Bookends

Inspector West Regrets: John Creasey

2009-03-26T10:17:00.000Z

Anthony Kelham, son of shady financier Andrew, is found murdered in his father’s library. Was the son killed accidentally; was the father the real target?

The senior Kelham’s secretary Blair is fiercely loyal to his employer though his father was apparently ruined by the financier. So did the ‘butler’ do it in revenge?

Griselda Fayne, Anthony’s now-off now-on girlfriend was off at that stage. And she had attempted to shoot Anthony before. So is she the real culprit?

The plump Mr. Alexander looms as a mysterious figure for Andrew Kelham, Griselda Fayne and Inspector West himself (not to mention his wife and infant son). What is his role in the murder? And did he commit the follow-up murders to cover his tracks?

Andrew’s wife seems to be so seriously ill that she can’t even be told of her husband’s accident, let alone her son’s murder. Where does this figure in the picture?

These and more questions are what Chief Inspector West and his New Scotland Yard colleagues answer in Inspector West Regrets.

A complete compendium of John Creasey’s works perhaps does not even exist (he apparently wrote more than 600 books under multiple pseudonyms), but it can be said with some certainty that Chief Inspector / Superintendent West was one of his more significant series, with more than 60 titles featuring Roger West. And while there is a certain aura that seems to justify the characters of the Baron and the Toff, the success of West is perhaps the most surprising, considering he is but a regular cop, the rather superfluous tag ‘Handsome’ notwithstanding. Regrets is another example of this role of West. Yes, he faces some dangers, yes he is courageous and relentless, but when you realise on closer inspection that many of the breakthroughs in the case are not quite West’s doing (except getting kidnapped perhaps), you wonder what makes him the hero. Of this book and more than 60 others.

Help from the Baron: John Creasey

2009-03-16T19:32:00.001Z

Sergeant Worraby of the River Police, Westminster Division, could have ranked right up there along with some of Creasey’s and Edgar Wallace’s best characters; he kick-starts Help from the Baron in classical fashion.

Many things are said about Worraby, the most persistent being that he needs only to glance at a corpse beneath the demoralising light of the launch’s searchlight to be able to say—as he invariably does:

“Obvious case of felo de se, my lad”, or “Homicidal victim, no one ever did that to himself”, or “Lay you ten to one that wasn’t dead when he hit the water.” Like a doctor diagnosing childish complaints, one glance is all that Worraby needs. He is seldom proved wrong. At public expense, doctors who are already far too busy with the living are nevertheless employed to dissect certain parts of the anatomy of the corpse, write out extensive reports, then give evidence at long and often wearisome inquests; and the verdicts almost invariably concur with Sergeant Worraby’s original: “I can tell you what happened to him, my lad—hit over the head and thrown in. Give you ten to one they tossed him in from Gimble’s Steps.” Or Fisherman’s Bottom, Tickerton’s Wharf, Moss Lane or any of a dozen romantically-named places.

The man, who discovers the first ‘body’ in Help, is a character who could’ve carried an entire book, if not a series on his broad shoulders. Unfortunately, not for John Creasey, as the good sergeant disappears after the first 30 odd pages, making but a brief insignificant appearance towards the end.

The rest of Help is pure John ‘the Baron’ Mannering and Lorna, Superintendent Bill Bristow, diamonds, fences, murders, kidnappings and smashed skulls, naïveté and romance, and the inevitable build-up of the Baron’s image.

One man could take a car engine to pieces and put it together again, another could invent explosives, a third could amass fortunes, a fourth could grow onions; Mannering could open doors and force locks of all kinds. He had once been an expert par excellence. He had, in fact, once been a cracksman extraordinary, to coin a phrase, and in those days he had won much notoriety and not a little fame as the Baron, who always worked strictly incognito. He regarded them as the good or the bad old days, according to his mood, and always remembered them when, as now, he turned the lock with hardly a sound.

The Baron is perhaps Creasey’s best character. And Help is typical Baron fare. It takes a Creasey fan to recognise the compliment in that sentence.

But a serious character is lost in the form of Sergeant Worraby, who had only to sniff the river breeze a laden cargo-boat passed to say where she came from and what she carried, what her tonnage was, whether her crew were lascars, Chinese, Malays, white men, Dutch or Greek, French or Madagascan.

Ironically, even a Google search for ‘Sergeant Worraby’ today threw up precisely one result.

Kappa: Ryunosuke Akutagawa

2009-03-11T18:53:00.002Z

When the cover proclaimed Ryunosuke Akutagawa as the author of Rashomon, I picked up Kappa immediately. Then I turned to the back of the book.

Patient No. 23 tells his story to anyone in the asylum who will listen: on his way home through the valley, he fell into a deep abyss while chasing a nimble creature with a face like a tiger and a sharp beak. The creature was a Kappa, and when he awoke he was in Kappaland.

I almost put the book back. But Rashomon won and the book accompanied me home. It turned out to be a good decision after all.

Kappaland is Akutagawa’s metaphor to comment on humankind and on Japanese society in particular. It is a Gulliver’s Travels from Japan, if you will. And just as satirical.

For the large part, Akutagawa uses the Kappa as an anti-man, a simple inversion.

The most puzzling of all was the confusing Kappa way of getting everything upside down: where we humans take a thing seriously, the Kappa will tend to be amused; and, similarly, what we humans find amusing the Kappa will take in deadly earnest.

Like this one on clothing.

The one thing that struck me as really amusing was the fact that the Kappa does not wear any form of loin covering. On one occasion, I tried asking Bag about this practice. He threw his head back and guffawed so loudly and so long that I thought I’d never be able to stop. His reply—once he’d managed to restrain himself enough to be able to talk—didn’t make matters any better.

‘I get just as much amusement from the way you cover yourself.’

There are similar takes on birth control, gene mixing and the relationship between man and woman, among others.

On other occasions, Akutagawa exaggerates typical human practices. Like the rather grotesque reference to unemployed workers being killed and eaten (by other Kappas) to ensure zero unemployment. Or the references to politics, war and unscrupulous businessmen. Or when he dwells on concepts like ends justifying means, life beyond life and organised religion.

The section where the poet Tok, who commits suicide, resurfaces as a ghost in a séance is perhaps the highpoint of the book. In particular, his responses to two questions: why he came back as a ghost, and what he will do if he wearied of the spiritual life.

This slim, brilliantly translated work (Geoffrey Bownas) is definitely worth a read. You will need just one sitting to finish it.

Inspector Imanishi Investigates: Seichō Matsumoto

2008-09-21T17:53:00.000+01:00

Considering the feet-on-the-street nature of a typical police procedural, it tends to afford a good view of the city where the crime (and the corresponding investigation) takes place. With Inspector Imanishi, it gets even better. Since the investigation takes the inspector (and his assistant in some cases) to different cities in Japan, the book gives the reader a broad sweep of Japan. Particularly evocative is the town of Kameda, famous for its cloth (the Kameda weave) and its dried noodles.

The two detectives visited the dried noodle shop. Next to it, bamboo poles were set with noodles draped from them. This made the noodles appear like white waterfalls when the sun shone on them.

Another reason to read Inspector Imanishi is the window it gives into Japanese society. (Though it is important to keep in mind that the book was originally written in the early 1960s, and hence be aware that some of these may have changed, especially the portrayal of the woman in a rather submissive role.) The habit of pouring tea into one’s rice I found particularly fascinating. As also the innate hospitality of the Japanese, even to strangers.

Purely from the perspective of the police investigation itself, Inspector Imanishi throws up a few surprises. There is absolutely no pace or urgency in the investigation. Which, contrary to what you may expect, seems to work in the book’s favour. After the initial flurry of activity, except for Inspector Imanishi, no one else seems even too interested in unravelling the murder. So while there is no real cooperation extended to the inspector (except at a very peripheral level by Yoshimoro Hiroshi), there isn’t too much expectation and pressure either. Perhaps this ensured that the investigation team did not cut corners, did not commit mistakes on account of time pressures.

The personality of the murderer is another interesting aspect of the book. Even when he starts sniffing the investigation, he doesn’t target Inspector Imanishi. Moreover, apart from the core murder, for which he has a good motive, the murderer is forced into some of the other murders just to cover his tracks. Which he does, without coming across as particularly bloodthirsty. Cold-blooded? Hmm, no. Logical is more the word that comes to mind.

Only when Inspector Imanishi starts holding things back from you does the book sag a bit. Until then, you are with him at every stage (even though, amusingly, Yoshimora never seems to be). Ultimately the pieces fall together and you are with him again.

The film version of this book, Vessel of Sand (also the Japanese title of the book), is considered one of the classics of Japanese cinema, and it is not hard to see why when you read the book. All things considered, Inspector Imanishi Investigates is a world-class police procedural on many counts – worthy of comparison with the best in the business.

The Mammoth Book of Short Spy Novels: Bill Pronzini & Martin H. Greenberg (ed.)

2008-08-29T14:12:00.000+01:00

The name of Leslie Charteris jumped out from the cover: it was both attractive and worrying. Attractive because any Saint adventure is unlikely to be uninteresting; worrying because the Saint is more a detective than a spy. The suspicion got stronger when I opened the book and noticed that the first story was The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans – one of those rare stories featuring the Holmes brothers, Sherlock and Mycroft. I succumbed nevertheless, or more truthfully, because I saw these names. Add to Charteris and Holmes Somerset Maugham’s Ashenden, a bit of James Bond and Modesty Blaise and an Erle Stanley Gardner piece (though not featuring that crack lawyer Perry Mason), and I reckoned it fair to expect some reasonable pulp here, even if I hadn’t read anything from any of the other authors featured in this collection.

To begin with, my suspicions were not misplaced. None of the twelve stories featured in the collection involve espionage, at least in the sense you would perhaps expect in the full-length Ashenden novels or the John le Carré ones. Yes, most of the stories involve a spy, but they don’t involve spying. And in the case of Holmes, the spy is not even the protagonist.

If Octopussy is not the weakest Bond adventure ever, then I would be hard put to understand the legend of 007. I remember the film being very different from the short story featured here, and the reason is not difficult to see. There is just no action worth a spy in the tale – Bond hardly does any spying, any racing or any death-defying stunts. And, horror of horrors, 007 doesn’t even kill Major Dexter Smythe.

The anti-climax in the Modesty Blaise starrer The Giggle-Wrecker, while funny, is just too daft to be believable; The Danger Zone suggests that Erle Stanley Gardner is clearly lost without Perry Mason; the Ashenden tale, The Traitor, is almost a family drama in its poignancy; and The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans is certainly not one of the better Holmes adventures, notwithstanding the presence of the almost unbelievably impressive Mycroft – the villain is captured and exposed a bit too easily.

The biggest disappointment of the collection has to be the Saint caper, The Sizzling Saboteur. But for the absence of techno-gadgetry and the aggressive cavorting with women, I rate the Saint a more interesting character than Bond. But in this novella, the real Saint just doesn’t show up. And the bartender being the “butler” as it were, while admittedly a nice twist, did bring down the intensity of the narrative, lacking as the bartender did the organisation to be a real threat to the Saint.

And then there are the one that make up the numbers. John D. MacDonald’s Betrayed is unbelievably amateurish, Cornell Woolrich’s Tokyo, 1941 too full of maudlin patriotism and Edward D. Hoch’s The People of the Peacock just has too many elements to make for a coherent tale.

Three tales in the collection could perhaps have progressed to a passable level if they had been treated as full-length novels: Bruce Cassiday’s Deep-Sleep, John Jakes’ Dr. Sweetkill and Michael Gilbert’s The Spoilers. However, the format (more short story than novella in most cases in the collection, except perhaps the Charteris one) makes them hurried, and all three fall into the same trap: a weak villain organisation though an unmistakeably strong villain.

Bill Pronzini and that other great aggregator, Maxim Jakubowski, did for a living what people like me do on the side – read crime fiction. They have spent most of their working life providing such collections. The usual trend with these collections is that they tend to be a mixed bag – some average works from well-known names, some hidden gems and some indifferent authors peddling some inane ware. But Pronzini and Greenberg are much more consistent in their pick here – all the selections are consistently disappointing.

Travels with Herodotus: Ryszard Kapuściński

2008-08-18T09:39:00.001+01:00

Struck by a desire to cross the border, even if to just cross it and come right back, Ryszard Kapuściński tells his editor in chief Irena Tarlowska that he would like to go abroad, perhaps to Czechoslovakia. As fate would have it, he is identified to go slightly further than that: to India.

At the end of our conversation, during which I learned that I would indeed be going forth into the world, Tarlowska reached into a cabinet, took out a book, and handing it to me said: “Here, a present, for the road.” It was a thick book with a stiff cover of yellow cloth. On the front, stamped in gold letters, was Herodotus, The Histories.

A simple and rather uneventful start to a great friendship.

Kapuściński arrives in India and let alone the sundry Indian languages, he doesn’t even know English. So he reads Ernest Hemingway, yes, Ernest Hemingway, to learn English. And as he gets going on that, he marvels (or should that be shudders?) at the power of language.

Language stuck me at that moment as something material, something with a physical dimension, a wall rising up in the middle of the road and preventing my going further, closing off the world, making it unattainable.

This fear of language persists with Kapuściński as he moves on to China and to some of the other countries he travels to as well. Thankfully, it didn’t deter the man who had lived through twenty-seven revolutions and coups, been jailed 40 times and survived four death sentences according to his Wikipedia entry.

The key to Kapuściński’s success perhaps lies in his curiosity. Even as he encounters Herodotus, he wonders about how he was as a boy, what his toys were, what his father did, even what his memories of his childhood were.

Curiosity naturally leads to observation, a trait manifested when, after going through India and China, he wonders about the faces of Hindus and Chinese.

The face of the Hindu contains surprise: a red dot on a forehead, colourful patterns on cheeks, or a smile that reveals teeth stained dark brown. The face of a Chinese holds no such surprises. It is smooth and has unvarying features. It seems as if nothing can ruffle its still surface. It is a face that communicates that it is hiding something about which we know nothing and never will.

Kapuściński’s readings of Herodotus are as interesting as his discoveries in this travel. His profile of Herodotus indicates his veneration for the Greek historian.

He is a consummate reporter: he wanders, looks, talks, listens, in order that he can later note down what he learned and saw, or simply to remember better.

And his verdict on The Histories?

The Histories is the product of natural talent but also an example of writerly craft, of technical mastery.

Kapuściński’s insight on the Greeks of Herodotus’ era suggests that he follows Herodotus’ approach as well.

They are far from being born killers. They do not have a taste for soldiering. If there is an opportunity to avoid a clash, they eagerly seize it. Sometimes they will go to great lengths just to avoid as a skirmish. Unless the opponent is another Greek, of course—in which case they will wrestle with them furiously.

Herodotus believes that history is the narrative of conflict. Kapuściński layers that by wondering: if reason ruled the world, would history even exist?

Kapuściński’s adoration of Herodotus perhaps emerges because of the latter’s view of the subjectivity of history.

…however evolved our methods, we are never in the presence of unmediated history, but of history recounted, presented, history as it appeared to someone, as he or she believes it to have been.

This is precisely what Kapuściński does for a living – listening and recounting. So when he asserts that reportage comes from travel, people you meet and homework (from his Lettre Ulysses Award Key Note Speech 2003), he is referring to history as well.

Travels with Herodotus is part travelogue, part memoir, part biography and part book review. You can quibble on whether it is too much of one and perhaps a little less of another, but you are unlikely to disagree that it is a great book.

Murder in Memoriam: Didier Daeninckx

2008-08-04T20:04:00.001+01:00

It’s October 1961, and the Algerians are rebelling against the French, and one such demonstration is in progress in Paris. But that shouldn’t really matter to the Latin and History teacher, Roger Thiraud. His wife is pregnant, a situation that induces in him a passion for the history of childhood. Sure he has a guilty secret, but a love for horror movies, even in the 1960s, is hardly something that will attract the attention of the French government, or the Algerian rebels for that matter. As the demonstration gathers momentum, Roger stops just outside his home, and watches both fascinated and horrified by what was taking place in front of him. That is when a man armed with a gun walks up to Roger Thiraud and shoots him dead.

Twenty years later, Roger’s son Bernard Thiraud and his fiancée Claudine Chenet stop over at Toulouse for a couple of days en route to Morocco. In those two days, Bernard spends all his time rummaging through the archives at the town hall. As he wraps up his research on the second day and heads to the hotel and to Claudine, a man armed with a gun shoots Bernard Thiraud dead.

The first murder is brushed under the carpet of the demonstration, with Roger Thiraud being considered an accidental albeit unfortunate victim. Inspector Cadin in Toulouse investigates the second murder. And that is the crime fiction part of Murder in Memoriam.

The Algerian demonstrations of 1961 form the searing sub-plot. What happens when there is political unrest in the country? How does it impact the men in power, the men in authority and the common man? That’s the underbelly of Murder in Memoriam.

As a murder mystery, it is tempting to poke holes at some aspects of the investigation. Like how Muriel Thiraud, Roger’s wife, comes out of her twenty-year reverie and helps Inspector Cadin rather effortlessly. Like how Inspector Cadin almost misses as simple a trick as the killer taking an alternate, longer escape route from Toulouse to Paris. In the absence of the political sub-text, those slips would have mattered more. But not in Murder in Memoriam. The power with which Daeninckx lays bare the events behind events of 1960s France overpowers all other aspects of this book. And if that doesn’t satisfy you, the denouement should – as chilling as any I have come across in a long long time. And then there is the post-script.

I’d already been told to soft pedal it. At the Ministry they were drawing up a version more in keeping with the idea that the citizenry had of the guardians of public order.

The Uncommon Reader: Alan Bennett

2008-07-31T13:22:00.001+01:00

The old saying about ill winds came back to me when I was on a bus in central London. As is their wont, this bus decided to stop midway through its route. So all of us had to get down, at the corner of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road. As I stepped on to the road on that rainy summer evening, I saw the Waterstones bookstore across the street, and decided to duck in there for a few minutes before chasing my next bus. It was in this unexpected visit to the bookstore that I picked up The Uncommon Reader.

A chance incident also provides the premise for the book. While tending to her dog, the Queen accidentally bumps into a travelling library. This sets her off on an unusual royal pursuit: Reading. What happens when the Queen of England starts reading books?

