bookwormhermy

Crocodile Tears by Anthony Horowitz (and thoughts on the Alex Rider series in general).

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 01:59:34 GMT

Warning: this review contains spoilers for the entire series, including the last book.

Crocodile Tears it the latest, and presumably last, title in the Alex Rider series (Horowitz has said that he would stop writing the series when Alex turns 15, which is only a few days away at the end of this book). Luckily, he has mentioned two more books to come that are related to Alex, one of them about Yassen Gregorovich. Crocodile Tears is also the book in which we can see Alex growing and changing the most, both physically and emotionally – presumably this was a choice by Horowitz to lead up to the end of this novel, which finishes with the realization that there will be no more Alex Rider books as we’ve known them.
Like the other books in the series, and unlike many certain spy fiction I could think of, this one explores in detail the world of espionage and the effect it has on human beings. It is particularly interesting to compare the Alex Rider series to the James Bond novels. Horowitz even makes a reference to James bond in chapter 2 (“What did it all make him look like? He wondered as he straightened the bow tie for the tenth time. A young James Bond. He hated the comparison, but he couldn’t avoid it”(17)). Horowitz has also mentioned that it is James Bond that inspired him to write Alex Rider – he simply thought of a teenage James Bond. Yet the series is much deeper than James Bond, because it explores how the life of a spy can cause suffering, something that the James Bond series doesn’t. The James Bond novels seem to follow a pattern in which James Bond meets a girl who is somehow related to his mission, does a lot of shooting, has some escapes and discovers, then (sometimes cleverly) defeats the evil mastermind and gets the girl. Yet, at the same time, he’s always sipping martinis and sleeping with girls. The films show a glamorous life of a spy – yet the reality is much more gritty, and the Alex Rider novels portray that well. Alex is distanced from his friends, forced to carry much more responsibility than someone at his age desires, and then forced to hide all the suffering his missions to save the world cause him. This sort of life of responsibility and pain would have an effect on anyone – but we don’t see that with James Bond. Nor do we see his motivation to become a spy – he just is one so that there can be a glamorous character. With the Alex Rider novels, however, Horowitz explores Alex’s motivation – although Alex is forced into the life of a spy, ultimately, as he says in Crocodile Tears, Alex is a spy because he was raised to be someone who wanted to be used. He has a knowledge of what is right, and he has this urge to do right – he cannot bear to see wrong be done. This is very powerful, and makes Alex another likeable character (in fact, slightly reminiscent of Harry Potter, who too did what he felt was right without the desire for reward). Ultimately, Alex can be more admired than James Bond because one can see his humanity both in his suffering and in his desire to do good.
These thoughts about the suffering that a life of espionage brings and the motivation of spies brings up interesting thoughts about why Ian Rider, as well as Alex’s father, wanted to be spies. What are the motivations of spies? This is an interesting subject to explore upon which many books have been written, and in the case of the Riders, it would be interesting if Horowitz elaborated upon why Ian Rider believed in what he did so much that he trained Alex to follow in his footsteps. After all, he too surely must have suffered from his life of secrecy, for, from the little we know of him, it was clear that he always hid his true life from Alex, and Alex certainly suffered from it, so, no doubt, Ian Rider did as well.
I want to make a final point about all of these books – that they suggests how much human beings rely on trusting each other, and how easily that trust can be broken. In every single Alex Rider novel, a public figure, who seems to be trusted by all, really has his own agenda, and he betrays the people who trust him to carry out his scheme for power or revenge– and that scheme would have succeeded, and those trusting people would have been killed, had it not been for Alex. It suggests how necessary intelligence agencies are – yet at the same time, there is no denying the crimes they have committed, which numerous works of literature document (for example, the work No Cloak No Dagger, which documents the life of a real spy during the Second World War).
So those are my thoughts. I greatly enjoyed this series of books – I am curious, however, to know what MI6 thought of them - and what intelligence agencies think of spy fiction in general.

