Could’ve been pretty good: ends up being pretty lame.
I’m almost as certain Kiera Knightley won’t read this as I am that planet earth doesn’t in fact rest on a turtle’s back. Indeed, I sincerely hope she doesn’t, as I have nothing against her personally – obviously! – as I don’t know her personally. But as an actress… There’s a reason why pretty appears twice in my title: she’s pretty, but (in this movie at least)… pretty awful.
I started writing this review before the movie was even halfway through: having initially been surprised, but also intrigued, even momentarily charmed, by the strangely theatrical approach, it was only after watching Knightley destroy a few scenes that I started to dislike the film with a rapidly growing intensity. By the end of the film this subsided into puzzled disappointment. Consequently I’m submitting my review as it evolved, starting quite angrily but ending merely critically.
Like so much modern product – I don’t want to say culture, as it dignifies this in a way I don’t think it merits – this is all about surface appeal. And, frankly, that just doesn’t cut it. There are some aspects that could’ve saved it, such as the ultra-theatricality, but they don’t. Perhaps the chief reason, or reasons, are the people in some of the main roles; again this movie causes definition difficulties: I can’t say actors, as I can’t call what I see acting.
All lush imagery, with no depth or drama.
The biggest problem is Keira Knightley, who simply appears, in this film at any rate, incapable of serious/credible acting. In popcorn like Pirates Of The Caribbean, the only kind of movie I’ve seen with her in that appears to be suited to her, I can just about bear watching her. This is sad because most of the cast are decent actors (the inverse-parallel sub-plot of Levin and Kitty’s love is actually, and especially relative to the main narrative thread, quite good), but they’re wasted when the films focus leaves one not only not caring what happens to Anna – I was more interested in Vronsky’s beautiful horse, as it had more charisma and personality – but actually wishing something awful would happen to her, sooner rather than later.
The Judaeo-Christian ‘Garden of Eden’ myth, that effectively casts consciousness as a curse (rather than as a blessing, or a bit of both), might apply equally well to beauty in an instance such as this. Knightley is, to state the ludicrously obvious, beautiful. Very, very beautiful – although personally I can’t stand the overly cultivated mannerism that is her trademark pout* – as are many of the central leads, male and female.
It galls me deeply that modern culture seems increasingly about nothing more than surface and effect; there’s simply no depth whatsoever. Or, perhaps to be fairer, whatever depth there might be is effectively lost in the crass glare of the ‘celebrity effect’. Personally I can’t see why we can’t have both beauty and depth. Or better still, the range and diversity of appearance and feeling that there is in the real world. But you won’t get them in equal measure here.
With Garbo as Anna, in ye ancient 1935 black and white movie, I cared what happened to her, and felt emotionally involved. Watching Knightley simply irritates. The film fails because the main character is un-believable. All the other things around her, including some good ideas and good performances, are sucked into the black hole of her failure to be credible in the role.
More pop video Mills & Boon than Tolstoy.
So, passing finally to the brave and clever super-stagey production: many directors, let’s just pluck Derek Jarman or Ingmar Bergman out of the aether by way of example, carry off the trick of ultra-theatricality. But, in the end, Joe Wright doesn’t, with the result – and especially when Knightley’s in the frame – that this comes off more pop video than drama, kitsch rather than art.
*Woody Allen has actress Olga Georges-Picot parody the sex-kitten pout in his terrific Love & Death, which, whilst being an overtly slapstick comedy, is also a far better work of art, and far more profound (in so many ways) than Joe Wright’s weird soufflé.
When I first posted this review, on the Amazon UK website, I gave Prometheus two stars. Then I thought about it a bit more. The consequence? I went with my gut instinct, and gave it just the one. Here on my blog I can be more precise! So I’m going with one and a half stars.
The only Ridley Scott movies that I think succeed as what I think of as proper ‘old-school’ science fiction (I very nearly said as a watchable movie at all*), are Blade Runner, which is based on the work of a master of the pulpy end of that genre’s literary form, Philip K. Dick. That’s probably why it worked. And the first Alien movie.
Alien was good, but, speaking frankly, that was largely the result of the strong combination of the visuals, the music, the whole ambience – i.e. the production aesthetic – and some very strong performances. Much modern so-called sci-fi is just dunderheaded action or soap-opera set in space. The Aliens series, Prometheus included, seem to me to be more horror than sci-fi, albeit horror set in an imaginary future.
