearing on, or place in a
scientific debate as if it should convince you of their position. The Heartland
billboard below is a prime example.
Oreskes and Conway respond in the book to the idea of for "fair media" employed in the 3rd technique:
"While the idea of equal time for opposing opinions makes sense in a
two-party political system, it does not work for science, because
science is not about opinion. It is about evidence. It is about claims
that can be, and have been, tested through scientific
research—experiments, experience, and observation—research that is then
subject to critical review by a jury of scientific peers. Claims that
have not gone through that process—or have gone through it and
failed—are not scientific, and do not deserve equal time in a scientific
debate."
The rice video was recently posted on Facebook by a friend and is an example of the fourth technique. The information presented made me cringe. The presenter wants us to believe that just because the total number of CO2 molecules in the whole of earths the atmosphere is very small that global warming can't be true. Umm, what? There is discussion of what level of the atmosphere he stops his count at, density of molecules in the crucial zone, what the CO2 molecules do there, etc. Never mind any discussion of the decades of research and evidence about climate change. And he completely disregards the undisputable fact that CO2 has been increasing at an alarming rate (see image below).
So who are the merchants of doubt? Oreskes and Conway name a few of the key players in their book:
Frederick Seitz
Robert Jastrow
William Nierenberg
Fred Singer
The book presents detailed evidence of their shenanigans in fostering doubt and misinformation on a range of issues - including the risks of passive smoking, acid rain, CFCs and the ozone hole and of course global warming. It also reveals sources of their funding including the tobacco industry and energy companies.
The organisations they often channeled their work and funds through include:
Global Climate Coalition The George C Marshall Institute - founded by Seitz, Jastrow and Nierenbery Heartland Institute
Alexis de Tocqueville Institution
The
GCC has disbanded. Unfortunately the GC Marshal and Heartland
Institutes are still operating. If you click on the links above it will
take you to their wiki pages. Well worth a look.
Here is a recent example of the Heartland Institute's handiwork:
Global Warming has been know about for a very long time.
- It was first reported in the 1930's
- Many scientists have been working on it since the 1950's.
- Climate scientists have largely understood it since the 1970's/80's.
- There has been a scientific consensus that Global Warming is occuring since the late 1980s, however it was not until the early 1990's that there was wide spread consensus that Global Warming is indeed anthropogenic.
If you would like to examine the Global Warming timeline in more depth check out this link: Global Warming Timeline.
Despite this, beginning in the 1990's, there has been a concerted effort by certain groups to undermine this knowledge, particularly in the popular media. Since then the media has largely presented the issue of global warming as if there was still no consensus amongst reputable scientific bodies.
Why?
Oreskes and Conway sum it up very well:
"To acknowledge this is to acknowledge the
soft underbelly of free market capitalism: that free enterprise can
bring real costs - profound costs - that the free market does not
reflect."
At the heart of Global Warming Denial is the ideal of free market capitalism. If you are ideologically opposed to government regulation in general, then you may find yourself specifically opposed to acknowledging any problem for which the most obvious solution is government regulation.
I do not believe that the free market can solve the problem of Global Warming. Capitalism is based on growth, not on restriction. Yes it is true that scientific innovation, in the hands of entrepreneurs, may offer some help to the Global Warming crisis, however it is extremely unlikely that this will be sufficient without regulation by governments to stimulate innovation, and the application of innovation, in relevant areas.
Some have argued that capitalism drives innovation. This is historically not true, as is touched on in the book. All the major innovations of the last century, from transportation to communication, owe their realization to governments. Either because they were originated in government departments (primarily the military) or they are the result of research that has been heavily funded by government grants.
Haven't we learned our lesson from the tragedy of the commons yet? No, free market capitalism will not and cannot solve this problem for us. So what has been the response to global warming by the die-hard free market capitalists? Denial.
The merchants of doubt and those associated with them have been known to
call global warming advocates "Watermelons": green on the outside and
red on the inside. But I am not a communist. I do believe in the free
market but I think it seems very clear that it needs to exist within
boundaries. A free market + sensible government regulation seems to be a
clear answer to me.
Well, that is quite enough ranting from me. What else can I say?
- It's a great book and I highly recommend it.
“No sense of the irony of human experience, that we are the highest form
of life on earth, and yet ineffably sad because we know what no other
animal knows, that we must die.”
