I went to the pharmacy yesterday to get my Pfizer booster shot. It'd been a while since I'd stepped into one, and I was pretty taken aback by what I sI went to the pharmacy yesterday to get my Pfizer booster shot. It'd been a while since I'd stepped into one, and I was pretty taken aback by what I saw there. You're supposed to stay in the store for 10-15 minutes following your shot in case you have a negative reaction, so I spent the time browsing the aisles.
What does a pharmacy in the US stock these days? How about an entire aisle's worth of potato chips, another aisle devoted to candy of all shapes and sizes — from Kit Kat bars to caramel stuffed Oreos — and a frozen food section chock-full of Hungry-Man TV dinners and ice cream.
In a pharmacy!
I'm not sure what's more American than a store ostensibly devoted to medicine and wellness (or, at least, perceived wellness) carrying pretty much every type of junk food you could hope to find.
What a concept! Thanks to American capitalism, you can now buy drugs to combat your hypertension and, on the way out, buy a bag of potato chips to help contribute to your hypertension.
Ah, M'erica!
I didn't spot any Trump flags or semiautomatic weapons, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time before they're on offer at the local pharmacy too.
Like my trip to the pharmacy, "Salt Sugar Fat" is the kind of book that'll make you see things differently. You won't step into a grocery store the person you were before you read this book.
And yet, somehow, this is viewed in the United States as a controversial book. The moronic, dangerous "Fat Is Beautiful" folks hate it, and the crazies who feed their kids junk because it'll make liberals cry loathe it because they believe the right to stuff whatever horrible shit down their throats is what America went to war against Hitler for ... or something.
It all reminds me of one hot Florida day back in 2010 when I was sitting in the waiting room at the mechanic. A fellow sitting across from me strikes up a conversation and, out of the blue, starts talking about then-First Lady Michelle Obama's healthy food initiative.
"How dare she try to tell us what to feed our kids!"
I share that encounter to say that, yes, these people exist and in far greater numbers than you might think.
"Salt Sugar Fat" brought to mind Patrick Radden Keefe's recent exposé of the pharmaceutical industry — in particular the Sackler family, owners of Perdue Pharma. That book, Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, is similar to "Salt Sugar Fat" in that both are deep dives into industries that are far more devious than they appear on the surface.
Like the pharmaceutical industry, the "Food Giants" are driven solely by profit. Now, you might say that there's nothing wrong with that, that businesses exist to make money. But when you're making and marketing products that have been shown to literally result in the deaths of your customers, there's some inherent responsibility you bear.
This isn't as simple as "I know it's bad for me, but I want that bag of potato chips anyway," either. As Michael Moss shows here, similar to the pharmaceutical industry, the food giants are incredibly deceptive when it comes to marketing their products, sometimes outrageously so. No doubt you know exactly what I mean.
By marketing a box of sugar-laden cereal to parents by citing on the box that it's a good source of fiber, or by putting that same box of cereal in front of children during their Saturday morning cartoons (or whatever time kids watch cartoons these days), food giants like Kellogg and Post are being criminally dishonest about the harm their products cause. If junk food was forced to contain a warning label on the front of the packaging, à la cigarettes, that'd be one thing, but they're not — and the industry giants have paid little to no cost for these deceptive practices.
And we haven't even touched on the environmental toll of Americans' eating habits!
But eating well is also, of course, a class issue. You can order a burger off the McDonalds dollar menu but it costs a whole lot more to buy a bag of carrots and just about every other healthy option. As I see it, the solution has to come in the form of a tax applied to foods containing disproportionate amounts of salt, sugar, and fat, coupled with government subsidies to drive down the cost of wholesome food for the average consumer. That, along with the sort of food education that most Americans woefully lack, are the only ways out of the crises of juvenile diabetes, high obesity rates, and all the rest.
Sadly, I fear that in this country, such steps are a long way off. ...more
Remember that delightful interview Dutch historian Rutger Bregman gave on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show?
Well, it actually never ended up airing on TRemember that delightful interview Dutch historian Rutger Bregman gave on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show?
Well, it actually never ended up airing on Tucker Carlson's Fox News show because Bregman told Carlson to his face that he was owned by the billionaire class and the latter freaked and began cussing Bregman out. But anyway, you may have heard about it (if not, watch the interview to see for yourself).
Bregman easily deserved five stars for that alone, but fortunately his book, "Humankind: A Hopeful History" is also fabulous so he's getting double raves from me!
"Humankind" is exactly the sort of book the world needs right now, a happy dollop of optimism for our very trying times, and, boy, does it ever do the trick!
Things are not as bad as we think they are, people! And no, I'm not saying that in a Stephen Pinker way, I'm saying it in a Rutger Bregman way! Most of us, you and I and those nearby, are good people. The vast majority of us are, really.
I spent the last year and a half working for an online news site called The Millennial Source and, while that was cool and all, it was also depressing — depressing because it meant I had to read and edit the news all day! And as we all know, the news is depressing, and things have seemingly only gotten worse on that front.
The solution? Turn the news off, people! Yes, stay abreast of world events but spend more time reading, particularly books like this one, and more time talking to your fellow man (and woman). People are by and large lovely, and it's so nice to be reminded of that....more
Ragging on Millennials has become something of a favorite sport among certain members of the Boomer class. I say "become," but really we've been made Ragging on Millennials has become something of a favorite sport among certain members of the Boomer class. I say "become," but really we've been made fun of for years for allegedly being thin-skinned, overly sensitive, brain-dead zombies who stare at our phones all day.
While some of the criticism is true, it's amusing how older generations have managed to avoid being criticized for the same bad habits (case in point: our moms are all way more addicted to their phones than we are).
I don't need to cite all the familiar stats — in case you missed it, Millennials are the first generation in 100 years expected to fare worse than their parents, to be burdened with such high levels of debt simply for desiring an education, to be forced to move back in with mom and dad because they can't afford to rent, much less buy, a home — but surely no one is naive enough to believe the job market in our lifetimes is anything like it was for our parents and grandparents. The question is, why is that?
Capitalism, pretty much, best embodied in the rather alien-looking figure of Jeff Bezos in his post-space press conference attempting to act, err, human?
"I want to thank every Amazon employee and every Amazon customer because you guys paid for all of this."
Go fuck yourself, Bezos. Just because you went to space in a ridiculous-looking cowboy hat doesn't make you a space cowboy. Just because you know human speech doesn't make you a human, you blood-sucking vampire.
"Can't Even" taps into the Millennial rage at the bad hand we've been dealt. Companies try to lure us with the promise that we can dress like we're five years old and play foosball in their "game room," but maybe all we really want is a job that treats us like human beings, not machines.
