Revealing the End Among the Dry Dust

Civilization is a tenuous construct, and this is illustrated nowhere more plainly than in Eric Cline's 1177 BC: The Year Civilization Collapsed. Cline demonstrates how the civilizations of that area - Egyptian, Hittite, Mitanni, Mycenaean, Ugaritic - were tied together by trade rather than isolated civilizations and how the best evidence of this trade lies in the exchanges of wealth among the elite, not only in (relative) imperishables, but also in the more fragile goods, whether worn or consumed. He further shows that there were merchants of foreign nations in the capitals of these nations, possibly for generations. The specter of imprecise archaeological chronology rears its head, but Cline handles it as well as can be expected. The source material is richer than in past decades, but all archaeology is feeding on scraps! The interconnection of the civilizations presents a clearer picture of the post-apocalyptic past, but muddies the waters of the lives of the survivors, since the equation of new pottery forms with invasion and a new population is no longer a Euclidean equation. Cline's book is informative, but written in a style too dry for the casual reader, and not technical enough for a professional. Some authors have the skill to walk the via media: in this book, Cline is not among that company.

The Power of One

First of all, a caveat: I wrote this for my book club, so it is a book review that presumes that you have read the book. So, while I often talk in generalities, I do not avoid all spoilers. You have been warned.


I was almost finished with The Girl with All the Gifts, (the cheaper Hachette link is not working right now) by M. R. Carey and truly enjoying it when it occurred to me to look him up online. Then I discovered that M. R, Carey was the pen name of Mike Carey, the author of the 11-volume Lucifer graphic novel series, which I highly recommend, as well as the Unwritten graphic novels, which I started but lost interest in (they weren't bad, though - check the first volume out, and make up your own mind), and the Felix Castor supernatural mystery series, which I have not read. Carey's origins as a comics writer and a screenplay writer are important influences in the strengths and weaknesses of The Girl with All the Gifts.

At first glance, The Girl with All the Gifts has two strikes against it: it is a zombie book (herein called "hungries") and its protagonist is a precocious girl. Either of these, if done less than well, could have ruined the book. The protagonist, Melanie, is a hungry who has maintained her intelligence. Melanie's character is fleshed out (so to speak), and her mentor/schoolgirl crush, Miss Justineau, recieves some character development, but the other characters who round out the principal quartet, Sargeant Parks and Doctor Caldwell, are shallow. The characterization of Parks improves as that of Justineau goes fallow. Melanie is a strong enough character on her own, but the plot demands interaction (it's a zombie book, after all, not a "last man in the world" book), so there is a lot of Justineau in the beginning. Justineau is the force that explains why Melanie is "alive", rather than cannon fodder for Parks' men, and a quite different novel could have been written about Justineau's project. Justineau, however, is fundamentally a plot device in Melanie's world, so once the quartet leaves Justineau's natural domain, her characterization withers and dies on the vine as she persistently engages in mind-numbingly stupid objections given the post-apocalyptic world she lives in. Sympathy for the devil is one thing, giving him your credit card is quite another.

To make a long story short, bad things happen (because of course they do, because it's a zombie book), and the merry band hit the road. Justineau becomes baggage, and Melanie and Parks become the important duo. Parks' changing attitude to Melanie is not really character development as much as revelation of a constant character in differing circumstances. He does not learn as much as one might think, but to say more about that would spoil the ending. Melanie's relationship with Caldwell remains (justifiably) hostile.

The limited sociological detail in the novel is reasonable, since this book is not about the society, but rather about the coming of age (in a strange way) of a little undead girl. The scantiness of the personal relationship is more troubling. The Girl with All the Gifts is not only a novel, but also a screen play, written simultaneously; apparently, the novel's multiple viewpoints are collapsed into the single viewpoint of Melanie in the script. The paucity of description of characters in the book is probably interference from the script process, as are some of the graphic scenes that only touch lightly on the plot. Both movies and comics are collaborative art forms, which means that they are both more than the sum of their parts and divided in complimentary tasks. Some of the details absent from the book would be filled in by the illustrator in a comic or the set designer in a movie.

The scientific explanation of the apocalypse makes a fair amount of sense - at least, it explains how the walking corpses are walking. The explanation of Melanie's functionality is good, as far as it goes. It does answer how a ten-year-old hungry can maintain intelligence, but there are some confusing and inexplicable things about her existence to the ten year mark - human babies don't map perfectly onto animal babies. Only Melanie's total lack of knowledge of her life before captivity excuses the lack of an explanation. The complexities of Carey's other plots makes it probable that he does have one. The resolution of the plot, which is closely tied to Melanie's nature and others like her, is cold and logical, yet hopeful. It would be nice if the movie does not have an artificially happy ending, but Hollywood is rather hopeless in that regard. As in all zombie books, the solution is (or seems to be) a temporary solution, but it does further the standard "future history" of the zombie apocalypse from one generation to two generations. If The Girl with All the Gifts catches the imagination of the zombie-mad masses, I expect that there will be further exploration of undead incubation, child care, and post-human civilization.

