Things I Have Read

 Kane of Old Mars collects three Michael Moorcock novels chronicling the adventures of one Michael Kane. Originally published under the pseudonym Edward Powys Bradbury, this trilogy was written as a tribute to Edgar Rice Burroughs. The titles as originally published were Warriors of Mars, Blades of Mars, and Barbarians of Mars. While these titles made the Burroughs connection more obvious, the later titles of City of the Beast, Lord of the Spiders, and Masters of the Pit are far more evocative of strange adventures and daring escapes.

While Moorcock's Hawkmoon books, especially the first series, reminded me of ERB's writing. They were not up to the Burroughs standard, nor does the Hawkmoon prose compare well with much of Moorcock's other work; they were written in haste and it shows. Nevertheless, while the quality of the writing is merely passable, Hawkmoon adventures through an interesting and varied world and that makes it worth the read. Hawkmoon shows the constant inventiveness and the peril-escape-peril cycle of classic adventure fiction that recalled to me John Carter of Mars.

(Note: I've worked to write to ERB-on-a-bad-day level myself and basically I find that you just follow Raymond Chandler's advice, only instead of a guy with a gun, you throw in something completely new.)

The tales of Michael Kane, however, are not only in a much closer style to Burroughs, they have several parallels to ERB's John Carter of Mars books, especially the first three in that series. Not only does the hero go to Mars (called Vashu by the natives), the tale is presented as factual and transmitted from the hero through an intermediary (E. P. Bradbury). Traces of superscience coexist with a sword-centric martial lifestyle. The giants on Moorcock's Mars are blue and only have two arms, but while details are different, Moorcock does a credible job of recapturing the feel of ERB's Barsoom.

Some nice genre touches include the chivalrous hero failing to grasp that he's confronting the evil mastermind, while the reader is recognizing a cliched hot, evil babe. While the body count mounts throughout the series, Kane does attempt to find non-violent solutions and sometimes succeeds.

In the final book, Moorcock's own regular tropes start showing through a little. The "Quicksands of Golana" shift forms and release strange cries, resembling a Moorcockian realm of Chaos. The madness of the people of Cend-Amrid is explained as an imbalance between the Beast and the Machine in man, easily (if possibly too glibly) identified with Chaos and Law.

Jongor of Lost Land by Robert Moore Williams

 

"JONGOR - A JUNGLE HERO GREATER THAN TARZAN - IN A PRIMITIVE LAND OF SAVAGE NATIVES AND MAN-HUNGRY MONSTERS" screams the back cover blurb. The truth is that Jongor is a Tarzan imitator living in a land that is a Lost World imitator. Although Robert Moore Williams does not make his creations as convincing as those of Burroughs and Doyle, he throws in a bit of Mu pseudo-archaeology myth as well, thereby additionally ripping off a guy ripping off Plato.

 

Jongor of Lost Land is a quick read and it moves along in a fairly predictable and clichéd, but entertaining way. While definitely inferior to the works it calls to mind (The Lost World and especially Tarzan of the Apes), it is up to the job of providing some light entertaining reading.

 

To be fair, I do not think Williams actually relies on coincidence any more than Burroughs does to move his story along, but he is just less convincing at it. Burroughs will place the fortunate coincidence away from the point of the narrative where it is actually needed, giving it less of a "pulled from a hat" feel. In fact, Jongor (contracted from "John Gordon") has a somewhat less fantastic background than Tarzan, having been raised by human to a reasonable age. This alone, however, is not enough to make a more convincing yarn.

 

The heroine is threatened with primate lust in both Tarzan of the Apes and Jongor of Lost Land, but while Burroughs handles the matter without any hint of leering and manages to make it seem plausible in context, Williams does not quite manage either. Jane is kidnapped by an outcast with none of his own kind still available to him and long acceptance of a human as part of his tribe, whereas Ann Hunter in Jongor is the object of desire of a successful member of "Murian" society, attracted to an alien female for no obvious reason besides the convenience of the plot.

 

While Doyle gave us a Lost World full of many exotic and extinct beasts, the Lost Land has "dinos", big herbaceous dinosaurs described as living in the swamp, "teros", pterodactyls, and "muros", Murian monkey-men. That's all. More modern beasts are mentioned but hardly encountered, just avoided. There is some fancy Murian technology as well. The Murians are said to constitute a missing link, but unlike Doyle, Williams provides one quite unconvincing in the role. The Murians are far too man-like and too monkey-like to have any place as a human ancestor. It is possible Williams was not clear on the difference between apes and monkeys.

