Pyongyang: A Journey in North Korea by Guy Delisle (2004)

Sometime during my teenage years, my mom started listening habitually to NPR. In fact, if you were to walk through her house today, I guarantee that you would never be out of earshot of one radio or other tuned in to some human interest story about a guy who has built a solar-powered wildlife shelter for tuna...or something. Now, as a young lad I just wanted to jam to punk rock, and I had no time for BBC News and Talk of the Nation, because those things were obstacles to me listening to And Out Come The Wolves 50 times a day.

But a few months ago my iPod ran out of batteries during my commute and by some masochistic impulse I switched on the radio and tuned into NPR, and it's since gotten its grimy hooks into me. What was an unbearable ordeal to me as a rambunctious youngster has turned into a daily ritual: listening to NPR while driving.

Why on earth am I telling you this? Well, the other day there was a news piece on North Korea and one of the commentators mentioned, in passing, Guy Delisle's 2004 autobiographical graphic novel Pyongyang. I was so blown away by the premise that I went out immediately and bought a copy.

Here is an interesting tidbit that you can casually throw into conversation at a cocktail party: a large amount of conventional (non-computer) animation for Western firms is done in North Korea, including Disney blockbusters like The Lion King and Pocahontas. The (maniacal) North Korean state owns several animation companies that do a lot of the "grunt" work for large foreign companies. It's very similar to most industries, really. Our Nikes, for instance, are designed in Oregon and sold in Chicago, but they're stitched together by toddlers in Kathmandu, or wherever.

Anyway, the Western companies send liaisons and conceptual artists to North Korea to oversee production. Guy Deslisle is one of these. A Canadian animator, he traveled to North Korea to work at SEK Studios, one of North Korea's largest animation companies, on behalf of his Canadian employer. As opposed to the incredibly railroaded and brief visits of some American journalists that you may have seen (like the Vice Magazine report), Delisle was given a surprising amount of access, since he was A.) an employee and not a tourist, and B.) not American. He had to be accompanied by a guide at all times, like all foreigners, but he didn't bring a camera with him and thus he had a lot more leeway to wander off than would be given to a journalist. However, as an artist, Delisle was able to later draw clear depictions of what he saw from memory, and these drawings became Pyongyang.

I am so in love with this premise that I was willing to overlook several things that would otherwise have been obstacles to me enjoying the book. For one thing, I've never liked comic books. This is strange, because I've been a dork my entire life and I've always proudly displayed all the figurative badges of dorkdom -- Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Magic: The Gathering, etc. I just never connected with comics. It wasn't a lack of exposure; growing up in the Chicago suburbs it is literally impossible for a boy to not own a few comic books at some point. I just never really felt like they provided a logical path for my eye to follow, and generally just found them visually confusing. It didn't help that most superhero-oriented comics have pretty weak stories. I had a vivid imagination as a kid and even back then I found most of the stories overwrought and pointless. I got into chapter books at a pretty early age (not to brag or anything), and so I never really had a use for comics, and thus never formed the sort of lifelong attachment to them that a lot of men my age seem to have.

On that score, I subsequently never got into the whole "indie" "graphic novel" scene, and in a lot of cases I find that sort of thing a bit repellent. Keep in mind this is just my personal prejudice talking, and I have no doubt that there are artists creating worthwhile works of power and beauty within the medium, but the basic line drawings and overly-confessional tone of most of the indie comics I've perused seem almost knowingly infantile. A bit cutesy, to put it more simply. When an artist makes a conscious decision to make his main character's face a couple of lines and dots, they are generally removing much of the visual medium's potential for emotional nuance, and that means it falls to the dialogue to explain a bit too much to the reader. And given that a few small panels are in their own right a space-limited forum in which to express ideas, the finished product usually comes out facile and overly simple, thus giving off a childish quality, whether intentional or not. Essentially what I'm saying is that indie comics aren't really my bag, baby.

However, Pyongyang is a fascinating case where the medium is a natural consequence of the creator's real-life circumstances (wanting to depict the weirdness of life in North Korea without the use of a camera), and its interest is dependent on that. This book undeniably works best as a graphic novel, and for that I am duly impressed as a non-comics fan. In many cases, the surreal facts of living in the world's most viciously totalitarian state are softened by Delisle's gentle, spare visual style; much of this imagery is the definition of "politically charged" and the fact that it is delivered in this form takes much of the edge off and allows for more rational analysis.

That is not to say that the content of this book is any less bizarre and shocking. The only way you wouldn't know about the North Korean regime's sadistic draconian grip on the whole of its population would be if...well, if you lived in North Korea. This final bastion of brutally severe Stalinism is the most closed and secretive society on the planet, and to catch even a glimpse of its daily goings-on is to see unadulterated surrealism. There is a pervasive cult of personality built up around Kim Il-sung, the North's founding dictator who, despite the disadvantage of being dead for 17 years, is still officially President. Nearly meeting him in (short, pudgy) stature is his son and successor, Kim Jong-il, celebrated psychopath and horror film enthusiast. Together they form the world's only communist familial dynasty.

An interesting theme that Delisle explores is this sort of extreme conversational opacity that I experienced many times during my stint in China. When talking to somebody about politics (I used to try to talk to my coworkers at my dad's office), it's generally like having a conversation with a very polite brick wall. If you ask someone a relatively straightforward question, like "Don't you think it would be nice if you could express your dissatisfaction with something your government is doing?", you will most likely get an extremely circular and convoluted answer that winds up proclaiming that the state is amazing, God bless the state. It's this weird mixture of propagandist cultural programming and extreme Asian politeness that runs the gamut from coming across as naive to being viciously passive aggressive. In Pyongyang, Delisle depicts this sort of exchange quite deftly, and in varied situations. I was impressed with his ability to capture the essence of its weirdness.

