Freedom
Author: Jonathan Franzen 562 pp 2010
My rating: 4*
Started November 21 2010, Finished November 26 2010
I don’t feel quite right giving this novel a mere half star more than the far less worthy One Day. But while Freedom is vastly better written, far more ambitious and much funnier, it lacked the emotional wallop of One Day, in fact the characters really did not engage me much, and is diminished but what strikes me as snobbishness.
On the positive side, the word that comes to mind when assessing Freedom is Updikeian. Page after page of Freedom contains prose worthy of that master with insights akin to those found in the Rabbit quartet: one character's page long diatribe about all the irritations posed by contending with other drivers reminded me of one of my strongest Rabbit memories when in Rabbit At Rest, the aged Rabbit reflects that when he was younger the roads were filled with slowpokes, while now that he is a more patient, if not timid, driver, everyone else seems to be a speed maniac. Freedom also brings to mind the Rabbit books in its attempt to dissect the inner workings of modern American life and its overemphasis on sex as the driving activity of that existence.
Freedom also earns points for readability -- it’s nearly a page turner -- and at least for me, its polemical but not excessively didactic or heavy handed theme of how the American lifestyle is extremely rough on our environment.
Freedom’s primary weakness for me is that all its main characters come from a very thin slice of American society, the white, liberal lower-upper-middle-class. (Note: all the main characters of Franzen’s previous novel, The Corrections, were of the same ilk.) Characters from better off classes are viewed as self-entitled depredators while those from below it are viewed as feral cretins. While in all fairness, I do not necessarily disagree with those stereotypes, it seems an author's duty is to try and provide a “warts and all” portrait, not just a “warts only” one, to rise above his and his reader's prejudices and show all sides of the story.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Matterhorn
Matterhorn
Author: Karl Marlantes 566 pp 2010
My rating: 5*
Started November 8 2010, Finished November 12 2010
A very powerful, pro-soldier, anti-war statement.
Marlantes' novel, presumably based on his time as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam all those years ago, provided me with what was possibly my most intense reading experience ever. This unrelenting, stripped down -- Hemingwayesque? -- depiction of war puts the reader in the characters skins better than anything else I can remember, allowing him to feel a soldier’s boredom, terror and most of all, physical misery. In the world of Matterhorn, the putative enemy -- Vietcong troops -- are just another hostile force of nature along with weather, vegetation, tigers, malaria bearing mosquitoes, and leaches while the real foci of the soldiers’ animus are the commanding officers who needlessly send men to die simply to further their own careers. Anther major theme is the racial tension afflicting the Corps which almost magically evaporates during combat when the marines’ only hopes of survival are effective action as a unit. Matterhorn evokes other all time great war novels including Catch-22 (stripped of irony) in its depiction of a world where the main impetus of commanders is furthering their own career and The Naked and The Dead whose climactic mountain assault is reprised here.
… what really mattered in combat was what people were like when they were exhausted. (11)
He was trying to remember what he’d been told to do, back at Quantico. His mind seemed empty. … All alone. All alone, and maybe about to die. (83)
It was all absurd, without reason or meaning. People who didn't even know each other were going to kill each other over a hill none of them cared about. The wind picked up slightly, bring the smell of the jungle with it. Mellas shivered. He couldn't figure out why the didn’t just quit. Yet they wouldn't.
Mellas was transported outside himself, beyond himself. It was as if his mind watched everything coolly while his body raced wildly with passion and fear. He was frightened beyond any fear he had ever known. But this brilliant and intense fear, this terrible here and now, combined with the crucial significance of every movement of his body, pushed him over a barrier whose existence he had not known about until this moment. He gave himself over completely to the god of war within him. (351)
Author: Karl Marlantes 566 pp 2010
My rating: 5*
Started November 8 2010, Finished November 12 2010
A very powerful, pro-soldier, anti-war statement.
Marlantes' novel, presumably based on his time as a Marine Corps officer in Vietnam all those years ago, provided me with what was possibly my most intense reading experience ever. This unrelenting, stripped down -- Hemingwayesque? -- depiction of war puts the reader in the characters skins better than anything else I can remember, allowing him to feel a soldier’s boredom, terror and most of all, physical misery. In the world of Matterhorn, the putative enemy -- Vietcong troops -- are just another hostile force of nature along with weather, vegetation, tigers, malaria bearing mosquitoes, and leaches while the real foci of the soldiers’ animus are the commanding officers who needlessly send men to die simply to further their own careers. Anther major theme is the racial tension afflicting the Corps which almost magically evaporates during combat when the marines’ only hopes of survival are effective action as a unit. Matterhorn evokes other all time great war novels including Catch-22 (stripped of irony) in its depiction of a world where the main impetus of commanders is furthering their own career and The Naked and The Dead whose climactic mountain assault is reprised here.
“There it is.”
… what really mattered in combat was what people were like when they were exhausted. (11)
He was trying to remember what he’d been told to do, back at Quantico. His mind seemed empty. … All alone. All alone, and maybe about to die. (83)
It was all absurd, without reason or meaning. People who didn't even know each other were going to kill each other over a hill none of them cared about. The wind picked up slightly, bring the smell of the jungle with it. Mellas shivered. He couldn't figure out why the didn’t just quit. Yet they wouldn't.
