From: garry@monarch.eng.ufl.edu (Garry Peterson)
Subject: Re: Recent Reading
Reply-To: garry@monarch.eng.ufl.edu (Garry Peterson)
Organization: Cross Scalar Ecology Lab
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 92 20:33:37 GMT


Here are some very brief reviews/descriptions of books I've been reading 
recently.  Black Robe by Brian Moore, Utz by Bruce Chatwin, The Three 
Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Phillip K. Dick, and Rites of Passage by 
William Golding.  I found all of these books at least fairly good, with 
Black Robe and Utz being the best of the set.  I would recommend both 
Black Robe and Utz.

	Black Robe is set duing the early colonization of Canada, and it 
deals with a Jesuit priests traveling out into the wilderness of Eastern 
Canada to convert the natives to Catholicism.  It is an excellent book.  
Canoeing along the mighty rivers of Canada, sex, death, manitou and bad 
smells.  It avoids the Eurocentric trap of stories like that of the 
movie 'The Mission', which has 'good' Jesuit missionaries protecting the 
natives against evil government/Catholic slavers.  In Black Robe the two 
cultures are presented as equals in conflict.
	Black Robe was made into a movie last year (with I believe the 
main guy from the movie 'Jesus of Montreal' as the Jesuit).  It received 
mixed but , generally favourable reviews.  Having read the book I am now 
quite keen to see the film.

	The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch is a weird, reality bending 
book.  Which I suppose means that it is typical Dick.  The three 
stigmata are an artificial arm, metal teeth, and artificial eyes.  The 
protagonist works at a company which sells Barbie accessories, which the 
masses use in conjunction with drugs to escape from their lives into 
'the lifestyles of the rich and famous'.  Palmer Eldritch returns from a 
visit with aliens (God?) and shakes things up.

	Rites of Passage is the narrative of a young Victorian aristocrat 
traveling to his first job in Australia on an old decaying sailing ship.  
"With lack of sleep and too much understanding I grow a little crazy, I 
think, like all men at sea who live too close to each other and too 
close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon."

	Utz tells the complex story of Utz who is a Czech collector of 
porcelain figurines.  Utz lives is born before the first world war and 
lives through the second, communism, and then dies following the Prague 
spring.  Utz was Chatwin's last book before he died in the late 
eighties.

quote:
	I tried to swing the conversation to Utz's collection of 
porcelain.  His reaction was to swivel his neck inside his collar and 
say, blankly, 'Dr. Orlik is also a collector.  But he is a collector of 
flies.'
	'Flies?'
	'Flies,' assented Orlik.
	I began to form a mental picture of his lodgings: the unmade bed, 
and unemptied ash trays; the avalanche of yellowing periodicals; the 
microscope; the killing-jars and lining the walls, glass fronted cases 
containing flies from every corner of the globe, each a specimen pierced 
with a pin.  I mentioned some beautiful dragonflies I had seen in 
Brazil.
	'Dragonflies?' Orlik frowned.  'I have not interest.  I have only 
interest for Musca domestica.'
	'The common housefly?'
	''That is what it is.'
	'Answer me,' Utz interrupted again.  'On which day did God create 
the fly?  Day Five?  Or Day Six?'
	'How many times will I tell you?' Orlik clamoured.  We have one 
hundred ninety million years of flies.  But you will always speak of 
days!'
	'Hard words,' said Utz, philosophically.
	A fly had landed on the tablecloth and was sopping up some soup 
that the waiter had let fall from the ladle.  With a flick of his wrist 
Orlik upturned a glass tumbler, and trapped the insect beneath it.  He 
slid the glass to the edge of the table and transferred the fly to the 
killing-jar he took from his pocket.  There was an angry buzzing and 
then silence.

endquote.

-Garry