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1058 reviews
Assyria: The Rise and Fall of the World's First Empire by Eckart Frahm
4.0
This was exactly what I wanted, exactly when I wanted it. For some reason, ancient Mesopotamia has been suddenly fascinating to me again, and this history scratched an itch. It was quite dry in some places, largely focusing on conquest and political squabbles, but it also offered some fabulous letters. My favourites include the one from a boy to his mother, complaining that a peer of his at school, the son of his father's servant, has better new clothes than he does, and ends with the heartless chastisement that the other boy's mother, who only adopted him, evidently loves her son, while the letter writer's mother, who actually bore the letter writer from her body, evidently does not love him. There's also a plaintive letter from someone begging for his job back, which makes reference to three previous letters, and which was found UNOPENED 2500 years later.
I was very struck by the treatment of Ashurbanipal, who I was already familiar wtih somewhat from that magnificent exhibition at the British Museum back in 2019 or so. I had known that he was famous for creating this huge library of cuneiform texts--and he did do that!--but he was also kind of a Trumpean asshole, according to Ekhart Frahm, who loved to be seem as a mighty warrior, but actually arranged for oracles to tell him that it was okay to stay home rather than lead the troops; who wanted to be seen as a great hunter, but actually had to stage lion hunts in controlled circumstances to minimize the actual danger to himself; who wanted the reputation of being a great scholar, but whose own handwriting was pretty bad, and whose correspondants had to explain the difficult words to him in their letters. He was belligerant and prickly and totally sucked as a ruler, and it's rather satisfying to imagine him seeing his treatment in Frahm's book. 'Yes, yes, thanks for the library--those are great texts--but remember, dear reader, Ashurbanipal was not at all that cool.'
Frahm also offers perspectives on biblican characters that he claims are heavily influenced by Assyrian kings. Properties of the Jewish conception of a monotheistic God are in places directly lifted (he claims) from Assyrian proclamations sent around the conquered lands of Israel and Judah; as if, rather than accept the dictates of a mortal, secular ruler, the early Jews instead decided to attribute them to a God, as a kind of opposition literature. Christians, too, are interpreted in this way. I was very struck by Frahm's account of how the name Lucifer arose as a consequence of how Sennacherib was treated by his contemporaries at his downfall. They called him the bringer of light, a name he used for himself in his proclamations, but mockingly, rejoicing to see him brought low. Because he was so reviled by the people he conquered, the association between a conquering evildoer and the name 'lightbringer' was eventually applied to Satan. I don't know how accurate this is, because Frahm also tries to claim an Assyrian origin for the Bible story of Jonah and the whale that was not at all convincing, so maybe Frahm is just super keen on arguing that Everything Is Assyrian Actually. But this is a perfectly acceptable perspective from an Assyriologist.
What I really, really wanted more of, and what the book didn't give me, was more description of the linguistic situation of Assyria. There are occasional comments about things like, 'this name a western Semitic name, so this person was probably not ethnically Assyrian'; and we learn that Aramaic was the lingua franca of the empire, rather than the language the Assyrians spoke, but I never actually learnt what language the ethnic Assyrians spoke actually was! I had to go to Wikipedia to discover that it was also a Semitic language, but a type of Akkadian. And this linguistic sloppiness applies to names, as well. Sometimes names are given with the conventional transliteration of cuneiform spelling--e.g., Ashur-uballit; sometimes they're given their biblical spellings (e.g., Sharrum-ken is called Sargon after the first mention); and sometimes I don't know what's going on. Like, Ashurbanipal is clearly beginning wiht the Ashur- prefix that is so common in these king names, but why is it not hyphenated? And it was very, very late in the book before Frahm told us that Ashurbanipal's father, Esarhaddon, was also called Ashur-aha-iddina--i.e., had the same Ashur-prefix as all the others! I guess we're getting the biblical spelling for that, too? I just wanted some linguistic consistency! Give us all the names in Assyrian and tell us their Biblical counterparts! The whole point of this book is to lay out the history as revealed through the Assyrian texts, so why is Frahm letting the bible tell us how these names were spelled?