Mellas was transported outside himself, beyond himself. It was as if his mind watched everything coolly while his body raced wildly with passion and fear. He was frightened beyond any fear he had ever known. But this brilliant and intense fear, this terrible here and now, combined with the crucial significance of every movement of his body, pushed him over a barrier whose existence he had not known about until this moment. He gave himself over completely to the god of war within him. (351)
Sunday, October 31, 2010
The Disappearing Spoon
The Disappearing Spoon
Author: Sam Kean 2010 375 pp
My rating: 3*
Started October 18 2010, Finished October 29 2010
The subtitle of this book, “And other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of the elements” pretty much says it all. There is no overarching theme, just a series of interesting stories from the world of elemental chemistry. While I found it interesting and enjoyable, its disjointed nature left me without much of an impression. In two weeks, I probably won’t remember much of “The Disappearing Spoon” at all.
-----------------------------------------------------
Unlike modern pills, these hard antimony pills didn’t dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valuable that people rooted through fecal matter to retrieve and reuse them. Some lucky families even passed down laxatives from father to son. (22)
“But since this Japanese Vulcan died with his secret, it was lost for five hundred years -- proof that superior technology does not always spread and often goes extinct” (89)
This is faulty logic, something happening “once” is not “proof” that it “often” happens.
… scientists might soon be able to build “matter lasers” that shoot out ultra-focused beams of atoms thousands of times more powerful than light lasers, or construct “super solid” ice cubes that can flow each other without losing their solidity. (293-4)
Author: Sam Kean 2010 375 pp
My rating: 3*
Started October 18 2010, Finished October 29 2010
The subtitle of this book, “And other true tales of madness, love, and the history of the world from the periodic table of the elements” pretty much says it all. There is no overarching theme, just a series of interesting stories from the world of elemental chemistry. While I found it interesting and enjoyable, its disjointed nature left me without much of an impression. In two weeks, I probably won’t remember much of “The Disappearing Spoon” at all.
-----------------------------------------------------
Unlike modern pills, these hard antimony pills didn’t dissolve in the intestines, and the pills were considered so valuable that people rooted through fecal matter to retrieve and reuse them. Some lucky families even passed down laxatives from father to son. (22)
“But since this Japanese Vulcan died with his secret, it was lost for five hundred years -- proof that superior technology does not always spread and often goes extinct” (89)
This is faulty logic, something happening “once” is not “proof” that it “often” happens.
… scientists might soon be able to build “matter lasers” that shoot out ultra-focused beams of atoms thousands of times more powerful than light lasers, or construct “super solid” ice cubes that can flow each other without losing their solidity. (293-4)
Monday, October 4, 2010
Theodore Rex
Theodore Rex
Author: Edmund Morris 2001 555 pp
My rating: 4*
Started September 14 2010, Finished October 2 2010
The second volume of Morris’ life of Theodore Roosevelt while highly enjoyable and informative did not impress me as much as the first. This book covers Roosevelt’s time as President and lacks the expansive feel of the first book which though it covers a much greater time span and contains about the same number of pages, felt more detailed. Theodore Rex does not quite give the reader the feeling that every noteworthy event of Roosevelt’s personal and professional life during the period covered was thoroughly explored. In particular this book seemed to stint on the personal life; I would have liked to know more about his family, in particular his daughter Alice. Nonetheless, Roosevelt still comes across as a sui generis physical and intellectual dynamo, making more recent presidents seem under-powered and ineffectual.
-----------------------------------------------------
After TR had Booker T Washington to dinner at the White House: “ … South Carolina Senator Benjamin J Tillman endorsed remedial genocide: ‘The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again.’” (55)
What held them together was their collective dedication to politics as a profession. Conscience, not corruption, kept the average senator in office. He worked seven days a week, assisted by one secretary and one typist, for five thousand dollars a year … (75)
After more blacks were greeted at the White House: “James K. Vardaman, running for Governor of Mississippi, went to the limits of public invective. Theodore Roosevelt was nothing but a “little, mean coon-flavored miscegenation’s”, while the White House had become “so saturated with odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable.” (203)
Henry Adams description of a White House dinner were TR, at the height of his powers, held forth: “We were straws in Niagara. Never have I had an hour of worse social malaise. We were overwhelmed in a torrent of oratory, and at last I heard only the repetition of I-I-I -- attached to indiscretions greater than one another … it is mortifying beyond even drunkenness.” (307)
Author: Edmund Morris 2001 555 pp
My rating: 4*
Started September 14 2010, Finished October 2 2010
The second volume of Morris’ life of Theodore Roosevelt while highly enjoyable and informative did not impress me as much as the first. This book covers Roosevelt’s time as President and lacks the expansive feel of the first book which though it covers a much greater time span and contains about the same number of pages, felt more detailed. Theodore Rex does not quite give the reader the feeling that every noteworthy event of Roosevelt’s personal and professional life during the period covered was thoroughly explored. In particular this book seemed to stint on the personal life; I would have liked to know more about his family, in particular his daughter Alice. Nonetheless, Roosevelt still comes across as a sui generis physical and intellectual dynamo, making more recent presidents seem under-powered and ineffectual.
