The Perfect Nanny, Leila Slimani

   This book was among many from a pile of books that were international NY Times Bestsellers for 2018. It's also a winner of a Prix Goncourt prize, whatever that is. I do believe it's a translation. So, it's another effort to get into contemporary literature. "Insanely good," is stamped at the top of the cover from Kate Hamer. I guess so. Insane is perhaps a good word, but the word good and insane in this case do not go together.

   I almost wish I hadn't read this book. I don't know what I was expecting. The perfect nanny is perfect except for the fact that she kills the children in her care. This is shown in the beginning. Slowly, we're shown the severe issues that built up Louise, the main character. A bad childhood, a bad marriage, a bad child, a bad set of debts and debtors, and a bad job, all somehow end in a wasted woman doing something terrible.

   When I say I wish I hadn't read the book, it's for this reason: I just felt queasy, uneasy, and very uncomfortable from beginning to end. Almost like I was going to take a bath in someone else's cold bathwater. That feeling never goes away. The tension doesn't snap at the end as it seems to lose its elasticity.

   Imagine Mary Poppins: the perfect nanny. Then, she falls apart and kills the Banks' kids. But, you see that in the opening scene of the movie. You know that after all the magic and the fun and dancing and singing and walks in magical places and pigeons, that Mary Poppins has already been seen killing these kids and you know that you will get to revisit the killing in gorier details at the end. That's what this book is like. Enjoy.

Brainwave, Poul Willian Anderson

This journal entry continues from my last entry, covering the partial story called "The Escape." At the end of that ebook is written, "To Be Continued." I had to do some digging to find that it is a part of the complete work called Brainwave. I considered reposting the previous journal entry here, but decided not to at last. So, continuing from where I left off:

I do like this novel, thus far. I am roughly 1/2 way through it at this point. However, I find the consequences to everyone having great intelligence faulty. In "The Great Escape," there was some room for debate, I thought. However, at this point I find myself in thorough opposition to the points that Anderson is making.

Concerning art, the author's protaganist says,

Art, throughout history, has had a terrible tendency to decay, or to petrify into sheer imitation of the past.

Art does not suffer from this. Not every artist is a great pioneer like Picasso. But that doesn't mean that it is less artistic. Great scientists are equally rare, but the work of common scientists and engineers is still vitally important.

Scientists work hard to try to revert humankind back to its less intelligent level. Men have become lazier. They don't want to work. They would rather sit around philosophizing than working to build things. Intelligence has created a "...world of rootless intellect (which) has lost all its old dreams and loves. We want to restore humanness)."

Some people put together a ship that will return the earth to its pre-superhuman intelligence. However, their efforts are thwarted. The Hindu man who was a part of the plot says in his defense, "Are all the glories man has won in the past to go for nothing? Before he has even found God, will you turn God into a nursery tale? What have you given him in return for the splendors of his art, the creation in his hands, and the warm little pleasures when his day's work is done? You have turned him into a calculating machine, and the body and the soul can wither amidst his new equations." This suggests the idea that atheism is a product of superior intellect. I am an atheist and feel that intellect must eventually bury religion. However, I always have to keep in mind that Sir Isaac Newton, the greatest scientific and mathematical genius of the second millennium, was a Christian of a sort. I am in no way equal to him.

I have finished the novel at this point:

The story ends with Sheila joining Archie Brock and his group of animals and other intellectually challenged people to find her new life. Archie Brock is still very intelligent. But he doesn't reach beyond the necessity of survival.

The rest of humankind is ready to leave the planet and travel amongst the stars. Perhaps that is not a bad end. The great intelligence manages to overcome violence. Perhaps it manages to find a place for the advanced intelligence of humans.

I think the story is a very interesting one. It is his effort to explore the idea which is written at the end, saying, "What would happen If." What would happen if, somehow, everyone became super intelligent?

Another interesting question might be: are we doing that now? Did Anderson at least in part predict what would happen if we suddenly became more intelligent as a species? Are we doing that now?

For instance: machines are evolving to have artificially intelligent brains and vastly evolved robotics that so many jobs are being done by them. More are coming. Automated cars and transport trucks are on the horizon. Pizza delivery is already being done by drone. Inaugural farms are being run exclusively using AI and machinery. The consequence is that our current economic model means that many people are without jobs. The jobs themselves being lost are not the problem, but rather that money is printed on the basis of production, and with fewer people being involved in the production, that means there are fewer economic avenues available to workers. If we are able to evolve a monetary system based on the intrinsic value of a human life rather than, say, a barrel of oil (and print money based on the human value rather than the barrel of oil), then those people would be able to take care of themselves and enjoy the evolution: a kind of emancipation. Alas, so few people understand that economic models are based on theory and capable of being altered by governments. A majority have not yet realized the benefit of such a transition.

So, we are intellectually evolving. The machines are taking over. And these years are the pains we must endure before the benefit affects everyone.

War of the Worlds, H. G. Wells

This is not the first time I have read this book. This might be the third time. I used to listen to the old radio show on cassette, narrated and directed by Orson Welles. The Orson Welles radio broadcast (1938) was so realistic that many people believed it to be real and panicked. I cannot begin to guess how many times I listened to that in my youth, as it was a favorite of mine. Then there is Jeff Wayne's (1978) musical which I probably listened to on cassette at least a hundred times. There was also a TV series very loosely based on The War of the Worlds (1898). I recommend all of them without reservation. I still consider The War of the Worlds to be perhaps the greatest science fiction classic of all time. H. G. Wells (1866-1946) is legendary. There are many other greats in the canon of science fiction, but he is one of the greatest pioneers of the genre along with Jules Verne. No fan of science fiction should miss reading The War of the Worlds. It's available for free at numerous locations, including Gutenberg.org.

