Professor Tolkien or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Middle-earth

I love The Lord of the Rings.

If you have spent any time around me whatsoever, this is not news. But way back when I first started this blog, I promised that I would discuss Professor Tolkien's magnum opus, and have yet to make good on my word. I intend to rectify this right now.

And yet, what is there to say about The Lord of the Rings that hasn't already been said a hundred times, and by much more educated voices than my own? Should I write about how masterfully and subtly J.R.R. Tolkien included Anglo-Saxon and Norse myth and linguistics? Do I point out just how dazzlingly deep and consistent the mythology of Middle-earth is, from the creation of the world up to the final departure to the Grey Havens? Or do I simply go on and on about how every single member of the Fellowship is my favorite one?

At the very least, I'll start with what inspired me to write about Tolkien in the first place. In 2013, my sister insisted that I read A Song of Ice and Fire, because she'd gotten into it in a big way. I don't read much fantasy, but she insisted that it was great and, indeed, it was. I could sense a lot of Tolkien in George R.R. Martin's writing, but the last time I had read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings was in middle school. That had to change.

I set out to read the entire Middle-earth canon: The Silmarillion, The Children of Húrin, Unfinished Tales of Númenor and Middle-earth, The Hobbit, The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King. I had read most of the books before at one point or another, but now I had a college degree in writing and a few years' of life experience under my belt. Would it be any different from reading the books as a teenager?

Only about as different as night is from day.

When I was reading the books, I had about a thousand ideas of what I could write about them, but it would have ended up as an entire blog unto itself. A sampling of ideas I had:

- How the origin story in The Silmarillion mirrors the Biblical creation (and how Eru Ilúvatar is technically the same as the Judeo-Christian God)

- An analysis of the House of Fëanor, and what each son represents

- Why Glaurung, Father of Dragons is the best villain in the entire Tolkien canon

- The perfect Greek tragedy of The Children of Húrin, and how the story of Túrin Turambar feels like the direct predecessor of A Song of Ice and Fire

- Musings on the Istari and what the five wizards mean in the larger context of Middle-earth

- Why The Hobbit is the perfect adventure story, and the single most cohesive book that Tolkien wrote

- A breakdown of my very favorite scene in The Hobbit, which might be my very favorite scene in any book ("There is more in you of good than you know, child of the kindly West")

- The similarities described by Tolkien between Dwarves and Jews (no, really) and Tolkien's spirited and noble defense of the Jewish people leading up to and during World War II

- Why the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring is not nearly as boring as you've been led to believe

- On the same note, the virtue of slow pacing when an epic story begins

- Who is Tom Bombadil, and why is he so vital to the story? (And why, even though he would have slowed down the films, the movies missed a lot by not including him)

- How Gandalf facing down the Balrog at the bridge of Khazad-dûm is, perhaps, the single greatest action scene in the entire fantasy genre

- (And the incredible feeling I got, reading that scene on the subway, almost unable to breathe from feeling overwhelmed, then looking up and realizing that everyone else was just going about their commute as if nothing had just happened. It's a difficult feeling to describe)

- Why Gandalf had to die — and why maybe, as Martin pointed out, he should not have come back

- What the movies got wrong about Boromir, and how his Lament very nearly made me cry in public

- How the Battle of Helm's Deep is one of the defining chapters of The Two Towers, and why it was so boring in the Bakshi film and so stupid in the Jackson film

- The parallels between Frodo and Sam's quest behind enemy lines and Tolkien's own experience in World War I

- For that matter, why The Lord of the Rings is not really about medieval England at all — it's a story about the first World War and industrialization, even though Tolkien did not explicitly write it as such

- How Pippin and Merry became fully fleshed-out and vital parts of the party by Return of the King

- Gollum, the role of greed, and the wisdom of mercy

- Whether Aragorn's kingship by divine right is really something Tolkien thought we should emulate — or, to put it another way, why is there no democracy in Middle-earth?

- Masculinity and Middle-earth, commenting on the dearth of female characters in Tolkien's canon, why Morwen might be the best woman he ever wrote, and how Arwen gets the shaft (but Galadriel is beyond awesome in every single interpretation)

- Why Saruman is the most dynamic villain in Lord of the Rings, and how the movies messed him up so horribly

- Thoughts on the afterlife in Middle-earth; who went to the Grey Havens, who went to the Halls of Mandos, and who went elsewhere?

Maybe if you've read the books, you had similar thoughts. And maybe I'll go back someday and write about one or two of those topics. But the books are so big, so deep, and so moving, that it's almost impossible to read them and not feel immersed, and moved, and touched. To me, Middle-earth is not just another high fantasy world; it's a place as real to me as the apartment where I live, or the street where I grew up.

I wanted to choose a favorite character from the Fellowship so badly, but after three books (seven, really) and months of thought. I can't. They're all so wonderfully real; heroic, but flawed, and fallible, but redemptive. I want to be as clever as Pippin, as devoted as Merry, as cunning as Legolas, as noble as Gimli, as courageous as Boromir, as just as Aragorn, as wise as Gandalf, as loyal as Sam, and as persistent as Frodo.

After I finished re-reading the series, a friend of mine invited me to come and watch all of the Peter Jackson movies (Extended Editions, of course) and see if my opinion of them had changed since I initially saw them in high school. I approached these movies, which I used to revile, with an open mind and hoped that I could finally understand what everyone loved so much about them.