-----------------------------------------------------
After TR had Booker T Washington to dinner at the White House: “ … South Carolina Senator Benjamin J Tillman endorsed remedial genocide: ‘The action of President Roosevelt in entertaining that nigger will necessitate our killing a thousand niggers in the South before they will learn their place again.’” (55)
What held them together was their collective dedication to politics as a profession. Conscience, not corruption, kept the average senator in office. He worked seven days a week, assisted by one secretary and one typist, for five thousand dollars a year … (75)
After more blacks were greeted at the White House: “James K. Vardaman, running for Governor of Mississippi, went to the limits of public invective. Theodore Roosevelt was nothing but a “little, mean coon-flavored miscegenation’s”, while the White House had become “so saturated with odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable.” (203)
Henry Adams description of a White House dinner were TR, at the height of his powers, held forth: “We were straws in Niagara. Never have I had an hour of worse social malaise. We were overwhelmed in a torrent of oratory, and at last I heard only the repetition of I-I-I -- attached to indiscretions greater than one another … it is mortifying beyond even drunkenness.” (307)
Friday, September 3, 2010
One Day
One Day
Author: David Nichols 2009 425 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started September 2 2010, Finished September 4 2010
This story follows the lives of two English friends, Emma and Dexter, for twenty years, starting from the day of their college graduation. While I occasionally found it humorous, generally I found its plot and insights unremarkable and predictable -- nothing new here -- and the characters, particularly Dexter, not explored deeply enough to be fully believable/relatable. However, much to my surprise, the book rallied at the end, achieving considerable emotional affect by the trick of bringing the story back to the very beginning, a sort of prolog as epilog. The author’s trick of taking us back to the beginning, when the reader knows what fate has is store for the characters, but they don’t, imbues all that has gone before with a powerful poignancy and deep saddness.
Author: David Nichols 2009 425 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started September 2 2010, Finished September 4 2010
This story follows the lives of two English friends, Emma and Dexter, for twenty years, starting from the day of their college graduation. While I occasionally found it humorous, generally I found its plot and insights unremarkable and predictable -- nothing new here -- and the characters, particularly Dexter, not explored deeply enough to be fully believable/relatable. However, much to my surprise, the book rallied at the end, achieving considerable emotional affect by the trick of bringing the story back to the very beginning, a sort of prolog as epilog. The author’s trick of taking us back to the beginning, when the reader knows what fate has is store for the characters, but they don’t, imbues all that has gone before with a powerful poignancy and deep saddness.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy
The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy
Author: Peter H. Wilson 2003 852 pp
My rating: 5/2.5*
Started February 2010, Finished August 3 2010
“Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.” (751)
This book is not so much a matter of being unable to see the forest for the trees, but of being unable to see the trees for the leaves. While it would be fair to call Wilson’s work a definitive account of the titular war, exhaustive might be the fitting adjective as it is so overwhelmed with detail that reading it seems to take place in real time. The target audience would seem to be field specialist graduate students and above. The author’s mastery of the subject matter must be acknowledged but if his aim was to make it accessible to the lay reader, I fault him for failing to do so. A good 75% of the book is blow by blow accounts of nearly every negotiation, troop movement and skirmish that took place not only during the period from 1618 to 1648 when combat occurred, but also of the decades leading up to that period. I found it next to impossible to keep the virtually endless list of central European people and place names straight. (The book’s index covers 70 pages, 40% more than that for the similarly ambitious Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.) My difficulty with the places and overall geographic confusion was exacerbated by the absence of overview maps in my copy, the table of contents to the contrary. A list of dramatis personae with capsule descriptions of each would have helped quite a bit. For a representative example of the bewildering profusion of confusing names, see the excerpt from page 684 below.
“Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.” (751)
My take away is that the Thirty Years War is a candidate for the worst war in history, the most pointless and destructive. The reasons for its beginning seem neither well defined nor justified and not long thereafter the combatants’ main reasons for continuing the struggle were either preservation of prestige or hope of gaining a slightly more favorable position at the negotiating table. Other recurrent characteristics include constantly shifting alliances, far more death from disease than battle, unpaid troops, troops living off the land and thus stripping it bare and that from the entire cast of military and political characters, not a single positive model of human conduct emerges; even the legendary Gustavus Adolphos of Sweden though an able general, comes across as a blood thirsty land grabber.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweden’s newest and proudest ship of the line was overloaded with ordnance which “meant that the gun ports were too close to the waterline and it capsized and sank in a light breeze on its maiden voyage in August 1628.” (366)
Three issues stand out from the controversy surrounding restitution. First, the divisions among Catholics indicate the weakness of confessional solidarity and the primacy of politics over religion. (453)
Only 49 per cent of expenditure under Richelieu was submitted to the royal audit office, with the remainder only presented in total The government claimed exemption on ground of national security, but the real reason was to hide the exorbitant rates of interest paid to financiers. (558)
The Treaty of Goslar had recover Hildesheim and reduced his immediate enemies by neutralizing the Guelphs. The start of the Wesphalian congress extend neutrality ot Munster and Osnabruck, removing the latter as a Swedish base. The elector widened this by agreeing in December 1643 to pay 5,500 tlr a month to Sweden in return for their recognition of Hildesheim as neutral.
