Category Archives: Books


A Clash of Kings: some comments

I’ve finished reading A Clash of Kings even if it didn’t show on my reading queue and I’m not going to “officially” review, but I wanted to write down some scattered comments about it and put some kind of content on the blog.

Overall I think it’s not a strong as the first book. Martin did a good job with it, but I think the merit is mostly on the first book, setting up really well all the various parts. Book 2 makes it more a task of running with the ball, and that’s well done. Something that I didn’t expect is that Martin jumps some events more than the first book. The PoVs dictate the flow and the scenes that don’t strictly belong to one are avoided even if they could be significant. I fear that moving on with book 3+ this will become an exception and Martin will feel compelled to bog in unnecessary detail. In fact I remember a recent interview where he said that if he could rewrite ACOK today he would put Robb PoV back in and describe directly the campaign (hint: this wouldn’t improve the book at all and I’d rely more in Martin’s past wit than his most recent…).

Most of the merits of this second book are about sticking to those PoVs and make the characters’ drama drive the story in a way that feels plausible. Some of the best chapters tell a self-contained mini-story that ranges between 8 and 20 pages. In this book Martin begins having a more cumbersome, heavy prose that sometimes indulges into lists of names or other things that one reads only to immediately forget, but being the chapter “chunks” rather short it still makes for a good flow. Every time one of these chapter closes you have the urge to know what happens next (and I often went to read the first pages on the same PoV, sometimes almost 200 pages ahead), and I don’t think anyone else gets this compelling reading formula better than Martin.

Characters are always well written and truly “grey”. I think this is an aspect often misdescribed. It’s not about making a character morally ambiguous, but about making it somewhat plausible. There are definitely “heroes” that Martin wants the reader to root for, taking sides actively. The book is NOT neutral. Its strength is in making it work. Arya, an heroine the reader is supposed to love and recognize/sympathize with, can murder some nameless guy. This is from one side coherent with the character and the truly unforgiving world, and from the other side the reader finds it acceptable. As if this case made the murder totally acceptable. Necessary in some way.

This contrasts with murder that is not necessary, and while considering this I noticed how Martin uses this device every time he seeks for a certain response and shock the reader with some unpredictable death (and there are MANY). What defines these deaths, that are supposed to move and shock the reader, is that they are usually unnecessary (and unexpected). The result of some hate, or spite or brutal violence. But not strictly necessary, it’s an exhibition of violence. That’s how some characters (like Arya) can still be readers’ favorite even when they do something controversial. And I think this prepares the path from some characters’ arc like Jaime. The trick is the PoV, when you get into a character and learn his motivations you get to understand and sympathize.

At the micro level you can appreciate how well written everything is, but at the macro level some evident shortcomings start to show. For example the “pinch” that is made by the two extreme sides that close on the story, Ice/Jon Snow and Fire/Daenerys, is very obviously lagging behind while the center (the clash of kings) is getting bloated out of proportions. It’s not surprising that Martin started to have problem managing the thing (“the story grew in the telling”), since it’s only this central part that gets bigger in comparison with the rest. Daenerys PoV is a total of 60 pages in a book of 950, and in those few pages she’s basically idling or chasing after prophecies that are used to foreshadow how the story develops. Jon PoV is about 100 pages, but it’s mostly all preparation and flavor, used simply to move Jon to a new position. These two PoVs go together because they are disengaged from the rest of the story. They are like side-plots that wait to converge in some later book.

Another observation about the macro level is that the book is filled with Deus Ex Machina. I know people complain about this in Erikson’s books, but if you accept that kind of broad definition of DEM, then Martin have aplenty in this book, and all at crucial points of the story. To begin from the obvious: Melisandre.

In a world soaked in deceit and betrayal, she’s immune to both (the Prologue, to begin with). I guess Martin “has plans” to rule her in the later books, but within this one she’s a personified DEM for the simple reason that all the rules that apply to other characters DO NOT APPLY to her. Being a DEM personified she also leads to crucial DEMs in the plot. She can make prophecies that are NOT revealed as delusions. They really work. She has the DEATH SPELL. When I read that part I was absolutely sure that Martin was tricking me, but he wasn’t. In a world that establishes itself as “low on magic”, so that everything comes down to men and their affairs, she can simply “wish” that someone dies, and they do. At least in the Malazan world the power is in check. An action triggers a reaction, and it’s the power itself being a delusion. I don’t remember anyone dispatched as easily. But here nothing exists to keep the balance. She proceeds by killing a core character and another relevant one. Without these two deaths the WHOLE story would have spun in a totally different direction. About as much as dramatic as that certain death in book 1. And this huge plot bend is entirely a Deus ex Machina. Death spell, no saving throw. In a world with no magic and with kings being the show runners, being able to pick one and kill him in an instant is the exact equal of an I-WIN button.

It’s kind of ridiculous that when matters get serious and she can be used to easily win the war (and kill someone not made into a redshirt) she’s sent away with an excuse: “Your Grace, if the sorceress is with us, afterward men will say it was her victory, not yours. They will say you owe your crown to her spells”. The point being she’s one step away from breaking the whole story, and Martin has to rely on this artificial trick to limit the power he gave to her. Yet, she steps out and the other major DEM enters the picture: wildfire.

This is a sort of “magic” fire, whose DEM potential lies entirely in the fact that, being magic, no one anticipates it (well, Davos does, but only so much as to the lead to the powerless Big “No!” trope). It really gives this feeling of “magic entering the world” and subverting everything, a meta-device that enters the picture to make it change the natural course. On the micro level you have the character dramas that are written very well and work perfectly (in their big-picture-irrelevant stories), but on the bigger level there’s the whole war on the continent and the clash of kings. EVERYTHING on this level is artificially steered through all these Deux ex Machina. First Melisandre changing the course by killing two key characters by wishing it, and then by wildfire, whose power of subversion simply turns around the outcome of the biggest battle in the whole arc of the first two books.

A third major DEM comes with Jon, who has a magic dream (by the way, this book is filled with dream sequences, and I wonder why I don’t see them criticized as similar scenes in other books) that shows him what they are going to find, and so he’s able to save the whole company by making them turn around. Magic dream = magic rescue. A classic Deus ex Machina.