The opening lines of the book are brilliant. It's an exceptionally well written introduction to the topic of the book: we are not alone in the solar system. There are intelligences greater than our own. We are an object of scientific curiosity:

No one would have believed in the last years of the nineteenth century that this world was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man's and yet as mortal as his own; that as men busied themselves about their various concerns they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency men went to and fro over this globe about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over matter. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same.

We are poor keepers of our planet. But Mars is much poorer than our own, for it cannot sustain life. In those days, however, there was speculation that there might be some form of intelligent life. Certainly there were no robots being sent to scour the rocky terrain of the Martian surface. But there are certainly other planets near to our own, but as seemingly impossible to reach today as Mars may have been to his period in the late 19th century.

For centuries, England, along with several of the other powerful European powers of the day, sent out colonies to other continents hoping to settle and expand the presence of the English empire. Only in the most technologically primitive continents was this a success. The narrator describes a feeling that surely natives of other nations must have felt.

I felt the first inkling of a thing that presently grew quite clear in my mind, that oppressed me for many days, a sense of dethronement, a persuasion that I was no longer a master, but an animal among the animals, under the Martian heel. With us it would be as with them, to lurk and watch, to run and hide; the fear and empire of man had passed away.

I find Wells' ability to imagine the feelings of the very animals which are under us quite remarkable, and unique in popular fiction in his day, and still rare today.

Ultimately it is the very small organisms that defeat the Martian invasion. However, at the end of the story, the narrator is confident that the Martians can be defeated as they are vulnerable in the period when they emerge from their cocoon like vessels. Of course, the Martians might be wiser, next time, to land their craft further away from populated areas that they might build their machines without human interference. Though, they would have to come up with a defense against bacteria. 

The Moonstone, Wilkie Collins

The Moonstone (1868) is another classic detective story of fame that I have chosen to read. It's written by the acclaimed Wilkie Collins (1824-1889). According to Wikipedia, among other sources, this is the first English detective novel.

The Moonstone is a diamond which was looted from a holy Indian site by the English, which eventually falls into the hands of Colonel Herncastle. It's a flawed diamond of significant size and quality. There are several Indians who are looking to retrieve it for their temple. The Colonel Herncastle is ostracized by his family. The diamond is considered to bring with it a kind of curse. Therefore, as the Colonel is dying, he bequeaths it to she, Rachel Verinder, whom he considers the original instigator of the ostracism on the date of her first birthday after his death.

The story is divided into several parts. Part one follows the narrative of an elderly servant, Gabriel Betteredge, who has served Lady Verinder's family for pretty much his entire life. He's an honest man with a few interesting traits that stand out. First, he loves Robinson Crusoe, a book which is his favorite literary retreat which he mentions several times throughout the narrative. Initially he served as a grounds keeper. But in his older age, he is turned into a well respected servant. It's hard to imagine working into your 70s with never a retirement in sight.

After the first detective investigates the puzzle but cannot solve the case. He therefore sends for a Detective Cuff, who is renowned for his reputation. He seems to have been able to solve the mystery of the case, but the resolution is never come to. The theory is that it was never stolen, but rather that Rachel stole her own jewel to sell it for some unknown reason.

Roseanne kills herself over Mr. Franklin. She had fallen in love with him, apparently, and he ignored her. It's unknown why she might have felt that she had some kind of possible relationship with him. She is referred to as 'ugly.' The narrator does not know, either, why she fell in love with him.

At the end of part one there are several mysteries left unsolved.

Thus far (I am at the title of part two), I am quite impressed by the book. I really love how authentically British the narrator's voice is. He has this charm and method of throwing together a phrase that has a real charm to it.

Part two is narrated by the character of Miss Jane Ann Stamper. However, she is more often referred to as Miss Clack or Drusilla. The character is a fanatical Christian. As such, she is a nuisance. Her favourite thing to do is to distribute books and pamphlets promoting her Christian cause. She does everything she can to coerce people to read it. She goes so far to say that Rachel's mother had not properly converted to Christianity, and therefore would not have achieved a position in heaven. By doing so she burns her bridges.

The mother, Julie Verinder, dies a few days after she makes her will. She had something for Miss Stamper. But rather than talk about the something she had set aside for her, Stamper insists on the subject of her views on how life should go.

There is little about the Moonstone in this part. It is more about the situation Rachel Herncastle gets into. Godfrey, her cousin, wants to marry her. He and she both change their minds. His father is most upset by this. He is the brother-in-law of Julie. Julie had named him as the person as her executor. In revenge for the breakup between her and his son, he forces her to leave the home she grew up in. The house 'was hired in his name', so I am not sure if that means it is rented or exactly what it is. In any case, her lawyer invites her to stay in his home.

It is here that the narrative of Miss Drusilla Clack, aka Miss Jane Ann Stamper, comes to an end. It wasn't nearly as charming as part one because of the voice of the narrator. Now, this is an excellent accomplishment on the part of Wilkie Collins. He manages to create two very distinct voices within the novel. I haven't yet read another novel that has done the same (although, to be sure, there must be another).

I found part two to be a bit dreary, although it was in the last scene quite good.

