"The Great Sultana," the second of the two Cervantes plays in this volume, was really enjoyable and interesting. "The Bagnios of Algiers" was fine but"The Great Sultana," the second of the two Cervantes plays in this volume, was really enjoyable and interesting. "The Bagnios of Algiers" was fine but mostly of historical/contextual interest rather than something that stands on its own. Both were better than the only other Cervantes play I've read, The Gallant Spaniard.
"The Bagnios of Algiers" takes place among captives in Algiers, partly based on Cervantes' five years in captivity there. The best parts of it are recycled into (or taken from?) "The Captive's Tale" in Don Quixote, most notable the noble Moorish woman Zara/Zoraida who discovers her own path to Christianity and falls in love with a captain. The play has a lot of action and might even make a good movie, from Corsair raids on the Spanish coast to acquire captives and slaves to escapes from Algiers to betrayals, conversions, impalings, and more. It depicts Algiers as a mix of different types--Muslims, Christians, Jews, renegades, etc., but mostly disliking and demeaning each other (well, the Jews are just disliked and demeaned by the others without passing it on). But overall it has too many characters and incidents to form a fully coherent dramatic whole.
"The Great Sultana" is filled with disguises. Christians disguised as muslims. Men disguised as women. People disguised as people from other country's. All in the service of a story that takes place in Constantinople, again amongst captives. But "The Great Sultana" has more humor (including some silly humor, like a man who gets his freedom by promising to spend the next ten years teaching an elephant to speak, and who shows up periodically to report on his progress). Fewer characters and incidents and battles (unlike both Bagnios and the Gallant Spaniard), and thus what feels like more dramatic unity. It still does not have any characters who live and breathe in the way that characters in Don Quixote or Shakespeare do. So again is still a bit of a historical curiosity. But an enjoyable one....more
A scholarly book on the ways in which parts of Cervantes' work are him working through the trauma from his five years in captivity in Algiers.
What I pA scholarly book on the ways in which parts of Cervantes' work are him working through the trauma from his five years in captivity in Algiers.
What I particularly liked about the book was its in depth look at this five years of Cervantes' life along with the broader of context of captivity--including enslaved people and hostages held for ransom--in the Mediterranean struggle and mixture of Muslims (including ethnically different ones and different rules), Christians, and a few Jews as well. It then shows how he reworks this experience in several plays, the Captives Tale (an interpolated tale in Don Quixote that makes for excellent standalone reading), and a few other parts of works.
What I found interesting and novel was the comparison of this part of Cervantes literature to Holocaust literature, particularly by Primo Levi. That Cervantes went through horrors and was workin through his traumas through his writing.
What I disliked, or at least was not for me, was that it had a decent amount of Freud, Lacan, Derrida and the like. It wasn't overly heavy but it didn't add anything to me--and I'm not sure it would add much for a specialist (but I'm not competent to judge).
Finally what I wished the book addressed was whether any of this is relevant for the 90%+ of Cervantes work that does not address captivity. For Don Quixote, in particular, the book discusses the captives tale as well as the incident with the lion and Don Quixote being taken home in a cage. But it does not really relate to anything thematic, plot, character, or anything else beyond that. Does that mean the only the explicit captive bits of his work were really affected by his captivity? Or did it shape more of it? I wanted to know and this book never said....more
This was a mediocre crime novel whose best aspect was the setting, a battle between Irish and Italian gangs in 1980s Rhode Island, moving between a chThis was a mediocre crime novel whose best aspect was the setting, a battle between Irish and Italian gangs in 1980s Rhode Island, moving between a cheap town on the shore to Providence. While the plot kept me going it was all clichés about mobsters, loyalty, reprisals, earners, etc., strung together in a plot that could have come out of Chat GPT.
The one novel element actually made it worse--it is a reworking of the Iliad (give or take). It began with a beautiful woman who is eventually stolen from her Italian mobster boyfriend by an Irish mobster (in the role of Paris) who was the son of the head of the Irish mob (in the role of Priam). I only realized this about a third of the way through but instead of adding to the novel it detracted. In part you knew what was going to happen (e.g., the Paris character's brother is the Hector character, he dies, gets dragged behind a car, and then his father has to go to his killer to retrieve the body). But even worse there was no depth or profundity to the echoes, like when the Priam character goes to the Achilles character to retrieve his son's body it feels perfunctory and unemotional.
