Inside the O'Briens

Lisa Genova is a neuroscientist and author who has been creating books that illustrate different neurological disorders through novels that feature the effects of the diseases on her characters.  Still Alice, her account of Alzheimer's, was highly acclaimed.  Inside the O'Briens shows the devastating effects of Huntington's Disease (HD) on Joe O'Brien, a tough but very likable Boston cop, and his family.
Although many readers (including me) will begin to read this book as a case study of HD, Genova has a particularly nice ear for dialog and local lingo and she tells an excellent story.  Many parts of the book are funny or heartwarming and some, of course, are heart-rending.
Even if HD holds no special interest for you, one key plot issue (culminating in a gripping conclusion) is the 50-50 chance that a child of an HD patient has of inheriting the disease.  Because HD is late onset, generally appearing only when a person is 40-50, the uncertainty of whether and when you will begin experiencing neurological symptoms is itself unnerving, even before any disease onset - this is powerfully depicted. There has been a genetic test for HD since the 1990's, but many at-risk people choose to live without taking the test.  The all-or-nothing, 50-50 chance seems to throw into sharp contrast both the uncertainty of fate and the impossibility humans seem to have in evaluating how to make decisions in the absence of conclusive information.  Very worthwhile read.

Wolf Hall

The fascinating and captivating first book of the Cromwell Trilogy, by Hilary Mantel.  Cromwell rises from low birth to influence, first as right-hand man of the powerful Cardinal Wolsey, then as advisor to Henry VIII.  Wolf Hall deals with Cromwell's successful efforts to help Henry arrange his marriages in attempts to assure an heir, and in his quest to gain control over the Church.  The latter struggle highlights Cromwell's rivalry and differences with Thomas More.

The character of Cromwell is intriguing:

Thomas Cromwell is now a little over forty years old....It is said he knows by heart the entire New Testament in Latin, and so as a servant of the cardinal is apt - ready with a text if abbots flounder.  He speech is low and rapid, his manner assured; he is at home in a courtroom or waterfront, bishop's palace or inn yard.  He can draft a contract, train a falcon, draw a map, stop a street fight, furnish a home and fix a jury.  He will quote you a nice point in the old authors, from Plato to Plautus and back again.  He knows new poetry and can say it in Italian.  He works all hours, first up and last to bed.  He makes money and he spends it.  He will take a bet on anything.

There are keen observations, as in this description of Anne Boleyn:

Her eyes passed over him on their way to someone who interested her more.  They are black eyes, slightly protuberant, shiny like the beads of an abacus: they are shiny and always in motion, as she makes calculations of her own advantage.

And the book is frequently laugh out loud funny. Here's Wolsey's description of Cromwell:

And he will have to take you as you are, which is rather like one of those square-shaped fighting dogs that low men tow around on ropes. Not that you are without a fitful charm, Tom.

Of interest to us, here's a comment on our (possible) ancestor:

The Londoners say - and he reckons the Londoners know - that it was on Howard's watch that the princes were last seen; though Thomas More thinks it was Constable Brakenbury who handed the keys to the killers.  Brakenbury died at Bosworth; he can't come out of his grave and complain.

In short, highly recommended!  Thanks to Karen Elizabeth for giving me this can't-put-it-down read!

I couldn't put Wolf Hall down, really, so when I reached the end, I immediately replaced it with the second in the intended trilogy, Bring Up the Bodies - the equally absorbing continuation of the story of Thomas Cromwell. Again, fascinating portrayals of power, ambition, lust and intrigue. Hilarious in brief spots, everywhere thoughtful, and sharp insights into human interactions.  Now I'm going to Google to see when the final volume is due!

Galileo's Daughter

I particularly enjoyed Dava Sobel's previous book, Longitude, and have been very interested in Galileo (see Galileo's Dream), so it was an unexpected delight to find that back in 1999 Sobel had written this dual portrait of Galileo and his saintly oldest daughter, Virginia.

