Book review: Pure (Miller)

I was drawn to this book, “Pure” by Andrew Miller, mainly because of its cover. It made me think of a historical novel with some action involved, maybe a duel or two. But I was misled. And I am not even angry. Far from it.

The book is set in the years 1785 and 1786 and is based on a true event, the demolition of the graveyard of Les Innocents (Cimetière des Saints-Innocents) in central Paris, close to Les Halles. The graveyard had been closed in 1780 due to overcrowding and was considered a health hazard by the authorities. The story tells the tale of (the fictional character) Jean-Baptiste Baratte, a young engineer from the countryside who is ordered by one of the ministers of the French king to eliminate the cemetery and church. And – sorry for the major spoiler here – that is exactly what Baratte will do. But the book is actually about how the destruction of the churchyard affects the people living close by or working on this project.

The story is told rather quietly but you can feel the underlying tension of pre-revolutionary France quite well. And I very much enjoyed how the little things of everyday life came alive through the author’s description (praise to the modern day luxury of having several sets of clothes!). The only thing I slightly regretted was that the book was written in English and not in French (considering the story is set in Paris). But well, that is my personal thing and should not deter anyone from reading this wonderful book.

Book review: The Fifth Head of Cerberus (Wolfe)

There is another book I read that turned out to be quite different from what I had expected it to be, but this time I liked how it was developing. “The Fifth Head of Cerberus“, a science fiction novel written by Gene Wolfe and published in 1972, consists of three tales that make up the story. The tales are set on the twin planets Sainte Croix and Sainte Anne which have been colonised for about 100 years by settlers from Earth. There used to be some native population on Sainte Anne, hunter-gatherers with shapeshifting abilities. But these aborigines have since died out. Or have they? That is the question that John Marsch, an anthropologist from Earth, wants to answer. It is this quest that binds the three parts together.

The first part is told by a man from Sainte Croix and gives an insight into the society of the settlers living on this planet. Educated by a machine, he is later tested by his father, a scientist, before realising there is a secret running in the family. John Marsch makes an entry towards the end of this tale in the form of an observer.

The second part is the story of Sandwalker, one of the natives from Sainte Anne, and it is set directly before the arrival of the first human settlers. It is an introduction to the aboriginal society and its rites and also gives an overview of what creatures populated that planet. This part is written like someone is retelling the legend of Sandwalker.

The third part tells of John Marsch’s field work on Sainte Anne and it becomes clear that he has returned to Sainte Croix after some time. I especially liked how this third part was written. In it, an officer reads randomly selected journal entries, interview transcripts and forms, and listens to interrogation sessions. This means that as a reader you have some information here and there that aids you in making up your mind and developing your own theory of what actually happened. I have my theory. Read the book and make up your own mind.

Book review: Cities in Flight (Blish)

Ah, I really need to catch up on posting my reading challenge reviews before starting to read yet another book… So, as a starter, a review of a book turning out to be not as good as I had expected it to be.

“Cities in Flight” by James Blish is a tetralogy written between 1950 and 1962. As the foreword tells, the whole story began as a short story in a pulp magazine. This went on to become book 3 of the series. Blish then added books 1, 4 and 2 to expand on the story and add some background information. The basic plot outline is that science has advanced to the point where life prolonging pills are a reality and long distance space flight has become possible by encapsulating cities like New York in so-called spindizzy-fields and moving them out to space. Mankind has settled distant planets and the cities move from planet to planet in search of work because there are no resources left on Earth. The underlying theme is the “decline of the Western culture”, an inspiration Blish received from a book by historian Oswald Spengler. (How glad I was that the afterword gave an explanation of this…)

I had set out reading the book expecting it to be some sort of “space opera” – and was somewhat disappointed finding the first book to be pretty science-oriented. It is set in the future of 2018 and tells of the development of the “anti-agathics”, the drugs that suppress the aging process. A second line of action gives an account of a science experiment in the atmosphere of Jupiter, although the main argument of the story is that the cultural development of the West has stalled and scientific development is no longer supported by the government.

The second book tells of a more distant future, and here the story turned more into what I had expected. It focusses on an adolescent, Chris deFord, who accidentally joins a town leaving for a life amongst the stars. Following his transfer to another migrant city, New York, the reader is introduced to the whole set-up of the travelling cities (or Okies, a reference to migrant workers from Oklahoma in the 1930s looking for work in California), how they are governed by a mayor who has the City Fathers, a computer, at his disposal for reference and decision-making, how the cities need to travel from planet to planet to dig for resources, and the underlying “code of honour” of the cities.