"The nonbelievers need the believers. They are desperate to have someone believe."
"How stupid these people were, coming into my office unarmed."
This is the second novel by Don Delillo that I have read. I found that I enjoyed it a lot more than the first, Falling Man. But, interestingly, reading this booked helped me to appreciate Delillo's style more and I retrospectively adjusted my assessment of Falling Man and added an extra star to my rating of it.
White Noise is a wonderful book choc full of themes and interesting images. The dialogue is fantastic. Some of the interchanges between Jack and Babette are both fascinating and funny.
I enjoyed being caught up in Jack's head as he worried his way through the novel and found the progression to absurdity to be believable and enjoyable.
“Your mind will believe comforting lies while also knowing the painful
truths that make those lies necessary. And your mind will punish you for
believing both.” A beautiful story about a 13 year old boy, Connor, whose mother is dying of cancer. The plot may sound a bit morbid but this really is a lovely little book. Even though it is pitched at a pre-teen level, there is plenty here to delight and move adults. I cried and my husband admits to feeling a "prick of tears". It received unanimous approval at our Slim Tomes Book Club.
I am still thinking about the 2 parables that the monster tells to Connor.
The book is embellished by the gorgeous illustrations of Jim Kay, who used "everything for beetles to breadboards to create interesting marks and textures. The illustrations are so beautiful that I just have to include a couple here.
"Come back, she used to whisper. It's only a dream. Come back."
“It wasn't only wickedness and scheming that made people unhappy, it was
confusion and misunderstanding; above all, it was the failure to grasp
the simple truth that other people are as real as you.”
"“How can a novelist achieve atonement when, with her absolute power of
deciding outcomes, she is also God? There is no one, no entity or higher
form that she can appeal to, or be reconciled with, or that can forgive
her. There is nothing outside her. In her imagination she has set the
limits and the terms. No atonement for God, or novelists, even if they
are atheists. It was always an impossible task, and that was precisely
the point. The attempt was all.”
Another great McEwan novel. I read it in just 2 days. I could barely put it down. McEwan is a fantastic story teller and creates such fascinating and believable characters.
** Spoiler Alert **
The sense of foreboding and tragedy over through out was deliciously unbearable. So I was surprised in the last few chapters to see things panning out so well. How satisfying then to read the final section and feel the story reach its ending in just the way it should.
My question now is whether to watch the 2007 movie adaptation. I don't usually enjoy watching Keira Knightly in serious period dramas. What a botch she made of Elizabeth Bennett, and how overwrought was her performance in A Dangerous Method? Though I think she shines in comedy. However, the film has an 83% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is a fair recommendation, so I guess I will put it on my list of movies to watch.
A rambling account of a journalist's time hanging out with a lot of Hells Angels in the 60's. Yep, that about sums it up.
I found the overall structure of the book felt almost random. There was a very, very loose chronology but a lot of the information seemed to be stuck in haphazardly. A "stream of consciousness" is one thing, but to me the style of this book just felt a little lazy.
The book presents a lot of information, opinions about the "Hells Angels phenomenon" from a variety of people, and some analysis by Thompson himself. I think one of my favorite aspects was the insertion of relevant quotes from a spectrum of sources: poets, news articles, literature, policemen and of course from members of the Hells Angels.
My least favorite aspect of the book is the misogyny. Actually, perhaps "misogyny" is perhaps too generous a word as it is not really hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women. It is more like a complete failure to recognize the autonomy and person-hood of women. Certainly this may just be a reflection of the Angel's attitudes towards women. But I don't think this adequately excuses Thompson's failure to present a female perspective. Surely he could have found time to interview one of the "mummas" or one of the the alleged "rape" victims. Or if he felt this would have endangered his standing with the Angel's he could have at least commented on this, or presented some further assessment of the Angel's disregard for the rights of women.
The absence of female perspectives led me to wonder how much the Angel's attitudes influenced Thompson. He is credited with pioneering Gonzo journalism and as such he can be seen as an integral character in his book. He immersed himself in the lifestyle and culture of the Angels and so he is able to present us with (almost) an insider perspective. Overall the technique is effective and makes for interesting reading. We know he participated in drug use, risk taking on his motor cycle and alcohol soaked partying. I respect his right to do so and thoroughly enjoyed his account of this lifestyle. However, I was left wondering if he also participated in the appalling attitudes and behavior towards women. If so, this is something I cannot respect or take lightly.