On to part three. Part three is narrated by Mathew Bruff, an honest lawyer who works on behalf of Rachel. The voice in this case is different again from parts one and two. Part one had a lot of sentimentality. Part two a kind of crazed well meaningness. While part three is a cold and brief accounting of his perspective on the mystery of the Moonstone. He has the theory that the Moonstone is pawned for a sum of money to be repaid in a year, or the diamond defaults to the lender. The lender is one Mr. Luker who "stand(s) at the top of the prosperous and ancient profession of usury..." If this is the case, it casts my glance on Godfrey, since he has been the one shown to require a large sum great enough that he voided his pending marriage to Rachel.

It truly is remarkable how adept Wilkie Collins is in adopting a variety of voices.

Part 4: Third Narrative Contributed by Franklin Blake. It is through this narrative that we discover that Rachel saw Franklin Blake steal the Moonstone. However, if his narrative is to be the truth (which I think is Collins' intent), then he never meant to steal it at all.

It is revealed in this part that the evidence against him held by Roseanne was in fact his sleeping clothes with the paint stain on it. She buried it in quicksand in a strong box attached to a metal chain. She leaves the information on how to find it with her trusted friend.

Franklin learns from Rachel that she witnessed him taking it, but his narrative shows that he did not know what he was doing. Nor was the diamond in his possession following the theft. So, this was the reason that Rachel hated him, but not enough to give that information to the police.

A kind of practical joke was played on Blake that night by the Doctor (Dr. Candy) who had given him a dose of opium. While under the deep drugged sleep, he had stolen the diamond. Dr. Candy suffered an illness that ruined his mind, so it is from his recorded ramblings that reveals the joke played on him. His assitant, Ezra Jennings, informs Blake of the joke when Blake tries to interview Dr. Candy for whatever information he had. Dr. Candy's illness stole the large part of his memory, and therefore he was unable to extract the confession directly.

While many of the narratives had a strong distinct voice. However, Blakes voice in this case isn't terribly dissimilar from that of the lawyer, Mr. Bruff.

The final part is told by Ezra Jennings. The voice I referred to before isn't conferred so much by the inner vocabulary of the narrator, but by his feelings and his readings of other peoples' feelings towards him.

He is a sick man, addicted to the relief of opium. His internal motivations are selfless. He is attempting to recreate the situation, with the help of some willing and some unwilling participants, the night of the Moonstone diamond's disappearance. It is sad to read how people judge him (and other people who are physically unattractive). He reacts to Miss Verinder's positive treatment of him. His sacrifices to make this experiment work is also a result of the kindness and respect that Blake had given him. (It would appear that the gratitude of the ugly for the kindness of the beautiful has a profound effect on the victim of physical circumstance):

"I can't treat you like a stranger, Mr. Jennings," she said. "Oh, if you only knew how happy your letters have made me!"

She looked at my ugly wrinkled face with a bright gratitude so new to me in my experience of my fellow-creatures, that I was at a loss how to answer her. Nothing had prepared me for her kindness and her beauty. The misery of many years has not hardened my heart...

At this point, I have concluded the tale. As expected, Godfrey was at the bottom of the theft. Blake had been an involuntary accomplice. Godfrey's crime catches up to him. When he gets the diamond back from the loan, he attempts to run away with it. He is watched, however, and murdered by one of the Indians whose mission it was to retrieve it.

They are unable to repossess it. The Indians successfully bring it back to their temple. Their reward is a punishment for betraying their caste. The diamond is seen at the temple. I think that perhaps the diamond had been stolen from their temple in the first place, and was restored to it.

The book was quite good. Although not as intriguing or well written as that of Monsieur Lecoq, the creation of Émile Gaboriau. In other ways, in particular the numerous narrative voices which were skillfully used, it is unique and masterful.

The Cult Next Door, Elizabeth R. Burchard and Judith L. Carlone

I got this book for free. It was in the free bin a few weeks ago, and there were enough stars on it that I decided to give it a go. I love horror, Gothic, and other genres/subgenres of that kind. So, I picked it up and started reading it. It can be found for about $5.02 (Canadian $) on Amazon.com.

The moment I started reading it, I thought about tossing and deleting it. It has nothing to do with the type of cult I had in mind. It's a different cult altogether. But, to the credit of these authors, I didn't put it down. It was just interesting enough to keep me going.

This is a kind of horror story in itself, but the kind that may have happened. On the cover is written "A True Story of a Suburban Manhattan New Age Cult." So, it would seem to be autobiographical.

George, the antagonist, starts off as a kind of new age energy pseudo doctor. With his machine and some crazy ideas about metaphysics, he is able to rope in Elizabeth and her mother. His tactics reveal a man who is deeply narcissistic. As time goes on, he develops an ability to suck more and more people into his cult. As it grows, so too does his sense of worth and he begins to see himself as a kind of messiah.

As they say when it comes to abusive relationships, as time goes on the abuse does not lessen or change into something positive, it simply gets worse. So too does the abuse in this cult. Elizabeth's instincts seem to scream at her, but she refuses to listen to them.

Many of the members experience induced illusions. They start shoveling more and more money into George's pocket. The few people who try to get away often come back begging for more.

As the story progresses, George gets worse, and more powerful. But he is never able to move beyond the physical constraints that he has placed on himself. The house that he holds his meetings in can barely manage to contain the group. Had he expanded his room, perhaps he would have grown the following. But, fortunately for everyone, he never does.

They get into politics, business, but at every venture pretty much fail. The only person able to succeed at all is Elizabeth. But she is often brought down by allowing herself to be surrounded by George's daughter who takes over the business.

