Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar

Source of book: Borrowed from the library

 

This was this month’s selection for The Literary Lush Book Club. In this case, this was a book I already had on my list to read, and it was great to get to discuss it with my bookworm friends. 

 

The book sparked an unusually spirited discussion, even by the high standards of our club. In particular, the ending was discussed at length - more about that later.

 

Kaveh Akbar is primarily known as a poet, having published a couple collections as well as a “chapbook,” which I had to look up, as the term isn’t commonly used here in the US. Martyr! is his first novel. Even then, it is liberally sprinkled with poetry. 

 

Akbar also is the head of the creative writing department at University of Iowa, and is considered one of the most vocal advocates for poetry in our time. In other words, he’s my kind of a guy. Like his protagonist, he was born in Iran, and came here as a toddler. 

 

The poetry connection is, in my opinion, important to understanding this book. Most obviously, the writing, even when prose, is strongly poetic and beautiful. But also, many scenes are multivalent, having multiple meanings and potential interpretations. This particularly applies to the ending. 

 

Also important to understanding the story, in my opinion, is the author’s complicated sexuality. He has described himself as bisexual, but leaning towards attraction to males. He is married to fellow poet and professor Paige Lewis, who is non-binary. Since the protagonist is not entirely unlike the author, and the protagonist’s wrestling with his sexuality is part of the plot, this is an important fact. 

 

We first meet Cyrus as he is trying to get clean and sober, after a college experience that included far too much in the way of mind-altering substances. It is no mystery why he turned to drugs and alcohol. 

 

When he was an infant, his mother left to visit her mentally ill brother, who has PTSD after fighting in the Iraq/Iran war. The aircraft she is on is the doomed Iran Air Flight 655, which was shot down by US forces - an incident for which the US response was morally appalling. (I was a kid at the time, and even I was horrified.) 

 

Soon after, Cyrus and his father emigrate to the United States, where his educated father ends up working in a chicken processing plant. After devoting his life to getting Cyrus into college, his dad dies suddenly of a stroke, leaving Cyrus alone in the world except for his uncle back in Iran who he has never met. 

 

Eventually, after getting into AA, Cyrus cleans up, but finds that he struggles to feel anything. 

 

He becomes fixated on the idea of becoming a “Martyr,” someone whose death means something - and thus his life will mean something. 

 

To this end, he plans to write a book about the martyrs of the past, and eventually commit suicide to become a martyr himself. He finds himself with writers block, not knowing exactly where to start, but a growing obsession with death.

 

Then, about halfway through the book, he hears of a performance artist, in the vein of Marina Abramovic, who goes by the name of Orkideh, who will be a part of her final art installation, “Death-Speak.” Diagnosed with terminal cancer, Orkideh will take time to speak with visitors about death, until she is unable. 

 

Just to be clear, there is a real-life artist with that name, Orkideh Torabi, also Iranian-American. Her art is pretty interesting, and definitely worth checking out. How much Akbar based his fictional artist on her as well as Abramovic is unclear, as Torabi is very much alive and not particularly morbid. 

 

I will stop there with the plot - there is a huge twist, which you may or may not find plausible. The plausibility is not the point, of course - the book is meant to be ambiguous, ambivalent, and have multiple interpretations. 

 

Now, about the ending. [Potential spoilers.]

 

The ending is clearly dream-like, poetic, and capable of multiple interpretations. A quick google search will take you down a huge rabbit hole of speculation, discussion, and competing viewpoints all supported by the text. 

 

This is pretty much what happened at our club too. There were, shall we say, strong opinions about what happened, and whether the ending was good, bad; satisfying or unsatisfying; positive or depressing. 

 

I think the options break down into three possibilities: either Cyrus dies at the end, he is high as a kite and may or may not survive, or he is in one of his dream sequences which are mixed throughout the book and has some sort of epiphany. 

 

In all of the options, some element of Cyrus has died, of course. He will never be the same after he has to some degree embraced his love for his quasi-partner Zee, come to terms with the truth about his mother, and given up on demanding meaning from his life. Whether this happens as he dies is open to interpretation. 

 

I myself (and another member of our club who is very much into poetry) lean in the direction of a dream and epiphany. I won’t get into all my reasons, but I do think they are supported by the text. That said, I do not think the author intended a clear resolution. This is part of his poetic sense: a multivalent ending, and perhaps all the possibilities at once.

 

How one feels about that ending may depend on how comfortable you are with ambiguity. As I have gotten older, I have increasingly embraced this idea of not knowing, of having to be okay with not knowing, of embracing doubt and releasing my need for certainty. About so many things. 

 

I ended up taking quite a few notes about the book, although not the several pages of another member. 

 

Let’s start with what I see as the central theme of the book, the desire for one’s life to mean something. 

 

Along with my embrace of the reality that I am a mediocre white guy whose ceiling is being good (but not great) at a number of things I care about has come the acceptance that I do not and will never have an exceptional life. I’m just a guy. 

 

True, I am a guy who has been tremendously blessed: I get to make the greatest music on earth with friends that I love. I have access to great literature and am able to read it. I have a wife who is my best friend and an incredible person. I have five children who have greatly enriched my life. I am not rich, but I am reasonably comfortable, which is more than a lot of people have. 

 

But, realistically, after the people who have known me have died, my memory will fade from the earth. And I am okay with that. As the existentialists might say, I have made my own meaning - my life is meaningful to me, and that is enough. 

 

Early in the book, there is an exchange between Cyrus and his AA sponsor, Gabe (who is a great character, by the way) that is a statement of what the book will ultimately be about. 

 

“I want to matter,” Cyrus whispered. 

“You and everyone else. Deeper.”

“I want to make great art. Art people think matters.”

“Good. Keep going.”

“Isn’t that enough?” Cyrus was exasperated.

“Cyrus, everyone and their mailman believes they’re an unacknowledged genius artist. What do you, specifically, want from your unprecedented, never-to-be-repeated existence? What mayes you actually different from everyone else?”

Cyrus paused, then said, finally:

“I want to die. I think I always have….My mom died for nothing. A rounding error. She had to share her death with three hundred other people. My dad died anonymous after spending decades cleaning chicken shit on some corporate farm. I want my life - my death - to matter more than that.”

 

There is a lot in that to unpack, from the definition of “matters” as “what other people think matters” - which is not the same thing - to the idea that one can guarantee one’s life matters by how one dies. 

 

In a later passage, Cyrus notes that not all suicides are equal. 

 

When a sad-sack who hated life killed themselves, what were they really giving up? The life they hated? Far more meaningful, thought Cyrus, to lift yourself out of a life you enjoyed - the tea still warm, the honey still sweet. That was real sacrifice. That meant something. 

 

Another relevant passage early in the book is one where Cyrus finally feels that God speaks to him. Sort of. The incident is too ambiguous for him. Why can’t he have the grand revelation of Muhammad or Saint Paul? 

 

Of course it would be easy to establish bedrock faith after such clear-cut revelation? How was it fair to celebrate those guys for faith that wasn’t faith at all, that was just obedience to what they plainly observed to be true? And what sense did it make to punish the rest of humanity who had never been privy to such explicit revelation? To make everyone else lurch from crisis to crisis, desperately alone?

