The Picture of Dorian Gray
Oscar Wilde

There can be many varying reasons for selling one's soul to the devil. Fame, power, love; a distraction of this world can rapidly consume the entirety of one's concentration until the distraction becomes that person's very "reality". It is fascinating to observe how the good in this world can be overlooked or neglected due to the singularity of one's concentration on what is, ultimately, the "bad".

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a story that captures such a concept and places it in the context of late nineteenth century London. Basil Hallward is a painter, one of amateur talents, but a painter that receives an inspiration that some like to call divine. A particularly new acquaintance of his, a Mr. Dorian Gray, seems to put all art into perspective for the aspiring artist. The result is a perfectly splendid picture of the beautiful Dorian Gray, who sits for Hallward in the epitome of innocence.

There is a friend of Hallward's, who goes by the name of Lord Henry Wotton. Harry, as his friends call him, is something of an enigma to the familial circles of English aristocracy; Dorian most aptly entitles him "Prince Paradox" much later in the novel. Gray is immediately captivated by the charisma of Lord Wotton, whom he met while Hallward is painting his portrait. Following the completion of the painting, Dorian becomes melancholic, having just learned the wonders of his youth and beauty from Prince Paradox; indeed, upon gazing into his own picture, Dorian Gray is already missing his youthful splendour. In his newfound narcissism, Dorian makes a foolhardy wish: that the painting grows old and ugly while he should retain his exceptional beauty.

There is a liberal utilization of symbolization in this controversial book, and most particularly so in Henry Wotton and his meeting with Dorian Gray. Harry, who becomes Dorian's closest friend, represents a kind of hedonism that is vastly different from the sociality of their familiars, and yet also apart from the vulgar tastes of the uneducated.

In the words of Dorian Gray:

"Yes: there was to be, as Lord Henry prophesied, a new Hedonism that was to recreate life, and to save it from the harsh, uncomely Puritanism that was making its own curious revival. It was to have its service of the intellect, certainly; yet, it was never to accept any theory or system that would involve the sacrifice of any mode of passionate experience. His aim, indeed, was to be experience itself, and not the fruits of experience, sweet or bitter as they might be. Of the asceticism that deadens the sense, as of the vulgar profligacy that dulls them, it was to know nothing. But it was to teach man to concentrate himself upon the moments of a life that is itself but a moment."

Before Dorian Gray met Lord Henry Wotton, he recognized things as they were. Following that momentous exchange, Dorian Gray recognized only shadows. Art, to the corrupted youth, was not just a reflection of life and love, but reality itself. Passion is the first and final goal of his new worldview, and it ultimately destroys the child within.

Basil Hallward symbolizes the simplicity, the good, and the rare in modern London: his friend Henry calls him "dull", as all great artists are. Hallward, in a clever instance of foreboding, did not want Lord Henry to even meet Dorian: "Dorian Gray has a simple and beautiful nature… Don't spoil him." The good in life seems to become less relevant, less necessary as life goes on, as the individual experiences more, until the good doesn't seem to exist… at all.

A key idea in the Picture of Dorian Gray is, I think, the fall of innocence to the pleasures of this novel Hedonism that plays the antagonism of this story. Though Dorian may indeed retain his outer beauty, startling the perceptions of everyone near him, the soul within becomes unrecognizable to a simple eye, to any eye removed of darkness. In the writing of this, his only novel, Oscar Wilde manages to take hold of several key ideas and succeeds in putting them on a magnificent, provocative display. The central themes, art, love and novelty, are the fine threads that boldly form the grandeur of the patterned Idea. As this is the ultimate goal in every work of art, I would claim that The Picture of Dorian Gray is an accomplished story on every level.

The Picture of Dorian Gray, by Oscar Wilde

Works
Sir Thomas Malory

Almost everyone knows about King Arthur to some extent, but most people are only aware of the name, maybe the stories of Launcelot's and Guinevere's love affair, and perhaps Mordred's betrayal and the destruction of mythical England. There are, however, more knights, examples including the hilarious Sir Dinadan and the pitiful yet noble and endearing Sir Palomides. There have been multiple retellings of the Arthurian myths, but the most complete collection to come from the actual British Isles would be the works of Sir Thomas Malory, collected by Eugéne Vinaver under the simple title Works and organized into 8 distinct, yet ultimately connected romances.