But the H.R. Geiger aesthetic is no longer sufficient to wow, and, in Prometheus most of the acting left me wondering if everybody other than Fassbender, who, rather ironically, plays the ‘android’ David, weren’t actually the automatons. Another Amazon reviewer use the term ‘heroically thick’ to describe the acting of some (most, I would say) of the cast. Not only did I not care about the ‘characters’, I was increasingly keen, as the movie hobbled along, to see them dispatched.
The hotch-potch of ideas, some of them attempts to imagine a near future (smart lighting, ‘drone’ surveyors, etc.), some pseudo-philosophical (the whole ‘answers to it all’ line, and the awful science vs. religion element), doesn’t add up to anything worthy of reflection. Indeed, the grab-bag of ‘ideas’ make for as as unconvincing an ensemble as do the actors.
I intend no offence to her personally, but Noomi Rapace, clearly intended as the Sigourney Weaver ‘strong woman’ type, was lame. And her love interest? Let’s put it this way, I was yearning for him to be killed off, long before the coup de grace was finally and mercifully delivered! The crew of the Prometheus came over as a bunch of cringe-inducing frat-brats. I’d have believed in them as pseudy teenagers. But as mature adults, astronauts and scientists, on a serious ‘scientific expedition’? Nah!
The best I can say of this movie is that it passes the time: one of the most enjoyably creative moments was the short ‘Scott Free’ title animation, before the film began! And my favourite part of the actual film was the opening sequence of grandiose landscapes, before the narrative proper even starts! The whole CGI aesthetic, such as is used for the human-like creatures, referred to as the ‘creators’, does nothing for me at all. In fact in the forms it takes here it just irritates.
In short, and put bluntly, it’s an uninspired mish-mash, poorly scripted and acted, about a mess of unconvincing ideas, some of which – like the ‘anti-soul’ hubris of science, for example – are trite, tired clichés of our contemporary culture.
Apparently some guy wrote a big doctoral type thesis on the links between this movie and the old Greek myths of Prometheus, and concluded that Scott’s movie is largely free from any meaningful connections to the many ideas that those myth engaged with. Indeed! It’s largely free of any engaging ideas at all, I find. As some other reviewers have noted, it makes Scott’s better films look like happy accidents.
My wife bought this (I’m glad it was only £3!), and seemed to enjoy it. So, I can’t say whether you’d like it or not. But I’m one of the many who remain unconvinced.
* Most of Scott’s movies don’t do it for me. Gladiator is enjoyable mainstream fun, and I love The Duellists (his debut), ’cause I’m kind of nuts for things Napoleonic.
Tintin’s first adventure to be published in a full book form (or rather album, as they were called), In The Land Of The Soviets is even more anomalous than it’s better known somewhat infamous follow-up, In The Congo, for several reasons. First of all it was never deemed worthy of a redraw, which might’ve seen it truncated to the normal length and format all the other Tintin albums share (62 pages), and would also have seen it colourised. So, at 141 pages, and in black and white, it remains an oddity in purely technical terms.
And not only this, but as a story, and as a work of art, it also differs markedly. Rather than hearing Hergé’s own voice, which only really comes through in the gentler humour (in itself mostly rather lame on this occasion, and also often anything but gentle: along with In The Congo, In The Land Of The Soviets finds Tintin at his most brutal), we are served up a very heavy handed dose of anti-Communist propaganda: Hergé is certainly the ‘company man’ at this point, doing the bidding of his Catholic employers. After this story, only his adventure In The Congo makes any explicit reference to the paper – Le Petit Vingtieme – for whom Tintin is allegedly a reporter. In fact In The Land Of The Soviets is also one of the very few Tintin adventures in which we ever see him writing up a report, to send back to the paper.
In addition to all of this, Hergé’s craft is very much in its infancy, which makes In The Land Of The Soviets an interesting rather than particularly satisfying document. The drawing, dialogue, and storytelling are all, by Hergé’s own later standards, really quite poor. In fact one of the most noticeable shifts in the whole catalogue of his Tintin work is the almost quantum leap between this and In The Congo, especially in terms of the artwork, but also in most other respects. Some aspects, such as the smoothing out of the episodic structures that originated with the weekly serial format, would take longer to iron out and improve. But there are precious few hints – some gags that will be recycled later, the odd well composed frame, or series of frames – of what was to come later. On the evidence of this adventure alone one would hardly predict the great lifetime achievement, with Tintin as the primary vehicle, that Hergé actually went on to.
