Review: Son of a Witch

Son of a Witch: A Novel by Gregory Maguire

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars
I initially was extremely disappointed by this book. I read this book once and just didn't get into it. Liir as a main character just seemed far too much of a shadow of his supposed mother, Elphaba, seeming to have missed the genes for the ambition, drive, and talent that Elphaba possessed in spades. It was a difficult read, with Liir stumbling about the countryside obliviously running up against his fate and possessing little control of it. The story, while occasionally engaging, was fractured and lacked the clear forward drive that comes with a strong lead character. All of this I imagined to be the weaknesses of the book, keeping it in the shadow of "Wicked" in the same way that Liir was eclipsed by Elphaba.



"A Lion Amongst Men" came out recently, and in anticipation of another riveting story from Maguire, I reread 'Son of a Witch'. In my second time around, I recognized that I had missed the entire point of the book.



Son of a Witch is brilliant precisely BECAUSE it tackles the exact problems that I listed above. As our story opens, Liir is cast aside from all that he has ever known. Elphaba is dead, his extended family has been kidnapped, and he can't even keep the attention of the vacuous-yet-well-meaning Dorothy. Lacking any real skills, he is thrown, friendless, into a world that he doesn't understand and that is far beyond his control.



For the first half of the book, Liir is truly a pitiable soul. He loses his home, then he loses his innocence. Seeing the corruption of the world around him, he hides away and abandons those who he has decided he cannot help. Liir is constantly making comparisons between himself and the woman he imagines might be his mother. He fully understands how inadequate he is in this match-up and wastes only a little while on pity for himself before he gives up and throws his lot in with the soldiers of the Emerald City. Liir learns more of discipline in the army and he has time to catch up to his peers in learning and wisdom. When another betrayal and more evidence of corruption come up during his service, he has the skills to roll with the fate life has dealt him.



What follows is a remarkable blossoming of Liir's character. His lack of confidence and grace give way to a sort of bitter-sweet recognition of the way that the world works. He develops a well-honed sense of irony and healthy self-depreciating humor - one that was not immediately apparent to me during my first read, but which is all the more precious for being so well hidden.



In the end, Liir has become a hero, though he does not even recognize this himself. Perhaps this is because his heroics are not those fit for a bedtime story of Brothers Grimm. Instead, Liir is a well-rounded man of principals and compassion. He is a hero in a world where the princesses are not always innocent and lovely. A hero in a place where the dragons are still terrible, but less so than the Machiavellian schemes of the humans behind them. A hero in a time when one man, no matter how devoted, must recognize his own limitations and inability to remake the world in a better light.


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Review: The Stuff of Thought

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
I am always hesitant to completely pan a book that is clearly written by someone vastly more intelligent than I, but in this case I would have to say that this book definitely did not work for me.



The root of my problem with this book is that the claims and synopsis printed on the cover seem to bear little relation to the actual material contained within. We are led to believe that this is a book solidly within the "popular science" category and that it will deal primarily with the concept of how language molds the way that we think and interact.



Instead, we crack open the novel to find what would best be suited as a textbook for the aspiring linguist. The first third of this book is devoted almost entirely to what seems like some sort of painful flashback to 6th grade English grammar lessons - on speed. Its been a long while since the days of transitive/intransitive/ambitransitive verbs, content-lockatives, and the like. I'll admit that I do not share Pinker's sense of thrill when discussing such topics, but I did slog through them and can vaguely see why he begins his discussion with this approach. Yet the "meat" of this initial discussion seems fairly scanty relative to the painfulness of the necessary effort on the part of the reader.



The book picks up a little steam as it heads into the next few chapters. Describing those on the "fringe" of the language & thought debate. First we hear of academics that make claims that imply that nearly all words are innate to the human mind, and are inborn as part of our genetic makeup (i.e. that our vocabulary is essentially hard-wired). Pinker dispatches this idea summarily - a feat that hardly seemed heroic, given how ludicrous the concept is.



Then Pinker goes on to disarm the arguments of the opposing camp, Determinists that believe that language controls thought. As an uninitiated, arm-chair philosophizer on the subject of language and thought, I had always given more credit to this idea. I am aware of how much of my inner life and thoughts seem to use a dialog that is carried out in words. However, Pinker gives scientific evidence that suggests that our minds control language moreso than the other way around. This was my favorite part of the book. Yet, by deflating this argument, Pinker also takes away a good deal of the relevance of the book, thereby deflating my interest as well...



