Critique: Bloodline (James Rollins)

I wanted to read a book in which crime investigations were the main focuses; even when reading best sellers I was thoroughly bored. I don’t want to see consistent editorial errors and (more importantly for the crime genre) I don’t want to predict correctly ‘who done it’ and why within the first two chapters. This one, full of interesting plot points and ample surprises/suspense, was the first that was worth writing a review about.

***SPOILERS***

Plot

The novel is in a series about Gray who leads a Sigma field team, a fictional USA agency. Whilst their main purpose is to investigate syndicates like the Guild, in this novel they’re tasked in rescuing Amanda (the president’s daughter) from pirates.

Sigma’s leader Painter dates Dr Lisa. This fact would be insignificant if not for the fact that Lisa isn’t part of Sigma. Yet somehow she’s authorised to go into the field (and on a dangerous mission at that). Another problem is that Painter and Lisa can discuss confidential and secretive information: if she’s not part of the agency (especially an agency secret even to government officials) then how does she have the clearance to know sensitive topics?

Gray’s team is joined by Tucker and his dog Kane. It’s revealed that Kane is the rank above Tucker and that it’s always the case so that abusing dogs (like abusing any superior officer) is a court martial offence. I don’t know if that’s true in our world but either way it’s a lovely thought.

Near the end, the Bloodline (who run the Guild) captured Gray to kill the President. This is followed by an explanation as to why, adding that it would lead to Sigma’s dismantlement. But why would you share your master plan with your enemy, especially when it’s information that will make them resist co-operation? Sure, it was ingenious and enjoyable to know the plan but I don’t think the information was presented quite right. Seeing as we have perspective points from the Bloodline from start to end, maybe it should have been discussed then.

 On this mission, Gray and his team bump into an Indian member of the UK’s Sigma equivalent.

This individual’s family name is ‘Jain’ and this is an awful choice. Jains follow Jainism, a religion of extreme non-violence (and my favourite religion). Jains even avoid eating root vegetables because they need to die to be eaten. If they treat plants this well, they certainly won’t fight a person. So choosing to call a fighter ‘Jain’ is disrespectful.

Gray originally thought Jain worked for the SIS which, apparently, is ‘sometimes referred to as MI6’. Now, being British and living in the UK, 99.9% of the time it’s called (by citizens, politicians and leaders of the agency alike) MI6. So writing that it’s ‘sometimes’ called MI6 is inaccurate.

It turns out that Amanda’s baby has a triple helix (the secret to eternal life). This is why the Bloodline wanted the baby. I’d been excited throughout the whole book to understand how the triple helix explained eternal life but it was… creatively faulty.

            At the start of the novel we see a female Templar take a bloodied staff from an immortal. A plant virus he caught gave him a triple helix that granted immortality by prevented cells from dying. The Bloodline used this to create a synthetic spiral called PNA (DNA but peptide).

            Unfortunately for the story, stopping cells from dying won’t prevent immortality. Aging (and death) are caused because telomeres overtime don’t protect DNA from damage when they replicate in order to replenish worn out cells. If cells didn’t die, things like blood clots, tumours and cancer would become bigger because the body couldn’t get rid of them. This would cause millions more deaths.

Technicalities

I was irked by the ‘giant hybrid of Turritopsis nutricula’.

A hybrid is, by definition, a product of two different species. A hybrid neither belongs to either parent species nor does it qualify as its own species. Hybrids thus cannot have their own Latin species name.

The Latin name of a hybrid is the Latin names of its parents combined with an X (for example, a liger is Panthera leo X Panthera tigris). By giving a life form one species name, it’s an acknowledgement that the life form is its own species.

If it’s its own species then it parents have to belong to the same species and therefore it cannot be a hybrid. So yes, irksome.

There were a few small things I found that were hopefully lapses in editorial oversight rather than conscious choices made by the author.

Someone mentions that they studied at ‘the University of Tokyo and Oxford’, written as if it’s one university. Whilst it doesn’t exist in real life, there’s no reason why it couldn’t. Although, I do get the feeling that the two separate universities were meant here by the author, so ‘University’ would have to be ‘Universities’.

