Niagara Falls straddles the divide between two countries. Since it was first discovered by Europeans, it has been a symbol of the untameable new world, inspiring awe, terror, wonder and greed. And like the falls themselves, the personalities of Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario have been poetic, violent, daring, powerful. From the hyperbolic missionary who first described the falls in print to the power barons who harnessed the waters to bring in the electrical revolution, it's history full of intrigue and adventure.
I was originally going to read Berton's history of the War of 1812, but a couple of things changed my mind. For one thing, the 1812 history consists of three volumes, and unlike a fictional trilogy I didn't think I could bear to only hear the beginning of the tale. The other is that my beloved and I are heading to New York in November-December, so we'll have a chance to see the Falls first hand. Now, having read Niagara: A History of the Falls, I will have to spend at least a day or two in the town, marvelling at the evidence of all that I've read.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was finding the book slow going. It must seem that I don't spend much time reading, but the truth is I now spend most of my reading time on blogs and online magazines, many covering frivolous topics, though many important ones too. Reading Niagara cover-to-cover felt a bit like reading a magazine column, since it comes in small chunks - bigger than a magazine article, in truth, but still. If I'd had more discipline I would have made sure to read one or more of these every day, in order to keep up the pace.
There are only thirteen chapters, but each is split into three to five "verses"; I call them this because they are only titled in the contents and at the start of each chapter - when you reach them in the text, they're denoted only by a large numeral at the top of the page. Sometimes these cover very different stories under a common theme; at other times, they seem to continue the previous verse more or less directly. The division seemed a bit arbitrary at times, and to be honest I often ignored them.
But enough of all that guff. Is it any good? Oh yes. Yes indeed. Berton has a wonderful prose style; everything is clear, his words flowing like a less turbulent river but still dynamic river - fast when the action is fierce, slower when the narrative turns to more domestic matters. It's only problem is that, being a true history of a place, rather than an event or even a person, it is a collection of short stories whose only true common theme is geography.
The early part of book is a little samey - he starts strong with a geological history of the river and how the falls were created (the first line is the very Biblical "In the beginning was the ice"), and their early "discovery", but the next few chapters are largely tales of Europeans coming and gawking in various ways. Eventually some real characters show up - the first of many celebrity cameos in Charles Dickens, and Frederic Church painting his celebrated landscape of the Falls - but the real narrative seems to arrive with the hucksters and crooks who established the first "civilised" period of Niagara's history.
I couldn't help but think of Deadwood as rival hotel owners fought each other for the right to fleece the hordes of Niagara tourists (William Hearst gets a mention, and Wild Bill Hickok is a later cameo!) - the blatant criminality and colourful setting would certainly make a cracker of an HBO series. From here on the action rarely stops, with the coming of daredevils, bridge builders and - my personal favourites - the scientists. Hydroelectricity came into its own nowhere in quite the way it did at Niagara, and no less a figure than Nicola Tesla arrives to harness the waters. (Tesla also shows up in The Mad Scientist Hall of Fame, a birthday gift from my beloved's parents, and an amusing if derivative mix of facts and psychiatric conjecture about scientists from fiction and history.)
Despite descriptions of the scientists as exploiters, it is clearly the "power magnates" and businessmen who drive the exploitation of the river. Surprisingly there seemed little evidence in the book to suggest that the use of the Falls for generating electricity has done any damage, but the industries that flocked to the area to take advantage of the power did more than enough - something that the final chapters explore in great detail in the case of "Love Canal", perhaps America's most famous toxic waster dump.
While there's little of it in the early chapters, when both Canada and America were still frontier societies, the second half of the book has plenty of comparisons between the two sides of the river. Canada get the better waterfall, of that there's no doubt, but Berton remains even-handed. Both countries get their share of praise and criticism for the way in which they exploit - or fail to exploit - the Falls, and indeed the afterword - which excellent summarises the preceding 450 pages - paints both as flawed but charming.
