Conservative Book Talk

About a month ago I joined Team Cringely, a group of volunteers looking to put a rover on the moon as a part of the Google Lunar X Prize. This group is a loose organization of volunteers who want to participate in space but haven’t the opportunity to do so. Growing up, only two careers interested me. One was to be an astronaut. I loved to see pictures of space and wistfully dreamed of space travel to see those sights in person.

I remember disappointment upon discovering that I would need to have multiple doctorates and being lucky to get a place on a NASA shuttle.

Talk about a depressing day.

Now I can live my dream vicariously through this mission. But those of us consisting of Team Cringely (and our opponents) weren’t the first to desire the opportunity to go to the moon. NASA wasn’t the first organization either. For more than a century, men like Jules Verne looked at the mistress of the night and wondered what men would find on the moon.

In this classic pair of stories, Barbicane, Ardan, and Nicholl overcome cultural and personal grievances to join forces as emissaries to the moon. It all began with the bored members of the Baltimore Gun Club. The Baltimore Gun Club consisted of men who had studied (invented and experimented) gunnery during the Civil War; now, bored, they sought a new challenge. This new challenge was to launch a cannonball at the moon. Eventually, the Frenchman, Michelle Ardan, decided that he wanted to fly to the moon and sailed to Florida to enter the projectile.

This action of Ardan, led to a prolonged discussion about the habitability of the moon and the precautions necessary for a man to travel in space. Much of the story lies in discussions about the nature of the moon, it’s past and present state of habitability, and the nature of space travel. Much of this will probably be a tad bit tedious for some, but I found it somewhat interesting. Given that hindsight is 20-20, it is easy to see the errors being made. But, when one tries to look at it from the perspective of an author writing in 1865, the science and reasoning is much less comical and far more impressive. Verne had many facts correct or at least close to correct.

As an aside, one flaw that I have noticed with the reasonings of this generation of authors is this: They made many assumptions that appeared reasonable at first blush, and never challenged them. In this work, the assumption of the three was that Selenites must exists. Ardan was very typical of the thinking. He wanted it to be so and so it was.

But, that was typical Verne. He lived in a world decades or centuries ahead of his time. Verne obviously had great respect for the Americans. Though often in a backhanded manner, Verne continuously praised the American people for their ingenuity, skillfulness and bravery. It was his opinion (as seen in this work) that only Americans would be brave and foolhardy enough to pull off an endeavor of this magnitude.

And that brings me back to the present: Can a disparate team of men and women put a rover on the moon for less than $4 million? Normal people say no. Team Cringely begs to differ.
This is not one of Verne’s better stories, but worth reading if for no other reason than that it is Verne.

Here are the links:
Amazon: From Earth to the Moon; Round the Moon
Gutenberg: From Earth to the Moon (text)
Librivox: From Earth to the Moon (audio)
Gutenberg: Round the Moon (text)
Librivox: Round the Moon (audio)

Tags: books, fiction, Google, Google Lunar X Prize, Jules Verne, Matt Gardenghi, moon, review, Science, Team Cringely

Hercule P. is a Private Detective of some repute in London, so he gets threatening letters every week. His intuition sends warning signals, however, at one particular letter from a person claiming to want 26 people dead– in alphabetical order. Several bragging letters and corresponding murders later, our hero has no clues and fewer ideas. The family and friends of the first three victims get together to help Hercule solve the mystery, but how will they solve it without a single shred of evidence?

Good: I can see why Agatha Christie is so beloved: her writing style here really draws the reader in and makes them anxious to know more (even if they get irritated with Hercule alot, but more on that later). The whole question of who the ABC murderer is, and what his motivations are, is framed very convincingly. All the characters are well rounded, and make for convincing figures in the story. Every person who speaks is given a little bit of dimension, making for lots of believable rabbit trails. The story’s details dip into horror territory just enough to satisfy fans of that genre, but overall the structure is a very solid mystery. Some of the banter between Hercule and other people is really funny, but the plot never really deviates from its you’ll-never-guess-who-done-it focus.

Bad: Hercule’s desire to get into the mind of the bad guy, while the ultimate way he solves the mystery, results in some vivid recounting of a murder, more than anyone under 13 really needs to know. Also, there are anti-prison comments made by our sidekick that imply its better to kill someone than to bring them to justice if the result is a prison sentence. While it would be interesting to discuss the merits of execution vs. life in jail, the sidekick doesn’t frame it as an argument over what kind of punishment. Merely condemning the punishment itself implys that no punishment would be better, and the Bible is clear on the role of government in administering justice. Its a fairly minor series of comments, but worth noting as a heads-up.

