Matthew Flaming (Author of The Kingdom of Ohio)

Matthew made a comment on his review of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet

"Tocotin wrote: "Hey! I love the last sentence of your review!"

Thanks! I'm just reading through the list of your reviews, and I have to say I'm amazed!"

Matthew rated a book 2 of 5 stars

Halting State
by Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)

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Halting State is the second book by Charles Stross that I've read. The first, Accelerando, is (to steal a cliche) a flawed masterpiece -- a word which I don't use lightly -- and on its strength I was eager to dive into this novel.

Stross is a (appare...more Halting State is the second book by Charles Stross that I've read. The first, Accelerando, is (to steal a cliche) a flawed masterpiece -- a word which I don't use lightly -- and on its strength I was eager to dive into this novel.

Stross is a (apparently I'm stuck in reviewer-cliche land tonight) furiously imaginative writer, and half the fun of his novels is just keeping up with the barrage of new ideas about technology, culture, and the intersection thereof. That's certainly the case with Halting State, a whodunnit set in the newly independent EU-member state of Scotland in 2018, when gaming is a pervasive aspect of many people's lives, and the distinction between "virtual" and "real" seems ridiculous.

Halting State is brilliant in places (among my favorite geek-out quotes was "they're not using the game as a ludic universe to chat in, they're using it as a transport layer. They're tunneling TCP/IP over AD&D!"), and Stross, who has a degree in CS and worked as programmer, does a convincing portrayal of the similarly obsessive worlds of the startup hacker and hardcore gamer.

The most notable aspect of the book, though, is its narrative stance. Halting State is all written in the second person -- a revolving second person, with three mostly-reliable narrators (a programmer, a forensic accountant, and a cop). I don't think I've seen multiple second persons attempted before in a novel, and hats off to Stross for giving it a try. For me though, it didn't work: the second person is a tough sell, even with enormous finesse, and needing to remember which character's POV you're currently sitting in makes the whole thing feel forced. The somewhat untidy and vague plot, featuring a corporate-espionage double-cross, unnamed intelligence agencies, and Chinese hackers, doesn't make things easier.

I admire Stross's ambition to do something different, and the fact that he makes it work at all is a testament to his ability: still despite its originality, this book isn't his best.(less)

Matthew is currently reading

I Am a Strange Loop
by Douglas R. Hofstadter

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Matthew rated a book 3 of 5 stars

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
by David Mitchell

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What is it about the nostalgia trap that attracts so many writers?

Like practically everyone (it seems) I've been a huge fan of David Mitchell's work for several years now. In particular I was amazed and humbled by Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, which...more What is it about the nostalgia trap that attracts so many writers?

Like practically everyone (it seems) I've been a huge fan of David Mitchell's work for several years now. In particular I was amazed and humbled by Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, which seemed to offer a genuinely fresh take on what a novel can be. Both books functioned as powerful commentaries on the nature of identity and the sweep and strangeness of living in a globalized world -- and did these things without falling into the trap of nostalgia, which is the cheapest and easiest of writerly devices.

Unsurprisingly, given Mitchell's talent, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is beautifully written. The story opens in 1799 on Dejima, a tiny artificial island in Nagasaki harbor where the Dutch East Indies Company has a narrow perch for conducting trade with Shogun-era Japan. In this cramped universe, the Dutch traders scheme, worry, pine for their distant homes, and an unlikely love story develops between the eponymous hero and a Japanese midwife named Orito. Roughly midway through the novel, things take a turn for the strange: plot twists include the machinations of a sinister immortal abbot, a bizarre mountaintop nunnery where ritual baby-harvesting and murder are practiced, a daring midnight rescue-attempt, and the surprise arrival of British warships to challenge the isolated Dutch traders.

The entire book is written in a deft, economical style; each character's voice is vivid and compelling, and Mitchell's eye for detail is striking. With apparently effortless strokes he breathes life into the floating island-settlement, and the cast of Dutch traders anchored there like a barnacle on the hull of worryingly foreign Japan, an impossible distance from their homes. Although less formally ambitious than his earlier works (rather than remixing genres as he did in Cloud Atlas, Ghostwritten, etc., here Mitchell stays largely within the confines of traditional historical fiction), much of the novel is a pleasure to read: a smart, involving glimpse of a profoundly different world.