At one point, ‘bra and panties’ were mentioned. Seeing as ‘panties’ is something a toddler would say, I was surprised to see an adult say/think that phrase in an adult book.

Another quotation that puzzled me was ‘vanished the barest rustle of leaf’. Missing ‘with’ in between ‘vanished’ and ‘the’ is a bit of an oversight. But then we have the ending: if one leaf was meant, ‘of a leaf’ would have been better but if multiple leaves were meant, then ‘leaves’ should have been written.

The author uses ‘dialect’ a lot but he neither names it nor describes how the dialect sounds. Hence I fail to see the point of stating that a dialect is being used. If the author had written ‘language’ instead of ‘dialect’, it would have made more sense. Dialects are, after all, variants within a language, so if the characters can’t understand the language, there’s no hope of them recognising and distinguishing between the language’s dialects.

Considering America’s anti-nepotism laws, how the President of the United States installed his brother as Secretary of State is beyond me.

On lucky occasions we went saw the story through Kane’s perspective. This was executed with precision. There was only one problem: Kane’s perspective was in the present tense even though the other perspectives were in the past tense. Dogs can distinguish past, present and future every time they smell something so they understand chronology. They don’t just experience the present. People, on the other hand, can only see/hear/touch the present. I respect the author making an effort to distinguish a dog’s perspective from those of the humans but the methods did nothing for me.

Final Notes

There’s plenty to enjoy in this novel and I’m glad to have read it. Some things caught me off guard but nothing was abhorrent. Easily missed slipups and not having years of education on specialist topics are understandable. The plot was strong, as were many characters. There were many perspectives yet this didn’t cause confusion. After so many awful crime novels, ‘Bloodline’ finally gave me hope for the genre.

Critique: Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 2/2

***SPOILERS***

Miscellaneous Comments

To see the author execute long lists correctly was very much appreciated and refreshing. Colons (: ) are used to start a long list of phrases and uses semi-colons (; ) are used to separate the phrases.

Whilst fishing, Pi makes an excellent observation: ‘“Why can we throw a question further than we can pull in the answer?”’ That one really hits home. Humans keep on asking, and keep on trying to find answers to, questions that we can never truly answer in an objective way. As a philosopher, I’m one of many who still question things humans asked over three thousand years ago.

Pi was full of other sentences that made me pause and thing. He praised that he had a good cat (Richard Parker), a good ark (the lifeboat) and good ears that heard him (the sky). But then he instantly threw this is doubt, declaring these same things as a danger, a jail and as not listening. Considering how frightening his situation was, I’m not shocked that he couldn’t convince himself.

There was one part in the novel that was tedious and boring but it’s insightful and definitely adds something to the story. For two pages, Pi recounts the instructions and ration lists that came with the life boat. Pi has a remarkable memory, like knowing all the digits of mathematical pi, so this is another demonstration of that. Plus he did have little to do on the boat: it’s hardly surprising that he would focus and obsess over what he did possess.

Pi makes a big deal about having a fierce will to live whereas most people let go easily. This is far from the truth. People are scared to die, people often avoid activities that can cause death, people abhor murderers, and fearing death is a great motivator for coercing individuals. People hold on to life as long as they can and refuse to die (if it’s an option). There’s no denying that Pi has a fierce will to live but there is denying that Pi is in a minority. Perhaps Pi doesn’t understand people or more likely he wanted to give himself strength. One sentence encapsulates how people behave: ‘[i]t may be nothing more than life-hungry stupidity.’

‘Life of Pi’ is, unsurprisingly, told from Pi’s perspective. There are two instances of a journalist’s viewpoint, however. In the first instance, this perspective isn’t separated from Pi’s view other than with italics; it’s a paragraph with the shift button rather than a line free of text. This felt very out of place, although if these interjections happened regularly rather than only once, this shoehorned into Pi’s perspective would have been fine. The second instance is cornered off from Pi’s viewpoint and gives a very detailed description of a Hindu shrine. In both of the journalist’s perspectives, lovely imagery was utilised finely.