Another recurring motif is the limited resources of North Korea and the bizarre hierarchy of priorities that dictates how those resources are used. Take electricity, for instance. Much of the 50-story hotel Delisle lives in during his stay is completely unlit. At night the city is plunged into darkness, as rationing does not allow the citizens to even light their own apartments. However, when foreign delegations stay at the hotel, the entire thing is brightly lit for the duration of their stay to give the impression that energy conservation isn't an issue. When Delisle is given a tour of the elaborately pointless Pyongyang subway system, it too is completely illuminated. Issues like this are tied up with the general Asian cultural feature of "saving face", twisted up with bizarre North Korean logic and social control.

In much the same vein, Delisle is taken on many "impromptu" (they are very carefully timed and arranged) visits to various North Korean cultural landmarks, like a visit to a museum that is full of gifts to the Dear Leader from governments around the world, which range from comically everyday items like forks to gold to elephant tusks. There is also a museum featuring paintings of American soldiers forcing a child to drink motor oil. Everything that is shown in North Korea serves a dual purpose: to deify the elder or younger Kim, and to undermine the global powers that threaten North Korea's supposed hegemony. The gap between this internal image of North Korea and its leaders and the opposing reality is so bizarre that it's funny, and Delisle capitalizes on this absurdity frequently.

Any foreigner living in Pyongyang must inevitably confront feelings of guilt. After all, foreigners live like members of the government's ruling elite; they eat piles of oily food each night while people mere miles away are literally starving to death. I thought Delisle could have done a more thorough job exploring this particular avenue, but he does reference these guilty feelings a few times and the human mind, after all, is adept at normalizing strange circumstances.

To that end, Delisle injects quite a bit of wry humor, if not outright fun, into the proceedings. With not much else to do, he often gently pokes fun at his omnipresent guides, and the jokes are made much funnier by the simple fact that they are obliviously humorless throughout. To rise to a position where one becomes the face of the country for foreigners, a North Korean must distinguish themselves as being a fanatical ideologue, and this unwavering devotion to the regime is actually quite funny in its strangeness. It would be tempting to portray these particular people as inhuman freaks, but Delisle's depictions are really quite affectionate, and he takes pains to suggest that they're simply the product of environment.

Although the book is autobiographical, I thought its weakest point was that Delisle spends a lot of time focusing on the details of his animation job and explaining non-Korean related things about the animation industry. I couldn't figure out why I was supposed to care about this stuff. His job is often a springboard for weird interactions and experiences, so I understand that he must give a cursory overview of what he's doing, but there are a few times where he simply talks about animation and it is unrelated to his treatment of North Korean society. I found these instances disruptive and self-indulgent.

While we're on the subject, however, I'd like to give my take on Delisle's drawing style. Despite the fact that I spent some time up front emphasizing that I'm not a huge fan of this kind of DIY-style comic book, I think Delisle's intensely personal, "small-time" drawing style works incredibly well within the context of this material, because it emphasizes the unbalanced power dynamic of the individual running up against a monolithic state. While this type of drawing is typically used in confessional, whiny stories about romantic relationships and the like, here it is transposed onto a much larger and more dramatic stage, and it is interesting to see how Delisle exploits that. A statue of Kim Il-sung, for instance, looks suitably huge. and it is drawn in this interesting three panel page:


The motion of the reader's eye, top to bottom, is against that of Delisle's eye, which goes from the shoes up to the face. This sort of visual conflict would simply not be possible in any other medium, and once again it is nice to see Delisle take full advantage of such opportunities. And although much of the book is simple line drawings (but very nicely shaded line drawings), Delisle includes full-page chapter-dividing drawings that are beautifully composed and evocatively drawn. It is in these drawings that he best captures the loneliness, sadness, and strangeness of the country. In an empty, half-darkened banquet hall, for example, the scene is made more powerful by the depiction of Delisle sitting alone at one of its many tables. Because although the invisible majority of oppressed common people are kept off-limits to Delisle and thus are not really depicted in the book, it is in the emptiness of the lavish banquet hall that one can feel their presence, through their absence. The reader can feel them there because they are excluded, both from Delisle's interactions and consequently from the drawing itself.


Although I've tried to give an overview here, the truth is that this is a book that works on its own terms, and the only way to experience it is to read it for yourself. I will say this about it: if a non comic reader such as myself was completely transfixed by it for the three hours or so it took me to read it, I would say that it is a work of considerable power. It is a completely novel approach to the persistent difficulty of conveying the reality of life in North Korea to outsiders, and as such it is also a work of importance and significance. Understanding North Korean society will continue to be relevant well into the future, even if/when the regime topples, because it is an almost pure example of the power of social programming. Pyongyang, I feel, captures the essence of this dynamic in a way that has been impossible to accomplish with more traditional forms of media. It is a fine work, and to top it off I had a lot of fun reading it, so you should too.