 

No shit, eh? 

 

Throughout the book, perspectives shift. While Cyrus is the main protagonist, we get chapters from the perspective of his parents, his uncle, and Zee. Many of these are flashbacks to the past, slowly explaining and revealing what has gone before. 

 

In one chapter, from Zee’s perspective, there is a really weird episode, where Zee and Cyrus, looking to make a few bucks and feed themselves, end up working for this creepy old guy who sits in his underwear and watches them do odd jobs around the yard for him. Mostly, they get groceries out of the arrangement. 

 

“Like volunteering in a co-op,” he’d said once on our way to Jude’s house. 

“Except sexier,” I added.

“Oh my god,” said Cyrus.” Yeah. Are we doing sex work? Is this sex work? Are we selling our bodies?”

“Angela Davis would say we’re all selling our bodies,” I said, smiling. “That the only difference between a coal miner and a prostitute is our retrograde puritan values about sex. And misogyny.” 

Cyrus rolled his eyes, and asked, “And what would Zee Novak say?”

I laughed: “Zee Novak says free groceries are free groceries.”

 

For a book with heavy themes, there is a lot of humor to lighten things up. So much philosophy too, but I really enjoy that sort of thing. One humorous line:

 

Zee had joked that a hotel’s fanciness was directly proportional to how long it took you to figure out how to turn on the showerhead.

 

Here is another question that has haunted me since childhood - and is one reason I rejected the concept of eternal conscious torment in Jr. High. 

 

Cyrus worried that the whole idea of gratitude was possibly classist or worse. Did a poor Syrian child, whose living and dying had been indelibly shaped by the murderous whims of evil men, qualify for grace only if she possessed a superhuman ability to look beyond her hardship and notice the beauty of a single flower growing through a pile of rubble. And would the gratitude for that flower be contaminated by the awareness, or ignorance, of the bodies turning to soil beneath it?

 

Akbar also explores the experience of being a Middle Eastern man in post-9-11 America. Some of Cyrus’ experiences sure seem drawn from Akbar’s own. 

 

It was like Americans had another organ for it, that hate-fear. It pulsed out of their chests like a second heart. 

 

At one point, he dates a Republican woman. The experience is hilarious, but in a horrifying way. She comes from money, and doesn’t seem to understand those who, like Cyrus, live day to day. 

 

Money meant nothing to her. She’d borrow Cyrus’s jacket, his hoodie, and never return them, not realizing he had no replacements. She knew the name of the guy who flew her father’s helicopter, of her nanny’s kid, which she’d bring up frequently as evidence of her magnanimity. She was Christian, but American Christian, the kind that believed Jesus had just needed a bigger gun. 

 

Man, that last line. I wish it were satire, but I have literally heard that. MAGA “Christianity” is such a joke, so far from anything Christ ever taught. 

 

In one of the flashbacks, from the point of view of Cyrus’s mother, there is what turns out to be the huge turning point in her life. Her husband’s loser friend, Gilgamesh, picks up Ali so the two of them can go on a guy fishing trip - with plenty of illicit booze. He just drops his wife, Leila, off, like “making a bank deposit.” 

 

Gilgamesh barely even looked at me, waddling around inside our house inside his muscles, inside a body grown two sizes too large for his brain.

 

Cyrus is one of those people who feel emotions strongly. There is a scene where he is talking to Orkideh and we get a glimpse into his mind. I very much resonate with his experience here. 

 

He felt a flash of familiar shame - his whole life had been a steady procession of him passionately loving what other people merely liked, and struggling, mostly failing, to translate to anyone else how and why everything mattered so much. 

 

I’m that kind of guy myself. I have come to embrace my own emotionality, and accept that very often I will passionately love things that will never be that meaningful to others. I recognize it as a gift: that I can feel this strongly, that things can matter that much to me. It is why I get such joy from making music, why reading - and writing about it - feel so meaningful, even if only a few dozen ever read my posts. I can fully understand Cyrus’s desire to write his book, even if I don’t feel the drive for it to “mean something” the way he does. 

 

Since the book is set during the first Trump regime, it would be unrealistic if the horror and stupidity that we are still undergoing were not mentioned. I love that Cyrus and Zee refer to the Orange Fascist as “President Invective. Throughout the book, there are so many perceptive lines about the phenomenon of MAGA and the almost inexplicable foolishness of those who worship him. I will quote a few. 

 

Cyrus thought about President Invective, a cartoon ghoul of a man for whom Dantean ideas of Hell seemed specifically conceived. The sort of man whose unwavering assertions of his own genius competence had, to the American public, apparently overwhelmed all observable evidence to the contrary. 

 

And this:

 

Only in a culture that privileged infallibility above all else could a man like President Invective rise to power - a man insulated since birth from any sense of accountability, raised in a pristine cocoon of inherited wealth to emerge pristine, dewy, wholly unsullied by those irksome mortal foibles, grief and doubt. 

 

And:

 

Cyrus thought about what an aggressively human leader on earth might look like. One who, instead of defending decades-old obviously wrong positions, said, “Well, of course I changed my mind, I was presented with new information, that’s the definition of critical thinking.” That it seemed impossible to conceive of a political leader making such a statement made Cyrus mad, then said.

 

Me too, Cyrus, me too. I have lived my life aspiring to be that critical thinker, and it has led to me changing my mind about a great many things. (One reason I have preserved my past posts on this blog without edits - except for typographical errors - is to show the evolution of my thinking. Over the course of 15 years, I have definitely changed. I hope for the better, as the result of receiving better information.) 

 

Here is another:

 

The performance of certainty seemed to be at the root of so much grief. Everyone in America seemed to be afraid and hurting and angry, starving for a fight they could win. And more than that even, they seemed certain their natural state was to be happy, contented, and rich. The genesis of everyone’s pain had to be external, such was their certainty. And so legislators legislated, building border walls, barring citizens of there from entering here. “The pain we feel comes from them, not ourselves,” said the banners, and people cheered, certain of all the certainty. But the next day they’d wake up and find that what had hurt in them still hurt. 

 

Toward the end, there are a lot of great lines about the human condition. For example, this one:

 

“You’re a human being, Cyrus. So was your mother. So am I. Not cartoon characters. There’s no pressure for us to be ethically pure, noble. Or, God forbid, aspirational. We’re people. We get mad, we get cowardly. Ugly. We self-obsess.”

 

And this one:

 

“All those severe poets talking big about the wages of sin all the time, but nobody ever brought up the wages of virtue. The toll of trying really really hard to be good in a game that's totally rigged against goodness.” 

 

And this:

 

“It’s just. Where does all our effort go? It’s hard not to envy the monsters when you see how good they have it. And how unbothered they are at being monsters.”

“That’s why heaven and hell, right? Why people talk about that stuff?”

“Nah, fuck hell. Hell is a prison. All we do is build those on earth. No need to imagine more. And fuck heaven too! Like goodness is a place you can arrive at, a destination. Where you’re either standing in it or you’re not. It fucks you up.”

 

Again, questions I have had since childhood. It is so good to see them articulated so beautifully. 

