I have a weakness for funny movies about con men and audacious heists: The Italian Job (the new one), The Thomas Crowne Affair, Ocean’s Eleven, Catch Me If You Can etc. I haven’t read any books of the sort, as far as I can remember – until I read The Lies of Locke Lamora.

I found the book via the Stockholm SF bookshop’s listing of new books, totally unaware that it was voted the top SF book of 2006. I guess I should take a look at the rest of that list.

Locke Lamora is a thief who steals because he enjoys stealing and just plain likes to cause mischief. His career starts at the age of 5, and by the time he’s adult he is the head of a small gang of thieves. All the other gangs believe them to be normal small-time thieves, but in reality they plan and execute large and complex scams to trick the rich. The gang has amassed far more money than they can spend on anything, especially since they make sure to keep a low profile. Partway through the book Locke accidentally attracts the attention of the wrong kind of powerful people (who are also fighting each other) and spends the rest of the book struggling to survive.

Even though Locke is a thief, he’s got a strong moral sense and it is not at all hard to sympathise with him. It helps, of course, that he is daring and funny and inventive, has total confidence in his abilities, and always succeeds. Other characters get relatively little attention. Character isn’t the book’s strong side: it’s all about setting and plot.

The setting is the lively city-state of Camorr. It’s a fantasy city, but relatively similar to our world. It’s sort of a mixture of Venice and Sicily and Victorian London: highly-organised gangs of crooks in a city of islands and canals. Shark-infested canals. For local colour, add a dash of alchemy and a lot of violent entertainment.

The plot is tight and fast-paced. I found the beginning chapters a bit annoying because Lynch cuts frantically between Locke’s childhood and the present time. It was too chopped-up, MTV style, for my taste. I kind of got the impression that Lynch was unsure if he could keep the reader’s attention otherwise. (He shouldn’t have worried.) On the other hand, several reviewers really liked this structure.

The entire book is a page-turner, in the very best sense of the word. I could hardly put it down because I wanted to find out what would happen next – and it was always something inventive. The action got very violent and bloody in places, yet unlike Follett Lynch doesn’t go overboard when describing these scenes, and they do fit in with the general atmosphere and the plot. And he balances these scenes with with abundant humour.
He also adds some very nice details about the city and the society, and pays great attention to detail, making even the slower sections very interesting to read.

Some plot turns are a bit hard to believe: just as in heist movies, Locke succeeds and survives where he really shouldn’t, but that’s forgiveable because otherwise there wouldn’t be a sequel. But now a sequel is very obviously on its way: some issues that seem central to Locke’s life are left unexplained, and others will need resolving and avenging. Nevertheless the book is fully enjoyable on its own: where some books leave you hanging at the end, annoyed that the sequel isn’t available yet, this one just made me glad that I have more to look forward to.

My favourite passage, that excellently summarizes both the tone of the book and the character of Locke:

“Some day, Locke Lamora,” he said, “some day, you’re going to fuck up so magnificently, so ambitiously, so overwhelmingly that the sky will light up and the moons will spin and the gods themselves will shit comets with glee. And I just hope that I’m still around to see it.”

“Oh, please,” said Locke. “It’ll never happen.”

Amazon US, Amazon UK.

These are my notes from reading Lise Elliot’s What’s Going On in There?.

“How Birth Affects the Brain”.

This chapter describes the effects on the baby of labour, birth, and the drugs used in childbirth. The drugs, while beneficial for the mother, are probably overused from the baby’s point of view.

In general women today are quite careful about what they put in their bodies during pregnancy, so it can seem a little odd that many lose all caution on the last day of gestation, just when the baby is making the difficult transition to surviving on his own and will no longer have the benefit of his mother’s circulation to clear drugs out of his system. […] All analgesics and anesthetics used in childbirth are serious controlled substances, in another league entirely from the occasional Tylenol or antihistamine that many women worry about during pregnancy.

A few interesting facts I learned:

• The birth itself may be triggered by the brain of the baby. That’s how it works in some other species.
• Stress hormones, which speed up breathing and heart rate in adults, have the opposite effect in babies, which helps them conserve oxygen during birth. They also give some last-minute help to mature baby’s lungs.
• For some reason, they don’t use nitrous oxide for pain relief in the US – it isn’t even mentioned in this chapter!

