The Innocents Abroad

#785
 Title: The Innocents Abroad
Author: Mark Twain
Publisher: Modern Library
Year: 1869/2007
560 pages

I gave up on the audiobook about 3/4 in. The narrator's voice has an annoying combination of atonal hoarseness and nasalness that never stopped bothering me.

I enjoy Twain's use of language and dry humor, but had not yet read his travelogues. Since they predate his famous novels, it's interesting to see his early style, which is less assured than it would become but still confident.

I'd characterize this narrative as less racist than xenophobic, though Twain is clearly sometimes truly unhappy and at other times exaggerating for comedic effect. Sometimes the object he's aiming for is to poke fun at the American tourist's narrowness of thought and ethnocentrism.

In the context of the first real pleasure cruise (a side-wheel steamboat, if memory serves), Twain and companions were remarkably adventurous, defying quarantine, for example, and scrambling for hours at night over crumbly Greek hills and through dog-patrolled vineyards in order to see the Parthenon.

Having visited many of Twain's destinations (and many of that number by ship), I thoroughly enjoyed his observations, whether or not I agreed about places, peoples, or cultural quirks.

Aya (Aya #1)

#784
Title: Aya (Aya #1)
Author: Marguerite Abouet
Illustrator: Clément Oubrerie
Publisher: Drawn & Quarterly Publications
Year: 2007
105 pages

An enjoyable graphic novel that follows Aya, a teen in Ivory Coast, and her friends. It has an initial light feel that becomes more grim, as well as less-overt representation of problematic societal themes, such as corruption and the commodification of women. The teens are realistically portrayed, the action moves alone, and the graphics are colorful and have a lot of motion. I tend to prefer graphic novels that have the same author/illustrator, but this was a pleasing example of a collaboration. I'd like to read the others in this series as well.

Tree of Codes

#783
 Title: Tree of Codes
Author: Jonathan Safran Foer
Publisher: Visual Editions
Year: 2010
139 pages

Foer here uses die-cut pages a form of collage/assemblage to produce a story from within a story--"a dream that The Street of Crocodiles might have had," as he says in his afterword. It's not only a dream of that novel, but a dream of the dream, with cut-outs framing full or partial words and phrases from later in the book so that for page upon page, the reader sees below the current text "darkness" or "his eyes darkened and suffering." The effect of this palimpsest is a powerful sense of foreboding.

Tom Phillips played with a similar technique in multiple renditions of  A Humument: A Treated Victorian Novel. There, Phillips extracts text by blocking or partially blocking text on an intact page with drawings and colors. As with Tree of Codes, other text is often evident, though in Phillips's work it's the contextual language whereas in Foer's it's only the extracted text to come, and thus more self-referential.

A fun experiment, and a fun "found" text. Its contribution to literature is more in its form than its substance.

99 Drams of Whiskey: The Accidental Hedonist's Quest for the Perfect Shot and the History of the Drink

#782
Title: 99 Drams of Whiskey: The Accidental Hedonist's Quest for the Perfect Shot and the History of the Drink
Author: Kate Hopkins
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Year: 2009/2010
320 pages

Blogger Hopkins travels to Ireland, Scotland, Canada, and the US to trace the development of whiskey. Imagine my envy. Kate and friend's travels are enjoyably documented, the history of whiskey is reasonably well incorporated, and her tasting notes are entertaining.

The book might have warranted another star if it had been edited more effectively. Some chapters are cleaner than others, but there are a number of typos, awkward constructions, repeated words, and incorrect words ("provence" for "provenance," "affect for "effect," etc.) that an editor should have caught. Absent from her bibliography is anything from Michael Jackson, whose Complete Guide to Single Malt Scotch is very useful and whose Whiskey: The Definitive World Guide in many ways parallels Hopkins's project.

Hopkins didn't taste my favorite light single malt, Glenmorangie's Cellar 13, nor the one I find most entertaining (Tormore 12-year-old, which tastes of fudge and artichokes). De gustibus non est disputandum.

African Kings: Portraits of a Disappearing Era

#781
Title: African Kings: Portraits of a Disappearing Era
Author: Daniel Laine
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Year: 2000
160 pages

A large format, beautifully photographed collection of portraits of African kings. "King" is a misnomer as they're primarily clan heads and other group leaders, some titular and others actually powerful. The Introductory essay, "Origins of the African Kingdoms" by Pierre Alexandre, is dense but very useful for putting the portraits in context. It's also helpful for understanding the notes on each portrait, which are not well-organized.

It's interesting to see similarities and differences in ceremonial garb, retinue, and other visual details. For example, several wear headpieces with strings of beads obscuring their faces. I'd have liked clearer commentary about how different groups and customs are related, and a map would have helped a lot.

The Hidden Messages in Water

#780
Title: The Hidden Messages in Water
Author: Masaru Emoto
Publisher: Atria
Year: 2005
200 pages

With its laughable science and huge leaps of logic, this could just as easily be marketed as a parody of new age tripe. Emoto's pseudoscience is alarmingly concrete and reductive, demonstrating his lack of understanding of physics (yes, including quantum physics) at every turn. To read this as a scientific study of the physical world leads only to incredulous laughter.