In a breezy 100-and-a-few pages of this ironic parable, Alan Bennett manages to weave in many threads in a simple linear narrative. Well, I suppose the premise lends itself rather effortlessly to a multitude of angles.

On writing, Alan Bennett has a lot to say. Some preachy, some funny, all believable. None more so when an unnamed Scottish writer is asked by the Queen where his inspiration comes from, and he replies fiercely,

“It doesn’t come, Your Majesty. You have to go out and fetch it.”

Oh well, the naiveté of the question suggests a dig on the royalty, except that there are more delicious examples of that.

Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato – one finishes what’s on one’s plate. That’s always been my philosophy.

Notice how upbringing becomes philosophy in the space of three sentences?

The less initiated may wonder why the royalty is not known for its reading, and why the courtiers of the queen worried about her reading even before it started affecting her royal duties. Well, the answer is provided rather brilliantly by the Queen herself as she reflects on reading.

The appeal of reading, she thought, lay in its indifference: there was something lofty about literature. Books did not care who was reading or whether one read them or not. All readers are equal, herself included.

Gasp! The queen equal to the Commoner?

As the Queen ploughs through a range of writers starting with the obscure Ivy Compton-Bennett and moving on to, among others (and in no particular order), Anita Brookner, Ian McEwan, A S Byatt, Dylan Thomas, Virginia Woolf, Charles Dickens, Salman Rushdie, Sylvia Plath, Henry James, WM Thackeray, TS Eliot, the Brontë sisters, Thomas Hardy, Marcel Proust, Samuel Pepys and Alice Munro, her reading style develops as well.

To begin with, it’s true, she read with trepidation and with some unease. The sheer endlessness of books outfaced her and she had not idea how to go on; there was no system to her reading, with one book leading to another, and often she had two or three on the go at the same time. The next stage had been when she started to make notes, after which she always read with a pencil in hand, not summarising what she read but simply transcribing passages that struck her. It was only after a year or so of reading and making notes that she tentatively ventured on the occasional thought of her own.

With a subject like this, you wouldn’t expect any other significant characters in the book – it’s perhaps even an element of the plot that the queen dominates every page of the book. However, two characters clearly had potential for a meatier characterisation: Norman Seakins, the kitchen-boy-turned-amanuensis and Sir Kevin Scatchard, the Queen’s private secretary. A lesser author might have succumbed to temptation and given these people more in the book.

The Queen’s transition from reading to writing is not surprising and therefore the book’s ending is a bit of a clichéd surprise, if you will pardon the oxymoron. But then that’s hardly the thrust of the book.

From many angles, this is an insightful and important book on reading and writing. Drop whatever you are reading just now and head for the store.

The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam: Chris Ewan

2008-07-15T06:13:00.000+01:00

This is what the back of the book had to say about its plot.

In Amsterdam working on his latest novel, Charlie is approached by a mysterious American who asks him to steal two apparently worthless monkey figurines from two separate addresses on the same night. At first he says no. Then he changes his mind. Only later, kidnapped and bound to a chair, the American very dead, and a spell in police custody behind him, does Charlie realise how costly a mistake he might have made.

The police think he killed the American. Others think he knows the whereabouts of the elusive third monkey. But for Charlie only three things matter. Can he clear his name? Can he get away with the haul of a lifetime? And can he solve the gaping plot hole in his latest novel?

The most interesting aspect of Chris Ewan’s debut work is the profession of the protagonist: Charlie Howard doesn’t just write books about a career thief, he also happens to be one. And this case, he also solves the crime. The characterisation brims with possibilities. Of intersecting and diverging plots, parallel narratives, common characters, a Lhosa-like spillover from the story to the street and vice versa, and much more. May be Chris Ewan will make capital of these in future (this book claims to be the first in a series). May be that’s why he has defined the protagonist the way he has.

With such a protagonist, I suppose one should not be surprised at the use of the first person narrative. Except that it comes with its own inevitable bit of navel-gazing – that this is a first novel of the author comes through in this – the protagonist, like the author, appears to be too conscious of himself at times.

There are but a handful of characters in the entire book, and all of them are suspects. And then there are the cops. With enough crime fiction under your belt, you should know where this is heading. Shades of Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders here, including the identity of the real criminal? Oops, did I reveal too much?

I find crime fiction set in different countries and cities to be more interesting than travelogues and guide books; the crime makes a good backdrop and the process of investigation affords a good sense of the country / city – the geography, the people, the politics and economics of the country, the corruption, the weather, etc. Maj Sjöwall / Per Wahlöö and Henning Mankell are my local travel guides for Sweden; Georges Simenon serves as a good Lonely Planet for France; Arlandur Indridason shows you around Iceland; and scores of writers lay bare the towns, cities and villages of England and the US. Unfortunately, except for the odd walk through the city roads and a few anonymous restaurants, The Good Thief’s Guide doesn’t provide so much as a picture postcard of Amsterdam; this book could’ve been set just as well anywhere in the world. Well, I suppose it’s my fault really, the key is to pick up a work by a native writer: Chris Ewan is an Englishman.

There were a few unmistakable alert signals with The Good Thief’s Guide. To begin with, the title itself. It’s one of those that suggest that the book can only sit in the extremes. The tagline that goes with the title (Three Wise Monkeys. One Baffled Thief.) offered no reassurance either. Then there was the fact that author-signed copies of the book were freely available in the High Street in London. Especially considering it is a debut work, this surely is a staggering exhibition of arrogance, confidence or desperation? On the other hand, these factors together perhaps reduced my expectation when I went into the book – I found the book to be racy and witty, notwithstanding the warts and all.

The Last Lecture: Randy Pausch

2008-06-15T20:02:00.000+01:00

The concept of the last lecture is as interesting as it is doomed to fail. It is all very well to ask professors: What wisdom would we want to impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy? But if a professor is faced with such a question, what are the odds (s)he would not get maudlin and sound like a badly written motivational book full of such gems as “speak the truth”, “get your priorities right” and “be humble”?

In the case of Professor Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, the situation is even more poignant than the last lecture just being a hypothetical “last”: he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and had been given just a few more months to live. So he treats the last lecture as his opportunity to download everything from his head; it is his “how to” guide for the world. This book is serves as a companion volume for the actual lecture, put together by Professor Pausch himself through Jeffrey Zaslow.

When you are faced with a lecture title like “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams,” you know what to expect. And Professor Pausch does not disappoint. A collection of poignant childhood stories, a series of courageous statements about why he wants to live on not for himself but for his children, some cries for honesty and truthfulness, and glowing tributes to his wife, his children and his colleagues.

Well, to be honest, the professor makes a clear disclosure in the book itself, when he suggests: If at first you don’t succeed, try a cliché. And he certainly walks the talk. It may not always be a cliché in expression, but it almost invariably is in thought.

Professor Randy Pausch is known to be one of the best in the field of computer programming and virtual reality, and his greatest contribution to mankind is well likely to be Alice, an educational software that teaches 3D computer programming to kids – it a non-profit project from CMU that he has pioneered from the beginning. This book, as Pausch himself admits, is his legacy to his children. So it’s not fair for anyone else to judge it but his children. May be it shouldn’t have been made commercially available.

The actual lecture can be found at the end of this post, but considering it lasts more than one hour, you really need to have a lot of time to view it. The book, on the other hand, because it has been written as 61 semi-independent pieces, enables you to dip and dip out whenever you get small time slots.

Tailpiece: Randy Pausch was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer some time in October 2006. In August 2007, he was told that he had about 3-6 months of relatively good health. But the good news is that as recent as 10 June 2008, he seems to be fit enough to even blog about his latest success – a letter from none other than George W. Bush. You can access the professor's blog here.

Hangman’s Holiday: Dorothy L. Sayers

2008-06-10T19:43:00.001+01:00

The re-issue of this collection of short stories by one who, the author introduction in the book claims, was the greatest detective novelist of the golden age (a claim that can be contested, perhaps successfully, considering one of Sayers’ contemporaries was a certain Dame Agatha Christie), proclaims loudly on the cover: Featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.

Lord Peter Wimsey was the famous detective created by Dorothy Sayers, a character not unlike Hercule Poirot, a rightful occupant of the front row in the list of illustrious amateur detectives, and one, who Sayers once commented was a mixture of Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster, so it is not unnatural for the publishers to use the Lord’s name as a marketing vehicle for the collection.

However, as you read the twelve stories that comprise the collection, you realise that only four of them feature the aristocratic sleuth. And they are not the best stories in the collection either. Pride of place should perhaps go the story titled The Man Who Knew How, a light satire on the genre itself – truly brilliant stuff. It is one of the two stories in the collection that don’t feature either Wimsey or the intriguing Montague Egg, a travelling wine salesman by profession who does some crime-busting on the side.

Montague Egg features in six of the stories, solving crimes by virtue of simple thinking and common sense. Modest when it comes to accepting too much credit for his final achievements, Egg’s otherwise persistently and mostly self-referential chatter is interesting in itself, as is his tendency to quote from the seemingly encyclopaedic Salesman’s Handbook, a collection of (mostly) rhyming aphorisms for people in that profession. Ranging from the philosophical “Discretion plays a major part in making up a salesman’s art, for truths that no one can believe are calculated to deceive” to the more practical “The salesman’s job is to get the trade – don’t leave the house till the deal is made.”

Like Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers also wrote, apart from a few other things, what one may call “puzzle fiction”, as opposed to crime fiction. It’s a genre in which the plots are precisely carved, the characters are neatly etched, the detective is a memorable character, the motives are clearly established, the settings are picture-perfect and the endings are pleasingly well-rounded. To achieve all this, you need space, time and sufficient events to build up the plot. This is something the short story format does not afford, and it shows in Hangman’s Holiday, particularly in the stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. Wimsey aristocracy, his stately pace of working, his detailed approach, evident in some of Sayers’ full-length novels (Murder Must Advertise comes to mind) just don’t get a look-in in the works of this collection. The story titled The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey is a particularly terrible tale. The Egg stories are relatively better, because of the light touch.

Overall, there is a deep sense of dissatisfaction when you read the stories, a sense of something hurried, a sense of there being too many loose ends, a sense of glibness in the detection; in sum, a sense of artificiality permeates the collection. And yes, I must confess I didn’t understand the title.

The Tenant & The Motive: Javier Cercas

2008-06-07T20:22:00.001+01:00

Mario was a fanatic for order; when he went out for a run each morning he followed an identical itinerary.

Álvaro took his work seriously. Every day he got up punctually at eight. He cleared his head with a cold shower and went down to the supermarket to buy bread and the newspaper. When he returned he made coffee and toast with butter and marmalade and ate breakfast in the kitchen, leafing through the paper and listening to the radio. By nine he was sitting in his study ready to begin the day’s work.

With protagonists like this, the plot typically tends to go in one of two directions – the routine of the protagonists gets disrupted and breaks them or their obsession with order starts ruling them. Javier Cercas, however, breaks the mould and offers these two exquisite satirical novellas.

The Tenant is centred on Mario Rota, a professor of linguistics who twists his ankle while out on his morning run, which leads to more than just a few days off from the university. The Motive follows the efforts of Álvaro, a writer seeking inspiration and meat for his next novel from his neighbourhood, thus leading to disastrous consequences for his neighbours.

What makes these novellas worth a read or two?

To begin with, perhaps the format itself. The relative shortness compared to a regular novel-length, enables a tight narrative and a sharp focus on the central characters, so much so that while The Tenant has at least two (if not three) other characters who have a significant impact on the storyline, the narrative never focuses away from Mario Rota. In The Motive, all the other characters are really as much characters of Álvaro as they are of Javier Cercas. On the other hand, by not writing these two pieces as short stories, Cercas gives himself enough to breathe, to bring out the character of the protagonists, to provide enough events to give the narratives some solid dimension. The level of detail grips without distracting.

Another noticeable feature of these two novellas is the contrast between the bleakness of the situations faced by the characters and the lightness of the narrative tone (a nod to the translator as well – Anne McLean). While this may appear to come in the way of building empathy with the characters, it works because it creates a sense of irony, a good and ubiquitous ally when satire is the object.

However, the most important reason these novellas merit high praise is the way Cercas has ended them. As you race through the narrative, many possible endings come up in your mind, and one of them does actually turn out to be Cercas’ ending as well. So it’s not so much a surprise ending, as it is a logical and realistic one. And a brilliant one, in both cases.

Note: In the unlikely event this review comes to the notice of someone who has read Javier Cercas’ Soldiers of Salamis, I would appreciate some views on it.

The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle: John Creasey

2008-06-01T19:16:00.001+01:00

To many people, characters like the Baron may sound straight out of scripts of low-brow entertainer movies, centred on superheroes who can achieve whatever they set out to, be irresistible to every woman they meet and escape every seemingly fatal situation virtually unscathed. So they may be, but they are entertainment unlimited for lazy Sunday afternoons and for train journeys.

It was in one such longer-than-anticipated train that I read The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle. This very clearly is one of the later pieces involving the Baron, because he also used to be a Robin Hood of sorts earlier, stealing precious stones from the undeserving rich. I like that Baron better: The Baron and the Chinese Puzzle is a bit too tame by those standards; it does not feature the Baron, just John Mannering.

But Mannering is a superhero, isn’t he, so the plot requires superhero-dom as he goes off to Hong Kong, originally to attend an exhibition of rare jewels, but, as it turns out, to broker peace between two warring political factions in China. Why does he do it?

The truth was, he wanted to. It was not that he thought he should, conscience had nothing to do with it. He responded to such a challenge as this as other men responded to the call of the high mountains, or the great oceans, or great causes. It was the same call that made him the Baron.

So Mannering does, and succeeds, with the usual mixture of foiled attempts on his life, the odd red herrings, his impeccable disguises (he changes himself to look and talk like an American, and fools everyone, including those at the American embassy) and the inevitable not-so-surprising twist in the end.

Honestly, I think Creasey should have stayed inside the British isles (or restricted himself to the odd adventure into the mainland European continent). Asia is not his comfort zone, and it shows. The stereo-typing is un-missable and the touch of exotica, inevitable. But the real let-down is the absence of even some minimum research to get the facts right.

“The woman approached me as I walked here, and I gave her five twenty-anna notes.”

This is a dialogue mouthed by Mannering to the police in Bombay, India. Never in the history of India have they had currency notes denoted in annas. Even if one assumes a printer’s devil and substitute notes with coins, it doesn’t stand up, because twenty-anna coins never existed in India either. Two printer’s devils and you get twenty-paisa coins, which may just pass muster, but then that’s too much blame to apportion to the editors and to save the author.

Will this stop me from reading or re-reading more from my John Creasey collection? Reading Creasey has perhaps become too much of a habit for me to give it up completely, but I reckon I certainly will think twice before reading another of his books set outside England.

The Book of Murder: Guillermo Martínez

2008-05-22T10:17:00.000+01:00

My records tell me I read Guillermo Martínez’s The Oxford Murders almost exactly two years ago. My memory tells me I was not overly impressed with it. Nevertheless, I still picked up the author’s second book, The Book of Murder. And read it. And I don’t regret it.

The plot is interesting. A series of seemingly accidental deaths occur in the family of Luciana B, a “girl who took dictation”, as she is quaintly described. Her boyfriend gets drowned, her parents die after consuming some poisonous mushrooms and the care home where her grandmother lives is set on fire as part of a series of arson attacks in the town. So what is mysterious about these deaths?

For starters, Luciana’s boyfriend is a lifeguard, and he gets drowned on a fairly normal un-stormy day, with no evidence of any other weather-related quirk or personal disability. Possibly his coffee was drugged?

Her parents pick mushrooms from the same spot every year for their anniversary, for the same mushroom pie her mother considers her special recipe, her father endures and the rest of the family suffer. This ritual has been going on for years. So how did the mushrooms change character this time round?

The series of arson attacks in the town were all targeted at small furniture stores through the town. With one exception: the one on the care home where Luciana’s grandmother lived.

And Luciana believes that her sister Valentina is the next target. Target of whom? Is there a connection at all between the different incidents?

Yes, reckons Luciana. She is sure she knows the murderer: her one-time employer and famous author Kloster. What convinces her of this? Because she believes she was in a sense responsible for the death of Kloster’s young daughter. And this was Kloster's way of extracting revenge.

Luciana worked with Kloster in the past, taking dictation for his books. For quite a while, the relationship was purely professional and they didn’t even touch one another. And then one day, Kloster cannot resist the allure of Luciana’s neck (as much a character in the book as anyone else, more on that later) and makes an advance. For reasons best known to herself, Luciana resists, makes a row and leaves Kloster’s service. On the advice of her mom and an overzealous counsellor, Luciana initiates legal proceedings against Kloster (and gets ample monetary recompense). When Kloster’s shrew of a wife gets to hear of it, she gets a divorce from Kloster and takes away their daughter. And the daughter dies in her bath because of the mother’s carelessness.

What’s the truth? That’s the climax in the book.

So what makes The Book of Murder worth a read?

Brief in presence, significant in impact and charming and unique as a mannerism, Luciana’s neck deserves the first slot.

. . . this was her pattern from then on: a kiss on arrival, her little bag dropped, almost thrown, beside the sofa, two hours of dictation, coffee and a brief smiling conversation in the narrow kitchen, two more hours’ work, and, at a certain point, unfailingly, the bending of her head to one side then the other, half painfully, half seductively, and the sharp crack of her vertebrae.

Guillermo Martínez, the author, is a PhD in mathematics. This aspect perhaps stood a bit more pronounced in The Oxford Murders. Here, however, he seems to find his literary voice. That he managed to carry the entire book through with just three characters of significance is ample testimony to this. It has helped him pace the narratives, define the characters sharply, warts and all, and enabled a tight focus on the action. Not least of all is the character of the narrator, another albeit less-successful author for whom Luciana had worked briefly for some time. He manages to be as much part of the narrative as a neutral chronicler of events. His personal thoughts tend to echo the readers’.

When I just finished the book, I got the feeling that, Martínez, not unlike Martin Amis in Night Train had trouble finishing a book. I remembered a similar feeling with The Oxford Murders. But on reflection, I reckon the ending is perhaps one of the successes of The Book of Murder. With a plot like this, any of the three obvious endings one kept conjecturing through the book would have been a tad predictable and more than a touch disappointing. So while the ending is not what you would expect in a typical whodunit, it is unexpected in its own right.