Now you can tell me that there’s very little magic in this world, but Martin has used it in the WORST way possible. By steering artificially the plot whenever something truly major was about to happen. Makes it feel the plot is on a leash. And yet it works, because the characters are so well written and relatively safe within their smaller cocoons of plot. It gives an idea of a complex world because it’s as if the main PoVs are caught in the events and not controlling them, which is the way “reality” usually feels. They try to survive while pieces more around them. Martin is the god moving the pieces from out of the picture, but at least he stays true to the characters.

The writer writing (Janny Wurts)

I’ve been away from the blog because I haven’t been reading (for the most part). I spent these past two weeks rediscovering old game classics on the Amiga and reading online scans of old magazines. Especially RPGs, adventures and simulations dating before 1994. I found a boatload of awesome stuff, including the “Realms of Arkania” trilogy that passed completely under my radar (and as you can see I didn’t stop with the Amiga). Then I spent some time looking into Roguelikes. But it’s so off-topic with the blog that I won’t go in depth about that.

Now I’m slowly returning to habit and hopefully resuming activity on the blog too. This included desperately searching on the internet where I could find a pre-1977, pre-revision copy of The Magus, by John Fowles. Hopefully I got one right.

But in the meantime I forgot to quote this bit I read just before I got sidetracked. A kind of insight into Janny Wurts inner working at the writing process. She’s currently onto her penultimate book of her epic-sized, epic-themed series, all of which I intend to read.

I think it’s cute and adorable:

Well, now – isn’t THIS interesting.

Chapter start – almost ALMOST scrapped. Even with brainstorm – refused to move.

New ideas buying the farm like paper airplanes in a hailstorm.

This morning, finger above the DELETE key – (yeah, at 12 or more pages along, s*** happens)….new whisper from the muse (Author: HEY WAIT, LADY, WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN ALL ALONG WHEN THE AUTHOR WAS KNOCKING A COLD AND SWEATING BULLETS???)

Muse: whisper whisper whisper…!!!

Ah – AUTHOR STOP! Full stop. NO delete….adjustment. Page count upped to 14 pages. Next scene that was two pages along – DEFERRED and kicked ahead to the next sub-chapter/along with the scrambled heap of ideas that were snarled into knots of refusal to move….

Sub-chapter I THOUGHT would be next (vague cloud of ideas with names tagged on) decides to flip places, morph with ANOTHER sub-chapter I had (shows what I know) already punted ahead to ‘down the story road someplace’ – haul that bit back wiggling, as a lovely, argumentative, tensioned follow up to THIS scene and voila.

Behold, this chapter passage is alive and kicking butt after all.

Day in the life of the harassed IDIOT, why not have a SANE job, um, oops, I mean, author who definitely (read that as, (let’s not be hypocritical) when the muse is WORKING) adores their job….;)

Plunge back into the story chase, again, but this time it appears to be hopping.

Page count: 201 – WAIT!!!! – 201? I’ve broken 200! OMG!!! how did I miss that milestone without a beer???

Here’s How: sometimes you get this white HEAT BLAST of inspiration. Other days you get the staggers and the crawls…:-)

(hauls off staggering and crawling toward that magical fifth chapter set, whereupon the story brew is finally shaken to fizz and the lid typically flies off the “start up plod”. I think I need a MUSE CATTLE PROD – yeah! Bring it on, take that, you flighty *sweetheart* – let’s have some steadier inspiration around here…oy.)

Isomorphism

“I wanted all things
To seem to make some sense,
So we all could be happy, yes,
Instead of tense.
And I made up lies
So that they all fit nice,
And I made this sad world
A par-a-dise.”

Cat’s Cradle – Kurt Vonnegut

Yesterday I was looking into the Metaphysics of Quality (MOQ). I haven’t read the Zen book, nor the Lila book, so I mostly read reviews of them, wiki articles and so on. In the end I didn’t have the desire to get the books and look more into this. It seems every other guy has created his own metaphysical system and his own “Theory of Everything” in the hope of having won the Magical Belief Lottery, and so the hope that one’s own system of choice is the one that ends up being true. This obviously includes Bakker, myself and so on, maybe with the difference that I’m personally more interested about “framing” the truth, than knowing what it is. What actually annoys me is when someone has to build his own system and technical terms when the system described is essentially the same of another that already exists, with its own shapes, forms and names.

I noticed that at the core of the MOQ, what seems the central idea on which the rest is built, is essentially a Kabbalistic system. This is how the MOQ is simplified: “Phaedrus describes evolution as going through four phases: the inorganic; the biological; the social; and the intellectual.” Already this is almost perfectly identical to the Kabbalistic basic principle, look at the diagram here. It’s confusing but look at the line at the bottom: Still, Vegetative, Animate, Speaking. You can draw the lines where you want, but the “intent” is exactly the same: you establish a hierarchy. Inorganic is the same as Still, Vegetative is equal to Biological. There’s only a little bit of confusion in the way the MOQ divides between “social” and “intellectual”, while the Kabbalah uses “animate” and “speaking”, but certainly “speaking” is “intellectual”.

The next step in the MOQ is about imposing on the model already described a moral hierarchy. So it’s: inorganic -> biological -> social -> intellectual. Each following step marking a “progress”. The “faith” implied in this system is that we’re moving resolutely toward betterment, that there’s a “plan”. Evolution pushes us toward improvement. Morality is simply defined by that direction. Whenever something on one level is sacrificed for something on a lower level, you have amorality. Whenever instead something on the lower level is sacrificed for something higher, then you have a moral and laudable choice. The wiki gives some examples:

Pirsig describes evolution as the moral progression of these patterns of value. For example, a biological pattern overcoming an inorganic pattern (e.g. bird flight which overcomes gravity) is a moral thing because a biological pattern is a higher form of evolution. Likewise, an intellectual pattern of value overcoming a social one (e.g. Civil Rights) is a moral development because intellect is a higher form of evolution than society. Therefore, decisions about one’s conduct during any given day can be made using the Metaphysics of Quality.

