Category: Books

I read The Old Patagonian Express: By Train through the Americas by Paul Theroux

Paul Theroux’s The Old Patagonian Express is a manifestation of the idea that travel is about the journey, not the destination. It details his journey – primarily by rail – from Boston, Massachusetts to Esquel, Argentina. This was a trip undertaken in the late 1970s, during the Carter administration. And so this book offers a glimpse into another time as well as – to me – entirely different geography.

Theroux outlines the contrast between the rich and the deeply impoverished he encounters in this book and one meeting with three homeless boys sleeping in a doorway in Colombia is particularly moving. They’d be in their sixties today if they still live and I have my doubts that they do.

The book also strangely echoes the contemporary world, highlighting the debate in Panama over the Torrijos–Carter Treaties of 1977, which placed sovereignty over the Canal Zone in 1999. With Donald Trump now threatening to annex the Panama Canal, this period becomes ever more relevant.

Theroux is fairly acerbic when it comes to tourists and backpackers in South America, especially the budget travellers who count every penny.

Finally, the book has a general literary tone. Theroux reads Lovecraft, Poe, Boswell and Kipling through his journey. And insofar as the book has a climax, it’s his experience with Jorge Luis Borges in Buenos Aires.

This was an enjoyable read and leaves me wondering if I should try learning some Spanish.

I read The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

It’s always a particular pleasure when you jump onboard a series of novels that have a lengthy back-catalogue. Charles Stross’s Laundry Files certainly qualify for that with 14 books so far. I’m indebted to the commenter on a web forum (Fark, I think) who recommended it.

The Atrocity Archives – published along with a novella, The Concrete Jungle, fills an interesting niche in the realm of modern Lovecraftian fiction. For starters it’s funny.

They are first-person narratives of Bob Howard, a system-admin and newly minted field agent for The Laundry – a branch of the UK civil service tasked with dealing with cosmic horrors.

The book was published in 2004 and is set in 2002-2003.

The blend of the mundane routine of the public service: training days, receipting, budgeting and office politics along with dark beings from other dimensions is rich vein to explore.

Stross himself began in tech and the book does fall into a little technobabble on occasion, but so long as you treat it as you’d find in Star Trek or Tom Clancy, you’d be fine. My suspicion of Clancy being an influence was confirmed in the author’s afterword where he was credited along with Len Deighton. And he made the point that the spy novels of the Cold War were in a way cosmic horrors themselves with the looming threat of nuclear annihilation in the background unless things went just right for the protagonist.

I think if you shook up Clancy and Deighton along with Yes, Minister and The X-Files and maybe an introductory comp-sci textbook, you’d probably get something like this.

I intend to read more. Recommended.

I read National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy

We all know there have been significant political events this year, and in an effort to improve my understanding around why Trump won a second term, I read National Populism: The Revolt Against Liberal Democracy by Roger Eatwell and Matthew Goodwin (Pelican Books, 2018).

What I hadn’t counted on were some uncomfortable realisations about New Zealand politics in 2024 and why certain policies are being advanced.

The authors, looking at the electoral success of national populists with Trump in the United States, Brexit in the United Kingdom and growing movements across Europe of varying degrees of influence and success. They identify four broad transformations over the decades which have contributed to this. They call them the four Ds:

People’s distrust of the increasingly elitist nature of liberal democracy, which has fueled a feeling among many that they no longer have a voice in the conversation …

Ongoing anxieties about the destruction of the nation that have been sharpened by rapid immigration and a new era of hyper-ethnic change …

Strong concerns about relative deprivation resulting from the shift towards an increasingly unequal economic settlement, which has stoked the correct belief that some groups are being unfairly left behind relative to others …

The rise of de-alignment from the traditional parties, which has rendered our political systems more volatile and larger numbers of people ‘available’ to listen to new promises, while others have retreated into apathy.

(p.271-272)

The authors are also careful to point out the supporters of populists are not uniform and have different motivations for why they may support them. This is a particularly important point for those of us on the Left who oppose the destructive consequences of national populism.

Anyway, in New Zealand the chief proponents of populism are within the current government, spread across three parties.

Distrust of elites exists across the political spectrum. On the Left, it tends to be of the rich and powerful. On the Right, it tends to be of those with inconvenient expertise. So David Seymour refuses to name his translator of the Treaty of Waitangi and expert te reo Māori translators have said it is bunk. Legal experts, historians, even the Waitangi Tribunal have condemned it. But their expertise offers nothing for Seymour. In fact he positions himself as fighting against these elites.

Further examples include Nicola Willis’s decision to cancel the contract for the Cook Strait ferries, and the decision of Casey Costello to halve the excise on heated tobacco products.

“Analyis of officials’ advice has found the majority of new laws and regulations introduced in the Government’s first year have been affected by time constraints and a lack of evidence, or evidence that does not support legislative changes.” – Newsroom

In terms of destruction of the nation, immigration isn’t nearly as contentious here as it is elsewhere in the western world. Our distance and lack of land borders pretty much eliminates that as an issue, although a search for Winston Peters in relation to the subject reveals that he has often made political capital of that issue over the years. Indeed, the Royal Commission into the terrorist attack in Christchurch highlighted social cohesion as a New Zealand characteristic worth safeguarding.

However, Māori have felt the brunt of this instead over the past year, with the afore mentioned Treaty Principles Bill, closure of agencies created specifically to target their needs and a delegitimisation of the Māori language at government level.

There is scope for a left-wing populist message to draw back votes from the right, especailly as the past year has proven to be such a shit show. I think this is an important book to read for politically engaged people, especially those of us on the left.

While New Zealand is insulated from many of the same issues the US faces, the experiences of the past year clearly point to a strong influence of right wing populism on our government and how it tries to craft a policy programme it thinks will appeal to New Zealand. I’m not buying what they’re selling.

Recommended.

The Beach by Alex Garland

I finished reading this book today which had been languishing on my bookcase since I bought it some time in the late 2000s. Part of my general “read what you own or borrow from the library” policy. We’ll see how long that lasts, but I’ve got no need of new books for a long, long time in that case.

Trouble in paradise is one of the oldest stories in the world. And at its heart that is the story this 1996 novel tells. In which a group of western backpackers in search of an authentic experience unspoiled by tourism find themselves living on a beach on a seemingly remote and virgin island.

In that way they’re kind of like the proverbial motorist who complains about traffic, oblivious to the fact they themselves are part of the problem. Further, they actually are disdainful of the Thai people and really you could look at the titular beach as a kind of western enclave. On the other hand, when you travel the locals aren’t there to amuse you. They are people just living their lives.

So a lot of the characters are unlikable. But that doesn’t mean the novel itself is. It’s well written as a first-person narrative and is a bit of a time capsule. Reminds me of Paul Theroux crossed with Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies.

I give it 3 out of 5.