What We Were, and Are...

 

Born in Africa: The Quest for the Origins of Human Life, by Martin Meredith, tells the fascinating of how we evolved. What I find most interesting about this work is how much our categories of what a human, of the genus homo, is and what is an ape.  

A lot of energy in the early years of fossil hunting was spent attempting to draw this line.  We now know from genetic studies that we carry the genes of at least three other members of the genus homo.   One of the definitions of a species is the ability to interbreed.  If we did so with three groups of (now) extinct members of the genus homo, how much more so would it have been in the time period Meredith covers, millions of years ago in Africa?

The idea that there is a spectrum among apes and hominids frees us from the conceptual constraints about morphology, speciation, and the unanswerable philosophical question of what is human.  Our past is far more complex than our ideas.  With increased knowledge of our origins, we generate more and more questions.  

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief

 

Going Clear: Scientology, Hollywood and the Prison of Belief, by Lawrence Wright, is, as the title suggests, a very critical survey of Scientology.  But Wright is “fair” when he discusses the actual tenants of the religion.  Scientology has little that is new; it simply uses new terms for ideas that are found in many established religions.  It is certainly as wacky, maybe even less, then the Kabbalah, which I study closely.

The major issue presented here is the allegations of violence and and other criminal forms of control that the Church allegedly uses against dissenting members, journalists, and others critics.  What is documented in this book is illegal, and if even a fraction of what Wright tells us is true, it shows deep systemic criminal problems within the religion. 

But in the end, Wright appears optimistic of Scientology’s prospects.  He reminds us that Mormon’s were considered dangerous radicals, persecuted, killed, and driven into exile in their early years.  Now, many Americans (especially conservatives) see them as paradigms of certain elemental American values.  Christian Science was once considered fringe and dangerous.  Now its newspaper is a major player on the world stage.  One day, Scientology may mellow out, and become far more mainstream.  When the fires of revolution flare out, even the most radical religions move toward mainstream, and acceptance.

Alas, The End

 

Alas, Babylon: A Novel by Pat Frank, is somewhat dated but holds up surprisingly well, thirty years after the end of the Cold War.  The key is good storytelling.  We care about the citizens of Fort Repose, Florida, even though the Soviet Union is no more. The book often has the racial and gender sensibilities of 1959, but it is difficult to tell if this is the author’s perspective, or simply a mirror held up to the times.

Like most nuclear war survival books and films, we now know that even a limited nuclear engage would be a species terminating event.  Some books and films came close to this realization, especially the BBC’s 1984 masterful Threads.  Yet even in this work, ten years after the nuclear exchange, a bare bones government is being formed in northern England.  People hang on - but in a nightmare. That would not happen.  But I suppose you can’t write a book where the bombs go off, and everyone dies – the likely, but not very dramatic, scenario. 

The Unfortunate Need for Self-Defense (and how we don't risk our well-being for others)

 

The Rohingyas: Inside Myanmar's Hidden Genocide by Azeem Ibrahim, shows, sadly, that more than half a century since the Holocaust, and other genocidal acts since then, the world community will not come to the aid of endangered minorities.  The Rohingyas are on their own.  The world does not care. 

This books explains how the Rohingya were transformed into “the other” by the government of Myanmar (Burma).   Ibrahim illustrates what Timothy Snyder has written of the Nazis in World War II: the prime way to commit genocide is to strip a people of their national, legal rights.  Once that is done, a minority group is at the mercy of the government, and other groups.  Without access to the legal apparatus of the state, genocide is nearly inevitable.

The sad take away from this book is that minority groups have to have some kind of self-defense (as backup) especially if they find themselves in a situation like the Rohingya.  Humanity is not yet evolved enough to treat the so-called stranger with love and care.  We don't risk our well being for others.

Not A Novel

 

The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini, is largely plot driven, and rises and falls on this element.  Unfortunately, that plot is fairly predictable, and at the same time, too far-fetched.  Hosseini's novel is less art and more a bridge for Americans to understand Afghani culture.    

  

The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship (Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century)

 

The Hebrew Bible: New Insights and Scholarship (Jewish Studies in the Twenty-First Century edited by Frederick E. Greenspahn), is a wide ranging look at the various contemporary lenses where in scholars interpret the bible.  The collection includes the controversy between ‘minimalist’ and ‘maximalist’ scholars of the bible, how archaeology supports (or fails to support) biblical narrative, and the documentary hypothesis, and what that tells us about the power structures of those who compiled the bible, feminism and its ramifications for biblical research, and more.  Whether you are familiar with these topics and are just catching up to a rapidly developing field, or brand new to academic biblical studies, this is a handy read.

The Drowned World: A Novel

The Drowned World: A Novel by J. G. Ballard gets a great deal of positive press as a ground breaking science fiction novel.  But it seems Ballard does not take advantage of what he has undertaken.  Character development is weak, for instance.  Early on we get Beatrice, and there is the hint we will know her more, but the three fundamental characters remain isolated in some bizarre Freudian dream world that we never understand.  The novel is also extremely racist, and therefore disappointing, in so many ways.