LRB | Alex de Waal : Chasing Ghosts
"Alex de Waal on the rise and fall of militant Islam in the Horn of Africa"
Monday, August 22, 2005
A Girl's Guide to Killing
"Even if you ignore the generally deplorable level of the writing (which is surely an unintentional aspect of the formula), these novels scrupulously observe all the basic chick-lit conventions: the giddy girls in their glamorous jobs, the shopping sprees and fashion makeovers, the gossipy friends, the disastrous dates and the wry comic voice of a heroine so adorable she could be . . . you.
Adding a mystery component does more than give a bubble-headed form a sturdier narrative structure. By challenging the flighty heroine to solve a crime, it offers her the chance both to prove her character and fire up her sex life.
... However stressful her detective chores, the chick-lit heroine can always depend on the loyalty of supportive friends (the customary allotment includes one gay guy and one brassy girlfriend who dresses like a hooker and may even be one). But no matter how successful she is at crime busting, she'll never satisfy her clueless family..."
"Even if you ignore the generally deplorable level of the writing (which is surely an unintentional aspect of the formula), these novels scrupulously observe all the basic chick-lit conventions: the giddy girls in their glamorous jobs, the shopping sprees and fashion makeovers, the gossipy friends, the disastrous dates and the wry comic voice of a heroine so adorable she could be . . . you.
Adding a mystery component does more than give a bubble-headed form a sturdier narrative structure. By challenging the flighty heroine to solve a crime, it offers her the chance both to prove her character and fire up her sex life.
... However stressful her detective chores, the chick-lit heroine can always depend on the loyalty of supportive friends (the customary allotment includes one gay guy and one brassy girlfriend who dresses like a hooker and may even be one). But no matter how successful she is at crime busting, she'll never satisfy her clueless family..."
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
The Baidu Story
"Baidu" was inspired by a poem written more than 800 years ago during the Song Dynasty. The poem compares the search for a retreating beauty amid chaotic glamour with the search for one's dream while confronted by life's many obstacles. ".hundreds and thousands of times, for her I searched in chaos, suddenly, I turned by chance, to where the lights were waning, and there she stood."
What if we don’t act now?
"The first thing to note is that ‘what if?’ history is part of a more general trend, one which takes issue with linear narrative and sees life as a multiform flow. The ‘hard’ sciences seem to be haunted by the randomness of life and possible alternative versions of reality: as Stephen Jay Gould put it, ‘wind back the film of life and play it again. The history of evolution will be totally different.’ This perception of our reality as only one of the possible outcomes of an ‘open’ situation, the notion that other possible outcomes continue to haunt our ‘true’ reality, conferring on it an extreme fragility and contingency..."
"The first thing to note is that ‘what if?’ history is part of a more general trend, one which takes issue with linear narrative and sees life as a multiform flow. The ‘hard’ sciences seem to be haunted by the randomness of life and possible alternative versions of reality: as Stephen Jay Gould put it, ‘wind back the film of life and play it again. The history of evolution will be totally different.’ This perception of our reality as only one of the possible outcomes of an ‘open’ situation, the notion that other possible outcomes continue to haunt our ‘true’ reality, conferring on it an extreme fragility and contingency..."
Comment: A life with no purpose
"It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us."
"It seems to me that we are the happy ones. We, alone among organisms, who perceive eternity, and know that the world will carry on without us."
Comment: It's good to talk, but we've lost the art of conversation
Creativity and freedom have given way to egotism and adversarialism
Creativity and freedom have given way to egotism and adversarialism
Thursday, August 11, 2005
Get knitting
"Alzheimer’s was revived in about 1970, not by the medical profession, but because the children of senile Americans began clamouring for more attention, more funds for research, more support for care. Alzheimer’s as a diagnosis is a product of advocacy groups. It is an absolutely objective neurological condition, but it might not have been remembered had it not been for the vigorous lobbying of associations of families whose elderly members had dementia. The history of late 20th-century medicine will be not only a history of truly breathtaking triumphs, especially in the field of engineering that we call surgery, and a history of the pharmacological industry, but also a history of advocacy groups. Think of autism."
"Alzheimer’s was revived in about 1970, not by the medical profession, but because the children of senile Americans began clamouring for more attention, more funds for research, more support for care. Alzheimer’s as a diagnosis is a product of advocacy groups. It is an absolutely objective neurological condition, but it might not have been remembered had it not been for the vigorous lobbying of associations of families whose elderly members had dementia. The history of late 20th-century medicine will be not only a history of truly breathtaking triumphs, especially in the field of engineering that we call surgery, and a history of the pharmacological industry, but also a history of advocacy groups. Think of autism."
