Melendy Avenue Review 2023-04-21

Hello! I’m still figuring out some formatting stuff, how many reviews I’m going to do going forward as I try to do more long-form writing, etc. Here’s some notes on what I’ve been reading! Maybe I’ll include some in future on what I’ve been writing… also, a link to my last podcast, which was pretty good, I think! The next one will be Citizen-subscriber only, so if you’ve been waiting to update and throw me some bones, the time is now! Just go to your substack account, then to your subscriptions, and select “Citizen” to get all my material!

CONTENTS

Podcast

• Reading in the Time of Monsters 007: Slobodian, Crack-Up Capitalism

Reviews

• Brief Reviews: Ngugi; Tulathimutte; Meier

Lagniappe

• Mithra Pic: The Sun Queen

PODCAST

I had a good time having Quinn Slobodian, professor of the history of ideas at Wellesley, to talk about his new book about libertarian schemes to disrupt the nation-state! Among other things, I’m glad we got a chance to talk about the importance of speculative fiction, imagination, and even the much-maligned act of live action roleplay on the libertarian right. Enjoy!

Reading in the Time of Monsters 007 - Slobodian, “Crack-Up Capitalism”

REVIEWS

I actually read some good stuff lately! Probably the best book I finished recently was Ngugi wa Thiong’o’s “Wizard of the Crow” - a 2006 novel considered the great man of Kenyan letters’ magnum opus. I’m not sure about that – I think “A Grain of Wheat” might be better – but “Wizard of the Crow” certainly deserves the comparisons it draws to works like “The Master and Margarita” and “The Feast of the Goat.” Ngugi might be Kenya’s greatest writer, but his homeland has repaid him with prison terms and both formal and informal exile- if I send him a Mithra award, it’ll be domestic post to Irvine, where he teaches at the UC there, not to Kenya. Ngugi’s main sin, as far as the Kenyan ruling class is concerned, is that he pointed – still points – to the chasm between the promises of decolonization and the reality, and that between those who fought for Kenya’s freedom, and those who benefit from its neocolonial reality. Moreover, he does so in inimitable style, full of fervor, humor, and with utmost humanity. In “Wizard of the Crow,” he takes us to Aburiria, a sort of magical realist melange of African “big man” states, where a humble job-seeker and a feminist militant between them stumble into a way to try to make some change: between them, they pretend to be the titular wizard, a shanty-town soothsayer who soon has numerous power-players dancing to their tune. A lesser writer would allow this to save the day, overthrow the Ruler and the cronies, make Aburiria a Wakanda. Ngugi is not that writer. Even as bloating curses, prophecies, and other magical elements make their appearance, the realities are still human and grounded, and magic can’t solve Africa’s problems. But it can help make a funny, engaging, human novel. 

Also on the literature end of things, I listened to Tony Tulathimutte’s 2016 novel “Private Citizens.” I’ve lost track of how many books have been called “the first great millennial novel,” but “Private Citizens” stands on its own merits without having to be compared to the works of other striving 80s-born scribblers. Four Stanford grads have a miserable time in pre-2008-crash San Francisco! None of the dichotomous options available in the bargain bin of millennial lifestyle choices – rebellion or acquiescence, wildness or domesticity, aspiration or hedonism, normie or oddball, “natural” or tech-oriented – satisfy and all backfire. Tulathimutte shows a deft hand in setting his four characters up to cross each other’s respective paths in inter-woven trajectories that lead to some pretty amusing comic set-pieces, and on the way shows both sensitivity and a certain brutal frankness towards his characters. I’d describe them as “Berard-Complete,” that is, fully fleshed out without being tedious- if they are more “psychologized,” given diagnoses and complexes, than most Berard-Complete characters, this makes sense given their time and place. All told, pretty good- this might sound like faint praise, but it’s not, when I say I’d recommend it to fans of “cringe comedy” like “Peep Show.” 

Finally, I also listened to Sid Meier’s memoirs, or, “Sid Meier’s Memoirs!” to use the format that Sid (or his publisher), tongue in cheek, deployed as a call back to the title format of some of the master’s games. For those of you who didn’t burn hours, days, maybe years on the Civ series and other games, Sid Meier is a legendary video game designer, most famous for having created the original Civilization back in the nineties. I started playing Civilization one day at the Learningsmith (remember those?!) at the local mall, and that was all she wrote. I played a lot of it once we got it on the PC at home, and even more of Civilization II (after that, it got too complicated!). So, Sid and I go back a ways. I also played other games with his name on them- Pirates!, Colonization, and Alpha Centauri. But, as reviewers warned, as I could have guessed, and as Meier himself will tell you, making great video games does not necessarily make for an exciting life. This book, especially read as an audiobook by an actor with a very calm, measured voice, is one of the better, gentler soporifics I’ve encountered. There’s barely any conflict- Meier went to college, learned computer programming, and eventually started making games. There’s a bit of conflict when his business partner wanted him to program more fighter plane sims (do they still make those?) instead of strategy games, but we all know who won that debate. There’s no tragedy. It’s just a calm, thoughtful nerd, recounting how he made video games, some of which failed, most of which didn’t. His explanations of game design are heavy on broad principles (or, if you’re being harsh, platitudes) and pretty light on specifics. Also, he basically doesn’t talk about Alpha Centauri! That was the one I was most interested in hearing about, his vision of the future. All told, not a great book, but peculiarly pure.  

LAGNIAPPE

Mithra Pic: The Sun Queen

I turned around, and there she was!