Red Seas Under Red Skies by Scott Lynch

Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:18:59 GMT

           This novel is the sequel to The Lies of Locke Lamora, which I reviewed previously. However, unlike the book it follows, this work focuses much more on character development and ideas about human emotion than on plot, making this work both more emotionally moving and relevant to our lives. (Please be advised that the review contains spoilers).
                In this novel, Lynch especially develops the friendship between Locke and Jean. There are powerful scenes in which Locke and Jean offer to give their life to save each other, and their ideal, phrased by Locke, is “I want it to be us against the world, lively and dangerous, just like it used to be,”(84) which makes his two thieves appear as human beings capable of sublime feelings. Other characters, too, understand the power of this friendship; Stragos, for example, punishes Jean when Locke has been disrespectful (101), because he understands that Locke and Jean cannot stand to see each other suffer. More importantly, Lynch shows that their friendship has its weak points and flaws, such as when Locke actually believes that Jean has betrayed him (pg. 470). Yet despite such suspicions, their friendship remains strong, with Locke choosing to give up his life to save Jean. The book ends with this cliff-hanger, and this uncertainty with what will happen to Locke after his supreme act of loyalty influences the reader powerfully and reinforces the power of Locke and Jean’s friendship and thus their humanity.
                By making his two thieves humane, Lynch plays at the idea of “honour among thieves” and reinforces, as he did in the previous book, the idea that even thieves have morals and weaknesses of a sort. Thus, it so happens that the idea of “honour among thieves” exists not as an enforced code of honour, but as a set of moral values that the characters live by because they feel that these values are right and because they are feeling human beings. For example, Locke tells Stragos, “We’re not bloody murderers. We kill for good reason, when we kill at all” (260). This is also reminiscent of the scene in the beginning of the novel, when Locke and Jean are ambushed by the Bondsmagi of Karthain through innocent people. Locke tells the Bondsmagi “Just fucking talk to us. We don’t want to hurt these people” (32). It becomes clear that not only does Locke have a sense of morality through which he does not want to hurt innocents, but he also wants the honour that is due to him. Just as Locke considers himself fair by only stealing from the rich, so he expects fairness from the Bondsmagi in dealing with him directly. This is also evident when he tells a bandit who has taken them at a disadvantage “Time was when a bandit would have the balls to fight us face-to-face and earn his pay!”(194)Even Stragos, who is one of the antagonists, has a sense of honour when he explains to Locke, “I would send them into battle at any time and lose them willingly. But none who wear my colours honestly are to die as part of this; that much my honour compels me to grant them” (260).
               This idea of honourable thieves is what makes the story and the characters more romantic, for Lynch does not in any way romanticize his characters physically. As I have previously mentioned, the characters in this book are people of all ages and genders, and they appear on the surface real and realistic. It is up to the past and the personality of these characters to make them romantic and attractive. Locke, for example, is the opposite of the character of a typical swashbuckler – he is short, skinny, terrible at using a sword, and not particularly attractive from what the author has described. Jean, as the author has mentioned, is plump, bookish (although I personally find that attractive), and wears glasses. Yet despite this unromantic physical appearance, the personalities of these characters, their sense of honour and morals, and their incredibly strong sense of friendship and loyalty, make them romantic to us. This makes considering a Hollywood adaptation of this work interesting, since Hollywood has a tendency to romanticize and glamorise the main characters of adventure films.
                There are also ways in which this book parallels Harry Potter. The main similarity is that Harry Potter is an infamous rule-breaker, yet he is a hero, for he breaks rules and laws out of a necessity and to do what he thinks is right. In the same way, Locke is this sort of hero with a sense of righteousness, for he dupes the rich and his code of honour is “Thieves prosper, the rich remember” (161). Another parallel is the necessity of friendship. This is a theme that runs deeply throughout the Harry Potter books. As Dumbledore points out, Voldemort’s greatest flaw is that he could not trust and did not have friends. Harry, on the other hand, defeated Voldemort because he relied on his friends, who aided him. Both novels reinforce the idea that friends can let one down, but it is also friends that provide support and help a hero overcome difficulties. Locke tells Jean” If I send you away, I lose the last friend I have in the world. Who wins then? Who’s protected then?”(35). Locke, just like Harry, needs his friends to survive. And, finally, in Locke’s fantastical world as in Harry’s, magic has its limitations. In Harry Potter, despite the presence of magic, it is love – a human emotion present in our world – that defeats Voldemort. Magic simply allowed J.K.Rowling to make the series more metaphorical. In Locke’s world, too, there are limitations to magic which force the characters to rely on people. An alchemist tells Locke and Jean, “bezoars are sadly a myth…in order to extract magic stones from the stomachs of dragons we’d have to have living dragons somewhere, wouldn’t we?”Just as, in Harry’s world, there are not spells that fix the effects of a Memory Charm or bring the dead back to life, in Locke’s world there are no magical stones that heal all illnesses, and thus in both works the characters are forced to rely on people.
