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Quick Reviews
Aug. 30th, 2009 07:29 pmI owe a couple of people book reviews, but if I wait until I have the mental oomph to write them as they ought to be written, it'll be months (or, rather, more months than it's already been). So, pending the possibility of eventual full reviews, let me offer these.
1. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford. An interesting and informative book on the Great Khan, his successors, and their impact on the world. I think Weatherford proves some of his main points, that Genghis was not as much of a monster as European legend paints him - and no more of one than, say, Alexander or Charlemagne - and that he was truly a remarkable man, both tough and flexible of mind, and one who hoped and strove to establish a durable and peaceful empire. He doesn't, I think, prove that Genghis was admirable, though, and he certainly overstates the impact of the Mongol Wars on the rest of Eurasia. Still, very much worth reading.
2. Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I've seen it compared to Borges and to One Hundred Years of Solitude; I think the similarities are there, especially in the early going, but I think they're not that consequential. What this novel is, is Gothic, and very good of its type. Love both requited and un-, mysterious disfigured strangers, ruined mansions, decayed wealth - there's even an inquisitor of sorts. One of its best features, I think, is its recreation of the atmosphere of the great Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, without resorting to outmoded tropes. Where classic Gothic uses sinister Dukes and Jesuits lurking in ruined abbeys, Zafón uses the claustrophobic atmosphere of Francoist Spain, in the years just after WWII. It serves the same function, without imposing the archaism that too many imitators of the classics fall back on. I enjoyed it a great deal, and was tempted to buy the untranslated version of Zafón's next novel. (I chickened out, but I will be getting it in translation.)
1. Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford. An interesting and informative book on the Great Khan, his successors, and their impact on the world. I think Weatherford proves some of his main points, that Genghis was not as much of a monster as European legend paints him - and no more of one than, say, Alexander or Charlemagne - and that he was truly a remarkable man, both tough and flexible of mind, and one who hoped and strove to establish a durable and peaceful empire. He doesn't, I think, prove that Genghis was admirable, though, and he certainly overstates the impact of the Mongol Wars on the rest of Eurasia. Still, very much worth reading.
2. Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I've seen it compared to Borges and to One Hundred Years of Solitude; I think the similarities are there, especially in the early going, but I think they're not that consequential. What this novel is, is Gothic, and very good of its type. Love both requited and un-, mysterious disfigured strangers, ruined mansions, decayed wealth - there's even an inquisitor of sorts. One of its best features, I think, is its recreation of the atmosphere of the great Gothic novels of the 18th and 19th centuries, without resorting to outmoded tropes. Where classic Gothic uses sinister Dukes and Jesuits lurking in ruined abbeys, Zafón uses the claustrophobic atmosphere of Francoist Spain, in the years just after WWII. It serves the same function, without imposing the archaism that too many imitators of the classics fall back on. I enjoyed it a great deal, and was tempted to buy the untranslated version of Zafón's next novel. (I chickened out, but I will be getting it in translation.)