 

I’ll end with a quote that purports to be from the MSWord doc that contains Cyrus’s draft of his book:

 

If the moral sin of the suicide is greed, to hoard stillness and calm for yourself while dispersing your riotous internal pain among all those who survive you, then the moral sin of the martyr must be pride, the vanity, the hubris to believe not only that your death could mean more than your living, but that your death, could mean more than death itself - which, because it is inevitable, means nothing.

 

I think ultimately, that is the conclusion of the book. Death is meaningless, but life doesn’t have to be. And that meaning need not be validated by other people thinking it means something. Our lives have meaning to us, and that, simply put, is enough. Live your life. Make connections with others. Don’t obsess about virtue or goodness as if it were that simple. 

 

For me, this is why I found the ending to be incredibly positive. I highly recommend this book.

 

***

 

One note I couldn’t figure out exactly where to fit it in: there is a point of bonding between Cyrus and his uncle, over the Allegri Miserere. The uncle recounts the anecdote (or urban legend perhaps) surrounding Mozart and the secrecy the Vatican held for centuries about the specifics of its performance. Whatever the truth about the incident, the work itself is transcendant, a masterpiece of Renaissance music. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcWo1hKHu40

 

***

 

I also want to mention another work of existential questioning of the meaning of life and death, the excellent and haunting short story, “Forlesen,” by Gene Wolfe. At the end of the protagonist’s life, he is being measured for his coffin, and the following exchange occurs:

 

“Now have you decided about the explainer?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Didn’t you read your orientation? Everyone’s entitled to an Explainer - in whatever form he chooses - at the end of his life. He-”

“It seems to me,” Forlesen interrupted, “that it would be more useful at the beginning.”

“---may be a novelist, aged loremaster, National Hero, warlock, or actor.”

“None of those sounds quite right for me,” Forlesen said.

“Or a theologian, philosopher, priest, or doctor.”

“I don’t think I like those either.”

“Well, that’s the end of the menu as far as I know…”

“I want to know if it’s meant anything,” Forelsen said. “If what I suffered - if it’s been worth it.”

“No,” the little man said. “Yes. No. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Yes. Maybe.”

 

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, adapted by Ron Warren (Empty Space 2025)

A Christmas Carol may be the most told story in the English-speaking world these days, better known even than the well-known stories of the Bible or Greek mythology. Charles Dickens had, shall we say, a timeless classic on his hands when he wrote it. 

 

One reason why, of course, is that there is an unfulfilled need for ghosts to go abroad and scare the bejeezus out of rich and stingy people. 

 

But if A Christmas Carol were just about the rich getting a scare and changing their ways, it probably would have had its moment in the sun and then faded into obscurity. 

 

The reason it endures is that it is about all of us. It is about the ways we casually dehumanize others - particularly the impoverished. Think about our own actions when it comes to the unhoused, or refugees from “shithole countries,” or addicts, or other marginalized and all too often invisible people on the fringes of our society. 

 

Scrooge, after all, was no billionaire. He was just a landlord and above-average rich guy. There is no indication that he had any significant political pull, and it is not mentioned that he used it. He went one better than today’s Republicans by dutifully paying his taxes for the support of the poor without trying to end the safety need that existed at the time. 

 

Rather, the problem was that he refused human connection, refused generosity, refused even to accept the love of others. The story is…complicated. 

 

If all we saw was the equivalent of Elon Musk, or the Orange Fascist, we would likely feel furious at Scrooge’s redemption. Instead, we recognize ourselves in him, and have our hearts warmed by the idea that even a hardened, bitter, lonely old man can be redeemed - and so can we. 

 

I have read the book many times, both for myself and with my kids. Every year, we watch The Muppet Christmas Carol together. It is a story that never grows old. 

 

Thus, I was intrigued to see what Ron Warren would do to tell the story. Plus, The Empty Space tends to do good work with a limited budget, and just seeing the creativity would be worth the modest cost. 

 

Warren made some interesting decisions in telling the story. First, he did not use a narrator. Many stage adaptations do, which, as Warren said in our discussion after the play, adds an extra layer of insulation between the story and the audience. It is a story about other people, not a portrayal that might implicate all of us. 

 

I loved this particular approach. The other thing that I really loved was that Warren preserved much of Dickens’ actual dialogue word for word, rather than “update” it. One of the reasons I love reading Dickens is that his language is delicious, perfectly chosen, and almost as musical as that of Shakespeare. Also, there are some wonderful pointed lines in the play that are all too often omitted. Warren respected his audience enough to give us the real thing, not a watered down version. 

 

The cast included some of the usual suspects, but also a number of children, and a large ensemble covering various parts, real and metaphorical. 

 

As for the main ones, here are my thoughts. 

 

I hadn’t seen Luis Velez in anything since before the pandemic. Everyone’s take on Scrooge is different, and his was both comical and human. Sure, he was an old sourpuss at first, but there was more softness in his character from the beginning, in its own way making the transformation less jarring. 

 

This character is the most difficult to play in the entire story, not just because we all imagine our own Scrooge in our minds, but because there have been so very many movies made, with actors famous and otherwise playing the iconic part. To take the character and make it your own is a challenge, and I will give props to Velez for a very personal take that was convincing and sympathetic. 

Alex Mitts, always reliable as an Everyman, was the natural choice for Bob Cratchit, down-to-earth, loving to his family, and eternally patient. Victoria Olmos played the Missus. 

David Guillen played Fred, and Sophia Bertram, his wife. 

Nick Ono channelled Jack Sparrow as Jacob Marley - one of the most humorous performances, with proper mastication of the scenery. 

 

Most interesting from the staging point of view was how the ghosts were handled. Matthew Brown was the Ghost of Christmas Present - and I found his interpretation to be more nuanced than some. Sure, he is jovial and full of good will. But he also has an edge of menace. This version included the child characters of “Ignorance” and “Want” - with which the ghost mocks Scrooge for his dawning realization that he bears responsibility. 

 

This is where it is clear that Dickens isn’t just talking about individual greed. The very systems that we live in create ignorance and want, create poverty and inequality. It takes more than “workhouses” and prisons - it takes genuine reform, something Dickens preached about throughout his career. 

 

For the other ghosts, Matt Borton was the puppeteer. The Ghost of Christmas Past was an ethereal spirit, complete with pocket fog machine. Kelsey Morrow provided the voice for the character. 

 

For the Ghost of Christmas Future, Borton wore a rather terrifying costume. I am not sure if it was an actual character mask, or just a rodent-inspired horror. Whatever it was, it was creepy. Particularly delicious were the long skeleton fingers, which the ghost clicked at key moments. 

 

Considering the small stage, limited budget, and the need to do everything using real people and things, not CGI, the ghosts were superb. Great vision and execution. 

 

Unfortunately, the holiday is upon us, and the theater is dark for this week. More interesting productions are on schedule for next year, though, starting with Radium Girls, the directorial debut of our longtime family friend, Marina Gradowitz, which we are definitely planning to see. 

 

esonline.org for more information and tickets. 

 

The Ministry of Time by Kaliane Bradley

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

Could the future of the world turn on whether a time traveler from the 19th Century finds out about Auschwitz early in his orientation rather than 9/11? 

 

What would it be like to meet your future self and find you have turned into a Nazi? 

