Lolcats of the Middle Ages

"The mouse was not always the loser in these exchanges, however, especially in the imaginative realm of the marginal grotesque.  Sometimes you eat the mouse, the cat may have philosophized, and sometimes the mouse eats you.  The relationship between mice and cats, and the prospect of an organized mouse insurrection against the oppressor, was actively explored as a metaphor for human society."

From the British Library's Medieval and Earlier Manuscripts Blog.  Below: The mice storm the castle.

BabyLit and the Human Condition

This isn't targeted at most of our readership/writership at all, but if you have kids and love literature, you'll probably like BabyLit. They use classics like Jane Eyre, Dracula, and Pride and Prejudice to teach counting, colors, and letters. And the classics aren't just window dressing either--the books barely make sense if you're not familiar with the source material--for example, Dracula ends with "10 garlic necklaces".

Anyway, not a paid endorsement, just someone with a baby girl who needs some Austen in her life.

“Right from chapter one I could tell this was going to be rough"...

'...said the 192-page book, citing Dobson’s speculation in the margin that in addition to “adulteress,” the scarlet “A” worn by the novel’s main character, Hester Prynne, might stand for “America.” “At that point I thought, ‘Oh, boy, here we go.’ And then she wrote ‘red = success.’ I mean, good lord. How could that even begin to make sense?”'

Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut

“I was a victim of a series of accidents, as are we all.”

Sometimes, I feel like the only person in the world who has a hard time loving Vonnegut. It’s not that I don’t enjoy any of his work—Slaughterhouse-Five and Mother Night both got positive reviews here—but there’s a part of me that feels like his grandfatherly tone and clever prose disguise a worldview that is empty, or at least shallow. Sirens of Titan did nothing to abuse me of that notion; although I enjoyed it, it’s by far the worst Vonnegut I’ve read.

The plot jumps everywhere, but in a nutshell, it follows a man named Malachi Constant, who has been marked by the universe to serve an important purpose. He’s informed of his destiny, although not of the purpose itself, by Winston Rumfoord, a man who’s gotten unstuck in time and space, not unlike Billy Pilgrim, and knows how everything shakes out. Malachi, in the course of the book, goes from the richest man in the world, to a nameless grunt on Mars, to an accidental pioneer on Mercury, and finally back to earth. It’s difficult to talk about the issues I had with the book without spoilers, so

SPOILERS.

Upon returning to earth, Malachi finds that he has become the figurehead of a new religion, one which sees the universe as a series of accidents. In a series of incidents orchestrated by Rumfoord, Malachi parallels Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and subsequent betrayal, although he is merely sent to another planet to live, rather than crucified, along with his unwilling wife and weird kid. Once on the planet, Malachi meets a Tralfamadorian named Salo who’s been stranded for years, waiting on a replacement part for his spaceship, a part that just happens to be Malachi’s son’s good luck charm.

In the end, we learn that Malachi’s entire existence—in fact, earth’s whole existence—has been orchestrated by the Tralfamadorians to get Salo his missing piece. This might work as a sort of punchline, although no one would want to spend a whole novel getting there, but Vonnegut doesn’t take that tack. Instead, Malachi’s existence, which has been more or less pointless, is glossed with probably the book’s most famous quote:

“The worst thing that could possibly happen to anybody would be to not be used for anything by anybody. Thank you for using me, even though I didn't want to be used by anybody.”

Keep in mind, Malachi has just learned that his entire life was predetermined for him by an alien race so that he could play the part of a cosmic UPS man, and he accepts it peacefully. I realize that Vonnegut is the patron saint of humanism, and there’s a very strong subtext to the novel that what made Malachi’s life worthwhile was not simply being a pawn of the universe but in the things that he did throughout his life. This, however, is undercut by Malachi’s complete lack of choice in the matter—he was a puppet, he didn’t lead a particularly happy life, and he had no choice in the matter. To his credit, Vonnegut acknowledges this at the very end of the novel, when Malachi dies and is given, by Salo, a hallucination of Heaven—but it's a cold comfort, an ending as empty as Malachi’s life.

