"Dune" by Frank Herbert

Let's start it off hot today: The cover of this book reads, "Science Fiction's Supreme Masterpiece". Supreme Masterpiece?!! That's a fairly lofty qualification for a book I purchased for $1 at a garage sale. I had heard about this book many times before, and in reference, it always piqued my curiosity. Originally published in 1965, Dune begins an epic and quite famous series of books entitled (of course) The Dune Chronicles. As the cover of the book states, the original is often considered one of the finest examples of science fiction ever written. In fact, Arthur C. Clarke himself can only find one other comparable work in the genre, and that is The Lord of the Rings. That's a lot of baggage, no? Well, I finished the book last night at about midnight, and with 535 pages, 2 Appendices, 1 glossary, and a map, the book has a great deal of fictitious information in it. Chew on this:


In a phrase, stunning and way, way ahead of its time. It took me a while to get into (largely due to the tremendous amount of esoteric terminology), and I wasn't initially too impressed, but when when it took hold, it latched on. Much like all good science fiction (for which, I am admittedly a novice), this book sucks in every drop of humanity out there, and spits it out in a new, outlandish, imaginative, thoughtful, and beautiful form. This book has powerful imagery, unique characters, highfalutin philosophy, an immense and bizarre fictional world, and everything else a good book should have.

The events in this book take place in a universe that is (presumably) very distant in our future. Many thousands of years from now (if their scale matches to ours, around 10,000 AD), human beings have evolved into an intergalactic species that inhabits many, many planets throughout the universe. There are many references to a distant past similar to ours, on a home planet stricken with a great deal of problems (religious wars, artificial intelligence, and atomic weapons), and some of these issues persist in a slightly altered fashion. Now, this universe is ruled by the omnipotent Emperor and the many Ducal Houses ("ducal" is the adjective form of "duke", FYI). These forces compete for power, with a handful of other powerful agencies at play as well; The Guild (who monopolizes the space travel industry and is therefore extremely powerful and fickle), several ancient religious and spiritual societies, and a large corporation that refines and distributes a bizarre drug known as "spice". In many ways, the story centers around this "spice" and the forces that get caught up in it's wake. Spice is an addictive mind expander that allows the user to see across time and space. The spice is a byproduct of a large worm creature indigenous to the planet Dune (ha! title!).

At the beginning of the book, we find that one of the Ducal Houses has been reassigned from their home planet to the arid, desert planet of Dune to take control of the production company. Well, that's all fine and dandy, but guess what! The old ruler (who happens to be the arch enemy of the new Duke) is reluctant to give up such a ridiculously powerful resource, and there are many ulterior motivations going on, from the Emperor all the way down. When the noble Duke Atriedes moves onto the planet, he envisions change that would benefit the local desert inhabitants (known as Fremen) and a new life for his son Paul and concubine Jessica (a member of the ancient witch-like Bene Gesserit order). As you can imagine, not all goes as planned, and Paul is forced to live out a fate thousands of generations in the making. That's the boiled down goop of the story.

What I love about this book is the unique interpretation Herbert has on what will rule the future: essentially, same old crap!! The forces that work in this book are essentially the same forces that have ruled humans forever: political power, religion, business and profits, drugs, and fate. Of course, in this book, they all operate on a scale like nothing we have seen, but its all there. These people look into their distant pasts, and lessons learned about culture (the problems of artificial intelligence, atomic weaponry, ecology, etc.) morph over time into religious or spiritual dogma. Power is consolitdated amongst the regal few, is fought over viciously, and the vast portion of humanity suffers from it. And, most central to this book, politics is a game only few can win at, and it is played ever so serriptitiously.

Really, Herbert put a huge amount of thought into every aspect of this universe and its history. It so detailed, so well planned out, and just pulls in everything we got. Themes include politics, the nature and manipulation of time/space, spiritualism, tradition, adventure, environmentalism and ecology, art, relationships, power, technology, slavery, history, philosophy,and a whole lot more.

Anyhow. I almost find it exhausting to discuss/write about this book because it is so... exhaustive. For anybody interested in reading one of the best books the scifi genre has to offer, start with this. Pretty amazing.