 

Is a relationship between a native-born white person and a refugee from the third world inherently exploitative? 

 

How much compromise with Empire is morally justifiable? And does this change depending on your status within that Empire? 

 

Is there anyone in this book who isn’t morally compromised? Is there anyone in the actual real world who isn’t? 

 

And, perhaps as important, “what genre IS this book anyway?”

 

The Ministry of Time is difficult to define. It is, in one way or another, historical fiction, time-travel science fiction, an office drama, a romance, and a spy thriller. And also a surprisingly deep exploration of all of the questions I listed above. 

 

It is dark - particularly at the end - but not entirely tragic - there is hope for the future. It is also laugh-out-loud funny at times. It has a sweet, if doomed, romance. It has a surprisingly good sex scene. (Women write them better than men - let’s be honest about that.) It has the most awkward and hilarious courtship scene I have read in years. Maybe ever. 

 

I also found the not-subtle metaphor of time travel for immigration to be powerful - the past is a foreign country, after all. The author’s exploration of this idea is really good, and thought provoking in the way that the best science fiction should be.

 

With all of that said, how do I even write this without spoilers? It is probably impossible, although I will try not to reveal too much. 

 

I will say that this is an excellent book. No surprise, since it made President Obama’s summer reading list in 2024. I found it compelling throughout, and a fascinating premise. 

 

As with many books in our modern times that became unexpected hits, this one wasn’t exactly planned. (I have to mention Space Opera by Catherynne Valente, which originated in a Twitter dare.) 

 

Kaliane Bradley (pronounced “Collie-Ann,” I believe, from the afterword in the book, read by the author, and her instragram account) worked as an editorial assistant for Granta (a British literary magazine), and wrote reviews and interviews for a variety of publications, including The Guardian, for a decade before turning to fiction. (Interestingly, this earlier career is that of the narrator’s sister in the book.) 

 

During the pandemic lockdown, she started thinking about writing this story after watching The Terror, which took supernatural liberties with one of the doomed polar expeditions of the 1840s. She didn’t actually intend to write a novel for publication, but wrote for her own amusement and to share with a handful of friends. After they read the first version of the story, they encouraged her to share it with the world. 

 

I should mention, as a lawyer, that this resulted in a lawsuit. Apparently, there is a Spanish TV series, El Ministerio el Tiempo, which shares the name, and, some basic ideas. I mean, the title is enough, right? If there is an actual government agency, the Ministry of Time, it presumably has something to do with time travel. And time travel has causality issues, which have been explored for over a century in science fiction. 

 

Bradley, for her part, says she had never seen the Spanish series and had no idea it existed, and that her work is original. I have no idea how things were resolved - if they are. But reading a summary of the show doesn’t show any significant similarities other than the name and common time travel themes. 

 

Here is the basic premise: the book is set in our own time, but one where a time travel device has been captured from time travelers from the future, who have come back to try and prevent climate catastrophe and mass pollution caused by weapons that would be created in the future, but whose roots are in the present. 

 

Having captured this device, the contemporary British government decides to use it for experiments in time travel. Since it would be, in their view, unethical to experiment on living people, they come up with an interesting plan. 

 

They would use the device to bring people from the past forward in time, and see how it affected them. In order to at least reduce the ethical concerns, the people chosen are those who would have died soon afterward in their own time. That way, if things go wrong, they wouldn’t lose any life, and if things went right, they got an unexpected benefit. 

 

Ostensibly, the goal for those they bring forward, is to “bridge” them to their new time, enabling them to assimilate and function in 21st century culture. The ones chosen are a soldier from the 17th century, one from World War I, a woman who would have died in the French Revolution, and a woman who would have died of the plague in the 17th century. 

 

And also, a real historical figure, Graham Gore, who died in the doomed Sir John Franklin search for the Northwest Passage in 1847. As the afterword details, we have some information about him, although not that much. He was a respected officer who everyone liked. He was a crack shot hunter. He played the flute and drew well. And not that much else. 

 

Oh, and the surviving daguerreotype of him reveals him to be quite good looking. (I mean, I’m a cishet guy, and even I can tell he is a looker.) 

 

The narrator (who, interestingly, is the one character who never gets a name), is an agent for the Ministry of Time, assigned to be the “bridge” - the handler and educator - for Graham. 

 

Two of the other “time ex-pats” are major characters in the book: Arthur Reginald-Smyth, the World War One soldier, who turns out to be gay, and have a huge, maybe unrequited crush on Graham; and Maggie Kemble, who would have died of the plague along with the rest of her household. She is a lesbian spinster who is, like Graham, quite good looking. 

 

I might mention at this point that pretty much nobody in this book is entirely straight. The author, in interviews, has mentioned that she never envisioned the characters as fully heterosexual. This makes for plenty of interesting triangles, but also interesting contrasts between the cultures of the different eras. Not least of which is the fact that homosexual liaisons have always been common, and the active suppression was not as universal as we were taught. Public attitudes towards sexuality in general have varied, of course, and that too provides interesting material for the book. 

 

So what to say about the rest of it? Particularly without too many spoilers? I guess it should be expected that any government in possession of a powerful device is likely to turn it to nefarious use. Pretty much every technology ever developed found its way into weaponry really damn fast. (See: nuclear power) In any system with a somewhat secret agency, there will be skullduggery. Issues of race and gender haven’t gone away in our time, to put it mildly. 

 

To go back to the questions I asked at the beginning, perhaps the one that is the most difficult to answer is that of whether an equal relationship is possible between a refugee and a native-born person. 

 

This is particularly interesting given the author’s own family. Like the narrator, she is the child of a British father and a Cambodian refugee mother. 

 

So….I have questions about how she sees her parents’ marriage. The book certainly makes the argument that such a relationship cannot be equal, mutual, and meet the needs of both parties. (Can any marriage entirely? Probably not, in my opinion.) Hence, (spoiler alert) the book looks at two possible futures of such a relationship. 

 

I find it an interesting parallel that Andrea Dworkin argued that, in practice, heterosexual relationships have the same problem: there is an inherent power imbalance imposed by the culture, and it is rare that any one relationship finds a way to transcend it. 

 

The other fascinating connection to Bradley’s own life is a scene where the narrator and Simellia (a black woman) discuss the fact that the narrator is able (sometimes) to pass as white. Looking at Bradley’s picture, I can see where, in certain situations, she might pass. Although not always. Plus, at least here in the US, Asians of lighter skin tend to be considered “model minorities,” and having a white father is often enough to get one accepted into white society. 

 

There is a lot more in this book, of course, and I could discuss it for pages. I am thinking maybe of nominating it for our book club. 

 

I guess I will end with a few of the most humorous lines. 

 

First, when Graham complains about television, and how it seems to be the airing of the worst of human behavior, the narrator responds: 

 

“Nobody made you watch East Enders.”

 

The narrator also describes Guinness as “Angry Marmite,” which isn’t entirely wrong. 

 

Finally, in trying to navigate a cross-century courtship, Graham confesses to asking Maggie for advice. 

 

“You asked the lesbian from the 17th century about modern day dating?”

 

Yeah, that’s pretty funny. Which is good, because the humor is needed to balance the darker and more serious themes. 

