Winter is Coming - Gary Kasparov

A critical examination of Russia post break up.  Kasparov looks briefly at the chaos of the Yeltsin period and then goes on to examine the rise of Putin and the full realization of the current pirate capitalism system - important moments, underlying causes, etc.  He also looks at how Putin and the pirate system work to involve elites and leaders in other states, especially European, which undermines both the current more democratic systems in Germany and France, etc. and also undermines any criticism of the pirate capitalism system that Putin has set in place.  A good bit of time is also spent examining the weak, even ingratiating response of the U.S., and especially the E.U., to the rise and extension of Putin's system of control.

Kasparov's goal is to raise the alarm about the growth and gradual advancement of this type of system - a system where ruling oligarchs take all and where the people of the country have no value, count for nothing.  A system of pure material gain for the few.

This is a particularly chilling book when you consider current repressive trends in the U.S. and also the recent election cycle which elected an admirer of Putin.

An excellent look at what is sometimes referred to as an "alternate economic system of development".

Selected Stories - William Trevor

Very well crafted stories but all a bit sad, a bit depressing.  He recreates the feel of the small lives, the repressed lives of the marginalized, the poor and the forgotten.  Particularly poignant are the stories about the last surviving members of the Protestant communities in the Republic of Ireland as they slowly fade away and die.  A particular kind of Anglo-Irish desperation.  Reminiscent of the lives of some relatives from the Eastern Townships.

The Black Donnellys - Nate Hendley

A short account of this legendary story.  Fairly straight-forward.  Canada's little bit of the Wild West.  A family of bullies who behave as if they are above the law get their particularly ugly and brutal comeupance at the hands of an equally brutal angry townsmen who had had enough.

A shocking level of brutality over the years from the Donnellys.  Strange they thought somehow they would forever get away with it.

The Rings of Saturn - W. G. Sebald

I have finally found an image to explain Sebald's fiction.  He is a flâneur but a flâneur in the worlds of culture and history.  A melancholy flâneur, with a penchant for savouring lost time.

This book is ostensibly an account of a walking holiday around a small section of the East Coast of England, south of Norwich.  Through his wanderings he connects with former inhabitants and recounts their lives, their artistic accomplishments and the usually sad state of their former homes and mansions.  He explores the rise and fall of towns as fishing dies out, as farming fades, recounting both their heydays and their decline.   Fallen aristocratic families eking out an existence in the dilapidated remains of once glorious homes; the story of Joseph Conrad, who once worked on ships in the area; Swinburne; other smaller artists, collectors, authors who live in the area.

He is like a traveller, and his books a record of the meeting of his mind with the ghosts of the past.

Le Flâneur des deux rives - Guillaume Apollinaire

Jai trouvé ce livre disponible sur internet.  Une collection d'essais d'avant la guerre qui raconte quelques coins, quelques rues, quelques locales du Paris de cette époque.  Apollinaire peint une image du Paris des banlieues artistiques avant que cette reconstruction commencée par Hausmann n'y ait arrivée pour tout refaire.  C'est une image bien différente des façades restreintes et uniformes de nos jours; plus humble, plus humaine, plus désordonnée, mais avec charme.  Impossible à voir cela maintenant.
Apollinaire aussi évoque toute une vie, tout un monde artiste et poète de l'époque - il cite des noms de poètes de nos jours oubliés, mais qui à cette période étaient connus, même bien connus, et qui faisaient partie de tout un cercle de poètes et artistes qui travaillaient et partageaient la vie et les idées.  Cela m'a donné une nouvelle impression de ce monde du début de siècle.  On imagine toujours cette époque avec les géants comme Picasso et Apollinaire qui trônent sur tous les autres artistes, mais en vérité, à l'époque ils étaient des gens parmi d'autres; ils travaillaient comme les autres à poursuivre leurs idées et leurs inspirations.  C'est nous, bien après, qui en avons fait des figures démesurées, des géants des arts.  Un peu au hasard peut-être.  Qui sait?

Nights in the Big City: Paris, Berlin, London 1840-1930 - Joachim Schlor

A real sociological study of how night changed in the city with the introduction first of gas lighting, and then of electric lighting.  While the text is a little too detailed and dense for my level of interest, there are still some interesting ideas.  He also quotes and refers to many important cultural and literary figures of the time as part of his research.

