Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts
Showing posts with label book review. Show all posts

Saturday, December 19, 2020

Book Review: William O. Douglas and The Anatomy of Liberty (1963)

While reading Supreme Court Justice William Douglas's The Anatomy of Liberty, I was struck by the little progress we've made since 1963. Almost sixty years later, American politicians, judges, and lawyers have made a liar out of Justice Douglas, who used his book to explain America's legal and political system to the rest of the world. 

I won't belabor you with exact quotes proven overly optimistic; it serves us better to understand differences between then and now. First and foremost, the spectre of nuclear extermination loomed larger for earlier generations. Students today read about WWII in history books, but Douglas lived Hiroshima and Nagasaki as real-time events. Like many of his peers, he realized nuclear proliferation meant every country in the world--including his own--was in danger. Regarding his generation's realization of foreseeable injury, Douglas wrote, "Whatever all the reasons may be, we walk the brink every hour of every day." (pp. 114)

Such fear--based on a reasonable assumption of ever-increasing risk--left politicians with no choice but to cooperate--at least so Douglas thought: "Now the sheer necessity to avoid the nuclear holocaust makes it necessary for us to build unity in common goals of an international character." (pp. 107) Douglas firmly believed technology's destructive potential would require greater cooperation, and he was not alone. One of Diego Rivera's most striking murals, "Man, Controller of the Universe," places the nuclear atom at the center with 
Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov observing.

Mexico's Rivera believed scientific mastery of nature would lead to less drudgery for workers, creating a world without exploitation in which (socialist) governments would favor cooperation. Examples abound of intellectuals linking technology with greater collaboration out of necessity or natural progression; yet, as I sit in a Mexico City hotel in December 2020, it appears time has made fools of them all.

Douglas was a libertarian and Rivera a socialist, but despite contrasting political views, both men took it for granted that by 2020--if not earlier--cross-country cooperation would be optimized in favor of peace. By 1984, however, millions sang along to Alphaville's "Forever Young,"expressing a desire to stay childlike so as to avoid contemplating nuclear war. (In one performance, the lead singer salutes military-style during the lyrics, "Are you gonna drop the bomb or not?") If the Soviet-American conflict was caused by Western powers failing to include the also-WWII-victorious Russians within NATO, thus splitting the world in two spheres, by 1991, optimism emerged as the Soviet Union's economic fall produced a unipolar world. The very next year, Yoshihiro Francis Fukuyama, an American-born Harvard political scientist, authored The End of History and the Last Man (1992), declaring Western values the endpoint of human cultural evolution.

Time humbles us all, and in 2020, no reasonable person believes Western values or Western politics are universally appealing or even workable. The only inevitability accepted is the rise of The People's Republic of China, which has been quietly promoting a post-colonization, de-Westernized world after its 1950 invasion of Tibet to secure freshwater reserves. And so, despite Douglas's and Rivera's exhortations, we are experiencing déjà vu, where the threat of nuclear extermination continues but with different players using international institutions to gain advantages within increasingly splintered financial, technological, and content-distribution systems. In the past, only two hostile superpowers were in contention, which allowed us to focus on specific problems emanating from their friction. Today, the rise of regional powers asserting themselves will either destroy the idea of universal values and thus prospects for consensus, or make us yearn again for the greater simplicity of a bipolar world. 

And what of global cooperation? Sadly, except for the decade between 1991 and 2001, the picture looks bleak. Our current COVID19 pandemic is producing vastly different domestic outcomes and thus increased inequality and potential conflict. Furthermore, as most individuals worldwide suffer from economic uncertainty and greater dependence on governmental action, entities with the most secure digital infrastructure have gained influence while exposing globalization's indigestion of multiple technological standards. The old adage,"He who has the gold (and the military to protect it) makes the rules," has seemingly morphed into "That which provides your digital experience (and the best online security) is crucial to economic dominance and therefore unregulatable." As for diplomacy, I remember studying South China Sea maritime issues at Singapore's National University in 2001. Two decades later, the same issues exist, meaning exporting countries have been unable to resolve something as straightforward as shipping routes. I suppose I do not need to tell you that more countries possess nuclear weapons than ever before.

Perhaps global cooperation was doomed once governments used digital backdoors to spy on allies and competitors while private corporations tracked consumer behavior in order to maximize profits. Human beings may be willing to sacrifice some privacy for greater security, but a paradigm in which governments and corporations conceal technological vulnerabilities in order to peddle propaganda and gather data cannot succeed. As our earlier generation's worst fears are realized, their words might be heard asking for whom the bell tolls: 

[T]oday the young writer's characters must function not in individuality but in isolation, not to pursue in myriad company the anguishes and hopes of all human hearts in a world of a few simple, comprehensible truths and moral principles, but to exist alone inside a vacuum of facts which he did not choose and cannot cope with and cannot escape from like a fly inside an inverted tumbler. -- William Faulkner (1958)

A world lacking integrity or diplomacy necessarily reverts to "might makes right," which carries all the burrs and hooks one ought to expect. Listen to Douglas's prescient warning: 

So apart from the problems of nuclear war, disarmament is the world's number one concern... For it is only through disarmament that war can be prevented and adequate resources released for raising the world's standard of living. Prevention of war may be well-nigh impossible if the race to get bigger and better stockpiles of bombs continues... 

The vast gulfs that exist between various world cultures mean that the common ground will be narrow and selective... [and] only limited areas where a common ground can be found. Yet they are important, indeed critical, ones; and they will expand as the peoples of the world work with their newly emerging institutions and gain confidence in them... The problem of survival is to widen [currently limited] areas of consensus [aka the basis of law]. 

