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Book Review – The Little Prince (By: Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)

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When attempting to clean up and organize my books, I found I had (at least) three copies of The Little Prince (all 3 from various print runs). Seeing that I had so many copies of such an acclaimed book that I had never read, (and had been recommended to me a few times when out in the world selling my own books) I just had to put it into my to-read pile.

Slightly Higher in Canada

I knew very little of the book, save that it was an illustrated “children’s book” and the titular prince lived on a small planet (asteroid). And upon starting it up I was captivated from the dedication (a good dedication is something you don’t see very often). The story is simple: a pilot crashes in the desert and meets the little prince while trying to fix his plane. As they talk the pilot learns more about the prince, an astral child living in a world of whimsy (and adults “unfortunately”) and relays this information to the reader.

The first portion of the book, where the author is talking about himself and then meeting the Little Prince is thoroughly entertaining and engrossing. This wanes slightly as it moves into the mildly monotonous recitation of the prince’s adventures coming to and on earth. But it comes back with a wonderfully emotional, if heavily telegraphed, ending. And even if you don’t think it’s as great as I do, it is very short (after all, it is ostensibly a children’s book) and a good chunk of its page length is taken up by the illustrations.

Supposedly it is a children’s book, but I might have to disagree. While most morals in children’s literature are dubious, quite often the ones on display here aren’t particularly good. And I feel that the story wouldn’t resonate as much with children or early teenagers as it would with the adults it appears to me it was obviously written for. It’s a tale of childhood imagination and love made while the author had recently seen his country defeated by Nazis and was living discontentedly in the Americas. At the time the author was a man who was tired of “matters of consequence”, as it were.

And that desire to go back to being childlike doesn’t seem like something children would enjoy. Or if they picked up on the motifs, they might get the wrong idea. The flower (the object of the little prince’s affection) is selfish and harsh; friendship and taming are presented as strangely absolute but with little benefit to either party, and there is an overarching feeling of futility through it all. The world of selfish men, tipplers, businessmen, and kings (not forgetting the “negro kings” as it says) isn’t changed by the little prince, and while he “sees through it” it is obvious that “matters of consequence” do have consequences.

And the prince himself is a mysterious character. On his “planet” he is quite responsible, cleaning out the volcanoes, pulling up the baobab trees, and tending to the flower. But he suddenly leaves with little reason and shows almost no concern for the plight of others. He relentlessly asks questions until he gets a response but doesn’t answer any himself, and he takes actions only to further his own personal journey. And that might be indicative of many a young person, or the story must simply go on, but still, it is quite a contrast.

Even so I was very engaged with the story and enjoyed it the whole way through. The pilot and the prince both have a charm and personality that comes through the words. Of course I’m reading in English, so the original French may have been better or worse (how do I keep reading translated works?). And there’s a quality in it that just speaks to me both as an artist and a twenty-something.

So is it good? Yes. Would I recommend it? Probably, though it is a sad and longing book (my eyes blurred once or twice). Does it deserve all the praise? In a way, I don’t think it’s quite as good as many people do, but it is an excellently crafted work of literature and art as well as being a halfway decent children’s book. And as a creative person in either painting or prose (or both), it is almost a mandatory read. For others, there’s a lot to be found in this little book, and not a lot to be lost save an hour (and maybe some tears).

Book Review – Viewpoints Critical (By: L. E. Modesitt Jr.)

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I had never heard of L. E. Modesitt Jr. when I picked up Viewpoints Critical because the cover was interesting. And a collection of short stories from a “bestselling” fantasy/sci-fi author I had never heard of was something I was willing to give a chance, but the dollar store $1 stickers didn’t bode well. Still, the themes seemed interesting and the back blurb sucked me in. I started as soon as I could.

