Last month I reviewed The Game, by
Laurie R. King; the title is a reference to the
“Great Game”, a cold war of intrigue and exploration in Central
Asia that spanned most of the 19th century and continued into the
early years of the 20th. King’s book takes place at the very end of the
Great Game period, in the years after the first World War. I mentioned
in that review Peter Hopkirk’s outstanding book
The Great Game, and afterwards decided that it was time to
re-read it.

And that, let me tell you, opened a largish can of worms.

See, I’m a history buff. And about eight or nine years ago I became
interested in 19th century history, and the British Empire in
particular–not surprisingly, because you really can’t even talk about
the 19th century without talking about the British Empire. And I read
voraciously on the subject, and one book led to another, and that’s how I
found The Great Game. And as I was reading it I came to the
section on the first Afghan War.

It’s like this. During the first half of the 19th century, the Russians
were looking for new markets for the products of their nascent factories.
They couldn’t compete with the British on either price or quality in
those markets where the Brits were established; so they looked to Central
Asia. Central Asia had other advantages as well; the further Russia
expanded, the closer they got to India. And at that time India was the
Jewel in the Crown, the source of British power and wealth. The Czar
couldn’t help salivating over the idea that India might one day be Russia’s.

Now, in order to travel overland to India from Russia, by the most direct
route, you pretty much need to go through Afghanistan. And it’s much
easier to do this if the Afghans aren’t trying to kill you while you do
it. And so the Czar sent a Russian officer (“sent”! what amazing worlds
of experience are hidden behind that little word!) to negotiate with Dost
Mohammed, who was then the ruler of Afghanistan. The Brits had been
trying their best with Dost Mohammed as well, but eventually concluded
(foolishly, I think) that he was not to be trusted. And so they sent in
an army, fought their way from Herat to Kabul, captured Dost Mohammed,
and installed a puppet named Shah Shujah in his place. They felt
extremely virtuous about this, because Shah Shujah was, in fact, the
“rightful” king of Afghanistan, having been ousted by Dost Mohammed some
years before. Trouble is, the Afghanis weren’t too happy to have him
back, especially the tribemen in the hills. So the Brits left a
garrison, and put a couple of idiots in charge: an elderly general named
Elphinstone who should have been retired long since, and an exceedingly
smart and clever idiot (the worst kind) named Sir William MacNaghten.

OK, there’s the situation. The Brits are in Kabul, their leaders there
are fools, and the populace is unhappy. Now we can get to Fraser’s book.

Harry Flashman, the protagonist (I just can’t use the word “hero”) of the
book, is a bully, a scoundrel, a cad, a coward, a cheat, a drunkard, a
toady, and a womanizer. He’s the sort of plausible rogue who’s smart
enough never to show his true colors if he can avoid it, the better to use
his acquaintances to his advantage. He can be engaging, it’s true–and
the next moment commit enormities of the worst kind.

He begins the book by being thrown out of Rugby School for
drunkeness, after which he persuades his father to buy him a commission
in the Royal Army. An odd choice of career for a coward, but he’s careful
to choose a regiment that’s
just home from India, and consequently won’t be going anywhere to fight
any time soon. But thanks to some missteps of his own he has to leave
the regiment and soon finds himself posted to India…where he’s assigned
duty as an aide to General Elphinstone in Afghanistan.

In short, Fraser gives us an “eye-witness” account of the retreat from
Kabul, a fiendish mess that left only a handful of survivors–including,
of course, bluff, hearty Harry Flashman.

I don’t entirely like reading about Harry Flashman; he’s too beastly. But Fraser’s
an excellent storyteller, and his attention to detail and historical
accuracy is first-rate. He’s especially skilled, through a careful and
judicious use of endnotes, at telling us what really happened while
maintaining the conceit that he’s simply editing Flashman’s own memoirs.

