These Weeks at the Library (20 April – 4 May)

Posted on May 5, 2011 by smellincoffee

The last two weeks have been rather enjoyable, reading-wise. I’ve been reading from the lost books of the Septuagint — books which were in the original Jewish and Christian canons, but discarded by Martin Luther —  and  finding them interesting looks into the Jewish mind as it grew through the centuries.  I also continued in Asimov’s Empire series and returned to the Sharpe books by Bernard Cornwell, but the most memorable book from this period has been Joe Haldeman’s The Accidental Time Machine,  which borders on absurdist science fiction. Haldeman is an SF author whose work I’m just starting to explore.

Those enamored of the good doctor Isaac Asimov may be interested in reading a series of posts by literary agent and author Frederik Pohl, who knew Asimov growing up and remained friends with him throughout his life.

Selected Quotations:

Late in the cruise I discovered that Carl Sagan (the well-known astronomer from Cornell) did not take kindly to the swaying of the ship. At once I told him, in full and moving detail, of the exact matter in which the various ship’s motions failed to affect me, attributing my immunity to nausea to superior genes and a ready intelligence.
Carl showed no signs of gratitude. 

p. 206, The Tragedy of the Moon (Isaac Asimov)

Do not let your passions be your guide, but restrain your desires.  If you indulge yourself with all that passion fancies, it will make you the butt of your enemies. (Ecclesiasticus 18: 30-31)        

A hasty argument kindles a fire, and a hasty quarrel leads to bloodshed. Blow on a spark to make it glow, or spit on it to put it out; both results come from the one mouth. (27: 11-12)

This next week..

  • Michael Connelly’s City of Bones
  • Joe Haldeman’s The Coming, which opens with the discovery of a signal from space
  • Possibly reading The First Salute by Barbara Tuchman, which is not — as I thought — a story of naval warfare during the American Revolution, but one addressing the political influence of the Revolution in Europe. She seems have written a fair bit about the Dutch, which pleases me given how little I know about them and how significant a role they played in European history in the age of enlightenment and discovery.
I also have Bernard Lewis’ The Middle East, which I might explore at some point in the week.
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The Tragedy of the Moon

Posted on May 4, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Tragedy of the Moon
© Isaac Asimov 1978
224 pages

The Tragedy of the Moon collects seventeen sundry Asimovian essays  which will prove a delight to most Asimov fans.  The essays were originally published in Fantasy and Science Fiction, but have been edited and arranged specially for the book. This is one of his more diverse collections: while science is a common element of most of the essays, only two are pure or ‘hard’ science. The rest combine science and culture, as when Asimov writes on the history of calenders and the week in western culture. I’d never really wondered why the week has seven days, at least not enough to look up the answer.  As Asimov deftly explains in “Moon over Babylon”, it comes from lunar festivities which occurred every seventh day. This also has some bearing on the Jewish ‘Sabbath’, and this essay is rich in history and etymology. While the good doctor’s nonfiction output is generally fascinating, I liked this collection most for including more of Asimov’s informality:  some collections tend to be staid and to the point, but Asimov’s winsome personality shines through the pages here as he constantly kids and charms the reader, both in-text and in footnotes.
If “It’s by Asimov!” isn’t enough for you, the list of essays follows.
  1. “The Tragedy of the Moon” Asimov reflects on how the absence of a moon rotating the earth may have sped up humanity’s acceptance of heliocentrism and hastened the growth of scientific progress in general.
  2. “The Triumph of the Moon” examines how the moon has been a boon to humanity, though his three triumphs listed are more indirect than I’d imagined. 
  3. “Moon Over Babylon” concerns the history of the week as a timekeeping period, and is one of my favorites.
  4. “The Week Excuse” sees Asimov argue for a more sensible calender (and make a terrible pun, for he is “not ashamed of myself in the slightest”).
  5. “The World Ceres” is both explanatory and speculative, as Asimov ponders how humanity might use Ceres for mining and tourism
  6. “The Clock in the Sky” regales the reader with the story of how humanity figured out the speed of light.
  7. “The One and Only” focuses on carbon’s unique suitability for becoming the backbone of life.
  8. “The Unlikely Twins” tackle two very different manifestations of carbon: graphite and diamond, and explain how they can be so different and yet consist solely of the same element.
  9. “Through the Microglass” focuses on the discovery of microscopic beings like bacteria and their importance in the fields of medicine and biology.
  10. “Down from the Amoeba” struggles with the concept of “life”: are viruses, sperm,  and red bloodcells ‘alive’?
  11. “The Cinderalla Compound” builds on this and addresses the discovery of nucleic acid and DNA. 
  12. “Doctor, Doctor, Cut my Throat” features Asimov reducing his surgeon into a laughing fit and lecturing on hormones.
  13. “Lost in Translation”, which also appears either Gold or Magic, is an interesting departure from the rest of the book,  stressing the importance of social and cultural context when translating or reading literature from eras past. He uses the Book of Ruth as his prime example, seeing it as not just a love story, but a triumphant endorsement of universal brotherhood. 
  14. “The Ancient and the Ultimate” sees Asimov slyly defend books while pretending to lecture on the supremacy of cassettes (heh) in the future of communication. 
  15. “By the Numbers” addresses both hypocrisy — people complaining about technological societies and taxes while freely enjoying the benefits of both — and the need for a society in which computers manage things. (Such societies often appear in Asimov’s works, often using a global computer  called  MULTIVAC.)
  16. “The Cruise and I” relates the story of Asimov’s cruise off the Florida coast, where he watched the last Apollo takeoff — which happened to be the first nighttime launch. Asimov usually avoided travel, so I relished this humorous take which ended in splendor as humanity reached out for the moon yet one more time.  Carl Sagan was on that very same cruise, and he appears in the essay twice.
  17. “Academe and I” sees Asimov look back on his careers as an author and professor of biochemistry, giving a minibiography of himself along the way.

