My Take: I found “Band of Brothers” to be a deeply frustrating book to read. On the one hand, the story of Easy Company is more than compelling. The company featured prominently in D-Day, Operation Market Garden, The Battle of the Bulge and the famous siege at Bastogne, the liberation of Nazi Concentration Camps and the occupation of Goering’s Palace and Hitler’s Eagles Nest. Further, the fact that the Company was a volunteer unit formed before the war offered “Band of Brothers” a group of characters that readers could get to know and follow throughout Easy Company’s experiences.

However, these strengths are more than off-set by two major, and in my mind related, weaknesses in this book.

First, Ambrose completely over-eggs the dramatic story telling aspect of the book. I’m certainly not against using a dramatic narrative to improve the accessibility of history, in fact there’s clearly a lot of value in this, but at times “Band of Brothers” read like a teenage boy’s G.I. Joe Fan Fiction. I wish I was exaggerating in this regard, but take for example the following, not atypical paragraph:

“Get ‘em?” Winters yelled. Lorraine hit one with his tommy-gun, Winters aimed his M-1, squeezed and shot his man through the back of his head. Guarnere missed the third Jerry, but Winters put a bullet in his back. Guarnere followed that up by pumping the wounded man full of lead from his tommy-gun. The German kept yelling, “Help! Help!” Winters told Malarkey to put one through his head.”

I’m sure I’m not the only non-American who was grimacing while reading the passages like this. What made this even more frustrating was that the substance of Easy Company’s war experiences were more than dramatic enough without the jingoistic, melodramatic flourishes. The “Fan Boy” dramatic passages of the book were both embarrassing and unnecessary.

The second glaring weakness of “Band of Brothers” was the complete lack of perspective and objectivity that Ambrose shows throughout the book. Ambrose doesn’t just describe Easy Company’s exploits with added schlock, he views them through rose coloured glasses tinted with the Stars and Stripes. As described in Band of Brothers, Easy Company were the All-American, pure of heart, defenders of democracy and the Free World. He’s so close to his subject that he is completely unable to position the Company’s actions within any kind of broader context or offer any meaningful insight into the experience of war.

It is clear from even a superficial reading that “Band of Brothers” is heavily dependent on the accounts of members of Easy Company. Even more disturbingly, Ambrose offers little or no critical perspective on these accounts. Jarringly, at one point, after quoting extensively from a Staff Sergeant’s account of a heroic battle field experience, Ambrose goes so far as to add the following post script:

“If that sounds idealised, it can’t be helped; that is the way Lipton and many others in Easy, and many others in the Airborne and through the American Army – and come to that, in the German and Red Armies too – fought the war.”

Forgive me if I become sceptical when historians are defending ‘idealised’ accounts of the experience of war. Ambrose genuinely sounds more like a cheer-leader than a historian at times in this book.

Even worse, Ambrose has been caught out a number of times copying extracts from veteran’s accounts almost verbatim. As Patricia Nelson Limerick, a professor of history at the University of Colorado has observed:

“You can’t get a more striking example of lack of critical distance from your sources than simply typing it into your own word processing program,” said

After reading philosophically substantial war historians like Antony Beevor and Vassily Grossman, “Band of Brothers” feels more akin to reading a comic book account of war – a one-dimensional, triumphalist sketch of something far more complex and nuanced.  I suppose “Band of Brothers” works as a piece of pop non-fiction written for an American audience – it certainly sold enough copies. But for those wanting a bit more substance and perspective and a bit less myth-making and self congratulation, there are far better options.

Highlight:

“Webster (a Harvard English literature graduate and member of Easy Company) went back to the road to get in on the shooting. A German turned to fire back. “What felt like a baseball bat slugged my right leg,” Webster recalled, “spun me around, and knocked me down.” All he could think to say was, “They got me!” which even then seemed to him “an inadequate and unimaginative cliché.”

Synopsis: The greatest economics writer in the blogosphere switches medium to offer an extended treatise on the use of economic principles to improve the non-economic aspects of your life. Utility is maximised.

My Take: Tyler Cowen’s blog, Marginal Revolution, is hands down one of the best blogs on the ‘net.  Not because he is the best economist online today (Greg Mankiw, Dani Rodrick, Paul Krugman, Steven Levitt and Gary Becker/Richard Posner would all have claims here), but because his personality is so perfectly suited to the medium.  Instead of producing worthy and dry pieces of brilliant economic analysis, Cowen’s approach to Marginal Revolution is that of a cultural Bower Bird; collecting and displaying fascinating titbits from both his professional and cultural interests.  The New York Times describes Cowen as:

a world-class polymath who whips through graphic novels and 816-page bricks like Africa: A Biography of the Continent, listens to everything from Bach to Brazilian techno, searches out exotic cuisines all over the world, and still finds time to travel to remotest Mexico to update his collection of amate painting. For him, deep immersion in culture defines the good life, and his readers get the vicarious benefits.

