An Addition To the Reading List

So far, in this blog, I've recommended two books for those who want the properly cynical footing to cope with the cynical political landscape – if you can't keep up, you can at least keep an eye on things.

I've decided to add two books to the assigned reading in this course. The complete list is:

1. Dune, by Frank Herbert
2. Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
3. Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein
4. Stand on Zanzibar, by John Brunner

Each is important for diffferent reasons. Dune matters because Herbert had immense insights into power blocs and power struggles, and what might tilt things one way or the other – and that a random chaotic event can cause amazing results. Also, Herbert understood, perhaps better than any popular author, the explosive mix that religion and politics can make – and this, is the most important message, because he does it without making it a preachy cautionary tale.

Nineteen Eighty-Four is important for all the obvious reasons – the cynical manipulation of the population by a power elite, the evil deleterious effect on the zeitgeist and the human animal that opression can bring. But the real lesson I want people to take away from it, and the source of my sarcastic caption on the cover picture, is the effects of a power elite for whom power is the only object. They speak of addictive substances, nicotine, methamphetamine, what have you. Kissinger glibly commented that power is the ultimate aphrodesiac (not without reason). But more than that, power is the most addictive substance known to man and woman. You can't have it without wanting more, you can't have more without wanting to keep it all for one's self, and you can't keep it without greedily scheming to order affairs so that you never lose it.

When I say the Republican Party's main platform can be found there, it's the addiction to power and the need to get it for its own sake, at any cost. They would kill our country for it if they had to, and events suggest to me, they are still trying.

Stranger In A Strange Land was suggested by reader Phil. He recommends it highly, and my review of the plot suggests it has much to say about community and power. I've not read it yet, because I've never been much of a Heinlein fan, to be quite frank. But it's on my list now.

Stand on Zanzibar is a challenging book to read. John Brunner's visionary classic challenges the reader with a layered structure, an army of intertwining characters, and the strife of what was then the distant future time of the 2010s to paint a picture of a planet going crazy under the strain of overpopulation and technology that's zooming ahead of Man's capacity to reason with it all. With its piercing insights on what makes man tick, it's not predictive, but it does have Mankind's number, and is as relevant now as when it was written back in the 1960s.

Those are your assignments, if you care to take up the challenge. Since my topical work is being done over at Preemptive Karma for the nonce, we can use this area as a sort of reading and book discussion club. I'm going to go back through Dune soon and make public notes. Everyone is welcome to come along.

I think we can all learn something from each other. I believe this.

The Shadout Mapes Wrote A Book I Want To Read About Bicycles ...

... But I'll have to wait a while. Pedaling Revolution will have to be checked out from the MultCoLib, there's no money in the budget for a new book right now ... and I'm 43rd back on the hold list.

Oh, well, a good book like this (and it's getting good reviews) by someone whose work I quite admire is worth waiting for.

Dune Times Two, or Arrakis Squared, And Another Book Recommendation

Something I've done this month after not having done it for an awful long time: read Dune twice.

And not with a book in between as a "palate cleanser". I went straight from the line where Lady Jessica Atreides consoles the Fremen Chani with the famous line While we, Chani, we who carry the name concubine–history will call us wives, to the front of Chapter One: In the week before the departure for Arrakis ...

I've huffed and puffed and hand-wove about how Dune contains a lot of what might help one understand how agendas and religion contemplate unifying to configure politics. It's a rousing tale, one of the best ever written, and to me is a cautionary tale about while religion may inform our private morals it must not ever be allowed to shape our public policy.

I think if nobody ever reads any other book to try and understand human events, this would be the one.

I think it's time I deconstructed Dune to demonstrate what I mean. That should come up soon. I am rather prolix ... but prolix and erudite are two different things. Let's see how I stand up to my own gom jabbar.

And while I'm thinkin' about books, in my first bloviation about important books, commenter Phil from Frieddogleg held up another book he recommends about the same sorts of things I say you should read Dune for, and that's Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land. I will admit, here and now, that I've never read it, but that's just my own personal flaw–I've never been a Heinlein fan.

But Phil's got good insight, so I don't mind passing along the suggestion. And, once I get off my current Arrakis affliction, I very well may move on and dip my toe in Stranger for the first time ... and I'll report on that as well. I've read a summary of the work, and it looks like it has definite things to say about power and human's relations to it.