This review blog has been discontinued.
I have a new Blogger blog at http://www.shomeretmasked.blogspot.com.
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Saturday, January 18, 2014
The Julius Romeros Extravaganza Part 2--The Perils of a Cliffhanger Ending
I liked Julius Romeros Extravaganza Part I by Hayley Lawson Smith very much. It was in the top ten of the books I read for 2013, and I consider it one of the best circus novels that I've ever encountered. I reviewed it on this blog in the entry called The Julius Romeros Extravaganza: Liminal Identity at the Circus. The first novel had a much lighter tone. It poked fun at Victorian attitudes and affirmed the value of circus sideshow performers. Its' narrative arc was like a fairy tale. The story had what seemed to be a happily ever after ending. The second book is quite different. Its tone is much darker. Like Part I, I received this book for free from the author in return for an honest review.
Abigail, the bearded girl of the first novel, has grown into a young woman and flourished under the benevolent paternal guidance of Julius Romeros. Then one day everything changes and Abigail learns that true evil exists in the world, and that villains aren't always bumbling idiots like you find in a satirical farce or a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.
I knew from the fact that the first book was Part 1 that Abigail wouldn't really have a happily ever after ending. Conflict is needed for the purpose of storytelling, and the rather grim story line of Part 2 is much more typical of how sideshow performers lived in the real world of traveling circuses during the Victorian period.
I wanted to believe that this couldn't have happened to the characters described in the first book. The characters didn't believe their situation either. This is how evil can obtain a foothold. People who are accustomed to everyone behaving in a reasonable civilized fashion can never believe that anyone could be completely ruthless. There is also the phenomenon of learned helplessness that happens to people who have been beaten down and convinced that they are worthless. This is why people stay in abusive situations. They no longer believe in themselves, and don't think they can survive on their own. Hayley Lawson Smith describes how Abigail and other performers become victims of the learned helplessness syndrome very credibly.
At that point in the narrative, I said to myself that this book could be very inspiring for readers who are being abused if the characters completely overcame their situation. Unfortunately, we don't know what happens because Part 2 ends with a cliffhanger.
An author who decides to end a book with a cliffhanger is taking a risk. Some readers will feel compelled to buy the next book because they need to know what happens next. Other readers feel that cliffhangers are manipulative and that this is an overused device in series. A certain proportion of the readers in the second category may be so annoyed by the fact that the book ended on a cliffhanger that they will never purchase a book by that author ever again. Authors need to consider that they will be alienating a part of their audience when they end their books with a cliffhanger.
I care about Abigail, and I'm willing to believe that the inspiring resolution that I was looking for at the end of this novel will happen in the next book. Yet I have to admit that I would have preferred that the plot had gone in a different direction. I have a limited tolerance for dark fiction, and have a strong preference for independent heroines who never surrender to learned helplessness syndrome at any point in their lives even though women faced with abuse are rarely that strong. I believe that women need champions who are larger than life and more courageous than the majority of women. Other readers may feel differently. They may prefer characters drawn on a real world scale who may not be so certain of themselves, and are capable of being undermined.
So when I say that this book is not for me, it doesn't mean that The Julius Romeros Extravaganza Part 2 is a bad book or that it's poorly written. I don't mean to say that at all. I think it's very convincing. I would just prefer to read a different type of story.
Abigail, the bearded girl of the first novel, has grown into a young woman and flourished under the benevolent paternal guidance of Julius Romeros. Then one day everything changes and Abigail learns that true evil exists in the world, and that villains aren't always bumbling idiots like you find in a satirical farce or a Gilbert & Sullivan operetta.
I knew from the fact that the first book was Part 1 that Abigail wouldn't really have a happily ever after ending. Conflict is needed for the purpose of storytelling, and the rather grim story line of Part 2 is much more typical of how sideshow performers lived in the real world of traveling circuses during the Victorian period.
I wanted to believe that this couldn't have happened to the characters described in the first book. The characters didn't believe their situation either. This is how evil can obtain a foothold. People who are accustomed to everyone behaving in a reasonable civilized fashion can never believe that anyone could be completely ruthless. There is also the phenomenon of learned helplessness that happens to people who have been beaten down and convinced that they are worthless. This is why people stay in abusive situations. They no longer believe in themselves, and don't think they can survive on their own. Hayley Lawson Smith describes how Abigail and other performers become victims of the learned helplessness syndrome very credibly.
At that point in the narrative, I said to myself that this book could be very inspiring for readers who are being abused if the characters completely overcame their situation. Unfortunately, we don't know what happens because Part 2 ends with a cliffhanger.
An author who decides to end a book with a cliffhanger is taking a risk. Some readers will feel compelled to buy the next book because they need to know what happens next. Other readers feel that cliffhangers are manipulative and that this is an overused device in series. A certain proportion of the readers in the second category may be so annoyed by the fact that the book ended on a cliffhanger that they will never purchase a book by that author ever again. Authors need to consider that they will be alienating a part of their audience when they end their books with a cliffhanger.
I care about Abigail, and I'm willing to believe that the inspiring resolution that I was looking for at the end of this novel will happen in the next book. Yet I have to admit that I would have preferred that the plot had gone in a different direction. I have a limited tolerance for dark fiction, and have a strong preference for independent heroines who never surrender to learned helplessness syndrome at any point in their lives even though women faced with abuse are rarely that strong. I believe that women need champions who are larger than life and more courageous than the majority of women. Other readers may feel differently. They may prefer characters drawn on a real world scale who may not be so certain of themselves, and are capable of being undermined.
So when I say that this book is not for me, it doesn't mean that The Julius Romeros Extravaganza Part 2 is a bad book or that it's poorly written. I don't mean to say that at all. I think it's very convincing. I would just prefer to read a different type of story.
Bellman and Black: The Advantages of the Janus Perspective
Janus was an ancient Roman deity of doorways with two faces. One looked forward and the other looked backward. This could be interpreted as a god who sees both the past and the future. I have always felt that both perspectives are valuable. If I were an ancient Roman consulting an oracle, I'd want a Janus faced one who could see both the history that brought about my current situation, and how my actions in the present would impact my future.
Bellman and Black is about a man who never looked back. He was always looking forward. The story deals with the consequences of dismissing the past as irrelevant. Many readers might agree that there is no reason to concern ourselves with past events. Saying that something is "history" means that it's over and done with. It no longer has any significance. "It's so yesterday." Diane Setterfield's latest book speaks to them. She has written a cautionary tale.
I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley and this is my belated review. I can only plead the challenges of library school as an extenuating circumstance.
Protagonist William Bellman was a pillar of the 19th century English industrial revolution. He was always more than one step ahead of everyone else. He was remarkable at predicting future trends. He put all his energy into his work and was committed to being better than his competitors. Unlike some current corporations, he was decent and considerate toward his employees. It was more important to make sure that his workers were happy than to make additional profit at their expense. He was certain that happy employees would be dedicated ones who would be loyal to the firm. Surely William Bellman was a man who would have been widely admired and respected. Yet he had a secret that he'd buried in the past. He wasn't in the least bit haunted by his memories. The past simply didn't exist for him.
I appreciated the fact that the fantasy aspect of this novel is drawn from Norse mythology rather than the more overused forms of mythology like Celtic Faerie or Native American shamanism. I also appreciated the way the characters who were artists were portrayed. I thought that Dora, Bellman's artist daughter, was the most sympathetic character in Bellman and Black. I only wish that I could have seen more of her.
As for Black, he was an ongoing mystery for William Bellman. I will leave readers with the opportunity to discover Black, and the mystery at the heart of this novel for themselves.
Bellman and Black is about a man who never looked back. He was always looking forward. The story deals with the consequences of dismissing the past as irrelevant. Many readers might agree that there is no reason to concern ourselves with past events. Saying that something is "history" means that it's over and done with. It no longer has any significance. "It's so yesterday." Diane Setterfield's latest book speaks to them. She has written a cautionary tale.
I received this book from the publisher through Net Galley and this is my belated review. I can only plead the challenges of library school as an extenuating circumstance.
Protagonist William Bellman was a pillar of the 19th century English industrial revolution. He was always more than one step ahead of everyone else. He was remarkable at predicting future trends. He put all his energy into his work and was committed to being better than his competitors. Unlike some current corporations, he was decent and considerate toward his employees. It was more important to make sure that his workers were happy than to make additional profit at their expense. He was certain that happy employees would be dedicated ones who would be loyal to the firm. Surely William Bellman was a man who would have been widely admired and respected. Yet he had a secret that he'd buried in the past. He wasn't in the least bit haunted by his memories. The past simply didn't exist for him.
I appreciated the fact that the fantasy aspect of this novel is drawn from Norse mythology rather than the more overused forms of mythology like Celtic Faerie or Native American shamanism. I also appreciated the way the characters who were artists were portrayed. I thought that Dora, Bellman's artist daughter, was the most sympathetic character in Bellman and Black. I only wish that I could have seen more of her.
As for Black, he was an ongoing mystery for William Bellman. I will leave readers with the opportunity to discover Black, and the mystery at the heart of this novel for themselves.
Friday, January 17, 2014
Those Fascinating Birds: Bird Brains by Budd Titlow
When I saw the title of this book, I thought that it would be a book about studies that evaluate the intelligence of birds. It isn't, but it's still quite interesting. I reviewed Bird Brains for The Bookplex.
I imagine that the photography in this book must be gorgeous in color. Unfortunately, the Kindle on which I read this book displays in black and white only. So I’m unable to comment about the quality of the color in the bird photographs. Titlow’s biography states that he is a photographer, and he discusses his adventures in photographing various types of birds. So I was surprised to discover in the photography credits that almost none of the pictures in Bird Brains are Titlow’s. I wondered about the reasons for this decision.