Two quotes for ya:

"The concept of progress acts as a protective mechanism to shield us from the terrors of the future." (321)

"Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic." (373)

Be safe out there!!

PS There was a movie made of this book, too. Supposedly a classic.

"Perdido Street Station" by China Mieville

Starting to write a review of this book is like deciding to fix the health-care system in this country: where the eff do I start? This book just has so much going on in it.



For starters, "Perdido Street Station" is the first installment of China Mieville's sci-fi/fantasy/steam-punk trilogy set in the world of Bas-Lag. Got that? No? Let's back up a hair and define steam-punk. From what I gather, steam-punk is an artistic motif (not really limited to the literary world) characterized by anachronistic Victorian style, the incongruous and inexplicable dominance of analogue mechanics and steam power, and the existence of fantastic, quasi-magical technologies that tend to empower rebellion. To this already effervescent mix, Mieville adds traditional fantasy elements, an inventive array of sentient beings, compelling story-telling, cultural critique, wacky imagery, dystopian aesthetics, and a powerful depiction of the horrific and imaginative setting: the city of New Crobuzon in the world of Bas-Lag.

What I like about this book is what, I think, a lot of people don't understand about the fantasy/sci-fi genre. This other-world of literature has so much to offer. It (and by the vague pronoun "it" I mean both this particular book and the genre "it" represents) is refreshingly unique, it incorporates so much from the gamut of human experience, it can be extremely compelling reading (like when you start to not do other things in your life so you have more time to read your book), and it is a literary art-form with loving, dedicated artists working in virtual obscurity for a small but equally loving audience. Done right, sci-fi/fantasy can be really high value literature. "Perdido Street Station", though bizarre and off-center, offers the reader a feast of humanity. And though, put that way, it sounds really disgusting, that's what literature should do. It should communicate humanity. What's doubly incredible and why I find it so inventive is that the story, characters, and setting are so distant from all reality while still pertaining to our real world!!

I don't think it would be too valuable to try to synopsize the plot for you here, but let's just say it involves an outcast flightless bird-man creature attempting to recapture flight after having his winds sawed off, a pseudo-scientist with a taboo inter-species sexual orientation working on a "crisis energy engine", a group of unimaginably horrific, dream-sucking, mesmerizing moths terrorizing the city, a mob boss/drug kingpin constructed from multifarious animal grafts, and an inter-dimensional spider-being who maintains the World Web. The plot is complicated and meandering enough that to get it, you would just have to read it. Read it.

I think my favorite part of this book, though, is the rendering of the setting: New Crobuzon. Like a dark, futuristic, bastard version of New York, this sprawling, dirty, dark, towering, convoluted, corrupt, and diverse world capitol just comes alive under Mieville's direction. It was so well constructed in the book, I felt like I lived in this other-worldly locale. Really cool.

If I had to have one complaint about the book, it would be that the story kind of floundered for a bit there in the middle section, and that the book was a bit longer than it needed to be (at 622 pages). I was happy to deal with these minor issues, though.

As I said earlier, this book is simply the first novel in a trilogy. The ending of this book threw me for a twist, and it left the story really well poised to continue. Pretty much all of the main characters survive and move on in unexpected directions.

In conclusion, I look forward to reading the next two books, "Iron Council" and "The Scar". China Mieville also has a new book out, "The City and The City", which I will also read. So much to do...

And, as I like to do at this point, I will offer you one excerpt from the book. A quote, if you will. This particular one does not represent the story, nor does it have any universal appeal. I just like the way it sounds, and I believe it offers a feel for the book as a whole. From page 199:

"A slow kaleidoscope of mutation and violence, petty wars fought between unfathomable monstrosities over no-man's-lands of shifting slag and nightmare architecture."

PS Allow me to thank my friend Owen from Ireland for the rad suggestion.

A Phoenix Rises

This is the first posting in the rebirth of my blog. For the tiny percentage of my already minuscule group of readers who have, much beyond my comprehension, decided to return to share in this particular manifestation, thank you, and may God have mercy on your souls. Fair warning: if before you were disgusted with my self-indulgence, ill humor, narcissism, ad nauseam descriptions, and obfuscating circumlocution (now that's meta-irony!), then just walk away. Like now. And do not turn back. This is much worse than any pillar of salt.