Niagara is far better in retrospect than in the reading, not because there's anything wrong with the prose, but just because it's a big story made of so many little stories, and the big story is easier to appreciate from above. I've learned so much: about the
I'll definitely be revisiting Berton, and indeed will probably acquire my own copy of the book to take with me to Niagara Falls. I want to visit the statues of Tesla and the French acrobat Blondin, take a tour of the massive power plants, and even see what's left of Love Canal. It's a rare pleasure to so keenly feel the history of a place, and I can't help but think that feeling will be wonderful when I am there in person.
Chapters: 13 (split into 52 "verses")
Page count: 449 (including the afterword, but not the acknowledgements, bibliography or very comprehensive index)
Book's title mentioned on page: 12 (the first page of the introduction. Well..."Niagara" is mentioned; he never uses the full title)
Best name encountered: Martha E. Wagenfuhrer; also the engineering firm of Balf, Sarin and Winkelman. (Isambard Kingdom Brunel gets a mention in passing, but only by his last name.)
New words: funambulist; cataract (in the geological sense; despite it's repeated use, I had to remind myself this wasn't a book about eyes right to the end)
Inner Five-year-old score: 7 (it has adventure and big buildings and Nikola Tesla and everything! That last chapter would have scared the hell out of me at five, though.)
Fun Wikipedia fact: Bruce Lee gave his only television interview on The Pierre Berton Show in 1971.
Showing posts with label Pierre Berton. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pierre Berton. Show all posts
Too slow, Chicken Marengo!
It's taking me an age to get through Niagara: A History of the Falls. Not because Berton is a bad writer - far from it, his prose is engaging and to the point. The problem is this isn't a novel, nor a history of one identifiable thing; yes, everything is about Niagara in some way, but it could be the scam merchants fleecing tourists, or the daredevils climbing a wire above the cataract, or the power magnates building hydroelectric plants... All the bits are fascinating, but the players come and go and the Falls come in and out of focus. It's not the sort of book you generally read cover to cover.
Ah well. I've borrowed some comic books and banned myself from reading anything but Niagara. I'm making is sound awful, but it's not - it's just not a constant reading companion.
Should be done soon anyway, though. Only 100 or so pages left!
Ah well. I've borrowed some comic books and banned myself from reading anything but Niagara. I'm making is sound awful, but it's not - it's just not a constant reading companion.
Should be done soon anyway, though. Only 100 or so pages left!
Change of Plan
After talking up Booktopia in the last post, all I've heard from them regarding my purchase of The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813 is that it's been ordered and it'll take 7 to 16 days before it's sent to me. In any case my beloved said we should go see Niagara Falls while we're in New York at the end of the year, so it seemed reasonable to change tactics and borrow Berton's Niagara: A History of the Falls from one of the local libraries, with thanks to my excellent friend Dave. It was a apparently a bestseller in Canada, though both Dave and I speculated that this was unlikely for a book about a waterfall around 450 pages long. Here's hoping I can get through it before it needs to be returned...
In the lag time between the last post and receiving Niagara, though, I read a fascinating and wonderful book which didn't appear on the list of possibilities: The Planiverse, by another Canadian, A K Dewdney. Inspired by Flatland, another favourite of mine - and which I recently repurchased in an edition annotated by Ian Stewart - it tells (as though it were true) the story of a computer science project to model a two-dimensional universe which somehow manages to make contact with a real two-dimensional universe, the Planiverse of the title.
I picked this up in a wonderful second hand bookshop in Daylesford, where my beloved and I spent our first anniversary. (Daylesford and its environs, I mean, not just the bookshop.) Apart from the Flatland connection, I found it hard to pass up after noting that Douglas Adams was one of those who had a review quote on the back; typically for Douglas, he didn't say much about the book beyond saying that he believed the whole thing.