I for one enjoyed myself tremendously reading this.

My own copy, purchased in used condition (obviously so) last week. 


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Teaser Tuesday (3 May)

Posted on May 3, 2011 by smellincoffee

April showers (and tornadoes) bring May flowers (and Teaser Tuesdays).

The stranded Riflemen might call him the new Lieutenant, and they might invest the word ‘new’ with all the scorn of old soldiers, but that was because they did not know their man. They thought of him as nothing more than a jumped-up sergeant, and they were wrong. He was a soldier, and his name was Richard Sharpe. 

p. 31, Sharpe’s Rifles. Bernard Cornwell

It was a neat column of words: WE’RE COMING, repeated sixty times.
“Well…..by itself, it doesn’t exactly make one –“
“Norman. The signal came from a tenth of a light-year away. In English.”

p. 2-3, The Coming. Joe Haldeman

And the reward for “Most Embarrassing Reason I’m at the Doctor’s” is…

I lay down to sleep by the courtyard wall, leaving my face uncovered because of the heat. I did not know that there were sparrows in the wall above me; and their droppings fell, still warm, right into my eyes and produced white patches. I went to the doctors to be cured, but the more they treated me with their ointments, the more my eyes were blinded by the white patches, until I lost my sight.

From book two of Tobit (The New English Bible).

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Top Ten Favorite Reccommendations

Posted on May 2, 2011 by smellincoffee

This week The Broke and the Bookish are dicussing their favorite books they found through recommendations. Happily I have a ‘reccommended‘ label just for an occasion such as this.

1. Redwall, Brian Jacques (Librarian)

My home librarian suggested this book to me many years ago, and I remember fording the marsh behind my house and finding a quiet place in the woods to read it. As I’ve mentioned before, it was the first time I’d ever read an epic novel, or a work of fantasy, and the idea of exploring this world with its massive history excited me.

2. Sharpe’s Eagle, Bernard Cornwell (Seeking a Little Truth)
While I haven’t yet read most of or even much of the Sharpe series, this book introduced me to Bernard Cornwell. He’s become a favorite of mine the last year: I’m positively wild for his Saxon Stories series which are about politics, friendship, family, and war  during the 800s in England, where Anglo-Saxons and Danes fought to rule Britain.

3. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, J. K. Rowling
This book wasn’t just recommended to me, I had a pack of friends who followed me around like ducks, pecking me on the legs and quacking “Read it!”  I avoided it for years because the books were too popular, but in August 2007 I picked up the first novel. I’d read the series through by the end of September, and I re-read them that December. Since then Potterdom has entered into the Holy Trinity of things I am geeky about, along with Star Trek and Star Wars. (Though I guess becoming a Firefly fan has made it a quad…)

4. The Quiet Game, Greg Iles (Sister)
I’ve never read anyone who does thrillers like Greg Iles,  and his usual southern gothic setting is a delight. The Quiet Game started me on Iles, and introduced his oft-used character Penn Gage, a lawyer-novelist turned mayor of his hometown. The Penn Gage mysteries tend to involve criminal mysteries and discussion of social and cultural issues set inside the steamy historic town of Natchez, Mississippi.

5. The Destiny Trilogy, David Mack (Everyone at the TrekBBS)
(Mere Mortals, Gods of Night, Lost Souls)
 I have heard about these Star Trek novels for years.  Ever since their release, every book thread at TrekBBS has mentioned the Destiny trilogy reverently.  Last year I picked them up, and I figured — no way will this live up to the hype. I put it off for a few weeks because I dreaded being disappointed, but once I began to read….they’re glorious.

7. Amusing Ourselves to Death, Neil Postman (Sociology Professor)

An incredible look at the ever-increasing domination of society by entertainment, and what that is doing to political commentary, the news, and our worldviews.

8. How Few Remain, Harry Turtledove (University Acquaintance)

How Few Remain is the start of a large alternate-history series which begins with the success of the southern rebellion in the United States, and the establishment of a Confederacy protected by Britain and France. Turtledove follows this new geopolitical scheme ’til the end of the second world war.  While versions of the Great War and World War 2 both feature prominently, they play out very differently. The two American states are on opposite sides of the conflict, which is why I spent twelve+ books cheering on the Prussians and American socialists in their fight against Confederate Nazis,  the Canadian resistance, and Mormon terrorists.

…it’s a fun series.

9. No Ordinary Time, Doris Kearns Goodwin (Friend)
The story of the Roosevelt White House, in which FDR fights the Great Depression, racism, and corporate selfishness in an attempt to righten the American economy, make it a more democratic nation, and fight the Nazi’s

10. Persian Fire, Tom Holland (The Resolute Reader)
The story of the conflict between Greece and Persia. The book is especially helpful for those wishing to understand the Persian mind and that which followed, for Christianity, Judaism, and Islam all have a bloodline that makes them partially related to Persia’s Zoroastrianism.

Honorable Mention: The Know-It-All, A.J. Jacobs…a humorous account of a man who tried to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica.

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Sharpe’s Rifles

Posted on April 30, 2011 by smellincoffee

Sharpe’s Rifles
© 1988 Bernard Cornwell
304 pages

Where did Clint Eastwood get that great big sword….?

It’s the year 1809, and Richard Sharpe has just survived a slaughter in the wintry wastelands of Spain. Cut off from the army and surrounded by Frenchman, the lieutenant — promoted from the ranks after he saved the future Duke of Wellington’s life —  must assume command of what his left of his regiment and lead them to safety. They are not impressed with a soldier-turned-officer such as he,  and his life is imperiled not only by the abundance of the enemy and the savageness of the terrain, but by his own soldiers’ risk to mutiny. In the hills, however, Sharpe meets a group of battered Spanish cavalrymen who carry a box of such great important that their major thinks it may turn Spain’s almost-defeat at the hands of Napoleon around to victory.

It’s been a few months since I read my first Sharpe’s book, largely because I’ve been enjoying Cornwell’s other work. Before finishing off the Grailquest series I decided to repay Sharpe a visit, and — of course — it was well worth the while. Sharpe’s Rifles tells the story of how Sharpe came to command the 95th rifles, with whom he shares an antagonistic relationship throughout the novel — especially regarding Patrick Harper, the large and surly Irishman who is the  rifles’ leader despite his lack of rank or battle honors. Although Harper and Sharpe are    battlefield comrades and close friends in later novels, here their conversations tend to involve a great deal of physical violence. While I haven’t read enough of the Sharpe novels to appreciate everything a ‘prequel’ novel like this would hint at, I was as usual impressed by Cornwell’s dramatic flair and characterization. I especially enjoyed his depiction of the cynical Sharpe set against his superstitious comrades and allies, who use holy water to drive away malevolent water-spirits in streams they wish to ford. Cornwell’s lead characters tend to lean away from religion, a fact, I’ve always appreciated — and the one religious protagonist I’ve seen of Cornwell’s came in Heretic.

