The Final Storm

The Final Storm
© 2011 Jeff Shaara
446 pages

The Final Storm is an appetizer served in lieu of a main course: tasty, but unsatisfying. As fine a story as it is, it's a frustratingly disappointing treatment of the Pacific War.

Jeff Shaara has penned three prior novels set during the Second World War, all set in the European theatre. Shaara borrows his father's intimate writing style, which combines traditional narration with a stream-of-consciousness approach that conveys the thoughts and emotions of his lead characters. In the case of the Final Front, "lead character" is a more accurate expression, for this novel distinguishes itself among Shaara's work by focusing heavily on one character: Clay Adams, Marine. Adams is among the ranks of the men who are expected to pray the Japanese army from Okinawa and set the stage for the greatest, bloodiest battle ever imagined: the Invasion of Japan.


The Final Front picks up in spring 1945, when Japan is defeated, but defiant: despite the lack of naval and aerial support, the Japanese soldiers on Okinawa fight ferociously and cost the American marines and infantry dearly. Battle is inevitably gruesome, but the island battles of the Pacific War are exemplars of the horrors of combat: Eugene Sledge's stomach-churning details of Okinawa  ("hell's own cesspool") still linger with me over a year after reading his memoirs, and Shaara's account brought those memories into sharper focus.  While the Battle of Okinawa is meant to depict the difficulties, cost, and savagery of the Pacific War as whole, the fourth act -- relatively minor -- offers Adams and the reader some relief by promising to bring the war to a swift conclusion through the use of the atomic bomb.

The fourth act seemed more like an epilogue than anything else: ultimately this is a novel about the Battle of Okinawa. Clay Adams is the predominate character,  relegating almost everyone else to the sidelines until the final pages when Truman and bomber pilot Col. Paul Tibbets take priority. The focus on Adams  may be a sign that Shaara is developing his own style (moving away from his father's use of multiple viewpoint characters from all sides), but it means that this is NOT a book about the Pacific War as a whole. Shaara is perfectly capable of penning a  grand Pacific trilogy, one beginning in 1941 and following key characters,  through to Okinawa and beyond, doing justice to the Marines, airmen, and sailors who fought,  but apparently his publishers are in a hurry for him to write a Civil War trilogy to be published next year in time for several anniversaries.

While it's a fine story, I'm hard-pressed to recommend it. This isn't a suitable tribute to the Pacific War, and those wanting to read about Okinawa would be better served reading Eugene Sledge's With the Old Breed. 

This Week at the Library (26 June)

This week at the library...

I checked out:

• Sharpe's Trafalgar, Bernard Cornwell
• Creations of Fire:  Chemistry's Lively History from Alchemy to the Atomic Age,   Cathy Cobb and Harold Goldwhite
• and The Final Storm, Jeff Shaara, the finishing touch on his World War 2 novels which takes place in the Pacific. 

I'm still reading Radiation in Modern Life, which is proving to be an eye-opener, though I had to return The Age of Faith and The Cat Who Walks through Walls because of a library computer error. I'll pick Age of Faith back up next week: the library's computer system has a problem with my account in which it fails to register which books I have checked in and out. I like to think I've checked out so many books at the library in my life that I've overwhelmed the system.   I also have Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee which I bought a week or so ago.  I'm anticipating making a couple of purchases next week (a couple of new Star Trek novels, and my Bastille Day read).

God is Not One

God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Rule the World and Why Their Differences Matter

© 2010 Stephen Prothero

400 pages

Despite the promises of modernity to drive religion out of the human mind, the New York City skyline bears witness to its continuing relevance. While religion can serve as a force for good,  it’s a master at nurturing the darker sides of human nature, and the good religions have achieved is often a testament to the moral courage of humans who have fought to push these systems of thought beyond their origins.  Some have gone so far as to say that the differences between religions are unimportant, that they are merely different paths up the same broad mountain which arrive at the same place. Stephen Prothero says different.  None of this tearing-down-the-walls-that-divide-us nonsense for Prothero, he intends to prove that religions are all rigidly disconnected boxes, and that while we may choose to shake hands with or shake fists at the fellows in the other boxes, we can only do it through tight little windows.