Even more of a one-for-the-fans curio than In The Congo, but perhaps less so than the unfinished Alph Art, this would not be a recommended starting point for those coming fresh to Tintin. Even Tintin’s character differs from what it was to become, with him being less innocent and more thuggish, only Snowy resembling his character as it would remain (more or less) in future. So, although it was, in book form adventures, where the much loved reporter and his dog started out, I wouldn’t recommend any reader started here.
Still, for Tintin nuts like me, and there are clearly a great number of us out there, this is nonetheless essential.
Ok, I haven’t done this for a book before, here on ye blogge. But then I don’t often post book reviews before I finish the book under review, either, like I did with this one. I had to take a breather on 12 Rules, during which time I read a few other books, such as Peter Burke’s excellent Polymath.
I think the stink I kicked up on FB just around the mere idea I might have the temerity or foolhardiness to entertain the foolish charlatan mummery of this evil purveyor of patriarchy and conservatism drained me of energy and enthusiasm. Plus I found that JP’s incessant recourse to Biblical ‘wisdom’ grated.
But, returning, refreshed and invigorated, from said breather, I found I did actually want to finish 12 Rules. So, er… I did.
Interestingly enough, chapter eleven, which was unread at the time of my last (and therefore partial) review, is probably the one that most directly addresses the more contentious areas he covers, the ones that produce allergic reactions in some on the left. Intriguingly, chapter eleven is also the longest single chapter in the book.
The chapter title, ‘Do not bother children when they are skateboarding’, isn’t the clearest of the twelve chapter headings. I initially guessed it might simply mean ‘let the children have their fun’. And it does. But more than just this, it’s also addressing those that seek to circumscribe the fun those children might have: ‘Beneath the production of rules stopping the skateboarders from doing highly skilled, courageous and dangerous things I see the operation of an insidious and profoundly anti-human spirit.’
Some of the people Peterson chooses to attack, as exemplars of this anti-human spirit, are not that surprising, such as the Columbine shooters. But others include the much beloved naturalist and TV presenter David Attenborough, and the Club of Rome (a progressive international think tank dedicated to solving global problems). The former for calling humanity a plague the latter for calling humanity a cancer. The nihilism inherent in the actions of the shooters is patently obvious. It’s more shocking to hear Attenborough and a group dedicated to solving the world’s problems described thus, or juxtaposed with ‘postal’ teen murderers.
Not a juxtaposition I was expecting.
Clearly at times JP enjoys courting controversy and ‘needling’ his audience. But there is also a very sobering aspect to this. Whilst this is a challenge to those of us who love Attenborough, for all the incredible natural history TV he has given us (and, perhaps even the Club of Rome? Though how many folk even know of them, let alone who they are or what they do?), I think Peterson is on to something, and is essentially correct.
Attenborough and the Club of Rome are, in this instance, perhaps not being precise enough in their speech (and precision in speech is one of JP’s rules). The negativity of their language, designed no doubt (like JP’s juxtaposition of them with serial murderers) for maximum impact/effect, creates a dangerous space.
A dangerous space into which some folk – I was going to say ‘less enlightened folk’; but you can be genius clever and still be wrong – might seek to interpolate their own malevolent answers to the ‘human problem’. Via appalling ‘final solutions’ such as are imagined in say, 12 Monkeys. Casting themselves thereby as heroically ridding earth of the plague or cancer of humanity.
This sort of thinking, taken to it’s most nihilist extremes, was indeed the kind of raison d’etre behind the infamous Ted Kaczynski’s personal war against modern humanity. A very clever chap. Hence the decision not to use the term ‘less enlightened’!
Two other areas where he discusses stuff that seems to trigger hostile reactions from ‘the left’ are around his views on Marxist academia and gender politics/history. He clearly dislikes the whole postmodernist project. And he doesn’t pull his punches, describing it as state-funded extremism whose aim is the destruction of the very same state that supports it.
First off I might ask JP to calm down and substitute ‘transform’ for destroy. Having said that, having been in such an environment myself, studying art and art history at Goldsmiths, where Deleuze, Guattari, Barthes, Horkheimer, etc, were bread and butter, I can see and understand his position. I personally think that much of this stuff is indeed total bullshit, masquerading as intellectualism.
