Reading

Review: Classical Arabic Philosophy

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I bought this book as a resource. My latest novel has, as its principle character, a professor of philosophy at a prestigious Egyptian university. I wanted to be able to refer to actual teachings of classical Arabic philosophy in his interactions with students and to use some of the philosophical discussions to help make some of the conclusions in the novel. In these two respects, the book was an excellent resource. I could have the professor discuss the teachings of a particular ancient philosopher with a student, quoting the philosopher by name, dates of birth and death, place of origin, philosophical interests, and exactly what he had written. I could also use what a philosopher had written to establish a point I wanted to make in the novel.

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The book has a useful index of key words, both in English and Arabic. The text, however is largely in English. It also has, for the serious reader, clarifying footnotes, and an extensive bibliography. The preface will acquaint the reader with the methodology used by the authors in the selection and translation of the material. The introduction gives the background of the classical Arabic philosophy, which is – to a large extent – derived from Greek, particularly Aristolean, philosophy. What I found of particular interest was that the first prominent Arabic philosophers appeared barely two hundred years after the founding of Islam in 622 AD – well before their Western counterparts. While Greek philosophy provided a foundation, there were philosophical debates within Islam which also provided grist for the mill.

The book includes translations of selected, verbatum writings of a dozen philosophers who lived between the 9th and 13th centuries AD. Subjects of discussion for the Arabic philosophers included physics (motion, force, change, etc.); metaphysics (being, knowing, identity, time and space); theology (God, the soul, eternity). The language used by the Arabic philosophers can be quite turgid and difficult to follow. I suspect this was more the convention of the era than a fault in the translation. Also, the use of logical conventions, which appeared in the West later, were not available at the time to structure a clear proof of a theory.

This is not a book that one would want to read for pleasure unless one were a practicing philosopher. It could serve as a text book in the teaching of philosophy. And it is an excellent reference work.

11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing

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This article appears on the Copyblogger website and was written by Dean Rieck.  He is “Copywriter and Consultant for Direct Mail and Direct Marketing”

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Dean Rieck

I agree with much of what he says about “brilliant writing”, but not all.  Perhaps our divergences are mostly about differences in perspective: advertising copywriter vs author.  His blog says:

“Here are 11 ways you can start sounding brilliant:

1. Have something to say

This makes writing easier and faster. When you have nothing to say, you are forced to write sentences that sound meaningful but deliver nothing. Read widely. Take notes. Choose your subjects wisely. Then share your information with readers.

2. Be specific

Consider two sentences:

  • I grow lots of flowers in my back yard
  • I grow 34 varieties of flowers in my back yard, including pink coneflowers, purple asters, yellow daylilies, Shasta daisies, and climbing clematis

Which is more interesting? Which helps you see my back yard?

3. Choose simple words

Write use instead of utilize, near instead of close proximity, help instead of facilitate, for instead of in the amount of, start instead of commence.  Use longer words only if your meaning is so specific no other words will do.

4. Write short sentences

You should keep sentences short for the same reason you keep paragraphs short: they’re easier to read and understand.  Each sentence should have one simple thought. More than that creates complexity and invites confusion.

5. Use the active voice

In English, readers prefer the SVO sentence sequence: Subject, Verb, Object. This is the active voice.

For example:

Passive sentences bore people.

When you reverse the active sequence, you have the OVS or passive sequence: Object, Verb, Subject.

For example:

People are bored by passive sentences.

You can’t always use the active voice, but most writers should use it more often.

6. Keep paragraphs short

Look at any newspaper and notice the short paragraphs.  That’s done to make reading easier, because our brains take in information better when it’s broken into small chunks.  In academic writing, each paragraph develops one idea and often includes many sentences. But in casual, everyday writing, the style is less formal and paragraphs may be as short as a single sentence or even a single word.

7. Eliminate fluff words

Qualifying words, such as very, little, and rather, add nothing to your meaning and suck the life out of your sentences.

For example:

It is very important to basically avoid fluff words because they are rather empty and sometimes a little distracting.

Mark Twain suggested that you should “Substitute damn every time you’re inclined to write very; your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.”

8. Don’t ramble

Rambling is a big problem for many writers. Not as big as some other problems, such as affordable health insurance or the Middle East, which has been a problem for many decades because of disputes over territory. Speaking of which, the word “territory” has an interesting word origin from terra, meaning earth.