These moves isolated Hessen-Kassel. Amalie Elisabeth had no interest in wider French objectives and recalled Eberstein’s troops from Guebriant’s army as it returned to the Upper Rhine in 1642. She had 4,000 men poised to attack her Darmstadt rival when news arrived of France’s defeat at Tuttlingen. Units then had to be redirected to East Frisia in 1644 … (684)
The Westphalian town of Werl finally cleared its debt from the Thirty Years War in 1897. (805)
Author: Peter H. Wilson 2003 852 pp
My rating: 5/2.5*
Started February 2010, Finished August 3 2010
“Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.” (751)
This book is not so much a matter of being unable to see the forest for the trees, but of being unable to see the trees for the leaves. While it would be fair to call Wilson’s work a definitive account of the titular war, exhaustive might be the fitting adjective as it is so overwhelmed with detail that reading it seems to take place in real time. The target audience would seem to be field specialist graduate students and above. The author’s mastery of the subject matter must be acknowledged but if his aim was to make it accessible to the lay reader, I fault him for failing to do so. A good 75% of the book is blow by blow accounts of nearly every negotiation, troop movement and skirmish that took place not only during the period from 1618 to 1648 when combat occurred, but also of the decades leading up to that period. I found it next to impossible to keep the virtually endless list of central European people and place names straight. (The book’s index covers 70 pages, 40% more than that for the similarly ambitious Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.) My difficulty with the places and overall geographic confusion was exacerbated by the absence of overview maps in my copy, the table of contents to the contrary. A list of dramatis personae with capsule descriptions of each would have helped quite a bit. For a representative example of the bewildering profusion of confusing names, see the excerpt from page 684 below.
“Morally subversive, economically destructive, socially degrading, confused in its causes, devious in its course, futile in its result, it is the outstanding example in European history of meaningless conflict.” (751)
My take away is that the Thirty Years War is a candidate for the worst war in history, the most pointless and destructive. The reasons for its beginning seem neither well defined nor justified and not long thereafter the combatants’ main reasons for continuing the struggle were either preservation of prestige or hope of gaining a slightly more favorable position at the negotiating table. Other recurrent characteristics include constantly shifting alliances, far more death from disease than battle, unpaid troops, troops living off the land and thus stripping it bare and that from the entire cast of military and political characters, not a single positive model of human conduct emerges; even the legendary Gustavus Adolphos of Sweden though an able general, comes across as a blood thirsty land grabber.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sweden’s newest and proudest ship of the line was overloaded with ordnance which “meant that the gun ports were too close to the waterline and it capsized and sank in a light breeze on its maiden voyage in August 1628.” (366)
Three issues stand out from the controversy surrounding restitution. First, the divisions among Catholics indicate the weakness of confessional solidarity and the primacy of politics over religion. (453)
Only 49 per cent of expenditure under Richelieu was submitted to the royal audit office, with the remainder only presented in total The government claimed exemption on ground of national security, but the real reason was to hide the exorbitant rates of interest paid to financiers. (558)
The Treaty of Goslar had recover Hildesheim and reduced his immediate enemies by neutralizing the Guelphs. The start of the Wesphalian congress extend neutrality ot Munster and Osnabruck, removing the latter as a Swedish base. The elector widened this by agreeing in December 1643 to pay 5,500 tlr a month to Sweden in return for their recognition of Hildesheim as neutral.
These moves isolated Hessen-Kassel. Amalie Elisabeth had no interest in wider French objectives and recalled Eberstein’s troops from Guebriant’s army as it returned to the Upper Rhine in 1642. She had 4,000 men poised to attack her Darmstadt rival when news arrived of France’s defeat at Tuttlingen. Units then had to be redirected to East Frisia in 1644 … (684)
The Westphalian town of Werl finally cleared its debt from the Thirty Years War in 1897. (805)
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Out Stealing Horses
Out Stealing Horses
Author: Per Petterson 2003 238 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started March 26 2010, Finished March 28 2010
This tale about a boy and his family in rural Norway during WWII generates much reader interest and suspense for most of its length buts ends somewhat abruptly, leaving some plot threads inadequately concluded -- a couple of its major characters receive “never heard from again“ treatment. In retrospect, it felt like a long short story or novella, or the first part of a greater work were never written.
Author: Per Petterson 2003 238 pp
My rating: 3.5*
Started March 26 2010, Finished March 28 2010
This tale about a boy and his family in rural Norway during WWII generates much reader interest and suspense for most of its length buts ends somewhat abruptly, leaving some plot threads inadequately concluded -- a couple of its major characters receive “never heard from again“ treatment. In retrospect, it felt like a long short story or novella, or the first part of a greater work were never written.
Friday, April 2, 2010
Moby Dick
Moby Dick
Author: Herman Melville 1851 536 pp
My rating: 5*
Started October 2009, Finished February 2010.