The break seems to be coming from a lady named Judy (my guess, Judith L. Carlone). But the irony here is kind of funny. Judy has her own delusions. But her delusions are in a far more mature cult: the Catholic church. She believes in god and all that mythology, and has her own 'energy' thing going on. While Catholicism has had its ultra violent past, by the time Judy gets to Elizabeth, the Catholic church is far less fanatical (though there are regions where people are still whipping themselves).

Elizabeth shows signs of moving over to her new friend, Judy, but in much the same way as she was brought into George's control. That is to say, there's this 'energy' and she has early signs of gravitating towards her in the same way.

That said, Judy is most likely a vast improvement, and choosing the Catholic idol over the idol of George is probably going to be a positive change.

The story has taken on Judy as an alternating narrator. Though, the story is still largely told by Elizabeth.

Some of the similarities between the beliefs of Judith in her religion and Elizabeth in hers are remarkably similar: where George's symbols are rocks, Catholics use the cross. Where prayer can heal, George's energy can heal. The difference between the two is that George is alive, while Jesus is dead. There is no opportunity for Jesus to do anything at all or say anything to anyone. Everything is individually made up in the minds of his 'followers.' By contrast, George is able to rant and rage, manipulate, belittle, etc., his followers. Judy even notices some similarity between her religion and that of George's. George tells his followers that they will be rewarded for their giving to him by getting something back in 'some other way.' She calls this 'the spiritual Law of Reciprocity for his own benefit.'

The similarity between Judy's beliefs in Jesus and Elizabeth's beliefs in George are later expounded when she writes, "...(George's) goal to become a Messiah endowed with powers of miracles, healing, and the ultimate--resurrection." This gives me pause for thought: the difference between the two cults can be suggested as: the one who believes in Jesus refuses to believe that anyone else can do it, sheltering that person from further frauds. On the other hand, there are many Christians who still believe in frauds purporting to be speaking and acting on behalf of Jesus and god. So, perhaps this difference isn't really very different.

Judy makes a few mistakes in her study of George when she finally decides to investigate the cult. She ends up blaming George's abusive mother. But, where did she get the information that George's mother is abusive? Does she discard all the other lies but believe in this instance that this is the truth? There is no way to verify that George was abused and that his craze has any justification. In fact, as she writes, "He hates any kind of nurturing or feminine behavior and demands that the women eliminate all expressions of love and affection by convincing them that this is 'mothering' and part of the destructive 'female game' whose sole purpose is to manipulate men." However, this sounds more like the complaints of the father about the mother. I'm curious about the truth of George's past, and am inclined to hypothesize that his mother left his father and that he didn't have a mother at all, and that the father beat up the memory of the mother in such a way that George may have believed the things that were related to Judy.

Eventually, George, her mother, and the other older members of the group die. The group dies with them.

At the end of the book is an interview with George. Some of what he says makes sense, and doesn't really seem to make him hypocritical. That is to say, he preached selfishness, and he lived it. He believed he was god and immortal. He believed he didn't need money, but took probably millions from his followers. Yet, he didn't spend the money as far as I could tell from the book.

The references to George and his cult I couldn't find. The novels that his daughter, Serena, published, I could not find. I think that the names are changed, while the authors may be true. The flash cards that she writes about are on sale on Amazon.

Some introspection: the whole idea about faith. How we believe in things... I'm at a moment in my life where I am losing faith in myself and in whatever positive destiny I might have believed in. I don't follow any religion. I don't believe in gods or goddesses or anything of that sort. Yet, I do not claim to know anything about spirituality. I don't know if the end is blank, or an empty space, or if there is anything worthy of mentioning, or if our 'souls' get recycled back into another life. But I do believe in essence that I am god. Not that I believe that I created the world or the universe, but that without me to hear it, see it, taste it, or otherwise sense it, from my point of view, it won't exist at all.

There is a questionaire at the back of the book. I don't know if she's really asking readers to comprehend the story or if she is wondering if anyone has answers that might help her with understanding them herself. They seem more like questions for herself than for anyone. I will try to answer some of them for her. Some of the questions are abbreviated for purposes of respecting copyright:

Search for Spirituality

1. What is a cult.

A cult is any religion. People have faith in some kind of mythology and seek answers to questions that cannot be answered.

2. What can one find in a cult.

People who believe and have faith in something or someone. Catholics refer to their own religion as a cult.

3. What does 'spirituality mean' to you.

Spirituality is what people try to understand about the ethereal world. It attempts to connect to the unseen and unknown.

4. Compare and contrast spirituality to religion.

Religion is a full doctrine of myths and symbols. A single religion might be a collection around such things. Spirituality would be the personal feeling-connection to the ethereal world.

My Past

1. Describe Elizabeth's relationship with her mother.

Elizabeth is always looking for a nurturing person. But, her mother doesn't know how to. She herself, perhaps, never had that nurturing person to show her what it meant or how to show it.

her father

Her father might have given her the seedlings of care and love. When he died, and was left with the mother who could not give her those things, it left her open to a world where those feelings were not nurtured. However starved that tree was, it never died.

2. What caused Elizabeth's vulnerability?

Everyone is vulnerable. The problem is that there were profiteers who prayed on her vulnerabilities and exploited them for various reasons, mostly money and their own ego.

3. Why did her mother and others need gurus?

A guru is a kind of spiritual teacher. The word is associated with Indian spirituality, or the Americanization/radicalization of the word. I am sure some are well intentioned with some doing good and others evil, while others are not well intentioned and simply use it as a means of control and profit. In the case of George, I don't think he meant to do evil or to exploit people. He was really crazy. He believed his own lies.