Cowen successfully translates this eclectic mix of rigorous classical economics and cultural diversity into the literary world via “Discover Your Inner Economist”. In DYIE, Cowen takes a more in-depth look at his cultural preoccupations through the prism of economic analysis and with an eye to maximising utility. As he puts it:

“Economics developed out of a recognition of the fact that many things worth having don’t just fall into our laps in the course of our everyday lives… The real purpose of economics is to get more of the good stuff in life.”

Cowen’s overarching insight into our cultural lives is illuminating. For him:

“The critical economic problem is scarcity. Money is scarce, but in most things the scarcity of time, attention, and caring is more important.”

Once you accept that there are limits to most people’s (ie non-professionals) interest in the arts and capacity to pursue this interest, the question then becomes how an individual can most efficiently maximise their enjoyment of culture within these constraints.

Again, Cowen’s insights into how one could go about this are both useful. Take his approach to art appreciation. Cowen begins by acknowledging the relevant constraint:

“Our time and attention is scarce. Art is not that important to us, no matter what we might like to believe… Our love of art is often quite temporary, dependent upon our moods, and our love of art is subservient to our demand for a positive self image. How we look at art should account for those imperfections and work around them. “

Keep in mind that books, like art museums, are not always geared to the desires of the reader. Maybe we think we are supposed to like tough books, but are we? Who says? Many writers (and art museums) produce for quite a small subsample of the… public.

So how should we go about maximising our attention and making most efficient use of our time:

“In each room, ask yourself which picture you would take home – if you could take just one – and why? This forces you to keep thinking critically about the displays. If the alarm system was shut down and the guards went away, should I carry home the Cezanne, the Manet, or the Renois? In a room of Egyptian antiquities, which one caught my eye? And why? We should discuss the question with our companion.

To put it crudely, we must force ourselves to keep on paying attention. Ranking the pictures focuses our attention on our favourites. It also focuses our attention on ourselves, which is in fact our favourite topic….

…

At the end of the visit, ask which paintings stuck with you. Did you find yourself thinking back on the Munch, the Pollock, or the medieval tapestries? A week later ask the same question. Then go read about those artists or that period. That is a more useful procedure than reading about art in advance.

We should view paintings repeatedly, but especially after we have spent time with other artworks. The best way to understand one art museum is to go see another art museum with a related but not identical collection.

As someone who has always diligently tried to broaden my cultural horizons at every opportunity, it resonated with me that ironically, the best way to do so was to narrow your initial focus in a new direction and then expand from a beach head of new knowledge. It’s also liberating to see how this isn’t simply a lazy or selfish approach to high culture, but rather a utility maximising approach to cultural enlightenment.

Highly recommended for anyone wanting to enrich their cultural life.

Highlight:

“We must ignore the carping of the sophisticates. Well-educated critics may claim that pictures cannot be ranked, value is multidimensional or subjective, or that such talk, represents a totalising, colonising, possessive, post-capitalist, hegemonic Western imperialist approach. All of those missives are beside the point.

When it comes to the arts, dealing with the scarcity of our attention is more important than anything, including respecting the artists.”

My Take: Hendrik Hertzberg is like an over-sized red-velvet armchair in the corner of The New Yorker’s metaphorical living room. A relic of a past era now slightly out of fashion, but a comfortable favourite for those who’ve grown up with him.

I enjoy Hertzberg because while he is an unreconstructed 60s lefty (and a Jimmy Carter speechwriter at that!) he treats politics seriously without being self-righteous. He’s a rare breed – a long term left-wing commentator that hasn’t turned bitter and contemptuous as the world has changed around him. As a result, Hertzberg can be wry without being sarcastic and can be critical without being shrill. Equally rarely, he’s a political writer who isn’t so arrogant as to assume that he is always in right and that everyone else is motivated by stupidity or ill will. Combine this with the fact that he’s an extremely talented writer and Hertzberg is one of the most reliably enjoyable political columnists in America.

“Politics” is a collection of the best of Hertzberg’s political writing over the past forty years. It’s worth reading just to luxuriate in an extended dose of Hetrzberg’s writing, but the best part of this book are the tit-bits of trivia and minutia political life from eras past. For instance, it pains my soul that I wasn’t able to experience the unintentional comedy of the Dan Quayle era of US Politcs. While the 1988 Vice-Presidential Debate is infamous for Lloyd Bentson’s vicious take down of Quayle, the real highlight of the debate as recounted by Hertzberg was the eventual Vice-President’s total disconnection from reality:

“Tom Brokaw sadistically asked (Quayle) to describe the last time he had visited a poor family and to tell how he had explained to that family his votes against the school breakfast program, the school lunch program and the expansion of the child immunization program. In a quavering voice Quayle said he had too met with ‘those people’ and that ‘they didn’t ask me those questions on those votes, because they were glad that I took time out of my schedule to go down and talk about how we’re going to get a food bank going..”