I feel like going through every story in a collection might get tedious, and, in many cases, spoil the story (there’s only so much I can say about something that’s sometimes as little as five pages without going there). And to that end, it is fortunate that Modesitt has a few distinct genres or “types” of stories to group the overall “mood” of the book into. Unfortunately the writing within some of these groups is highly variable. Some of the stories in this book were first published in the 1970s, and in my opinion there is a clear line where he improves until he starts publishing novels and the stories become much more hit and miss.

The book starts off fairly strong, with a few economic/political/corporate stories: The Great American Economy, Rule of Law, and Power To… ?. And while that might sound boring, or like I’m being sarcastic they are actually refreshing story scenarios with interesting ideas to someone like me who doesn’t read books about subjects like that very often. The ideas here are all pretty clever (though Modesitt doesn’t handle the “dismount” or explanation {so to speak} very well, it being more clunky than I’d like) and are probably influenced by his career in the EPA and similar areas after being in the Navy as a pilot (both things that are mentioned in the book, as he gives brief introductions to each story). And speaking of him being a pilot, there are a few stories obviously inspired by that experience.

Second Coming, Iron Man, Plastic Ships, Always Outside the Lines: Four Battles, The Pilots, and The Swan Pilot are all in the pilot-inspired section to various degrees (and Spec-Ops is a military-inspired story as well). And they deal with many of the problems that were faced by pilots (or the armed forces in general) in the Vietnam War (though my main interactions have been with Air Force pilots) (The Pilots in particular is directly related to, but strangely distant from, Vietnam) in various sci-fi ways. Frustration with the problems of supply, “upgrading”, rules of engagement, and objective vagueness are all conveyed in an understandable and “soldier-like” manner, though there is a bit of “over-jargoning”. At some points, several sentences of actions being taken (usually by a pilot) go by and I have to scan back through them to get my translation of what happened (it’s usually something like “he turned left, but there are problems”).

The remaining stories are a mixed bag in terms of theme and how well they’re written. The two stores that take place in Modesitt’s “Recluse” universe: Black Ordermage, and Sisters of Sarronym, Sisters of Westwind are wonderfully written and well characterized stories that made me want to delve deeper into the word they are in (I have since bought one of the “Recluse” books, hopefully it’s the relatively “grounded” fantasy world it appears to be). Another, Beyond the Obvious Wind, is an “alternate history” to events in the Corean Chronicles that is good enough to make me wish it was part of the canon so I wouldn’t have to re-learn anything if I got into the series. Ghost Mission is also based in one of Modesitt’s many (as you may be able to tell) universes that’s more “steampunk-y” and has the advantage of not being almost too long for me to call it a short story, but I’m not sure how long I want to spend in that world, as the genre doesn’t grab me. It’s similar in its brevity to the previously mentioned Always Outside the Lines… (which also feels like it might be in a world fleshed out in other books) and they both convey what seems to be a hatred of Mormons, specifically ones in alternate histories that form independent states. And finally for those that are part of larger universes: Second Coming introduces as its lead a character who would later be followed in a novel I might want to read at some point (though the sci-fi seems fairly stereotypical).

The rest are the generic but interesting sci-fi: Precision Set, Spec-Ops, and News Clips Recovered from the NYC Ruins. Also the strange religious interpretations of Fallen Angel, and The Dock to Heaven. And Understanding, which is… bad. I had to reread it and look up what it was supposed to mean online before I “got” it (there’s irony in there somewhere), and I wasn’t that impressed. Still, that’s a nice spectrum of genres and plots. Some he handles much better than others, and overall I guess they’re not spectacular. He likes to “question” religion(s) or interpret them differently, which often leaves me wondering just what it is he’s trying to say or having to look up the meaning of a story. I’ve already mentioned the over-jargoning that is sometimes a problem and sometimes not (if it feels like it’s important it is, if it’s supposed to go over my head and be a justification for something silly, it isn’t). There’s also a certain rhythm that most short stories have that isn’t always followed. Precious words seem wasted as they are repeated in the same sentence, and sometimes a second “and” is used when listing in a way that I just don’t understand. It seems like the stories weren’t proofread enough to get rid of all of the verbal bumps. But Modesitt himself admits he’s not very good at short stories. And I’d say the fact that he publishes about 2 full length novels a year (about 75 books on his website and the first novel was published in 1982) and the “better” stories in this collection are the longer ones show how he has much more of a drive for long fiction.

