BOOKS - Kim Echlin: The Disappeared

Score: 8.3

No time for a lengthy, detailed review (I don't even have the book on hand for quotation purposes), so this review will be a mere outline of one, which, given the book, I don't think will be too big of a problem. This is a novel which outlines many things in a tracing that seems small in comparison to the politics at work. And that sparseness contributes greatly to the book's success.

Shortlisted for the 2009 Giller Prize, the novel tells the story of a young Montreal woman who falls in love with a Cambodian immigrant while his country is mired in the disastrous rule of the Khmer Rouge. Upon the border to Cambodia being lifted, he returns to his home, and the two go through a period of separation. However the narrator remains fixed upon her love, and before long, heads off to follow him. It's there that the story truly begins.

Before it's over, lives are made and lost, and though only one character is ever developed to its fullest (the narrator), a small but strong cast of supporters helps to drive this tale of loss. The less said about the plot itself, the better - the novel is brief enough to risk spoiling almost everything in more than a paragraph of explanation.Yet without going into detail, I'd still like to discuss the qualities of the plot.

Overall, it's crafted well. The focus is always on the central character - her voice dominates the narrative, and it's truly only her story that's ever told in any detail. The other characters' lives, including her lover's, are more on the periphery. Which brings me to my major complaint. Though the writing takes the form of a story being told to the lover years after the events of the novel (it's full of "You did this, you did that, we fell in love" etc.), the narrator comes across as border-line narcissistic. She displays a patent disregard for her friends' lives and wellbeing at one point near the end, and all throughout, she never succeeds in producing (for the reader, mind you) any sort of empathy with her lover. Everything in the book is about her, how these things affect her, drive her to do as she does. Granted, it's her story, but it left me wanting more from these other characters, who are overwhelmingly possessing of more interesting stories. The few glimpses you get are merely those outlines I mentioned - defining moments in their lives, not the type of true depth you're hoping they will ultimately display. The lover comes close in some ways, but even some parts of him fade from perspective as the book moves on.

The end result is a story that feels as though it is but another white perspective into a world of the Other. The narrator's misguided ideas and hopes for an overwhelming human dignity (along the lines of a UN declaration of human rights, which, let's face it, is unenforceable, and much of the world does not actually agree with it any significant way) make her come off as just another white woman full of sorrow for the atrocities of the third world, without any true comprehension of the fundamental human and inhuman forces at work underneath. By the end I was left with but an impression, a border of the true human sacrifice that is at the heart of the political realm discussed. This isn't a bad thing, in fact I think given the book's brevity, dealing with the subject matter as she has (one voice, one rather strict, if sympathetic worldview), Kim Echlin did the subject matter proud. She did not write it to discuss the atrocities of the Cambodian genocides, she is merely taking on one woman's story and her own personal connection to those atrocities. It's not holistic, and it's not what I would call "fair", but it's real in its own way.

The writing itself is stellar. Echlin has a knack for simile and metaphor, pulling them out when least expected, and drawing your mind in places you weren't expecting, but are simply thrilled to go. There's nary a cliche in the book (ok, I might have read one, and I said "aha", only to realize the book was all but finished), and her use of short sentences, poetic measure in some passages, and the occasional use of Khmer keep the pace just right. There's never a bad or awkward moment linguistically, and the short, succinct chapters have the effect of mimicking a murder-mystery: you're always on the hook for something good around the corner. The writing is probably more deserving of something around a nine.

So overall, though I have a few complaints - they're mostly personal, not stylistic, and nothing I can fault her too badly for. The book is deserving of its praise.

BOOKS: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Score: 8.6
Version: 3.0 (Published 2007 - Douglas & McIntyre here in Canada)

So I didn't really know crap about free trade, globalization, economics, or business entrepreneurship three years ago when I started this blog. I was an Arts grad who had no idea what I'd be doing for a living, and enjoyed giving his opinion on things. I was also fresh out of an education system that was gradually migrating away from a worldview still centered around the cold war. Since that point changes have been made. My wife, who is currently a student teacher, is instructing grade tens from a textbook called Perspectives on Globalization, and what was once (when I was growing up) a hazy and uncertain future for the globe that was no longer based on two competing super-powers but immaterial concepts like free trade and the interwebs, has been given grounding. Globalization is very real now, and ignorance of it is not really acceptable anymore.