The major themes in the rest of the book take the form of:

1. Dissecting the ideas of other academics in the field. Which again, would be a great deal more interesting if I had actually decided to go into graduate school for linguistics and was familiar with these persons.



2. Discussing tangental psychological/cultural concepts, often in terms that seem so divorced from language that one might wonder if they are sections taken from another book.



3. Hand-wavy ideas about the evolution of the human brain.



And last, but certainly not least...



4. LOOOOOONNNNGGGG paragraphs of word-"play" in-between.



Its not so much that Pinker doesn't have interesting ideas wedged in here and there, its just that if you've followed other sciences, you've most likely encountered most of these concepts before. Then again, even some of the original ideas that I found in this book were fairly obvious and were ones that I had already conceptualized myself, even if I wouldn't have been able to frame them as well as Pinker does. Furthermore, Pinker writes with a playfulness towards language that is fun in short bursts, but can obscure his point and be exhausting in the long haul. The delivery of some ideas were so couched in unnecessary detail that I almost felt like Steven Pinker and "The English Language" were sharing some sort of private joke. Frequently, after spending a few moments to decrypt some of his more florid paragraphs, I found that the concept they contained was fairly banal.



Pluses: Pinker clearly knows his stuff and presents it with what appears to be an unbiased eye. The sections involving direct scientific experiments were revealing and fun, as were the sections on polite language and sex (as sex always is...). The language of the book is a great exercise in concentration and is peppered with lots of great SAT/GRE-Prep words! Doubles in value as a good Kaplan study book! The take-home message seemed to be that language is not in control, we (and culture) are... Which is a reassuring thought, and is one that I am grateful to have learned.



Negatives: By thereby castrating the power of language to affect our thought process with his initial arguments, much of the remainder of the book is left floundering around in the domains of other disciplines. We hear of psychology, cultural practices, and evolution. Yet, language must now take a passive back-seat to these issues, only acting to give us tiny clues to their nature. The novel concepts that language can teach us turn out to seem scanty and flimsy. Furthermore, manner in which Pinker doles out these intriguing little nibblets seems unnecessarily drawn-out and buried in overly technical/flowery language.



In the end, too much of this book seems to reach for something larger, but end up as merely 'semantics' (fully in the negative connotation of the word).


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Review: Self-Made Man

Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back Again by Norah Vincent

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars
The premise of Self-Made Man is one that ought to grab your attention and be good for some entertainment value, even if the book were horribly mangled in its execution. Fortunately for me, Vincent did an excellent job in the balancing act, keeping her tale delightfully salacious while also sharing a new perspective on a question which has become monotonously tiresome in its everyday ordinariness.



What is it that often makes men and women seem like such different species? To tackle this question Vincent, a self proclaimed dyke, goes undercover in realistic drag, living large swaths of her life as a man for a couple of years. This immersion style leads her to question a great many of her own assumptions along the way (a fact that seems to alarm many who have also reviewed this book), but which seems to me to provide a great deal more insight onto the question than other works that seem to throw up their hands and take a "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus" outlook.



Along the way, Vincent takes joins an all-male bowling league, takes jobs in several "testosterone-driven" careers, dates countless women and ends up going to an all male therapy retreat. If there was one major complaint I would take with this book, it would be that it seemed front-loaded. The earlier experiences were frequently ones that I could relate to more, whereas later experiences like the therapy group seemed to be dealing with some fairly damaged individuals. It got especially difficult at the end, trying to take away any serious message from people who just didn't seem to represent the larger population - either male or female.



In deciding what to write about this book, I did some reading of the reactions of others. Many have blasted Vincent for being overly sympathetic of the men in her tale and for lampooning women. While I can certainly understand why this is felt, I take some exception to the criticism. In many cases, I felt the author was merely putting herself in the mindset, attempting to play the role as best as she could. Often when she claimed to better understand a certain behavior, I didn't always feel that she was endorsing it. Nor did she equate her negative experiences with some women as being entirely representative of womankind.