Now, I would have posted here much earlier, but as I have been very busy with the rigamarole in my little corner of our little universe and the fact that the last two books I have read were unworthy, this is it. Just so you are up-to-date: returned from South America, new computer, an ailing grandparent who passed away (may she rest in peace), a eulogy, sister's graduation, sold my car, got a new car, packed up all my worldly belongings, moving to Colorado, and don't bother with Juan Carlos Onetti's "A Brief Life" or Joseph Conrad's "Lord Jim". That's about the skinny of it. Let's move on.

So, for the first installment in my electronic literary sounding-board: Junot Diaz's "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" (2007).
As the winner of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award, Junot Diaz's debut novel arrived with much sound and fury. For months, it seemed like, the book took over the arts section of the NY Times and was the talking point for every freakin' show on NPR (gotta give a shout-out to my girl Terry Gross: holla!). This was a big deal in the book world (which means nothing in the real world, but still). The book came with alot of luggage, and I have been wanting to read it for some time now. In my mind, books very rarely actually pass the litmus test for media accolades, and that generally stigmatizes the book for me before I ever even crack it open. But this really was a good one.

Usually I like to start on a positive note and break down the book from there, but I am going to do the opposite here. I feel compelled to start a discussion about the book with the language/style that Diaz employs. Using a myriad of street slang, ghetto speak, Dominican and Spanish words, and pop-culture references, Diaz attempts to write the book in a colloquial, informal style that harkens to the street. Well, admittadly, I am from the suburbs. I did not grow up in New Jersey and my parents are certainly not black Dominicans. But, I did know all the turns-of-phrase that he used, was familiar with most of the slang, and even understand some Spanish. In the end, it didn't work for me, though. The cadence and rhythm of the writing seemd clunky and unbalanced most of the time, and unnatural pretty much all of the time. I wasn't really into it. Though very different in its respective style, I felt the same way about alot of "Middlesex" by Jeffery Eugenides (another Pulitzer Prize winner). Good writing should wipe clean the opaque lens separating the reader and the writer. This doesn't imply simplicity, necessarily; but rather, good writing should enhance the reader's understanding of the writer's thoughts, emotions, etc. Diaz tried to do this. He used his vernacular and his wording to attempt to draw the reader into his world. I just think he didn't do a great job of it.

Now, on a more positive note, this book had alot of great redeaming aspects: vibrant and refreshingly unique characters, a good story, interesting changes of point of view, a lot of cultural information about a country I knew nothing of (namely, the Domican Republic), accessibility, meta-fiction, storytelling, and brief, wondrous sections of prose (I am so funny). The title character is way into comics, fantasy, graphic novels, and science fiction. I liked that, because I think that all of these genres are greatly underappreciated for their humanity, beauty, and artistry. I like learning more about them, and I think they should be more popular. The ending, though vaguely foreshadowed throughout the book, offered a nice twist. And like all good literature, the book incorporates a vast array of human experience: sex, savagery, dominance, mysticism, violence, family, love, the immigrant experience, etc. This book really has a lot to offer, and I think, in the end, presents an all-around great piece.

I gues it's just that I don't really expect "The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" to be an important member of our canon of American Literature. Of course I wouldn't even bother to say that if the book hadn't won the Pulitzer Prize. It's fun, moving, good storytelling, and dynamic, and I would suggest it to friends. It's all of the above. Unfortunately it won that stupid prize and now I have this little droplet of discontent because it feel short of my expectations.

In closing, there was only one quotable that I found in the book, so here it is:
(note: quote comes as an elder's traditional saying, found in a footnote)
"Anything uttered for the first time summons a demon."

I am now reading China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station", which came highyl recommended from an Irish couple I met. It is classified as "steam punk" literature. Sounds like fun, and I am looking forward to writing about it soon!

Until then: don't take no wooden nickels!!

The wrap up

Me in front of the Casa Rosada. Sorry the pic is so dark here.
For some reason pics are darker here than they really are.