I didn’t dislike the book, but it overstayed its welcome a bit. It’s pretty thick for a collection of short stories with several that, while good, are longer than I signed up for. He does a good job with some of the more technical and “exciting” aspects of sci-fi and war stories, and when he gets it right, the human element is spectacular. But in the exposition and endings the right words just don’t seem to come up, replaced with clunky thesaurus stand-ins. Modesitt is good at evoking feelings and not ideas, which might be for the better, but I’m the kinda guy that gets excited by the ideas in a sci-fi or fantasy world (but then I often nit-pick too much when authors really create a deep world). In the end I had a good time reading it, but it’s not a book for everyone. If one is a fan of Modesitt I’d imagine it would appeal to them, and if you want to try to get into his work this would be a decent place to start (I know it “made” me go out and by one of the Recluse books shortly after finishing it). But I can see many average readers, especially ones who aren’t particularly sci-fi or fantasy fans, not being enthralled with it. In other words, if it looks interesting and is at the dollar store definitely grab it, otherwise maybe give it a good thinking about.

Book Review – From Earth to the Moon (By: Jules Verne)

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I didn’t have the experience of many kids in the US of reading Jules Verne when I was growing up. Indeed this is the first novel of his I’ve read, despite knowing the plot of a few rather well. I was afraid that since From Earth to the Moon was written in the 1860’s it would be a clunky read like many other older pieces of literature and was very pleasantly surprised when it was not. Then I remembered that Verne was French, and that any of his works in English are translated. This slightly changed my view on what I was reading. I became aware that I wasn’t necessarily reading Verne’s work, but someone’s (particularly whoever translated the 19XX Scholastic printing’s) retelling of Verne’s work. That shouldn’t impact my reading too much (if the translating is better than the German that guy in Crime and Punishment wrote {I think I’m remembering that right}) but it is a necessary note as I examine the text, though one I can’t follow up on since I don’t read French. In any case, how well does it work?

There’s my standard “rare”, hard-to-find-a-good-image-of-reliably cover.

From Earth to the Moon follows the fictitious Baltimore Gun Club of artillerists in their journey from inception to firing of a humongous cannon that will send a projectile to the planet’s satellite (or from earth to the moon as it were). Despite seeming sci-fi-esque from the cover, and my knowledge of other Verne works (like Journey to the Center of the Earth or 20,000 Leagues under the Sea) it is surprisingly grounded and does indeed really only have to do with the firing of a cannon at the moon, and not travel back and forth or some other potential absurdity for the time. The basic plot is a bunch of Americans who made better and better cannons are bored after the Civil War ends and they don’t get to make cannons anymore, so they decide to make a cannon that can fire to the moon and “establish contact”. Everyone is surprisingly on board and people from all around the world (but mostly the USA) donate a lot of money. The rest of the book details the construction of the cannon and the actions of those who do not want it built along with a larger-than-expected amount of more-accurate-than-expected numbers and math about velocities, gravity, friction, metal weight, costs, casting procedures, etc. Though that makes it sound a lot more boring than it was. Because while very little happens in the technical sense, and there are a surprising number of numbers, it is all conveyed with a motion that keeps the reader advancing and interested the creation of such a fantastic device and the characters behind it.