Having seen the movie first, I was concerned that the novel itself would seem like old hat. Although Sharpe’s ultimate objective is the same in both works, the movie and book reach their ends through considerably different means. As much as I enjoyed the movie, Cornwell’s writing is far superior, especially in the endgame where Sharpe has a private motivation to capture the final objective, one which overwhelms the military or strategic importance of it.  That personal quest captured my attention in the book’s final chapters.

I’m beginning to suspect that it doesn’t matter which order I read the Sharpe novels in,  and I’m tempted to hang both the chronological and order-of-publish approaches and just read the books in the order that they strike my interest.  I will be marching with Lieutenant Sharpe again, in any case.

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Ecclesiasticus

Posted on April 26, 2011 by smellincoffee

Ecclesiasticus or The Wisdom of Jesus, Son of Sirach
From The New English Bible, pp. 158 -251
© Oxford and Cambridge Universities 1970

Last week I read the Book of Wisdom, a title within the original Jewish and Christian bibles, but one discarded by Protestants. In an effort to learn more about the evolution of Judaism and Christianity, and out of my own interest in wisdom literature, I’m continuing to read from the more complete Catholic canon. Ecclesiasticus is also placed firmly within the genre of wisdom literature and is largely similar to Proverbs in being an extended collection of observations, maxims, and advice. The author also tacked on Book of Wisdom-like devotions to wisdom, poetic history, and two sections of praise worthy of the Psalms.

Unjust rage can never be excused; when anger tips the scale it is man’s downfall. (1:22)

Ecclesiastisicus is definitely an interesting little book. I forgave its frequent praise of submission and obedience (to kings, priests, etc) as being a fault of the times which produced it,  and delighted in its frequent references to emotional self-control, especially given that the author seems to have been influenced by Stoic cosmology, using ‘wisdom’ in the opening section in the same way that a Stoic might refer to the divine fire: it is rational, fused into the universe, and given to mankind so that we might draw closer to God.  While a fair bit of the advice consists of objections worth reflecting on (“Do not overrate one man for his good lucks or be repelled by another man’s appearance”), other advice stands out. I would have never expected to read admonishments to examine evidence and engage in reflection before making a judgment, and to put conscience before deferment to authority in a religious text that places so much emphasis on faith and obedience to authority.

I have still more in my mind to express;
I am full like the moon at mid-month.
Listen to me, my devout sons, and blossom like a rose planted by a stream.
Spread your fragrance like incense; and bloom like a lily.  (39: 12 – 14)

It’s hard to get a handle on the author of Ecclesiasticus. He seems pious and introspective, yet at the same time encourages readers to make hay while the sun shines — ‘you will enjoy no luxuries in the grave’.  Like Epicures and the author of Ecclesiastes, he obviously doesn’t consider pleasure a mortal failing: he only warns against excesses. Speaking of excesses, he unfortunately his own — especially in the hate department. I am surprised that “Jesus, Son of Sirach” doesn’t enjoy more name recognition in the United States: publishers have obviously missed two huge markets to sell his thoughts to: those who subscribe to the American Family Radio school of parenting would adore his brutal approach, which consists of breaking the will of sons and bemoaning virginal daughters as liabilities who are remarkable only for their potential bringing shame to the family; and gangsta rappers would delight in his fantastic misogyny, which crippled the closing two fifths of the book for me..  As I read line after demonizing line, culminating in the classic “Better a man’s wickedness than a womans goodness; it is woman who brings shame and disgrace (42: 14)”, I thought to myself that this guy had some serious frustration issues to work out. Obviously, he didn’t have a happy love life.  His attitude toward slaves borders on schizophrenic: he warns readers to keep their slaves constantly working, or on the rack being tortured, lest they run away — and then on the very next page, scarcely twenty lines later, suggests treating them like family. Considering this fellow’s attitude toward wives, sons, and daughters, however, I would not be surprised if he recommended the rack for them. I’m still reeling from the moral whiplash: the lack of consistency is problematic, and why I would recommend Marcus Aurelius or a similar philosopher over this faithful, but unpredictable, wisdom-seeker.