But those are small matters. I next have a book about the history of Babylon, and I can't wait to dig into that.
I was very struck by the treatment of Ashurbanipal, who I was already familiar wtih somewhat from that magnificent exhibition at the British Museum back in 2019 or so. I had known that he was famous for creating this huge library of cuneiform texts--and he did do that!--but he was also kind of a Trumpean asshole, according to Ekhart Frahm, who loved to be seem as a mighty warrior, but actually arranged for oracles to tell him that it was okay to stay home rather than lead the troops; who wanted to be seen as a great hunter, but actually had to stage lion hunts in controlled circumstances to minimize the actual danger to himself; who wanted the reputation of being a great scholar, but whose own handwriting was pretty bad, and whose correspondants had to explain the difficult words to him in their letters. He was belligerant and prickly and totally sucked as a ruler, and it's rather satisfying to imagine him seeing his treatment in Frahm's book. 'Yes, yes, thanks for the library--those are great texts--but remember, dear reader, Ashurbanipal was not at all that cool.'
Frahm also offers perspectives on biblican characters that he claims are heavily influenced by Assyrian kings. Properties of the Jewish conception of a monotheistic God are in places directly lifted (he claims) from Assyrian proclamations sent around the conquered lands of Israel and Judah; as if, rather than accept the dictates of a mortal, secular ruler, the early Jews instead decided to attribute them to a God, as a kind of opposition literature. Christians, too, are interpreted in this way. I was very struck by Frahm's account of how the name Lucifer arose as a consequence of how Sennacherib was treated by his contemporaries at his downfall. They called him the bringer of light, a name he used for himself in his proclamations, but mockingly, rejoicing to see him brought low. Because he was so reviled by the people he conquered, the association between a conquering evildoer and the name 'lightbringer' was eventually applied to Satan. I don't know how accurate this is, because Frahm also tries to claim an Assyrian origin for the Bible story of Jonah and the whale that was not at all convincing, so maybe Frahm is just super keen on arguing that Everything Is Assyrian Actually. But this is a perfectly acceptable perspective from an Assyriologist.
What I really, really wanted more of, and what the book didn't give me, was more description of the linguistic situation of Assyria. There are occasional comments about things like, 'this name a western Semitic name, so this person was probably not ethnically Assyrian'; and we learn that Aramaic was the lingua franca of the empire, rather than the language the Assyrians spoke, but I never actually learnt what language the ethnic Assyrians spoke actually was! I had to go to Wikipedia to discover that it was also a Semitic language, but a type of Akkadian. And this linguistic sloppiness applies to names, as well. Sometimes names are given with the conventional transliteration of cuneiform spelling--e.g., Ashur-uballit; sometimes they're given their biblical spellings (e.g., Sharrum-ken is called Sargon after the first mention); and sometimes I don't know what's going on. Like, Ashurbanipal is clearly beginning wiht the Ashur- prefix that is so common in these king names, but why is it not hyphenated? And it was very, very late in the book before Frahm told us that Ashurbanipal's father, Esarhaddon, was also called Ashur-aha-iddina--i.e., had the same Ashur-prefix as all the others! I guess we're getting the biblical spelling for that, too? I just wanted some linguistic consistency! Give us all the names in Assyrian and tell us their Biblical counterparts! The whole point of this book is to lay out the history as revealed through the Assyrian texts, so why is Frahm letting the bible tell us how these names were spelled?
But those are small matters. I next have a book about the history of Babylon, and I can't wait to dig into that.
Dreadful Company by Vivian Shaw
2.75
Perfectly solid, just about the same as the first. Didn't grip me, but it was lighter than the other book I've been reading at hte same time, so it's a good palate cleanser. I'm not going to seek out more of these books proactively, but if I'm at the library and one is prominently displayed I might pick it up.