Pray tell, which institutions do the people of the world agree deserve our confidence? Can most people within a single country point to a single institution they wholly trust? Here I must quote Faulkner again: 

[There is a] belief that there is no place anymore where individual man can speak quietly to individual man of such simple things as honesty to oneself and responsibility toward others and protection for the weak and compassion and pity for all, because such individual things as honesty and pity and responsibility and compassion no longer exist, and man himself can hope to continue only by relinquishing and denying his individuality into a regimented group of his arbitrary, factional kind, arrayed against an opposite opposed arbitrary, factional, regimented group, both filling the same air at the same time with the same double-barreled abstractions of "peoples' democracy" and "minority rights" and "equal justice" and "social welfare"—all the synonyms which take all the shame out of irresponsibility by not merely inviting but even compelling everyone to participate in it.

That was 1958. Take a look at this sign in my hotel's restaurant: 

We don't need to know Spanish to know the intent of the sign-maker, nor the fact that it is easier to make a sign than to effectuate its lofty goals. I don't doubt this particular hotel sincerely believes in anti-discrimination, but it happens to be located in the most affluent district in the entire country, a country with vast income inequality, which is precisely why it is so confident signaling progressive values--and precisely why it shouldn't be. Rather than providing optimism based on greater understanding of each other, globalization's benefits have covered up cracks in the human dynamic, cracks most of us know are bound to swallow us whole unless seen and fixed. Are good intentions all we have to offer Donne, Faulkner, and Douglas? If so, then we have failed, and we don't deserve to survive and probably won't. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (December 2020)

“The Constitution is paper. The bayonet is steel.” -- Haitian proverb
 

Bonus: "When will we and the Russians (not to mention the Chinese) awaken to the realization that each can no longer go it alone, that, like it or not, we are in the same fragile boat and desperately interdependent?" -- William O. Douglas (1963), pp. 123-4

"Today all humanity is tied irrevocably together in an effort to escape the nuclear holocaust, to survive, to make technology the servant." -- 
William O. Douglas (1963), pp. 167 

Saturday, May 2, 2020

Book Review: The Tommy Koh Reader (2013)

I wanted to share my favorite excerpts from The Tommy Koh Reader (2013). Tommy Koh, a former Singaporean diplomat, is a lawyer who spent 20 years in the United States. In addition to supporting various Singaporean artists--some of whom were jailed over his protestations--he has expertise in international sea rights (unclo), diplomacy, and of course international law. 

On interracial marriage: I was disappointed with [LKY's] views on race. He revealed that if his daughter had wished to marry a black African, he would have had no qualms telling her, "You're mad." [A common British expression for "crazy" or "unrealistic."] He also expressed reservations about inter-racial marriages. We should not judge a person on the basis of colour, race or religion. (2011) 

[In this excerpt, which is hyperlinked, Koh criticizes some of Lee Kuan Yew's more controversial comments, including what he calls LKY's reservations about interracial marriages.]

My own thoughts: I can see how Singaporean founder Lee Kuan Yew's über-practicality makes him suspicious of interracial marriages--including white and Chinese--especially when differences between two people's upbringings are vast. Practical-minded men see probabilities as more poignant than possibilities. LKY would argue the separation of Barack Obama's parents supports his views; Koh would point to Barack Obama's life as a counter-argument. 


Unlike LKY, Koh does not transfer his professional adherence to practicality to personal relationships, despite politics being a form of relationship-building. In truth, Koh's success in resolving post-1991 issues between the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states required him to be equal measures idealistic and practical--a practical idealist, if you will--whereas LKY was practical in a most lopsided manner. No one disputes LKY's open-hearted, transparent style meant some of his comments could be taken out of context. For example, LKY once said Muslims were more difficult to integrate than other religions, a comment he later retracted. What he meant was that he believed the average Muslim holds onto his or her religious beliefs more firmly than the average Christian or Buddhist. As a result, anyone marrying a Muslim would most likely have to convert, and one can see greater obstacles to marriages between Muslims and other religions that would not exist in relationships between, say, Buddhists and Christians. In context, everything LKY said made sense, but one sometimes had to give him an extremely sympathetic ear to avoid misunderstandings. Ultimately, it seems clear Singapore benefitted from a well-balanced team of founding diplomats and politicians. 

On Singapore's foreign policy: "Singapore's leaders... use a vocabulary which suggests that Singapore adheres to the Realist school, which takes a cold-eyed, unsentimental view of the world. The Realist worships power and is usually dismissive of other considerations. How can a Realist State attach so much importance to international law? Singapore's ideology is actually not Realism, but Pragmatism. Our adherence to international law is based upon utility and not morality. Small States are better off in a world ruled by law than in a lawless world." (2013) 

On Singaporean values: "The Singaporean cultural DNA includes a gene that respects all faiths." 

A reminder Trump's Presidency is a feature, not a bug, of USA culture: "I observe that American politics has been afflicted by three unwholesome influences. These are Hollywood, Madison Avenue and television. Hollywood exerts a powerful and pervasive influence on every aspect of American life and culture... in judging the presidential debates, 'the public responds overwhelmingly to the sweat on the brow [a Nixon vs. Kennedy reference], style, manner and personality' rather than to the substance of the debate... speeches by American politicians are often characterized by bombast, hyperbole and exaggerations." (written in 1983) 

On USA's political structure: If you are interested in understanding USA politics, you must read Tommy Koh's "De Tocqueville Revisited" speech at JFK School of Government, Harvard University, September 5, 1986. It is the best summary I have ever read regarding USA's political structure. Sample sentence: "The US system of government, characterized by the separation of powers among the three branches of government and by many checks and balances, is designed to protect the liberty of the individual." 

