Bad Monkeys — Matt Ruff
Bad Monkeys
Matt Ruff
230 pages
published in 2007
When your local library’s automated lending system refuses to recognise a book you’re attempting to borrow when it’s clearly there in front of you, it’s enough to make you a little bit paranoid, but when that book is Bad Monkeys, an example of American Paranoia at its finest, with a Christopher Moore quote on the cover saying “Buy it, read it, memorise then destroy it. There are eyes everywhere.“, you become more than a bit paranoid. Little did I know then how appropriate that little incident was. Bad Monkeys is one of those books that makes you look twice at every CCTV camera on your daily commute, not to mention much more innocent examples of street furniture for signs of hidden cameras.
You might know Matt Ruff from Sewer, Gas & Electric, his brilliant and hilarious parody-slash-update-slash-mixup of the stoner paranoia classic Illuminantus! trilogy, not to mention that bible of teenage libertarianism, Atlas Shrugged. If that novel showed Ruff’s absurdistic, bombastic side, Bad Monkeys is toned down, sleek and effortlessly cool. It still taps into that vein of essential American paranoia that also drove Sewer, Gas & Electric, but this time it’s more refined, less consciously wacky.
Marxism 101
There has been a resurgence of interest in Marxist theory recently in the socialist blogosphere, specifically in the teaching thereof. Few people after all become socialist by thoroughly examining and comparing political ideologies, but rather through a short of gut feeling that socialism is right; I know I did. The root ideas of socialism are dead simple and can be understood by anybody. They haven’t changed since Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto, which is still the best thing to read if you want to get to know those ideas quickly. Following on from that, Hal Draper’s The Two Souls of Socialism describes the existential struggle within socialism in how to realise its goals: through reform or revolution, top-down or bottom-up?
If you read those two pamphlets I feel you have a good idea of the essence of socialism, but what if you want to dig deeper into Marxist theory? There’s always been the Marxists Internet Archive in which all the great and not so great theorists of every concievable socialist tendency are available in perfect brotherhood, but it’s a daunting challenge to pick out the bits relevant to your interests. You could of course also read Marx’s own book of theory Das Kapital, but it’s hardly the sort of work you speed through in a day’s beach reading.
But have no fear, help is available if you do want to read it. Via The Soul of Man Under Capitalism, comes David Harvey’s lectures on Capital, in both video and audio form. There’s also an accompanying discussion space, Reading Capital.
More interested in a general overview of Marxism? Louis Proyect has put together a series of articles on his blog to form a introduction to Marxism, examining and discussing various classic Marxist works and subjects. There’s also a mailing list.
Want to focus on Marxism in an economic context? Marxist Economics is the place for you, set up by the International Socialist Tendency, which also runs the In defence of Marxism site.
Know more interesting Marxist or socialist theory sites we should be aware of? Bung em up in the comments.
Books read in June
Yup, you guessed it: time for another list of books read. We’re now exactly six months into 2008 and I’ve read exactly seventyfive books. Fortysix of these were fiction (of which thirtyone were science fiction even), twentynine non-fiction, with history taking hte lion’s share of that with nine books. Of last month’s crop, I was most impressed with Hal Duncan’s second novel, Ink, as well as Paul Cornell’s British Summer Time which I started with low expectations but which turned out to be pretty good.
Ink — Hal Duncan
The sequel to Vellum. Less coherent, slightly disappointing in the end but a worthy followup to Duncan’s first novel.
The Later Roman Empire — Averil Cameron
I’ve become somewhat obsessed by Late Antiquity and the later Roman Empire this year and this is another book on this subject, focusing on the fourth century in particular.
Whose Body? — Dorothy L. Sayers
The first novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. It’s not as good as a her later works of course, but still entertaining and with hints at greatness, though oddly defensive about being a detective novel.
Clouds of Witness — Dorothy L. Sayers
I thought I reread the entire Lord Peter series –or at least the novels, not being too fond of the short stories– in order of publication. This is the second in the series, in which Lord Peter has to save his brother, the Duke of Denver, from the hangman’s gallow.
Swiftly — Adam Roberts
This is Adam Roberts’ latest novel, not to be confused with his 2002 collection of the same name, several stories of which have been reworked here. Sort of a continuation of Swift’s novel, Gulliver Travels, it shows the world roughly a century after Gulliver’s discovery of the Lilliputians and Brobdingnagians. I came to this prejudiced against Roberts, due to my experience with several of his earlier works and I can’t say this prejudice has been overcome.
