Source of book: I own this, but we listened to the audiobook read by the late Frederick Davidson
It is always an exciting moment when you can introduce your children to a beloved classic. I discovered Three Men In A Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog) rather late in life, about 10 or so years ago, and knew that some day, it would be appreciated by my kids.
Three Men In A Boat was originally conceived as a serious travelogue giving the reader useful tips for planning a boat trip up the Thames from Kingston to Oxford. Thus, the book contains interesting historical notes on the various towns, and Magna Carta Island (allegedly where King John signed the document) among other features. However, as the book was being written, Jerome seems to have realized that it was the humorous stories about trips taken by himself and his friends that were the best part of the book. Thus, these were expanded, and became the best part of the work.
At the outset, the author takes great pains to stress the absolute veracity of what he writes. Obviously, this isn’t entirely true, but there is a certain earthiness that reveals Jerome’s personal experiences at the heart of the tale. His companions represent real people. “George” was George Wingrave, who later became a senior manager of Barclay’s Bank. (Jerome describes George’s job as taking naps at the bank.) “Harris” was Carl Hentschel, who founded a printing business. And “J,” naturally, was Jerome himself. Montmorency, the dog, was the truly fictional character, although the author believed that there was a bit of the canine in all Englishmen.
From the very start of the book, the author makes it clear that he will be pretending to be objective while skewering his companions and himself mercilessly. The three are sitting around in a general malaise, discussing what is wrong with them. J is certain - having read a medical dictionary cover to cover - that the only known disease he lacks is “housemaid’s knee.” His doctor doesn’t agree, however, and recommends nutritious food and a pint of beer each evening. So, they eventually agree that it is all due to overwork, and decide on a two week vacation. After rejecting several options, including a sea voyage (Jerome’s descriptions of seasickness are hilarious), then decide to take a camping skiff up the Thames.
Interspersed with the details of the trip are a variety of anecdotes and digressions. Some, such as the sad tale of a single mother who committed suicide, read like Victorian purple prose, but others seem there solely for entertainment. The kids particularly liked the story of Uncle Podger and the chaos he caused in the hanging of a picture. Other bits include some stock jokes like the plaster trout and banjo jokes.
Probably the most popular bit was the description of the Irish Stew, which the boaters make using leftovers. My older four kids can cook in varying degrees - the oldest two can do everything themselves - so they listened to the ingredient list carefully. Leftover beef and lamb pies? Good. Various vegetables, even better. But when the leftover smoked salmon was added, there were some titters. This particular addition was, shall we say, not universally approved. But then, this followed:
I forget the other ingredients, but I know nothing was wasted; and I remember that, towards the end, Montmorency, who had evinced great interest in the proceedings throughout, strolled away with an earnest and thoughtful air, reappearing, a few minutes afterwards, with a dead water-rat in his mouth, which he evidently wished to present as his contribution to the dinner; whether in a sarcastic spirit, or with a genuine desire to assist, I cannot say.
To the extent one can roll on the floor while seatbelted in, we did so.
Three Men In A Boat was not greeted with universal applause. The critics were mostly hostile, railing against the book for its “vulgar” use of slang, among other faults. As has been the habit of critics from time immemorial, they castigated the author for appealing to the tastes of the lower classes. The book sold, however, and sold well. Since its appearance in 1889, it has never been out of print.
For those who like to live their books, this one is a real gem. One can easily recreate the trip. In fact, the travelogue portion has stood up extremely well, as the inns and pubs named in the book are still open for business 125 years later. Hooray for British resistance to change, or something like that. For what it’s worth, the only bit of this book that I have personally experienced was a half hour of punting at Oxford back in my law school days. This does seem like the sort of thing I would have done, in another place and time. Should one wish to recreate this trip, you can indeed rent camping skiffs. Many date back to Jerome’s days. A truly authentic experience, at least if you can bring your own fox terrier.