This simplistic explanation isn’t exactly convincing and I’m sure the book gives a lot more valid arguments, it’s not that I consider this pattern “weak”. What instead makes me skeptical of this whole MOQ is that it seems an attempt to build a formal system only to justify the author’s opinions. The Lila, where the author drops the narrative to focus especially on the theory, seems mostly focused on offering personal (or personal filtered through a formal, so non-subjective, system) opinions about the most disparate arguments. I read of: anthropology, sexual behaviors, the free market, celebrities, movies based on books, religious fundamentalism, the hippies and free love and so on. It seems like a kitchen sink of opinions, and it’s even plausible because if you go building a system of value then you are supposed to build it so it’s actually useful, and not so that it just lays there in its amorphous, abstract form.

But the true point is that we should shed the formality of these systems, and instead rely on their core ideas. If there’s some “true” value it is there, since the formulation of the system itself can as well be varied depending on who decides to formalize it. The idea at the core needs to be universal, the more it “belongs” to someone specific, the more it’s just a personal vanity. That’s why I get annoyed when one doesn’t simply recognizes structures that already exist and build on top of them. I think it’s way more useful to RECOGNIZE ideas that are in common, finding analogies between religions, in the hope that this redundancy, a recurring aspect, is the hint of something “true”.

This is true even for the Theory of Everything. The bottom line is that the more general is a theory, the more useless it is. The more specific, the more useful. Which is why someone said the Theory of Everything is equal to the Theory of Nothing. It’s so wide and general that it says absolutely nothing useful. Yet again falling in the trap of determinism versus metaphysics, the dualism on which the Zen book is based (to disprove). Once again we have a system caught between two almost specular infinities, the infinitely wide and the infinitely small.

Where I want to go with this? First, I simply want to show that the MOQ is a Kabbalistic system at its core. The fundamental ideas building both are essentially the same. You can draw the lines of the four categories in different places, or you can define six categories instead of four, but they describe the same overall pattern. The struggle for “improvement” that drives evolution in the MOQ is the same of the Kabbalistic “desire” that drives one realm to the next. The difference is that in the Kabbalistic system “desire” also drives from the speaking/intellectual level to seek for spirituality, or to seek answer to the meaning of life and so on (you can also refer to this).

My opinion, so, is that the totality of the MOQ is “encapsulated” within the Kabbalistic system of hierarchies. And I actually do think that the Kabbalistic one is more complete, more convincing and way better articulated than the other. So, as long you want to buy/have faith in this idea of progress driving everything, a “direction” imposed on the world, I’d rather follow the Kabbalistic system since it seems more powerful and have more to say and explain. The MOQ is essentially an important part, but still a small block within the much bigger system that is the Kabbalah. A first step on that ladder.

This was the premise of what I was moving toward. Which is the “isomorphism”. Essentially, the way the MOQ exists within the Kabbalah is something like an “isomorphism” between the MOQ and the Kabbalah (I did something similar when I recognized another isomorphism again between the Kabbalah and its reincarnation myth, and Pythagoras’ beliefs that I read about in “The Wayward Mind”). It is not important to look at the MOQ, and look at the Kabbalah. What IS IMPORTANT is to recognize the isomorphism. I said above that I’m looking for these kinds of equivalences, because they hold the hint of “Truth”. What are isomorphisms, and why I say they are so important?

It’s not me to say this. I was actually reading Gödel, Escher, Bach before I was reading about the MOQ. This time the real book, not wiki articles. It’s an incredible experience reading this book. From time to time it opens cracks into the Truth, and make you feel like you’re seeing what’s beyond. Sometimes there are lines that are oddly phrased to have a strange resonance, and what drew my attention, and what I now believe is the very foundation of REALITY, is this subtle yet very bold line:

I claim that the perception of isomorphisms is what creates meaning in the human mind.

When you read this in the book it seems almost insane, because at that point you’re just analyzing some mathematical/logic systems. He just gives you some games to play with, extremely simple and that could be tackled by a kid. And then at some point he comes out saying that something you’ve just “witnessed” (a result of one of these games), is actually the key to Reality. He says this candidly. This interplay at different levels is what makes this book so grandiose (and by the way, all of this I’m making my argument on, is contained within the first 60 pages of said book).

What he was doing is essentially this: he gave a simple game where you started from a string of characters (MI) and, through a number of rules, you could transform this string, some rules making the string longer, some shorter. The purpose of the game is deciding whether or not a particular string (MU) can be created accordingly to those rules. His argument was to show that a computer would start creating all possible strings, applying all rules one by one (as in the diagram above). But this would only produce exponentially more strings. The computer, hence, would go on forever trying all combinations, but without ever being able to “decide” whether or not the given string was possible in the system. What’s different, then, between an Artificial, deterministic, Intelligence and a human mind? The difference is the self-reference. The possibility of (or rather the impossibility of not) self-observing. This creates an impossible loop that creates an infinite hierarchy, a paradox. Gödel, Escher, Bach, in the title of the book, are “isomorphic” between each other because a “Strange Loop” is Gödel’s paradox (that can be simplified outside mathematics as the liar paradox), a Strange Loop is Escher’s Waterfall that you can see on this post (also, if you read DFW’s Infinite Jest, pay attention to that last line in the wiki entry, because IJ is ALL made of Strange Loops), a Strange Loop is Bach’s “Canon per Tonos”, that Hofstadter describes as “Endlessly Rising Canon”, “As the modulation rises, so may the King’s Glory.” “The “Strange Loop” phenomenon occurs whenever, by moving upwards (or downwards) through the levels of some hierarchical system, we unexpectedly find ourselves right back where we started.”

After the MU game described above, Hofstadter offers another similar one he calls “p q -” and it is soon revealed/shown that this system and its rules essentially mimic additions. “p” essentially represents the “+” sign, “q” the “=” and “-“, repeated symbolizes the numbers. He says that when you figure this out you give the system an “interpretation”. Then, he explains the difference between meaningful and meaningless interpretations. In this case the interpretation of the “p q -” formal system as additions is “meaningful” because it “reflects some portion of reality”. Ideally, if we believe in determinism, it should be possible to develop a formal system that reproduces the whole of reality.

What is the process that puts together the “p q -” formal system and additions, and so interprets it?

My answer would be that we have perceived an isomorphism between pq-theorems and additions. In the Introduction, the word “isomorphism” was defined as an information-preserving transformation.