Give us health insurance, not an-in house gym.
We don't want bean bag chairs — we want a retirement fund.
For all the bad, at least one good thing appears to have come out of the pandemic — millions of us are finally starting to wake up and say "enough!"...more
There are few things that unite everyone today. It seems, at least here in America, we can't even agree on the importance of combating global warming,There are few things that unite everyone today. It seems, at least here in America, we can't even agree on the importance of combating global warming, or of ensuring that adequate regulations are in place so we have clean air and water.
"Job killer!!" People on the right yell the moment any mention of regulating a major industry comes up.
How can you tell the coal miner in West Virginia that we need to move away from fossil fuels? That such jobs carry with them not just severe consequences for our environment, but for their health as well?
After decades of calls to better regulate the pharmaceutical industry over the mass marketing of addictive opioids, it seems as though some progress is finally starting to be made. Patrick Radden Keefe's recent book Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty shows that politicians on both sides of the aisle, however slowly, are finally attributing blame for overdose deaths and addictive pharmaceutical drugs not on the people who get addicted to these drugs, but on the drug companies themselves — unless you're the Trump White House of course, but that's another story.
But what about Amazon?
Talk to people today and they'll nod their heads sadly as you run over the ways in which workers in Amazon's fulfillment centers are made to meet absurdly high quotas, the fact that the company founded by the world's richest man pays no federal taxes, and the number of independent businesses the online behemoth puts out of business every year.
"But I can order a banana costume and it'll get here tomorrow!"
"But they sell the new John Grisham novel for so much less than the independent bookstore in town!"
"But where else am I going to listen to audiobooks?"
1. Do you really need that banana costume? If so, have you tried your local party story?
2. Isn't it worth paying a few dollars more so that your local independent bookstore (which you can also support by ordering online at Bookshop.org) can keep serving the community?
But that's not to say avoiding Amazon is easy. I'm writing this review on Goodreads, of all places, which is owned by Amazon. And that is absolutely crushing. I've started, gradually, to put my reviews on a separate WordPress site, but that doesn't replace the community aspect of Goodreads which is the reason why so many of us are here — to meet people who like books as much as we do.
There are an increasing number of Goodreads substitutes — such as The Storygraph and BookSloth — but they are still in their early stages and suffering some growing pains. However, after reading "How to Resist Amazon and Why" I'm definitely going to open an account on one of these other sites and, hopefully, fully move over one day.
Until then, it's useful to seize on something that Danny Caine — the owner of the Raven Book Store in Lawrence, Kansas — writes here. Because Amazon has its tentacles wrapped around so much of the retail industry in America, it's awfully hard to avoid it in every form. You don't have to completely quit Amazon, though that is certainly my goal, so much as you should strive to spend more of your money at independent businesses.
Meaning, instead of buying that book from Amazon, buy it from your local independent bookstore. That's an easy step to take and buying from your local independent bookstore will make far more of a difference to them than not buying it from Amazon would. This is partly because Amazon sells their books at a loss, a completely unfair practice that works for Jeff Bezos and Co. because their company is worth nearly $2 trillion, meaning they can afford to take the hit, while that independent bookstore would never be able to sell their books at Amazon's rates — less than what those books cost from the publisher — because they wouldn't be able to stay in business.
The fact that the majority of politicians fail to see any issue with that, fail to recognize Amazon as a dangerous monopoly that threatens the livelihood of so many wonderful small businesses in America, is yet another indication of how rotten our politics has gotten.
But what is most unfortunate are those authors and artists who sell out to Amazon, creating Audible exclusive content that you can't get anywhere else or signing a deal with Amazon to publish and market their books directly — as that sellout Dean Koontz did in 2019.
I recently watched Best Picture Winner "Nomadland" which is the perfect case in point for the influence Amazon yields over, well, everything.
Unlike Jessica Bruder's Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, Chloé Zhao's adaptation says not one negative thing about the company. In her book Bruder talks about the harsh working conditions at Amazon facilities, interviewing a number of people who spoke from personal experience. Zhao's film, meanwhile, is totally mum on the subject. When someone asks Fern — the character played by Frances McDormand — what it's like working in an Amazon fulfillment center, Fern replies, "great money."
Zhao and Co. reportedly received a lot of input from Amazon while filming the adaptation, with executives visiting the set the day filming took place in the Amazon facility. As much as I otherwise really liked other aspects of the film, I can't think of anything more disgusting than that — whitewashing a significant part of the source material and betraying the subjects of your film by portraying one of the villains in a positive light.
This is a great read on all the ways that Amazon harms human beings, independent business, and the environment in order so you can have that thing you don't even need tomorrow.
Yes, Resist Amazon. The fight will be long, and it will be hard, but it's a fight worth having....more
Whether the weather be fine, Or whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold, Or whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather WhatWhether the weather be fine, Or whether the weather be not, Whether the weather be cold, Or whether the weather be hot, We'll weather the weather Whatever the weather, Whether we like it or not!
I was put in mind of this classic little children's poem while reading "Wintering," which is essentially the poem in book form ... but without the rhyming and with a good deal more whining.
Sometimes when I read something only to find that it was not at all what I was expecting, I find that I managed to forget what I actually had been expecting. Then I look at the title.
"Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times." Ah! That was it then. I wanted to understand the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. There can be no disputing that the past year has been a very difficult time, for all of us, except for Jeff Bezos and his ilk, who sound as if they're doing better than ever.
Unfortunately, though, this book doesn't do an especially good job of explaining the power of rest and retreat in difficult times. If anything, the author does not seem to be particularly moved by the retreats she takes here — to see the Northern Lights, the Blue Lagoon — none of it really seems to impress her. Though she'll certainly write all about it, when the Blue Lagoon was opened, for instance, and the impact it's had on Icelandic tourism.
I love the concept of "wintering," which essentially consists of shifting your perspective from "damn, I'm depressed and everything sucks" to "I'm just wintering and the weather is bound to clear up soon enough." The author spends several pages here going over what insects and various animals do in order to prepare for the winter, as though to say, "they have a plan! so should you!"
There you go. Take that information and run with it. You're welcome.
Because I think that's all very sound advice and such a shift in how we look at things can only bring with it benefits. But all that can be nicely summed up in an article or an interview on NPR, can't it? What more can a book say on the subject?
Not much, it seems. "Wintering" is a travelogue/memoir of sorts, with May delving into various details of her life that, truth be told, I would have rather done without. There's a message there, somewhere, but it requires a good deal of sifting to get to (which I did for you, see above).
