The Savage Detectives

I've heard Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives described as "the kind of novel Borges could have written." I'm not sure I agree, but it's not an entirely far-fetched comparison -- the two protagonists (based on Bolaño and a friend of his) are on a quest to find a respected member of an obscure avant-garde group, and their meanderings after the meeting (or after their attempt at the meeting) are told through a series of anecdotes, related by persons of varying degrees of intimacy and familiarity -- we have former lovers, traveling companions, members of antipodal literary movements, minor functionaries, neighbors, drinking buddies, etc. Each anecdote (vignette) is well crafted, and as such, this could be a work of Borges'. However, if this were a Borges novel (or the Borges novel, since there are none), I doubt that there would be as much sex, booze, or weed involved. Additionally, the vignettes would take place during the search for Cesarea Tinajero, rather than afterwards. They also might be a bit less mundane -- while the vignettes aren't from bland people, it seems every narrator is slowly losing their mind in a different way. While we occasionally (often?) encounter such narrators in Borges' work, the worlds he creates are slightly more fantastic (in the most literal sense) than what is in The Savage Detectives.

Regardless of my quibbling, this is a hell of a novel. The initial structure was a bit odd (now there's a complaint, especially considering the previous novel reviewed here is Nabokov's Pale Fire) in that the first section is a series of diary entries from a bookish young poet who is introduced to our future protagonists, drops out of law school, and becomes a member of their movement. This section is much devoted to his coming of age -- his first experiences with sex, with cigarettes, alcohol, marijuana. In contrast, the second section is the aforementioned vignettes, spanning twenty years (1976-1996), in which our diarist is mentioned once -- when a scholar denies that he (the diarist, not the scholar) had been a member of the "gang". (In fact, this reference to the diarist comes in the second-to-last vignette, as if to remind the reader how the novel began. The last vignette is a continuation of the first -- an old poet that the two protagonists had visited in 1976, before setting off on their journey. His story is broken up throughout the novel, but stitched together, his (half dozen? dozen?) mini-chapters form one complete narrative of an evening he had spent drinking with the two protagonists). The vignettes almost take the form of interviews: as if the person being questioned had been asked "Tell me about your experiences with Arturo Belano and/or Ulises Lima", or "Tell me about your experiences in [time and place] and how they relate to Belano and Lima," and then was given free reign to ramble onwards. The final section is a resumption of the initial diary, concerning the continuation of the protagonists' search for the vanished poetess.

Despite The Savage Detectives being a novel about poets and poetry, the only poem written by a character in the novel that we as readers are shown is Cesarea Tinajero's sole published poem, which, other than its title, is wordless. I find this to be a good joke, as well as a good contrast to Pale Fire, which featured almost a thousand lines of subpar poetry. (Additionally, the protagonists are described as "more drug dealers than poets", which may or may not be a fair characterization -- their stories are only told secondhand.)

Beyond crediting Bolaño, I must credit the translator, Natasha Wimmer, who certainly had a difficult task, as this novel is clearly filled with slang in the original. (More or less difficult than translating Juvenal? Probably less, since at least Wimmer has contemporaries who have lived immersed in whatever vernacular this is written in).

Absolutely recommended.

Summer running

With June ending, it's the perfect time for one of my favorite passages from Ray Bradbury:

It was June and long past time for buying the special shoes that were quiet as a summer rain falling on the walks. June and the earth full of raw power and everything everywhere in motion. The grass was still pouring in from the country, surrounding the sidewalks, stranding the houses. Any moment the town would capsize, go down and leave not a stir in the clover and weeds. And here Douglas stood, trapped on the dead cement and the red-brick streets, hardly able to move.

From Dandelion Wine, the re-reading of which should be a summer ritual.

Lord of Light

Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light is a triumph, and proof that science fiction can be much more than just description of gadgetry. It features cynical interplay of terrestrial religions on an alien planet after colonization by a space ark. The first colonists to awaken subdue the world, and after a period of time, set themselves up as members of the Hindu Pantheon, through both technological and supernatural means. The other passengers on the ark are awakened more gradually, and are placed in a rigid caste system (are there any flexible caste systems?). With reincarnation (through technology) a reality, the populace is held in check with a form of Hinduism that is literally true -- their station upon rebirth is determined by the deeds and thoughts of their past life, and the gods are manifest in the world.