 

In summary, I have found lately that a lot of the best science fiction I have read lately comes from female authors, including authors of color. For too long, SciFi was a boy’s club, and it is refreshing to see where new voices and perspectives go with the basic ideas. There is a lot of creativity, thoughtfulness, and imagination. 

 

The audiobook had two narrators. Katie Leung handled the main narrative, and did a fabulous job. Her use of voices for the different characters was really helpful in following the dialogue, and she has great range. George Weightman narrated the fictionalized historical interludes of the John Franklin expedition in between each chapter. He does these in his best early Victorian style, just like the actual documents related to the various polar expeditions. Both are very good, so I give a high rating to this audiobook on all counts. 

 

I will also recommend the NPR interview of the author, which is fascinating. 

Two Serious Ladies by Jane Bowles

Source of book: I own this

 

This book is unique, and more than a bit weird. But maybe I should start with the author. 

 

Jane Bowles (nee Auer) was the spouse of Paul Bowles, a writer and composer, whose equally weird book, The Sheltering Sky, is one I read last year. In that post, I talk a good bit about the two of them and their unorthodox relationship, so I won’t repeat all of it in this post.

 

As a quick summary, Paul was bisexual, Jane was either bisexual or lesbian, but in any case had a strong bias toward women. After they married, they both continued to sleep with other people, but Jane limited herself to women - in fact, when the two of them traveled, she would go to the lesbian bars.  

 

Two Serious Ladies is not exactly autobiographical, in that the specific events are not retellings of Jane’s life. However, one of the two parallel plots has some connection to the Bowles’ honeymoon in Central America, and also Jane’s long affair with a Mexican woman a few years later. However, the actual plot of the book is mostly imaginary. 

 

Jane suffered from mental illness and alcoholism, both of which contributed to her ill health and early death. Paul lovingly cared for her, despite the marriage becoming platonic within a couple years. 

 

The Bowles’ ran in a largely queer literary and musical circle before their move to Morocco in 1948: Tennessee Williams, Gertrude Stein, Aaron Copland, Gypsy Rose Lee, Christopher Isherwood, Truman Capote, and others. 

 

Two Serious Ladies is Bowles’ only novel, and it is the sort of work that other writers love, but never gained a high level of popularity with the general public. “Cult classic” is an apt description. Notably, Tennessee Williams and John Waters both named the book as their favorite. 

 

The book is definitely modernist, defying genres and expectations. The “plot,” such as it is, is fragmented, and very little actually happens. What does happen is mostly referred to obliquely, and much of the book is dialogue, not action. 

 

Furthermore, there are two main plots, which intersect only at the beginning and the end. 

 

The two “serious ladies” are Christina Goering, a wealthy middle-aged spinster; and Frieda Copperfield, a recently married woman. Both are “society” sorts, but don’t fit well in the milieu. After they meet at a party, their paths diverge, and they only see each other at the very end of the book, where they find they are both changed by their journeys. 

 

Frieda Copperfield takes a trip to Panama with her husband, but it does not go well. They turn out to be fundamentally incompatible in significant ways. But more than that, Frieda decides to break free from convention and expectations and goes wandering in the seedy side of town, eventually falling in love with a young prostitute, who she eventually brings back to the United States. 

 

Christina, meanwhile, decides to pursue her increasingly bizarre ascetic religious beliefs by moving to a dilapidated house on a remote part of an island. And, as far as I can tell, to somehow find “redemption” in playing the prostitute in a series of sordid affairs with random men. 

 

Oh, and joining her in her island house are an impoverished young woman, Miss Gamelon, who may or may not have a crush on Christina; Arnold, a good-for-nothing lie-about young man who ostensibly “works” in real estate, but ends up just taking up a bedroom and eating. And then, Arnold’s father shows up, on a hiatus from living with his haridan of a wife (Arnold’s mother) claiming he has a crush on Christina. 

 

If all this sounds surreal…it is. The writing isn’t terribly difficult or anything, but it is very modernist, surrealist, and existentialist. 

 

The sex is definitely implied, and even mentioned directly, but it is never on-screen. But sexuality is simmering below the surface throughout the book. 

 

The core of the journey for both women is to find and engage in some form of transgressive sex, in the one case with a prostitute, and the other as a prostitute. And for both, they are seeking a form of redemption, a breaking free of roles and expectations. But also, both seem significantly worse for the wear afterward, if that makes sense. 

 

I would describe the book as an experience more than it is a story. Rather than trying too hard to figure out what is going on, it helps to just see it as an experience described through a haze of time, circumstance, and booze. 

 

There were a handful of lines that stood out for me. I’ll start with one from the beginning, where Christina’s very odd childhood is described. She is clearly neurodivergent - very strongly so, and probably autistic - and finds religion to be a coping mechanism, a way of at least interacting with other children. 

 

Even then she wore the look of certain fanatics who think of themselves as leaders without once having gained the respect of a single human being.

 

A fascinating conversation occurs between Christina and Miss Gamelon, when Christina announces her intention to move to the island. 

 

“However, in order to work out my own little idea of salvation I really believe that it is necessary for me to live in some more tawdry place and particularly in some place where I was not born.”

“In my opinion,” said Miss Gamelon, “you could perfectly well work out your salvation during certain hours of the day without having to move everything.”

“No,” said Miss Goering, “that would not be in accordance with the spirit of the age.”

Miss Gamelon shifted in her chair.

“The spirit of the age, whatever that is,” she said, “I’m sure it can get along beautifully without you - probably would prefer it.”

 

One of the early arguments between the Copperfields is where to stay in Panama. Frieda, who is bankrolling the trip, wants to stay some place nice, while her husband chooses this cheap, seedy place near the red light district. And when she protests, he does that “hurt feelings” thing that both sexes do, despite claims to the contrary. 

 

He was like a baby and Mrs. Copperfield was obliged to comfort him. He had a trick way of making her feel responsible.

 

Later in this section, though, she also throws it back on him by insisting she is unhappy, without knowing entirely why. 

 

In the last of the three sections, the one about Christina’s strange adventures, there is an episode where she talks to this random old man about the new cabaret in the small town she travels to on the mainland. He explains why he thinks the place - which the young people love - is dangerous and threatening. And man, is it an old man shaking his cane at progress rant. 

 

“There’s one thing wrong,” said the man growing more and more interested, “and that’s that the’ve got a nigger there that jumps up and down in front of a mirror in his room all day long until he sweats and then he does the same thing in front of these lads and lassies and they think he’s playing them music. He’s got an expensive instrument all right, because I know where he bought it and I’m not saying whether or not he paid for it, but I know he sticks it in his mouth and then starts moving around with his long arms like the arms of a spider and they just won’t listen to nothin’ else but him.”

 

He goes on to wax nostalgic about the old theater, with acts like poodles jumping through flaming hoops. And then drags out the same old saw that we here these days about “millennials.”

 

“Of course people were older then and they cared for their money better and they didn’t want to see a black jumping up and down. They would rather prefer to put a new roof on their house.”

 

I mean, in case you thought that any of this was new. It’s just the same old stupidity directed at the young by the old. God, I hope I never get old that way. And, from what I can tell, neither does Christina. 