The time of our lives
"I was reading the other day the memoirs of an obscure late 19th-century politician called Farquharson, who at one point turned aside from his story to wonder what right he had to assume that readers would find any interest in what he had written. "Well wondered, old boy", I was tempted to write in the margin."
"I was reading the other day the memoirs of an obscure late 19th-century politician called Farquharson, who at one point turned aside from his story to wonder what right he had to assume that readers would find any interest in what he had written. "Well wondered, old boy", I was tempted to write in the margin."
Comment: Unholy strictures
"Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment."
"Human beings, in nearly all cultures, have long engaged in a rather strange activity. They have taken a literary text, given it special status and attempted to live according to its precepts. These texts are usually of considerable antiquity yet they are expected to throw light on situations that their authors could not have imagined. In times of crisis, people turn to their scriptures with renewed zest and, with much creative ingenuity, compel them to speak to their current predicament. We are seeing a great deal of scriptural activity at the moment."
Friday, August 05, 2005
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Tuesday, August 02, 2005
Monday, August 01, 2005
He dreamt an old dream, of three knights in white cloaks, and a tower long fallen, and Lyanna in her bed of blood.
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull. Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Rowland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had know their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in the seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise..."
"Lord Eddard," a man echoed from the dark.
Groaning, Eddard Stark opened his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Tower of the Hand...
In the dream his friends rode with him, as they had in life. Proud Martyn Cassel, Jory's father; faithful Theo Wull. Ethan Glover, who had been Brandon's squire; Ser Mark Ryswell, soft of speech and gentle of heart; the crannogman, Rowland Reed; Lord Dustin on his great red stallion. Ned had know their faces as well as he knew his own once, but the years leech at a man's memories, even those he has vowed never to forget. In the dream they were only shadows, grey wraiths on horses made of mist.
They were seven, facing three. In the dream as it had been in life. Yet these were no ordinary three. They waited before the round tower, the red mountains of Dorne at their backs, their white cloaks blowing in the wind. And these were no shadows; their faces burned clear, even now. Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning, had a sad smile on his lips. The hilt of the greatsword Dawn poked up over his right shoulder. Ser Oswell Whent was on one knee, sharpening his blade with a whetstone. Across his white-enameled helm, the black bat of his House spread its wings. Between them stood fierce old Ser Gerold Hightower, the White Bull, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard.
"I looked for you on the Trident," Ned said to them.
"We were not there," Ser Gerold answered.
"Woe to the Usurper if we had been," said Ser Oswell.
"When King's Landing fell, Ser Jaime slew your king with a golden sword, and I wondered where you were."
"Far away," Ser Gerold said, "or Aerys would yet sit on the Iron Throne, and our false brother would burn in the seven hells."
"I came down on Storm's End to lift the siege," Ned told them, "and the Lords Tyrell and Redwyne dipped their banners, and all their knights bent the knee to pledge us fealty. I was certain you would be among them."
"our knees do not bend easily," said Ser Arthur Dayne.
"Ser Willem Darry is fled to Dragonstone, with your queen and Prince Viserys. I thought you might have sailed with him."
"Ser Willem is a good man and true," said Ser Oswell.
"But not of the Kingsguard," Ser Gerold pointed out. "The Kingsguard does not flee."
"Then or now," said Ser Arthur. He donned his helm.
"We swore a vow," explained old Ser Gerold.
Ned's wraiths moved up beside him, with shadow swords in hand. They were seven against three.
"And now it begins," said Ser Arthur Dayne, the Sword of the Morning. He unsheathed Dawn and held it with both hands. The blade was pale as milkglass, alive with light.
"No," Ned said with sadness in his voice. "Now it ends." As they came together in a rush of steel and shadow, he could hear Lyanna screaming. "Eddard!" she called. A storm of rose petals blew across a blood-streaked sky, as blue as the eyes of death.
"Lord Eddard," Lyanna called again.
"I promise," he whispered. "Lya, I promise..."
"Lord Eddard," a man echoed from the dark.
Groaning, Eddard Stark opened his eyes. Moonlight streamed through the tall windows of the Tower of the Hand...
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