Kurt Vonnegut opens Cat's Cradle with "Anybody unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either. So be it." Regardless of the original veracity of Hinduism, Lord of Light is set in a world where much of it is literally true -- so when a member of the First chooses to oppose the system, what better path than to sow the seeds of Buddhism, especially given how the two religions have intersected in India in the past? (Later in the book, the would-be Buddha concedes that he had considered Christianity and Islam, but "crucifixion hurts!", and Islam and Hinduism didn't mesh all that well in the original India) Sam, as he prefers to be called, takes Vonnegut to heart -- "He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god."

Lord of Light has an odd narrative structure -- the novel opens in its present day, then tells the back story in a flashback, which lasts more than half of the novel, and from which we emerge mid-paragraph. While jarring, it's quite effective, as it gives the sensation of being woken from a dream, which is appropriate, given the experience of one of the characters at the beginning of the novel.

One of the characteristics of Zelazny's work that I enjoy the most is his use of humor. Early in the novel, there's one of my favorite descriptions of life native to an alien planet in all of sci-fi:

"Then the one called Raltariki is really a demon?" asked Tak.
"Yes, and no," said Yama, "If by 'demon' you mean a malefic, supernatural creature, possessed of great powers, life span and the ability to temporarily assume virtually any shape, then the answer is no. This is the generally accepted definition, but it is untrue in one respect."
"Oh? And what may that be?"
"It is not a supernatural creature."
"But it is all those other things?"
"Yes."

Not that the focus of Lord of Light is wordplay, but it features such dialogue throughout the text, which helps make the characters more believable -- they're literally trying to overthrow Heaven, which in the hands of a less capable author, could lend itself to a heavy gravity. Zelazny is comparable to Bradbury in this respect -- he's descriptive (this novel contains one of the most well choreographed fight scenes I've ever read) without being overbearing. Essentially the only complaint I can make is the ending, which, given the material, is oddly appropriate.

Pale Fire

Nabokov's Pale Fire is an oddly structured novel that Jorge Luis Borges would have rendered in a few sentences, as when describing an imagined writer's oeuvre: "He produced a novel containing a 999 line poem in four cantos by a fictional poet, a kind of latter-day Robert Frost, as well as extended commentary by a supposed friend of the poet, who weaves his own, unrelated story into the commentary, and appears to be a madman. It is unclear whether the poet or commentator exist at all (in the world of the narrative), or if one is the invention of the other -- (the poet concocting his own biographer, or the madman dreaming up a poet, to give background to his ravings), or if both are the creation of a third, hidden character."

Careful reading and much scholastic debate seems to confirm that the final hypothesis laid out above is correct, or at least that the commentator (Professor Charles Kinbote) is fictitious. The poet (John Shade) may actually exist in the world of Pale Fire, but the commentator appears to be the invention of a third party, a view endorsed by Nabokov himself. (This raises the interesting question of whether or not we should consider an author's statements outside a piece canonical -- I would say no. I remember a Hemingway story where Hemingway states that a character would kill himself after the events depicted, but, like Kinbote, I'm currently working without a library.)

One of the blurbs on the back of my edition of Pale Fire describes the novel as a "centaur work", which I would disagree with -- while the long poem is clearly essential to the novel, it isn't very good; Shade's Pale Fire, while containing occasional jewels (such as lines 1-4)

I was the shadow of the waxwing slain
By the false azure in the windowpane;
I was the smudge of ashen fluff--and I
Live on, flew on, in the reflected sky.

Is mostly written in conversational verse, much of it addressed to the poet's wife. Perhaps it's part of the joke that a man supposed to be second in stature to Frost among American poets would produce nearly 1000 quotidian lines, but calling this a centaur work is appropriate only if the horse is lame, or the man is mad.