Jan-Dec 1980

1. Was George professional in his first meeting with Elizabeth.

Define professional. He did not belong to any association. He made a ton of money off of it and made a lot of people miserable. As I said before, he probably believed his own rhetoric. He was crazy, and brought people into his craze.

2. George's agenda with Joe

George probably thought he was doing the right thing. It wasn't his fault that Joe got hit by a train, no matter how distracted he was. He caused him emotional pain, and he can be faulted for that. But clearly Joe was the man standing between him and having control over a young and impressionable prospective member.

3. Joe's death effect on Elizabeth's connection to George.

Absolutely the death of Joe has an effect on her connection to George. Would she have gone the same way without Joe's death? It's hard to know. But I know that a close death has a profound effect, making people vulnerable to answers to their questions (which, in this case, were very harmful). If she hadn't been depressed, surely her reaction would have been different, one might suppose. However, there were other women in the group who seemed to have good families who were nonetheless sucked in. So, it's really hard to say.

4. How did George create dependency?

George was a master manipulator. He found people who were at hard points in their lives seeking answers. He provided answers that made them feel good. Then, when they began to depend on him, he would have control over them. He then trained them mercilessly.

5. Is there any truth to his program, state of society, social conditioning?

I'm sure there is a lot of truth to much of what he says. We are harming our planet. Our methods of living are causing serious problems. We do have problems with our society. We are socially conditioned. However, the details in his analysis, not to mention his conclusions, are problematic. The worst, of course, is his answer on how to overcome these challenges, which is how he distinguishes himself as being absolutely bonkers.

6. How is his (sic) rational logic hypocritical.

I don't think he's as hypocritical at the core of his philosophy: the me, I'm everything, I'm god, I control all, I am immortal. He seems to believe these things. When they fail, it's someone else's fault. When there's any delusion of success, he believes it was his 'energy' that enabled it. While his demands of his followers are different from his demands of himself in many ways (health insurance, taking his kids to the doctor), he can be also seen following his own rhetoric: he doesn't see the doctor about his leg. While Burchard doesn't mention this, I infer that his wife probably compelled him to do things like buy health insurance and that he himself probably would not have. The death of the dog after her leaving him would be evidence to support my hypothesis.

7. George's childhood and its affect on personality and his goals.

I talked about this already a little. Clearly something happened, but I don't believe that his mother was responsible. Him blaming his mother is consistent with his blaming everyone else rather than taking personal responsibility. I feel it more likely that he got this attitude from his father. Where were his parents throughout the book? We never see or hear from them at any point. Only Judy alludes to his mother controlling him. But she doesn't know this and I think her beliefs are based on lies that she got from someone else who'd heard it from him. If I had any guess at all, it would be that his father blamed his mother for leaving them or for anything else. As Judith mentions about her own childhood, she witnessed the abuse of her mother, which was not at all unusual since there were screams like her mother's all around her neighborhood. Blaming women is an old game. Some women, I'm sure, deserve it. But I don't think that's the case for George.

8. Why the headshaking and was that a form of hypnosis?

I think George believed in it. If he was faking... what actor shakes his head for hours a day to fake it? He probably damaged his brain from doing it. Did it hypnotize? That's a good question. Was his head like the shiny watch at the end of a necklace swinging like a pendulum? Whatever it was, it identifies him as being 'special' and 'unique.'

9. Define hypnosis. What other ways might someone induce hypnosis other than the watch.

Fasting lowers mental resistance. Eating is mentioned several times as something unnecessary. Sleep deprivation is another. So, clearly there were several factors helping in this group delusion. Herd instinct would also contribute: people want to belong in a group. They see others who believe, then they themselves believe. The story about the foolish naked emperor comes to mind.

10. Why do cults ask members to give up family and friends?

This is definitely a staple of the cult mentality. It can also be seen in religion. They are tempters of the devil while those in the cult are the only ones who know. Family and friends may lead one 'astray.'

There are a lot more questions. I'm not going to spend another few hours trying to answer all of them.

It's a good book and it has definitely given me some things to think about. The irony, however, is that Elizabeth has merely replaced one cult for another. But, rather than following the ramblings of a madman, she is exploring her own internal sense of spirituality. Her friend is nurturing rather than destructive. I'm sure she is leading a much better life with her new cult than her old.

The Wizard's Son (Volume 2), Margaret Oliphant

This is the second volume of The Wizard's Son trilogy. It can be found and downloaded at Gutenberg.org.

The second volume is almost exclusively that of character development. Walter spends much of his time pursuing his old habits, but at a higher cost. Instead of winning or losing pennies and nickles, he loses pounds.

However, he does meet with some reputable people and becomes a part of the upper social class. He becomes involved with a woman, Katie Williamson, who is from his area of Scotland. Mr. Williamson, her father, likes Walter quite a bit, as does Katie. But, the two never do fall in love. Nevertheless, he is ready for a marriage, but their relationship is interrupted by Julie, a previous friendship. Julie wants him not because of love, either, but because of the wealth and prestige.

Mr. Williamson is vastly wealthy, owning a new and modern castle, a steam yacht (at that time probably the height of private technology). Mr. Williamson does not need wealth from the marriage, but rather aspires to have a title for his daughter. Due to Julie, however, that aspiration is unlikely to take place. She interfered at the only time that Walter might have made a bid for her hand in marriage.

