Peace in a Troubled Land?: A Review of Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland by Patrick Radden Keefe

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Sectarian wars are notoriously violent and notoriously difficult to narrate due to the climate of fear that can pervade a society long after the conflict has officially ended. The Troubles, the period of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland from the lates 1960s to the late 1990s, is no exception, especially since the conflict has never been fully resolved and many of its participants are still alive. Thus, any history of this conflict is bound to be difficult to document in its entirety. This book, however, relying on interviews with both participants and victims alike, gives readers a pretty darn comprehensive history that also acts as a meditation on how fragile post-conflict societies can be without an accompanying truth and reconciliation process.

Starting in the late 1960s with civil rights protests by Northern Irish Catholics, Mr. Keefe shows how peaceful demonstrators were violently opposed by Northern Irish Protestants, which led to radicalization and sectarian violence for decades.  At the very heart of this history though is a mystery: the disappearance of Jean McConville, a widowed mother of 10, who was abducted by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) in December 1972.  Jean McConville’s disappearance was just one of many such incidents in this conflict that left over three thousand people dead.  It is also the story of key figures in the IRA: Gerry Adams, the IRA brigade commander turned politician; Dolours Price, one of the famous Price sisters who took part in the peaceful protests, but soon became radicalized and violent; and Brendan Hughes, one of the best known IRA street fighters of this period. Each one of these characters gets an incredible amount of attention and are presented as very nuanced characters in their own right.  

This book is divided into three parts and while Jean McConville’s disappearance takes center stage in the first and third parts, it almost completely disappears from the second part.  This is not actually a bad thing as to understand her disappearance you have to understand the history of the Troubles as well.  The mystery also serves an important function in part three as it allows the author and the reader to meditate upon the long-term consequences of a conflict that has never been fully resolved, nor has there ever been a true reconciliation process as has been seen in such societies such as post-Apartheid South Africa.  The past very much lives on in the present, so much so that former participants are still being charged and people who talk even today are at risk of being murdered.  Thus, justice has never been fully delivered in an even-handed manner.  This offers lessons for societies in the future coming out of periods of intensely violent sectarian conflict.

This was an incredible read.  The characters, history, and mystery are all written about with a level of nuance and empathy that is often lacking in many nonfiction books.  Mr. Keefe does not shy from narrating the complexities of the Troubles and is miraculously able to wrestle a comprehensive narrative into this book that is both coherent and detailed.  There are even moments of pulse-pounding action and suspense, particularly in part two.  This is not a dry history book, but one that puts you into the heart of the Troubles.  It is also not afraid to ask a fundamental question any post-conflict society must answer: what hope is there for long-lasting peace if there is little or no accompanying justice?  Both the history and this question will stick with me for a long time.

Overall, this is an outstanding book and may be one of the best nonfiction books published in awhile.  Whether you are interested in post-conflict societies in general or in the Troubles in particular, this is one book you should not fail to pick up.

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Into the Unkown: A Review of Star Wars: The High Republic: Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

Into the Dark by Claudia Gray

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

With the end of the Skywalker saga of movies and shows like The Mandalorian, Star Wars has begun to move away from the titular Skywalker family drama and delve into the unexplored eras of that galaxy far, far away. With Light of the Jedi, Star Wars began to tell the tales of the High Republic, an era in Star Wars history between the Old Republic and the Prequel era. Not even the pre-Disney Expanded Universe had touched upon this roughly 1,000 year period of Star Wars history where the Sith are believed to be extinct and the Republic and the Jedi are at the peak of their influence and power. In this first YA novel of the series, Ms. Gray has written a great action story that connects well to the events of that first novel, but is far enough removed from that book’s events to tell its own exciting tale.

