Towards Understanding: Cambodian Villages Beyond War

#70
Title: Towards Understanding: Cambodian Villages Beyond War
Authors: Meas Nee & Joan Healy
Publisher: Sisters of St Joseph
Year: 2003
Genre: Sociology, infrastructure, Cambodia
115 pages

See here (down the page) for more information than Amazon gives.

This is a fine introductory text on some of the issues inherent in being a have and attempting to be helpful to a group where most are have nots. While the focus is on feasible (and non-oppressive) development efforts in rural Cambodia, the same lessons apply to any number of comparabe communities. Though basic, I found it relatively clear and thoughtful. It's a shame that it is not easily available; it can be ordered from the Sisters of St Joseph (address in the publication notice here) or found in the airports in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Kafka Americana

#69
Title: Kafka AmericanaAuthors: Jonathan Lethem & Carter Scholz
Publisher: Norton
Year: 2001
Genre: Short stories
100 pages

This slender collection of collaborative and individual co-optations of Kafka forms a nice set. Stories range from Lethem's "The Notebooks of Bob K," which tires me in a way that reminds me that I once had boundless enthusiasm for postmodern experiments, to the co-written "Receding Horizon." Though still studded with post-modern asides that don't particularly enhance the narrative, this piece made me gasp aloud through its brilliant identification of, and play with, similarities between Kafka's "The Judgment" and Capra's It's a Wonderful Life. Yes, really. In its attention to the bizarre distortions of perception and story incumbent upon even the most stolid translation from literature to film, "Receding Horizon" also evokes Christopher Isherwood's Prater Violet(Isherwood's fictionalized account of working on the script for the film Little Friend). Read this collection, then refresh yourself with Barthelme's more accessible stories in the delicious Sixty Stories.

Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns

#68
Title: Vietnam, Now: A Reporter Returns
Author: David Lamb
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Year: 2002
Genre: Memoir, History, Vietnam
 288 pages

Lamb, a reporter during the American War, and again a reporter in Hanoi in the late '90s, gives a complex, nuanced account of Vietnam. Lamb captures the ambiguity of Vietnam as well as his ambivalence--he sees the best and worst in Vietnamese culture. Lamb is well-situated to comment on enduring trends and transient phenomena, and he does so even-handedly and with reasonable self-reflection. Lamb is neither romantic nor cynical about Vietnam, making this book especially refreshing in its genre. Read with Thuong Nhu Tang's A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and its Aftermath, and as a well-balanced contrast to Brownmiller's rather negative Seeing Vietnam.

Charlie Bone and the Beast (Children of the Red King #6)

#67
Title: Charlie Bone and the Beast (Children of the Red King #6)
Author: Jenny Nimmo
Publisher: Orchard Books
Year: 2007
Genre: Children's/young adult, fantasy/science fiction, disappointing
 399 pages

One might ask why I keep reading this series when I find them so disappointing. I suppose that it is a combination of hope and morbid fascination. I keep thinking that Nimmo might do a better job, that her skills at style and plot might develop. Though they don't (the first book in this series was the best), I keep coming back out of a sad astonishment that these books are intended for 9 to 12-year olds, the same range as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. While Rowling has her own writing difficulties at times, they pale beside the issues that plague Nimmo's books. Charlie Bone and the Beast is perhaps the worst yet in this series; not only does the plot not cohere well, but it lacks resolution, clearly serving as part 1 of at least a 2-part story arc. Though the characters are growing older, they demonstrate no psychological or emotional development. That several of them are now dating is perhaps intended to show them maturing, but it is depicted in a very flat and uncomplex way.

Dagbert, the latest in a string of new characters, poses an extreme threat to Charie's parents and to Cook, as well as to his own father. His father is also a threat to Charlie's parents , Cook, and  Dagbert. He appears to have dropped Dagbert at Bloor's in order to control or contain him. Where does any of this go? Absolutely nowhere. Yes, Dagbert presents some threats to Charlie, all of which are easily repulsed by his friends.