This book contains photos and stories dealing with a hundred
bird species. Most, but not all, are
North American birds. Budd Titlow draws
on his long history as a lover and observer of birds. He always finds some attribute that sets each
species apart from the others. These
characteristics can range from the roadrunner having two toes pointing forward
and two toes pointing backward to the call of the barred owl that sounds very
much like “Who cooks the soup?” A friend suggested that the great horned owls, who appear to be saying "Who's awake?" all night, would annoy human insomniacs so much that they could end up in the soup. In that the case, the barred owl's cry might be that of an avenging predator. Whoever cooks the soup should keep an eye out for a sharp beak and claws.
It seemed to me that generally speaking, Titlow admires predators, despises scavengers and thinks prey birds need protection. These are rather typical attitudes. Yet when I think about it, successful scavengers might merit more respect for their adaptability and resourcefulness.
It seemed to me that generally speaking, Titlow admires predators, despises scavengers and thinks prey birds need protection. These are rather typical attitudes. Yet when I think about it, successful scavengers might merit more respect for their adaptability and resourcefulness.
I imagine that the photography in this book must be gorgeous in color. Unfortunately, the Kindle on which I read this book displays in black and white only. So I’m unable to comment about the quality of the color in the bird photographs. Titlow’s biography states that he is a photographer, and he discusses his adventures in photographing various types of birds. So I was surprised to discover in the photography credits that almost none of the pictures in Bird Brains are Titlow’s. I wondered about the reasons for this decision.
Titlow’s writing style is engaging and insightful. He gives us the history of how each type of
bird has been viewed and in some cases the cultural role that it has
played. He reveals the threats to the
preservation of certain species and how well they are currently thriving. In his Afterword, Titlow discusses the
measures needed for bird conservation in general . They are key principles for maintaining the
environment for all species including our own.
I don’t know enough about birds myself to judge Titlow’s
accuracy on this subject, but he cites a source as saying the
Puebloan peoples have teepees.
This has never been the case. I looked up the folklorist J. Frank Dobie who Titlow was citing to see what he actually said. According to The Texas Parks and Wildlife Website, Dobie said that the Pueblos drew roadrunner footprints outside death tents to confuse evil spirits. It's worthy of note that when I did a search about Pueblo death customs, I saw no reference to death tents. I did find the following quote in a birding source,Southwest Birds : "one of the New Mexico Pueblo groups felt that tracing the
roadrunner's inscrutable tracks around a deceased person would confuse
nearby evil spirits." Again, no mention of death tents. It's instructive to look up the meaning of the word "pueblo". In the Free Dictionary it states that a pueblo is " a communal dwelling of certain agricultural Indians of the
southwestern U.S., consisting of a number of adjoining houses of stone
or adobe, typically flat-roofed, multistoried, and terraced, with access
provided by ladder." The Puebloan peoples got their name because they lived in these structures. Given this sort of architecture, does it seem consistent with their culture to erect teepees for death ceremonies? Teepees are characteristic of Plains native cultures like the Lakota and the Cheyenne, not Southwest native cultures like the Puebloans. It seems to me that Dobie was mistaken. Titlow gave tacit support to Dobie's misguided comment by citing it.
This may seem like a small error, but there is an unfortunate tendency of viewing the earliest inhabitants of North America as if all of them had the same beliefs and practices. That is an indication of prejudice which is not a small error. Even if the prejudice was Dobie's , not Titlow's, perpetuating prejudice should be avoided.
This may seem like a small error, but there is an unfortunate tendency of viewing the earliest inhabitants of North America as if all of them had the same beliefs and practices. That is an indication of prejudice which is not a small error. Even if the prejudice was Dobie's , not Titlow's, perpetuating prejudice should be avoided.
Despite my concern about the mis-perception of the Puebloans, I did
enjoy reading Bird Brains. I feel that I got to know the included bird
species a great deal better, and can therefore appreciate them more.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Indie Writer Clinic: This Book Needs Help!
I agreed to review a book for The Bookplex called A Collection of Poetry and Prose because the description sounded interesting. The first thing I noticed that could use help was the title. It's much too generic. Since the anthology has a spiritual focus and it contains content dealing with a number of traditions, my suggestion would be Syncretic Harmonies. Syncretism means a combination of religious paths. Few people will know what "syncretic" means, but it might intrigue readers.
The next thing I noticed that could use help is the cover. Here it is:
This is an extremely common cover. I actually reviewed another book on this blog with the same cover. It was an excellent novel, but this cover is unlikely to attract readers. If you check on Google Images, it will give you pages of book covers with this exact same image. Here's a sample:
If you look at the cover at the right end on the top row, you'll find Evan Shaw's book, but as you can see, it's difficult to pick this book out of a crowd. Why would readers purchase a book that looks like so many others? An indie writer may think that he or she is saving money by not purchasing a custom cover, but they are actually losing money by losing sales. Perhaps Evan Shaw and the other indie writers who chose this cover will learn from this experience and commission a cover for their next book.
******************************
Now let's discuss the poetry. Some of the poetry in this book seemed to indicate that the author understood something about poetry, but others made me wonder if he did. A poem should be different from prose. What distinguishes a poem from prose is patterning. I should not have to ask myself whether this is a poem or an essay, as I did many times when I was reading Evan Shaw's book. One way to do this, is to write the poem using a rhythm. Think of it in terms of drumbeats. A limerick has a specific rhythm. If it doesn't have that rhythm, it isn't a limerick. A rap song also has a specific rhythm which is very distinctive in that genre. Evan Shaw did use a rap rhythm in one poem. A poem doesn't need to have a standard rhythm, or even any rhythm at all. A rhythm is an attribute that a poem can have that separates it from prose. It's done by counting syllables and looking at where the emphasis falls in the words.
For example:
"There once was a young man from Skokie"
There are nine syllables and the emphasis falls on "once", "young" and "Sko". If you want to have a similar rhythm in the next line, it will need to have nine syllables too, and a similar emphasis pattern.
The next line could be:
"Who wanted it all okie dokey"
Notice that I included an additional pattern by rhyming Skokie and dokey.
Other sound patterns are alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is a sequence of words with some that start with the same letter.
"The girl glittered with golden glamor" would be an example.
Assonance is a sequence of words with the same consonant in the second syllable.
An example of assonance would be:
"There was an echo of art deco."
Echo and deco have the same hard "c" sound. They also rhyme.
Using techniques like these will improve a poem, but they must be employed consistently. You shouldn't suddenly stop using sound patterns, and just tack on a prose sentence with no patterns at the end. The prose sentence will feel like it doesn't fit, and the poem will fall flat.
Some people feel that they just need
To type prose in lines that make it
Look like a poem.
This is not a poem at all. It's chopped prose. There is nothing that distinguishes it from prose except the typographic convention of lines.
Yet even words without sound patterns can turn into a poem if it uses imagery.
"The fire danced a tango " would be a good example. If you're using images instead of sound patterns, you need to create a cluster of related images. This is called an extended metaphor.
Here's my improvised poem based on that first line:
The fire danced a tango
Inside the glass pavilion
Before the eye of the approaching storm.
The storm hovered over the pavilion
Acting as an attentive audience.
Yet the performance incited no applause
Beyond a single clap of thunder.
The glass shattered and a lightning bolt
Rudely rushed the stage.
Angered by this discourteous response,
A curtain of flames abruptly descended.
There would be no encore.
Every line draws on the metaphor of a fire during a storm as a dance performance. This works as a poem because it has an image pattern. There is nothing in the poem that doesn't relate to the central concept. It doesn't wander by bringing in images or concepts that are unrelated. The reader can visualize what the poem is describing. It makes sense within the context of the poem. Note that there is also some alliteration and assonance. Using both a sound pattern and an image pattern will make a stronger impression on the reader.
***************************
Moving on to essays, I have to say that the main problem with the essays in this anthology is that the author didn't establish a context for his ideas. If a reader hasn't read John Anthony West will that reader understand essays based on his theories that don't fully explicate them? How do I make sense of John Anthony West's theories without the reasons why he had them? What was his evidence? How much is speculation? Do you know the chronology of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs? If Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, could Moses have known Akhenaten? Has it really been established that a papyrus boat from Egypt could reach the Americas? How far did Thor Heyerdahl's papyrus boats get? If you want to write essays dealing with history, you need to ask questions before you start, and research the answers. You then need to think through your ideas and see if they make sense in terms of what you've discovered during your research.
I didn't think much of Evan Shaw's fiction. The utopian story had a huge plot hole that made it unbelievable. The piece about Plato at the Academy was a fragment.
Having said all that, I did think that some of the poems in Evan Shaw's book had potential, and that he has a good sense of Hindu philosophy. He needs a really good editor to critique his work, and some guidance about poetry that I'm trying to give in this review.
The next thing I noticed that could use help is the cover. Here it is:
If you look at the cover at the right end on the top row, you'll find Evan Shaw's book, but as you can see, it's difficult to pick this book out of a crowd. Why would readers purchase a book that looks like so many others? An indie writer may think that he or she is saving money by not purchasing a custom cover, but they are actually losing money by losing sales. Perhaps Evan Shaw and the other indie writers who chose this cover will learn from this experience and commission a cover for their next book.
******************************
Now let's discuss the poetry. Some of the poetry in this book seemed to indicate that the author understood something about poetry, but others made me wonder if he did. A poem should be different from prose. What distinguishes a poem from prose is patterning. I should not have to ask myself whether this is a poem or an essay, as I did many times when I was reading Evan Shaw's book. One way to do this, is to write the poem using a rhythm. Think of it in terms of drumbeats. A limerick has a specific rhythm. If it doesn't have that rhythm, it isn't a limerick. A rap song also has a specific rhythm which is very distinctive in that genre. Evan Shaw did use a rap rhythm in one poem. A poem doesn't need to have a standard rhythm, or even any rhythm at all. A rhythm is an attribute that a poem can have that separates it from prose. It's done by counting syllables and looking at where the emphasis falls in the words.
For example:
"There once was a young man from Skokie"
There are nine syllables and the emphasis falls on "once", "young" and "Sko". If you want to have a similar rhythm in the next line, it will need to have nine syllables too, and a similar emphasis pattern.