On cities: "[C]ities succeed in the global economy if they can achieve excellence in one or more of the following three areas: thinking, manufacturing and trading." 

On South China Sea: "First, it is the highway for trade, shipping and telecommunications. 80% of world trade is seaborne. 1/3 of world trade and 1/2 the world's traffic in oil and gas pass through the South China Sea. Freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is, therefore, of critical importance to China, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN and other trading nations and maritime powers. 

Second, it is rich in fish and other living resources. Fish is a principal source of protein and fishing is a source of employment for millions of Asians who live in coastal communities. 

Third, it is presumed that there are significant deposits of oil and gas in the continental shelves underneath the South China Sea...

[A]rtificial islands are not entitled to any maritime zones except for a 500m safety zone... A rock is entitled to a 12-nautical mile (22 km) territorial sea... An island is entitled to a territorial sea, a 200-nautical mile exclusive economic zone and a continental shelf. Under Article 121 of the convention [UN Convention on the Law of the Sea], the difference between a rock and an island is that an island is capable of sustaining human habitation or economic life."" ("Mapping Out Rival Claims to the South China Sea," The Straits Times, 13 September 2011) 


On environmental preservation: "47% of Singapore's total land area is covered by greenery." (2012) [My own note: don't let the shiny skyscrapers fool you--most of SE Asia is and was mostly tropical jungle.] 

On recycling waste: "We should also consider... by requiring industrial and commercial establishments, as well as hotels and food courts, to separate food waste from other kinds of waste at source. The food waste, when treated by anaerobic digestion, will produce biogas which can, in turn, be used to generate renewable electricity." 

On air conditioning: the joke among foreign diplomats is that Singapore, because of air conditioning over-use, actually has two seasons: "summer outdoors and winter indoors." 

On water: "Water is more precious than gold. Without water, there would be no life on earth. The irony is that we take water for granted. In some countries, water is treated as a public good and given away for free. This invariably leads to over-consumption and wastage... By 2050, as many as 3/4 of the world's population could be affected by water scarcity... [Today] The fact that 700 million Asians do not have access to safe drinking water... is unacceptable." (2012) 

© Matthew Rafat (2020)

Tuesday, April 21, 2020

Book Review: Ponti by Sharlene Teo

I'm in Singapore, and I just finished Ponti (2018) by Singaporean-born Sharlene TeoThe title refers to a fictional movie Ponti! and the myth of the Pontianak. A Pontianak is a plain or deformed woman who makes a deal with the devil to become beautiful and irresistible to men, but with a Dracula-like catch: she must drink male blood to survive. (Yennefer of Vengerberg in 2019's The Witcher series is the European version.) Though Teo's book does not revolve around the popular Malaysian fable, viewers unfamiliar with Asian culture's ample room for ghosts will benefit from watching the 2018 movie Kuntilanak (MVP Pictures)

In the book, I sensed Teo trying to fashion a story around the idea that real horror can be found in broken dreams, broken families, and broken friendships; unfortunately, too much effort is required by the reader to make such leaps. For example, in the beginning and the end, we are introduced to three elderly characters, all of whom are so unbelievable, they function as a tableau for the author's descriptive skills rather than logical plot devices. I am still determining if I was supposed to view the aforementioned characters as war victims or indications the protagonists had no idea how lucky they really were. Due to such gaps, the book underperforms its potential, and we are left with a melacholy novel interrupted by flashes of literary brilliance. 


Despite its shortcomings, Teo's 
Ponti (2018) is the only fiction book I would recommend to anyone planning to visit Singapore. Using beautifully-written prose, the author accurately captures much of Singaporean life, including hawker centres and even Bata department stores. 

Below are my favorite quotes from the book. 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2020) 


On Singapore's heat: "Singapore lies just one degree north of the equator and it feels like the bullseye where the sun is aiming a shot at the earth with the intention of killing it." 

On gradually losing memories: "His voice is vague. What I have is a paternal approximation, borrowed from daytime soaps. No recordings exist of him. Voices are the first things to go. Next, speech patterns. The turn of a phrase. What was meant as a joke and what was wisdom? You don't get to choose what sticks and what fades."

On dating: "I can picture it. Date night: he'll bring her over some lontong and soya bean milk from the hawker centre near her place and she will beam at him, accept thankfully. And later on they will dim the lights and f*ck full of earnestness to [British operatic pop singer] Adele or something." 


On teenage jealousy: "I cannot imagine them growing old, or any better-looking. There is no limit to this soft sort of envy; it makes a wistful, gawping owl of me. I crane my neck to watch them leave." 

On how relationships decline: "Every evening we talked over each other in circles and absolutes, casting desperate blame spells and generalizations like a blanket over a dying animal. By that point it was you ALWAYS do this and why do you ALWAYS do that. Everything we did together was fraught and boring... I had been trying all my life, and at just 31, I was sick of it." 

On beauty: "Eunice is familiar yet exotic: white enough to fit in, desirably foreign enough to stand out."

On cards: "It sounds like a motivational card. Emptily hopeful."


On teenage activity: "Lying on her tiny bed in half a daydream and dirty clothes was her favourite thing to do."

On grief: "Grief makes ghosts of people. I don't just mean the ones lost, but the leftover people."

