recommended reading

Boy, it's been a while since we did one of these, hasn't it?

When last we spoke, I was in the middle of Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu and World War Z, by Laurence Bergreen and Max Brooks respectively. There is little more I can say about these two works that I have not already said previously, mainly because I haven't finished the Polo book (it's been buried in the bottom of my suitcase since late June) and the zombie book continued in largely the same vein that I delineated to you before. That is to say, excellent, poignant and mind-blowing.

Now on to the real meatballs in the batter: Ice Hunt by James Rollins, The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, Candide by Voltaire, and All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque. I couldn't wait until I hit the flight deck. I cracked Ice Hunt the first day in Jeju. I finished it a couple of days later. I won't deny that it was a cheap sci-fi adventure novel, but hey, James Rollins really knows his trade. It was a gripping book, to say the least. Russian intrigue, submarine warfare, assassination attempts in Arctic Alaska, plenty of shootouts and dubious vehicular stunts, sabotage, lost ice stations, top-secret human experimentation, blizzards, explosions, and long-dead monsters reawakened from a frozen tomb; let's just put it that way. Rollins somehow does something I am deathly afraid I won't be able to do: create a complex and intriguing plot, populated with dozens of fascinating secondary characters. The various tendrils of this plot all coordinate seamlessly with one another and build toward a truly heroic and spectacular climax. I could learn a thing or two from this. This book (perhaps) also holds the dubious distinction of being the first and only adventure novel to use Ambulocetus as a bad guy.

Far more terrifying than this picture makes it seem.

I didn't open another book until I got home. My seat on Flight 63 from Tokyo was so cramped and uncomfortable that I didn't want to read in case the unfavorable circumstances somehow tarnished my perception of the book's content. That happens to me a lot, you know. I need conditions that are conducive to contemplative perusal; otherwise, not only will I not be able to concentrate, but I will forever associate the book in question with such unfavorable circumstances. Once home, however, after a hard day of job hunting, I picked up The Three Musketeers and started in on it. I was now floored by Alexandre Dumas's writing ability. He, like Rollins, is able to invent a complex plot with dozens of supporting characters and resolve the various plot lines into a cohesive and satisfactory ending (and an emotional one to boot). However, Dumas has also created no less than four three-dimensional, entertaining protagonists (I think you know which four I'm referring to). Moreover, Dumas really knows how to set up an engaging storyline quickly. Within the first few pages, he had introduced me to young D'Artagnan and started that young lad out upon his grand romantic adventure, with nothing more than a few écus, a tatterdemalion horse, and his father's sword...thereby getting me hooked on the story immediately.

That story is classic. D'Artagnan meets his three future best buddies under less-than-ideal circumstances upon arriving in Paris. In fact, he winds up challenging each one of them to a duel. However, a hostile encounter with the scheming Cardinal Richelieu's men interrupts their clash, unites them, and makes them fast friends. There follows a swashbuckling series of sorties, swordfights, quests, rallies, marches, missions and information-gathering, culminating in...well, I won't spoil it. Suffice to say, I highly recommend both Ice Hunt and The Three Musketeers.

The candy bar's not bad, either.

Next was Candide, by Voltaire. It's one of the oddest books I've ever read. First of all, it's only 85 pages. Moreover, it has about sixty chapters, each of which is usually only one or two pages long. It's a quick read. It was also one of the most merciless, blatant, overt works of satire I've ever read. Voltaire skewers everything from philosophy to science to international politics (and takes shots at his detractors along the way). All of this is couched in rather extreme situational comedy...an elderly midwife who was once a princess until she was captured by Turks and had one of her buttocks cut off; Candide himself, the hapless protagonist, who winds up getting his skin whipped completely off before discovering El Dorado; Dr. Pangloss, Candide's mentor, who despite nearly dying of leprosy, being kicked out of his homeland by an invading army, getting improperly hanged in a foreign land, narrowly escaping drowning during a shipwreck and witnessing countless instances of depravity and tyranny during his travels, keeps insisting that "everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds."

"If this world is the best," Candide unsurprisingly wonders, "what about the others?"

I shan't divulge the various trials and tribulations Candide endures in his travels around Europe, Asia Minor, and the New World in search of his lady love, Cunegonde, nor the interesting folk he meets on his way. I'll merely say that, in the end, Candide does discover what's best in life. And it's not crushing your enemies, driving them before you, and hearing the lamentation of their women, either. That was Voltaire's aim in writing this little work: to show up the petty, grandstanding, overbearing nature of humanity's political, religious, and carnal concerns. Perhaps all of them can be replaced with something far simpler...?

