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.

recommended reading

Well, things have changed quite a bit since the last installment. I managed to devour Treasure Island in only a few days; it's a page-turner, all right, not to mention being an easy read broken up into short, easily-digestible chapters. I'll review it for you, and give you some insight into my current occupation, Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu.

I'll also give you my final thoughts on 50 Great Short Stories, which, needless to say, I finished before beginning any of this other stuff. It sure didn't seem like fifty stories, but that was only because they went quickly. Some of them weren't more than five pages long, and one (The Foreigner, by Francis Steegmuller) was only one and a half or so. But it was nonetheless powerful for all that. Some of these stories' impacts were really crushing or otherwise impressive or influential.

I think my favorite of the latter half of the book was The Man Who Could Work Miracles by H.G. Wells. Demonstrating all his usual strengths (limitless imagination, mastery of articulate narration, and skill for the vernacular, not to mention a subtle yet wry sense of humor), he tells the tale of a simple man, Mr. Fotheringay, who somehow finds himself with the ability to make miracles happen. With a thought or a word he can Biblically modify or transform any object or circumstance to his will. He first enables an oil lamp to burn upside-down, to the consternation of the crowd at the pub. He then sends the local constable to Hades, but after some more thought he transfers him to San Francisco instead. Eventually he comes under the influences of Mr. Maydig, the head of the local parish, who immediately insists that he and Fotheringay embark on a grand campaign of societal modification, during which they reform all the drunkards in town, change all the alcohol into water, improve the railway communication lines, drain a swamp, and cure the Vicar's wart. The story takes a turn for the worse as the two men, in a kind of breathless ecstasy of do-good, reflect that they haven't the time to accomplish all they wish to in one night. Mr. Maydig unwisely suggests to the uneducated Mr. Fotheringay that he simply stop the planet's rotation until such time as they finish their work, and can let the normal course of time resume; Fotheringay obliges. He collects himself and says to the Earth in general: "Jest stop rotating, will you?"

But Fotheringay neglects to look after the well-being of all the houses, cities, animals, and people standing on Earth's surface (Wells refers to these as "movables"), which at the cessation of the Earth's rotation naturally go flying off the ground in a great cloud at hundreds of miles per hour. (The Earth, as you ought to know, rotates at considerable speed, and if such rotation were to be stopped, the impetus would throw you, me and most of the world's buildings, rocks, trees, animals, and landscape hundreds of miles through the air to certain doom.) Mr. Fotheringay manages to save himself by immediately imposing a miracle ("Let me come down safe and sound."), and only just in time, for his clothes are already beginning to burn from atmospheric friction. He lands in a pile of upturned dirt, in time to witness what seems to be the entire town falling down around him and bursting into wreckage, and vast winds roaring about him with the most tumultuous noise imaginable. Titanic storms spring up, hail rains down, and a mammoth wall of water (no doubt the remains of the oceans, also flung incontinently from their beds) come pouring toward him. Just in time he manages to miracle all this to a halt. He then digs his fingers into the dirt, holding on against the winds, and concentrates long enough to turn everything back the way it was before he did his first miracle. And then...well, I won't spoil the end. Suffice it to say, it's a miraculous story, humorous yet chilling, mind-boggling and believable, perceptive, with a relevant moral, but not preachy. There's a reason Wells is my favorite author of all time.

And so I finished the book, with a real sense of the sublime. One does not delve so quickly (and not superficially) into fifty disparate universes without feeling some after-effects. It was a whirling ride through the macabre, the meaningful, the portentous, the humorous, the tragic and the evocative. I loved almost every minute of it. As trite as this exhortation has become, I highly recommend 50 Great Short Stories (ed. Milton Crane) to anybody.

One of the authors I read in that book was Robert Louis Stevenson. Completely by chance I elected to purchase one his fuller works, Treasure Island. I'd read the abridged version as a child (what a travesty I can now see that to be!) and seen several movie adaptations, all of which were lackluster, if for no other reason than they failed to be faithful to the original work. Treasure Island is an unmitigated masterpiece. It defines the pirate genre, as much as Robert E. Howard's Conan stories defined sword-and-sorcery. It's a splendid story in its own right, and a perfect adventure to get lost in on an afternoon, but it's just plain piratey into the bargain. It's got everything: mysterious blind beggars, old seadogs, sea shanties with ominous meanings, narrow escapes on land, thrilling chases by sea, cutlasses, knives in the dark, black oaths, cloak-and-dagger affairs, cutlasses and pistols, betrayal, exotic islands, castaways, brave captains, bungling aristocrats, hangman's nooses, peg legs, parrots, riggings, trade winds, ships, rowboats, coracles, savages, buccaneers, storms, and just about everything you'd want in a pirate adventure on the high seas and in port towns.

The book itself has intrigue, mystery, some of the most colorful characters imaginable, a strong plot, and its text is anything but prosaic. You can literally feel young Jim Hawkins's terror upon discovering the bloodthirsty scallywags' murderous plot, and his sense of adventure at roaming the high seas to a far-flung, uncharted island in search of treasure. The sense of the unknown and the ominous in the beginning of the book, especially with characters like Billy Bones, Black Dog and Pew, is palpable, savory and real. Stevenson is one of my new favorite authors. You could tell he put his heart and soul into his writings. He himself was a traveler, and his intoxication with pirates and all that's involved with them is more than tangible...you can taste it when you read. I ought to know; I suffer from that same intoxication with pirates, adventure and travel myself. He loves this story he's telling, and he tells it to the hilt. I ask that God send you back to Earth if he discovers, at the Pearly Gates, that you have not read this book...ye scurvy dog.

