Another Saturday, Another Discovery
Posted on June 10, 2006
Filed Under books, culture, happiness, history, music, review | Leave a Comment
Another Saturday, Another Discovery nearly makes ASDA (the supermarket). But I’m sure some wag will write that it actually makes A.SAD. From now on, people will say, ‘isadub is a.sad [inset profanity here].
Last week I had a bit of a clear-out and found lots of old photos from the mid-80′s to the mid-90′s. Well, another Saturday, another discovery. My filing cabinet was the space that felt the wrath of my cleaning brush this week. I’m quite proud of my filing cabinet and the fact that I put things in there. I even have a filing system (no misc info files, thank you very much). Having said that, it’s probably the only bit of organisation in my life. It’s probably one of the benefits of being single – nobody’s going to get annoyed if you forget to wash the dishes (ahem) for a few days.
One of the folders in my filing cabinet is books to buy and I had built up a sizeable number of books reviews that I wanted to buy. So I did – see below. I thought about adding them in order of importance (whatever that means?) but, in the end, I just added them at random. Just to awkward, I also bought a cd.
I wrote about Pretor-Pinney’s The Cloudspotters’ Guide recently and I finally bought it. I’m looking forward to reading it looking at the pictures although some of the reviewers on amazon wrote that it was a bit text-heavy and the Cloud Appreciation Society’s website had better pictures. (I wonder if anyone admits they belong to such a society?). Time will tell.
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I’m a developmental biologist by training and I try to keep myself informed even though I’m not a proper scientist anymore. Heck, chemists/physicists never thought us biologists were scientists to begin with! One of the most amazing thing about development biology is that you have to think in four dimensions (4th = time). Before I was seduced by the filthy lucre, I was a Research Fellow, who worked on homeotic genes. Genes get turned on and off all the time. Depending on where and when they’re turned on, the same gene can make hugely different outcomes.And before you ask, I don’t know what would happen if a human had sex with a monkey. (It’s all I every get asked when I talk about my research past!)
Jenny Uglow’s A little history of British gardening is the sort of book that I love. I love the eccentricity of the topic and all involved. I like the fact that the author, her agent, & the publisher were all mad enough to devote a year or two of their lives to writing 342 pages about the British garden. It’s probably why I bought the cloudspotters book as well. I’ve got two weeks hols coming up soon and this is the sort of book I need. I’ll certainly need the two weeks to read all these books. Normally I go to Dungarvan, Co Waterford, as I’ve a little house there with a big back garden. This year, I’m thinking of taking the car and wandering around Cornwall, Devon etc. I’d like to see the Eden project, and try some of the Cider that Cornwall is always boasting about. The beaches and scenery in that corner of England are meant to be beautiful as well. I might even try surfing! Any suggestions welcome.
The Sunday Times review of John Harwood’s first novel, The Ghost Writer, starts,’ It begins, as good ghost stories should, not in the dark, not in a haunted house, but in a stuffy and silent room scented with perfume and mothballs, nothing to be seen through the window but a blank wall. Gerard is looking for evidence of his mother’s past and, after a search that she calls prying, he finds it – a photograph. But he is discovered: ‘she sprang, hitting and hitting and hitting me, screaming in time to the blows that fell wherever she could reach until I broke away and fled wailing down the hall’.The amazon review by Valerie Ryan finishes, ‘Any more would be telling too much. Turn on all the lights in the house when you settle down with this one, and plan to spend a long time reading because you will be lost in the story immediately’. Well, I had to buy it, didn’t I?
To my shame, I’m not well read on Hispanic writers (Spanish, South American etc) and I’d like to play catch-up. It’s doubly embarassing as, during my undergrad years, I had a friend who was doing a PhD on feminism in South American novels. Anyway, the review that caught my attention (in July 2004) was Vincent Banville’s Irish Times review of Arturo Perez-Reverte’s The Queen of the South. Banville is a respected author himself, though I find his books a bit academic and dry. Any emotion in his books is presented in a very matter-of-fact manner and real life is not like that at all. In some ways, he was an odd choice as a reviewer.
Anyway, to quote from the review,
‘Seems the Europeans are finally getting the hang of writing crime fiction.‘
‘This present volume traces the notorious career of Teresa Mendoza…who rises from the ranks of the drug cartels to become one of the most powerful of the purveyors of heroin and cocaine‘.
‘In the end, in spite of her wealth and power, Teresa decides to return to her homeland…where she grew up. the man who had her first boyfriend killed and caused her to flee is still around…. Determined to bring him down, whatever the cost to herself, Teresa instigates an Old Testament conclusion to the book, raining down fire and brimstone left, right and centre. And does Teresa herself survive this holocaust? Well, I won’t spoil the story by giving that away‘.