But I couldn't. The Jackson films felt superficial and melodramatic. The subtle artistry of the books was gone, replaced with one-dimensional character, arch plot points, and a world that felt like an excuse for its stripped-bare narrative rather than a fully realized setting where an epic story was underway. Maybe someday I'll understand the appeal of the films, but as movie-version Aragorn would say, "it is not this day."

I'll leave you with a quote from the writer John Rogers:

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Some Thoughts on the Friend Zone

A little background before we start: A few months ago, an acquaintance of mine asked me my opinions on the Friend Zone, whether it's real, and how men generally react when they feel that they're in it. I gave a very thorough reply, but only shared it with a few friends of mine. They encouraged me to share my response publicly, and after thinking it over, I'm happy to do so.

I'll let the letter speak for itself, so please bear in mind that this is its original form, warts and all, save for a few spelling and grammar corrections. Please also note that although I use the term Friend Zone and believe it’s a real psychological phenomenon, I also don’t use it in a dismissive or pejorative sense. 

I understand why many people take issue with it, and why it has the potential to make women out to be the “badguys” in the battle of the sexes, even when they have every right to turn a man down, for whatever reason they choose. To those people, all I can say is that I hope I have expressed myself well, and that we are, in most respects, on the same page.

My views on the Friend Zone don't really line up with either the hardcore MRA or SJW crowds, but I hope that I've managed to address a potentially painful topic with as much respect and consideration as possible. If I have failed to do so, please get in touch with me, and I'd be more than happy to talk it out. Enjoy!

***

The Friend Zone (™, ®, © , etc.) is a mental space a man occupies when he tries to engage a woman romantically and finds that she wants to keep things platonic. The Friend Zone can be a lot of things, depending on what both parties want (never talking to each other again to an actual, genuine friendship), but it's generally accepted that once you hit The Friend Zone, nothing romantic or sexual will happen between the two of you, and you'll never get out of it, either.

This, of course, is not exactly how things always work in real life. Two people can be friends at one time, friends with benefits at another, and romantic partners at yet another. But when a man has been rejected romantically and doesn't see any way of advancing the friendship beyond a platonic one, he's been Friendzoned.

Some men take this with good grace and take the woman's offer to be friends at face value (sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't; for better or for worse, women are conditioned to let men down as gently as possible, which means they may say "Let's be friends" even when they mean "I find you objectionable and would rather not be around you at all" or even "I believe you represent a threat to my emotional or physical safety." Whole other can of worms, that). Other times, they retreat to PUA/MRA message boards and complain about how unfair this particular women was to him, or how unfair women in general are to him. After all, he probably treated her well, showed (or at least feigned) an interest in her activities, tried to make himself available to accompany her places, maybe even bought her things. So why shouldn't he get sex when all those other "jerks" she dates do?

This is related to a condition that the Internet calls "Nice Guy Syndrome," although I think "The Nice Guy Fallacy" is a little more accurate. It's a separate topic, but basically, "Nice Guys" feel they are entitled to attention, especially of the sexual variety, from women because they treat women well, or at least "better" than the people she actually dates.

Anyway, to your specific questions: I've already addressed some of them above, but here are my answers:

What's wrong with it? In short, the Friend Zone sucks because you're not getting what you wanted out of your relationship with a woman. When you hit it off with a woman, it's very easy to fall into the trap of "we get along so well, we would make great romantic partners, too." Sometimes, sure, but sometimes not. And ultimately, the person you ask gets final say over that, not you. Not only have you been shot down after putting yourself out there in a very visible way, but there go all those pleasant feelings you had: attraction, optimism, self-confidence, etc.

There's also a profound feeling of unfairness. You just KNOW you would be a good match if she gave you a chance, so why won't you? And besides, look at the people she dated before, or she's dating now, or she's looking to date. You're just as good as those guys (maybe you're better!), so how come they get what you want, and you don't?

If you want my opinion, these are all perfectly natural feelings, and most guys process them and put them in their proper context within a day or two. You WOULDN'T be a good match, because if she doesn't reciprocate your feelings, that would make it a terrible relationship by default. Sharing common interests DOESN'T mean you would click as a couple. And she could be dating other people for any reason. Maybe those people ARE bad for her, but that's ultimately her choice, and you're not going to change her mind by feeling bitter about it.

If you're asking "what's wrong with it" in the larger context, I would say nothing, really. For most men. Where it goes wrong is when some men hold onto these intense feelings of rejection and worthlessness and channel it into misogyny. An even smaller fraction of these men will go on to believe that violence against women must be permissible, because there is no other way to get what they want. This is what happened in the Isla Vista shootings.

Is there any blame attached? Get on the blame train. There's more than enough blame to go around. In general, there are two targets of blame when a guy gets Friendzoned: the woman he wanted, and himself.

Why he blames the woman is easy enough to figure out. She's being so stubborn and stupid and stuck-up and selfish. Doesn't she understand that if she would only give him a chance, she'd see how perfect they are for one another? She's robbing them both of Perfect Happiness, and is going to waste her time and effort pining after some other guy who doesn't even deserve her! Once again, these feelings tend to dissipate once the initial sting of rejection dies down and he can consider the situation logically once again.

Blaming himself goes a little bit deeper. Sometimes it's warranted, sometimes it's not. He feels emasculated and worthless. She wouldn't have rejected me if only I hadn't been so pathetic! If only I'd been thinner/smarter/handsomer/more charming/less awkward! If only I'd come on stronger/not come on so strong/asked her more about herself/told her more about myself/waited longer/not waited so long, then she would have said yes.