Even one of the Bloor's Academy teachers turns out to have the power to resist Dagbert; was that Dr. Deus Ex Machina I just saw in the hallway? Asa's family is present, then gone, serving little to no function in the plot. Somebody is tearing up the Bones' house looking for something. Too bad that nobody in the story can be bothered to try to find out what. Charlie is pulled into traveling (entering into an image), ending a chapter "with a sickening sense of dread...realiz[ing] that...[h]e'd left behind the only thing that could take him back--his white moth" (p. 307), which is really his transformed wand, but as it happens, 4 paragraphs later, he does return--no explanation given. Billy worries about a padlock. Simple solution: Pick it up and hide it or take it with you. No such luck; these middle school-aged children are too dense to think of anything so clever. But it doesn't matter anyway--one of Charlie's friends gets the key from one of his enemies. There's also unresolved business about a will.

I find myself in the strange position of waiting for Book 7 simply to see if all of Book 6 is a set-up for the resolution of these issues, or whether, as in some of Orson Scott Card's worse series, the plot will simply vanish all together.

The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl Obsession

#66
Title: The Big Year: A Tale of Man, Nature, and Fowl ObsessionAuthor: Mark Obmascik
Publisher: Free Press
Year: 2004
Genre: Biography, birdwatching
 268 pages

Note that my paperback copy has the cover above, which Powell's shows as the hardback cover.

In birding, a Big Year typically refers to a birder's attempt to see as many species as possible within a year in a constrained geographic area. In the case of the present book, that's North America, and three birders vie to beat the record and each other. The narrative follows all three men as they pursue totals of over 700 species each in the course of a year. Their travels are often unpleasant and expensive, highlighting the difference between avid birders whose motivation includes pleasure in the process, and competitive birders, who may well appreciate birds and finding them, but who are also driven by and enjoy competition.

This would be an enjoyable companion to Snetsinger's Birding on Borrowed Time (reviewed below, q.v.), and Koeppel's To See Every Bird on Earth: A Father, a Son, and a Lifelong Obsession, which are about the pursuit of a life list (total number of species seen in a lifetime). By the way, the winner of the 1998 Big Year detailed in the present book still holds the record. Want to try for a Big Day? Instructions can be found here.

If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the Wizards

#65
Title: If Harry Potter Ran General Electric: Leadership Wisdom from the World of the WizardsAuthor: Tom Morris
Publisher: Currency/Doubleday
Year: 2006
Genre: Management
 252 pages

Of the books I've read so far this year, this was the slowest going, not because it was the most dense, but because it was the driest. The fault may well be mine and not Morris's; I have always had a tendency to lose my place when reading most philosophy texts, perhaps because I accept their premises about as much as I accept the premises of religions (which is to say, not much).

Make no mistake, this is a management book only superficially. Yes, it uses examples from Harry Potter in ways I generally agree with, at least until a certain level of interpretation, and nominally associates them with business. Yes, it talks about management, but primarily in the sense that a discussion of morality and values is a discussion of management. Throughout, Harry and Dumbledore are held up as virtuous, and specific examples from corporate America are also held up as virtuous. The book would really benefit from a solid chapter on failures of virtue, including corporate examples. This option may be precluded by the business/management genre.

I was left with the sense of emptiness that I often have after reading books on management, industrial/organizational techniques for motivating workers, or discussions of institutional planning and infrastructure that rely overmuch on terms like "vision statement." Had the book been entitled The Philosophy of Harry Potter, and the relatively scant business comparisons dropped, I might have liked it more. However, there are already two books about Harry Potter and Philosophy: Harry Potter and Philosophy and The Wisdom of Harry Potter: What Our Favorite Hero Teaches Us about Moral Choices, which is really about Harry Potter as an exemplar of stoicism, and is reviewed below in mid-April-ish, q.v.