The least successful parts of the book are its action sequences in the second half of the novel. Although not bad per se (Mitchell may not be capable of writing a bad scene), these fail to deliver much punch or suspense, and at times suffer from muddy blocking so it's unclear how, exactly, the dramatics are unfolding.

Overall though, it's the conclusion of the Thousand Autumns that gave me the most trouble. In his denouement, Mitchell shifts gears: it's years later, Jacob de Zoet is back in Europe, and we're left with a quiet regret-filled meditation on loss, forgetting, and the passage of time. All of this is absolutely, breathtakingly lovely. It's also the easy way out.

Because here, for once, Mitchell allows himself to wallow (there's no other word) in the bittersweet soup of nostalgia -- which is the opposite of the vivid immediacy that makes the best historical fiction come to life. Where great historical writing breathes life into the past by imbuing it with the uncertainty and newness of the present, nostalgia is a kind of self-congratulatory sugar-coating. It is emotion based on the irrecoverable nature of the past, and the gap between now and then: through the tumult and transformations of time, nostalgia whispers, only the identity of the person remembering what has gone before remains the same. In this way, nostalgia functions as a celebration of selfhood, and allows us to imagine history as a set of external events that, fundamentally, reinforce our unique unchanging continuity. But that, of course, is a fantasy. Our selves change with time, as much as the world does, and the effects of the past continue to linger. As William Faulkner (possibly the greatest of historical novelists) put it, "The past is never dead. It's not even past."

Hopefully in his next novel, David Mitchell will remember that the last thing a historical novelist should be doing is making the past feel either distant, or safe.(less)

Matthew rated a book 2 of 5 stars

Whirlwind
by James Clavell

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Since I was in high school, James Clavell has loomed largely among my guiltier pleasures. Somewhere circa age sixteen I plowed through Shogun and Tai-Pan one summer, and came away from them heady with Orientalism: because these books are, really, Ori...more
Since I was in high school, James Clavell has loomed largely among my guiltier pleasures. Somewhere circa age sixteen I plowed through Shogun and Tai-Pan one summer, and came away from them heady with Orientalism: because these books are, really, Orientalism at its pulpy contemporary finest (if that isn't an oxymoron). In them, the European hero is thrown into an exotic, spice-scented eastern culture where, through a combination of courage, canny and luck, he is embroiled in conspiracies, admitted into the luxurious inner circles of power, beds beautiful women, and defeats his enemies.

Clavell isn't subtle, by a long shot. His villains are machiavellian pedophiles and sadists, his protagonists are manly and muscular, moral ambiguity never registers on his radar, and he's not one to hesitate at cheap gratification (for example, in at least three novels he goes out of his way to have women note the gigantic endowment of his hero). This is broad-strokes, primary-colors-only entertainment, but on that level it works fantastically. He has enough superficial understanding and genuine appreciation of Chinese and Japanese culture to make Shogun and Tai-Pan read like glossy action-movie tourist brochures to a compellingly different world, inhabited by (sort of) real people, that we'd like to leave behind our real lives to visit for awhile.

Unfortunately, this is far less the case for Whirlwind, Clavell's fictionalization of the 1979 Iranian Revolution led by Khomeini. The sprawling plot, which revolves around the various European and American employees of a charter helicopter company attempting to cope with, and later escape, the deadly upheaval caused by the Revolution, features Clavell's usual twists, turns, narrow escapes, tragic deaths, unexpected betrayals, irredeemable bad guys and unimpeachable good guys. But where his other novels depict the exotic settings of his stories, and the exotic characters who inhabit them, with a sensitivity that at least tries (in a limited kind of way) to shed light on the workings of another culture, here he has settled for caricature in the most unpleasant sense.

No genuine attempt is made here to understand, or empathize with, why the Revolution captured the hearts and minds of millions. By and large, Clavell's Iranians are illiterate brutes, rapists, and thugs. The only characters who have integrity are those who resist, or at least stand apart from, support for Khomeini, and the virtue of European values -- in particular, the heroic efforts of oil-company employees, who struggle to keep the black gold flowing at any cost -- are never questioned in the slightest.

