Books - August/September 2005
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign trail ‘72 - Hunter S. Thompson: Re-reading this for the first time in a while, and I think I’m enjoying it even more than before, mainly because by now I’ve got a bit more of an understanding of how the U.S. election system works. Bits of it still hint at how mind-numbingly complex the whole thing is though, and it probably helps if you actually have some kind of memory of the politicos involved.
The Democratic primaries section of the book holds together much more coherently than the actual presidential race and aftermath, but the great thing about Thompson’s books is always how close they come to breaking down into a completely nonsensical shambles while still somehow managing to hang onto the track on two wheels and on fire.
I think there’s potentially an even better book to be written about 2004’s U.S. elections, but I don’t know who’d be able to do it. It seems like HSTs are a very rare and unique breed.
The Drawing of the Three - Stephen King: I grabbed this from a train station book shop as the most likely-looking thing after discovering that I’d left my current book at home. It’s the second part of the Dark Tower series, and it’s much better than the first part (The Gunslinger.) It’s a parallel worlds story set in an old Wild West timeline and 1950s-ish Earth and rattles along pretty entertainingly. You’ll have to ignore lots and lots of weird inconsistencies and outright cheating that goes on to make the story work, but if you can do that then it’s an enjoyable enough adventure story.
Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde: This is the last in the Thursday Next series of books, which I’ve rambled on about before. It’s not quite as good as The Well of Lost Plots, but it’s still an enjoyable way to wrap up the series.
The Lonely Dead - Michael Marshall: I used to really love this guy’s work when he wrote as Michael Marshall Smith; you should read Only Forward and Spares if you ever get the chance, and What You Make It, the short story collection, contains some of the most disturbing stuff you’ll ever read. Since then he’s gone all Stephen King/Dean Koontz, and I just didn’t enjoy this book all that much. It’s not terrible, and some of the characters still have the childlike sense of wonder aspect that made Only Forward so great, but I can’t really recommend it.
The Science of Discworld 3: Darwin’s Watch - Terry Pratchett, Ian Stewart, Jack Cohen: Good stuff. The setup is the same as the other Science of Discworld books, where a Discworld story is interspersed with chapters explaining the real-world science behind some aspect of the fictional story in layman’s terms. The Discworld bits often feel like filler to set up the science chapters, but that’s ok, since that’s where the real interest in the book lies. The science aspects probably won’t be new to anyone who takes even a passing interest in the subject, but it’s a good overview, and features some great anti-Intelligent Creation ranting from Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen.
Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy: I’ve only recently started being able to read books like this without cringing. They’ve always reminded me of stultifyingly boring high school English lessons which would force students into reading books like this and then ‘reviewing’ them by following an exact blueprint laid down by the examination board. Any deviation from the formula would result in a low grade, which made getting good marks amazingly easy and actively discouraged students from thinking about any piece of writing too deeply.
Anyway, onto the book. I really love the evocative descriptions of the places and characters in the book, but the cringe factor has been transferred to a new area now: The social conditions of the time. The strange religious and small-minded-population oppression aspects really get to me, and are part of the reason why people who say that ‘things’ were better in the past really get on my nerves. There’s a great essay by Douglas Coupland which sums all of this up better than I ever could, and has some quotes which I seem to find myself using Anglicised versions of fairly frequently:
Hey kids-the past wasn’t like a trip to Waikiki: the only sure thing about the past is some ghastly disease, carnage, toil that defies all description, starvation, and boredom of a sort that makes waiting in line at the Department of Motor Vehicles seem like Disneyland on heroin.
Whatever the future may be, please, just drop a brick onto the accelerator pedal, and get me there, now.