The next line could be:
"Who wanted it all okie dokey"
Notice that I included an additional pattern by rhyming Skokie and dokey.
Other sound patterns are alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is a sequence of words with some that start with the same letter.
"The girl glittered with golden glamor" would be an example.
Assonance is a sequence of words with the same consonant in the second syllable.
An example of assonance would be:
"There was an echo of art deco."
Echo and deco have the same hard "c" sound. They also rhyme.
Using techniques like these will improve a poem, but they must be employed consistently. You shouldn't suddenly stop using sound patterns, and just tack on a prose sentence with no patterns at the end. The prose sentence will feel like it doesn't fit, and the poem will fall flat.
Some people feel that they just need
To type prose in lines that make it
Look like a poem.
This is not a poem at all. It's chopped prose. There is nothing that distinguishes it from prose except the typographic convention of lines.
Yet even words without sound patterns can turn into a poem if it uses imagery.
"The fire danced a tango " would be a good example. If you're using images instead of sound patterns, you need to create a cluster of related images. This is called an extended metaphor.
Here's my improvised poem based on that first line:
The fire danced a tango
Inside the glass pavilion
Before the eye of the approaching storm.
The storm hovered over the pavilion
Acting as an attentive audience.
Yet the performance incited no applause
Beyond a single clap of thunder.
The glass shattered and a lightning bolt
Rudely rushed the stage.
Angered by this discourteous response,
A curtain of flames abruptly descended.
There would be no encore.
Every line draws on the metaphor of a fire during a storm as a dance performance. This works as a poem because it has an image pattern. There is nothing in the poem that doesn't relate to the central concept. It doesn't wander by bringing in images or concepts that are unrelated. The reader can visualize what the poem is describing. It makes sense within the context of the poem. Note that there is also some alliteration and assonance. Using both a sound pattern and an image pattern will make a stronger impression on the reader.
***************************
Moving on to essays, I have to say that the main problem with the essays in this anthology is that the author didn't establish a context for his ideas. If a reader hasn't read John Anthony West will that reader understand essays based on his theories that don't fully explicate them? How do I make sense of John Anthony West's theories without the reasons why he had them? What was his evidence? How much is speculation? Do you know the chronology of ancient Egyptian Pharoahs? If Ramses II was the Pharaoh of the Exodus, could Moses have known Akhenaten? Has it really been established that a papyrus boat from Egypt could reach the Americas? How far did Thor Heyerdahl's papyrus boats get? If you want to write essays dealing with history, you need to ask questions before you start, and research the answers. You then need to think through your ideas and see if they make sense in terms of what you've discovered during your research.
I didn't think much of Evan Shaw's fiction. The utopian story had a huge plot hole that made it unbelievable. The piece about Plato at the Academy was a fragment.
Having said all that, I did think that some of the poems in Evan Shaw's book had potential, and that he has a good sense of Hindu philosophy. He needs a really good editor to critique his work, and some guidance about poetry that I'm trying to give in this review.
Saturday, January 4, 2014
The Uncommon Philosopher: Only As Strong As Its Foundation
When I requested The Uncommon Philosopher by James MacFarlane from The Bookplex my father had passed away six months previously. He had always been a huge lover of philosophy. He believed that there wasn't any subject that could be more significant. Toward the end of his life, he read nothing else. I myself rarely read philosophy, but my father taught me to respect it. By the age of sixteen, I had read some of Plato's Dialogues and had written a short play about Socrates.
I thought about my father when I saw the title of this book. I hoped that he'd be happy that I was reading philosophy and blogging about it now. This is a little more personal than I normally get on this blog, but a blog can be whatever its author wishes and can evolve over time.
What about the review? I'm getting to that. I first want to talk about the title of this review. A book's concept is its foundation. The foundation needs to be strong for the book to be a viable one. The subtitle of The Uncommon Philosopher is The Wisdom of Boethius, Maimonides and Schumacher. In a book about ideas, a title that includes three thinkers would seem to imply that they are linked in some way, and that the book would deal centrally with what they had in common. Maimonides was the figure with whom I was most familiar. From what little I knew about Boethius and Schumacher, any commonalities between the ideas of these three would not be obvious ones.
Boethius was a Roman Christian patrician who wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. He was exiled and sentenced to death by the Ostrogoth King Theodoric. (Yes, Goths were once Germanic tribes. Ostrogoths were the eastern Goths. Visigoths were the western Goths. The word "Goth" is currently being used by a contemporary subculture. See Goth Subculture on Wikipedia ) .
Maimonides was a Jewish physician in medieval Spain who was exiled as a result of Spain having less tolerant rulers. No, they weren't Ferdinand and Isabella. This was a change in Islamic rule. The rulers of Moorish Spain weren't always tolerant, cosmopolitan and enlightened as the current version of history would have it. His best known work of philosophy is Guide For The Perplexed.
Ernest Fritz Schumacher was a business consultant and an economist who was interned by the British during World War II because he was a citizen of Germany. He also wrote a book called Guide For The Perplexed.
What do all three have in common? They had very interesting lives. They believed in God. They wrote about religion. They were unjustly treated by figures of authority. This could be said of a great many historical personages who wrote about religion. As I said in my review on Amazon, the book could just as well have been about Abelard, Spinoza and Schumacher.
The philosophical approaches of Boethius, Maimonides and Schumacher could not have been further apart. Maimonides and Schumacher didn't write similar books. For one thing, Maimonides was more in tune with science and the scientific perspective than Schumacher. Maimonides said in his Guide For The Perplexed that it doesn't matter how many people disagree with scientific principles. They are still the way the universe works. Based on what MacFarlane had to say, it seems to me that Schumacher thought that his discomfort with science somehow made it less true than the pronouncements of the Catholic Church. Boethius and Maimonides weren't similar in their view of the definition of a good life. Boethius didn't care about physical comforts. Being strong in your faith was more important. Maimonides took a more practical view of life. As a physician he thought that physical matters were of tremendous consequence. He thought that people should pay attention to diet and had very particular recommendations about it. He thought that God would understand if you had to deny your faith to preserve your life. Unlike Boethius, who calmly faced execution, Maimonides did not believe in martyrdom. Some biographers believe that Maimonides did in fact deny his faith when he briefly lived in Morocco. See the short but excellent biography by medical historian Sherwin B. Nuland.
There are oceans of time,space and culture separating these thinkers. If MacFarlane's intent was to show that they were somehow in continuity with each other, he failed to prove his case. I'm really not sure at all why he chose these particular three figures.
I thought that the most compelling part of McFarlane's book was the section on E.F. Schumacher. I wanted to know more about him. I particularly wanted to know about the differences and similarities between Schumacher and John Maynard Keynes on the subject of economics. MacFarlane only touches briefly on the relationship that Schumacher's thinking had to Keynes' ideas. I also wanted to know more about Schumacher's best known work, Small is Beautiful. The ideas in Small is Beautiful are still very influential. Current urban planners who espouse sustainable growth are influenced by Schumacher whether they acknowledge him or not. Here's an article by Madeline Bunting that advocates for Schumacher's perspective and shows his contemporary relevance. I would very much have preferred a book that was entirely about Schumacher. There are some ways in which he was indeed a very uncommon philosopher. It doesn't astonish me to learn that there actually is one called Alias Papa written by Schumacher's daughter, Barbara Wood, who is not the same individual as the author of historical romances by the same name. Find out more at The Schumacher Society Website
I thought about my father when I saw the title of this book. I hoped that he'd be happy that I was reading philosophy and blogging about it now. This is a little more personal than I normally get on this blog, but a blog can be whatever its author wishes and can evolve over time.
What about the review? I'm getting to that. I first want to talk about the title of this review. A book's concept is its foundation. The foundation needs to be strong for the book to be a viable one. The subtitle of The Uncommon Philosopher is The Wisdom of Boethius, Maimonides and Schumacher. In a book about ideas, a title that includes three thinkers would seem to imply that they are linked in some way, and that the book would deal centrally with what they had in common. Maimonides was the figure with whom I was most familiar. From what little I knew about Boethius and Schumacher, any commonalities between the ideas of these three would not be obvious ones.
Boethius was a Roman Christian patrician who wrote The Consolation of Philosophy. He was exiled and sentenced to death by the Ostrogoth King Theodoric. (Yes, Goths were once Germanic tribes. Ostrogoths were the eastern Goths. Visigoths were the western Goths. The word "Goth" is currently being used by a contemporary subculture. See Goth Subculture on Wikipedia ) .
Maimonides was a Jewish physician in medieval Spain who was exiled as a result of Spain having less tolerant rulers. No, they weren't Ferdinand and Isabella. This was a change in Islamic rule. The rulers of Moorish Spain weren't always tolerant, cosmopolitan and enlightened as the current version of history would have it. His best known work of philosophy is Guide For The Perplexed.
Ernest Fritz Schumacher was a business consultant and an economist who was interned by the British during World War II because he was a citizen of Germany. He also wrote a book called Guide For The Perplexed.
What do all three have in common? They had very interesting lives. They believed in God. They wrote about religion. They were unjustly treated by figures of authority. This could be said of a great many historical personages who wrote about religion. As I said in my review on Amazon, the book could just as well have been about Abelard, Spinoza and Schumacher.
The philosophical approaches of Boethius, Maimonides and Schumacher could not have been further apart. Maimonides and Schumacher didn't write similar books. For one thing, Maimonides was more in tune with science and the scientific perspective than Schumacher. Maimonides said in his Guide For The Perplexed that it doesn't matter how many people disagree with scientific principles. They are still the way the universe works. Based on what MacFarlane had to say, it seems to me that Schumacher thought that his discomfort with science somehow made it less true than the pronouncements of the Catholic Church. Boethius and Maimonides weren't similar in their view of the definition of a good life. Boethius didn't care about physical comforts. Being strong in your faith was more important. Maimonides took a more practical view of life. As a physician he thought that physical matters were of tremendous consequence. He thought that people should pay attention to diet and had very particular recommendations about it. He thought that God would understand if you had to deny your faith to preserve your life. Unlike Boethius, who calmly faced execution, Maimonides did not believe in martyrdom. Some biographers believe that Maimonides did in fact deny his faith when he briefly lived in Morocco. See the short but excellent biography by medical historian Sherwin B. Nuland.
