Paperback Perusalings

Mark Pilkington has penned a highly interesting, mildly amusing study of 60 years of Ufology entitled Mirage Men. The central thesis, essentially, is that a variety of American agencies have quite actively fostered and encouraged the mythos of flying saucery as a handy cover for the development ant testing of experimental craft and as an unusual conduit for espionage. Pilkington carefully reinterprets most of the main historical ‘occurrences’ showing how key players have been closely linked to Psyops groups started in WW2 and how their disinformation was spread to focus and refocus the attention of the curious and/or nutty. A remarkably lucid, rather convincing read that’s only slightly mired by the author’s occasional dips into credulousness.

 

A Time before Genesis is a po-faced little pot boiler that weaves millenarian ramblings into some batshit global demonic/alien conspiracy capering, which, given it was written by the late comedian Les Dawson, really is quite a surprise. The plot is pretty standard stuff with a journalist stumbling into the murky mire but finding respite with a motley band of Crusaders fight together to thwart the evil that pervades the modern world. The writing is fairly terrible, characters paper thin and the plot well, it’s at least as barmy as it is derivative though it does have a nicely downbeat ending. I’m left wondering sadly if the late, great comic was a closet loon, a frustrated author or just trying to cash in on his renown, all in all a puzzling curio that probably isn’t worth the effort in hunting out.

Rind Mending Beads

Oliver Sacks turns out a nice survey of our current understanding of sensory unusualness in Hallucinations. Specialising, as he does in geriatric neurophys, the book opens with tales of Charles Bonnet syndrome whose sufferers, as their eyesight fails, are prone to vivid and intrusive visions but the book soon moves onto similar stories, spread across all our sense modalities and variously prompted by drugs, disease and degeneration. It's a good read, that shouldn't trouble the laymen but yet enough detail about the more exotic perceptual aberrations to keep the more educated interested. Another worthwhile read from one of the best communicators of psychological understanding.

Robert Irwin’s novels have entertained me previously but having never read any of his academic works I was wary about his autobiographical effort, Memoirs of a Dervish. It is, however, a entertaining and fascinating glimpse of the author’s experiences of the swinging sixties and his meandering, spiritual journey from Oxford University to an unusual Algerian Sufi community. Irwin’s droll retelling of escapades with the mystically inclined and the drug addled are interspersed with vignettes of life as a fledgling intellectual and self deprecating reminiscences of his time in the ‘scene’. Though it’s a little slight there’s plenty of chuckles along the way and he sneaks in a well reasoned, seasoned perspective on the Age of Aquarius and Western spiritual seekers.

Pagans Pages and Perspicacity

Ira Levin's ground breaking, suburban horror Rosemary's Baby shoved horror from the gothic into modern world as a young couple become encircled by a clucky bunch of Satanists after moving into a plush NYC apartment block. Regarded as a classic, in part no doubt, because of Polanski's superlative adaptation it's a gripping, creeping urban nightmare and although it seems a little trite now, still has plenty of chills left in the tank. Like Levin's other novels, it's written with a direct, spartan prose that's lean and effective and though the film's success meant I was familiar with denouement, the slow creeping dread about Rosemary's predicament and the subsequent finale is wonderfully paced and packs a punch.

I've always found Richard Wiseman a little irksome but his book, Quirkology, goes a fair way in improving my opinion of the diminutive boffin. Basically a loose gazetteer of the more unusual corners of psychological research Wiseman gathers together some interesting studies that paint a decidedly counter-intuitive picture of our minds and lives. Covering the psychology of laughter, online dating, birthdays, surnames and a whole plethora of other odd little topics Wiseman strings things together with a breezy, humorous tone but still manages to point out some of the more serious consequences of our mental myopia. A great little primer for those interested in psychology.

Disorderly Minds

China Mieville's Embassytown follows the story of a deep space pilot who becomes enmeshed in political and social upheaval in her home city, a community of ambassadors on a nexus world with a linguistically unique indigenous population. Mieville creates a vivid, rich milieu for his characters to play in and, though it takes a while to get going, it snowballs into a thrilling and surprisingly emotive read. Mieville continues his golden streak.