True, on a paragraph-by-paragraph level, Whirlwind is a page-turner that dishes up sex, suspense and violence in heavy rotation. Take a step back though, and this novel emerges as a perfect example of the kind of insensitive, colonialist xenophobia that fueled the Revolution to begin with.(less)

Matthew rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Captain Blood
by Rafael Sabatini

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I've always been a sucker for a certain kind of swashbuckling adventure. As an awkward middle-school student, I found a kind of refuge in books like H. Rider Haggard's masterpieces King Solomon's Mines and Allen Quatermain; as an adult, the Tarzan bo...more
I've always been a sucker for a certain kind of swashbuckling adventure. As an awkward middle-school student, I found a kind of refuge in books like H. Rider Haggard's masterpieces King Solomon's Mines and Allen Quatermain; as an adult, the Tarzan books number among my guilty pleasures. So it's hardly surprising that, without knowing it, some piece of me was waiting forRaphael Sabatini's Captain Blood all along.

Captain Blood is, without question, one of the greatest pirate adventures ever written. A century before Jack Sparrow sashayed across the screen, Peter Blood was wreaking his own brand of stylish mayhem across the Caribbean. Sabatini's novel is a product of the same late-Victorian appetite for tales of adventure in foreign lands that gave us works like The Pirates of Penzance and Kim, but nothing about it feels imitative. Peter Blood is uniquely his own character (although he has spawned countless imitators): wrongfully convicted of treason and sold into slavery on a Barbados sugar plantation, he man who is "at war with humanity" and yet has "some rags of honor." His barbed wit and rakish charm are tempered with just enough self-doubt, and occasional self-hatred, to make him a riveting leading man.

This isn't, of course, to claim that Captain Blood is a profound study in human nature. This is an action-movie of a book, but done with so much intelligence and style that its fundamental contrivedness never feels like a problem. Sabatini's writing is crisp, enjoyable, and fast paced; consider the following account of a duel between Levasseur, a rival pirate captain, and Captain Blood:

The brute strength upon which Levasseur so confidently counted, could avail nothing against the Irishman's practiced skill. When, with both lungs transfixed, he lay prone on the white sand, coughing out his rascally life, Captain Blood looked calmly at [Levasseur's first mate] across the body. "I think that cancels the articles between us," he said.

Yes, it may not be Great Literature. But reading lines like that, my inner middle-school geek grins and cheers and I love every page of it, Great Literature be damned.(less)

Matthew rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Arabian Sands (Penguin Travel Library)
by Wilfred Thesiger

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Wilfred Thesiger, the author of Arabian Sands, is without question the Real Deal. After being trained as a British secret agent and fighting behind enemy lines in the SAS during World War II, he set out to explore the Empty Quarter of the Arabian pen...more Wilfred Thesiger, the author of Arabian Sands, is without question the Real Deal. After being trained as a British secret agent and fighting behind enemy lines in the SAS during World War II, he set out to explore the Empty Quarter of the Arabian peninsula, the largest sand desert in the world. Travelling by foot and on camels with nomadic Bedouin tribes, he crossed and recrossed about 250,000 miles of the most inhospitable terrain on the planet. He was a man of deeds, not words; it took months of cajoling on the part of his friends to persuade him to write this book in which he recounts some of his adventures.

Seen from a distance, Thesiger seems like a caricature of the old-fashioned stiff-upper-lip British adventurer. His own hardships are noted with almost clinical disinterest. For example, almost as an afterthought, he mentions that in order to fit in with his native travelling companions he decided to walk across the desert barefoot and that this was "uncomfortable." Similarly, describing an episode in which he travelled 2,000 miles across the desolate dunes on starvation rations, drinking a few mouthfuls of water once a day and pursued by raiding parties intent on killing him, he restrains himself to noting that "it was hot."