 

My version of this book is a Library of America hardback that contains Bowles’ play In the Summer House, as well as her short stories and fragments. She didn’t write that much, actually, but what she did write is quite interesting. I will have to return to this book in the future. 

Nuclear Family by Joseph Han

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

One of the traditions my wife and I started before the pandemic was to go out for classy drinks and go over the year’s books on NPR together. We would discuss the summaries, and figure out a few we wanted to put on our respective reading lists. (And consider nominating for one of our book clubs.) 

 

In fact, most of my modern fiction (and some non-fiction) reads come from either the NPR list or the LitHub list. While most of the books on any list are not ones I am likely to read - genre fiction has a very limited appeal to me, and my kids are now too old for the kid books - there are always gems that I might not have discovered otherwise. 

 

I have found this method useful for choosing audiobooks. As often as not, I will be coming up on a cycle of out-of-town music gigs and need something to make the miles go by. 

 

Anyway, Nuclear Family was on my list, and happened to be available after I finished my last audiobook. 

 

The title is a double entendre - not a naughty one, though. The book is all about the Cho family, Korean immigrant parents and American-born children, living in Hawaii. (Very much like the author’s family.) They run a small chain of fast casual restaurants that they hope the kids will someday take over. 

 

But, as the children grow into adults, things come apart. Jacob, the favored eldest child, is gay, but hasn’t told his family. At odds with himself and eager to get away, he moves back to South Korea to teach English. 

 

Meanwhile, Grace is drowning her cultural discomfort, second-class status in the family, and dislike of the restaurant business in a pot smoking habit. 

 

Things take a really crazy turn, however, when Jacob becomes possessed by the ghost of his grandfather, and under that influence, tries to cross the DMZ. This causes a huge news story and scandal that pretty much wrecks the Cho restaurants. 

 

The second meaning of “nuclear” refers to the framing story, the real-life false alarm in 2018 where it was briefly broadcast that North Korean missiles were heading to Hawaii. 

 

That’s kind of the broad, back of the book, outline. But there is quite a bit more. Han has an ambitious goal, that of tying the US conquest and colonization of Hawaii to the Korean War and the displacement that occurred as a result. 

 

Oh, and also generational trauma, the immigrant experience, and so on. 

 

This leads me to what I see as the biggest issue I had with the book. For most of the book, the first 6/5ths or so, there is a non-linear story from the point of view of different characters. It mostly centers on Grace and Jacob, but the family history back four generations is eventually told. This includes the way the war trapped family members on different sides of the wall, so they never saw each other again. 

 

So far, fine. I thought it was a good story, magical realism and all. The grandfather is a great character. His morally questionable actions in leaving his first family behind in North Korea, starting a new one in South Korea, and then getting trapped on the “wrong” side of the wall after death, is a fun conceit, and hilariously told. I mean, he totally deserves it, but you feel bad for him anyway. 

 

The other characters are realistic and compelling. The parents who are workaholics like so many first-generation immigrants, who grow apart from their children both due to culture and to neglect. The other grandparents who drown their trauma in booze and religion respectively. The native Hawaiian friend who feels as displaced as the immigrants, but for different reasons. The families separated by geography as well as politics. 

 

That said, once we get to that certain point in the story, it feels like the book is almost done. The author just needs to wrap it up or at least leave it at a point and end it.

 

BUT NO! 

 

Instead, there is nearly an hour of preachy bloviating about his point about colonialism and US meddling in Korea and the Cold War and…well, a lot of things. But it isn't a story at this point, it’s just preaching and ranting and a seemingly endless list of last names. 

 

When this finally burns itself out, we get a brief epilogue explaining what happened to everyone years later. 

 

And at that point, all I could say was, “What?? Well, what happened to get the characters there.”

 

I mean, I wanted to know about how Jacob went from in the closet to having a spouse who the family accepted. And I wanted to know how Grace found her way from her goal of grad school to an interesting niche and a different life path. 

 

These would have formed a great interesting story to hear too!

 

So I was disappointed that the book essentially skipped a bunch of good stuff, instead inserting a pedantic sermon. I wonder if the author just ran out of time and needed to end it? Or didn’t know how or where to end it? 

 

In any case, the saddest part to me is that I think he made his preachy points just fine in the body of the novel, showing rather than telling through the narrative itself. If he really needed to make the points stronger, he could easily have inserted them at appropriate intervals in the narrative without blocking the flow of the story with them all at once at the end. I suspect plenty of readers just skipped past that part. 

 

The rest of the book, though, was really good, and I think with a better editor, it could have been even better. 

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

Source of book: I own this

 

As regular readers of this blog know, I was homeschooled from 2nd grade on - one of the first, before it became popular. The main reason for this was that I was a sickly child, and missed so much school that the principal recommended my parents homeschool me. 

 

Back in the day, the curriculum you could buy was extremely limited. Most publishers refused to sell to individuals, so even what we were able to get when we first started was “grey market” - a middleman would pose as a “private school” and pass it along to parents. 

 

By the time I graduated high school, this had completely changed. The profit motive finally kicked in. Fast forward to when we homeschooled our own kids (mostly through 8th grade), and a true explosion of options had occurred, and every mainstream (and a lot of fringe) stuff was easily available for ordering, and fairly affordable. 

 

But back when I was a kid, the available curriculum broke down into: (1) right wing (2) really right wing, and (3) lunatic fringe fucking racist nazi right wing. 

 

Or, in other words, A Beka, most other curriculum, and Bob Jones, respectively. We went mostly with (1). 

 

Which is to say, academically rigorous for math and English, biased as fuck for history, and utter propaganda for science. Fortunately, my parents supplemented it with other sources. For example, their anti-racist beliefs (which unfortunately they later abandoned) meant we read books like Roll of Thunder Hear My Cry. 

 

I mention this because as part of the high school curriculum for World History, the Renaissance was a topic covered. Let’s just say that Fundies are not down with the Renaissance in many, many ways. (Which is ironic because Fundamentalism is rooted in both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment in ways that Fundies do not understand or even see.) 

 

Machiavelli was particularly contemned: he was blamed for “moral relativism” as if what he wrote about was somehow something new; that before him, realpolitik and unscrupulous power plays never plagued “christian” governments. 

 

Allow me to die laughing over here. 

 

Over the course of my informal self-education, one of the things I have tried to do is go back and actually read these classic writings myself, and see if they actually hold up. 

 

And, of course, if they actually say what people claim they do. (Case in point: most of what Fundies claim the Bible says isn’t actually in there, but was made up relatively recently.) 

 

Now, having read The Prince for myself, I was struck by how, well, mild it is. I mean, the basic ideas aren’t even controversial, and I doubt they were back then to most people living in the real world. True, he challenged the official Catholic doctrines of the time, but for centuries, popes had been living his ideas in practice. Just saying. 

 

The book is addressed to a particular prince, and assumes that the political system in play is one of “principalities.” That is, one where a single ruler has the power, perhaps tempered by other nobles. In other words, not a “republic,” which definitely existed, and which Machiavelli refers to throughout the work. (He also wrote Discourses on Livy, which looks at various forms of government, and he refers to that as well.) 

 

Given the specifics of his target audience and specific political situations addressed, Machiavelli comes across as perceptive, in my view.

