An African In Greenland, Tété-Michel Kpomassie

An unusual (for me) foray into non-fiction with this rather unique ethnographic travelogue. I caught reference to it in a brief magazine report on BBC News 24 a few months ago, but an intriguing enough one to pick up the book.

In outline, a boy in Africa discovers Greenland and its native Inuit in a book, then spends several years steadily travelling through Africa and then Europe before finally taking the final leg to Greenland by sea. It sounds like a work of magical realism, but it's actually a richly detailed description of this journey, and of the author's subsequent time in various Greenland towns on the Labrador Sea coast.

And what detail! Kpomassie has an excellent eye, and a real gift in the telling. Whether it's the range of reactions to his colour and imposing size, the unique Greenlandic living and cultural practices, the extensive friendships he forms, his adventures on the sea or on the ice, or his gruelling (for a vegetarian) descriptions of local cuisine, it's all told with engaging flair. It helps that Kpomassie makes friends easily, bringing him into contact with a range of fascinating (and occasionally alarming) characters. His ability to rock up in a new city, town or fishing village, and then find himself digs with locals at (seemingly) the drop of a hat is really quite something. And his unique heritage and winning ways with local women certainly made me wonder if he made a longer-term mark on the Greenlandic gene pool!

Where the book sags a bit is in its episodic nature and its absence of a strong narrative journey - inevitable given it's a travelogue of a real actual journey. But the tale it tells is so good, the situations, the people, and the society so unique, that the book easily carries you with it. Well worth checking out.

Finally, Kpomassie's journey having taken place in the 1960s, it's also sobering to reflect on the climatic and cultural changes that the intervening decades have wrought.

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris

A Christmas money purchase this time inspired, in part, by hearing Sedaris read out his now-famous (it has an article on Wikipedia ...) piece, The Santaland Diaries. It's not part of this particular collection, but it didn't need to be, there's plenty more comedy gold in here. A little less on the pathos that Santaland sometimes touches on, but plenty of the laughs. Sedaris has real skill in recounting short tales from his own life that must, at times, be quite mixed experiences into something we can be amused by, while deriving some insight and understanding from. He is, to be fair, often helped by his family, his sister, Amy, in particular. So an excellent read - the super-short Big Boy is almost worth it on its own (if it weren't already available online).

Stuff Matters

Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik

Another fab pick by @mrbsemporium - this time a non-fiction volume on the seemingly arcane subject of materials science. Using a photograph of the author drinking coffee on a roof terrace, it's a brilliant tale of 10 materials that we utterly take for granted in our modern lives. While it touches on the underlying science in places, it never comes close to being too heavy. And you leave it feeling much cleverer about the world around us.

Blah ... Rebus ... Blah

Number 7 in Ian Rankin's series of Inspector John Rebus "adventures", Let It Bleed starts with a fatal set-piece on the Forth Road Bridge and culminates with Rankin's gruff hero gruffly accosting hitherto untouchable authorities. I read this quickly, completely enjoyed it - as usual - and then have largely forgotten it. Which is not at all a reflection on either Rankin in general or this novel in particular. It's just that it is yet another well-written crime yarn that continues to flesh out Rebus. I've actually gotten a little tired of singing Rankin's praises - each novel is more or less as good as, or better than, its predecessors. Arguably better, since Rebus' world becomes more and more complete each time.

Not Batman

Safe to say, this is a pretty unusual entry both for this blog and in the pantheon of graphic novels.

Logicomix, written by two Greek academics, Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou (plus two graphic artists), is a strange and original exploration of logic and its history in the first half of the 20th century (apparently the "logicist period"). The novel is fractured across three distinct strands: a long, and periodically interrupted, present-day discussion between the authors about logic; a lecture delivered in the USA by the logician and philosopher Bertrand Russell at the outbreak of World War II; and a biographical narrative of Russell's life, both professional and personal, that in part forms the subject of this lecture. While this sounds rather complex, it provides a framework for introducing and exploring the nature of logic, its promise of providing a unifying foundation for science and rationality, and its ultimate limitations. While Russell is not responsible for logic's greatest leaps (which, in fact, dash his hopes), his faith in its power and his efforts to promote it make him a key midwife to its evolution, as well as an appropriate choice for narrator. As the novel unfolds, the early gains by the likes of Russell, his collaborator, Alfred North Whitehead, and the members of the Vienna Circle (among others) give way to the wrecking ball of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Kurt Gödel's damning incompleteness theorems.