But the point is, don’t ramble.

9. Don’t be redundant or repeat yourself

Also, don’t keep writing the same thing over and over and over. In other words, say something once rather than several times. Because when you repeat yourself or keep writing the same thing, your readers go to sleep.

10. Don’t over write

This is a symptom of having too little to say or too much ego.  Put your reader first. Put yourself in the background. Focus on the message.

11. Edit ruthlessly

Shorten, delete, and rewrite anything that does not add to the meaning. It’s okay to write in a casual style, but don’t inject extra words without good reason.  To make this easier, break your writing into three steps: 1) Write the entire text. 2) Set your text aside for a few hours or days. 3) Return to your text fresh and edit.

None of us can ever be perfect writers, and no one expects us to be. However, we can all improve our style and sound smarter by following these tips and writing naturally.”

 

I agree with 1, 2, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11.

3. Choose simple words:

Use of simple words is probably fine for advertising where clarity and conciseness are essential.  But when writing fiction, and when one is trying to paint a complex picture of fact, feelings and suppositions, simple words are rarely fully effective.  Maybe an unlikely combination of two or three special words is necessary to convey the mixture of fact and feelings.

4. Write short sentences:

Here again, punchiness isn’t necessarily what we want.  Short sentences can lack lyricism or intellectual interest.  They can be boring if repeated.  Use of some longer sentences can keep the reader interested.

5. Use the active voice:

OK, but switch now and then to keep the reader alert.

6. Keep paragraphs short:

I believe that paragraphs should be used as a clue to the reader that the action is changing: different time, different setting, different characters.  There is no other reason to break up the text other than that a paragraph longer than one page can make it feel to the reader that the reading is becoming laborious!

How do you know if you’re a good writer?

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Last month, there was an article in the online Huffington Post by Brook Warner, with the subtitle: “3 Ways to Get Validation of Your Writing’.  I agree with most of what she says:

“Writing stands out to me as the craft that people most easily dismiss and judge.  Because of its accessibility – anyone can do it and everyone seems to be doing it – writing is to the arts what running is to sports.  There are elites and there are hobbyists.  Unlike music, art and film, there’s a low barrier to entry.  You don’t need an instrument other than your hand, a canvas other than a piece of paper; not do you need a team, a budget, or outsider talent to practice your craft.  Everyone thinks they can do it, and the truth is that a lot of people do it well.  One of the great difficulties publishing faces right now is that there are many, many good books worthy of being published, but rather than finding ways to celebrate hobbyists and emerging talent (which is what’s happening in film), the industry has instead turned its back and turned up its nose at the very people who make possible what they do for a living: aspiring authors.

“So how, given this climate where the odds for success are stacked against you, the industry itself has no vested interest in you until you prove yourself a talent, and everyone thinks they can write, how are you supposed to know whether what you’re writing is worthwhile?”

She mentions three places to start:

1. Get a professional opinion

“You have to pay for this, but it’s worthwhile to get your work assessed at some point in your writing process, sooner rather than later.  This is a high level opinion from someone who knows good writing.  People who read for a living are qualified to pick apart your work and tell you what’s working and not working. . . . Your family and friends are not good readers for your work.  While all readers are subjective, family and friends are the most subjective. . . .”

She mentions that her company She Writes Press offers an assessment of 25 pages of an author’s work.  But apparently, this is part of an expensive co-operative-publishing package.  I think it can be money well invested if one selects a real professional reviewer.

2. Submit your work to contests and at conferences

“Judges of literary of literary contests are selected because they are readers.  They love good books and good writing, and they have wisdom and expertise to impart.  Contests are valuable not just for the accolades you might get, but for the feedback. It’s a cheap way to see what a stranger thinks of your work. . . .”

In my experience, one doesn’t get good quality feedback from most contests.  There tends to be cursory and superficial, or non-existent feedback.  What I have found to be useful is the ‘batting average’ one gets from submitting a particular work to multiple contests.  I have entered Sable Shadow & The Presence in about ten contests.  It has won eight awards ranging from honourable mention (2) to runner up (2) to winner (4) of the fiction category.  I must be doing something right, and this is consistent with my own view that Sable Shadows is a serious, quality piece of work.