One caution about this book would be that it does reflect certain Victorian attitudes, such as a degree of condescension toward women - something not lost on my older daughters, who were eager to point out that they would have been perfectly competent to row or tow a skiff. I have no doubt that they are right. But these are ultimately a minor fault, and one common to much of the history of literature, alas. It made for a good discussion, however, of just how much things have changed. (This was aided by the true stories we learned during our exploration of California’s Gold Country on this trip.)
I can recommend this book as a classic of British Victorian humor, and one that children can enjoy as well. There are a number of well-regarded audiobooks of this work, including one by Hugh Laurie. Frederick Davidson did a fine job on this one, enhancing the experience.
Source of book: I own this. A gorgeous hardback edition of Classics of Eastern Thought from Barnes and Noble I got for Christmas a couple of years ago.
My brother had a copy of The Art of War in translation when we were teens. I read a bit here and there, but I recall that he was more into it at the time. This was natural because he was a serious war buff, and still can talk circles around me on history and strategy and so on. I also recall a computer game with the same name, with strategy and tactics based on the book. Likewise, technology was of the same era.
Anyway, I decided to go ahead and read through the entire book and see what I thought.
First, let me mention that the version I have was translated by Lionel Giles, assistant curator of the British Museum. This is the classic 1910 translation, so most of the phrases will be familiar even to those who are unaware of the original source. Giles also provided selected commentary on the book, bringing together the various Chinese commentators throughout history.
It is certainly interesting to read a book of this age about war. Some things have clearly changed. The development of various technologies from artillery to motor vehicles changed the nature of warfare - to say nothing of aircraft and true navies. Likewise, the modern political reality of modern states rather than tribal and regional chieftains has changed the nature of war. On the one hand, war can be horribly destructive in a short time. On the other, the costs of war and the unwillingness of populations to sustain absolute warfare for any extended period have made war both less frequent and more costly.
Still, much of this book fits the modern world better than one would imagine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the art of war and the art of politics have some overlap, and one can see a creative application of the principles that Sun Tzu set forth in modern negotiation tactics. Since Sun Tzu dedicates much of the work to the preparation for victory rather than the battle itself, the principle of winning the battle without fighting translates well to a variety of areas. I might mention in particular, the realm of law, in which I do battle.
The book itself dates from the 5th Century BCE. Whether Sun Tzu ever existed is a matter of debate, as the name can be interpreted simply to mean “The Fugitive Warrior.” On the other hand, there is some evidence of a person that may have been behind the book.
There is no doubt that this work has been influential. The history of Eastern warfare, particularly that of ancient China and Japan is filled with examples of strategy taken from The Art of War. In more modern times, Douglas MacArthur was a fan, while the Viet Cong used many principles from the book. One might even say that the failure of the Western forces to understand the principles led to the involvement in Vietnam in the first place.
There are a few aphorisms that stood out to me as applicable to our modern questions of war.
First is this: Sun Tzu lists as his first consideration in determining the conditions who has the backing of the Moral Law? In Sun Tzu’s time, this was important, but in our own time, it has become of paramount importance, thanks to the concept of the “Just War.” Fighting for economic advantage is no longer considered a viable reason for war, at least for most of the democratic nations. Thus, to gain the support of the populace, a leader must convince that the moral high ground lies with his side.
Another one, not as well observed as of late, is this:
II (2) When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, then men’s weapons will grow dull and their ardor will be damped…
(3) Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain.
…
(6) There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare.
Another section that made a lot of sense was the one on stratagem rather than brute force.
III (1): Sun Tzu said: in the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.
(2) Hence to fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting.
One can see this both in the case of war, where there seems to be a whole segment of the political spectrum (here in the US) that is more interested in “making the sand glow” than in winning battles without destroying everything. (For all the failures of the George W. Bush administration, he seems to have at least intended to capture intact and co-opt the populations to our side. The latest group seems more intent on killing as many as fast as possible.) In my own law practice, I have found that resolving divorce cases in particular is easier where my client is willing to allow the other side to keep dignity and self image intact. (As I say often, let him/her feel like they won something, and they won’t need to fight you on everything.)
