Conservative Book Talk

This isn’t a book review in the traditional sense, mostly because I am not certain I want to tell people what I just read. We’ll get back to that. What I did do was this: I explored two genres that I have traditionally frowned upon and was surprised at my findings.

First, was anime. Now, anime is a Japanese style of cartoon (manga == comic book; anime == cartoon). I have had a negative approach to anime because those I knew who liked it also tended toward more adult materials. Turns out that in the Oriental societies, anime is considered to be an art form equal with live action cinematography. Anime runs the gamut from children’s shows to adult action flicks and everything else. Now one problem with anime in the US is that it is seems to be closely linked to pornography. I don’t recommend performing Google searches on anime as you will often be just one or two clicks away from seriously objectionable content. If you read (and can search in) Japanese then your search will be less problematic.

So, a few weeks back, I came in contact with anime over the course of daily life and as usual my gut reaction was to condemn it. Then I recalled a friend who had told me about how anime in Japan is no different then Disney (or Pixar) films in the US. So I decided I should get to know the genre a bit better before writing it off. moreover, it turns out that Disney has released several films by Hayao Miyazaki. These films have been re-dubbed with experienced US actors that include the famed Patrick Stewart.

Turns out my friend was right. I’ll probably not go digging up anime because its tough to find good stuff in the US, but I learned that I shouldn’t discount it as a style or genre. What I watched was excellent material with good (albeit different due to Eastern perspectives) stories.

Result: if you have the opportunity to watch Miyazaki movies like Castle In The Sky or Porco Rosso, take the chance and watch them to broaden your horizons. Another good anime is Steamboy which has an interesting discussion about the role of science within society.

Next I read Marvin Olasky’s article in a recent World Magazine. He spoke highly of another genre that I typically disdained: graphic novels. Now if you are like me, you look at a graphic novel and see pictures instead of words. Obviously it is inferior to real novels, right? Or maybe not so much. Since I was trying out new genres, I went to the library and requested the only one I knew. I was both surprised, impressed and saddened.

Let’s start with the good: the story was well written and told primarily through pictures. It amazed me that quite a few of the first ten pages had few words. Of those words, most were in Arabic. Yet intriguingly, I knew exactly what was going on as if the author had spent pages detailing the scenes. This was surprising. The skill used to tell the story was fantastic.

The depth of the author’s story and literary knowledge also surprised and impressed me. I wouldn’t have expected an author with such knowledge and skill to be writing extended comic books. Maybe there’s something to these….

One thought before I reach the bad. I do not see graphic novels being a good substitute for books because they lack words. That might sound odd, but actual words on a page can boost spelling, grammar skills and more accurately direct your thinking than a picture. In some ways, they complement each other, or can do so if both are well written stories.

The bad: graphic images and content littered several sections of the book. This was a great disappointment not just because the material was offensive, but because there was so much talent wasted here. I wish I could recommend the book, but I can’t and won’t.

This lead me to a decision: do I continue reading this one book despite its obvious problems just so I could explore a new genre, do I just write off the genre due to the content of this book (and quit reading it), or do I wait until a more promising sample manages to cross my path? My decision was to keep reading, though I am not sure if I should have.

What do you do when you reach objectionable material? Some material in a book can be ignored. I can turn a page or ignore some element. (Mind you I try not to make it a habit to have to deal with such issues, and these are typically only a problem in novels.) With a movie, I would probably and usually shut it off. With a graphic novel, a picture is worth a thousand words. You can skip a page, but you still saw several thousand words….

Honestly, I continued partially because I wanted to read the story and partially because I wanted to learn more about the genre. Now, I’m not sure if either reason was a legitimate reason.

What do you do when presented with objectionable elements?

Tags: Anime, books, fiction, Genre, Graphic Novels, Matt Gardenghi

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