There are oceans of time,space and culture separating these thinkers. If MacFarlane's intent was to show that they were somehow in continuity with each other, he failed to prove his case. I'm really not sure at all why he chose these particular three figures.
I thought that the most compelling part of McFarlane's book was the section on E.F. Schumacher. I wanted to know more about him. I particularly wanted to know about the differences and similarities between Schumacher and John Maynard Keynes on the subject of economics. MacFarlane only touches briefly on the relationship that Schumacher's thinking had to Keynes' ideas. I also wanted to know more about Schumacher's best known work, Small is Beautiful. The ideas in Small is Beautiful are still very influential. Current urban planners who espouse sustainable growth are influenced by Schumacher whether they acknowledge him or not. Here's an article by Madeline Bunting that advocates for Schumacher's perspective and shows his contemporary relevance. I would very much have preferred a book that was entirely about Schumacher. There are some ways in which he was indeed a very uncommon philosopher. It doesn't astonish me to learn that there actually is one called Alias Papa written by Schumacher's daughter, Barbara Wood, who is not the same individual as the author of historical romances by the same name. Find out more at The Schumacher Society Website
Thursday, January 2, 2014
The Unmasked Persona in 2013
In 2013 I unmasked and changed the name of this blog to The Unmasked Persona's Reviews. See The Masked Persona Unmasks for my reasons. My most favorable statistic is that I had more than twice as many views in 2013 than I had in 2012. I had this increase in views despite the fact that I posted far fewer entries than I did in this blog's first year. Why did my activity slow down? I took a year off from library school in 2012, so I had more time to read, review and blog. In 2013 I returned to my studies.
Last year I posted an infographic, but I feel that a chattier style is more appropriate for summing up 2013. I have a great many observations to make in this post.
I was delighted to find that my most viewed 2013 post was Jhumki Basu: The Science Educator Reformer Who Was Like A Nova . I consider this an encouraging development. I say this not just because the review deals with an inspirational and astonishing book, but because it wasn't traditionally published. In 2012 my most viewed post was a review of a New York Times bestseller by Jodi Picoult. It's still my most viewed post overall. Since it's the only book by an author of that magnitude that I've reviewed on this blog, this is only to be expected. Discovering that a review of a book published by a non-profit foundation (the Jhumki Basu Foundation) is my most viewed review of the year is actually quite extraordinary. This is yet more evidence of the paradigm shift that has taken place in publishing. It means that the content of a book is more important than who published it.
Last year I gave awards to notable books. I'm continuing that practice this year. So here is a list of the 2013 recipients of the Golden Mask Award. I admit that I am very behind on my reviews. With one exception, these are books that I am commenting about here for the first time.
Favorite Read of 2013
Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography by Stephen Knight
What I liked most of about this book is that Knight views Robin Hood as a legend rather than a historical personage. As a legend, Robin Hood evolves over time. Every period and indeed every author can have his or her own Robin Hood. Whether there was ever a historical personage by that name who inspired the legend is unimportant to Knight and to me.
Favorite Novel of 2013
City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte
I purchased this book at a local independent bookstore. Support your local bookstores! City of Lost Dreams is my favorite piece of fiction published in 2013 and I finished it on December 31st. This also happened in 2012. I felt that the last novel that I read in 2012, Endangered by Eliot Schrefer, was the best one I read that year as well. We'll see if the pattern holds in 2014.
What I liked most about City of Lost Dreams was its inventiveness. It testifies to the power of music like M.J. Rose's book, The Memorist Yet it also expanded my perception of music. Another Magnus Flyte theme is the relevance of history which is always close to my heart. This book also made excellent use of mythology. The most central myths were those of the Eleusinian and Orphic Mysteries. It's the second Magnus Flyte book. I have the first one, City of Dark Magic, on my Kindle. I hope to read it in 2014.
Favorite Indie Novel of 2013
The Company of Shadows by Zoe Brooks
My review of the previous book in this series can be found at Love of Shadows: A Novel In Praise of the Persecuted . The protagonist is Judith, an herbalist and healer in a fictional country. Some readers have virtually shelved these books as fantasy, but the author prefers to categorize them as magical realist. She is most similar to Ursula LeGuin, but in this book I noticed a strong similarity to the Aspect novels by Jeri Smith-Ready which begins with Voice of Crow . The Aspect series has been a favorite of mine for their portrayal of shamanism and their powerful support for inter-cultural co-operation. In my review of Love of Shadows I said that it stood on its own, but I now realize that I didn't fully understand the Shadows until I read this book. I enjoyed the gradual unveiling of Brooks' concept of the Shadows over the two books that I've read. What I liked best about The Company of Shadows is the portrayal of magic, its connection to dreams and the unconscious, and the relationship of healers with their animal familiars.
Favorite Historical Fiction of 2013
Beltane by Christine Malec
I won this book as a member of the Historical Fictionistas group on Goodreads. Only active members can enter Historical Fictionistas giveaways. Beltane is a historical romance that mainly takes place in Scotland. As such, it's part of a very popular romance sub-genre. Unlike the most well-known examples of Scottish romance, it takes place in the 16th century during the turbulent regency of Mary of Guise, the mother of the far more famous Mary Queen of Scots. It was a period when divisions between Catholic and Protestant were beginning to dominate the political landscape as they were in neighboring England. Lord Colin, the hero of this romance, is attempting to decide which direction would be most advantageous for him politically as the novel opens. What stands out for me in this book is that the female protagonist is portrayed as bisexual, that she was in committed relationships with members of both sexes and that both relationships are equally important. This is called polyamory in modern parlance. Some readers might think that such things didn't happen in 16th century Scotland. It seems to me that since noblewomen like Margarete weren't allowed to decide their own destinies, situations like the one described in this novel might have been more common historically than we realize. A woman of high rank who was emotionally committed to another woman in her entourage couldn't simply pack herself and her beloved off to a nunnery without the consent of her family. She would need a dowry for the nunnery and women owned nothing. So when her family arranged her marriage, she would really have no choice but to comply. I loved the in-depth portrayal of the characters in this novel and their inter-relationships. I also loved the independence of the female characters and the empathy of Owen, Lord Colin's Bard and closest friend. It's wonderful that the current publishing environment allows for the publication of novels like this one.
Favorite YA Novel of 2013
Stormwitch by Susan Vaught
Stormwitch was nominated for a Norton Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. It is an African American historical fantasy intended for young readers. The central character is a paranormally gifted girl who was brought up in Haiti, but comes to live with her grandmother in a rather conservative small town in Mississippi in 1969. Haitians are usually portrayed as victims in fiction, not heroes. Another important aspect of this book is the revelations about the history of Dahomey which led me to read Wives of the Leopard by Edna G. Bay which is a fascinating study very relevant to the history of slavery. It also lends insight into the institution of women warriors in Dahomey which is part of the history of the protagonist of Stormwitch.
Favorite Mystery of 2013
Hard Row by Margaret Maron
This Southern novel is well written, dramatically intense and full of important issues such as immigration, the rights of agricultural workers, misuse of guns and domestic violence. I also learned why cousins can be "removed". I'd previously thought that this whole business of removing cousins sounded rather hostile, and not something I would do to a cousin for whom I had any affection. Actually, removal of cousins refers to generational differences. A first cousin once removed is the child of my first cousin which is interesting information for genealogical purposes.
Favorite Science Fiction of 2013
Angel on the Ropes by Jill Shultz, a novel of the circus on an alien world. I downloaded it from Net Galley and reviewed it here.
I like to think that I chose quality over quantity in 2013, but you can judge that for yourself.
HAPPY 2014!
Last year I posted an infographic, but I feel that a chattier style is more appropriate for summing up 2013. I have a great many observations to make in this post.
I was delighted to find that my most viewed 2013 post was Jhumki Basu: The Science Educator Reformer Who Was Like A Nova . I consider this an encouraging development. I say this not just because the review deals with an inspirational and astonishing book, but because it wasn't traditionally published. In 2012 my most viewed post was a review of a New York Times bestseller by Jodi Picoult. It's still my most viewed post overall. Since it's the only book by an author of that magnitude that I've reviewed on this blog, this is only to be expected. Discovering that a review of a book published by a non-profit foundation (the Jhumki Basu Foundation) is my most viewed review of the year is actually quite extraordinary. This is yet more evidence of the paradigm shift that has taken place in publishing. It means that the content of a book is more important than who published it.
Last year I gave awards to notable books. I'm continuing that practice this year. So here is a list of the 2013 recipients of the Golden Mask Award. I admit that I am very behind on my reviews. With one exception, these are books that I am commenting about here for the first time.
Favorite Read of 2013
Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography by Stephen Knight
What I liked most of about this book is that Knight views Robin Hood as a legend rather than a historical personage. As a legend, Robin Hood evolves over time. Every period and indeed every author can have his or her own Robin Hood. Whether there was ever a historical personage by that name who inspired the legend is unimportant to Knight and to me.
Favorite Novel of 2013
City of Lost Dreams by Magnus Flyte
I purchased this book at a local independent bookstore. Support your local bookstores! City of Lost Dreams is my favorite piece of fiction published in 2013 and I finished it on December 31st. This also happened in 2012. I felt that the last novel that I read in 2012, Endangered by Eliot Schrefer, was the best one I read that year as well. We'll see if the pattern holds in 2014.