Another one stood out, not so much for war-related reasons as for musical ones is this:
V (7) There are not more than five musical notes, yet the combinations of these five give rise to more melodies than can ever be heard.
Sun Tzu also lists five colors and five flavors. But it is the musical one that is particularly interesting.
We here in the West tend to think either in diatonic terms (7 notes, A-F) or in chromatic terms (meaning a total of 12 distinct pitches.) For the ancient East, however, there were five, which we refer to as the pentatonic scale. (For those non-musicians, C-D-E-G-A.) Actually, the pentatonic scale is heard all over the world, and has become the basis of much of rock and blues in our own pop tradition. I will specifically mention the hymn Amazing Grace as a use of the pentatonic scale, but that is just an easy example. The use of the minor pentatonic, C-D-Eb-G-A, over a major chord structure is the basis of too many rock solos to count, and the addition of “blue” notes forms the basis of, well, the blues. It is fun, in any case, to see a line between my own experience in improvisation back 2500 years to the other side of the world.
Perhaps one of the most famous lines in the work is this: “All warfare is based on deception.”
This is certainly true in war itself, but often too in negotiation. It can be a successful strategy to hide one’s real aims for a time, allowing the enemy other side to burn their fervor out on a side issue, while subtly winning the main issue.
There is another application, however, that really leapt off the page:
IX (24): Humble words and increased preparations are signs that the enemy is about to advance. Violent language and driving forward as if to the attack are signs that he will retreat.
This holds true in law, I can assure you. But it also is true in other areas. I think particularly right now of both politics and religion. As one can see in the popularity of The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named and in the increasingly belligerent and aggressive rhetoric the fundamentalist wing of American Christianity, both White Nationalism and Fundamentalism are in panicked retreat in our society, but both have resorted to increasingly violent language and actions. I would consider both a more credible long-term threat if they used humble words. Just saying.
I’ll end with perhaps the most famous of all of Sun Tzu’s aphorisms.
VIII (18) Hence the saying: If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Truer words were never spoken.
The Art of War is a fascinating book. I originally sought out this collection for this work alone, but I am interested in continuing through the other works. (The Tao Te Ching, The Works of Confucius, and The Works of Mencius.)
I have mentioned before that I loathe politics - particularly current politics. I decided to dive back in, however, not to write about a particular candidate (such as The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named), but to examine a troubling trend and how I think it originated.
To set the stage, let me related a recurring conversation that I have had with a few intelligent and thoughtful friends.
“Have you noticed that most people agree with their political party, not just a majority of things, but on every single thing?”
And it really is true. Not just about the predictable things either. For example, if you have a friend who is part of the Religious Right, you would not be surprised that they have certain opinions on abortion or gay marriage. But think about this: you can guarantee that about 99% of them will also have these opinions:
Opposition to any form of gun control
Opposition to immigration (at least by Muslims or Latinos)
Belief that universal health care is of the devil
Climate Change is a conspiracy
Belief that police brutality is a media invention
Belief that society is made up of “producers” and “consumers” and that the “consumers” are at fault for all our problems. (This is classic Ayn Rand, in case it wasn’t obvious.)
Opposition to most government programs (except for Social Security and Medicare)
And there are a myriad of smaller issues, and people will almost entirely say the exact same things about each and every one of those issues.
It’s not as if any of the above are core Christian doctrines, either. (And, if I am honest with myself, the teachings of Christ do not generally tend to align well with the political commitments of the Right at this moment in history.)
This pattern holds to a certain degree on the Left as well. I am less qualified to discuss that side - I grew up in the Religious Right, live in a conservative city - so I am going to speak more of what I know than speculate about the “other side.”
Now add another factor into the list. I have quite a few friends from the Religious Right, so I see what they post and say and think quite a bit. Just in the last month, I had a series of things show up that fit a pattern. A friend would post a ludicrous and clearly alarmist article claiming someone in the other party was doing something horrid - and usually unbelievably stupid in the bargain. I would step in and point out the actual facts of the case (with links to actual data, for example), and the poop would hit the fan. Even in those cases where the other party had to admit I was right (such as the case where the “news” was from a spoof site), they would still cling to “but he/she’s so evil that this seemed credible.”)