If "Wintering" were a cake, in other words, it would be a relatively bland one, with far too little icing. You might eat it, whether to just have something with your tea or because you're suffering from kuchisabishii — a lovely Japanese word that means "lonely mouth" as in, "my mouth is lonely and wants to chew something" — but like so many books with pleasant write-ups and words like "Hygge" in the title, I do not believe it to be worth the calories....more
Far too many of us have experience of working in a toxic workplace. For me, that was an Israeli (later Australian-owned) social games company called PFar too many of us have experience of working in a toxic workplace. For me, that was an Israeli (later Australian-owned) social games company called Plarium Global.
I worked at Plarium's studio in Kharkiv, Ukraine (East Ukraine, about an hour's drive from the Russian border) for four very long years and hated every second of it. Why did I stay? Why does anyone stay in a job they hate? You get used to the standard of living a certain salary can provide and you're afraid that if you leave, you won't find anything else.
But the primary reason I stayed was because I was dating a Ukrainian and, for visa reasons, there was nowhere I could live where she could also live so, as a result, it was best to just stay in Ukraine with my work visa and see where the future would take us.
Plarium was modeled off of one of these Silicon Valley tech companies like Google or Facebook. LOTS of emphasis on the various amenities they offered — a ping pong table! a gym! a game room! The point is, the entire studio was designed on making the company's workers stay at work longer.
It's a clever tool of modern capitalism, getting you to stay in the office longer by making you think that you like the office. And many of them did, I don't want to take anything away from the fact that many of those who worked and still work there did so happily and willingly. It's a sort of capitalistic Stockholm Syndrome, you fall in love with a system that will dispose of you the second you cease to be useful to its bottom line.
If you come in an hour early, we'll give you free breakfast!
If you stay a couple hours late, we're putting on a free concert!
Game tournament tonight with the team leads!
Don't forget, Friday night's movie night!
But behind this whole fun, social facade lay a cruel reality.
Most people stayed to themselves. Yes, they'd show up to get breakfast an hour early, but rather than eat in the common room with someone new, they'd all-too-often take a plate of food back to their desk and sit alone.
Cliques developed, an insider-outsider vibe that permeated throughout the entire company, from management on down.
And the benefits?
Yes, our studio has a slide connecting two floors, in case you ever tire of taking the stairs or elevator, but don't expect to be given health care!
A retirement plan? What's that?
And within each department, even crueler realities awaited.
In my former department — which was, naturally, the English Creative Department — employees were heavily pressured to contribute to the company's various charitable functions.
The company participated in a Christmas drive for area orphanages, and if you failed to "adopt an orphan" you would be hounded, given the silent treatment, and basically treated like a terrible person. It wasn't enough to just give money either, you had to go to the store and actually buy something, which then had to be approved by your coworkers.
In 2018, shortly before I left, there was a charity drive to send a local Ukrainian boy who'd received some fame on TV as a chess prodigy of sorts to Spain so he could compete in a tournament. Those in my department were heavily pressured to participate, and when I expressed some hesitation about doing so, it was remarked that I was "cheap" and not a "team player."
In addition, anyone who left right when the clock sounded to go home was spoken of as being insufficiently dedicated to the company. A colleague at the time actually came down with health problems as a result of the constant guilt she was made to feel for not attending after work functions.
On a number of occasions over the four years that I worked there I was told by my team lead that something I had worked on was "shit" and verbally berated by him and others in the department if I failed to think of a decent concept for a holiday theme or something else.
And the list goes on.
Finally, I'd had enough. I put in my notice to leave after three months (in order for the department to find a suitable replacement) and, less than a month later, I found myself called into my boss' office.
The weekend before, I'd written a blog post about leaving Denmark (where I had spent a week vacationing) to travel back to Ukraine. I called it "Leaving Civilization" and throughout used a somewhat ironic tone, contrasting Denmark with Ukraine and remaking wryly that the many Ukrainians who had left to find work in Western Europe might be onto something.
Nowhere did I mention the company or any people I knew or worked with. But, nevertheless, I had insulted the country and amidst the atmosphere of heightened, faux nationalism that had raged in Ukraine following Russia's seizure of the Crimean peninsula, I had shown myself to be insufficiently loyal to the country.
It was reported to me that many on the Ukrainian localization team that we worked with refused to work with me any longer, and my coworkers, who were already miffed that I was refusing to donate to send the chess prodigy to Spain, were all too eager to see me off as well.
So I was dismissed, in no uncertain terms, a bit over a month before I was originally due to leave, in good standing, with promised references to boot, only to now be sent off with nary a smile.
I wasn't even allowed to take the slide on my way out.
In the two and a half years that have since passed, I have come to be thankful for how things ended, the bridges that needed to be burned between myself and an absolutely toxic work environment. It was only while reading Noreena Hertz's fascinating account of work in the 21st century that I was reminded once again of the entire experience.
This is a book that cuts to the quick of what ails the world, particularly the western world, today. In a society so focused on increasing profits, it seems we are isolating ourselves from our common man.
I'm one of those "digital nomads" now, having shirked the office life well before the pandemic made doing so a necessity. I work from home, often writing book reviews when I'm not working.
There's no slide, no ping pong table, but — with friends and family closer at hand — I find the environment to be much less toxic. Even now, working from home in the midst of a pandemic, I find my isolation and anxiety to have been significantly lessened....more
I came upon this book scrolling through my "to-read" list only to realize that I read it a couple of months ago. Perhaps it was the fact that it took I came upon this book scrolling through my "to-read" list only to realize that I read it a couple of months ago. Perhaps it was the fact that it took me all of 20 minutes to read, but I never marked it as "read" or left a review.
Once again, the fact that this book counts toward my 2021 Reading Challenge just as much as, say, Hitler: Ascent, 1889-1939 — which clocked in at over 1000 pages — amuses me, but I will mark it "read" all the same.
It's a nice book, one that makes you feel pretty good about yourself and the world around you. Much more so than that aforementioned Hitler biography. You should read it to your child if you have one, or just read it for yourself. It's perfectly pleasant, though I have no idea how to rate such a book.
My more cynical side wants to cut in at this point and say the whole thing's a bit schmaltzy, that of course people would rate a "nice" book highly despite it not being much more original than a Hallmark greeting card, but I like nice books too, at least sometimes. Certainly when they can be read in 20 minutes.
In this day and age, though, I think we're entitled to all the pleasant, schmaltzy books we can get our hands on....more
This is yet another in that burgeoning genre that combines self-help with some sort of, traditionally EasteThink "The Secret" but for thinking people.
This is yet another in that burgeoning genre that combines self-help with some sort of, traditionally Eastern, religious practice. You wouldn't guess it from the title or the write-up, but this book is primarily about the benefits of meditation. Or, more specifically, the benefits of meditation crossed with positive thinking.