The King James Bible After 400 Years

The King James Bible isn’t just a Bible—in English, it’s the Bible. It’s no longer the most read or bestselling, but the quotes everyone knows—“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone”, “An eye for an eye”, “I am my lover’s, and my lover is mine”—come from the KJV. When someone is lampooning biblical language, they don’t satirize the milquetoast prose of the NIV; it’s the King’s English all the way. And that’s without even touching on all the literature it has, and continues to, inspire. The King James Bible is one of the crowning achievements of the English language, and its enduring power testifies to this.

The King James Bible After 400 Years seeks to engage with its legacy, not so much on religious grounds but on social and literary ones. This isn’t an attack on the historicity of the Bible or an expose of the difficult passages. It’s (mostly) laser-focused on the past, present, and future of the King James Bible itself. All of the essays are interesting and thought-provoking. I particularly enjoyed “The materiality of English printed Bibles from the Tyndale New Testament to the King James Bible”, on the different bindings and printings of the versions leading up the King James Bible, and “Postcolonial notes on the King James Bible”, which, although it maintained the volume’s academic tone, did cause me to reflect seriously on respecting other cultures when presenting Christianity.

The essays in the literary section were of consistently high quality as well, although James Wood’s “To the Lighthouse and Biblical language” seemed like Wood had written an essay on To the Lighthouse and added in the KJV-referencing content in order to qualify it for this book.

If this sounds dry to you, it probably will be—I was excited by the title and the list of contributors and found it all very engaging. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in the King James Bible, religious history or literary criticism. Everyone else might be better off just reading a couple Psalms before bed.

Primate and Prejudice

2013 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Even entering into its third century of existence, it still has the power to captivate--even captivate this Polish orangutang.

Maphead by Ken Jennings

There must be something innate about maps, about this one specific way of picturing our world and our relation to it, that charms us, calls to us, won't let us look anywhere else in the room if there's a map on the wall.  I want to get to the bottom of what that is.  I see it as a chance to explore one of the last remaining blank spaces" available to us amateur geographers and cartographers: the mystery of what makes our consuming map obsession tick.  I will go there.

I got a couple of sweet maps for Christmas: one of the different neighborhoods of Brooklyn (thanks, girlfriend!) and this one, that depicts all the streets in the continental United States (thanks, Mom!).  Since I have lived in Brooklyn for four and a half years and know everything there is to know about its borders already, the former serves as a home-beautifying piece of artwork.  But the latter is something I've been poring over at length, because it's so full of information.  It's fascinating how the streets drop out after a certain imaginary line down the center of the continent, and where the big white spaces are: mountain ranges, deserts, thinly populated areas like Michigan's upper peninsula.  Who knew that the area above Minneapolis becomes so sparsely populated so quickly, even moreso than the surprisingly street-covered North Dakota?

Like a lot of people, I've always found maps a source of intense fascination.  When I was in college I used to spend twice as long as I needed to in the shower because our shower curtain was a map of the world.  (I distinctly remember thinking that Cabinda was something the map company made up.)

But the people Ken Jennings profiles in Maphead make me look like a dilettante by comparison: Geography bee contestants, geocaching addicts, U.S. Highway System fanatics, etc.  There is, apparently, a huge number of people who obsess over maps in strange and idiosyncratic ways.  One of my favorite sections of the book is all about those who invent their own, fictional maps, like Austin Tappan Wright, a Pennsylvania lawyer whose massive 1000-pg encyclopedia of the fictional nation of Islandia was discovered only after his death.

Of course, what I really read the book for was the map trivia.  (In case you've forgotten, Jennings was the Jeopardy megachamp who won 74 games in a row.)  Here are some of the ones I thought were interesting:

• The diagonal border between Saskatchewan and Manitoba isn't really diagonal, but actually made up of vertical north-south lines punctuated by horizontal steps.
• There's a tiny region between Egypt and Sudan not claimed by either country, making it one of the few such places left in the world.
• Dwight Eisenhower was inspired to create the US Highway System when, in 1919, he took part in a military convoy across the continental U.S. that took sixty-two days and involved 230 accidents and nine lost vehicles.