What I liked most about City of Lost Dreams was its inventiveness. It testifies to the power of music like M.J. Rose's book, The Memorist Yet it also expanded my perception of music. Another Magnus Flyte theme is the relevance of history which is always close to my heart. This book also made excellent use of mythology. The most central myths were those of the Eleusinian and Orphic Mysteries. It's the second Magnus Flyte book. I have the first one, City of Dark Magic, on my Kindle. I hope to read it in 2014.
Favorite Indie Novel of 2013
The Company of Shadows by Zoe Brooks
My review of the previous book in this series can be found at Love of Shadows: A Novel In Praise of the Persecuted . The protagonist is Judith, an herbalist and healer in a fictional country. Some readers have virtually shelved these books as fantasy, but the author prefers to categorize them as magical realist. She is most similar to Ursula LeGuin, but in this book I noticed a strong similarity to the Aspect novels by Jeri Smith-Ready which begins with Voice of Crow . The Aspect series has been a favorite of mine for their portrayal of shamanism and their powerful support for inter-cultural co-operation. In my review of Love of Shadows I said that it stood on its own, but I now realize that I didn't fully understand the Shadows until I read this book. I enjoyed the gradual unveiling of Brooks' concept of the Shadows over the two books that I've read. What I liked best about The Company of Shadows is the portrayal of magic, its connection to dreams and the unconscious, and the relationship of healers with their animal familiars.
Favorite Historical Fiction of 2013
Beltane by Christine Malec
I won this book as a member of the Historical Fictionistas group on Goodreads. Only active members can enter Historical Fictionistas giveaways. Beltane is a historical romance that mainly takes place in Scotland. As such, it's part of a very popular romance sub-genre. Unlike the most well-known examples of Scottish romance, it takes place in the 16th century during the turbulent regency of Mary of Guise, the mother of the far more famous Mary Queen of Scots. It was a period when divisions between Catholic and Protestant were beginning to dominate the political landscape as they were in neighboring England. Lord Colin, the hero of this romance, is attempting to decide which direction would be most advantageous for him politically as the novel opens. What stands out for me in this book is that the female protagonist is portrayed as bisexual, that she was in committed relationships with members of both sexes and that both relationships are equally important. This is called polyamory in modern parlance. Some readers might think that such things didn't happen in 16th century Scotland. It seems to me that since noblewomen like Margarete weren't allowed to decide their own destinies, situations like the one described in this novel might have been more common historically than we realize. A woman of high rank who was emotionally committed to another woman in her entourage couldn't simply pack herself and her beloved off to a nunnery without the consent of her family. She would need a dowry for the nunnery and women owned nothing. So when her family arranged her marriage, she would really have no choice but to comply. I loved the in-depth portrayal of the characters in this novel and their inter-relationships. I also loved the independence of the female characters and the empathy of Owen, Lord Colin's Bard and closest friend. It's wonderful that the current publishing environment allows for the publication of novels like this one.
Favorite YA Novel of 2013
Stormwitch by Susan Vaught
Stormwitch was nominated for a Norton Award from the Science Fiction Writers of America. It is an African American historical fantasy intended for young readers. The central character is a paranormally gifted girl who was brought up in Haiti, but comes to live with her grandmother in a rather conservative small town in Mississippi in 1969. Haitians are usually portrayed as victims in fiction, not heroes. Another important aspect of this book is the revelations about the history of Dahomey which led me to read Wives of the Leopard by Edna G. Bay which is a fascinating study very relevant to the history of slavery. It also lends insight into the institution of women warriors in Dahomey which is part of the history of the protagonist of Stormwitch.
Favorite Mystery of 2013
Hard Row by Margaret Maron
This Southern novel is well written, dramatically intense and full of important issues such as immigration, the rights of agricultural workers, misuse of guns and domestic violence. I also learned why cousins can be "removed". I'd previously thought that this whole business of removing cousins sounded rather hostile, and not something I would do to a cousin for whom I had any affection. Actually, removal of cousins refers to generational differences. A first cousin once removed is the child of my first cousin which is interesting information for genealogical purposes.
Favorite Science Fiction of 2013
Angel on the Ropes by Jill Shultz, a novel of the circus on an alien world. I downloaded it from Net Galley and reviewed it here.
I like to think that I chose quality over quantity in 2013, but you can judge that for yourself.
HAPPY 2014!
Saturday, December 21, 2013
The Many Many Many Sects of Hinduism
In The Many Many Many Gods of Hinduism Swami Achuthananda, whose name translates to Eternal Bliss, would like us to know that Hinduism isn't truly polytheistic. He also tells us that Western scholars say that Hinduism is henotheist. That is my experience of Hinduism as well. What does henotheism mean? I was taught that it means this: "There are a great many Gods worshiped by all the peoples of the world. This one is ours. You worship your God, we will worship ours, and we will all get along." My theory is that in the most ancient times when humans were nomads within defined territories, each small group of nomads probably had its own God. When humans settled down, all these peoples met and discovered that their Gods had different names and attributes. I think that henotheism would have been the solution to this religious convergence. It would have been what made the most sense to people at the time, and I think that it makes the most sense of the Hindu religion.
It is important to note that Swami Achuthananda's teachings about Hinduism are not the only ones. That is in summary the main point that I have to make about his book, but I do have other things to say about it as well. I received it from The Bookplex, and here is my review.
There is an approach to Hinduism called Vedanta. It's very common in books about Hinduism directed at Western monotheists. It goes like this: Although there are three major Gods of Hinduism: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer, Brahma is the High God and the only one that all Hindus worship. This is exactly what Swami Achuthananda tells us. Western monotheists are always very happy to hear this. Yet in Western cities where there are large communities from India, there are Hindu temples. If you go to those temples, you can find out that there are other approaches to Hinduism.
For example, there is a Shaivite approach. The God of Shaivites is Shiva. Shaivites believe that Shiva created the universe. How can this be if Shiva is the Destroyer? Well, in the Shaivite perspective, Shiva creates and destroys. He danced the universe into being and at the end of the current era (yuga), it will be destroyed. Then Shiva will re-create it. This has happened before and will continue to happen eternally in an endless cycle. It's a Shiva centered view of Hinduism. I would think that it would be truer for Shaivites to call Shiva the Reincarnator rather than the Destroyer since they perceive him as being in charge of the cycle of death and re-birth. Shaivites are only one example of the enormous diversity that can be found among the sects of India.
Another theological difference in approach deals with the issue of attachment. Vedantists value detachment. They teach that if you are attached to anything, you will not become enlightened. At the other end of the spectrum is the Bhakti Movement. Bhakti means devotion. On Know India, an official Indian government website, there is an article about the Bhakti Movement Those who follow the Bhakti approach value strong spiritual attachments rather than detachment. It involves very deep abiding love for your God which is definitely an attachment. They are usually Shaivites and Vishnaivites, worshipers of Vishnu. As an abstract deity, Brahma generally doesn't attract Bhakti. My mystical Jewish Rabbinical ancestors valued something similar called Devaikut which means adhesion or devotion. Perhaps this is why I relate more strongly to the Bhakti strand of Hinduism. Mystical attachment doesn't mean that the Bhakti Movement is opposed to asceticism. In fact, they are strongly attached to asceticism and go to great extremes. Going to extremes shows your commitment. Being advocates of detachment, Vedantists are much more moderate in their religious practices.
Swami Achuthananda criticizes Westerners for publishing the Vedic hymns separately without the Brahmana. From the description of the Brahmana, these are commentaries. The Old and New Testaments of Judaism and Christianity are usually published without commentaries in English. The text of these testaments are considered divinely inspired. Commentaries are not considered divinely inspired and therefore have a different theological status. Some might say that publishing religious texts without commentaries allows readers the religious freedom to interpret them for themselves. This idea was a major impetus for the Protestant Reformation. The reformers wanted to be able to decide what the Bible meant without intermediaries deciding for them. Swami Achuthananda apparently thinks that those who read the Vedic hymns without the Brahmana are reading them out of context. Yet doing so could allow a new generation of readers to come up with interpretations of the Vedic hymns that are more relevant to them. I have a particular interest in doing this sort of thing. According to the Old Testament, my ancestor Jacob met an angel and wrestled with him. Since I have never met an angel, I wrestle with texts instead.
This book deals with issues concerning India and Hinduism that are quite controversial. One is the Aryan invasion theory. Swami Achuthananda tells us that it never happened. I found an abstract of a PubMed article from 2009 that corroborates this statement. It's India's Aryans Genetically Indigenous To India . Yet it does seem to me that something cataclysmic did happen in ancient India. Swami Achuthananda's section about the archaeology of early India posits that the center of the civilization from which the Vedic hymns emerged was the Sarasvati River which dried up 2500-4000 years ago depending on which scholars you believe. I think that this implies major climate change. The chaos resulting from environmental disruption could have also brought about drastic social change. These transformations might have included the caste system which was responsible for a great deal of discrimination against the people at the bottom.
Swami Achutananda wants us to believe that Hinduism is more tolerant than other religions, and I actually believed that this was true until I read this book. It was in the pages of this book that I learned that after non-Hindus have entered a Hindu temple, Hindu priests perform a cleansing. I learned that Indira Gandhi was not allowed to enter some Hindu temples because she was married to a Parsi. Oh, and then there was the fact that 40% of Hindus weren't allowed to enter Hindu Temples until the early 1900's because they were Untouchables. It's all about purity. In Hinduism, some people are regarded as pure and others are regarded as impure. Which people are impure has changed over time, but the idea that some people are impure has apparently remained. Orthodox Judaism has an idea that women's natural functions make them impure. I read a novel this year called Rav Hisda's Daughter which theorized that this was a Zoroastrian idea that wasn't part of Jewish practice until the Babylonian Exile. If there had been an Aryan invasion, the Hindu believers of India could say that their intolerant ideas about purity were imposed on them by outsiders, but they don't get to say that anymore.
