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A Wannabe Writer's Writer
Review: Ask the Dust (P.S.)
 
I've had writing aspirations for years. Ever since I gave up my dream of being a lawyer (I was a pretty unimaginative kid) aged 15 or so. For the rest of my teenage years I spent my time being as anti-social as possible, smoking malboro reds in secret locations with the money my mum gave me for school lunches, day dreaming of being a focus of adulation for cardigan wearing academics the world over, and never, ever, not even once, putting pen to paper.
Every once in a while a book comes along that rekindles that desire. Ask the Dust is the latest book to do that to me.
Arturo Bandini is the classic Barton Fink type struggling writer. Living in a dingy hotel. Scraping together his last few coins to buy oranges. Pouring his heart into letters sent to the editor of some literary magazine a continent away in New York. Existing on the edges of a Los Angeles that comes to life on the page even though Fante hardly describes it at all. Yearning after the Mayan princess in the local diner. Wandering the streets. Desperate for success. Caught between the total freedom of a life of creation, and the total confusion of not knowing what the point of it all is.
One thing in the description on this site that confused me. I didn't understand him as having given up the writer's life at the end of the book. Read it and tell if you think that is what is meant by the ending.
Whatever, this is a very good book. One for the wannabe drifter in all of us.
2006-06-06 06:55 | comment
2 out of 2 found this helpful: Making Economics Interesting
Review: The SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL
Already pretty dated, first published in 1997, the Sovereign Individuals somehow suceeds in still being more relevant and insightful than a whole host of more recent books talking looking at globalization and how it is shaking up the way the world works.
The basic premise of the book is that the convergence of a number of factors: the fall of the Berlin Wall and end Communism (as a balancing power block in opposition to free market capitalism, at least...), increased ease of international travel and communication and most critically, the emergence of the internet, have completely redefined the relationship between individuals and governments. The outcome predicted is the death of the nation state as we know it. Having read the book it all makes sense, and I will not be surprise to see some of the more extreme predicitions they make come true in my lifetime.
Think of it in these terms. In developed nations the extremely rich carry an enormously dispraportionate share of the nations tax burden. They not only pay more in straight figures, they pay a greater share of their income, in return for which they take less back from the state than those poorer than them (private healthcare, private education for their kids etc). In the past this bizarre system (punishing success?) made sense because there was no where else to go. If you wanted to have access to the world's big markets you needed to live in one of them, and half the world was stuck giving people no freedom whatsoever.
Now the internet and increased freedom of movement between nations mean that this is no longer the case. Those who get annoyed paying lots of tax can up and leave and move to somewhere like Switzerland, pay US$40,000 odd to buy themselves a tax treaty, and never pay a cent of tax again....
This is driving large welfare state nations, and others who abuse their citizens economic rights (like America - almost no other country taxes its no resident citizens...) bankcrupt, as all the dynamic high earners leave, and will eventually force them to start treating citizens as customers, not assets.
As a bit of a closet lefty, I'm not sure if I like all this, but as a trend I recognize that all the signs are there that this process is already well underway, and there's actually very little that governments can do.
Well worth a read.
2006-04-17 06:59 | comment
6 out of 6 found this helpful: Life Changing
Review: The Kingdom of God Is Within You
There is little than can be said about this book, at least by someone with my limited communication skills, beyond just read it. An amazing argument in favour of the rejection of all violence and a totally new look at Christianity from outside the confines of the organized Church systems.
I struggle to reconcile total non-violence with a "Hitler" scenario, but even this argument struggles to provide a strong case to counter Tolstoy's assertation that there is no justification for violence, or even for aggression.
As a confused believer in god, raised in the Evangelical Anglican idiom I had totally rejected Christianity for many years. This book has made me readdress my attitude and see Jesus and the New Testament in a new light.
While some of Tolstoy's cases seem a little dated in the 21st century, the backbone of this book is timeless. A must read.
2005-12-10 20:49 | 1 comment
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