Taken as a whole, Maphead is a study not only in fringe obsessives but modern map culture, why and how maps continue to matter in the 21st century.  One chapter, "Frontier" (each one is named cutesily after a cartographic term), is a fascinating study of Google's map division.  Did you know that in 2008, German scientists using Google Earth discovered that livestock graze north to south, aligned to the poles of the Earth?  That's crazy.

There's a quiz in the back--I scored a 22/40, "cartographically clever," but pretty far from stellar.  So I guess I'm not really the map buff that I thought I was.  I even missed the question "What African country officially administers the enclave of Cabinda?"  But Jennings has a light, breezy style that really makes the book appealing and accessible--even to map dilettantes like me.

How to Be a Woman by Caitlin Moran

I don't want men to go away  I don't want men to stop what they're doing.  What I want, instead, are some radical market forces.  I want CHOICE.  I want VARIETY.  I want MORE.  I want WOMEN.  I want women to have more of the world, not just because it would be fairer, but because it would be better.  More exciting.  Reordered.  Reinvented.  We should have the lady-balls to say, "Yeah - I like the look of this world.  And I've been here for a good while, watching.  Now - here's how I'd tweak it.  Because we're all in this together.

As Randy declared his theme for this iteration of 50 Books to be crime, I think mine will be feminism.  I made this decision for several reasons: first, I am a feminist.  Let me repeat, I AM A FEMINIST! (this is my version of shouting it from the rooftops, as Moran would have feminists, especially male feminists, do).  There are a lot of important feminist issues being debated today with major policy implications, so I thought it would be edifying to strengthen my base of knowledge and thought on the topic.  Second, I was so surprised and pleased by the relatively sophisticated feminist themes in Gone Girl that I figured it'd be a good topic to follow up on, and I had read good reviews of How to Be a Woman, so I thought it'd be a good next step.  Moran's part memoir, part manifesto isn't exactly the deepest exploration of feminism, but it hits the high points, so it's a good place to start.  Finally, I decided to explore feminism because I find it fascinating.  Two people can come from identical backgrounds and have very similar experiences but still have very different perspectives because one is a man and one is a woman.  This dynamic is particularly relevant for me because as a male feminist, I have a different perspective and am somewhat an outsider to the feminist movement, while still, I think/hope, being an important and useful part.

In How to Be a Woman, Moran gives voice to a number of concerns and issues that I found interesting, important, disturbing, and that probably make a lot of my female friends say, "no shit.  the fact that this is news to you shows you how strong the patriarchy is."  Her test to determine whether "some sexist bullshit is afoot" is

asking this question: 'Are the men doing it?  Are the men worrying about this as well?  Is this taking up the men's time?  Are the men told not to do this, as it's "letting our side down"? Are the men having to write bloody books about this exasperating, retarded, time-wasting bullshit?  Is this making Jon Stewart insecure?"

Almost always, the answer is: "No, the boys are not being told they have to be a certain way.  They're just getting on with stuff." 

This sentiment is particularly relevant today, I believe.  Fortunately, for the most part (though unfortunately this isn't 100% true), 21st century misogyny doesn't manifest itself in blatantly sexist ways, like a boss smacking his secretary on the ass and calling her sweetheart, or a woman being told she's too pretty to go to law school.  Instead, and perhaps even more insidiously, 21st century misogyny bares its teeth through implied and internalized expectations put on women that men aren't subjected to.  Moran addresses one example in her chapter on having children.  She tells about how, when she was a music journalist, she was always instructed to ask the female artists about their child rearing plans, but was never instructed to ask the same of the men she interviewed.  There is, according to Moran, a pervasive belief that a childless woman somehow doesn't fulfill her true potential as a woman and has less value than mothers.  Another example of these societal pressures/indications that some sexist bullshit is afoot is how a woman's value is tied to her appearance.  Real world example: last week during the lead up to the inauguration, the vast majority of words said and ink spilled about Michelle Obama dealt with her new bangs and her inauguration dresses.  The woman went to Princeton and Harvard Law School!!  Is that really the most interesting thing about her!?  Can't you find anything else to talk about?  Infuriating.