Don't get me wrong, I mostly enjoyed reading this. But it was my first Don Winslow and I was hoping it would be better....more
Possibly the most moving graphic novels I've ever read, this is a graphic memoir told by a woman who arrived in the Unites States as a refugee from ViPossibly the most moving graphic novels I've ever read, this is a graphic memoir told by a woman who arrived in the Unites States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1978. It is bookended by the birth of her first child but most of it is flashbacks to the experiences of her family in Vietnam and the ways in which their lives intersected with World War II, the French, the Viet Minh, and the Vietnam war. Throughout the focus is on their humanity, their struggles, their personalities, and especially about relationships of parents to children. It is illustrated beautifully, told beautifully, among the best graphic novels I've read....more
I would read anything by the extraordinary Tillie Walden. The Clementine books are not as good as her other work and this wasn’t as good as the first I would read anything by the extraordinary Tillie Walden. The Clementine books are not as good as her other work and this wasn’t as good as the first volume. But still a lot of good characters, relationships, and zombies....more
An excellent and compelling reinterpretation that brings together several disciplines to argue that a key to human evolution was the taming of fire anAn excellent and compelling reinterpretation that brings together several disciplines to argue that a key to human evolution was the taming of fire and its use for cooking--which allowed us to get nutrition more efficiently, develop larger brains, lose the ability to climb trees, and develop a division of labor between men and women--with marriage based more on this economic division of labor than sexual relations and paternity. Note that this is cooking--not just "man as hunter" because cooking can make many foods more digestible (e.g., grains) and conversely meat with cooking is not nearly as efficiently nutritious.
At points the book is a bit too repetitive or takes longer than needed to make certain points (although it is still a relatively svelte 200 pages). And it is necessarily speculative, especially about the very early history of development of cooking, just how pivotal it was in human evolution, and also the ways in which it shaped gender. It would be nice if a wider array of evidence all lined up to support the speculation.
What follows is a brief summary of the key points of the chapters:
Quest for Raw Foodists: A completely convincing account of how it is basically impossible for humans to survive on raw food. Even sophisticated, modern high quality food with blenders and even low temperature cooking leads to tremendous weight loss and often loss of the ability to reproduce. And no known human society has ever just eaten raw food.
The Cook's Body: We have much smaller mouths and teeth than other primates and our digestive system (particularly the colon) is much smaller than you would predict from our size. We're also much more susceptible to food bacteria.
The Energy Theory of Cooking: Goes through the biological ways in which cooking "pre-digests" food, breaking it down into more digestible morsels. And how we have evolved to like the taste of that cooking.
When Cooking Began: This felt more speculative to me given the lack (or weakness) of archeological evidence and some of the limitations of what you can learn from the fossil record of humans. But Wrangham argues that fire was domesticated around the same time the Homo Erectus emerged and was a key to that emergence.
Brain Foods: A super interesting chapter whose main point is that there is an inverse correlation among primates between how much energy they use in digesting food and how much energy their brains use. This leads to the convincing speculation that we reduced the energy used in the digestive process (see the smaller colon, among other evolutionary developments) and our brains grew in proportion. And the brain growth was, of course, key to humans as social learners.
How Cookings Frees Men: Cooking frees up men to hunt or possibly even engage in leisure by being more calorie-intensive and also by enabling cooking/eating after dark because of the light provided by fires so can get more done during the day.
The Married Cook: Wrangham argues that in every known society women do the cooking, even as other aspects of gender roles have varied widely. He also points out that in all of them women specialize in collecting different foods than men do. And that husbands and wives share food. All of this is unique to humans--other animals do not specialize in types of food collection by gender and don't share food between adults, in fact generally eating it where they find it rather than brining it "home".
The Cook's Journey: Speculative on how fire developed and spread.