But, and here I may, perhaps, differ from Peterson; whilst they may posture as radicals, I think most academics are innately conservative; they want to stay in their relatively cushy well-paid jobs. The issue is, what does all the relativist, ‘nothing outside the text’ postmodern claptrap become, or facilitate, when it exits the groves of academe, and, like genetically-modified crops, escapes from its own fields, and get out into the ‘real world’?
And here I think Peterson’s fears are better founded. And no, they are not just some paranoid conspiracy theory. Ironically the whole postmodern ‘my truth vs your truth’ relativism actually seems to favour the extreme right – by nature generally more belligerent – at least as much, maybe even more, than the ‘extreme left’.
Another area to address, again coming out of the mammoth eleventh chapter, is gender roles, and our deeper cultural (and social/biological) history.
Some of the very dominant themes being cultivated or promulgated in the kinds of departments in universities that Peterson takes issue with, are ideas such as the whole ‘patriarchy’ narrative, or the popular notion that gender identity and roles are almost entirely culturally constructed.
One of the key themes in the whole ‘Do not bother children when they are skateboarding’, idea is allowing life to continue to have risk and danger within it. And around this idea JP does also address the current trend to constantly run down maleness or masculinity as ‘toxic’, and patriarchally oppressive etc.
Peterson addresses students at The Cambridge Union, Nov. 2nd, 2018. (Photo Chris Williamson/Getty Images)
I see plenty of evidence of this in daily mainstream social intercourse, say for example on FB, where some women will very openly and regularly complain of the constant oppression they suffer, usually by repeating off the shelf memes on these themes. And an amen chorus of fellow ladies, and a number of men – some will say enlightened, others might say dissembling, or even ‘pussywhipped’, etc. – will provide a hallelujah-chorus. And a frequent contrapuntal theme in such threads will be the mocking of any men who question this narrative, with vigorous suggestions that they are the blind, brutal, entitled oppressors.
I’ve seen Peterson coolly and calmly unpack such ‘arguments’ (in fact they are not usually arguments at all, they are blunt assertions), and dismantle the treasured narrative. And yes, he does the same here in his book, albeit only now and then, and in specific places.
One of his key arguments against the patriarchal oppression model is that what has oppressed women for most of history has not been men, but the natural workings of women’s own bodies. And in more recent times, a number of men have, via their compassion and industry, contributed to the liberation of women from the ‘tyranny’ of their own bodies, via such things as better sanitary products, and the pill. As JP asks, are they part of this all powerful all consuming patriarchal oppression?
Like Peterson, I think a good long look at human history will show that, by and large, ours has actually been a history of cooperation and mutual support between the sexes, in the face of the extreme hardships – and I’m talking now of the more fundamentally physical irrefutably extreme hardships, such as plague, famine, and war, not the more modern ones, which arise once we live longer and are somewhat liberated from the more basic limits on our biological survival.
The division of labour in the human species has rested for vast stretches of time on men doing certain things more, such as hunting and making certain stuff, and women doing other things more, mostly around the domestic sphere of child-rearing and food preparation, etc, albeit with a good deal of overlap, no doubt. I don’t personally ever hear JP saying that because this was true, we musttherefore continue exactly that way. Far from it, he says we need to rework what we inherit from the past and continue to adapt to our own peculiar set of circumstances.
My uncle Terry was recommending this to me recently. It’s a favourite of JP’s as well.
Viewing the past as having been predominantly cooperative between the sexes, as opposed to one long unceasing dominance and exploitation of men over women, seems to chime better with the evidence.
This is not to say that in recent history there has been no discrimination and imbalance between the sexes. There is plentiful evidence that there has been. What doesn’t seem right is to counter one form of imbalance with another. There is also a need to learn to be able to recognise things for what they are, not what we wish them to be. And perhaps ideas of totally uncircumscribed ‘freedoms to choose’ are illusory (or even worse, harmful?).
Another problem with the ‘oppressive patriarchy’ model, as I understand JP’s critique of it, is that it can give an appearance of having nothing positive to say about masculinity. And that is inevitably as lopsided and bad a stance as a male-chauvinist position. But, truth be told, much of what I’ve digressed into here really isn’t what this book is about.