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There are some books that everyone knows something about, that somehow become more than books. Ulysses, A la recherche du temps perdu, Moby Dick, that sort of works. Books I’d like to have read just to know what all the fuss is about.

So I started reading Moby Dick through the ingenious DailyLit which sends you great works, in daily email snippets. Moby Dick comes in 252 snippets.

The first 50 snippets or thereabout were “normal” literature. At first I thought it seemed like a reasonably interesting book, even though the tone was a bit peculiar. And then it got strange. And then it got positively bizarre. But not in a good way. I was prepared for lots of talk about whaling and sea-faring, but that’s not what I got. But instead, Melville pontificates. And he rambles. And he lectures. And yet he manages to say nothing at all.

I am sorry to say that I gave up on the book after having read about a third of it, and will never try to read anything by Melville again.

The first third (or thereabouts) of snippet #69:

CHAPTER 35

The Mast-Head.

It was during the more pleasant weather, that in due rotation with the other seamen my first mast-head came round.

In most American whalemen the mast-heads are manned almost simultaneously with the vessel’s leaving her port; even though she may have fifteen thousand miles, and more, to sail ere reaching her proper cruising ground. And if, after a three, four, or five years’ voyage she is drawing nigh home with anything empty in her – say, an empty vial even – then, her mast-heads are kept manned to the last; and not till her skysail-poles sail in among the spires of the port, does she altogether relinquish the hope of capturing one whale more.

Now, as the business of standing mast-heads, ashore or afloat, is a very ancient and interesting one, let us in some measure expatiate here. I take it, that the earliest standers of mast-heads were the old Egyptians; because, in all my researches, I find none prior to them. For though their progenitors, the builders of Babel, must doubtless, by their tower, have intended to rear the loftiest mast-head in all Asia, or Africa either; yet (ere the final truck was put to it) as that great stone mast of theirs may be said to have gone by the board, in the dread gale of God’s wrath; therefore, we cannot give these Babel builders priority over the Egyptians.
And that the Egyptians were a nation of mast-head standers, is an assertion based upon the general belief among archaeologists, that the first pyramids were founded for astronomical purposes: a theory singularly supported by the peculiar stair-like formation of all four sides of those edifices; whereby, with prodigious long upliftings of their legs, those old astronomers were wont to mount to the apex, and sing out for new stars; even as the look-outs of a modern ship sing out for a sail, or a whale just bearing in sight. In Saint Stylites, the famous Christian hermit of old times, who built him a lofty stone pillar in the desert and spent the whole latter portion of his life on its summit, hoisting his food from the ground with a tackle; in him we have a remarkable instance of a dauntless stander-of-mast-heads; who was not to be driven from his place by fogs or frosts, rain, hail, or sleet; but valiantly facing everything out to the last, literally died at his post.

He manages to write 400 words saying just about nothing at all. Was he paid by the word? And those 400 words make up 8 (yes, eight) sentences. Just look at those sentences! More semicolons than you can count, and parenthetical asides that add nothing to the content, and all of it as bombastic as it could possibly be. Did he not have an editor?

“Let us in some measure expatiate here” perfectly describes the whole book. And honestly I cannot understand why anyone would want to read this.

Stardust is one of my favourite books ever, and by far the best thing that Neil Gaiman has written. I like his fairy tales (this, and Neverwhere and the Sandman stories) better than the (relatively) more conventional novels (Anansi Boys, American Gods). I don’t even know how many times I have read it.

Stardust is a fairy tale for adults. It starts in the village of Wall, which borders Faerie. A young man of the village, intent to woo a young woman, promises to bring her the star they both see fall in Faerie. Because he is by far not the only one to want that star, the quest turns out to be harder and take longer than he plans, and of course he goes through all sorts of adventures on his way – evil witches, magical objects, ghosts, long-lost princes, good deeds by strange strangers and all that.

And just as most traditional fairy tales – which were originally not aimed at children at all – this one definitely has moments that are not suited to small children. Cute animals die violent deaths, as do some less cute people.

Even though the book is small and short, even though it always retains its fairy tale feel, it is more complex by far than the traditional fairy tales. Gaiman moves smoothly from romance to horror to adventure. And the story meanders with him: there is no straightforward “boss battle” at the end, and the main characters aren’t even aware of all the dangerous forces surrounding them.