3. Submit your work to an agent or publisher

“Many writers I know are so eager to pitch agents and editors that they go out too early, before their books or proposals are fully cooked.  But if you’re suffering from a need to know whether there’s any merit to your project, I believe (though some may disagree with me) that it doesn’t hurt to send to  a handful of agents or editors (not both at the same time) to test the waters. . . .”

I have done this with all six of my published books, but I’m still using my original publisher.  The amount of feedback I have received has been is essentially zero.  It should be said, however, that there is a skill in approaching an agent, as I have learned from reading the 2015 Guide to  Literary Agents.  A considerable amount of effort is required to produce a winning proposal.

Ms Warner poses another question at the close of her blog: “How do I know if I’m done?”  Her point is that if you’re a serious writer, you’re never done.  You keep on learning and writing with greater skill.  I agree completely.

I think I would be inclined to add a fourth item: Read and Write Book Reviews.  I find that reading good quality, recommended books, exposes me to the diverse techniques and skills of other authors.  And when I require myself to write a review of the book, I force myself to identify what I admired about the writing and what I felt didn’t work.

Review: The Power of the Dog

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This novel is probably the grittiest I have read. I mean ‘grittiest’ in the sense of terse, violent and gripping. In 541 pages, Don Winslow sets out a compelling picture of the drugs wars in the America from New York City to Columbia. Nothing is withheld, abbreviated or glossed-over: the actions, reactions and motivations of dozens of very real characters. The scope of the novel draws in not only the drugs lords, the law enforcers and their subordinates on many levels, but also the politicians, and the military, so that, ultimately, it is not just about drugs, but also about perceived national interest and long term political strategy. One has to admire the depth of research Winslow must have completed to write this novel. The details of places, organisations, and procedures are all there with crystal clarity. One is tempted to believe that this is not a novel, but a description of the real world.

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Don Winslow

The characterisations are excellent. There are about six characters who make it all the way through the book, and dozens more who fall (or are pushed) by the wayside. Each of the characters is distinct, and none is completely repellent: we understand their motivation even if it is just survival. The dialogue is terse, but fit for purpose.

One challenge for a reader of this novel is being able to connect the threads of location, character and motivation, as the story skips around from place to place. But Winslow is not trying to tell a simple story, and his skipping about technique reinforces the overall message: this game is very complex.

I found the book hard to put down, but when I did, I looked forward to finding out ‘what happens next’.

Winslow’s style of writing is not ‘literary’. This is not a work of literary art; it is a fast-moving story told in the street language of the characters themselves.

This book is not a pleasant read: the casual violence can be gut-wrenching, but if you are a reader with a strong stomach, and a love of realistic, complex and, ultimately, important action, this is the book for you.

Review: Dark Waters

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A friend of mine who is aware of my US Navy background, gave me a copy of Dark Waters, An Insider’s account of the NR-1, the Cold War’s Undercover Nuclear Sub. The authors are Lee Vyborny, who was a member of the NR-1 crew and Don Davis, a news correspondent.

I was interested, not because I served in submarines – I didn’t – but because I spent four years in destroyers whose mission it was to destroy enemy submarines. There were plenty of exercises during which we practiced hunting and killing submarines. One particular exercise comes to mind: my ship had just finished a refit in the Brooklyn Naval Shipyard and was sent to Guantanamo Bay for training exercises. One of our new weapon systems was AsRoc, an anti-submarine missile system which could be armed with either a state-of-the-art torpedo or a nuclear depth charge. We were also fitted with an advanced sonar system. Our first exercise one morning was to hunt down and ‘destroy’ a US Navy submarine which was playing ‘the enemy’. As soon as we were clear of the harbour, our sonar picked up the submarine at a distance of 10,000 yards (five miles). The captain sent the submarine an underwater telephone message telling them that the exercise had begun. Immediately, he fired an AsRoc with a dummy torpedo. The missile took off with a tremendous roar and splashed down within 200 yards of the submarine. The torpedo detached from the missile, energised its sonar, discovered the submarine, and ran toward it, hitting the submarine’ hull with a clang.

