Reading

Hyperpolitics, Anton Jäger

I read an essay by Anton Jäger titled Political Instincts and found his analysis compelling and his writing entertaining — a combination which is rare enough at the best of times, but particularly so in political analysis (as opposed to commentary or partisan invective). Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the (one assumes) deliberate allusion of the title and, even more so, the cover design, the experience is not a million miles away from watching an Adam Curtis film. The similarity continues down to the examples and illustrative connections that Jäger chooses to make his point for him. The difference between Curtis and Jäger is that Curtis tends to stick to the Anglosphere for any references outside his immediate topic, while Jäger is equally comfortable spreading his citations across Europe.

The topic is the swing from apolitical lassitude to hyperpolitical polarisation, and especially the way that the move has not lead to any deeper engagement, just a never-ending parade of outrages-of-the-day. The book punctures many of the facile analytical shortcuts that attempt to explain this shift and which I had absorbed second-hand, while scrupulously granting to each the value that it retains. I do not think it is a criticism to say that the book does not offer any solution to our hyper-fragmented moment, only dry, if sympathetic, analysis — but given the complexity of what is being analysed, not to mention the specifics in terms of the breakdown of any organisation through which change could be effected, a slim volume like this could not hope to offer a quick fix and remain credible.

A Wall Is Also A Road, Annalee Newitz

An alien goes to Roman Pompeii, shenanigans ensue. As might be expected from the author of Four Lost Cities (also highly recommended), Newitz has all her historical facts straight, but she keeps a light touch on the classical setting, which in other hands might easily have overwhelmed the story. Instead it is given equal weight with the non-human protagonist’s emotional state and romantic entanglements.

I am of the firm opinion that anything Annalee Newitz writes is very much worth reading, and this was no exception. I also think this is one of those books that can offer something for everyone, at least if you can be flexible enough to see something of yourself in an intergalactic unicellular organism.

As You Wake, Break The Shell, Becky Chambers

Becky Chambers’ books tend to get described as “cosy”, but there is always a dark undertone. Right from her wonderful debut novel, The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet, there are two characters with pretty grim arcs: Ohan and Dr Chef. This new novel is no different, with a horrifying grimdark-meathook setting, and two characters who, even if they do eventually find wonderful and, yes, cosy love, are brought together initially by illness. They then end up quarantined together by acid rain that is even worse than the usual acid rain which they have normalised in their lives, and even though this turns into a very cosy interlude, neither characters nor readers can forget for long what brought it about.

All of this is to say, there is a lot going on here, all of it good, and if I hear you being dismissive about Becky Chambers in my hearing for being too “cosy”, I may uncork a rant that’s been cooking for a while.

D: Heavy Water, Neal Stephenson

This is a sequel to his earlier Polostan and the midpoint of the trilogy, so while much of the story does stand alone, some of the context and many of the emotional beats will be missed. For this reason, I won’t go into too much of the setting, except to say that the action takes place in the interwar years, right into the very beginning days of WW2. Also, this is classic Stephenson: an absolute doorstopper of a book, complete with lengthy digressions and infodumps. While this story is tauter than, say, his Baroque Trilogy, it does still get quite discursive at times, so if you like your stories tight and terse, this may not be for you.¹ If on the other hand you like a story that has room to breathe, Stephenson likes to paint on the broadest canvas possible, and you should go back and read Polostan first, then this, and then join me in waiting impatiently for the next instalment.

Watching

Hoppers

I watched this film midway through a long flight, so grade it on that particular curve of lowered expectations and heightened emotional responses. A young woman finds a machine that lets her inhabit the body of an artificial beaver and interact with animals as a peer. She then teams up with said animals to thwart the schemes of villainous humans, only to find equally villainous animals. Lessons are learned, etc etc.

I was expecting something quite silly, and there are definitely moments of slapstick here, but there is also a better story her than I was prepared for. The script surprised me several times by not doing the obvious thing. It’s not quite on the level of The Wild Robot, but it’s also not a million miles off from that. Definitely worth a watch, and not just if you are trapped in a plane with no room to open your iPad and get to your book or your downloads.

Small Prophets

I forget where this series was originally recommended to me from, but I had very little idea of what to expect. It was originally only available on the BBC, but is now also on Apple’s TV+, so it’s a bit easier to get hold of now. I would recommend going in cold, as I did, and being surprised by how straight this show plays its titular conceit. In fact that is the central charm of Small Prophets: the magical is utterly mundane, while everyday events are surrounded by an aura of magic and eeriness. The one warning I would give is that this may not be for you if you like all the loose ends to be tied up in the final episode. The rabbit is never explained, nor are the coin thieves, or the BMX rider, nor half a dozen other little asides, let alone the big mystery that is the importing thread of the series. But the ending does promise more, so assuming more episodes get made, we may find out yet more about what is going on.

Slow Horses

I’ve read all the Slow Horses books, but long enough ago that I don’t always remember more than the broadest story beats by the time I’m watching the TV² series. I did find this one a bit confused at the beginning, even more so than is usual before Mick Herron starts doing his trademark thing of pulling all the disparate strings back together. But in this instalment we don’t get enough time with the Slow Horses together, and the villains are not particularly compelling, so I found it tough going for the first few episodes. It wrapped up with a big set piece and dénouement at the end, and signalled quite heavily where things are going in the next series. Definitely don’t start here, but if you’re already on board with Jackson Lamb, this series keeps things moving forward. If that sounds like damning with faint praise, it’s not meant to be; the tempo is just a bit lower than the constant sparking of action and repartee that we had been used to.

Somewhere in London (details obscured to protect the guilty) there is a dent in a wall where SWMBO flung my copy of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell with the cry, “I’m a hundred pages in and nothing has happened yet!”. Her mood was not improved by my suggestion that she go back and read the footnotes. If you are on her side of that exchange, Neal Stephenson is also probably not for you. If on the other hand you are now intrigued to know what could possibly be in those footnotes, both Neal Stephenson and Susanna Clarke should be on your radar. ↩
It’s a bit weird that we still call them “TV” series, when vanishingly few of them ever get broadcast — although Small Prophets did get its start on broadcast TV, so it’s not yet entirely obsolete as a term. But the world of video is littered with coelacanth terms, like “rewind”: what are we rewinding, exactly? There is no tape any more, and there hasn’t been for decades now. To that point, people still say they “got it on tape”, although that is starting to fade out in favour of “got it on video”. Language sticks around as technology moves forward. ↩