On the difficulties of being with a grieving friend: "Yet by the end of that year, being friends with Szu was like carrying around a heavy, sloshing bucket of water. Her grief weighed me down and I couldn't escape its drip."

On lessons to impart to our children: "It's a hot, horrible earth we are stuck on and it's only getting worse. But still. I want to care for you always. May you be safe, may you feel ease. May you have a long, messy life full of love." 


Interesting words: exeunt; leonine; cynosure; epicanthal; pomfret; gormless; auteur; myxomatosis. 


Friday, June 7, 2019

Book Review: Graeme Simsion's The Rosie Project

Most people have never met anyone autistic. Their perception of autism is usually from Dustin Hoffman's Rain Man (1988), 
Sheldon Cooper in The Big Bang Theory, or my favorite, Abed from the Community series. (South Korea's Marathon (2005) and Britain's A Brilliant Young Mind aka X + Y (2015) are also excellent, with the female lead in A Brilliant Young Mind perfectly written.) 
Given the popularity of some autistic characters, as well as greater interest into autism by neuroscientists, numerous fiction books now involve autistic protagonists. Sadly, all their authors have failed to present works both respectful and interesting, except two: Graeme Simsion and Helen Hoang

At first glance, techie-turned-author Graeme Simsion looks exactly like a stereotypical mad scientist. If a gargoyle could turn human, or if Moe Szyslak had a Ph.D. in data modeling and an ever-present smile, Graeme would be the result. 
Graeme knows autism well--he jokes his thirty years in information technology provided him ample research--and he's conformed his behavior to the autistic world, a welcome form of empathy. For example, many autistic people are paradoxes in that they adore unusual behavior (that increases efficiency) and despise rules, but once a logical rule is presented, they demand strict adherence. At 7:29pm, Graeme looked at his watch and did not stop looking at it until 7:30pm, when he promptly started. (Logical rules followed? Check.) Before his presentation, he disregarded the standard procedure of making people wait in line to get their books signed and went around the room, multiple pens available, to sign anyone's book upon request. (Noncomformist? Check.) 

Graeme and I discussed the book, which I had just finished, for a minute. I found the ending confusing, but he said the identity of the father "was meant to be clear." In retrospect, it probably should have been clear, but I was not prepared for deception from Don Tillman, the protagonist, which threw me off. (A recent Star Trek movie with Spock featured the same trick.) 

The Rosie Project is not an entirely original idea. Johannes Kepler, a gifted astronomer, approached finding a wife in almost exactly the same way, generating a mathematical answer to "The Marriage Problem." (His answer worked for him, surely creating bias.) Though most of us would sneer at Kepler's or Tillman's methods--Rosie, at one point, accuses Don of objectifying women--an approximate 50% divorce rate in most Western countries indicates the usual procedures aren't working well. 

My chief complaint about Graeme's book is although the first half is written like a novel, the second half panders excessively to Hollywood--even including the cliché of all clichés, a Disneyland trip. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently amused in the first half to keep reading, and the book is good. Not great, but few of us can claim to have written great books. Indeed, Graeme admitted he wrote the book as a screenplay and is hoping for a movie. His first two books are bestsellers, and "studios use [bestselling] books for adaptations because sales are established," so there's a better-than-average chance you'll see him on a red carpet someday. 

To explain some of Don's nontraditional behavior, especially in the second half of the book, Graeme delivered a profound observation: 

In romantic comedies and in real life, people do crazy things when they're in love, and the only unrealistic part is the "happily ever after." 

Other Graeme Simsion highlights: 

1. Autism is "not a disability, it's a difference." 

2. When you get to the end of the book, what do you think about Don? The "comedy doesn't detract from Don's good character," so we're not laughing at him. 

3. There's a "difference between empathy and not reading [social] signals." 

4. On the writing process: I won't stop until I've done 1,000 words, which I review first thing in the morning. (Sometimes it takes longer to write the 1,000 words, so I don't know what time I will finish.) I repeat the process for 90 days, after which I have the first draft of a book/screenplay. Then, I ask friends "to mark any passages they'd be tempted to skip," which I consider for deletion. 

5. After publication, I consider "what worked, what didn't work, and what to do differently next time." 

All in all, it's hard not to wish Graeme well. He has the advantage of being Australian, which makes his behavior easier for foreigners to handle--they can't tell if he's a bit off or just acting like an Aussie. Me, I can see his behavior is deliberately tailored to make autistic people or Aspies more comfortable, and it's nice to know at least one person gets it, even if everyone else doesn't. 

© Matthew Rafat (2019)

Bonus, on the dangers of generalizing: "If you've met one autistic person, you've met... one... autistic... person." 

Bonus II: Rosie was not written with Rosie McGowan in mind. In the original draft, Rosie was "Klara," a Hungarian physicist. 

Bonus III: if you like Simsion's character, you may also like the nonfiction book Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's (2008) by John Elder Robison. 

Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Speaker Review: Rich Karlgaard and Late Bloomers

Rich Karlgaard is a good man. He's the kind of person who gently asks his emcee the time as a way of communicating the book event should have started one minute ago. His wealth of Silicon Valley business contacts provides factoids few others can access. 

At the same time, when you're so close to the C-suite, you can rely on your friends for interesting tidbits, which can result in schizophrenic mini-stories rather than in-depth work. As I get older, I want more depth and less surface-area involvement, even if the surface being examined is shiny and rich. 
When asked which cities he'd prefer to bloom into if he were 40 again, Karlgaard mentioned Silicon Valley (California); Austin, Texas; and Columbus, Ohio. He did not mention a single place outside North America. 