 

Williams also does much to destroy his wonder world by the end of the tale and his hero and heroine are given a happy ending. Unlike Tarzan, one is not left wondering what happened next. However, the Internet reveals that there were two sequel stories of the mighty Jongor.

 

In the end, this reasonably good read merely looks pale when held up against the works it borrows from, not surprising when one of them is the magnificent Tarzan. For that matter, in a fight between Tarzan and Jongor, my money would be on Tarzan. He needed no extinct monsters to fight his battles for him.

The Pea and the Sun: A Mathematical Paradox by Leonard M. Wapner deals with the Banach-Tarski Theorem and related issues. The Banach-Tarski Theorem demonstrates that a ball can be cut into a finite number of parts and reassembled as two balls of the same size as the first. The book's title comes from a variation on the proof that shows an object can likewise be cut up and reassembled into any other dimensions, with a pea and the sun being examples of extreme size difference that can be so achieved.

 

The first thing to note is that this disassembling and reassembling is strictly mathematical. This theorem deals with geometric objects in a manner that cannot, even theoretically, be performed by human effort on physical objects. It remains possible that nature can perform such feats, but the examples of such possible occurrences are not terribly convincing. The result is surprising, beautiful, and an excellent example of the weirdness that appears when one starts dealing with infinity, but it is not practical.

 

A good deal of interesting material is covered as preliminary to the proof and discussion of its implications or as epilogue to it. This includes short biographies of the individuals most central to the development of the proof, various two-dimensional illusions and puzzles of rearrangement, diversions into topics such as self-reference in the works of Escher and Bach, the counterintuitive properties of the Cantor set, and more.

 

One point about the proof that is not discussed in the book is the degree to which it depends on space being a continuum -- it requires dimensionless geometric points to achieve its results. Our best physics says that the universe we live in is actually quantized. Spacetime is not infinitely divisible. At unintuitably small scales, you reach the limits of divisibility. There are minimal meaningful precisions to distances. This provides a convenient excuse for magic that can create and destroy matter without regard for our laws of conservation, so long as one is using a setting in another universe. All one needs is to make space a continuum and assume that the magical force can apply the manipulations required by the Banach-Tarski Theorem.

 

For those not deeply into mathematics, following the actual proof in detail is likely to be an intellectual struggle, but most of the book is much lighter going. It is not just for math geeks and it might help you relate better to any math geeks you might know.

The Analects of Confucius translated and annotated by Arthur Waley is interesting for the notes as well as the main text. While Mr. Waley includes a number of technical comments, much of his annotations and nearly all of his introductory material is useful social and historical background for the reader who is not well versed in ancient China.

 

This text, like a number of similar texts both out of China and from other sources, is an accumulation of material bundled together, handed down through multiple scribes to the detriment of the manuscript integrity, and put together with something less than scholarly scruples about origins. Certain non-Confucian and later Confucian elements are obviously at odds with the bulk of the material, but none of the text is of certain origin. Still, it provides an important document for the understanding of not only the Chinese cultural development that was influenced by it, but also of the "historical" Confucius. At least, as historical as Confucius gets, a man whose existence we cannot confirm, living in a time when all history flowed into myth.

 

Confucius does not come across at all as the dour, bitter fussbudget that hostile portrayals have offered. Unable to find employment in the higher levels of government, he is not discontent, although he continues to seek service. Certainly, he would have been better pleased if the Way of the Former Kings prevailed in all under Heaven, but it would be a poor moral instructor who could not envisage a better world than this. He is struck with one great unhappiness in the untimely death of his most virtuous pupil, but overall, his outlook is positive. The world may be in trouble, but if the ruler is upright and follows the right forms, the people will fall into their proper places. His belief is part faith in the magic of right ritual, but also very much a belief in the power of virtuous leadership and right example. The individual at a lower level may not be able to make all right, but he can turn away from what is wrong and be right himself.

 

Confucius criticizes, sometimes harshly, but he also praises.

 

In ancient China, there was freedom of movement between the various states. They were also underpopulated and therefore in competition for population. A state that attracted immigrants would be able to farm more land and field a larger army. It is therefore not surprising that Confucius has a belief in the power of culture and virtuous leadership to strengthen a state. Such things attract immigration and in the environment in which Confucius's thought was shaped, that was a powerful alternative to more violent paths to increasing power.