Virginia and her younger sister and brother were all born out of wedlock.  Because they were neither high born nor wealthy, Galileo could not arrange favorable marriages for his daughters and decided that the best chance they would have in life was to be entered into a convent - which, with help from highly placed patrons of Galileo, occurred before they were actually old enough to become Sisters.  The younger daughter, furious at her father and possibly having unrelated problems, subsequently had very little to do with Galileo.  In contrast, Virginia - later Suor Maria Celeste - was devoted to him, praying always on his behalf, preparing special treats and medicines for him, sewing his collars - and writing heartfelt letters to him.  Galileo described her to a friend as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me".  He kept all of her letters - approximately 120 - Sobel translated these and used them as a framework for much of the story of Galileo's life.   Sadly, none of Galileo's letters to Suor Maria Celeste have survived.

The book effectively describes Galileo's radically new approach to understanding the world  - that is, carrying out quantitative experiments and formulating the findings into laws rather than arguing from "first principles".  For this reason alone, he was vilified by adherents of Aristotle, "philosophers" who were accorded higher status and higher pay than mere "mathematicians" or "astronomers".   (Though astronomers, including Galileo, were frequently called upon by the aristocracy to create astrological forecasts).  One striking example of Galileo's experimental genius was illustrated by the astronomical discoveries he made with the telescope.  Galileo did not invent the telescope - but, having heard of it, or perhaps seen one, he carried out systematic experiments to determine the optimum shape and spacing of lenses.  This allowed him to construct telescopes with higher magnification and resolving power than anyone else.  With these, he famously discovered sunspots and how they illustrated the rotation of the sun, the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter -all undermining the Aristotelian view of the celestial spheres as perfect objects that could not be flawed in any way - and also supporting the views of Copernicus, which later caused so much trouble for Galileo.

Interestingly, Galileo was a devout Catholic and believed there could be no real discrepancy between Catholic belief and the Copernican world view his discoveries supported.  He believed that God spoke to man in two ways, for one purpose.  The purpose was to induce men to believe and act properly so that they could enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  The two ways were scripture and the physical reality of the universe.  Scripture need not always be precisely consistent with physical reality, because its primary purpose was to guide people towards the holy light - and some simplification could aid this purpose.  But the physical world, also created by God, must necessarily be consistent with God's message to humanity.  Galileo hoped and urged his ecclesiastical friends to adopt this view - he felt that the Copernican view was certainly correct and that if the church declared it as heresy, the church would suffer when further experiments proved it to be true.  Pope Urban and others, however, believed scripture was paramount and to claim the universe to be other than described by scripture was heresy - and punishable.

In addition to his astonishing brilliance as a scientist, Galileo is shown in the book to be a practiced flatterer, adept at political intrigue, an outstanding prose stylist and....a doting and devoted father to Suor Maria Celeste.  I enjoyed this book immensely.

Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin

For the past several years, Mark and I have enjoyed watching the HBO series Game of Thrones. Mark had read all of Martin's books up to the time of the TV series premiere, but I never had. Everyone says how great the books are, so I finally decided to give the first book a try. I loved it so much I tore through all 800 pages and am already a third of the way through book 2!

Martin's prose is relatively simple and straightforward, but his world is vividly portrayed in all 5 senses and his realistic character depictions make the courtly intrigues and ancient mysteries come alive brilliantly. One of my favorite characters is Lord Tyrion, a little person and son of the powerful house of Lannister. In a world where warriors rule and a disabled man is worth less than a woman, Tyrion uses his wits and humor to remain relevant and preserve his dignity in a society that has derisively termed him "the Imp." Fond of drink and whores, Tyrion is nevertheless the source of many of the book's words of wisdom. He gives several valuable pieces of advice to Jon Snow, the bastard son of powerful Lord Stark, who holds a similarly low place in their world's hierarchy. One such quote is when Tyrion explains his love of reading by saying that "a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

Martin famously kills off nearly every major character (and many minor ones), and it is a strong storyteller indeed who can hold the reader's interest in the events of the world, not just in specific people.