This one is harder to analyze, at least from my own personal experience. For the most part, at least from a logical standpoint, there's not much you can do to convince someone to be attracted to you if she's, well, not attracted to you. It has very little to do with you and everything to do with her and her preferences.

BUT (and this is a fairly sizable but, because I like big buts and I cannot lie), sometimes there's some truth to it as well. Maybe you ARE creepy, or out-of-shape, or poorly-groomed, or overeager, or timid. Sometimes your personality or physical appearance needs adjusting — not because it will get you girls, but because you should have some self-respect and be willing to improve yourself.

Where many guys have trouble (myself included) is differentiating between not being good enough in general and not being right for this particular woman. I don't have a good answer for what the right balance is. If I did, I wouldn't have gotten to the point where I felt I had to swear off women forever.

Is there entitlement? ​For the most part, yes. Men feel they are entitled to women's attention and women's bodies simply because they're friendly and attentive. But, as I've said before, being nice to women in exchange for sex is immoral; being nice to women because they deserve your respect could lead to good things down the road in addition to being the right thing to do.

The simple fact of the matter is that you're not entitled to anything that another person possesses that he or she doesn't want you to have. Not her time, not her money, not her body. You can grouse about how unfair this feels all you want, but men have to remember that Western society is constructed in such a way that they generally have to pursue women, rather than the other way around. If the tables were turned, men would not want to feel obligated to have sex with every woman who was nice to him — hell, no self-respecting man should feel obligated to have sex with every woman who's nice to him, even as things stand!

I think maybe that's part of the problem: We are conditioned, to some extent, to view every woman as a potential sexual partner (see: When Harry Met Sally, Seinfeld, etc.), even though most people have an average of 10-20 partners in their lives, and we meet WAY more than 10-20 people of the opposite sex. The math doesn't support our delusion, but I guess that's why it's a delusion in the first place.

This is why I take the Middle Path and maintain that while The Friend Zone is a real and often very painful place to be, it's still not the worst thing in the world or indicative of women's attitudes in general. If you get Friendzoned by every woman you approach, well, maybe there's something wrong with you, or maybe they're just the wrong kind of partner. It's hard to tell, and I think that uncertainty is what makes the Friend Zone such a confusing place, and why it drives some people to the extreme conclusion of "all women treat men unfairly." It doesn't make sense under strict scientific scrutiny, but it's a much more comforting thing to believe than "I am at the mercy of a ton of intra- and interpersonal factors, only a fraction of which I'll ever even be aware of."

***

That was pretty heavy, so next time, we'll talk about some Tolkien. See you then!

Follow Marshall on Twitter or get in touch with him on Facebook.

A Tough Call

Before we get to the meat and potatoes of this post, let me start with a story. Don’t worry; I promise it’s relevant, and it’s about video games. Here goes:

When I was a senior in high school, widespread digital distribution for PC games was still a distant pipe dream. Sure, every once in a while, you’d get a developer who wanted to sell a title directly, and piracy via torrent was always an option, but generally speaking, it was discs or bust.

There was a game I wanted to play called Spellforce: The Order of Dawn. For those of you not familiar with the series, Spellforce is a hybrid RTS/RPG from a small German studio. It’s not great, but it has its charms, particularly if those are you two favorite genres. I could have bought the initial game in the States, but its two expansions were only available in Europe. So, I gathered up my funds and imported the three games, obscene shipping costs and all.

There was only one small problem: the game wouldn’t work. For some inexplicable reason, whenever I booted up the game, I would see the loading screen and get kicked right back to my desktop. When I checked task manager, the game’s process was still running, but the actual game just wasn’t there.

Well, I’m no neophyte when it comes to getting recalcitrant PC games to run, so I rolled up my sleeves and got to work. I trawled Internet forums. I e-mailed the developer. I cross-checked every process running on my PC, every update to every driver, and every possible hardware incompatibility. I stayed up late, left my homework till the last minute, gulped down meals in as few bites as possible, and let all my other hobbies fall by the wayside. I was going to have fun, damn it, no matter how hard I had to work at it.

This process went on for about a week before I thought to myself: “Just how much misery am I willing to endure for the sake of fun?” In the end, I shrugged my shoulders, dusted my hands off, put the games in a drawer, and bought something else (Battle for Middle-Earth, if memory serves).

In the end, I learned an important lesson from those games: After a certain threshold of driving yourself absolutely up the wall, something you want — even something you want very badly — is just not worth it. It’s time to apply that lesson again.

Here’s the problem: I’m a straight male, and have known since I was 13 that I wanted a monogamous, heterosexual relationship. The only problem was that 13-year-old me was very bad at attracting women. Then again, 13-year-old me was just finding a solid group of friends and taking some pride in himself for the first time in his life, so we can cut him some slack for not having much success.

High school followed, and the same thing happened. No matter how many times I got up my courage and actually asked someone out, I got rejection after rejection. There were exceptions, of course: rare moments of success when the stars aligned and I got a coveted yes instead of a no. But nothing ever panned out, and as always, the sheer numbers were against me.

It was OK, though, they told me (“they” being friends, teachers, and family). High school girls often don’t appreciate good guys, they said, but wait until I got to college. Then, they’d see all that I had to offer.

