Books

Comedy at the Edge: How Stand-up in the 1970s Changed America

chad — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:34:22 -0400

Full disclosure: I am currently writing this sitting on a beach in the Caribbean. Other than to be simply annoying, I mention that for a reason. The majority of the most cutting-edge, intelligent, and durable comedy that the artists covered in this book created arose out of personal insecurities, serious angst or disillusionment with the world at large. Refracted through satire, ironic jabs or out-and-out manic rants, those issues time and again became the fodder for what has kept us laughing across an admittedly crazy few decades.

So the fact that I’m on a beach in the Caribbean is kind of important. Because at the moment – for a change – I don’t feel much angst, I’m not too concerned about how the world is on an express train down the crapper, and just feel generally pretty relaxed and non-manic. So maybe I’m not in the best place in the world to really get into the spirit of this book, and the comedic crazies contained in its covers (though apparently the Caribbean breeze is good for alliteration).

Cute intros aside, however, this book tackles a subject that is in dire need of further exploration. Beyond anecdotal biographies of specific figures, there have been sorely few aficionados willing to approach stand-up as an actual art - as the kind of cultural force capable of doing what the subtitle of this book claims. Maybe because that is precisely the kind of self-righteous, pompous, sanctimonious claim so many of these comics would have a glorious time skewering with irony, deflection and parody.

"A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide

chad — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 21:11:31 -0500

This is a book about genocide, but it is not ultimately a “genocide book.” Certainly, Power works her way through the stories of the major, undisputed genocides of the 20th Century (skipping over the Holocaust, other than through its legal ramifications through the Nuremburg trials) – Armenia, Cambodia, Iraq’s Anfal campaign, Bosnia (with special emphasis on Srebrenica), Rwanda and Kosovo. Along the way, she intersperses the tale of the creation of “genocide” as a concept, as something different and more sinister than “crimes against humanity,” and the ensuing enshrinement of that idea in international normative law.

But these tales have been told quite thoroughly in other (even if not always widely read) places. Still, one looking for a good overview of many of these tragedies (“I know something bad happened in Bosnia, but I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t really know what”) could do worse than to start here. She breaks down each event with a short summary of the political and human history, and then further examines the warnings given to Western leaders, their recognition that genocide was truly occuring (or lack thereof), their response (or lack thereof) and the aftermath and fallout from those policy decisions (or lack thereof).

Leave None to Tell the Story: Genocide in Rwanda

chad — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 00:31:52 -0500

Nearly 800 pages about the why, wherefore and how of the 20th Century's quickest, most personal and - possibly - least understood genocide. Obviously, it is not a fun read. But neither is it (surprisingly) particularly heart-wrenching, on a gut emotional level. Considering what is being discussed, this work almost astonishingly scientific. When one reads about the butchering of close to a million people within the span of 100 days, carried out in broad daylight in the very communities where the victims lived, oftentimes by those next to whom they'd lived for years, almost always with an arms cocktail that included rifles, grenades, machetes, nail-studded clubs, spears, bows and arrows, and even more basic implements like bicycle handlebars - when any thinking, rational human being contemplates this reality, it tends to boggle the mind. Even numerically: it is the literal equivalent (in the number of victims) of three (3) September 11ths every single day for over three months. In a country of 8 million people. Proportionally, given the population of the United States at the time, that would mean 23 million deaths in the US. Geographically, over a territory roughly the size of Vermont. How does one find enough imagination to conjure up such images and then even begin to make sense of them?

The Trouble With Africa: Why Foreign Aid Isn't Working

chad — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:37:45 -0500

Okay, I more or less agree with his main thesis here: that sympathy, political correctness, and lots of money have not effectively developed African countries economically, and have often prevented that development from happening. Corruption, a lack of civic rights, and repeated squandering of economic opportunities have kept much of the continent living in extreme deprivation; similarly, honest and outspoken critics of the current system are a rarity, from inside or outside of it.

But I was a little disappointed with this one. Primarily, it is light on substance. He says he wants to make it a work for the general reader (i.e. not drown the main points in technocratic jargon), but almost the entire work is backed up solely through anecdotes, sweeping generalizations, and highly contentious opinions passed off as facts. For example, he claims that one of the three main reasons why African aid rarely achieves its objectives is due to the "culture" of Africans. This assertion is dispatched in a breezy nine pages of stories, reflections based on personal experience, and cherry-picked quotes from Africa-lovers (and haters). He is far better (as a former World Bank official) in the "The Trouble With Foreign Aid" chapter, where he sticks to his field of expertise and buttresses his contentions with hard statistics and sound theory.

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army

chad — Sat, 29 Dec 2007 14:34:14 -0500

This is a book on a fascinating topic, written moderately well. The question at its center - are we comfortable with the increasing privatization of our military, and all the attendant questions it raises - is a good one. Unfortunately, the author's answer is a foregone conclusion from page one, and the reader is expected to agree from the same starting point. This was frustrating, and this book did not answer my questions, merely emphasizing them instead. Often, the author cites DoD officials, leaders in the "private security contracting" industry, and political supporters as if the points they raise are so ridiculous they speak for themselves. If the reader is not beholden to a specific political agenda, but genuinely curious about these issues, I think s/he will find many times that these individuals will raise a good point. Scahill needed to argue clearly and concisely why the things they were saying were so offensive. Lots of research done for this book, but it did not quite add up to the damning conclusion the author reaches.

If anything, the disaster in Iraq should prove that the world's emerging security threats cannot be solved through traditional military solutions. Many of the cases cited in the book, from Sierra Leone, to car bombings in the Middle East, to the ravages of Darfur, prove that the worst cases require new answers - more mobile, more efficient, more versatile forces, buoyed by more in-depth intelligence.

Exit Ghost

chad — Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:16:30 -0500

This is a book about the act (struggle) of writing fiction, about the way our upbringing and influences shape us, and primarily about death: of an America (the one of FDR and his 20th Century moment, dragged through the disillusion of Nixon, Reagan and Bush pere et fils); or of oneself: in old age, seeing our identity dissolving and trying (in vain) to hedge our bets against it. In its brief dramatic interludes, it is also largely about how we "set the scene" of how we would like to be remembered - through writing, establishing a narrative self that will remain the dominant voice of our selves well into the future. It is also a meditation on an America (like Zuckerman) that has gone from an impetuous, confident child, grand with its ideas, into a creature grown (seemingly prematurely) old, growling into irrelevance, impotence and intolerance. The struggle over authority: the narrative we create through our fictions, mythologies and legends and the criss-crossing events that lie apart from and underneath that narrative.

These are things you can always expect to encounter in a Roth book. He is quite simply one of the greatest living American authors on death, on the process of writing, on the disconnect between fiction and "real life." So this should be great - a slim tombstone at the head of his work, like an epigram framing his fiction, his American century, and his legacy.

Tree of Smoke

chad — Tue, 25 Dec 2007 19:57:04 -0500

I read the Atlantic Monthly's scathing review of this before buying it, and in retrospect it seems like an eminently unfair judgment of this fantastic book. No, this is indeed ambitious, but Johnson by and large pulls it off. It moves surprisingly quickly; I didn't find it particularly difficult to keep up with the vast mosaic of places and characters and chronologies and time frames; and it has an undeniable emotional heft.