Anyway, now that I have finished the book, I don’t find myself convinced that Peterson is a dangerous alt-right idealogue. Far from it. He does have some views that are what some might call ‘innately conservative’, such as that much of what we inherit, to our benefit (as well as detriment), from those who’ve been before us, whether that’s in the form of myths that might contain traditions of wisdom (for JP Christianity is one such), or social institutions, such as marriage, might be better than a complete abandonment of such things, to be replaced by a free for all. I don’t find such observations, especially if couched in the terms of traditions of contemporary science, i.e. supported by evidence, very threatening or troubling.
Unlike JP, I’m not a massive fan of the Christian religious tradition. I suppose aspects of such relationships will often boil down to one’s own personal experiences of these traditions. For me the Christian tradition has for too long been used too oppressively, and been taken or treated too literally. And I also believe that a big problem with the poetry of myth, any myth, is that it’s wide open to almost any interpretations. Many of the ways JP chooses to read Biblical stuff in the context of this book would be, to my mind, amongst the best (and most generous spirited!) of possible readings. But the fact that such a body of traditional tales can also be used to bolster positions I find totally moronic or repellent means I prefer to discard the whole thing, more or less.
I think this is a good book, for the most part. I don’t agree with everything Peterson says. But a lot of it I do. There’s a lot of potentially useful wisdom here, mostly around the perennial themes of taking personal responsibility, and working on self-improvement.
And, as he himself says, not directly so much, but in his use of references to religious traditions (mostly, but not entirely, Christian), and writers like Dostoyesky, and philosophers and psychoanalysts, etc, these are not his own original ideas, but long established ones, ones that are – and need to be – continually re-learnt and re-stated, in our cultural traditions.
I would definitely recommend this book. And perhaps most of all to those who think he’s some kind of alt-right nutjob; instead of bringing your preconceptions, listen to what he’s actually saying, try and understand it, and maybe even, as per rule nine, consider that he (or any interlocutor you may encounter) might know something you don’t.
Or he might even simply be restating something you do already know, but forget to put into practise? Anyway. I think I probably will read his follow up. Whilst 12 Rules isn’t perfect, it hasnt put me off JP either.
I absolutely loved Neil MacGregor’s History of the World in 100 Objects, and was wondering what he’d do next. This excellent series follows a similar line, albeit through the prism of ‘The Bard of Avon’, and objects that can, in some way, be related to aspects of his life, times and work.
From a simple apprentice’s cloth cap to a coin/medallion map celebrating Drake ‘s circumnavigation of the Globe, the range and scope is once again fantastic. MacGregor’s as charming as ever, with experts on hand to flesh out and illuminate, and once again both the individual objects and the larger themes are engaging and compelling.
At first I wondered if the Shakespeare focus could possibly sustain interest across the whole series, but by the end (and the last episode is excellent, taking a slightly different approach, which I won’t give away) I was not only convinced, but dead keen to see more Shakespeare.
More archival reviews from the vaults. This one from 2014.
I got this book because I’m interested in sex. Who – if they’re being really and truly honest – isn’t? Oh, and art and culture, of course! Having flicked through the pages to have a quick look over the pics, I made ready to, erm, get stuck in, so to speak.
My view was immediately arrested by the bizarre pendant of fig. 1, pictured below: ‘Pet Phallus’, c. 100 BC… length 9.2 cm. Even amongst academics and custodians of culture it appears size matters!
However, any idea that this might be an erotic viewing or reading experience, never mind entertaining (a bit of tongue-in-cheek humour – steady! – might not have gone amiss), rapidly evaporates upon reading the text, which is worthy but, frankly, rather dull.
Caroline Vout displays an admirable breadth of erudition, and the text is very clearly and sensibly organised, but it feels a bit flat and lacking in passion. The potential eroticism of the objects and images is rinsed out with academic earnestness; comprehensive and balanced, perhaps, but – for me at least – flaccid.
The book itself, organised into six chapters over approx. 240 pages, and supported by nearly 200 crisp, clear images (as many of these are context-setting as are sexual), is a handsome and well made thing, but I’d say it was beautiful, as opposed to sexy. Some of the images and objects can, as Vout says, still shock and challenge us, despite the pervasive ubiquity of sexual imagery in what some might call our ‘permissive’ culture.
Caroline Vout at the Cambridge Museum of Classical Archaeology.