You've got to take your hat off to the authors of this volume. It brings a whole load of serious, serious thought to a medium where, traditionally, the deepest thought is that perhaps, just perhaps, Batman has ambiguous morality.^[1] And it does so while still being a pretty easy read, and one that uses cross-linking narrative strands and trendy post-modern self-referencing to dodge potentially dry, stodgy point-making. Personally, I didn't learn an awful lot that I wasn't already (partially) aware of, but I don't think I'm the ideal audience. While the authors hail from academia, they're keen that such an important subject is communicated as widely as possible. And I think they'll generally be pretty successful given this novel.

Where the novel doesn't quite succeed is in making Russell serve as his own biographer from his 1939 lecture. This seemed unnecessary to me, since the (somewhat post-modern) discussion between the authors could have quite happily served the same job. And the portentousness of the timing is never quite realised or justified. I can only assume that beginning the novel with a direct reference to WWII is somehow supposed to either shed light on our own time, or to someone conjure a compare-and-contrast between rationality and senseless violence. Or something. If I'd been the authors, I'd definitely have either ditched this strand or been a lot more explicit about what its relevance was. Oh, and I might have soft-pedalled on the Greek Tragedy sections as well.

But, all that said, a pretty unique and engaging stab at something new. Consider my hat doffed.

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[1] I'm saying this like I'm some sort of expert on graphic novels. I'm not - I've only read a handful in total, and while I like to think that I've chosen well and that they weren't brain-dead, they do include Aliens vs. Predator.

An angry scientist

A rare visit to non-fiction land this time, with the book of the newspaper column of the blog, Bad Science, by the medical doctor Ben Goldacre.

As a regular reader of Goldacre's column, I mistakenly figured this for a collection of his columns, so waited till it graced the 3-for-2 table before picking it up. As it turns out, while it does pick up a number of stories from his column, it does so in much greater detail, and uses the format to fill in background material that, while important, would be less than engrossing in newsprint. In terms of its topic, while Goldacre occasionally makes general asides on "bad science", his book focuses largely on its appearance in medicine and related healthcare.

As such, he takes in familiar (and deserving) targets such as homeopathy, MMR and quacks with varying degrees of public endangerment, including "Dr." Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford and Matthias Rath. The latter I was aware of because of a well-publicised (after the fact) libel trial that Rath took out against Goldacre and The Guardian. As it happens, the example of Rath, following on as it does from the lesser crimes of McKeith and Holford, illustrates just how pernicious and dangerous modern-day quacks can be. That there is a long history of quacks is not surprising, especially when one considers what once passed for mainstream medicine; that they persist to this day alongside modern medicine, and frequently make outrageous and deadly claims, is pretty shocking.

Which brings me to what I think is the book's strength: Goldacre's cold, contained rage. While he writes quite wittily at times, and certainly isn't averse to making fun of various "alternative medicine" targets, he's clearly very angry about much of what he describes. But he's able to channel this well, and he writes carefully and methodically, avoiding simply stirring the reader up with exasperating tales of money-printing quacks. He's also pretty good, at leading the reader into mildly technical topics, and he does so without (in my opinion) patronising the less familiar reader. But, throughout it all, his passion to rout the "bad science" he describes is engaging. And is pretty infectious - I found myself eye-rollingly livid on more than a few occasions.

Another aspect of the book which greatly strengthens its power is Goldacre's tackling of more mainstream targets such as the drug companies and the media. These get, and justifiably so, much the same scrutiny as the book's early anti-science bugbears. In particular, the chapter on how the media presents - and misrepresents - scientific stories is one that's of wider interest and use to scientists beyond medicine. I really enjoyed these chapters, and Goldacre's savaging of these institutions alongside the easier alt-med targets made the book a much more balanced read than I originally thought it might turn out to be. I shouldn't have been surprised given the range of his newspaper column, but given the shamelessness of so many quacks, I'd not have blamed him if he just focused his beatings on their turf.

Overall, a very enjoyable if simultaneously enraging read. Doubtless not the most thorough on this subject, but done well. And you've got to love his anger.