Slowly he is growing stronger, mentally. He voluntarily reengages with the ghostly warlock and refuses to pander to the warlock's demands. However, he is emotionally distraught, as the warlock is able to pick him apart for a do-nothing. He wants to do the right things, but is thus far always negligent and lazy.

This trilogy is not what I had hoped it would be: that of a wizard hero. But, Oliphant is a skilled narrator and character developer. I don't know if, after having finished the trilogy, if I will go on to read more of her works. The 'weird/horror' is there, but it is not very strong or very weird. However, I hold out hope that volume three will be different.

The Waste Lands, Stephen King

Image from BetterworldBooks.com

The Waste Lands is book #3 of 8 of The Dark Tower series. Thus far, this is the longest of the three and stands at about 500 pages. I have to say, the first half of the book drags. There are entire sections which go on about breakfast without having any particular purpose. There are also a lot of typos, wrong words, and misspellings. I think the proofreader of this book was definitely out to lunch for the ebook version. I don't know how the paperback fared. You can buy it for your Kindle or a paper version of it on Amazon.com or the audiobook from Betterworldbooks.com. You can buy the paperback version, plus shipping, for 6 cents on Amazon. The Kindle version is a bit over $10. For a library binding it's almost $20.

There are other things that bother me about this book. The female character, Detta/Odetta/Susannah, is so far very unimportant for this book. I can't help but wonder if she was added as an afterthought. (sic) Let's just add an amputee woman and a black one at that and we've got the minorities covered. Through the first half of the book (where I'm at now as I'm writing my thoughts) she is little more than a severe hobble on the questing group's journey. The way she talks seems so cliche stereotyping. The biggest thing that she did for the group thus far was allow herself to get semi-raped by some kind of ghost so that her 'white bread' boyfriend can make the spell that brings Jake out of his world and into Roland's world. Once Jake has become a part of the group, she says almost nothing and has become even less satisfying as a character. He might as well have written in that there was a big rock that has to be carried to the Dark Tower.

As I am better than half way through the book, now, the pace is picking up and it's getting more interesting. The typos and wrong words are a bit more common, but the narrative is more interesting from about the time that Jake started getting written in and has continued to improve since then. I hope it continues to be at least this good, or better, or I may never finished The Dark Tower series.

Now I have completed book #3. The pace, indeed, did sustain itself from the half to the end and left us at a cliffhanger. While I remained unimpressed with Susannah's character, the horror of this post apocalyptic city is an excellent backdrop to the horror of a powerful computer which, over the course of 800 years of decline, has gone mad. The people of Lud are half rotted, much like the great bear from the previous volume, infected by some kind of poison (radiation is hinted at but never explicitly stated).

Will I jump into book four right away or do I need a break? Stay tuned...

The Drawing of the Three, Stephen King

It's not possible to get a second hand Kindle edition version of this book as it is the paperback version. Therefore, either read the paperback version, or pay the $8.99/$10.60 (I think one price is US and the other Canadian), available on Amazon.com.

First off, I was disappointed in the introduction. It's the same introduction as the first novel in this eight volume octology. Having started the third volume, I can say that the third is the same as the first as well. Why couldn't you write a different introduction for the other books, Stephen?

Having completed volume two, I can honestly say that King has failed to match Tolkien as he had hoped. However, this is nothing to be ashamed of. King pumped these out at breakneck speed while Tolkien made it his life's work. That said, I burned through this book's four hundred some odd pages (according to Google) in less than two days. I don't know if that's a record for me, but it might be. In other words, it was a gripping novel that is hard to put down.

Our protagonist, Roland, is hunting down three people who are to help him in his quest for the Dark Tower. There is some kind of door that appears magically out of nowhere. When he opens it, he is able to control the consciousness of whomever the door is set to.

 Roland goes to the beach and suffers an encounter with massively large lobsters King calls lobstrosities. The fight results in the loss of two fingers from his right hand and results in a deadly bacterial infection.

The first he picks up is a drug addict, Eddie. He saves him from prison, is instrumental in delivering him from the drug lord who had conscripted him for trafficking cocaine, via airplane, into the US. He is a heroin addict and a bad junkie. His brother is worse. However, in the end the drug kills him. He crosses into Roland's world and helps him in his quest. He brings with him some drugs, but it's not enough to completely destroy the bacteria in his system.

The second person is a black lady named Odetta. She is very tough but has a split personality that is a kind of Jekyll and Hyde. One is a deadly killer and the other a highly educated lovely lady. Eddie falls in love with her, but she is difficult to manage because of her second personality and the fact that her legs were cut off and consequently she needs to be pushed around in a wheelchair. However, that does not mean she is helpless. She is very dangerous.

The last is Jack Mort. But rather than bring Jack back, he uses Jack to rob a store of antibiotics and get some ammunition. He never thinks to get other firearms for his new colleagues. At this time, however, Odetta (good)/Detta (bad) is in bad mode and takes hostage of Eddie. Jack Mort is the man who is responsible for her condition. He is a psychopath who pushes people into traffic, subway trains, and drops bricks on random people. Odette/Detta was one of the victims twice--once as a girl he dropped a brick on, and once as a woman whom he pushed in front of a train which took her legs from her; as was the boy, Jake, from volume one of the series. Therefore, the gunslinger has no pity for him and hates him and subjects him to considerable pain before forcing him to kill himself by jumping in front of a subway train.

While the gunslinger is in that other world, Odetta/Detta has mercilessly tied Eddie up for the lobstrosities to eat up.

Once he does that, Odetta/Detta become a single character, thereafter referred mostly to as Susannah, becomes their friend and ally. She saves Eddie and they become buddies. Roland brings back a lot of drugs to take care of his infection and ammunition. Roughly at this point The Drawing of the Three comes to an end.

