orbis quintus

I saw this article on the declining quality of Russian literature at the hands of brutal market forces last week (via Lit Saloon, I think) and wasn’t going to comment on it here.

That is, until I saw this list of best-sellers in Russia (via the November issue of The Atlantic):

A top-ten book list, as of August 2005, based on sales data compiled by Moscow’s Dom Knigi (House of Books).

1. I Take My Words Back, by Viktor Suvorov. A Russian military historian finds flaws in the memoirs of the late Soviet World War II hero Marshal Zhukov—and takes his words back for him.

2. Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, by John Perkins. World economic institutions are purportedly shown to be as corrupt and conspiracy-ridden as Russians always believed them to be.

3. The Blue Day Book, by Bradley Trevor Greive. Animal photos and corny captions as mood enhancers, compiled by a Tasmanian author.

4. My Life, by Bill Clinton. The memoirs of Russia’s favorite American president.

5. Catherine the Great: The Diamond Cinderella, by Aleksandr Bushkov. A patriotic account of a German noblewoman’s rise to the Russian throne and of her rule as an enlightened despot.

6. Hunting for Werewolves, by Aleksandr Khinshtein. A Duma deputy’s exposé of the gravest threat to law and order in Russia: “werewolves” (corrupt law-enforcement officers).

7. Business Is Psychology, by Marina Meliya. Self-help for the disgruntled Russian businessman.

8. Lost Civilization: In Search of Lost Mankind, by Aleksei Maslov. The “true” history of mankind, including Atlantis, our vanished horned ancestors, and mysterious giants.

9. Doctor Sinelnikov’s Practical Course: How to Learn to Love Yourself, by V. Sinelnikov and S. Slobodchikov. A step-by-step course in supermarket psychology, Russian-style, for sufferers of low self-esteem.

10. The Mafia Manager: A Guide to the Corporate Machiavelli, by V. An anonymous author confirms what Russian entrepreneurs already know: business isn’t about mission statements, but about who whacks whom—commercially, of course.

Is this really that much worse than our good ol’ American bestseller lists?

The Guardian has an interview with genius physicist Stephen Hawking. Hawking has revised and simplified his A Brief History of Time and is releasing the new version as A Briefer History of Time. According to my count, this will mark the fourth time that the material has been dished out to the adoring public. Is the old nerd cashing in? That issue is addressed in the interview.

This is not just a boring Q&A. The interviewer writes about how difficult it is to communicate with Hawking. She even hints at the physicist’s dark side.

An odd read, all in all. Exerpt:

At 63, Hawking has already exceeded his life expectancy by some 40 years. His fame is as much a function of his illness as his science and he plays up to it good-naturedly, providing the voiceover for his cameo in the Simpsons, illustrating his books with cultish, Where’s Wally-type photos of himself flying through space in his wheelchair and suffering the condescensions of the press with relative equanimity. With so little to go on, a personality has been created for him, based largely on assumptions of childish good humour. Hawking’s smile is always “mischievous”; his propensity to mow people down in his wheelchair is japery rather than ill temper or a sign that – who knows? – were he able-bodied he might be a football hooligan. And although his ex-wife has called him a tyrant and his second wife been accused of maltreating him (the complaint was dropped), the romance of Hawking’s image as a butterfly mind trapped in a diving-bell body overrides all others. After meeting him, I suspect that he is cannier at managing it than he is given credit for.

Note to my fellow Americans: do try to ignore copious use of the word “maths” in the interview. MATHS!?!?!

So i’m being lazy… I might as well explain that i’m catching up on some reading.

Yesterday, i finished Kelly Link’s Stranger Things Happen. It’s exactly what i wanted it to be, more stories that defy immediate pigionholing into any particular genre, horror, fairy tale, fantasy, speculative fiction, magical realism, ect. All of these stories had that same unsettled feel and unforced humor. I guess that i must admit that i am conscious of the fact that she’s woman. Through no fault of my own, i don’t read as many female authors as i do male authors. Kelly Link’s style never lets me for a moment forget that a woman is crafting the prose, but never do i feel excluded because of my gender. I’ve tried to read a few female authors before, and realized that i was not the intended reader. Link’s inclusive, yet distinctly feminine, not in the frilly, pink bullshit, but in the human sense. These are the kind of voices and thoughts that i can understand. Although i tend to steer away from any kind of sexuality in literature altogether, out of boredom more than prudishness, Link’s vision works for me.

Reading all of her warped reinventions of fairy tales is bringing back a lot of questions raised from my own childhood, reading stories that seemed more like adult nightmares that pleasant idylls of children. The library in Amite had stacks of dusty old books filled with creepy stories about nonsensical murders, secret monsters, and cruel marriages. Despite the violence of television and video games, few live up to the gruesome possibilities that those old stories offered. I put the Italian Folktales compiled by Calvino back on the shelf, as it was not meshing with my occasional Arabian Nights fix, but that tome has come back into rotation after a couple of Kelly Link books. The psychology of those stories makes more sense again.

I started O’Brien’s The Third Policeman. I cannot recall whether i finished it, but two chapters in, all of it is extremely familiar. No comment just yet.

I’ve also started Lem’s The Cyberiad, definitely the first time that i’ve read it. I’m surprised so far by how much this prefigures Calvino’s Cosmicomics. It still bugs me that Lem didn’t seem to care for Calvino. However, reading this, i wonder if Calvino trod a little too heavily on Lem’s toes in some of his games, and Lem felt trespassed. More later obviously. I’m addicted to Lem now.