The collection really begins with King Arthur's most famous action: pulling the sword out of the stone, and with it claiming the right to rule England. His ambition sweeps farther than most people remember, though, because in the second book he expands his rule to the Roman Empire and defeats the Emperor Lucius, essentially becoming emperor of Europe himself. A grand collection of knightly adventures follows; Launcelot du Lake, Sir Gareth, and Tristram de Lyones each have an entire book dedicated to them, which are all full of many other adventuring knights who sire bastards, kidnap (and return) noblewomen, and a few unfortunates get to suffer, in the words of Malory himself, "evyl eese upon the braynne-panne." After the Grail Quest, however, the Arthurian Kingdom becomes more and more unstable, eventually destroying itself Ragnarok-style when Arthur and his son Mordred kill each other in battle, and the few surviving knights, realizing that their world cannot be saved, accept their fate, join Monasteries or go off to die in Crusades.

This book is a treasure of Anglo-Saxon mythology, but that does not mean that everyone should read every section of the book. Although some may be intrigued with the idea of Arthur conquering the Roman Empire, that story may prove too longwinded and tedious; the reader may skip it without losing too much understanding of the Arthurian World. However, the book of Tristram de Lyones and the story of the Holy Grail (or the Sankgreal) are must-read material; the reader experiences knightly adventure after adventure, and then witnesses the turning point of the Arthurian Kingdom, where the best knight of the world (Galahad) is revealed, achieves the Grail, and then dies in all the glory of the transcendent. Between those two books, we have the best combination of priestly asceticism and knightly valor; symbolic profundity and just plain fun in-your-face sword-fights, presented in delicious Malory-style Middle English.

For those willing to dive into the book, expect unbelievable, over-the-top presentation of Middle English. While in most copies a glossary is supplied, the occasional French and rare German word may prove a hindrance to anyone looking for something to read at breakfast. Do not try to read this book at anything but a leisurely pace; because of the episodic plot structure that characterizes Arthurian legends, anyone reading this book for fun can take a week-long break and renew reading later with increased vigor. The prose borders on the poetic, yet is succinct and understandable in ways that modern poems can never be.

The knights, fortunately, are simultaneously believable characters and representations of spiritual and moral archetypes. The very fact that Malory makes not only Launcelot, but Palomides, Sir Bors, and Dinaden likeable and relatable while still being able to illustrate a point speaks very highly of his abilities. Characters have flaws, weak moments, and unearthly triumphs; sometimes only to be brought crashing back to earth in a disappointment that readers can't help but sympathize with. Almost every character, not "just" Launcelot and Gawain, get rounded out and while that may occasionally lead to their fifteen minutes of glory, it may just as well lead to tragedy in death or infamy.

The fact that this was written in Medieval England may lead some to think that this is a book meant purely for academics. While it is true that this collection has academic value (there is no shortage of scholarly journals and book offering different interpretations and readings of the Works), to pigeonhole it in this way would be ignoring the enjoyment value of reading about knights beating each other. At the same time, to dismiss it as a glorified action novel would be ignoring the message books like "The Tales of the Sankgreal" are trying to say. Yet, at 600 pages, there's probably simply too much for the reader to focus his attention on everything. In the end, the reader must simply find two or three aspects of the book s/he really enjoys, and focus his entire concentration on that. This way, the book will resonate with the reader soundly and for that reason will become a much more enjoyable read.

Works, by Sir Thomas Malory

The Revolution - A Manifesto
Ron Paul

Republican conservative Ron Paul stirred the political arena when he candidated for presidency during the 2008 U.S. election. His stance on a variety of issues differ radically from the platform of his party members: bring the troops immediately back home from Iraq and elsewhere in the world, abolish the Federal Reserve, reinstate the Constitution, cut down on taxes and social welfare, dethrone the corporate tyrants, and let the free market replace government-controlled economics. During his candidacy, despite the conservative message and the unbelievable resistance met in the public media and from his party members, Ron Paul managed to attract a large audience of loyal followers among all political groups, and scored records in fundraising against wealthy opponents. "The Revolution - A Manifesto" is his political legacy and official manifesto to the world.

Paul begins by describing the recent elections in America as a charade, attacking its two-party system and the illusion of political choices presented to the American people. This clearly separates him from both parties and thus he takes the stance of an independent that is trying to reform the system from within. His goal is evident: to reinstate the Constitution through political and economical libertarianism. Paul moves on to define his political stance on foreign policy, where he distances himself from the kind of corporate globalism that has defined modern American politics since it left the Constitutional advices of not engaging in interventionism. Paul's conservative stance appears especially radical today, when America has the vision of maintaining a worldwide empire. Paul attacks the world police ideal and wants to cease all interventionism, especially in troubled areas such as Iraq, and open up diplomatic relationships with countries like Iran. In doing this, he hopes America will improve its international reputation and avoid plunging itself into another world war while withering away in debt.