There were a couple of moments here where I was tensed to reject this one outright. The comparison to "The Secret" (or was it "The Shack"? There are just too many of these now) isn't misguided. That book promises that if you just ask, the Universe (capital "U") will give you what you desire.
"Into the Magic Shop" isn't far off from that, but it's maybe a bit less outright ridiculous and instead recommends the reader (or listener, in my case) employs various wish-fulfillment techniques.
For example, if you want to live in New York City, write on a post-it note "I live in New York City." If you want to be a published author, you write down somewhere where you're sure to see it multiple times a day, "I am a published author."
You get the idea.
I'm skeptical that any of this is actually effective, but I definitely know people who swear by it. Who claim that by visualizing whatever the object of your desire is, you're one step closer to realizing it. That's essentially what James Doty is saying here, except he also throws in meditation practices and breathing techniques to help clear your mind and, supposedly, sharpen your focus so that your wishes will be easier to achieve.
Or something like that. Again, I'm somewhat skeptical. Perhaps I'm a bit too cynical for my own good, it's just that when there's an entire arm of the publishing industry devoted to churning out books like these — and the fact that there are so many of them seems to indicate it's quite a successful industry — you can't help but ask why, if it's that simple, more people aren't living their dreams.
Or maybe those that are all read these sorts of books. Who am I to say?
But I also don't want to discount the benefits of positive thinking which, at worst, certainly has to be better than negative thinking, right? At least from a physical and mental health point of view.
So while I'm somewhat dubious that the "believe it into existence" part of this book is genuinely effective, I'm more willing to believe the author when he talks about the benefits of meditation, which are increasingly backed by science.
Normally I'd excoriate a book like this for citing its author alone as an example that the "positive thinking" principal is responsible for all the good that's happened in his life, but for whatever reason I'm somewhat more sympathetic to this one.
I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because Doty seems less like a snake-oil salesman and more like a genuine believer, or maybe it's the Dalai Lama stuff and the fact that later on Doty declares he's an atheist but that his "religion is compassion."
Surely a book that emphasizes mindfulness and compassion is worth reading, right?
So whatever the reason, I have to admit that what James Doty is selling may just be the genuine product....more
This is yet another in that genre of books aimed at helping you to live better. Well, "helping" belongs in quotation marks. These books are aimed, likThis is yet another in that genre of books aimed at helping you to live better. Well, "helping" belongs in quotation marks. These books are aimed, like most books are, at making money, first and foremost, and hey, if they can help you live better on their way to doing that, the publishers likely don't mind.
"Stillness Is the Key" is chock-full of the genre's greatest hits.
Meditation? Good. Consumerism? Bad. Minimalism? Good. Smart phones? Bad. Routines? Good. Ego? Very bad. Journaling? Excellent. Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan? Good examples of how not to act. Churchill and Fred Rogers? Good examples of how to act.
I agree with pretty much all of that. There is one chapter where the author gets a bit preachy on how happiness is predicated on being married and having children, and he never quite makes clear why. He doesn't cite any in-depth studies on the issue, but essentially takes this to be true seemingly because most people take it to be true (people who are married with children, anyway).
If you've read other books in this genre, as I have, you likely already know that accumulating a lot of things isn't going to make you happier (and that, on the contrary, it'll make you less happy), and you likely also know how useful meditation is. If that's the case, you're likely not to come away with anything new here, as 99% of it seems like the same fodder for most of the self-help, meditation oriented books out there these days.
But it mostly all resonated with me, because I was already a believer in what Holiday is preaching. And it's also presented here very nicely.
If you're interested in "stillness" (i.e. calm, i.e. silence, i.e. minimalism, i.e. meditation) then this is definitely worth checking out as there's a lot of positive stuff to take away....more
If you've been paying attention the last few years, and the last few weeks in particular, I think you'd agree that we're living in very interesting tiIf you've been paying attention the last few years, and the last few weeks in particular, I think you'd agree that we're living in very interesting times.
But what does the word "interesting" even mean anymore? Speaking for myself, I have a tendency to overuse it. Something I didn't realize was an issue until a few years ago when I watched the lovely little film, "Captain Fantastic."
There's an exchange in that film where Viggo Mortensen's character, the widowed father of a brood of children he homeschools and raises out in the natural world, informs his son that "interesting" is a "non-word," which I think is fascinating. (Wait ... is fascinating also a non-word? Probably ...)
Well, let me just give you the entire scene, because it does concern literature and is quite memorable.
SCENE:
Kielyr (oldest daughter): What's a bordello?
Ben (father): A whorehouse... What are you reading?
Kielyr: Lolita?
Ben: I didn't assign that book.
Kielyr: I'm skipping ahead.
Ben: And?
Kielyr: It's interesting.
Rellian (youngest son): Interesting!
Bo (oldest son): Illegal word!
Zaja (youngest daughter): Dad, Kielyr said interesting!
Ben: Interesting is a non-word. You know you're supposed to avoid it ... Be specific.
Kielyr: It's disturbing.
Ben: More specific.
Kielyr: Can I just read?
Ben: After you give us your analysis thus far.
Kielyr: There's this old man who loves this girl, and she's only 12 years old.
Ben: That's the plot.
Kielyr: Because it's written from his perspective, you sort of understand and sympathize with him. Which is kind of amazing because he's essentially a child molester. But his love for her is beautiful. But it's also sort of a trick because it's so wrong. You know, he's old, and he basically rapes her. So it makes me feel ... I hate him. And somehow I feel sorry for him at the same time.
Ben: Well done.
END SCENE
Sorry, I just couldn't help quoting that entire thing. (I did copy it ... I obviously haven't got it memorized.) It would probably fit better in a review for Lolita but I read and reviewed that pre-"Captain Fantastic." I've been meaning to go back and reread “Lolita” but who’s got the time when there are so many other supposedly great novels one hasn't read?
Sub-tangent! Back to the larger one!
"Interesting" didn't always mean something that mildly amused us in a pleasant but entirely unspecific way, because we have that whole "May you live in interesting times" thing, allegedly a Chinese curse but in fact an English expression supposedly popularized by Robert Kennedy. Point is, to live in "interesting times" was not a good thing.
Yes, everything between my very first line and the next one was actually part of the same tangent because I do not have an editor. (I hope you enjoyed it nevertheless!)
But "interesting times" requires interesting, in the more modern sense of the word, people or, to use a non non-word, respected public intellectuals to help guide us through such times.
I'm thinking of people like Christopher Hitchens, George Carlin, James Baldwin, Cicero, Homer ...