Dark Waters tells the story of the creation of NR-1 and its subsequent use.   The motivations for designing an autonomous, deep-diving submarine were multiple. The loss of the USS Thresher with its entire crew in an accident in the North Atlantic suggested the need for a deep rescue vehicle. The deep-diving vehicles which existed in the mid 60’s were either limited in their depth capability or were tied to a surface vessel. There was also an accident involving a B-52 bomber in which a nuclear weapon was dropped into the Atlantic off the coast of Spain. How to find it in deep water? And then there were almost endless possibilities for snooping on the Soviets.

Admiral Rickover was given responsibility for the Deep Submergence Systems Project. I had an interview with the admiral in 1964 in his rather scruffy office in Washington. He was assisted by the captain of the first nuclear aircraft carrier, USS Enterprise, who was in dress white uniform; the admiral was in casual civilian clothes. “Why did you have so many D’s in college?” the interview began.”

“I don’t recall that I did, sir.”

“You did. Why?”

“I don’t know, sir.”

“Are you stupid or are you lazy?”

“I must be lazy, sir.”

“How can you afford to be lazy? Is your father a millionaire?”

“No, sir.”

“Lieutenant, let me ask you a question. Suppose your wife served a pie that was absolutely awful. What would you do?”

“Well, sir, I wouldn’t say anything and she would ask about it.”

“That may work for you, lieutenant, but let me tell you the correct answer. You should pick the pie up, throw it on the floor and say, ‘this pies isn’t fit for the dogs. Get another baker!”

I received orders to go to the nuclear submarine training school, but I resigned from the Navy.

I can say that the authors paint a very accurate picture of the man who was dogged, insensitive, brilliant and highly effective in achieving his vision. I certainly enjoyed reading more of his episodes of shameful manipulation!

The NR-1, being nuclear powered has a theoretically unlimited range submerged; it is, however, underpowered, which limits its speed to about six knots and makes it somewhat vulnerable to rough seas when surfaced. It is small: about 250 tons, 130 feet long, 13 feet in diameter, with a crew of about a dozen.

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NR-1

The book covers the selection and training of the crew, what life was like on board and some of the assignment which NR-1 was given. One of the assignments, for example, was the recovery of a US Navy F-14 jet fighter and its highly classified air to air missile. Both were lost in a launch accident off the west coast of Ireland. The recovery was severely complicated by the presence of the Soviet navy which also wanted to make the recovery. Its classified missions (and there must have been some of them) are not discussed. One point which stands out for me is the many mishaps that befell NR-1. In fact, the authors say: “Few ships in naval history would have as many close calls, repeatedly, over many years, than its smallest nuclear-powered submarine.” I often wondered, when reading: couldn’t that problem have been eliminated by design?

The book is certainly well-written: the technology is understandable, the human interactions are revealed with particular skill, and the pace of the story is about right. I felt that there was not enough ‘meat on the bones’: the most exciting episodes involved malfunctions of NR-1 rather than espionage derring-do. (Probably because the Navy wouldn’t grant permission for those episodes to be published.) Having said that, for those who have in interest in submarines, it is recommended reading.

The Guilty Secretes of E-book Readers

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There was an article in The Daily Telegraph last week which reported on the popularity of titles of e-books vs titles of physical books.

“A newly published list of Amazon.co.uk’s biggest selling e-books of the year features psychological thrillers, misery memoirs, Mills and Boon and a book by the Tory MP Nadine Dorries, whose first work was memorably described by a Telegraph reviewer as “the worst novel I’ve read in 10 years”.  Notably, 18 of the top 20 authors were women, including thriller writers Angela Marsons, Fiona Neill and Rachel Abbott.

“However a parallel list  of physical books compiled by Waterstones to cover the same period is significantly more highbrow, and features four times as many male authors.  They include Richard Flanagan, author of the Man-Booker Prize-winning The Narrows Road to the Deep North, and Anthony Doerr, with his All the Light We Cannot See.  There were also books by Colm Toibin, Ian McEwan and Victoria Hislop.  The print list is topped by Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman, which does not make the Amazon e-books list.

“There is some overlap.  Paula Hawkin’s runaway bestseller The Girl on the Train, and the latest risqué offering form E L James appear in the top three of both lists. But the disparity between the books we put on show and those we download suggests that e-book reads can be ‘guilty pleasures’.