The third book takes another step into the future. The story is centered on the Okie city of New York and the main protagonists are the mayor John Amalfi and the city manager Mark Hazleton. When they find a planet travelling far from any star and with an undeveloped society, they encounter a number of problems but are able to solve them all. They help the planet out with their spindizzy-technology. After putting the planet on a new trajectory, New York encounters a conglomeration of other migrant cities and they learn that the universal currency has been devalued. The end of the story takes New York to another galaxy and leaves it stranded on a planet that is named New Earth.

The fourth book sees New York still on New Earth, but mayor Amalfi seems to be determined to raise the city up again. At that moment, the travelling planet from the previous book makes an entrance again with a technologically advanced society living on it (all thanks to the spindizzies received from New York). The society is in fact so advanced, they have found a rift in the fabric of space meaning the end of time – in our and a parallel universe – is near. The question is, what will happen and will any of the protagonists make the transition?

So, what is it that I liked and disliked about the book? I really liked the story idea of the migrant cities. But I have the feeling that Blish did not think the concept of them 100 % through – for the first story written, the concept was good enough but fitting in the other stories seemed to be something of a struggle (and I think Blish was aware of that while writing some of the later books). Sometimes it seems as though there are only around 50-100 people in the Okie cities, at other times it sounds closer to a couple of thousands. But there never is a mention of what those people are occupied with during the time they are spending travelling through space. This makes the stories somewhat lifeless. The temporal dimensions are also far too vague for my liking. After the initial scientific breakthrough in 2018, it takes another 1000 years of meager scientific progress to advance space flight to the point where long distance flight is possible. And then the rest of the storyline seems to be cramped into just several hundreds of years with time literally running out in the end. What I can accept though is that the portrayal of computer output is – compared to our reality of today – pretty limited (well, who could have predicted that rapid development in the 1950s?).

But my main struggle throughout the most part (starting in book 2, and including all of books 3 and 4) was that I could not connect to the character of John Amalfi. It is not that I disliked him. The problem was, there was neither much to like nor to dislike about him. Maybe the one thing about this character that made me sigh from time to time was his tendency to withhold information on his plans to solve the next problem arising.

The best book to me was the second one because I felt a link to Chris deFord, going with him through the learning process and becoming acquainted with the whole concept of the migrant cities. The development of Blish’s writing ability are apparent here (as it was the last book of the tetralogy written).

To sum it up: should you be a die-hard science fiction fan with a particular interest in the 1950s, consider reading “Cities in Flight” – you will enjoy the basic idea behind the migrant cities. If you are not a die-hard science fiction fan, consider picking something else to read, there are plenty of books out there with more intriguing character developments.

Gentle giants

The bird feed is gone, emptied to the last seed. And the winner is: the crow.

They have their nest four trees over. I have seen them doing their neighbourhood watch from nearby house roofs as well as patroling the lawn for some time now. No wonder then that they finally spotted the bird feed. Two days ago, early in the morning, one of the crows sat on the balustrade picking at the seeds. Compared to the little songbirds I have had so far, crows are scarily huge. Like, absolutely gigantic. And they are better at seeing through windows than the little ones, so I only had to angrily shake my fist at the crow for it to give me an apologetic look and then take flight. Only to come back some time later to pick some more.

But I am not really mad at the crow. Actually, I quite like them. And to tell the truth, I was pleasantly surprised how well behaved at least this particular specimen was. I had assumed that it would rip apart the bird feed (the seeds were enclosed in a plastic netting), making a mess even worse than what the tits sometimes leave. But no, this crow left everything tidied up. No seeds left lying around and the bird-feed-net is still intact. What a gentle beast.

Still, no more bird feed for no one from now on.

Postcrossing woes

Oh, what a shame, I just drew an address of a pretty rare country on Postcrossing. It’s not even a country but one of the special territories listed. And with only 1 1/2 active members (out of 13 officially registered [of which 11 have not been active for years]), this means I will never ever receive a postcard back from there. Boohoo, life is so unfair.

Still, I am quite flattered to be sending a postcard there. Plus, I like the user’s profile because it gives me ample points to respond to. Life is good.