Not that the novel isn't brilliant, because it is -- I read it as a satire of self-important academics, but regardless of Nabokov's intentions, it's pure absurdist fun. Kinbote's bitterness and defensiveness in the Foreword almost reveals his madness, but the slow, subtle progression of his deterioration is masterfully unfolded. Additionally, the Index following the Commentary allows for ease of reference from Note to Note, and reveals details not explicated in the text. While some early reviews criticized Pale Fire as incoherent, I can't agree. While flipping from poem to Commentary broke the verse's rhythm (Kinbote recommends buying two copies and mutilating both to allow for easier reading!), in the case of subpar verse and engaging commentary, I don't think that's cause to complain.

Short Story Review - "Dentist"

"Dentist" is probably my favorite story from Roberto Bolaño's short story collection Last Evenings on Earth. It concerns a writer (presumably one of Bolaño's alter egos, of which many of the collections protagonists seem to be) visiting a friend's hometown. The friend is the titular dentist, and the narrator wonders why he (the dentist) chose to remain in his hometown, rather than move to Mexico City, as do many Mexican intellectuals. As the story opens, we learn that the writer had been planning on relaxing, as his life was in a transitional period, but his friend is quite distraught, due to the death of a patient at a free clinic he volunteers at.

The story seems to be an allegory for Bolaño's feelings on art -- or at least Bolaño setting out a set of aesthetics for comment. The following passage is preceded by the dentist's encounter with a painter whose work he admires. An awkward misunderstanding results in the dentist being insulted, and then beaten up when he attempts to recover. After recounting this to the writer, and railing against the painter, the writer observes that this is a singular anecdote in a man's life, and doesn't discredit his work. The dentist responds as follows:

But that’s where art comes from, he said: life stories. Art history comes along only much later. That what art is, he said, the story of a life in all its particularity. It’s the only thing/that really is particular and personal. It’s the expression of and, at the same time, the fabric of the particular.
And what do you mean by the fabric of the particular? I asked, supposing he would answer: Art. I was also thinking, indulgently, that we were pretty drunk already and that it was time to go home.
But my friend said: What I mean is the secret story.
With a gleam in his eye he stared at me for a moment. The death of the Indian woman from gum cancer had obviously affected him more than I had realized at first.
So now you’re wondering what I mean by the secret story? asked my friend. Well, the secret story is the one we’ll never know, although we’re living it from day to day, thinking we’re alive, thinking we’ve got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn’t matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don’t realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another and we don’t realize that’s a lie.

Immediately afterwards, the dentist begins waving someone over to their table -- an Indian boy, named Jose Ramirez, who he clarifies to the writer that he'd met through his clinic. The boy seems like a relatively unremarkable adolescent, who's clearly the product of poverty, and already has spent significant time working in the fields -- his hands are "iron". On their second meeting with Ramirez, it's revealed that he is a writer as well, and the dentist regards him as a major talent: "And then my friend declared that there were very few writers alive on par with the boy sitting there before us. I swear to God: very few." The writer, rather than tacitly agreeing, expresses doubt, which results in the confirmation of the dentist's assertion. The boy is truly a singular talent.

The story closes with the writer and the dentist waiting in the dentist's clinic for a patient who never shows.

Japanese Death Poems is a collection of the last poems written before dying by many Japanese poets, both Zen monks and practitioners of haiku. It also contains a lengthy introduction explaining Japanese attitudes towards poetry, death, and religion. While initial death poems were often written by warriors or samurai before battle, the custom eventually spread to others, and preparing a death poem became accepted practice -- several of the writers in this book have more than one.

Reading anthologies can be tedious work; this is even more true when the pieces are short, such as an anthology of 3-10 line poems, as Japanese Death Poems is. Not that Japanese Death Poems is particularly tedious, but it can be tough to maintain focus, especially when many of the poems are presented without any biographical details, other than an approximate date of death. While many of these poets are obscure, and it might be tedious to read " . . . was a monk for thirty years . . ." hundreds of times, it'd be worthwhile to have some background on all of these poets, especially since the biographical sketches (anecdotes, really) are quite interesting. Even if further anecdotes would be banal, I'd have preferred to have at least some insight into the lives of these poets. (or merchants, samurai, monks, etc)

I don't know how often I'll refer back to this, but it does cover at least two styles of poetry (tanka and haiku), has the work of dozens of poets, and gives some insight into Japanese culture, so I think it is worth having in my library.