After finishing reading the book I did some further digging. (Google comes in very handy sometimes.) I found this YouTube video which you might find interesting. It restored my esteem of Thompson and took the murky sheen off my assessment of his book. It refers to an incident that occurred after the book was published. Apparently Thompson tried to intervene to stop an Angel from beating up his wife.
In case you don't catch it, the Hells Angel's representative says"
"If a guy wants to beat his wife and his dog bites him, that's between the three of them...."
You walked right up to him and said "Only a punk beats his wife and dog....
To keep a woman in line you have to beat them like a rug once in a while..."
Shockingly the audience applauds and laughs at this!!
Thompson was a fascinating person with a colorful life. He "partied hard" in the 60's and 70's and has made an impressive contribution to our record of these times. He took his own life
in 2005 at the age of 67 years old. According to the wiki page:
Artist and friend Ralph Steadman wrote:
"...He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he
didn't know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don't know if
that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable."
A longer quote than usual to start with. It is the first book I have given a 5 Star rating to so surely it deserves to be quoted (and indeed it often been quoted).
"Can you understand why a little creature, who can't even understand
what's done to her, should beat her little aching heart with her tiny
fist in the dark and the cold, and weep her meek unresentful tears to
dear, kind God to protect her? Do you understand that, friend and brother, you pious and humble novice?Do you understand why this infamy
must be and is permitted? Without it, I am told, man could not have
existed on earth, for he could not have known good and evil. Why should
he know that diabolical good and evil when it costs so much? Why, the
whole world of knowledge is not worth that child's prayer to dear, kind
God'! ... It's not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on
the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse,
with its unexpiated tears to 'dear, kind God'! It's not worth it,
because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there
can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it
possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them?
What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since
those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony,
if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don't want
more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of
sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that
the truth is not worth such a price. ... Besides, too high a price is asked for harmony; it's beyond our means to
pay so much to enter on it. And so I hasten to give back my entrance
ticket, and if I am an honest man I am bound to give it back as soon as
possible. And that I am doing. It's not God that I don't accept,
Alyosha, only I most respectfully return him the ticket."
An amazing book! I hardly know where to start or what to say about it. It is so dense, rich and engaging that my comments inevitably seem superficial. There are so many thought provoking ideas crammed into this novel.
The book is like a series of philosophical essays interspersed in a fantastic story full of fascinating characters. Sometimes when authors try this you end up with a clunky, preachy, over-wrought mess. But Dostoevsky manages to balance the plot and the philosophizing so perfectly that it never feels bogged down.
The quote above is from Ivan, grappling with the problem of evil. This passage affected me deeply when I first read it about 8 years ago. I was still in the grips of religious fundamentalism at the time but the needless suffering in the world was steadily eating away at my faith. I was shaken to find how strongly I could empathize with Ivan's declaration: "I most respectfully return him the ticket"
It is such a shame that Dostoevsky did not live long enough to write the sequel he had planned. I would love to know how he would have unfolded the further adventures of the brothers, but also of Katya, Grushenka, Lise, Kolya and others.
So, which brother am I most like? Which brother are you most like? Is there some Karamazov in all of us?
It is not very often that opinion at our "Slim Tomes" Book Club is
unanimous. This book prompted one of those rare occasions. We all
disliked it. I found the main character annoying, the "transformation" unconvincing and the conclusion fulfilling. Flynn played with lofty ideas but his superficial treatment of grief, remorse and the desire to start anew was so badly done that it was annoying. Overall a banal book that did not even redeem itself with the humor promised by the reviews on the cover. The only good thing - it was a short little book and a quick, easy read, so it did not waste much of my time. I don't think I will be reaching for a Chris Flynn book again anytime soon.
We recently joined a new Book Club and Dear Husband suggested Neuromancer for the first book as he had just purchased a copy.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The world of Neuromancer is fantastically imagined and communicated by Gibson. The characters are fascinating enough to be absorbing, even though I found it hard to feel any empathy for them until nearing the end of the novel. The plot is fast paced but I did get a bit lost in the action occasionally. A few times I would read a couple of pages, feel a little hazy about what was going on, and then something would suddenly click and cause an "oh, so that's what just happened" moment.