A classic, which unlike some other novels so designated (see Charterhouse of Parma), lives up to that designation. Despite the fact that at least a third of the work is devoted to non-fiction, nothing-to-do-with-the-plot exegeses on whales and whaling, the basic story and in particular, the character of Ahab, are so powerful enough to compensate for the deadweight. The prose, while sometimes verging on incomprehensible gobbledygook, often reaches a deeply moving tone somewhere between biblical and poetic. The scenes at the beginning where Ishmael finds his way to the Pequod and in which he and Queequeg get to know each other are quite charming. And as far Ahab, he still rates among the commanding of villains in all of literature, with his almost every utterance being quote worthy.
And here shipmates, is true and faithful repentance; not clamorous for pardon, but grateful for punishment. (62)
Queequeg was George Washington Cannibalistically developed. (65)
In thoughts of the visions of the night, I saw long rows of angels in paradise, each with his hands in a jar of spermaceti. (398. Entire Chapter 94, “A Squeeze of the Hand” is terrific)
Ahab is for ever Ahab, man. This whole act’s immutably decreed. ‘Twas rehearsed by thee and me a billion years before this ocean rolled. Fool! I am the Fates’ lieutenant; I act under orders.
Friday, March 5, 2010
Country Driving
Country Driving: A Journey Through China From Farm to Factory
Author: Peter Hessler 2010 424 pp
My rating: 4*
Started February 21 2010, Finished February 26 2010.
Essentially a few snapshots depicting how the transformation of Chinese society from rural and agriculturally based to urban and manufacturing based is affecting individual Chinese, Hessler yet again scores big with humor and emotional transparency; five stars for reader enjoyment and insight into another world, but docked a bit for ambition as the book is close to a travelogue. The book has three sections, loosely unified by the driving the author does in each: an account of two drives to the deserts of China's northwest, a description of the village near Beijing where Hessler rents a house and a detailing of the startup of a new factory by a couple of small timers in a new industrial city. Hessler particularly excels at conveying the absurd while both depicting situations from his subjects’ points of view and maintaining a deep sympathy and even affection for those people. Though some of the material is familiar to readers of The New Yorker, reading it in this context does not feel like a rehash since it has often been substantially reworked and because those stories are so seamlessly integrated into the broader narrative. Revelations which particularly struck me were the every man for himself nature of the expansion and the pyramid scheme of infrastructure development funding which is based on appropriating rural land and thus inherently unsustainable.
The book is set during the boom of the 2000s, ending shortly before the crash of ’08; one wonders how the crash affected the nascent society which seemed to be sustained almost entirely by economic growth. The book conveys a sense that the strongly rooted sanctity of family ties are primary factor keeping people grounded in the midst of changes which within a single generations are displacing ways of life that had been in place for centuries and even millennia; one wonders how the primacy of the family unit will endure after a generation or two of vast migration from the countryside to manufacturing centers.
… it’s hard to imagine another place where people take such joy in driving badly. (29)
Over time my learning curve never really flattened out. China is the kind of country where you constantly discover something new, and revelations occur on a daily basis. (47)
I was amazed at the stuff Wei Jia learned -- the most incredible collection of unrelated facts and desystemized knowledge that had ever been crammed into a child … Fifth-graders [in a rural peasant community] had an entire textbook devoted to learning how to use Microsoft FrontPage XP. [219-20]
Parent and children occupied different worlds, and marriages were complicated -- rarely did I know a Chinese couple who seemed happy together. It was all but impossible for people to keep their bearings in a country that changed so fast. [264]
China may have come late to the world of high-speed transport -- the nation’s first expressway wasn’t completed until 1988 -- but by 2020 they intended to have more highway miles than the United States. [282]
If a city hopes to stay solvent, it must continually expand. [344]
When I met somebody like Little Long, his energy and determination reminded me of other places, other times. This was China's version of the Industrial Revolution: rural people were moving to cities, and they had a gift for self-invention that rivaled anything in Dickens. [355]
This was the kind of solution that’s propagated in Chinese self-help book like Square and Round -- if a like works, fine; otherwise just burn the bridges. [361-2]
The fundamental problem [with nurturing a new factory through its teething period] seemed to be a complete lack of system. The factory had no management board, no investment schedule; nobody cared about legal contracts or predefined protocol. The bosses had funded almost entirely with cases, which raised the stakes and created tensions within families. They had sketched the blueprints for their factory in one hour and four minutes. Their most critical machinery had been designed according to the memory of a former peasant with a middle school education. There wasn't the slightest hint of a formal business plan. The future customer base depended upon the hopeful distribution of Wuliangye Baijiu and Chunghwa cigarettes. [363]
Author: Peter Hessler 2010 424 pp
My rating: 4*
Started February 21 2010, Finished February 26 2010.
