May Bookends

It's funny, we generally think of time as a series or continuum of linear events - it's the same conceptualization that we use for novels, but it's rare that we notice ourselves becoming aware of our time shifting from a period that we would characterize as part of the "body" of the novel and the developing of the various themes that would dominate the year, to that of the denouement and wrapping up. For me, May marked this transition. I woke up one morning and realized that I had only a few more weeks left before holidays. On my bookshelf were several books I had borrowed from colleagues who would be transferred after the holiday season and this is reflected in my reading choices as I rush to return some of these to their rightful owners.

It was interesting to read Michael Crichton's "found" novel Pirate Latitudes - apparently the entire manuscript was discovered in a drawer or something of his estate, most likely put away once he heard about Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean venture. Both storylines involve pirates sailing out of Port Royal and both feature morally ambivalent main characters. One of the fascinating things about reading such discovered manuscripts is that you can never be certain how "finished", or in what part of the editing process the work was sitting once the decision to shelf it occurred. As much as I enjoyed Pirate Latitudes and it's breezy action, supposedly based on true events, there were inevitably parts where I wondered if this was really the authorial decision that Crichton had come to, or if he had merely left it as a placeholder, with thoughts to come back and revise it later. I had similar thoughts while reading Graham Greene's The Tenth Man last summer, but at least Greene had the opportunity to revise before publishing (whether he did or not is different). Soon to be a major motion picture.

I'll say more about Gord Hill's thought-provoking The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book, but if you have the chance to pick it up before Stampede, you should. Also, Ben Moor's book, based on his one-man play monologues were fun - if you have a chance to see him, you probably should.

Finally, Chomsky v. Foucault was highly engaging and, oddly humourous in places, mostly because I have a lot of preconceived notions about these two men and their ideas, and so reading about the interplay between them allowed me to imagine all sorts of subtext. Towards that end, while their discussions about the role that language and thought play in the development of political systems and free will can be approached in this work by a novice, it's much more entertaining to come at it with an appreciation of the two already in hand.

Books Read:

Ben Moor, More Trees to Climb (2010)

Noam Chomsky and Michel Foucault, The Chomsky-Foucault Debate on Human Nature (2006)

Michael Crichton, Pirate Latitudes (2009)

Gord Hill, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010)

Currently reading

Doug Lemov, Teach Like A Champion (2010)

Nick Hornby, Slam! (2008)

Gerald Lee Gutek, Historical and Philosophical Foundations of Education: A Biographical Introduction (2004)

Books Acquired:

Gord Hill, The 500 Years of Resistance Comic Book (2010)

Nick Hornby, Juliet, Naked (2009)