Now look back at the quote above this last one. Could what just occurred in a simple game reveal the process behind the construction of all Reality? We find meaning by making associations. Recognizing this into that. I believe that the more you generalize this idea, the more powerful and revelatory it is. Don’t stay within the specific example. Make it universal. Make it the whole of reality. The perception of isomorphisms as the “canon” of the construction of reality. The implicit rule that defines every possible permutation (as within a formal system, producing all its “theorems”).

The idea of the isomorphism was also at the foundation of my objections to Bakker’s Blind Brain Theory (roughly: we are trapped within misconceptions, but what if our “picture” is wrong, yet still roughly “functional”? Faith may as well be faith in this purpose-driven possibility. That we are utterly wrong, but, after being spun, ended up being correctly oriented). In this long blog post I (probably) misused the idea of isomorphism, recognizing one between the Kabbalistic system and the MOQ. I also believe there’s a possible isomorphism between very complex science and metaphysics: the world is so perfectly ordered that whatever set it into motion is equivalent to god. In Kabbalah, god won’t and can’t intervene on “reality”, since reality is already so “perfect” that the need to “intervene” to adjust it would contradict its perfection. So the “hands-off” Kabbalistic god is essentially equivalent to what most scientists believe (or open to consider).

And finally, it may as well be possible that there’s an isomorphism between consciousness and Reality. This is the idea I explained in all the recent posts I wrote. That we face a mirror and that it represents the limit of our sight. We see outside, reality, the way we are inside. The world itself a self-description. The “isomorphism” may not be a process, but the “frame” that contains us and the whole of Reality (that we perceive). Our sense and meaning are just the retracing of our own patterns. The Strange Loops we see everywhere, we see because consciousness itself is Strange Loop-shaped.

Look away to see

“Like hundreds of scientists since, he fell in love with his own ideas, saw their reflections all around him, and mistook his projections for discoveries.”

The above quote comes once again, slightly adapted to make it more generic and void of context, from “The Wayward Mind”. This great book offering the comfort of illusory sense. It really makes everything so clear, simple, almost linear. A sort of unifying idea of everything. Not explaining everything, but providing the frame where you can then carefully place the pieces.

But that’s where the warning should trigger. Whenever you find something that makes sense and sheds a perfect light, it dies. You should start doubting of it and its power, because this sense, when it is “traced” and so understood, becomes a cage that traps you in.

For example in the case of “Midnight Tides” I was happy to translate the symbol with my interpretation. The tides under the sea that are the real movement, hidden from the surface of consciousness. What happens is that I’m happy with this interpretation, and in fact I can then find echoes of it through the whole book. So I have confirmations of the initial intuitions. The “cypher” I hold helps me understand the sense whenever similar images come up. Yet this is an extremely crippling process. It’s human and automatic that whenever you see a symbol you instantly, seamlessly replace it with its meaning. The symbol disappears, it’s magic. It’s built-in the language, I say “tree” and you immediately think of a real tree, not the word and the letters. Or otherwise you couldn’t follow any written or spoken message.

In the same way, I was caged in my interpretation and meaning of “Midnight Tides”. Once I found a way to understand it, I stopped looking for others. Actually, I would be hostile to the suggestion of different interpretations. This is also human. We desperately cling to what we know. Whenever our imagined “sense” is threatened, we fight for it. We fight for that empty shell and never once strive for “truth”. Truth is always more complex and out of reach, every achievement is a starting point, back to the zero. Ideally, the moment you think you understand something is the moment you should start to abandon it, because you’re becoming the slave of sense, and your vision is failing. Creating or finding sense is about rising walls to keep Truth outside. Errant is the truth. The “Hold”, is the respite from truth and the real world. It represents the human soul. It’s the consolidation of sense in the stream of life. The single heartbeat, the fixed moment in the continuity of the flow of the blood.

“Midnight Tides”, the undercurrent of the unconscious. I found this, and whenever it came up again I would simply replace it with its meaning. Done, understood and thrown behind. Exhausted, nothing else to find in it. I wrote sense into mystery, felt glad and satisfied of what I found. There were still some small things that didn’t fit perfectly, some annoying itches that I preferred to ignore, rather than abandon my neat interpretation to look for something else. I realized this while reading “The Wayward Mind” and suddenly finding an image that may as well be more fitting to those “Midnight Tides” I imagined.

He saw the ego as ‘like a land mass threatened by the rising waters of the id’, and argued that ‘in the same way that the Dutch reclaimed the Zuider Zee, so must the psychoanalyst win back parts of the mind that have succumbed to the unconscious.’

What is suggested here is a slightly different symbol. Consciousness is not anymore the top of the ocean, the visible layer, but the land itself. The struggle between consciousness and unconscious is symbolized by the struggle between land and sea. The image is not much different, and in fact I do believe that my interpretation isn’t far off, but this variation actually could fit a lot better than the one I used (I’m referring to that first page in MT, the book, where Erikson expands the metaphor).

How do you deal with this, though? I have no idea. In the last few months that I’ve been reading and thinking about the problem of consciousness, the construction of reality and everything originating from there, whether through scientific theories or the Kabbalah, I got the strong feeling of “understanding” things so much better. I am certain that I was able to tie together so many of my interests scattered along my life, finding an unifying thread. As Bakker, I think this is not so much “a problem”, but THE problem. That the problem of the human condition, and my own within, is contained within that model. “The Wayward Mind” is the “narrative” that unifies everything together in a broader mythology of humanity. It has a spot reserved for everything, every ideas, every religion and vision of life. All there and watching the same movie.

This is deeply rewarding and satisfying. Finally finding a sense that sheds light on everything. That doesn’t completely exhaust the problem, maybe, but that tells you where to look, how to handle it, how to circumscribe it.

I know it will take me years, if it could even happen, to root me away from these ideas. And I’ve learned, by thinking about thinking, that this is bad. Maybe I should be thankful for my forgetfulness, because soon these intricate ideas will start to get all jumbled and I’d have to go back and look a my notes in the hope of recovering that clarity I once had. Sense is slippery, life and the world outside constantly threaten it, nothing survives to the passage of time. Like a midnight tide that devours the land.