Character development also gets more attention than in a traditional fairy tale. They are complex, their emotions and relationships are non-trivial, and they learn and develop over time. The hero is neither a standard plucky-youngest-son-of-poor-peasant nor a standard courageous-dragon-slaying-prince. The heroine is not a gentle helpless maiden waiting to be rescued.

In addition, minor characters and conflicts are introduced and abandoned left and right. It gives the impression that this is a big world, of which we only see parts, and there just isn’t time to tell everyone’s story.

Somehow the book feels like poetry. This is the kind of fairy tale that makes me want to abandon my life and go on a quest in Faerie.

I re-read it now because we just acquired an illustrated version, with fabulous pictures by Charles Vess. In fact it isn’t fair to say that the book has pictures, because the pictures are an integral part and get as much loving attention as the text. For an adult book, this is pretty exceptional. If you are going to buy this book, do make sure you get the illustrated version – the pictures lifted the reading experience to a whole new level.

A movie adaptation of Stardust is on its way, and Neil Gaiman himself is happy about it and I cannot wait to see it.

Amazon US; Amazon UK.

These are my notes from reading Lise Elliot’s What’s Going On in There?.

“Prenatal Influences on the Developing Brain”.

This chapter goes through all the things that can affect the development of the fetus – mostly negatively. Nutrition (lack of), alcohol, drugs, chemicals, infections, stress, etc etc. On a more positive note there is a section about folic acid and how it helps prevent neural tube defects.

A few interesting facts I learned:

• There is enough folic acid in normal multivitamins for the needs of pregnant women. There is no evidence that the extra amount in specialist pills is useful (or unsafe, for that matter).
• A woman needs about 300 kcal extra per day during pregnancy, and 500–600 during breastfeeding.

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These are my notes from reading Lise Elliot’s What’s Going On in There?.

“The Basic Biology of Brain Development”.

This chapter covers prenatal development of the brain and the nervous system, and an overview of the structure of nerve cells.

A few interesting facts I learned:

• The nervous system starts out flat as a pancake, then curls up into a groove, and then a tube.
• The brain cortex is made up of units perpendicular to its surface. More intelligent species have more grooves in their brains, and thus a larger surface.
• Initially too many connections are created between neurons, leading to noisy connections. This excess is pruned during early childhood.

(more…)

These are my notes from reading Lise Elliot’s What’s Going On in There?.

Chapter 1, short and light, gives a brief overview of the nature/nurture issue, and explains the author’s reasons for writing this book.

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As I’ve started reading Lise Eliot’s What’s Going On in There, I’ve realised that my brain, at least, works the same now as it did in university. I cannot read a work of non-fiction and expect to remember its contents, unless I actively work with the text. Exercises, quizzes, taking notes, underlining and summarising… Otherwise I read, take in the text, think “Aah, this is interesting!”, and yet I remember very little of it later.

After reading 2 chapters of this book I looked back and realised I couldn’t tell you a single thing I’d learned from it. So I’m going back to the beginning and starting over, this time taking notes. And since typing is faster than writing by hand, I’m going to post my notes here.

I kept running into Follett books in bookshops and elsewhere so I thought I’d try one. This is not the most representative of his works, but it was the most prominent one in the bookshop, so I took it.

The Pillars of the Earth is centred around the building of a new cathedral at Kingsbridge priory. Over several decades, prior Philip and Tom Builder struggle to build the cathedral, while various forces try to hinder them for political as well as personal reasons. While the story is fictional, it is anchored in real historical events – from the death of King Henry I to the murder of Thomas Becket.

I have to say that despite all the glowing reviews, and the very interesting-sounding premise (I love Gothic cathedrals, and generally find monastic life and medieval stories very interesting) I found very little to like in this book.

First of all, at over 1000 pages the book is simply too long. The back cover is full of epithets such as “epic”, “saga of breadth and density”… which just means that it’s a big book. And it’s big because it sprawls. Follett can’t make up his mind about what to write about. Family drama? War and politics? Cathedral-building? Let’s just do all of that. So there’s everything from love stories to descriptions of cathedral architecture and bloody battles. He also cannot make up his mind about how to tell a story of such scope. I found the pacing very odd: sometimes he skips many years with little warning; other times he spends many pages on a relatively minor scene. And for some reason he has the habit of recapping things that had been said earlier – almost like a TV series. “Last week on TPOTH…”

The plot was very predictable. Good guys build a bit of the cathedral. Bad guys come up with a sneaky, underhanded way to stop them. Good guys suffer. Good guys think of a way to outwit bad guys. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat again.