The Planiverse is an amazingly detailed look at what a two-dimensional universe might be like, with boxed text and a full appendix on everything from housing to physics, chemistry and two-dimensional technology. Despite being written in 1980, the dated computer technology doesn't at all detract from the novel, and it's made compelling by the relationship Dewdney and his students share with Yendred, the one Planiverse inhabitant with whom they are able to communicate, and who goes on a pilgrimage across his world, followed by the inhabitants of the computer lab. I grew surprisingly attached to Yendred, more so somehow than other fictional characters; perhaps I was empathising with the students, who form a secret club, hiding their amazing discovery from their university and contacted Yendred late at night. Even their plot deepens, but many things are deliberately left unresolved - not for a sequel, but as a sort of allegory to the spiritual journey Yendred undertakes. Frankly, I was devastated when the book ended, a feeling I've not had for some time; I will just have to be satisfied with Dewdney's other books, some of which sound right up my alley!
In the lag time between the last post and receiving Niagara, though, I read a fascinating and wonderful book which didn't appear on the list of possibilities: The Planiverse, by another Canadian, A K Dewdney. Inspired by Flatland, another favourite of mine - and which I recently repurchased in an edition annotated by Ian Stewart - it tells (as though it were true) the story of a computer science project to model a two-dimensional universe which somehow manages to make contact with a real two-dimensional universe, the Planiverse of the title.
I picked this up in a wonderful second hand bookshop in Daylesford, where my beloved and I spent our first anniversary. (Daylesford and its environs, I mean, not just the bookshop.) Apart from the Flatland connection, I found it hard to pass up after noting that Douglas Adams was one of those who had a review quote on the back; typically for Douglas, he didn't say much about the book beyond saying that he believed the whole thing.
The Planiverse is an amazingly detailed look at what a two-dimensional universe might be like, with boxed text and a full appendix on everything from housing to physics, chemistry and two-dimensional technology. Despite being written in 1980, the dated computer technology doesn't at all detract from the novel, and it's made compelling by the relationship Dewdney and his students share with Yendred, the one Planiverse inhabitant with whom they are able to communicate, and who goes on a pilgrimage across his world, followed by the inhabitants of the computer lab. I grew surprisingly attached to Yendred, more so somehow than other fictional characters; perhaps I was empathising with the students, who form a secret club, hiding their amazing discovery from their university and contacted Yendred late at night. Even their plot deepens, but many things are deliberately left unresolved - not for a sequel, but as a sort of allegory to the spiritual journey Yendred undertakes. Frankly, I was devastated when the book ended, a feeling I've not had for some time; I will just have to be satisfied with Dewdney's other books, some of which sound right up my alley!
Booktopia!
After racing through all three of Asimov's Elijah Baley/Daneel Olivaw novels in as many weeks, I feel right back in the reading game. I've regained momentum by reading something that slides into the brain the way ice-cream goes down the gullet (to borrow a comparison made by my friend Dave). Thus, I found it more important than ever to get my hands on a Pierre Berton book, so I could advance the Bunch of Authors project.
As I described in my last post, local bookshops left me without hope; three of Melbourne's regional libraries did have his work, but only one book apiece - one about Niagra Falls. Now, I could have caved and made the trek, but in the end I decided to punt for one of the books I really wanted to read.
Enter Booktopia. I first heard about them via a list of Amazon alternatives, following the so-called "Amazonfail" episode. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a pretty good explanation of "Amazonfail".) I was abstractly irritated by that event, but to be honest it was more the horrendous postage that prevented me from buying books on Amazon. Booktopia is unique, as far as I know; while it does have a warehouse, it's not really a traditional online bookshop. Instead it lists books from publisher catalogues, putting in a special order with the publisher when you order your book.
I like this approach, because the model allows them to sell virtually any book with low overheads. It also highlights a truth that many bookstores seem to like keeping quiet: they can order pretty much any book from any publisher at any time, assuming it's still in print. I knew this when I worked at a bookshop in the early 90s, back when we didn't have computerised ordering (we had a yearly phone-book sized publication which listed available books by author, publisher and title).
