The Buried Giant

One of the perks of being a respected author is that you don't wind up in the fantasy ghetto, even if you write what looks like a fantasy novel. I would argue that The Buried Giant, while set in a fantasy world, isn't so much a fantasy novel as it is an allegory; for memory, and for a long-term relationship.

The Buried Giant plays with Arthurian legend, but just as scaffolding; the story could be set in any other country, with another set of mythology. The real story here is between the aged married couple, Axl and Beatrice (which, as our author notes "[p]erhaps these were not their exact or full names, but for ease, this is how we will refer to them.") Our story begins with Axl and Beatrice in their village, where they are disrespected and mistreated, so they decide to journey to their son's village, despite having little memory of him, where the village is, or if he'd be happy to see them.

Axl and Beatrice (as well as nearly everyone else we encounter in the story) have problems with memory; events that occur mere hours earlier fade in people's minds, and events of a few weeks ago are all but gone, unless prompted by others. Why and how is slowly revealed over the course of the story, as Axl and Beatrice travel their (limited) world, in search of their son's village (which is described as a few day's walk away).

I read a review which describes The Buried Giant as "Game of Thrones with a conscience," which I can't agree with; this isn't a large, lush, fleshed out fantasy world, and Ishiguro isn't given to exposition dumps. Information is hinted at before being stated outright, and some things never do get stated or explained. This is done to underscore the fragility and transience of memory, even through the (foreshadowed and ambiguous) ending.

I think I'd like to revisit this again at some point -- a second look might make some things clearer.

The Six-Gun Tarot

I was recommended The Six-Gun Tarot by an AV Club review some time ago, and I'm glad I picked it up. It's a fun Western fantasy set in a world much like ours, but not quite. (Actually, it almost feels like it is set in our world, just with Golgotha soaking up all the fantasy elements before they get to the rest of us.)

Golgotha is a very hodgepodge Western fantasy setting; there's a Chinatown, Mormons, Indian legends, other religious trappings, heads in jars, a member of an ancient order of assassins, and some sort of Lovecraftian horror. That sounds kitchen sink-y as all hell, and it's a credit to Belcher that he pulls it off.

Some criticisms: the book feels almost episodic, in an in-media-res sense -- characters will refer to a wacky or supernatural event from the past, and it'll be just brushed aside. With juggling many characters and arcs, some of them can get a little bogged down. I'm not sure how I feel about the treatment of women here; there's one character whose entire life story feels like a tragedy, and another who feels like she never quite got where the author wanted her to go.

All in all, this is a fun fantasy novel that doesn't drag too much and is worth checking out.

Legacy of Ashes

Legacy of Ashes is a pretty damning read (so damning that it merits a review/rebuttal on the CIA's official website, which I did not find particularly convincing). Weiner takes his title from Eisenhower, describing the failures of building a capable intelligence agency.

Legacy of Ashes is a bit frustrating, in that two repeating themes are that the agency can't find good analysts and/or covert operatives, and that the agency is constantly bleeding talent. Which is it? It could be turnover (employees hired, trained, then leave immediately for more lucrative work in the private sector, as Weiner documents happening during the Iraq War), or it's inconsequential, because these people don't know what they're doing, anyway. The CIA's rank-and-file, when they are mentioned, don't come off particularly well -- unable to speak foreign languages, unfamiliar with cultures, continually producing bad analysis, etc.

Legacy of Ashes reads as a litany of obfuscation, willful ignorance, and legerdemain on the part of the CIA's various directors (particularly Allen Dulles), and their attitudes towards the rest of the government, as well as other members of the CIA. There are times in the 50s (as well as the 60s, and 70s) where the right hand (analysis) didn't know what the left hand (covert action) was doing. I don't think any of the Presidents come off well, either; either asking the CIA to act against its charter, or authorizing missions with sketchy scope.

Unfortunately, it feels like Weiner starts skimming towards the end of the book. Some of this just may be due to events beyond his control, in that it's more easy to have something declassified from fifty years ago, as opposed to five-to-ten. But the agency does start to come across a little better post-Vietnam, even with the Latin American meddling and arms-for-hostages.

This is a pretty damning indictment, even if it is less than perfect; it paints a picture of an agency that has difficulty finding its ass with both hands, and given US foreign policy post-World War II, that unfortunately sounds about right. Worth reading to just shake your head.

God's Chinese Son

God's Chinese Son came highly recommended to me, and I can't quite decide if it truly measures up to those praises. On the one hand, going into this, I knew almost nothing about the Taiping Rebellion, or Hong Xiuquan, the man who led it. From that perspective, this is a success, in that I'm conversant in what happened. But I don't feel that Spence did a great job placing the rebellion in context, or revealing its scope, or the long-lasting effects; it almost feels like my copy has lacunae of several chapters. I will praise Spence strongly for his placement of one chapter, though -- just as I was wondering "what do the Westerners in China, especially the missionaries and representatives of foreign governments, think of Hong Xiuquan's pecular brand of Christianity?" Immediately after thinking this, I turned the page to a chapter devoted to answering that question.