The platform for all of Paul's basic values stems from the Constitution and its policies critical of governmental interference with State laws and individual liberty. He defends a typical libertarian stance, but rooted in the tradition of Constitutional rights and freedoms, which marks a difference from the modern liberal movement. Ron Paul believes in the creativity, independence and freedom of the individual, and attempts to fuse this worldview with a radical conservative perspective on main governmental problems to reduce the bureaucracy, credit booms, foreign wars and Orwellian methods of central governmental and corporate powers. By doing this he circumvents both the Democratic and Republican paradigms, while working to restore what he believes is the traditional platform of the Republican party: less government, no intervention.

Paul spends a great deal of the book clarifying his stance on economic issues, especially how the Federal Reserve system works, basic economic and personal freedom, and the vision of a free market, unregulated by the governmental body. His philosophy is also here a libertarian common-sense approach: by strengthening civil society and private alternatives to the main governmental institutions for education, welfare and environmental policies, Paul hopes to both secure personal freedom and lower taxes and spending to improve the economy. He explicitly deals with the banking system of America and describes the way in which the Fed deliberately inflates the value of the dollar, proposing America to return to the gold standard. His finale summarizes a philosophy and national "revolution" that seriously challenges the status quo of the political and economical elite in America, seeking to end the parasitic mechanisms in society by removing the system policies that allow them to prosper and gain dominance over the lives of ordinary working and middle class people.

"The Revolution - A Manifesto" is a strike right in the heart of the modern globalist politics, and a brave defence of a stable, local, free life for healthy middle class people in America. Despite giving up the presidency this year, Ron Paul clearly demonstrates that he is not going to back down anytime soon for the system he seeks to change. His platform policies can therefore rightfully be called a "revolution," in the sense that this is a true, honest attempt in trying to reform the complete fabric of a society, but doing so without any bloodshed or alienation from the general public. Ron Paul, through his intellectual honesty and intelligent message, has managed to distil the traditional Constitutional past of America into a modern libertarian uproar, and his ideas are gradually spreading out asymmetrically to third positionist candidates who realize his character and greatness. And so, despite the pressure from global super powers and the illusions of the democratic elections, one man signifies hope, courage and intelligence in an age where these things are lost as social values. An inspirational, clear sighted read for anyone remotely interested in the past, present and future of American politics.

The Revolution - A Manifesto, by Ron Paul

World Made by Hand
by James Howard Kunstler

Apocalyptic scenarios are an incredibly easy and thus popular palette for fiction. The blank slate that gives free reign for plot and setting development is one compelling reason. A more telling one is that if you treat the world as inevitable failure, all kinds will sign on assuming that you have solved their problems of inaction or underconfidence for them through escapist fantasy.

Without background on the novel, it could be argued that World Made by Hand shares superficial elements of this approach. The unstated but omnipresent basis for the book is author James Howard Kunstler's so-called (and very possible) "Long Emergency," his conception of the death spiral that will occur as cheap energy disappears and the systems it props up falter, the effects of anthropogenic global warming broaden, and geopolitical and financial instability, exacerbated by the first two problems, come to a hilt. Central government, industrial agriculture, complex infrastructure, entertainment, and technology -- the sum total of our modern lives -- all sputter and fail as a result.

The simple folks of a sleepy Upstate New York town, once affluent bankers, lawyers and real estate agents from throughout the region but again peasants, have been thrust back into the technological equivalent of the early 19th century through just such a scenario. We've no idea when the change occurred, but the still-rotting suburban waste at the town fringe and techno-remnants of our familiar age are everywhere, often having been stripped for scrap or left abandoned for lack of want. Many have lost loved ones to famine, terrorism or disease; those who have survived have to count themselves lucky to be in a place where the anarchic racial violence raging elsewhere is generally non-existent. For the good of the story, however, the extent of the death fantasy in the novel ends there despite the dire warning it carries. Also despite the theme the approach is decidedly light-going. Main character Robert, who once worked with computers but now finds himself farming most of his backyard, is accidental party to foul play and quickly sees his roles shocking him out of the relative comfort of his meager and lonely existence.