….

“Asked to name a ‘work of literature or art’ that had impressed him lately, Quayle cited a book… by Richard Nixon…. One CBS guest commentator said that this answer ‘came across as non-prepared’.”

Also amusing was the coverage of the Gary Hart saga capped by this surreal exchange on Newshour highlighted by Hertzberg:

Lehrer: You don’t think it speaks to the question of judgement as to what a person would do as a candidate for president of the United States?

Hart: Jim, if I may call you Jim, let’s reverse the logic. Does it suggest that because Ronald Reagan used poor judgement on Irangate that therefore he’s unfaithful to his wife?

Lehrer: I don’t understand what you mean.

Reading contemporaneously written accounts of past political eras also offers provides the added amusement of allowing judge historical predictions against reality. Given his generally humble approach, Hertzberg comes out of this pretty well, but there are a few clangers. One example that springs readily to mind is an amusingly misguided article pimping Michael Dukakis’s Presidential prospects titled ‘The Tortoise’ and positing that Dukakis’s positive campaigning (“Good jobs at Good wages”) had George Bush on the defensive. The opinion of British journo quoted in the same article summing up Dukakis as ‘a hopeless wanker’ has held up rather better with time.

My Take: I am a bit of a sucker for condensed knowledge. It’s a deeply shallow (if that’s possible) way of learning, but I love adding to my stocks of knowledge by digesting pre-masticated titbits of trivia. So when I came across “The Know It All” (first Chapter available online here) in my favourite second-hand store I had high hopes. Surely a condensed and accessible Encyclopaedia Britannica would be both an interesting and rewarding read?

Unfortunately, I was sadly mistaken. These kinds of eclectic narratives depend heavily on the judgement and personality of the curator and I just didn’t warm to “The Know It All’s” author, AJ Jacobs. Partly this was because I thought he came across as a bit of a wanker, but mostly what rubbed me up the wrong way was his approach to reading and learning more broadly.

Jacobs’ body of work gives you a bit of a flavour for his approach; in addition to his Britannica reading stunt, he has also penned books on the experience of spending a year following every single rule in the Bible (“The Year of Living Biblically”) and on turning his life into a series of human experiments (“The Guinea Pig Diaries”). In short, he has become quite the exponent of the literary gimmick in recent times. You get the feeling reading “The Know It All” that despite the affectations, it’s all just a bit of a stunt for a book deal and he doesn’t have any real passion for his cause.

Yes, there are plenty of interesting facts, but Jacob’s self-reflection is facile and the bolt on memoir about his family is just dull (not all families are interesting enough to be memorialised sad to say). There are redeeming sections, but on the whole the book is formulaic and pitched at the audience of Entertainment Weekly.

One issue in particular that would have been worth some consideration, but seemed to be completely overlooked was whether Encyclopaedias have any role whatsoever in today’s society. In the times of Google, Wikipedia and the internet, is there any point in a generalist collection of introductory information on subjects chosen and edited by a chosen few? Jacobs claims that:

“The Britannica is still the gold standard, the Tiffany’s of encyclopedias. Founded in 1768, it’s the longest continually published reference book in history. Over the years, the Britannica’s contributors have included Einstein, Freud and Harry Houdini. Its current roster includes dozens of academics with Nobels, Pulitzers and other types of awards with ceremonies that don’t feature commentary from Melissa Rivers. The Britannica passed through some tough times during the dot-com craze, and it long ago phased out the door-to-door salesman, but it keeps chugging along. The legendary Eleventh edition from 1911 is thought by many to be the best-it’s inspired a fervid if mild-mannered cult –but the current editions are still the greatest single source of knowledge.”

Really? The ‘Greatest single source of knowledge?’ Come on. This is the gimmick wagging the book – a justification rather than an examination of the medium.

Jacobs almost stumbles an interesting insight into the changing role of the medium when he cites Hans Koning’s explanation for why the 11^th Edition of the EB, released in 1911 is considered by aficionados to be the greatest of all Encyclopaedias:

“The eleventh was the culmination of the Enlightenment, the last great work of the Age of Reason, the final instance when all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view. Four years late, the confidence and optimism that had produced the eleventh would be, as Konig puts it, “a casualty in the slaughter at Ypres and Argonne.”

Now here’s a topic for some critical reflection – the changing role of the EB in a world in which there is no longer a single fount of knowledge and the internet is changing the way that we seek, find and use information. Unfortunately, Jacobs isn’t interested:

“Yes, there’s the Internet. I could try to read Google from A to Z. But the Internet’s about as reliable as publications sold next to Trident and Duracell at the supermarket checkout line. Want a quick check on the trustworthiness of the Internet? Do a search on the words ‘perffectionist’ and ‘perfestionist.’ No, I prefer my old-school books. There’s something appealingly stable about the Britannica. I don’t even want that new-fangled CD-ROM for $49 or the monthly Britannica online service. I’ll take the leatherette volumes for $1400–which is not cheap, but it’s certainly less expensive than grad school. And anyway, at the end of this, maybe I can go on Jeopardy! and win enough to buy a dozen sets.”