Questioning and Conclusion

In Chapter 94, Pi reveals that he likes things to end properly. He felt like his relationship with Richard Parker didn’t end right (who fled into the rainforest). If you spend such extended and intimate time with only one person, can the end of that relationship ever be proper, to have complete closure? A less serious example is that a book should have one hundred chapters. As far as Pi was aware, the retelling of his story to the journalist only reached ninety-five chapters.

From Chapter 96 onwards, the reader gets transcripts from Japanese government officials interviewing Pi about the sunken ship.

Interviewing Pi whilst he was still a child, the officials weren’t expected Pi’s adult and insightful comments. One such example is when Pi tells them ‘don’t bully me with your politeness.’ This got me thinking about politeness and its negative utilities, something I’d never considered before.

We don’t see them for long but they were entertaining characters. At one point, they’re laughing and, between chuckles, Mr. Chib complains that it’s not funny but Mr. Okamato tells him to keep laughing. That tickled me into stitches.

At another point, they offer Pi a cookie and after Pi makes a fuss over it the official says ‘it’s only a cookie.’ Considering how much Pi worried over food whilst he was shipwrecked (and considering how stupidly grateful I get over food), I’m not surprised that Pi put more value on the cookie than the official did.

Misters Chib and Okamato kept on challenging Pi’s account but the new story Pi gave them is full of plot holes that they should have tried to fill in (but I suppose after challenging P’s perspective they may have just wanted to leave). In it, a strong man did nothing other than focus on his survival, even killing Pi’s mum for food. Next time they went hungry, the strong man did kill the weak Pi, even though he was an easy food source and having one less mouth to feed would have increased his own survival. Then the strong man let Pi kill him even though he’d been focusing on his own survival throughout. For me, this was Pi making up a story on the spot.

Yet at the end of the report, the Japanese officials note that Pi is the only castaway to survive ‘in the presence of an adult Bengal tiger.’ I thought this was a lovely ending, as was the fact that the novel’s last chapter was Chapter 100. It’s a shame Pi never knew.

When I first read ‘Life of Pi’, I never thought to query Pi’s account. It’s a fictional story so one allows for creative license and the fantastical elements are my literature bread and butter.

Multiple times Pi shows a phenomenal memory so it leads the reader into not questioning him. But after I told a friend that I’d finished reading it, she said how amazing it was that Pi’s mind created so many hallucinations. So I read it again a few years later and I can see the evidence of this.

The hyena was described as having mouselike eyes: maybe this was because it was actually a mouse/other rodent, and their tiny size would have made it easier for it to hide from Pi on the lifeboat.

It was bizarre, reading a story with two consecutive story lines about the very same thing. This gave me huge appreciation for Yann Martel’s writing abilities. This is why this is a book I recommend to everyone no matter their preferred genres. Good writing can be appreciated whether you personally like it or not.

Review: Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 1/2

https://frostgriffin.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-life-of-pi-yann-martel-12.html

Critique: Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 1/2

***SPOILERS***

Pi is a son of a zookeeper that travels to Canada with their zoo animals. The Japanese ship they travel on sinks and Pi is the only survivor, floating along the ocean for seven months and several weeks. Along the way he is accompanied by Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger. The fact the Pi ended up on the water is appropriate, considering ‘Pi’ is short for ‘Piscine’. 

Religion

I quite often hear people complain about Pi following three religions (Hinduism, Islam and Christianity). As I’ve pointed out before, this is quite common across Asia so the criticism of ‘you cannot follow more than one religion’ isn’t valid.

            Of course, this is not a universal trait. Indeed, this is seen in the book when the pandit, imam and priest argue over Pi’s multiple religions. Pi points out that ‘Papa Gandhi’ believed all religions are true, leading the three religious guides to make peace. Reconciliation is great and all but after such a lengthy and passionate debate, I doubt that they would have made up so quickly. Whilst my first instinct is to declare that bad writing, Pi wouldn’t be the first one to idealise his past and especially so considering the trauma he’d suffered.