Epilogue: The Well-informed Cook: A fascinating account of how the modern version of calories were developed in the early 19th century by assigning an amount of energy per gram to the three major macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) and how this technique has been refined but in ways that change the numbers trivially since then. But that the amount of energy in food is very different than the amount of net energy your body gets from food because of the energy used in digesting it and because not all gets through. Wrangham advocates, or wishes, for a measure that would capture this but acknowledges the difficulties, including that it depends on how the food itself is prepared. But it left me wishing there was a simple summary statistic, like calories but more meaningful, we could label everything with....more
Kafka lends himself to graphic representation. This is the third one I've read (after Kafka and Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories) and is the best of the tKafka lends himself to graphic representation. This is the third one I've read (after Kafka and Kafkaesque: Fourteen Stories) and is the best of the three. It has The Metamorphosis, The Hunger Artist, In the Penal Colony, and six other stories--some published during Kafka's lifetime and some unpublished. All are done in black-and-white with lots of artistry on each page and a well chosen (very small subset) of Kafka's language. Not the insect himself is not depicted in The Metamorphosis, he's just a lump under the covers etc. Some of the more obscure stories were also weird to the point of one wasn't entirely sure why one was reading them, but these two were enjoyable nonetheless. And it added a lot to the more familiar stories....more
I found this book very difficult at first. Partly it was the vernacular it was written in. Partly it was just jumping right into an intimate interior I found this book very difficult at first. Partly it was the vernacular it was written in. Partly it was just jumping right into an intimate interior monologue of a character with a complicated life and not a lot of exposition because it was letters from the main character, Celie, addressed to God. But I became more fluent in understanding it as I went along. And then the letters from Nettie, Celie's younger but more scholarly sister, were like a breath of fresh air--more understandable and fluent to read. By the time, too, the characters of the two sisters and the few people that revolved around them started filling in, maturing, changing, and I appreciated the epic scope of what is still a relatively slender book and the way it depicted relationships and individuals growing and changing over time. Normally I don't see movies based on novels I've read (or plan to read) but I might make an exception for this because I think it will help clear up some points--and then one day would love to read it again as I expect I would get more and different things out of it....more
The Andrew RobertsNapoleon: A Life has been staring at me reproachfully from my shelf. I had the same experience American Prometheus: The Triumph andThe Andrew RobertsNapoleon: A Life has been staring at me reproachfully from my shelf. I had the same experience American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer but had enough foresight to start it months before the movie. But it's now too late to read Roberts' tome before the Napoleon movie. Right next to it, mostly forgotten, was the Penguin Lives short biography of Napoleon by Paul Johnson with a black marked line on the bottom that indicates I must have bought it on remainder years ago. So I took that one down from the shelf and read it.
The good thing about the book is that it is relatively short and covers much of Napoleon's life and career from his birth in Corsica to his last years on Saint Helena with much in between helping to fill in a lot of gaps for me. The prose is also very vivid.
The bad thing is the organization jumps around a bit thematically which at times makes it unnecessarily hard to follow. But the worst thing is that Paul Johnson thoroughly detests Napoleon and he doesn't just show that detest he tells it over and over and over again to the point where it becomes tiresome and makes one question much of the rest....more
I listened to this with my children on two long drives to and from Thanksgiving. It was classic Scalzi, a bit worse than average, with a combination oI listened to this with my children on two long drives to and from Thanksgiving. It was classic Scalzi, a bit worse than average, with a combination of plot, humor, ultimately heroic characters, silliness, pastiche (including of some of his previous books), all unpredictable enough to keep it interesting and enjoyable for all of us....more
It's 2023 and Cervantes has a new book out! Actually a play (that was never performed in his lifetime) that was translated into English for the first It's 2023 and Cervantes has a new book out! Actually a play (that was never performed in his lifetime) that was translated into English for the first time. And I just ran into it in the bookstore. And now I'm the first to review it on Goodreads.
The tale is a mixture of love and war set in the sixteenth century siege of the Spanish-controlled Oran by the Ottomans (something that was a part of the broader naval struggle that culminated in the Battle of Lepanto which Cervantes was wounded in). The translation is excellent, with rhyming verse that is reminiscent of the amazing Richard Wilbur translations of Molière. Unfortunately the drama itself makes little sense.
It starts with a Muslim woman who wants a Christian knight brought to her for reasons that are never explained. Then the knight's behavior itself makes little sense, with him deserting the garrison, getting captured, fighting for the Muslims, but then returning to the Christian side all for reasons that are not really explained. And then there are coincidences so absurd they would make Shakespeare blush. All of which turns from a comedy of disguises and mistaken identities back into a history play that culminates with an epic battle.
I'm glad I read it but it has virtually nothing in common with Don Quixote. And a prose version might have been do-able as one of the (amazing) Exemplary Novels. But it does not really work in this format....more
This excellent graphic novel was originally published in three parts in Egypt (and you read it from right to left, like a manga). It is about an EgyptThis excellent graphic novel was originally published in three parts in Egypt (and you read it from right to left, like a manga). It is about an Egypt that is relatively similar to modern Egypt except that wishes are real and are a commercialized industry, with wishes being extracted, refined and put in bottles or cans--that pop out when they are opened. These wishes are organized in three classes (plus two more that don't really appear in the book)--first, second and third. Third class wishes are cheap, widely available, but have a tendency to backfire in a Monkey's Paw like manner. First class wishes are more powerful but have their limits too.