Shigidi and the Brass Head of Obalufon by Wole Talabi
2.5
Could have done so much more with what it had. I appreciate all the narrative opportunities that it set up, but I got perpetually annoyed by how many off them were missed, in favor of much more prosaic, clumsy, obvious decisions
Full review on Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/09/review-shigidi-and-brass-head-of.html
Full review on Nerds of a Feather: http://www.nerds-feather.com/2024/09/review-shigidi-and-brass-head-of.html
Vladivostok Circus by Elisa Shua Dusapin
1.5
This was . . . deeply perplexing. There were many literary devices in this book that didn’t seem to actually do anything. The broad plot is as follows: Nathalie, fresh out of fashion/costume-design school, gets a short-term job designing the costume for a circus act that is simultaneously obscure in the broader world (‘Russian bar’), and highly prestigious in its own little domain. So she goes to Vladivostok, lives and works on site with the performers in an out-of-season closed circus complex, and various things happen that seem intended to be symbolic, but in the end never actually pay off in any coherent way.
For example: there is a persistent theme of daddy issues. Nathalie’s father never travels abroad, so she rarely sees him. The three performers in the act used to be a father, Anton, a son, and a third guy, Nino. But the son got hurt and had to be replaced with a third performer, a woman named Anna and the shadow of the son’s fate lingers over a lot of the group’s psychology. Meanwhile, Nino is feeling a lot of family pressure (he comes from a circus family himself) to make good on this act. And at the end, Anna meets up with her father, who’s coming to see her compete in a big circus conference thing. So there’s lots of fathers and thoughts and so on that are present in the plot, but they don’t really do anything.
There’s also some odd timeline stuff happening. Nathalie’s previous project before coming to the circus was to do the costumes for someone who is absolutely not her boyfriend, who seemed a bit self-centred and not collaborative with her in the way that she wanted. But interspersed with the circus job we get some epistolary chapters taking place in the future, in which we learn that Nathalie seems to have gone back to the boyfriend guy and had a baby with him. Ok…? And…?
There’s a cat that the circus manager is fond of. It’s not well. A bird flies into the window and dies. The cat dies. Ok . . . ? And. . . ?
Then at the end, the sound system for the big circus conference thing doesn’t work with their act, so they don’t perform. They go their separate ways, keep in touch for a bit, then fall out of touch. The end.
What?
There was so much literary mechanical structure in here, but nothing was connected to anything else. You can’t write a book by showing me a heap of cogs and belts and screws and wheels scattered on the ground. You have to assemble them into something functional. And this book didn’t do it. Like the circus act, it had a vision, but never realized it.
Unless that was the point? In which case, I really don’t appreciate my time being wasted by meta-narrative games.
For example: there is a persistent theme of daddy issues. Nathalie’s father never travels abroad, so she rarely sees him. The three performers in the act used to be a father, Anton, a son, and a third guy, Nino. But the son got hurt and had to be replaced with a third performer, a woman named Anna and the shadow of the son’s fate lingers over a lot of the group’s psychology. Meanwhile, Nino is feeling a lot of family pressure (he comes from a circus family himself) to make good on this act. And at the end, Anna meets up with her father, who’s coming to see her compete in a big circus conference thing. So there’s lots of fathers and thoughts and so on that are present in the plot, but they don’t really do anything.
There’s also some odd timeline stuff happening. Nathalie’s previous project before coming to the circus was to do the costumes for someone who is absolutely not her boyfriend, who seemed a bit self-centred and not collaborative with her in the way that she wanted. But interspersed with the circus job we get some epistolary chapters taking place in the future, in which we learn that Nathalie seems to have gone back to the boyfriend guy and had a baby with him. Ok…? And…?
There’s a cat that the circus manager is fond of. It’s not well. A bird flies into the window and dies. The cat dies. Ok . . . ? And. . . ?
