The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale

#275
Title: The Secret Agent: A Simple Tale
Author: Joseph Conrad
Publisher: Doubleday Anchor
Year: 1907/1953
253 pages

The cover of my edition appears to illustrate Verlac outside the observatory.

A wry and sly narrative from Conrad. It is easy to guess most of the plot fairly early on; characterization and the characters' ways of attempting to understand the situation are the more interesting reasons to keep reading. I did find myself attempting to diagnose Stevie, and comparisons and contrasts to Of Mice and Men's Lennie are inevitable.

The Fugitive

#274
Title: The Fugitive
Author: Pramoedya Ananta Toer
Translator: Willem Samuels
Publisher: Avon
Year: 1950/1990
Country: Indonesia
171 pages

Linked image is not the Avon cover.

Reportedly structured as a Balinese shadow play, though familiarity with that form is not necessary for enjoying the novel. It begins in medias res but the reader does not need the anxious and intrusive little introduction to orient to the plot. The narrative is simple and somewhat artificial, but engaging nonetheless. Read with Aw's The Harmony Silk Factory and Kim's Lost Names for a broader perspective on the Japanese occupation across countries.

The School of War

#273
Title: The School of War
Author: Alexandre Najjar
Translators: Laurie Wilson
Publisher: Telegram
Year: 1999/2006
Country: Lebanon
133 pages

The chapters present scenes or vignettes from the author's childhood, a sentimental and almost maudlin account of war. It provides a good picture of Lebanese life and inter-community violence within a country. It is refreshing in its lack of anti-Israeli sentiment.

Smile as They Bow

#272
Title: Smile as They Bow
Author: Nu Nu Yi
Translators: Thi Thi Aye and Alfred Birnbaum
Publisher:Hyperion
Year: 2008
Country: Burma/Myanmar
151 pages

Probably the only novel you'll read about Burmese religious transvestites. Some are gay; it is not clear whether they all are. At least one of the main characters is bisexual, or expedient in who he sleeps with. The novel easily evokes the sights, sounds, and smells of a popular religious festival, woven through which is the protagonist's narrative. His musings and the context provide ample information about Burmese customs and beliefs, as well as contemporary problems such as theft and misrepresentation. The primary focus of the novel is on a relationship that is both controlling and protective. It provides a glimpse in the kind of indentured servitude that is still acceptable in much of the world.

A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London. Never Made Public Before

#271
A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the Last Great Visitation in 1665. Written by a Citizen Who Continued All the While in London. Never Made Public Before
Author: Daniel Defoe
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1722/1966
256 pages

Defoe was a young child in 1665. What's best about A Journal of the Plague Year is the lengths to which Defoe goes to cause the reader to believe that this is in fact a journal and not a novel. His narrator repeatedly reports sets of death statistics, analyzing them for evidence that cases of the plague are being hidden. He scrupulously avows that parts of the narrative are true and supports them with references and citations; other parts are equally scrupulously identified as unsubstantiated  or hearsay. The narrator admits that he is not publishing his religious reflections on the plague as these would be of no interest to the reader. The style is discursive and matter of fact. The overall effect is of reportage, not fiction.

The reader may indeed breathe a sigh of relief that the narrator keeps his theological musings from these pages, heavily interlarded as they already are with Defoe's usual moral philosophizing. Though not out of place for the time or the content of the novel, it is still wearing. This edition has an introduction by Anthony Burgess that puts these sermons into context and renders them tolerable.

As a bubonic plague aficionado, I appreciated Defoe's detailed descriptions of the signs of the plague and the practices associated with the government's efforts to contain it. Defoe makes a number of excellent observations about the futility and damaging effects of quarantine, and though the plague and HIV spread differently, the attribution of divine and social meanings to a disease resonate even today.

In the United States of Africa

#270
Title: In the United States of Africa
Author: Abdourahman A. Waberi
Translators: David and Nicole Ball
Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
Year: 2009
Country: Djibouti
131 pages

A lyrical odyssey that sacrifices plot and clarity for poetic flights, In the United States of Africa is enjoyable to read but ultimately unsatisfying. Written primarily in the second person, it details the coming of age of Maya, a white French refugee adopted from war-torn and barbaric Europe by an altruistic couple in prosperous Africa. Linguistic and political jokes abound and are fun to encounter. Dizzying linguistic tangents are tasty even in translation. The premise is a pleasure. The plot is negligible masquerading as erudite, though that's not a reason not to read it. Waberi is, finally, unduly coy; an example is the bundle that causes Maya to recoil. Perhaps others have figured it out, but if they have, the answer is not revealed in otherwise spoiler-laden reviews.  Though I have several guesses, none seems particularly supported by the narrative, unless the literal contents of the bundle don't matter and instead symbolize Maya's alternative fate. Maybe I'm missing something; if so, please help me out, but my master's in writing is not sufficient to the task.

The Dancer from Khiva: One Muslim Woman's Quest for Freedom

#269
Title: The Dancer from Khiva: One Muslim Woman's Quest for Freedom
Author: Bibish
Translator: Andrew Bromfield
Publisher: Black Cat
Year: 2008
Country: Uzbekistan
248 pages

This memoir works in some ways and not in others. Bibish begins her life story with some early brutalizations, moving chronologically through childhood, young adulthood, and to sometime near the present. What is effective is the description of village life in Uzbekistan. However, the narrative's trajectory seems fairly random. Why does Bibish no longer dance? Why does she cease to teach? What are her relationships like? What "quest for freedom"? The story, for all its action, is curiously flat and, in the absence of a guiding theme or obtained moral, seems strangely pointless.

Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle

#268
Title: Merchants of Madness: The Methamphetamine Explosion in the Golden Triangle
Authors: Bertil Lintner and Michael Black
Publisher: Silkworm Books
Year: 2009
176 pages

Also available here. I picked up my copy at the airport in Bangkok.

Merchants of Madness is a brief but densely-packed overview of the history of methamphetamine production and distribution in Burma/Myanmar, and the military/governmental/criminal systems that support it. To explain why yaba ("crazy medicine") is the substance of choice for regional manufacture and sale, the authors describe the former opium/heroin operation and show the comparative ease of methamphetamine production, as well as the overlap in personnel. Many pages are spent introducing the reader to the key players and the progression of events, as well as marshaling the evidence to support the authors' assertions. For this reason, the book often reads more like a background briefing than like a history. At times it is repetitive, and while the glossary of major actors is interesting, it may not be necessary since the authors go into such depth in the text each time one of these people is mentioned. What is missing is much description or analysis of the social effects on the country and region of so much methamphetamine traffic. While this is clearly not the focus of the authors' inquiry, it strikes this social scientist as a large omission.

***
Answer to the reader who asked why methamphetamine production would be lucrative given the opium fields of Afghanistan: Opium has to be grown, so it's subject to the vicissitudes of weather, eradication by outside authorities, and the effort of transporting it to a refinery, whereas methamphetamine can be made in a lab with great ease. Part of what's missing from this book are questions like "where do the toxins from meth manufacture wind up?" and "does the populace see meth as a drug of abuse, as a medicine, or is it simply off the radar of most subsistence farmers?"

I'll add too that the world's tallest mountains are between Afghanistan and Southeast Asia.

Vietnam: A History

#267
Title: Vietnam: A History
Author: Stanley Karnow
Publisher: Penguin
Year: 1983
784 pages

Audio product here.

A rather lengthy and dense history of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam war. While generally chronological, there are a number of points where this is not strictly adhered to. Karnow's narrative is methodical and not stylish; on the plus side, he incorporates quotes from numerous interviews with politicians, U.S. and Vietnamese military personnel, and others.

Others' reviews are generally positive, but some fault Karnow's scholarship or perspective. I can't evaluate the legitimacy of these concerns, but can say that in relation to other histories and memoirs, Karnow appears to do a good job of representing Vietnamese as well as American accounts.

Two deficits associated with the audiobook are the obvious omission of Karnow's many photographs and the reader's frequent mispronunciations (e.g., NEE-po-tism).

Read with Born on the Fourth of July and A Viet Cong Memoir: An Inside Account of the Vietnam War and Its Aftermath or other memoirs with a military emphasis.

Born on the Fourth of July

#266
Title: Born on the Fourth of July
Author: Ron Kovic
Publisher: Pocket
Year: 1976
224 pages

Though not well-written, Born on the Fourth of July is still worth reading. The best aspect of the memoir is Kovic's struggle between his patriotism and his indignation. Kovic's patriotic feelings are expressed in the language of treacly 1950's stereotypes, which may express how he actually formulated it, or his wholesale and uncritical swallowing of a widespread fantasy of the American Dream, or poor retrospective description. It remains the case, no matter which is true, that Kovic's disillusionment, despair, and anger are intimately related to the betrayal of a cultural promise in which he (as well as many others) deeply believed.

Some reviewers fault Kovics for his repeated discussions of his injury-related impotence. It's hard for me to imagine that a 21 year old who lost his sexual functioning wouldn't ruminate over this; in fact, given his angry outbursts about this, it's surprising how coy he is about the character of his later romantic relationships.

Ender in Exile

#265
Title: Ender in Exile
Author: Orson Scott Card
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2008
380 pages

A non-stand-alone novel that slots into the end of Ender's Game, this is enjoyable enough for Ender fans and irrelevant for anyone else. At a structural level, I enjoy the idea that a whole novel can be hidden in the interstices of another. I appreciated the detail on Ender's missing years, especially because I got bored with following Bean in the "Shadow" series (another way to hide a novel in a novel: Retell events from a collateral perspective). For people who haven't read the "Shadow" books, there's enough clunky exposition to fill you in.

The emotional tone was flat for this series, and  overall the book seemed a little perfunctory. However, it was still a pleasant diversion.

The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest Book

#264
Title: The New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest BookAuthor: Robert Mankoff
Publisher: Andrews McMeel Publishing
Year: 2008
202  pages

This volume gathers the first set of contest-winning captions generated by readers of The New Yorker. Some of the second place captions are funnier than the winners, but there are more hits than misses in this enjoyable collection.

Little Brother

#263
Title: Little Brother
Author: Cory Doctorow
Publisher: Tor
Year: 2008
384  pages

A fun young adult dystopia, though it doesn't seem like enduring fiction of the sort that warrants a Hugo nomination. Marcus, a 17-year old gamer, has trouble with an authoritarian school and culture. However, these difficulties pale beside those he encounters when terrorists blow up a bridge in the Bay Area, providing the grounds for Homeland Security to swoop in and begin abrogating civil liberties. Subjected to the sorts of intrusions, threats, and indignities with which Americans have become increasingly familiar, Marcus vows to take down Homeland Security. His attempts to do so are engaging, though sometimes for a smart adolescent he doesn't think through consequences well. The narrator's tone never seemed quite natural to me, and the concluding sequence was fast enough to be somewhat flat. If you like to learn your science from hard science fiction, you should be reasonably satisfied with this quick but entertaining read. Doctorow makes his texts available free through Creative Commons. Download this book from http://craphound.com/littlebrother/downl

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