“Benedict Page of The Bookseller said: ‘There are certain kinds of books that people like to own.  If they have a favourite heavyweight literary author who they have followed for many years, they are likely to want to possess the printed book because it’s beautiful and durable and represents a readerly commitment.'”

I think that Page’s analysis is probably correct in that we tend to regard e-books as disposable, and printed books something to be retained. The high proportion of female writers on the e-book list is interesting.  My theory would be that at least some of the female authors on the e-book list write primarily for women, and are more interested in achieving volume than literary recognition.  I’m also guessing that more women than men own e-book readers.  These two theories seem to converge on the supply and demand sides.

What’s your view?

The Secret of Great Writing

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In the autumn of 1938, a sophomore at Radcliffe College, Francis Turnbull, sent her latest short story to family friend, F Scott Fitzgerald.  His response is recorded in F Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters.

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F Scott Fitzgerald

Dear Frances:

I’ve read the story carefully and, Frances, I’m afraid the price for doing professional work is a good deal higher than you are prepared to pay at present. You’ve got to sell your heart, your strongest reactions, not the little minor things that only touch you lightly, the little experiences that you might tell at dinner. This is especially true when you begin to write, when you have not yet developed the tricks of interesting people on paper, when you have none of the technique which it takes time to learn. When, in short, you have only your emotions to sell.

This is the experience of all writers. It was necessary for Dickens to put into Oliver Twist the child’s passionate resentment at being abused and starved that had haunted his whole childhood. Ernest Hemingway’s first stories ‘In Our Time’ went right down to the bottom of all that he had ever felt and known. In ‘This Side of Paradise’ I wrote about a love affair that was still bleeding as fresh as the skin wound on a haemophile.

The amateur, seeing how the professional having learned all that he’ll ever learn about writing can take a trivial thing such as the most superficial reactions of three uncharacterized girls and make it witty and charming — the amateur thinks he or she can do the same. But the amateur can only realize his ability to transfer his emotions to another person by some such desperate and radical expedient as tearing your first tragic love story out of your heart and putting it on pages for people to see.

That, anyhow, is the price of admission. Whether you are prepared to pay it or, whether it coincides or conflicts with your attitude on what is ‘nice’ is something for you to decide. But literature, even light literature, will accept nothing less from the neophyte. It is one of those professions that wants the ‘works.’ You wouldn’t be interested in a soldier who was only a little brave.

In the light of this, it doesn’t seem worth while to analyze why this story isn’t saleable but I am too fond of you to kid you along about it, as one tends to do at my age. If you ever decide to tell your stories, no one would be more interested than,

Your old friend,

F. Scott Fitzgerald

P.S. I might say that the writing is smooth and agreeable and some of the pages very apt and charming. You have talent — which is the equivalent of a soldier having the right physical qualifications for entering West Point.

 

F Scott Fitzgerald makes a very good point: that the most important skill of a writer (of fiction) is to be able to convey the feelings of his/her characters to the reader in a unique and compelling way.  It is not enough to tell the story clearly and neatly, gaining the reader’s attention. As he puts it, we have little interest in a ‘soldier who is a only little brave’.

How does one convey feelings in this compelling way?  First of all, as a writer, one must feel the feeling; it is not enough to imagine how it would feel.  Then, one must place oneself into the character so that the expression of the feeling is consistent with the character’s personality: different people express anger (for example) in different ways.  Finally, one has to ‘paint the picture’ carefully selecting from all the many available devices:  How does the character look?  What does she say?  What does he feel?  How do others react?  What does it sound like?  What’s a good analogy?

Easy to say.  Not so easy to do!

Payments by the Page

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In yesterday’s Daily Telegraph there was an article “Amazon to Pay Authors by How Much We Read”.  It said that Amazon will begin paying royalties based on the number of pages read by Kindle users, rather than the books they download.  This system will begin on July 1 and “initially” applies to authors who self publish their books via the Kindle Direct Publishing Select (KDP Select), which makes books available to download from the Kindle library and to Amazon Prime customers.

The article said that if a reader abandons a book a quarter of the way in, the author will get only a quarter f the money they would have earned if the reader had finished the book.