It's a very enjoyable story and King has kept me glued to the pages. Some other notes: the style between volume one and two has shifted. Both metaphors and similes, forced and brilliant, ar eno longer present. So, I missed the moments of brilliant description and was grateful for the absence of the forced ones which pained me on occasion. I also didn't catch any run-on sentences. I think he hired a good proofreader for this volume!

The Gunslinger, Stephen King

I think I remember reading this book a long time ago. The title is familiar. But that's it. Maybe I read Amazon.com. This is just the first of eight in a series. So, that means to go from point a to point z courtesy of Amazon, you're looking at about $80. Mass market paperback, on the other hand, will set you back by about $0.51. It might cost the environment a few more kg in CO2, but that's not his or his publisher's nightmare, is it? I guess it was something else. Unfortunately, the only way to get this book for free or at a reasonable price is to either a) get lucky and borrow it, b) someone throws it away and you take it, c) steal it from friend, stranger, or foe, or d) buy it second hand from a second hand bookstore. Why there is a premium on an old book going through Amazon is beyond me. For $10.46 you can get your Kindle version.

I am reading not the original version, but the version that has been revised since the completion of the octology. The changes, he mentions in the introduction that he wanted to do an epic series. This is his opus magnum.

Stephen King is a master of narrative. No sane mind, and probably no insane mind, would dispute this opinion having read his books. He really owns his genre.

His similes and metaphors are frequent, and occasionally real gems. "A gunslinger knows pride, that invisible bone that keeps the neck stiff." There are several other gems that I really liked. Other times a few of the metaphors seem forced. I didn't record those instances and I'm not going to dig for them. So, my impression could be wrong and maybe I was just in 'a mood'.

The story is that the gunslinger, named Roland Deschain, is out for revenge against "The Man in Black," I think because of something the man did to his mother a decade or two earlier. His own father had been a gunslinger. He is said to be not as fast or as smart as the other gunslinger students, but his teacher, Cort, tells him that he's the best student he's had in a long time. He is described as slow and deliberate. 

From izquotes.com

Eventually he does track down the man in black. Or, perhaps it can be more accurate to say that the man in black leads him to this final destination. Along the way he runs into a small village where he is set upon by a witch and all those who are under her spell. In all there are some 70 men, women, and children, who all try to kill the gunslinger. But he kills them all. In the pages of killing, I like this line: 

She was large and fat and known to the patrons of Sheb's as Aunt Mill. The gunslinger blew her backwards and she landed in a whorish sprawl, her skirt rucked up between her thighs.

I am surprised, however, to see runon sentences in his book. The one above is not the only one I spotted. Great descriptions, but always surprised to see stuff like that considering he was an English university grad, school teacher, and has an editor to ferret out such things.

After he's done killing the congregation of the witch,

They trailed in a twisting, zigzagging path from the back door of the barber shop to where he stood.

There is even a lovely illustration of the bodies lying in zigzag formation.

Eventually he does get to the man in black. He wakes up ten years older in the mountains after his conversation with the man, or palaver as King likes to put it, and the man in black is a skeleton. How this comes to pass or why is unknown. It is here that King leaves off volume one of eight in The Dark Tower series.

The Marvelous Land of Oz, L. Frank Baum

English: Book cover of The Marvelous Land of Oz (1st edition), published in 1904. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I had such a wonderful time reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz with its charming simplicity, yet rich and colourful, and above all, magical creation, that I had to pick up the second in the series, which happens to be what this post is about. You can get it for free from Gutenberg.org.

In my previous journal entry, I wrote about how the ebook lacked the ability to tab through chapters and was difficult to navigate. This book, however, was not neglected. There is a table of contents which is called a "List of Chapters" rather than a TOC, which can be used to navigate through the book, and the chapters can be tabbed through. However, when pressing the menu button, one may not find "List of Chapters" as one might usually find a "Table of Contents" to go to. So, one must go to the first page and tab through to get to this menu.

This story takes off where the two characters, the tin man and the scarecrow, were left off. We do not get to see Dorothy or Toto again. And, even the lion is no where to be seen. We are also introduced to some new characters. These are: Tip, who is a real boy. There is Jack Pumpkinhead, who has a pumpkin head stuck in a great big smile. Jack is brought to life by Tip. Then there is Woggle-Bug, which is a gigantic bug who was enlarged and became sentient. There is also a Saw-horse that is brought to life. Finally, there is the Gump, which is a flying creature with couches for people to ride in. All of these new inanimate characters were created by Tip, who had stolen it from a witch called Old Mombi. It was a bit of dust that, when given to an object, could turn that object into a living, thinking, caring being.

The strawman has been attacked in his Emerald City and forced to abdicate to an army of girls. Most of the adventures are about the new friends trying to get it back. But, towards the end, we discover that the Emerald City was in fact supposed to be ruled by a girl who had been lost when the original wizard had taken over. Glinda, the good witch, tries to put the rightful heir to the throne back on the throne. It turns out that Tip was that girl. He had had his gender transformed by Old Mombi to hide him. So, he is changed back into a she after the city is taken, and she is placed on the throne.

This story is also highly imaginative, with witty humour and word play banter. It's a short read, but still a lot of fun.

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Frank L. Baum

Title plate of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (not the cover, it's the interior title page), 1900 Wizard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Who can forget one of the greatest children's films of all time? The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was, and still is, magical. I got it in my head to read the book, and I'm quite glad I did. It's available for free at Gutenberg.org.