Despite this terseness, Thesiger’s clear, concise prose is enormously readable and all the more evocative for its lack of ornamentation, much like the stark landscape he depicts. Through his eyes, we glimpse a world of almost unimaginable hardship and startling beauty. After travelling for miles through the desert with his companions, he writes:

…we saw a small boy, dressed in the remnants of a loin-cloth…. He led us back to the [camp] where three men sat round the embers of a fire…. They had no tent; their only possessions were saddles, ropes, bowls, empty goatskins, and their rifles and daggers…. These men would sleep naked on the freezing sand, covered only with their flimsy loin-cloths… After milking [their camels] our hosts brought us milk. We blew the froth aside and drank deep; they urged us to drink more, saying “You will find no milk in the sands ahead of you. Drink – drink. You are our guests. God has brought you here – drink.” I drank again, knowing even as I did so that they would go hungry and thirsty that night, for they had nothing else, no other food and no water.

Along with his bravery, reserve and occasional dry humor, Thesiger fits the mold of the classic T.E.-Lawrence-style British adventurer in another respect as well: his absolute admiration for the traditional Bedouin way of life, and a commensurate distain for all things "modern." Toward the end of this book, he writes: "I realized that the Bedu with whom I had lived and travelled, and in whose company I had found contentment, were doomed. Some people maintain that they will be better off when they have exchanged the hardship and poverty of the desert for the security of a materialistic world. This I do not believe."

Thesiger is a worshipper at the altar of Character, and for him Character is expressed through heroic endurance of hardship. In this sense, he is fundamentally a pessimist; change and progress are for the worse. In these sentiments, it is hard not to detect a whiff of "noble savage" ideology and its accompanying veiled racism. Certainly he is not hesitant to describe men as belonging to a “finer breed” (or an inferior one). It is an unforgiving view of the world, and one that lacks nuance. Given these things, there is perhaps a kind of poetic justice in the fact that, sixty years later, Thesiger himself seems quaint and old-fashioned, a fantastic remnant of a time when the world seemed at once larger and less complex.(less)

Matthew liked Susan's review of Theft: A Love Story:

" Michael Boone, alias Butcher Bones, is a once celebrated Australian artist who’s just got out of jail for various crimes that resulted from his divorce and what he sees as the appropriation of his work as marital property. His reputation is in the... " Read more of this review »

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Matthew made a comment on his review of The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet "Tocotin wrote: "Hey! I love the last sentence of your review!" Thanks! I'm just reading through the list of your reviews, and I have to say I'm amazed!"
3 de Jun 13:49 · see review
Matthew rated a book 2 of 5 stars Halting State by Charles Stross (Goodreads Author)	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Halting State is the second book by Charles Stross that I've read. The first, Accelerando, is (to steal a cliche) a flawed masterpiece -- a word which I don't use lightly -- and on its strength I was eager to dive into this novel. Stross is a (appare...more
28 de Abr 21:02 · see review
Matthew is currently reading I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
28 de Abr 20:32
Matthew rated a book 3 of 5 stars The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
What is it about the nostalgia trap that attracts so many writers? Like practically everyone (it seems) I've been a huge fan of David Mitchell's work for several years now. In particular I was amazed and humbled by Ghostwritten and Cloud Atlas, which...more
17 de Jun 12:04 · see review
Matthew rated a book 2 of 5 stars Whirlwind by James Clavell	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Since I was in high school, James Clavell has loomed largely among my guiltier pleasures. Somewhere circa age sixteen I plowed through Shogun and Tai-Pan one summer, and came away from them heady with Orientalism: because these books are, really, Ori...more
2 de Ene 19:04 · see review
Matthew rated a book 4 of 5 stars Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatini	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I've always been a sucker for a certain kind of swashbuckling adventure. As an awkward middle-school student, I found a kind of refuge in books like H. Rider Haggard's masterpieces King Solomon's Mines and Allen Quatermain; as an adult, the Tarzan bo...more
13 de May 20:30 · see review
Matthew rated a book 4 of 5 stars Arabian Sands (Penguin Travel Library) by Wilfred Thesiger	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Wilfred Thesiger, the author of Arabian Sands, is without question the Real Deal. After being trained as a British secret agent and fighting behind enemy lines in the SAS during World War II, he set out to explore the Empty Quarter of the Arabian pen...more
31 de Ene 17:16 · see review
Matthew liked Susan's review of Theft: A Love Story: " Michael Boone, alias Butcher Bones, is a once celebrated Australian artist who’s just got out of jail for various crimes that resulted from his divorce and what he sees as the appropriation of his work as marital property. His reputation is in the... " Read more of this review »
1 de Jun 13:50 · see review

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