World War Z, Moo

I should first mention that these two books have absolutely nothing in common as far as subject matter is concerned. Max Brooks' World War Z (An Oral History of the Zombie War)is a futuristic story about what would happen if our world suffered an infestation of zombies, while Moo, by Jane Smiley, is a satirical but also at times kind-hearted story about the sins and redemptions of a small university community. You might say that the only thing these two books have in common is that I read them at the same time. This was because I am absolutely terrified of zombies ever since seeing the movie 28 Days Later, and I couldn't read World War Z before bed or any other time when I was likely to be nervous about things. Moo was very calming to read, while WWZ was thrilling and mesmerizing.

Actually, though, one other thing the two books do have in common is the use of a pastiche technique, one story made up of many different people's points of view. They are both trying to use the juxtaposition of limited perspectives to give a sense of total perspective, and that is fairly cool.

I have thought quite a lot about what underlies zombie stories, what psychological condition they are meant to grip (and chew) on. I decided that zombie stories are to a great extent about alienation: the feeling that there are people out there who look like me but who cannot be understood through analogy to myself; their actions are detrimental to my interests; they cannot be reasoned with; and--as things get worse--anyone, even my nearest and dearest, can get like this. Almost all zombie stories seem to have two major elements, first the metamorphosis of formerly close companions into zombifies, and second, the realization that (as conditions worsen) non-zombies become as deadly as zombies. Zombie stories are therefore an interesting example of something that contains both the symbol and the thing it's supposed to symbolize (I mean just in case you missed it, y'know?). Knowing the formula and recognizing its heavy-handedness doesn't make these stories less scary to me however!

WWZ's spin on the formula is interesting because what the author is clearly interested in is an allegory of global politics: nations responding to the crisis in ways that are characteristic of them. A further underlying significance of the zombie threat was also the problem of overpopulation. I'm not sure the author consciously meant that, but it makes some of the scenes more chilling if one uses "zombie" as a symbol for "undesirable excess population." (In 28 Days Later the formula could be summarized as "zombie" = "irrational violence".) Overall, though, the book haunted me only about a tenth as much as 28 Days Later did. Maybe it's not having to actually see all the nastiness.

As for Moo, it had its downside in that it descended into a certain amount of stereotyping. On the other hand, the interactions among partially stereotypical characters were often funny and unexpected. There were so many balls being juggled that I didn't really mind them not having all that many individual features. The book portrayed academia as a system that is basically broken but manages to limp along because some of its parts work very well (like the all-powerful secretary to the Provost, Mrs. Walker), well enough to (just barely) compensate for those parts that work really badly. Most people, including the students, just do their jobs in a mediocre and ordinary sort of way, occasionally rising above their ordinary selves to do something better. (And occasionally sinking lower.) The end result is that most wickedness gets some punishment, and most goodness gets some kind of small reward. But it happens in such a muddling way!

I wonder if academia is really like that? Well, even if it is I probably will only ever have the kind of partial view most of the characters in Moo do, so I suppose I won't have to worry overmuch about it!

The Mission Song, Spook Country

I'm a little behind with the book draft, as I finished John LeCarre's The Mission Song quite some time before the wedding, I think in early June. It was a really good one, though. One complaint I have about LeCarre (whom in general I adore) is how he sometimes takes everything away from you at the end, leaves not even a shred of anything good. This is especially true of the later stuff, The Constant Gardener, Absolute Friends. Both of which, don't get me wrong, I read avidly. But I couldn't be satisfied, because they were SUCH total downers. The Mission Song is really desperate and doesn't leave you much but it does leave you something. I found the main character interesting in his abilities and his flaws. The love affair was perhaps a little less convincing, but not bad either. I liked seeing LeCarre stretch to portray a biracial hero. It was a stretch, maybe not all the way convincing, but not bad either. Overall, I'd rate the book about like The Taylor of Panama, not quite up with my all-time favorites, the Smiley series and Single and Single. Yes, I've read nearly everything by LeCarre, though I'm still working through a few of the more obscure ones...

William Gibson's Spook Country, which I read slowly over the time I was in Hawaii and after I got back, was less inspired. I would say it's William Gibson phoning it in. That's not to say it wasn't pretty exciting in places, because the guy does really know how to tell a story. It's just that, well it had a few problems. One was thinness. None of the characters seemed really human. They were just collections of character traits and psychological ticks, which was especially disappointing in the characters you really wanted to care about, like Tito, Milgrim, and I guess Hollis to some extent. Lots of storylines going at the same time. They were juggled smoothly enough, but there was so little--even no--personal connection among them. They connected event-wise, plot-wise, but not in any human way, except superficially. That made them all seem solipsistic, locked into their individual and unconnecting worlds.

Biggest turn-offs: rockstar card was overplayed (I just don't care enough about made-up fans of made-up bands); the fascination with Google and wireless networks, which make the book feel dated before it's even dated--come on, it's science fiction, make some shit up; also, the spy stuff felt very unreal, especially compared to LeCarre. Of course, it's not really fair to compare Gibson out of his own territory to LeCarre in his own territory. But then again, Gibson ventured there and probably should have read more LeCarre (or Graham Greene) before doing so. Favorite bits: action sequences with the odd Cuban god-figures, and the Cuban-Chinese characters in general. It was a page-turner, but it really didn't measure up even to some of his other later stuff, like Pattern Recognition.