The graphic novels build a world around these wishes, both the people for and against them, the various rules about them, bits about the roles they played in history, but mostly a focus on three characters that get wishes and either use them, debate using them, or get sent to jail for having them. In the course of this it portrays a kaleidoscopic Cairo from the enclaves of the wealthy to the slums of poor, with political oppression, corruption, and difficulty just getting along all playing a role throughout.
The middle part, about a depressed college student trying to decide what to wish for to take them out of their depression, was the most moving to me but all of it was good--and it all fit together well....more
This biography of Alex Dumas (as Tom Reiss calls him), the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas (author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three MThis biography of Alex Dumas (as Tom Reiss calls him), the father of the novelist Alexandre Dumas (author of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers, among many other novels) reads like an Alexandre Dumas novel. Except it is meticulously researched and presumably true--or at least as true as any biography can be. It also addresses an interesting set of issues of the history of thinking about race in France around the the turn of the 19th century--given that Alex Dumas was half Black, born in what is now Haiti, but rose to be a general in French army at a time when slavery was being banned.
This is the first biography of Alex Dumas who was largely forgotten, in part because his military career was interrupted by an extended stint as a prisoner of war (which helped create some of the background for The Count of Monte Cristo). And also because he, sort of, crossed Napoleon. But mostly because the transition to Napoleon brought back slavery and a changed attitude towards what is now Haiti--and was Alex Dumas' birthplace. Reiss does extensive archival research, including organizing what is basically a break-in of a massive safe with Dumas' papers.
He starts from Alex Dumas' father, an aristocrat in France, chronicles his journey to what is now Haiti, his break with his brother, move to another town, birth of Alex, and then the story basically follows Alex from there as he gives up all connection to his aristocratic upbringing, starts as a private in the army and works his way up to general--and then prisoner.
Along the way Reiss does a great job of providing context and providing some of the deeper connections between the adventurous life and what is happening more broadly. So it is a mini history of the period as well, but all worn lightly and easily digestible amidst the novelesque story that is at the center of this biography....more
I had a hard time getting into this book (I tried about a decade ago and stopped, read all of it this time). I would love to love a book of psychologiI had a hard time getting into this book (I tried about a decade ago and stopped, read all of it this time). I would love to love a book of psychological horror set in a New England town but I just didn't. Maybe it wasn't clear and engaging enough because of the relatively immature narrator and indirect way of telling the story? Maybe the way the plot unfolded and you learned more about why the sisters were holed up in a mansion several years after an arsenic poisoning? Whatever it is I just did not like reading this....more
An astonishing novel that was amazing in just about every respect. The story is set in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1930s with a mixed populatiAn astonishing novel that was amazing in just about every respect. The story is set in a small town in Pennsylvania in the 1930s with a mixed population that is Jewish, Black, and Christian Whites who came to the country at various points in the past. As for the every respect, here are some of them:
Language: A crackling energy, humor, biblical at points, that is reminiscent both of old Yiddish novels and Jazz-infused Black literature as well but completely unique.
Characters: A dizzying array of some of the most extraordinary characters, huge lifelike characters, almost as big as characters like Falstaff and Don Quixote. And there are about a dozen of them: Jewish (differentiated based on where they're from), Black (ditto), christian White, good, bad, but mostly mixed and flawed.
Plot: The first chapter begins with a skeleton found in a well with a mezuzah in the 1970s and the police questioning and old Jew. The rest of the novel then goes back to the 1930s culminating in an explanation of how the skeleton and mezuzah got there. But this is not a whodunnit where the only point is solving the puzzle, in fact for much of the book this opening premise recedes only to be teased now and then (e.g., when the mezuzah appears in the middle, and when the well appears towards the end). Throughout it is incredibly crafted, shifting through subplot after subplot all in service of intricately organized whole.
Emotional range: Humor, pathos, tragedy, and everything in between--an extraordinary range.
Humanity: A paen to kindness, decency, as well as to diversity and inclusivity. But does that by showing not telling, not in a corny and overly instrumental way, but something much more powerful--in the way only the best stories can accomplish....more
This is a short and somewhat trashy hard-boiled novella about a younger woman who is working as an accountant who gets recruited by a smart and ruthleThis is a short and somewhat trashy hard-boiled novella about a younger woman who is working as an accountant who gets recruited by a smart and ruthless older woman to work with her on a variety of low- and mid-level crimes in the seedy world of Las Vegan in the 1930s or 1940s (?). It has lots of old school noir language, mistrust, violence and sex. The plot is decently riveting but is really more about the atmosphere than anything else....more
I read this (short) novel on a (short) trip to Morocco. I presented a nice panorama of the society, the struggles people have, and some good characterI read this (short) novel on a (short) trip to Morocco. I presented a nice panorama of the society, the struggles people have, and some good characters. But it had many of the weaknesses of an author's debut work as well: not much psychological development or change, storylines that did not effectively converge or support each other, and a certain simplicity of the description of struggles and negativity.