And, boy, in college, did I have a lot to offer! I got in shape for the first time in my life. I learned how to bartend and got rid of my last vestiges of social anxiety, killing two birds with one stone. I was in an a cappella group. I took a ton of interesting classes, read lots of great books, attended fascinating lectures, and explored the sometimes seedy, sometimes charming city I inhabited. I got out to parties and events every weekend so that I could meet exciting new people. And, by and large, I still got nothing but rejections.

It was OK, though, they told me. College is such a chaotic time that you can’t really expect to find a satisfying relationship. Just wait until you get out into the world and have a steady job, and girls will see how responsible and accomplished you are.

So, I went out and got a job. At first, I didn’t expect much, since I had a horrible retail job, and had to live with my mom to make ends meet. But then I got a less horrible office job. And then I got a real editing job. And then I got my own place. And then I got a freelance journalism job. And then I got a full-time journalism job. And then I got money to spend and money to save.

In terms of career and monetary success, the last five years have been an unparalleled success for me. I have broken into a very difficult field, and excelled in it. I live very comfortably in one of the toughest cities in the world, with a nice apartment in a stellar neighborhood. I’ve continued studying martial arts to improve my mental discipline and stay in excellent shape. I have interesting hobbies, interesting hangouts, and interesting people in my life.

But, for all that, I still get almost nothing but rejections from women. Every. Single. Time.

I can’t really speculate as to the reason why. If I had an answer, I would have found a solution long ago. I’ve read an awful lot of dating blogs (particularly the excellent Paging Dr. Nerdlove), and the recurring theme seems to be that if you can’t find a date, you have to look inward and fix the things you don’t like about your own life first.

That, however, is where I run into a problem. I like myself. I like my job, and where my career is going, and the state of my health, and where I live, and my money situation, and my family, and my friends, and just about everything in my whole life, except for the fact that I can’t find a woman willing to give me a chance romantically. I feel I would be a good partner; they feel differently. That’s fine. That’s their prerogative. But “fixing” something about myself won’t help if I’m happy as is.

Nor have I been derelict in trying to find women to date. I’ve tried meeting people in person, meeting people online, letting friends set me up, and even gimmicks like speed-dating. I’ve tried asking out good friends and women I’ve just met. I’ve tried being absolutely straightforward and completely coy. I’ve tried every strategy I can think of short of engaging in repellent PUA tactics and approached every attempt with all the confidence and optimism I can muster.

Not only have my attempts failed, but they have actually gotten worse. Last year around this time, I was devastated because ten women in a row had rejected me. At this point, I have lost count of how many times I’ve been rejected since my last successful date, but I would not be surprised if it were triple that amount. I don’t know how, but women have actually found me less attractive as my living situation has improved. I always thought the opposite would be true.

I don’t know what’s wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it, and honestly, my friends and family don’t, either. I’ve asked good friends, casual friends, total strangers, and my closest family members what’s wrong with my approach, and no one has a solid answer. I have come to believe that this is because there is no solid answer.

The realization hit me when I was reading a post in Paging Dr. Nerdlove’s blog. Some men, he said, no matter how smart or handsome or successful, will just never find anyone. They may be perfectly viable mates, but if you run the numbers, some men (and some women, of course) just never find anyone. It’s the luck of the draw.

This was possibly the most freeing thing I’ve ever read in my life. For the first time since I was 13, I realized that the problem isn’t me; it’s just statistics. Yes, I’ve been dealt a bad hand (well, really, 14 years of bad hands), but it wasn’t my fault. I can’t change the fact that women don’t want to date me, but I can change my attitude about it. That’s why I’m officially taking my hat out of the ring.

From now on, no more dating for me. No more romantic entanglements with women whatsoever. Will this hurt? Of course. It hurts already. I’ve been near tears several times just while writing this post. But I also know, in my heart of hearts, that it’s the only healthy way for me to live.

As much as I tried to frame a romantic relationship as the one thing missing from my life, the truth is that it’s just Spellforce all over again. I tried and tried and tried to solve a problem without an obvious cause, and all I got in return was frustration. Except getting rejected romantically no matter what you do is much, much worse than failing to run a video game. Instead of frustration, you have heartbreak. Instead of wasted leisure time, you have doubts about your worth as a human being. I can’t live like that, and no compassionate person would want me to.

A friend of mine told me (correctly, I think) that if I wrote this post, people would see it as attention-seeking. Maybe it is, but it’s also incredibly cathartic. I had a problem that literally kept me up at night and drove me into paroxysms of intense misery on a regular basis. I have now solved it — admittedly in the most extreme way possible, but solved it nonetheless.

Does this mean that I’ll never know the intense satisfaction of a healthy romantic relationship? Yes. But I’ll also never have to deal with the constant, soul-crushing despair that goes with getting rejected at every turn and never being able to figure out why. Given the choice between a slim (and rapidly diminishing) shot at happiness balanced with an overwhelming helping of despondency, or a perfectly even keel, I’ve decided to take the even keel.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. From where the sun now stands, I will date no more forever. The only thing I can offer by way of advice is to be kind and respectful to the women in your life, even if you’ve suffered rejection like I have. Learn to let go, and you’ll both be happier for it.

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Book Review: The Great and Secret Show

The Great and Secret Show
By Clive Barker
HarperCollins, 1989
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Marshall Lemon

I should let you know up-front that The Great and Secret Show is a tough nut to crack. It's imaginative but constrained, sprawling but unfocused, and epic in scope but surprisingly subdued in delivery. It might appeal to horror fans, even though it's not really scary, and it might appeal to fantasy fans, even though its magic is grotesque and grounded in the real world.