Swami Achutananda argues that the caste system was not racially based because there isn't more than one race in India. What is race? It usually means a genetic difference in skin color. Are there genetic differences in skin color among the peoples of India? This definitely appears to be the case. There was a November 2013 article about these genetic skin color variations in Popular Science which can be found at Genetic Skin Color Variation in India. So whether or not the caste system originated as institutionalized racism, there seems to be race and racism in India. This prejudice about skin color hasn't gone away in India any more than it has in the United States. See this item from Time about reaction in India to the most recent Miss America and this article Stop Pretending That India Isn't Racist in The Hindu. Some racist Americans have historically interpreted the Old Testament in a manner that justified their ideas. See blog article on racist interpretation of the Old Testament . I feel that the Hindu caste system has been used to justify racism just as the Bible has been used to justify it.
I think the main problem with Swami Achutananda is that he is oblivious to his own biases. I had to filter out the bias in order to benefit from this book, and that was a difficult process.
It is important to note that Swami Achuthananda's teachings about Hinduism are not the only ones. That is in summary the main point that I have to make about his book, but I do have other things to say about it as well. I received it from The Bookplex, and here is my review.
There is an approach to Hinduism called Vedanta. It's very common in books about Hinduism directed at Western monotheists. It goes like this: Although there are three major Gods of Hinduism: Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver and Shiva the Destroyer, Brahma is the High God and the only one that all Hindus worship. This is exactly what Swami Achuthananda tells us. Western monotheists are always very happy to hear this. Yet in Western cities where there are large communities from India, there are Hindu temples. If you go to those temples, you can find out that there are other approaches to Hinduism.
For example, there is a Shaivite approach. The God of Shaivites is Shiva. Shaivites believe that Shiva created the universe. How can this be if Shiva is the Destroyer? Well, in the Shaivite perspective, Shiva creates and destroys. He danced the universe into being and at the end of the current era (yuga), it will be destroyed. Then Shiva will re-create it. This has happened before and will continue to happen eternally in an endless cycle. It's a Shiva centered view of Hinduism. I would think that it would be truer for Shaivites to call Shiva the Reincarnator rather than the Destroyer since they perceive him as being in charge of the cycle of death and re-birth. Shaivites are only one example of the enormous diversity that can be found among the sects of India.
Another theological difference in approach deals with the issue of attachment. Vedantists value detachment. They teach that if you are attached to anything, you will not become enlightened. At the other end of the spectrum is the Bhakti Movement. Bhakti means devotion. On Know India, an official Indian government website, there is an article about the Bhakti Movement Those who follow the Bhakti approach value strong spiritual attachments rather than detachment. It involves very deep abiding love for your God which is definitely an attachment. They are usually Shaivites and Vishnaivites, worshipers of Vishnu. As an abstract deity, Brahma generally doesn't attract Bhakti. My mystical Jewish Rabbinical ancestors valued something similar called Devaikut which means adhesion or devotion. Perhaps this is why I relate more strongly to the Bhakti strand of Hinduism. Mystical attachment doesn't mean that the Bhakti Movement is opposed to asceticism. In fact, they are strongly attached to asceticism and go to great extremes. Going to extremes shows your commitment. Being advocates of detachment, Vedantists are much more moderate in their religious practices.
Swami Achuthananda criticizes Westerners for publishing the Vedic hymns separately without the Brahmana. From the description of the Brahmana, these are commentaries. The Old and New Testaments of Judaism and Christianity are usually published without commentaries in English. The text of these testaments are considered divinely inspired. Commentaries are not considered divinely inspired and therefore have a different theological status. Some might say that publishing religious texts without commentaries allows readers the religious freedom to interpret them for themselves. This idea was a major impetus for the Protestant Reformation. The reformers wanted to be able to decide what the Bible meant without intermediaries deciding for them. Swami Achuthananda apparently thinks that those who read the Vedic hymns without the Brahmana are reading them out of context. Yet doing so could allow a new generation of readers to come up with interpretations of the Vedic hymns that are more relevant to them. I have a particular interest in doing this sort of thing. According to the Old Testament, my ancestor Jacob met an angel and wrestled with him. Since I have never met an angel, I wrestle with texts instead.
This book deals with issues concerning India and Hinduism that are quite controversial. One is the Aryan invasion theory. Swami Achuthananda tells us that it never happened. I found an abstract of a PubMed article from 2009 that corroborates this statement. It's India's Aryans Genetically Indigenous To India . Yet it does seem to me that something cataclysmic did happen in ancient India. Swami Achuthananda's section about the archaeology of early India posits that the center of the civilization from which the Vedic hymns emerged was the Sarasvati River which dried up 2500-4000 years ago depending on which scholars you believe. I think that this implies major climate change. The chaos resulting from environmental disruption could have also brought about drastic social change. These transformations might have included the caste system which was responsible for a great deal of discrimination against the people at the bottom.
Swami Achutananda wants us to believe that Hinduism is more tolerant than other religions, and I actually believed that this was true until I read this book. It was in the pages of this book that I learned that after non-Hindus have entered a Hindu temple, Hindu priests perform a cleansing. I learned that Indira Gandhi was not allowed to enter some Hindu temples because she was married to a Parsi. Oh, and then there was the fact that 40% of Hindus weren't allowed to enter Hindu Temples until the early 1900's because they were Untouchables. It's all about purity. In Hinduism, some people are regarded as pure and others are regarded as impure. Which people are impure has changed over time, but the idea that some people are impure has apparently remained. Orthodox Judaism has an idea that women's natural functions make them impure. I read a novel this year called Rav Hisda's Daughter which theorized that this was a Zoroastrian idea that wasn't part of Jewish practice until the Babylonian Exile. If there had been an Aryan invasion, the Hindu believers of India could say that their intolerant ideas about purity were imposed on them by outsiders, but they don't get to say that anymore.
Swami Achutananda argues that the caste system was not racially based because there isn't more than one race in India. What is race? It usually means a genetic difference in skin color. Are there genetic differences in skin color among the peoples of India? This definitely appears to be the case. There was a November 2013 article about these genetic skin color variations in Popular Science which can be found at Genetic Skin Color Variation in India. So whether or not the caste system originated as institutionalized racism, there seems to be race and racism in India. This prejudice about skin color hasn't gone away in India any more than it has in the United States. See this item from Time about reaction in India to the most recent Miss America and this article Stop Pretending That India Isn't Racist in The Hindu. Some racist Americans have historically interpreted the Old Testament in a manner that justified their ideas. See blog article on racist interpretation of the Old Testament . I feel that the Hindu caste system has been used to justify racism just as the Bible has been used to justify it.
I think the main problem with Swami Achutananda is that he is oblivious to his own biases. I had to filter out the bias in order to benefit from this book, and that was a difficult process.
Monday, October 21, 2013
Improbable Women: Exploring Women Explorers of the Middle East
The subjects of Improbable Women by William Cotterman are women from wealthy families who were explorers in the 18th and 19th centuries. This was an era when ladies like these were supposed to be homebodies or charitable lady bountifuls if they engaged in any activity. This unconventionality made them seem very interesting to me. I had heard of all of them, but had never read anything about them. So I appreciated the fact that the publisher Syracuse University Press made this available for download on Net Galley.
I saw a review on Goodreads which criticized Cotterman for including the ancient Queen Zenobia of Palmyra as an indulgence on the part of the author because there is no evidence included in the book that all of his explorer subjects were keenly interested in Queen Zenobia as he claimed. Freya Stark did write about Queen Zenobia in Rome on the Euphrates, but it seemed to me that Isabel Arundell Burton only went to the ruins of Queen Zenobia's Palmyra because her husband, Sir Richard Francis Burton was going and they both wanted to prove that an El-Mesrab tribe escort was unnecessary. So I thought the comment that Queen Zenobia wasn't quite relevant to this study was a fair one, but I was nevertheless delighted that she had been included because I wanted to know more about her.
When I was looking for European women in Syria who had been associated with Queen Zenobia and Palmyra, I found a page dealing with Middle Eastern Hotels With A History that included a story about the Baroness d'Andurin who purchased the Zenobia Hotel near the ruins in Palmyra, renamed it La Reine Zenobia and dressed as Queen Zenobia. Now there was a woman who was fascinated with Zenobia. Yet I think that if I really want to know more about this Queen who challenged the Romans, I should probably read Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome by Dr. Richard Stoneman.
Hester Stanhope, the first of these women explorers, is definitely my favorite. Her father, the Earl of Stanhope, supported the French Revolution and wanted to give up his title. He removed the coat of arms from his gates and decided to call his home Democracy Hall. I found his eccentricity delightful, but he was ironically a rather authoritarian parent. (It's Jacobin irony. As is well known, the Jacobins ended up being extremely undemocratic when they achieved power. This is why the Scarlet Pimpernel, an English hero who rescued the French aristocrats from their totalitarianly inclined government, has so much appeal to the democratically inclined even though his creator was no democrat.) Yet Hester Stanhope's life certainly shows that she could be as eccentric as her father had been in her own way.
I was unimpressed by what Cotterman tells us about Jane Digby. Her life seemed to be largely a catalog of her romances which often seemed to illustrate poor judgment.
The section on Isabel Arundell Burton also deals with her husband, Richard Francis Burton. I learned about Burton marrying women in India in order to learn their languages. This was apparently a practice of the English during the Raj. The women were called "walking dictionaries". When I searched for "walking dictionary in India under the Raj", my top result was a historical fiction called The Sleeping Dictionary by Sujata Massey which seems to be about a woman who played that role . I have an ARC of this novel and hope to get to it eventually. My perception of Burton is that he always wanted to be the first Englishman to do what no other Englishman dared to do. I find it unlikely that he was a sincere convert to Islam, but there is considerable disagreement about this issue among scholars. There is a very interesting article on this subject by John Wallen in The International Journal f Applied Linguistics and English Literature called "Sufi, Christian or Buddhist? Richard Francis Burton's Parameters of Belief " . There are many approaches to Richard Francis Burton, so I decided to give my readers a peek behind the hood of Wikipedia. Articles have pages called "talk sections" in which inaccuracies and controversies are discussed. Anyone can access them by clicking on the talk tab next to the article tab at the top of every Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia Talk Section on the Richard Francis Burton Article should give readers an idea of all the controversies that surround this rather colorful historical personage.