Another thing that Moran touches on that I find fascinating is how destructive feminism can be to feminism, and how we haven't quite figured it out yet.  She writes,

In the most ironic twist of all, feminism is often used as the stick - actually, a stick is inappropriately phallocentric, maybe a "furry cup" - to stop women behaving as freely, normally, and unselfconsciously as men.  Even ... suggesting that acting as freely, normally, and unsefconsciously as men is destroying other women. ... The idea that there are inherently wrong and inherently right "types" of women is what's screwed feminism for so long.

This is what the thesis of How to Be a Woman boils down to: that women should be free to be and do what they want.  You don't have to hate men, you don't have to be promiscuous, you don't have to be a mother, you don't have to be childless, you don't have to be anything but yourself and a contributing member of society.  I liked this book because that happens to be my preferred conception of feminism, and it was interesting to see how that goal is thwarted in ways that a man can easily be oblivious to.

Still, How to Be a Woman isn't perfect.  First, I was a little disappointed that it wasn't funnier.  I had read that it was a riot and, though it made me chuckle a couple of times, it was merely well written and interesting (of course, if that's the strongest condemnation someone directed at a book I wrote I'd be pretty content.  Also, it's definitely not that I don't think women are less funny than men...another example of the oppressive fist of the patriarchy!).  Second, there are times when Moran loses track of general truths and lets her own experience unduly cloud her analysis.  For example, she rails against weddings as terribly un-feminist.  As a strident feminist who is about to get married himself, I found all of her condemnations possible, but not universal.  The basis for her opinions becomes a lot clearer when she tells the story of her shitty wedding, however.  Of course, this ties back in to what I find so fascinating about feminism: men aren't the only ones whose opinions are influenced by their perspectives and personal experiences.  It reinforces the fact that we should all try to be compassionate, considerate, and empathetic when we deal with others and try to reach grand conclusions.

No Longer At Ease by Chinua Achebe

Once before he went to England, Obi heard his father talk with deep feeling about the mystery of the written word to an illiterate kinsman:

"Our women made black patterns on their bodies with the juice of the uli tree.  It was beautiful, but it soon faded.  If it lasted two market weeks it lasted a long time.  But sometimes our elders spoke about uli that never faded, although no one had ever seen it.  We see it today in the writing of the white man.  If you go to the native court and look at the books which clerks wrote twenty years ago or more, they are still as they wrote them.  They do not say one thing today and another tomorrow, or one thing this year and another next year.  Okoye in the book today cannot become Okonkwo tomorrow.  In the Bible Pilate said: 'What is written is written.'  It is uli that never fades.

The passage above, from Chinua Achebe's No Longer at Ease, struck me immediately as a kind of self-justification.  Achebe's decision to write in English has opened him up to criticism from other African authors, like Ngugi wa Thiong'o, but writing a novel--and perhaps, this passage suggests, even writing in general--is a practice imported from European colonizers, no matter what language the novel is written in.  To write an African novel in English is to navigate the competing demands of two conflicting cultures, and to admit that banishing one in favor of the other is impossible.

Like Things Fall Apart, No Longer At Ease is a story of an African who tries and fails to navigate those demands.  In the former it was Okonkwo, the Ibo villager whose fierce pride cannot overcome the advent of white missionaries; here it is Okonkwo's grandson, Obi Okonkwo, who returns from being educated in England to take a civil service position in his native Nigeria.  The demands on Obi are largely financial: he has been educated at the expense of his tribe, who expect him to pay back the money they have spent on him, but also to show the generosity of a privileged son.  His peers expect him to maintain a certain lifestyle as well, as if this were an Edith Wharton novel.  Because the novel opens as Obi is on trial for accepting a bribe, we know how this particular aspect of the tragedy plays out.

