Actually Finishing

If you don’t get a classic book or movie, 90% of the time it’s your fault. (It might just not be the right time for you to appreciate that thing) - Principles, Nabeel S. Qureshi

There are a few classic books on my long term Did Not Finish list that I regret. One Hundred Years of Solitude,for example; often lauded as a deeply romantic and beautiful work of fiction, a profound exploration of Latin American history, family, and fate, and yet it just flew over my head every time I tried to give it a go.

Others I’m perfectly happy keeping there, like Rivals by Jilly Cooper. Loved enough by its fanbase to end up with a series on Disney+ with David Tennant as its lead, yet 90 pages in and it was becoming clear the author seemed more interested in introducing characters than letting them do more than reacting to what’s directly in front of them.

But occasionally I give it a second go and it clicks for seemingly no other reason than a change within myself. My current pace on Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami is one such example. I picked it up the first time five or six years ago, giving up once we started talking about fish falling from the sky (I almost gave up with the kinda awkward, weird boundary crossing sex scene earlier, but that’s a story for another day). This time around though I’m having no such problems. Apparently, my tolerance for the weird is improving, probably because of DanDaDan…

And so my thoughts return to another bug bear on my list. One i’ve been recommended time and time again. The Stand, by Stephen King.

I’m not a huge reader of King’s. I was deeply in love with the Dark Tower saga, demolishing that in short order. The Green Mile was the first big book of his I thoroughly enjoyed, then there was Dreamcatcher and The Shining. The Stand however always eluded me.

I first tried it when I got the book for free from a ‘pick one’ library at work. I couldn’t get on board with the constant cuts to everywhere else but the story. I got it was world building, that he wanted us to see the events happening across the globe, but it just kept taking me out of the story just as I was getting sucked in. Back to the shelf it went.

Then I started getting into audiobooks on Audible and figured it was worth my monthly credit. Only I didn’t realise that particular version was the unabridged one, meaning even more world building in longer passages. Fortunately, no physical shelf of shame for that one.

But times have changed and so have I. My tolerance for long and winding texts has improved, especially with reading Dune books one to four (gave up on five; once again, too weird, too far from the source). Plus I’ve been cherishing audiobooks the last few months, listening to them in the afternoons during work, or walking my dog. Might be time to give it another go.

It would easily be the longest thing I’ve ever listened to at 47 hours and 47 minutes, but another way of looking at it is just 96ish half hour blocks of reading. If I get started now, it could be done by May, or quicker if I’m up to the task.

Tonight it’s a bit too late to start. Dinner, wife, stretching, all take priority. But I’m going to give this another go, and I’m going to get this done. I’m going to conquer The Stand.

I couldn’t help myself. It was already in my Audible library, I didn’t have a lot of brain power to read actual books (currently on my third heavy cold for the season), and I really wanted to try and wipe the disappointment from The Traitor’s Hand away.

Death or Glory goes further back in Commissar Ciaphas Cain’s career, back to when he earned a major boon for his reputation as a hero (despite trying to do anything but). His regiment of Valhallan Imperial Guard troops gets deployed Ork world only to be attacked in transit, and through luck (and a strong desire to be anywhere but in the line of fire), he ends up on an escape pod with his trusty aide, Jurgen.

Together they end up separated from their regiment and the fleet, crashing into the planet where they spend the book trying to get back to the safety of their own lines with the aim of doing so in the easiest way possible. Course, it being a Cain book, that ends up attracting as much attention as possible and ends with him killing the biggest Ork Warboss in the sector in a single combat.

This one was definitely better than The Traitor’s Hand. Still not as good as books one or two, but much more enjoyable to read. To start with, it was funnier hearing him recount the tales of the earlier version of him; not quite Cain the Hero of the Imperium yet, but still doing everything in his power to look impressive whilst trying to avoid getting shot at. Not quite a rookie Commissar, he’s still trying to find his sure footing in his role and authority, for example trying to deal with his suspicious company commander, or the rather too enthusiastic engineseer his finds planet side. Having to use his charisma and political skills to try and unite a mistrustful and stubborn local forces, whilst also integrating rescued civilians and emaciated refugees makes for a much more interesting read that inter-regimental politics and waiting.

Death or Glory also benefited from constant, clear and present danger. From having to try to authenticate himself amongst the local forces whilst also uniting them under a common purpose (i.e. keep him alive) without having to overuse his authority (i.e. shoot people till he gets his way), to keeping a convoy of looted vehicles going across desert, hoping that the hidden supply dumps are both fully stocked and not under Ork threat.

Plus, Mitchell just seems to write Orks better than Chaos. I think Chaos is a difficult enemy to write in this kind of setting; unlike the more serious Gaunt’s Ghosts anthology or any of the Inquisitor novels, there’s more of an expectation of humour in the Cain series. Like I said before, the end scene of Traitor’s Hand was great; the confrontation with a resurrected daemon from Cain’s past, and his subsequent victory was a major payoff.