And Carl Sagan. Because this guy is basically the definition of an intellectual. I mean, knock me over with a feather, but does he EVER know how to perform a good autopsy on the latest sexy public fad (like astrologers, psychics, UFO conspiracy theorists, and the list goes on).
It's simply brilliant to see. If I do have a complaint, which is the reason I gave this one less star than it might have deserved, it's that he sometimes goes on ad nauseam about the fringiest of fringe conspiracies, or at least things that don't hold up as particularly worth devoting 50 pages to in the year 2020.
But Sagan IS brilliant, there's no denying that, and he's a scientist to the core, which means he's also an equal opportunity offender when calling out all the nonsense behind various religious beliefs (and they are all, obviously, nonsense).
Although respect to Tibetan Buddhism. I have to mention an anecdote Sagan relates here, which is that when he (at least I think it was him) confronts the Dalai Lama on that core Buddhist tenet, reincarnation, and asks the Lama what he'd say if scientists were to disprove the whole idea of reincarnation, the Lama replies that "Buddhism would have to change."
I like that, I like that a lot. A religious leader who admits that science holds precedence over a belief, even one as core to the whole philosophy as that of reincarnation.
Of course, as Sagan goes on to say, wily Lama that he is, the Dalai knows that science cannot disprove reincarnation, but, as Sagan likes to say, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence."
Every troubled era had their rational seers, their intellectuals, their artists who spoke wisdom to the tragedies of the day or waded through them to piece together something unforgettable.
Shakespeare wrote "King Lear" and "Macbeth" while the bubonic plague ravaged Europe and knocked off a third of his fellow Londoners.
Where is our Shakespeare, dammit? Our Baldwin? Our Cicero? If we can't have a Homer can we at least get a Hitchens?
But no, it seems it is our fate to drift blindly through these dark waters on our own, without any preternatural guidance from the wise elders that our age sorely lacks.
The best we can do is try and apply the wisdom of our forebears to today's "interesting times," as we otherwise drift, drift, drift away ......more
In the 2007 film "Noise", Tim Robbins plays David Owen, a Manhattan man so fed up with the noise of the city that he takes it upon himself to "rectifyIn the 2007 film "Noise", Tim Robbins plays David Owen, a Manhattan man so fed up with the noise of the city that he takes it upon himself to "rectify" the situation. He soon gains a popular following and a moniker, "The Rectifier", to go with it. At the risk of giving too much away, Owen eventually comes to the realization that vandalizing every car in the city is a slow way to go about achieving any lasting peace and quiet and instead decides to make some, ahem, noise, by campaigning for an anti-noise ballot initiative.
I thought about this largely forgotten film while reading "Silence" because Owen struck me as the Malcolm X to Kagge's more "change through peaceful means" MLK (if we were to swap civil rights for the "right" to silence). Whereas Robbins' David Owen reacts to a car alarm's interrupting his reading of Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit by going down into the street and smashing up the blaring car, Kagge advocates an active search for silence in the everyday. I say the everyday because Kagge himself found silence on a 50+ day hike to the South Pole, a solution that isn't likely on the menu for most of us.
How does one achieve silence in the everyday? While Kagge practices meditation, yoga, and going off into nature whenever possible, he also speaks about achieving "silence" while walking Oslo's busy streets or crawling through Manhattan's sewer system. I suppose this is some zen state that an experienced meditator can simply drop into. Or, to say it in a way that makes it sound slightly more achievable, simply comes from being particularly practiced in "tuning out the noise".
"It is possible to reach silence anywhere," Kagge writes, "one only need subtract."
Much like his Walking: One Step at a Time, there is a great deal of insight to be found here. One of the things that Kagge focuses on, to my endless fascination, is our discomfort with silence. A discomfort of silence that we're all familiar when we're at the dinner table with friends or wrapped up in other social obligations but a discomfort that is quite contrary to the popular employment of phrases like "silence is golden" and associating quiet with peace.
Silence, Kagge emphasizes, is not simply the absence of noise, but a "full emptiness, a stillness of the mind."
The philosopher and "boredom theorist" Blaise Pascal wrote of our discomfort with silence that "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Kagge notes that Pascal wrote this in the 1600s. Which is to say, sometime before the advent of television, social media, and all those other instruments of distraction that exist today. Humanity, in other words, has always had a hard time being quiet.
(Do note that I am referring here, as Kagge and likely Pascal are, to "western" humanity, as I am aware that many eastern cultures and traditions allow for a much larger place for silence than is typically seen in the western world.)
Asked at Hay this year how his children feel about his ideas on achieving silence, Kagge replied that his daughter "thinks it's total bullshit".
Reading this you too might find the author's advocating for "full emptiness" and marches off into the wild as "total bullshit". During a walk in the countryside outside of the Welsh town of Hay-on-Wye, Kagge spoke of the importance of walking "without thinking". That all sounds more easily said than done, I replied. Is it even possible to clear your mind of thoughts?
After a few minutes of walking, Kagge answered that it was worthwhile following trails in the forest, or somewhere similar where the trail wasn't always clear but full of roots and obstacles that required one's full attention to avoid stumbling. You'll be so occupied watching where you step, Kagge’s reasoning went, that you won't have time to think about other things.
I thought this was excellent advice, and finding a woodland trail or something similar is now much more preferable to me than walking on pavement or flat earth. Not just because it's more difficult but because it's harder to think about other things because it's more difficult.
"Silence in the Age of Noise" is a book we can all find solace in....more
Activities promoting a return to nature seem particularly in vogue lately, and this is just another in the long line of books about walking tha[image]
Activities promoting a return to nature seem particularly in vogue lately, and this is just another in the long line of books about walking that I see appearing in bookshops with ever increasing frequency.
Or is it?
Granted, I haven't read those "other" books about walking, but is there a better person to pen a book on the subject than the first fellow to have walked to the North Pole, the South Pole, AND the summit of Everest? I mean, Jesus Christ. It's a good thing I just read Matt Haig's Reasons to Stay Alive because after reading Erling Kagge's biography I feel like I haven't done much with my life.
I first heard about this book back in April. I was stuck in traffic on the way to my favorite used bookstore (because where else would I be headed?) in Orlando, Florida. The radio was tuned to the local NPR (National Public Radio) station and Erling Kagge's accented-English suddenly crackled on the car's speakers.
Some of Kagge's answers that day struck me as a bit too "zen". In response to the interviewer's question of how he prepared for his hike to the South Pole, Kagge answered that it was simply a matter of putting "one foot in front of the other". The interviewer scoffed at this, as did I when listening, but I think I get Kagge's point now. "One foot in front of the other" isn't necessarily to be taken literally, but has more to do with the mental state one has to have to set out on such a hike in the first place.