The Black Hole War

It's difficult do decide how I feel about Leonard Susskind's The Black Hole War. On the one hand, Susskind should be commended -- it's a pop cosmology book that does not read like a textbook (as someone who has read his share of physics textbooks, I certainly would know), and contains many cogent explanations of physics (mostly quantum mechanical) principles and problems for the layman. On the other hand, it's boring as hell.

This isn't to say that the subject Susskind covers is uninteresting -- far from it. It seems that since Carl Sagan popularized it, cosmology has exploded in popularity, and has kept up the pace even as interesting and original voices (such as Sagan's) pass into history. The particular subject of this work is black holes and information loss, which certainly doesn't sound bland. Unfortunately, much of the book is devoted to unfolding the problem and related issues in the slowest manner possible, along with repetition of the mantra "I knew Stephen [Hawking] had to be wrong, but I couldn't quite place my finger on why." Additionally, there's a lot about Susskind's personal life and experiences, which are exactly as scintillating as one would expect from a prominent theoretical physicist. (Ok, that's a bit of a cheap shot, but shouldn't digressions be either interesting or related to a semi-relevant topic? Susskind makes interacting with Richard Feynman and Stephen Hawking, two titans of physics, and interesting characters in their own right, seem like pulling teeth.)

One major redeeming factor of this work is the lack of emphasis on string theory. While Susskind does trot it out towards the end of the work, as a possible theory of everything, he doesn't dwell on it throughout as "the truth". (As an aside, he does offer at least one experiment to test string theory, which is refreshing; unfortunately, said experiment would involve a particle accelerator the size of the galaxy. Not quite as feasible as I would like) This isn't to completely dismiss string theory, as parts of it are falsifiable, but it's instructive to remember that models are typically wrong, but some are still useful. To that end, it's tedious to be lectured on the nuts-and-bolts of a difficult to falsify model, which Susskind manages to (mostly) avoid doing, until the later chapters.

Another major feature of the work that I can't decide is a positive or a negative is the amount of time Susskind will spend to illustrate a point. Descriptions of gravity, Schwarzschild radius, special relativity, quantum mechanics, and other physics concepts receive myriad examples and much explanation. I vacillate between thinking that this is a positive thing for those readers who are unfamiliar with such concepts, and that it's tedious for those of us who are familiar with them. While these are complex concepts that do require in depth explanation (I'm certainly not going to claim to understand quantum mechanics. Susskind does quote Feynman here: "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics."), it can be frustrating to have examples taken to an extreme, as Susskind does in initially explaining gravity.

The meat of the book is devoted to a debate between Susskind (among others) and Stephen Hawking (among others) -- what happens to the information in a black hole if the black hole evaporates? Is it lost forever, or does it return to the universe in the Hawking radiation? If it returns to the universe, how does it return from beyond the event horizon? Why is information loss important? (Because if the information is lost, that would violate the Second Law of Thermodynamics by reducing the overall entropy in the universe. This is a Very Bad Thing (tm). Additionally, quantum mechanics and relativity predict very different things happen as objects approach and pass a black hole's horizon. Invalidating either one would deal a major blow to the state of physics. These are all very interesting questions, and while Susskind does a (relatively) good job answering them, what prevents this book being better than it is is that he has to explain so many concepts to get to the heart of the conflict, and this, combined with much digression, is enough to make the book meander.

A final point The Black Hole War's favor is that it's very thorough -- at no point in the book did I feel that a concept was underexplained. It's not a dense book -- it's light on math, and although the concepts can be difficult, especially for the uninitiated (Schrodinger's cat is thankfully not mentioned. As an aside, here is the front and back cover of the textbook I used for Quantum Mechanics), Susskind does provide many (perhaps too many) examples. Overall, probably one to avoid, unless one is very passionate about information theory, cosmology, or a huge fan of Leonard Susskind.