The Oxford Murders has apparently been made into a movie. The writing style clearly suggests the author expects the same here as well – the screenplay-like style in the narrative is unmissable. But heck, as long as it is a good read, why do I care?

Borges and the Eternal Orang-utans: Luis Fernando Verissimo

2008-05-04T20:24:00.001+01:00

It breaks one of the cardinal rules of detective fiction, if such rules are indeed sacrosanct. (No, I’m not telling you which one it breaks, lest I be accused of a similar act.) The plot is almost entirely dependent on the misinterpretations of the narrator, and those are more than a touch amateurish. The style is epistolatory, which means there is a bit too much of the narrator in the narrative. Despite all that, Borges and the Eternal Orang-utans is a delightful read.

A simple linear locked-room murder mystery on the face of it, Borges is in the form of a series of letters from the narrator (identified just as Seňor Vogelstein) to Jorge Luis Borges, who also plays the “detective” and solves the mystery in the end and “writes” the last letter, the classical denouement. Edgar Allan Poe is an integral element of the book and forms the backdrop and “contributes” to the references.

The narrator, a wide-eyed admirer of both Borges and Poe (in that order), is a fifty-year old who has led a cloistered life, “without adventures or surprises”, who has had a “sheltered life spent among books.” He gets an invitation to attend the 1985 Israfel Society Conference, a meeting of Edgar Allan Poe specialists. There he bumps into, among others, Borges, and then, more significantly (at least as far the plot of this book is concerned), into the corpse of a murdered man. The deciphering of this murder forms the rest of the book.

So what makes Borges such a delightful read?

For one, there is the richness of the inter-textual references, dominated, surprise surprise, by Borges and Poe. Including the obvious ones of the orang-utan and the raven of Poe and the labyrinth, the mirrors and most significantly, the tail, of Borges, Verissimo goes deep, especially into Borges’ writings, making it clear what the objective of the book is: an unashamed tribute to the Argentinean great. These references, especially when they appear in the conversations, both about the murder and otherwise, form the backbone of the book and its raison d’être.

The light-hearted tone that prevails throughout is another reason that contributes to the success of Borges. Here, the narrative style adopted by Verissimo comes in handy. A letter lets you be personal, opinionated and expressive, and that is what Verissimo is in this book. The result: you get the feeling you’re listening to a fireside story. Of course, the tenseness of a murder investigation is missing, but then, this is not your typical murder mystery – the unravelling of the crime is almost incidental to the overall objective of the book.

A third, possibly related aspect of the book is the role of the narrator. Apart from being the reporter on the scene, he also is one of the main investigators (such as they are); he acts as Borges’ mouthpiece; and he is a bit more than all that.

Luis Fernando Verissimo is not exactly a household name whereabouts I live or come from. So why did I pick up Borges and the Eternal Orang-utans? Was Borges the attraction? Was it Poe? Or was it a wild hunch? Whatever it was, it was a worthy pick. Few things in life are more pleasurable than a chance pick turning out to be a riveting read. And Borges was precisely that. If only Verissimo had used a different technique than the narrator confusing the position of the dead body successively as X, O, W, M and ◊, Borges and the Eternal Orang-utans could well have become a real classic.

Time's Arrow: Martin Amis

2008-04-12T20:23:00.000+01:00

After the not-so-satisfying experience with Night Train, what prompted me to pick up another book by Martin Amis? Well, a good friend whose judgment I trust recommended it to me. And I was not to be disappointed.

Using a different narrative technique is like using a double-edged sword – you can lose the plot if you get too absorbed in the technique and forget the narrative. Thankfully, Amis retains his focus when he architects a book where the story flows backwards. And in a neat kill of two birds with one stone, it also enables Amis to get rid of one area he seemed weak at, at least on the evidence of Night Train: how to finish a book.

The challenge with reading a book of this nature is to be constantly aware of the chronological flip, especially considering the heaviness of the plot: the life and times of a Nazi war criminal, and a doctor to boot. Thankfully, the linguistic control, precision and tightness of Amis help in countering this challenge quite easily.

Another fear that crept into my mind when I realised the reversal of the clock was this: how gory can descriptions of personal activities get. Here’s Amis’ response.

All life, all sustenance, all meaning (and a good deal of money) issue from a single household appliance: the toilet handle. At the end of the day, before my coffee, in I go. And there it is already: that humiliating warm smell. I lower my pants and make with the magic handle. Suddenly it’s all there, complete with toilet paper, which you use and then deftly wind back on to the roll. Later, you pull up your pants and wait for the pain to go away. The pain, perhaps, of the whole transaction, the whole dependency. No wonder we cry when we do it. Quick glance down at the clear water in the bowl. Then the two cups of decaff before you hit the sack.

The next paragraph is even better.

Eating is unattractive too. First I stack the clean plates in the dishwasher, which works okay, I guess, like all my other labour-saving devices, until some fat bastard shows up in his jumpsuit and traumatises them with his tools. So far so good: then you select a soiled dish, collect some scraps from the garbage, and settle down for a short wait. Various items get gulped up into my mouth, and after skilful massage with tongue and teeth I transfer them to the plate for additional sculpture with knife and fork and spoon. That bit’s quite therapeutic at least, unless you’re having soup or something, which can be a real sentence. Next you face the laborious business of cooling, of reassembly, of storage, before the return of these foodstuffs to the Superette, where, admittedly, I am promptly and generously reimbursed for my pains.

Notwithstanding the automatic humour that the technique affords, the poignancy of the plot does not get diluted, especially in those pieces in the concentration camp. Rather, the narrative forces you to linger a little more, and absorb the magnitude of what happens there. Therein, I reckon, lies the triumph of Time’s Arrow.

The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Dr. Oliver Sacks

2008-04-05T19:52:00.000+01:00

What’s the feeling you get reading Dr. Oliver Sacks? It’s not unlike sitting around the fireplace along with ten other kids, listening to stories from our favourite Grandpa Ollie. The only difference is that Grandpa is not telling us mythological stories, but stories from his own life as a neurologist, of the different interesting cases he has been involved in. And what is the essence of these cases?

We have five senses in which we glory and which we recognise and celebrate, senses that constitute the sensible world for us. But there are other senses – secret senses, sixth senses, if you will – equally vital, but unrecognised, and unlauded.

. . .

Yet their absence can be quite conspicuous. If there is defective (or distorted) sensation in our overlooked secret senses, what we then experience is profoundly strange, an almost incommunicable equivalent to being blind or being deaf. If proprioception is completely knocked out, the body becomes, so to speak, blind and deaf to itself – and (as the meaning of the Latin root propius hints) ceases to ‘own’ itself, to feel itself as itself.

And while one is able to imagine what a person without one of the core five senses could possibly feel and experience (Dr. Sacks himself dealt with one such in Seeing Voices where he dealt with the blind), people with a defective / distorted / missing sensation of the secret senses certainly seem to be beyond our regular imagination.

Dr. Sacks uses the same case history approach in The Man . . . as he used in his other books, including that marvel, An Anthropologist on Mars. The book is categorized into four sections – Losses focuses on people who have lost one of their secret senses; Excesses dwells on those who have a significantly overactive secret sense; Transports takes you into the lives of who have an altered views or perceptions, a different inner vision if you will; and The World of the Simple comprises four poignant tales of people who were children in many senses but amazingly adult in others.

Each story in the book is as riveting as the next, as insightful as the previous. Of course, different stories may resonate better with different people, depending on their dominant secret senses, I suppose. My personal favourite is the short piece titled The President’s Speech under Losses. (Just so we get our context right, remember this book was written in early 1985 and the author is based in the US.)

The President, the old Charmer, the Actor, with his practised rhetoric, his histrionisms, his emotional appeal, was giving a speech in the aphasia ward. And the response? Convulsive laughter. The explanation? Over to Dr. Sacks.

He [the aphasiac] cannot grasp your words, and so cannot be deceived by them; but what he grasps he grasps with infallible precision, namely the expression that goes with the words, that total, spontaneous, involuntary expressiveness which can never be simulated or faked, as words alone can, all to easily . . .

As Nietzsche pithily writes, “One can lie with the mouth, but with the accompanying grimace one nevertheless tells the truth.”

Can aphasiacs be used as lie detectors then, I wonder.

And then there are those two stories towards the end of the book – one on the autistic twins who can calculate and remember virtually any number or date without being formally trained to be mathematicians, and the other on an autistic artist who does not see the world as a conceptual or abstract entity, rather as a concrete, particular, discrete agglomeration of things. They may, in a manner of speaking, miss the forest for the trees, but they really see the trees in great detail, more than any of us can even if we try to.

How would you characterise Dr. Sacks’ works, beyond the humdrum “non-fiction” and “science”? The closest I could come to is that his works are “the non-fiction equivalent of science fiction.” And here I refer to the definition of science fiction I used when I reviewed Arthur C. Clarke’s Of Time and Stars.

Take normal life and twist / invert / change one aspect of it, and that’s science fiction for you.

Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders: Gyles Brandeth

2008-03-23T18:42:00.000Z

I remember reading Caleb Carr’s The Italian Secretary many moons ago. It is one of the many tributes paid to the man still recognised as the first name in detective fiction. It was very difficult to take a position on the book – should you view it as Carr’s work or should you compare it with the original? Little wonder then that it was one of the few Sherlock tributes I read. Until I picked up Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders recently.

What made the book intriguing enough to pick up was the combination two legendary names – the narrative is Sherlock Holmes, the detective is Oscar Wilde.

The hagiographical tone on Wilde was unmistakeable, in terms of the content and the characterisation – his famous statements, a glorification of his skills of detection, his acuity, his sangfroid. . .

The tribute to Arthur Conan Doyle is total and complete as well, in terms of the narrative style, the constant exaltation of Sherlock Holmes, the methods followed by Wilde as Sherlock, the open admission by Wilde that he is playing Sherlock, the carefully planted red herrings, the surprise denouement (except for Wilde himself, another Sherlock staple) . . . the comparisons are obvious through the book.

Which is what put me in the same position as when I was reading Caleb Carr. What am I reading (and reviewing) here? Thankfully, the Wilde part proved to be the differentiator. The insights into his character – the homosexual undertones that are fairly heavily present in the narrative and the characterisations, among other traits you read about here and there about the man – are so convincing (Gyles Brandeth is a Wilde scholar) you feel that’s about the best return you can get from the book.

So there you are, a new reason for reading crime fiction. It’s a darn sight better than reading a biography, even an unauthorised one.

On reflection, I reckon Oscar Wilde and the Candlelight Murders is not quite in the same mould as the Sherlock-in-the-hands-of-lesser-authors. A closer comparison seems to be Mathew Pearl’s first book, The Dante Club, which focused on nineteenth century Boston and a clutch of Dante scholars – Oliver Wendell Holmes, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and James Russell Lowell – investigating a series of murders that are straight out Dante’s works. Pearl’s subsequent novel investigating the murder of Edgar Allan Poe, The Poe Shadow is another comparable piece, as is Arturo Pérez Reverte’s The Club Dumas.

Gyles Brandeth is yet another author I picked off my hat recently (along with the supremely impressive Jean-Patrick Manchette), and it wasn’t quite a waste of money, all things considered.

Of Time and Stars: Arthur C. Clarke

2008-03-19T19:15:00.001Z

Science fiction was part of my growing years, as much as crime fiction, adventure, fantasy and the like were. However, over time, I gravitated away from it for the same reason I did with fantasy: if I cannot imagine it happening to me, I cannot relate with it.

Recently, one of my friends put me at ease about science fiction by a simple definition of the genre: take normal life and twist / invert / change one aspect of it, and that’s science fiction for you. I was taken by the definition. So after a long time, and not with a bit of trepidation, I picked up a science fiction book: Arthur C. Clarke’s Of Time and Stars. The short story format reassured me – I can’t lose the plot for too long. Different worlds, the moon, stars, aliens, plants, animals and birds (oh yes, and humans) – all this and more make up this collection of 18 very short stories.

As with any diverse collection, you are bound to like some and not be too impressed with others. Of Time and Stars had more stories I liked than ones that left me cold. If the nifty play on gravity in Green Fingers chills you, the back-to-the-basics simplicity of Into the Comet cannot fail to impress you. The Reluctant Orchid grips you; All the Time in the World freezes you; An Ape About the House sweeps you off your feet. Then there is the philosophical angle in The Fires Within and the religious touches in Encounter at Dawn (Why does this remind me of a story on the Magi by Roald Dahl?) and The Nine Billion Names of God. If the cat and mouse game in Hide and Seek is riveting, the kitten in Who’s There? is cute, as is the canary in Feathered Friend. And then there is Security Check, easily the most stunning story in the collection: every time I think of it my spine tingles. The collection is rounded off by The Sentinel, the story that was the genesis of 2001: A Space Odyssey later on.

Arthur C. Clarke died earlier today. The world of science fiction (and science) loses of one of its most significant voices and minds. I recall Clarke’s Three Laws from Profiles of the Future, published as long ago as 1962.

1. When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.

2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.”

3. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Three to Kill: Jean-Patrick Manchette

2008-03-07T10:10:00.001Z

I begin reading Three to Kill in a pub. The initial few pages almost make me forget my pint of Guinness Extra Cold. The tight and brief first chapter introduces the main character, and a potentially interesting one, Georges Gerfaut, though the “fact that Georges has killed at least two men in the course of the last one year is not germane.” The tight but not-so-brief second chapter ushers in Alonso Emerich y Emerich, who “had also killed people, a good many more than Georges Gerfaut.”

The tightness and the narrative style remind you of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold. The prose is sparse, the focus is on an impending act, the time shifts are subtle and almost impalpable, there is a sense of inevitability about events that are about to take place. Simply put, you sense you are on to something very different indeed.

The plot is deceptively straightforward. Georges Gerfaut stops to help an injured motorist on the road, and three days later . . . hold on, let Georges himself summarise it.

“Until last summer I was a middle manager in a company in Paris. I went on vacation, and two men tried to kill me, twice, for reasons unknown to me. Two complete strangers. At which point I left my wife and children and, instead of informing the police, I fled. I found myself in a freight car crossing the Alps. A drifter knocked me down with a hammer and threw me off the train. I injured my foot, which is why I limp now.”

The narrative style is where Three to Kill triumphs. It particularly reaches its peak when Alphonsine, with whom Georges has a brief dalliance, is shot and killed. It is not a very significant incident in the plot really (it’s not insignificant either, just in case you wonder whether the narrative rambles, it certainly does not), but its suddenness and directness are chilling.

The different slices of life the book deals with – that of a travelling salesman, that of a rich and retired officer from a banana republic, that of a recluse in the forests deep in the Alps – are as different as they are enchanting.

There are times you gamble on authors you’ve never heard of and hit the jackpot. Jean-Patrick Manchette is one of those for me. If Three to Kill is anything to go by, he is an author whose books I’d want to read more of.

One Step Behind: Henning Mankell

2008-02-17T17:15:00.000Z

It’s about a quarter of the way into One Step Behind. Kurt Wallander is interviewing Eva Hillström, the mother of one of the murdered teenagers. It’s a routine enquiry, one of many that dot a typical police investigation. Wallander shows Eva a photograph of a suspect; Eva doesn’t recognise the person. Then Wallander shows Eva a photocopy of a group photograph, one member of the group being Eva’s daughter, Astrid. Quietly, Eva goes in and comes back with an original copy of the picture, hands it to Wallander, and says, rather dryly I’d imagine, “Photocopies are never as good as the original.” Wallander questions her on the photograph, and finds out the name of one of the people in it. Immediately, he whips out a notebook and jots down the details.

When I read this sequence, all of two pages long, I almost let out a loud “yoo hoo”. Now this investigation did not quite lead (at least not directly) to a very significant breakthrough. Nor was it an exhibition of exemplary intelligence. Of course, it was no stroke of inspiration – inspiration does not have much of a role in a real police procedural. So what led to my exhilaration?

I think it kind of drove the point in, the real charm of a police procedural – a series of routine activities, with information and clues hidden within, which need to be identified and mined further till you get to the bottom. A quiet digging into the recesses of the unknown until the crime unveils itself, almost as a matter of course. That is what One Step Behind is – a typical good police procedural.

The plot is simple enough – three teenagers disappear; foul play is suspected; Wallander and his cohorts are called in; seemingly unrelated, a police officer turns up dead; the bodies of the teenagers surface later; a fourth friend of the three teenagers is also murdered; the police plough their way through amidst pressure from their bosses, from the families of the victims, from the press and from the public; finally they cotton in on the murderer.

What makes One Step Behind (and as an extension, many of Henning Mankell’s works) so gripping is that it manages to capture the mode and mood of police investigation through the language and tone of the narrative (mention must be made also of the splendid translation by Ebba Segerberg) – the matter-of-fact reporting of the murder with no fuss or dramatics, the precise and detailed descriptions (even if much of the detail does not quite further the investigation), the sudden-yet-subtle changes in tempo as the police close down on the suspect, and the frustrations of the job, as evidenced in this splendid summing up.

It had often seemed to Wallander that police work was characterised by a series of expectations that were inevitably disappointed.

And in this insightful, truthful but essentially not-so-useful comment.

A murderer is always crazy. But he can also be cunning and cowardly. He can be like you and me.

Of course, One Step Behind is not without its gaps, especially one particularly gaping one. Wallander manages to catch hold of a suspect, but lets her slip by allowing her to visit the ladies’ room unaccompanied. It does take the sheen off an otherwise great book.

For me, the most alluring charm of One Step Behind is one of its more insignificant details – Kurt Wallander has diabetes. No, as he says, he has excess sugar in his blood. It lends a certain mortality and frailty to the character and thus raises the book a notch or two. The more impressive aspect of it is that Mankell leaves the affliction aside – he does not succumb to the temptation of getting it to play a significant role in the plot. That could’ve just undone the whole book.

Night Train: Martin Amis

2008-01-27T17:57:00.000Z

There are quite a few things wrong with Night Train, chief of which is that it is a book that should not have been written at all. An Englishman trying to write American police procedurals, an over-present self-obsessed protagonist in the form of a woman cop called Mike Hoolihan with a past (alcoholism, an abusive father, so very clichéd), a death that is but a suicide, an investigation so pointless you wonder why the police service would even agree to take it up (though Mike might have a personal reason for doing so), two bullets (or was it three?) inside the head in a suicide (tell me how that works please), a cop-out of an ending (am not too sure I even understood it; if any of you has, please illuminate), random rants on drugs, suicide, etc…

I’ve panned quite a few books on this blog, but Night Train perhaps ranks right on top for one good reason: it doesn’t give you one good reason to read. The only saving grace is that it is a slim volume, so I just wasted one Sunday on it. And I don’t even want to waste any more time putting together a structured and detailed review of the book.