The characters were hardly better than the plot. They were the staple fare of thrillers: colourful and memorable, admittedly, but very one-dimensional, and as predictable as the plot. The good ones are innovative, intelligent go-getters. The bad ones are mean and intensely egoistic, and generally have some sort of obsession about destroying one of the good guys. After you’ve met a character once, you can easily predict their reactions throughout the rest of the book, because none of them really develops – and you’d think that over thirty–forty years they would learn something other than how to best build a cathedral.

I thought that several of the characters seemed like 20th-century people thrown into a medieval setting. I rather doubt that medieval women freely discussed their virginity, for example, or that they had as much economical power as Aliena does in the book. Their language also kept bothering me. I don’t expect the book to be written in (or the characters to speak) Middle English, but when the language gets too modern, it becomes jarring. Talking about “organizing” or describing a girl as “sexy” kicks apart any illusion of the Middle Ages.

Follett seems to be very fond of violence. The violent scenes are not too frequent, but when they come, he spends several pages on detailed descriptions, really wallowing in the blood and gore. Some of these rapes and murders are admittedly central to the story, but even those got far too much space in my opinion. And then there are the totally gratuitous scenes of violence that he seems to have included just for the sake of it – for example, two entire pages filled with a moment-by-moment account of bear-baiting. Towards the end I learned to recognise these scenes early on and simply skipped them.

The story-telling seemed to be aimed at unexperienced readers. Follett apparently hasn’t learned the “Show, don’t tell” rule, and explains everything. Every conclusion is pointed out, every reason listed. “A said B. He felt like C.” All the characters are made totally transparent, which makes them even more boring. There is no sense that the characters think or feel anything beyond what Follett tells us.

I guess Follett is so used to writing thrillers that even when he tries to write something else, he produces a thriller. This is a cheap page-turner in a historical setting. It has a simplistic plot, delivered in simplistic language, for easy reading: action, sex, suspense, and colourful characters.

Tired of wasting my time, I skimmed the last third. I would not recommend this book for anyone, except as light entertainment on a rainy day when you’re locked in with no other books at hand – roughly on par with The Da Vinci Code.

If you want to read the opposite point of view, head to Amazon, which is full of glowing reviews. Lots of people seem to have found the characters believable and memorable, and the story gripping and fascinating. They love the straightforward battle between good and evil, and enjoy the strong-willed women characters.

Amazon US, Amazon UK.

On the positive side, I found two blogs that agreed with my opinion about this book (here and here) and about others as well, so I am sure I will find some good book tips there.

The first Estonian book I’ve read in a long time. I believe I’ve read this one before, but it must have been many years ago: some scenes were definitely familiar, but most of it felt new.

Jaan Kross is Estonia’s foremost contemporary writer, and probably the only one known outside Estonia. He writes historical fiction about different periods in Estonia’s history, ranging from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. He’s also pretty much the only Estonian writer I’ve read in the last 10 years or so.

Wikmani poisid (Wikman’s Boys) takes place at the Wikman Gymnasium (high school) in Tallinn in the late 1930s. The boys are studying, playing pranks on their teachers, and doing all the other things that almost-adult boys do, including some adolescent romance.

I found the book somewhat less interesting than the other novels by Kross that I’ve read. It felt somewhat more lightweight and had a less serious tone than the other ones. The antics of high school boys can be entertaining, but are ultimately not that interesting. And while the book shows glimpses of life in 1930s Estonia, those glimpses don’t reveal much, because we get to see very little of the boys’ life outside of school.

Only at the end does the story take a wider arc through life. The boys have a reunion five years after graduating. The year is 1942… and Estonia and the boys have lived through (or not) a lot of things.

The best part of the book was the very expressive language, especially the dialogue. Almost every one of the teachers has a very idiosyncratic voice – accented, or mannered, or pompous, or pious. So do many of the boys. Especially Penn’s comical blather (which includes impersonations of many of the teachers) is endlessly funny.

I need to read more Estonian literature. I found myself having to re-read some of the sentences in order to make sense of them. The everyday language of EPL is not quite enough to keep the language skills alive.