Sigh. All he’s interested in is his gimmick and as a result the level of analysis you get from him rarely rises above that that you’d get from a reality television show. In summary, an interesting concept poorly executed.
(Random) Highlights:

From the original 1768 edition of the Britannica on Cats:

“Of all domestic animals, the character of the cat is the most equivocal and suspicious. He is kept, not for any amiable qualities, but purely with a view to banish rats, mice and other noxious animals from our houses… constantly bent on theft and rapine, they are full of cunning and dissimulation; they conceal their designs; seize every opportunity of doing mischief, and then fly from punishment… In a word, the cat is totally destitute of friendship.”

On Nathaniel Hawthorne (of The Scarlet Letter fame):

Towards the end of his life Nathaniel Hawthorne “Took to writing the figure ‘64’ compulsively on scraps of paper’.

On Montaigne and the writing process:

Montaigne “coined the term ‘essay,’ which translates to ‘attempt,’ or a little ‘project of trials and error’.

On the quirks of fate:

“On the dropping of Fat Man on Nagasaki on August 9, 1945: “The B-29 spent 10 minutes over Kokura without sighting its aim point; it then proceeded to the secondary target of Nagasaki, where at 11:02am local time, the weapon was air-burt at 1650 feet with a force of 21 Kilotons.”

Jacobs’ final insight from 44 million words:

“We have made our lives better. A thousand times better. Never again will I mythologize the past as some sort of golden age. Remember: in the 19^th Century, the mortality rate was 75 percent fro a caesarean section… the workday was fourteen hours.. the life expectancy in ancient Rome was twenty nine years. Widows had to marry their late husband’s brother. Originally forks only had one tine, and umbrellas were available only in black, and you ate four-day old fetid meat for dinner.”

(I don’t disagree with this BTW).

My Take: Those who know me know that I’m a bit of a Sinophile. While the human rights record of the Chinese government is obviously indefensible and deserves public attention and debate, I do get a bit annoyed at the generally simplistic analysis applied to issues involving China.

China is obviously not a free society. Its citizens are constrained by the constant threat of brutal repression. But the trajectory of societal development is clearly towards increased personal freedom. There’s a legitimate discussion about whether the pace of this societal change is adequate, but nobody could argue that China under Hu Jintao is less free than it was under Jiang Zemin, or less free under Deng Xiaoping than it was under Mao. China today is more complex than the totalitarian police state caricature.

China’s people are far from a brain-washed, homogenous mass. While there are still absolute taboo topics with hideous consequences for transgressors, there is currently a vigorous political/philosophical debate occurring in China. Mark Leonard’s book, “What Does China Think?” provides a useful idiot’s guide to these debates. The book’s introduction provides a good synopsis of the ground that Leonard covers:

“Inside China—in party forums, but also in universities, in semi-independent think tanks, in journals and on the internet—debate rages about the direction of the country: “new left” economists argue with the “new right” about inequality; political theorists argue about the relative importance of elections and the rule of law; and in the foreign policy realm, China’s neocons argue with liberal internationalists about grand strategy. Chinese thinkers are trying to reconcile competing goals, exploring how they can enjoy the benefits of global markets while protecting China from the creative destruction they could unleash in its political and economic system. Some others are trying to challenge the flat world of US globalisation with a “walled world” Chinese version.

….While it is true there is no free discussion about ending the Communist party’s rule, independence for Tibet or the events of Tiananmen Square, there is a relatively open debate in leading newspapers and academic journals about China’s economic model, how to clean up corruption or deal with foreign policy issues like Japan or North Korea.”

To my mind, the most interesting part of “What Does China Think” is Leonard’s survey of Chinese experiments with new models of governance. There seems to be a lot of experimentation with different ways of making Government more responsive to its citizens – without actually introducing democracy. The result is an interesting series of bounded public consultations – focus groups, opinion polls, citizen deliberative juries – designed to increase citizens’ voice within specific circumscribed parameters, without actually giving them the power to challenge the Communist Party’s power.

As Leonard tells it:

The west still has multi-party elections as a central part of the political process, but has supplemented them with new types of deliberation. China, according to the new political thinkers, will do things the other way around: using elections in the margins but making public consultations, expert meetings and surveys a central part of decision-making. This idea was described pithily by Fang Ning, a political scientist at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He compared democracy in the west to a fixed-menu restaurant where customers can select the identity of their chef, but have no say in what dishes he chooses to cook for them. Chinese democracy, on the other hand, always involves the same chef—the Communist party—but the policy dishes which are served up can be chosen “à la carte.”