Once again I put meaning into a symbol, and dug out a sense. I see clearly, I understand. In the daylight I’m looking at the world and feeling complacent. I have my meaning, I feel like I exist and that I’ve chosen. Till a great tide will eventually wash over me.

In darkness he closed his eyes. Only by day did he elect to open them, for he reasoned in this manner: night defies vision and so, if little can be seen, what value seeking to pierce the gloom?

Witness as well, this. He came to the edge of the land and discovered the sea, and was fascinated by the mysterious fluid. A fascination that became a singular obsession through the course of that fated day. He could see how the waves moved, up and down along the entire shore, a ceaseless motion that ever threatened to engulf all the land, yet ever failed to do so. He watched the sea through the afternoon’s high winds, witness to its wild thrashing far up along the sloping strand, and sometimes it did indeed reach far, but always it would sullenly retreat once more.

When night arrived, he closed his eyes and lay down to sleep. Tomorrow, he decided, he would look once more upon this sea.

In darkness he closed his eyes.

The tides came with the night, swirling up round the giant. The tides came and drowned him as he slept. And the water seeped minerals into his flesh, until he became as rock, a gnarled ridge on the strand. Then, each night for thousands of years, the tides came to wear away at his form. Stealing his shape.

I’m about to start playing a Japanese Visual Novel titled “Remember11”, I’ve read that it plays with the same “toolkit”, like consciousness, quantum theories, Jungian psychology and whatnot. I see reflections all around me. Everyone is saying the same thing. Harmony and sense, everywhere.

(the jpg is from Promethea a comics written by Alan Moore, 32 issues, all about mythology, magic and fictional worlds)

Midnight Tides – Steven Erikson

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,
Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven;
And as imagination bodies forth
The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen
Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing
A local habitation and a name.

Don’t be fooled, the quote above may have a likeness to Malazan, in theme, but is not written by Erikson. It’s Shakespeare. Now, beside the brashness of putting these names together, I have a point. I mentioned in the blog that I’m reading “The Wayward Mind” by Guy Claxton, and it works like a handy manual to the Malazan world. That quote from Shakespeare also comes from this book, exploring the mystery of unconscious along the centuries, in philosophy, science and literature. This has been a key to Erikson’s series and its mythological forms I’ve held long before reading Claxton or Midnight Tides. “The forms of things unknown” is at the same time defining possible mythology, as well the hidden things that lurk in the darkness of the human soul. What stands well lit on the page, defined by consciousness, and what lies deeper, unseen. The outward, “explicit” projection of that darkness within is essentially the theme of human unconscious, as well the manifestation of a mythological world where gods are very real. That’s why I see “Midnight Tides”, the title of the book, as a suggestion to what hides below, a force unseen, lingering just below the calm level of consciousness. I’m not even sure I interpret this correctly, as I can’t grasp the whole of it, or what Erikson intended. In the past I’ve been right as much as I’ve been wrong. Yet this theme is powerful through the whole book, so I’m sure there’s at least some truth in the ways I intuitively see it. In particular there’s a page, right at the beginning of the book, but coming after the Prologue, so as part of the specific story and not of the larger arc, that is extremely evocative and hard to pinpoint (I quote only a fragment but all of it needs to be read). Making it fit perfectly with Claxton’s description of symbolic language as used by the Romantics and Shakespeare before them, the “multiple layers of resonance beyond explicit comprehension” and the “hint at buried complexities”.

Between the swish of the tides, we will speak of one such giant. Because the tale hides within his own.

The theme echoes through the rest of the book but it is especially strong in one of the last pages:

For such was the rhythm of these particular tides. Now, with the coming of night, when the shadows drew long, and what remained of the world turned away.

For that is what the Tiste Edur believe, is it not? Until midnight, all is turned away, silent and motionless. Awaiting the last tide.

And finally in the Epilogue:

And it is this moment, my friends,
When you must look away,
As the world unfurls anew
In shapes announced both bright
And sordid, in dark and light
And the sprawl of all existence
That lies between.

This lingering, shifty theme runs like an undercurrent, a midnight tide proper, since what “surfaces”, with light (attention) shining brightly on it is the central plot about the Lether empire, ever expanding, and on the move to conquer the Tiste Edur tribes in the North of the continent. An avid empire founded on the myths of money, progress as destiny, and dominance as an intrinsic vocation. Versus less “civilized” tribes that have still not resolved their relationship with their past history, bound to a more static and ancient vision of the world and way of living. One could very easily read this like a direct metaphor of modern times and western capitalism, but Erikson has clearly pointed out that he was more interested in catching the wider form of it, and its constant repetition through the whole of human history (he says: “one thing Midnight Tides taught me was that once a certain system of human behavior become entrenched, it acquires a power and will of its own, against which no single individual stands a chance”). So already two levels embedded in the whole arc of the book, to which another is added: the characters themselves, and especially two sets of three brothers. The Sengar and the Beddict, representing the two sides, the Edur and the Letherii. Each of these brothers quite different from the other, providing a different viewpoint. Six mirrors carefully placed to reflect each other and the world around, so let the game of light and shadows begin…

I won’t even try to attempt a careful analysis because it’s beyond my skill and what I’m supposed to do with a review. I’m just proceeding in general terms. This book is the fifth in a series of ten, whoever may read this review will likely know what it is about and maybe it’s more interesting for me to say of my personal reaction to it, and how it fits in the larger context of the series. I’ve said before that I considered each volume better than the previous, up to the fourth one, that I liked the most for a number of reasons. I know that Midnight Tides is ambivalent for many readers, either being the favorite or way down the scale of preference. This is mostly because the context of the story is momentarily separated from the rest. It’s set on a secluded continent away from the rest of the story of the previous four volumes and with an almost completely new set of characters. A relatively blank state that carries the obvious risks. The familiar characters and context abandoned to “linger” on something new, and so having to win once again the attention and willingness of the readers. In my personal ladder of preference I’d decidedly put MT behind the previous three volumes, and only above Gardens (the first). But not because of lack of familiarity or unease with new characters and stories.