Not that this was an easy job for Spence; the tenth chapter, "Earth War" begins as follows:

There is no precise moment at which we can say the Taiping move from tension with the Qing state to open confrontation, but clearly in 1850 their provocations mount steadily until war becomes inevitable.

This is then followed by a litany of potential military moves: Hong Xiuquan wearing imperial yellow, instructions from Jesus to fight, the assembling and arming of troops, the posting of sentries, the lighting of signal fires, et cetera, before initial armed conflict begins, and Hong Xiuquan proclaims the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom

The chapters that follow trace out the rebellion (some historians prefer to use "civil war") more or less chronologically, with the occasional stopping/retracing of steps to more fully flesh out another figure (such as the "East King", Yang Xiuqing, who was alleged to speak with the voice of God). Notes are extensive, although more often than not, they just point to a source and do not elaborate on the point. Mildly unfortunate.

While I feel that this is occasionally missing something (not context, but maybe a bigger picture), this is something I would strongly recommend.

McSweeney's 45

It's another anthology from McSweeney's, with dueling (ok, alternating) tales from a Bradbury anthology and a Hitchcock anthology. Some of them are classics (Bradbury's "The Pedestrian"), some are tediously long (Lucille Fletcher and Allan Ullman's "Sorry, Wrong Number"), one is out-of-place (John Cheever's "The Enormous Radio", while an excellent story, just doesn't quite feel like it belongs in here).

China Mieville's "The Design" is excellent and really impressed me, and Brian Evenson's "The Dust" certainly feels like it could be in a 50s/60s anthology. Kafka's "In the Penal Colony" is both terrifying and awful (and the machine described therein is featured in Gene Wolfe's Book of the Long Sun). Julian May's "Dune Roller" is an example of a really worthwhile story I was previously unfamiliar with (more than likely because Hitchcock, rather than Bradbury, picked it, but it certainly could have been a Bradbury pick). In contrast, Benjamin Percy's "Suicide Woods" doesn't belong in here, both because it has little in common with the other stories in the anthology, and because it has far too much in common with stories in other McSweeney's anthologies. I feel like I've read it a dozen times previously, and that's not a good thing, either for it or those other stories.

Overall, recommended. Even the stories I was less than thrilled with are page turners (and as far as page turners, the last story enclosed here is terrifying, and has a lot in common with a favorite, Alfred Bester's "Fondly Fahrenheit.")

The Guns of August

I'm not sure if there's anything I can say about Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August that hasn't been said already. It's nothing if not tight, though -- yes, it's not a short work, and the subject matter isn't easily and quickly distilled, but Tuchman retains her focus throughout.

Tuchman starts with the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910:

"the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last."

and moves with deftness through the pre-war conditions, of the Germans, the French, the Russians, and the British, as well as the psychology that drove those plans -- of Kaiser Wilhelm, of the French generals, of the Czar and the general staff, and the British government.

 How many children witness something that impresses them enough in early childhood to write a book featuring the incident? How many of those stories would be noteworthy? As a child, Tuchman (along with her family) witnessed the German battlecruiser SMS Goeben's mad dash across the Mediterranean to Constantinople, fleeing British pursuit, who had realized too late that she wasn't making a break for the Atlantic. In a paper move, she was purchased by the Ottoman government, and spent the rest of the war in their service. Tuchman (as she notes in the introduction) was fascinated by this, and incorporates it into her narrative. Is it wholly necessary? Not entirely, but it helps set the stage of the naval war. I would have preferred the Battle of the Falkland Islands have been incorporated, but that was in December, rather than August (although Tuchman sometimes reaches into early September and October)

I'm not sure that I know enough about the First World War to say that this is a comprehensive account of August 1914, but there's a wealth of information here, about both what actually happened, and the motivations of those actors, drawn from letters and memoirs.

I was honestly hoping this would be more about the July Crisis, but Tuchman's extensive account of the first month is so masterful, I was very disappointed when it ended on the eve of the First Battle of the Marne. Recommended highly.

Heart of a Dog

There's a reason this wasn't published in Russia until 1987, and it had nothing to do with the quality of this novel. Written during the height of the NEP period, it's a transparent satire of the life of both the arrivistes and the old money.

At first I thought this was going to be a work along the lines of Jack London, as it opens with the dog as the narrator. But it quickly moves to a third person perspective (although the changes in intelligence the dog undergoes would make for a challenging first "person" perspective).

The conceit of the story is that by transplanting certain parts (such as the pituitary gland) from a (recently deceased) human into an animal, the animal could gain human form and intelligence. Of course, the newly-human dog behaves exactly the way one would expect (crudely), and sides with his benefactors enemies.

It's an easy read, would recommend.