Isabel claims to have been in contact with a gypsy named Hagar Burton who predicted her marriage to Richard Francis Burton, but he searched for Hagar Burton whenever he ran across gypsies and never found her. Isabel also claimed to have the prediction in Romany, but a gypsy tribe named Burton probably would be Travelers of British origin rather than true Rom. So if Hagar Burton did exist, it's very likely that she wouldn't have been able to write a prophecy in Romany.
After her marriage to Burton, Isabel traveled with him and helped to obtain diplomatic positions for him. She was in Brazil with Burton when he became the British Consul to Brazil in 1864. They lived there until 1867. Due to my interest in the history of Brazil, I would love to know more about this period in Burton's life. I did find an archival copy of Burton's memoir of his experiences in Brazil at archive.org .The link I provide accesses the first volume of the memoir. There is a second volume also available at archive.org .
Yet frankly, I didn't find Isabel very admirable. She had some Lady Bountiful projects such as sheltering abused animals and giving medical care to the poor. It's important to realize, however, that not only didn't she have medical credentials, she had no training in nursing. Burton was afraid that she might harm someone, though that apparently never happened. It also bothered me that Isabel claimed to be Jane Digby's friend, yet she and her husband were involved in undermining the business of the El-Mesrabs which was the family that Jane Digby joined when she married an El-Mesrab. I felt that Isabel was not being loyal to Jane Digby if indeed she was Isabel's friend. I should also disclose that before I read about her in Cotterman's book, the only thing I knew about Isabel is that she burned Burton's unpublished writings after his death. I couldn't forget this as I read about her. One of the courses I'm taking this semester in library school is the Intellectual Freedom Seminar. I have a tremendous antipathy toward book burning.
Gertrude Bell, another of Cotterman's subjects, had an aunt and uncle with a house in Teheran. She stayed with them and learned Farsi. She was a climber, an archaeologist and did a great deal of interesting political work, but Cotterman seemed too interested in her unhappy romances.
Freya Stark was the last and most recent of the women covered in this book. She traveled in the Middle East a great deal, but she was sent there as a propagandist for the British because she knew Arabic. At one point, she was assigned to speak in the U.S. to convince Americans to support the British Mandate in Palestine. She said that she'd rather be fighting Italian guerrillas. I've been reading about how Jewish intelligence operatives played an important role in helping the British gain control of Palestine. Readers who want to learn more should access this article on the NILI spy group. The British Mandate betrayed the expectations of both the Jews and Arabs who helped to bring it into existence. Freya Stark may have been an excellent propagandist, but this tour to gain acceptance for the British Mandate in Palestine must have been a notable failure.
After reading Cotterman's study, I will want to read full scale biographies of both Hester Stanhope and Gertrude Bell. I know that there are excellent books on both women. I think that the main value of Improbable Women is to whet the interest of readers, so that they will want to find out more.
I saw a review on Goodreads which criticized Cotterman for including the ancient Queen Zenobia of Palmyra as an indulgence on the part of the author because there is no evidence included in the book that all of his explorer subjects were keenly interested in Queen Zenobia as he claimed. Freya Stark did write about Queen Zenobia in Rome on the Euphrates, but it seemed to me that Isabel Arundell Burton only went to the ruins of Queen Zenobia's Palmyra because her husband, Sir Richard Francis Burton was going and they both wanted to prove that an El-Mesrab tribe escort was unnecessary. So I thought the comment that Queen Zenobia wasn't quite relevant to this study was a fair one, but I was nevertheless delighted that she had been included because I wanted to know more about her.
When I was looking for European women in Syria who had been associated with Queen Zenobia and Palmyra, I found a page dealing with Middle Eastern Hotels With A History that included a story about the Baroness d'Andurin who purchased the Zenobia Hotel near the ruins in Palmyra, renamed it La Reine Zenobia and dressed as Queen Zenobia. Now there was a woman who was fascinated with Zenobia. Yet I think that if I really want to know more about this Queen who challenged the Romans, I should probably read Palmyra and its Empire: Zenobia's Revolt Against Rome by Dr. Richard Stoneman.
Hester Stanhope, the first of these women explorers, is definitely my favorite. Her father, the Earl of Stanhope, supported the French Revolution and wanted to give up his title. He removed the coat of arms from his gates and decided to call his home Democracy Hall. I found his eccentricity delightful, but he was ironically a rather authoritarian parent. (It's Jacobin irony. As is well known, the Jacobins ended up being extremely undemocratic when they achieved power. This is why the Scarlet Pimpernel, an English hero who rescued the French aristocrats from their totalitarianly inclined government, has so much appeal to the democratically inclined even though his creator was no democrat.) Yet Hester Stanhope's life certainly shows that she could be as eccentric as her father had been in her own way.
I was unimpressed by what Cotterman tells us about Jane Digby. Her life seemed to be largely a catalog of her romances which often seemed to illustrate poor judgment.
The section on Isabel Arundell Burton also deals with her husband, Richard Francis Burton. I learned about Burton marrying women in India in order to learn their languages. This was apparently a practice of the English during the Raj. The women were called "walking dictionaries". When I searched for "walking dictionary in India under the Raj", my top result was a historical fiction called The Sleeping Dictionary by Sujata Massey which seems to be about a woman who played that role . I have an ARC of this novel and hope to get to it eventually. My perception of Burton is that he always wanted to be the first Englishman to do what no other Englishman dared to do. I find it unlikely that he was a sincere convert to Islam, but there is considerable disagreement about this issue among scholars. There is a very interesting article on this subject by John Wallen in The International Journal f Applied Linguistics and English Literature called "Sufi, Christian or Buddhist? Richard Francis Burton's Parameters of Belief " . There are many approaches to Richard Francis Burton, so I decided to give my readers a peek behind the hood of Wikipedia. Articles have pages called "talk sections" in which inaccuracies and controversies are discussed. Anyone can access them by clicking on the talk tab next to the article tab at the top of every Wikipedia page. The Wikipedia Talk Section on the Richard Francis Burton Article should give readers an idea of all the controversies that surround this rather colorful historical personage.
Isabel claims to have been in contact with a gypsy named Hagar Burton who predicted her marriage to Richard Francis Burton, but he searched for Hagar Burton whenever he ran across gypsies and never found her. Isabel also claimed to have the prediction in Romany, but a gypsy tribe named Burton probably would be Travelers of British origin rather than true Rom. So if Hagar Burton did exist, it's very likely that she wouldn't have been able to write a prophecy in Romany.
After her marriage to Burton, Isabel traveled with him and helped to obtain diplomatic positions for him. She was in Brazil with Burton when he became the British Consul to Brazil in 1864. They lived there until 1867. Due to my interest in the history of Brazil, I would love to know more about this period in Burton's life. I did find an archival copy of Burton's memoir of his experiences in Brazil at archive.org .The link I provide accesses the first volume of the memoir. There is a second volume also available at archive.org .
Yet frankly, I didn't find Isabel very admirable. She had some Lady Bountiful projects such as sheltering abused animals and giving medical care to the poor. It's important to realize, however, that not only didn't she have medical credentials, she had no training in nursing. Burton was afraid that she might harm someone, though that apparently never happened. It also bothered me that Isabel claimed to be Jane Digby's friend, yet she and her husband were involved in undermining the business of the El-Mesrabs which was the family that Jane Digby joined when she married an El-Mesrab. I felt that Isabel was not being loyal to Jane Digby if indeed she was Isabel's friend. I should also disclose that before I read about her in Cotterman's book, the only thing I knew about Isabel is that she burned Burton's unpublished writings after his death. I couldn't forget this as I read about her. One of the courses I'm taking this semester in library school is the Intellectual Freedom Seminar. I have a tremendous antipathy toward book burning.
Gertrude Bell, another of Cotterman's subjects, had an aunt and uncle with a house in Teheran. She stayed with them and learned Farsi. She was a climber, an archaeologist and did a great deal of interesting political work, but Cotterman seemed too interested in her unhappy romances.
Freya Stark was the last and most recent of the women covered in this book. She traveled in the Middle East a great deal, but she was sent there as a propagandist for the British because she knew Arabic. At one point, she was assigned to speak in the U.S. to convince Americans to support the British Mandate in Palestine. She said that she'd rather be fighting Italian guerrillas. I've been reading about how Jewish intelligence operatives played an important role in helping the British gain control of Palestine. Readers who want to learn more should access this article on the NILI spy group. The British Mandate betrayed the expectations of both the Jews and Arabs who helped to bring it into existence. Freya Stark may have been an excellent propagandist, but this tour to gain acceptance for the British Mandate in Palestine must have been a notable failure.
After reading Cotterman's study, I will want to read full scale biographies of both Hester Stanhope and Gertrude Bell. I know that there are excellent books on both women. I think that the main value of Improbable Women is to whet the interest of readers, so that they will want to find out more.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Crimes Against Animals are Valiantly Opposed in The See Through Leopard by Sibel Hodge
Sibel Hodge is a UK author who decided to do a giveaway of her latest release on the Goodreads group All About Animals . I had just joined the group after seeing it in my Goodreads friends' feed and was surprised to find that new members are eligible for giveaways. This is not the case in all groups. Some groups require that you have a history of activity in the group in order to participate in the group's giveaways.
I was delighted to receive a copy of The See Through Leopard, a YA novel about a griefstricken British teenager whose life is transformed by a leopard. Last year I'd read Endangered by Eliot Schrefer which received the National Book Award. Endangered focuses on an African teen whose mother runs a refuge for primates. I consider it the best novel I read in 2012. I hoped to be as impressed by Sibel Hodge's book.
I thought this was a wonderful cover, but it did lead me to expect a sentimental novel without realism. This is not the case. Sibel Hodge has evidently done a great deal of research on leopards and the situation of wildlife in Kenya. A portion of the profits from this book's sale will be going to Panthera, an organization for the preservation of big cats.