It's hard to sum up the plot briefly, but it goes something like this: While working in a dead letter office, unassuming paper-pusher Randolph Jaffe discovers that there is a small, well-hidden world of magic users scattered here and there across the United States. He wants this power for himself, and eventually becomes a creature of darkness called The Jaff. This sets off a chain of events that lasts over 20 years and involves ten or fifteen major characters, eventually culminating in a struggle to stop a world of darkness from engulfing our own.

The setting is the strongest part of the book. Although the story mostly takes place in a California suburb, as Jaffe discovers, there is more going on than meets the eye. Barker creates a system of magic that is more reminiscent of medieval heraldry than the wizards and demons of the traditional high fantasy canon. Throughout the course of the book, the characters encounter an atomic bomb in a Nevada desert time loop, a Mexican cemetery full of vengeful undead spirits, a lake that springs out of a mysterious sinkhole, and a world of bizarre creatures from beyond our own dimension.

One thing that Barker does better than anyone is creating absurd, disgusting creatures, and that talent is on full display here. The Jaff has the ability to create monsters out of people's worst fears, and some of the results are fittingly disconcerting. You'll see plenty of things with scales and legs before the end of the day, but the most vile creatures actually come from another villain, Kissoon. The Lix are snake-like demons that arise from a combination of bodily fluids, and are roughly as unsettling as they sound.

The creatures and places they inhabit are a delight, but the story and characters that give rise to them are unfortunately much more lacking. The story takes forever to get going, and changes protagonists with such regularity that it's easy to wonder if Barker was just making up characters as he went, getting bored with each one.

At first, Jaffe's rival, Fletcher, emerges as a likely contender for protagonist, but is quickly replaced by Fletcher's son, Howard. Howard turns out to be ineffective, however, as he slowly surrenders the story over to reporter Grillo, and Grillo hands it off to his friend, Tesla, who ends up doing most of the heavy lifting towards the end of the book. The characters actually don't interact with each other much, meaning that the final result feels much more like five or six separate novellas than a cohesive story.

Barker also does not have a very good grasp on heterosexual relationships, but insists on shoehorning them in whenever possible — once between Howard and supposed rival Jo-Beth, who fall in love instantly and never do anything proactive for each other, and once between Raul, an enchanted ape-like entity, and occasional hero Tesla. It's about as weird as it sounds, and not much comes of it.

You'll probably never read anything quite like The Great and Secret Show, although whether that's a good or bad thing depends on your own tastes. For what it's worth, I wasn't a big fan, but I'm glad I read it just the same — it's chock full of an equal number of good and bad ideas. If you want more traditional horror, I like Salem's Lot by Stephen King, but who doesn't?

Book Review: Catch-22

Catch-22
By Joseph Heller
Simon & Schuster, 2010
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Ty Dobbertin

Catch-22 is one of those odd books, not unlike The Catcher in the Rye, that if you didn't read in high school, you likely never will. This is a shame, as while Catcher is kind of a self-important ode to nothing, Catch-22 is a wickedly funny novel. Unfortunately, it's also an incredibly long, bleak one. Which one of these traits you remember more probably depends on your tolerance for pitch-black humor.

The story takes place in Italy during World War II. Captain John Yossarian is a bombardier during the last days of the Allied campaign in Italy, but he seems to be the only soldier who can see through the incompetence of the military command. Yossarian is afraid of dying - scared to death of it, in fact - and will do whatever he can to get out of the war. However, a vicious rule called Catch-22 prevents him from leaving: Any pilot who refuses to fly combat missions is deemed sane, and sane people must fly.

The most remarkable thing about Catch-22 is its humor. The book embraces every kind of humor, from jokes the soldiers tell one another to over-the-top dialogue to situations that push absurdity to its limits. Vignettes about commanding officers who insist the soldiers clock time on a skeet shooting range (which really improves their ability to shoot skeet) or march in parades serve to highlight how ridiculous the military chain of command can get.

While the book's humor rarely falls flat, it will almost definitely cross each reader's personal line of good taste at one point or another. One chapter involves a soldier organizing a bombing run on his own troops - complete with casualties - because he stands to make a lot of money from it. Others involve soldiers beating up prostitutes, threatening to slit a friend's throat open, and slicing a man in half with a propeller. There is definitely humor in these situations, but the book lacks any real pathos. As such, the black humor can get grating or depressing without any kind of contrast.

Still, none of that should take away from the brilliant writing, hilarious situations, and razor-sharp dialogue. The social critique of war as pure stupidity is apt and still relevant today, while the ending is just uplifting enough to redeem some of the book's bleaker moments. I don't have any solid recommendations for satirical books about war, but there is a lot of the same gallows humor and absurd wartime situations in Going After Cacciato and If I Die in a Combat Zone by Tim O'Brien. For other examples of "political system taken to its extreme," 1984 and Animal Farm by George Orwell are, of course, the logical choices.

Book Review: The Forever War

The Forever War

By Joe Haldeman

Ridan Publishing, 2012

Buy it on Amazon or Barnes & Noble

Recommended by Brian Capaldo

When I started this project, I wanted the results to be anything but predictable. I wanted to embrace whole new genres and discover a few flaws in the speculative fiction niche in which I’ve grown comfortable. However, like Hyperion before it, The Forever War has confounded my goals in the most insidious way possible: It’s proven to be an absolutely unimpeachable classic of science-fiction canon.