All in all, an interesting book. It’s not as revealing of the Jewish  and early Christian mind as the Book of Wisdom,   but if you excised a few choice sections there’s a fair bit of value here. Just er, don’t give it as a Mother’s Day present.

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The Accidental Time Machine

Posted on April 21, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Accidental Time Machine
© 2007 Joe Haldeman
278 pages

When underachieving-and-mildly-discontent MIT graduate student tested a new calibrator for his professor’s lab work, he didn’t expect it to vanish for twelve seconds. More precisely, he didn’t expect it to jump in time twelve seconds. But it did, and like a true scientist he pressed it again — this time, taking notes. While Boston hunkers in under a snowstorm, Matt takes the calibrator to his home and begins running tests, noting that the length of the temporal jumps seems to increase exponentially with every push of the button. After his turtle returned from a jump alive and relatively unrattled, Matt decided to make a jump himself — and he does, a few weeks in to the future where he is under arrest for theft and murder. Oops.

While the novel’s front cover seems to advertise that this little adventure would be the whole of the plot,  a mysterious stranger bails Matt out and he presses the button again — and stumbles into a bizarre, tense, whimsical, and utterly unpredictable plot that involves a paradoxical religious dictatorship in the United States, dinosaurs, talking bears, and at least two Jesus Christs, one of which probably lives on a space station.

…yeah. I first heard of Joe Haldeman through his The Forever War, a story of the futility of war and the alienation of soldiers from society, so I wasn’t expecting something this funny to read. I generally expect science fiction to be Serious Business, but Haldeman’s work is filled with comedy — both from the absurd situation and his dialogue. Haldeman’s worldbuilding — in creating various future-earth scenarios — fascinated me, and so I wolfed this book down in a single sitting. It’s not quite hard science:  Haldeman tried to keep it grounded in serious theories, but admitted to looking for an esoteric source for his temporal anomaly that would not be overturned by real scientific revelations anytime soon, and which most readers wouldn’t know enough about to take serious issue with his approach. It involves string theory, branes, and multiple dimensions, so that’s a safe bet.

Accidental Time Machine is an entertaining, very readable novel that had the same effect on me as a thriller or a Christopher Moore book.  Its ending managed to be satisfying without resolving everything too neatly — leaving room for speculation as to the ultimate endgame. I will definitely be reading more Haldeman.

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Disaster 1906

Posted on April 21, 2011 by smellincoffee

Disaster 1906: the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
© 1967 Edward F. Dolan Jr.
172 pages

If, as some say, God spanked the town
For being over-frisky
Why did He burn the churches down
And save Hotaling’s whisky?
-p. 175

Years ago I read a fantastic book called Disaster! The Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906. A few years later I determined I wanted to buy my own copy of that book, but alas! Woe! My home library no longer had the book and I forgot the title of it. I hit Amazon, and this seemed like it might be what I was looking for.  It actually isn’t, as I found out while reading the book and noticed that key elements from the masterpiece I remembered were missing — like Enrico Caruso hearing of the volcano eruption in his hometown and thanking God he was in safe San Francisco, only to wake up to an earthquake and an inferno.

Disaster stories interest me, hence why my home library contains several books on the Titanic and why I’ve read various books on the San Francisco and Chicago fires, as well as the Galveston Hurricane. Part of this is what Augustine might call gross curiosity — the appeal of looking at a car wreck — but I’m also fascinated by the way people react when their world is completely eradicated and the society-as-usual  no longer exists. In Disaster 1906,  the sleeping town of San Francisco is visited by a mighty earthquake, and then ravaged for several days by fires which consume much of the city.  Communications are negligible, the water pipes are dry, and yet — people survive. People freely gather together to help pick up the ruins, men from all walks of life join the fire brigades,  women empty their pantries cooking food for the newly-homeless, and a corrupt mayor  suddenly begins to fulfill his moral responsibilities as a public official and becomes a hero. And people are clever! They improvise! They fill the bathtubs with water before the cisterns leak completely dry, saving the water for use in fire fighting: they construct stoves of bricks and random metal grates.  Throughout the long night, as the fires burn and destroy homes, businesses, and all the hopes of tomorrow, people gather together and tell jokes: they sing and entertain one another, and when they day breaks they start picking up the pieces.