And the characters are really the soul of the book. Mostly the Gun Club’s President Barbicane, who is the one with the idea for the cannon and apparently has it all figured out to the point that I’m not sure why the other members are involved. As Barbicane’s personality becomes boring, the book adds opposition in the form of Captain Nicholl and a more wild-card character in the form of a Frenchman (of course), Michel Ardan, who is a “(thorough ‘Frenchman’ {and worse) a ‘Parisian’(} to the last moment)”. These core men, with a smattering of other characters are all well drawn up with unique and interesting aspects, aspirations, and flaws, though it does sometimes fall back on “Barbicane is great at everything, Nicholl is a sourpuss, and Ardan is very wordy”. And I found the resolution of the conflict between them a bit flimsy (mainly from Nicholl’s end).

The overall form is very solid and understandable, including the dialog, which, while it wouldn’t be spoken today, is readable and far from something no one would ever say. There are a few moments where the words get tangled up like “…they did to others that which they would not they would do to them” and my favorite thing I still can’t understand: “hook fixed in the coving of the poop…”. I’m sure those were understandable at some point in the process, and even perhaps now but it could have used some tidying up. There are also just a few things that a man living in France in the 1860s might get wrong… like when he calls southerners “Yankees” (though only vaguely, he could be referring to the Gun Club members, who certainly are) and everyone sings Yankee Doodle when the gun is about to be fired, which I get is a patriotic song, but it’s not like it’s the national anthem, I wouldn’t suspect they’d sing it a lot when at a momentous occasion. And a few little details like the “polygon at Washington” What? I don’t understand. In any case, those are only my nitpicks as an American with the advantage of internet-based communication, and the writing is easily good enough to blaze over these minor details and get one enamored with the overall story of getting to (annexing too maybe?) the moon.

I liked the book, and I’ll probably read more Verne in the future because of it. It’s a quite upbeat and fast-moving novel of a technical marvel (with a few surprisingly melancholy moments toward the end) that presents good characters, interesting settings, and well-done research in a fun and compelling way. It isn’t quite up there in classic-ness and immersive level of interesting-ness as some more famous novels by Verne, but it does hold its own. I probably wouldn’t recommend it as an introduction to his writing, but it isn’t a bad first one either. I’d say that it’s a good starting point if you’ve read some of the more famous of his works in the US and are looking for more, or are interested in some of the earliest science-fiction out there (or if you’re looking for translated works of a proto-surrealist that have had any potentially strange bits pulled out).

(And one final side note: there is a part in the story after they decide to put people in the projectile {great idea?} and they test it out on earth by putting a man in it for more than a week with nothing to even read. That was the most unrealistic part of the story for me, even with food and air you’d go crazy spending a week alone inside that thing.)

Book Review – Queenie (By: Alice Munro)

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Queenie is a short story published in book form written by the “greatest living short story writer” and Nobel laureate Alice Munro. It was first published in a magazine and then on its own as a mini-book for some reason. I picked it up because I’ve been looking into how short stories are published as stand-alone items, but reading it was fun, too, and it barely took any time at all.

I got a better version of the cover

As with many short stories, the basic plot is simple. The narrator goes to see her older stepsister “Queenie” in Toronto ostensibly because she is preparing to go there for university and is looking for a job, but more so that she can be a part of her sister’s life again. Her sister (actual name Lena) ran off with a much older man years previous and is both excited to see her, but emotionally distant. That’s about as far as I dare go, and if that beginning sounds mundane that’s because it is. The story has a few interesting turns but it’s mostly about the characters, their struggles and some interesting dynamics between them. To that point the story is effective: it makes it easy for you to become emotionally invested with the main character and brings you down a well-crafted path. The ending especially is superb and resonant to the point that I had to read something else to be able to get to sleep the night I finished it (I read the 1774 Declaration of Rights if anyone cares).