Blurred

A bit of a break with traditional reading patterns this time: a biography - indeed, an autobiography. For reasons I can't entirely pin down, I've never been interested in reading anything beyond fiction or popular treatments of science, etc. Although I've enjoyed the occasional biographical asides in the latter, and the veiled hint that the former are partially biography, I've not felt the need to read formal biography. Unsurprisingly then, I'm only coming to it now because of a birthday present from C. Knowing of my great love for the UK band Blur, she bought me the autobiography of its bassist, Alex James.

That said, I suspect it's not the most typical of introductions to the literary genre for a couple of reasons. Firstly, it's written (rather than ghostwritten) by someone with an atypical job relative to most public figures who come to my attention, namely one in popular music. Secondly, although the subject is an artist, the book contains practically nothing about his art. This came as something of a surprise, and I suspect some readers might feel a bit cheated to find the book's pages bereft of anything about their favourite music beyond vague, passing remarks.

This latter point certainly undercut my expectations for this book. I'd expected, probably hoped, to find out interesting points about particular songs and albums, but the book stays well away from this sort of dissection. To the extent that it's at times difficult to work out when the author is talking about since he doesn't even use his band's discography for temporal stratigraphy.

Instead, the book is a rambling overview of James' childhood and his life during the Blur years, that finishes up with him settling down with a wife (and, inexplicably, a pig farm). He skips the music to focus instead on the everyday, and increasingly less-everyday, aspects of his rock star life. Large quantities of drugs are consumed, wall-to-wall sexual adventures are passingly alluded to, but the book does find time to fill in some unexpected details.

These include a walk-on part for the artist Damien Hirst who, contrary to my expectations, comes off as a talented and entertaining friend to James. Also, James waxes lyrical about his infatuation with astronomy, which ultimately led to the (ultimately) unsuccessful Beagle 2 mission to Mars. And, along the way, James becomes a qualified pilot, and gets quite poetic about his flying around Europe and Africa.

So, though it has a near-total lack of any backstory or discussion of Blur's hits, the book does make for an interesting read. But it's safe to say that James is not the most natural or fluid of writers. His prose frequently reads like conversation, with a repetitive patter that works in speech but less in print. And he has something of a bad habit of being overenthusiastic about everything. The reader is breathlessly introduced to some arbitrary subject (flying, touring, cheese shops) that is then described as James' favourite and the best-ever. Although it would have distorted his style, I did often think that James' editor could have stepped in and earned their keep more (or perhaps they did!).

One uneasy aspect to the book is James' treatment of his long-term girlfriend, Justine. She never really features much in the book, despite playing an ostensibly significant part for a long stretch (although this could be said about most of James' friends and family). Furthermore, although constantly apologetic towards her in his writing, James really didn't treat her very well during his ride with Blur. As success kicks in, tours quickly become an opportunity for (multiple) infidelity, and though James appears regretful about this, he still strung her along for a considerable period of time. And while it's difficult to be sure given the book's rather fluid chronology, it reads like she left him because of his lack of commitment, only for him to commit to his current wife in pretty short order.

Anyway, overall it's an interesting peek into contemporary rock star life, one that does contain a few nice surprises, but I can't say that it's won me over to biography as a form. It's doubtless far from the best introduction, but I'm still not particularly convinced that I want to take such a specific interest in the detail of the lives of others. I'm going to stick to novels.

The "I" in CIA

A non-fiction review this time: Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tom Weiner. First up, a confession: I bought this book as a birthday present for a friend, but read its opening chapter and found myself drawn in. Needless to say, I won't be mentioning this to my friend.



This is a long and generally detailed look at the history of the CIA from its inception immediately after the Second World War up until the present day (earlier this year in fact). Mostly because of the defining nature of the CIA's relationships with different presidents, the book is primarily structured by succeeding presidential terms, with it further divided to delineate CIA activities in different geographical arenas.

However, despite changes in presidents, enemies and arenas, two surprising themes run through and unify the history presented. The first is that, even after sixty years of evolution, the CIA has never truly come close to satisfying the role of centralising intelligence that it was set up for. The second is that, contrary to general public perceptions, the CIA has almost never been a successful organisation, and has consistently misread signals leading its paymasters into either complacency or shadow-boxing.