Another case in point: in the context of Palo Alto's intensely competitive and often miserable secondary schools, Karlgaard mentioned Israel, Singapore, and Sweden's mandatory military drafts as ways of exposing their citizens to more than just rote memorization in traditional schools. While that may or may not be true, a better analyst would include the fact that Israel and Singapore are American's only steadfast allies in their respective regions, making them unofficial NATO members. Such members, whether official or unofficial, are expected to contribute 2% of GDP towards military spending. Military conscription activities count towards the 2% goal, and smart politicians allocate as high a percentage as possible within the 2% to domestic development. In contrast, Sweden only made peacetime conscription mandatory in 2017 because it perceived a growing threat from nearby Russia and wanted to sociologically counter hostile anti-immigrant forces from within. Also, Singapore, unlike Sweden and Israel, only conscripts men.  

In any case, that's the kind of detailed analysis I like. You won't find it in Karlgaard's book, which I admittedly skimmed. You will, however, find great stories about VMware's founder and J.K. Rowling and lots of other inspirational late bloomers. To each, his or her own. 

© Matthew Rafat (2019)

Karlgaard getting ready to speak in Campbell, California.

Book Review: Dave Barry's Lessons from Lucy (2019)

I've been following Dave Barry since his nationally syndicated column in the Miami Herald as a teenager. (For those of you who don't want to research the timeline, that's about 20 years ago.) I wasn't expecting much from Barry's latest book--after all, it's marketed as "self-help," and Barry excels when he notices and mocks the ordinary. "Mocking" and "earnest self-help advice" don't mesh well, so I figured Barry was just cashing in on his name and reputation to pay for his daughter's college tuition. Boy, was I wrong. This book is one of Barry's best. 
First, if you are a dog lover, you have to get this book. Second, if you're not a dog lover, don't worry--Barry refers to Lucy after his usual storytelling, using her as a sort of canine muse. The book does get overly sentimental in places, but only three or four times total. (e.g., "Do not be afraid to say these words: I was wrong. I made a mistake. I'm sorry. I apologize.") 

More common are the following thoughts, such as when Barry participates in a corporate pro-diversity program: "Inside we were seething. We were ready to go out and join the [Ku Klux] Klan. Even the black employees." 

I'll end with one of Barry's best paragraphs: "So what I'm saying to you, especially if you're getting up in years, is: Don't settle for contentment. Don't just stand around grinning. Get out there. It's a wonderful world." 

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2019) 

Friday, April 5, 2019

Book Review: One Day by David Nicholls

It's so hard to find a good love story these days, one wonders if love itself is hiding in the shadows, waiting for someone to properly articulate its existence. David Nicholls did his best in 2009 with his book, One Day, adapted into a film starring Anne Hathaway. The film is good--I admit to crying at the end, despite knowing the plot--but not a true adaptation. 
From the beginning, Hathaway was a risky choice to play a rebellious, Doc Marten's-wearing character with a pen Shakespeare would envy. We see glimpses of youthful defiance when Hathaway wears an anti-war t-shirt and peace buttons on her jacket, but she plays the character as Desdemona to a second-tier Othello, whereas Nicholls wrote her character as far more interesting, more punk genius than lovelorn robin. 

Let me do my best to fill in the gaps in case you make the mistake of not reading the book. We all know the "Cinderella meets Rich Prince" motif has been explored to death, but Nicholls infuses Emma Morley with such verve, no one would dare think her inferior in any way to her would-be prince, Dexter Mayhew. Sadly, the film omits the written correspondence between the two protagonists as they travel in different directions, keeping in touch except for brief periods. Like Cinderella's spic-and-span work ethic, Emma's letters establish her as unjustly downtrodden, her descriptions of colleagues and roommates alternating between comedy and tragedy: "I asked him [a fellow theater actor playing a slave] to get me a packet of crisps [aka chips] in this café the other day and he looked at me like I was OPPRESSING him or something." 

It is within these same letters we understand Emma's unconditional love for Dexter, springing from the vast differences between them, including his privileged upbringing: "I know your whole childhood was spent playing French cricket on a bloody great chamomile lawn and you never did anything as déclassé as watch the telly..." Cinderella never mocked her prince, nor displayed the aptitude to do so, which is why such Disney stories are unappealing to intelligent adults. In contrast, Emma uses Dexter's status as modern-day royalty to showcase her sharp wit, and in doing so, make him a better man. Consequently, the best comparison to One Day isn't Cinderella or Othello, but a transposed riff on Pretty Woman, with Richard Gere's charm intact but his money replaced by intelligence: "Yes, you had to be smart, but not Emma-smart. Just politic, shrewd, ambitious," Dexter tells himself while considering career options.  

And yet, Dexter isn't exactly the male bimbo caricature the film makes him out to be. It's true the director makes us ache for Dexter's lost potential at every turn, at one point giving him as vacuous a girlfriend as imaginable, a showbiz tart who makes Kim Kardashian look worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics. Dexter's portrayal is unfair because first, he's lost his mother to cancer, which clearly upends his very being, given his emotional distance from his disapproving father (who, interestingly, married a woman far more classy than he deserved, as both the film and book insinuate--at least until the very end). 