I’ll tell you once I’ve read it.
The Pig that wants to be eaten, and ninety-nine other thought experiments by Julian Baggini. Stephen A Haines, reviewing it on amazon, writes, ‘Douglas Adams posed many a philosophical question in his works. For some, the most hilarious – or disturbing, was the meal that introduced itself and recommended certain portions for consumption. In a society fully detached from the processing of living flesh into oven-ready tidbits, Adams portrayal of “the pig that wants to be eaten” seems outlandish. Yet, is there truly a moral issue in developing a food that not only embraces the opportunity to be consumed, but has the capacity to help the diner choose the more desireable cut. ?
Julian Baggini poses this and ninety-nine other questions in this tantalising collection. Many of the topics he raises have been with us for millennia – remaining unresolved today. The author draws the old questions to centre stage, clad in modern finery and make-up. The new appearance helps bring the reader into the questions with a greater sense of comfort, one hopes. But when the last line has been read, it’s clear that this isn’t just an entertaining recasting of old conundrums, but of serious issues we confront daily. Reading them all in one go could be dangerous to your mental health! Many readers will have encountered these issues previously: if your brain is transplanted to another body, are you still you? Or if that bastion of “consciousness” is instead placed in a vat of nutrients and wired into a computer that feeds it sensory information, are you still “real”? If your ATM grants you ten thousand dollars when you asked for a hundred, are you “morally bound” to return it [assuming the bank's auditors can't track where it went]? On a lighter note, we might consider whether a sculpture produced by Nature is a work of art. If it is, who sets a value on it? How much would you pay for it? Baggini manages to prompt us with [mostly] plausible circumstances and definitely important questions. He does it in a couple of pages dedicated to each, and never provides a satisfactory answer to any of them. That’s right and proper, since the questions posed must be applied by the reader to their own circumstances. He raises questions of who can pollute and the options confronting us all on how far our committments can reach in an increasingly interconnected world. The author’s style is that of a fellow commuter on the bus or train every morning. The reading is easy, the format is simple. And each question generates long periods of reflection or exchanges over a beer. Few are resolved easily.‘
Strange but true. I like to have these ‘exchanges over a (few) beers‘. As I’ve never seen a full episode of Corrie, Eastenders etc (and I’m quite proud of this accomplishment), I’ve nothing else to talk about!! If I talk about science, I invariably get the ‘monkey sex’ question (see above). Maybe I need to get a better class of friend?
I had to buy it! The Sunday Times review of Good Women in August 2005 started, ‘Jane Stevenson must have been kidding when she called this collection of three biting novellas Good Women, as her protagonists are a bolter, a murderess and a widow who is hellbent on revenge. Yet, dastardly though their deeds undoubtedly are, it is hard not to sympathise with this trio of villanessesss since, their good deeds never went unpunished.’
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I was a bit conflicted about this book, In praise of slow by Carl Honore. When I’m eating, drinking, socialising, basically doing private things on my own time/dime, I like to take it easy. I’m always the last to finish my food but, when I’m working, I’m a speed demon. I get frustrated when my staff can’t keep up with me, when I have to wait longer than 30 seconds for my coffee and, oh yeah, I’m a demon on the motorway. Luckily, no road rage and no speeding tickets yet (strategic driving!!). There’s only 40-odd speed camera’s in Ireland and only 3 of them have camera film in them at any one time. I kid you not! I’m not going to develop this point because it’ll just turn into a rant about (other people’s!) bad driving. I’ve just listened to Catatonia’s Road Rage song to see if Cerys Matthews had something sensible to say but…err, she doesn’t. Guess they don’t have road rage in Wales?
John Dunne’s Towpath Tours: A guide to cycling Ireland’s waterways should be sent to everybody in Ireland, and given out free at the airport. As a recent returnee to (pleasure) cycling, I’ve cycled along the two canals in Dublin. It’s really nice and peaceful. Although a male swan did ‘have a go’ at my back wheel when I got to close to his ‘wife’ (swans mate for life, don’t ya know). Canal pathways are easily accessible yet they’re usually private so it’s a good spot for teenagers and winos to go drinking. The end result is a curious mix – you get the nature experience (swans, birds, fish, trees, flowers) but you also get the modern experience (graffiti, beer cans, syringes and gangs).Amazon have this excerpt ‘from the inside flap’ of the book:
For cyclists and walkers the towpaths and trackways of Ireland’s waterways are a perfect amenity, a treasure trove of tranquil settings, constantly changing scenery and glimpses of our past. For the cyclist they afford a safe, fume-free environment while walkers will not encounter the access problems of our hills and mountains. Availing of the paths once used by horses to pull barges and canalised rivers, the author documents and maps 29 recommended off-road tours, totalling over 650km along some of Ireland’s most scenic and historic waterways. From the River Lagan in the north to the River barrow in the south, the book provides route descriptions accompanied by brief hstories of each waterway, the areas through which they flow and stories and anecdotes of famous and notorious people associated with the different areas.
