Fantas-y-tic

Chockronial Salamandus de Rosenstern bestowed upon me, a naïve peasant, George R.R. Martin’s (let’s be cool; let’s call him GRRM) fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire. I just finished the first book, A Game of Thrones. Here’s a couple thoughts on why this book rocked not only my world, but my solar system, too:

-GRRM includes a dauntingly large cast of characters in this first book. Furthermore, any author would impress with the number of characters alive. Martin, however, tops himself by referencing countless detailed legends of past heroes and relatives. Based on what I’ve heard of the subsequent books, these character threads—even those seemingly insignificant—continue. In a desirable twist of irony, this lends a sense of verisimilitude to his fantasy world.

-In a similar vein, rarely have I read an author who details clothing and related accoutrements without driving me comatose. I guess the pseudo-Middle Ages context of the story makes these details enticing. Examples include the broach fastening a cape, the rippled pattern of a princess’ dress, the velvet robes of a eunuch, or the bronze mold of a warrior’s helm.

-My just-barely-second favorite part of the book is GRRM’s willingness to treat primary characters, and notably, likeable characters with brutality. A head rolled in this book that I never anticipated losing through the entirety of the series. Some don’t die; they’re simply crippled, mutilated, or banished. It requires an incredible amount of time and imaginative force to develop a prominent character and your readers would start to develop an affinity for them. You sacrifice so much by severing a character's role, but GRRM understands that tragedy is gripping and elevates the fabric of a story. That’s when you know these books aren’t for the faint of heart, but they are for someone who wants an intense experience.

-Probably my favorite element of this book—and I think this might be what attracts his most ardent fans who came many years before me—is the human complexity. In other words, the characters become so nuanced that, unlike the preponderance of fantasy novels (atleast those I’ve read), it’s sometimes difficult to establish a moral hierarchy. GRRM accomplishes this partly through the narrative itself. Each chapter’s content comes from the perspective of a main character. You gather that individual’s thoughts for a short time, but then you’re left to guess until later. While inside someone’s mind, you discover that exterior gallantry need not always equate with fundamental goodness. Characters embody complex motives, some less than noble. Lastly, the perspectives of many of the more intriguing characters remain hidden from the reader. For example, the crafty and calculating members of the King’s counsel are seen only through the eyes of others.

Me read stuff

I haven't read that much Dickens. The little I should have covered was assigned in high school., which was during (one of) my illiterate period(s). So I picked up David Copperfield to give Dickens a go. The story traces David's adventures and relationships from birth through his mid twenties. To reveal the tiniest bit of the storyline, David's father dies before his birth, and his mother's demise follows while David is still a child with no siblings. Therefore, the book mostly focuses on David being left alone in the world and seeking love beyond his lost parents. Dickens traces his story through childhood, adolescence, young adulthood, and into his mid-to-late twenties. The epilogue extends the picture much further, but that is obviously a quick sketch. It amounts to a large-scale coming-of-age story.

The remarkable thing about the book is that the stories are basically human scale. What I mean by that is that Dickens doesn't use many overtly outlandish plot lines, with some notable exceptions mostly involving disparate characters intertwining their stories along the road. What he does use--maybe more effectively than any author i've ever read--is colorful characters. The characters are vivid and mostly believable, but the believable traits are slightly exaggerated to drill home points. Plus, the various places in England that he talks about (Dover, London, Canterbury, Yarmouth) aren't more than 100 miles from each other (which I understand isn't negligible when you're using horses for transportation), yet the worlds he describes are so distinct. I think that's a difficult thing for an author to capture; it's much easier to contrast Jerusalem with London.

