Delinquent Links #1
What I've been reading - Computer viruses, inventors of destruction, and a sand planet
My Dad reading me Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy by Lynley Dodd, a New Zealand classic
Starting this month, April 2024, I will post a short piece referring subscribers to works of writing I have found particularly compelling, the last week of the month, every month.
I am always reading, and have always been reading; I thought why not?
There will be usually about three links, including everything from a completed online essay or work of fiction you can read right away, to books no longer in print that you’ll have to scavenge second hand book stores for.
Occasionally I might share another medium, music or film.
I will also use this as a chance to share updates, if necessary; and look into the future of this Delinquent blog.
Here’s Delinquent Links #1:
FAUST.Zip, by Cole Noble; THE RED PRUSSIAN (Karl Marx) by Leopold Schwarzschild; and DUNE by Frank Herbert.
FAUST.Zip by Cole Noble
If you’re into science fiction - and you only have a couple of minutes - then read this. It’s short, conceptually fascinating, and finishes with a nice twist.
In particular, I like his minimal telling. There isn’t irrelevant background, long expositions, and minute describing of a scene; he leaves a large part of his world up the imagination of the reader.
On his blog, Cole Noble has heaps of interesting science fiction and horror short stories, all gripping and intriguing.
I recommend.
THE RED PRUSSIAN (Karl Marx) by Leopold Schwarzschild
Well, well, well, look at what we have here. Arguments about this lad (he’s not a lad at all, to be honest), Karl Marx, have probably filled more cafes, bars, and smokers areas of nightclubs, than any other person.
You got to respect that.
What you shouldn’t respect, is the man’s character. A degenerate, a drunk, a liar, a thief, an absent father, an insufferable insecure narcissist who’s desire for power over others led him to produce one of the most damaging ideologies ever invented.
That is the man, Karl Marx.
It is true, a man’s character does not mean he’s wrong. In fact, it’s more than admitted the Red Prussian was a genius. He had interesting ideas and diagnosed one of the leading problems facing 19th Century Europe - the rapid accumulation of wealth in the pockets of elites in part due to the exploitation of the working class.
Yet his reliance on this one factor; that it was the cause of all misery of ancient memory to the reason for revolution in his time, restricted the quality of his conclusions, the veracity of his claims.
He was no social scientist.
As Schwarzschild, a polemical author with a talent for narrative and verve, repeats several times:
“Pars pro toto - a part taken for the whole.”
He tried to explain too much with far too little.
It should have been the subtitle.
The biography, published in 1947, contains at the time never before seen private letters, many of them to Marx’s trusted accomplice, Fredrich Engels.
Here, in hundreds of quotes, is evidence of the treachery of the man.
Although it is clear the author despised Marx (which the reader should repeatedly remind himself), it was one first exposés of whom many reasonable people had previously thought, that while his conclusions may lead to … troubling outcomes - his motivations were pure, were good; he wanted to liberate the working class.
Right?
No.
He hated the working class. He wanted to use them as a way to get power.
He had more respect, ironically, for the elites, the bourgeoise - though he hated most of them too. He hated the socialists, especially those for Democracy. In fact - what am I saying? - he hated everyone except for two people: His Beloved wife, Jenny, and his Beloved Engels.
The rare - very rare - letter would show he still was human; he still cared about these significant others.
And it is this last point, which really makes the book brilliant - despite its polemical flaws - in my mind.
In every villain there’s a potential hero.
…
You can find second hand copies of the biography online - I got mine from Amazon - as it is no longer in print.
I recommend.
DUNE by Frank Herbert
Yes, I’ve got on the bandwagon.
(There will be spoilers.)
After years of resistance (I was still a teenager when I watched a documentary about the influence of Dune on modern science fiction, having never read the darn thing), and loving Dune: Part II in the cinema (with some reservations), I folded and got myself a copy.
I’m cheating with this review, because I haven’t finished it - in fact, I’m only halfway. But given the first installment is broken down into … three books, Dune, Muad’Dib, and The Prophet, I feel I can speak about Dune, the first ‘book’.
It is rare I read a novel after watching the film. Cases I remember doing so, are Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk; American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis; and Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane, which, strangely, I now realise, are all about insane people.
…
Back to Dune.
I haven’t been spending time worrying about knowing the plot; I am more intrigued with how Frank Herbert differs in his telling of the story and interpretation of characters, from the reimagined, and visually and aurally stunning, Dune and Dune: Part II, directed by Denis Villeneuve and scored by Hans Zimmer.
What I love is both the driving plot, keeping me swiftly turning pages (even though I know what is going to happen!), and how he largely tells the story through dialogue.
There are no long information dumps and unnecessary exposition - stuff that makes me stop reading.
It reads like a political thriller. Intriguing left and right, with heroic and villainous deeds releasing the rises in tension in satisfying ways.
I largely prefer how thrillers are written to other genres (and made in film), because … well, because they don’t fuck around.
They get to the point, and keep you at that point.
Herbert also, before every chapter, has excerpts of essays from a Princess Irulan (who as I already knew after watching the films, was to receive the hand of the future Emperor and main protagonist Paul Atreides), written at some undisclosed time in the future, and shed light upon the characters and the plot without giving too much away.
On the characters (and I will stop short of discussing Paul Atreides development in the second half); they are multi-dimensional, are as good and often exceed their representations in the recent films.
The primary case is Leto Atreides, Lord of House Atreides. Although in both film and novel his treacherous death is a set-up for what follows, the book dives deeper into his character.
He is noble and heroic. Despite the weight of everything on his shoulders, he reserves time for his son, his wife (well, kind of - he thinks she may have betrayed him), and there is an awesome scene when he almost sacrifices himself for men who only recently have come under his Lordship.
Yet, Herbert cruelly takes from him a deserved martyr’s death. He is assassinated, in the night, by a cowardly traitor - Dr Yeuw - who despite his rationalisations, and his helping both the Atreides Heir and his Bene Gesserit mother, escape; did the wrong thing for the right reasons - to save his own wife.
Interestingly, after Leto’s death, I realised I had never been that invested in the son, the main protagonist of the three ‘books’ and entire novel. His father was cooler I reckoned; and didn’t have this ‘all-seeing power’ of his son, which at least in the first half, allows Paul Atriedes to essentially mindread.
I actually got quite bored of both the mother (who has a similar ability) and the son doing this, over and over. To me, it took some of magic out of human interaction; one only being able to approximate what another is thinking - not know.
(I’ll let you know next month if I get even more bored as the son’s ability increases - or if his future anti-hero status means it doesn’t really matter.)
The main negative is the prose.
It’s rubbish.
He says too much, repeats himself, sentences are clunky. It’s no Tolkien. It’s not even close. However, once I got over that; I have thoroughly enjoyed reading it.
…
I realised upon writing this, that I have heaps more to say on the novel, and I’m only halfway through!
Sign of a good book.
I recommend.
Chur,
The Delinquent Academic