Disaster 1906 was probably written for younger readers given its length, but it’s a fine introduction to the disaster and one written by someone who grew up in San Francisco, and who is so fond of the City by the Bay that his last chapter is devoted to  commenting on the rebirth of the city after the disaster, in which the wild child of the west coast grew into a Queen who astonished all the world at the Exposition in 1916, but who maintained her childish sassiness.

Related:

  • Disaster! The Great Earthquake and Fire of 1906, Dan Kurzman
  • The Great Earthquake and Fire: San Francisco, 1906. John Castillo Kennedy. I may have also read this one while trying to find Disaster!  I think my confusion in trying to find the book is warranted given how similar these three titles are. 
  • Good Life in Hard Times: San Francisco in the 20s and 30s, Jerry Flamm. One of my favorite books.

This is my fifth review in 15 hours, and while two of those were leftovers from last week and the week before last, it’s still odd. Why do I go days without being able to progress in collecting my thoughts on a given book, and then have days in which it’s easy?

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The Book of Wisdom

Posted on April 20, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Book of Wisdom, or The Wisdom of Solomon
from the New English Bible, © 1970 Cambridge and Oxford University Press

Christian personification of Wisdom

My favorite book in the Judeo-Christian bible is that of Ecclesiastes,  in which a man known as ‘the preacher’ or ‘the teacher’  engages in a search for the meaning of life, exploring both the ‘low road’ of exulting in pleasure and the ‘higher’ road of seeking wisdom and religious discipline. He finds that the best approach may be one of moderation, as neither hedonism nor obsessive scrupulosity create happiness over the long run. I think Ecclesiastes a humble and pragmatic book, and so when Isaac Asimov mentioned that a book of the original Jewish and Catholic bibles called The Book of Wisdom was similar to Ecclesiastes in genre, I determined that I had to read it.

Wisdom shines bright and never fades; she is easily discerned by those who love her, and by those who seek her she is found. She is quick to make herself known to those who desire knowledge of her; the man who rises early in search of her will not grow weary in the quest, for he will find her seated at his door. To set all one’s thoughts on her is prudence in its perfect shape, and to lie wakeful in her cause is the short way to peace of mind. For she herself ranges in search of those who are worthy of her; on their daily path she appears with kindly intent, and in all their purposes meets them half-way. (6: 12-17)

The Book of Wisdom is not really a book of wisdom  in the same sense that Ecclesiastes and Proverbs are, though it does praise wisdom lavishly.  Proverbs refers to wisdom as a woman at least once, and the Book of Wisdom takes that personification and runs with it for page after page. I took perverse pleasure in reading these sections of the text as though they were a poem in praise of Athena, although the Christian personification of wisdom is referred to as Sophia. The prose or this translation thereof is beautiful and stylish. I relished reading the text aloud, although the viciousness of some of it amused me.  While the author doesn’t tell you what qualifies as wisdom, he is quick to tell you it is the path to God, the path to both peace on earth and immortality. The godless who reject it are treated with as much hate as the author can muster, which I thought somewhat comical. The lack of wisdom is its own punishment, just as virtue is its own reward.

Protestants may not have heard of the Book of Wisdom because it — along with books like Tobit, Judas, the Maccabees, and additions to Daniel and Easter — were dropped by various Protestant denominations preparing their own bibles. These books were included in the original Jewish canon, the Septuagint, and would have been read by Paul, Jesus, and the other apostles. A later Jewish canon, compiled  around the turning of the second century, threw out those books which were written in Greek*. The Christian church didn’t, though. The devotional poetry to wisdom aside, this book makes for interesting reading. It’s not a very Jewish book, at least not by the standards of modern Jewish orthodoxy. Christianity and Islam have a completely different notion of Satan than Judaism does: the Christians turn a loyal servant of God who tests people and gives them opportunities to strengthen themselves by triumphing over temptation into a pathetic rebel who attacks people just to be a dick, but whose attacks are co-opted by God into use as trials.  In the Book of Wisdom, though, he is mentioned as spiteful, which seems a hint to me that the author shared the same villainous perception of Satan that some Jews around the turn of the century did — Jesus refers to him as a roaring lion trying to eat people, and (I think) as a foul Dragon.  I don’t know what happened to that train of thought within Judaism, but I think they’re better for having lost it.