Essentially a few snapshots depicting how the transformation of Chinese society from rural and agriculturally based to urban and manufacturing based is affecting individual Chinese, Hessler yet again scores big with humor and emotional transparency; five stars for reader enjoyment and insight into another world, but docked a bit for ambition as the book is close to a travelogue. The book has three sections, loosely unified by the driving the author does in each: an account of two drives to the deserts of China's northwest, a description of the village near Beijing where Hessler rents a house and a detailing of the startup of a new factory by a couple of small timers in a new industrial city. Hessler particularly excels at conveying the absurd while both depicting situations from his subjects’ points of view and maintaining a deep sympathy and even affection for those people. Though some of the material is familiar to readers of The New Yorker, reading it in this context does not feel like a rehash since it has often been substantially reworked and because those stories are so seamlessly integrated into the broader narrative. Revelations which particularly struck me were the every man for himself nature of the expansion and the pyramid scheme of infrastructure development funding which is based on appropriating rural land and thus inherently unsustainable.
The book is set during the boom of the 2000s, ending shortly before the crash of ’08; one wonders how the crash affected the nascent society which seemed to be sustained almost entirely by economic growth. The book conveys a sense that the strongly rooted sanctity of family ties are primary factor keeping people grounded in the midst of changes which within a single generations are displacing ways of life that had been in place for centuries and even millennia; one wonders how the primacy of the family unit will endure after a generation or two of vast migration from the countryside to manufacturing centers.
… it’s hard to imagine another place where people take such joy in driving badly. (29)
Over time my learning curve never really flattened out. China is the kind of country where you constantly discover something new, and revelations occur on a daily basis. (47)
I was amazed at the stuff Wei Jia learned -- the most incredible collection of unrelated facts and desystemized knowledge that had ever been crammed into a child … Fifth-graders [in a rural peasant community] had an entire textbook devoted to learning how to use Microsoft FrontPage XP. [219-20]
Parent and children occupied different worlds, and marriages were complicated -- rarely did I know a Chinese couple who seemed happy together. It was all but impossible for people to keep their bearings in a country that changed so fast. [264]
China may have come late to the world of high-speed transport -- the nation’s first expressway wasn’t completed until 1988 -- but by 2020 they intended to have more highway miles than the United States. [282]
If a city hopes to stay solvent, it must continually expand. [344]
When I met somebody like Little Long, his energy and determination reminded me of other places, other times. This was China's version of the Industrial Revolution: rural people were moving to cities, and they had a gift for self-invention that rivaled anything in Dickens. [355]
This was the kind of solution that’s propagated in Chinese self-help book like Square and Round -- if a like works, fine; otherwise just burn the bridges. [361-2]
The fundamental problem [with nurturing a new factory through its teething period] seemed to be a complete lack of system. The factory had no management board, no investment schedule; nobody cared about legal contracts or predefined protocol. The bosses had funded almost entirely with cases, which raised the stakes and created tensions within families. They had sketched the blueprints for their factory in one hour and four minutes. Their most critical machinery had been designed according to the memory of a former peasant with a middle school education. There wasn't the slightest hint of a formal business plan. The future customer base depended upon the hopeful distribution of Wuliangye Baijiu and Chunghwa cigarettes. [363]
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Empire of Liberty
Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815
Author: Gordon S. Wood 2009 738 pp
My rating: 4*
Started November 13 2009, Finished February 15 2010.
Better than the preceding volume of the Oxford History of the United States, but not quite as edifying or engrossing as those that follow, this volume follows the new nation from “what do we do now?” period of its first constitutional governments to the “we’re a real nation now” solidification that resulted from the war of 1812. One of the most interesting topics covered is the bootstrapping of the government, where despite, or maybe because of, the vague guidance provided by the constitution, the President -- the essential and magisterial Washington whose common sense and commanding presence were often all that kept the loosely cohering assemblage of states from flying apart -- and the Congress, were more or less making it up as they went along. Other major themes include:The emergence of political parties, starting with the Anglophile Federalists and the Jefferson lead Republicans who opposed the strong centralization that the Federalists’ beliefs implied.The singular set of genius included among the Founding Fathers, a very lucky historical fluke, where in particular Washington, Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson each contributed different and critical talents towards setting the foundling nation on its course.Themes that echo down through the ages, including fear of a developing “licentiousness” in the population and the rise of the “middling” man , that person between nobility and peasantry who came to define the essence of being American.The book is not without flaws, including a surprising number of typos e.g. “dociety … of artists” (p 574), and an overly long and repetitious chapter on the arts (15). The book’s organization along thematic rather than chronological lines could be confusing for a reader not firmly grounded in the basics of the era; e.g. one encounters in depth discussions of aspects of various presidencies before rereading about the elections that put those presidents in office.