It may be better to read it as a spiritual/philosophical text, though Emoto muddies these waters considerably (hah, water-related quip) by claiming scientific status. He has an an unfortunate tendency to make up or possibly cherry-pick data in support of his quasi-religious themes. Emoto doesn't present his data, but only his ideas and purported examples that support his assertions. I say "purported" because he has chosen the guise of science (though he describes himself as not a scientist), so he should be accountable to standards such as describing one's obtained data set and using controls. His "studies" meet no scientific standards.

His spiritual assertions ramble and contradict themselves. Emoto frequently appeals to coincidence as significant, then jumps to puzzling conclusions unsupported by his chain of events. An example: If we consider that the human body is a universe within itself, it is only natural to conclude that we carry within us all the elements. According to Buddhism, the human being is born with 108 earthly desires (such as confusion, attachment, jealousy, and vanity), which torture us throughout our lives. I think it is logical to conclude that these 108 earthly desires have counterparts in the 108 elements. (p. 70) He thinks wrong, at least to the extent that just sticking two ideas together doesn't demonstrate a relationship between them. I've read many religious texts that rely on non-Western logic (the Talmud and the Dalai Lama's work among them) and the problem with Emoto is not that the work is spiritual rather than scientific, but that his logic and evidence for spiritual truth are as poorly executed as his science. His logic is more in line with the semantic leaps and condensations made by people who are psychotic. People have done stunning and brilliant work when driven by the idea, It must all mean something. Emoto has not done so.

Oh, by the way, talking negatively to rice causes mold, so water isn't that special. And water has ESP. And stickers of images of ice can be stuck to your wallet to invoke "the God of Wealth." And humans have more "elements" than other animals. And our souls came to earth via extraterrestrial water. I could go on, but suffice it to say that Emoto throws every woo woo trope into the bucket and stirs them into a scrambled, incoherent mass. Okay, one more: The 'C' of E = MC² refer not to the speed of light, but to consciousness.... There is no way of knowing if Einstein himself considered the possibility of C representing consciousness, but since everything in the universe is relative, you can't say that it is a mistake to see the formula in this new way. (p. 145) Well, yeah, you can.

I agree that the experimenter's attitude may influence findings. We see it in Emoto's work, in fact. What I can't support is the idea that skepticism or critical examination will somehow destroy the data; that is, that faith is destroyed by raising any questions about faith. I don't know if Emoto believes what he says or is a charlatan, but he sells water at $35 for 8 ounces.

I highly recommend this book for anyone teaching a research techniques class. It should be very easy for college students to pick this apart. However, based on the many credulous reviews of Emoto's work, you'll also need to have a critical discussion of the longing for a reductive, concrete, anthropocentric, and illogical universe as well.

See also Harriet Hall's useful http://www.redorbit.com/news/science...orld_of_water/

Oman under Arabian Skies: An Arabian Odyssey

#779
Title: Oman Under Arabian Skies: An Arabian Odyssey
Author: Rory Patrick Allen
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Year: 2010
Country: Oman
213 pages

Such an earnest book, yet so poorly written. It's self-published, as are many I'm reading for this challenge. Here the problem is not typos or formatting but a melange of incorrect usage, grammar errors, and what I can only describe as warped paragraphs that suddenly twist on themselves and go elsewhere. There are piles of sentences only nominally related to each other. I wouldn't care, but the author was an English teacher. There are incorrect quotations: Revenge is not, as he gives it, a dish best eaten cold, nor does Shakespeare have anything to do with it. Jung has nothing to say about collective unconsciousness, though that is sometimes what this book induced in me.

What sort of English teacher, and for whom? I'm not entirely sure. Though he'll expend a paragraph on acts like getting a coffee, he's very vague about himself: How old is he? Why did he leave the UK for Oman? Was he only teaching technical English to Omani? Who employed him (as an apparently civilian instructor) and by which military was he employed? What was his work life like? Why did he leave his first base and move to the second? When he believed himself to be possessed by a jinn, where does his often-asserted Christianity go? Most importantly, does he really see Oman, or only the fantasy Oman that confirms his stated conviction that it's like a Disney movie (hence, perhaps, his repeated references to Sinbad rather than Sindbad)? Does he see the Bedu and Omani, or does he see noble savages (he actually references Rousseau uncritically)? The generalizations induce wincing.

The strongest passages in the book are about such mundane yet unfamiliar acts as killing scorpions or driving on sand. The travelogue aspect, which is the aspect lauded in the Omani press, is pleasant enough but overblown and not especially compelling. The poor writing repeatedly pulled me out of my engagement with his story, and the lack of meaningful personal detail didn't help. For self-publishing, the goal may be "to write down all my memories so when I am old I can recollect them" (p. 25), which I can't argue against. However, it's a far cry from literature. I finished this because I needed a book by a writer who'd lived in Oman for at least two years.