Ramblings no one should be interested in...really

I mean, seriously, ask yourself why are you here.

sabato 27 aprile 2013

The Dragon in the Sea



I think I am reviewing books with the subconscious urge to compare them to G.R.R. Martin´s "A song of Ice and Fire". There is just so much that an author could to to make the story come to life without writing 9000 pages, but I suppose everyone has to make a buck. Anyway, here goes.
The Dragon in the Sea (Under Pressure) is a damn good book. It is a new Frank Herbert, away from his familiar landscape, the Arrakis/Dune which is now a quite well known setting (starting with David Lynch's adaptation, and on with videogames, spinoffs and telefilms). 

Herbert shows remarkable competence at narrating an adventure entirely set inside a small sub marine, a Hell Diver. The author shows the tricks of a good narrator, by giving us a high dosage of technical language, which even if you have never been in the navy, definitely gives to the "feel" to be there. He is accurate in his description of the sub-tug, and by the time we are through with the book, it feels like we have lived ourselves in those claustrophobic quarters. Its bulkheads, control panels, dials and gauges, levers, rudders. It sets a stage, with quick brush strokes, without killing it with too much detail. 

<< Oil. The war demanded the pure substance born in the sediment of rising continent. Vegetable oil wouldn't do. War was no vegetarian. War was a carnivore. >>

The plot is simple: in the near future (VERY near, for us, about the late 2030s) the USA is quite oil-starved. The crews of the hell-divers, 4 men units, risk their lives to, literally, steal oil from underwater continental shelves of the EP (Eastern Powers), dragging a "slug", a 1 mile long tank. The waters are infested with wolf-packs, submarines patrolling the enemy seas, but there is more. "Sleepers" in the US Navy have consistently sabotaged the last 20 missions, resulting in the loss of 20 crews. The journey is nerve-racking, and the submarine has to endure the strain of ordinary warfare, coupled with acts of sabotage. The task of the protagonist: to find out what is it that drives men insane during those missions, but also find a way to stop the sleepers. 

What is truly remarkable, is Herbert's ability to characterize. Thoughts in italics provide a commentary to the author's suggestions on where the truth might lie, and on where a man's sanity might be hiding, on the backdrop of the function of religious belief in a high-tech future. The titular Dragon in the Sea, is in fact the Leviathan: "In that day the LORD with his hard and great and strong sword will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, Leviathan the twisting serpent, and he will slay the dragon that is in the sea". It haunts the crew, and especially the deeply religious captain Sparrow. Instead of droning on for 7 volumes, Herbert gives us access to the security files of the characters, with the voice of the protagonist. Of Sparrow we know that he is <<"forty-one. Picture of a tall, thin man with balding sandy hair, a face of sharp planes, stooped shoulders. He looks like a small-town college professor, thought Ramsey. How much of that is conditioned on his early desire to teach mathematics? Does he resent the fact that his hardcrust Navy family forced him to follow in the old man's footsteps?" >>

The same man will pull the most insane feats of leadership and seamanship. Better still, the profile of Leslie Bonnet: <<"Held from advancement to his own command by imperfect adjustment to deep-seated insecurity feelings." The Unwanted, he thought. Bonnett probably doesn't want advancement. This way, his commander supplies the father authority lacking in his youth.>>

There is more than psychology. Some Anthropology which is right up my alley. Ramsey is called by second name until he faces combat, after which they all switch to a friendlier first name:

<< Johnny! thought Ramsey. He called me Johnny! And then he remembered: We've met the enemy. The old magic is dead. Enter the new magic. >>

There is a sense of completion, at the end of the journey: 

<<"Take her in, Les," said Sparrow. "You've earned the right."

Bonnett reached up, adjusted the range-response dial. His shoulders seemed to take on a new, more positive set. Ramsey realized abruptly that Bonnett had come of age on this voyage, that he was ready to cut his own cord. The thought gave Ramsey a tug of possessive fondness for Bonnett, an emotion touched by nostalgia at the thought of separation.
Truly like brothers, he thought.>> 

I am a navy person at heart, so I melted a little when I read that. The final note, to come full circle, is on miracles (and many happen during the mission). <<"There's such a thing as being on God's side. Being right with the world. That's really the thing behind miracles. It's quite simple. You get in . . . well, phase. That's the mechanical way of saying it. You ride the wave instead of bucking it." >>

So, read this book if you like navy stories (especially submarine stories). Read this book if you like war stories (especially cold war). Read this book if you want to see some real character analysis elegantly laid out in less than 200 pages.

mercoledì 16 gennaio 2013

Syria



This is a silly blog. I rant, and sometimes I try to say something deep, but all in all I try to be witty and smart. We all do that on the internet, it is our window, and a good deal of us (I suppose "us bloggers") are too narcissistic to take a step back and try not to sound so damn smart every time we post.

