I’M READING AS FAST AS I CAN (APRIL 2019 EDITION)

[defrog]

Another slow month – you can probably blame Harlan Ellison for that. I’ll explain next month, possibly.

American War by Omar El Akkad

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I’m not big on war novels, but I picked this up largely because the level of socio-political polarization in America and occasional threats of secession from certain groups occasionally raised speculation from pundits if a second Civil War might ever happen. This debut novel from Omar El Akkad doesn’t actually take this as a starting point, but it does imagine a scenario in which a second Civil does take place in the future – in this case, from 2074 to 2095.

The southern states of MS, AL, GA and SC secede – this time over being forced by the federal govt to give up fossil fuels – and form the Free Southern States. War breaks out after the US president is assassinated and protesters are massacred by US troops in South Carolina. The war is a mix of conventional warfare, drone strikes and insurgent terrorism (by Southern militia groups). The Pacific Northwest states are also considering secession, and the southern border states have been mostly taken over by Mexico. Also, thanks to climate change, Florida and New Orleans are mostly underwater. This is the backdrop for the story of Sarat Chestnut, a girl whose ends up in a refugee camp in MS at age 6 and becomes radicalized as a terrorist for the South.

For me, the backdrop itself is problematic – some parts make sense, others don’t, especially if yr trying to trace some sort of continuity between 2019 and 2074. The America described here seems so detached from America today that it almost could have been set anywhere. That said, perhaps this was intentional – El Akkad’s aim here isn't to predict the future but to essentially create a framework in which to transplant the Middle Eastern experience of perpetual war and conflict over the last 35 years or so to US soil – complete with random drone strikes, suicide bombings, torture sites, foreign meddling, refugee camps, and endless cycles of violence that go on so long that no one remembers why they’re fighting. On that level, the novel is an interesting (if depressing) thought experiment.


Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this in college ages ago in one of those classes where they overanalyze every detail, so it wasn’t much fun. And yet the story – or at least its shadows – of Marlow steaming up the Congo river towards the mysterious mad genius Kurtz somehow stuck with me. Anyway, I recently had an urge to reread it, and since I’d just finished Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart – which he wrote as a rebuttal of Conrad’s portrayal of African natives – I decided this would be the perfect follow-up. I was interested to see how my perception of the book might change in terms of (1) reading it for fun, and (2) a heightened awareness of what British imperialism looked like from the locals’ POV.

For me, the book still has that murky nightmarish quality as Marlow tries to explain the impact that the adventure and his meeting with Kurtz had on him and his entire worldview. Conrad had a tendency to be wordy and lyrical to the point of distraction, but here it serves to create the necessary mesmerizing atmosphere for the story, which itself is still solid. The chief downside in terms of format or structure is writing Marlow’s tale as a monologue told to his colleagues on a boat – a literary trope I’ve never cared for because writers almost always blow it by writing it as standard prose instead of as someone speaking. Conrad is no exception.

The other downside is of course the racist stereotyping that Achebe complained about, although to be fair to Conrad, his approach is an accurate reflection of how white Westerners perceived Africa in general (a continent to exploit and plunder) and its indigenous population (uncivilized savages), and Conrad arguably sees more humanity in at least some of the African characters than many of his contemporaries – he’s certainly not sympathetic with the imperialists. Still, I can’t blame Achebe and other Africans for being critical, and at the very least I would recommend reading Heart of Darkness and Things Fall Apart (or equivalent) back to back as a way of bringing balance to the Force.

(Fun Fact 1: I read Heart of Darkness before Apocalypse Now came out, and having never watched that film, it wasn’t until years later I knew the film was based on it – hence my confusion when one of my Army roommates saw the book on my shelf and asked me if it was about Vietnam.)

(Fun Fact 2: This edition comes bundled with Conrad’s diary of his experience piloting a steamship in the Congo that inspired the novel. Three words: For completists only.)

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