Similarly, Chaos was the big bad in the first book, but the majority of it was detective work, the introduction of Inquisitor Amberley Veil (who continues to be a highlight of the audiobooks, acting as the editorial notes), and the inter-species diplomacy between the Imperium and the T’au Empire who both lay claim to that world.

Orks don’t require sub-plots or subterfuge, and they don’t require build up to a big bad. They’re comically brutal and huge monsters, and the big bad is just a bigger and badder one. They’re dangerous enough to be taken seriously, but thick enough to be taken at face value. Exactly what’s needed.

I’ll be taking a break from the series for now, but at least my faith has been restored.

7/10

One of the things I’ve been indulging in this year is rekindling my love for Warhammer 40,000 novels. I used to be into the hobby back in my teens, but found the books easier to get in to. Mostly because money, but also because I suck at painting.

Outside of the Gaunt’s Ghost and Inquisitor novels, one of the most recommended series is the Ciaphas Cain novels, following one of the most vaunted Heroes of the Imperium who gets his reputation despite doing his hardest to stay out of harms ways as much as possible.

The first two books in the series, For The Emperor and Caves of Ice, were fantastic. Another two that were wildly helped with being audiobooks, with different cast members performing the footnotes and passages from other perspectives, both got a 9 out of 10 from me over the summer.

Which adds to my disappointment with Traitor’s Hand, because it just didn’t capture me in the same way.

To be perfectly fair, it could be the time of year. Winter has a significant affect on me, and I may just be hampered by my mood shifting and attention drifting. That said, there are a number of things that stand out.

For The Emperor had a degree of intrigue and mystery amidst the combat and politics. Plus it had the Tau (an enemy by way of being alien rather than being ‘evil’) and introduced Inquisitor Amberley Vail, both as a character and love interest for Cain. Caves of Ice had oodles of tension and drama, involving Orks and the deadly Necrons (Warhammer’s version of the Terminator), plus solid action scenes.

Traitor’s Hand seemed to include the same qualities, just not as much. The bad guys were Chaos, but the kind of Chaos that regular strength Imperial Guard can handle (the Guard are regular soldiers versus the superhuman Space Marines), and you don’t really see much of their activities. There’s killing and human sacrifices sure, but you don’t really see it so much as be told it had happened and the characters see the aftermath.

There was some mystery, sure. Cain and his retinue had to figure out where the final ritual site was going to be before it could be finished, but you didn’t really see that through the novel but towards the last act. Most of the combat was kind of forgettable, and the secondary antagonistic, a rival and lesser Commissar called Beige (which fits both as a character description and as meta criticism) had his moments but I never really believed he was going to do anything of consequence.

There is some redemption; the climactic scene between Cain and the daemon that got summoned, and the build up towards it. Cain as a character is also enjoyable, his status as a reluctant hero, more interested in self-preservation and keeping the appearance of being a great and active hero than in being one is fun to read (or listen to), whilst also being balanced out by his occasionally heroic and incredibly capable actions. Plus the Amberley interludes where she provides wider background knowledge to Cain’s POV narration is a highlight of the audiobooks.

I just wish the rest of the book was better. Still, on to the next one.

6/10

This one was a friend recommendation, and is another Audible listen. It’s also my first real dip into the realm of LitRPG, so I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but what I got was an easy and fun listen.

It’s also really hard for me to describe because it’s kinda out there, so I’m gonna cheat a little and steal the blurb:

You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic, intergalactic game show. That’s what.

Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game-like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show.

See what I mean?

A bit like with Isaacson’s Leonardo Da Vinci, I do think this benefitted greatly from me listening to it vs how it would have been to read. Jeff Hays did an outstanding job on the voice acting, really nailing the voices for Carl and Donut, and really elevating the story from ‘meh, ok?’ to ‘solid and steady’. Dungeons and Dragons but for realisies and for the entertainment of aliens like it’s the Hunger Games isn’t particularly complicated, and unless you’re super into RPGs could be a bit of a slog.

The voice acting also lifted the more gamey aspects, like the achievement notification voice overs Carl would get after killing a boss for the first time, or when he’s being trolled by the AI running the dungeon for heading into it without any weapons or suppliers (or trousers). Plus, with the book being in first person, there was that extra dimension to it; being told it by the ‘character’, getting a voice to the story.

If it had been paperback, I could see myself getting a little too eye roley at the memes. There’s the AI’s foot fetish, for example, or the neighbourhood boss, the KraKaren: part Kraken, part Karen. The llama like creatures being meth addicts, is another. I just don’t think it’d play as well without the VA also playing the exasperated human to it.

That said, there’s still a lot to like. I got sucked in pretty hard to the journey, to Carl and Donut’s relationship growing (thanks to a transformation biscuit giving Donut the ability to talk very early on) and to the minor twist at the end. I won’t be rushing into book 2 any time soon (I’ve already started book 3 of the Ciaphas Cain series) but I’ll definitely be returning next year, or whenever I next get a discount to sign up for Audible again.

Or who knows? Maybe I’ll give the paper book a go, especially now I have a voice for the characters in my head.