Until the mid-1800s cities pretty much shut down once it was dark.  Many had laws about being inside at home from dark until dawn.  This was largely as a measure of social control in a time when forces of order would have trouble watching the goings-on in the street.  With the initial introduction of gas lighting, and later with electric lighting, the streets became much busier at night.  Walking the lit up main streets became a destination and an amusement in itself.  Prostitution and petty crime also flourished in this early stage of city street lighting - while the main streets were lit, the smaller streets remained very dark, easy places for hiding and disappearing.  Near the end of the century, nightlife began to move off the street again and into lit-up interiors - cafes, clubs, restaurants, brothels, bals dansants, theatres, etc.  This was the preferred outcome for the forces of order, as interior spaces are much easier to control and supervise than the street, interestingly.

Many of the chapters in the book deal with the competing claims of freedom, excitement and the need for security, morality and social order.  I was less interested in these chapters.  The second-last chapter, Nightwalking, was the most interesting for me.  It traces the unusual affinity of some walking the city at night.  He discusses the concept of flâneur, and mentions Apollinaire.  Flâner as a meeting of open-minded observation with erudition - nice description.  Schlor also notes how many sources discuss how the growing presence of very bright light combined with the retreat to interior space again, destroyed the art of the flâneur, as the streets became both emptier and less mysterious, less suggestive.  He also notes the general consensus that by 1920 in both Berlin and London, the riotousness, the unpredictability and the frisson of night life was gone, replaced by commercialized, stereotyped entertainments of the night.  Captialism at work...

There is an excellent bibliography at the book for exploring some of this further

The West End Horror - Nicholas Meyer

Another Sherlock Holmes mystery by Meyer.  He does a good copy of Doyle's style and structure.  I also enjoy how he brings in other famous people from the time - in this one it is George Bernard Shaw.

The Tsar of Love and Techno - Anthony Marra

A beautifully interwoven set of stories depicting life in the far reaches of Siberia and Chechnya in late Soviet times and early Putin days.  Marra manages to evoke the apocalyptic landscapes of a northern mining town and post-war Grozny, as well as the pastoral landscape of the Chechen mountains.  He also creates a seemingly credible set of characters:  homo sovieticus, corrupt officials,  drug dealers, kleptocrats, gratuitously sadistic soldiers and criminal gangs, victims.  The wandering story of two brothers.  An exploration of the small details of what went wrong in post-Soviet Russia. Quite an amazing book.

I am left wondering how he developed this imaginary landscape that he writes in.  There is no indication that he studied this field other than the books he credits in his acknowledgements.  I am wondering how he developed such a feel for the gritty details of these lives.

Find more.

Edvard Munch Archetypes - Paloma Alarco

While I still really love much of the work of Munch and enjoyed looking at the reproductions, I found the essays rather pedantic.  I suppose it is more of a scholarly look at his work.  And I do see how they pull the archetypes idea out of his body of work.

I have a couple of problems with this though.
First, his archetypal images of women border on stereotypical - mother whore, innocence temptress,  youth crone.  True, these are enduring images of women dating back to Shakespeare, commedia dell'arte, etc - which could be said about the other archetypes he explores around men and people in general.
I guess the thing I find disturbing is the absolute seriousness with which he portrays these classic tropes - there is no wit, no humour.  These stereotypes date back to commedia dell'arte, some even to ancient Greek theatre, and there, in those times, there was a lot of irreverence and humour injected into the interplay of these archetypical characters.  I find them disturbing, even a bit scary, when presented with such seriousness.

Thinking About the Present as if It Were the Past - Chuck Klosterman

Great title for a book, but as sometimes happens, doesn't quite live up to the potential.  The main focus of the book is what I would consider pop culture - rock music, football, TV - and an attempt to analyze what might be lasting or of quality in these forms.  Unfortunately I am not really interested in these questions.

We live in a period of unprecedented issue and problems that threaten to destroy societies and life on earth.  This train of thought would have been much more interesting if applied to some of the current big issues we face, and how our attempts to find solutions are limited by our ability to think differently, to break out of past models and understandings.

Les cahiers japonais - Igort

Un autre B.D. par Igort.  Il raconte son obsession avec le Japon et le B.D. japonais, et comment il a fini par travailler dans l'industire Manga (Il est l'auteur d'une célèbre série manga).  Cela lui donne aussi l'excuse d'explorer différents aspects de l'art japonais.  Il y a aussi quelques reflections sur la culture japonaise.  Bien dessiné mais son livre sur la Russie et L'Ukraine est toujours le meilleur.

Resistance - Barry Lopez

A collection of short stories.  Each story is about a person living outside the dominant consumer exploitative culture of North America.  There are some nice passages of description of nature, of of appreciation for simple, ancient crafts.  The best story is the one set in the south-west U.S. as I think this is the landscape and culture he has spent the most time thinking about.

A little bit contrived sounding at times, perhaps pretentious or recherché, but still worth reading.