The authorities certainly seem willing to experiment with all kinds of political innovations. In Zeguo, they have even introduced a form of government by focus group. But the main criterion guiding political reform seems to be that it must not threaten the Communist party’s monopoly on power. Can a more responsive form of authoritarianism evolve into a legitimate and stable form of government?

Leonard terms the result ‘deliberative dictatorship’ and it’s interesting despite its numerous and obvious shortcomings. “What Does China Think” is a useful primer for the way the Chinese elite view the world and the policy challenges facing their nation.

Highlights:

“We are used to China’s growing influence on the world economy—but could it also reshape our ideas about politics and power? This story of China’s intellectual awakening is less well documented. We closely follow the twists and turns in America’s intellectual life, but how many of us can name a contemporary Chinese writer or thinker? Inside China—in party forums, but also in universities, in semi-independent think tanks, in journals and on the internet—debate rages about the direction of the country: “new left” economists argue with the “new right” about inequality; political theorists argue about the relative importance of elections and the rule of law; and in the foreign policy realm, China’s neocons argue with liberal internationalists about grand strategy. Chinese thinkers are trying to reconcile competing goals, exploring how they can enjoy the benefits of global markets while protecting China from the creative destruction they could unleash in its political and economic system. Some others are trying to challenge the flat world of US globalisation with a “walled world” Chinese version.”

Synopsis:

My Take: Yes, I admit have particular preferences when it comes to my reading habits. I read more than my share of modern Asian fiction, Kennedy biographies and blokey Australian literature. However, I do consciously try to read outside of my comfort zone on a fairly regular basis. I figure even if it’s not to my tastes, at least I’m broadening my horizons (and have one more topic that I can bullshit my way through a conversation about).

Enter Anais Nin. I remember shortly after reading Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain” thinking that I really didn’t read many female writers and that I should make more of an effort to challenge my ignorant and patriarchal biases. So I figured I’d dive into the deep end with some of the chickyist femo-lit around – Anais Nin’s semi-infamous diaries of sexual awakening and literary exploration in 1930s Paris with Henry and June Miller.

I promise that I did come to this with an open mind. I was looking for enrichment and broadening of horizons. Unfortunately, what I found was a bit of a mess. Nin is a poetic and whimsical writer, but even in the edited version I read, the internal monologue got tiring pretty quickly. Nin’s frank writing about her sexual awakening and liberation might have been enough to carry the book in an earlier time, but I wonder about its relevance today. I suppose that I should give Nin a leave pass on this one given that she never intended the diaries to be published, but even disregarding the lack of narrative framing for an external audience, there wasn’t much in the diaries that made me think that I would enjoy Nin’s writing/perspectives/insights in a fictional context.

Highlight: I would include a highlight, but a lot of it is NSFW so I think I’ll take the path of discretion…

My Take: Misha Glenny is probably the only journalist in the world who could have written a book of this scope about a subject matter so murky. Poly-lingual and with the street smarts that come from years spent reporting on the frontlines and the backchannels of the Balkan Wars  (brilliantly recounted in “The Fall of Yugoslavia”), Glenny has the ability to do first-hand reporting that most journalists would have neither the ability nor the courage to undertake. Glenny uses his unique skill set to follow the smuggling routes for illegal cigarettes, drugs, women and guns, to trace the paper trail of financing and money laundering needed by the illicit economy and to meet the muscle and influence needed to protect these operations. It’s a rollicking tale with some great characters.

However, it’s the bigger picture of Glenny’s story that I found both more interesting and more frustrating. On the interesting side, Glenny spends a lot of time exploring the factors influencing supply and demand for the outputs of international crime. Glenny makes a compelling case for how the high level of demand in the West for commodities like oil, cigarettes, drugs and women combined with the void of institutional authority in Eastern Europe, Africa and South America in the early 1990s to create an explosive, transnational, illicit supply response in the developing world.

As Glenny puts it:

“One group of people.. saw real opportunity in this dazzling mixture of upheaval, hope and uncertainty. These men understood instinctively that rising living standards in the West, increased trade and migration flows, and the greatly reduced ability of many governments to police their countries combined to form a goldmine. They were criminals, organised and disorganised, but they were also good capitalists and entrepreneurs, intent on obeying the laws of supply and demand.”

Through his case studies, Glenny demonstrates the globalised economy’s ability to quickly direct financial and physical resources in response to the opportunities for supra-normal profits created by illicit markets. As Glenny rightly points out, more often than not, it is government policy that creates these extraordinary returns via domestic regulation eg via prohibitions, trade embargos, cross-border barriers, extremely high rates of tax etc. Where either the substance of these regulations differs from on national market to another, incentives are created for the trans-nationalisation of crime. It’s interesting stuff that I haven’t seen too many other people writing about.