The Taqwacores by Michael Muhammad Knight (2003)

Lately I've been feeling like all my friends have their lives figured out, and I'm the only one who is still unsure of what I want. I'm 26, and whether this sense of uncertainty is a natural phase or some massive personal defect still remains to be seen. Still, I miss being able to sit around with people and have long metaphysical discussions about ideas and values, about beliefs and philosophy and what things mean. Is giving up this kind of conversation one of the costs of being an adult? If so, for me it's a bitter pill to swallow. I almost want to say we've simply moved into a more cynical era, but that strikes me as something an old person would say.

Anyway, a week ago I watched the recent filmed version of The Taqwacores. It was breathtakingly mediocre --if the director had bothered to actually record ADR I think it would have been miles better-- but it was based on a book I enjoyed and it was filmed at a venue in Cleveland where I've seen shows (Tower 2012). I was in Ohio in early 2009 to visit a very dear friend of mine and I made a stop in Clevo to see Empire and Triceratops play the Tower. I remember there still being Muslim punk graffiti on the walls from when they had filmed the movie.

Watching the film reminded me to dig out my copy of the 2003 book. I couldn't find it, the reason being that sometime around 2005 I lent it to my friend Nate, who is supposedly a working class skinhead and shouldn't be relying on handouts (just kidding Nate, I love you). But seeing as how my room is littered with things I've "borrowed" from people over the years, I consider that loss officially cut and I bought a new copy of The Taqwacores to read. This is the digital age, after all, and Amazon Marketplace (One-Click Ordering; I don't fuck around) is what separates us from the beasts.

Speaking of the digital age --and more pointedly, its attendant hyperbole-- this book has been called "The Catcher in the Rye for young Muslims." Damn! The first time I read this (it's printed on the back of the book) I made a sort of "psh" sound, because although I enjoyed the book very much when I first read it, Michael Muhammad Knight is not the most elegant of authors and the novel could do with a good deal of blocking.

However, the more I think about it, I realize that that reaction was arrogance on my part. This book was written primarily for young Muslims, and not being a part of that group, it's not really appropriate for me to make value judgments about what a work should mean to somebody else. In fact, this book inspired an actual, real life "taqwacore" scene. I went through my second reading of the novel with that in mind, and I found it to be an immense help, not least because it made me quash my incredulity at Knight's oftentimes hopelessly naive and romanticized depiction of the punk ethos and aesthetic.

In terms of this review, that is a very important point. This is a novel about Islam that uses punk as a device, not the other way around. The more you know about something, the more difficult it is to accept contrivances that contradict your individual expertise. The "punk" elements of this book are a contrivance. Knight treats the various punk subcultures (street punk, straight edge, skinhead, etc) as if they were all part of a cohesive melting pot of a larger, inclusive "scene." While on some technical level this may be true, there is no way these characters would run in the same social circles, let alone live together. It is more than a bit ironic that, in a novel that attempts to subvert the misconception that all Muslims are ideologues without individual characteristics, Knight simply lumps "punks" together with a similar disregard. But, as I've said, this is the wrong way to read this novel. It's best to accept the novel's contrivances and allow them to take you where they will, because much like a science fiction novel, The Taqwacores' contrivances are an integral part of its ability to explore the human mind and heart.

The book follows a Pakistani-American college student, Yusef Ali, through a year living in an all-Muslim punk house in Buffalo, NY. Populating the house are colorful characters such as Umar, a straightedge fundamentalist Sunni (with "2:219" tattooed across his throat) who is the novel's main antagonist when it needs one; Jehangir, a street punk Sufi mystic who is drunk more often than not; and Rabeya, the only female housemate, a feminist who wears a full burqa covered with punk patches. Yusef is not a punk; he's majoring in engineering because his parents told him to, he's never had a drink in his life, and he shops at Aeropostale. But he is open-minded, if a little bland, and the novel needs him as a sounding board for the wild philosophies of the characters around him.

And there is a lot of sounding off. It is essentially a loosely connected series of dialogues occasionally broken by something more reminiscent of a "scene." What happens to the characters is not nearly as important as the differing ideologies each of them represents and the conversations they have that express those ideologies in great detail. The effect is similar to the dialogues in Douglas Hofstadter's classic meditation on thought process; Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid (not that I'm comparing Taqwacores to Hofstadter's book in terms of content or quality): although the ideas in both books could be expressed solely in essays, they are made more vibrant and easily digestible when presented as a back-and-forth conversation between characters.

There are a lot of ideas thrown around in the book, and I will only skim the surface here. Of all the housemates, only straightedge tough guy Umar adheres to the strict, near-monastic life of sobriety, abstinence, ritualized prayer, and halal dietary laws. A main theme that is constantly pulsating in the background is: what makes a good Muslim? Conversely, what makes a bad Muslim? Is there a prescribed role for women within the community? Is there a place for gays in Islam? Is marijuana strictly forbidden, frowned upon, or permitted? What place do violence, swearing, mixing with nonbelievers, and a myriad of other issues have? I believe Knight addresses and answers all of these questions, albeit to his own satisfaction.

A major issue the book has is its large cast of characters. Some of them are occasionally the impetus for an interesting conversation (The pot-smoking skater Fasiq being one), but generally they feel unnecessary and their presence sometimes derails the proceedings. Do we really need a Sudanese rude boy? A Latino ex-Muslim? An Iranian junkie "skinhead" who is partially homeless? Sometimes it feels like a contrived effort to be inclusive, and frankly the novel would be stronger with a more exclusive focus on Yusef, Jehangir, Umar, and Rabeya. Indeed, the central conflict of the story is that between the dogmatic extremism of Umar and the drunken tolerance of Jehangir. Knight comes down pretty hard in favor of Jehangir, but every character has their say, and as a person who is somewhat prone to judgmental extremes, I think Umar is portrayed quite fairly. That being said, meaningful conflict between these two characters should have happened more often, to the exclusion of the peripheral characters, even if that meant paring down the length of the novel (which, by the way, is a fast 250 pages; I read it in two days).