           This book also contains very interesting reversals of our world. For example, it is necessary, for good luck in sailing, to have both women and cats on board, whereas in the past, it has been considered bad luck to have women on board, and cats bring bad luck in many superstitious beliefs. Camorr, which appeared in the previous book, is reminiscent of Venice, and the social structure is reminiscent of the middle ages, in the presence of a nobility, a clergy (all the priests and priestesses of the various temples, who clearly have some status in society), and the common people. There are some subtler parallels, too, such as the poet Lucarno, who seems to be that world’s Shakespeare – a prodigious writer whose works are now classics and who is read and quoted constantly. Rodanov describes his works thus: “Mawkish sentiment, obvious self-satisfaction, and so many little puns about fucking so all the Therin Throne’s best dressed twits could feel naughty in public.”(415) While Shakespeare wrote plays to be performed for the common people, after his lifetime his works became classics and it was primarily the upper classes that read his works (or any other literary works), as, for example, in works by Oscar Wilde, in which Shakespeare is a continual literary presence. This description could also apply to Chaucer, who certainly did write for the aristocrats, and whose works also contained sexual references to amuse said aristocrats who had nothing better to do than pay copious amounts of money for these books to be copied out. It also seems that Locke’s world is like ours in some ways which perhaps make it easier for the writer to write – the presence of the same plants, types of food, and an earth rotating around the sun in the same way (although the earth in this book seems to have two moons, which Lynch tells us when he says “the western horizon had swallowed the sun,” page 218).
                Once again, too, there were some things that simply did not make sense. Such as the idea of allergies in a world when “physikers” and “magic” and “healers” solve all health problems, this seems to be too modern and medical a term. And, once again, Lynch uses expressions that are present in our world through cultural context and could not exist in Locke’s world, such as the idea of a “meal ticket,” a phrase that originated among railway workers in the nineteenth century, or the idea of “beauty sleep,”(391) or the idea of a “saint,”(455) which, like the idea of “hell,” cannot exist in a world in which religions are made up by the author and have to parallels to religion in our world. (These mistakes show how reliant human beings are on language without thinking about how that language originated through cultural and historical events, and how those phrasings that we now take for granted when expressing our thoughts once did not exist). Additionally, I would like to point out the sheer improbability of Locke, who has thus far being portrayed as a brilliant thinker and plotter, walking into Requin’s office with no plan or story whatsoever, when he has had time to think of one(pg. 222). Also, how does one go about teaching oneself card tricks, as Locke attempts to do, when one has never been able to perform these tricks, and when one has no manual of any sort (at least, one has not been mentioned)? And finally, it is never quite explained why Caldris died so inconveniently, although perhaps one can deduce that it was part of the plot by Merrain to discredit Locke and Jean.
                Finally, in a conversation Locke and Jean have, they address the idea of fiction. This idea of discussing books within books is very interesting and begs to be analyzed. After Jean criticizes the reading of histories and biographies, since it is “not unlike carefully scrutinizing the map when one has already reached the destination” (an interesting idea, since history is taught in schools due to the idea that studying history will help humanity avoid mistakes committed in the past, pg. 74), Locke remarks “Romances aren’t real, and surely never were. Doesn’t that take away some of the savour?”(74) Jean replies, “What an interesting choice of words. Not real, and never were. Could there be any more appropriate literature for men of our profession? Why are you always so averse to fiction when we’ve made it our meal ticket?”(74) Assuming that these romances of Jean’s can be considered a work of art in any way (and if we assume that the parallel between Lucarno and Shakespeare is true, they can), this would actually make Locke an artist and give his profession artistic merit. His lies are his stories, and with them he becomes an author, and makes the lowly profession of “false-facing” an artistic one (perhaps this is why he is called a con-artist?). Jean then suggests to Locke that the two of them are headed towards being celebrated as legends in history books. Locke finds the idea less romantic, saying “Exaggerated, you mean. Lied about. Trumped up, or stamped down. The truth of anything we do will die with us and nobody will ever have a bloody clue.”(75) This phrase becomes a sort of paradox for the reader, who is reading a book about Locke saying that what he has done and said will be lied about and exaggerated in books about what he has done and said. But, more importantly, it suggests that in history, there is never such a thing as truth. Is there really a difference between romances and history books, if the truth dies with the person who has committed the deed? Is it worth committing deeds to be remembered for if they will be exaggerated and lied about? Jean seems to think so when he says “better that than obscurity!”(75)
                This review is much longer than the previous one, for the simple reason that this book develops themes, characters, and ideas relevant to our world much more, and makes characters more appealing through their loyalty, friendship, and bravery, all of which necessitates more analysis. Thus, despite the continual liberal scattering of curse words throughout the pages, this was a good read. I look forward to the next novel in this projected series of seven.