The Psychopath Test sees Jon Ronson investigate, in his usual idiosyncratic fashion, the business of diagnosing and treating psychopaths. With a cast including Broadmoor prisoners, proselytising practitioners, activist Scientologists and borderline CEO's Ronson packs in the giggles as he uncovers the murky world of the DSM and the challenges inherent in assessing someone else's sanity. Due to Ronson's scattergun approach this is closer to Them than Stare at Goats but it's a effective, charming primer about the business of noggin doctoring.

Tea Leaf & Magic Bean

For All the Tea in China is a novelisation of the adventures of the Victorian botanist/plant hunter, and my ancestor, Robert Fortune. Covering his second, illegal trip into the Chinese hinterland this time he's is trying to steal the secrets of the coveted Green & Black Teas of China which are still highly prized and, at the time, a cornerstone of the Chinese economy. Fortune's search of seeds, saplings and Tea expertise was at the behest and expense of the East India Company, the very model of a ravenous, brutal corporate monster. The book pads out his dramatic and tense encounters with locals, pirates and warlords with plenty of social and historical background. Fortune comes across as a determined, passionate man who had no shortage of gumption but as much as he seems to admire the Chinese themselves he doesn't appear to understand or acknowledge much awareness (or maybe sympathy) for China's people and their cultural/political situation. There is one moment however, during his trip into the Wu Yi mountains, bowed over by the beauty of the landscape and the generosity of the monks that helped him, that he shows a more humane side. The writing is good, if a little unremarkable, and it's certainly a much easier read than Fortune's own memoirs of the time but it's the events & escapades of the main character that drive this book. I'm obviously a little bias but I really enjoyed it, a nice, interesting slice of history.

The Anatomist is another enjoyable tale of scientific discovery this time set in Renaissance Italy and about a man with a quite different passion. Mateo Colombo was a highly regarded physician of the era and after becoming smitten with a prestigious whore sets about finding a way to codify and manipulate female passions and during the process, stumbles onto a patient that reveals the existence of "Amor Veneris" aka the clitoris. There's less social/cultural scene setting than in For All... and the narrative is considerably more involved, reading almost like a novel but author Frederico Andahazi's light prose dances through the colourful story of Colombo's discovery, imprisonment & subsequent trial. There's a lots of laughs and a little tragedy along the way as well as the expected sex, death and politics and it's a fascinating & thoroughly entertaining read.

Paperback Perusalings

A Maggot by John Fowles is a stunning mystery novel set in the 17th century concerning the travails of a wayward son and his companions while on a peculiar Exmoor journey. The story is told through a series of Q & A's, real time narratives and newspaper clippings and for the first half of the novel the plot doesn't really develop much as the events are retold by each richly drawn traveller, it's beautifully written though it did take me a while to get used to the period vernacular. Around the halfway mark Fowles teasingly reveals a much greater ambition however and what appeared to be a simple historical mystery becomes an interesting examination of religiosity and our ever changing social mores spun from a superbly crafted reminiscence of an ambiguous, fortean, experience. It surpasses The Magus to become my new favourite Fowles novel I think but I won't say anymore in case I spoil someone else's pleasure as it's baffling central events are best discovered as the author intended. A fine example of literary speculative fiction.

Banvard's Folly is a nicely written collection of brief biographies of some unusual, failed geniuses that have slipped from history's focus. It's a nice selection of fascinating oddbods, fraudsters and barmy thinkers including Symmes and his search for his Hollow Earth entrance, Rene Blondlot's imaginary N-Rays, Ephraim Bull's Concord grape variety and of course John Banvard himself, a painter of truly ginormous canvasses. Paul Collins' sympathetic portraits of these 13 characters gives each tale an added poignancy and it's a lovely read for anyone interested in the forgotten and the foolish. If you do read n enjoy it you should give Mike Jay's Air Loom Gang or Foden's Mimi and Toutou Go Forth a go.