The Admirable Carfew: Edgar Wallace

2008-01-26T20:55:00.000Z

If Anthony The Brigand Newton made a living by gently taking some cream off the well-endowed and Jack The Iron Grip Bryce by handling difficult cases for a law firm through a combination of brain and brawn, the admirable Felix Carfew survives in spite of himself, and through extra-large portions of luck, “a man who attracted money to him by the exercise of one set of qualities, and repelled it by the employment of another set”. His broker, Parker of Parker & Parker, puts up with him as would the rich father of a benign idiot. Of course, Carfew has a different take on his life. He believes that “the division of responsibility as between Carfew and Providence was so arranged that, if things turned out well, Carfew had succeeded in spite of Providence, and if they failed, they had failed in spite of Carfew.”

Starting off with a lucky break after being mistaken for a famous reporter with the same last name, Felix Carfew mostly flukes through the fifteen stories in this collection, selling a dud invention here, befriending a lord here and a rebel brigand there and generally surviving bankruptcy and his own ineptness.

In The Eccentric Mr. Gobleheim, for a change luck walks into Carfew’s life in the form of the eccentric duo of Lewis & Gobleheim, who actually offer him an unbelievably good deal. And our admirable protagonist chooses precisely that moment to smell a confidence trickster. Thus losing a cool deal in the bargain.

Patriots is a bit of a mini-classic, pitting the US against the UK, specifically New York versus London, in terms of their appreciation of theatre.

Tobbins, Limited, the longest story of the lot, takes a dig at advertising and sales promotion, with the subtly named advertising agency, Exploitation Publicity Company. The tale is perhaps a reflection of its times, when advertising was not considered an above-board strategy. It is also one of the few tales in the collection in which Carfew actually succeeds consciously and without the benefit of accidents.

One and Sevenpence Ha’penny provides a delightful ending to a largely interesting collection. It has shades of the last episode of Jeffrey Archer’s Not a Penny Less, Not a Penny More. Carfew counts his fortune and finds himself one and sevenpence ha’penny” short of thirty-five thousand pounds. So he goes out to earn it. And in the process, his close circle, his servant Villiers, his broker Parker, an old associate Wilner and his business partner May Tobbin and her father all think Carfew has gone mad. And as with Anthony Newton and Jack Bryce, Carfew gets hitched in the end.

Dedicated and committed Plum fans may disagree violently, but in The Admirable Carfew, Edgar Wallace is as delightful as PG Wodehouse in terms of humour and protagonist characterisation.

Carfew’s view of life was that all the past had been ordered for his comfort.

Thus Edison had been born on a certain day in order that he might have his many electric appliances ready against Carfew reaching maturity. Stephenson had worked with no other object in view than that he should have railways shipshape by the time Carfew could afford to travel first class.

Carfew could perhaps have been as memorable a character as Bertie Wooster. A pity, then, that Wallace did not take Felix Carfew beyond this book.

The Iron Grip: Edgar Wallace

2008-01-18T19:53:00.000Z

Captain Jack Bryce, inscribed in the family records as John Richard Pantagenet, but better known amongst his intimate friends as Wireless Bryce, had dropped his army title, for he had discovered that it prejudiced rather than helped his chance of securing employment.

The similarity between Jack Bryce and Anthony The Brigand Newton is unmistakable. There is, however, one significant difference between Newton and Bryce: the Brigand succeeds in making a living through “the art of gentle robbery” using his brain and wit; the protagonist of The Iron Grip thwarts crime using his muscles, and, on the odd occasion, his brain and his looks.

The Iron Grip is a collection of ten stories, in each of which Jack Bryce is commissioned by Mr. James Hemmer of Hemmer & Hemmer, an eminent firm of lawyers, to address cases where the lawyers were “constantly getting into difficulties from which private detectives and the ordinary resources of the law cannot extricate” them.

The Iron Grip has its moments, especially in the cases where Bryce outsmarts the villains rather than batter them into submission. The story where he does the classic switcheroo by storing the Vlakfontain diamond in the pocket of the villain’s assistant is almost reminiscent of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Purloined Letter. Equally gripping is the case in which Bryce disproves a bigamy accusation by figuring out the time difference between London and Onslow, Western Australia. The one in which he forces the villain to burn a cheque (which he had fraudulently obtained) to save his life is another nice touch. The stories in which Bryce plays the romantic card are interesting as well, especially in the last story, where the role goes beyond the case, the tale and the book itself. Again, an ending not unlike that in The Brigand.

However, you cannot get away from the fact that there is something lacking in The Iron Grip. Perhaps it is the glibness with which Bryce turns himself in an Australian (expertise obtained by spending “two hours reading an Australian novel to get the local colour”) in one story and a Canadian in another that dilutes his character and makes it a touch low on credibility. Perhaps it is just that Bryce tends to use his muscles so very often to sort things out, something which is not quite an Edgar Wallace staple. There is a certain charm about a typical Wallace character, a sense of sangfroid, a clever mind at work, a character that lends itself to memorable descriptions, that is conspicuous by its absence in The Iron Grip. Which absence shows itself in the plot and in the language as well. The Iron Grip would perhaps rank among the lesser works of this prolific author.

The Brigand: Edgar Wallace

2008-01-08T19:36:00.000Z

Anthony Newton was a soldier at sixteen; at twenty-six he was a beggar of favours, a patient waiter in outer offices, a more or less meek respondent to questionnaires which bore a remarkable resemblance one to the other.
…
Tony Newton struggled through eight years of odd jobs.
…
And at the end of the eighth year he discussed the situation with himself and soberly elected for brigandage of a safe and more or less unobjectionable variety.

The dictionary defines a brigand as a robber or a bandit, particularly from an outlaw band. But that definition is perhaps too harsh for Tony Newton; he focuses on “the art of gentle robbery.” And he succeeds, as he himself modestly admits.

The curious thing about me is that I’m never beaten. I’ve made money out of the greatest besters in town; I’ve diddled confidence men, and I’ve had money from a moneylender who went to bed Stahlstein and woke to find himself one of the proud Macgregors, and never even paid him back. I have met in single combat the Scot and the Armenian, and I have wrenched from their maws the wherewithal to live. The pup that other men buy licks my hand and develops into a pedigree show dog.

The Brigand is a collection of twelve stories, each an escapade of Tony Newton as he moves from one adventure to another, one gullible rich man to another, escaping a detection here, a marriage to a “plum pudding girl” there, a murder attempt elsewhere, even becoming a successful member of the House of Commons in one delightful episode.

The Brigand is Edgar Wallace at his best – simple storylines, a lovable character with whom you empathise even though you know that he not quite on the straight path, a bit of crime, loads of humour, some deceptively simple philosophising. Among the lesser known one-book-only characters created by Edgar Wallace, Tony Newton would probably be right up there on the top.

The Council of Justice: Edgar Wallace

2008-01-07T17:26:00.000Z

Whatever else they did or didn’t, the anarchists provided good fodder for crime fiction. G K Chesterton did a wonderful satire on the anarchists in The Man Who Was Thursday; and Edgar Wallace handled them as criminals in The Council of Justice, where the Red Hundred, a motley bunch of anarchists from the continent, are up against the precision and planning of Leon, Manfred and Poiccart.

The Four Just Men was the book that launched Edgar Wallace’s crime fiction writing, and his corresponding fame. The four men – Leon, Manfred, Poiccart and Thery – count among the more popular characters in British crime writing. Avid Wallace fans will recall that Thery featured only in the first book but all the subsequent books still refer to the other three as a quartet. The Council of Justice features Leon, Manfred, and Poiccart with a fourth, interesting-in-his-own-right, member, the Prince of the Escorials, who plays a small but significant role. Jessen, a reformed criminal who now dedicates his life to reforming other criminals with an original approach, is another minor role worthy of mention in The Council. As is the journalist Charles Garrett.

Systematically, as is their wont, the Council (as the just men call themselves in this book) go after the key people in the Red Hundred, eliminating them one after the other, in a style that is so very typical of them. The police, in one of those unusual situations, are as much after the Council as they are against the Red Hundred. With predictably low success.

A key and interesting character in The Council is the mysterious Woman of Gratz – the leader of the Red Hundred who subsequently gives them up and thus falls out of favour. She also plays a key role in the life of Manfred, in an affair tinged with unfulfilled romance, effectively leading to his arrest and therefore, the latter part of The Council.

It is this latter part that adds lustre to The Council. It demands great leaps of imagination to accept the elaborate preparations Leon and Poiccart make to get Manfred out of the jail, and the corresponding climax. But it is precisely this kind of plotting that characterises Edgar Wallace and more so, the four just men. As with most crime fiction, the “what” of the ending is rarely a surprise; it is the “how” that makes it enthralling reading. And The Council really scores on that count. The way Manfred escapes from prison is as unbelievable as it is riveting. And that alone makes The Council worth reading.

Murder at the Savoy: Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö

2007-12-24T09:05:00.000Z

It has been more than a year since I read (and of course reviewed) The Locked Room by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö. And while the template is the same, the police procedural riveting as ever, and the humour just as pithy and black, there are a couple of aspects in Savoy that are a touch atypical.

The first is the rather dramatic, set-piece start, quite unlike the beginnings of the other books in the series. A businessman shot publicly in a prominent hotel is unusual for this author-couple, known for their penchant for non-drama. The second is the policemen wondering about the motive for the crime right at the beginning – it seemed a bit artificial that should start talking about it even before getting the basics facts in. But once Martin Beck gets in, it’s back to business as usual, happily (or grimly, as it were). In the authors’ own words,

Whereas everything happened on Monday and something on Tuesday, nothing at all happened on Wednesday. Nothing that furthered the investigation, anyway.

Murder at the Savoy is a typically gripping police procedural thriller from the dependent and consistent Swedish couple – a case of a sudden murder of a prominent not-so-popular industrialist being cracked by the police (especially Martin Beck) in his thorough, pedestrian, risk-averse manner. A typical dramatic start, a detailed investigation and a logical and unsurprising denouement.

The Sjöwall / Wahlöö staples are present in good measure – the social commentary; the rant at the Swedish political system; humour in the form of the dig at the secret police and the parody of the plainclothesman; a support cast that’s not always supportive; and a typically bleak summary, as felt by Martin Beck. (Caution: plot spoilers here; skip this excerpt if you plan to read the book.)

Moreover, a case has been wound up.

He should have felt good, but it didn’t seem that way.

…

Viktor Palmgren was dead.

Gone forever and missed by no one, save for a handful of international swindlers and representatives of suspect regimes in countries far away. They would soon learn to do business with Mats Linder instead, and so things would be, to all intents and purposes, unchanged.

Charlotte Palmgren was now very rich and practically independent, and as far as one could see, Linder and Hoff-Jensen had a brilliant future in store.

Hampus Broberg would probably be able to avoid another arrest, and a staff of well-paid lawyers would show that he hadn’t misappropriated or tried to smuggle stocks out of the country or done anything else illegal. His wife and daughter were already in safety in Switzerland or Liechtenstein with fat bank accounts at their disposal. Helena Hansson would probably receive some sort of sentence, but certainly not so severe that she couldn’t set herself up in her former profession within the fairly near future.

There remained the shipyard caretaker, who in the course of time would be tried for second-degree, maybe first-degree murder, and then have to rot away the best years of his life in a prison cell.

Chief Inspector Martin Beck didn’t feel good at all.

When I turned over the last page of the book, I felt a little disappointed. Savoy is not the best book from the Sjöwall / Wahlöö duo. Was it the dramatic and forced opening? Was it that there was no great insight unearthed by the police? Was the perpetrator too normal to be guilty? Was it that the narrative had too many asides? (The Keystone Kops angle [not the original, let me hasten to add], I must confess, appeared to be interesting from a humour perspective, but it was all-too-brief a cameo.) Or are my expectations from Sjöwall and Wahlöö that much higher, considering The Locked Room and The Laughing Policeman, among others?

The Man Who Was Thursday: G. K. Chesterton

2007-12-06T12:44:00.000Z

(Caution: major plot spoilers ahead)

There was a certain charm to Father Brown, arguably G. K. Chesterton’s most famous creation. I could never be sure whether the Father Brown stories were crime fiction, whether they were parodies of crime fiction or whether they were just plain humour. Whatever they were, they were delightful. So it was with the same expectation that I picked up The Man Who Was Thursday. However, the sub-title, A Nightmare, suggested something ominously different. And when C. S. Lewis opined that the book was a powerful picture of the loneliness and bewilderment which each of us encounters in his single-handed struggle with the universe, my fears were exacerbated.

Was I in for some bleak reading, I wondered. I could’ve been, if I had read the book when it was first released almost exactly a century ago, when the anarchists were a real group. But stripped of that social surrounding (thankfully, from a reader’s perspective), Thursday read more like a parody of the anarchists than the depressing commentary it could have been.

The plot is simple enough – it is about the (intended) activities of a group of seven anarchists in turn-of-the-century London who name themselves after the days of the week. Together, they constitute a Central Anarchist Council. But that is not really the point of Thursday. It is the ideas it explores, using the characters.

Many small but significant threads make Thursday a true classic. An unmistakable Christian allegory jumps out from the book. How else would you explain the chief of the anarchists going by the name of Sunday? Who does he represent? Make what you will of this conversation between two of the council members about Sunday.

“Professor,” he cried, “it is intolerable. Are you afraid of this man?”

The professor lifted his heavy lids, and gazed at Syme with large, wide-open, blue eyes of an almost ethereal honesty.

“Yes, I am,” he said mildly. “So are you.”

Syme was dumb for an instant. Then he rose to his feet erect, like an insulted man, and thrust the chair away from him.

“Yes,” he said in a voice indescribable, “you are right. I am afraid of him. Therefore I swear by God that I will seek out this man whom I fear until I find him, and strike him on the mouth. If heaven were his throne and the earth his footstool, I swear that I would pull him down.”

Then there is the whole idea of double agents. As the book moves on, the revelations become predictable. Surely the man who produced the Father Brown stories would have foreseen this? So possibly the intent is something else? A commentary on the hypocrisy of the anarchists’ movement perhaps? A parody on the real identity of man may be?

And then there are those brief but delightful asides. The debate on the nature of poetry right at the beginning is one example, including this comparison between poets and anarchists.

“An artist is identical with an anarchist,” he cried. “You might transpose the words anywhere. An anarchist is an artist. The man who throws a bomb is an artist, because he prefers a great moment to anything. He sees how much more valuable is one burst of blazing light, one peal of perfect thunder, than the mere bodies of a few shapeless policemen. An artist disregards all governments, abolishes all conventions. The poet delights in disorder only. If it were not so, the most poetical thing in the world would be the Underground Railway.”

And while artists and anarchists share similarities, what about criminals and philosophers?

We say that the most dangerous criminal now is the entirely lawless modern philosopher. Compared to him, burglars and bigamists are essentially moral men; my heart goes out to them. They accept the essential idea of man; they merely seek it wrongly. Thieves respect property. They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it. But philosophers dislike property as property; they wish to destroy the very idea of personal possession. Bigamists respect marriage, or they would not go through the highly ceremonial and even ritualistic formality of bigamy. But philosophers despise marriage as marriage. Murderers respect human life, they mere wish to attain a greater fullness of human life in themselves by the sacrifice of what seems to them to be lesser lives. But philosophers hate life itself, their own as much as other people’s.

A bit glib and extreme perhaps, but makes for good reading nevertheless.

The fleeting comment on German philosophy is another gem.

But perhaps I misunderstood the delicacies of your German philosophy. Perhaps policeman is a relative term. In an evolutionary sense, sir, the ape fades so gradually into the policeman, that I myself can never detect the shade. The monkey is the only policeman that may be. Perhaps a maiden lady on Clapham Common is the only policeman that might have been. I don’t mind being the policeman that might have been. I don’t mind being anything in German thought.

Of course, an undercurrent of humour pervades the entire book, including a hilarious side conversation in sign language, which to me is the high point of the book.

Chesterton seems to express his opinion on anarchy through the voice of one of the characters: anarchy is childishness. No wonder he has handled it in such a light manner in Thursday.

Shakespeare: Bill Bryson

2007-11-18T06:32:00.000Z

William Shakespeare was an inevitable part of my growing years in school, long years ago. In the initial years, it was Lamb’s “Tales from Shakespeare” which offered us a window into the stories in Shakespeare’s plays. Later on, it was the plays themselves, in the original – I remember “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night” being my prescribed plays in the last two years in school. Not surprisingly, in those days, we thought that William Shakespeare was the author of the plays.

Then I came across this story. An initial announcement at an Oxford ceremonial dinner to commemorate the 400^th birth anniversary of the bard went thus: “In honour of Shakespeare’s birthday, Bacon shall not be served today.” It was my first exposure to a non-Shakespeare Shakespeare.

It wasn’t too long after that when a second story hit me. It was an argument between two Oxford dons, one of whom declares that the plays of Shakespeare were written by Queen Elizabeth I. The other don, completely exasperated, asks, “But surely sir, you don’t think works of such mastery can be created by a woman?” The first don doesn’t bat an eyelid, “You miss my point entirely, sir. My fundamental assertion is that Queen Elizabeth was not a woman.”

While I was still recovering from the two seemingly improbable hypotheses of these stories, I came across a newspaper piece about a PhD scholar in England who completed his thesis and came to the following conclusion: “The plays of William Shakespeare were probably written by William Shakespeare.”

Now, many years later, I came across Shakespeare by Bill Bryson last week. I tend to approach commissioned books (this one is part of a series titled “Eminent Lives”) with a bit of suspicion, but if the subject was the bard and the author, Bill Bryson, I reckoned I was safe. I wasn’t to be disappointed.

Of course, a topic like Shakespeare offers all the opportunity in the world, because, a devoted reader can find support for nearly any position he or she wishes in Shakespeare. But put it in the hand of as consummate a writer and mind as Bryson, and what you have is sheer magic. The cogency of his arguments, the beauty of his writing, the depth of his research and the clarity of his position make Shakespeare a total delight.