7/10

This is one that took a while for me to be convinced by. For the better part of 80 pages I was telling others that it was reading like Mr Carson from Downton Abbey was taking a road trip across 1950s Britain with the Lord’s car to meet up with Mrs Hughes. Pleasant and easy reading, but not exactly enthralling.

Then the hints of a plot start dripping through. Flashbacks to conversations, arguments, a budding romantic connection between Carson and Hughes (well, actually Mr Stevens and Miss Kenton, but once the reference point came to mind in the first few pages I never shook it), and of course the attempts to rationalise and excuse the growing Nazi sympathies of the employer, Lord Darlington. If When We Were Orphans, another lauded work of Ishiguro’s I read this year, was eccentric and alive, The Remains of the Day was exploration of British restraint and dignity.

And what an exploration it was. Told entirely in first person, we see the conflicts in Stevens’ mind, with his quest to embody the sense of dignity he so admires and emulate the highly regarded butlers of his time constantly at odds with his humanity and his employer. It does the job of both showing and telling perfectly, giving his blinded perspective of highly charged emotional events, displaying the physical effects and the lack of understanding. In particular, his manner around his dying elderly father, slowly passing away whilst Stevens has tasks to do and the drip feeding of the emotional effects on the body.

But self-awareness and self-doubt does start to creep in. In the latter half of the book, having spent a few days travelling and reflecting, he starts to re-read the letter from Miss Kenton that started the whole trip off in the first place, considering whether she was quite so keen to move back to work and away from her husband after all. He starts to reflect on his playing the part of Peter to Lord Darlington’s Jesus, denying his existence to guests of his new employer and new owner of the mansion, or the severity of his Nazi ideology and associations with Herr Ribbentrop.

The scene that epitomises this is the flashback of a conversation between Stevens and Lord Darlington’s godson, who turned up during a pivotal meeting between Lord Darlington, the British PM, and Ribbentrop. The godson almost pleadingly trying to get Stevens to admit he’s on his side, that he can see Darlington be misled, played with as a useful pawn in British society, and Stevens feeling the tinge of regret at playing the loyally blind servant to his faithful and beyond reproach employer.

When We Were Orphans got a 7.5 from me in my reading log. It was an enthralling read, again exploring the theme of a blinded man pursuing his ideals, but whiffed the ending in my mind. This wasn’t that; it didn’t capture your mind through action and adventure, but through quiet reflection and exploration of duty and dignity, in a similar sense to the theme of what it means to be a gentleman in Great Expectation. Not my favourite book of the year, but still good enough to get an 8/10 for me.

Note: this review is for the Audible version read by Alfred Molina. While that doesn’t necessarily affect the content, there is obviously a different experience between listening to a wonderful voice through your headphones and reading 624 pages. Long either way, but still a different experience.

I’ve mentioned before that this one has been on my read list for about 8 years now. I got it after listening to the Steve Jobs biography, also by Isaacson, having been taken with the writing style and thinking that biographies might be for me after all. I think I lasted about half an hour before realising that it probably wasn’t smart to follow a 27 hour audiobook with a 17 hour one; burn out is real.

I’m glad I didn’t return it though, because it’s easily one of the best books I’ve read for a while. It’s by no means an academic level historical review of his life; at several points Isaacson will discuss various theories about a painting or a relationship before offering his own non-expert opinion, so if you’re looking for a definitive article, this ain’t it.

What it is though is a fascinating view of the life and work of one of history’s most famous polymaths. It follows his life from being raised as an illegitimate son of a notary and his apprenticeship under Verrocchio, to his various times spent in Florence, Milan, Rome, and ultimately France. Along the way, Isaacson covers notes and background on his most prominent works, culminating in the seminal Mona Lisa, but also the various works and commissions he started but failed to complete.

The latter point if part of what really interested me along the way though: the way Da Vinci worked. Isaacson regularly reviews and quotes from the many, many notebooks Da Vinci left behind, covering his famous to-do lists, to observations he made of nature and anatomy and how he applied them to his art (like noting how the muscles of the face worked and applied to facial expressions), to the personal notes he left, including arguments with his young apprentice/partner, Salai.

He doesn’t just talk about genius, but of Da Vinci’s inherent curiosity he held towards all things and his pursuit of that knowledge, however controversial or heretical it may have been at the time. Rather than being fully irreverent to his legendary status, Isaacson humanises Da Vinci, pointing out his distracted nature, more inclined to procrastination and flights of fancy than intense focus. From dropped projects, to enquiries leading to nowhere, to even his eventual disinterest in the thing he’s most famous for, his paintings, compared to his quest for the answers to the universe, all in the aim of slaking his curiosity.

Again, if you want an academic text on the life and work of Leonardo Da Vinci, it probably shouldn’t surprise you that a New York Times bestseller isn’t for you. As a pop-history book though, I highly recommend it. For me personally, it’s really helped reinforce something I’ve been trying to convince myself of for some time: to actually engage in my curiosity, to try and learn and widen the scope of my knowledge, rather than convince myself that it’s pointless, or I won’t have time.

So on a personal level, 10/10.