French immigrant and author Hector St. John Crevecoeur … in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782) … described the American as “this new man,” a product of “that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country.” (39)Compared to Great Britain, America had a truncated society; it lacked both the great noble families … and the great masses of poor (44)White Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world, and goods of all sorts were widely diffused throughout the society (46)In 1789 the majority of Frenchmen did not speak French but were divided by a variety of provincial patois. (48)The secretary of the treasury began in 1789 with thirty-nine members in the central office … By comparison, the other departments were tiny: at the outset the secretary of state had four clerks and a messenger, the secretary of war had only three clerks, and the attorney general had none … A French visitor to the treasury office in 1794 was startled to find the secretary attended by only a single crudely dressed servant, seated at a plain pine table covered with a green cloth, his records laid on makeshift plank shelves in a ‘ministerial office’ whose furnishings could not have cost more than ten dollars … (92)… all the states’ expenditures in the early 1790s totaled only a little more than $1 million a year, the federal government’s expenditures in 1795 were $7.5 million (103)… it became increasingly difficult to find gentlemen willing to sacrifice their private interests in order to hold public office. After Henry Knox retired, President Washington had to go to his four choice for secretary of war … and to replace Randolph as secretary of state he had to go to his seventh choice. (234)Believing that most of the evils afflicting human beings in the past had flowed from the abuses of inflated political establishments, Jefferson and the Republicans in 1800 deliberately set about what they rightly believed was the original aim of the Revolution: to reduce the overweening and dangerous power of government. (287)The Jeffersonian revolution was an extraordinary and unprecedented experiment in governing with the traditional instruments of power. Governments in the early nineteenth century were not supposed to cut taxes, shrink their bureaucracies, pay off their debts, reduce their armed forces , and diminish their coercive power. No government in history had ever voluntarily cut back its authority. (301)For centuries it was assumed that most people would not work unless they had to. “Everybody but an idiot,” declared the enlightened English agricultural writer Arthur Young, … “knows that the lower class must be kept poor or they will never be industrious.” (324)… to the astonishment of foreigners, nearly all Americans -- men, women, children, and sometimes even babies -- drank whiskey all day long. (339)[During he first decades of the Republic] Premarital pregnancies dramatically increased, at rates not reached again until the 1960s. (342)… on the eve of the Revolution … Harvard and Yale abandoned the ranking of entering students on the basis of their families’ social position and estate. (342)At the heart of the Revolution lay the assumption that people wer not born to be what they might become. (470)… on the eve of the Revolution … the nine [American] colleges together awarded fewer than two hundred B.A. degrees a year … [472]In 1790 it had taken more than a month for news to travel from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia; by 1794 that had been cut to ten days. [479][As part of the trend of treating criminals more humanely] In Massachusetts in 1785 a counterfeiter was not longer executed. Instead, he was set in the pillory, taken to the gallows, where he stood with a rope around his neck for a time, whipped twenty stripes, had his left arm cut off, and finally was sentenced to three years’ hard labor. [493]In 1804 and 1807 Ohio required blacks entering the state to post a five-hundred-dollar bond guaranteeing their good behavior and to produce court certificates proving they were free. (541)Many of the states outlawed blasphemy, which they defines as attempts to defame Christianity, and they sought to retain some general religious qualifications for public office. Five states -- New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia -- required officeholders to be Protestant. Maryland and Delaware said Christians. Pennsylvania and South Carolina officials had to believe in one God and in heaven and hell; Delaware required a belief in the Trinity. (583)In 1795 the United States agreed to a humiliating treaty with Algiers that cost a million dollars in tributes and ransoms -- an amount equal to 16 percent of federal revenue for the year. (636)Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina was only one of many Republicans who in the early months of 1812 voted against all attempts to arm and prepare the navy, who opposed all efforts to beef up the War Department, who rejected all tax increases, and yet who in June 1812 voted for the war. After much hand-wringing over the problem of paying for the war, the Congress finally agreed to some tax increases … Taxes would only cover a portion of the cost of the war; the rest would have to be borrowed. Of course, in 1811, even as war seemed increasingly likely, the Republicans had killed the Bank of the United States, which some knew was the best instrument for borrowing money and financing a war. This failure to re-charter the BUS proved to be disastrous for the war effort. (672-3)By 1816 [clergyman William Bentley’s] dreams of newspapers becoming agents of education for the public had dissipated. The press, he now realized, has become simply a source of “public entertainment,” filled with inconsequential and parochial pieces of information. (732)[Post presidency Jefferson] loathed the new democratic world that America had become -- a world of speculation, banks, paper money and evangelical Christianity; (736)
Author: Gordon S. Wood 2009 738 pp
My rating: 4*
Started November 13 2009, Finished February 15 2010.
Better than the preceding volume of the Oxford History of the United States, but not quite as edifying or engrossing as those that follow, this volume follows the new nation from “what do we do now?” period of its first constitutional governments to the “we’re a real nation now” solidification that resulted from the war of 1812. One of the most interesting topics covered is the bootstrapping of the government, where despite, or maybe because of, the vague guidance provided by the constitution, the President -- the essential and magisterial Washington whose common sense and commanding presence were often all that kept the loosely cohering assemblage of states from flying apart -- and the Congress, were more or less making it up as they went along. Other major themes include:The emergence of political parties, starting with the Anglophile Federalists and the Jefferson lead Republicans who opposed the strong centralization that the Federalists’ beliefs implied.The singular set of genius included among the Founding Fathers, a very lucky historical fluke, where in particular Washington, Hamilton, Madison and Jefferson each contributed different and critical talents towards setting the foundling nation on its course.Themes that echo down through the ages, including fear of a developing “licentiousness” in the population and the rise of the “middling” man , that person between nobility and peasantry who came to define the essence of being American.The book is not without flaws, including a surprising number of typos e.g. “dociety … of artists” (p 574), and an overly long and repetitious chapter on the arts (15). The book’s organization along thematic rather than chronological lines could be confusing for a reader not firmly grounded in the basics of the era; e.g. one encounters in depth discussions of aspects of various presidencies before rereading about the elections that put those presidents in office.