Then at the end, the sound system for the big circus conference thing doesn’t work with their act, so they don’t perform. They go their separate ways, keep in touch for a bit, then fall out of touch. The end.
What?
There was so much literary mechanical structure in here, but nothing was connected to anything else. You can’t write a book by showing me a heap of cogs and belts and screws and wheels scattered on the ground. You have to assemble them into something functional. And this book didn’t do it. Like the circus act, it had a vision, but never realized it.
Unless that was the point? In which case, I really don’t appreciate my time being wasted by meta-narrative games.
Kalyna the Soothsayer by Elijah Kinch Spector
4.0
I really, really enjoyed this! It gave me vibes that I associate with being a teenager, curling up with a fat fantasy book from my father's collection on a Saturday afternoon, with all the innocent freedom of not needing to do my own taxes. Just a rollicking good fantasy book, with politics and intrigue and con jobs and so much punching and stabbing. Just a grand ride, all along.
Kate Hardy by D.E. Stevenson
1.0
Wow. This was so bad. This was so astonishingly bad. Anyone who wants to claim that people were better writers 75 years ago needs to read this book. Wow, it was bad. I could write more, about its weird inclusion of mystery reveals when no mystery was set up; about its entirely unconvincing and predictable romance; about its blythe conservatism that has upper class people merrily laughing about how the lower classes are like animals, really; about its wildly bizarre approach towards family values, in which a father is allowed to desert a daughter with absolutely no consequences--but, to be honest, that would require my spending more time thinking about this book, and I have rarely experienced such relief upon reaching the last page as I did with this ghastly excuse for a novel. My god, reader, it was so bad.
Daddy's Gone A-Hunting by Penelope Mortimer
1.5
yeesh. This was a sad, grim, horrible book. I'd call it misanthropic, except it's not that other people are bad or hateful. It's that everyone is miserable and sad, and there's no joy to be had in one's life, only attempts to pretend at it on the surface. People who think they're happy are naive and foolish, and every attempt at which human a connection might be made, an honest truth exchanged, is either missed, or ends up being unsatisfying. It's a book about a fundamentally suicidal woman who doesn't realize that suicide is an option. It's a book in which clinical depression seems the obvious diagnosis, except that the problem is the entire world is depressed, not just the primary viewpoint character. It was an miserable book, written by a miserable author, and it made me miserable to have read it.
The Last Camel Died at Noon by Elizabeth Peters
3.5
This would have been a 4* read, except for the reappearance of fat-shaming as a character device, in two separate instances. One is to represent the decadence of a queen, or perhaps an othering exoticism of a different culture; the other is to represent the downfall of a woman’s physical form to mirror her PPD leading to mental destruction at having been put in an incredibly difficult situation. That last revelation was actually very touching, and would have worked well if it hadn’t been realized through fatness-is-bad.
But aside from this, it was a rollicking tale, back in Egypt, and playing with a novel trope for the series. Now the archaeology is living! A hidden civilization, descended from the ancient Egyptian royalty, unknown to Western eyes—and, indeed, Arabs before them—but not fully hidden, because they did a bit of colonizing themselves and enslaved the Nubians who lived where they settled.
There is, indeed, a bit of an interesting structural thing going on here, with respect to cultural and imperial contacts: the Egyptians destroy the indigenous Nubians, but at the same time are in fear of the encroaching British who threaten their own way of life. Something quite sensible could have been done with this, but in the end I think Peters either didn’t quite see it, or else couldn’t quite make it work. She had written herself into a bit of a corner with the wealth of previous books that use Amelia’s British certainty in her rightness as a bit of a joke of characterization. Now that there’s some complexity to be explored, she can’t really give it full justice in a narrative that purports to be from Amelia’s own perspective from her own diaries.
