Graeber’s Bullshit Jobs: A Theory is a curious book. It is not as much an academic dissertation, or in any way a scientific book, as it is an elaborate opinion piece. It is emotional, forceful and only shallowly researched, and goes as far in its crusade as to bend some of the facts to the overarching idea – not to mention the fact that said crusade is being led from a comfy professorial chair in one of the expensive American universities. And yet, I read it with growing relief and weirdly depressing comfort stemming from the assurance that I’m not the only one feeling oppressed by the growing idiocy and uselessness of many modern jobs.
Welp. I have a lot of sentiment for Tchaikovsky, mostly for his truly outstanding (if a bit too goody even for our resident Polyanna) fantasy series, Shadows of the Apt. I respect his writing skill and his imagination, I admit our views on many things are generally aligned, and I suspect he’s a really nice guy to boot. But for all that, I find it increasingly difficult to find a book of his that really awes me, makes me think, or at least fully entertains. I had some hopes for his new SF series, of which Eyes of the Void is the second installment. The first book,Shards of Earth, was quite interesting – maybe not very original, but pretty enjoyable. Alas, I’m sad to say that with Eyes of the Void it’s just more of the same, only without any length limitations, to the further detriment of the whole endeavor.
Last year I decided not to read Russian authors. I had good reasons, and not just anti-Russian ones, the biggest was to concentrate on Ukrainian perspective, not only on the present conflict, but on history and culture as well. It went beyond that. I also read up on Ukrainian perspective on Polish history, although admittedly I was moving in that direction for years. I’m just not a Polish nationalist I was in my early teens. Then I deepened my perspective in another direction as well, and thanks to Twitter! Mixed within discussions there, discussions on Russian colonialism and Russian attempts to subjugate Ukraine not only on political level, but to negate the existence of Ukrainians as a nation with distinct culture, are voices of other victims or Russian imperialism. The ones that caught my attention the most are from Caucasus, and increasingly from Central Asia, from all the “-stans” I’m ashamed to admit I know very little about. Big slaughters of indigenous peoples that somehow are rarely mentioned by vocal anti-imperialists around the world, cultural genocides, brutal policy of destroying all things local and enforcing those coming from the Moscovite centre. There was a genocide of Qazaqs that killed even bigger part of that nation that Holodomor killed of Ukrainians, and it happened a few years earlier. And many genocides before, in Tsarist times. The current war gives strength to many people all around to remember that, and to move away from russkiy mir. One of the great symbols might be Yurts of Invincibility funded by Qazaqs in Ukraine, and the fact that Qazaqstan moves away from the Cyrillic alphabet and is going to start to use the Latin one. It took decades after the fall of the Soviet Empire, and favourable geopolitical situation, to move beyond simply drawing the borders, now the post-Soviet world wants to de-russify. That’s hugely important and must be supported.
Not an easy thing to do when most of the Western people that know anything about these parts of the world learn about them through Russian perspective. Russian books, visits to Moscow and Saint-Petersburg… and even if they see the brutality and injustice, they are often unable to see that it’s not something internal to an essentially Russian world (with some regional differences), but a colonial, imperial endeavour of the biggest old-style empire left. One great, self-aware text about that from an American specializing in Russian lit I found recently in The New Yorker, by Elif Batuman.
In short, if you’re capable of understanding that Ireland, and even Scotland – aren’t England, please understand that Russia is not as big as its borders might suggest, and definitely have no justification for further expansion.
But that’s too long and I haven’t even started my introduction to the book of the day. I give you:
Author: Vasily Grossman Title: Life and Fate Pages: 912
This is was not going to be another post about the war, I just wanted to start a regular review with a few thoughts on that topic. It turned out long enough for a separate piece 😉
First and foremost, remember that the war goes on. Civilians still need help, many volunteer units still lack protective equipment and things like infra-vision. Please help, however you can. It’s best to support local Ukrainian organizations, as they know best what’s needed. One NGO with long history and thus credibility, and wide range of activities is Prytula Foundation. If you want to buy something to show your support (t-shirts, mugs, flags etc.), Saint Javelin has a great selection and can be trusted to use their profits wisely. I own their HIMARS t-shirt and it’s very cool 🙂
Title: Nixonland:The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Format: hardcover
Pages: 881
Series: –
Something a bit different today. I know, I know, except for Pokemon there hasn’t been much fantasy/SF on our blog lately 😉 I promise that’ll change… at some point, certainly. There will be new Marlon James book review coming soon, at least ;). But for now, a totally non-fiction, modern history book.
We live in interesting times, that’s for sure. Wars, pandemics, economic crises, global warming… The list goes on and on. But because we are so deeply enmeshed in our everyday life, we tend to forget that this uniqueness, this craziness, is in fact nothing new. That not long ago, the world was an even crazier place, at least in some localities ;). That, compared to those not so olden times, our present time is actually quite tame. If you thought Trump was something else, a new phenomenon, think again. Or even better, read Nixonland.
Re-enchantment Of The World 