 

Actual governance - and staying in power - has always been about pragmatism rather than abstract morality. Whether you think this is a good thing likely depends on your perspective, of course. 

 

For me, having endured far too much of governance by ideology myself, I find Machiavelli’s ideas to be compelling at times. And also dated and questionable at others. 

 

At a fundamental level, I believe in democracy and representative government, derived from the consent of the governed. In other words, I am a post-Enlightenment thinker. Monarchy, particularly hereditary monarchy, is not something I approve of, and I think history supports me in this. 

 

Modern readers will also take issue with the idea of murdering political opponents. That said, in a system where the Rule of Law is non-existent, and political change can only occur by removal of politicians, political violence becomes the norm - inevitable even. (Again, history is on my side here - which is why autocracy isn’t stable, but leads to assassination after assassination…) 

 

Despite the differences in the political assumptions, there are actually a lot of things that hold up really well in this book. For example, the grave risks of trying to change traditional laws, rights, and tax structures that affect the common people. And the advice to “avoid being hated by the common people.” 

 

I was also struck by the fact that even though Trump and the Theofascists and Technofascists supporting him have adopted the unscrupulousness and “win at all costs” commonly termed “Machiavellian,” the actual book reveals them to have failed to learn any of the lessons. They are fundamentally incompetent and self-defeating. 

 

Will this self-destruction occur quickly? I’m not sure. And in the meantime, the damage they are doing is incredible and will probably not be reversed during my lifetime. But what they are not doing is actual governance, but throwing tantrums and breaking stuff because they can. This is not the way to build a stable government with the public support needed. This is how you find yourself bleeding out in the plaza after a violent coup. (Gotta love Italian Renaissance politics…) 

 

My particular edition (I have two, actually, with different material added) contains two additional works. One is the story of how Duke Valentino murdered his political opponents. It’s every bit as violent and lurid as you would expect. The other is a semi-fictionalized account of Medieval politician Castruccio Castracani, written late in his life. This one is commonly paired with The Prince because it demonstrates many of the dilemmas and political maneuvers necessary to maintain power in turbulent times. 

 

Anyway, I found the book fascinating. It does contain a lot of Italian history, with footnotes to explain who everyone is. Which is helpful. These parts can drag a bit, but are interesting to demonstrate who Machiavelli is thinking of for his ideas. 

 

I would compare this book in a number of ways to The Art of War, in that both look at human politics and violence in a philosophical light, and both advocate for many of the same realpolitik pragmatism in action, while noting that pragmatism tends to support doing right by your people in the end. 

 

I should mention that The Prince was avant garde in its time for being written not in scholarly Latin, but in the vernacular of the Italian at the time. It was readable by anyone literate, not merely the educated elite. My translation is by W. K. Marriott.

 

I wrote down quite a few lines, of course. The book is definitely quotable, not least for “it is better to be feared than loved” - although that one is often quoted out of context. Machiavelli noted that it is best to be both feared (by one’s enemies) and loved (by one’s people and allies), but if you have to pick, fear is more effective when the chips are down. 

 

Let’s start with the dedication. It is helpful to remember that Machiavelli wasn’t just a writer and philosopher - he was a working diplomat.  

 

Those who strive to obtain the good graces of a prince are accustomed to come before him with such things as they hold most precious, or in which they seem him take the most delight: whence one often sees horses, arms, cloth of gold, precious stones, and similar ornaments presented to princes, worthy of greatness. 

Desiring therefore to present myself to your Magnificence with some testimony of my devotion towards you, I have not found among my possessions anything which I hold more dear than, or value so much as, the knowledge of the actions of great men, acquired by long experience in contemporary affairs, and a continual study of antiquity; which, having reflected upon it with great and prolonged diligence, I now send, digested into a little volume, to your Magnificence. 

 

That’s a pretty epic humblebrag. “I may not have gold and stuff, but my own wisdom is more precious anyway.” He’s not wrong, but damn, that's hella cheeky.

 

Early in the book, Machiavelli looks at what a prince needs to do to maintain power when he has annexed a new territory. There are two parts to this:

 

He who has annexed them, if he wishes to hold them, has only to bear in mind two considerations: the one, that the family of the their former lord is extinguished; the other, that neither their laws nor their taxes are altered, so that in a very short time they will become entirely one body with the old principality. 

 

In other words, whack the old guy and his heirs, so nobody can claim your throne, but leave the basic government and tax burden in place, so the people will say “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” and not rebel. 

 

This is a lesson most authoritarians fail to learn, to their own disaster. (And yes, they also forget that the usual cure for unpopular tyrants is the extermination of their entire families. Fail to learn from history…) 

 

Later, Machiavelli expands on this. If you acquire a state which is used to its own laws and freedoms, there are a limited number of approaches you can use. One is to utterly destroy it. Which causes its own problems, not least of which is destroying much of the value of what you gain. You can also personally live in and govern a state - this gives personal control and a feel of the pulse of the place. Or, you can leave the laws and freedoms in place. Failure to do that leads to disaster. 

 

And he who becomes master of a city accustomed to freedom and does not destroy it, may expect to be destroyed by it, for in rebellion it has always been the watchword of liberty and its ancient privileges as a rallying point, which neither time nor benefits will ever cause it to forget. 

 

This is a reality that the Trump Regime is already running up against with the increasing ineffectiveness of ICE in the face of popular displeasure and resistance. 

 

Also related to this is that the most effective and long-lasting changes are evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. Machiavelli puts his finger on why. 

 

And it ought to be remembered that there is nothing more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. 

 

After all, the new hasn’t yet been proven. This cuts across political lines, of course. Which is one reason progress is difficult, and often comes as the result of the clear failure of the old ways. (Great example: the New Deal arising out of the Depression.)  

 

Another insight of the book is that success is often due, not to merit, but to good fortune and the aid of others. And neither of these is to be counted on to last forever - particularly for those who lack the personal merit to maintain what they have inherited. 

 

Such stand simply on the goodwill and the fortune of him who has elevated them - the two most inconstant and unstable things. Neither have they the knowledge requisite for the position; because, unless they are men of great worth and ability, it is not reasonable to expect that they should know now to command, having always lived in a private condition; besides they cannot hold it because they have not forces which they can keep friendly and faithful. 

 

This is, in my view, the future of MAGA. Here is another relevant passage, on whether one should try to please the oligarchs or the people. In Machiavelli’s view, the oligarchs will always consider themselves equal to the prince, and thus perfectly willing to overthrow him if he fails to suit their purposes. Whereas the people….

 

Besides this, one cannot by fair dealing, and without injury to others, satisfy the nobles, but you can satisfy the people, for their object is more righteous than that of the nobles, the latter wishing to oppress, whilst the former only desire not to be oppressed. It is to be added also that a prince can never secure himself against a hostile people, because of their being too many, whilst from the nobles he can secure himself, as they are few in number. 

 

War is a significant topic of the book, and Machiavelli challenges the common practice of relying on mercenaries. In his view, a prince needs soldiers who are loyal to him personally, not just to their paycheck. (After all, if the other guy offers more…) But also interesting is that he sees the soldiers of republics to be the most formidable of all - they are the ones loyal to their country, not to a person or a paycheck. 