It's kinda cheesy, but I admit that I really fell for David's character. I think I neglect my childhood days too often, but the young David's fears and innocence made me remember things I hadn't thought of in over a decade. There's something pretty moving about reviving instances from childhood that seemed forever gone. As he matures, I admired his loving, level-headed, measured perspective on all the crazy characters he interacts with, but also his passionate sense of justice. David Copperfield rarely becomes combative, but he will battle perceived evils when necessary. His greatest strength, in my opinion, was his ability to strip away BS and see humans at their core levels. He also makes dumb mistakes along the way, but there's always wisdom gleaned from the failings. Another draw was how Dickens carefully described Copperfield's development up to his mid-to-late twenties. Since I fit snuggly in that demographic, I could closely relate to his earlier struggles and the sense of finally getting things (somewhat) figured out by that age.

One sidenote that the book made me consider: when English people moved from the motherland to one of their colonies far overseas (and this could apply to so many people, in so many locations and points in history), especially Australia in the mid 1800's, that often meant they'd never step foot on England's soil again. When you said goodbye to friends and sailed away, it could mean that was the last time you'd ever see their faces again. Letters could be exchanged, but that's no replacement for seeing somebody in the flesh. It's hard for me to grasp that sort of finality. The modest adventures I've had in the American north, east, and midwest since college have taught me that I rely heavily on knowing I'll see my friends and family in the near future. I can be away, but only for so long before the feeling of disconnection trumps the jewels of discovery.

Truth be told?

In Salman Rushdie's latest work, Shalimar the Clown, Rushdie forwards a theory-that's probably already popular in some circles-regarding JFK's assassination through one of the characters in the book:

The date is 1965. The place is India. A Kashmiri beauty seduces the recently appointed US ambassador to India, Max Ophuls, with her entrancing dance at a festival honoring the diplomat's visit north. As with all Ophuls' lustful conquests, he turns to his loyal assistant, Beaver Wood, to organize an opportunity for Max and Boonyi (the dancer) to, ummmm, 'meet'. Beaver replies with an unexpected question and comment:

"Do you have a bad back?.....because too much sex and a bad back is what got the president assassinated".

Through Wood, Rushdie continues:

"The truss, sir," Wood explained. "Kennedy's back was bad to begin with, but it got so much worse because of all the screwing around that he had to wear the truss all the time. He was wearing it in Dallas and that's why he didn't fall over after the first shot hit him. he was wounded and lurched over and the truss just sat him up again, boing, and then the second bullet blew off the back of his head. You see what i'm saying, Professor, maybe if he'd had less sex, he maybe wouldn't have been wearing the truss, and then no boing, he'd just have fallen flat after being wounded; the first bullet wasn't fatal, remember, and he wouldn't have been as they say available for the second shot, and Johnson wouldn't be president. There's a moral in there somewhere, I guess, but as you don't have a bad back, Professor, it doesn't apply to you."

Did promiscuity kill Kennedy? Does anyone with a bad back understand the moral here?

Thank you, thank you, thank you

Salman Rushdie’s first novel in years is due on the shelves next week (depending on what continent or country you’re in, it might already be there): Shalimar the Clown, gotta love it. I, for one, am ready to start tap dancing on my cubicle in elation. Rushdie’s fusion of the fantastical, the philosophical, the poignant, and the perspicacious (sorry, I’ve been wanting to use that word for awhile, and damnit, it fits) always wrings my soul dry when I read him. Easily one of my favorite authors alive today. For those interested, here’s an interesting article about the man, the myth, the pointy-eyebrowed one.

Hey Seppala, a chunk of your face just fell off

I just finished reading The Cruelest Miles by first cousins Gay Salisbury and Laney Salisbury. This book documents the 1925 diphtheria epidemic in Nome, Alaska and the ensuing feats of heroism that enabled the antitoxin to arrive in Nome safely before the entire population succumbed to the frightful disease. The whole book was fascinating, especially if you have a love for adventure stories and an appreciation for the arctic. A few things struck me as especially poignant.

I didn’t know much about diphtheria prior to reading this book. In the words of the incestual authors:

Diphtheria is an airborne bacterium that thrives in the moist membranes of the
throat and nose and releases a powerful toxin that makes its victims tired and
apathetic. In two to five days, other, more deadly symptoms would appear: a
slight fever and red ulcers at the back of the throat and in the mouth. As the
bacteria multiplied and more toxin was released, the ulcers thickened and
expanded forming a tough, crusty, almost leathery membrane made up of dead
cells, blood clots, and dead skin. The membrane colonized ever larger portions
of the mouth and the throat, until it had nowhere left to go and advanced down
the windpipe, slowly suffocating the victim.