Moreover, unlike the stereotypical bimbo or cad, Dexter knows he's not smart, so he tries to find a niche where he can prove his worth. He knows the entire time he can't compete on any level-playing field in the real world, which is why he's so ashamed to face his mother's expectations, and why he's so smitten with Emma: "Without her[,] he is without merit or virtue or purpose..." For her part, Emma knows she's the perfect foil for Dexter, and without him, she wouldn't have a punching bag, er, muse capable of helping her reach Tysonian or Lewisian heights. Unfortunately, the film underestimates its audience by expressly telling us their union is about opposites attracting, even giving Dexter a ying-and-yang ankle tattoo (at least it wasn't on his lower back). 

There are so many ways to interpret the book--the proletariat's place in a bourgeois world being just one of them--I'll stop and let you explore Nicholls' writing yourself. If you've already seen the movie, here's one excerpt that should give you an idea of the book's higher workmanship: 
Here's to smart, witty, kind women. If you find one who loves you, cherish her and have a nice life. 

© Matthew Rafat (2019)

Thursday, February 7, 2019

Book Review: Repetitive Tripe

Hordes of Mongols couldn't get me to pay more than one dollar for Jay Rayner's The Man Who Ate the World, which I found at a used library sale in, of all places, Stockholm. Another reviewer summarized it best: "You can equate the book to a dinner with good starters followed by a bland main course and even blander dessert." 
Rayner is a journalist turned restaurant critic; in other words, he lacks the kitchen experience of other reviewers like Anthony Bourdain, whom Rayner criticizes for his take on sushi rice. The only interesting parts of the book are when Rayner discusses his love of garlic buttered escargot and his wife--both of whom seem more capable of prose than himself. (February 2019) 

Bonus: Rayner references Star Trek, only to misspell Commander Worf as--I kid you not--"Wharf." Screenshot of page below. 

Sunday, January 6, 2019

Book Review: Melody Warnick's This is Where You Belong

Melody Warnick's attempt at evaluating what makes some cities "stickier" than others is earnest, but too wordy. 
Though Warnick is probably a lovely person, such qualities don't mean her ideas are interesting enough to warrant an entire book. I'm not sure if she was paid by the word, but I started skimming pages after the following factoid: "liberals want to drive Honda Civic Hybrids. Conservatives want to drive Ford Mustang convertibles." (What do libertarians or socialists prefer, I asked myself in an immediate moment of snark, imagining various possibilities.) 

Warnick's fatal--and unforgivable--mistake is failing to recognize a key detail: college towns (like Blacksburg, VA) are lovely places to live for intellectuals/readers. Instead of placing this unique feature of her eventual hometown front and center, Warnick spends excessive time discussing how cities can attract and keep committed residents, especially younger ones. (Actual quote: "Do What Your Town is Good At.") 

Jane Jacobs and Richard Florida are the mavens in the "city analytics" genre, and I suggest you start with them if interested in this subject matter. 

Bonus: I enjoyed the following blurb about Canada/USA social capital. 

Monday, December 17, 2018

Paul Theroux's Deep South (2015)

I'm reading Paul Theroux's Deep South (2015) and though only halfway through, I'm already convinced Theroux has written the first Great American Novel. The scope of the work is incredible. Theroux quotes older Americans who've lived through Jim Crow and sharecropping, the illegitimate daughter of a prominent politician, and ordinary people with incredible stories, all while sharing his prodigious knowledge of other American writers. I've always said everyone has one amazing book, song, movie, or poem inside them, but I never thought much of Theroux's international writing. I suppose in some cases, it takes 75 years to midwife your great work. 

I'll leave you with one paragraph where Theroux indirectly predicts the outcome of the 2016 presidential election: "The whites felt like a despised minority--different, defeated, misunderstood, muddled with, pushed around, cheated. Blood mattered, so did history and old grievances and perceived injustices..." 
My only quibble is Theroux's repeated comparison between (inadequate) federal government funding for rural development vs. international aid. The two are not comparable. America spends less than 1% of its annual budget on foreign aid, much of it to employ American overseas workers; to gain footholds in countries that would otherwise be inclined to grant infrastructure projects to China or Japan; to keep the peace (Kosovo, Jordan, etc.); or--let's be honest--indirect bribery to gain the trust of foreign leaders who might otherwise be hostile to American interests. Though it's true the federal government funded the development of national highways, which benefited rural communities, such domestic aid was done in the national, not local, interest. Regardless of this flaw, Theroux's Deep South (2015) should be required reading in every American history college class, and its chapter on Faulkner required reading in every 12th grade English course. 

© Matthew Rafat (2018) 

Bonus I

"That seemed to be the theme in the Deep South: kindness, generosity, a welcome... I found so much of it here that I kept going, because the goodwill was like an embrace." 

“America is accessible, but Americans in general are not; they are harder to know than any people I’ve traveled among.”

“We [Americans] tolerate difference only when we don’t have to look at it or listen to it, as long as it doesn’t impact our lives. Our great gift as a country is its size and its relative emptiness, its elbow room. That space allows for difference and is often mistaken for tolerance.”

“All air travel today involves interrogation, often by someone in uniform who is your inferior.” 

"He [John Lewis] had distinguished himself by his insistence on ethical behavior in Congress--an uphill task, given the number of crooks, sneaks, junketers, opportunists, liars, tax cheats, adulterers, sexual stalkers, senders of selfies of their private parts to perfect strangers, and unembarrassed villains in that tainted assembly." 

"'The South gives indications of being afraid of the Negro. I do not mean physical fear,' Frank Tannenbaum wrote ninety years ago in Darker Phases of the South. 'It is not a matter of cowardice or bravery; it is something deeper and more fundamental. It is a fear of losing grip upon the world. It is an unconscious fear of changing status.'