This simple-going plot says a lot about the world in which it develops. Nothing here suggests widespread neuroses or self-obsessions beyond the fading memories of the change that occurred and tragedies brought with it. Necessity has pushed these luxurious concerns aside, just as it has erased "feminism," empty teenage rebellion, and other signs of more decadent and energy-intense times. What may have been spent on these or in pursuing entertainment in the past has reverted to the cultivating of forgotten skills, cooperation and socialization with neighbors to complete useful and important tasks and, in general, effort for all of it in proper ratio to the rewards received. We are allowed to consider two ends of this collectivist spectrum, including through the religion that rides into town in the form of a darkly comedic and semi-mystical cult leader and his kin, and their presence, though the cause of some annoyance, ultimately spurns the drive of the townsfolk to overcome their self-pitying lull and remake their station; we are thus witness to the true, inner triumphs of people instead of their unresolved confusions or self-serving mental passions.

Unlike some apocalypses, this one promises no ascent to a boundless paradise as that is precisely what is being left behind. Much like them, though, we have been damned by sin, in this case the sin of our collective and short-sighted failure to maintain ourselves as a purpose-driven people in the face of overwhelmingly abundant energy and easy solutions. If there is any hint of schandenfreude to be found in this book's portrayal of this, it is far overshadowed by the author's clear hope for a world where earnest effort, community, heroism and love have all regained their proper standing atop the collapsed ruins of the ephemeral individual kingdoms we have erected.

World Made by Hand, by James Howard Kunstler

Journey to the End of the Night
by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

The beginning of the 20th century marks a critical time in the history of Europe. As countries like Germany, France and Great Britain fuelled their industrial and colonial growth as dominant imperial powers in the world, Europe eventually found itself at internal conflict over the resources and power available. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the West rapidly changed from a positivist and progressive civilization, to a sinister and absurd battlefield, devoid of the grand humanist values previously espoused. In the center was the cruelty and horror no one thought humanity would be capable of. The art of the time, during and after the World War, naturally came to reflect this apocalyptic zeitgeist, revealing a dark, feral unconscious wide-awake in the minds of soldiers, businessmen and political leaders. Louis-Ferdinand Céline was one of the artists in Europe who responded to the madness around him, and Journey to the End of the Night attempts to illustrate what he experienced and felt during this period.

The novel is a half-fictional, half-biographic work, starting out in an increasingly nervous France, where the main character Bardamu lives. Living a quiet university life, indifferent to the world around him, Bardamu one day sits at a café with his friend Arthur, joking about and demeaning the every day life in France, when the two gentlemen suddenly hear the sound of a military parade outside. Bardamu, excited and stoked from the lively conversation, decides to join the parade in an attempt to mock its pretentiousness. The absurdity of the situation appears when Bardamu finds himself caught in the event, not able to escape. The next thing he knows, he's standing at the frontline of war, crouching under gunfire from angry Germans. Suddenly Bardamu is at the very center of a World War.

Bardamu experiences the horrors of war and simultaneously spits out his angry, violent misanthropy against a humanity gone mad and a world completely incomprehensible. Reality melts together with the confused and dark psyche of the soldier, alienated from the patriotic slogans and the voices of pain and death. Bardamu eventually manages to escape the intense battle and stumbles across Robinson, a character he will meet time and time again throughout his journey. Together they find mutual agreement on avoiding a patriotic but safe death. After they split up in opposite directions, Bardamu is incarcerated at a French hospital for war soldiers, where he finds himself switching between avoiding the death punishment for deserting his war duties, and maintaining a sexual romance with a lady in town.

The relationship between the two lovers eventually reveals itself to be just as hollow as the outside world, and Bardamu leaves his romance like he once left the battlefield: always running away from falsehood and danger. As soon as he can, Bardamu leaves France on a boat to the colonial parts of Africa. During this trip, he is yet again faced with hate and violence from the people around him. Nothing makes sense anymore; people either stab each other as a product of feral emotional reactions, or praise each other's social image for the sake of keeping the war circus alive. By participating in the false community of patriots, Bardamu's cowardliness saves his life once again, leaving him stranded in a hot, corrupt and violent French colonial area in West Africa. Through a transportation firm, he is immediately sent off to a remote part in the middle of nowhere, previously operated by his alter-ego friend Robinson, where bloodsucking mosquitoes, parasitic natives and a confusing environment almost manage to block out his will to survive.

After having escaped the darkness, hypocrisy and exploitation of colonial Africa, Bardamu makes a trip over to New York. No rest in peace is to be found here either; the industrial and commercial landscape of modern America disgusts him. He continues to live a bohemian, deviant, perverse life, set in the erotic cinemas, fancy hotels, cheap whorehouses and industrial factories. Through his lifestyle, he eventually meets a character that for the first time distinguishes itself from the plague of loud machines and hollow people, by showing an honest and compassionate understanding for him as a person. But the love to a prostitute, the lending of money from an old and bitter lover, and the third meeting with the strange Robinson, lead Bardamu back to France and the city of Rancy. It is in France that the journey ends, culminating in Bardamu's successive insight into the heart of madness. The war is over, but for the decaying West, the conflict of overcoming its own disease has yet begun.