For example, there are hints throughout that the Nubians are planning an uprising against the oppressive Egyptian royalty. Amelia is all for it (Emerson teases her about her socialist sympathies)—but in the end the main revolutionary figurehead just ends up being one of the heirs to the throne, and Amelia and Emerson’s efforts are pivotal in helping him ascend to the kingship. The white saviors rescue the monarchy, and the monarch has no plans to free the Nubians. The fact that the oppressed slave race actually had no hope of freedom or revolution at all is not even touched upon. Instead, the rightness of the new king’s rule is presented as important because he has knowledge of the West, having travelled outside his hidden kingdom, and he will need this knowledge to help prepare his people for the inevitable time when the white colonizers discover his kingdom. The fact that he takes the throne, in the end, by perverting a ceremony that is supposed to identify through religious ritual the true king, does not go unremarked: Emerson calls him a usurper, in fact, but they both agree that he’s the best king for the job, no matter how corruptly he got it.
I mean, there’s a parallelism here! There’s a commentary to be made about rightness to rule, and whether that rightness descends from ability vs. heredity vs. might, which can be applied equally to this kingship and the British Empire. And in a subtler book I would think it was done subtly and elegantly. But somehow, I feel like in this book it’s more accidental than intentional, because if we look at how things shake out, it really seems like the message is, ‘if you can seize the power and are the smartest person who knows best for your country, then go forth and oppress whoever you want! The modern-ancient Egyptians are doing it to the Nubians, and the West will do it to them.’ If Amelia’s lip service to socialist sympathies was truly meant, she might reflect on this, and ask whether the new king’s victory is really best for all the people; and from there it’s a short step to ask whether British exceptionalism, which she does believe in, is really best for all the Empire. But she doesn’t. She congratulates herself on a job well done, and regrets the inevitable encroaching arrival of the West not so much for human rights reasons, as for the loss of a preserved archaeological specimen.
But let’s end on a more entertaining note. I am enjoying the female gaze, I must say. Amelia is constantly commenting upon men’s musculature, and Emerson never misses a chance to lose or rip open his shirt. Peters never misses a chance to go all the way when she decides on a bit.
But aside from this, it was a rollicking tale, back in Egypt, and playing with a novel trope for the series. Now the archaeology is living! A hidden civilization, descended from the ancient Egyptian royalty, unknown to Western eyes—and, indeed, Arabs before them—but not fully hidden, because they did a bit of colonizing themselves and enslaved the Nubians who lived where they settled.
There is, indeed, a bit of an interesting structural thing going on here, with respect to cultural and imperial contacts: the Egyptians destroy the indigenous Nubians, but at the same time are in fear of the encroaching British who threaten their own way of life. Something quite sensible could have been done with this, but in the end I think Peters either didn’t quite see it, or else couldn’t quite make it work. She had written herself into a bit of a corner with the wealth of previous books that use Amelia’s British certainty in her rightness as a bit of a joke of characterization. Now that there’s some complexity to be explored, she can’t really give it full justice in a narrative that purports to be from Amelia’s own perspective from her own diaries.
For example, there are hints throughout that the Nubians are planning an uprising against the oppressive Egyptian royalty. Amelia is all for it (Emerson teases her about her socialist sympathies)—but in the end the main revolutionary figurehead just ends up being one of the heirs to the throne, and Amelia and Emerson’s efforts are pivotal in helping him ascend to the kingship. The white saviors rescue the monarchy, and the monarch has no plans to free the Nubians. The fact that the oppressed slave race actually had no hope of freedom or revolution at all is not even touched upon. Instead, the rightness of the new king’s rule is presented as important because he has knowledge of the West, having travelled outside his hidden kingdom, and he will need this knowledge to help prepare his people for the inevitable time when the white colonizers discover his kingdom. The fact that he takes the throne, in the end, by perverting a ceremony that is supposed to identify through religious ritual the true king, does not go unremarked: Emerson calls him a usurper, in fact, but they both agree that he’s the best king for the job, no matter how corruptly he got it.