What I found most interesting was to read this now that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has been published. It's entertaining to read the discussions of Dumbledore's decision-making in light of what we learn in that book.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

#64
Title: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
Author: J. K. Rowling
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2007
Genre: Children's/Young Adult Fantasy
759 pages

Well, that was a pretty darn good 14.5 hours (what with the making food and pausing for reflection and such). I may write more after I've slept longer. Below are photos and then a LiveJournal cut with some spoilers behind it. I'm pleased to say that I was able to avoid hearing or reading any spoilers with this book.

Second in line, baby! Support your independent bookstore!
I went to the university bookstore at 6:15 PM and waited in line until they opened at 7:00. I was second in line behind a colleague's wife and son, scoring tickets #3 and 4 at 7:01 while loudly blasting Alanis Morissette on my iPod so that the book would not be spoiled either by deliberate bad behavior or people discussing the hightly unethical and meanspirited decision of the New York Times, Baltimore Sun, and a handful of other papers to purchase copies sold early in violation of contract (or read illegal copies from BitTorrent). Lest you wonder what the fuss is about and think that a review in NYT could be avoided, it was a front-page news story with immediate spoilers, and was picked up internationally, discussed on radio, etc. This made it pretty hard to function if you don't want to know anything about the book, and I didn't, having had the previous Harry Potter spoiled by a person in line before I had a chance to read it. I took Google off my home page and avoided all media (including the internet other than my university e-mail with spam filters at the max) on Thursday. After snagging our tickets, I left the bookstore, returning with my partner at about 10:30. The bookstore asked everyone there (several hundred people) to pledge to keep the book secret. Any number of children did what the nation's newspaper of record chose not to do.


20 July 2007, 11:59 PM


21 July 2007, 9:00 PM

1. The organization of the series as a chiasmus demands a return to some of the circumstances and themes of Book 1: Who is Harry? Where does he come from? Who will he be now and will he choose good or evil? Less existentially, it ought to show Hermione's use of logic and Ron's of strategy. Some resolution with the Dursleys must be reached.Yes to all.
2. Snape is innocent. I used to think that the mythic structure demanded that Harry sacrifice himself; I now believe that he must be willing to do so, and may even intend to do so, but that Snape is, in fact, the interrex of this tale and, sneeringly and contemptuously, will sacrifice himself in a way that proves his loyalty to Dumbledore and utter contempt for Harry.Yes. Ha.
3. Harry will have an opportunity to kill Draco; as in his Book 3 encounter with Peter Pettigrew, compassion must stay his hand.Yes.

4. I was very disappointed that the film of OOTP, which was released last week, showed Harry handing the prophecy to Lucius Malfoy. Harry is not Frodo. A conclusion in which he proves fallible and Snape has to perform the moral equivalent of biting off his finger to seize the One Ring would be deeply unsatisfying. Since we have already seen Snape commit an analogue of this act by killing Dumbledore when Draco could not, perhaps Rowling has already pre-empted this possibility.
Yes, she avoided this. However, I remain deeply concerned about Harry's use of Unforgivable Curses, since a great deal of time and energy is spent on the theme of doing the right thing rather than letting the ends justify the means. However, I am gratified that Harry met Voldemort's ultimate avada cadavra with expelliarmus (and it's funy since everyone has been so contemptous of his use of that spell when facing Voldemort).
5. One hopes that Dumbledore's efforts on behalf of magical multiculturalism have some bearing on the action in the last book.Yes, though where are Beaux Batons and Durmstrang?
6. Is some aspect of Lily encapsulated in Harry, whether by accident or design? Did Voldemort's killing curse, intended to create a horcrux for himself, instead send a part of Lily's soul into Harry? We know he has his mother's eyes (not on a salver like St. Lucy, of course, but more than metaphorically). What else of Lily's does he have?No as to Lily; yes as to Voldemort. Pretty much my only point of contention with Rowling is that the significance of having his mother's eyes seems mostly to be how much it annoys Snape.
7. Though Dumbledore is dead, he will communicate with Harry through his chocolate frog card.No, though he did communicate with him a couple of different ways after his death.
8. Parenthetically, Tonks and Lupin? Come on. This only works if they're both bisexual, and both seem a lot more on the gay end of the spectrum to me.I stand by this though we'll never know.