I personally felt vindicated by some of the points that she elaborated in her book - often things that I have questioned myself, but never had a second opinion for. For example, her attention to the importance of eye-contact among men and the signals it conveys struck me as entirely true - something I've known instinctively, but never seen written down in black and white. Ditto for the male equivalent of the Madonna/whore paradox, which she chooses to call the warrior/minstrel complex. This being the idea that men are trained to act as hardened individuals, yet should somehow be equally capable of being attentive to and expressive of a large range of internal emotions.



A great deal of her anxiety as her alter ego, Ned, was not so much that she wouldn't 'pass' as a man, but would end up passing as less than a man (i.e. an effeminate/gay man). This is obviously something I can relate to strongly as a gay man myself, and perhaps this biased me. But it was still refreshing to see a voice that straddled the line between the sexes, pointing out the ridiculous nature of the chatter we frequently hear of about men and women being worlds apart.


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A Quickie

I'm updating this blog to try to make all of the sound clips easily downloadable in case there are those who want to listen, but don't particularly find the idea of being parked in front of their computer screens for 5-25 minutes using only the annoying embedded applet. Should soon be able to right-click on a link below the media to save the linked file. Let me know if there are problems.

So, You Think That You Are Having a Bad Day?

I might not ordinarily post this particular bit of media as it is a bit longer and such, but a few circumstances have coalesced here in Baltimore to make this of particular relevance...

First, I've already heard several times today that various co-workers are just plagued by Murphy's Law. That every little thing that one should assume would go smooth in a kind and gentle world is going horribly wrong... It is a state that we can all commiserate and empathize with to a certain point... But then past that point, a situation will often take on a sort of dark comedy (don't worry K, you're not there yet, I hope)...

Second, Peter Pan is apparently showing in Baltimore right now. My friends say it is quite good and that there is even some eye candy amongst the cast. Sounds quite delightful! I wish I could go!

But I don't wish I could go to Baltimore's production as much as I wish I could have been there for the following performance:

Jack Hit gives us the highlights...



Or download it for an mp3 player by right clicking: Peter Pan Story

This American Life
Length: 20:27
Original Show: 61 - Fiasco
http://www.thisamericanlife.org

Self Stupidity

So, time to fess up... Ever caught yourself mid-stream, realizing just how totally insane the thought you've just been entertaining is? Every once in a while, I actually become aware of some of the stupidest, most self-aggrandizing daydream that I have running through my head (as opposed most times, when I just blithely go on about my business, oblivious).

So, I was listening to The Dark Side by Jane Mayer this evening in the lab. The whole book's premise basically boils down to the concept that the soon-to-be past administration had a lot of misguided thoughts of their own about how best to defend our country against a terrorist threat and that it has led us down some pretty frightening paths. The book had just gotten to the section about how the administration has promoted the use of torture to interrogate prisoners of war (yeah... its kinda a downer).

So there is quite a lot of discussion about the various techniques of torture and the psychology behind them. What is it that causes our psyche to snap and give in to interrogation, and what are some of the most effective ways to push a person to the snapping-point?

So, Mayer is describing some of the sleep deprivation methods and how they are quite efficient at getting people to crack and I actually pause in my work to think "Huh. I bet if I were being tortured, I would be resistant to that sort of thing cuz I've had sleep apnea!!!!" Then I proceed to have visions of myself in some foreign equivalent of Abu Ghraib, solidly holding out against the cruel machinations of my evil tormentors while scores of hardened men crumple around me!

...

Yeah... Kinda embarrassing... I mean, seriously, I would be the absolute first one to break under any sort of pressure. I would spill my secrets before they even asked. I'd be all like: "But wait, wasn't lunchtime SUPPOSOED to be a couple hours ago?!?! Okay! I'll tell you whatever you want, just PLEASE give me that danish!"

I'd cave faster than my cellmate, Mr. Fluffles here:

The Life You Didn't Lead

Okay. We've all thought about it... What would life be if we'd taken a different career path? Gone to a different city? Ditched our sig other for Brad Pitt (or his girlfriend, Mrs. Jolie, if you prefer)?

Have you made all the wrong moves in your life? Thwarted your own chances at happiness?

This wordslinger attempts to take on that question with a cute tale of his own double life.



Download here by right-clicking:
Tom Weiser
Length: 13:00
Original Show: The Moth
http://www.themoth.org/