For what it’s worth, one post was claiming that President Obama just issued an executive order limiting everyone to three guns. (That one was from the spoof site. And really, Obama isn’t stupid. And his actual record on gun control is moderate at worst. But none of that mattered, because the person had already “decided” that Obama is out for our guns.) The other was a claim that the Health Secretary had advocated for mandatory abortions. (Also false. Here is the Politifact breakdown. Let me also note that this came from conspiracy-monger extraordinaire Glenn Beck, so that should have been enough to raise a red flag…)
Third would be the person who jumped into another thread to claim that The Toupee Who Shall Not Be Named was a fantastic person, good in every way, blah, blah, blah. The proof? Another politician she liked had endorsed him. When I cited his racist rhetoric and bullying temperament - both of which are public record - she accused me of being “not teachable.”
The thread that ties these together is this: the actual facts do not matter. What really matters is what side a person is on. Our side: good. Their side: unspeakably evil.
I usually leave links until the end, but I think these two really are part of this discussion.
First is this one, by my friend Joe Holman. Joe is generally conservative, and serves as a missionary to Bolivia. He puts his money and his efforts where his mouth is, actively working to make life better for others. This post is so good, I saved it in my links list.
Joe points out that most of what we claim is “our opinion” isn’t an opinion, let alone an informed opinion. It’s just parroting of the talking points from someone else who we believe is on the “good” side.
The other is this column from David Brooks, and was posted by a thoroughly conservative relative. I don’t always agree with Brooks, but I think he is on to something here.
Politics is an activity in which you recognize the simultaneous existence of different groups, interests and opinions. You try to find some way to balance or reconcile or compromise those interests, or at least a majority of them. You follow a set of rules, enshrined in a constitution or in custom, to help you reach these compromises in a way everybody considers legitimate.
The downside of politics is that people never really get everything they want. It’s messy, limited and no issue is ever really settled. Politics is a muddled activity in which people have to recognize restraints and settle for less than they want. Disappointment is normal.
...
Over the past generation we have seen the rise of a group of people who are against politics...Ultimately, they don’t recognize other people. They suffer from a form of political narcissism, in which they don’t accept the legitimacy of other interests and opinions. They don’t recognize restraints. They want total victories for themselves and their doctrine.
...
Trump’s supporters aren’t looking for a political process to address their needs. They are looking for a superhero. As the political scientistMatthew MacWilliams found, the one trait that best predicts whether you’re a Trump supporter is how high you score on tests that measure authoritarianism.
I believe that these two tendencies - the parroting of all the positions of “your” tribe, and the
Rejection of compromise and the legitimacy of other interests and opinions - are related.
They come from a belief that the “other side” isn’t made up of people with different - or even merely wrong - opinions, but enemies that are actively malevolent and evil to the core.
It all stems from this. Once you dehumanize the other side to this degree, the rest follows.
Why do people follow every single minor detail of their party’s platform? Well, if the other side is evil and malevolent, then any position they take is by definition suspect. Even on issues that seem to be naturally a balancing of interests and compromise between priorities, such as, say, alternative energy subsidies.
Likewise, of course you believe the other side would do something politically suicidal. Obama doesn’t just disagree with you, he’s an evil demon out to intentionally wreck America. Muahahaha! A post says he eats puppies? Of course it’s true!
And the third one is true too. If you believe that you are faced with, not a competing set of interests, not difference of opinion, but the very forces of evil, of course you want a superhero, not a politician.
And those people who have different opinions and different interests? They don’t matter. They are not to be compromised with, but destroyed.
How did we get here?
This is pretty much the most accurate vision of 21st Century American politics.
Well, I won’t be so naive as to say we haven’t been here before. Nineteenth Century politics were often brutal. And we did have that whole Civil War thing that killed a half a million people. (If we had the same death rate, that would be 6.2 million deaths.) The rhetoric was similarly heated, with both sides believing they were on the side of God himself. Which obviously couldn’t be equally true for both parties. So there is unfortunate precedent for this.