“But the souls of the just are in God’s hand and torment shall not touch them. In the eyes of foolish men they seemed to be dead; their departure was reckoned as defeat, and their going from us as disaster. But they are at peace, for though in the sight of men they may be punished, they have a sure hope of immortality; and after a little chastisement they will receive great blessings, because God has tested them and found them worthy to be his.”  (3: 1-9)

Protestants often attack the Catholic idea of Purgatory as unbiblical, and they’re sort of right — because they removed the parts of the Bible which refer to Purgatory from their own canon. It would be as if I held up the Jefferson Bible and said, “The idea that Jesus worked miracles is unbiblical!”, or tore out Genesis from the Torah and said “The idea of a Great Flood is unbiblical!”.   The Book of Wisdom specifically mentions that even the good who die must endure ‘some chastisement’, which sounds like the Catholic idea of purgatory as it has been explained to me by three sources — two books and a deacon.  I’d be very much interested in finding out when this book was written, and in what part of the world, because the author is obsessed with bastards. He devotes several ‘paragraphs’  to attacking people born out of wedlock, leading me to believe that there’s some ‘illegitimately-born’ monarch or warlord somewhere that he’s taking aim at. There’s also a section that celebrates a martyr for wisdom, which probably also has a real-world inspiration.

If you’re looking for wisdom literature, this isn’t it — but if you want to find a lovely poem about wisdom, or gain some insights into the evolution of Jewish and Christian thinking, I would suggest tracking this down.  The Oxford/Cambridge translation is very readable

* I think this may have had something to do with the fact that the Temple had just been destroyed by Rome (Year 70)  in retaliation for the Jewish revolt, which was prompted by the attempted installment of a statue inside the Temple to honor the emperor as god. Hatred of all things Greco-Roman may have prompted the dumping of these Jewish texts written in Greek.

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The Stars like Dust

Posted on April 20, 2011 by smellincoffee

The Stars like Dust (originally titled as The Rebellious Stars)
© 1951 Isaac Asimov
From Triangle, pp. 349 – 516. © 1952

Only a few days before his graduation from the University of Earth, Biron Farril awoke in the middle of the night to the sound of his room clicking happily to itself — clicking with radiation. No university prank, this seemed more an attack on his life, an attempt to unite Biron with his recently executed father.  And so he flees Earth to seek sanctuary in Rhodia, to ask protection from a friend of his father’s. So begins a story of politics, rebellion, and ambition with more plot twists than there are stars in the sky.

Though classified in Asimov’s empire series,  this story appears to have been set rather early: humanity has settled a little over a thousand worlds, and while one of those worlds — the aptly named Tyrann — has established a fifty-planet sphere of influence for itself, the Empire proper is never mentioned, nor is Trantor.    The focus is instead on the dominion of the Tyranni, who repress scientific advancement in the worlds they control to restrict the possibility of rebellion. Still,  tyranny does not sit well with human beings: there is a conspiracy, and in fleeing Earth Biron has stumbled upon a galactic chessboard to be used by the Tyranni and the rebels-in-waiting, each manipulating him for their own ends. His greatest hope is to find a rumored rebellion world in the Horsehead Nebula, blessedly free from any politics except staunch resistance to the tyrants.

Although Asimov makes passing reference to technology — ships Jumping through hyperspace, devices which project images into the mind — the emphasis here is on political mystery, and it kept me thoroughly entertained though I grew weary of the rug constantly being pulled out from under me. The Second Foundation-like ending was a bit of a surprise, but the novel’s length shortened the number of possible resolutions. The last words of the novel reminded me a bit of Star Trek‘s bewildering episode “The Omega Glory”.  As with seeing that episode for the first time, I wasn’t sure if I found it amusing or bizarrely inspiring or not.

I fully intend to finish the Empire trilogy this year, so I’ll probably be reading Currents in Space sometime soon.

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