Overall: I like three things about murder mysteries in general; a) I can figure out what is going to happen in the future because of the clues the main hero gets, b) whenever I can’t figure out what’s going on, the main hero can and thus earns my respect, and c) the significance of murdering another person is a major reason why the murderer being brought to justice is a good thing, regardless of why they decided to kill in the first place, and brings a strong sense of victory when they are brought to justice. While death has plenty of gravity associated with it herein, when we finally find out whodunit, its very casual. The reason it has to be so casual is that there is no evidence and thus no clues pointing to the murderer. Our hero’s intuition finally solves the case, (which seems kinda pointless since all the clues he cites are actually faked in order to obtain a confession). But for most of the book, no one has any idea what’s going on, and can’t find any evidence that would help them, so I never really developed any repoire with Hercule, as he never showed his famous intelligence until the last few pages. However, now I know what the classic cozy English murder mystery is like, and its not half bad. If I preferred to be surprised in the end, or to appreciate the hero because of his perseverance in the face of nothing to go on, then I would probably have loved this book. As it is, I enjoyed the chase part (and now, Stephen, you have permission to regale me on Agatha Christie in the comments section, since reading this was your idea), and the conclusion was a twist I never saw coming. If you like to be surprised, you’ll enjoy this book.

This will be my final post in my series on Harry Potter. Book six, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, was published just a few weeks ago. It broke pretty much every publishing record for a new release and was in the media headlines for days. I won’t go into the plot too much in case some of you decide to read the series. I hate it when I’m reading an article on a book (particularly fiction) and it spoils the story for me. I will try to refrain from doing that.

Book six is a very interesting read and it is shorter than Book five, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Like previous Potter books, Rowling includes a wide variety of characters in a wide variety of situations. The plot moves fairly quickly and the ending surprised some people. Like most fiction writers, Rowling provides some information and subplots that are somewhat interesting, but not critical to the story. The subplots about Harry and Ginny Weasley and pretty much dating in general do little to further the story. In my opinion this whole subplot could be removed without really hurting the story. What’s more, this particular subplot inserts some questions about morality and objectionable elements.

A large portion of the book is given to discussing the history of the recent wizarding world, particularly the background and rise of Tom Riddle Jr. a.k.a. Lord Voldemort. I found this information interesting and enjoyed seeing how Rowling began to tie some of the stories loose threads together. Other people that I have talked to did not care for this material as much I do. Oh well, maybe it’s because I’m a history person. The book contains the usual smattering of objectionable elements including expletives, somewhat suggestive, language, and most importantly moral ambiguity.

This last point is what I want to discuss for the remainder of this post. My biggest objection to the whole Harry Potter series is Rowling’s ambiguous presentation of morality and ethics. A distorted worldview is probably the most common and subtle of all objectionable elements. An author’s beliefs shape the way he presents his story and the message he is trying to convey. On this point I disagree with the great writer and critic Edgar Allen Poe because I believe all writing is didactic (I mean by that that all writing is meant to convey some message or view).

As humans, our worldviews and perspectives are shaped by what we observe and study. Everything we see or do contributes to how we perceive the world. As a conservative Christian I believe that the Bible is the inerrant Word of God and is trustworthy in all of its statements and is the single rule of life and the standard by which all mankind is to be held accountable. My close study of the Bible affects the way I view the world. The worldview and perspective of the Biblical writers influences my world view and perspective. This concept is so basic, I almost feel like I’m insulting your intelligence by discussing this. Forgive me, but I thought it would be good to lay this foundation before I move on in my larger discussion.

People who read Harry Potter are influenced by what they read. The only two options are that they are influenced either positively or negatively. How you determine whether the influence is negative or positive depends on the presuppositions that you bring with you as you read the book. The Harry Potter books present truth as relative and promote a form of situational ethics. Rowling fails to make a clear distinction between those who are good and those who are evil. Throughout all of the books good characters are presented as breaking rules, cheating, lying, and directly disobeying authority. Instead of their receiving punishment for these transgressions, the characters are often rewarded or end up as heroes because they broke the rules. I will say that at least the evil characters are presented as such and are never really made out to be positive or good. It’s just the “good” characters that can’t make up their minds.

I could cite countless examples from the books, but I’ll spare you in this present work. Basically, my problem with Harry Potter is that the world view promotes relative morality and situational ethics. As a Christian this flies in the face of some of my most foundational beliefs and presuppositions. I have enjoyed reading the Harry Potter books, though I would caution others who would like to read them to exert discretion and understanding in their reading. I would definitely not recommend them to be read by children due to their many objectionable elements (especially the false worldview which could harm their developing beliefs). Ironically the books are marketed and supposedly written as children’s books.

Thanks for reading my final post in this series. Thank you for your patience as I wrote this final article. I wish I could spend more time developing this series, but time will not permit me. As always, please share any comments or criticisms that you might have.

Tags: fantasy, Tim Taylor