Page numbers are from the hardcover edition.

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 20:35:54 GMT

This is the first book in a planned series of seven (only two have been released so far). It is an interesting story in an elaborately crafted world, captivating and funny, but, as any book, it has both its pros and cons. Here are my thoughts.
First, about the world in which this book takes place. This is a world clearly modelled upon the middle ages in Europe – the social structure is certainly suggestive of that time period, due to the great discrepancy between the rich and the poor. The nobility lives in its own world, completely separate from the lower classes. But the author went farther, he took this middle-age society and gave it a fantasy setting, and the result is a painstakingly created world, yet at times, it simply doesn’t make sense, perhaps because it’s just too detailed. The author went to the effort of creating a whole new religion, as well as different names for the times of day, different names of days, different money, different customs….yet within all these creations, references suddenly pop up to our world, that is, the reader’s world.
The biggest example of this is the references the characters make to the religions of the reader’s world, despite the author’s detailed explanations of the various gods, temples, and beliefs in Camorr. The characters often swear by the “thirteen gods,” each of the gentlemen bastards was once apprenticed at a temple to a god or goddess, and Locke himself, as he states on a few occasions is a priest of Perelandro. All of these deities are creations of the author, and are in no way modelled upon various mythologies in our world, as often happens in fantasy stories. Yet after having gone to all this trouble, the author seems to have gotten writer’s block when it came to expressions of frustration, and therefore, at a critical moment, Locke expresses himself with the following phrase “why the hell should I bother telling you anything?”(635) In all the explanations of the various gods and faiths in Camorr, hell, the devil, or any kind of afterlife have not been mentioned. So how is it that a facet of the Christian religion suddenly exists in a world where this faith is unheard-of?
My next point is about Locke’s methods, that is, what would be called con-artistry in our world, and which seems not to exist in Locke’s. Camorr has a vast underworld of thieves and lawbreakers, so vast, in fact, that within the larger social structure of Camorr, the thieves and criminals have their own society, rules over by the Capa of Camorr. Clearly, lawbreaking has become a way of life for a large portion of the population, and this population has created their own community. It does not seem viable, then, that with so much crime going on, no one has reached the idea that con-artistry, plots and clever thievery can be used to relieve those who possess money of it. One of the characters, Ibelius, tells Locke “I’ve never conceived of such a thing as this false-facing of yours.”(613). This proves that the idea of con-artistry is so unheard-of that it does not even have a name and is simply called ‘false-facing’.
My final issue with the book is the constant use of swearwords. It is not that I have problems with the f-word in general, the issue is that, in the English language, this word has come to have particular therefore it is generally used to evoke a certain response and, in literature, it is often used to add emphasis or show a character’s strong emotions, or sometimes to develop a character’s personality/origin. Yet in this book, this word is used by everyone of every social class, in every situation, all the time. Therefore, it adds no emphasis to anything, it cannot be used to differentiate between a character’s different moods and reactions, it has no purpose whatsoever except to displease the reader with unnecessarily vile language. It is simply scattered liberally throughout the pages because the other seemed to have wanted to demonstrate how comfortable he was with the use of swearwords. And another point to consider: in a place where the native language is clearly not English, and where the existent languages are made up, it is curious that a word that is so part of our English language and resonates so with the reader is used so much by the characters, sometimes as an actual swearword as it is used in our world.
However, having set aside these discrepancies, there is much in this book that Lynch must be applauded for, and above all, the character of Locke Lamora. Locke’s character is well crafted, he has his flaws and his strengths, and, above all, he has that which demands respect: love for his friends and loyalty to them. In this way, he embodies what I feel is one of the messages of the book: that everyone, even thieves and criminals, have hearts and feelings, that they can be hurt and have things to fight and die for, and that they can and perhaps should be respected for these feelings, no matter their other misdeeds. Most admirably, he states at the end: “But you could have settled for simple theft. I would have given it all to keep Calo and Galdo and Bug alive.” When asked “What thief does not fight to hold what he has?” he replies “One that has something better. The stealing was more the point for us than the keeping.”Locke can be admired in his own way: like Robin Hood, he only steals from the rich, and it is not greed that pushes him to these actions. For him, thievery is a game, a way of exercising his intelligence, a battle of wits in which he can triumph and celebrate victory with those close to him. Furthermore, he even decides to rather recklessly save a great number of people who never meant anything to him, and not only out of a desire for revenge, since he says “I’m a thief, and maybe even a murderer, but this is too much.” With his actions, he breaks all stereotypes, suggesting that thieves and murderers too can have a conscience and a bit of altruism.
Unfortunately, the climax of the book seemed rather weak, or, rather, a mix of the unbelievable and the unexplainable. Partially because it was so anticlimactic (all Locke did to save all of Camorr’s nobility was convince them to move a few statues), partially because Locke’s confrontation with the Gray King was so unbelievable. It’s been emphasized again and again that Locke is small, weak, and rather helpless with a blade, butt makes up for it all with his intelligence. Like Artemis Fowl, he uses wits rather than strength to win. So it was rather unexpected when, instead of coming up with a plan, Locke goes to a fight he knows he’s going to lose, with no backup plan whatsoever, and nearly gets killed attempting to win a fight he is bound to lose, and which he survives through a combination of luck and a flash of brilliance as he is almost defeated.
All in all, the book was entertaining and had a good plot (yes, this is a fairly superficial way to judge a novel). But, as I stated above, I think it gets across a message in an entertaining fashion, and I’ll be excited to see what Mr. Lynch comes up with in his next few novels.