So, for the recommended retail price plus a modest postage amount - and it's a flat fee no matter how many books you order - I am now awaiting the arrival of Berton's The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813. I've also been to the bookshop and bought the next book after that, so there'll be no delay. After all, I've only about seven months left to get through these books - and some of them aren't short, and many may not be Asimov-style ice-cream. Plus, I'll need to make sure I have the last one or two ready to go with me to New York - where I'm excited to say I'll be heading for three weeks in November/December!
One quick note about Booktopia: the URL, as linked above, is http://www.booktopia.com.au - and it's important not to leave out the .au, as the .com site has been reported for malware distribution (or so Firefox and Google tell me).
Hopefully I'll be able to let you know what I think of Berton in a week or three. In the meantime, I plan to keep up my momentum by reading some other books, possibly including Tim Richards' Mind the Gap (a print-on-demand published sci-fi/fantasy work which I bought at the launch a week or two ago) and Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas, a belated birthday gift from Scott, one of my best friends.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that I have finally got around to reading one of the books I purchased from McSweeny's alongside Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country. It's titled Animals of the Ocean, In Particular the Giant Squid, and a more hilarious collection of anti-factual nonsense I have never seen. I've been reading it to my beloved in bed and she laughed so hard I thought she would die. It's the third volume in the "Haggis-on-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance", or "HoW?" series of books; kind of a literary equivalent of Peter Serafinowicz's Look Around You. Even though I particularly like cephalopods, I think I'll enjoy the rest of the series just as much.
As I described in my last post, local bookshops left me without hope; three of Melbourne's regional libraries did have his work, but only one book apiece - one about Niagra Falls. Now, I could have caved and made the trek, but in the end I decided to punt for one of the books I really wanted to read.
Enter Booktopia. I first heard about them via a list of Amazon alternatives, following the so-called "Amazonfail" episode. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, here's a pretty good explanation of "Amazonfail".) I was abstractly irritated by that event, but to be honest it was more the horrendous postage that prevented me from buying books on Amazon. Booktopia is unique, as far as I know; while it does have a warehouse, it's not really a traditional online bookshop. Instead it lists books from publisher catalogues, putting in a special order with the publisher when you order your book.
I like this approach, because the model allows them to sell virtually any book with low overheads. It also highlights a truth that many bookstores seem to like keeping quiet: they can order pretty much any book from any publisher at any time, assuming it's still in print. I knew this when I worked at a bookshop in the early 90s, back when we didn't have computerised ordering (we had a yearly phone-book sized publication which listed available books by author, publisher and title).
So, for the recommended retail price plus a modest postage amount - and it's a flat fee no matter how many books you order - I am now awaiting the arrival of Berton's The Invasion of Canada: 1812-1813. I've also been to the bookshop and bought the next book after that, so there'll be no delay. After all, I've only about seven months left to get through these books - and some of them aren't short, and many may not be Asimov-style ice-cream. Plus, I'll need to make sure I have the last one or two ready to go with me to New York - where I'm excited to say I'll be heading for three weeks in November/December!
One quick note about Booktopia: the URL, as linked above, is http://www.booktopia.com.au - and it's important not to leave out the .au, as the .com site has been reported for malware distribution (or so Firefox and Google tell me).
Hopefully I'll be able to let you know what I think of Berton in a week or three. In the meantime, I plan to keep up my momentum by reading some other books, possibly including Tim Richards' Mind the Gap (a print-on-demand published sci-fi/fantasy work which I bought at the launch a week or two ago) and Iain M. Banks' Consider Phlebas, a belated birthday gift from Scott, one of my best friends.