But the Western and traditional worlds pull at Obi in other ways: He has fallen in love with an Ibo girl named Clara, whom he cannot marry because she is an osu, a member of the Ibo's "untouchable" cast.  He rails indignantly against this tradition, but even his father Isaac--Things Fall Apart's Nwoye, who rebels against Okonkwo by converting to Christianity--insists that it is a tradition that cannot be dismissed.  The syncretism of Christianity and traditional Ibo religion is one of the book's more interesting aspects:

Everybody stood up and he said a short prayer.  Then he presented three kola nuts to the meeting.  The oldest man present broke one of them, saying another kind of prayer while he did it.  "He that brings kola nuts brings life," he said.  "We do not seek to hurt any man, but if any man seeks to hurt us may he break his neck."  The congregation answered Amen.  "We are strangers in this land.  If good comes to it may we have our share."  Amen.  "But if bad comes let it go to the owners of the land who know what gods should be appeased."  Amen.

This kola nut ritual appears unchanged from Things Fall Apart, except it is now punctuated by "Amen."  The word sits uncomfortably amid the traditional prayer, and there is a tragic uncertainty in that last line, which suggests that those caught between multiple cultures and religions are less able to make sense of misfortunes when they occur.  Like the title, pulled from an Eliot poem (as Things Fall Apart is from Yeats), these are people "no longer at ease" in their own country.

I read No Longer At Ease because I wanted to read something else about sub-Saharan Africa after Henderson the Rain King, which as I wrote in my review, is really terrific but not intended to be a realistic picture of Africa.  Achebe's warts-and-all approach is just the opposite, but ultimately I thought the book was too slight to be effective.  The character of Clara in particular is so underwritten that Obi's devotion to her never lands, which complicates our perspective on the tragedy as a whole.  Do you guys have any "Africa" books you've enjoyed?

Other perspectives:

The Brothers Judd
Friends of African Village Libraries
Geosi Reads

Occupy by Noam Chomsky

What is your one demand?

[Occupy Protester:] How likely is it that the ruling class in American could develop an openly fascist system here?

[Chomsky:] I think it's very unlikely, frankly.

Blah, blah, blah, a bunch of protesters occupied Wall Street.  The Occupied Media Pamphlet Series has published a number of pamphlets, including this one by Noam Chomsky.  Being a Chomsky fan, I was looking forward to a work addressing an explaining the occupy movement.  I was grossly disappointed.

And not because of Chomsky.  He didn't write this book. What he did, was give a number of speeches and Q&As during various Occupy events; he then, apparently, agreed to have these talks published in the form of this pamphlet.  Undoubtedly, the ideological youth of the movement were eager to have a distinguished scholar and activist's name attached.

The problem with this pamphlet is that Chomsky intentionally avoids taking any responsibility for the Occupy movement.  He supports the movement, both ideologically and practically, but he expressly disavows the role of intellectual leader of the movement.  When asked if he would "ever...allow [his] voice to relay the democratically chosen will of our nation" (whatever the fuck that's supposed to mean), he responds, "My voice wouldn't help you.  And besides, you don't want leaders; you want to do it yourselves."  He'll show Occupy the door, but they have to go through it themselves.

His response reflects a fundamental problem with the Occupy movement: it was a movement that was waiting for guidance and direction.  It was not a movement that guided; it was not a movement that had direction.  As an example, a number of times the questioners asked Chomsky about ending corporate personhood; Chomsky responds by saying, yes, that's a possibility, but let's think about this before we do anything, and let's think about what it would require to do something about it.

When the Occupy movement was happening, I was both fascinated and irritated.  I was fascinated because I liked the idea of grass-roots organization fighting the power.  I was irritated because it seemed like a bunch of people complaining about things without presenting any substantive recommendations for change.  Yes, income disparity is a problem; yes, the foreclosure crisis adversely affected regular people than it did the banks, who caused the crisis.  What are you going to do about it?  I expected this book to answer these questions or fill the gaps in whatever is behind the Occupy movement.  It did not.

And, I want to emphasize that the failure of the book is not Chomsky's fault.  The publishers of this pamphlet want it to be something it's not.  They want to present Chomsky as the intellectual architect of the movement.  He is not.  He was trying to tell Occupy to be its own intellectual architect.  I'm not sure Occupy got it.

Dear Occupy,

Explain to me what the hell you want.

Very truly yours,

-Randy