It is indeed amazing that considering no one in Shakespeare’s lifetime or for the first two hundred years after his death expressed the slightest doubt about his authorship, there have been so many questions about Shakespeare.

Did he exist? Was he an individual or a syndicate? Did he write the plays that are credited to him? If he didn’t, who did? (There have been more than 50 claimants so far, including Francis Bacon and Christopher Marlowe—Queen Elizabeth I, it appears was not a very serious contender.) Who were his benefactors? Who were the muses for his sonnets? What is the chronology of his work?

The questions are many, and considering that most of the answers are based on conjecture, multiple interpretations are rife. A single line in Sonnet 107 (“The mortal moon hath her eclipse endured”) has been taken to signify at least five separate historical occurrences: an eclipse, the death of the queen, an illness of the queen, the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or a reading from a horoscope. Is it any surprise that his canon (which apparently represents about 15% of the plays that survive from his times) has sustained and is likely to continue to sustain the interest of hundreds of literary scholars and literature lovers? Has authorial intent ever been more deeply examined? It has even been suggested—seriously, it would appear—that two lines in Hamlet (“Doubt that the stars are fire / Doubt that the sun doth move”) indicate that he deduced the orbital motions of heavenly bodies well before any astronomer did. Can there be a better subject for post-modernists?

Bryson trawls through the research done by generations of Shakespeare scholars and Shakespeare represents an elegant synthesis of that. Of course, you cannot talk of Shakespeare without talking of the England and London of the sixteenth century. And Bryson combines the two elegantly when he suggests that William Shakespeare’s greatest achievement in life wasn’t writing Hamlet or the sonnets but just surviving the first year.

Shakespeare also carries a wealth of detail and trivia, of which my favourite is the P. T. Barnum story relating to Shakespeare’s birthplace. Apparently the impresario had the idea of shipping it to the United States, placing it on wheels, and sending it on a perpetual tour around the country—a prospect so alarming that money was swiftly raised in Britain to save the house as a museum and shrine. It might well have changed the history of Shakespeare research.

The last sentence of the book is as much a reflection on Bryson’s writing as it is of Shakespeare’s greatness.

Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare was unquestionably that man—whoever he was.

The Black Swan: Nassim Nicholas Taleb

2007-11-04T19:21:00.000Z

Professor Nassim Nicholas Taleb summarizes his book early on in the prologue thus.

… in this (personal) essay, I stick my neck out and make a claim, against many of our habits of thought, that our world is dominated by the extreme, the unknown, and the very improbable (improbable according to our current knowledge—and all the while we spend our time engaged in small talk, focusing on the known, and the repeated. This implies the need to use the extreme event as a starting point and not treat it as an exception to be pushed under the rug.

If the world is dominated by the extreme, what is it an extreme of? We need the boundaries defined in the first place, don’t we?

If the world is dominated by the unknown, don’t we need to first articulate the known so we can then hope to progress towards the unknown?

If the world is dominated by the improbable, then, as a certain Sherlock Holmes would have said, “Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” So how do you eliminate the impossible?

While the author does not truly consider these, the book is not totally disappointing either. The idea of the black swan is intuitive, though not particularly original. It is not dissimilar to the management principle that exhorts organizations to define processes to identify their blind spots. Theodore Levitt’s concept of marketing myopia is perhaps on the same lines. Carl Jung, in The Undiscovered Self, suggests that the real picture consists of nothing but exceptions to the rule, and that, in consequence, absolute reality has predominantly the character of irregularity. Of course, Karl Popper introduced the original black swan to define the idea of falsifiability. Yes, we’ve known for some time now: Life happens in the fringes.

Standing as he does on the shoulders of such giants, you wonder why Nassim Taleb seems so defensive about his idea. Why denounce the entire worlds of statistics (except Benoît Mandelbrot’s work), economics (Friedrich Hayek’s thoughts and ideas seem to meet with Nassim Taleb’s approval though), and any other discipline that is involved in forecasting? If the idea of the black swan is so self-explanatory (and it certainly does seem to be), then surely it does not need to establish itself by rubbishing everything else? To quote the bard, Nassim Taleb doth protest too much, methinks.

The Nobel Prize for Economics! Yes, it is something that draws more flak than the Prize in any other discipline, and there does seem to be some basis for that. But surely Nassim Taleb is a bit too vitriolic? So much so that at one stage, he blames the Nobel Committee for not checking with people like him before awarding the Prize in a certain year! Why does the term “sour grapes” suggest itself?

Authorial presence is something you particularly don’t expect to see in non-fiction of the non-memoir variety. But NNT (as the author refers to himself whenever he tires of using the perpendicular pronoun) is present in almost every page, in almost every paragraph. While one does not dispute the approach of using personal examples, experiences, and beliefs when someone is presenting a new idea, it’s rather unfortunate that the book has more of the author than of the idea.

Then there are the tiresome neologisms, probably created with the hope that they would become buzzwords. Like platonicity, in a pejorative usage referring to our tendency to mistake the map for the territory, to focus on pure and well defined “forms.” Or the two worlds of Mediocristan (which all of us inhabit) and Extremistan (where Nassim Taleb lives, presumably with some company).

While some of the examples in the book are good, quite a few are glib. The competitive advantage of one company cannot be a black swan for another, can it? And the turkey-before-thanksgiving example is, even allowing for the fact that it was just an exaggeration to illustrate a point, quite glib and shallow. Some of the other examples are good and relevant though.

At the end of it, I wonder: Is the concept of a black swan really a black swan?

The Mammoth Book of Vintage Whodunnits: Maxim Jakubowski (Ed)

2007-10-27T18:55:00.000+01:00

A compilation is almost always likely to be a bit like a curate’s egg, because the editor’s choices are rarely likely to match any one reader’s totally. And Vintage Whodunnits follows this beat. Though one must confess that on average it is not such a bad collection. The only grouse I have is that some of the stories in this collection cannot even be loosely categorized as a whodunnit (not even as crime, in the odd instance). This is more surprising, considering there isn’t quite a shortage of whodunnits to choose from. (And as an aside, is it whoddunit or whodunit? The latter, suggests, Microsoft Word, the former is what the editor has used, not just here, but in some of the other compilations he has put together as well.)

The most interesting part about Vintage Whodunnits is that the editor has included stories from authors who are generally not known for their crime fiction – people like Arnold Bennett, Alexander Pushkin, Bulwer Lytton, Rudyard Kipling, Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, and Thomas Hardy. And some of them actually churn out a good yarn, especially Thomas Hardy with The Three Strangers. The master of countryside description spins a classic set in the English countryside he knows so well, and proves that crime is no stranger to his pen. Typically evocative of the setting, the plot is tight, if a bit predictable. Of course, a couple of others demonstrate that the whodunnit is not quite their métier, like the entirely predictable and rather naïve Murder! by Arnold Bennett and the utterly unreadable and incomprehensible The House and the Brain by Bulwer Lytton and The Limitations of Pambé Serang by Rudyard Kipling. Then there is Mark Twain with the hyperbolic humour of The Stolen White Elephant and an equally funny but much more believable A Personal Magnet from O Henry.

The usual suspects are there of course, spinning their tales effortlessly and effectively, like Wilkie Collins with The Biter Bit, Baroness Orczy with The Dublin Mystery, Alexandre Dumas with Markheim, and the inevitable Edgar Allan Poe with The Purloined Letter and Arthur Conan Doyle with The Adventure of the Three Students – not the best Sherlock Holmes mystery, but not a bad pick for this compilation. And then there are those characters – E. W. Hornung’s Raffles, Maurice Leblanc’s Arsene Lupin (the story Edith Swan-Neck is a real classic), Ernest Bramah’s blind detective Carraras, and the eponymous Nick Carter (the modestly titled tale Nick Carter, Detective is a real let-down, a bit of a waste of time, really).

A varied collection, Vintage Whodunnits is a good companion for a relaxed weekend.

Crowds and Power: Elias Canetti

2007-09-08T06:58:00.000+01:00

Crowds and Power is the magnum opus of the 1981 Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti. On a subject as unusual as crowds, Canetti delves deep, with detailed examples from human tribes of the past and present, the animal kingdom, and warfare, among others. With a depth of research and clarity of thought that is as extensive as it is incisive.

When Canetti states, “The stillest crowd is the crowd of enemy dead,” a quiver passes through my spine. When he asserts, “The worst that can happen to men in war is to perish together; and this spares them death as individuals, which is what they most fear,” I am awestruck. And when he defines the concentration of a secret as “the ratio between the number of those it concerns and the number of people who possess it,” my hands tremble as I realize I am holding one of those absolutely outstanding pieces of work.

These are just three random examples from a book full of such classics of logic, explanation, and pattern recognition. And along the way, Canetti provides us with extremely simple but exceedingly powerful definitions of some world-changing concepts. My favorite is on socialism, captured in one succinct paragraph.

Justice requires that everyone should have enough to eat. But it also requires that everyone should contribute to the production of food. The overwhelming majority of men are engaged in the production of good of all kinds; something has gone wrong with distribution. This, reduced to the simplest terms, is the content of socialism.

Considering that Canetti is half-Jewish and lived through the War in his prime years, the inevitable anti-Hitler sentiment is evident, but the way he describes how Hitler used inflation to build the case against the Jews is a true masterpiece.

The distinction between power and force is another mini-classic. The contrast between the two, power being the permanent feature and force being the immediate manifestation of it, is, er, extremely powerful. Another brilliant exposition is on the nature of questions and answers and how power moves subtly from the answerer to the questioner as more and more questions get asked and answered.

I can go on and on about the different pieces of the book. But you would be better served if you pick up a copy and read it. The simple, lucid translation by Carol Stewart is worthy of mention as well.

The Emerging Mind: V. S. Ramachandran

2007-08-27T13:37:00.000+01:00

Dr. V. S. Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at the University of California, delivered The Emerging Mind as the Reith Lectures in 2003. The Reith Lectures is an annual affair hosted by the BBC, and has been in existence from 1948. The fact that it has featured such eminents as Bertrand Russell (in the inaugural year), Arnold Toynbee, Robert Oppenheimer, Peter Medawar, J. K. Galbraith, and Edward Said in the past is testimony to Dr. V. S. Ramachandran’s standing in the intellectual community. The book is a compilation of these lectures.

For those who have read Ramachandran’s Phantoms in the Brain, this book might evoke a sense of déjà vu. Which is not surprising, considering that Ramachandran deals with the same subject and issues in The Emerging Mind as he did in Phantoms, albeit in a more condensed manner.

One of the key themes that Ramachandran wrestles with is an explanation of all human behavior and responses in terms of the workings of the brain. Therefore, his questioning of the Freudian line of thinking is not surprising, almost expected. As far as Ramachandran is concerned, if the body feels something, it has something to with the brain; if an emotion is evoked in the senses, there ought to be a corresponding activity in the brain that explains the emotion. Believers in the occult and the fantastic (and in Freud) may not accept the Ramachandran line of thinking, and the feeling (thinking?) is bound to be totally mutual.

I read (and reviewed) Phantoms in the Brain a few months ago, and one of the characteristics of that book was the focus on individual case studies. The Emerging Mind has a little less of it, may be a function of the need for brevity in the lecture format. Therefore, one needed to concentrate a bit more when reading Mind, even though it is quite a slim volume of essays.

While Ramachandran comes at it purely from the perspective of the brain, the aspects that he touches are quite all-encompassing, ranging across personal characteristics, family interaction, social behavior, free will, philosophy, and art. Quite an interesting list, and quite interesting connections. Of course, the author himself states that some of his conclusions are still preliminary and need further research and substantiation. It is this experimental nature (with simple ingenious tests, another staple of this scientist-thinker) of Dr. Ramachandran’s analyses and conclusions that make them even more interesting to contemplate (and attempt to refute.)

The other aspects of Ramachandran’s writing – the simple language and the earthy humor (with digs at Texas, George W. Bush, and the Jews even, among others) – are present in good measure in Mind, which make the book delightful reading.

The transcripts of the actual Reith lectures can be found here, but the print version has been enhanced with extensive notes and a useful glossary, which helped a layperson like me better understand some of the technical concepts that are dealt with in the book.

Modesty Blaise: Peter O’Donnell

2007-08-26T07:21:00.001+01:00

As with James Bond, I decided to get started on Modesty Blaise with the first in the series. And the first book is evidence that Peter O’Donnell was clearly building Modesty up as a serial star. The myth-building is very evident, the characterization is so larger-than-life it would have been a shame if it had been a one-book character. Of course, a three-year run as a successful comic strip would have encouraged O’Donnell into thinking that a series of novels with Modesty Blaise is bound to be successful.

While the comparison with James Bond is inevitable, let me just point out one key difference between the two in terms of characterization, and get out of the comparison game. James Bond’s character is based on the narrated successes from his past, even in the first book, Casino Royale. In the case of Modesty Blaise, her character and the aura around her have been shaped by her upbringing, the travails she had faced as a child, and the experiences she had had in her growing years, be it the fact that she had been raped twice (and therefore learns the art of becoming unconscious at will) or that that she worked in as an assistant in a barber’s shop. (An essay titled Girl Walking, written by Peter O’Donnell in 2006 throws light on the genesis of the Modesty Blaise character.)

Back to the book itself.

Modesty Blaise is a regulation super-thriller, with an invincible protagonist (and a loyal second lieutenant), a seemingly formidable set of enemies, a task that is beyond a country’s conventional crime-busters, multiple locales, a grueling climax, and it-all-ends-happily-for-the-good finale. I admit that is a bit of an oversimplification, but at a broad level that is what it is. It can be argued that a bulk of superhero thriller fiction pans out that way, with variations in some of the elements, and so it is. But the difference in Modesty Blaise is Modesty Blaise. And her approach in perfecting herself in everything she does or needs to do to succeed.

I wasn’t good with a gun, like you. I spent two hours a day for two years, making myself good. It might not seem worth it. How often do you really need to use a gun—I mean, to shoot with it? Once in three, four, five years? All right, I spent fifteen hundred hours making myself ready for that one time. Because I’m a professional, Paul.

As tends to be the case with super-heroes, the thrill is not really on whether they will succeed, but how. And in Modesty Blaise’s case, she seems to do it rather effortlessly, thanks to her invincible multi-dimensional skills, her history of successful endeavors (a touch tall, considering how young she is), and her reliable assistant, Willie Garvin. That perhaps is a bit of a letdown in the book. I didn’t quite sweat in any part of it. Even when Modesty puts herself up as live bait to the enemy and exposes herself to the brutalities of Mrs. Fothergill.

When I finished reading Modesty Blaise, it left me with a strange melancholic feeling for Modesty. Even though she succeeds, she still seems to be seeking something elusive and unattainable. Is it happiness? Is it peace? Is it acceptance? Is it love? I wonder whether the later books answer this question. Or is she the statue of the perfect woman, the real one hidden, never to come out?

Casino Royale: Ian Fleming

2007-08-14T06:28:00.000+01:00

Another confession, after the Alistair MacLean one: this is my first James Bond read. Since I am not much of a film buff either, the only Bond film I’ve seen is Octopussy, and my sole memory of that film is Vijay Amritraj focusing a close circuit camera on a woman’s cleavage. I was probably of that age then. But I digress before I begin.

I thought I’ll get a sense of the icon that James Bond is and so I decided to start from the beginning. (Am doing likewise with Modesty Blaise as well – that review shall follow later.) Casino Royale ushered in arguably the most famous introduction in the world of spy fiction, nay, in all fiction, with “Mine’s Bond – James Bond.” Spydom was never the same again.

Of course, hindsight is always perfect. So it’s easy to see why James Bond became what he was. But Casino Royale has rather unassuming beginnings, a touch overwritten and melodramatic even, quite in contrast to the suave protagonist.

The scent and smoke and sweat of a casino are nauseating at three in the morning. Then the soul-erosion produced by high gambling – a compost of greed and fear and nervous tension – becomes unbearable and the senses awake and revolt from it.

But since you know it’s about a cult personality, you plough on. And you don’t get disappointed. The myth construction is massive, the image building is unmissable, the action is either looming or is on. (However, it would be interesting to read early reviews of Casino Royale, from reviewers for whom James Bond was not yet the James Bond.)

As you gradually delve into the book, the pieces come together. The first piece – the “women as sex symbol” attitude.

‘First of all, and he inhaled a thick lungful of Caporal, ‘you will be very pleased with your Number Two. She is very beautiful’ – Bond frowned – ‘very beautiful indeed.’ Satisfied with Bond’s reaction, Mathis continued: ‘she has black hair, blue eyes, and splendid . . . er . . . protuberances. Back and front,’ he added. ‘And she is a wireless expert which, though sexually less interesting, makes her a perfect employee of Radio Stentor and assistant to myself in my capacity as wireless salesman for this rich summer season down here.’

Then comes the 007 car. As original as its owner.

Bond’s car was his only personal hobby. One of the last of the 4 ½-litre Bentleys with the supercharger by Villiers, he had bought it almost new in 1933 and had kept it in careful storage through the war. It was still serviced every year and, in London, a former Bentley mechanic, who worked in a garage near Bond’s Chelsea flat, tended it with jealous care. Bond drove it hard and well and with an almost sensual pleasure. It was a battleship-grey convertible coupé, which really did convert, and it was capable of touring at ninety with thirty miles an hour on reserve.

The legend of the Bond car is well and truly under way. Except, you wonder, if he were a secret agent, would he want such a conspicuous car, such an obvious giveaway? Well, I suppose if you are creating legends, you need the trappings.

Then the drink. ‘Shaken, not stirred’ is an expression we hear often enough. But what really is the secret recipe of Bond’s drink?

‘A dry martini,’ he said. ‘One. In a deep champagne goblet.’

‘Oui, monsieur.’

‘Just a moment. Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it’s ice cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?’

Ah, I’m thirsty.

As with most superstar character building, James Bond’s reputation is built on some of the cases he reportedly worked on successfully before the current one. In a classic reversal of the old dictum “show, don’t tell,” the superstar’s exploits are told to us from his past. The current case he handles is just one more in the long line, as it were. Quite a bit of the Sherlock Holmes legend also, if memory serves me right, was built this way.

