Alone on the Wall

"I always call risk the likelihood of actually falling off. The consequence is what will happen if you do." 

Alone on the Wall

Alex Honnold

When Alex Honnold arrived on the climbing scene in 2008, he completely changed the game by free soloing big walls with no support (climbing really big rocks with no equipment, no ropes, and no partner). Not only were these tall climbs, they were difficult. The sheer physical strength and determination to climb these walls is immense, having the mental capacity to do it with no back up plan is even greater. His innovations, however, have not come without judgement. Climbing is already a dangerous sport. The removal of the back up safety precautions has led people to question Alex's choices, and implies that, at best, he has not fully thought his decision through or, at worst, that he is reckless. These accusations are addressed in the book Alone on the Wall.

Alone on the Wall is coauthored with David Roberts, and it tells the story of Alex Honnold's life and climbing career. It jumps back and forth between the two authors, with Roberts tackling the more journalistic side of it, and Honnold offering personal insights into the events. This format makes the book feel more like an interview then a collaborative piece of writing. The two different voices are clearly heard, and while the language has a lot of jargon (it brought to mind I Hate Climbers, which is a great read) but definitions are given and it is adapted to a more general audience. The transition between the two authors gets a bit awkward at times.

The story itself is extremely interesting. It traces Alex's adventures across the globe, he explains several of his climbs in depth, and explores how he has reacted to the fame he has received, including the roller coaster of sponsorship (in 2014 Clifbar surprised the world by dropping the sponsorship of many of their climbing athletes).   He also speaks of his experiences with the deaths of those in the climbing community.

His response to the allegations that he is either reckless or thoughtless in his climbing style is wonderful. He explains that he is one of the best climbers, with a large amount of experience, and that he never free solo's anything he fells he can't achieve. He weighs the risks, and if they are too high, he doesn't make the climb. Its a question that comes up often in extreme sports. It was asked when Shane McConkey died, and when Dean Potter died. Is it worth the risk? Its one that everyone needs to answer for themselves. For some, Kayaking class III water is to risky, for others, its a walk in the park. There is always added danger when pushing the envelope, when attempting to do something that no one else has done before. That is why it is so exciting when they succeed.

This was an extremely interesting book. The writing wasn't great, but I feel like that is to be expected from someone who doesn't need to use that skill very often. Honnolds climbing and experiences more than make up for it, and I was massively entertained. This book made me want to go climbing.

News of the World

"Life was not safe and nothing could make it so, neither fashionable dresses nor bank accounts"

Paulette Jiles

News of the World

So often books set during the settling of the west deal with questions of belonging, and where ones place is in an ever changing world. This is true of News of the World. Following the journey of retired Army Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd as he travels through Texas, in the wake of the Civil War, with a young orphan who had lived with the Kiowa tribe for four years after the murders of her parents.

The story is very compelling, using the young girl, Johanna, and the Captain as foils for each other, both trying to find ways to live in their ever changing world. They each deal with their own loneliness: Johanna struggles with assimilation into a new culture and the seeming abandonment of her Kiowa parents, and the Captain coming to terms with the death of his wife and the changes in Texas after the Civil War as he travels around Texas making a living reading the news. Together they come to terms with the world and find support in each other.

I'm not sure how I felt about this book. The story was compelling, it is a fantastic tale that is reminiscent of True Grit. However, it was anticlimactic. Though several of the obstacles that the Captain and Johanna faced were extremely gripping and terrifying, but they never read that way. The characters themselves were unbelievable. The Captain was too perfect. He had only perfect war stories, he was only ever perfectly patient with Johanna, all of his solutions were easily come by, and the ones where he broke the law had no consequences. As a result, the heart wrenching and tender scenes towards the end of the book fell flat and lacked emotion, despite the fact that we had been with the characters for 200 pages. 

This is a story that has a lot of potential. However, this attempt fell flat. I do hope that someone adapts it to the big screen, and gives the characters more emotional depth. I think this is one of my least favorite books I have read. It will hit the shelves March of 2016.