Or perhaps I'm just fooling myself.
I fully understand the health benefits that come with routinely walking, but I wasn't as clear on the mental and emotional benefits. I'm not sure how I could have missed this, as just about every famous person throughout history is referenced in "Walking" as being a devotee.
There's Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard who, in a letter to his sister-in-law, writes, "Above all, do not lose your desire to walk; every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness."
Then there's American poet and essayist Henry David Thoreau, who writes, "I think I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least — and it is commonly more than that — sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields, absolutely free from all worldly engagements."
Of people who don't walk regularly, Thoreau writes that they "deserve some credit for not having all committed suicide long ago."
Greek physician Hippocrates notes that "if you are in a bad mood, go for a walk" and, if you are still in a bad mood, "go for another walk". Fellow-Greek philosopher Diogenes says, in reply to the idea that movement does not exist, "solvitor ambulando" (it is solved by walking).
Others — Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs — were avid walkers who reportedly got some of their best ideas when strolling outdoors.
Kagge notes that walking is connected to our bodies and emotions even in our language.
Motion, emotion. Move, moved.
Kagge also emphasizes that the way we walk often says a lot about us. Do we take timid steps, or do we stride confidently? Do we rush forward hunched or do we stand straight as we saunter?
In his extraordinary novel Austerlitz, W.G. Sebald writes that, following the German-invasion, the residents of Prague "walked more slowly, like sonambulists, as if they no longer knew where they were going."
At this point I recalled something a friend of mine told me a few years ago. Her brother, she said, had been mugged three times in the past few months simply walking back to their London home. My friend's family lived in a relatively safe area of London, but having never lived in London myself, I enquired as to whether such muggings were "normal".
"Not at all," she told me. "It's the way he walks. He's hunched and constantly looking over his shoulder. It's obvious to anyone who sees him that he's terrified."
Before reading this I had never seriously thought about walking before or, rather, I had never thought of walking as a serious endeavor. It's so easy to take the ability to walk for granted, to not consider the fact that millions of individuals lack this seemingly basic ability. And yet the majority of us don't make the most of this ability.
We desire to sit day in, day out, and our kids are increasingly preferring to spend their free time inside rather than out. Walking, it seems, is something we practice in our daily lives less and less. Nevermind hiking to the South Pole, what about going around the block?
Some places are worse than others. Most of us in America have been conditioned to view walking as a last resort, as something you have to do rather than something you want to do. After all, why walk when you can drive?
Even leaving aside the obvious environmental and health benefits, walking has so much to offer.
As Kagge writes, because so much in our lives is fast paced and walking is such a slow undertaking, "it is among the most radical things you can do." Furthermore, "walking expands time rather than collapses it."
I'm about to head out on something of a walk myself, along the 382-mile Oregon Coast Trail. I'm sure I can't even comprehend at this point the challenges I'm likely to come across in doing so. But I fully intend to "put one foot in front of the other" until I've reached the end of the trail.
It's not the South Pole, it's just a walk, still a radical act in today's world. Because maybe it's not taking the road less traveled that matters as much as the way you're taking that road.
Maybe the thing that most drives me to walk is that I could drive....more
That, essentially, has been the medical community's response to those suffering from depression for decades now. That answer i"It's all in your head."
That, essentially, has been the medical community's response to those suffering from depression for decades now. That answer isn't just wrong, it's glib, it's cruel, and it's proven to have fatal consequences.
I read Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs just last year, and this is a worthy follow-up. Hari is one of the most intriguing authors of non-fiction out there, not least for the way in which he takes something that the public has long viewed one way, and turns it on its head. Like the War on Drugs, society has long told us that the cause of depression was simply due to a lack of serotonin and as a result depression could be cured by taking pills that would act to boost serotonin.
The reality is — surprise surprise — a good deal more complicated than that. If depression were simply due to a lack of serotonin, why then are so many people plunged into depression as a result of external events? You lose your job, a relative dies, a friend is diagnosed with a serious illness ...
So OF COURSE there are extenuating circumstances, we all know that I think ... Don't we? Or does the medical community, in their race to prescribe pills, just ignore extenuating circumstances?
I honestly don't know the answer as I have never been diagnosed with depression and as a result don't really know what the procedure is when you are. But I do agree with Hari that the root of depression is more just a simple imbalance in the brain.
That isn't to say that the causes of depression aren't at times surprisingly basic. Lack of sunshine obviously plays a part, as does how well the society functions. Because really, when it comes down to it, are there any countries more depressed than those that made up the former Soviet Union?
Take it from a guy who spent five years living in Ukraine. That part of the world isn't exactly going to be confused with the Happiest Place on Earth anytime soon.
How did I survive? Not with alcohol, the drug of choice for people in that part of the world, but with dark chocolate. Lots of it.
So the reasons for depression can, of course, be complex and multi-faceted. But as Hari illustrates, when difficulties crop up in our lives (and they almost always do), the biggest factor that determines whether or not we'll sink into a crippling depression is often our community. In other words, do you have a support group or a family you can fall back on in hard times?
It's all rather simple when we think about it. We all need someone, and no matter how self-sufficient some of us might seem, at the end of the day we all crave and need contact with others. It's that precious contact that has the power to lift us up out of depression, not a pill pedaled to the desperate by Big Pharma.
All of which is to say that while anti-depressants can have an initial positive effect, it's not as strong an effect as you might think. These types of drugs too often become a crutch, a necessity, until we need more and more of them to dull the pain and isolation that will only worsen with time and more pills.
That's why it's up to all of us to combat depression by caring more, by resisting the urge to envy and think badly of others in order to make ourselves feel better, and by helping to build better communities around us.
If you or someone you know suffers from depression, this is required reading....more
Somewhere near the top of my list of New Year Resolutions I didn't make for 2019 because I think it's sort of lame to be like everyone else and fail hSomewhere near the top of my list of New Year Resolutions I didn't make for 2019 because I think it's sort of lame to be like everyone else and fail hard like everyone else but nevertheless I sort of made in my head because the start of a new year does feel like the time to stop the old things and start the new was the decision to try and be more mindful.
Step 1: Ditch the distractions.
Easier said than done! I actually listened to the audiobook of this which was the probably the worst format to listen to a book about mindfulness on because who sits around just listening to an audiobook? Not me anyway. I listen to an audiobook when I'm doing something else. Brushing my teeth, washing dishes, exercising.
So there I was, listening to a book about mindfulness and how to eliminate distractions while I was at the gym huffing and puffing while trying to keep track of how many reps I had done. Wait ... what was that about distractions?