I have used a lot of space to point out the novel's flaws, and they are many, but the truth is that this is the kind of book that revels in its own flaws. This isn't even a book that was intended for publication; Knight printed out the first copies himself, stapled them, and gave them away for free, zine-style. And although the novel seems a bit clumsy and meandering at times, Knight is writing about a very clumsy and meandering stage of life, both for himself and for his characters. You can't get hung up on specifics when reading this book. Who cares, for instance, that the characters listen to garbage like The U.S. Bombs and Roger Miret And The Disasters? You just need to look past it. (Although I will say that it's criminal that a character like Umar listens to Minor Threat and Youth of Today as opposed to SSD and Judge) The writing can be a little rough (Yusef Ali's responses to a long philosophical soliloquy by another character is typically, "Wow."), but there are genuine moments of inspired creation, like Yusef's first masturbation experience, or a late night trip to a masjid (mosque) where the squabbling characters pray together.

One thing that needs to be pointed out: there are a lot of Arabic and Urdu phrases and expressions thrown around, both in the narration and the dialogue, and unfortunately no edition of the book that I've ever seen has had a glossary. The book is, of course, aimed at Muslims, most of whom I assume are familiar with a lot of these phrases, but for us kafr it is a little frustrating to have to be looking things up all the time.

Despite everything negative that could be said about this book, there are passages that are quite beautiful, and the last chapter or so is simply exceptional. In the final pages Knight breaks from his slightly wrought narrative style into a much looser and satisfying stream-of-consciousness poetic style. If he could have sustained this over the course of the entire novel the book would be unequivocally brilliant. Still, you won't hear me complaining about a thought-provoking book with an outstanding finale.

Do I recommend The Taqwacores? Six years after my first reading, I still found it very engaging, challenging, and enjoyable, but it might have a very different effect on someone that has a different background and values than me. Here's the highest compliment I can pay it: it reminds me of the long conversations I used to have with my friends when we were teenagers, and for me that is lofty praise in the extreme. It reminds me that having an open mind is often better than being sure of oneself. The novel has certainly struck a chord with a generation of young Muslims, and as a means to awaken young minds, you could do a lot worse. Despite being written as Knight's farewell kiss-off to mainstream Islam, at its core The Taqwacores is about individuals finding ways to express their love for their beliefs, and each other, on their own terms. In a society where even our subcultures are constantly trying to pull young people this way and that, I am very happy that Knight's work has hit home with a few of them. 20 year old me would agree.

Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie (2008)

For somebody who writes in such a terse and unambiguous style, Joe Abercrombie sure leaves me feeling conflicted. Now that I'm through the second book (of three) in his First Law series, I am still torn over how to feel about the series.

First of all, let me get this out of the way: there is still no map in this book, and after doing a little research, I found this, which is essentially Abercrombie's disavowment of maps (at least as far as his series is concerned). There are some good points brought up there, but I think on the whole Abercrombie is quite wrong about the way his books are read, and a quick dive into some SF/fantasy forums seems to confirm this. My point is this: the geography of Abercrombie's world is very discrete and confusing, and expecting readers to remember place names and locations in a 500+ page book is simply unreasonable. The main thrust of Abercrombie's anti-map argument is that the inclusion of maps and other graphics railroads the reader's imagination and takes them out of the story. But the fact is, when I have no idea what the hell is going on because I'm confused about the geography, that's hardly an immersive experience either.

That's enough about that, however. I can respect the man feeling strongly about the way his creation is published. On the basis of its contents, however, I am still not 100% sure how I feel about this book, just as I was unsure how to place its predecessor. The books were written one right after the other (more on that later), so they are consistent with one another in the extreme, for better or worse. I still found the Glokta character fascinating, but with irritating mannerisms, for example. There are still a few too many characters that are too similar to one another. There is still no sense that any of the main characters are ever in real danger.

However, this is a two-sided coin and the aspects of Blade Itself that I found excellent are still very much present in Before They Are Hanged. The story picks up right where The Blade Itself leaves off, and the book as a whole is similarly fast-paced. I read the majority of this book yesterday (probably about 400 pages or so), and I must say it flashed right by. Abercrombie has a gift for building tension and keeping a long story engaging, but it never feels cheap or manipulative. He doesn't resort to constant cliffhangers like George R.R. Martin, for instance. Which is commendable, since Before They Are Hanged juggles three or four groups of characters, depending on the point in the story, in a variety of locations. The rotation through these groups isn't a fixed 1-2-3-4-repeat cycle either; sometimes a chapter will end with one group and then the next will start up again with that very same group. I was very grateful for that, and pleased to see that Abercrombie has enough confidence in his skill as a narrator to avoid the urge to insert artificial tension with chapter breaks.

Most of the praise Abercrombie has gotten over the series has centered mainly on his unconventional approach to character archetypes. For example, the wise old fantasy wizard is here, and he is both wise and old, but he is also cranky and manipulative and self-serving. Here is my concern: it's all well and good to defy the standard fantasy character models, but is it a valuable undertaking when done for its own sake? Abercrombie certainly likes to shake things up, but when all the pieces have settled does it make for a better story? I'm not sure. George Lucas tapped into a vast collective cultural subconsciousness with Star Wars, by studying ancient storytelling archetypes and reworking them into a pulp sci-fi setting. Abercrombie does almost exactly the opposite, and while the results are interesting, I'm not totally convinced it has a purpose beyond simply being different.