And given that Flashman was “present” at nearly every major 19th century military event
from 1842 onward, including the Charge of the Light Brigade, the American
Civil War, Little Big Horn, and every hot outbreak in the cold war that
was The Great Game, Fraser’s books are nearly indispensable
to anyone wanting to acquire a vivid picture of what it was like. A
rather jaundiced and slanted one, no doubt, but vivid and indispensable
none the less.

Jaquandor makes the following generous observation:

Of course, for ongoing recommendations on children’s books, Will Duquette is the place to go. It’s pretty funny when Will encounters a book he doesn’t like; his verdict is always some variant of “They can read it when they grow up if they want to, but I am sure not reading that book ever again!” That kind of says it all, doesn’t it?



There’s a reason why I always put it that way. I firmly believe that the only way to really appreciate good writing and good storytelling is to have read a lot of bad writing and bad storytelling alongside the good stuff. If I only allow my kids to read stuff I personally think is excellent, they’ll never gain that appreciation.

But there’s more to it than that–I want to be respectful of their taste in books. Sure, they might like a book I don’t, and maybe as they read more widely and gain experience they’ll see the same defects in it that I do. But right now it’s what they like and read with joy, and that’s to be encouraged.

This is a lesson I learned from my mom, who passed away several years ago. Mom had no taste or appreciation for speculative fiction at all; she regarded it all as being of low quality and she’d often ask me why I couldn’t read something better. Historical fiction, say, her particular pleasure. But the Tolkien hardcovers I’ve got on my shelf to this day, she gave me, because she knew I loved Tolkien. She also got me my first set of Narnia books, a boxed set of paperbacks. I’ve still got it, including the box; one book is missing, and the whole thing is in horrible shape having gone through several sets of readers, including my nephews, before it came back to me, and somehow I can’t see getting rid of it. In short, my mom loved me more than her own taste.

And let’s not miss the main point–there might be something to the books my kids love that I’m not seeing.

So here’s to my kids; may they form their taste in books as I did.

(All this said, I don’t want to imply that I’d let them read absolutely anything. I’m speaking only of literary quality, here; there are plenty of books I wouldn’t let them read for other reasons. Fanny Hill, say, or Lady Chatterly’s Lover–though to be honest I have no particular interest in either one myself.)

Howdy!

I’ve just put version 2.1.1 of my Notebook personal notebook application. If you’ve not previously taken a look at it, you should go check it out; it’s available at Notebook’s new home page, the Notebook Wiki.

Notebook is a kind of combination database, notebook, personal information manager, and pseudo-website. A notebook file is a document that consists of any number of pages. You can create as many pages as you like, and link them together like a website–only much more easily. You can quickly search for any piece of information you need in moments. Plus, Notebook is extensible–you can customize it and do all sorts of magical things with a small amount of programming, right from within Notebook itself.

Notebook runs natively on Windows and Mac OS X, and also on Linux and any other OS for which Tcl/Tk support is available. The details are on the Notebook Wiki.

This is Modesitt’s latest volume of the long-running Recluce series. As
often before, it’s about a person learning that they have the talent and
need to become an order-master, with all that that entails. And yet,
it’s refreshingly different. Rather than an impatient kid from Recluce,
the hero is a middle-aged cooper from Nordla. His emerging need for
order and truth brings him into dire conflict with the local ruler,
and he’s forced to flee his home. He finds employment with a sympathetic
ship’s captain of his acquaintance and travels as a ship’s carpenter
to a number of places we’ve heard of in previous books but never seen.
Everywhere he travels he learns a little more about his ever increasing
powers.

This is the first of two books about Kharl the Cooper; the second is
called Ordermaster, and I’m rather looking forward to it.

Whilst out walking with my sons recently, we’ve several times spotted “woolly bear” caterpillars. I explained to the boys that these caterpillars would eventually turn into either a butterfly or a moth, but that I didn’t know which one. They not unreasonably asked me to find out. So I did a Google search, and to my surprise this is what I found:

A wooly bear caterpillar is black at both ends of its body and has one reddish brown stripe in the middle.