First off, the one criticism I have of this book is that there is no formatting, no navigable table of contents. This is a Gutenberg slip. I notified them, but I haven't heard back from them. Maybe it'll be fixed, and maybe not. But, I found the story so charming and imaginative that I almost didn't care.

I don't think I need to outline the plot, but I will quickly: cyclone brings Dorothy to the land of Oz. She kills a bad witch, meets a scarecrow, a tin man, and a lion. The scarecrow wants brains, the tin man a heart, and the lion, courage.

However, the treatment of these characters differs, I believe, between the book and the movie. The scarecrow is not stupid, the tin man is not heartless, and the lion is not a coward. Quite the contrary: it's the scarecrow's brains that helps them overcome many of their obstacles. The tin man often sheds tears. He's the most empathetic character, who is moved to tears on many occasions. Finally, the movie version of the lion is a kind of funny joke. In the book, however, he is a noble character who is often using his courage to overcome dangerous obstacles that the group could not otherwise overcome.

When they do meet the Wizard of Oz, they discover of course that he is a fraud. Nonetheless, he is able to give each of them (excepting Dorothy) their wish. But, it is their belief in his ability to bestow those powers which gives them those attributes. In essence: the placebo effect.

At the conclusion of the movie version, Dorothy clicks her red shoes and finds herself back in Kansas with her family. Conversely, Dorothy of the book uses her silver shoes to get back. However, when she gets back in the movie, it's as if she's awoken from the carnage of the house. In the book, the house has been replaced altogether and a significant amount of time has passed.

Another major difference I was able to note is that the witch in the movie, The Wizard of Oz, is very antagonistic towards Dorothy and her friends as she makes her way to the Emerald City. However, in the book, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz,  it is not until after Dorothy and her friends have been instructed to seek her out and kill her that the witch takes any actions against Dorothy. In the book version, the witch is a bad person: she enslaves people, she does cruel things, but she does not seek to do Dorothy any harm until Dorothy comes after her.

scanned from 1900 Wizard of Oz book (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are more differences between movie and book, but I don't think I will list any more.

I really believe this was a brilliant piece of fiction. It was written in the preface by Baum that he was looking to create a new fantastical world without relying on the imaginations of those who came before him. And, he did a great job of it. It's littered with jokes which are comical, whimsical, and magical. Already I've begun reading the second in this series of Oz books. I can't help but feel that Baum may have been one of the first and original authors to begin experimenting with fantasy outside of the fairytale universe which the likes of Andersen wrote.

In summary: excellent book. Read it! It's good for kids and adults alike.

Émile Zola, The Dream

This is a novel which can be found freely on Gutenberg.org's great website. 

I'm not really sure what brought me around to read this novel by Émile Zola. I guess I was at once wishing for something more substantial than the overdose of short fiction from the two short fiction magazines which I subscribe to. I wanted to read something a bit meatier than those. I am also quite fond of Henri Balzac, and wondered what other great French writers would appeal to me. Did he succeed in seducing me into another one of his novels through the quality of this one, The Dream? I'm not really sure.

In any case, I hadn't done my research before beginning to read this novel. If I had, perhaps I wouldn't have read this one first. In fact, it's near the end of the series of twenty novels.

This is the story of a girl, Angelique, who is lost or sent away by a terrible sort of mother. The mother had no scruples, and I have since read that she had been a prostitute in another novel. So, this is the sort of place where she began. She was then sent into social care. She fled from social care, and was on the verge of death on the doorstep to a house of a humble couple.

The humble couple so happened to feel the need for a child, lacking their own. The house itself is situated, somehow, within the outer structure of a Catholic church. The couple are devout and humble Catholics. When they raise her, they do so within the confines of this home and the church next door. She is cloistered within, and her only book is The Golden Legend, which is evidently a real book. In any case, the book is filled with legends of Catholic virgins who performed miracles and always persevered until taken up into heaven. She determines herself to be as one of these virgins.

She falls in love with a very wealthy prince, but cannot marry him. He loves her as much, but she refuses him until he can get his father's blessing. He ultimately does, but not until she nearly dies from a broken heart. However, in the end, they are married, and she dies, kissing him at the completion of the wedding.

Émile Zola (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I'm not sure how much I loved Angelique. I'm not sure I entirely understood the outer context, either. Apparently, what Zola was trying to do was to show that it does not matter what kind of parents one has, but rather the environment within which they are raised, which affects the character of the person. In essence, he took a prostitutes daughter and put her into a good Catholic home where she can become a martyr of sorts.


There were a few thoughts I had here and there while reading this book. First off, was that Angelique's purity, her fast adherence to the letter of religious edict, effectively weakens and kills her. I'm not sure if this was what Zola was trying to point out, but it's worth considering. Is it evil which makes us strong, and goodness that makes us weak? This debate I remember well in a Star Trek episode, The Enemy Within, where Kirk is divided into two parts: evil Kirk and good Kirk. Good Kirk simply cannot make hard compromises or dangerous decisions, effectively making him a poor captain. Bad Kirk makes decisions too rashly, ready to endanger everyone. In essence, that episode tried to show that a balance of the two was what made Kirk strong. Does the absence of evil in Angelique make her weak?

Also, the ideals of purity, white, and beauty are things that I also have a hard time with: the closer to death that Angelique gets, the thinner and whiter she gets, and the more beautiful.

Will I read another of these books? At first I thought not, but perhaps I will have to take a look at the first book if I decide to try again.