Having said all that, I do like the characters and their interplay. This book pays off much of the characterization Abercrombie labored over in Blade Itself, since we can now see all these strikingly disparate personalities bouncing off one another. A few of the character arcs, such as they are, are quite pleasing as well. There is a very arrogant character who is humbled over the course of the novel, and although that was almost impossibly predictable, it still proved to be satisfying, and the predictability of it actually blended nicely with a very unlikely romance that develops between two other characters.

Even though most of the other characters have come into their own in this, the pivotal volume, Inquisitor Glokta is still the main attraction, so to speak. I enjoyed his playfully sardonic letters to his superiors sent from the remote city he has been given the impossible task of defending. His italicized "inner voice", as I have mentioned before, still grates on me for some reason though. However, this is still a gift of a character, and the subtle changes bubbling to the surface within Glokta may be the most redemptive and rewarding quality of the novel, period.

On the whole, Abercrombie has a gift for characterization, and slipping in and out of the voices of the POV characters. It has a very sitting-around-the-campfire storytelling feel to it, and I imagine that's what he was going for. He has a good feel for natural-sounding dialogue, though maybe not quite as good as he thinks. His fights are well-choreographed, and while that might not be a good reason on its own to recommend these books, it is ultimately very important because there is quite a bit of fighting done.

There is one more thing I feel I should mention. Abercrombie released this trilogy at a pace of one book a year, and frankly that's fucking remarkable, especially considering the length of the books (over 500 pages each). That's well over a full page a day, and that doesn't even take publishing lead time, rewrites, editing, etc into account. In an era where the more popular fantasy writers have the luxury of extremely relaxed deadlines, it's so refreshing to see a big name with a strong work ethic. We live in a digital age and fans can now instantly contact their favorite authors on their blogs or through email, but if anything I feel that has allowed writers a much more convenient medium through which to post excuses. I am not just referring to George R.R. Martin, although that motherfucker is undoubtedly the worst. My point is, hats off to Joe Abercrombie for keeping that nose to the grindstone.

I've just decided that I'm likely overthinking the First Law series. These books are probably best read as enjoyable, if ultimately rather disposable, fiction. There are no particular profound human truths revealed in the pages of these novels, but they are first-rate adventure stories, and the pages whiz by in a blur. I suppose the real mark of how I feel about this series thus far is that I have already ordered the final installment, and I can say unreservedly that I'm looking forward to reading it.

Skinhead by Nick Knight (1982)

I keep going to the Half Price Books in the suburbs, and that's sort of a bad idea, because I always walk out of there with like 4-5 books. Every single time. My list of books to read is now longer than my Netflix queue, and that's a problem. But they have this giant wall of science fiction paperbacks (it almost rivals Myopic's), and the prices are outlandishly low. Like, under two dollars per book low. So I keep pathetically stumbling back in there to give myself more and more homework. Damn you Half Price Books! More like Fifth Price Books!

Anyway, I was there around closing the other day, with an annoyingly tall stack of new sci-fi under my arm, and on a whim I decided to cruise past the music section to see if they had any books on Tamla Motown or Southern soul, because those are two areas of my musical interest that I seriously need to educate myself on. They had one book of Motown lyrics, but seeing as how I have access to the internet, not to mention functioning ears, I decided to pass. The employees were making grumbling noises, so I decided to pack it up and go (I hate when people stay later than closing at the store where I work, and hence refuse to subject other people to it), and right then, by pure happenstance, I spied Skinhead on the shelf. Eight bucks!! A no-braini-er no-brainer there never was.

If you're unaware, Skinhead is one of the two best-known and most authoritative texts on the British skinhead subculture (the other of course being George Marshall's Spirit of 69), although it is important to point out that both books were written during and after the late 70's revival, and not during the original 1960's period that they are principally occupied with. In Knight's case that is a bit more of an issue, but more on that later.

The book is primarily described as a photojournal, and indeed about half of its 100 or so pages are stylish black-and-white photos of--what else--skins. The pictures are uniformly excellent. Almost all are posed, but the subjects appear very natural and comfortable, and that is an absolute necessity in any photo book covering a youth culture. These 50 or so photos are probably the best visual history we have of the oi! and punk influenced skinhead revival. Number one crops, flight jackets, braces worn down in many cases. There are quite a few photos of girls, too, and while this may be a bit misrepresentative of the number of girls actually involved, they are definitely cute and you can only look at so many bald dudes showing off their contrast laces anyway. The photos are taken in a variety of settings: oi! gigs, grimy-looking alleys, the subjects' homes. They all have a suitably grainy, gritty quality that works quite well, and many are taken in close-up, with wide angle lenses that give a literally in-your-face and confrontational feel.

I'll be frank: a few of the photo subjects are obvious National Front members (racists, more or less, for those of you unfamiliar), but a few things are important to keep in mind. First of all, although non-racist/non-political skins certainly outnumbered the NF skins at this point in time (and arguably still do), they still comprised a significant minority, and any book with the catchall title Skinhead should, I feel, be obligated to include them. Secondly, it is crucial to understand that in the period these photos were taken (1980-1981) NF membership was as much an aesthetic fad as anything else. That may seem strange, but there was a media frenzy regarding skinheads which portrayed them all as violent racists, and not only did that attract more confrontational types to the subculture, but even anti-racist types would, for instance, often mockingly seig heil a camera just to add fuel to the fire. If that seems confusing, it's because it was a turbulent time for the working class in Britain and these kids were indeed oftentimes confused. As a final point, the photos in Skinhead are certainly not compiled from a racial perspective. There are also pictures of black skins and traditional types.