The story centers on Sergeant William Mandella and Corporal Marygay Potter, two soldiers fighting in humanity’s first conflict with an alien opponent. The book begins in the 1990s (which, in retrospect, had very few alien encounters, but the book was written in the 70s), but due to relativistic physics, each foray into alien territory takes William and Marygay further and further from the Earth and way of life they’re familiar with. As technology changes, war rages on, and becomes the only way of life either one can tolerate. Think The Hurt Locker, but with spaceships.

Although the story only has two big action scenes (and a third small one in the middle), the characters and dialogue are more than engaging enough to pull the narrative across over a thousand years of conflict. Watching human society evolve and change into something unrecognizable is downright frightening at times, although the ending provides a satisfying conclusion that makes the entire story worthwhile.

The writing itself is also far beyond reproach. In addition to having a great ear for natural, engrossing dialogue, Haldeman is a master of providing clear, detailed descriptions for the bizarre alien worlds, futuristic technology, and strange customs that the human race comes across. Initially, Haldeman wrote this book as an antiwar allegory for the Vietnam era, but its message still rings true today: War is senseless and ultimately pointless, but if you breed a whole generation of people for it, they won’t know any other way of life.

Of course, the book is not perfect, but most of its criticisms are nitpicks at best. The first forty pages or so contain some good action scenes, but much of the exposition necessary to understand them doesn’t come until after the fact. The middle section of the book can drag, as an event happens about 2/3rds of the way through that makes it seem as though the rest of the plot will be bleak and pointless (thankfully, the ending disproves this notion). There is also some uncomfortable and dated commentary on homosexuality, but it’s not malicious, just a little jarring.

If there’s a better military sci-fi story out there than The Forever War, I am not aware of it. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein is arguably just as good, although if you want something closer tonally, go with The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien. This is also a fictionalized account of an author’s experiences in Vietnam, except without the science-fiction veneer.

Book Review: Fool Moon

Fool Moon
by Jim Butcher
Roc, 2001
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Mike Thompson and Mike Grace

Fool Moon is the worst kind of book to review. As much as I want to tear it to pieces on a few technical levels, I just can't because I had so much fun reading it. Then again, if you've ever read a Jim Butcher novel before, you pretty much know what you're in for.

If not, here's how Jim Butcher's Dresden Files series works: Harry Dresden is a wizard in modern day Chicago. In fact, he's the only wizard-for-hire in town. While Harry has great magical talent, his business sense is lackluster, so he's always taking odd jobs either for the local police force or the occasional wealthy private citizen. His adventures put him at loggerheads with dark wizards, demons, and the criminal underworld, while exposing him to an ongoing love triangle between a beautiful journalist and a scrappy police lieutenant.

As you can imagine, Harry's adventures are pulpy at best, trashy at worst, and  the kind of book you could very easily read in one sitting if you have a few hours to kill. 

For what it's worth, Jim Butcher is a fairly talented writer, and has a real knack for action scenes, strong characters, and natural dialogue. He's also highly educated and shows it off at regular intervals with references to Shakespeare, Germanic opera, and pop culture from Dracula to Star Trek. Both Butcher as unseen director and Harry as narrator have appealing voices and amiable personalities.

The plot, this time around, involves a series of grisly murders that Harry must investigate, aided by the Chicago police force and an adversarial FBI team. Due to the murders' proximity to the full moon and a number of canine imprints on the bodies, Harry suspects a werewolf as the culprit, and the investigation begins. As expected, there are good guys, bad guys, betrayals, plot twists, and plenty of sex and violence along the way, but it's nothing you couldn't figure out once all the major players have been introduced.

The biggest problem with Fool Moon - and let's not beat around the bush, it's a fairly sizable problem - is with Harry himself. Harry is a bit of a Mary-Sue. He's not an egregious offender, of course - he's not all-powerful, he loses plenty of fights, and he gets banged up pretty badly during his investigation. However, he often keeps the truth to himself, withholding vital information from friends - especially female ones - that, by all rights, might save their lives, or the lives of others. However, Harry feels justified in every deception and rule-bend. If this comes back to bite him in later books, feel free to disregard this whole paragraph, but Harry's dishonesty in the name of chivalry is not a great character trait when played as a positive quality.

Still, Fool Moon is an enjoyable read from start to finish, and keeps the momentum going for The Dresden Files series at large. Since urban fantasy is not my forte, all I can say here is that if you're interested in the genre, you could do much worse than Jim Butcher. Start with Storm Front, as it's the first entry in the series, and should give you a good idea what to expect. 

Book Review: Hyperion

Hyperion
by Dan Simmons
Doubleday, 1989
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by David Martinez

So, it's shameful confession time: I was supposed to read Hyperion back when I was a sophomore in high school. My uncle bought me a paperback copy (you know, way back in the caveman days when we used to read books printed on dead trees. Odd, I know) and insisted that it would be one of the best sci-fi books I ever read. I read the first two chapters, thought they were great, and then promptly put it down to read whatever the latest Star Wars book was.

Please forgive me. I was young and foolish and in love with a movie series that George Lucas had not yet finished ruining.

Anyway, nine years later, I've made it all the way through Hyperion without wanting to put it down once. The book can best be described as a mash-up between Dune and The Canterbury Tales, although it doesn't read very much like either one of them. Yes, the book focuses on a bunch of offworlders who find themselves on a planet caught in-between a population of zealous natives and a hostile invasion force. True, the seven travelers in question each tell very different stories in order to pass the time. However, in spite of its inspirations - which range from Chaucer to Shakespeare to Keats to Asimov - Hyperion is very much an original story, and the world of sci-fi literature is all the better for it.