As anyone who’s ever suffered from tonsillitis or mononucleosis can attest to, severe sore throats rank among the worst of physical afflictions. I’ve had my fair share of broken bones, third degree burns, and gruesome skateboard accidents, but without hesitation, I’d include throat issues among the worst of my experiences. When you have to muster every ounce of courage within yourself simply to swallow saliva, things are pretty bad. I can’t imagine the plight of these (mostly) children who battled with diphtheria, only to meet their end in a losing battle with asphyxiation.

Considering the threat of diphtheria has retreated into the annals of history, I’ve never found motivation to research its effects. Pondering this reality, I was reminded of how easily I dismiss the modern threat of contagious illnesses/diseases. Leaning upon an oft-subconscious, yet all-encompassing faith in modern medicine, I neglect the all-too-real threat of those pathogens surpassing a critical threshold and morphing into a pandemic. This might be in the form of SARS in Asia; AIDS in Africa, India, Russia, and urban America; Marburg in Angola; or even an influenza outbreak when the flu shot supply issues we experienced last year are magnified many times over. AIDS is already wiping out whole populations in Africa, and a cure has yet to materialize. Containment of the less scary ones hinges on constant medical vigilance, while the more pernicious examples have no known remedy. Although I cherish the ease of international travel, I can’t help but fear the repercussions this might entail should an outbreak escape our monitoring, or if the carriers of such an illness/disease don’t develop symptoms for months or years subsequent to contraction.

It’s funny how a book can have peripheral affects like this. Judging by the prologue and after-comments, drawing attention to such issues was not their primary or explicit goal in writing the book. Their depiction of entire Alaskan villages falling victim to influenza (1918-19, which also devastated many other parts of the world) and only narrowly escaping the same fate with diphtheria, however, made such ruminations unavoidable after spending a good chunk of last year in Alaska. While this is all well and good, it still bothers me that my sense of empathy wanes as geographical distance grows between a devastating event and my own sphere of experience…something I’d like to continue to reverse.

Aside from all that nasty stuff, however, the book documented just how intrepid both mushers and dogs (not too many historical accounts afford individual dogs a sizeable chunk of text) were to brave the perils of Alaskan winters. I would have preferred even more attention paid to the individual mushers’ experience during their legs of the relay. [Side note: contrary to popular belief, the dogsled portion of the antitoxin delivery consisted of 20 different mushers covering a total of 674 miles from the interior town of Nenana to coastal Nome. Both the relay aspect and the course itself differs from the modern Iditarod race which starts in Anchorage and covers 1,049 miles….actually, the distances for the North and South legs of the Iditarod course are 1158 and 1163 miles, respectively, but the traditional distance of 1049 represents that the race always extends longer than 1,000 miles and that Alaska is the 49th state.] Furthermore, the relatively short personal accounts represent only a handful of the participating mushers. According to the authors themselves, the many native Alaskans who participated in the middle segments of the relay either balked at recounting their stories for the press or were never asked at all. I’d love to hear these stories sometime. The stories that did make the final edit recounted blistering cold, unforgiving winds, precipitous climbs and plunges, and treacherous ice (the water threats constituted some of the most fascinating material, in my opinion…imagine falling through the ice on the Yukon river, only to find that the water underneath had retreated and you were left in an empty cavern of frozen riverbed 20 feet deep and 150 feet wide). Most of these guys did this stuff for a living. Every day!