In addition to the photos, however, there are several written sections on skinhead culture. The first several are written by Knight himself, and cover a range of topics, each under a large bold heading: Origins, Dress, Hair, Music, Behaviour, Authority, Decline, and Revival. Most are a page or two long, and that is normally where this book comes under fire. For some reason, people seem to think this book is presenting itself as the end-all source on the culture. It doesn't, and it isn't. The information presented is quite good anyway, though. This book, however, is the most authoritative extant source on skinhead dress and style, and on that score it is an absolute treasure trove of information. Skinhead culture has always been fashion first. There's no use denying this, and with such a sharp and smart look, who would want to anyway? There were indeed unifying factors tying skins to one another (being working class, generalized music tastes), but like most British youth cults, skinhead was style-focused, with ideology lagging behind.

In that vein, and in my humble opinion, the best and most important part of the book is titled "Jim Ferguson's Fashion Notebook", and is a detailed description of the main elements of skinhead style in the original 1967-1971 period. There are a ton of illustrated pictures and diagrams, taking the reader through the skinhead wardrobe of 8-eye DMs, crombies, Bennies, Sta-Prest trousers, trilbies, Fred Perrys, brogues, and so on and so forth. Detailed notes accompany each entry, as well as large, page-sized pictures depicting the evolution of skinhead fashion as the years went on (each is headed "1968-69", "1969-70" and so forth). These diagrams are fascinating. You see the looser, grungier look of the first "hard mods" evolve into the smarter, cleaner look most closely associated with traditional skins now, and on to suedehead and smooth.

It isn't an exhaustive account of the entire fashion, but it does cover all the basics and a lot of the non-basics. Like I said there are a few omissions. But if you want to hear about monkey jackets, Jungle Greens, windowpane checks, and other more idiosyncratic elements of the look, that information is all available online if you know where to look. But on the whole, Ferguson's notes are one hell of a resource, although I'm told the girl's tomboyish look on the 1969-70 page is quite anachronistic. (Shame, really.)

Speaking of anachronism, though, brings me to my one big issue with the book. Most of the written sections give a detailed account of the fashions of the 60's, but the photographs were all taken during the early 80's oi!-focused revival. It's a pretty noticeable difference in style. You don't see a lot of oi! skins in Loake loafers, cardigans, and tonic suits. To a certain degree this was out of Knight's hands, since he was about 10 years old during the original skinhead era, and a disappointingly small number of photos have survived from that time anyway. But the writing still feels out of sync with the photos, and it would have been nice if Knight had given oi! and punk more than a passing mention at the end of his written sections, especially considering the fashion-oriented nature of the book as a whole. It also needs to be pointed out that in the original 60's era those within the culture would never have referred to themselves as "skinheads", as that was just one of many terms of derision used by others. At that time they referred to themselves as "mods" (generally in the north of England), or more usually, didn't apply a label at all.

Earlier in the review I mentioned skinhead culture being primarily fashion-focused, with ideology being almost an afterthought. While this is true, the ideology of some skinheads (NF boneheads) of course bears mentioning in a book that depicts the culture as it was. The last part of Skinhead I have yet to discuss is an excellent article by Dick Hebdidge entitled "This is England! And They Don't Live Here." Hebdidge gives a sociological account of the ideological underpinnings of the skinhead movement, from the traditional side as well as the bonehead side. He reduces a skinhead's motivations to two main themes: "being authentic" and "being British". He goes on to examine how and why different groups of skins constructed varying interpretations on these themes, splintering off into the right, left, and center of the political spectrum. It is a smart, scholarly, and well-written account, and probably the most even-handed but unflinching article I've read on the subject. For anyone looking for insight into the psychological factors driving the movement and its uglier aspects, I'd say this is the essential text. An excerpt:

"Some of the skinheads I've met admit to having 'gone through' one or other of the parties of the extreme right, but, after a brief commitment, the enthusiasm tends to lapse along with the membership. 'I joined the BM,' one skinhead told me. 'For the crack, like. But they went on about Hitler. He's dead. I couldn't see the point.' In general, racist jokes and asides amongst skinheads are no more numerous or self-conscious than elsewhere in the broader streams of white working class speech. This doesn't mean that this kind of racism isn't dangerous. But it does suggest that racism is too deeply embedded in the whole experience of growing up working class to be the sole responsibility of the skins.

"Meanwhile the skinhead/NF stereotype serves a wider function. It's a form of liberal scapegoating no less wrongheaded than the 'reasoning' (engaged in by some members of the Press) which converts every black boy into a mugger. The tensions and anxieties which are inevitably entailed when a more or less racially homogeneous society becomes multi-racial are displaced on to a solitary figure - the leering bootboy. In that way, it--the ugly fact of racism--becomes him, the skin. It has a name. It has a face. It is Them, not Us."