Reath Silas is apprenticed to Jedi Master Jora Malli, a member of the Jedi Council who has just taken an assignment on the Republic’s new Starlight Beacon, an assignment Reath is not particularly fond of.  While Master Malli goes on ahead, Reath takes passage with two other Jedi Knights and a Jedi Wayseeker aboard a small vessel with an unusual crew.  But when a disaster in hyperspace strands them on an uncharted space station, this motley crew must work together to uncover a hidden evil and keep it out of the hands of others.

While I have read many Star Wars novels, this is actually my first YA Star Wars novel.  But don’t let that designation deceive you.  This book is just as exciting as any Star Wars novel written for adults.  Indeed, despite there being only one lightsaber fight in the entire book, there is a great deal of excitement throughout.  But there is also a mystery too as the abandoned space station harbors an evil that is making both Jedi and non-Jedi characters very nervous.  The reveal at the end is incredibly satisfying too and sets off a climatic battle to contain this evil and keep it out of the hands those who would seek to abuse its power.

But this isn’t an isolated tale.  As part of the High Republic series, this book is connected to a larger story in two ways.  First, the hyperspace disaster that grounds our main characters on this space station is the same disaster from Light of the Jedi.  Also, the main villains from that novel, the Nihil, make an appearance in this novel.  What is great about this novel though is that while connected to and informed by this larger story, Ms. Gray is telling her own tale.  You do not have to have read Light of the Jedi to enjoy this novel and vice versa, though I would recommend that you don read both.

Another great aspect of this book is the characters.  All of the characters are engaging on every page.  Reath is a book nerd on his first big adventure; Affie Hollow is a teenage pilot with a tragic past and a colorful co-pilot; Jedi Knight Dez Rydan is a former apprentice of Master Jora Malli’s who craves adventure and acts as an older brother to Reath; Jedi Knight Cohmac Vitus harbors an old, private grief that he has never fully reconciled; and Orla Jareni is a Jedi Wayseeker, a newly introduced category of Jedi who are still a part of the Order, but have made a formal decision not to be bound by the Jedi Council’s orders so that they can explore the deeper meanings of the Force in new ways.  But the most interesting character is Geode, the third crew member aboard Affie’s ship.  As his name suggests, he’s just a very large rock.  That’s it.  No cute catchphrase like “I am Groot” or hidden transformation from rock to rock creature.  He’s just a rock.  At first, this is played for laughs as nearly all the Jedi just assume that he is just a rock, because that’s exactly what he is.  And yet, Geode plays a critical role at key points in the narrative.  He may not speak much, or at all, but I look forward to reading many more adventures with Geode.

One thing I did not like about this book was a side story with Orla and Cohmac that is told in flashbacks.  It involves a mission 25 years before the events of this book that went bad.  While it is an interesting story in its own right and does much to explain how Orla and Cohmac became the Jedi that they are now, the flashbacks are dropped in the middle of certain chapters, which kind of took me out of the present action.  I think it would’ve been better if they had been their own separate chapters rather than airdropped into the narrative.  But, as I said before, it is important for Cohmac and Orla’s character development and it happens infrequently enough to not become a nuisance.

Overall, this is another great story set in the High Republic that both connects to and enlarges the boundaries of this era.  Both adult and young adult readers should find this book highly enjoyable and I recommend it to all Star Wars fans.

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"King Vampire": A Review of Dracula

Dracula by Bram Stoker

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Though vampires, the legendary blood-sucking monsters, have been around in our stories and mythology for a long time. However, Dracula by Bram Stoker is where vampires truly entered the human imagination and have never really left, though zombie stories have recently been gaining greater popularity. Though I read and adored The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova, which is heavily influenced by Dracula, I had never gotten around to reading it until now and I was not disappointed at all.

Dracula is still a great novel to read. The pace, the tension, the mystery, and the eye brow-raising sexual undertones are worthy of any current thriller or horror novel. I was also surprised at how violent this book was. I guess I should not have been surprised considering the main villain is a monster that sucks the blood of its victims, but given the time it was published, I guess I was expecting something a bit more clean in its presentations of violence. Instead, this book features a good amount of flowing blood that would seem pretty standard in an Anne Rice novel. And I was hooked by the mystery and the chase this book devolves into as the main characters race to bring an end to Count Dracula's evil reign before it is too late.