Céline, together with Marcel Proust and André Gide, played a key role in the renaissance of the French novel, and Journey to the End of the Night is seen as one of the masterpieces in 20th century literature. Céline's language is characterized by the subjectivist, perverse, foul, violently intense and introspective bursts of prose. He broke from all linguistic traditions at the time by giving voice to the French spoken language and dissolved the barriers between the mind of the individual and the collective mind of the world. Bardamu's monologues fluctuate between internal conjectures and metaphoric descriptions of the outside world, which mirrors the soul of a barren Western landscape. It's often very humorous and emotionally engaging, but never without the dark edge of absurdity, that without it, people like Sartre wouldn't later have become famous. It's a challenging read to dwell into the mind of Céline's cowardly self-centered and indifferent protagonist Bardamu and his neurotic acquaintances. Still, without necessarily sympathizing with Bardamu, we slowly come to recognize that his social discourse and deviant worldview are the sick products of a declining civilization.

Beyond the violent misanthropy and the bohemian hedonism lies what the title suggests is the goal of the journey: the endless, unexplored night. There we seek peace and strength to go on living in a world that's declared war on itself for the sake of profit and lost dreams. This book, written in 1932, is maybe more current today than ever before. With the Cold War tendencies seen in the conflict between growing super powers in the East and the declining Anglo-American empire in the West, Journey to the End of the Night is a peace ritual; a psychological rebirth which strives to survive the lies and the hypocrisy distilled in the social world. It throws us mercilessly back unto the battlefield by asserting that great values and the will to live life passionately are gone. The gateway to reconstruct and pile together whatever's left of the human soul and the society in which it is confined, is to stare the cruel and the absurd straight in the face and dare to continue the journey for the sake of being present. Hopelessly disturbing but at the same time compassionately relieving, this is a fresh blow of societal and cultural analysis at the height of French modernistic literature. You'd be lost without reading it.

Journey to the End of the Night, by Louis-Ferdinand Céline

Once a Warrior King
by David Donovan

When I was a teenager curious about the world, I found this book, and it entirely changed my outlook on politics. It is a memoir that describes the experience of a soldier who not only confronted the enemy at close quarters, but had an insight into the infrastructure of the war effort and how it was designed. His analysis of the war in this book, which is more about the theory of war and the psychology of winning, showed me how repeated failures come about: through repeated failures of method, which relate to failures of intent.

Donovan, a graduate of the Special Warfare School which taught how to fight and survive in a jungle environment, served in a slightly unusual capacity as the head of a Mobile Advisory Team, which were elite American soldiers who organized Vietnamese soldiers and fought with them in battle. He was closer to the lawless zones as a result and spent his time near the small village of Tram Chim, protecting it and interfacing with the people. Where others had more backup, he had almost none, and had to survive as an integrated part of the people and landscape of Viet Nam.

What strikes me most about this book is how Donovan illustrates that decency and common sense are inextricably tied, and points out that if you want to win a war, you must have an objective and not disintegrate into chaotic or selfish behavior, which he saw in surplus within the military. His morality like that of most people of wisdom -- and this book brims with wisdom, if we have no other word for it -- is strict in its goals, but not reactionary and silly; it is like a hand reaching for an object in darkness, a feedback loop of feeling a situation out and finding an appropriate response.

The book furnishes us a view of the Viet Cong that rarely makes it in full form into the media, which is as an organization of corrupt outlaws who terrorized villages with murder, booby traps and collection of tributes -- more like a Mafia than a fighting force. Equally strongly portrayed are the corrupt aspects of Vietnamese self-government, and the illusory perceptions of an American government distant from the war, a military command trying to govern by wire from air-conditioned offices, and an American public which would rather turn the channel.

As a protagonist, Donovan believes in the fight against communism as a subset of the fight against unworkable and illusory systems and people. He detests the cruel, stupid and pointless as much as the artfully designed destruction of politicians, and recognizes communism as an illusion created to pander to the morally corrupt. However, he never lets himself become the voice of propaganda. He stands between the combatants looking for sanity, one that is based in a fundamental respect for the Vietnamese people and the good Americans he knew, and critical of the illusion on all sides.