Unnatural Death — Dorothy L. Sayers
The third novel in the Lord Peter series. Somewhat of a slog to get through, compared to the first two and more interesting for its oblique look at certain aspects of pre-war England than for the story itself.
British Summer Time — Paul Cornell
A surprisingly engaging science fiction novel that takes Christianity seriously without being preachy or zealous. It’s a rarity in science fiction to even mention religion, let alone Christianity and usually when it is mentioned, the author has a hidden agenda for doing so (Orson Scott Card is one persistent offender). Paul Cornell however manages to created characters who are Christians and have it be just one piece of their background, which is refreshing.
On Late Style — Edward Said
Said’s very last book, completed by one of his students, fittingly examining the way in which late works of artists and philosophers like Beethoven, Adorno and Jean Genet share a common philosophy, despite their differences. Slightly incoherent due to the circumstances under which it was published.
Europe of the Ancien Regime 1715-1783 — David Ogg
An old-fashioned, somewhat dated overview of Eighteenth century Europe between the last spasms of the religious wars of the previous centuries and the start of the age of revolution.
The Big Sleep — Raymond Chandler
I’ve never read any Chandler before this, but it was odd to read this, because so much of it has been reworked into cliche by lesser writers.
Righting English That’s Gone Dutch — Joy Burrough – Boenisch
A slim little volume dedicated to show all the common errors and pecularities of style us Dutch make when we write in English. For the most part it’s sensible advice for people who do speak and read English well, but who have less experience writing it, but in some cases the advice given is dubious or slightly too business orientated to be useful for e.g. blog writing… Nevertheless, no doubt you can find examples of most the errors listed in this book on this website.
Dutch smoking ban also hits coffeeshops
They’re often the main reason y’all want to visit Amsterdam: to gawk at the hookers in the Red Light District and to light up a fat old blunt in one of the coffeeshops. Unfortunately your chances to do so are diminishing steadily, as the Amsterdam city council is busy “cleaning up” the Red Light district by buying up properties and chasing away the prostitutes, while from July 1st there will be a nation wide smoking ban for the catering industry. Including coffeeshops.
Which may sound odd, because if there’s one place you go to smoke something, it’s a coffeeshop, but than the law’s intention isn’t to harass smokers (smokers may disagree about this), but to protect workers in the catering industry, just like workers in other industries are protected from their smoking co-workers. Coffeeshop or not, standing in secondhand tobacco smoke for eight hours or longer doesn’t do much for your health. It seems absurd at first, but since we already acknowledge the dangers of secondhand smoke in other industries, why should coffeeshops be exempt? Saying that the employees had a choice not to work in a coffeeshop isn’t good enough; there’s a reason governments make worker protection mandatory. If they don’t, history shows that workers have no protection and no choice but to accept this.
So, smoke ’em if you got them, because tomorrow you will have to do so outside.
Dutch Wikipedia self-censors
Last year, ex-member of parliament Patricia Remak was convicted of benefit fraud, because she claimed wachtgeld for her work as member of parliament when she was already employed as a civil servant at the finance ministry and a member of the provincial states of Noord-Holland. She appealed this ruling, but was convicted again earlier this year. All these facts can be found in the English Wikipedia article about her, but if you look at the same article on The Dutch Wikipedia, no mention is made of this at all.
How did this happen? Simply because Remak complained to Wikipedia that mentioning her conviction was an invasion of her privacy, the details of her conviction falling under the Wet Bescherming Persoonsgegevens (WBP), which meant that only with her permission Wikipedia could’ve mentioned her crimes and conviction. Under the WBP any sort of publication of private data is strictly controlled, and in general can only be used with permission. A criminal record is one example of the sort of data that’s protected under the WBP, so Remakr had a case if she was just an ordinary citizen. However, as an ex-member of parliament, who in large part is only noticable for her conviction, the details of her crime and conviction are fair game, as shown by the simple fact that her case was widely reported on in the Dutch papers, not something that happens with every conviction for benefit fraud. It is a bit cheeky if understandable to then object to publication in Wikipedia, because who wants to be known as a benefit cheat forever?
It is disappointing however to see Wikipedia cave in, as by doing so it has been deliberately falsified. At the moment, everybodyknows Remak was a benefit cheat and was convicted for it, but how many people will remember this in five years time? In ten? In a hundred? How many people will take the Wikipedia article at face value and not realise that Remak was not just your average member of parliament, but one shown unworthy of the trust of the voters by committing fraud? And if it’s this easy to let Wikipedia remove unpleasant facts about yourself, how many other people and companies will start doing so? An encyclopedia cannot be reliable if unpleasant truths are omitted when people object to them.