I realize I’m long into the review but I’ve barely talked about the book. But that’s the nature of the beast, isn’t it? You read (or watch) James Bond for James Bond, not for the plot. Of course, Casino Royale has a plot – the hero busts a Russian spy by beating him at the baccarat table. And while he gets there, there are attempts on his life, he kills some Russian’s underlings along the way, and there is the odd twist with a beautiful woman. Of course, a lot of what he achieves is attributable to good fortune, but then James Bond is the kind of character who can charm the pants off lady luck, or so the legend got built.

With a character as memorable as James Bond, you could have a plot so thin it can be written on the back of a bus ticket, and still make for a great read. That’s Casino Royale for you.

I suppose it’s fair to assume that though Ian Fleming probably planned to create James Bond as a character who would travel through a series of books, he wouldn’t have realized what a cult he was about to create. But if the racy style of the narrative is anything to go by, he certainly intended a movie version of the book. Now the book carries an image from the movie. Did Ian Fleming succeed?

One last snippet on the personality of James Bond.

‘I take a ridiculous pleasure in what I eat and drink. It comes partly from being a bachelor, but mostly from a habit of taking a lot of trouble over details. It’s very pernickety and old-maidish really, but then when I’m working I generally have to eat my meals alone and it makes them more interesting when one takes trouble.’

That to me defines the character. And its success.

Perineum: Ambarish Satwik

2007-07-21T07:47:00.000+01:00

How would your biography read if it were written by your spouse? Or by your closest friend? Imagine how different it would have been if it had been written by, take your pick, your barber, your dentist, your beautician, your gym instructor, or your music instructor. Now what if your sessions with the surgeon who worked on your nether region were chronicled by the surgeon? That is what Ambarish Satwik attempts in Perineum, in a fictional sense.

Apart from rhyming with Imperium, I could make precious little of what Perineum meant when I first heard of the book. Answers.com defined it for me:

Perineum (n) 1. The portion of the body in the pelvis occupied by urogenital passages and the rectum, bounded in front by the pubic arch, in the back by the coccyx, and laterally by part of the hipbone. 2. The region between the scrotum and the anus in males, and between the posterior vulva junction and the anus in females.

The sub-title of the book, Nether Parts of the Empire, er, revealed a bit more.

So there you are, Perineum looks at the usually covered part of the bodies of some of the key people who were part of colonial India. It is a collection of thirteen stories, each examining a fictionalized mal-function in the generally-covered region of the body of one notable character in the British Empire in India. Covering famous characters like Robert Clive, King George V, Vinayak Savarkar, and M A Jinnah (and a few others), with a nod to Mahatma Gandhi, Perineum is expectedly irreverent and decidedly funny.

Experimentation with form, structure, narrative, and plot themes has been quite in vogue in writing, more so in recent times as people from different professions have been lured by ink. First time author Ambarish Satwik, (surprise, surprise, he is a surgeon by profession) has taken it to a different level with Perineum. And he succeeds. The language is also light and period-appropriate, so that accentuates the humor and the authenticity of the narrative.

A big temptation in an approach like this would have been to go into the erotic and sensual, and mix the scatological with it, but the author does well to eschew that and keep his focus clear. The absence of word-play is another significant characteristic of the book – thus making it read almost like a formal report, enhancing the humor even more.

Of course, the book sends you off more than once to Gray’s Anatomy (or an equivalent guide) to figure out the meaning of words and expressions. But the images are useful and help enhance one’s understanding.

In the Heat of the Night: John Ball

2007-07-13T13:37:00.000+01:00

Just as movie sequels almost always end up not being as good as the first in the series, so have re-reads of books turned out for me. Of course, there are glorious exceptions. Like Godfather in the film world. And In the Heat of the Night for me.

When I first read Heat many years ago, what struck me was the tightness of the plot, the sharpness of the characterization, and the evocative nature of the simple language. Now, when I re-read it, the feeling is exactly the same.

Written in the mid-1960s, Heat is a compelling narrative on racial discrimination in the small towns of America’s Deep South. Not only the fact that the “n” word was used commonly, openly, and offensively, but that a black person was just not expected to be good, and even if he is, the grudging admiration ends up demonstrating discrimination in the most chilling manner: “Smartest black I ever saw. He oughta been a white man.”

Heat can be read just for the characterization of Virgil Tibbs. He who is Virgil to the local cops of the city of Wells, who is always Tibbs to the narrator. How he maintains his dignity in the face of blatant discrimination and ill-treatment, and how he gradually earns Chief Bill Gillespie’s (grudging) admiration is truly impressive.

Purely as a police procedural, Heat delivers as well. Red herrings, misjudgments, the odd piece of luck, all come together well with the rigorous approach Virgil Tibbs follows in his investigation, piecing together clues like the weather (the title ensures we don’t miss that clue), the state of the victim’s palms, and the behavioral traits of the victim to track the murderer.

Even the movie version could not mess with Heat – Norman Jewison deserves credit for sticking to the book faithfully, and Sidney Poitier does a splendid job as Virgil Tibbs.

It is no surprise that Heat won an Edgar Award and a Golden Dagger, and was selected one of the top hundred detective novels of the century by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

When I read Heat for the first time, I almost took a day off college to finish reading it. When I read it this time, I almost took a day off work to do likewise. Don’t be surprised if you feel the same once you start it. Safer still, start off on it on a Friday evening – you’ll finish it by Saturday morning.

Puppet on a Chain: Alistair MacLean

2007-06-19T16:36:00.000+01:00

A confession to begin with: this is the first Alistair MacLean book I’ve read. Though I had seen the film version of Guns of Navarone, I somehow had an impression that most of MacLean’s works were set in the sea, which is not particularly my locale. Hence, I stayed away from MacLean. But after a recent conversation with a few friends on authors in our growing years, I realized that MacLean was more than just a maritime master. So I picked up Puppet on a Chain and tried to mentally roll back the years and read it like I was in school.

Puppet is a racy, first person narrative that sustained my interest throughout. And even though the action unfolds in rapid succession through the book, it still gives you a sense of slowness – may be it is a function of the pace of life in Amsterdam. Ideal Sunday afternoon read for a crime lover, this.

Human life is not of much of a premium in Puppet considering that people seem to falling dead right through the book – some bizarrely, some expectedly, and some, surprisingly. On the contrary, our hero Paul Sherman appears invincible. He runs Interpol’s narcotic bureau in London, and comes down to Amsterdam on an assignment. And while at every turn, there is a murder attempt on him, he comes unscathed in every instance. Of course he has to, considering he is the hero, so much so that he escapes three near-impossible situations (or is it four?) on one single day towards the end. May be he could have been a serial hero in all of the author’s works – a la Sherlock Holmes, Hercule Poirot, Simon Templar, Norman Conquest, and the like.

While the use of a puppet to transport narcotics (not an unusual idea, but an effective one nevertheless) gives it a physical dimension, the title also refers to the addicts being like puppets manipulated by the pushers and the powers-that-be (or shouldn’t be?). No wonder then, that the puppet is not the only aspect of the book, as Paul Sherman “considered the relationship between fast me with fast guns and pushers and sick girls and hidden eyes behind puppets and people and taxis who followed me everywhere I went and policemen being blackmailed and venal managers and door-keepers and tinny barrel-organs.” Sums up his opposition in one fell swoop. Some of the villain characters are interestingly portrayed. For fear of revealing some of the suspense, I shall not write more about them.

Amsterdam alone makes Puppet worth the read. I remember making a similar comment in my review of March Violets about how it made me get a feel of the streets of Berlin in the 1930s. Puppet does a like job for Amsterdam of the late 1960s and its surrounds. I haven’t come across another part of the world that befits this description.

Theft, apparently, was no problem on the island of Huyler, a fact which I found hardly surprising: when the honest citizens of Huyler went in for crime they went in for it in an altogether bigger way.

After reading Puppets, I can understand why MacLean had so many loyal readers as puppets on his chain of writing.

The Case of the Bonsai Manager: R. Gopalakrishnan

2007-06-16T14:46:00.000+01:00

No, don’t get misled by the title – this is not one of those riveting novels featuring the dapper Perry Mason and the charming Della Street. The sub-title, Lessons from Nature on Growing is a more accurate indicator of what the book is about.

Using animal behavior to derive learnings for human beings is as old as the concept of story-telling itself – Aesop’s Fables, the Hitopadesa, and the Jataka Tales are probably early examples of this. Of late, using animal stories as a metaphor for organizational learning has taken off quite significantly – Squirrel Inc. is an example of that. But Bonsai is different, because Gopalakrishnan uses the natural behavior of certain animals (many of them unknown and therefore esoteric for someone who is not an avid watcher of Discovery Channel or National Geographic Channel) and complements that with real-life business examples, especially from his personal life and those of the people he has worked with. Great concept, and lends itself to an interesting read. A different kind of business how-to book, surely.

Unfortunately, Bonsai suffers in execution.

With a title like the one it has, you expect a story of a manager whose career gets stunted, and a detailed analysis of how it turned out that way. But the bonsai manager seems to be just one interesting analogy in the book. And he keeps making sudden appearances in the narrative without any conceivable connection.

Some of the examples seem weak or forced or appear unconnected to the point being made. Moreover, the author also insists on displaying his erudition by bringing in examples from literature and history. Except that in quite a few cases, the examples don’t quite seem relevant, and there is not even an attempt to fully express some of the literary references, let alone explain them. Is the reader supposed to learn that a “very lyrical description by Vladimir Nabakov, author of Lolita, appears in his speech at Cornell about the transition of the caterpillar” and then do his / her own research to get access to that speech?

Authorial presence is usually considered a strong point in fiction. But the same probably does not hold good for non-fiction, even (especially?) memoirs. And if it is exercised by the excessive use of the perpendicular pronoun as is the case with Bonsai, all the more the pity. Add to that a truly humongous number of exclamation marks, and you get a marathon navel-gazing exercise. The sudden jumps in thought from one paragraph to another suggests the same thing as well. You almost get the sense that a series of post-dinner conversations (not formal talks) have been compiled and released in the form of this book. Was the editor overawed by the fact that the author is a senior corporate executive?

Speaking of editors, the book could have done with a good long copy-edit as well. Cavalier language, incorrect grammar and bad punctuation, random expansions of some abbreviations and not others, the odd missing definite article, bulleted lists that are not parallel in structure… Enough to turn a curmudgeonly reader, why even a grammatically unfussy reader, off.

As senior corporate executives reach the sunset of their illustrious careers, they justifiably seek to make a contribution to posterity, a legacy that lives beyond them, and perhaps R. Gopalakrishnan is no different. And he almost succeeds.

But, as Gopalakrishnan himself would admit, a good idea is only as good as its execution. That, sadly, is where Bonsai fails. It is a classic case of a missed opportunity, may be missed opportunities. There are possibly three books here – a connection between nature and business, a case study of a bonsai manager and how s/he became that way, and a memoir. May be Gopalakrishnan could have taken up one topic at a time, and considered three books. Or just used these undoubtedly interesting ideas in a post-retirement career as an after-dinner speaker – his style of writing suggests he may be quite good in that format.

Creating Minds: Howard Gardner

2007-06-10T15:28:00.000+01:00

Howard Gardner’s lasting contribution to human psychology is perhaps the classification of the human mind into multiple intelligences, as expressed in books like Frames of Mind and Multiple Intelligences, among others. In Changing Minds, he focuses on creativity, quite often seen as an outcome of intelligence.

Changing Minds is a study of the life and times of seven eminent contemporary greats – Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, T. S. Eliot, Martha Graham, and Mohandas Gandhi. Gardner analyzes the life and achievements of each of these luminaries, and synthesizes the commonalities to, in a sense, the dimensions of creativity.

As is Gardner’s wont, he approaches the task in a structured manner, defining organizing themes, an organizing framework, and issues for empirical investigation, and identifying emerging themes. The last one, identifying emerging themes, is particularly interesting, because they have emerged out of the study of the seven individuals. In other words, Gardner seemed to have looked for a commonality across the seven individuals on some pre-determined parameters, but the two themes that emerged caught even Gardner by surprise.

The first self-confessing truth that Gardner talks about is that almost all creators (Gardner is unable to establish this clearly in all cases though, especially in the case of Gandhi), during the time of their important breakthroughs had some kind of a significant support system.

The first issue surfaced during examinations of the period during which a creator made his or her most important breakthrough. I knew that at least some creators had close confidants during this time. But what emerged from the study was more dramatic: not only did the creators all have some kind of significant support system at that time, but this support system appeared to have a number of defining components.

It is perhaps a slightly counter-intuitive argument because it is quite often felt that creative geniuses are reclusive individuals who achieve everything they do in spite of resistance from their environment, not because of support from it.

The second commonality that emerged unannounced is that each individual seems to have had to sacrifice something significant to achieve their creative breakthroughs.

My study reveals that, in one way or another, each of the creators became embedded in some kind of a bargain, deal, or Faustian arrangement, executed as a means of ensuring the preservation of his or her unusual gifts. In general, the creators were so caught up in the pursuit of their work mission that they sacrificed all, especially the possibility of a rounded personal experience.

While not surprising in itself, it suggests that at some level, creativity (interestingly referred to as the act of creation by Gardner in the aforementioned extract) demands its own pound of flesh.

Another insight that Gardner comes out with is the duration of time that it takes for an individual to achieve mastery in his / her métier. And, astonishingly, in the case of all the seven individuals portrayed in this book, there has been a gap of at least ten years before they came out with creative breakthroughs in their fields. And even more staggeringly, it took them a similar time period for their next big breakthrough.

The structure of the book is biographical in nature, with separate chapters on each individual with synthesizing arguments interspersed. This leads to the interesting facets about each of the worthies. Depending on your comfort levels with certain domains, some chapters are easier to comprehend than others. (For instance, while I found it easy to follow the life and times of people like Freud, Eliot, and Gandhi, I quite got lost reading about Stravinsky and Martha Graham.)

In a study of characters as diverse as these and with the objective of establishing a common set of observations, it is inevitable that there are areas where force-fitting sets in a bit. The explanation of Picasso’s Faustian bargain is one such.

Picasso had promised God that he would stop painting in gratitude if Conchita’s [his sister] life were saved; and since this bargain had not been accepted, the deeply superstitious Picasso felt both free to do whatever he wanted in his professional and personal lives and concomitantly guilty at this hubristic seizure of power.

Another gap in the book is perhaps attributable to the fact that all the greats profiled are fairly recent figures and so Gardner seems to have a qualitative view of them. That Gardner has been inspired a lot by Freud seems to reflect in the almost-hagiographic profile of Freud. On the other hand, Gardner seems to be overly critical of Gandhi, focusing more on his negative aspects than in the case of the others. Surely each individual had two sides to his/her personality?

Notwithstanding these gaps, Changing Minds is an insightful read into the lives of seven people who fashioned the world in the 20^th century. And considering the nature of the topic, a surprisingly easy one at that.

The Interpretation of Murder: Jed Rubenfeld

2007-06-02T13:49:00.000+01:00

A woman is found dead in her penthouse apartment in downtown New York; the next day, a beautiful heiress is found almost dead in her parent’s home, not too far away. The two crimes are so similar, that the perpetrator is unquestionably the same. Enter the investigators. And that is where The Interpretation of Murder is different – there are two parallel investigations, one by the police, and the other, by a psychoanalyst, Stratham Younger, with a little bit of assistance from a certain Sigmund Freud.

The story is set in 1909, the year Freud visited the U.S. for the only time in his life to deliver a series of lectures at Clark University. Of course, Interpretation is fictitious, but by virtue of it melding real characters (Freud and Carl Jung being the chief of them) with fictitious ones, it makes for an interesting read.

Interpretation is beautifully written (Jen Rubenfeld, a first-time author, is Professor of Law at Yale University) and brings to life the New York of the early 20^th century very evocatively (including the construction of Times Square under the aegis of Mayor George McClellan). Apart from that, it also presents the psychoanalytical investigations of Stratham Younger in language that is non-technical and jargon-free. Considering the structure of the book, there are different narratives, and they are in different voices – it is an interesting approach, and has been handled very well, even though it hasn’t followed the usual style of each chapter focusing one strand.

If there is one area where Interpretation falters, it is in the treatment of the police investigation, consequent to which, the twists and turns towards the end of the book are a bit sudden, unbelievable and a touch too dramatic. Coroner Hugel is not characterized particularly well, and Littlemore, who is introduced as a novice assistant to Coroner Hugel, comes across as a parody for a detective. Initially, it appeared like a conscious characterization, but his subsequent activities belie this personality definition. Littlemore is probably a great opportunity missed in Interpretation.

The insights into and of Freud and Jung are fascinating, though it is set in a fictionalized environment. Freud’s praise for Jung is particularly interesting (He is more important than the rest of us put together), considering how the two actually fell out in real life. Clashes between the two are also brought out, particularly their views on incest.

History has it that Freud did not enjoy his trip to the U.S. at all, and it left some lasting scars in him. While there apparently is no official statement from Freud on this, Jed Rubenfeld tries to give it his own interpretation, putting the following words in Freud’s mouth.

This country of yours: I am suspicious of it. Be careful. It brings out the worst in people – crudeness, ambition, savagery. There is too much money. I see the prudery for which your country is famous, but it is brittle. It will shatter in the whirlwind of gratification being called forth. America, I fear, is a mistake.

Freud may well have actually said it.

Think: Michael R. LeGault

2007-05-28T09:05:00.000+01:00

After trawling through 254 pages of Think, you find the author articulating the book’s thesis: Critical thinking depends on analysis and logic, and action. I wish we had seen more of the first two in the book.

Think is Michael R. LeGault’s criticism (I almost said “critique”) of Malcolm Gladwell’s much-acclaimed Blink. So why is it not just a long scathing review in The Washington Times (where Michael LeGault worked)? Or a furious post in LeGault’s blog? Why did LeGault have to make a book of it?

I wonder whether LeGault missed Malcolm Gladwell’s key argument in Blink – snap decision-making is about “thin slicing,” which is not quite unthinking guesswork, but an ability to, in a sense, separate the grain from the chaff. This misinterpretation is perhaps the undoing of Think.

Consequently, the book ends up as one long rant at virtually everything – corporate America, the government, the education system, the media, the bureaucracy… LaGault’s argument seems to be that the whole world has stopped thinking, and therefore we are all going to perish. And as ranters go, LeGault is quite aggressive in his language, uses quick data to make points that appear specious, and offers arguments that seem shallow and superficial. Which is ironic, considering the theme of the book. Here are some LeGault-isms.