It would be remiss of me not to mention that I have finally got around to reading one of the books I purchased from McSweeny's alongside Thanks and Have Fun Running the Country. It's titled Animals of the Ocean, In Particular the Giant Squid, and a more hilarious collection of anti-factual nonsense I have never seen. I've been reading it to my beloved in bed and she laughed so hard I thought she would die. It's the third volume in the "Haggis-on-Whey World of Unbelievable Brilliance", or "HoW?" series of books; kind of a literary equivalent of Peter Serafinowicz's Look Around You. Even though I particularly like cephalopods, I think I'll enjoy the rest of the series just as much.
Star Trek III: The Search for Berton
Next up on the Bunch of Authors list is one Pierre Berton, a new name to me - and more's the pity. It turns out the late Berton was a journalist, columnist, historian and novelist - pretty much a Canadian national treasure. I'm keen to read several of his works, including Welcome to the 21st Century and The Invasion of Canada, his book about the War of 1812 - about which I know nothing except what is covered in the (hilarious) Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie song, "The War of 1812". (Check that out at the Dead Trolls site - look under audio.)
The trouble is no book shop I've been in has any of Berton's works. Readings didn't even have him in their database! The few that did have him in their systems didn't have any copies on hand, and didn't list either the books on the top of my Berton list. I'll look up the bibliographic details and put in an order, but considering how far behind I currently am, let's hope I can turn up something in a library or second hand bookshop soon...
Going backwards in the list, thanks to the geeky opinion blog Hoyden About Town, I've had some of my hopes for Feminism is for Everybody answered in the form of Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog. For readers more familiar with my science stuff, it's probably best thought of as the feminist equivalent of talk.origins - a comprehensive FAQ and list of resources to help avoid having to repeat yourself in online arguments again and again and again. It's also a great resource for someone like me looking to expand my vocabulary and thought. Check it out!
Something that's not on the list: Isaac Asimov. I'm aware the "books read" list at right makes it look like I've read virtually nothing at all, but then it only lists those books that contribute to the Bunch of Authors project. I've read plenty of other things this year, the latest of which was the first Elijah Baley novel, The Caves of Steel. It's a whodunit set in the future with robots and politics and it's great, though newly imbued with a feminist perspective I couldn't help but notice that it fails the "Bechdel test". I only recently discovered this test, popularised by web comic Dykes to Watch Out For, but basically a film or whatever passes the test if there are two female characters (preferably named) who have a conversation with each other about something other than a man. The Caves of Steel only has one named female character (though to be fair, I should mention there are probably only about six or seven significant characters in total), and she's the wife of the protagonist, plaincothesman (policeman) Baley. She turns out to be quite pivotal in the plot, but isn't exactly a great leap forward in characterisation of women and male-female relations... But putting that aside, it is a cracking read - dated in many respects, perhaps, but still visionary and thrilling. I've already lined up the two sequels, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn (the latter of which I read in my youth), for alternate books while I continue with the project.
Finally, while it's not a book, I did see the Star Trek film. My beloved loved it, as did I - hence the title of this post, as I felt compelled to show her previous entries in the franchise (don't worry, I left out Star Trek: the Motionless Picture). There's been plenty of criticism of the film from a feminist perspective (see, as probably the best example, this piece in The Guardian), and the group I first saw it with had some too. I can see the point, though it's fair to say the film has been imagined by JJ Abrams as a story about two iconic characters in which everyone - even the antagonist - takes a seat way in the back. (I'm left hoping to see more of Urban's Bones McCoy in the inevitable sequel, though we shouldn't hold our breath expecting new characters to be introduced.)
Something it made me recognise, though, is that stories of the future no longer present a people or society much different from our own. They're like what my best history lecturer used to call the "Disney versions" of stories about history - stories about people just like us, though with funny hats (or in this case, attractive jumpsuits). The world of Star Trek's 23rd century reflected a slightly idealised America of the 60s in its original television incarnation, and in the new film, despite the faster than light travel, alien contact, even alien sex, it's recognisably...well, not even 21st century America, just the 60s again, but with a 21st century idea of future technology. There's no evidence of the major social changes that surely - or at least hopefully - we are moving toward.