The frustrating thing about “McMafia” though is that Glenny doesn’t frame the book through this insight. Instead, he clouds his thesis with a series of interesting, but only tangentially related stories without any explanation for where it all fits together.  Glenny has aggregated so much reporting about modern trans-national crime that he can’t seem to bare to leave any of it out. The ultimate effect is to leave the reader wondering how it is all connected.

For example, Glenny dedicates a substantial portion of the book to discussing market opportunities created by the mass concession of the state’s monopoly over the use of force throughout Eastern Europe. It’s interesting stuff and Glenny goes into quite some detail on the causes and implications of the privatisation of coercive power in the wake of the collapse of Communism:

“All manner of operatives lost their jobs: secret police, counterintelligence officers, special-forces commandos and border guards, as well as homicide detectives and traffic cops. Their skills included surveillance, smuggling, killing people, establishing networks and blackmail.

The Police and even the KGB were clueless as to how one might enforce contract law. The protection rackets and Mafiosi were not so clueless – their central role in the new Russian economy was to ensure that contracts entered into were honoured. They were the new law-enforcement agencies, and the oligarchs needed their services.

By 1999, there were more than 11,500 registered ‘Private Security Firms’, employing more than 800,000 people. Of these, almost 200,000 had licences to carry arms. The Russian Interior Ministry has estimated that there were at least half as many again that remained unregistered.”

It’s interesting stuff to read about the wrestlers, boxers, weightlifters and spooks that were previously employed by various Communist regimes contracting out their services to the private sector en masse. But Glenny doesn’t contextualise the multiple chapters he dedicates to this collapse in Government within his broader message about the causes of the internationalisation of crime.

Highlight: One of the most fascinating parts of the book (and the source for its title) was how international criminal syndicates were implementing many of the business strategies of their licit counter parts, to wit the following example of branding, licensing and franchising:

“One of the most violent and feared groups to emerge in Moscow and elsewhere was the Chechen mafia. Their mere reputation for being both fearless and gruesome was often sufficient to cow an opponent or persuade a businessman to take them on as his Krysha (literally ‘roof’).

But their members were not drawn exclusively from the Caucasus, let alone from Chechnya: ‘The Chechen mafia (who should not be confused with the guerrillas fighting in the Chechen war) became a brand name, a franchise – McMafia if you life,’ explained Mark Galeotti, who has devoted the last fifteen years to studying the Russian Mob. ‘They would sell the moniker “Chechen” to protection rackets in other towns provided they paid, of course, and provided they all ways carried out their word. If a group claimed a Chechen connection, but didn’t carry out its threats to the letter, it was devaluing the brand. The original Chechens would come after them’”.

My Take: Philip Gourevitch’s account of the collective insanity of late 20^th century Rwanda is a moving account.

Not simply because it tells a horrific story mainly from first hand accounts, but moreso because it is told unashamedly from a position of moral clarity. Gourevitch doesn’t equivocate in this book. He tells the stories he’s heard directly and with clear moral verdicts. His writing isn’t annoyingly hectoring or self-righteous, but it clearly places blame where it belongs (ie the Belgians, the French, the Hutus, the UN, the French, the Americans, the UNHCR, the French). No where is this approach more clear than in the title of the book, which comes from a letter written by several local pastors to their regional superior, Elizaphan Ntakirutimana, a Seventh-Day Adventist Pastor who was later convicted in the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda with aiding their killing the following day.

In many ways Gourevitch’s approach reminded me of Hannah Arendt’s writing on the holocaust in this regard – more interested in humanity, and what the genocide said about it, than in providing an objective political history. He delves into some detail into Rwanda’s history and culture, but more for philosophical reflection on the absurdities of human nature than to factually enlighten the reader. One particularly interesting section of the book in this regard was its discussion on the absurdly vague distinction drawn within the country between Hutus and Tutsis.

The very nature of the distinction between Hutus and Tutsis is difficult to articulate. Ethanographers and historians agree that they cannot properly be called distinct ethnic groups. Similarly, the difference does not quite fit the description of classes, castes or ranks. What can be said is that the perceptions of difference probably sprung from historical occupational distinctions between Tutsi as herdsman and Hutu as cultivators. Allegedly, the increased value of cattle gave the numerically inferior Tutsis some social and political cache that was entrenched by entrenched in the 19th century when the Mwami Kigeri Rwabugiri, a Tutsi, ascended the throne, and expanded the state to around its present borders.

All of the above is difficult to verify as a result of the ambiguities of oral history and the substantial distrust that now overlays the area. However, what can be confidently said is that it was the Belgians that entrenched and perpetuated these distinctions in order to administer their colonial rule. As Gourevitch tellingly recounts:

“Colonisation is violence, and there are many ways to carry out that violence. In addition to military and administrative chiefs and a veritable army of churchmen, the Belgians dispatched scientists to Rwanda. The scientists brought scales and measuring tapes and callipers, and they went about weighing Rwandans, measuring Rwandan cranial capacities, and conducting comparative analyses of the relative protuberance of Rwandan noses. Sure enough, the scientists found what they had believed all along.  Tutsis had a ‘nobler’, more ‘naturally’ aristocratic dimensions than the ‘coarse’ and ‘bestial’ Hutus. On the ‘nasal index’ for instance, the median Tutsi nose was found to be about two and a half millimetres longer and nearly five millimetres narrower than the median Hutu nose.”