I looked forward to grappling with this book, largely because my own mind is so divided on the subject: while I believe that all religions were created by human beings to understand the world and perhaps to better themselves,  I also know that some religions are so defined by their aggressive assertions that they cannot easily find peace with other.  I found God is not One to be an unsatisfactory sparring partner, however, being  frustratingly simplistic, and ultimately disappointing.  In the first eight chapters, Prothero analyzes eight  of the the world’s major religion’s through  four-points:

• a problem
• a solution
• a technique
• an exemplar

He believes each of these religions (Islam, Confucianism, Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism, Yoruba, Taoism, Hinduism) attempts to address one of eight different problems in human nature, and offers eight fundamentally different approaches to life based on that problem.  This analysis is entirely too simplistic for the problem at hand, however. While it’s possible to identify characteristics within a religion that make them unique, those characteristics do not constitute the religion. This eight religions, eight boxes organization ignores the more fundamental similarities religions might have:  the constant cycle of life/death/rebirth in Hinduism and Buddhism, for instance, and the hateful split between the material and spiritual worlds that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are so keen on convincing us of.

A second problem with this is one Prothero tip-toes around: although the eight religions he identifies here do have many varied differences, they are not necessarily hostile.  Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism have all existed in China together for centuries, for instance: they each have different offerings, and people happily sample beliefs and practices from each table, cafeteria-style, arriving at a worldview that meets their needs. Prothero speaks of religions ruling the world like hostile nation-states, but not all religions are as imperialistic (and therefore, conflict-prone) as the dominant forms of Christianity and Islam.  The Asian triplets point out the greatest problem with this book, Prothero’s sinister attitude about the relationship between humans and religion.  He would have us owned by religion, forced to live within that particular religion’s box. In the beginning, he snorts that attempts at interfaith dialogue which ignore the walls of differences are “disrespectful” of religion. I say poppycock. Why should we be respectful of religion and let it lie like a dusty rug? We should pick it up, bring it into the sunlight, and then beat it vigorously until all the dirt has fallen away and nothing but beauty remains. Why should we, the living, be content to breathe the dust of our ancestors?

Although Prothero’s thesis never grows legs to stand on here, the book may have some use for those interested in learning about other religions. He shows no bias toward one religion over another, though I advise nonreligious readers to steer well clear. He is bizarrely hostile toward humanists and atheists, dedicating an entire chapter to calling the ‘New Atheism’  a religion and its advocates hypocrites and plagiarists. This is stupidity, of course: religions are organized systems of beliefs, while atheism is a single belief -- and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens are no more plagiarists for making the same criticisms of religious assertions that Bertrand Russell did than is the second man in the crowd who dared to say the emperor had no clothes on.

I’m ultimately disappointed with this book: while it has its uses for comparative religion readers, there are assuredly superior books out there on that subject. I daresay even The Complete Idiot’s Guide to World Religion or some similar work would be better. I despise the spirit that sees the maintenance of religions as more important than the good we might do by overcoming our differences.

Source

Related:

• The Evolution of God, Robert Wright
• A History of God, Karen Armstrong
• The Faith Club,  Ranya Indliby, Suzanne Oliver, and Priscilla Warner
• The Great Transformation: the Beginnings of our Religious Traditions, Karen Armstrong

Sharpe's Fortress

Sharpe’s Fortress: India 1803
© 1999 Bernard Cornwell
294 pages

There’s nothing quite so miserable as a good sergeant who’s been made into  purposeless officer. Mister Richard Sharpe is a man with a mission -- the defeat of renegade-murder Dodd -- but as an ensign in his majesty’s Royal Army, he’s stuck behind the lines supervising the bullock train in the company of his worst enemies. Leave it to Sharpe to get himself into more trouble than he’s ever been in, though: Sharpe’s Fortress could have just as easily been titled Sharpe’s Peril.  Rejected by the other officers and betrayed by his comrades, Ensign Sharpe is left alone to prove himself still a soldier against impossible odds -- resulting in one of Cornwell’s more fantastic endings.

Sharpe’s Fortress takes place in 1803, as Sir Arthur Wellesley’s tiny army moves to crush the remnants of the Mahratta Confederation, commanded partially by the traitor Dodd, who has taken refuge in the fortress Galwighur. For him and the Mahrattas resisting British colonial expansion,  the forthcoming siege will lead to victory or death: there is no escape from this citadel upon the high cliffs.  Sharpe’s Fortress is one of the better Sharpe novels I’ve read up to this point: and not only for the ending battle and Sharpe’s usual heroics. While they carry the novel, a new villain provides considerable comedy. I’m not sure if Cornwell intended this, but I delighted in every scene the man was in.  The Indian trilogy overall has been superb, and I think I shall continue to read the series in chronological sequence.