They believe that if a wooly bear caterpillar’s brown stripe is thick, the winter weather will be mild and if the brown stripes are narrow, the winter will be severe.

Now this rather surprised me, because I’ve never seen a two-toned woolly bear like the one in the picture, nor have I ever heard of the related bit of folklore. Almost all of the woolly bears I’ve ever seen here in Southern California have been all black; on rare occasions I’ve seen ones that were all brown.

Wikipedia comes to the rescue. It turns that there’s an entire taxonomic family of tiger moths:

Many species have hairy caterpillars which are popularly known as woolly bears. The scientific name refers to this (Gk. αρκτος = a bear). The caterpillars are usually active during the daytime. If disturbed, they will roll into a tight spiral. Colonial superstition has it that the forthcoming weather can be predicted by the amount of black on a woolly bear caterpillar.

So the local varieties are just a different species than Isia Isabella, but they definitely moths.

I just got back from seeing my doctor; it has now been two full months since my diet began, and it was time to go in, get weighed, and see what’s changed in my blood chemistry over the last two months. For those not following along at home, I was directed to avoid all red meat and carbohydrates, to eschew egg yolk, to consume only chicken, turkey, fish, soy, low-fat cheese, egg whites, green leafy vegetables, a modicum of other vegetables, and nuts; and to walk for 30 minutes a day. And except for a very few quite intentional lapses (I celebrated Easter with chocolate) that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two months.

Last month at this time, I’d lost 13 pounds. This month, it turns out, I lost another 13 pounds, making 26 pounds all told. In addition, my cholesterol dropped to under half its previous level, and the other problem statistics are now comfortably in-range as well. In fact, the only problem my bloodwork showed this time is that my HDL cholesterol (the so-called “good” cholesterol) is now too low. My doctor says that I need to eat more fish. I told her we had fish twice this month and twice last month, which is four more times than in the twelve months before that.

So things are going well on that front. Bottomline, I’m to keep at it, and come back for another look next month.

This is the simply the best thing I’ve run into on the Web in ages. All Tolkien fans have to go take a look. I particularly like the Synopsis of The Lord of the Rings, for students without enough time to read it. Also, you can download the complete Lord of the Rings movie–the Howard Hawks version, produced by Warner Bros. and starring Humphrey Bogart. Peter Lorre is especially good as Smeagol.

Seriously, you need to go take a look. (I’m talking to you, Ian!)

Here’s an interview with the author of The Magic of Recluce and other books (via Byzantium’s Shores).

I read this to the boys as a bedtime story, and as a reward to myself for
actually finishing The Bad Beginning. ’nuff said.

Apropos of nothing in particular, this happens to be Jane’s favorite of
all of the Narnia books.

A serial killer has been fascinating and terrifying London. Dubbed the
“Flower Killer” by the press, he strangles women, drops flowers on their
bodies, and walks away singing. The final victim is found on the London docks
just as the freighter Cape Farewell pulls away; the freighter is
carrying eight passengers. The victim had a torn piece of embarkation
notice for the Cape Farewell in her hand. The inference is clear;
the Flower Killer might be on board the ship. There isn’t enough
evidence to call the Cape Farewell back to port, but plenty enough
to be worried, and so Inspector Alleyn boards the freighter at
Southhampton as “Mr. Broderick”, an official of the shipping line.

What follows is an interesting variant of the snowbound country house
mystery. The passengers are trapped on board the ship with a demented
killer, and only Alleyn and the ship’s captain are aware of it. Without
alarming the passengers, Alleyn must determine who the killer is, and
prevent him from killing again.

As a mystery it’s enjoyable enough, but Alleyn’s reflections on serial
killing and serial killers are dated, and the psychological
explanation for why the killer kills is ridiculously facile. But hey, it
was 1958.