For thoughtful people, the only real moral question is "How do I do good, when I must sometimes do evil things to fight evil?" Donovan reveals his ambivalence about killing early in the book, but is alert enough to face it stoically with a kind of zen nihilism that shows he has no illusions about the place any of us individuals serve in the much larger world. He is focused on the goal and much of this book is a meditation on how to find sanity in goals, and how to eliminate the squabbling neurosis that afflicts America now as well as then. This is not political rhetoric, or even religious, but common sense insight into human psychology, and it's one reason this book is such a memorable read.

Any person wanting to study the Viet Nam conflict will benefit from the illustration of tactics on the ground, intelligently linked to revelations of the mentality behind those who fought the war. Donovan ties together mentation with action and results, spinning his yarn through anecdotes interrupted by critical thinking about the American war effort and its effect on its soldiers. While this book does not have the dramatic flair that many, like James Webb, have inserted in theirs, it remains vital to those who have read it for its honesty and perception.

Once a Warrior King, by David Donovan

Empire
by Orson Scott Card

When many people were bloviating about how George W. Bush represented the darkest threat to America in recent history, Orson Scott Card found himself worrying about how the demographic popularity of that thought itself represented a darker threat. In his view, the real story of the Bush presidency was how America had become polarized between a mostly urban, coastal, professional Left and a mostly rural, central, working-class Right. Even more, he saw how cynical media masters and other popularity manipulators were leveraging this dissent to their own benefit.

From that thought came Empires, which melds Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton/Robin Cook-style scientifically informed paranoia to give us a vision of a new American revolution. In it, a terrorist assault on the United States is used as a pretext for what appears to be a straightforward political situation. However, once the dust settles, it becomes clear that all is not well, and nothing is as it seems, in a country that has suddenly had to face how radically divided it is.

While Card's patriotism and American-style conservatism can be overstated in this book, I don't like other reviewers think it is too dogmatic in what he shows us in the story: he remains a faithful author, showing us how things would go down given the precepts he established. However, whenever given a chance to editorialize he does, in part trying to convince us that he's not taking a Right/Left stance, but that this division arose from the left.

I enjoyed this book. It's a heck of a read, with bready text that passes quickly without much artistry but describes with clarity situations that are artfully arranged. In other words, like most science fiction, you aren't reading it for the similes, but for the characters and logical developments in situations no one seems to expect. Action occurs in the undertones of those who worship dynamic change but are somewhat indifferent to its methods.

Characters are not "deep" in the pseudo-literary sense that's popular now, but are clear archetypes recognizable from life, with simple but honest motivations. Descending into this world is easy and immediately one is caught in the theatre of people who are trying to do the right thing in a world where confusion reigns. While the maze of deceit will not be a shocker to anyone who has read enough ancient history, it makes itself irresistible through a contemporary setting and an overt grappling with the divisions we normally try to ignore.

Some will find the heavy political undertones too much for light reading but here they are more plainly revealed than in Clancy or Crichton or Cook. The real story, as always, is a struggle for survival in a time when we must predict complex interactions of social and psychological forces to know what each action will create, and through that knowledge pick the right one. This fast-paced thriller will delight anyone who likes a good story of struggle by good people.

Empire by Orson Scott Card

The City of Gold and Lead
by John Christopher

Literature for young adults is divided between those who try to impart useful knowledge about life ahead and those who, having found life's byways ran more into stagnation than thoroughfares, want to project their neurotic sense of fear onto children. This book, despite being of the former sense, plays with the latter by addressing adult paranoia in a metaphorical form, much like cult movie They Live: what if our society was taken over by aliens who attacked our minds and not our technology?

In the contemporary or future setting of the book, the narrator and protagonist Will is a thirteen-year-old boy in a pre-technological land ruled by giant mechanical tripods. These outer space critters allow humans to conduct their affairs so long as every adult is "capped," or implanted with a mechanical brain control device, at age 14. As part two of a trilogy, The City of Gold and Lead describes the infiltration of an alien city on earth by Will and two cohorts. In the previous book, Will and his cousin Henry had observed how capping reduced creativity and made people automatons, and so had rebelled, destroying a tripod and heading to the French alps where they were free from oversight.

Now part of a revolutionary group, Will returns with a false cap to disguise himself amongst the oblivious and compete in Olympic-style games whose victors go to serve the "Masters," or organic creatures that pilot the tripods, in their city of a gold barrier and high internal gravity, completing the image of the title. His mission is to infiltrate and learn as much as he can about the aliens, and then if possible, escape. We don't do spoilers in this review, so you'll have to RTFB to learn more.

