Books read this week: The Grand Inquisitor 5/10 (Fyodor Dostoyevsky), Gardens of the Moon 7/10 (Steven Erikson), Devil Bones 5/10 (Kathy Reichs), My Shit Life So Far 6/10 (Frankie Boyle)
Bit of an odd mix of books this week. The Grand Inquisitor is, of course, an extract from the Brothers Karamazov; a sort of strange story within a story where Christ returns to earth for a day to visit Spain at the height of the Inquisition. I didn't find it particularly interesting, or, indeed, in any way enlightening; possibly because the translation I was reading was abysmal (littered with "thees" and "thous" which, unless you're transliterating the speech of someone with a strong Yorkshire accent is either an unforgivable attempt to sound olde timey or a lazy attempt to translate from a language which maintains the formal and informal second person pronoun distinction). It also possesses a common flaw in alternate history works in that Dostoyevsky doesn't know his history (this is why I tend to avoid alternate history like the plague): the Spanish Inquisition was entirely subordinated to the needs of the Spanish monarchy - had he written about the Roman Inquisition his points might be more valid - which further increases the irony of the piece, as the Tsarist government (which Dostoyevsky supported at this stage of his career) had a very similar relationship with the Russian Orthodox church at this point in time (in fact, it is the total subordination of the church to a tyrannical regime which led to both the Catholic Church in Spain and the Orthodox Church in Russia taking such a pasting when the tyrannical regimes were overthrown). Perhaps the story would make more sense in context (and it would definitely make more sense in a better translation).
Gardens of the Moon is the first installment in Erikson's gigantic Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Erikson says in the introduction he set out with the aim of writing something like Dune. In this he has definitely failed; Dune is a stupendous book, with fascinating multifaceted characters and a deeply strange, but also comprehensible and believable universe. Gardens of the Moon is a fairly good and decently well written fantasy novel; but Erikson has failed (thus far; obviously there are nine more books to go in the series) to construct a world that I find complete and immersive: that said Erikson does avoid the cardinal sin of fantasy and science fiction writing, which is over-explanation and over reliance on a single concept.
I can generally divide fantasy and science fiction books into two categories: the fantasy/sci-fi novel and the novel in a fantastic or science fiction setting. It's not a hard and fast distinction, but basically the fantasy/sci-fi novel skates by on elves, magic or spaceships: the science fiction drives the plot (because the characters can't); the novel in a fantastic setting on the other hand is more about well developed characters who face interesting dilemmas (which just happen to involve elves, magic and/or spaceships). Basic questions that can be used to separate the two: would I still want to read this if the characters were transplanted to present-day Slough? (If yes then it's a novel in a fantastic setting) Can the plot of the novel be reduce to "What if XXXX"? (If yes then it's a sci-fi novel) Does the world feel complete? (If yes then it's a novel in a fantastic setting) Does the author explain exactly and explicitly how the setting differs from the everyday world in the first chapter (If yes then i) it's a sci-fi novel and ii) it's a bad sci-fi novel). So I would label Dune, The Song of Ice and Fire, and everything Richard Morgan has ever written as novels in a fantastic/sci-fi setting, whilst Charles Stross and David Weber write sci-fi novels (this is not to say Stross' work is bad, quite the contrary, but that he puts the emphasis on the science fiction rather than the novel).
Gardens of the Moon seems to me to fall very close to the boundary. Erikson doesn't fall into the sin of over-explanation, which means it does take about a quarter of the book to work out what's going on, but I do feel that in this novel at least the fantasy McGuffin was driving the plot overmuch (which is partly why it took so long to work out what was going on; the more transparent motives of greed, ambition and self aggrandisement in a Song of Ice and Fire, for example, are much more transparent), and I certainly didn't feel like there was a complete world and that I'm just seeing flashes of it, the way I do with the Song of Ice and Fire and the Takeshi Kovacs books (and even with the Lord of the Rings). Partly this is because we don't really see anything that isn't immediately plot relevant; in many ways I think the needs of writing a tight, sparse plot are in direct opposition to those of developing a fully realised fantasy world (not that Gardens of the Moon is a short book): all those discussions of types of pipe-weed and elvish languages in the Lord of the Rings and the fragments of the Butlerian Jihad and the Bene Gesserit mantras in Dune don't actually add much to the plot directly, but they do create the impression that there's a whole world out there, and we are just seeing one very small part of it: this is something Erikson doesn't manage in the Gardens of the Moon. That said, I did enjoy the book, and I'm certainly going to keep working my way through the series (and I always like to have a nice long series to plough my way through ahead of me)
Devil Bones was a disappointing book. It's one of those crime stories where the main detective doesn't seem to do much detecting, and also seems (for someone who's supposed to be a top rank forensic anthropologist) to be extremely dense. I dislike mysteries that are solved in the last chapter by Deus Ex Machina; it seems very much to defeat the point of a detective novel. I also dislike detectives who are less perceptive than me (because, frankly, I'm not that perceptive). I think Reichs intended the book as packaging for a message that Santeria and Wicca are legitimate religions; this is, of course, true, but I doubt anyone is going to be convinced of that by reading a mediocre crime novel: frankly, if actual reality can't dispel your delusions, an train station shop thriller isn't going to do the job.
My Shit Life So Far is Frankie Boyle (of Mock the Week fame)'s autobiography. He is a very angry man. It's not a brilliantly good book, but it's not an awful book either. Obviously there's a fair amount of material recycled from his standup routines: I do find it interesting that some comedians (Mark Steel springs to mind) write excellent books, but are somewhat lacklustre on stage: Boyle is in many ways the opposite. Partly I think it's that black rage and bile are excellent in small doses (which is why he was so excellent on Mock the Week), but are somewhat overwhelming when repeated continuously for 300 pages.
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