I did post on a message board earlier this week: "The last horcrux is Gryffindor's Tarnished Tiara, which, in his haste to ditch Snape's spellbook, Harry failed to identify in the Room of Requirement."True, but called it in the wrong direction--it was Ravenclaw's.


I'm feeling a little shortchanged by the scene with the Dursleys. I'd have liked an epilogue for Dudley, at least.

Mugglenet.Com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End

#63 Title: Mugglenet.Com's What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End Authors: Ben Schoen, Emerson Spartz, Andy Gordon, Gretchen Stull, & Jamie Lawrence
Publisher: Ulysses Press
Year: 2006
Genre: Literary Criticism, Fantasy/Science Fiction
180 pages

Another reasonably enjoyable speculation on the end of the Harry Potter series. This one is more pragmatic and tends to be driven by interviews with J. K. Rowling more than story arc or plot components. While I disagree with some of their assertions (that is, I disagree that some things they assert as fact have been demonstrated to be facts), I largely agree with their logic and the conclusions they derive. This is a very quick read, so you have time to take care of it before midnight this Saturday when the last Harry Potter novel is published. They make a good case related to the locket and how it was retrieved; I won't say more than that.

Another Field Guide to Little-Known & Seldom-Seen Birds of North America

#62 Title: Another Field Guide to Little-Known & Seldom-Seen Birds of North AmericaAuthor: Ben, Cathryn,  John Sill
Publisher: Peachtree Publishers
Year: 1980
Genre: Parody
71 pages

Marcia handed me this on Thursday. Thanks, Marcia! This is a hilarious little send-up of field guides to birds and, though probably funnier for those with experience using field guides, is still accessible to everyone. In addition to very nicely rendered illustrations of such birds as the Mangrove Penguin (Tuxedo verdantus) and the Greater Noxious Grossbird (Incredibilus disgustus), the authors also include helpful charts showing the correct assembly of bird parts, nesting success of the Nearsighted Bat Owl (the news isn't good, I'm afraid), and the feather count of the Rear-Tailed Evader to name a few. I particularly enjoyed such sage advice as:

At the SeashoreDon't Say: Golly days, all those little birds look just alike! Do Say: We need better light to identify those peeps.

Wiser words were never written.

Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince: Lead-up to the 7th Harry Potter

Jul. 14th, 2007 | 09:48 pm

                       

#60 [a re-read]Title: Harry Potter and the Order of the PhoenixAuthor: J. K. Rowling
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2003
Genre: Children's/Young Adult Fantasy
870 pages

#61 [a re-read]
Title: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceAuthor: J. K. Rowling
Publisher: Scholastic
Year: 2005
Genre: Children's/Young Adult Fantasy
652 pages

You don't really need reviews of these, do you?  Instead, I'll offer a few observations and predictions for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows:
1. The organization of the series as a chiasmus demands a return to some of the circumstances and themes of Book 1: Who is Harry? Where does he come from? Who will he be now and will he choose good or evil? Less existentially, it ought to show Hermione's use of logic and Ron's of strategy. Some resolution with the Dursleys must be reached.

2. Snape is innocent. I used to think that the mythic structure demanded that Harry sacrifice himself; I now believe that he must be willing to do so, and may even intend to do so, but that Snape is, in fact, the interrex of this tale and, sneeringly and contemptuously, will sacrifice himself in a way that proves his loyalty to Dumbledore and utter contempt for Harry.

3. Harry will have an opportunity to kill Draco; as in his Book 3 encounter with Peter Petigrew, compassion must stay his hand.

4. I was very disappointed that the film of OOTP, which was released last week, showed Harry handing the prophecy to Lucius Malfoy. Harry is not Frodo. A conclusion in which he proves fallible and Snape has to perform the moral equivalent of biting off his finger to seize the One Ring would be deeply unsatisfying. Since we have already seen Snape commit an analogue of this act by killing Dumbledore when Draco could not, perhaps Rowling has already pre-empted this possibility.