Booking through Thursday: Soundtrack

Booking through Thursday asks: What, if any, kind of music do you listen to when you’re reading? (Given a choice, of course!


In general, I find that classical music is an excellent complement to reading -- softer pieces, generally, nothing bombastic. However,  when reading some specific genres and books, I like to take advantage of my diverse music collection and play appropriate tunes.  While reading Bernard Cornwell's Napoleonic adventures, for instance, I'll play the fife-and-drum version of The British Grenadiers and other period marching tunes. I listened to nothing but fifties/sixties hits while reading Stephen King's Christine, and the fact that I played only the songs Christine played went far to make my reading experience all the more creepy. Jazz plays if I'm reading police novels ("Harlem Nocturne" is so very noire), a pairing I tried for the first time while reading the Harry Bosch mysteries, since Bosch is obsessed by jazz. There are other obvious matches: Star Wars/StarTrek novels get music from the movie soundtracks, and "La Marseillaise" plays during any work set in France. It helps that I keep my music organized by genre, though my particular way of sorting music ("Eighties Pop", "50s/60s/70s Pop and Rock",  and "Rock" are three different folder I use) may confuse others.

This Week at the Library (19 June)

In addition to the reviews posted this weekend, I also finished Biology Made Simple -- which proved to be too simple for my needs. Although the book improved vastly as the author covered the bodily systems, the opening chapters on basic biological functions are too simplistic to be of help: I generally need to see diagrams of chemical reactions to fully appreciate what is happening. For that, I think I should return to Biology Demystified instead.

At the library, I picked up:

• Cop Hater by Ed McBain, which I read within hours of picking it up for the first time.
• God is not One: The Eight Rival Religions that Rule the World and Why Their Differences Matter by Stephen Prothero. This book has been checked out of the library for months: I'd assumed someone lost it, but apparently they've been renewing it again and again and the library's software didn't catch them. This should be an interesting read, given that I tend to believe humanity's various religions have all interacted with one another too much throughout the course of history to be completely separate. 
• Sharpe's Fortress, the final book in the Indian trilogy by Bernard Cornwell. 

Also, on Friday morning I received The Third Chimpanzee by Jared Diamond in the post. I've been wanting to read this one for a while.

I also have The Age of Faith. I'm presently reading about  the Islamic wars of conquest and hoping for something a little more cheerful, like the spread of the Black Death. Robert Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks through Walls is still unfinished. I'm finding it an altogether odd reading experience: I read Currents of Space by Asimov last week in part to scratch my old-school SF itch but with a more familiar author.

Cop Hater

Cop Hater
© 1956 Ed McBain
236 pages

The heat is on for Detective Stephen Carella of the 87th precinct and his fellow officers. As a heat wave reduces the city to misery, someone is murdering the precinct's detectives one by one. The killer's victims are spread across the department too much to have been connected to a single case, and one lead after another fizzles to a dead end. Though the unforgiving heat and increasing body count sap their spirits, Carella and the other detectives are determined to find their killer and take him down. When resolution comes, however, it's from an unexpected corner.

Cop Hater is the first in the 87th Precinct series, Ed McBain (Evan Hunter)'s  most famous body of work. The series is so expansive that I have no intention of attempting to read them in order: this merely caught my attention while at the library. McBain/Hunter has a strange style, one that mixes simple grittiness with sometimes flowery prose. He speaks of tenement buildings reaching into the skies like misty fingers while his main characters talk about who's just been 'knocked off'.  The combination works, though, and the novel's use of multiple viewpoints adds to the suspense: in the introduction, McBain mentions that he wanted to use an entire squadroom of detectives for this series, just so he had the option of imperiling or killing characters when useful, and the potency of that decision is made clear here. One detective is killed within moments of our meeting him, while others survive long enough to ensnare the reader's sympathies before they become victims themselves. I roared through this book in a single sitting, though the ending left me wanting -- seeming more the work of coincidence than detective work. Still, there's no denying McBain can write a thriller, and so I've no doubts I'll be reading more.