Plaza de Mayo, with its distinctly European flair

Buenos Aires is a magnificent city. Tonight is my 5th and final night (tear drop) here, and I have been absolutely enchanted by it´s dynamism and vibrance. I was a little nervous about returning to the city because my last experience here was so absolutely terrifying and overwhelming, but armed with my newly acquired language skills, cultural understanding, and backpacker´s grit, I have managed to immerse myself in the spectacular carnival of experience that is Buenos Aires.

First of all, this city is absolutely immense. With 13 million people in the metropolitan area, the city has the population of New York, the architecture of Europe, and the lust-for-life of a Latin American capital. The city center, with its marble canyons and packed walkways, stretches for miles in every direction. The city is bursting with innumerable plazas, gigantic parks, thousands of cafes and bars, museums, history, and a palpable buzz of humanity. The first three nights I stayed in San Telmo barrio (neighborhood), which is famous for its tradition, tango, and its cobbled streets. It was a very pleasant and active place to stay, and I met a group of friends there that invited me out on the town with them. (sidenote: this city doesn´t sleep. When you go out, it is for the entire night. We left for the disco at 3 am and danced til the sun came up. It was exhausting!!) They were really fun and we had a great time. Plus, it was a wildly diverse group, with a lot of Colombians, Chileans, Argentines, Israelis, British, Surinamese, Hollanders, a guy from Istanbul, and myself. It was cool to get so many different people together. During the day I did an immense walking tour of the city and saw the Casa Rosada (their White House), the capital building, the theater district, an artisan fair where I bought some gifts, their national cemetary (which was actually awesome, with Evita´s mosaleum), 2 museums, parks, and miles of city boulevards. There is so much to see here, it is astonishing. Buenos Aires has enough for a lifetime.

It was this guy´s birthday. Party!!

Two chicas from Colombia. (Isabel, if you are reading this, the
girl on the left looks just like you!!)

Last night and tonight I am in the Palermo district of the city, which is posh, elegant, and quite beautiful. The hostel I am staying out right now is probably the best of my entire trip, with its quite courtyard, excellent facilities, nice people, and chill dog. I happened to meet two super cool Irish people there last night, and we have made plans to go out tonight for a real Argentine steak and good wine. Yum! And, of course, tomorrow is my last day of vacation. I have been looking forward to returning home to friends and family, but my last couple of days in Buenos Aires are making it tough. I am truly in love with this awesome city, and will be a bit sad to leave it. I think this is my favorite city I have ever been to. No joke.

So, since this is my last post of my South American adventure, I would like to thank you for following along and enduring my bad jokes and rambling. This has been a great experience for me, and like everything else in life, sharing it makes it better. Writing like this has been very enjoyable for me, and I get quite a bit of satisfaction from having a forum to put out there for people to read. So, because I enjoy it so much, I have decided that I will archive my vacation blog here and slightly retool to continue on into the future. As you know, I very much enjoy to read and to share my thoughts on literature with folks, and the new incarnation of my blog will be devoted to what I am reading. Not quite as exciting as travel, but just as valuable I think. Thanks again for taking in interest in my folly and, if it interests you, please visit this blog in the future to share in my passion for literature.

I´ll bid you farewell here with a germane quote from Joseph Conrad´s "Lord Jim", which I am finishing right now.
" Felicity, felicity - how shall I say it? - is quaffed out of a golden cup in every latitude; the flavour is with you - with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please."

In the city of Ché

This bar drew me to it like a moth to a street lamp. The Simpsons
are enormously popular all over Argentina and Chile. As big as they are in the US, which
I find inexplicable due to the show´s Ameri-culturalcentrism.