 

And experience has shown princes and republics, single-handed, making the greatest progress, and mercenaries doing nothing except damage; and it is more difficult to bring a republic, armed with its own arms, under the sway of one of its citizens than it is to being one armed with foreign arms. 

 

A pair of world wars gave strong evidence of the truth of this. 

 

It is chapter 15 that contains the statement of the core values of Machiavellianism. I think it is more nuanced than the stereotype, but it does contain the amoral pragmatism as its core. 

 

But, it being my intention to write a thing which shall be useful to him who apprehends it, it appears to me more appropriate to follow up the real truth of a matter than the imagination of it; for many have pictured republics and principalities which in fact have never been known or seen, because how one lives is so far distant from how one ought to live, that he who neglects what is done for what ought to be done, sooner effects his ruin than his preservation; for a man who wishes to act entirely up to his professions of virtue soon meets with what destroys him among so much that is evil.

Hence it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it according to necessity. 

 

That really is the core idea of that particular chapter, but in context of the entire work, it is a lot more nuanced than it has often been made out to be. Likewise, the idea of “fear or love” isn’t a simple dichotomy. 

 

Upon this a question arises: whether it be better to be loved than feared or feared than loved? It may be answered that one should wish to be both, but, because it is difficult to unite them in one person, it is much safer to be feared than loved, when, of the two, either must be dispensed with. Because this is to be asserted in general of men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, false, cowardly, covetous, and as long as you succeed, they are yours entirely; they will offer you their blood, property, life, and children, as is said above, when the need is far distant; but when it approaches they turn against you. 

 

He also clarifies another distinction:

 

Nevertheless a prince ought to inspire fear in such a way that, if he does not win love, he avoids hatred; because he can endure very well being feared whilst he is not hated, which will always be as long as he abstains from the property of his citizens and subjects and from their women. 

 

For Machiavelli, this is a line you don’t cross. If you have to be harsh, be harsh in a defensible way, for a defensible reason, but not because of greed or selfishness. 

 

I would update this idea a bit for our own time and situations. For a manager (like my wife), it is more important that she be respected than loved. For the same reasons Machiavelli notes here. But on the other hand, hate often comes from favoritism and arbitrary decisions, while scrupulous fairness and rational decision making earn respect in the long run. 

 

I suspect that another “controversial” assertion of the book is that appearance is more important than reality; hypocrisy is a virtue and a tool in its own way. Unfortunately the truth of this is all too apparent in practice. Here are a few highlights:

 

But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler; and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. 

 

Sigh. 

 

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite. 

…

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. 

 

I might note again that this is an area where Trump and MAGA seem to have skipped the assignment. If the goal was to win over a majority of the population, this is the way, not flaunting one’s horribleness. Sure, that works for the racist base, but being hated by more than a majority seems….risky. See above…and this next one in the longer chapter on how and why to avoid being hated. 

 

But concerning his subjects, when affairs outside are disturbed he has only to fear that they will conspire secretly, from which a prince can easily secure himself by avoiding being hated and despised, and by keeping the people satisfied with him, which it is most necessary for him to accomplish, as I said above at length. And one of the most efficacious remedies that a prince can have against conspiracies is not to be hated and despised by the people, for he who conspires against a prince always expects to please them by his removal; but when the conspirator can only look forward to offending them, he will not have the courage to take such a course, for the difficulties that confront a conspirator are infinite. 

 

Uneasy is the head that wears the crown indeed. 

 

In contrast, Machiavelli argues that a prince should inspire the love and admiration of his people through his deeds. 

 

Nothing makes a prince so much esteemed as great enterprises and setting a fine example.

 

While Machiavelli sees “renown” primarily in a military context, I think that it should be expanded beyond that - and indeed “renown” in a national context in our world (and the past too, actually) goes beyond whose military is the best. Commerce, education, opportunity, infrastructure - all of these can and do inspire pride in a people and attract others to join them. 

 

Machiavelli expands this into the question of meddling in foreign wars, and choosing a side in an inevitable conflict. For him, it is better to pick the losing side - at least in that case you have a future ally when fortunes turn - than to try to straddle the fence. Only “irresolute princes” fear present dangers and try to play both sides, thus being ruined no matter who wins. Show some backbone. 

 

In the same chapter, Machiavelli expands his ideas beyond war to advise a prince to encourage those of ability and skill, and thus enrich his nation. 

 

A prince ought also to show himself a patron of ability, and to honor the proficient in every art. At the same time he should encourage his citizens to practice their callings peaceably, both in commerce and agriculture, and in every other following, so that the one should not be deterred from improving his possessions for fear lest they be taken away from him or another from opening up trade for fear of taxes; but the prince ought to offer rewards to whoever wishes to do these things and designs in any way to honour his city or state. 

 

Um, again, the Trump Regime hasn’t done its homework. The smart, skilled, competent people are the ones you should encourage, not the ignorant, stupid, and often drunk grifters. And slapping tariffs on commerce…well, not recommended. 

 

Does Machiavelli also have opinions about who to hire for one’s cabinet? Of course he does!

 

The choice of servants is of no little importance to a prince, and they are good or not according to the discrimination of the prince. And the first opinion one forms of a prince, and of his understanding, is by observing the men he has around him; and when they are capable and faithful he may always be considered wise, because he has known how to recognize the capable and to keep them faithful. But when they are otherwise one cannot form a good opinion of him, for the prime error which he made was in choosing them. 

 

I’ll end with an interesting passage about the effect of fortune in human affairs. I think that Machiavelli is pretty accurate here - and his advice is sound. Understand that fortune plays a significant role, but make provision to take the tide in the affairs of men. (Although maybe Brutus isn’t the one to consult for when the tide is favorable…) This seems like fitting for our own turbulent times. 

 

It is not unknown to me how many men have had, and still have, the opinion that the affairs of the world are in such wise governed by Fortune and by God that men with their wisdom cannot direct them and that no one can even help them; and because of this they would have us believe that it is not necessary to labour much in affairs, but to let chance govern them. This opinion has been more credited in our times because of the great changes in affairs which have been seen, and may still be seen, every day, beyond all human conjecture. Sometimes pondering over this, I am in some degree inclined to their opinion. Nevertheless, not to extinguish our free will, I hold it to be true that Fortune is the arbiter of one-half of our actions, but that she still leaves us to direct the other half, or perhaps a little less.

 

So yes, fate, fortune, god, whatever - it all does have an effect. But not the whole effect. We are left with choices. 

 

I think as a whole, what Machiavelli is attempting to do with this book is to give advice as to how to act wisely, within his framework of what that means. It is not a moral absolute, but a practical and pragmatic approach to governance, power, and stability. Sure, be unscrupulous at times, and earn respect before love. But also, win the hearts of your people, reward competence, build alliances with discretion, and do what you can within the bounds of the fortune you have. 

 

The Prince is neither the “godless, immoral poison” that I was taught it was, nor an infallible guide to politics; but it is interesting, with some good insights, and pragmatic lessons for governance. It is both of its time and timeless, in varying measure. 

 

So, read it like one would govern: pragmatically, and practically, and with an open and flexible mind.