My problem and criticism sits mostly in the execution. I’ve only admiration for how Erikson sets things up and the power of his vision at all the levels he engages with. What instead I found lacking and not quite fulfilling its task in this book is what goes on page by page. Something not quite reaching in the writing and execution of the single scenes. I’m not pretending to know better, but it is simply my reaction to the book, limited as it is. I found a certain legitimacy to the criticism leveled at Erikson, in particular about the characters. The problem is not that Erikson can’t do good characterization, but I believe he was here too brazen in the way these characters are made into “devices”, carrying a message. Erikson is honest to the message, he is not unsubtle and never facile, but he seems to reduce these characters to what they represent. What I’m trying to say is similar to a problem that Pynchon recognized in some of his own work: fist coming up with a theme or an idea, and then shaping a character around it, following with the plot and everything. Characterization well done, but coming after.

There is so much, many levels embedded in this book, that Erikson plays with (or could have played, since I always find so much in his novels that is untapped). But there’s also a feeling of scarcity. In the prose especially, but carrying over to characters, plot and setting. In the greater arc this is almost a blank state, so requiring more attention than usual to shape up things again. Pour life into this continent and the people living on it. It needs to be made “true”, to feel true. Become visceral and, so tangible. Linger with the characters and their lives, so that they acquire that true life, in the eyes of the reader. But Erikson steams on and only indulges in deep, solitary introspection, that doesn’t help shaping up these characters. It carves them inside, like tunnels down their personality and feelings, but lacking a certain “outward” development (see how I described it here). Too much bone, not enough flesh. It’s too pared down to the essential, to characters playing their complex thematic roles, in a complex thematic plot. Carrying along meaning heavy with implications but lacking the simplicity of a life and external relationships. I even felt a lack in descriptions, something quite rare in this genre. I’m used to Erikson’s style, but maybe I felt like he needed to shape things more fully, more all around, in this brand new context. Instead he only, selectively shaped what was immediately meaningful and relevant, without offering the illusion of this world existing and continuing just off the page. It felt so surgically precise and deliberate and purpose-full that it was cut off. Barebone, all too naked and dismaying in the way it seemed to carry little import.

At other times I narrowed down this problem to the blatant lack of “slice of life” type of narration in the Malazan series. Every character is a major player, or becomes one. Normalcy seems almost completely banished. And so characters sit more as plot devices, or thematic devices, or viewpoint warping, than some real people whose life you start believing in. That, for that reason, I’m able to follow and appreciate, but from the distance (the opposite of my reaction to This River Awakens). Another, shallower, problem is also born of something I started noticing in previous books, especially in the writing of the action scenes. It’s in these cases where I need the power of descriptions the most. The need to visualize and make tangible so that I can believe (I guess I’m also describing a failing of my imagination here, by voicing this). Erikson can write some powerful and evocative descriptions, but he always does this in very broad strokes, plus a tendency to “accelerate” the prose to match the action, so that the lines get shorter and just indicative. I find this counterproductive, as it achieves (for me) the opposite effect. Dramatic intensity is lost, because stuff happens without “weight” in the text. Being so succinctly described it is trivialized, quickly outpaced, moved off the page, so losing the staying power it requires (I’m also thinking at how modern movies tend today to do all action scenes in slow motion). And then I also get very easily confused by what is going on that quite often I have to read a scene two or three times to be really sure I understood what happened. So the whole point is defeated (acceleration of prose, I guess, to drive momentum, and dramatic intensity). Whenever I felt that the prose had to step up in the execution, Erikson instead seemed to withdraw even more. Become even more stingy with the prose, making it more perfunctory.

That’s mainly the nature of my criticism on this book. Descriptions are about the “action”, as much having in common that “lack” I lament about the characters and “life” around them. At some point there’s a scene, I think from Seren’s PoV, where she overhears some men talking about Hull in a tavern. I was almost surprised at the odd feeling of characters (Hull in this case) actually existing, written in the world. Because I usually get this feeling of them being so secluded in their own dimensions, like independent pockets. And I have a similar feeling about the rest of the book and the story. As if made of chunky bits, ably aligned, but not smoothly flowing and feeling connected.

Once again I should point out that, yes, Erikson is my favorite writer in Fantasy, but I am nitpicking. Being far less indulgent in writing a review of his book than how I’d be with any other writer. It’s because Erikson is my favorite writer in the genre that I expect the most, and more. And maybe the silly desire to see Erikson legitimately seen by other readers above other writers (or in as high regard), and so my implicit attempt to “flatten” his personal style to certain set of expectations I project on him (which would mean that all I wrote here is bullshit, a realistic possibility).

Putting all this aside, there’s still so much to admire in this book but that goes unmentioned because it is implicit in Erikson’s work and part of his specific set of expectations. I have admiration for his recklessness, as he always sets impossible high goals and then gets measured on those, even if the attempt itself is of mythical proportions. I was surprised that Theol and Bugg being so well received by readers in general, because it’s a kind of quirky humor based on wordplay and nonsense that is not a so safe bet. Their scenes work rather well and help to balance the other side of the novel, with the Sengar brothers, that is instead more moody and serious. I’m instead more doubtful at the end, where these two sides join to deliver the convergence and conclusion, the two different tones, humorous and bleak, clashing a bit together and giving me a sense of unbalance (that may as well be deliberate). The scenes at the Azath, through the book and especially at the end, never seem to come out of comic parody. The introspection, that I briefly discussed above and that is sometimes criticized by readers for burdening the text too much, is actually what I enjoyed the most, and considered the most inspired in the writing. It’s true that maybe it could have been spread more uniformly across the book, especially if there was an equally developed outward aspect. A character I was dissatisfied with was Ruhlad, because I felt his possession disfigured him too quickly, one moment going through unbelievable horror, the next already fixed on his task. He was misshaped, but not broken as I expected him to be. A too sudden transition where the character almost completely disappears into his functional role. Some characters, like Mayen, have a meaningful arc, but it’s so selective and surfacing only at times that it is quite hard to follow as a whole. You are forced to piece it together off the book, on your own. Sometimes these transitions are lost and feel sudden or disconnected. As if a lot of the quality of those characters stayed too submerged in the text, failing to surface and being fully appreciated.