Part of the credit for the mainstreaming of this reality is due to this very book. The World is Flat is Thomas Friedman's opus to the causes, shapes, and outcomes of a world that has migrated from cold wars to cola wars and format wars. In it he expands upon the central metaphor of a "flat" world. By this he is referring to the idea that the world of business, and consequently power, is "flattening out", from a vertically-driven world where decisions, supply-chains, and world trade rested in the power of a few at the top of the chain, and was then spoon-fed down and up the chain as those at the top decided. No more. Because of what he describes as the "ten forces that flattened the world" (each described in detail in a mini-chapter), the balance of power and decision making has fundamentally shifted, from patriarchal to collaborative and from vertical to horizontal - hence the "flat" world. While, like all great economic shifts, technology is the central enabler in this shift, much of the flattening process was made possible by free trade agreements and the opening of previously communist economies to capitalistic endeavour. The end result is a world where competition is no longer between nations or companies, but between billions of individuals competing against one another for work that is, with less and less frequency, limited by location to the extent it was in the vertical, closed off world.

I won't go into too much detail concerning Friedman's analysis - that's best left for the book itself. Instead, I will comment more on the quality of that analysis. In a short phrase, it's mostly good. You're not going to get amazingly in-depth, detailed data on any one topic, he keeps it open for a multitude of reasons, foremost that there's simply too many angles to approach with a topic this extensive without devoting a lengthy chapter to each. As it is, the third release I read was already 635 pages with what looks like a relatively meagre 1.2-ish line spacing setup. It's not a quick read.

It is however, an easy one. Friedman's style is well suited to the topic. Anecdote is interwoven with statistics, interviews with high-ups in companies laced between explanations of how their products or processes are changing things for the common worker or consumer. You might find yourself reading fourty pages on the invention, implementation and importance of the Netscape browser (a three-point narrative strategy he employs for all of the "ten flattening forces"), but it's never tedious, never dull. If acronyms like PHP, RAM, SQL and the like drive you to confusion, worry not, because he's not there to lecture you about them, just say that they're there, this is what they do, and this is why they're important. The focus throughout the entire work is held on business - how they utilize the technologies like the internet and technical standards, as well as the processes like offshoring and outsourcing, and how these businesses are thriving because of it. In that sense it takes on the tone expected in a business how-to book, but for those of you not interested in business, there's enough common-sense situations and sociological impact to make the reading process enjoyable. Friedman is a journalist and it shows in all the good ways. The language is simple, the writing clear, and the topics well connected. Ever get lost in a Friedman book? Go back to the first sentence of the paragraph, and you can pick up from there.

If you get lost on a grander scale, the chapters are clearly defined, if inter-related, and follow a very specific course. First there's the exposition, which consists of a description of each of the ten flatteners. These portions are clear, fairly even-handed, and informative. Then Friedman moves into the true analytical portions. The first details what impact the flattening process is having and will have on the United States of America, and given the flatness of the world (and hence the fact that location is no longer a major determinant to success), he is really analyzing globalization from the point of view of all developed countries. Following that, there's a section for developing nations, followed by businesses, and then individuals. Again, in each the focus is on economic activity, entrepreneurship, etc. It's not until the end that he branches out and touches on the cultural, political, and other social aspects of globalization.

Each chapter is well thought out, its limitations are made clear (his stark acceptance that Information Technology related positions account for only 0.4% of Indian jobs, after extolling the great wonders of shifting wealth the IT world has meant for Indian society, is particularly even-handed), and the central concept is unified, consistent, and remarkably well described. It is difficult to argue against the fact that globalization has in large part succeeded in bringing wealth and prosperity to parts of the world that just a few short decades ago, were bereft of it. Friedman is fair in his assessment of the negative aspects of globalization as well: that jobs are lost in developed nations as they move to cheaper developing ones, sometimes permanently; that corporations like Wal-Mart are able to exploit globalization in its drive for lower costs, again resulting in poor labor conditions for North Americans; that security is increasingly difficult to find (in any sense of the word) in a globally cohesive market. He doesn't shy away from these topics, even if he does treat them with a sort of topical wave of the hand, invoking counter-positives that don't really equal the gravity of the issues they are supposed to dispel. This book is an American book, above all else, with all the brash American enthusiasm for capitalism and wealth you expect, but you don't have to be American to understand it, or appreciate it. No matter your background, it is an easy-to-read assessment of the then-current (remember, this was released in 2007, prior to the stock market/financial market collapse of 2008/9) reality of the world marketplace. My wife could give it to her grade tens, and they'd get it. They'd see themselves in this book, as well as the headlines they read every day, and they'd be plugged in to the flat world. This book is their reality, and they've never known anything different. Friedman nailed that part, and it really is the key here.

