Feel like giggling?

I'm just curious: is it possible for anyone who's ever liked comics to read Superdickery and not laugh?

The Orientalist

Am I white?

It isn't an idle question, and as much as I might want it to be, it isn't unimportant.

I'm Jewish. Are Jews white? Well, the ancient Hebrews definitely were not. They were a West Asian tribe related to the Arabs. However, after 2,000 years of exile, my own ancestral Ashkenazi (Yiddish-speaking) Jews certainly had some European ancestry. Also, when Europeans threw us out (notably Spain but also France, England, and various German states at different times) many Jews fled to Muslim-ruled lands, where we were treated far more fairly. There is still a large, respected Jewish community in Turkey. Also, the Turkic nation of the Khazars converted to Judaism, then were crushed and dispersed among world Jewry, so presumably most Jews have some Turkic ancestors.

My point: am I white? I look white, but that proves nothing.

And why did I bring this up? Because I just read The Orientalist by Tom Reiss, the tale of a Jew who identified with the East even as he lived in the West. Lev Nussimbaum was a Jewish boy, living in Azerbaijan under the Czars. His mother was a revolutionary, his father a rich oil man. And then his world fell apart.

In the wake of the disastrous Russian involvement in World War One, revolution felled the czars. When the Bolsheviks took over, rich people like the Nussimbaums were in terrible danger. Lev and his father (his mother having committed suicide) fled first east, then west, and ended up living in Berlin. It was in this most Western of cities, in what considered itself the most civilized city in Europe, that Lev converted to Islam and took the Turkish name "Essad" (a translation of Lev=leo=lion). And it was under the name "Essad Bey" that he became one of the most acclaimed writers of the interwar period, publishing international best-sellers, including biographies of everyone from Stalin to Mohammed.

And what makes the book interesting is not just Essad Bey's colorful, improbable life, but the insight Tom Reiss brings to the setting. That setting: the first 40 or so years of the Twentieth Century. I learned a lot of history reading this book, and I came in knowing a fair bit. More than any actual facts, one picks up the feel of the time. One comes to sympathize, even, with the Azerbaijani Jewish Muslim's seemingly-insane position as a supporter and admirer of Fascism. To this survivor of Bolshevism, a man who saw his childhood consumed and destroyed by the Reds, any alternative looked good.

And Essad Bey would not consider himself European, at all, even as a man who lived most of his life and had all his education, and all his publishing success, in Europe. He thought that Europe had failed of its potential, and was doomed to collapse. You reading this, you're thinking he was foolish and wrong. But he thought this as the Reds were swallowing everything, just before the Nazis marched.

I strongly recommed The Orientalist. If you happen to feel like supporting this blog, you could buy it from Barnes and Noble via my online store.


The Orientalist: Solving the Mystery of a Strange and Dangerous Life

Dead Witch Walking (Kim Harrison)

In search of some disposable lit to read, I took a look at Kim Harrison's Dead Witch Walking.

My reaction: it's incredibly, amazingly derivative of Laurell K. Hamilton's Anita Blake stories. The protagonist is a magical detective, in a world in which supernatural beings came "out of the closet" only a few decades ago. There's a lot of blood, and in this first volume only the tempation to sex. It's also like the early Blake stories in tone and in plot.

It's still better than the later (all-sex-all-the-time) Blake books, but in the end it's just thin and not original enough to be worth my time, or (I think) yours.

My very first review

The very first book review I ever wrote, of a truly pointless, bad book. The title of this entry is a link to it.

I have, with a lot of mental effort, not updated the very bad layout and HTML I used when I did this. Be merciful, it's the first HTML I ever wrote, also.

As always, comments actively solicited.