Celebrating the magnificent achievement of Ireland’s man-made waterways, this guide, extensively researched at first hand, will encourage all its readers to enjoy an environment accessible throughout the year yet largely overlooked.
I’m just going to quote from the Sunday Times review of Robert Conquest’s The Dragons of Expectation: Reality and Delusion in the Course of History. “If Robert Conquest’s thought were not so challenging, it would be easy to dismiss him as a colossus from a past age. Born in 1917…[he] won fame as a poet as well as a historian. He traversed the whole political specturm, joing the Communist Party in 1937 and, in the 1980′s, writing speeches for Margaret Thatcher. As an intelligence officer during the war he was posted to Bulgaria, and it was watching the post-war Soviet takeover there that disillusioned him with communism. The Great Terror, which he published in 1968, gave a ground-breaking account of Stalin’s purges in the 1930′s, and was furiously denounced by western intellectuals. He followed it, in 1986, with the Harvest of Sorrow, telling the story of the collectivisim of agriculture under Stalin, during which millions of peasents died of starvation. The persistent denial of Stalin’s crimes by the leftist intelligentsia was, he insisted, ‘an intellectual and moral disgrace on a massive scale’. Time has proved him right.”
John Carey, the reviewer, finishes by writing, ‘This is a book that leftist intellectuals should a little of every day, being sure to breathe deeply and loosen any constrictive clothing beforehand’.
Phil Collin’s Mama is playing as I write this. I don’t think he’s writing about his mother! Hmm, I’ll have to check out the lyrics somewhere.
All of my grandparents are dead. I’ve lost several aunts/uncles as well but, thankfully, no cousins (similar age etc). Thankfully, my parents are still alive. Two ‘thankfully’s’ in the same paragraph! I suppose I should write something Oirish like ‘by the grace of god’ or similar, but it wouldn’t be honest on my part. I’m glad my parents are alive but it’s got nothing to do with God (grammar says God should have a capital G). I’m on shaky ground here since it’s been years since I read Bertrand Russell’s ‘Why I am not a Christian‘ but his central tenet that Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc all claim that their God is the one true God is worthy of examination. As he points out, they can’t all be right? I really like the Mormon version of how a (female) angel revealed all to their (teenage) founder. Of course, by ‘all’, I mean all of the truth!! The one (and only) time I let them into my house, they prayed for me!
Anyway, back to the book! Kate Saunders, the reviewer, wrote, ‘In this short, dense, potted tragedy of a book, the French writer (see above) catalogues her felings as she clears he house that belonged to her dead parents. It’s one of those universal experiences with which all adult orphans will identify – the aching, raw wound of loss, mixed with the guilt, sorrow and sheer annoyance of sorting through a lifetime’s clutter. You long to ask them why they hung on to these sackloads of worthless rubbish, and you can’t quite believe they’re not coming back to tell you off for throwing it away’.
angieblade, one of amazon’s public reviewers, reviewed Jah Wobble’s mu album by writing, ‘To anyone who hasn’t heard Jah Wobbles music before (where have you been!)you can’t put his music in any box but it certainly does tick all the boxes. All of his albums have the familiar heavy dub bass but to describe the amazing sound when mixed with electric guitar, pipes, flute, viola, trumpet and keyboards….not all on the same track….is pure genius. The female vocals are great, really haunting. This album has been recorded with 5.1 in mind,the layers of sound and lots of different frequencies is amazing…music to the ears! I have my favourite tracks but I’ll let you find your own. If you like this please try ‘I Could Have Been a Contender’ for a full anthology of this amazing mans work. As Uncut quoted ‘Mu restarts Wobble’s status as musical visionary and cosmic ambassador’.Enjoy.”
I first heard of Jah Wobble when he and Sinead O’Connor collaborated on some music. Sinead has a brilliant voice but he was obviously the talent. Sinead has ‘strong’ views on most things and I don’t pay any attention to her when she talks/rants. But her singing – wow! She’s a bit like Madonna in that her best work is done when other people produce it. My favourite Sinead song is Wake up and make love to me by Sinead and The Blockheads. It can be found on her ‘Collaborations‘ album.
Finally, iTunes is playing all 32 seconds of Homer Simpson’s ‘It was a very good beer‘ and on that note, good night.
Images are courtesy of amazon. It is quite likely they own the copyright on these images.
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