 

While Confucius believed in the power of correct ritual, he lacks the obsession with ritual forms of many later followers. It seems to me that in much of his concerns with ritual and related matters, it is very much that he wishes to see things done properly, that it is important that leadership show concern for correct details as much as the specifics of ritual that matters. He insists that his students learn enough to conduct themselves properly at court, but his concerns are generally for moral, rather than ritual, correctness.

 

These comments seem a bit disjointed, but I suppose that is only appropriate given the subject is the cobbled together collection of mostly related material. Much is attributed to the Master and much of that is wise, but there are only repeated themes (and sometimes repeated phrases), no coherent organization or continued argument to be addressed.

The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

 

Yes, Bram Stoker actually did write something other than Dracula. This 1903 work is another horror tale, this time delving into Egyptology and featuring a highly unusual mummy. I was delighted to discover from Wikipedia that the anticlimactic ending in my Carroll & Graf published copy was not Stoker's own choice, but the result of the publishers demanding changes in the 1912 republication. Apparently, the original was just too darn scary for the world of the early 20th Century.

 

The Wikipedians were even kind enough to point to a copy of the original version at http://draculadomharfa.blogspot.com/2009/02/jewel-of-seven-stars.html

 

The original version is better, although still something of a letdown in the abruptness of the climax and the questions that must be left unanswered. At least things end badly, although I did not find it terribly frightening. Of course, we have had two world wars, nuclear weapons, and Barney the Dinosaur since then. I am inured to horrors of which the initial readers had no inkling.

 

The build-up, however, is excellent. Mysterious events and hints of threatening possibilities give way to possible explanations, but the curtain is never pulled away. The mysteries retain their mystery. There is a romance that develops quite properly according to the customs of the time. Lots of eye-gazing and handholding action.

 

In addition to the restrained approach to both the horror and the romantic elements, the third sign of the period in which this work was written is the attempts to supply some scientific plausibility. Some elements are left in the realm of the supernatural, but others are given suggested explanations in terms of lost knowledge that would have appeared more plausible at the time of publication than they do now. Some nice touches remain sound in the face of a century of scientific advancement, such as an astronomical point about the shift of constellations over time.

 

This was a good read. I retained curiosity over the explanations behind events that had already occurred and what would happen next. If it was not very successful as horror, it was certainly successful as suspense (and I do not know what Stoker's actual intent was -- such marketing labels would not have been very prominent in even a calculating author's mind at that time). Definitely recommended.

Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs

 

Tarzan is one of the most recognized characters in all of fiction. His story has been retold in translations, comics, movies, and other media. The outlines of the legend are well known. This, however, is the origin of all the other versions. This is the book in which ERB revealed to the world the story of how a man was raised by apes and his amazing journey through the savage jungle and eventually into human civilization.

 

Tarzan's story hangs on not one, not two, but three disastrous mutinies. The boy raised by apes discovers a knife just in time to save his life by learning to use it. He teaches himself to read though his ape culture has only a rudimentary spoken language and no notion of writing. I am not sure Burroughs had much grasp on animal science beyond what might lie in a pulp magazine. Yet this whole implausible tale reads quite well. This is Burroughs writing at the top of his game. The story convinces and I have only one logical quibble as to how Tarzan can have written his ape name in English, when he could not have spelled it phonetically since he had no knowledge of spoken English. Tarzan means "White Skin" in ape language and that is what he might be expected to write when identifying himself in English.

 

While I can see the grounds for calling the writing racist, the bias in Tarzan is really more classist than racist. It comes to the fore in such sentences as "It was the hall-mark of his aristocratic birth, the natural outcropping of many generations of fine breeding, an hereditary instinct of graciousness which a lifetime of uncouth and savage training and environment could not eradicate." Burroughs does fall back on stereotypes at time to sketch characters quickly and easily (as well as going against stereotypes to diversify his fictional worlds and surprise complacent readers). This is as much the case in the portrayal of Professor Porter as the clichéd absent-minded egghead as in the portrayal of cannibal savagery. I would point out, however, that the cannibal tribe is described as fleeing a colonialism more cruel than their own ways and that, perhaps lest someone take the pulp clichés seriously, Burroughs puts into Tarzan own mouth a sort of disclaimer against judging groups rather than individuals. It is placed in a conversation about the character of lions and includes the caution "There is as much individuality among the lower orders, gentlemen, as there is among ourselves." The one group that comes off worst in the book is sailors (common sailors, of course, not officers and not navy men).