Bonus II: "When will we learn that the white man can no longer afford, he simply does not dare to commit acts that the other 3/4s of the human race can challenge him for, not because the acts themselves are criminal, but simply because the challengers and accusers of the acts are not white in pigment... Have we, the white Americans who can commit or condone such acts, forgotten already how only fifteen years ago what only the Japanese, a mere 8 million inhabitants of an island already insolvent and bankrupt, did to us? How can we hope to survive the next Pearl Harbor, if there should be one, with not only all peoples who are not white but peoples whose political ideologies are different from ours arrayed against us after we have taught them, as we are now doing, that when we talk about freedom and liberty, we not only mean neither, we don't even mean security and justice and even the preservation of life for peoples whose pigmentation is not the same as ours... Because if we in America have reached that point in our disparate culture when we must murder children, no matter for what or what color, then we do not deserve to survive and probably won't." -- William Faulkner, September 6, 1955 

Thursday, December 13, 2018

Book Review: Peter Mayle's My 25 Years in Provence

If you're looking for a casual, simple read about life in a small French town, you might enjoy Pete Mayle's book, My Twenty-Five Years in Provence (2018). It's not very funny or very insightful, but it's adequate "vacation beach reading." 

Only three items stood out: 1) an introduction to pastis, a unique drink, and condiment grenobloise, "an inspired mixture of brown butter, capers, croutons, parsley, and lemon"; 2) a delightful account of Guide Dogs for the Blind for children (look up Quebec's MIRA); and 3) the following paragraph: 

The cafe is much more than just a place to get a quick cup of coffee or drink. In fact, it's a most useful and civilized compromise. More comfortable than perching on a barstool, less formal than sitting at a restaurant table, it is also a most welcoming destination for customers, who, for one reason or another, are on their own. Sitting by yourself in a restaurant goes against human nature; man does not live by eating alone. But sitting by yourself in a busy cafe, you will usually find yourself in the company of several others who, for various reasons, prefer the companionable solitude offered by a table for one.

Otherwise, expect the same tropes about small town living being slower-paced (quelle surprise!) and stores closing at 1:00pm. 

Thursday, August 2, 2018

Book Review: John Perry, Singapore: Unlikely Power (2018)

I'm about halfway finished with Perry's Singapore: Unlikely Power (2018). Despite a too-flowery start, the book settled down and became much more tolerable to read. Below are a few passages that caught my eye. Perhaps they'll interest you, too. 
History is more interesting than you can imagine.
Scroll all the way down this post for more.

Interestingly, LKY left out housing, another essential item.
For most Singaporeans, the gov is heavily involved in providing access to housing.

LKY was a POW when the Japanese defeated the British
and until the British re-gained Singapore circa 1945.

Today, Singapore is known for its strict laws--including the death penalty--for drug possession. Given its history, Singapore's draconian drug policies make perfect sense as a way to eliminate the former power structure's source of income.

Despite more countries building land-based infrastructure,
the sea continues to be important in the modern economy.

Surprise!
Bonus: in Surabaya, Indonesia, I visited the Cheng Hoo mosque aka Zheng He mosque. (The Bahasa language apparently replaces the "z" with a "c," similar to how Spanish calls the "v" a "b.") The mosque provided even more information about the fascinating seafarer not as famous in the West as he should be. Here is more information explaining some of Zheng He's remarkable feats, including navigating seven(!) journeys: 
From Surabaya, Indonesia
Bonus II: from Clark Winter's The Either/Or Investor (2008). 

pp. 66, hardcover, Random House


Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Book Review: Murakami's Norwegian Wood: Sex, Suicide, and Love in 1960s Japan

"Don't feel sorry for yourself. Only assholes do that." 
A cross between Joyce's Ulysses and Kerouac's On the Road, Haruki Marakumi takes the reader on a stumbling, windy journey from teenager to adult in Norwegian Wood (2000). Set in the 1960s, our protagonist Watanabe is out of place at his university but takes on habits--obsessive cleaning, wanton sexual flings, etc.--of his more polished, affluent students. He quickly tires of the pomp and false fronts--characterized by one suicide after another--and sets out to find himself. In the meantime, he is caught between two women: Naoko, a friend in a strange, bitter love triangle who cannot bring herself to consummate her relationship with Watanabe more than once; and Midori, a carefree, unpredictable woman also out of place among affluent classmates but from a working class background that grounds her and her sister. Midori is so captivating, so passionate, the book pales until she enters, like the Kate Winslet character in the 2004 film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Later, another woman enters the mix and allows Watanabe to move forward, but until the very end, his desires vacillate between a love he cannot have and a love he cannot predict. 

Unfortunately, the translation from Japanese to English creates stilted dialogue. Only Midori's conversations seem unforced. Perhaps Watanabe intended Midori to be the only interesting character in the book, but it's hard to believe he deliberately made all other characters bleak in order to let Midori's light shine that much brighter. If you can tolerate the dreary first 65% of the book, the final 35% is well worth your time. 

Monday, June 4, 2018

Book Review: Stig Abell's How Britain Really Works (2018)

Newspaper journalists are notoriously bad at long-form, worse with entire books. Part of the problem is a journalist's firsthand experience, though unique, doesn't necessarily capture the entire picture. For example, a journalist assigned to education might interview hundreds of insiders without ever meeting a single person knowledgable about pensions' involvement in unpredictable budgeting and lower entry salaries. Our modern world makes it impossible to have a life and publish a book containing ample firsthand experience matched by well-researched, comprehensive footnotes. 