That the CIA has never gotten to grips with its main task stems in part from its founding members' interests in covert operations. Rather than serve as a clearing house for the collation and analysis of information drawn from military, diplomatic and other sources, from the beginning the CIA has expended considerable effort engaged in exactly the sort of "dirty tricks" that its name is synonymous with. Many of these have served legitimate or semi-legitimate purposes, but, contrary to the stated rationale for its existence, they have dominated its focus and have been the source of many of the historical troubles it has experienced.

The degree of incompetence of the CIA certainly came as a surprise to me. Mission after mission after mission have been executed with either poor planning, operational support or follow-up assessment. That the CIA is covert has given its management carte blanch to tag its many failed missions as "top secret", and to avoid what would be necessary oversight in just about any other organisation. The infrequent successes that it has experienced have been shamelessly, and successfully, flouted by its directors, to the degree that public perception is of an amoral but effective organisation. The book has certainly set me straight on the robustness of this perception.

As a book, this is engagingly written and never boring. Occasionally it is complicated by jumps backwards and forwards in time to follow particular avenues, but these aren't too confusing. One aspect that is somewhat confusing is the long list of players that enter, exit then frequently re-enter the stage. Short of viewing the CIA purely from a organisational vantage point (i.e. "the director did this", "covert operations did that"), it's not obvious how to get around this and, to be honest, the evolution of the CIA has been too strongly influenced by a succession of key individuals to avoid mentioning them by name. The text is supplemented by a large number of often detailed footnotes, so particular points can be checked for clarification.

An obvious concern with a book on such a topic is the nature of any bias introduced by the author. Especially with an ethically-challenged organisation like the CIA (to reveal my own bias). From what I can judge, the book appears to avoid allegations of bias by sticking closely to sources, and by simply being so thorough. Dozens of missions and operations are described, running the full gamut from well-known successes/failures to events in backwater countries that have long since receded into history. I think that all of my own knowledge of the CIA was more or less covered in the book, suggesting that it presents a representative sample of their work, and does not skew things towards their unsuccessful activities. I'm sure, however, that certain political viewpoints will not share this assessment.

Concerning politics, it's interesting to read about the approaches different presidents have taken to the CIA. First of all, without exception, all have taken a strong interest in it. Some, such as Nixon, seem to have taken a very negative view of it, and have actively shunned it at times. Others, such as JFK, have made considerable use of it. Interestingly, almost no presidency comes out well in its dealings with the CIA. The exception is Jimmy Carter who, contrary to what one might expect, took strongly to the organisation, but viewed it as a tool to accomplish human rights goals (as well as its conventional anti-Soviet role). One of the interesting uses he put it towards was undermining the then-Apartheid South African government, in direct opposition to previous CIA operations that aimed to support it as a bulwark against Communism. Ultimately, even Carter came unstuck using it, but his is the only presidency not to be tarnished by it (at least as far as this book presents things).

The book's final analysis is not a positive one for the CIA. As noted already, the organisation has singularly failed at becoming what it was originally intended to be. Furthermore, the (unpredicted) end of the Soviet Union robbed it of a sense of purpose that has not been replaced well by Islamic extremism. The book closes damningly with the fiasco surrounding Iraq and its "weapons of mass destruction". The certainty professed by the CIA on these, which practically anyone could see was bogus, has comprehensively dented the respect and trust placed in the CIA (however misplaced that already was). Although only briefly dealt with, the ebbing of experienced CIA staff to private security companies seems a longer-term problem for the organisation. This creeping privatisation of "security" generally seems a rather worrying trend.

Overall, an impressive tome. I'm sure that its central messages could be distilled into a much shorter volume, but that would trim the supporting material and lose the authority of this edition.

A final note: for all of the dubious efforts of various presidents and CIA operatives, the actions of William Casey (from 1981 to 1987) stand out as plumbing new moral depths. While I was already aware of the outlines of the Iran-Contra Affair, the depths to which Casey dragged the CIA in conducting this operation were very revealing to read about. More generally, his handling of the organisation is remarkable for how spotlessly clean it makes the rest of the CIA's operations appear by way of contrast. It seems incredible to me that there are people out there who defend people such as this. Regardless of politics, purely pragmatic or utilitarian analyses of the reign of such people should stop anyone capable of rational thought in their tracks. The anointing of the likes of Oliver North as near-saints would suggest otherwise.