Book update: Bourne Ultimatum, Children of Hurin and JPod

Some reclusion this time, movies and books, the written and filmed entertainment, the illusive formats of storytelling. Downtown Vancouver is host to plenty of bookstores and movie theaters and either form of entertainment is within hand's reach. Literally around the corner there's both a cinema and a bookstore. A little bit further away are bigger three-floor-versions of the said establishments, featuring more choices and variations. This week it's book time.

J.R.R. Tolkien: Children of Hurin

Tolkien's son brings us a collection the notes and unfinished work of his father turned into “the Children of Hurin”.

The Children of Hurin is not a happy book. The book takes place long before the Lord of the Rings. Lord Hurin finds himself amongst the losing party of the ongoing war on Evil (tm). The book sees an alliance of Elves, Men and Dwarfs get their collective assess royally whooped by Morgoth (big boss of all evil – including Sauron).

To remind Hurin how much Morgoth has PWNed his royal rear-end, he curses him and his family. Hurin is chained to an uncomfortable stone chair and is forced to watch his son, Turin, grow up.

The curse turns Turin in quite a screw up, making one mistake after the other. Turin finds a home amongst the Elves, but he ends up killing one of them and is forced to flee. Turin becomes leader of a band of outlaws. Being quite a pesky lot, Morgoth decides to capture Turin. Given the vast forces at Morgoth's disposal, capturing a bunch of outlaws isn't that big of a deal. Naturally Turin gets rescued by his best Elven friend and thanks him in kind: he accidentally kills him.

After a couple of more tragedies, Turin ends falling in love and shagging his sister. Both of them decide to kill themselves for different reasons. Happy with the outcome of these events, Morgoth finally releases Hurin from his prison.

The overall story is gripping and definitely leaves an impression but the pace and style are sometimes painfully weak. The tale is stuttering along, alternating between dragging the reader through irrelevant details and then breezing through major developments. The style often struck me as either immature or vastly outdated. The characters, with the exception of Hurin himself, seem overly simplistic and underdeveloped.

After reading more and more Tolkien, I'm slowly starting to wonder if the Lord of the Rings (LotR) was a mere lucky strike. The book offers an interesting dark contrast to the lighthearted Hobbit, but like The Silmarillion, it is dreadfully slow and often simply uninteresting. Although the Children of Hurin is less pretentious and a little bit more accessible than The Silmarillion, I fear this for Tolkien fans only.

Ludlum; "The Bourne Ultimatum"

Everyone probably knows the Bourne movies. Probably everyone but me knew that there's an entire series of books devoted to this Bourne character. The 'Bourne: Ultimatum' starts off with a retired Bourne. Now known as David Webb, professor in things Asian, Bourne has found relative peace in his life.

Too bad for him but happy things don't make interesting stories. It doesn't take long before Bourne / Webb finds himself on the hit-list of an evil super assassin, called Carlos “the Jackal”. The Jackal has some compensation issues going on, and feels he can only prove himself by killing the greatest assassin on the world: Jason Bourne. Bourne decides that the only way to keep his family save, is to draw the Jackal out and take him down himself. The story goes through a one on one, one on many, many on many battle that spans the globe.

I'm not a big spy fan, but this was an entertaining read. It features an interesting setup, where small schemes lead to issues that explode beyond the capabilities of the main character. Bourne also remains fallible throughout the book, making mistakes and misguided decisions. Both the limited capabilities and the imperfection of Bourne, help keeping a balance between the inspiring super hero aura of Bond or Bauer (is it a coincidence, their names all start with a 'B') and the believability of a mere human being. It's a tense balance, and the character development is rather sloppy here and there. The main characters sometimes seem to be conveniently subject to whatever the story needs, rather than the driven by a consistent set of beliefs / desires / intentions. This left me with a feeling that events are sometimes a bit random and contrived.

The third installment of the movie comes out somewhere this summer. The funny thing is that storyline of the movie, does not have that much to do with the book . Sure: there's the spy genre, a super assassin who forgot who he was, as well as some overlordish organization that is acting according to a not so humane and philanthropical agenda... but the book takes place in the late cold-war era and focusses on lethal rivalry between an aging Bourne and a lethal “Jackal” as well as the family life complications spies endure. The novel is good, let's see if the movie delivers as well.

Coming up: JPod

My Obese Pile of Literature goes on a Diet

Next year, same time, things will probably be somewhat different from where I am now. These are the attempts to write an entertaining collection of meaningless contemplations and tales leading up to the coming changes...

While waiting for the day I abandon Holland, I'm blessed with some employer sponsored free time. I'm going to need this time for many reasons. There is the long list of contracts and memberships which need to be terminated, there's friends to see and say goodbye to and there is time to do those things on the-list-of-things-I-need-to-do-someday (not to be confused with other important lists such as list-of-things-I-need-to-do-before-I-die or list-of-things-I-need-to-see-before-I-can't-walk-anymore)

One of those things-I-need-to-do-someday is working through the growing pile of literature which I am supposed to read. Every now and then my girlfriend or any other type of friend will mention a book which either I “must” read, or might be interesting. Since I take these advices quicker than I'm capable of or willing to actually reading them, this list resulted in a pile of books which is getting slightly obese. Now that I got some free time, I put my list of a healthy exercise of morning reading, afternoon reading and evening reading. Hopefully it will be slimmed down to an acceptable size by the time I get to Canada.

For those interested, or for those who's own list is getting too slim, here are some suggestions:

Freakonomics (Levitt & Dubner): What happens if you take statistics, correlation and causation, take them out of context, shake and stir, and finally serve them with some written humor? Probably something like this book. It's a collection of unrelated relatively simple questions and their unexpected (unwanted) answers. Why do drugs dealers live with their mothers? How does abortion relate to a drop in crime? What do Sumo wrestlers and real estate agents have in common ? A lightweight fun read for those with in interest in human psyche, correlation or game theory. (http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/)

The End of Poverty (Jeffrey D. Sachs): I must admit, I haven't finished this one yet and there's a fair chance I won't. It's an interesting analysis of what's wrong with the world today and especially with the position of third world countries. Mr Sachs has been involved in the economics or analyzing some interesting cases, such as Bolivia, Poland or China. It's a good solid book, but there's a bit too much emphasis on the achievements of mister Sachs himself. The book explains events in at a peaceful, take-your-time pace... which makes it easy to get distracted by oh look-something-shiny.

That “something shiny” in this case is “the Swarm” (Frank Schätzing). I just started on this book, but being somewhat of a sucker for science fiction (if it can be classified that way), it has already grabbed me and won't let go of me until I finished it. Human kind is happily on its way of screwing up its own and only place to live. What if the other residents of this earth decided it might be a good idea to do something about it, since the only thing those pink / yellow / brown / black bipeds are doing is write reports on this debatable situation. The cover promises a nice blend of science and free format philosophizing: count me in !