5. One hopes that Dumbledore's efforts on behalf of magical multiculturalism have some bearing on the action in the last book.

6. Is some aspect of Lily encapsulated in Harry, whether by accident or design? Did Voldemort's killing curse, intended to create a horcrux for himself, instead send a part of Lily's soul into Harry? We know he has his mother's eyes (not on a salver like St. Lucy, of course, but more than metaphorically). What else of Lily's does he have?

7. Though Dumbledore is dead, he will communicate with Harry through his chocolate frog card.

8. Parenthetically, Tonks and Lupin? Come on. This only works if they're both bisexual, and both seem a lot more on the gay end of the spectrum to me.

The Unauthorized Harry Potter

#59Title: The Unauthorized Harry PotterAuthor: Adam-Troy Castro
Publisher: BenBella for Borders
Year: 2006
Genre: Literary criticism, Harry Potter
205 pages

Another of those "Borders Exclusive" buy-now-or-forever-hold-your-peace Harry Potter literary criticism books. Purchased at Borders but no longer available on their website.

It should be said up front that Castro hits and holds an annoying, intended-to-be-jocular tone through much of the book, as if he is speaking condescendingly to middle schoolers, though the content and cover price argue against this. He also has a very disruptive habit of writing in single-sentence paragraphs. This reads like pornography or other bad genre fiction. In addition, he refers to himself throughout as "Your Friendly Host." For some reason, he spells portkey as "Port Key" throughout. If you can ignore all of this, and I'm not suggesting it's easy, you will enjoy the book more. It's worth the effort as Castro has reasonable ideas; when he gets rolling the reader has a much better sense of his skills as a writer.

Castro asks, as do other Harry Potter commentators, how the social worlds of wizards and Muggles can coexist yet barely intersect. Has Castro never been to Burning Man, a gay bar, a crack-of-dawn birdwatching expedition, a synagogue? Plenty of groups live side-by-side without knowing very much about each other at all. Throw me into my neighbor's house and I'd be as lost with his Wii and circular saw as Mr. Weasley is with a fellytone.

Castro's thinking about the books themselves is good; like Orson Scott Card's section of The Great Snape Debate or Langford's The End of Harry Potter? (both reviewed below), it's a pleasure to read plot speculations from an author in a related genre.

The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is More

#58Title: The Paradox of Choice: Why Less is MoreAuthor: Barry Schwartz
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Year: 2005
Genre: Sociology, Psychology, Culture
283 pages

Schwartz, with whom I had a pleasant chat at American Psychological Association a while back, contends that while having choices is valuable, more choices don't appear to lead to greater happiness, and may be psychologically detrimental. I enjoyed his arguments, which are closely associated with sociological and psychological studies, and recommend reading this book in conjunction with Gladwell's Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking or The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference, or even Levitt and Dubner's Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything (since you may recall that I didn't care much for the latter, you may shelve Schwartz near it without reading it if you so choose).

Though I agree with the conclusions drawn, in general, Schwartz's arguments seem reductive at times, and without seeing the studies themselves I can't evaluate whether other elements that may be important have been accounted for. Thus, choices are often presented as all-or-nothing, and research participants' pragmatic economic decision-making seems to be overlooked. For example, in studies where a sure bet of receiving $100 is set in opposition to a slightly better-weighted double-or-nothing option, participants' more common choice of $100 is not discussed in relativistic terms (such as would be familiar to readers of Gilligan's critique of Kohlberg) that include the participant's pragmatic life experience of needing to take a safe bet rather than a risky one with the potential for more gain but that might also cause loss.

In addition, those for whom the process of shopping or questing is enjoyable, and those who approach such activities with mindfulness and attention, are not well-represented in Schwartz's argument. Schwartz does allude to a related issue when he notes the possibility of history and cohort effects (though he doesn't say it that way); what is overwhelming for one generation (such as a cell phone) may be par for the course for the next (such as watching a video on an iPhone while texting about something else and pretending to be paying attention in class).