As someone who ponders how to tell his own children about growing up in this world of uncertain leadership and future, I'm grateful for this book, which presents in gentle metaphor the necessity of tackling the adult condition outside of its ostensible function. Adults do get capped around age 14, when they start worrying about careers and how others see them; both are linked by the function of pluralist systems, where the most votes or buys make successes, since there is no real goal to life other than serving ourselves because we share few values in common.

Numerous metaphorical details throughout the book are convincing. First, the capped are docile, but aggressive toward each other in their pursuit of wealth. Second, technology is a liberator in the right hands, and slavery in the wrong. Third, the honest and holistic viewpoint of childhood, which values creativity and loving life more than material, is praised for what it teaches and also shown to lack wisdom, which is gained by characters through struggle. Finally, the book shows us several interesting characters who have become aware that things are not as they seem, and rebelled by living apart from the capped herd.

While most books for children and young adults try to sugarcoat reality, in this book a sense of menace and fear pervades every page. That emotion roughly corresponds to what most children 11-14 are feeling about the world they're about to enter. Unlike books that try to show us happy thoughts, and have us take them at face value, this book shows us a world lost in its own minds, and how to overcome that situation and prepare for eventually defeating it.

By not presenting another illusion to help us through a bigger illusion, it introduces helpful knowledge; by telling us of victories and defeats, it shows us how we can escape what will drag others down. In doing so, it escapes the trap of psychology, which takes symbols and society at the same face value, and gives young adults in the grip of justifiable social paranoia and outlet and a nurturing, exciting, sustaining game plan. I'll be stuffing stockings with this subversive and fun masterpiece of young adult literature this Christmas.

The White Mountains Trilogy:
The White Mountains (1967)
The City of Gold and Lead (1967)
The Pool of Fire (1968)

Movies are for the most part modern entertainment without any long-term, meaningful value. They brainwash and control us subtly by integrating commercials, ads and political messages with shallow plots that, thanks to their moral simplicity, anyone can understand and relate to. But not all movies are junk. Here's a list of 10 movies that all criticize modern society, uphold traditional values and carry some artistic merits.


A Clockwork Orange (1971)

Alex de Large is a violent outcast from society, raping and killing with his criminal friends for the sake of experiencing violence. One day the government starts up a project to counter the growing criminality, by trying to alter the individual's perception of violence and impose an association with self-suffering. But the plans to reform human nature don't work out quite as expected...

A brilliantly conceived satire, this early critique of attempts to regulate our natural behaviour by turning us into pacifist robots, exploits our fear of brutality and death to point out that while growing violence in our society is a scary trend, there is no way we can or should remove violence altogether. Humorously depicted is a corrupt, pretentious system, unable to cope with the effects of the problems it has created itself.

Apocalypse Now (Redux) (1979)

Francis Ford Coppola's masterwork is a movie loosely based upon Joseph Conrad's novel The Heart of Darkness. The story takes place during the Vietnam War where Captain Benjamin L. Willard is called in on a secret mission to eliminate renegade Colonel Walter E. Kurtz. Stories claim that Kurtz has set up his own army within the jungle and become a god for the natives. What has happened to Kurtz and why does the US military want him dead?

Apocalypse Now is a poetic, allegoric journey into the heart of the Western civilization, struggling to understand its downfall and desperately calling for armageddon to sweep its spreading corruption away. It gives a deeper understanding of the worldwide effects of materialism and how this relates to modern day colonialism. Nihilistic but also full of human idealism, this movie encapsulates a hell on earth and the choice of worshipping this as an experience.

Blade Runner (1982)

Set in Los Angeles 2019, policeman Rick Deckard stalks the technological jungle of the 21st century in the search for humanoids known as 'replicants.' His investigations lead him closer to the truth behind the company that produces the half-man/half-robots and their ultimate purpose, but also force him to reconsider what is "human" and "artificial."

A given sci-fi classic, this movie from '82 has still a load of points to make about both our current and future society in the West. The story reflects an America bought up by global corporations that have turned the country into a mechanical melting pot of consumers without cultural or existential identity. Blade Runner ultimately challenges our view of what it means to be a human being and contextualizes this insight in a political-historical context of thought.

Cannibal Holocaust (1980)

Before copycats like The Blair Witch Project started to make big bucks on experimenting with documentary-style shootings, Ruggero Deodato shocked the world with his controversial Cannibal Holocaust. The story is about a missing documentary film crew who disappears in the wild jungles of South America to explore the culture of cannibal tribes. A New York anthropologist finds undeveloped material from their shootings in the area and travels back to the city, viewing the film in detail. What he finds is shocking and unbelievable...