Vout traces the history of these objects, from their contexts and origins, inasmuch as we can determine them, via later fates, including their passage through the collections of private ‘antiquarians’ of the relatively recent past, such as Warren and Townley. It was the collections of such men that stocked the museums they now reside in, the material here being predominantly drawn from the stock of the British Museum, who also published the book.
Having examined how the Greeks and Romans may have related to this material, Vout eventually looks at a range of C18th ideas, from admiration to opprobrium. On the one hand Vout quotes an Enlightenment collector, enthusiast and apologist, who ‘argued passionately for sexual tolerance’, and talks of the ‘noble simplicity of the ancients’, whilst on the other we hear from one of the numerous critics of such collectors, who decries their collections for being filled with ‘generative organs in their most odious and degrading protrusion’!
It’s only very recently that many of these once relatively commonplace objects, and this is particularly true of the more risqué ones included here – which include fairly explicit depictions of bestiality, rape and homosexuality (some taboos evolve, others perhaps don’t) – have begun to emerge from the shadow of our more recent Christian heritage, and find their way into public view, beyond the esoteric confines of the ‘museum secretum’. These changing modes of display reflect evolving values, and the ‘Warren Cup’, for example, has enjoyed an odyssey from ‘controversial’ object of private admiration to British Museum shop souvenir!
For me this book, whilst undoubtedly really quite interesting, and filled with many beautiful objects and images (as well as some strange, some disturbing, and some weird or banal), dissects rather than penetrates its subject, and is, rather bizarrely perhaps, almost sexless.
Towards the end of the book, as she starts to sum up, Vout refers to a Barbican show called Seduced (fairly recent at the time of writing) which she describes as ‘a show which put visual stimulation over and above context’. Vout very avowedly does the precisely the opposite.
Another old review, transferred and updated in minor ways.
As Sam Harris attempts to make clear at the start of his book The End of Faith, what we believe is tremendously important. In Harris’ opening scenario he portrays a religiously motivated suicide bomber. This character feels that by killing a bunch of random strangers, who they – and this is the crucial bit – perceive to be their enemies, they are doing God’s work, and thereby also taking a direct short cut to heaven.
In this book Christian Ingrao is looking at something similar, in relation to what highly educated Nazi intellectuals believed, and how their beliefs became actions: hence his title phrase, believe and destroy. Like the infamous image – known as ‘The Last Jew In Vinnitsa’ – used on the books cover, this is a horrible subject.
But where Harris’ book is an easy read, clearly very much intended for the general reader, Ingrao’s book is based on a thesis written for fellow academics, and consequently is a rather tough slog for the non-specialist. Freighted with specialist jargon and many German terms, and neither written nor translated with ease of readability obviously foregrounded (although some terms are explained in a brief glossary, others in the index, and yet more via translator’s notes, overall the approach is haphazard and hard to follow); it’s interesting and worthy, but often feels like swimming through treacle.
One thread that came through strongly for me, albeit not brought out clearly or specifically by the author, is Nazism’s unholy blend of science and religion: in religious terms, Nazism offered believers faith in ‘the expectation of a racial utopia in which the elect would be made as one.’ This faith aspect was in turn founded on a pseudo-scientific biological racial determinism, in which the continued existence of a superior Nordic/Aryan race is threatened – both directly via conflict, and indirectly via miscegenation – by other races, including Asiatics and Slavs, but particularly the Jews, who are seen as ‘parasitic’.
The supposedly scientific side has several strands, some of these come from the unfortunately named area known popularly as Social Darwinism (unfortunately named because it’s based more on the ideas of Herbert Spencer than those of Darwin), including such ideas as ‘survival of the fittest’ and ‘might is right’.
But Ingrao barely touches upon this side, and deals instead in the scientific side as manifested by academic professionalism, as in data-gathering, compilation, and extrapolation. This aspect sees the SS intellectuals using what might appear to be scientific principles or methods to bolster their own world views.
Actually this is more like ideology skimpily clad in the apparent trappings of science, as the scientific method is (or ought to be) very different: you study the world, and the results tell you what to believe. With these SS intellectuals, you study the world to confirm what you already think. So, effectively what you have in Nazism is the unholy marriage of two of the worst aspects of belief systems: pseudo-science – an ideological natural fallacy – believed in with religious fervour, written in the blood of those perceived to be enemies.