   

Beasts of No Nation

"I was able to expel from my mind all human hope. On every form of joy, in order to strangle it, I pounced stealthily like a wild animal"

Une Saison en Enfer

I like dark books. Every once in a while there is a book that is too dark, too haunting, too hopeless for even me. I don't think this is a fault of the book. I think this is a fault of mine that is wrapped up in the privilege of white America. I've never had to imagine the world of in country warfare, of child soldiers, of rape as a weapon of war. It is something that has only ever flitted on the edge of my conscious, seen as side stories in Hollywood movies like Blood Diamond. It is something else entirely to approach these real life things from a first person narration.

Uzodinma Iweala's Beasts of No Nation is short, only 142 pages, but it is packed with rhythmic prose telling the haunting story of a boy named Agu in a war torn, West African nation. When his country dissolves into a civil war he is recruited into a unit of guerrilla fighters. Reeling from the death of his father, and powerless against the ruthless but paternalistic Commander, he struggles to make sense of the new reality that is so different from what he new before the war. 

This book was powerful. Told from Agu's perspective, the disjunctive language and rhythmic prose drive the story, and made the contrast between the time before and during the war even more apparent. The confusion that Agu feels as the story unfolds is extremely powerful. The story is a powerful look into the lives of child soldiers.

I had a really hard time reading this book. The writing was almost too good in the fact that I was really freaked out by the events in the book. In 2004 it was estimated that there were 100,000 child soldiers in Africa. This book really drove home the fact that desperate times drive people to truly desperate actions just to survive. Refugees leave their homes because it would be incredibly dangerous to stay, and they can be the lucky ones when so many are trying to flee but cant.

This was a great book, but not for the faint of heart or the squeamish. It has also been  adapted for the screen in a Netflix series. 

  

A Whale for the Killing

"The combination of man's genius for destruction together with the satanic powers of his technology dyed the cold, green waters of the Antarctic crimson with the heart's blood of the whale nation."

Farley Mowat

A Whale for the Killing

When I was a small child, my parents took me to a wildlife park in Sacramento, California. There I saw Orca's perform tricks in a tank. I had never seen the ocean. Up till that moment I had no idea of the life that the graceful animal in front of me might live, if it wasn't doing tricks for my entertainment. From that point on, I was extremely curious about the lives of the biggest animals known to earth. Free Willy showed several years later, and while I could understand the horrors of a prison and the quest to free Willy,  I didn't grasp the several of the important messages in the film until much later. 

A Whale for the Killing was published in 1972, but in 2015 is still extremely relevant. With Seaworld San Diegos breeding program being banned, films such as Blackfish, and books such as War of the Whales, attention has been drawn to the plight of the whales more in the past several years then it has ever been, yet whaling practices continue. More research has been done, and more is known about whales then ever before, but whales are still butchered for commercial means.

In his book, Farley Mowat recounts his memories of January and February, 1967, when am eighty-ton, pregnant fin whale became trapped in a lagoon near his home in Burgeo, Nowfoundland. While Mowat is excited for the chance to observe one of the worlds rarest creatures, many of his neighbors see the whale as a target to practice their shooting skills. In an effort to save the whale, Mowat calls in the media, scientists, and politicians. A rift forms in the town as support pours in, and tensions spring up in the closed tight nit community. Through this story Mowat interweaves the history of whaling and asks questions of the nature of being human.

I loved this book, and I hated it. I hated what it represented, I hated how such harm could be done to any creature, so thoughtlessly. The story showed how the consumerism and commercialism had replaced the substance way of life that had existed on Newfoundland up until that point, and I hated how that lifestyle drove people apart from each other, and how it drove them to think that they could behave amorally towards the whale who had become trapped. This book made me so angry.

I loved the way the story was told, I loved that it showed the whale was worthy the of moral respect and judgement that was so denied to her, I loved the way that it showed the divisions and powerlessness among humans, and I loved the way Mowat talked about the profound loneliness that we humans feel. 

The same things that I hated in the book, were the same things that made me feel uncomfortable watching Free Willy as a small child, are the same things that make me cry in kids films. The selfishness that humans are capable of and the callousness that we, as a species on whole display, when we decide that something or someone has no value to us. It is something I think we should think about more often, but something we seldom do. 

I loved this book. It was well written, the story was fascinating (if heartbreaking), and it was well researched.