Very exciting and more food for thought than in your usual "light reading."

Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

Stephenson's fascinating new sci-fi novel, Seveneves, reads much like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy in its realistic and highly-detailed portrayal of space exploration technology. The novel opens when an unknown force - the Agent - causes our Moon to explode. After a period of global bafflement, American scientist and media personality Doc Dubois realizes that the moon's fragmentation will continue exponentially, ultimately causing a Hard Rain of meteorites to obliterate the earth's service in a terrible holocaust lasting thousands of years. Scientists all over earth come to the same conclusion within a matter of weeks, and the entire world's resources are dedicated to preparing to save as many humans as possible by getting them onto a space station, along with earth's genetic data. If this feels like a spoiler, it's not, this merely sets the stage for all the action that unfolds from there! About the latter third of the book is dedicated to even more radical extrapolation from these initial conditions... Very unique and thought-provoking.

Stephenson is a brilliant social critic, and his book is rich with insights and neologisms like "amistics" -

"choices that different cultures made as to which technologies they would, and would not, make part of their lives. The word went all the way back to the Amish... who had chosen to use certain modern technologies, such as roller skates, but not others, such as internal combustion engines. All cultures did this, frequently without being consciously aware that they had made collective choices."

Highly recommend!

The Peripheral - William Gibson

The Peripheral is Gibson's most recent novel, and it did not disappoint. The tale opens in a a world that appears to be our near future, the logical extension of our society's tendency to favor technological advancement amidst crumbling physical infrastructure. The increasingly unstable economy is marked by intensified monopolization, and the average person can only get wealthy by "funny" means - "building" (producing and selling drugs), or "fabbing" (3D printing) prohibited items. Our morally-conscious protagonists - a wounded special ops veteran named Burton and his spunky sister, Flynne - choose instead to eke out a living by playing security forces in a video game for a mysterious employer. It is during one of these gaming sessions that Flynne becomes sole witness to a gruesome murder, an event that ignites a series of radical changes in their lives and world. The novel is ultimately set in two futures, whose inhabitants are able to influence each other by means of shared "peripheral" technology. Fascinating stuff, as always!

Rudin

I have been undergoing a change in viewpoint with respect to Turgenev.  I love Dostoevsky's novels - powerful, compelling, and full of passionate beliefs and actions.  And I know that Dostoevsky despised Turgenev, believing he had lost his roots in the Russian soil and people, and had become infatuated with Western culture - probably the greatest sin a Russian writer could commit in Dostoevsky's eyes.  Dostoevsky drew a wickedly funny, vitriolic parody of Turgenev in The Possessed.  But I really enjoyed Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, and Turgenev is portrayed as charming and shrewd in Stoppard's Coast of Utopia plays.

Well, like Fathers and Sons, Rudin is lyrical, thoughtful and, finally, sad, though leavened with a little uplifting sentiment.  Like the nihilist Bazarov in Fathers and Sons, Rudin also represents a kind of Russian type - in this case, a lofty intellectual who cannot transform his dreams into action.  When young, he is handsome, articulate and inspiring, attracting the interest and sympathy, particularly, of women.  But he is incapable of realizing his idealistic goals and, ultimately, fails those who placed trust in him.

"You have so often talked of self-sacrifice," she broke in, "but do you know, if you had said to me to-day at once, "I love you, but I cannot marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come with me" - do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would have risked everything?  But there's all the difference between word and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before yesterday at dinner of Volintsev."

and

"But up to this time I believed in you, believed in every word you said....For the future, pray keep a watch on your words, do not fling them about at hazard."

This is all terribly sad, but Rudin is redeemed somewhat at the end by an unlikely defender, Lezhnyov, who says:

But as for character, that's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him....But that's not the point.  I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him.  He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times.  We have all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us!  It is high time!  Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him for coldness?  I was right, and wrong too, then.  The coldness is in his blood - that is not his fault - and not in his head.  He is not an actor, as I called him, or a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child....Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that?  He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use?  that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas?  Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him..."

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.