Dumas, Greek Mythology and pop music

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 01:17:01 GMT

A strange start to such a journal, perhaps, but this is a topic I've been thinking about, and I've finally organized my thoughts to the point that I can actually write something.

Lately, I've been listened to quite a lot of 'pop/rock' music by a few Russian and Belarussian artists. Listening to these artists and finding out more about them started me on a long thought process (if you're wondering about the artists in question, they are Dima Koldun, Alex Rybak, Ruslan Alehno and Sergey Lazarev).

First of all, most of these artists, although they do write music, never write their own lyrics (with the exception of Alex Rybak). Theyartists hire lyricists to write words for them, and these words are usually on one subject: love in all of its various manifestations. Once the words have been written, the artist simply sings another's lyrics. These words are not the singer's words, so why is this music so attractive when sung by the particular artist in question? Why is it that if another artist were to sing this song, it would not be as interesting or listenable? And why are these songs so interesting anyway?

It is true that some of these songs could be summarized by the phrase "I love you." Yet many of them are more interesting and complicated. Why? Because they tell stories about love, stories about being left alone, about the despair of unrequited love, about having made mistakes. Usually one assumes that an artist sings music because he's written a song about an experience, yet with these particular artists that is not the case. These are made up stories - made up by others because one cannot simply experience everything that is described in so many songs. Dima Koldun's song "Nikogda" for example, tells the story of a man left by the woman he loves, and there is the beautiful image of him left alone in the dark, holding a letter with the imprint of a kiss on it. Sergey Lazarev's song 'Can't Let You Go" has the line "I'm on my knees, begging, don't go." Sergey hasn't really gotten on his knees to beg, it is simply another love story he's telling about love and being left by the one he loves. In fact, these stories often remind me of situations in Dumas books, for Dumas too told stories of unrequited love and unhappiness. And in a way, these stories are more interesting than anything real that could have happened, because they allow the listener to place herself (or himself) into the song. Since it is a story, the characters are not always necessarily the singer and the woman he loves - it can be anyone.

Sometimes, however, the singer is a character in his own story, and this brings me to my next point. And when this is the case, these songs sung by these particular artists remind me of the ancient myth of Mars and Venus. Mars, the god of war, was invincible until 'conquered' by Aphrodite - he fell in love with her and because of her was rather humiliated in front of all of the gods. The details are unimportant, it is this main idea of a strong and invincible man conquered by love for a woman that has become an archetype in literature, music, and film. This archetype is what makes these songs, sung by these particular artists, so attractive - because the singer becomes the incarnation of a man conquered by love and powerless, singing about his love and his reliance on a woman. After all, according to most of the people listening to these artists, they are attractive/hot/handsome/strong/ and whatever other adjectives you prefer, and these characteristics allow these artists to embody this archetype. Briefly, I suppose it's simply attactive to listen to beautiful men singing about love.