It wasn’t as clear to me then as it is now that GM had committed the most grievous of sins in the business world. It had created and daily sanctioned a culture of unaccountability. As it had grown to dominate the industry, it had become the ultimate government project, insulated from customers, ideas, and the dynamics of the market. A culture of unaccountability is a culture without incentive, and a culture without incentive is the death of critical and creative thinking. (This strong judgment could have been palatable if it had been preceded by some really strong thinking; except that there are just the two examples that precede this assertion.)
Despite its dubious meaning, or perhaps because of it, “stress” gets prolific coverage in the media. My search engine retrieved 80 million hits on stress in less than two-tenths of a second. Madonna, by comparison, netted 20 million hits, marijuana only 11 million. (Can we also conclude that Madonna is more popular than marijuana?)
The people who succeed, find fulfillment, make a decent living under these new conditions will be the ones who understand that the fashionable dictates about the questionable relevance of formal, book-style learning and knowledge are themselves old-fashioned. This isn’t about solving the conundrum of the Unmoved Mover or an expanding universe. It’s about being able to express viewpoints and rationally debate important issues with family, friends, and colleagues. It’s about winning a contract with a company in India by being able to recite a few lines of the Bhagwat Gita. (What was that again?)

It’s a pity, really, because there are quite a few interesting facts and observations in Think. It’s just that while trying to bend everything in the direction of anti-Blink, LaGault ends up losing focus. Moreover, with the tone being so critical, the real arguments drown in a sea of vitriol.

Codex: Lev Grossman

2007-05-26T16:54:00.000+01:00

Edward Wozny is a young, successful investment banker. He is between jobs – moving from New York to London. He has a fortnight between jobs. And what does he do? Well, to begin with, he is asked to catalog the book collection of a rich English client of his New York employer (well, ex-employer, technically). Of course, he is not overly excited about it. So he decides to give it up after the first day. But then he discovers that there is more to it than just cataloguing – there is a mysterious codex that is missing and needs to be tracked out. But Edward does not even know what a codex is. Thankfully, help is at hand, in the form of research scholar Margaret Napier.

“A codex—” She stopped and half turned. She seemed nonplussed at having to define so basic a concept. “A codex is just—it’s a codex. As opposed to a scroll, or a wax tablet, or a rock with words chiseled on it. A codex is a set of printed pages, folded and bound with a spine between two covers. It’s what someone like you would call a book.”

Edward has a close friend called Zeph, a computer-game nerd. Zeph introduces Edward to computer games, specifically a game called Momus. Now Edward is not at all interested in computer games, but he gets hooked to Momus. So whenever he is not with Margaret, trying to track the missing codex, he is with his laptop, trying to crack Momus.

As you would have guessed by now, the strands of the narrative are not independent – they collide as the plot thickens. There are clues in the game that help Edward get closer to the codex, and that helps him do better at Momus in return.

If you ignore the incongruity of an investment banker being called to catalog a book collection, Codex is tremendously promising. But it leaves you feeling just a bit short in some aspects. The narrative is a bit too straight with an unvarying tone and pace; the inter-textual references are sparse and predictable; beyond Edward and Margaret, you hardly know anything about any of the others (I especially wanted to know a lot more about the client and his family); and there are not enough blind alleys and red herrings – in a search of this nature, you would expect more than a few of those. But the biggest disappointment was the ending – it seemed a bit too glib for me – after all, you don’t expect all i’s dotted and t’s crossed in a plot like this, do you? May be the author has an eye on a film? Notwithstanding this snatch of dialogue?

Did you read The Name of the Rose?

“Saw the movie. Sean Connery. Christian Slater.

Margaret refrained from comment.

Holmes on the Range: Steve Hockensmith

2007-05-21T07:49:00.001+01:00

Perhaps no other fictional detective has been emulated, imitated, twisted, and parodied as much as Sherlock Holmes. Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range (the first in the series) is a delightful attempt at taking Sherlock to the Wild West of the U.S.

The Brothers Gustav Amlingmeyer and Otto Amlingmeyer (Old Red and Big Red) are farm hands in Montana. The elder brother, Old Red is a fan of Sherlock Holmes (Some folks get religion. Gustav got Sherlock Holmes.) and his “deducifyin” skills, and his brother Big Red is his story reader (Old Reader can’t read while Big Red can a bit) and Dr. Watson.

Holmes on the Range, is set in 1893, so in a sense it is contemporaneous to Sherlock Holmes. Old Red and Big Red sign on (as part of a group of seven, called the Hornet’s Nesters) as hands at a secretive ranch, the Bar VR (referred to as the Cantlemere Ranch by the English owners, another nice Holmes connection). Lowly paid, working in the open in the freezing winter in a dilapidated ranch (owned, rather pompously, by the Sussex Land and Cattle Company) with a surly suspicious supervisor, the circumstances are right for Old Red to get into some “detectivizing.” A totally mutilated dead body turns up and the stage is set for the Reds. A second murder completes the set up. And the owners (the “chairman” of the Sussex Land and Cattle Company and two “shareholders”, along with their entourage) land up and Old Red is given one day by them to “solve” the mystery. How he goes about the task and succeeds forms the rest of the story. And in a delightful twist, one of the owners also has a connection with Sherlock Holmes – a little forced for sure, but delightful nevertheless.

A cannibal on the loose (Hungry Bob Tracy) is a bit of a distraction in the book, though his relevance comes in when his body parts come in handy to mask and therefore reveal one of the murders in the story. Well, Sir Doyle had a touch of the macabre in his stories as well, so we will do well to forgive Steve Hockensmith for this.

“Witty” is not a word I would have ever thought of using to characterize a book written by an American (no, I don’t mean it in the pejorative sense, it’s just that “witty” in my mind is oh-so-English), but Steve Hockensmith’s writing is precisely that. The humor is all pervasive in the dialogues between the Red brothers, and Big Red’s asides, brilliant dry wit. The book is just peppered with this that to pick just one or two examples is close to impossible. Pick up Holmes on the Range and read it – this is one book you don’t want to miss. I eagerly await the next book.

Made to Stick: Chip and Dan Heath

2007-05-19T16:27:00.000+01:00

The Sticking Point is a title the authors of Made to Stick would have surely toyed with, considering they acknowledge that the genesis of this book is The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

This book is a complement to The Tipping Point in the sense that we will identify the traits that make ideas sticky, a subject that was beyond the scope of Gladwell’s book. Gladwell was interested in what makes social epidemics epidemic. Our interest is in how effective ideas are constructed—what makes some ideas stick and others disappear.

However, Chip and Dan Heath make a significant departure from Malcolm Gladwell, in terms of their writing style—Made to Stick has a text bookish tone to it. May be it is because Chip is a professor—the didactic tone is very prevalent in the book, and that to me is one of the drawbacks. May be this book is meant for students and not corporate executives. (The Easy Reference Guide at the end suggests the same thing as well.)

And it is not just in the tone that this book is didactic. It is also in the construct—to form an acronym like SUCCESs, with the hope that we will remember it better and thus use it (and make it a household name?) smacks of academia. I shivered because it had shades of John Maeda’s The Laws of Simplicity, another book that flattered to deceive. My review of that book here.

As for the core premise of the book, ideas stick because they are simple, unexpected, concrete, credible, emotional, and are in the form of stories, is pretty much old hat. Getting ideas to stick is at the core of the advertising and communication industry—so there is nothing new Chip and Dan unearth here. At times, it is tragic (and disappointing) that they seem to be trying so hard to make an argument that no one is likely to disagree with. And to talk about how proverbs stick, well…

As you would expect with ideas, most of the examples in the book are to do with communication; however, Chip and Dan manage to bring in concepts of stickiness in product design as well. But you are bound to have heard of most of the examples, more than once.

Sure, some of the concepts like the Curse of Knowledge and the Velcro theory of memory are interesting, but if you have to dredge through 252 pages of platitudes to get them, you wonder whether it’s worth the time.

The Sultan’s Seal: Jenny White

2007-05-16T16:20:00.000+01:00

A location as rich as Istanbul, a period as ripe as the Ottoman Empire (albeit in its dying days), a palace full of intrigue, a magistrate as a detective, and the body of an unidentified naked English woman – great ingredients for a riveting detective story. So how well did first-time novelist Jenny White (whose day job is that of a professor of anthropology at Boston University) put the ingredients together?

White invokes the Istanbul of the late 19^th century exceedingly well. Her period-precise language brings the city and the period quite alive in the reader’s mind. The coming apart of the city, the uncomfortable intermingling of the west and the east, an unstated sense of societal despair – all these shine through in the narrative. However, while the palace intrigues are suggested and even mentioned in the odd instance, White doesn’t get too deep into them – this is perhaps an area she could have exploited better. You almost beg for it at times.

Notwithstanding all that, The Sultan’s Seal is a Kamil Pasha book. His characterization in the early pages is exceedingly strong. (“He is a man who controls his environment by comprehending it.”) The first chapter really raises expectations to a tremendous level. And as we go forward, and start reading a lot more into his character and his idiosyncrasies (“…he keeps a clay jar of water and a tinned mug on the dressing table in his bedroom. He drinks from it to clear his mind and calm his senses.”), the stage is set for the magistrate-detective to impress.

However, Kamil Pasha flatters to deceive. The initial characterization makes him sound almost Holmesian (a deep interest in biology invites the comparison) in personality and detecting style. Subsequent events suggest he could be a classical analytical detective – not unlike an investigator in a police procedural. So you expect him to dredge through the details and uncover the crime in layers. But he ends up coming across as neither. You almost wonder what his role is in the unraveling of the mystery. Considering The Sultan’s Seal is referred to in the cover as “A Kamil Pasha Novel,” I would imagine this to be the beginning of a series of books. And may be in the subsequent ones Kamil Pasha would settle down to do some serious detective work.

On The Wealth of Nations: P. J. O’Rourke

2007-05-12T15:54:00.000+01:00

One of America’s leading political satirists turns his eye on Adam Smith – but not with satiric intent. On The Wealth of Nations is the first in The Atlantic Monthly’s “Books That Changed The World” series.

It is tempting to deride the series as a Cliffs Notes equivalent of non-fiction, but this definitely is a useful attempt to render some of the classics into a crisper, more relevant, modern form, complete with current examples and case studies.

And you can do worse than to start with The Wealth of Nations. Unarguably one of the most influential and seminal works in the field of Economics (and may I suggest, business?), it is also arguably one of the most imposing, what with its door-stopping size. And in converting it into a sub-200 page modern version, P. J. O’Rourke has re-created a masterpiece, nay, created a modern masterpiece.

P. J. captures the simplicity of Adam Smith’s fundamental propositions – pursuit of self-interest, division of labor, and freedom of trade – and demystifies the more complex explanations and logic. His trademark satire (the book is worth reading for the humor alone!) and the fluidity of his language make this book a most entertaining and insightful read. The success of the book lies in how P. J. not only presents Adam Smith in a modern context, but also explains some of the more recent economic changes like the rise of the service economy and outsourcing in terms of what Adam Smith had written. And from a human perspective, how he manages to give us a picture of the man Adam Smith.

Another good feature of the book is that P. J. doesn’t just interpret Adam Smith. He takes a position on Adam Smith’s thoughts – and even disagrees with some of them, and offers his counter-views. This makes for interesting reading because it offers the reader an opportunity to take positions and analyze things from that perspective.

At times, P. J. does give you a sense that he is critical of Adam Smith’s writing style (… the book Smith made reads like an FBI wiretap transcription, except with deeper thoughts and no swear words.), but I think it is worth bearing that inasmuch as P. J. O’Rourke’s writing style is relevant to our times, so was Adam Smith’s in his. Which is precisely the reason this series sounds like a good idea. Keep reading, P. J. What next? You seem to be hinting at Friedrich A. Hayek’s Road to Serfdom?

Sea Change: Robert B. Parker

2007-05-08T12:00:00.000+01:00

I’ve never read (or even heard of) Robert Parker before, so when I picked up Sea Change at the airport, my expectations were not particularly high. May be it was that, may be it was because I was on a long transcontinental flight, may be it was because I was reading crime fiction after quite a long time, but Sea Change was delightful – a simple straight narrative with banter and humor, and good old-fashioned police investigation. What more do you need to put together a racy readable piece of crime fiction?

Jesse Stone comes across as a realistic cop, complete with a secretary who gently flirts with him and a sidekick with a corny nickname (Suitcase Simpson). Straight-talking, Jesse does not take much to establish his authority smoothly and unashamedly.

“Okay Jess,” Perkins said and folded the paper and put it on the conference table.” You’re the chief.”

“Yes I am,” Jesse said.

And a no-nonsense approach.

“Just as long as we’re clear on whose case it is.”

“It belongs to all of us,” Healy said, “who love truth and justice.”

“Like hell,” Jesse said. “It belongs to me.”

An undercurrent of humor runs through Sea Change so well that the crimes come across as less gruesome and tragic than they actually are. And the small touches of philosophy come across as dryly humorous as well. It almost makes you wonder whether Parker is parodying crime fiction and police procedurals.

Jesse Stone is well characterized in Sea Change. His alcoholism and his problems with his marriage are clearly not part of the narrative of Sea Change, but considering he is a constant hero for Robert Parker, it is understandable that his personality goes beyond the requirements of the plot. It did sound a bit like Maj Sjöwall’s and Per Wahlöö’s Martin Beck. But only the merest hint of a resemblance. And the comparison ends there.

The biggest drawback in Sea Change is the villain, who, considering the nature of the crimes, came across as a little too glib and smooth. You would expect some more complexity in the character of a person who committed all those heinous crimes.

Sea Change is unlikely to find a front row seat in the pantheon of crime fiction or police procedurals, but for a light read on a transcontinental flight, you can do worse than pick this book up.

The Wisdom of Crowds: James Surowiecki

2007-03-17T13:56:00.000Z

“Many hands make light work” is old hat. James Surowiecki refreshes it, with two significant variations – one, many people working on the same idea/problem can collectively think better; two, these people are not working together – they are working in parallel.

Tommy Lee Jones’s character said in Men in Black: “A person is smart. People are dumb.” I wrote The Wisdom of Crowds in part to explain why this idea is wrong.

And James Surowiecki does that persuasively, leaning on subjects as diverse as politics, defense, space exploration, business, information technology, sport, and entertainment, among others. He argues that collective wisdom almost always outweighs the wisdom of the few – even if the few are experts in that field. The concept, however, is without its detractors and exceptions, and Surowiecki is well conscious of that.

Of the myriad examples quoted in the book, my favorite one is the (unfortunately) aborted Policy Analysis Market. It truly sounds like democracy in action, where we make policy decisions democratically instead of electing someone who will do so on our behalf.

The focus on examples, both historical and contemporary, makes sure that you don’t need to be an economist or a sociologist to understand the book. And that perhaps accounts for the success of The Wisdom of Crowds and other books of its ilk, like Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point and Tim Harford’s The Undercover Economist.

Today’s era of web 2.0 and the whole trend towards collaboration is clearly based on the wisdom of crowds – we better be right.

Firewall: Henning Mankell

2007-03-10T12:01:00.001Z

Notwithstanding the title, I didn’t quite expect the world of computers, viruses, and security breaches in Firewall – somehow those subjects seem out of place in the Sweden of Kurt Wallander. So it was a bit of a surprise that Firewall was indeed about firewalls, though the connection seems a bit tenuous.

Apparently unconnected murders threaded today through meticulous police investigation is par for the course in police procedurals, and Firewall is no different. It has all the ingredients of a police procedural as it seems to come out from Sweden, be in from Henning Mankell or from that delightful duo, Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö.

The other staple from this part of the world seems to be the plaintive reportorial tone (though I confess I read it in the English translation). About 100 pages into Firewall, Mankell (through Wallander) summarizes the case as it stood then.

Two girls went out and had some beers. One of the girls was so young that she had no business being served in the first place. Some time during that evening, they traded places. This happened at the same time that an Asian man came into the restaurant and sat down at a nearby table. This man paid with a false credit card in the name of Fu Cheng, with a Hong Kong address.

After a couple of hours, the girls ordered a taxi, asked to be driven to Rydsgård, and attacked the driver. They took his money and left, each going separately to her home. When they were picked up by the police they immediately confessed, sharing the blame and saying their motive was money. The older of the two girls then took advantage of a momentary lapse in security and escaped from the police station. Later her burned corpse was found at the power substation grid for southern Sweden. When Sonja Hökberg died, she plunged much of the region of Scania into darkness. After this event, Eva Persson retracted her earlier confession and changed her story.

At the same time as these events, a parallel story was unfolding. There was a possibility that this parenthesis, this minor story, was in fact connected to the very heart of the other occurrence somehow. A divorced computer consultant by the name of Tynnes Falk cleaned his apartment one Sunday and then went for an evening walk. He was later found dead in front of an automatic teller machine nearby. After a preliminary investigation that included a conclusive autopsy report, the police eliminated any suspicions of possible crime and considered the case closed. Later the body was removed from the morgue and an electrical relay from the Ystad substation was left in its place. Falk’s apartment was also robbed in conjunction with these latest events, and at least a diary and a photograph were missing.

At the periphery of all these events, figuring as a face in a group photograph and as a customer in a restaurant, was an Asian man.

The use of a young nerd Robert Modin as an unofficial aid in the investigation, did seem a bit jarring; but considering that Modin plods away pretty much like the police do in Mankell’s works reassures you (his dietary habits are interesting!). And the fact that Modin comes up with data-based hypotheses without sounding like a superman rings true to form.

The typical insights into how the main investigator Kurt Wallander functions are there as well – his meticulousness and patience (“I’m proceeding too quickly”), his obsession with playing with facts from different angles (“he wrote out the facts again, this time from the perspective that all that had happened was part of a well-planned, act of sabotage”), and his relentless attempts to suppress his own angles and get alternative perspectives (“if I hear your voice, at least I won’t be hearing my own thoughts for a while”). The social commentary on Sweden, bleak as it sounds, is a delightful aside of Firewall.