The siege mentality, based on the unfinished business that many Germans felt was the legacy of WWI – and this is a major theme in Ingrao’s book – allowed many German’s to follow the Führer in believing that their active, discriminatory aggression was a defensive act! I would say that this is precisely the kind of mentality shared by Christian crusaders or Muslim jihadists, and more religious and emotional in its basis than rational or scientific, despite the desire within the higher echelons of the SS and the Nazi machine to pass itself off as founded in science. The emotionally driven atavistic völkisch aspects of this toxic creed clearly trump any kind of rationalism.
Unfortunately, the overly florid, windily verbose academic language Ingrao chooses to employ – a typical sentence: ‘They were, in their very subjectivity, an exceptional source for the history of representations’* – clouds what are essentially simple issues, making it all rather tortuously complex. Also, as with Esdaile’s Napoleon’s Wars, or a book I read on Constantine fairly recently, the nature of Ingrao’s choices, in choosing to study the structural and administrative side of the phenomenon under the lense, make for rather dry reading. So, far from being without interest, this is good, solid academic work, but a pleasure to read it ain’t. Put bluntly: worthy but dull.
The author.
* This is, in fact, a short and relatively clear/easy example. But it sounds as much (or perhaps more?) like a phrase from a postmodern influenced art theory essay, as it does something that might be said of Nazi ideologues.
Another ancient review migrates over to ye blogge. This one must be 10-15 years old? I’m thinking that I’ll try and publish a chunk of Tolkien related posts over the next few days.
Like many, perhaps most, I found my way to The Silmarillion after reading The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit. And, again, like others, it took me several attempts to get past the first few chapters. In fact it is only now, some 30 years after I first started reading Tolkien (and I’ve read both The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, and other sundry Tolkien works, numerous times) that I’ve been able to read the whole book.
It is in fact a compilation of several writings, put together after J. R. R. Tolkien’s death by his son and literary executor Christopher Tolkien. It’s this fact that leads me to title my review as I have done: J. R. R. Tolkien’s achievements in creating the legends, histories, geographies and languages of Middle-Earth are truly staggering, but Christopher Tolkien’s work since his father’s death, is likewise monumental.
Evolution is a theory that has changed our understanding of the world, but that doesn’t make some chapters of Darwin’s Origin any easier to get through. But neither does it devalue the worth of the book. And, in his own but very different way, Tolkien (and his son) have also contributed to changing our world, by inventing a new one. I’m not trying to compare Tolkien or Darwin in terms of what it was that they achieved, I simply mention them together because both worked obsessively on their projects, and both produced writings some of which carry you along with rapid drama, and others of which can be a bit of a slog.
The dense historical and mythological nature of parts of these writings can, in places, be quite arduous, and the large amounts of names, genealogies, and detailed reference to Middle Earth’s topography, can be bewildering and hard to grasp (better and more comprehensive maps would still be great, and I for one would prefer that any such maps kept to Tolkien’s original style, but were expanded – at the very least – to include Melkor’s realms in the north of Middle Earth, since he and his lands figure so prominently in much of the narratives. But, like Darwin’s difficult chapter on pigeons in the Origin, it’s a case of all the parts making for a better whole.
And there are some parts of the book, especially the stuff about Turin, Hurin and Tuor (of which tales Christopher Tolkien has subsequently brought his father’s work to us, to his great credit, first via Unfinished Tales, and more recently The Children Of Hurin, and other similar syntheses) which are fantastically easy reading, and very gripping and exciting, full of the best qualities of Tolkien’s more famous and accessible writings (if a little darker, which actually makes them somewhat more thrilling).
J. R. R. Tolkien’s talent and imagination knew few bounds, and beggar belief. And his son Christopher has played a massively important role in bringing the richness of Tolkien’s unpublished legacy (unpublished in his father’s lifetime, that is) to us. The Silmarillion is a truly and uniquely magnificent book!
“One morning long ago in the quiet of the world, when there was less noise and more green…”
More archival doings. Opening up a new (old!) chapter on Tolkienian Middle-Earthiness!
Whilst I’ve read very varied views on this adaptation, personally I love it. Anthony Jackson is good as the ‘Tale Bearer’, a story telling device of the producers (i.e. not of a strictly Tolkien-ian pedigree), Paul Daneman is a lovably flustered Bilbo (slightly posh and middle aged, which is as Tolkien wrote him), and Heron Carvic – more famous, perhaps, as the original author of Miss Seeton novels – is, for me, an excellent Gandalf.