French immigrant and author Hector St. John Crevecoeur … in his Letters from an American Farmer (1782) … described the American as “this new man,” a product of “that strange mixture of blood, which you will find in no other country.” (39)Compared to Great Britain, America had a truncated society; it lacked both the great noble families … and the great masses of poor (44)White Americans enjoyed the highest standard of living in the world, and goods of all sorts were widely diffused throughout the society (46)In 1789 the majority of Frenchmen did not speak French but were divided by a variety of provincial patois. (48)The secretary of the treasury began in 1789 with thirty-nine members in the central office … By comparison, the other departments were tiny: at the outset the secretary of state had four clerks and a messenger, the secretary of war had only three clerks, and the attorney general had none … A French visitor to the treasury office in 1794 was startled to find the secretary attended by only a single crudely dressed servant, seated at a plain pine table covered with a green cloth, his records laid on makeshift plank shelves in a ‘ministerial office’ whose furnishings could not have cost more than ten dollars … (92)… all the states’ expenditures in the early 1790s totaled only a little more than $1 million a year, the federal government’s expenditures in 1795 were $7.5 million (103)… it became increasingly difficult to find gentlemen willing to sacrifice their private interests in order to hold public office. After Henry Knox retired, President Washington had to go to his four choice for secretary of war … and to replace Randolph as secretary of state he had to go to his seventh choice. (234)Believing that most of the evils afflicting human beings in the past had flowed from the abuses of inflated political establishments, Jefferson and the Republicans in 1800 deliberately set about what they rightly believed was the original aim of the Revolution: to reduce the overweening and dangerous power of government. (287)The Jeffersonian revolution was an extraordinary and unprecedented experiment in governing with the traditional instruments of power. Governments in the early nineteenth century were not supposed to cut taxes, shrink their bureaucracies, pay off their debts, reduce their armed forces , and diminish their coercive power. No government in history had ever voluntarily cut back its authority. (301)For centuries it was assumed that most people would not work unless they had to. “Everybody but an idiot,” declared the enlightened English agricultural writer Arthur Young, … “knows that the lower class must be kept poor or they will never be industrious.” (324)… to the astonishment of foreigners, nearly all Americans -- men, women, children, and sometimes even babies -- drank whiskey all day long. (339)[During he first decades of the Republic] Premarital pregnancies dramatically increased, at rates not reached again until the 1960s. (342)… on the eve of the Revolution … Harvard and Yale abandoned the ranking of entering students on the basis of their families’ social position and estate. (342)At the heart of the Revolution lay the assumption that people wer not born to be what they might become. (470)… on the eve of the Revolution … the nine [American] colleges together awarded fewer than two hundred B.A. degrees a year … [472]In 1790 it had taken more than a month for news to travel from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia; by 1794 that had been cut to ten days. [479][As part of the trend of treating criminals more humanely] In Massachusetts in 1785 a counterfeiter was not longer executed. Instead, he was set in the pillory, taken to the gallows, where he stood with a rope around his neck for a time, whipped twenty stripes, had his left arm cut off, and finally was sentenced to three years’ hard labor. [493]In 1804 and 1807 Ohio required blacks entering the state to post a five-hundred-dollar bond guaranteeing their good behavior and to produce court certificates proving they were free. (541)Many of the states outlawed blasphemy, which they defines as attempts to defame Christianity, and they sought to retain some general religious qualifications for public office. Five states -- New Hampshire, Connecticut, New Jersey, North Carolina and Georgia -- required officeholders to be Protestant. Maryland and Delaware said Christians. Pennsylvania and South Carolina officials had to believe in one God and in heaven and hell; Delaware required a belief in the Trinity. (583)In 1795 the United States agreed to a humiliating treaty with Algiers that cost a million dollars in tributes and ransoms -- an amount equal to 16 percent of federal revenue for the year. (636)Nathaniel Macon of North Carolina was only one of many Republicans who in the early months of 1812 voted against all attempts to arm and prepare the navy, who opposed all efforts to beef up the War Department, who rejected all tax increases, and yet who in June 1812 voted for the war. After much hand-wringing over the problem of paying for the war, the Congress finally agreed to some tax increases … Taxes would only cover a portion of the cost of the war; the rest would have to be borrowed. Of course, in 1811, even as war seemed increasingly likely, the Republicans had killed the Bank of the United States, which some knew was the best instrument for borrowing money and financing a war. This failure to re-charter the BUS proved to be disastrous for the war effort. (672-3)By 1816 [clergyman William Bentley’s] dreams of newspapers becoming agents of education for the public had dissipated. The press, he now realized, has become simply a source of “public entertainment,” filled with inconsequential and parochial pieces of information. (732)[Post presidency Jefferson] loathed the new democratic world that America had become -- a world of speculation, banks, paper money and evangelical Christianity; (736)
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