As you would expect with police procedurals, not all the crimes are solved – there certainly are some loose ends. But Firewall does seem to have a bit too much of that – almost all the murders in the book are either only blandly resolved (one of the murders is not even a murder; though the character is an antagonist) or are not resolved. And the fact that all the murders are connected does seem a bit glib.

But the biggest letdown in Firewall is the dimension of the meta-plot – it seems a bit far-fetched and global in its impact, and the antagonists are not characterized in sufficient detail to make us believe that they can actually pull it off. May be in the world of technology, you don’t need a horde of terrorists to stymie the world, but a half-crazy duo still needs to have the credentials to stop the world. Carter and Falk just don’t have the force of character to convince me.

But for Wallander’s sake, go behind the Firewall.

Phantoms in the Brain: V.S. Ramachandran

2007-02-26T05:24:00.000Z

Phantoms in the Brain took quite a while for me to read—and only half the reason is that I was out of action for a few days for personal reasons. The subject is not something I am completely au fait with. But fortunately, Dr. Ramachandran makes it easy, thanks to his storytelling style and his ability to explain the complex workings of the brain in simple terms.

The key to enjoying Phantoms in the Brain lies in accepting this premise that Dr. Ramachandran makes in the preface.

I think it’s fair to say that, in neurology, most of the major discoveries that have withstood the test of time were, in fact, based initially on single-case studies and demonstrations. More was gleaned about memory from a few days studying a patient called H.M. than was gleaned from previous decades of research averaging data on many subjects.

This emphasis on individual case studies, while potentially flying in the face of research-based data-backed analysis, is perhaps a tenet that differentiates biological research from most other. And it is this focus that also makes Phantoms eminently readable and understandable for a layman like me.

Another endearing feature of Dr. Ramachandran’s approach to his profession is the simplicity with which he approaches it—his preference for simple tools of everyday use, like mirrors, cotton swabs, gloves, and the like. Simple, interesting, relatable.

And a third reason I like the author—he believes that “being a medical scientist is not all that different from being a sleuth.” For a crime fiction fan like me, I don’t need much more than that to dig into a book like this.

However, remember this is non-fiction: so do be prepared for the odd literary flaw in the writing—the humor, while earthy, is self-conscious at times and tries a bit too hard at others; the language is a bit repetitive in terms of word usage; and the author is a bit too over-present in the writing. But you’ll gladly accept all these considering the subject matter and the manner in which Dr. Ramachandran has handled it.

We Need to Talk About Kevin: Lionel Shriver

2007-02-11T18:09:00.000Z

I almost felt embarrassed and guilty reading this book. It was like invading Eva’s thoughts, shadowing her, being a fly in the wall as her life unfolded. May be that’s the reason I’m reviewing it almost as soon as I'm done reading it. (Usually I let a book linger in my head for almost a week before I hit the review file.)

We Need to Talk About Kevin is the story of Kevin Khatchadourian, a teenager who kills seven of his high school mates, a teacher, and a cafeteria worker on a Thursday afternoon (the very reference to the event as just Thursday [always italicized] is chilling). Eva Khatchadourian, the mother (“I work for a travel agency, and my son is a murderer”), writes a series of letters to the father, Franklin Plaskett; these letters form the book.

An epistolatory novel (or any first person narrative, for that matter) runs the risk of becoming a hyperactive exercise in navel-gazing (even if by a fictitious character), but the format and the tone Lionel Shriver manages make Kevin an absolute stunner.

A second risk with the format is that it negates the absence of a second perspective. And especially in a story like this, you’re tempted to understand at least Kevin’s perspective, if not Franklin’s as well. Thankfully, Eva manages to get at least Kevin’s perspective with a reasonable degree of accuracy. Her inability to get close enough to Kevin shines through when she tries to understand him by surreptitiously invading his room and discovering him through the contents of it.

Was this what it looked like inside his head? Or was the room, too, a kind of screen saver? Just add seascape above the bed, and it looked like an unoccupied unit at a Quality Inn. Not a photograph at his bedside, nor keepsake on his bureau—the surfaces were slick and absent. How much I’d have preferred to walk into a hellhole jangling with heavy-metal, lurid with Playboy centerfolds, fetid from muddy sweats, and crusty with year-old tuna sandwiches. That was the kind of no-go teen lair that I understood, where I might discover safe, accessible secrets like a worn Durex packet under the socks or a baggie of cannabis stuffed in the toe of a smelly sneaker. By contrast, the secrets of this room were all about what I could not find, like some trace of my son. Looking around, I thought uneasily, He could be anyone.

The narrative is slick, moving back and forth in time without losing focus, the little nuances are effortless, the self-references unselfconscious even. There’s even the odd touch of humor in the language and expression, which appears spontaneous, relevant, and oddly poignant. And while the twist that comes up later is not particularly unpredictable, it is chilling nevertheless.

We Need to Talk About Kevin may not be a book you want to read on a lazy Sunday afternoon; but it’s a book you don’t want to miss. For the sheer quality of its writing. But be prepared for the heavy heart it will leave you with. It’s an eloquent commentary on the bleakness of life, in the U.S.

The Meaning of Night: Michael Cox

2007-02-04T14:33:00.000Z

Why did I like The Meaning of Night so much?

Was it because of the dramatic beginning?

After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.

Was it because it began with a murder, and then led to a second, more than 650 pages later, with a build up that was as riveting as it was detailed?

Was it because it had a multitude of elements—romance and revenge, murder and mystery, royalty and poverty…?

Was it because of a multi-faceted protagonist (of royal blood, a self-taught scholar, a bibliophile, an investigator, a charmer, a murderer) who assumes more than one identity?

For whom did I speak? For the orphaned Edward Glyver, with a dead mother and a father who had died before he was born? Or Edward Glapthorn, whom I had conjured into existence on learning the truth about my birth, and who was the possessor of two fathers and two mothers? Or the future Edward Duport, whose mother was indeed dead, but whose father still lived and breathed, here, in this great house, not a quarter of a mile from where we now were?

Was it because of the first person narrative, that helped me understand the protagonist through his multiple roles, his motive and his methods?

Was it because the author had managed to evoke the period (mid-nineteenth century England) through the language and the setting, without being self-conscious, pretentious, and overly descriptive?

Was it because of the humor (“I prefer to believe I was pre-destined for grace. It accords far more closely to my own estimation of myself, and of course it relieves one of the tedious necessity of always having to do good.”) and drama that made for such engrossing reading, notwithstanding a not-inconsiderable bulk of almost 700 pages?

Was it because of the detailed footnotes and a serious sounding editorial preface, completely fictitious, written by an editor, who is but a character created by the author? (Little wonder, then, that the book was more than twenty years in the making.) J. J. Antrobus, Professor of Post-Authentic Victorian Fiction, University of Cambridge is my favorite “character” in Night.

Whatever it was, The Meaning of Night was definitely worth the read; it was worth savoring.

Notwithstanding the fact that the protagonist (I prefer to call him that than hero) believes in “the instinctive powers—the ability to reach at truth without the aid of reason or deliberation. Mine are particularly acute; they have served me well, and I have learned to trust them whenever they have manifested their presence.” Consequent to which, even the villain’s villainy is not too clearly established; what we get of it seems to be based on the protagonist’s instinct and reading of a few landmark incidents in the narrative.

Notwithstanding the feeling that there could have been a bit more detail on the other main characters, especially the villain.

Notwithstanding the irritating typos in the edition I read (hardbound; 2006; W. W. Norton & Company).

To know more about the book and the author Michael Cox, you can visit the companion web site. But better still, grab a copy of the book and read it.

The Laws of Simplicity: John Maeda

2007-01-31T09:20:00.000Z

Early on in my ruminations, I had the simple observation that the letter “M,” “I,” and “T”—the letters by which my university is known—occur in natural sequence in the word SIMPLICITY. In fact, the same can be said of the word COMPLEXITY.

When I read this in the second page of the introduction of The Laws of Simplicity, I almost gave up.

The Laws of Simplicity (LoS) is about how John Maeda sees, believes, and practices simplicity. “As an artist, I would like to say that I wrote this book for myself…” writes John. Which is precisely the point. Read this book to understand John Maeda’s views on simplicity; don’t read it as a definitive tome on simplicity. Simplicity is too diverse a topic to be comprehensively dealt with by one person; it is too vast to be compressed in a 100-page book. And, to be fair to him, Maeda (who is the E. Rudge and Nancy Allen Professor of Media Arts & Sciences at MIT) does give you the feeling that he subscribes to this view.

The title (and the treatment, in terms of “laws”) is a bit misleading. It sounds a tad too definitive; it raises expectations; it takes on a huge canvas. Especially considering that LoS is based more on the author’s thoughts and beliefs than on researched output (a la The Tipping Point or The Undercover Economist or books of that ilk).

“I intentionally capped the total page count at 100 pages in accordance with the Time-saving third Law,” explains John. Perhaps 100 pages is too short – Maeda appears rushed at times, the page limit seemingly playing on his mind. Form versus function?

On to the content of the book itself. Here are the ten laws, as stated from the book.

1. REDUCE. The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction.

2. ORGANIZE. Organization makes a system of many appear fewer.

3. TIME. Savings in time feel like simplicity.

4. LEARN. Knowledge makes everything simpler.

5. DIFFERENCES. Simplicity and complexity need each other.

6. CONTEXT. What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral.

7. EMOTION. More emotions are better than less.

8. TRUST. In simplicity we trust.

9. FAILURE. Some things can never be made simple.

10. THE ONE. Simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful.

As is evident in the list, the laws are a bit of a pot pourri, some alluding to design, some to organization; a dash of time management here, a touch of the emotional there; the odd philosophy, the inevitable apparent-exceptions-to-the-rule (laws 5 and 9). By themselves, you may not disagree with any of the individual laws, but do they represent a collective means to achieve simplicity?

Moreover, within the laws, there are didactic planning tools like SHE (Shrink, Hide, Embody), SLIP (Sort, Label, Integrate, Prioritize), and BRAIN (Basics, Repeat, Avoid, Inspire, Never). A bit arbitrary perhaps. Or is this book on its way to becoming a text book or a self-help book a la Stephen Covey’s masterpiece? Are SHE cards, SLIP folders, and BRAIN CDs on the offing?

As you would expect from someone who has had extensive exposure in the business world, Maeda has peppered LoS with examples, predominantly from consumer products – DVD players, the iPod, Google (is Google NOT an example for anything nowadays?), and Toyota, to name a few. A few examples from other disciplines like the arts, nature, and anthropology could perhaps have added dimension.

The language is a bit forced – serious, overly so, preachy even. And the odd attempt to see connections (where there are none) and building something out of them is quite exasperating. Consider this, right at the end of the book.

Ten laws (10: one, zero), remove none (0: zero), and you’re left with one (1: one). When in doubt, turn to the tenth Law: THE ONE.

The companion blog to the book could well become a more valuable reference tool on the subject than the book itself, as and when it moves beyond the book. Another useful window on the subject could be the MIT simplicity blog, also run by John.

To reiterate what I said earlier, read LoS for John’s sake. (Which is how I read it the second time over.) You may find it useful and insightful.

XXXHolic Volume 3: CLAMP

2007-01-27T18:18:00.000Z

Having heard a bit about manga (the Japanese word for comics), I decided to try one. Some say that manga, in the true spirit of it, is not a graphic novel – may be I’ll read a graphic novel to figure out the difference. (I suppose Umberto Eco’s The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana and Orhan Pamuk’s Istanbul don’t count as graphic novels, notwithstanding the former’s claim to be one.)

It was an interesting experience reading a manga. The format took some getting used to – the back-to-front reading, the speech bubbles in different sizes, differentiating between asides and explanations – I had to read the book more than once to understand it. A lot has been said about how good the graphics are in manga. And at least as far as this book is concerned, it’s completely true. Despite being (or may be because they are) in black and white, the graphics are very evocative and capture the mood of the characters extremely effectively.

The creators (they are referred to as creators, not authors) of the XXXHolic series is CLAMP – the name adopted by, as the blurb says, “a group of four women who have become the most popular manga artists in America—Ageha Ohkawa, Mokona, Satsuki Igarashi, and Tsubaki Nekoi.”

As far as the story is concerned, it is fairly simple (once you get the grasp of the format, that is) and the narrative, fairly linear. What makes it interesting is how it manages to blend in diverse elements like spirits, college life, and jealousy and produce a gripping tale. The touches of humor and the philosophizing are interesting – they make you concentrate on the dialogues more than you tend to in a normal comic book. References to Star Wars and the war in Japan add a touch of the real world to the book. The language is very modern and the dialogue, pithy. Considering the entire narrative is dialogue-based, that makes it a very racy read indeed.

The Simple Art of Murder: Raymond Chandler

2007-01-20T08:44:00.001Z

The Simple Art of Murder is prefaced by the seminal Atlantic Monthly essay of the same name (you can read the essay here) and is a collection of short stories.

The essay (first published in 1950) is deemed a classic piece of literary criticism and is as scathing an attack on the fiction of the amateur detective kind, as it is laudatory of the hard-boiled noir fiction, a form that Chandler (and originally, Dashiell Hammett) is seen as a vanguard of. The main thrust of Chandler’s argument can be summed in these two excerpts.

I suppose the principal dilemma of the traditional or classic or straight deductive or logic and detection novel of detection is that for any approach to perfection it demands a combination of qualities not found in the same mind.

…

If you know all you should know about ceramic and Egyptian needlework, you don’t know anything at all about the police. If you know that platinum won’t melt under about 3000^o F. by itself, but will melt at the glance of deep blue eyes if you put it near a bar of lead, then you don’t know how men make love in the twentieth century. And if you know enough about the elegant flânerie of the pre-war French Riviera to lay your story in that locale, you don’t know that a couple of capsules of barbital small enough to be swallowed will not only not kill a man—they will not even put him to sleep if he fights against them.

For Chandler, a superman (or superwoman) detective is not real. And therefore, neither is the detective story in which he stars.

It’s interesting to contrast Chandler’s essay with Willard Huntington Wright’s (popularly known as SS Van Dine and incidentally, also an American) 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories” . The first sentence of the two essays sums up the difference rather neatly.

The Simple Art of Murder: Fiction in any form has always intended to be realistic.

Twenty rules for writing detective stories: The detective story is a kind of intellectual game.

And that is the second significant argument of Chandler. Crime fiction is not a game; it is death in all its glory; the color of blood is always red, not blue; and while murder (“it has been going on too long for it to be news”) may be a simple art, detection is not.

Chandler doesn’t spare any of the names that adorn the portals of crime and detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes is “mostly an attitude and a few dozen lines of unforgettable dialogue.” And similar judgments abound, on other bastions of the English detective story like Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers, among others. No, Chandler claims, he is not against the English style.

Personally, I like the English style better… The English may not always be the best writers in the world, but they are incomparably the best dull writers.

Now to the stories in The Simple Art of Murder.

The eight stories are Spanish Blood, I’ll Be Waiting, The King in Yellow, Pearls Are a Nuisance, Pickup on Noon Street, Smart-Aleck Kill, Guns at Cyrano’s, and Nevada Gas. The most unusual story in the collection is Pearls Are a Nuisance – a tongue-in-cheek stab at the amateur detective genre.

All the stories have the typical ingredients of the hard-boiled genre – a hard-drinking sleuth, brutal murder, a racy narrative, loosely defined motives… An interesting thread that comes across all the stories is the presence of a hotel – six of the stories start off at or just outside a hotel, and in all the stories, the hotel is the scene of quite-significant action.

The language is taut, the settings are stark, the characters are flesh-and-blood, the stories are realistic – typical noir stuff.

Once upon a number: John Allen Paulos

2007-01-11T13:12:00.000Z

At his faint chuckle she turned and faced her once-beloved uncle. Unceremoniously she ripped the papers from the pocket of his Hawaiian shirt as he nervously backed away toward the hotel room door, and with unmitigated disgust at both his blubber and his duplicity she hissed, “Twenty-two point eight percent of all bankruptcies filed between July 1995 and June 1997 were attributed to bad legal advice, up nine point two percent over the last biennial period.”

“I did the best I could,” the 273-pound man answered faintly. He was desperate to avoid further rousing his enraged niece, who despite her lithe figure, 113 pounds, and angelic face was capable of inflicting severe damage. Once safely in the hallway, however, he took heart and offered, “A meta-analysis of several studies suggests that fewer than forty percent of legal malpractice cases are due to malicious intent, the balance to simple incompetence.” At this she lunged at him, tearing into his thick neck with strong, sharp fingers and ripping the shirt from his bloodied back.

Thus begins Once upon a number. Suggesting that words and numbers don’t quite sit together well.

Once upon a number is a series of small pieces, loosely joined. On mathematical theorems, logical aphorisms, natural laws, and objective probabilities. And the odd comparison between stories and math. One comparison is revealing.

In listening to stories, we are inclined to suspend disbelief so as to be entertained, whereas in evaluating statistics we are inclined to suspend belief so as not to be beguiled.

The explanations of concepts like Bayes’ Theorem and aphorisms like Murphy’s Law are interesting and easy to understand. And the examples that support these explanations substantiate things quite effectively. The misuse of statistics in the defense of O J Simpson is an interesting story. The almost-inevitable nod to Occam’s Razor and references to computer-generated branching stories (considering this book was written in 1998, that can almost be termed prescient) and the post-modern “death of the author” argument gives the book dimension. The piece on John J. McCarthy’s The Doctor’s Dilemma is compelling reading. And the digression into humor through an appendix (Humor in Computation) in chapter 3 ( I wonder why it needed to be called an appendix) is probably the best part of the book.

At an aggregate level, Once… does come across a bit like a curate’s egg. And that could be on account of two factors. The first is that John Allen Paulos is a mathematician, not a storyteller. Therefore, the language and the weaving in of the stories and the math are not as tight as you would like. The second factor is perhaps the way the book has been structured – there are five broad chapters, each ostensibly covering one key basis for comparison between stories and math. Considering that ultimately the book is full of vignettes, the structure could have been different – smaller chapters with defined parameters for each chapter perhaps.

And the last paragraph in the book.

How we can maintain a place for the individual, protected from the overweening claims of religion, society, and even science, is an increasingly important unsolved problem. It’s solution, I have no doubt, will require simply and pragmatically accepting the indispensability of both stories and statistics and of their nexus, the individual who uses and is shaped by both. The gap between stories and statistics must be filled somehow by us.

A bit of a tall claim?