This is not a perfect book though. Some of the conventions of a typical Victorian novel are still here and have still not aged very well. In particular, Mr. Stoker's implementation of lengthy, flowery dialogue and the excessive emotionalism began to grate on me after a while. So many of the male characters would cry at any one point that it started to become a little maudlin. Mr. Stoker also has a tendency to use dialogue rather than action to move the story along. When they are chasing Dracula in the third act, the dialogue read more like a committee than anything real. But, while all of this was annoying, it did not fully detract from my enjoyment of the novel.

Whether you are interested in vampires or not, this is a thrilling novel that still holds up over a 120+ years later. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in thrillers and/or horror novels.

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"He Who Increases Knowledge Increases Sorrow": The Lesson of The Name of the Rose

I recently took one of those Buzzfeed quizzes to determine which one of America's Founding Fathers I am most like (for the curious, it was John Adams).  One of the 29 questions I was asked was what kind of a seeker I was.  There were answers for seekers of truth, seekers of the soul, etc.  But the answer I gravitated towards was a seeker of knowledge.  That should be very obvious to anyone who has been following this blog with any kind of regularity.

The pursuit of knowledge can be very rewarding.  Scientists and scholars are lauded for their ability to uncover the secrets of our world, our cosmos, and our very selves.  Our education system is premised on the idea that ignorance can be a kind of burden and that knowledge can set us free.  Wall Street traders try to get some "inside information" in order to make investments, even if that knowledge is considered by many to be unfair or illegal (see my previous blog post on the book Black Edge for more about that).  But there is also another thread to the this triumphalist view of knowledge.  In the Bible, King Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes wrote, "For in much wisdom is much vexation,/ and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow." (1:18, ESV)  Too much of a good thing, in this case knowledge, can be a problem in its own way.

This is where the book The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco shines brightest.  The main character, the monk William of Baskerville (by the way, Mr. Eco, a little on the nose with your allusion to Sherlock Holmes, don't you think?), is an incredibly knowledgeable fellow.  He is well read and enjoys conversing with the monks of the Italian monastery he is visiting about different esoteric aspects of philosophy and theology.  The murders that take place in this monastery and their connection to the mysterious and closed library seem to really tickle William's fancy.  Much of the action revolves first getting into the forbidden sections of the library and then finding a mysteriously forbidden book.  William and his assistant, Brother Adso, pursue these goals, knowing that it will lead to the identity of the murderer, with a passion.  In fact, at times they seem more interested in unlocking the secrets of the library and the book than they are in identifying the murderer.  

(WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!!!) 

But the pursuit of these secrets lead to tragedy. William and Adso do find the murderer and learn the secrets of the library and the forbidden book, but their pursuit leads to the fiery destruction of the monastery, the library and all of its priceless works.  William is obviously crushed by the destruction his quest has caused and we learn that he ultimately dies of plague in a rather brokenhearted state and that the monastery and its library are completely abandoned.

In this, I see a warning for all seekers of knowledge.  A single-minded pursuit of knowledge can be dangerous when the costs and possible consequences of that quest are not properly accounted for.  J. Robert Oppenheimer later in life regretted the research he did that led to the invention of the first atomic bombs.  Alfred Nobel was so ashamed of his invention of dynamite and the destruction it had caused in subsequent wars that he created the Nobel Prizes to promote peace, literature, and science.  The lesson we should take away from The Name of the Rose and some of our greatest scientists is this: all seekers of knowledge should count the cost of of their quests for "he who increases knowledge increases sorrow."

Thank you for reading this blog.  Tomorrow, I will be writing about Seven Brief Lessons on Physics by Carlo Rovelli.  Be sure to follow my posts and share them with your friends.  Until tomorrow, happy reading!