            After the ‘Papa Gandhi’, Pi’s dad wondered if ‘Uncle Jesus’ was next. This made me giggle quite a lot. His father also had an issue with Pi being Muslim in particular. But then Pi’s mum points out that if it’s not doing anyone any harm then it’s alright. Which is my view on all things in life. So I like Pi’s mum.

A moment that caught my eye is when Pi tells a story from Matthew and Mark.

            Jesus cursed a fig tree for not producing fruit. Pi comments that the tree is innocent because the tree’s not to blame that it’s not fig season. This perfectly encapsulates Indian mind sets that recognise all life important, worthy and sacred.

(I just have to wonder why Jesus didn’t use his powers to make the fig tree bloom out of season? Surely that would have been a better way to utilise his gifts? Maybe it was to show that Jesus suffered irritability, low inhibitions and bad decisions, just like any other human?)

A different moment caught me off guard, when Pi explains his problem with agnostics. He applauds the use of doubt but only briefly. He continues: ‘To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transport.’

Um, no.

A philosophy of life is the principles that inform one’s life and actions. Being agnostic doesn’t mean that you are doubtful about everything. An agnostic still has views and values on how they think people should behave. Religion isn’t the only source of morality. Indeed, religions all over the world have a habit of teaching overlapping pieces of morality, showing that everyone can believe in the same values, no matter their point of origin or upbringing.

Animals

It’s not that much of a surprise that animals feature heavily in this novel, both in academic discussions and beautiful descriptors. Indeed, he remembers Richard Parker in stunning detail, almost glorifying his good qualities.

            Pi recounts when his father wanted him and his brother Ravi to understand how dangerous wild animals can be. Their father chooses Richard Parker (the tiger) and the demonstration left both of them with mental scars. In the present, Pi wonders how he got past that and recalls that ‘[l]ife goes on and you don’t touch tigers.’ That gave me a good chuckle.

            Quite often, Pi’s animal anecdotes made me laugh. The orang-utan arriving at the lifeboat on a raft of bananas was my particular favourite (I found it delightful). Closely followed, I add, by the hyena and orang-utan roaring at each other (I don’t think any hyena species can roar but I could be wrong). Both are bizarre but novel ideas, catching me off guard when I first read the book.

            Aside from the fact that hyenas can’t roar, Pi’s memories of the hyena were off-kilter. It took some days for Pi to even realise the hyena was on the lifeboat, a lifeboat with few places to hide. This seems improbable. Pi’s aware of this, too, because he comes up with an elaborate explanation of how the hyena there. This account was even more improbable so I think he was just trying to make sense of an unexplainable event. Considering there wasn’t much for Pi to do on his journey, it’s no surprise that he made stories his pastime.

            The hyena kept on causing issues. Pi presents a case to the readers that hyenas have a bad reputation. Yet the most gory and graphically detailed event in the novel is about the hyena eating the still-living zebra from the inside out. This only serves to reaffirm the reputation he rejects. It didn’t help that Pi had just given a poetic description of a fish, making the hyena seem all the worse. At least the hyena was described as having eyes that were ‘mouselike’ (something I quite like).

Zoo animals aside, the audience also gets to see Pi’s interactions with the wild animals. Some are gruesome, some are lovely, and some were simply ingenious. My favourite thing about this novel is Pi describing whales spouting as ‘a short-lived archipelago of volcanic islands.’

As mentioned earlier, Pi finds all life sacred but considering plants and fungi aren’t a convenient diet out of the open ocean, Pi concedes that he’ll have to eat meat. The very first animal he kills is a fish and he feels guilty of murder. Pi thought quickly hammering the fish’s head was too much so he decided to snap its neck instead. I would have thought feeling an animal struggle in your hands as you use your own body to kill it would have been too much but each to their own.