I mean, there’s a parallelism here! There’s a commentary to be made about rightness to rule, and whether that rightness descends from ability vs. heredity vs. might, which can be applied equally to this kingship and the British Empire. And in a subtler book I would think it was done subtly and elegantly. But somehow, I feel like in this book it’s more accidental than intentional, because if we look at how things shake out, it really seems like the message is, ‘if you can seize the power and are the smartest person who knows best for your country, then go forth and oppress whoever you want! The modern-ancient Egyptians are doing it to the Nubians, and the West will do it to them.’ If Amelia’s lip service to socialist sympathies was truly meant, she might reflect on this, and ask whether the new king’s victory is really best for all the people; and from there it’s a short step to ask whether British exceptionalism, which she does believe in, is really best for all the Empire. But she doesn’t. She congratulates herself on a job well done, and regrets the inevitable encroaching arrival of the West not so much for human rights reasons, as for the loss of a preserved archaeological specimen.
But let’s end on a more entertaining note. I am enjoying the female gaze, I must say. Amelia is constantly commenting upon men’s musculature, and Emerson never misses a chance to lose or rip open his shirt. Peters never misses a chance to go all the way when she decides on a bit.
A City on Mars by Kelly Weinersmith, Zach Weinersmith
5.0
The most charming, entertaining cold blanket to ever rain death on my joyful buzzing dream of space-settlement.
Jack Glass by Adam Roberts
4.0
I really enjoyed this book, which was a remarkably successful execution of quite a tricky structural conceit. As the prologue promised, each of the three parts was simultaneously a locked room mystery, a prison story (depending on how you interpret the meaning of ‘prison’), and a whodunnit, with the identity of the whodunnit known from the start (it’s always the titular Jack Glass), without diminishing the surprise of learning how everything happened. This was most successful in the first part, where I literally yelled out in horrified delight as I realized the shape of things. By the third part, I had enough of a sense of what was going on to understand the broad outlines of how the thing was done, but it was still very satisfying to see the details filled in.
And, best of all, this narrative cleverness did not seem smug or pleased with itself. This is why I’ve never really gotten on with China Mieville. He’s also very clever, but he knows it, and it gets on my nerves. Adam Roberts seems more like he’s having fun, rather than trying to show off, and it suited my preferences better.
There were a couple of things that didn’t quite land. The character of Sappho was not sufficiently interesting in the broader narrative to justify the quite tropey reveals about her role; and there was an extremely limp and unnecessary attempt at . . . romance-but-not-really-romance-but-also-wtf? Anyway, I could see all the scaffolding that Roberts had put in place to support its inclusion, but even the scaffolding felt forced, and the inclusion was an unsatisfying way to justify a decision that seemed a bit out of character. And, I mean, it was out of character. But trying to justify it in this way didn’t work.
Anyway. Small matters, but overall the book was loads of fun. I already quite enjoy Roberts’ review blog (and poetry!), and I’ll take pleasure in reading some more of his fiction.
And, best of all, this narrative cleverness did not seem smug or pleased with itself. This is why I’ve never really gotten on with China Mieville. He’s also very clever, but he knows it, and it gets on my nerves. Adam Roberts seems more like he’s having fun, rather than trying to show off, and it suited my preferences better.
There were a couple of things that didn’t quite land. The character of Sappho was not sufficiently interesting in the broader narrative to justify the quite tropey reveals about her role; and there was an extremely limp and unnecessary attempt at . . . romance-but-not-really-romance-but-also-wtf? Anyway, I could see all the scaffolding that Roberts had put in place to support its inclusion, but even the scaffolding felt forced, and the inclusion was an unsatisfying way to justify a decision that seemed a bit out of character. And, I mean, it was out of character. But trying to justify it in this way didn’t work.
Anyway. Small matters, but overall the book was loads of fun. I already quite enjoy Roberts’ review blog (and poetry!), and I’ll take pleasure in reading some more of his fiction.