It was really interesting reading this and keeping in mind that it was written 28 years ago, in 1984. Gibson is truly visionary. He coined the term "cyberspace" in his 1982 short story "Burning Chrome" and popularized it with his novel Neuromancer. He is also responsible for popularizing the term "matrix" and his work had a big influence on "The Matrix" film trilogy. He is considered responsible for launching the sub-genres of Cyberpunk and Steampunk. Honestly, this guy is truly a legend in his own time!
"Neuromancer became the first novel to win
the triple crown - Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards - and, in the
process, virtually single-handedly launched the cyberpunk movement." http://project.cyberpunk.ru/idb/gibson_interview.html
Of course the vegan apprentice in me loved this snippet: "Jesus," Molly said, her own plate empty, "gimme
that. You know what this costs?" She took his plate. "They gotta raise
a whole animal for years and then they kill it. This isn't vat stuff." I wish that more people would see the meat on their plate in this light. Could they then realize the absurdness of their dietary choices and the effect on our fragile planet?
I was about half way through Neuromancer when Dear Husband informed me that it is the first book in a trilogy and that he had already ordered a copy of the next two books. Hooray! I love a good trilogy. Can hardly wait to read more Gibson.
The problem is, with all of this fabulous fiction sitting enticingly on the bookshelf, and belonging two Book Clubs which guarantees I will read at least two fiction books per month, how am I going to keep up with reading my Non-fiction quota for this year?
"We thought we were being mature when we were only being safe. We imagined we were being responsible but were only being cowardly. What we called realism turned out to be a way of avoiding things rather than facing them. Time... give us enough time and our best-supported decisions will seem wobbly, our certainties whimsical."
"I had wanted life not to bother me too much, and had succeeded - and how pitiful that was."
I enjoyed this short novel - apparently much more than anyone else in our book club. So I found myself feeling like an advocate for the book. Maybe I enjoyed it more because I didn't even know it was a Booker Prize winner when I started reading it (yes I spend most of my time under a rock) so I just approached it as a something to relax with, rather than judging its merits as a Booker winner.
I found it to be a real page turner. So much so that I had to exert self-discipline to put it down for a day or two so that I could savour the ending even more.
I liked the way Barnes dealt with the unreliability of memories and examined how our version of the past may not be as accurate as we like to believe. I found the idea of corroboration of memories thought provoking, and it lead me to want to journal more regularly so that I will have more of my own "in the moment" reflections to look back on in years to come. That's not to say I won't be interested in your version of the past too - so try to lay down some accurate memories please. :)
He did manage to surprise me with the final
twist, but I found the 'twist' convincing and believable. It wasn't a sky hook and did not induce an "how dare he trick me" fit
as all the necessary clues were there, they were just more subtle than the usual bleeding obvious "look here is an important detail" kind
of clues.
Maybe the novel was particularly engaging for me as memories and our view of ourselves is something I have been thinking about lately. I started raving on about memories, neurons and psychobabble but decided to move that discussion over to Mandy's Musings where it belongs.
Seriously! Why am I already in the third month of 2012? I feel like New Years Eve was yesterday. Or at the most, a day before that.
I had planned to catch up on all my 2011 book blogging before 2011 came to a close. I have a few that I started months ago and just never finished or posted. I am such a procrastinator!
I thought about closing my Reading Room Blog and going back to just keeping a notebook to track my reading. But I kind of like being able to easily scroll back through books - rather than having to try and decipher my messy writing while flicking pages in a note book.
So I am going to try again in earnest this year. First I am going to catch up on 2011 books, and I am going to cheat by "dating" them all 31/12/11 so that they show up as part of my 2011 reading. I think some of the entries will probably be just the title, cover pic and a quote so that I can just "get it done".
And then I am going to try and keep up a bit better in 2012.
Also, while I am both berating and trying to motivate my self, why haven't I set any goals for 2012 yet? No wonder the year is sliding by in a haze of stagnation and un-acheivement (no it's not a real word but it is exactly what I mean). I am going to set some reading goals for this year and record them here to try and keep myself accountable and on track.
2012 reading goals:
20 Fiction
12 Non-Fiction
Blog all of them
Make a list of wish-list reads (actually this will be an exercise in collating as I have a few of these scribbled lists around the place)
Done! I mean goals done. That was the easy part.
Now to catch up on entries for the books I read in 2011