All in all, this is easily one of the best purchases I've made at Half Price Books to date, and that is definitely saying something. It seems like a lot of people (and by that I mean a lot of skinheads) have a dismissive attitude towards this book, and tend to say "Spirit of 69 is better." It's true that George Marshall's tome is an awesome resource, but the goals of that book and Skinhead are quite different and frankly I think it's useless comparing them. Marshall was more interested in tracking the rise of the movement through oral history and first hand accounts, while Knight was more interested in preserving an account of the fashion. It's better to look at the two books as companion pieces of sorts. Taken together they are a very powerful resource. Knight's book is not all-encompassing, it is true, but it is an insightful book, fun to read, and a superbly-written and -photographed overview of a very misunderstood subculture.

The Songs of Distant Earth by Arthur C. Clarke (1985)

Arthur C. Clarke is my favorite science fiction writer. In addition to being a great writer in general (with regard to style and structure), he had a true gift for looking at a scientific concept and seeing the narrative possibilities it offered. For Clarke, the science comes first and moves the story along, much like real life.

Songs of Distant Earth uses a few main scientific devices, but the foremost is the effects of relativistic time dilation. Remember high school physics class? The faster an object moves, the closer it comes to the speed of light, the slower time passes for that object. (At the speed of light time does not pass at all, incidentally) So, while 50 years may pass for somebody who is stationary on the surface of a planet, for instance, a person aboard a sufficiently fast-moving spaceship will only experience the passage of a few.

In the earliest 21st Century, we are told, Earth's scientists discover a way to harness the power of neutrinos to explore the inner workings of the sun. To everyone's horror, they find that the Sun is a time bomb: set to explode into a nova sometime around the year 3600. Humanity may survive, but not on Earth. The nations of the world band together and construct colossal "seedships" capable of traveling at vast sub-light speeds and containing enough genetic material (of people, animals, plants, insects, etc) to populate distant worlds from scratch. Many are sent, and the dwindling population of Earth prepares for the coming cataclysm.

The narrative opens on Thalassa, an oceanic paradise world 160 light-years from Earth consisting of a huge sea and a habitable archipelago of islands. It is about 3800. Thalassa is one of the planets conquered by a seedship, and a happy, carefree human society has existed there for about 700 years. They have no radio contact with Earth, as their antenna has been in disrepair for years due to their blissful negligence. One day, however, they receive visitors: the last starship to leave Earth, making a stop on its way to Sagan II, its final destination.

Unlike the seedships, this is a lifeboat of sorts, carrying a million refugees from Earth frozen in stasis, and a small live crew. These are Terran natives, who were born on Earth, and who witnessed its terrible destruction. I feel like the interaction between the Terrans and the Thalassans is almost Biblical in nature: the Thalassans are innocent occupiers of a new Eden, and the Terrans come from the sky with the knowledge of good and evil. Indeed, a recurring theme is the reluctance of the Terran visitors to "corrupt" the Thalassans' harmonious society.

Among the novel's many themes is the loneliness of a humanity divorced from Earth. There is real, unexpected poignancy in the way Clarke describes Earth's final days, and the after-effects its destruction has on the survivors. I think a lot about how most of our brains are so removed from the natural environment they evolved in, so this concept really hit home with me. It is moving the way the characters struggle with their memories of loved ones from their home planet: all dead 200 years ago, but to the survivors awaking from their frozen sleep aboard the starship, it all happened yesterday.

Clarke has such an easygoing and engaging style; it's easy to blow through 100 pages of one of his books without even realizing it. This book in particular, though, has a more poetic and lyrical style than his other work.

This is not, like Clarke's greatest novel (Rendezvous with Rama), a pure work of hard sci-fi. There is human drama, mostly dealing with the effects of time dilation on personal relationships and the schism that grows between those that want to continue on to Sagan II and those that want to remain on Thalassa. There is some small cultural conflict between the native Thalassans and the Terrans, primarily over sex (the Thalassans live in a mostly possessiveness-free society). This is not the main thrust of the book but it does nudge it from the extreme of "hard sci-fi" into "social sci-fi" a bit. This is not an area Clarke was strongest in, at least compared to the political sci-fi subgenre's greats (like Ursula LeGuin), but I'm very glad he added those dynamics anyway, because the effects of the book's scientific concepts on its society are important considerations.

Clarke makes a theme of lost cultural memory - not all of Earth's books, music, and art was able to be sent to the stars with the seedships. In fact much of it was deliberately purged: anything relating to religion, for instance. As a character explains:

"It is possible to build a rational and humane culture completely free from the threat of supernatural restraints. Though in principle I don't approve of censorship, it seems that those who prepared the archives for the Thalassan colony succeeded in an almost-impossible task. They purged the history and literature of ten thousand years, and the result has justified their efforts. We must be very cautious before replacing anything that was lost--however beautiful, however moving a work of art.

The Thalassans were never poisoned by the decay products of dead religions, and in seven hundred years no prophet has arisen here to preach a new faith. The very word "God" has almost vanished from their language, and they're quite surprised--or amused--when we happen to use it."

A recurring motif in the story is that a situation will remind a character of some great saying. The reader will know the source, the character does not.

Even though, as a work of literature, this book is slightly diminished compared to Rama or 2001 because of its broad (too broad?) political focus, it is stronger in a way, because Clarke lets himself ruminate on human emotions in a way he didn't with those other books. This is a sad book, and it is a resonant one too. Human attachments can never survive the passage of time, and Clarke is able to show that quite literally here. The characters are treated sensitively, whereas in many of Clarke's other novels they simply provide a point of view. Like I said, that is not a fault of those novels, but the emotional depth of this one is one of its great strengths.