The book opened in England where the protagonist, Jazz, was shattered by the death of her mother and the circumstances surrounding it. Jazz also experienced bullying at her school. This reminded me of Apollyon, a novel dealing with bullying by UK author, Hilary West. My 2012 review is at Apollyon Review . The bullying intensified Jazz's suffering. It was obvious that Jazz was in crisis. Jazz's father, a veterinarian, decided to move them to a game reserve in Kenya where he and his wife had worked before Jazz was born. It's there that Jazz encountered the leopard who changed her life.
There were a variety of different species at the game reserve, so Sibel Hodge had an opportunity to enlighten us about elephants,lions and rhinoceroses as well as leopards. Did you know that elephants can hear infrasound, that there are staged hunts for lions and a black market trade in rhino horns?
The use of rhino horns in traditional Asian medicine has been thoroughly debunked, but the demand for them continues. I discovered in an article on Rhino Powder on Chinese Wikipedia that there are numerous formulations for rhino powder that are supposed to deal with a variety of ailments and conditions. I have respect for some practices of traditional medicine. Acupuncture has been shown to be of tremendous value, and so have many herbs. The basis for aspirin is willow bark. See this report from CNN Health on the History of Aspirin . I am not being close-minded about alternative therapies when I say that rhino horn is useless. It is verifiable that rhino horn has no benefit. If any of the rhino powder formulations on that Chinese Wikipedia page ever do what they claim, I'd be willing to bet that it's the herbal ingredients listed that are responsible. Rhino horn is nothing but keratin. Human fingernails are composed of keratin. Both rhino horn and fingernails are medically valueless. Yet if Chinese traditional medicine practitioners insist on including keratin in their formulations, they should grind up their own fingernails and let rhinos keep their horns.
The See Through Leopard isn't all lectures about animals. There are action plot elements, and the characters are well-portrayed. I particularly liked Zach, the young aspiring filmmaker whose father runs the reserve. Zach becomes Jazz's friend, and he is terrifically supportive.
Although I liked this novel very much for its compelling themes and characterization, it's not flawless. There are times when the lectures get out of hand. Readers who are more tolerant of overt didacticism in fiction may not consider this a problem. The most notable example is Jazz's speech toward the end of the novel. I would have preferred breaking up the speech's text with Jazz's thoughts while giving the speech, or a bit of audience response. Including context makes fiction more evocative.
I have one other criticism. I viewed a World Wildlife Federation video on You Tube called Stop Wildlife Crime the day before reading Jazz' speech. It seems clear to me that Sibel Hodge referred to organizational materials while composing Jazz' speech. I think that she should have cited the materials she used in her author's note. Some readers will want to know.
I do recommend this book. I actually loved most of it, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't include the flaws of a book along with its strengths in my review.
I was delighted to receive a copy of The See Through Leopard, a YA novel about a griefstricken British teenager whose life is transformed by a leopard. Last year I'd read Endangered by Eliot Schrefer which received the National Book Award. Endangered focuses on an African teen whose mother runs a refuge for primates. I consider it the best novel I read in 2012. I hoped to be as impressed by Sibel Hodge's book.
I thought this was a wonderful cover, but it did lead me to expect a sentimental novel without realism. This is not the case. Sibel Hodge has evidently done a great deal of research on leopards and the situation of wildlife in Kenya. A portion of the profits from this book's sale will be going to Panthera, an organization for the preservation of big cats.
The book opened in England where the protagonist, Jazz, was shattered by the death of her mother and the circumstances surrounding it. Jazz also experienced bullying at her school. This reminded me of Apollyon, a novel dealing with bullying by UK author, Hilary West. My 2012 review is at Apollyon Review . The bullying intensified Jazz's suffering. It was obvious that Jazz was in crisis. Jazz's father, a veterinarian, decided to move them to a game reserve in Kenya where he and his wife had worked before Jazz was born. It's there that Jazz encountered the leopard who changed her life.
There were a variety of different species at the game reserve, so Sibel Hodge had an opportunity to enlighten us about elephants,lions and rhinoceroses as well as leopards. Did you know that elephants can hear infrasound, that there are staged hunts for lions and a black market trade in rhino horns?
The use of rhino horns in traditional Asian medicine has been thoroughly debunked, but the demand for them continues. I discovered in an article on Rhino Powder on Chinese Wikipedia that there are numerous formulations for rhino powder that are supposed to deal with a variety of ailments and conditions. I have respect for some practices of traditional medicine. Acupuncture has been shown to be of tremendous value, and so have many herbs. The basis for aspirin is willow bark. See this report from CNN Health on the History of Aspirin . I am not being close-minded about alternative therapies when I say that rhino horn is useless. It is verifiable that rhino horn has no benefit. If any of the rhino powder formulations on that Chinese Wikipedia page ever do what they claim, I'd be willing to bet that it's the herbal ingredients listed that are responsible. Rhino horn is nothing but keratin. Human fingernails are composed of keratin. Both rhino horn and fingernails are medically valueless. Yet if Chinese traditional medicine practitioners insist on including keratin in their formulations, they should grind up their own fingernails and let rhinos keep their horns.
The See Through Leopard isn't all lectures about animals. There are action plot elements, and the characters are well-portrayed. I particularly liked Zach, the young aspiring filmmaker whose father runs the reserve. Zach becomes Jazz's friend, and he is terrifically supportive.
Although I liked this novel very much for its compelling themes and characterization, it's not flawless. There are times when the lectures get out of hand. Readers who are more tolerant of overt didacticism in fiction may not consider this a problem. The most notable example is Jazz's speech toward the end of the novel. I would have preferred breaking up the speech's text with Jazz's thoughts while giving the speech, or a bit of audience response. Including context makes fiction more evocative.
I have one other criticism. I viewed a World Wildlife Federation video on You Tube called Stop Wildlife Crime the day before reading Jazz' speech. It seems clear to me that Sibel Hodge referred to organizational materials while composing Jazz' speech. I think that she should have cited the materials she used in her author's note. Some readers will want to know.
I do recommend this book. I actually loved most of it, but I wouldn't be honest if I didn't include the flaws of a book along with its strengths in my review.
Saturday, August 31, 2013
Vampire Legends by Kamee Shrope: Beyond The Stereotypes
What I liked most about Vampire
Legends (The Collectors Volume 1) is the characterization. It avoids the old cliché about all vampires
being evil monsters, and the newer cliché about all vampires being
conventional romance heroes. Kamee Shrope treats all her characters as
individuals whether they are vampires or human.
Since vampires are born as human beings, they should have a variety of
responses to living as vampires because human beings aren't all alike in their responses to any experience. I have no interest in reading about predators without personality or stereotypical heartthrobs with fangs. Shrope's characters are neither of these. This is why I requested her book from The Bookplex.
Shrope begins by telling us about two brothers who became vampires in 800 A.D. by using a magical spell. Many readers who see that this book deals with two brothers who are vampires will think of the television series,The Vampire Diaries . Shrope might have made the decision to publish her book as a result of the popularity of The Vampire Diaries, but her ideas are her own. Shrope's Vampire Legends also deals with a prophecy about five people born with the vampire virus who would have paranormal powers. These five are known as Legends. The Collectors are vampires who can identify them.
I like this concept's historical dimension. The Legends and the Collectors are born in different historical periods and have varying perspectives. I have to say that their backgrounds aren't always as specific as I would like. For example, we are told that a character came from the period when Tokyo was known as Edo. Since Edo became Tokyo in 1868, that's a huge expanse of Japanese history. See the Wikipedia article on Edo
I like this concept's historical dimension. The Legends and the Collectors are born in different historical periods and have varying perspectives. I have to say that their backgrounds aren't always as specific as I would like. For example, we are told that a character came from the period when Tokyo was known as Edo. Since Edo became Tokyo in 1868, that's a huge expanse of Japanese history. See the Wikipedia article on Edo
A more significant problem is that Shrope may not have thought
through her concept completely. Those
who become vampires with a magical spell can’t pass on a vampire virus that had
never incubated inside their bodies.
Logically, none of the other vampires can possibly be children of their
blood. Their blood relationship is emphasized, so it seems to be strongly
implied that the vast majority of vampires shown in this book are children of the same two
sires. Perhaps the sequel will reveal
that I am wrong, and that this is a community that has always sheltered
vampires from a multiplicity of origins.
That’s really the only possibility that would make sense in this
context.
Now lets talk about the romance in Vampire Legends (The Collectors). In most paranormal romances that I have seen, the vampire heroes are macho types who never grow or change. This seems unlikely to me when a character has lived for centuries. Maybe most romance readers prefer macho heroes, but I prefer character complexity. Chance, the vampire romantic hero, is a whole man who is fully capable in the realms of thought, emotion and action. He can appear to be like a playful child in one moment, a wise advisor in the next moment, and a strong protector soon afterward.
Now lets talk about the romance in Vampire Legends (The Collectors). In most paranormal romances that I have seen, the vampire heroes are macho types who never grow or change. This seems unlikely to me when a character has lived for centuries. Maybe most romance readers prefer macho heroes, but I prefer character complexity. Chance, the vampire romantic hero, is a whole man who is fully capable in the realms of thought, emotion and action. He can appear to be like a playful child in one moment, a wise advisor in the next moment, and a strong protector soon afterward.
Another aspect of this book that is different from conventional romances is the ending. Romances are supposed to have the famous fairy tale ending "and they all lived happily ever after" which is known as HEA among romance fans. Instead Shrope has written a cliffhanger ending which I consider a weakness of the novel. Like most readers, I find cliffhanger endings annoying
because they are manipulative. It’s a
sign that the author doesn’t believe in her work . Kamee Shrope must think that people won’t buy
her next book if her first one contains a complete storyline. I think that if readers like me are satisfied
by the ending, they are much more likely to buy the next book.
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