I’ve said that the conclusion has an odd mix of tones, but it also carried a problem of being so sudden. As if you’re 50 pages from the end knowing it’s absolutely impossible that there are enough to make sense of all that is going on. As if the momentum that the plot gained would punch right through the back cover. When it comes to this Erikson is rather good at tying so many loose ends and give a number of character some kind of wrap up. In fact the ending definitely gives a sense of closure pretty much to everything. Satisfying. But it’s in going through the book again in my own mind that I wondered about a million of little things that seemed to go off stage without a mention. I thought there were in this book a number of Chekhov’s guns that did not fire, or misfired, completely subverting the expectations on which they seemed to be built. While in many cases the answers are explicit and right in the book, only requiring me to be more mindful and perceptive than how I was able to be (hence rereads being recommended). And others again being deliberate loose ties because intended to latch on following and previous books, to the greater arc of the Malazan series. I closed the book and more questions popped up at that moment than while I was reading it, but at least without undermining the experience (bad would be the opposite scenario: that the book provides all possible answers while still feeling unsatisfactory).

This also being the last of the “short” books in this series, at 270k (wordcount). From Bonehunters onward it will be about veritable doorstoppers, and I’m curious about the reaction I’ll have about the rest of the series, since I’m the one absurdly complaining that Erikson’s prose is too parsimonious. It took me an unbelievable amount of time to read this book, even if not because of its quality or enjoyment. But maybe this extremely drawn out experience I got of it also affected my opinion and the criticism I wrote here.

I wanted to conclude quoting a poem in the middle of the book whose message comes out with a particular clarity, so a nice contrast with those more heavily symbolic and hard to pinpoint. It also describes well a theme of the book, bringing it down to the most direct and explicit level.

The man who never smiles
Drags his nets through the deep
And we are gathered
To gape in the drowning air
Beneath the buffeting sound
Of his dreaded voice
Speaking of salvation
In the repast of justice done
And fed well on the laden table
Heaped with noble desires
He tells us all this to hone the edge
Of his eternal mercy
Slicing our bellies open
One by one.

In the Kingdom of Meaning Well
Fisher kel Tath

Kurt Vonnegut

I started to get interested in Kurt Vonnegut a couple of weeks ago, and the more I read about his books the more I felt the desire to start reading. My interest is especially focused on the level of meta-fiction, for example on the character Kilgore Trout that ends up appearing in a number of different novels.

I enjoy these kinds of meta levels, but in those cases where they are not a self-serving gimmick, like a thread that ties together all the works of an author. A message embedded in a certain worldview. I perceive an intriguing level of mythology in this, with a curious idea of time. Kurt Vonnegut has been defined humanist, which makes this level of metafiction and metaphysics quite interesting because it’s obviously not the proclamation of a “belief”. It’s instead the search for meaning where there can be none.

(and there are a number of “conceits” that are in common with the stuff I’m reading and writing about in the last months, such as: determinism, free will and time loops. As well as a number of “framing” devices and various playful “meta” structures that I always loved)

Considering where it was better to start reading, and considering that I was going to focus in particular on Kilgore Trout, I noticed a Library of America edition that collected all four of the novels I was interested in the most: “Cat’s Cradle”, “God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater”, “Slaughterhouse-Five” and “Breakfast of Champions”. Of these four only the first is not Kilgore-related, but Cat’s Cradle is still the one Vonnegut himself rated the highest, so it’s a collection with all top tier material. This hardcover is not cheap but now that I have it I can say the quality is exceptional. This is what books should be. It has a smaller format than typical hardcover, very good paper, clothbound etc… Just excellent. So if you intend reading Vonnegut go for it.

At the end of the book there are some short stories, notes and other material, but I noticed in particular an introduction to Slaughterhouse-Five that I’ll quote below and that I think represents well that jaded, truthful and unmerciful look that I expect to find in the stories. A kind of disheartened honesty that finds absolutely nothing in self-celebration.

And there’s also this:

“Tiger got to hunt, bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder ‘why, why, why?’
Tiger got to sleep, bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.”

This is a book about something that happened to me a long time ago (1944)-and the book itself is now something else that happened to me a long time ago (1969).

Time marches on-and the key event in this book, which is the fire-bombing of Dresden, is now a fossilized memory, sinking ever deeper into the tar pit of history. If American school children have heard of it at all, they are surely in doubt as to whether it happened in World War One or Two. Nor do I think they should care much.

I, for one, am not avid to keep the memory of the fire-bombing fresh. I would of course be charmed if people continued to read this book for years to come, but not because I think there are important lessons to be learned from the Dresden catastrophe. I myself was in the midst of it, and learned only that people can become so enraged in war that they will burn great cities to the ground, and slay the inhabitants thereof.

That was nothing new.

I write this in October of 1976, and it so happens that only two nights ago I saw a screening of Marcel Ophul’s new documentary on war crimes, “The Memory of Justice,” which included movies, taken from the air, of the Dresden raid-at night. The city appeared to boil, and I was down there somewhere.

I was supposed to appear onstage afterwards, with some other people who had had intimate experiences with Nazi death camps and so on, and to contribute my notions as to the meaning of it all.

Atrocities celebrate meaninglessness, surely. I was mute. I did not mount the stage. I went home.

The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is.

One way or another, I got two or three dollars for every person killed. Some business I’m in.

Two styles of writing

I often try to pinpoint and understand certain things. One of these is about narrowing down the reasons why George RR Martin is immensely popular, and why his prose and style of writing feel so strong and vivid. I compare writers all the time, but not to decide who’s “better” and coming on top. I compare things because it lets me carve out stuff I’d otherwise miss. Because stacking things together lets me better appreciate in what and how they differ. So I constantly try to do this “gauging” of writing styles, but I lack the proper tools and knowledge to analyze a text, and so have to resort to my own vague, unspecified “feelings”.

In the last few months I’ve deliberately juggled writers to juxtapose the most different styles. Jumping between Abercrombie, Glen Cook, Martin, Erikson, Donaldson, Gene Wolfe. And especially reading twenty pages of Erikson and then immediately moving to read twenty pages from Martin’s “A Clash of Kings” (that I’m reading also because I want to clear the book before the TV show starts), and the opposite, from Martin to Erikson. As I said, since I can’t analyze, I need this so I can understand how it “feels”. Because I believe there’s something quite relevant that I’m missing and so that is hard to describe.