One more juicy tidbit worthy of mention was the lively debate concerning whether sled teams or airplanes would deliver the serum. History could have played out quite differently had the Governor of Alaska decided to transfer the serum via plane, instead of by sled dog teams. Aviation in the north had yet to find a firm foothold, and only a group of bold pioneers and military units explored the skies in the Last Frontier. The miniscule collection of planes in interior Alaska consisted of World War I vintage biplanes that were dismantled for the winter, had open cockpits, and had water-cooled engines that were unreliable in cold weather. Regardless of these formidable barriers to safe aerial transfer, the national and international press still harangued the Governor and the Board of Health for choosing a much slower means of transportation riddled with its own perilous obstacles. To the benefit of the both the governor and the ailing population in Nome, the sled dog teams competed TWO successful relays and saved innumerable lives. Although the contingent pressing for an air delivery lost in the short run, they won in the long run. National attention focused upon the insufficiencies in northern air travel and an era of rapid development in this industry followed on the heels of the 1925 diphtheria outbreak.

But the dogs had their day. I’m going to stop writing now. If you’d like, you should read the book. I highly recommend it. Just try to disregard the fact that the title came from a modified Ronald Reagan quote.

How in the hell did this slip by?

Note: Anyone not living in a cave or Alaska one year ago probably doesn't need to read this entry. And now more about a top woman in the U.S. administration carrying out surreptitious deeds that undermine her staunchly conservative husband’s agenda.
Am I a moron (please don’t answer that) or were other people in the dark about Lynne Cheney’s steamy 1981 novel Sisters? It seems a younger Lynne wasn’t only concerned with promulgating historically accurate literature chaulked full of heinous prose (please suffer through excerpts then laugh really hard at this [here's where the omitted text is reinserted]website). Apparently Lynne wasn't happy until she spun out luscious lesbian love affairs, scenes rife with extramarital affairs and rape, and promoted a pro-feminist philosophy.

Unfortunately for us, the Lynne Cheney prose hungry public, people with, errr, pull decided the republication wasn't in anyone's best interest. According to this USA Today article,
the publishing company decided to cancel the republication independent of any outside pressure: Perl (executive director of publicity at New American Library) and Barnet (Cheney’s attorney) said no legal action was threatened. Although New American Library had the rights to reissue the novel, Perl said, there was no desire "to put out a book that the author was not happy with." Sounds just slightly sketchy, but who am I to judge. Either way, if you want to get your hands on this Sapphic gem, don’t plan on finding it new.

You will learn atleast two things from this blog entry

so i'm reading the book Freakonomics right now. I love when books teach me weird little factoids that i can throw at people to make them think i'm that super-cool weird fact guy. i thought i'd share the ones i found most interesting, so everyone else can be the super-cool weird fact guy/girl. Lots of people already read this book. Lot's of people know more things than i do. Therefore, you might not learn one thing from the following:

• The famous 1973 Supreme Court Case that legalized abortion in the US that pitted Jane Roe against Henry Wade (the Dallas County District attorney), Roe vs. Wade, actually pitted Norma McCorvey against Henry Wade. Norma's name was disguised as Jane Doe before the case reached the high court
• Americans spend $1 billion per year on chewing gum
• During the 15th century, 73 out of every 100,000 people in Italy were murdered. This number might not mean much until you consider the fact that between 1950 and 1994 only 1.5 people out of every 100,000 people in Italy were murdered...which is one of the highest rates in Europe
• 1987 was the first year when people filing tax returns in the US had to provide social security numbers whenever they claimed a dependent child. Seven million children who had existed on previous 1040 forms vanished!
• The Ku Klux Klan was founded by six young men (four of whom were lawyers) in Pulaski, Tennessee in the wake of the civil war. They saw themselves as a circle of like-minded friends. Therefore, they chose a slight alteration of the Greek word for 'circle', kuklos, as their call name. 'klan' was added to pay homage to their scotch-irish descent.
• prior to DuPont's introduction of nylons in 1941, women wore only silk stockings. that's alot of money and alot of silk that wasn't necessarily readily available

So as i conceded earlier, you might not have learned anything from that list. Anybody who picks up the book will read that stuff practically verbatim. But here's a couple things you didn't know:

• i wore a tie today
• i ate 'wild boar' tonight