However, there is one overall point that irks me. It's something small, perhaps, but there. It always surprises me in those who advocate for free markets and capitalism in general: the relative lack of understanding of Marxism and all its derivatives (socialism, state-communism, Leninism). Someone who supports the ingenuity of markets and the spreading of one very specific form of capitalism should not be "startled" (233) to learn that Karl Marx essentially "called it" (my scare quotes, nothing Friedman wrote) way back in 1848. "Called it" referring to the globalization of trade that is essentially the topic of Friedman's book. Indeed, the passage quoted by Friedman from The Communist Manifesto (234-5) describing capitalism's basic historical functions, grows more and more relevant with each passing year, not less. Though it's taken a bit longer than Marx and Engels might have imagined, capitalism is behaving exactly how they figured it would: endlessly searching for new markets, lowering prices, lowering wages, and toppling political and economic regimes in its travels. Given how cluttered, political, and historically laden any modern analysis of capitalism is, anyone who truly wishes to understand the soul of capitalism, the drive that lies behind its basic principles, would be well advised to consult the two documents that are entwined together in its birth: The Wealth of Nations and its oft-maligned sister work, Das Kapital. No two books ever complemented each other better, or relied on one another more to cover ying and yang, positive and negative, declarative and analytical. Friedman can perhaps be faulted for not going this deep, for not taking an unflinching look at the basic structure that is driving the globalization movement. And, perhaps more importantly, for not considering the Communist Manifesto once again in his closing.

This is a bit of an aside, but if Marx and Engels "called it" in their initial analysis by stating that capitalism will inevitably push beyond all other boundaries to cover the globe in its web of trade, then perhaps the entire "revolution of the proletariat" thing can't be entirely ignored either. Indeed, if there is one point in Friedman's analysis that smells faintly of naivety is the insistence that the process he describes will occur all over again in the future, to the joint benefit of all. Developing nations will progress smoothly to developed nations, followed by an out-pour of capital that will go to newly developing nations to repeat the process. An army of middle class individuals will grow in these developing nations, and everywhere around the world, always (assuming it remains flat), standards of living will improve for the great majority of people as the middle-class only continues to grow in wealth, numbers, and power. If there's anything globalization has made the average working stiff more aware of, it's not that new middle class jobs are just waiting to be filled (as Friedman insists), but rather that middle class jobs as a whole are disappearing. I have plenty of anecdotal evidence to point to this: the huge unemployment figures across the United States; that one of the newest "markets" Friedman likely would have pointed to as producing middle-class jobs (namely the financial sector) has turned out to not really be a market at all, but a bubble based purely on finance's abilities to manipulate itself to produce "profit" out of nothing tangible, real, or value-added; that profit margins for corporations continue to grow even as real wages have stalled or fallen in the developed world. The polarization of the classes between worker and owner is just as real a possibility in the flat world as it was in 1848, 1989, 2001 or 2010. Granted, if we're following Marx's timeline, the final, true, polarization will not occur until the entire world is enveloped in capitalism, without a single person living outside its boundary: Middle-East, Africa, South America, Antarctica, everything consumed and consuming in its chaotic interweave. Regardless, right now, it's easy to see a future where the very term "middle class" might be something relegated to the history books - an anachronism of a time period when rising standards of living were possible for all.

It's a uniquely American trait to ignore these kinds of economic fundamentals, to ignore dissenting viewpoints and instead focus one's outlook with a strong dose of, as Friedman puts it, the "American optimism" (616): the pull yourself up by the bootstraps, work hard, and make it rich American dream that so many in America believe should be the standard the world over. This bias is present again and again in the book, from his insistence that entrepreneurship is natural in all human beings, to his topical references to the greatness of America (page 298 of my version contains the most painful incident). It's not wholly unwelcome, and not completely unchecked by the author, but it can be a bit grating at times.

Another uniquely American trait in writing books like these, is to completely lose sense of people as people, in place of people as their occupations. The book is definitely guilty of that. Even Friedman's heart-touching finale featuring twenty children from India's untouchable class is predicated solely on their ability to suddenly become doctors, astronauts, and writers. Not to live happy lives. Its easy to say that more money equals more happiness, but it's simply not true. Given the bare minimums of food, shelter, and safety, people can be happy in all sorts of environments. Five hundred years ago, nobody had any of the things our modern market has made possible, but people lived full lives then, if their cultural artifacts are to believed. Yes, untouchables in India's caste system lead incredibly difficult lives, and their opportunities for happiness will be greatly enhanced by having economic opportunity thrust upon them, but what makes happy people is, first and foremost, good people. That is the one topic that is most notably absent from the book, and what prevents The World is Flat from becoming a true historical landmark, a fault also present in those other two analyses of political economy. You never get a sense from it of what the overall human impact is going to be from all this. I believe Friedman is aware of this, and to spare his poor reader from another 600 pages, he limited himself to analysis of business, economics, and to a small extent, culture. But humans are more than those things, and more even than the sum of all its topics, and as such, this book, while great, falls just a bit short of amazing.