Pi only saw six birds on his seven month sea journey which does seem highly improbable. I will, however, point out that I loved and had no quarrel with the flesh-eating islands populated with fish-eating meerkats. Although that only contained a suspension of disbelief to allow it to be part of that world when it is already part of this world that seabirds fly all over the oceans and one would see more than six over seven months. So the same reason I accept the meerkats is the same reason I don’t accept the limited sea birds.

Now my praise for the animal sections is out the way, I return to the zoo animals because something Pi said left me gobsmacked. Apparently, as long as animals are given everything they require (food, water and shelter), they behave exactly the same in activity as they would in the wild.

            No.

            Firstly, the animals’ territories are much smaller in zoos that they are in the wild. Secondly, the animals’ food is readily provided for them (when those in the wild would have less food per sitting and wouldn’t eat each day). Thirdly, the animals don’t have to worry about competition or predation as they otherwise would be.

This means the animal spends less time patrolling, less time looking for food, and less time being on the lookout: hence they sleep. A lot. This mixed with little exercise but receiving more food than their wild counterparts is why zoo animals weigh more. The very nature of a wild animal being contained in a zoo inherently means the animals behave differently.

Fourthly (and this being the kicker), there has been heavy documentation of zoo animals having clear behavioural issues for decades, among which ‘Life of Pi’ was set. Pi recounts his faulty opinion not as him the sixteen year-old but as him the adult. As him, the person with a zoology degree. So Pi really should know better. Sure, the author may not be an expert on zoology but I find it hard to believe that even with limited research the author didn’t find the truth.

Review: Life of Pi (Yann Martel) 2/2

https://frostgriffin.blogspot.com/2019/08/review-life-of-pi-yann-martel-22.html

Critique: Empresses in the Palace

This series was phenomenal. I cannot emphasise how clever and funny the script was: serious matters were always dealt with appropriately but there was room for fun throughout. Not only that but the series is informative on Chinese culture and proverbs throughout.

The main character, Zhen Huan, is a concubine that rises through ranks of the Chinese emperor’s harem. She’s very clever, makes tactical decisions and inspires loyalty in maids and eunuchs alike.

Visuals were beautiful. The clothing and jewellery was gorgeous, so much so that I paused the programme just to admire the sites on the screen. (Finger guards were a new discovery for me and I love them.) Then the sets, for the architecture to furniture and the gardens, were simply stunning yet elaborate in detail.

Also it’s refreshing to watch a period drama without sex scenes.

Compared: Short and Long Versions

I fell in love with the shorter version as shown on Netflix (six episodes of ninety minutes each) but then I was blown away by the longer version (seventy-six episodes of sixty minutes each).

When I discovered that there even was a longer version, I was in awe because the short version felt full and complete: imagining there was more to be watched was exciting. The long version fleshed out a show to satisfy any lingering curiosity.

For example, Buddhism was much more relevant and prevalent in the longer version, rather than just a side note as it was in the shorter version. Oh, and Huan’s pet parrot and most of the gardens are completely missing from the short version.

In the short version we saw Zhen Huan playing the Chinese zither. In the longer version, we get to see more of this and see how important the instrument was for Huan to create a bond with the emperor. It’s an instrument with a captivating sound and I’m glad to have finally heard it.

Another striking difference was seeing the art of calligraphy. In the short version, the empress did on a regular basis with exacting standards to fit her talent. In the longer version, we get to see why and how calligraphy is considered an art form. The characters discuss it and the principles behind it which was an eye-opener.

***SPOILERS***

Harem

Zhen Huan is very close to fellow concubines An Lingrong and Shen Meizhang, the latter being Huan’s closest friend. Their bond is loving and perfect in the short version but the long version explored their ups and downs.

Huan is also close with the empress dowager (the emperor’s mother) but we completely miss out on this in the shorter version. It was beneficial to the story, shedding some light on Huan’s decisions, actions and accomplishments. The dowager is a great, graceful and intellectual character who had great relations with many characters.