Ruggero Deodato was long ahead of his time, both concerning cinematography and the criticism of the modern Western civilization and its ignorant understanding of traditional foreign culture. Not for the faint of heart, this movie portrays an inversion of what is commonly perceived as "civilized" and "primitive," asking us the question: who is really the barbarian in our time?

Conan The Barbarian (1982)

Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Conan, a young boy seeing his family and entire tribe being mercilessly killed by a conquering religious cult. Conan survives as a slave but manages to break free and sets out to take revenge upon the people who killed his tribe. Together with friends he finds on his way, motivated by the belief in the power of the steel, Conan turns into a spiritual and physical war machine to fulfil his destiny.

Disregarding the undeniable cheese factor of this movie, Conan The Barbarian is a classic sword & sorcery experience that defends the traditional European Pagan values against the false spiritual cult of Christianity. The Nietzschean will to power is contrasted against a dogmatic belief in an external world that supposedly controls our reality, leading to war and destruction. Heroic, powerful.

High Plains Drifter (1973)

Clint Eastwood, "the man of all men," appears in this Wild Western movie as a stranger from the hills, riding into the quiet town of Lago to get something to drink. Hassled by some local citizens, his stay becomes delayed by rapes and shootings. In the mean time the town is preparing for the return of three bandits, desperately wondering how to defend itself. Who is the stranger and can he be of help?

Like many other movies in this genre, High Plains Drifter is a traditional defense of the local organic community and its foundational basis of cultural consensus. Clever and well executed, Mr. Eastwood has here directed a masterpiece in Western cinema that still today will remain the best of examples on why our modern society has become a violent, unsafe and ruthless place to live.

Repo Man (1984)

An underground cult from the early eighties, Repo Man is the chaotic story of young Otto Maddox. After finding out that his parents have donated his college fund to a TV priest and his girlfriend has dumped him, Otto decides to leave his old life behind and become a repo man. Caught in a world of UFO conspiracies and dangerous missions, a lifestyle of intense experiences become the motivation to stay alive in a society of governmental corruption, youth criminality and lack of hope for the future.

There are a number of reasons to why this movie is important. It correctly reflected the disintegration of America at the time and esoterically tried to inspire the punk generation who didn't know where to go or what to believe in. Director Alex Cox is still able to communicate the answer to today's teenagers through this futuristic fantasy: we must live for the experience itself -- life is only as meaningful as we make it.

Taxi Driver (1976)

Travis Bickle is a Vietnam War veteran, working as night time taxi driver in a city he's come to loath and hate. Filth, degeneracy, violence and corruption fill the streets. Travis becomes increasingly fatalistic about the situation as he comes in contact with a teenage prostitute, trying to help her live a better life, while the politicians in power rather sweep the problems under the carpet and continue their corrupt businesses. For Travis, who's already mentally unstable, it all becomes enough and he sets out to wage war on modern society and its handlers.

There's a reason to why many people appreciate this movie and it's possibly because we identify with Travis. Seeing society dissolve from within, we desperately cling on to whatever sign of life that can be saved. Although overtly bleak and despairing, Taxi Driver is an uncomfortable but beautiful journey without any happy ending. It leaves us with a void that in effect reflects our meaningless, hollow existence.

The Seventh Seal (1957)

Crusader Antonius Block and his squire Jöns return home to find their country struck by the Black Plague. Antonius meets Death and is told that his time is up but he challenges Death on a game of chess to postpone life and seek answers to the purpose behind God and existence. As people are dying in masses and praying for salvation, Antonius and his friends struggle to understand the suffering of mankind. Can religion save us from death?

Ingmar Bergman's answer is a cold but realistic No. When we try to escape death, we ironically begin to worship it. God becomes the pale realization that all life must end. Christianity is here exposed as a mass religion of hypocrisy and moral fear of suffering, leading to a belief in an afterlife that will "save" us from reality. The Seventh Seal is one of the brilliant masterpieces in modern cinema, hauntingly captivating to this day.

The Wicker Man (1973)

Sergeant Howie investigates the disappearance of a missing girl on a remote Scottish island. Although the locals claim she's never lived there, strange Pagan rituals echo a society that's disconnected from the modern world and adopted a mystical, self-sacrificial worldview. The more the police sergeant is looking into the mystery, the more he understands that a murder has been committed on the island.

The Wicker Man is another cult classic that's been fairly popular, despite the different versions that have been released throughout the years. Both a theological debate around the moral impotence of Christianity and a uniquely executed musical, this movie is a charming, erotic and mesmerizing experience that explores the worship of our natural world as a counter revolution to the modern civilization and its moral belief in the absolute value of the individual.