I think the modern polarization, though, can be traced to its origin, at least on the Right. (Again, I am more center right these days, and was raised on the far right. Thus, I cannot really speak to the development of the left.)
For the right, I believe that the polarization began in earnest when the coalition that became what is now the Religious Right adopted abortion as its cause. (I need to blog on that one.) On a related note, the original glue for the coalition was an opposition to the Civil Rights movement. (Don't forget that prior to her opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, Phyllis Schlafly's first foray into political involvement was pro-Segregation. And that's just one of the many connections.) Thus, one could combine the fear and hatred that drove the coalition emotionally (but now baptized by the teachings of Ayn Rand) with an easy “black and white” issue. Once the “other side” was dehumanized as depraved baby killers, the polarization was inevitable. Nothing the Democrats advocated for could be trusted. They were evil, and must be destroyed. This belief gained even greater traction during the 1990s, with the rise of talk radio, which further served to whip up the fear and hatred for the other side that the James Dobsons of the world had been stoking for so long.
That this came with a whole bunch of baggage from the Civil Rights era wasn’t a bug, but an intended feature. Now that the left/right polarization was based on a perception of good versus evil, then a host of really poisonous ideas could be accepted. It did take a while for this to truly develop, of course. Ayn Rand wasn’t always accepted as the new prophet of Christianity like she is now. (That needs to be a separate post.) But this election has brought out what what always lurking under the surface: a view of politics as a jihad against the forces of evil, rather than the compromising and balancing of competing interests and viewpoints.
And that’s why, for a great many on the right, the idea of voting for a narcissist running on a platform of racism will eventually start to look appealing. When the other side is the devil incarnate…
I think that there is a cure for this, but it is one many will not want to hear. First, we need to grant the basic humanity of the other side. With the exceptions of a few loud and obnoxious people on both sides, people are people, not evil caricatures. Perhaps if people spent time around those they disagree with and just listened, rather than argued, this wouldn’t be as much of a problem.
Second, we need a lot more humility. As Joe Holman pointed out (seriously, read it!), most of what we think is our opinion isn’t even our opinion. It’s just parroting. So if we don’t even have an informed opinion, based on actual research and documentation, why do we think we can declare it is absolute truth? The other side may well have some valid points. And other people may indeed have interests which compete with ours. True community doesn’t come from destroying people who threaten your own privilege, after all, but from finding common ground.
Third, as a Christian, I believe that I am called to love my neighbor as myself. This means that I need to do my best to place myself in the shoes of others, before I declare their viewpoints wrong - or worse, evil. This means that I believe I must evaluate the policies I call for through the eyes of the others the policy affects. Not just me and my tribe, but the “other” as well.
At that point, one can start to envision the uncomfortable compromises that must be made for people to live together in peace. Sure, nobody will be 100% happy. “Get used to disappointment.” But compromise is infinitely better than “winning” through the destruction of others.
As a final point, let me rewind to a time from my childhood. Before George H. W. Bush was Ronald Reagan’s Vice President, the two vied for the GOP nomination. It’s pretty clear that neither would be remotely welcome in today’s GOP. I still cannot get over the fact that Bush is actually concerned that immigrant children would feel stigmatized. It’s like basic human decency - something nearly impossible to find in politics right now.
I would add that it isn’t just the Republican Party which has attracted authoritarians. We have seen the same trend in American Evangelicalism. We have had our Trumps for decades. From Bill Gothard to Mark Driscoll, the promise of halting of social change has had a powerful appeal, and has led us to embrace evil ideas and authoritarian teachings. Maybe I should blog about that some time.
***
Just one bit that occurred to me later. The amount of vitriol that President Obama has taken during his two terms seems to me to rather unprecedented. Particularly the way that substantial portions of the Right still seem to believe he is a foreign-born Muslim, despite all evidence to the contrary. I have finally had to conclude that, for most of these people, this accusation is a socially acceptable projection of their real objection, which is that there is a black man in the White House.