….

“In 1933-34, the Belgians conducted a census in order to issue ‘ethnic’ identity cards, which labelled every Rwandan as either Hutu (85%) of Tutsi (14%) or Twa (1%). The identity cards made it virtually impossible for Hutus to become Tutsis, and permitted the Belgians to perfect the administration of an apartheid system rooted in the myth of Tutsi superiority… Whatever Hutu and Tutsi identity may have stood for in the pre-colonial state no longer mattered; the Belgians had made ‘ethnicity’ the defining feature of Rwandan existence.”

Combine this institutionalised societal division with the brutality and repression of the Belgian colonial administration and the die was well and truly set. But again, Gourevitch does not recount this history to offer lessons, but more so to muse on the nature of humanity. It’s an approach that works in literature, if not in conflict studies. No doubt the causes of the genocide were more nuanced and ambiguous than Gourevitch recounts. No doubt it’s also important for subject matter scholars to study and analyse these reasons. But for the broader mass of humanity, the rights and wrongs of genocide are patently clear. Gourevitch’s moral clarity in the face of the victims he has encountered seems appropriate and his reflection on the nature of humanity seems the best thing that anyone from outside of Rwanda can take from the tragedy.

Highlight:

“Like Leontius, the young Athenian in Plato, I presume that you are reading this because you desire a closer look, and that you, too, are properly disturbed by your curiosity. Perhaps, in examining this extremity with me, you hope for some understanding, some insight, some flicker of self-knowledge – a moral, or a lesson, or a clue about how to behave in this world: some such information. I don’t discount the possibility, but when it comes to genocide, you already know right from wrong. The best reason I have come up with for looking closely into Rwanda’s stories is that ignoring them makes me even more uncomfortable about existence and my place in it. The horror, the horror, interests me only insofar as a precise memory of the offense is necessary to understand its legacy.”

My Take: Here’s the thing about Augusten Burroughs. I love him – at its best, his writing zings and fizzles with caustic, but good natured wit. Sadly, my fiancée’s first exposure to him was via his least impressive work; his most recent effort ‘Wolf at the Table’. She wasn’t impressed, and to be honest, neither was I. This state of affairs is doubly unfortunate as it has led me to evangelise Burroughs to her even more than I ordinarily would. It’s a conundrum – the more I push it, the more the pressure will increase, building up the expectation to heights that can’t possibly be met and decreasing the likelihood that she will like him at all. It’s a strange thing this compulsion to bully your friends into liking the books that you yourself loved.

Anyway, I’m hoping that the next Burroughs’ book that she picks up (after I subtly wear her down) will be “Magical Thinking”. His life as a neurotic, gay, New York advertising executive turned best selling author with an excess of personal baggage from a truly bizarre childhood provides a rich subject matter. In this context, Burroughs’ furtive attempts to develop healthy, loving relationship with a partner in spite of his calamitous personal history are warmly and amusingly told:

”I must ease people into the facts of me, not deposit large, undigested chunks of my history at their feet. Too much of me too fast is toxic.” ….

”My brain is incorrectly formed, and I’m shaped like a tube. Plus, I’m an alcoholic, a ’survivor’ of childhood sexual abuse, was raised in a cult and have no education.” ….

”(The new boyfriend) knows I write every day for hours but has no idea that all I’m writing about is me. It seems wiser to let him think I’m an aspiring novelist instead of just an alcoholic with a year of sobriety who spends eight hours a day writing about the other 16.”

However, while Burroughs shows a little more of himself in this book than say “Running with Scissors” but the star of “Magical Thinking” is still Burroughs’ writing. The prose in this book sparkles like a Burroughs concentrate. Burroughs’ masterful dry wit is sprinkled liberally throughout the pages of “Magical Thinking” and his narrative asides are a delight:

“Although I was able to maintain a pleasant expression, I was mentally throwing up in her face.”  ….

”Telemarketers… (are) calling with the frequent urgency of dumped boyfriends. At this point, I cannot help but wonder, is the entire telemarketing industry one big, jilted, clingy gay guy?” ….

‘I was struck with a bolt of distilled horror like I have never known before. Far worse than suddenly finding yourself walking through a prison cafeteria wearing Daisy Duke shorts and a Jane Fonda headband.’

“Magical Thinking” is one of those books that leaves you giggling and chortling throughout. Highly recommended.