     

The Tsar of Love and Techno

"The calcium in the collarbones I have kissed. The iron in the blood flushing those cheeks. We imprint our intimacies upon atoms born from an explosion so great it still marks the emptiness of space. A shimmer of photons bears the memory across the long dark amnesia. We will be carried too, mysterious particles that we are." 

Anthony Marra 

The Tsar of Love and Techno

Every once in a while we read something that speaks to us on such a profound level that we find that the words resonate through our soul and stick with us. This is what The Tsar of Love and Techno did for me. The language was so poetic, yet the phrasing so unusual, that I am still not sure what to think of it, as the words ring in my ears. The book was phenomenal; this book is one that I could read for the first time, again.

A collection of short stories set in Siberia and Chechnya, the characters are tied together by an obscure Russian painting of a field. In the 1930's, a censor is tasked with reworking the painting towards the goals of the Soviet Union. What he does instead echoes throughout the century, linking the stories of a legendary ballerina sent to the gulag's, her grand daughter, a gangster, a widower who last saw is wife in that field, and a soldier held in a well with a mix tape of unknown contents.

The resulting story, is....well... beyond anything I have ever aspired to have read. This is the best book I have read this year. The characters are touching, charming, and incredibly human; their flaws adding to their allure. The story is fantastic, epic in its twists and turns, its humor and its sorrow. The setting itself plays a character in tale, as all of the characters are trying to find where they fit in a country that is constantly changing and recreating, and trying to survive the wars, the governments, and the capitalism. It was fascinating to see how each of the different characters dealt with Russia at different points in time.

The language was beautiful. From the snarky:

"Dozy bronze Buddhas meditated on the bookshelf, I was wondering if artsy-fartsy types in Tibet fetishize crucifixes."    

to the serious and mildly heartbreaking:

"Why are children doomed to remain beautiful to their parents, even when they become so ugly to themselves?" 

The eloquence used to describe these circumstances and the way the characters are feeling is astounding, and amazingly soul wrenching. Even when talking about sex, Marra uses language that conveys love and yearning in such an amazing way, stating that

"they pressed together with a need that is never satisfied because we can't trade atoms no matter how hard we thrust. Our hearts may skip but our substance remains fixed. We're not gaseous no matter how we wish to cloud together inseparably." 

This book was beautiful. It was crass, dark, crud, sad, funny but above all it was a extraordinarily gorgeous book about the human condition, and the nature of connecting with people in a unstable world that is always changing.

I think that this is a book that everyone should read. I think that it is one of the best books I have ever read. Oh, and if you read it, Marra put the mix tape on Spotify, and it is awesome.

The Dog Walker

"Liberty without socialism is privilege, injustice. Socialism without liberty is slavery and brutality."Mikhail Bakunin

The tag that I've heard used to describe Joshua Stephens book, The Dog Walker, to people is that it is a book about an anarchist who walks the dogs of the wealthy clientele he protests in order to make things meet. While this is an entirely true description of the book, Stephens' tales of his time working as a professional dog walker in Washington DC are so much more. This book was an incredible commentary on politics, race, sex, economics, the relationships that people have with their dogs, and the relationships that people have with each other. On top of all of that, it is incredibly funny.

The book is organised as a series of essays discussing everything from the ways that capitalist economics make no sense in a care based trade to why poop is extremely funny (don't lie, everyone laughs inside when someone farts). It is extremely well written, following the authors own experiences while explaining them in a broader context.

This book was fantastically interesting to me. I knew very little about anarchism, and this was a wonderful introduction to the political theory. Stephens does a wonderful job of explaining it, and some of the movements that have been driven by the theory, without becoming dry. The book maintains its humor even in the more serious passages and brings new light to many old ideas.

I could relate extremely well to the recollections contained in the book, having worked for hourly wages that aren't remotely close to a living wage for most of my life. He examines the idea of subsidized income (remember when MacDonald's that stated that a full time employee would have to make $800 some where else just to make ends meet) and why that thought process is substantially flawed, stating that

 "neoliberalism has apparently gone so off the rails that the role of "job creator" has been stripped of its usefulness to society."

While I'm sure there are many people who disagree with this, there still seems to be something very wrong with the idea of an employer saying "maybe we need to ask the question: can you afford to work here?" (this has actually been said to me by an employer, and I am still very bewildered by it).