In any case, Abell is excellent when discussing his specialities--healthcare, particularly the NHS, and British politics--but attempts too big a spoonful by also covering the military, economics, education, law, and media. His casual style is best-suited to casual readers interested in Britain generally and perfect for an advanced politics high school course. 

Despite my criticisms, much is enjoyable about the book. As you might expect, Abell is well-read--his recommended reading list at the end is wonderful--and he shares facts few others could. Did you know Zaire is not an African word? Or that the NHS is the "fifth largest employer in the world"? 
Had Abell written a shorter book about just politics, it would have been an easy five stars. Witness this remark on PM May's performance: "no humility, no soul-searching, no human touch, no real change. The audacity of nope." (My own characterization of May is slightly more appreciative, i.e., a person with the remarkable ability to piss you off and put you to sleep at the same time.) Though in favor of more public welfare spending, Abell doesn't avoid unpleasant truths like moral hazard: "If you know you are going to be treated no matter what happens, you may take warnings about salt, or sugar, or booze or cigarettes less seriously; you may not bother to turn up to an appointment on time, or at all... 40% of the NHS's workload is related to 'modifiable health risk factors.'" 

In the end, Abell endears himself to the reader as an insider-outsider, one of the few successful Britons who attended diverse schools and made it without the aid of rich parents. He refused to speak at his former high school's commencement speech on account of his dislike of the experience and shares his pain at using the term "toilet" rather than the more proper "lavatory," a faux pas. A good, not great book, but few of us can claim greatness in literature; in some cases, one's own life will have to suffice. (June 2018) 

Bonus: on Singapore's educational system, ranked as one of the world's best, along with Japan, China, South Korea, Finland, Estonia, Vietnam, and Canada: 

Wednesday, May 2, 2018

Robert Scheer's They Know Everything about You (Book Review)

Edward Snowden started the transparency but Robert Scheer provides it in context. The inefficacy and profligacy of America's national security apparatus are worse than you imagine. Obama's presidency expanded the security state far more than anyone knew until whistleblowers emerged. A few quick points: 

1. American taxpayers have spent 500 billion USD for intelligence since 9/11. Scheer explains how almost all the programs didn't work or had to be scrapped. The main problem wasn't data gathering but connecting the dots to gain useful information. (Update: Such profligate spending is deemed acceptable because much, if not most, of the revenue is funding native-born American citizens, including military veterans, or allied military R&D. The calculus of government spending means if it costs the CIA 100,000 analyst jobs for native-born citizens to equal the same insights as one politically-disconnected immigrant Iranian, politicians are willing to look the other way.)
2. America's expenditures were useless because the government attacked the wrong problem (and the wrong country, but that's another book). When you realize most law enforcement employees are men, it's not surprising communication is the issue. 

Imagine analyzing a relationship between a husband and wife. Whom would you trust more to predict substantive behavior if the couple knew they were being watched? A person with all online data on both persons or a close friend who communicates well with one of them? 

3. Much of the government's post-9/11 approach to combating terrorism is being used for psychological ops, i.e., how to engineer consent, potentially even against America's own citizens. Also, if legal "rebellions" or dissent can be predicted through software and algorithms, why wouldn't such algorithms be used one day to block the spread of "dangerous" or dissenting ideas? Why not use it to predict and catch whistleblowers, preventing another Snowden? (By the way, do you see the connection between Facebook and facial recognition technology; Alexa/Siri and voice recognition technology; and genealogical profiles and criminal investigations?) 

4. One example: let's say you're critical of a defense contractor or the president online. Software exists that will scoop up your comment and save it in a database--forever. The question is whether the software can differentiate between peaceful libertarians and potentially dangerous anti-government persons (McVeigh, Kaczynski, etc.). What is the assurance, with black-box government funding and military contracting/outsourcing, of avoiding actions that will chill speech? What is the assurance an algorithm won't be fooled by deepfakes or digital spoofing?
5. We jail journalists in America. See Barrett Brown
6. The worst part about all the money we've spent is that these trillion-dollar systems can be gamed with millions of dollars. For instance, overwhelming spying software with useless or false info/code is a common intelligence tactic. Note, however, such tactics can be used by ordinary citizens against these same programs. If all of us began discussing bombs--as part of our goal to write interesting screenplays, of course--we could render useless much of the surveillance software in existence. (Foreign governments and hacker outfits have already discovered this flaw, leading us into a new era of diplomacy where no one knows the rules for a proportionate response to ever-escalating online attacks.) There's even a simpler approach: if everyone just shut off their phones for one week, so-called anti-terrorism surveillance programs (but not advertising programs) would be ineffective. 
Snowden tells an anecdote about this issue: one terrorist stool pigeon receives a phone call directing him to a location. On the way there, he's killed by a drone. Another terrorist receives a text with instructions on how to make a bomb. Upon ordering fertilizer, he's killed by a drone. A third terrorist delivers a handwritten note by bicycle with instructions on where to find explosives. He succeeds. 

 7. Every mid-sized American city in 2001 could have looked like Tokyo today if taxpayer dollars had been spent on infrastructure. Instead, we decided to spend our money on propaganda and surveillance software that can be made useless through simple cooperation, an analog approach, or foreign hackers. If that sounds fine, try a different thought experiment: imagine a country with police officers on every street corner who can peer into your home if a judge the police union helped elect gives them permission. Incorporate factors such as anonymous or well-meaning but incorrect crime tips. What are the substantive differences between such a scenario and current reality? 

© Matthew Rafat (2018)