I first discovered the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy when I was pretty young. I can’t remember exactly how you, but probably late elementary school. I borrowed my dad’s copy, and definitely did not let them know I was reading it. At least after it became clear that it had a few, um, naughty references. But anyway, it was a lot of fun, even at that age, although I suspect some things went over my head. Later, my brother and I acquired all of the series, and proceeded to reference stuff from it as an inside joke of sorts.
Come to think of it, one of the highlights of my legal career was getting to use the “Somebody Else’s Problem Field” in a case. I got a chuckle from the judge.
A few years ago, I read Last Chance to See, a non-fiction work Adams co-wrote with Mark Carwardine about critically endangered species, but this was my first foray into Adams’ non-Hitchhiker fiction.
Like the Hitchhikers series, I think you have to approach this book with the same mindset, which is that not everything will be explained, and the last few chapters will be too quick and messy to make sense. Apparently, Adams had a huge problem with deadlines, and tended to dash off whatever he could at the end.
This is the second book in the Dirk Gently series, and I have not read the first, so for all I know, I am missing some background information. The title itself is taken from a line in the third Hitchhiker novel, Life, The Universe, and Everything. A character named Wowbagger, who accidentally became immortal as a result of an industrial accident, has succumbed to endless boredom, the “long dark tea time of the soul.” Since the king of the gods, Odin, features in this book, perhaps this is a nod to immortality.
In any case, here is the setup. Dirk Gently is a self-nominated “Holistic” detective, believing in the interconnection of everything. He is also pretty much an incompetent slob, who takes a number of detective cliches to their extreme conclusion. An incident at Heathrow airport results in the disappearance of an airline clerk and the destruction of a terminal. Meanwhile, Dirk’s client, a record executive who had been complaining about a contract and a green man with a scythe winds up dead with his head rotating on a phonograph. As things unfold, it turns out that Odin made the mistake of signing a contract with a lawyer, his son Thor becomes recalcitrant, and chaos ensues. How will Dirk and his accidental accomplice Kate straighten things out?
There are two reasons that I won’t give away any more of the plot. First, because this is the sort of book that shouldn’t be spoiled. Second, I had to do some research to figure out exactly what the ending was supposed to mean. And even then, there appear to be multiple interpretations.
I do want to quote a few things, though. A good bit of the fun of Adams’ writing is his witty and unexpected lines. The opening paragraphs are particularly good.
It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression “As pretty as an airport.”
Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk (Murmansk airport is the only known exception to this otherwise infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect this in their designs.
They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with the brutal shapes and nerve-jangling colors, to make effortless the business of separating the traveler forever from his or her luggage or loved ones, to confuse the traveler with arrows that appear to point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the plumbing on the grounds that it is function, and conceal the location of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not.
Another great one occurs when Kate (having survived the airport explosion) insists on checking herself out of the hospital, informing the nurses and doctor that the air in the hospital “smells like a vacuum cleaner’s armpit.”
Kate also delivers a line in frustration at Dirk, who very much deserves it.
“I see,” said Dirk. “You have, if I may say so, the air of one to whom her day has not been a source of joy or spiritual enrichment.”
“Too damn right it hasn’t,” said Kate. “I’ve had the sort of day that would make Saint Francis of Assisi kick babies.”
Later, Dirk contemplates the way things have changed since the good old days.
Things had certainly come down a long way since the great days of Faust and Mephistopheles, when a man could gain all the knowledge of the universe, achieve all the ambitions of his mind and all the pleasures of the flesh for the price of his soul. Now it was a few record royalties, a few pieces of trendy furniture, a trinket to stick on your bathroom wall and whap, your head comes off.
Last, there is one of Adams’ trademark descriptions where everything is delightfully upside-down.
Dennis Hutch had stepped up into the top seat when its [a record company] founder had died of a lethal overdose of brick wall, taken while under the influence of a Ferrari and a bottle of Tequila.
Anyway, a fun book, if not quite the classic that the Hitchhiker series is.