Amazon claims its method is a fair way of rewarding authors who write lengthy books but have previously earned the same as someone who crafts 100 pages.  “We’re making this switch in response to great feedback we received from authors who asked us to better align payments with the length of books and how much customers read”, the company said.  “Under the new payment method, you’ll be paid for each page individual customers read of your book, the first time they read it.”  To prevent authors beating the system by enlarging the type and spreading our their work over a larger number of pages, Amazon has developed a “Kindle Edition Normalised Page Count” which standardises the font, line height and line spacing.

The article mentions Unfinished: Kindle’s most difficult books:

Capital in the 21st Century, by Thomas Piketty:  2.4% completed

A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking: 6.6% completed

Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman: 6.8% completed

Lean In, by Sheryl Sandberg: 12.3% completed

Flash Boys, by Michael Lewis: 21.7% completed

Also mentioned in the article was data released by Kobo, the Kindle rival, which showed that only 44% of readers finished The Goldfinch, by Donna Tartt, which was one of the biggest sellers in 2014.

Hari Kunzru, the award-winning author of The Impressionist, said the system “feels like the thin edge of a wedge.”

Peter Maass, a writer and editor, said on Twitter: “I’d like the same in restaurants – pay for how much of a burger I eat.”

Kerry Wilkinson, whose Jessica Daniel crime series propelled him to the top of the Amazon bestseller list as a self-published author, believes the system is fair.  “If readers give up on a title after half a dozen pages, why should the writer be paid in full?” he said.  “If authors don’t like it, they don’t have to use KDP Select.  It’s opt in, not opt out.”  But Wilkinson found it “eerie” that Amazon was keeping tabs on what – and how – you are reading.  Even if it’s anonymous, that’s a lot of data mining.”

To Kunzru’s comment, there is no reason this system could not be extended to all Kindle editions, so that whoever holds the copyright (usually the publisher) would be paid on the percentage of a title that is read.  And, of course, other e-books (like Kobo) could adopt the same system.  So, it definitely sounds to me like the thin edge of the wedge.

I think the system sounds fair for mass market books which are intended for a broad group of readers.  I suspect that readers of crime, thriller, romance, historical novels (and other genres) generally finish the books they have bought.  But I also suspect that non-fiction books (such as self-help, political, business, nature, science, environment, etc.) are probably not finished in many cases.  Does this suggest that their authors deserve a lesser reward?  I don’t think so (only one of my published books – from long ago – is in one of the latter categories).  A reader may buy a non-fiction book, read 25% of it, and still be pleased with the book: s/he may well feel that s/he got her money’s worth, and in such a case shouldn’t the author get the full royalty?

The other concern I have is about works of top-class, leading edge fiction.  The Hawk comes to mind.  I suspect that quite a few readers decided that the prose or the subject matter was not for them.  This may also be true of works by Salman Rushdie or Jonathan Franzen, where the writing just went over the reader’s head.  I suppose that one could argue that if a potential reader had to pay only say 25% of the cost of a book to try it, that would provide the reader with an incentive to buy it and at least try it.  And, it would provide the author with at least some compensation.  I’ll be interested to hear what the top-class authors have to say about the Amazon scheme.  I don’t think they’re going to like it.  After all, they’re probably selling a lot of books that end up on the I Once Tried to Read This shelf.

 

Professor Harold Bloom

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On its ’10 Questions’ page at the back of Time Magazine, May 11th, there was a series of responses from Harold Bloom, who is a literary critic and Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University.  He comes across as an iconic, contrary, interesting figure, and while he was teaching at Yale while I was there, I never met the man.

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In the ‘interview’ he makes several points about literature which interested me.  (He also discussed students and Yale and Naomi Wolf: of less interest.)

He was asked whether he was ever tempted to write a second novel, after The Flight to Lucifer.  His response was that on re-reading The Flight to Lucifer, he decided that writing fiction was not for him.  He was then asked what qualifies him to be a critic if he isn’t a novelist or a poet.  His answer was that he loves books.  To my mind, that’s a good answer.  To be a competent critic, one does not need to be a writer, but one must be an educated, insightful, voracious reader.  Good writers do not necessarily make good critics, and good critics can be poor writers.  What good writers and critics have in common is a love of reading.

He also says that ‘we live in an age of visual overstimulation’ and that the ‘pernicious screen’ destroys the ability to read well.  I’m not sure that it destroys our ability to read, but it certainly can distract us from reading, and I think this is particularly true of young people.