 

I expected the details of plot to differ from any of the adaptations with which I was already familiar, but there were some surprises. The book plot is more complex than a movie could support and several simplifications allow a reduction in characters, so that is not unexpected. I was less prepared for the ending of the book being far less conclusive and happy than I have seen in variants of the story. Suffice to say that matters, especially those nearest to Tarzan's heart, are left open and apparently resolved somewhat unhappily at the end. Fortunately, there is a sequel.

 

On a final note, Burroughs credits Tarzan's handsomeness in large part to his happiness, describing the smile as the "foundation of beauty". It may sound like some sort of New Age hippie-dippy talk, but here it is from a popular work nearly a century old. So smile, you'll look good.

The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge by Philip Kitcher is a book I was given by a fellow philosophy graduate student well over a decade ago. I expect this was somewhat due to my complaining at times about philosophers of language treating the rule of addition as arbitrary rather than a reflection of physical reality. This clue that I would be in sympathy with Kitcher's argument for mathematical knowledge originating in experience was not misleading.

 

While this is not a particularly demanding text, it does require a certain amount of knowledge to approach it without struggling. Familiarity with propositional symbolic logic is assumed and familiarity (not necessarily mastery) of mathematics up to calculus will be very useful to the reader, as the development of the calculus is Kitcher's primary example. I would also recommend a basic understanding of epistemology, the study of knowledge.

 

Obviously, not all mathematics can have a direct experiential basis. No mathematician has ever assented to a statement regarding infinity by having examined infinity or carried an infinite process through to its conclusion. On the other hand, most of us would concede without argument that children come to understand addition as "putting together" two groups of things and subtraction as "taking away". Indeed, these early models are handicaps to those with poor ability to abstract as they reach higher levels of mathematics, as one cannot "take away" six from four.

 

The real challenge to Kitcher's position is showing how it is possible to get from the practical mathematics of keeping track of how many bushels of grain are in the ruler's silos and the division of plots of land by basic geometry to the completion of sums of infinite series, n-dimensional topology, and other mathematical exercises that seem to have no place outside of Plato's heaven.

 

Kitcher's answer is a concept of mathematical activities as those possible to an ideal agent. This agent has human intelligence but is freed from certain constraints of ordinary human life. I can only collect together a limited number of items to physically model addition - my supplies are limited, my lifespan is finite, etc. The ideal agent is freed from these constraints, allowing collecting operation that (like the arithmetic postulated in mathematics) can deal with arbitrarily large numbers, even numbers greater than the number of physical objects in the universe. In short, our understanding of what we can do enables us to have an understanding of what we could do, if only we were freed of some constraints on our activities. It is on this basis that Kitcher works to argue that our highest mathematics ultimately stand on an experiential foundation.

 

Published in 1984, I'm sure that this book has been argued over and Kitcher's argument refined (and likely adopted in more or less revised form by others who have extended his work) as well as being the object of several reviews and at least a few alleged rebuttals. While it can therefore not be regarded as "state of the art", it presents a reasonable model for the construction of mathematical knowledge on an empirical foundation in an accessible a manner as could be asked. It is well worth reading.

Pieces of Intelligence: The Existential Poetry of Donald H. Rumsfeld compiled and edited by Hart Seely (2003) came as a Christmas gift. It made its way to the front of my large pile of books to be read by virtue of being conveniently small (easily carried) and short.

I will probably end up giving this volume to an English teacher for use as an example of "found poetry".

Rumsfeld's words are arranged into lines of verse and given a title by Mr. Seely, but the credit for some of the best images goes directly to Rumsfeld. He does come up with some interesting metaphors, my favorite of which compares government lawyers in international relations to beavers as they "dam it up".

Rumsfeld's world is a dark, disturbing place. He seeks certainty in an uncertain world, a world of shadowy doubts and conflicting evidence, where certainty is a manufactured commodity, available when convenient, or at Presidential command, but otherwise elusive. And sometimes, in the face of the difficulty of finding epistemological certitude, he seems to just stop caring.

But while Rumsfeld may come across as a pessimist, he does not sink into hopeless inaction. He defies a hostile world and strives onward. What is surprising is not that Rumsfeld makes a grim poet, but that he actually makes a fairly decent poet, at least for the most part. Some of the poems read very well, others are a struggle to find a rhythm that does not end up flat or prosaic. Still, overall, I consider this book a success. It takes the words of Donald Rumsfeld and it frames them as verse, providing a surprisingly poetic perspective on one of the major political figures in recent history.