VIDEO GAMES: Assassin's Creed II - Playstation 3

Score: 9.3

First, a short warning. I have not played the original Assassin's Creed, and don't intend to anytime soon. As such, certain comments may not vibe with those who have played the first game. No big issue there, just laying out in the open. Oh, and also, SPOILER ALERT!!!

As the score testifies, I was very happily surprised by the game. To begin with, the story was quite good, enjoyable (obvious sequel ending aside), and interesting in the mechanics of how it was laid out. The overlapping present-day story of Desmond and the modern Assassin fight against the Templars has the effect of a framing narrative, but one that is both tied to and in most ways dependent upon the body narrative of Ezio and the Renaissance Assassins. The interplay between the two is not in-depth, but the ending turns the entire thing on its head. It's unexpected, but incredibly effective. It's something I haven't seen played with since the end of Metal Gear Solid 2, which, while not dealing with similar technology or ideas, used the video game mechanic in a way that was new and invigorating. With a slightly different slant Ubisoft's done the same there here. As I said, quite nice.

The main story of Ezio is quite engaging on its own, as cliche as it might be. The characters are colourful and the high quality voice acting done with just the right level of bad and good Italian accents. The star of the Italian story though, is the Italian backdrop.

When I say Ubisoft went out of their way to make a fantastic world that was at once believable, playable, and historically accurate, I'm doing them a great disservice. Fantastic doesn't cut it. Scope, detail, and layout are all amazing. The polygon count for a city like Venice, is hard to imagine. Some serious work has gone into creating an engine that can craft the entire city as seamlessly as it does, all the while making it feel natural, while keeping the playability factor that's required for an open-world platformer like this. Even that phrase is somewhat astounding. An open-world platformer. Let's face it, most open world games have been knock-offs of Grand Theft Auto, where killing civilians is a major source of fun. This game moves the entire open-world concept into another realm, where the cliches are removed, and civilians are no longer targets, just objects getting in the way. I know I've missed out on a couple years of gaming lately, but except for Fable, I can't think of an RPG that's tried this approach (MMORPGs aside), even though it seems it would be perfectly suited to it. Whatever, I'm just proselytizing, the game structure works great. The buildings are all scalable, which means they often wind up resembling one another, but by the time Venice comes around you are used to it, and the beauty of the dissimilar buildings makes up for the mind-numbingly similar ones.

The rest of the renaissance setting is great too. Merchants hawk clothes and weapons. Doctors promote fresh cut leeches, and the prostitutes are something right out of a Shakespearean play. The attention to detail in the historically accurate buildings is great too. Infiltrating the Vatican is a great feeling, and speaking with Leonardo da Vinci is just plain awesome. Nothing brings out the inner geek like a little historical fiction. That Ubisoft did it so well is a testament to their homework, and attention to detail.

The other thing they did great was the gameplay. The movement mechanics have about an hour learning curve (if you've never played the first game at least), and then they feel second nature. Fighting, while not incredibly in depth, is good. The lack of depth however means that fights eventually degenerate into the exact same thing every time. The supremely patient AI (and its subsequent inability to stop you in the middle of a killing blow of their allies) makes for unrealistic sequences that belie the overwhelming pseudo-historical approach taken to the whole game. It's a weak point, but given the control scheme available, there might not be much room for improvement. Perhaps a trigger could switch combat modes, or perhaps you should be given a greater incentive to run from large numbers of enemies. Just an idea...

The platforming is super fluid, almost to a fault at times, like when a slight tilt of the left stick sends you running up an adjacent wall instead of jumping up on top of the box you were meaning to. Still, in the end, you feel as though you always have control of Ezio, and any errors your avatar makes, you know are yours.

One other small problem is the quick time action sequences. The first one as a child is cute, but the rest are not necessary, at least not in most cases. At least they're kept to a minimum.

Other than that, I believe the score really speaks for itself. This is a great, great game. And Ubisoft can count on me picking up a copy of the inevitable third title (assuming it doesn't get horrible, horrible reviews upon release). If nothing else, I want to see how Desmond's story winds up, and where the next area will be (French Revolution? Japan, 1930's? England 1700's? Or a jump back to China, say during the Three Kingdoms period?). Until then, I may have to go back and beat this one again.