Bloom says that writers should read ‘only the best and most challenging and traditional’.  I don’t agree with this.  I think writers, as readers, need to experiment.  I find that when I read a book that is not one of the ‘best’ or is not ‘traditional’, my horizons are widened.  I can see mistakes that were made, and I can evaluate new approaches and techniques.  This is part of my learning process; sticking to the best, traditional literature narrows my vision.

Time asked Bloom whether he is familiar with ‘websites that provide reviews by common readers’.  Bloom’s response: “Their effect upon the mind is not good.  They do not enlarge and make the mind more keen and independent.  Reading is not in that sense a democratic process.  It is elitist.  It has to be elitist.”  What a lot of bullshit!  Bloom comes across as a dedicated elitist who wishes to protect his own sublime position as a critic.  While it may be true that many of the reviews posted on, for example, Amazon.com are cursory and less than insightful, it does not follow that such reviews should be deplored. Many readers have a desire to express their views on what they have read; to deny them the opportunity to express those views may take away part of their incentive to read.  Besides, a sophisticated review reader can find the wheat amid the chaff.  Reading is not a democratic process?  That’s a ridiculous statement!  If he meant that literary criticism is not a democratic process, I would agree.

Someday, I would like to meet Professor Bloom.

Review: Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo

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As a participant in the Reader’s Favourite book review scheme, I had to select a book from among those that had been submitted for review. Nearly all of the books submitted are in electronic format. I prefer hard copies, so I selected the book I wanted to read and bought it on Amazon.

Nichijo: The Testimony of John Provoo interested me for several reasons: It concerned the Second World War in the Pacific, and there were elements of Buddhism and Japanese culture. (I read much of the book while on a recent trip to Japan.)

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The author is John Oliver who has a Batchelor’s degree in Political Science and Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara.  He was working in Hawaii when he met John Provoo and decided to tell his story. The book is therefore an autobiography; as it is written in the first person.

According to his ‘testimony’, John Provoo grew up in San Francisco, having been born in 1917. He was attracted to Buddhism and believed in the sanctity of all life. In March 1940, he went to Japan to study for the Buddhist priesthood.   He returned to the US in May 1941 under the threat of imminent war, and enlisted in the US Army. He was sent to the Philippines where he worked as a clerk in Army headquarters in Manila. He was captured by the Japanese in the Battle of Corregidor and became a prisoner of war. Much of the book concerns his time as a Japanese prisoner. Because of his fluency in Japanese and his understanding of Japanese culture he often had to deal directly with his captors. This led simultaneously to somewhat more lenient treatment of fellow prisoners and suspicions by the same fellow prisoners that Provoo was giving aid and comfort to the enemy. When he returned to the US, he was accused of collaboration with the enemy, was acquitted and re-enlisted in 1946. For most of the next ten years, he was pursued by the US Justice Department for treason, and underwent several trials, during which his homosexuality was used against him. Eventually, he was acquitted and went to Japan to complete his Buddhist training and to Hawaii, where, as a high level Buddhist priest he lived the rest of his life, dying in 2001.

One has the sense, in reading the book, of an honest re-counting of history, and, as such, it makes very interesting reading: in particular, the conflicted position in which a Japanese-speaking Provoo found himself as a Japanese prisoner of war; the shameful conduct of the Justice Department in mounting a hugely costly campaign against him and in using his homosexuality against him. It appears that John Oliver undertook a considerable amount of independent research to complete this book, and that he did not rely only on what Provoo told him.

There are several areas that are worth mentioning. John Provoo was clearly a very complex character, but one does not get a full understanding of this complexity in the book. Rather, the emphasis is on the historic (what was done) rather than the psychological (why it was done). Might it have been a more interesting piece of literature if instead of being entirely in the first person, the author had intervened as the narrator now and then? In the latter part of the book, there is too much name dropping (who the various interested parties were), and on exactly what they said. I think it would have been sufficient to summarise the key points, and use footnotes where essential. While the writing is good and effective, there is very little description of the various environments in which Provoo found himself: again the emphasis on history rather than literature.

That said, Nichijo, (Provoo’s name as a Buddhist priest) is quite an interesting read. I enjoyed it.