The main antagonist is Consort Hua, the emperor’s preferred concubine who’s never managed to conceive. She was truly awful to Huan and her friends (even causing miscarriages). But there was little anyone could do because Consort Hua’s brother led the army. So there had to be a massive database of incidences before the emperor had no choice but to have Consort Hua disposed. Huan visited Hua to convince Hua to comply with the imperial command to commit suicide. Huan reveals that Hua couldn’t conceive because of actions the emperor took and this drives Hua over the edge (in a jarring manner).

In the long version, you see the empress and An Lingrong conspiring since the beginning. In the short version, their deviancy was only revealed after Consort Hua had died so it seemed like their scheming came out of nowhere. (Well, not entirely, considering it’s a harem.)

In the short one, An Lingrong seemed bitter and jealous that she wasn’t as highly regarded as her friends were, leading to her unpleasant actions. In the longer version, the audience saw that she was doing her best to survive.

Huan works hard to erode the power and influence of the empress. However, since she disposed Consort Hua, her confidence improved which provided quicker results. It first turns in her favour when she’s the one that adopts the Fourth Prince, rather than the empress (which is the convention when a prince’s mother dies). In the short version, this was the point that you met the Fourth Prince; in the long version, the audience had met and interacted with him for a while so the Fourth Prince doesn’t feel misplaced.

Yunli

Yunli is Prince Guo, the emperor’s younger sibling. He and Huan have a relationship behind everyone’s backs. In the short version, it looks like a careless fling. In the long version, it’s a full relationship which the audience sees develop and mature in a natural manner.

            The emperor ends up suspecting Yunli and Huan of an affair. In the short, this came out of nowhere and it didn’t make sense. If it were paranoia, we would have seen suspicions pop up beforehand. (When I thought the short version was the only version, this was the one thing that screamed ‘plot hole’ at me).

In the longer version, the emperor was far more methodical in his approach, watching Huan and Yunli interact. The thing that confirmed it was Yunli asking after Huan in each letter he wrote to his brother (military reports mostly rather than personal chattering). It was clear in these letters that Yunli wasn’t asking about Huan because she was the emperor’s favourite concubine but instead he was asking from a place of personal affection.

When the emperor finally decided to act, it was heart breaking. He wanted Huan to kill Yunli to demonstrate she didn’t love him. Knowing that the safety of her twins (as fathered by Yunli) would be compromised if Yunli didn’t die, Huan set it up but then Yunli killed himself. This didn’t convince the emperor that Huan was innocent of infidelity.

Huan took radical action to save her children: she kills the emperor and makes the Fourth Prince the new emperor and, as his adopted mother, Huan becomes the new empress dowager. Then she decides that Yunli’s line shouldn’t be allowed to go extinct so she declares that Yunli adopted her children. This was touching and meant Yunli would always be important and a ‘father’ to his twins, even if they never knew the truth.

In the short version, this was a bit dramatic and seemed like an unnecessary precaution. In the long version, the audience sees early on that Huan dislikes the emperor. Indeed, the relationship on her side deteriorated into hatred long before she kills the emperor.

Concluding Notes

I cannot express how much I enjoyed ‘Empresses in the Palace’. It has a wealth of entertainment: politics, intrigue, revenge, disaster, humour, emotion, investigation… there many elements enjoyable for many. The subtitles can be distracting (and takes time away from admiring the aesthetics) so ‘Empresses in the Palace’ won’t be for everyone.

The show is set during the Yongzheng Emperor’s the reign and, purportedly, the dress, behaviour, speech, architecture, etc. etc. was not the appropriate choice for that designated time period. But then again, interactions between concubines were never recorded in real life so this programme is completely fictional. Exact replication of reality wasn’t a top priority. (If it has been a programme about actual events then I would expect everything to reflect reality.)

I think people watching seventy-six episodes of something entirely in subtitles would’ve been annoying then make people give up on the show. This requires concentration, when people often watch tv when they’re too tired to concentrate properly. Putting the short version together was simply genius in making this show accessible to western audiences.

Definitely on my list of recommended programmes!