But the other characters are… “hard” to empathize with, or even understand. The title character in particular I find… a scumbag. Her methods for pursuing her desires are entirely foreign to me and there is almost no character arc: she learns nothing, our main character learns something, everyone else is surprisingly stoic about it. That isn’t to say the character doesn’t feel real, most of those in the story do, (save for a woman running the food counter in a drugstore. And the excursion that lead to meeting her seemed pointless) but (almost) everyone else in the story likes her, and that certainly didn’t mirror my feelings. It would seem that’s the way the story is supposed to be, she is liked because she is “likable” and no character has as complete a knowledge as the reader does, until you get to the end and feelings on it change slightly. Of course everything is wonderfully set up for that, the paragraphs are well crafted and everything (except the previously noted drugstore sequence) has a place in getting you to feel the emotion of the story, and going through the different phases.

Despite that seemingly glowing endorsement I merely enjoyed the story. It is a well crafted and emotionally resonating piece by a master of the art, about people just ever so slightly out of everyday life, but it’s not one I’d give as a recommendation to many people. It just isn’t “solid” enough to be “great” from my perspective, but maybe that’s the mundane topics it covers talking. To put it one way, I don’t thinks it’s the reason she won any of her awards. It is a good short story, and fairly inexpensive on its own. If your interest has been piqued, or if you’re a fan of Alice Munro and/or short stories in general it is likely worth looking into.

I always get the version where no good cover image is readily available

Book Review – Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (By: James Finn Garner)

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I’m slightly surprised that Politically Correct Bedtime Stories was published in 1994, but I guess the politically correct joke bit has been going around for quite some time. The book is a humorous re-imagining of 13 “fairy-tales” by James Garner, of whose other work I have no familiarity with, but he seems to be riding this one pretty well and perhaps for good reason. The joke, of course, being that he has rewritten these classic tales for a more “enlightened” modern audience with higher standards of… something. But is it successful?

The book is fairly short; 80 pages for 13 stories, including several blank pages. The average story is about 5 pages and Snow White takes up most of the rest. Going over the stories wouldn’t be very helpful because you and I probably already know them. And even ones like Rumplestiltskin and The Pied Piper that I’ve never actually read or watched have been absorbed through a kind of cultural osmosis. The cultural awareness of these stories also helps with the brevity of their retelling, which is a strength of the book. Garner has it down which parts of the stories to overrun with political correctness for maximum effect, but had he continued at the length of the original stories it would quickly have grown stale (Snow White was almost too long for me). And, of course, the humor comes from seeing these culturally-engrained stories changed by modern cultural preferences dialed up to the extreme. In some cases the moral is lost and in some it is retained; in some cases the plot is as predictable as the story we know, and in others it jumps off the tracks and heads spiraling down a cliff of ridiculousness, but in all cases they are recognizable.

The vast array of areas from which we get our folklore means that the only common thread between these stories is Garner’s extremely “politically correct” veneer and as such the book isn’t really a cohesive experience. Again its brevity helps here, making it easy to pick up and put down, reading a story at a time; or to make the massive changes in pace fly by. It knows what it wants to be, and that is an overblown parody of political correctness juxtaposed with stories never meant to fit that mold. And it is quite funny, not outrageously my-favorite-humor-book-ever funny, but more than funny enough to justify its reading time (and probably its price too). Exaggerated political correctness is just funny when applied well and not overdone. So is the idea that when using language that supposedly offends no one to tell a story, so many people will become “offended”. Most fairy tales are based on common sense (if perhaps containing outdated moral practices simplified for ease of retelling) and as one reads on they get the feeling that their common sense is being assaulted. And that, as so often it is, is funny. Still, I was consistently (and pleasantly) surprised by the directions the stories took (the 3 little pigs setting up a “porkinista” government after violently retaking their homeland is my favorite). It seems so easy to simply replace the language with “politically correct” alternatives, but continuous story variations keep one guessing and the book interesting.

I liked the book, and if you read the title and thought “that sounds funny”, you probably would, too. It’s well-written satire that is just offensive enough to both parties to be a bestseller while not alienating its audience. If the sequels are about as good I might have to pick them up as well, but until then, this one was a short, fun read that should appeal to anyone looking for its type of humor.