While there is way too much going on in the story to sum it up neatly, I'll give it a go anyway: seven very different travelers find themselves on a pilgrimage to the world of Hyperion in order to make contact with the Shrike, an incredibly destructive alien presence that they have all come in contact with before in one way or another. They might be able to save the galaxy from a barbarian invasion - or they might just get eviscerated. Either way, they decide to share their stories as they make their way to the mysterious Time Tombs where the Shrike resides.

That's pretty much it. The stories themselves are the main focus, but by piecing together background details, you'll learn exactly what's been going on in the galaxy at large and what role the Shrike might play in the fate of galactic civilization. Each story has a different writing style, ranging from epistolary journal entries to military sci-fi to a film noir detective story. Each character, from the bitter scholar Sol Weintraub to the stoic soldier Fedmahn Kassad, is extremely flawed, but still likable.

The book, however, does have one serious problem, but it's hard to address without going into major spoilers. To keep things as vague as possible, I'll just say that the book has a very unsatisfying ending. There are some important plot points that happen towards the end, but the actual resolution of the book basically amounts to "buy the sequel." There's no real climax, and it ends right before it gets to what promises to be the best part of the story. Read at your own risk, and be sure to set aside another $8 or so for the next installment.

Recommending a "better" book here is tough, as Hyperion is actually one of the better-written, smarter sci-fi tales out there. If you want to know where about half the plot comes from, though, be sure to read Foundation by Isaac Asimov. Actually, read Foundation no matter what. Trust me, you'll be glad you did.

Book Review: The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
by Haruki Murakami
Vintage, 2010
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Erin Donohue

My first exposure to magical realist Haruki Murakami was a short story called "The Dancing Dwarf." In a nutshell, a man who spends his day making elephants (not statues or replicas - actual, real elephants) enlists the help of a malevolent, dancing spirit to help him win a woman's heart. This all happens within the span of about twenty pages, and it's a wild ride from beginning to end. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, one of Murakami's most recent and best-known novels, is kind of the opposite.

Rest assured, there is some very strange stuff in this book, but you'd never know it from most of the plot developments. Toru Okada, an ordinary man living on the outskirts of Tokyo, sets out to find his missing cat and, in so doing, starts a chain reaction involving Toru's emotionally distant wife, his malicious brother-in-law, a traumatized WWII veteran, a pair of psychic sisters, a death-obsessed high school girl, and a mysterious woman who communicates exclusively through lewd telephone calls. There isn't much of a plot to speak of. It takes almost 300 pages for a real event to set the plot in motion, and another 250 before Toru takes some proactive steps to bring about the climax.

The novel's biggest issues all stem from its main character. While Toru Okada is a charming everyman, he is also one of the most lazy, unambitious, passive leading men this side of the Dude. He doesn't work, he accepts criticism without comment, and nothing seems to anger or excite him. This drags what could have been a concise story into one that's over 600 pages long, with very little actual action happening during that time. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle's pacing is glacial and branches off into nearly irrelevant digressions about side characters frequently.

However, taken as a whole, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle works, despite the fact that without a plot or a compelling main character, it really shouldn't. Murakami's writing (and Jay Rubin's excellent translation) makes Toru's constant stream of thoughts and inaction a joy rather than a slog, and the book's climax and ending make the interminable buildup very nearly worthwhile. The characters (even Toru, to a certain extent) are offbeat and memorable, and when the supernatural elements come into play towards the end, they elevate what could have been a trite suburban drama into a life-or-death adventure.

I don't have a solid recommendation for this one. If you can endure 600 pages of nothing much happening for the promise of good writing and an excellent conclusion, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is definitely a good read. Otherwise, you can find more concise magical realist tales in Murakami's own short story collection, The Elephant Vanishes. Be sure to check out some of Franz Kafka's work as well if you'd like to learn about one of Murakami's biggest influences.

Book Review: Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China

Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China
by Leslie T. Chang
Spiegel & Grau, 2008
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Heather McLellan

Once again, our book review takes us to an exotic, faraway land. This time, instead of le gai Paris, we'll be exploring industrial China. Leslie T. Chang, an intrepid American reporter, writes the best kind of nonfiction in Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China: namely, the kind that has no bias other than "what information will make the best story?" While Chang's book can be both fun and frustrating in equal measure, there is a ton of stuff to learn here, and almost all of it is worthwhile.

Factory Girls, at first blush, is most comparable to Upton Sinclair's The Jungle. Instead of early 20th-century Chicago, however, Chang's book focuses on modern-day Dongguan, China. Originally an out-of-the-way farmland, Dongguan has transformed into an industrial powerhouse over the last half-century. Powered by the insatiable lust for electronics and clothing in the West, as well as the cheap, inexhaustible supply of migrant workers from the Chinese countryside, Dongguan is now home to millions of young women who are making their own fortunes and dictating their own destinies. Part capitalist exhortation and part exposé, Chang documents these young women as they move from job to job, boyfriend to boyfriend, and city to farm and back again.

First and foremost, Chang's writing style is a nonfiction writer's dream come true, most closely resembling the works of V.S. Naipaul, but channeling her fair share of Sinclair and Orwell, too. Most of Dongguan's fast-paced tribulations come through the eyes of Chunming and Min, two factory girls whom Chang befriends early on to act as her eyes and ears in the factories, schools, ice cream shops, and governmental bureaucracies in the sprawling Chinese city.