Perhaps it was a mistake to read a work of nonfiction after such a marvel as Treasure Island, but I thought I'd give Marco Polo a chance at topping Jim Hawkins. Marco Polo: From Venice to Xanadu is touted as more than a biography of one of the world's most renowned explorers: some of the critics on the dust jacket twitter about the book's closer resemblance to a travelogue or an adventure story. I can see their point, but thus far I'm a bit let down by the book. It's a tad drier than I expected, and slower. I'll grant you the descriptions of travel on the Silk Road, Mongol culture and Venetian economic practices are engrossing, but they're not quite as engrossing as I was hoping.

Perhaps I haven't read far enough. I've only just started Part Two. Part One concerned the travels of Marco's father and uncle to the court of Kublai Khan, being charged by that worthy to return to their homeland, retrieve Papal letters of goodwill, some oil from the Holy Sepulcher, and at least a hundred intelligent craftsmen and merchants for the Khan's service. It took them sixteen years, and in the end, what with delays and their own avarice and all, they only managed to retrieve the papers, the oil and the elder Polo's only son, Marco. The book records the trio's return to the court of the Khan via the Silk Road, and some of the amazing sights and practices they encountered on the way there. I was particularly interested in the accounts of koumiss, the signature alcoholic beverage of the Mongols, made of fermented mare's milk. I think the book will begin to pick up now: no sooner did Marco's father and uncle enter the sight of the Khan (after their years-long absence) than they put young Marco, only just entering manhood, into his service.

Think about that, now. This is in the thirteenth century. Most Venetians (indeed, Europeans) viewed the Mongols, the Mongol Empire, and especially Kublai Khan as savage. They were devils in human form, half-mythic, barbarian conquerors who raped, murdered and pillaged wherever they went. They were so far away they might as well have been on another planet, culturally and geographically. Traveling to those distant lands was a matter of years, not days or even hours as it is today. For a young Venetian to embark on that kind of journey, into the heart of the ancient, wild Eastern empires, and to be entered into the service of the mysterious emperor of a barbaric nation, arguably the most powerful man in the world...it staggers the imagination. In such times, anything could happen. Dreams could come true...and the most agonizing deaths could spring from any quarter. The Khan was unpredictable and temperamental. The Polos would be at the mercy of the Khan's enemies upon his death; there was no way to flee the Empire unnoticed. Danger lurked at every step, both outside of and inside the lands of the Mongols. But Marco Polo lived to return to his homeland, and tell of his many adventures after dwelling for years in the outlying lands. What fortitude, what intrepidity, what adventure...!

Well, maybe this book isn't quite as boring as I let on.

recommended reading

Well, it's forty-six down and four to go in 50 Great Short Stories. I'll be sad to see the back of that book, but glad that I have a compendium of literary greatness (and brevity) bound up for later reference.

In the meantime I've broken my customary one-book-at-a-time rule and dived into the third and final Conan volume, which my folks so magnanimously sent in their last care package: The Conquering Sword of Conan. So far it's shaping up well: the first story, The Servants of Bit-Yakin, concerns an ancient lost valley and a treasure worth more than all the rest in the world, the Teeth of Gwahlur, hidden away in it. An ancient sorcerer once dwelt there with his inhuman servants, and when he died he took the secret of the treasure's location with him. Now the trail has grown hot again, and Conan is hot on it. His claims are hotly contested by a neighboring kingdom and its greedy, corrupt priest, so Conan has his work cut out for him...no less so because that sorcerer's inhuman servants are still alive and well!

Depending on how soon I finish 50 Great Short Stories, I might even start in on the next book: it's nonfiction for a change. Marco Polo: Venice to Xanadu by Laurence Bergreen is technically a biography, but the way the critics tell it, it plays the tune of a travelogue and an adventure story at times. I hear it's a splendid book, the best work so far on the life of the renowned Venetian explorer. I can't wait to get into it. I'd like to emulate old Marco. Imagine it! An enterprising Westerner travels far to the east by the longest and most famous trade route in history and gets into the good graces of a barbaric conqueror, Genghis Khan...or wait, was it Kublai Khan? This is why I need to read the book. It's flabbergasting and dumbfounding when you stop and ruminate. How dangerous that undertaking was! How deep into the unknown that man's travels penetrated, and how gutsy he was. I travel today with the assurance that I'm going to make it back alive, and in a timely manner. Marco Polo went deep into the heart of the uncivilized unknown, on the road for months and years, in danger of his life at every turn from wild beasts and savages and imaginary but nonetheless imposing monsters. What a way to live one's life! I think I was born in the wrong millennium.

On a final note, I'm vacillating on whether to hurry up and buy volumes 8-11 of One Piece right here and now in Korea, or save the hassle of trying to transport them out of here in two short months and just order them from Amazon.com when I get to Alaska. Argh, it's an agonizing decision! Luffy's right in the middle of an epic battle with the dastardly Don Krieg, admiral of a pirate armada, who's attacking a seagoing restaurant defended by that swift-kicking cook, Sanji, whom Luffy is determined to have on his crew. Darn, I can't stop now! You know how it goes. You get into a story, the drama gets rolling, the fights explode and the action compounds and you just don't want to stop. You've got to know how it finishes. I know you're supposed to read comic books slowly and savor them, but I swear I get through two volumes a day. That's right, I said volumes, not issues. That's about seven issues in one volume. I'm not a proper comic book fan at all, I know, tell me.