Canoe Trip 2014

We gathered on an early Saturday morning in a place from which we could see Angel Island and sites across the Bay. The exercisers arrived before the boys did. A prompt departure was a challenge - military efficiency is not expected, but we still failed to leave before the arrival of the legendary Late Scout. The trip up to Burke's Canoe Trips was uneventful, with some delaying on the road longer than others for their cappucinos. In previous years, a Troop father had generously allowed us to camp on his riverine estate with an apple tree much beloved by small Scouts, but in this year the house was undergoing renovation, so we could not stay there. I could not find the cord which I had bought for this trip and with which I had intended to secure my drybag, so I had to use my shoe laces. Part of being prepared is knowing secondary uses of objects! The supply boat carried our extra water, which our leader had managed to acquire. The first challenge of the river was a choice between a portage and a particularly swift and bushy curve. Many of the Scouts chose to portage, but with skill we avoided the worst traps of the curve.

When we had passed this, we saw a cormorant gliding along the river, heedless of the canoers invading his realm; there were many revelers this weekend, since those who sought adventure had adapted their expectations to current drought conditions. We also saw ducks in a row - I had thought this an image drawn from the repetitive targets of carnival hucksters, but it is a real phenomenon. Six or seven duck were perched on log in an eddy, craving the algal growth below them.

The Troop dad, who had gone home to fetch his kayak, now joined us for a stretch. He was good company and he left before the journey back up-river became too long. The cormorant appeared again, this time on the stump of a high tree, with its wings spread out. Majestic and serene!

The campsite which we had found in lieu of the apple orchard was a RV campground, so we held out  few hopes for it, but our site was surprisingly pleasant and large. It was much better than the land on which we used to camp, the land of the Pomo tribe, which held a large dirt patch and an over-priced convenience store. One Scouts had forgotten his kit, so I lent him one of my two bowls on the promise of a thorough cleaning and remembering to bring his supplies next time.

There was a proper fire pit, so our campfires had actual fires, a nice change from the creatively arranged but hardly warming translucent Nalgene bottles illuminated by flashlights.The skits were in the low moderate range, not bad for the beginning of the year. The yells were reasonably creative, and all the songs were off-key. I spoke on the history of canoes, a rough, unpolished speech, but most works start as uncut diamond.

The Troop settled down quickly after the campfire ended. I had forgetten my warm top for sleeping outside, but the second, interior drawstring of my sleeping bag provided a more than adequate cocoon. The spot which I had selected was ideal, as far as dirt patches go - flat, no sharp rocks or tree roots, no overhanging tree branch to drip on me in the morning. That last proved not be a concern, since the place was too dry for dew. The older boys had decamped to a lower grassy field, but around midnight they returned from the mosquito-laden mere that adjoined the grassy area.

In the morning, the adult group had no breakfast, but a combination of personal rations and an overflow of apples from one of the Scout groups solved the problem. There was a brief Scout's Own, done sufficiently and briefly. By this point, there was only one parent to choose as the speaker.  We returned home early, but everybody had had a good time.

Gorgeous? Only Mostly.

The current exhibit at the Asian Art Museum is entitled Gorgeous, one of those pretentious adjectival titles so beloved of show organizers scrambling for a label, any label, to encompass the miscellany they have scrounged together. My sweetie wanted to see the show, so we went on a pleasant Saturday. The ticket price was reasonable. The exhibit was divided into four parts, although the sequence was not apparent without explicit guidance. I'm still not sure what the justification for the division, other than space, was. Many of the items were very beautiful, quite a few were fairly pretty, some were baffling, and a very few should not have been in an exhibit entitled Gorgeous! The statue of Michael Jackson and Bubbles (the chimpanzee, not Fred Astaire's tap dance tutor) was pretty - a bit tacky and shiny, and something which the Ancien Regime would have loved. The abstract art, especially the paintings, held a tenuous position - my beloved could see no worth in them, but I had to concede that the proportions followed a pleasing geometry. The display of an iPhone offended my very sense of art - not a block carved or painted in the shape or colors of an iPhone, not one constructed or mutilated by the artist, but just an iPhone. Found art requires a context - otherwise, it's just an object! The display of an iPhone as art should also serve as an indictment of the art- and music-starved education of the millennial generation.

A different item which suffered from lack of context was the quartered pile of rubble in Room 4 of 4. If it were in the vicinity of a bombed-out building like those of Cocteau's post-World War II Orpheus, or next to Grace Cathedral when the grand stairs had been demolished, I could have deemed it art; without that context, an informational poster updating a committee on building progress would be more artistic. And then there was the urinal, well-made and clean, and by no means the ugliest thing in the exhibit. Craftmanship has become rare, but so rare that there is no difference between good design and artistic creativity? If there were an artist in this situation, it was the designer of the urinal model, not the vapid artiste who ordered it from home furnishing.