While I enjoyed Star Trek, I've no illusions that it represents the great things I love about science (or speculative) fiction - a bold imagining of the what could be. (If you want a vision like that from the past, try Asimov or the extraordinary Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne.) I'm hoping for something more exciting and visionary from Doris Lessing, who's later on in the list, but if you have any suggestions for good, visionary fiction depicting real social change, I'd love to hear them.
The trouble is no book shop I've been in has any of Berton's works. Readings didn't even have him in their database! The few that did have him in their systems didn't have any copies on hand, and didn't list either the books on the top of my Berton list. I'll look up the bibliographic details and put in an order, but considering how far behind I currently am, let's hope I can turn up something in a library or second hand bookshop soon...
Going backwards in the list, thanks to the geeky opinion blog Hoyden About Town, I've had some of my hopes for Feminism is for Everybody answered in the form of Finally, A Feminism 101 Blog. For readers more familiar with my science stuff, it's probably best thought of as the feminist equivalent of talk.origins - a comprehensive FAQ and list of resources to help avoid having to repeat yourself in online arguments again and again and again. It's also a great resource for someone like me looking to expand my vocabulary and thought. Check it out!
Something that's not on the list: Isaac Asimov. I'm aware the "books read" list at right makes it look like I've read virtually nothing at all, but then it only lists those books that contribute to the Bunch of Authors project. I've read plenty of other things this year, the latest of which was the first Elijah Baley novel, The Caves of Steel. It's a whodunit set in the future with robots and politics and it's great, though newly imbued with a feminist perspective I couldn't help but notice that it fails the "Bechdel test". I only recently discovered this test, popularised by web comic Dykes to Watch Out For, but basically a film or whatever passes the test if there are two female characters (preferably named) who have a conversation with each other about something other than a man. The Caves of Steel only has one named female character (though to be fair, I should mention there are probably only about six or seven significant characters in total), and she's the wife of the protagonist, plaincothesman (policeman) Baley. She turns out to be quite pivotal in the plot, but isn't exactly a great leap forward in characterisation of women and male-female relations... But putting that aside, it is a cracking read - dated in many respects, perhaps, but still visionary and thrilling. I've already lined up the two sequels, The Naked Sun and The Robots of Dawn (the latter of which I read in my youth), for alternate books while I continue with the project.
Finally, while it's not a book, I did see the Star Trek film. My beloved loved it, as did I - hence the title of this post, as I felt compelled to show her previous entries in the franchise (don't worry, I left out Star Trek: the Motionless Picture). There's been plenty of criticism of the film from a feminist perspective (see, as probably the best example, this piece in The Guardian), and the group I first saw it with had some too. I can see the point, though it's fair to say the film has been imagined by JJ Abrams as a story about two iconic characters in which everyone - even the antagonist - takes a seat way in the back. (I'm left hoping to see more of Urban's Bones McCoy in the inevitable sequel, though we shouldn't hold our breath expecting new characters to be introduced.)
Something it made me recognise, though, is that stories of the future no longer present a people or society much different from our own. They're like what my best history lecturer used to call the "Disney versions" of stories about history - stories about people just like us, though with funny hats (or in this case, attractive jumpsuits). The world of Star Trek's 23rd century reflected a slightly idealised America of the 60s in its original television incarnation, and in the new film, despite the faster than light travel, alien contact, even alien sex, it's recognisably...well, not even 21st century America, just the 60s again, but with a 21st century idea of future technology. There's no evidence of the major social changes that surely - or at least hopefully - we are moving toward.
While I enjoyed Star Trek, I've no illusions that it represents the great things I love about science (or speculative) fiction - a bold imagining of the what could be. (If you want a vision like that from the past, try Asimov or the extraordinary Paris in the Twentieth Century by Jules Verne.) I'm hoping for something more exciting and visionary from Doris Lessing, who's later on in the list, but if you have any suggestions for good, visionary fiction depicting real social change, I'd love to hear them.
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