A full-cast dramatisation, with excellent sound from the radiophonic workshop, this production also benefits from some highly unusual and individual music. This is an aspect of the production some find unattractive, according to my researches, but I’m with the actor Michael Kilgariff, who adapted the 1937 book for this 1968 radio play/serial, and agree that the music actually helps make the production.
Like the books, The Hobbit is aimed at a younger audience than the LOTR, and this version stands, in relation to the BBC LOTR, in exactly the right relation, like a younger sibling. There are aspects that I’m less keen on, such as the voices of some of the creatures, e.g. the Spiders of Mirkwood, or Roarc the old talking crow. But, all things considered these are minor gripes.
Even now, as ‘big kids’, we love listening to this. It’s atmospheric, fun, by turns ‘epic and homely’, evoking a world at once alien and yet familiar. Love it!
Clear and pertinent insights. But, poss’ stating the obvious & preaching to the converted?
Originally published on the Amazon UK website, a number of years back, it seemed to me that this would sit well here, now, along with my recent reviews of a few other more recent books critiquing capitalism.
I like the idea behind this book a lot – what Sandel calls the ‘marketization of everything’ is indeed a cause for concern. And I remember hearing and enjoying his Reith lectures, on BBC Radio 4, back in 2009, on the theme of ‘a new citizenship’, in which, if memory serves, he mentioned some of the ideas discussed in this book.
However, this is a rather thin book in terms of concepts and arguments (I read it in one evening), whilst considered in terms of lists and repetition it is, as several other reviewers have noted, rather fat. When Lyell or Darwin do this, in their books on geology or evolution, one feels the cumulative weight of their evidence was entirely necessary. By comparison, Sandel’s examples seem limited and almost entirely anecdotal. And if, as some reviewers suggest (and I suspect they may be right) this book is preaching to the converted, do we need so many examples?
His opening question, the two principles of ‘coercion’ (relating to fairness and choice in an unequal world) and ‘corruption’ (the corrosive effect that supposedly neutral markets can have in valuing goods), along with the closing statement (actually just a reiteration of the opening questions: ‘Do we want a society where everything is up for sale? Or are there certain moral and civic goods that markets do not honor and money cannot buy?’), supported by a few examples, could’ve made the same case in just a fraction of the space.
An Amazon reviewer calling themselves Sphex has said elsewhere that ‘We all know of public figures who scoff at the idea of progress and make a good living bemoaning the current state of the world’. My guess is (the Sphex quote comes from a review of Stephen Pinker’s Better Angels book) he’s referring to John Gray. Whilst one hopes and imagines that Sandel does at least believe we might be able to do something in the face of ‘market triumphalism’ he offers no ideas whatsoever here: this is really just a long (and, at £20, expensive) litany of woes. Whilst Sandel might not be blowing a dirge on the trumpet of pessimism in quite the same way Gray does, he does appear to be trading in gloom.
Although I’m in more or less complete agreement with him that rampant deregulated capitalism running amok in every walk of life is doing immense amounts of harm, I found the parade of morally repellent practices he adduced as evidence, well… frankly, depressing. And on the evidence given here current trends look resolutely headed towards ever more of life being colonised by commerce. Certainly a debate on these issues is needed. But, as Sandel quite correctly points out, neither debate nor engagement on such issues are in a healthy way.
Sandel is American, which is evident not only in his spelling, but also most of his substantive focus, and I feel this book would have benefitted from casting its net wider. I would like to have given the book more stars, but I don’t think it will change many minds, and amongst its readership the litany of gloom might even prove de-motivational. It didn’t really tell me anything new, other than a few specific details of how awful modern capitalism can be, and how frighteningly amoral or immoral its apologists often are, adding a few gory details to the minutiae of horror that its ever spreading tentacles of doom represent.
As whistle-blowing, or acting the role of the boy who shouts ‘the emperor’s butt naked!’, the points Sandel makes are a necessary element of a debate that needs to be happening. Catch-phrase economists passing off their ‘expertise’ as morally neutral, and the oxymoronic concepts that suggest economics is at one and the same time both scientific and yet also clairvoyant are myths more deserving of deconstruction than, for example, Gray’s pet hate, progress. But as well as the critique, the negative, we need positive suggestions, and there are none to be found here.