This is, mostly, why I have been so silent on this blog. It is a fun thing to do, its purpose to let the words amuse (me, you, whoever) or just come out and relax me in the process. I cannot find the energy to do that right now, not with what I read in the news.

I have always felt a connection to what happens in Palestine, for example. The Gaza siege put a dampener in my enthusiasm and my will to blog, but did not kill it entirely. I was going to post something, at some point, what with all the travelling I have done, but lack of time and other priorities prevented me form doing it.

Now there is a deeper reason. Much deeper. It is Syria. It is a hot hot hot debate, but to me the core of the matter is as simple as its outer layers are complex. Those are meat and mead of analysts, fuel for (interesting) geopolitical debates. They have a merit, I suppose, as they illustrate the conflict to us, crassly clueless European, framing in context what happens just next door.

What matters to me is that for the last 2 years people have been suffering, fearing and dying over there. Normal people, ordinary people. People I could relate to. The death of an illiterate shepherd on the Tora Bora hills is not less dramatic, his life just as valuable, but I have to acknowledge to myself that there are other levels to relate to people, beyond that of just "being a human like me". I go through the gory, unsettling, disgusting images that the internet is flooded with. Before-and-after pictures of places that used to be beautiful, peaceful, or just "normal". Places where people of all ages had their trade, their everyday dramas, their jobs, their exams, their hopeless crushes on that girl/guy. When destruction hits people I can relate to, with similar dreams and aspirations, it all gets a lot scarier. To know that those people are no more, wiped away but the tug of war between their government and a bunch of thugs, to know that their existence has been shredded to pieces by the war-game of far way nations, is simply too disgusting to ignore.

But I can go deeper than that. I will. Syria, in a way, is family to me. It makes bleed the hearts of the people I love most, the ones who mean the most to me. I am not Buddha, I am not an enlightened soul. Certain wars will mean more to me than others. Certain events will tip the scale in favor of at least trying to say something, to articulate a thought.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013115135151522535.html

This is just the last in a long line of brutalities. This one robbed us of 87 (as of now) people and shattered the lives of those who knew them. It hit them where it hurts, where they thought it could not, would not happen. Because the parties are their own government, or a militia that allegedly, supposedly, theoretically took arms to overturn a corrupt police-state.

All I can do now is pose myself, and those around me, a simple question. Is it worth it? No. It is not. It cannot be. Do not come to me ever saying that this is a "necessary price", that "transitions are always bloody", that there are "lesser" or "necessary evils". There are not. We screwed up, big time, all of us. The dictator refuses to budge, refuses to bend, refuses to reform, cracks down on his own people, and what do we do? Do we help the citizens find a voice? Do we pressure said government to pull its head out of its ass? No, we do not. We flood the country with weapons, we arm militia groups. Ignorant, bloodthirsty thugs who love their sects more than they love their country. People who are prepared to die, yes, but also people who will do so no matter how many more they drag down with them. We bless these groups, and even anoint them with legitimacy, while what happens (legally speaking), is a Head of State who is refusing to go simply because "well...because Ben Ali and Ali Abdallah Saleh did". Is the government power hungry? Sure. Is it corrupt? I don't think anyone can object to that. Were there no alternatives to all of this? Of course there were.

But pitting Shi'ites against Sunni, crippling an enemy for good, forcing new markets to (eventually) open up to western goods, pulling all sorts of strings and stacking up all sorts of credit (to be exacted, no doubt,  at usury rates) seemed and seems more important than asking Syrians if they did not prefer to go through a political battle, rather than being engulfed in a full-on war, fought by a bunch of barbarians, in their streets and in their houses, with a dreadfully cold winter upon them, with no international help, and very little recognition, no information, surrounded by states that are at best paying lip-service to their plight, when they are not downright hostile to them or trying to exploit them as a negotiation tool (see the case of refugees).

But most importantly, and I don't give a flying shit if it sounds egoistic, it robs my loved ones of sleep, it makes them dread the future, it makes them worry sick, and I cannot just look the other way and keep to myself. If it is only to say that I am infuriated and disgusted, I will use this web space to do so.