It begins with a harrowing boat journey to escape Morocco from Spain, several characters are introduced quickly who have come together for this journey. Then it goes back and tells each of their stories individually before they left and then what happened after the boat journey. The characters are dealing with things like abusive husbands, wrestling with traditional Islam and Westernization, finding jobs, and more.
I look forward to reading more by Laila Lalami....more
If you have not paid much attention to the the Samuel Bankman-Fried saga this book is a terribly misleading place to start. If you have paid a lot of If you have not paid much attention to the the Samuel Bankman-Fried saga this book is a terribly misleading place to start. If you have paid a lot of attention then this is a fascinating, page turning character portrait of Sam Bankman-Fried and the ups and inevitable down of his crazy gambling streak. While Michael Lewis persuaded me of nothing except possibly to reduce the (already lowish) trust I had in Michael Lewis, I am glad I read it.
On the good side, it filled in a lot of missing pieces on SBF's childhood, how he transitioned into finance, the role of Effective Altruism, the founding of Alameda Research, then FTX, and how it all developed.
Lewis almost completely trusts SBF's accounts of his own actions and his motives, although still presents an awful lot of damning careless recklessness. No where does Lewis engage with the large-scale lying and deception that SBF, at a bare minimum, practiced as FTX was imploding. Nor does he ask SBF to reflect on spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to get young American men, and some women (don't forget Giselle) to be enticed into a pointless casino where the odds were always going to be stacked against them. Even if he did not steal his customer's money there would be an interesting story about how to reconcile what is basically a large-scale scam to benefit other causes that SBF considered more worthy.
Oddly, Lewis portrays SBF in childhood as a premature adult and in adulthood as a child who should not be expected to master the arcana of the adult world.
I was less bothered by the SBF hagiography than I was about the character assassination of the villains of the story: the bread crumbs planted throughout about Caroline Ellison, presenting her as somewhere between clueless and a possibly malevolent jilted ex lover who got to make all the decisions on her own, the CEO in bankruptcy John Ray and others.
And Lewis' attempt at forensic accounting are even more laughable than the random numbers that SBF spewed out on Twitter in the days after the collapse of FTX. As is his assertion that there was a sound business underlying all of this when it was clear that SBF was going to keep going double or nothing until he ended up with nothing.
I had intended to write a review about what I got out of this book and learned from it and why I enjoyed reading it, sorry, did not manage that (and I just write these reviews quickly and mostly for myself, so never particularly polished)....more
This is the third time I've read The Iliad in the last six years--the first was when the cover of the Stanley Lombardo translation struck me in a bookThis is the third time I've read The Iliad in the last six years--the first was when the cover of the Stanley Lombardo translation struck me in a bookstore. The second was when my son had to read it for school and we read it to each other. And this time because I can't resist a major new translation, especially from Emily Wilson's whose The Odyssey I really enjoyed.
And let me just say this translation did not disappoint. It is very clear and direct, the language is reasonably simple, all of it is easy to follow--nothing overly flowery. But it is powerful and I also enjoyed the bits I listened to on Audible (although I mostly read it).
I don't have strong opinions on how translations compare and generally like to read multiple ones. But would definitely recommend this one. (The introduction and other supporting materials are very good too.)...more
I was really looking forward to this book from the date I saw it announced about nine months ago. Golden Age Spain, court intrigue, conversos, a bit oI was really looking forward to this book from the date I saw it announced about nine months ago. Golden Age Spain, court intrigue, conversos, a bit of light magic, a fantastic cover, what is not to love? I bout it the day it was released. And it was... fine.
It is the story of a scullion maid whose mistress discovers she can do magic (things like making burnt bread unburnt or repairing a broken glass). She starts showing her off to others to advance her social position which results in her getting a patron who is connected to the court and enters her in a series of magic tournaments that are supposed to produce a holy champion for the King. The scullion maid seems mean and uneducated but actually has sharp wits and meets her match and also her eventual love in the patron's fixer, a man named Santángel--The Familiar from the title.
At times there are too many characters with too many names each. The procession through rounds of the tournament feels a lot like the standard formula. But a lot of it was distinctive and it all came together really well in the end....more
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