That being said, if this book has a fault, it suffers from an embarrassment of riches of sorts. There are a few too many avenues that are introduced that are never fully explored. Maybe this was Clarke's intention; the scientific curiosities of the universe are so vast that to fully explain those that the characters encounter would be disingenuous. Be that as it may, the story's most interesting diversion (the possible sentience of some life-forms discovered on Thalassa) would probably have made a compelling novel in itself, and it feels glossed-over and unfinished here. There are so many concepts introduced in Songs of Distant Earth, just as casual asides, it really makes me marvel at how incredible Clarke's mind was. When the Terrans first land on Thalassa, for instance, they are able to understand each other perfectly because the invention of sound recording in the 20th century has frozen language in place, much the same way that the development of human society freezes human biology in place, by compensating for evolutionary selection factors.

Even though I found myself wishing the book had been a bit longer due to this multitude of partially-explored concepts, I suppose that is just a side effect of one of Clarke's strengths: he always left the reader wanting more.

The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie (2007)

Let me get the ball rolling on Blade Itself by pointing out a shockingly dumb quote from John Enzinas of SF Site that is featured on the back cover: "I could happily recommend The Blade Itself for the fight scenes alone." Okay. Just to be clear, this is a book. It's a bunch of pages between two covers. It's not a Jackie Chan movie, it's a damn book! Why on earth would you ever recommend a book to someone on the basis of its fight scenes!

Maybe this sort of thing is just symptomatic of how pervasive the influence of video games has been on the fantasy and sci-fi communities throughout the last decade or so. On that point, maybe Enzinas' quote is insightful in some regard. No, I take that back. But moving forward, maybe this is weird but The Blade Itself has a distinct video game feel to it. Now, that isn't really a good thing or a bad thing in itself, and fortunately Joe Abercrombie makes it work. Here's what I mean: there are four or five major characters, and this is more or less a getting-a-team-together story (this is the first in Abercrombie's First Law series). The major characters feel a bit like character classes in an RPG game: a swordsman, a wizard, a barbarian, an archer. Thankfully, they are all well written and Abercrombie gives each of them a unique voice.

Speaking of which, the book is similar in structure to George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, with the story being told from the third-person point of view of several characters. Each chapter is told from a different character's point of view, on a rotating basis. Their stories weave into and out of one another, but not in the dizzyingly complex way of Martin's books. Like I said before, this is mostly a book about a team getting together, so the individual stories head toward one another, inevitably.

The world the action takes place in feels a bit Plain Jane, but in the end that isn't a handicap because this isn't the kind of story that calls attention to its surroundings. The action is centered around The Union, which is a familiar-feeling stand in for Western Europe, or close enough. To the north, there is the expected frozen wasteland filled with warring tribes, and to the south there are various other kingdoms, deserts, and so on. Maybe my main gripe with this book is that, at least in the edition I have, there is no map! There is quite a bit of travel in this book and I felt that it could definitely, definitely have benefitted from one.

Abercrombie has a good writing style. It gets the job done. He's no Patrick Rothfuss, but fortunately for him he's no George Martin, either. He's pretty spare on description, which I found pleasant, but your results may vary. The Blade Itself is nothing if not a page-turner, and Abercrombie's no-frills approach keeps things moving along at a pretty rapid clip. It took me less than four days to get through all 527 pages (that is 131.75 pages a day), and I had work a couple of those days, so obviously Abercrombie has a gift for holding the attention of his readers. And it's not like every single chapter ends with a Martin-style cliffhanger either; this is simply well-written fantasy.

One thing that is weird about this book, though, is the insane amount of characters described as being uncommonly huge. That may strike you as a weird thing to notice but it seems like every other character that is introduced is strikingly large and strong. No exaggeration, there must be more than ten such characters in this novel. Very strange and a little distracting.

Up to this point, I haven't mentioned a character that is simultaneously the best and worst part of the book: Sand dan Glokta, the only POV character that doesn't feel at all like a unit in a Squaresoft SNES RPG. Glokta is an ex fencing champion and war hero who was captured by the enemy on a campaign. He was tortured and disfigured in the enemy's dungeons, and returns to his homeland ruined and disgraced. His friends abandon him and he finds himself in the office of Inquisitor (torturer) for his government. Glokta's chapters mainly focus on the political sphere of the Union, with him and his Practicals (assistants) capturing people and torturing them for information. Crippled and disfigured, Glokta's entire life revolves around pain, both the pain he endures from his old injuries and the pain he dishes out to his captives. Pretty interesting stuff, but Abercrombie wrings the whole thing dry a bit. Glokta has a constant internal monologue, which can get pretty annoying. It's like, yeah, we get that Glokta is cynical and sniffs out people's ulterior motives, but I found myself just wishing he would shut up sometimes. This made the Glokta chapters frustrating to read; he is easily the most interesting character but his little italicized monologue bits really strained my patience.

That's not to say, of course, that it ruined the book, and on the whole it's a pretty minor gripe. I liked the characters, even if they were a little too close to archetypes. Abercrombie does a great job at making their perspectives distinct from one another. If you are curious, the much-lauded fight scenes live up to their reputation, I guess, but don't get the impression that this book is just a bunch of battles. There is plenty of violence, but for me the most exciting part of the fight scenes was just seeing who would come out of them alive, because I actually ended up caring about most of the major characters, which is the most important thing for this kind of fantasy. I have the next installment in the mail and I'm looking forward to reading it.