What I've been reading

Schindler's Ark
by Thomas Keneally

"In the shadow of Auschwitz, a flamboyant German industrialist grew into a living legend to the Jews of Cracow. He was a womaniser, a heavy drinker and a bon viveur, but to them he became a saviour."

This was a tough read. I think I am becoming more sensitive as I get older, but maybe I haven't read accounts of the atrocities of the Holocaust like this one. I still find the character of Oskar Schindler himself fascinating - a successful industrialist before the war, a passionate activist during the time described in the book, and then managed nothing very successful afterwards. This one act that he carried out with considerable risk and cost to himself stands out not only because of its utterly heroic nature, but also because he shows no similar character or action before or after the war. No matter - he deserves no less recognition because of that.

Ratking
by Michael Dibdin

narrated by Michael Kitchen

"Italian Police Commissioner Aurelio Zen is dispatched to investigate the kidnapping of Ruggiero Miletti, a powerful Perugian industrialist. But nobody much wants Zen to succeed: not the local authorities, who view him as an interloper, and certainly not Miletti's children, who seem content to let the head of the family languish in the hands of his abductors."

This only confirms my existing conclusion that I can't follow this kind of 'police procedural' novel in the audio form - I forget who is who, and it wasn't helped this time by leaving fairly long periods between listens. But despite this it's quite good, although I won't be seeking out any more books in the series.

Psmith in the City
by P. G. Wodehouse

narrated by B. J. Harrison

"Mike Jackson, cricketer and scion of a cricketing clan, finds his dreams of studying and playing at Cambridge upset by news of his father's financial troubles, and must instead take a job with the New Asiatic Bank. On arrival there, Mike finds his friend Psmith is also a new employee, and together they strive to make the best of their position, and perhaps squeeze in a little cricket from time to time."

Not one of his best, perhaps, because he's put upper-class Psmith to work in a bank in order to create the dramatic scenario, and the caricatures of other employees are barely recognisable. So the story is a bit far-fetched, and there's nothing particularly to recommend it.

The Count of Monte Cristo
by Alexandre Dumas

"Thrown in prison for a crime he has not committed, Edmond Dantes is confined to the grim fortress of If. There he learns of a great hoard of treasure hidden on the Isle of Monte Cristo and he becomes determined not only to escape, but also to unearth the treasure and use it to plot the destruction of the three men responsible for his incarceration."

A humongous read - the paperback is about four inches thick, which is what put me off the audio version and made me go to the library to borrow a copy. Great move, I thought, until someone else reserved it, so I had to give it back when I'd got just a third of the way through and wait for three weeks before I could borrow it again. But despite the intermission it's good, very good, and the story rolls along at the right pace and with the right amount of detail and action, and the whole cast of characters is introduced so that you don't forget who they are. A cracking story.

The Mighty Micro
by Christopher Evans

"A computer in your wrist watch, a car that refuses to start if the driver is drunk, a micro-chip book instead of a paperback... Science fiction? No, by the year 2000, all these and much more will be part of our everyday lives."

This book was written in 1979, and contains the author's predictions for how computing would progress in the short, medium and long term, reaching all the way to 2000. He foresaw many of today's uses of microchips - electronic books (although he wrongly predicted the demise of paper), flat-screen TVs, ubiquitous computing, a network of computers, and the addictive properties of computer games. He got some things spectacularly wrong - a twenty-hour working week, personalised education and Ultra Intelligent Machines, and he anticipated the influence of computers in medicine, but thought they would be replacing diagnostic physicians rather than assisting surgeons. 

He also got some things right but in the wrong context: he thought interactive voting would allow us to influence our elected politicians; he didn't foresee pointless celebrity shows. He had high ideals, and while he acknowledged the stupidity, shortsightedness and greed of humanity he thought it would be kept in check by scientific sense. So did I, until it became clear in the last decade that political domination is more important to our ruling classes than facts, truth and integrity (and not just in the USA).

I'll give you a few extracts that particularly entertained me. 

One was in the section where he describes a portable device that contained all the books you could wish for, including an encyclopedia. "One of the winners of a 'Brain of Britain' contest attributed his great knowledge to the fact that he had a set of encyclopaedias in every room in his house so that whenever he wanted information he could get it immediately." He then imagines the future scenario where he could carry his encyclopaedia with him, but doesn't come up with the idea that the portable encyclopaedia is anything more than a digitally formatted book.

Another missed target was crime. He anticipated the demise of cash and cheques in favour of digital transactions, but thought that this would mean theft and robbery of physical money would decline and digital security would prevent any other form of financial crime. "The solution is to create more secure computer systems, and while nothing in this world is absolutely inviolate, computers can, in the long run, be made far more secure than any bank vault." With hindsight, how naive. 

He anticipated a shift in working patterns that only happened in the face of a global pandemic. "The cities will empty and expensive office blocks will gather dust. For centuries Man has been accustomed to the notion that he must travel to find his work; from the 1980s into the 1990s the work - such as there is to do - will travel to meet Man."

Last of my examples is in a section where he is comparing the need for 'biological computers' (i.e. humans) to carry huge software packages (brains) in order to survive. "[Computers] do not, and I am sure never will, have to devote any software to supporting a complex reproductive system ... nor does any software have to be given over to maintenance and repair functions, or to providing immunological defences against bacterial or viral assaults." Good thing you didn't bet on that last one, Dr Evans.

I bought the third impression of the book in 1983, my first year at university, by which time Dr Christopher Evans was already dead - of cancer, in the same year that his book came out. He never found out whether even his short-term predictions came true.

As I Lay Dying
by William Faulkner

narrated by Marc Cashman, Robertson Dean, Lina Patel, Lorna Raver

"The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people."

I knew that I enjoyed the way that Faulkner wrote 'The Sound and The Fury' (looking back at my review, I enjoyed it even more than I remember), which is why I chose to read this one. Which I also enjoyed, even though it's completely nuts. Not quite as confusing in its time line and character names as the other, but still crazy, and written in a voice (voices) like no other author's in my experience. Taking the seriously decomposing body in July heat to its resting place involves falling in a river, drowning the mules pulling the cart, breaking a leg which is then given a cast made of builders' cement, burning down a barn and getting sent to the asylum, failing to get an abortion, and getting new teeth, a gramophone, and a new wife. What a ride.

Foundation
by Isaac Asimov

"To preserve knowledge and save mankind, Hari Seldon gathers the best minds in the Empire - both scientists and scholars - and brings them to a bleak planet at the edge of the Galaxy to serve as a beacon of hope for a future generations. He calls his sanctuary the Foundation."

Now, this is peculiar. The first time I read this book, which could have been in the 1990's or even earlier, I liked it enough to want to buy the next two in the trilogy. This time round it doesn't have that effect at all; I found it lacked cohesion, spread over too long a time period, no character development... But I still have the subsequent books so I'll read them and see if it gets better.