Battle Cry of Freedom

I picked up Battle Cry of Freedom because Ta-Nehisi Coates has been talking about it a lot, and because it fits into my conceit that there are a lot of things that I should know more about and that I will enjoy just about any book that is well written. I hated learning about the Civil War back in middle school, but chances seem good that I've evolved since then.

So far in things that I should know more about, or at least be more aware of: the prologue is titled "From the Halls of Montezuma." I recently read somewhere (possibly this book, or this one) that a little discussed precipitor of the ever-so-valient secession of Texas from Mexico was that Mexico had just outlawed slavery, so that's kind of where my mind went...that political happenings in Mexico would be part of a more general international climate that set the scene for the Civil War. Maybe the next section would be on abolitionism in England. The opening lyrics of the Marine's Hymn never meant more to me than "all around the world." It took a while to dawn on me that the reference was actually to the specific event that the song is describing, something that I've never actually thought about in all the times I've listened to it: that American soldiers actually marched through the streets of Mexico City after we invaded their country. Apparently the Mexican-American War was very politically contentious in the United States even while it was being fought. I may have to find a book to read about it next. (This is the problem with making it a goal to find out more about the world...you mostly just end up finding out about more things you really should find out more about).

Anachronistic peroxide.

We can get into the political correctness of this later (or really, let's not), but a lot of fantasy-novel-to-movie-adaptations have characters that are supposed to play on a lot of Norse stereotypes...blond, blue eyed, etc. Am I the only one who is confused why casting directors seem to continuously come up with men who look like this for these parts? Are they afraid that a naturally blond actor would be too pretty and lacking in manly stubble? Do they not realize that these characters are often written as blond because of the pretty/feminine connotations?

The world is a big place.

 News from Afghanistan: 92 percent of men in key province are unaware of 2001 attacks on U.S. 

This article seems to think that the takeaway from this is, "Well surely, we could just tell them! Then they'll know what wonderful people we are and everything will be better!" Somehow I doubt that that's it.  I guess it's possible that the vast majority of Afghan men have just never been exposed to this particular piece of information, and that it will completely rework their world view. I think it's much more likely though that many of them may have heard it somewhere, and just didn't care enough to remember it. And those that did remember certainly didn't think it was important or interesting enough to repeat to others. Even if you could somehow send a memo to every man, woman, and child in Afghanistan, I bet you within a couple months you'd be back in roughly the same place.

I think the takeaway from this should be humility. There are still places in the world where nobody thinks that much about the United States, and places in the world where the official line of the US government doesn't carry any particular weight compared to other more local sources of information...so little weight that it doesn't even get repeated. We've had armed soldiers in their country for almost a decade, and still Afghan men feel like there are better uses for their expertise than analyzing American motives...and they probably have good reasons for feeling that way. (I have no idea what they are, but I assume that most Afghans are pragmatic and rational people, at least as much as people anywhere else are). I think it's important to realize that, and keep it in mind any time someone gives you some utopian vision of what would happen if we could just send troops into some part of the world or another. The United States is an extremely powerful country, but there are limits.

On things not actually being written by Robert Jordan

Finished the book! Things turned out...fairly predictably. Which isn't a complaint, really. I just have nothing in particular to say about the last 300 pages of the book that I didn't already say about the first 500. (So. Many. Pages.)

This series has really given me a new perspective on the writing process, however. Obviously, Robert Jordan deserves credit for creating something that many, many people wanted to read. The first books in the series completely sucked me in...I read them obsessively, and then obsessed over what would happen and how the mysteries would unfold. I think once I actually managed to read an entire 700+ page book in a single day, probably practically a single sitting. But the last couple that he wrote himself, not so much.* It was obvious that somewhere along the way he lost his momentum on the plot, the books got longer and more bogged down in detail while nothing happened. A lot of time when a TV show gets worse and worse in its later seasons, it's because they're trying to drag it out too long, or maybe never knew how to end it in the first place. I kind of thought that was the case with Wheel of Time, too. Watching what's happened since Robert Jordan passed away though, and the writing was handed over to another author, has been really interesting.  My theory now is that lagging fantasy series probably suffer from a completely different malady than TV shows that have jumped the shark. Each author is supposed to create a whole universe, and then find the balance between keeping the plot chugging and making sure that the readers know all the intricately imagined details of the marriage customs of this or that people and the mythology of that one clan. I'm a loyalist by nature. My first instinct is always that whatever came first is the best...but I'm realizing that might be off in this case. Maybe a fantasy series is more like a growing business. In the beginning, one guy with a vision does everything; answers the phones, maintaining the books, and turning out whatever product they make by hand. But as a business gets bigger, and people want more and more from it (or as a fantasy series gets more popular, and there's suddenly a market for more and more details about that world), you can't just keep the same one guy doing everything. You might need one guy to keep churning out the detail and texture and background that most people are looking for in fantasy (what other kind of popular fiction requires so many appendices?), and another to drag the plot across the finish line. I don't think it takes anything away from Robert Jordan to admit that the series is better because he didn't end up doing both.

*I probably still read them obsessively, but I tend to do that equally as much with books that I am just trying to get through, and books that I am actually loving. It confuses some people.

Why, yes I am reading the latest Robert Jordan book.

But sneakily, because I really don't want anyone on the bus to strike up a conversation with me about it.

(Spoilers below through page 544)

Arnold in a Nutshell

This link sums up everything that I find most frustrating about Arnold Schwarzenegger as Governor. He was supposed to blow up the boxes (although I always thought that was an overly simplistic promise, and never voted for him) but he sure knows how to avoid taking a stand.

The Serengeti Lion

I'm reading this book on lions, which I'm not particularly interested in, because I liked the book that the same author wrote about wild sheep and goats, which I am interested in. So my approach to it was pretty open starting out, and then was heavily shaped by this statement in the introduction:

"Man, though phylogenetically a primate, has lived ecologically as a social carnivore for some two million years, and possibly more can be learned about the evolution of his social by studying the lion, the hyena, and the wild dog than by examining some vegetarian monkey."

I'm about three quarters of the way through at this point, and still trying to decide what I think of that. Lions don't seem like very appealing kindred spirits. Mostly, they seem to be constantly snarling at one another. Maybe I need to read a book about wolves or wild dogs...an animal for which living in groups isn't such an aberration. Then again, judging whether or not I think they're kindred spirits by how appealing they are is kind of missing the point.

One sense that I get is that your typical TV nature program, in describing the majesty of the natural world, may end up making humans look worse than is really justified. It's been a while since I've watched one, but from what I remember animal behavior is generally described as instinct or an adaptation and even the things that may seem cruel or bizarre are all very logical and purposeful. In contrast Schaller describes, for example, the at best incomplete instincts of lionesses to ensure their cubs have adequate food. One lioness brought a gazelle back for her cubs to eat, but then refused to let them have any. Another let them have a little, but took it back after a short amount of time. A third led her cubs to a kill, but then lost them, and chased them away when they found her. Lots of cubs starve before becoming adults, even though it is rare for adult lions to starve to death. I don't think we generally think of animals as being as capable of doing things badly as we are, especially things as fundamental as raising offspring. But maybe they are.