 Stephens also looks into many of the aspects of care, retail, and service industries that many people don't think about, and the level of risk management that is involved that many people don't see. Holding the keys to someones house, babysitting someones loved ones (as I get older I am amazed at the returns that were expected for the 5 bucks an hour I was paid at babysitting gigs when I was 13), or even the idea, on guided wilderness tours , that the guides job is not only to insure that you had fun, but to insure that you come home in one piece... very few people actually think about the amount of training and preparation involved.

This book was a funny, fascinating, and unorthodox look at many of the systems in place in the country that we don't see, and how many of these systems, under certain circumstances, can lead us to not value people. Charming and laugh-out-loud funny, I highly recommend this book.

Frankenstein

"His countenance instantly assumed an aspect of the deepest gloom;and he replied, 'to seek one who fled from me.'"

Mary Shelley 

Frankenstein

Every year, around Halloween, a new adaption of Frankenstein is released. Well over fifty movies have been based on Mary Shelley's tale, from Young Frankenstein to Rocky Horror Picture Show, and the character, the Monster, has been depicted in even more stories, from Van Helsing to Hotel Transylvania. This is a book I had never gotten around to because I assumed that I knew the story. I was wrong.

In Rebecca Solnit's book, The Faraway Nearby, the story of Frankenstein is deconstructed to examine the nature of storytelling, and the consequences of creation. The way she discussed the book was extremely interesting, and it peaked my interest. After all, this widely adapted book has been extremely influential in many different aspects of life, from literature to science. It has shaped the way we think about humanity, and it has changed our views on how humans fit in the rest of the world. 

"She never imagined that all of us could become Dr. Frankenstein, chasing and fleeing our altered creation that is the landscape all around us and its invisible contaminants everywhere, from within our bodies to the ends of the earth." 

Rebecca Solnit  The Faraway Nearby

I thought that the book would begin in the same way as most of the movies do: in a dark castle surrounded by high mountains and lightning. In opened, though, on a ship in the far north. The entire story is told through a set of letters that Robert Walton, the captain of the ship, is writing to his sister, Margaret, telling of his adventures and ambitions on his northern voyage. One day a mysterious figure appears on the ice. They pull him on board, emaciated and sick, and he proceeds to tell the captain the story of how he came to be alone on the ice. He tells the tale of his childhood, and how in his passion for his studies, he created life. He immediately feels horror for his creation and scorns it. The creature stumbles through the world, and begins to feel anger and rage  because of the scorn of his creator, Victor Frankenstein. He proceeds to take revenge on his creator.

The story was fascinating. It a Russian doll of a tale: The captain telling the tale of the doctor, who was telling the tale of the monster, who told the tale of the common people. There are so many facets to the story, so many different ways that it could be read, different story arcs to focus on. It could be a commentary on aesthetics, or on the human condition, or on the way people deal with suffering and hardship. It is a wonderful revenge story, while at the same time being a tale of forgiveness. A tale of unrequited love along side a passionate romance. A cautionary tale of the wonders of science, all at once showing the value of knowledge but warning that we should exercise caution in the application. This is a book that I think I could read a thousand times and walk away with something new every time.

Needless to say, this book was nothing like I expected. There was no Igor, the protagonist was a rational young man, not a crazed evil genius. The monster, though childlike, was rational, and, far from lumbering and slow, he moved with super human speed and grace. What I found in this story, was far beyond what I had thought I would find. During this Halloween season, I invite everyone to look back to the original, before they go to the theaters to see the latest adaptation. I don't think anyone will regret it. I sure didn't.

Faraway Nearby

"We think we tell stories, but stories often tell us, tell us to love or hate, to see or to be blind. Often, too often, stories saddle us, ride us, whip us onward, tell us what to do, and we do it without questioning."

Rebecca Solnit

The Faraway Nearby

After reading so many stories in such a short period of time, I've started to wonder how all of those different stories were affecting me. Or how any story can affect anybody. It is something that we sometimes talk about. How this book was meaningful, how that story changed a persons life, how Harry Potter has been scientifically shown to make children more tolerant, and how the Bible is supposed to make people more morally aware. It's an unspoken truth that books and stories affect our behavior, our outlook on life. People have been trying to manipulate others through censorship for a very long time because of that idea. 

