esrosedotblog

BOOK REPORT

I have been reading feverishly of late; so fast a pace that I have failed to file my regular book report.

I hope that the teacher will not be annoyed at my tardiness.

My non-fiction of the month was

Prince of the Marshes: Rory Stewart

This the same guy who wrote the book about walking across Afghanistan

The Places In Between which I enjoyed immensely.

I still think about it.

I suppose that I will be thinking about this one for a long time too.

It is about Stewart's one year tour in Iraq as a member of the 'governate' which means the transition team for two Iraqi provinces.

Like the former book, it is in the form of a diary. You sort of experience it as he does and get to put the pieces together yourself.

Stewart is great at pointing, framing, describing and then letting it go so that you get the picture and also get the point.

It is a nice way of introducing us to the ambiguity and chaos of the situation in Iraq back then (2003) and, worse, now.

You see in microcosm the same picture of trying to (incompetently) place a western format on an ancient culture that still harbors grudges, seeks revenge, and wields religious dogma as a fearsome weapon.

At the same time it is warm and funny and puts a human face (and sometimes two-faces) on the headlines we have become so used to.

I have also consumed some fiction. I continue to read the Richard Sharpe novels by Bernard Cornwell. There are 25!

All depict real battles in the early 19th Century British Army. Sharpe is a rougish character, an officer up from the ranks (rare) who has a key role to play in and around all of these battles.

Histroically accurate to a gnat's eyelash (except for Sharpe), these novels come from an imaginative mind and a talented hand. The battle scenes are incredibly detailed. One does not realize how much is being learned about history and life in that time while in the process of saving the Empire in India and the whole shebang in the long war with Napoleon.

Great stuff. Somewhat addictive.

I have a pact with myself. I will read a 'Sharpe' after reading another book.

I am still working my way through Moby Dick which is long on whaling lore and a bit short on story but I knew this when I started.

It is part of a larger effort to read all of Melville. All.

In contrast, while I was away, I went back to an old favorite, William Gibson, the cyberpunk writer and read Count Zero.

I enjoyed it so much that I am now going to have to get out all the old ones and re-read them.