Thursday 30 April 2009

The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death and Happiness by Mark Rowlands

I reviewed this for Augment's MAD news (Monthly Augment Deliberation):

The truth is, I suppose, that I’ve always been a natural misanthrope’: A misanthrope is defined as a ‘hater of humans’, Rowlands prefers the company of his wolf Brenin, and dogs Nina and Tess. It seems impossible that a book written by such a man can give any positive information about the advanced apes that we are. And indeed his accounts of what makes apes different from other animals are very bleak, identifying in us ‘the tendency to base relationships with other on a single principle, invariant and unyielding: what can you do for me, and how much will it cost me to get you to do it?’. Rowlands demonstrates how our ‘finer’ qualities such as love and joy are not unique and we tend to base our assessments of animal intelligence on our terms: ‘they are poor only in the way we measure things’. We are creatures that tend to define ourselves by what we do and have rather than what we are, we see the world ‘as a collection of resources; things to be used for its purposes’. We tend to view love and happiness as feelings that we pursue with desperation, but I agree with Rowlands in his view that they are the byproduct of those moments in our life that may not always be pleasant but of which you can be proud, when you did something for the first time, when you stood up when something was unjust. This is empowering.

Here is Rowlands talking about he the subject of moments:
‘Moments, for us, are transparent. They are what we reach through when we try to take possession of things.’, ‘
For us, no moment is ever complete in itself. Every moment is adulterated, tainted by what we remember has been and what we anticipate will be.’
‘Anything we can have, anything we can possess, time will take it from us. But what time can never take from us is who we were in our best moments.’

Rowlands says ‘In saying that the meaning of the life is to be found in moments, I am not repeating those facile little homilies that entreat us to ‘live in the moment’. I would never recommend trying to do something that is impossible.’ But I disagree. It’s not impossible. The main avenue I use is mindfulness in which meditation is used to create awareness of the moment and the ability to stop the ‘chattering ape’, the endless stream of thoughts and feelings that intrude. My cats and my young child draw me into the moment, losing myself in a purring bundle of alpha waves or daughter’s fascination with a single leaf. There are ways to get round the worst of what we can be, but it isn’t easy.

Saturday 25 April 2009

Brisingr by Chistopher Paolini

Another in an unputdownable series that along with Paver I eagerly await each new one and devour when I do get it. Brisingr was supposed to be the third in Paolini's Inheritance trilogy, which has now become four books because it didn't all fit into the first three. Brisingr is a big book, both physically and in terms of its writing and scope, epic, soaring, beautiful and well written, a new world without resorting to tired rehashig of Tolkien's Middle Earth, Lewis' Narnia or Pullman's worlds beyond the Northern Lights.

Monday 20 April 2009

Oathbreaker by Michelle Paver

The fifth in the brilliant 6 book Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series, set in the paleolithic era, the story of Torak, his beloved Wolf and companion Renn, the tribes humans split themselves into at the time all set within a landscape at the edge of modern human history. Read in one sitting, as ever, and utterly brilliant.

Saturday 18 April 2009

Rebus's Scotland by Ian Rankin

I think I have this on audio CD but the book is even better. Rankin speaks about his own history, from his early life in Cardenden and Bowhill, mining towns in the Kingdom of Fife in Scotland, and how it intersects with Rebus' own history. Rankin speaks about Rebus' attitudes to Scottish society and introduces the darker side of Edinburgh and Scotland witnessed by Rebus through the crimes he deals with. The whole is hauntingly illustrated by the photographers who took the stark black and white pictures that illustrate Rankin's books, pictures of convenience stores, abandoned shipyards, tenments and tower blocks, the less picturesque but no less real unseen Scotland a world away from shortbread tins.

Sunday 12 April 2009

The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin

Yes, I finally finished it, very proud of myself, ridiculously so considering Darwin's writing is clear, eloquent and even poetic at times and I should have got it finished sooner. Still as relevant as when it was written, maybe even more so, putting us firmly in our place as a tiny speck in the life of our wonderful planet

Thursday 2 April 2009

Got You Back by Jane Fallon AUDIO

Pretty sure I read this as part of the Penguin year long reading challenge. It was okay, not hugely interesting, about infidelity, a man with two women and what happens when they find out. Entertaining but not something I would have chosen for myself.