Nevertheless, I got this book in audiobook format and I finished it in audiobook format, albeit with a lot of rewinding (is it still right to say "rewinding" in the digital age?) and relistening. This isn't one of those things that just sucks you in right from the start. It's not exactly a Jo Nesbø thriller I mean. It requires your full attention and focus.
So even now I feel like I got it, but I don't feel like I really got it. I mean, there's a lot to unpack here. This book is largely about meditation, and when I say largely I mean that this is basically what you're supposed to do alongside reading this book. The Buddhist fellow who authored this tells you how to sit while meditating, how important it is to focus on your breathing, to focus on the pain of sitting cross-legged — which I hate personally and find very VERY unpleasant — and what to do with those thoughts that just come and threaten to derail your entire mind-altering meditative experience.
I think I will start meditating, at least I plan too, as I want to be more mindful. Who doesn't, really? But I haven't started yet which perhaps made this book a bit less useful than I might have otherwise found it as it seems to be for people who have already begun meditating but perhaps haven't been doing it right.
My biggest takeaway, the thing I most liked, was the idea of "loving friendliness". So let's say you have colleagues you really really really dislike, as I recently did. Well, had I read or listened to this book previously, I would have tried radiating loving friendliness instead of boiling with hatred on the inside like a very malicious lobster about to be dished onto a plate. I will certainly try this in the future, this idea of loving friendliness, as I do believe that hatred or ruminating on unpleasantries does no one any good, least of all me. I just have to keep telling myself that, because it can be so nice at times to hate certain people and certainly very easy and it's so so very hard not to. But I will try. I'll add it to the list of 2019 resolutions I haven't made but that I subconsciously sort of have....more
I wish this book had been available back in January 2015. When I started my last job.
I was in a different country, working with colleagues from all oI wish this book had been available back in January 2015. When I started my last job.
I was in a different country, working with colleagues from all over, and it was my first time working a desk job. The atmosphere there was absolutely toxic, the people I worked with unbelievably petty and bullying, and I thought about walking out on my lunch break on a daily basis. But I never did. Maybe all "desk jobs" were like this. What did I know?
I stayed there just shy of four, very long, years because I thought it was important that I did. Important that I try to act as though those comments didn't bother me, important that I pretend I didn't mind the city and country I was living in, important that I deposited just a little bit more into my savings account, important that I work for long enough to have something to show off on my CV.
In case there is any doubt in your mind — no, it wasn't worth it. Nothing is ever worth doing just for the money, just as a stepping stone to hopefully land "something better". The number of years we all have is finite, and to waste them doing something we don't like in order to hopefully one day land something we do is always a bad deal.
In the end, my blog was the one place I could vent, and vent I did, about some unruly passengers aboard a flight I had taken on a recent trip back to Ukraine from Denmark. My post somehow ended up being read by people at work, and a little less than two weeks after I had put in my 30-day notice I was summoned to the boss' office and summarily dismissed for "pissing off the entire company".
I didn't get any reference to tack onto my CV, and as we all know savings can be burned through rather quickly. Things are better now (really, so much better), but I still lament those wasted years, years I'm sure never to get back. There had been days, particularly in that first year, where I was so so close to just walking out, that if I had just read Matt Haig's advice on page 248, I think it would have been enough to give me the courage to walk away.
"If you hate your job, and can get away with walking out on your lunch break, walk out on your lunch break. And never go back."
Funny enough, I probably wouldn't have read this book unless I had quit my job. Because now I work entirely remote, I have the ability to be anywhere. And last May "anywhere" just happened to be the little book town of Hay-on-Wye during its annual literature festival where, you guessed it, one of the featured speakers was Mr. Matt Haig.
I bought the book, he signed it, and now I've read it.
Better late than never.
I don't want to give the impression that "Notes on a Nervous Planet" is a "perfect" book (as if there really is such a thing). Haig himself writes on page 176, "I am trying to write about the messiness of the world and the messiness of minds by writing a deliberately messy book."
And he has succeeded. This is a messy book, where a full page or two of text can be followed by a list on the third page, a single sentence on the fourth page, a quote on the fifth page. This is written in much the style of Haig's previous non-fiction book, Reasons to Stay Alive, and this sort of writing, with pages containing text of varied length, in varied font, and of various size, is quickly becoming Haig's signature style. Some will likely be turned off by this. It took some getting used to for me too, but the content inside is good enough that it should allow you to get past the way it's laid out.
About the content. Some of it is rather obvious. Cut this book in half and the half in the middle could be called, "Why the Internet is Bad for You", as much of it is about how technology is making us more anxious, more prone to depression, and less satisfied with what we already have so that we want more of what isn't good for us.
Yes, we all probably know that already, just as we probably know that not getting enough sleep (9 hours a night is the recommended amount) is bad for us, and racking up a ton of debt on our credit cards on things that we think will make us happy is also bad for us. If you don't know these things yet there are many, many pages reiterating those points here and you should read them now.
But you should also read "Notes on a Nervous Planet" even if, like me, you knew those things already (I'll get to why in a minute).
Yes, some of what Haig writes here is on the cornier side. He writes at various points as "The Beach" or as a 100+ year old giant tortoise. "The Beach", you'll be happy to know, doesn't "give a fuck" (The Beach's words) what you look like. So why don't you, like, just chill the fuck out?
Many will read these sections and find them cute or funny, but whether because of the perspective it's written from or the fucks, it made me feel like Haig was writing as one of those beach bums who, when they aren't catching waves, are probably smoking a bit of reefer (and are sure to be played by Matthew McConaughey in full "alright, alright, alright" mode in the film version). What I'm saying is, I could have done without it.
So why should you read an occasionally corny, repetitive book that has a funky style and repeats things you probably already know?
Because it's good for you.
So what if it's not Jaron Lanier's Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now with, I presume, the hundreds of footnotes? "Notes on a Nervous Planet" is necessary precisely because it reinforces the simple, irrefutable feeling so many of us have that much of what defines our modern culture is making us miserable.
And while yes, most of us know that absorbing all that bad news, being addicted to our jobs to the point where we neglect our personal lives, and being insanely focused on how many likes your last Instagram post got is not healthy, it's so easy to doubt that little voice in our head that tells us those things. We need books like "Notes on a Nervous Planet" to remind us of these things so that we don't let ourselves off the hook and just continue imbibing the things that we know aren't good for us.
When it comes to relationships, a sensible American will turn to the experts — the Europeans.
Let's face it, we Americans aren't exactly known the worWhen it comes to relationships, a sensible American will turn to the experts — the Europeans.