Once again, it´s been too long, and I send my heartfelt apologies for the harrowing, nail-biting wait. Here I am, smack dab in the middle of my 2 week Tour de Ciudades. First Salta, then Córdoba, now Rosario, and next (the big one!) Buenos Aires. Cities here are really a different animal than in the US, at least in my limited experience. Brimming with people, noise, activity, and living on a 24 hour schedule, Argentine cities are like the cracked out cousin to the suburban attitude of our metropolises (gotta be honest, I had to look up the pluralization of metropolis). They are all nice cities in their own right and offer a great variety of amusements, but I guess I am just a bit nostalgic for the wide open spaces and mountainous horizons of the South. It´s funny, the first thing I do when I get to a city is seek out the largest, shadiest, grassiest park around and set up for a good long chill. However, I am very much looking forward to the world-class cultural landmarks of Buenos Aires, and plan on spending several education-filled days exploring the governmental buildings, the zoo, and the various museums. Also, I´m going to buy a big, fat steak. Yup.

One of the many universities.

Meanwhile, I got a couple more days in Rosario. Only about 4 hours northwest of Buenos Aires, Rosario harbours over a million souls on the banks of the Rio Paraná. The city has a great deal of history and culture, several pedestrian malls, beaches, and (as I found out yesterday for 2 hours) a very confusing bus system. For the majority of gringos, the city is most famous as the birthplace and hometown of Ernesto ¨Ché¨ Guevara. If you´ve lived in a cave underneath the North Pole for the last 50 years, go ahead and Wikipedia his name to get some info on him. Quite a life he had.

Yet another dirt jump bike park. These are in lots of cities, and
I love it. Would like to write article for IMBA when I return. Got some thoughts.

Note: I noticed the blog-censor (I had no idea there was one) will not allow me to publish the last word in the title of the following book, and replaces it with ¨######¨. Facists. The word begins with a ¨W¨and ends with ¨hores¨. FYI.

And lastly, I recently finished Gabriel Garcia Marquez´s ¨Memories of My Melancholy ######¨. I have had some difficulty acquiring books by Latin American authors over the last couple weeks (had to read 2 interim books), but was glad to find this novella by the Colombian master. For a long time I was trying to avoid his books because I have read several of them before and would like to diversify myself as much as possible. This was all I could find after scouring over a dozen book stores in Córdoba, so here is what I thought:

Garcia Marquez erupted on the scene in the 1960s and 70s as the leading figure in the boom era of Latin American literature. Publishing several world-reknown novels and eventually earning the Nobel Prize in 1982, you can understand why this was one of the very few books I could find in English here. At the still vibrant age of 82, Garcia Marquez is still alive and kickin´, and published his most recent book in 2004, ¨Memories of My Melancholy ######¨. In alot of ways, this novella is classic Gabriel Garcia Marquez: romantic, dreamy, slow paced, and gorgeously written in a simplistic, trim, almost Hemingway-esque style with themes of love, history, family, and art. Without exception (at least in my readings of 4 of his books), the author distinguishes himself as the quintessential Latin American voice and can conjure the essence of his culture with ease and unique beauty.
In ¨Memories of My Melancholy ######¨, Garcia Marquez reveals himself to be something of a dirty old man, though with a wink of an eye and an endearing smile, of course. The story centers around a 90 year old bachelor who, on his birthday, finds himself contemplating life, love, sex, and death. A life-long devotee of the ¨world´s oldest profession¨, the man decides to give himself the birthday present of a night with a teenage virgin. You may remember this book for making news because it was banned in Iran (for obvious reasons). After this single night, the man awakens to a love he never felt in his life, and it changes him indefinitely. From here, the book follows the man as he starts to see his life, his experience, and everything around him in a new way. What I like about this book is it gives the reader an elegant insight into aging and death, and what it must be like for Garcia Marquez to look into his past.
When reading Garcia Marquez, I almost feel like he offers a distinct and intangible sensory experience, like he added a extra sense to his quiver. You get the words, their associated images, their sound, and a very peculiar extra sense that I would place somewhere between olfactory and ¨memory¨. How he accomplishes this is the mystery of his art.
Elegant, sexy, powerful, profound, and economical (with its 117 pages), ¨Memories of My Melancholy ######¨ makes for a really pleasant afternoon in the park.

Gotta go. My hammock is-a-callin´. I am finishing Mario Vargas Llosa´s ¨In Praise of the Stepmother¨, so look forward to hearing about that. Next report is likely to come from Buenos Aires. Wish me luck!!