Having completed these three doughty volumes, I then progressed to All Quiet on the Western Front. In terms of sheer writing ability, I think Erich Maria Remarque outstrips a good 95% of all the authors I've ever read. His story of German boys fighting a bloody, soul-scarring war that's not their own is one of the most powerful pieces of literature I've ever touched. That's no understatement. This book isn't called the best war novel of the 20th century for nothing. Remarque paints a vivid, gruesome picture of the front. His depiction of life behind the lines, at times bawdy, silly, bleak, poor, and toilsome, is no less gritty (in every sense of the word). In a time of bombastic patriotism and international pride, Remarque dares to stand up and challenge the paradigm with his brutally honest account of heartrending loss of life and innocence. The tragedy of war, and the sure destruction of even those who survived, are revealed on no uncertain terms, drawn in simple descriptive phrases and the most frugally eloquent prose I've seen in a long while. It's a thousand times more accessible than The Red Badge of Courage and a thousand times less pretentious than Johnny Got His Gun. Though the word "masterpiece" gets chucked around meaninglessly nowadays, this book fits the bill.

I'm working through a literary self-help book, too (How to Write a Damn Good Novel, by James N. Frey), and some historical reference books to succour my novel (Antiquity by Norman F. Cantor and A Short History of the World by Geoffrey Blainey) but I'm too superficially involved as yet to offer a useful opinion. I have no idea what I'll read next (for fun). So stay tuned...

recommended reading

That Marco Polo book has picked up a little since last I wrote. Take this, for example:

Combining a market and a brothel, Quinsai also had the air of a perpetual carnival. One memoirist who came of age there never forgot the man who trained his fish to perform. He has a large lacquer bowl in front of him in which swim turtles, turbots, and other fish. He beats time on a small bronze gong and calls up one of the creatures by name. It comes immediately and dances on the surface, wearing a kind of little hat on its head...There is also an archery expert who sets up in front of the spectators a big wheel a yard and a half in diameter, with all sorts of objects, flowers, birds, and people painted on it. He announces that he is going to hit this or that object, and having started spinning it rapidly, he shoots his arrows through the midst of the spectators. He hits the exact spot he has declared he will hit. He can even score a hit on the most precisely defined spots of the spinning target, such as a particular feather in a particular wing of a bird. The memoirist wandered in a daze among snake charmers blowing on little pipes, luring their hideous charges from the bamboo baskets where they coiled in darkness; and a Taoist monk who carried a trap filled with multicolored shellfish, which he claimed he had hypnotized. Boxers abounded, as did chess players, poets, writers of light verse, acrobats, and magicians. A Chinese record of the era lists five hundred and fifty-four performers who appeared at court, grouped into fifty-five categories, including kite flyers and ball players, magicians and singers, impressionists, artists, and bawdy raconteurs.

Before I came to the above passage, unfortunately, I lost patience, decided to take a break and got into something a little more digestible (no pun intended): World War Z, by Max Brooks. Touting itself as "an oral history of the zombie war," the book is just that: a series of accounts, collected by a nameless journalist (presumably Brooks himself). They are from all over the world, from China (where the outbreaks initially began), India, the U.S., Russia, and obscure spots and outlying regions all over the globe. I won't go into too much detail lest I (a) divulge the finger, cliffhanging points of the plot, or (b) disgust you by revealing myself to be a zombie apocalypse fan (not necessarily zombie apocalypse movie fan, mind you; the concept will do fine). I would like to impress upon you, however, just how realistic the book is, in both discussion of the spread of the virus or contagion or whatever it is, and also in the reaction of the world at large, on both small and large scales. Brooks accurately predicts, with borderline cynicism, the disbelieving attitudes of the people and the inept and dilatory nature of government response. Nor does his anthropic prowess stop there. He also realistically portrays the actions of individuals and governments after the disaster has been acknowledged, in both regrouping and combating the sweeping pandemic. Beyond that, though, the book itself is satisfactorily chilling. There's this one part where a Chinese sub has taken refuge on the seabed, right at crush depth, and begins to hear strange scraping and banging noises on its hull. A look through the periscope reveals legions of the undead, staggering across the ocean floor, clambering all over the submarine's hull, clawing to get inside and devour the crew.

Brooks has taken a more in-depth look at long-term undead residence on Earth and come to some heretofore unsuspected conclusions. He suggests that zombies, having no need for light or oxygen and being impervious to most pressure-related maladies, would be able to exist indefinitely underwater, even crossing oceans on foot. Brooks also puts forth the logical idea that, in extreme northern and southern latitudes, zombies would freeze solid in winter (those that wander about outdoors and are exposed to the elements) and thaw in spring, renewing their menace. I can only suggest that you read the work yourself and see what a suspenseful writer Brooks is, how thoroughly he has researched his ideas, and just what a compelling vision of planet Earth under siege by its own zombified populace would be seen through his eyes.

Apart from that, I have little to report. I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my in-flight reading list (the books I'll use to assuage the epic boredom prevalent on transoceanic international journeys aboard flying sardine cans). I was without the benefit of unread literature during my last hop across the Pacific Ocean and have determined never to be so again; much less this trip, which should add up to be no less than 11 hours, likely more.

To that end, I have ordered, as my last request from What the Book?:

• The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas
• Candide by Voltaire
• Ice Hunt by John Rollins
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

There you go, two classic novels of a martial nature, a scathing work of philosophy, and a two-bit adventure story. Boredom ought to be completely subverted.