Let's face it, we Americans aren't exactly known the world over for our relationship expertise. We are, instead, regarded as something of a case study in how NOT to do relationships. And deservedly so. We are, to use a homegrown word, rather puritanical.
And you don't have to go back as far as those days in decidedly unmerry New England to get a whiff of the fear that accompanied the idea of sex for something other than reproduction, or the witchcraft you (if you were female) might get accused of if word got around you were seducing the menfolk. Dastardly.
This is still a land where schools in certain backward regions, like Texas, teach abstinence in schools, where a presidential blowjob can have national consequences (as long as they're a Democrat).
I was raised, like millions of other Americans, in a religious family. A very religious family, come to think of it ... And while I rejected all that long ago, a little chill still runs down my spine when I hear words like "premarital sex" and "promise ring" uttered aloud.
A promise ring = a ring you wear until your wedding day that symbolizes the pact between you, God, and your future wife (the only acceptable threesome) that you won't have sex with anyone until your wedding night. Because God obviously exists to regulate what goes on in your nether regions.
And no, I never did wear it — even the intense fear of hell I felt at 13 paled in comparison to the embarrassment I knew wearing such a thing would cause me.
So here comes Esther Perel, saying things that really aren't all that groundbreaking to people who just haven't heard them before. Off with the chastity belts! Down with the taboos! Embrace that kinky fantasy! (providing you're not, like, the Marquis de Sade.)
But wow, scroll down the list here and you see a plethora of one-star reviews for this one! The almost universal gripe seems to be that Esther Perel is decrying intimacy, telling couples that the more their partner knows, the worse their sex life will be.
That is, of course, a gross oversimplification and outright misreading of what Perel is saying here, but it shouldn't come as a surprise that a society that devours Marvel movies and worships celebrities should get it so wrong — this book has no pictures!
When it comes to intimacy, Perel is not adopting a one-size-fits-all stance here. But a bit of mystery, a bit of individuality, never hurts.
After all, do you want to be perfectly comfortable taking a dump while your partner is at the sink a few feet away brushing their teeth? Is that desirable?
Absence sometimes does make the heart grow fonder, but a proclivity to engage in flatulence in front of your lover most decidedly does not.
Or else I'm just really out of step with what's desirable these days.
That's not to say you should hide who you are, just that not every bowel movement and natural inclination need be aired in front of the person you also want to have sex with. Unless that's your kink.
There's really a lot more here than that, including a real dressing down of a culture that believes monogamy is everything and that an affair can, and should, overshadow everything else about that relationship.
There are some things that Perel doesn't touch on here, like the significant role that capitalism can play in undermining relationships, but that subject could easily fill a book of its own.
Largely, you get out of this what you put in. If you don't like to be told that alternative lifestyles — i.e. nonmonogamous ones — are ok too, so long as you and your partner are on the same page, then you're not going to like this much. If you're liable to get offended at the thought that your partner might not want to see you picking your teeth at the table, or otherwise just taking him or her for granted, then you better toss this aside because this book won't fit into your safe space.
For everyone else, "Mating in Captivity" offers plenty of enlightenment....more
"Attention!" This is exactly the kind of book the world needs right now, perhaps more relevant today than it was upon its publication in 1962.
Looking"Attention!" This is exactly the kind of book the world needs right now, perhaps more relevant today than it was upon its publication in 1962.
Looking out the window, at the smoke-filled skies, the streets full of protesters, the degradation of social and democratic norms, one can't help but feel we're on a precipice of sorts. Every day seems to bring with it more horrors than the last. Who can help but look ahead and grimace at the thought of what is still to come?
Imagine that last year at this time you got a glimpse into the world of today, a view onto the marches and the masks, at the division tearing at us all. It would be horrifying, to say the least. It's perhaps even more horrifying that today, we're almost used to it. We've become exhausted by it all, desensitized. We can't move but are paralyzed and rubbed so raw by the actions taking place all around us that we can only sprawl, exhausted and immobile, at the damage being done.
I saw a gif the other day of a woman stepping out of her house only to see government buildings exploding in front of her in a scene out of the 1996 film "Independence Day." She nonchalantly waves it off and goes back inside.
You'll see a lot of criticism of "Island" based on the fact that many believe it to not be a "novel" at all. But how would they know? What is a novel, anyway? Is Elena Ferrante's "Neapolitan Quartet" novels? Is Karl Ove Knausgaard's largely autobiographical "My Struggle" series novels?
The concept of the novel has been evolving as long as the novel itself has existed. You can find valid arguments that the works of Homer really aren't novels, that Cervantes' "Don Quixote" isn't a novel, and so on.
Is "Island" really a philosophical treatise masquerading as a novel? So what if it is? What is a "novel" if not something needing to be said packaged as something else? I don't think "Island" should be judged harshly on that account. Rather, the general definition of a novel is that of an at least vaguely fictional premise and/or fictional characters. By that standard, "Island" more than fits.
Throw in the fact that "Island" is as captivating as anything you might find on the "Fiction" shelf at your local bookstore, and I'd say that "Island" is a successful "novel," all the more so because it leaves you changed, or at least gives you something to think about.
Here, Aldous Huxley imagines a utopian society and the threat that encroachment from the outside world presents to it. To my mind, Huxley diagnoses what ills modern society perfectly. Largely, materialism and dogmatism, particularly as it concerns religion.
There are so many absolutely brilliant exchanges throughout the book, but one of my favorites comes in the form of children in a field who are controlling scarecrows in an effort to protect the land. The scarecrows have all been created in the likenesses of various deities.
Will Farnaby, our shipwrecked capitalist who's washed ashore on this strange utopian landscape asks his hosts what the purpose of such a display is.
We "wanted to make the children understand that all gods are homemade, and that it’s we who pull their strings and so give them the power to pull ours.”
In another exchange, corporal punishment is criticized as destroying children's creativity.
“Major premise: God is wholly other. Minor premise: man is totally depraved. Conclusion: Do to your children’s bottoms what was done to yours, what your Heavenly Father has been doing to the collective bottom of humanity ever since the fall: whip, whip, whip!"
In short, "A people’s theology reflects the state of its children’s bottoms.”
I could quote this book all day, there is so very much to take away. But perhaps nothing more so than that which is repeated ad infinitum by Pala's mynah birds.
"Attention! Attention! Here and now, boys!"
It may be that, right now, we're on the precipice of something great, or something horrible. It may be that, years from now, we'll have the ability to look back and say that we had already tipped over the edge of that precipice and that today, September 25, 2020, we were already falling fast down the other side.
Regardless of which side of the divide we may be on, looking ahead or looking back is futile.
The only thing we can do is take action and pay attention to the here and now....more
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