A Sensory A-Salta

I hate to burst any bubbles, but I feel it is my duty to inform you that, when travelling abroad, you cannot expect all to be rainbows and bell-bottoms. In the interest of keeping you abreast of my good times, I have purposefully ommitted a great deal of cultural observations over the past 2 months. My perspective on humanity has, understandably, vascillated between the heroic and the evil, and, because I find Salta, Argentina to be a particularly robust example of all things Human, allow me to draw the following illustrations for your benefit:

1) I have only experienced a miniscule percentage of the People of Earth on my trip, and 78% have been brought to me by the Coca-Cola Company.

2) Capitalism is not an ethos; it is the principal upon which People operate, and the 2nd world has embraced it with open arms and a closed wallet.

3) Feral dogs and horny pidgeons will inherit the earth.

4) The parental instinct to improve the offspring´s existence is both holy and disasterous.

5) Technology and Coolness (both exports of my very own country) are conquering the Life Force.

6) The end of the world will not be an explosion: we will simply suffocate in a mountain of our own plastic bottles.

7) And, regardless of my hypocritical pessimism, I am constantly blown away by beautiful examples humanity.

Sorry about the sidways image. Salta has numerous cake-like churches, and

I guess I was laying down on my side when I took the picture of the second one.

Salta has not really been the highlight of my trip. In short, it is a really crowded, busy, humid city stuck in the clouds at the base of the Andes. With nice shady parks, multiple plazas, and an awesome market (in which I accidently ordered a bowl of tripe soup...), the city is nice, but not really that impressive. It´s been a really cheap but somewhat boring 3 days here. I happened to be the first guest at the brand new hostel that I am staying at, but because I hate being doted upon, it has been a little uncomfortable.

I am taking another overnight bus to Córdoba in about 2 hours, so I best be moving. My intention with this post was not to be a downer, but rather give you a little better perspective on the very diverse experience I am having. All in all, it is very educational, and I value education above all.

Is that a desert mirage, or is that my trip´s end in the distance?

Inside the Valley of the Moon, with snow covered 20,000 ft peaks
in the distant background.

Wow. Talk about your dramatic change of scenery! San Pedro de Atacama stands alone on my trip. The dream-like otherworldlyness seems inconguent with the rest of my journey. I´ve visited alpine mountains, rainforest, big city, and vast pampas, but nothing like San Pedro. Sitting at 8,000 ft above sea level on a parched plane with dusty, obscured horizons, San Pedro is a tiny pueblo of adobe buildings and one tiny main street (more accurately qualified as an alley, really). The Andean Cordillera runs along the eastern edge of the valley, and this area is the driest place on Earth. Honestly, I wasn´t terribly jazzed about coming here due to its remoteness and touristy reputation, but the place has really charmed me with its lazy attitude, surprisingly cool and breezy courtyards, and some crazy landscapes.


The town itself really isn´t terribly impressive, but rather quaint. Every structure in the town is crafted from adobe, even the central church (pictured above). Outside of the town (which is something of an oasis, because they have gushing aquaducts inside the city), nothing grows. Only vast stretches of baked sand and stone, with occasional mirage-like salt deposits. Very, I want to say, creepy...


The one thing I was really excited to do here was rent a bike. It has been 2 months since I have ridden a bike, and I had almost forgotten how liberating it can be to have two wheels to push around. Yesterday, I gathered my supplies and rode out to the very near regional park, Valley of the Moon. It was strikingly beautiful and it was refreshing to get there on my own time and accord. I can´t wait to have bikes again!

I´m going to keep this post quick because everything here (including the internet) is outrageously expensive. For instance, due to a complete lack of options, I am paying 8,000 pesos a night to camp (around $12). That is just silly. It is a really nice campground, but still!

Tomorrow I am catching a bus to climb the pass (over 12,000 feet, I believe) back over to Argentina. Salta, to be exact. A couple of days there, then will push on. I was going to try to get to Bolivia from here, as it is only about 40 km away, but I am (sadly) running short on time and have a handful of places in Argentina to visit still. Hard to believe I only have 17 days until I´m outta here! Time flies, am I right? Ah, such is life. Those of you back in the good ol´US of A, run a bath and put some beer on ice for me, will ya?