Highlight: “Roid Rage” the story of the time Burroughs’ spent using steroids in order to live up to the buffed stereotypes of New York’s gay dating scene”

‘To nobody’s surprise, steroid use is common among gay men. When you combine a love for men with a love for drama, you end up with a guy on steroids.’  …

‘I said – I’m doing it for medical reasons’ my boyfriend would reply ‘your vanity is not a medical reason.’ ….

‘On typical days, (dust) is simply irritating. On Roid Rage days, it made me want to stomp down to the highway, pull drivers out of their cars, and bash their faces into pavement; Suck up that dirt like a good little Electrolux, Jersey Boy Bitch.’  ….

‘It’s weird. The day after I get the shot, I’m usually fine. It’s the day after this where I turn into somebody capable of committing a triple homicide, then going to a Ben Stiller movie.’

My Take: I knew I would love this book from the moment I opened Chapter One to see two columns containing separate lists for ‘Books Bought this month’ and for ‘Books Read this month’. It was the first of many moments of self-recognition for a fellow bibliophile. As Hornby rightly observes:

‘When I’m arguing with St Peter at the Pearly Gates, I’m going to tell him to ignore the Books Read column, and focus on the Books Bought instead. ‘This is Really who I am,’ I’ll tell him.

Like Hornby, I am also congenitally unable to control myself in a bookstore. Like Hornby, my wallet is bigger than my bedside table and I end up buying far more books than anyone could possibly get around to reading. And just like Hornby I have an addict’s gift for rationalisation and self-deception. I well recognised Hornby’s desperate justifications throughout ‘The Polysyllabic Spree’ for the amount of money he spent on books during the month:

‘I don’t want anyone writing in to point out that I spend too much money on books, many of which I will never read. I know that already. I certainly intend to read all of them, more or less. My intentions are good. Anyway, it’s my money. And I’ll bet you do it too.’

I do Nick….

‘I read 55% of the books I bought this month – five and a half out of ten. Two of the unread books, however, are volumes of poetry, and, to my way of thinking, poetry books work more like books of reference: they go up on the shelves straightaway (as opposed to on the bedside table), to be taken down and dipped into every now and again…. So I’m taking the poetry out, and calling it five and a half out of eight – and the Heller I’ve read before, years ago, so that’s six and a half out of eight. I make that 81 ¼%! I am both erudite and financially prudent!’

As am I Nick, as am I. I’ve now limited myself to purchases from second-hand bookstores at half the price of the chains; which means I’m completely justified in buying twice as many books!

Even when Hornby is finally shamed into an admission of guilt (not something that I’ve ever owned up to) he hides it in small print in footnote at the bottom of the page:

‘I bought so many books this month it’s obscene, and I’m not owning up to them all: this is a selection. And to be honest, I’ve been economical with the truth for months now. I keep finding books that I bought, didn’t read and didn’t list’

Obsessive book buying was just one of many aspects of a booklover’s reading experience that Hornby insightfully and amusingly catalogues in “The Polysyllabic Spree”. Hornby totally eschews pretence when recounting his monthly reading – and as such conveys the true experience of reading brilliantly. This is not a book written to pose for the literati. Like the average reader, Hornby freely admits to a periodic lack of motivation for reading since:

‘Reading is a domestic activity and is therefore susceptible to any changes in the domestic environment.’

He similarly admits to struggling to stay interested in overlong books, getting a cheap feeling of satisfaction from knocking off the shorter classics (’Candide’ was a special favourite at less than 100 pages) and finding “writers’ writers” interminable. All things that I’m sure most readers would own up to if pushed, but wouldn’t want to advertise too widely in the literary community.

This is a book lover’s book written for book lovers. If you love the reading experience, do yourself a favour and pick up a copy.

Highlights:

On the process of knocking off an extra long book:

‘We fought, Wilkie Collins and I. We fought bitterly and with all our might, to a standstill, over a period of about three weeks, on trains and aeroplanes and by hotel swimming pools. Sometimes – usually late at night, in bed – he could put me out cold with a single paragraph; every time I got through twenty or thirty pages, it felt to me as though I’d socked him good, but it took a lot out of me, and I had to retire to my corner to wipe the blood and sweat off my reading glasses. Only in the last fifty-odd pages, after I’d landed several of these blows, did old Wilkie show any signs buckling under the assault.

On the natural superiority of books as a cultural form:

‘One of the reasons I wanted to write this column, I think, is because I assumed that the cultural highlight of my month would arrive in book form, and that’s true, for probably eleven months of the year. Books are, let’s face it, better than everything else…. Even if you love movies and music as much as you do books, it’s still, in any given four week period, way, way more likely you’ll find a great book that you haven’t read than a great movie you haven’t seen, or a great album you haven’t heard: the assiduous consumer will eventually exhaust movies and music… the feeling everyone has with literature: that we can’t get through the good novels published in the last six months, let alone those published since publishing began.’