It’s important for me because it’s the opposite of “flattening” writers to a singular measure of quality. The comparisons I do are instead meant to “bring out” the differences so that I can better appreciate them.

What I found out is that moving from Erikson to Martin there is not so much to notice. It makes a kind of uneventful transition. I notice differences, obviously, but it’s not something that draws the attention. But if instead I do the opposite, reading Erikson after I’ve read Martin, the feeling is strong and I can only describe as: dismaying. It’s truly dismaying because this transition modifies the way I read Erikson. Suddenly I perceive something missing in Erikson’s prose that otherwise I wouldn’t notice. A strong feel. A gaping hole. After reading Martin, Erikson’s writing appears as barren and lacking. This is what I observed, but what I believe is important is the fact that all of this comes out only in one direction, but not in the other. From Martin to Erikson.

When trying to describe these feelings I thought that a good example retaining the quality of the comparison is about food. Martin’s way of writing is like a very rich meal. A banquet not unlike those described in the books. Bountiful and seducing. Going to read Erikson (notice that I’ll dramatize a lot to draw out these differences) is like being offered a plate of bones. You crunch noisily bones with your teeth and is not exactly as pleasant and gratifying (fulfilling) as sinking those teeth in juicy meat, grease dripping down your chin. It goes without saying that going from that kind of banquet to a plate of bones is definitely dismaying.

Looking into this I was wondering that the idea is also alike the writers themselves (at least what I see in pictures, since I’ve never met either). Martin himself has this charming, generous and bountiful, benevolent figure. While Erikson is wiry, a more nervous, withdrawn, angled figure. I’d say that if you put them side by side you’d notice Erikson definitely “missing” something (see where I’m going). It seems to me more than a mere coincidence that the way they are reflects so well in their respective writing styles.

It’s an interesting observation because it consequently leads to something else. I believe that Martin writes in a style that is strongly “outward”. It’s what I notice the most in everything, from descriptions to characterization. Martin is colorful and explicit. He’s not “unsubtle”, since the characters have admirable depth, but it’s still a style of characterization that I define as outward. Reaching out, to expression and the reader. Spoken sincerely, but manifest and specific.

Where I’m going with this? I noticed that most of ASOIAF style of plot and intrigue, including character focus, is essentially the same of the gameplay of Crusader Kings 2. These big families seeking to secure powers, betrayal, fratricide, arranged marriages and so on. Thematic greed, selfishness, survival in a cage with wolves. Yet, don’t you notice? There’s a HUGE missing element in this particular recipe: religion. Crusader Kings 2 (as well the historical reality it is inspired to) is all about religion. It makes a significant axis that is curiously missing from ASOIAF. In Martin’s series there’s religion, but it makes a very superficial, immaterial layer holding no weight. Martin doesn’t seem really interested in it.

I’m writing all this because I believe it brings out a certain thing. Read this blog post by Scott Bakker, I think it explains well why my reactions above were one-directional only (from reading Martin to Erikson). Both writers have a style of writing that on its own feels “sufficient”. Maybe Erikson’s style isn’t so warm and welcoming, but whether you like it or not you don’t feel like there’s something that is lacking. It’s sufficient, perfectly walled as meant to be. So is Martin. But if you pose one against the other then differences surface and become visible and significant. You may think that this was a consequent rationalization, but my thought actually went down this path in reverse. I suddenly noticed that the kind of characterization that Erikson was doing was also completely missing from Martin. It’s just not there. You can take out paragraphs of text and, even adjusted or rewritten, they just wouldn’t belong to Martin’s book. They are alien. It’s stuff completely missing.

So the whole deal is figuring out that Martin writes “outwardly”. Because Erikson is blatantly the opposite. He writes inwardly. They go in opposite directions. Realizing this made me discover a number of different aspects. Erikson’s plate of bones is the result of meticulous carving, as a writing research. It’s the result of that inward, personal path. Peeling of layers, like skin, then fat and muscle. I can make an effective comparison with the movie industry. Compare Hollywood, or western in general type of narration, that is “outward”, explicit and loud, very carefully driven to an effect, compare it with the “indie” or eastern style of narration. That is quite often feebler, more intimate, quiet and understated. Easy to blot. Martin’s style has the power of drawing you in regardless of your disposition. Eventually you’re won even if you weren’t fully willing. It’s like a movie that drags you in using competently all its devices. This is what “swallows” the big public, being (the public) so fickle and capricious, heterogeneous, and so hard to capture (and hold down) as a whole. Erikson is the opposite. Either you are “devout” to listen carefully, or it pushes further away if you try to stick to it even if it doesn’t immediately grab you. It’s almost hostile, uncompromising, unforgiving. It’s quite selective, which isn’t exactly a good thing for a book.

In the end it seems coming down to spirituality, which is why I pointed out how religion is absent from ASOIAF. Spirituality is about going inward, is the kind of personal journey. The interpolation of this model underlines many things. You can see outward and inward characterization, you can see how the world and things are described. In Martin’s story there’s always so much the characters have on their hands, that is immediate and tangible, that they never really stop to think. It’s interesting for example that Martin deals with “mystery” either in a classical way (folk tales and similar), or he gets quite clumsy and awkward. He fumbles whenever his characters aren’t earthly guys (and excels when they are). Whenever he steps out of his outward approach, he is less effective. The meal is rich and so you don’t notice if something’s missing, but this is an illusion created by abundance. If you know where to look, you’d notice certain “lacks”.

It’s again so similar to the recent discussions about consciousness. Moonlight versus bright, dominant sun. Midnight tides versus Kings. How the argument is not symmetric, and how the slanted vision makes you see things wrongly. Intuitively they are in that way, but intuition is often wrong. The same was my “feeling” moving between Martin, Erikson and back. Noticing how Martin conquered spaces, of attention, appreciation. Marching on uncontested. In this, similar to a western school of movies that are all projected out toward the public, to reach and draw the public in. Like the Oscars, or the Hugos, ideally meant as external, overreaching institutions of absolute judgement, closing down on everything. But then there’s this very manifest risk that the loud voice will completely overshadow the feebler ones. A problem of domination, of doing things “better”, more effectively. Flattened to a single path. Of seeing rising popularity to obscure everything else.

You have to listen carefully.