Rebecca Solnit, in The Faraway Nearby, delves into these ideas behind stories by telling us the one where her mother begins to loose her memory and function, and she deals with her own sickness and change. She deconstructs Frankenstein, digs into the familiar patterns behind myth and fairytale, and examines the lives of others (Che Guevera in his travels among those afflicted by leperosy, a blues musician, an arctic cannibal, and an Icelandic artist) in order to make sense of her own story. Written like a set of essays beautifully arranged in book format, her language is powerful and her prose beautiful.

I really enjoyed this book. I loved how everything was linked together and everything was connected. I loved how she demonstrated how the meaning of stories can change so much with the slightest changes in detail. She talked about this idea explicitly with retelling's of the story of the woman caught in a snowstorm, and also did it, much more subtly, with here deconstructions of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, first using the story as a way to discuss the way she thinks her mother often felt about her, then the global changes in weather and how we are unconsciously, and often unknowingly affecting the arctic, and, towards the end, how she sometimes feels writing books and telling stories, how they often take on a life of their own that is directed by the reader. I loved these deconstructions.

Another thing that I really enjoyed in this book was how she examined fairy tales and the changes that were made in the stories as the settings changed. How Cupid and Psyche became Beauty and the Beast, which then became East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I love this story. I love how it breaks down the barriers between the species to something as simple as day and night, how the nature of a relationship can change on the setting. East was one of my favorite books growing up, and it was wonderful to see the story deconstructed.

I highly recommend this book. I highly recommend anything by Rebecca Solnit. Her articles are wonderful, and her other books (Men Explain Things to Me, Paradise Built in Hell) are spectacular.

Phantom Tollbooth

"I never knew words could be so confusing," Milo said to Tock as he bent down to scratch the dog's ear.

"Only when you use a lot to say a little," answered Tock."

Norton Juster

The Phantom Tollbooth

For a book that was banned because a librarian thought that it was a "poor fantasy," The Phantom Tollbooth is a fantastical story about a boy named Milo, who can't be bothered with anything and finds everything boring. One day a mysterious tollbooth appears in his room, and, because he has nothing better to do, he drives through it ( admittedly I am a bit confused by the small child driving a car through it, let alone a car in his room that can fit a large dog and a Humbug in it) and finds himself on the other side in a strange land. There he meets a ticking dog, a Watch Dog, named Tock and he sets of on a quest to rescue Rhyme and Reason. On his journey he interacts with many strange people, from the King of Dictionopolis who thinks that words are much better than numbers, to the King of Digitopolis, the Mathemegician. He visits strange places, and on the way learns that even the basic things, like numbers and words, can be more interesting then his wildest dreams.

I loved this book. I can't believe that I haven't read it. Its funny, the prose is poetic, and the story is fascinating. It has an Alice in Wonderland feel without being quite as nonsensical and much less creepy. The story itself could stand alone, but it is enhanced by wonderful illustrations through out the book.

I think this is a very important book for kids to read. Each chapter has it's own individual lesson, and they all fit together for a wonderful moral: that life is never boring, if you just look around. 

Saga (Vol 3, 4, & 5)

So I thought that Volume 5 was the conclusion to the series, but its not, and I have to wait 6 months for Vol 6, which sucks cause I really, really want to know what happens.

This series is awesome. The characters are incredible, each has there own story, and the way that the story lines weave is amazing. There is a wonderful amount of moral ambiguity to the story, and it deals with many themes in these three volumes that weren't present for the first two, such as drug abuse and trying to make ends meet at a bad job.

I love this series. I love that there is a slightly good side to every character, and a slightly terrible side to every character. I cannot wait for Vol 6.

Vol 3-5 deal with Hazels growth from toddler to child as more and more people discover her existence. The tensions between the two warring planets grows, and more of the societies stuck in the middle become unhappy with the allegiances they have made that the fallout that the common people experience from the bloodshed. Rebel groups begin to try to kidnap Hazel to use her in their plans, while Alana and Marco struggle to maintain their relationship among the chaos.

I cannot wait to see where this story will go.