Even as the two describe fairly abysmal working conditions - twelve-hour days with little overtime pay and only two days off each month - Factory Girls never devolves into a polemic. In fact, Chang takes time to point out how much these conditions have improved in the last twenty years, how much fun the girls are able to cram in after-hours, and how their newfound relative wealth gives them a considerable amount of social power, both in dealing with their families and potential suitors. Make no mistake - you probably wouldn't want to work in a Dongguan factory, but if you were a young Chinese woman whose only frame of reference was an idle, rural life, this would be the most exciting adventure imaginable.

The book falters, however, when Chang digresses into her own family history, which she intersperses into the narrative with increasing frequency. It's understandable that Chang, a born-and-bred American citizen who has little innate connection to China beyond her racial heritage, would want to learn more about her past. However, the links between Chang's family drama during the Communist revolution and the China's current industrialization are tenuous, at best, and the stories about Min and Chunming are frankly much more interesting. Unfortunately, when all is said and done, these sections take up a good 1/3 - 1/2 of the book.

In spite of a few boring patches, Factory Girls is well worth a read for anyone who's interested in Chinese culture, the power dynamics of women in China, or good reporting in general. At this point, I usually recommend a "better" book, but I'm not sure there really is one here. Both The Jungle by Upton Sinclair and The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell deal with similar situations in the West in the early 20th century, and while both are better written, neither one explores Chang's subject matter. This is a book primarily meant to educate, and unless you are a leading expert on Chinese culture, you'll probably learn a lot.

Book Review: The Paris Wife

All right, guys and gals, let's dive into another book review!


The Paris Wife
by Paula McLain
Ballantine Books, 2011
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by Debbi Honorof

Those of you who know me can probably already see how this review is going to play out in your head. I have no problem stating that, in general, literary fiction and women's lit do absolutely nothing for me; The Paris Wife by Paula McLain is both. McLain tells the true story of Hadley Richardson, Ernest Hemingway's first wife, and that makes all the difference.


Make no mistake: The Paris Wife, from a writing and storytelling standpoint, is not so different from any other women's lit book you'd pick up off the shelf. McLain's style is concise, straightforward, and eminently readable, and her tale is one of a small-town girl who falls in love with a very unusual man, marries him, and eventually divorces him when their relationship sours. Hadley herself is not a fascinating protagonist by any means, but her unique relationship with Ernest Hemingway gives readers a chance to meet the man through a biased but fair observer.


As the title suggests, The Paris Wife is a novel that centers on Ernest and Hadley's time in Paris in the early 1920s. The actual meat and potatoes of the plot are nothing to write home about. Hadley spends most of the novel walking, swimming, making love, dining with friends, or fighting with her husband. McLain throws a curveball towards the end in the form of an affair that very nearly turns into a nontraditional marriage, but ruins the surprise somewhat by setting this turn of events up in the prologue. To put it succinctly, if Hadley had to carry this book on her own - despite McLain's reasonable approximation of her psyche and voice, and meticulous attention to factual detail - it would be a lost cause.


Ernest Hemingway's character, however, infuses the book with a spark that helps carry it from beginning to end. Even though it would be very easy to cast Ernest as either an immortal artist who was far too good for Hadley or an irredeemable scumbag who cheated on his wife, McLain instead opts for a middle path. In The Paris Wife, Ernest usually means well, but he can be petty, mean-tempered, selfish, and egotistical. At the same time, he is loving, generous, well-meaning, and adventurous. Throughout all of his violent mood swings and poor life choices, McLain maintains - probably correctly - that his unusual lifestyle was critical to his value as an artist. Even if Hadley had been happier if Ernest had been a well-adjusted individual, the world would have been poorer for it. Tragedy breeds great art.


The book's biggest issue, aside from its occasionally glacial pacing and bog-standard writing style, is that there's not much reason to read this book instead of an actual Ernest Hemingway novel. Much of Hemingway's work is somewhat autobiographical, and, with no offense intended to McLain, Hemingway's work was much more ambitious. Even so, The Paris Wife is fundamentally a good book, its only real crime being that it invites comparison to much better ones.


For female readers who want a lightweight introduction to the Hemingway canon, The Paris Wife is probably as good a place to start as any. Those who are fearless, however, would be wiser to challenge themselves a bit and start with something like Death in the Afternoon, which covers some of the same subject matter with a writing style that will either make you swoon with joy or tear your hair out with frustration. Only one way to find out!

Book Review: The Guy's Guide to Feminism

I turned 25 about three weeks ago, and so far, I've got no regrets. My birthday was fairly low-key, but I got to see my family and friends, drink some good beer, eat some good food, and get a few small gifts. Birthdays get more extravagant, I'm sure, but it's hard to see how they get better.


One of my gifts was a $100 gift card for Barnes & Noble, which is good, because I had just finished the last book on my nook wishlist. Now, I could have just bought the next ten books in the series I've been reading (more on Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child in another post, I'm sure), but I decided to try something new. $100 buys roughly ten eBooks, so I opened up the floor for recommendations. I would take the first ten eBook recommendations that my friends offered me, and read them front to back, no questions asked. This way, instead of reading my usual Orwell/Hemingway/O'Brien/McCarthy/sci-fi trhillers, I could expand my horizons a bit and see what else was out there.


But, I decided, why stop there? My friends were thoughtful enough to share their recommendations with me, so I feel like the least I could do to repay the favor would be to let them know what I thought. So, without any further ado, I present the first review:


The Guy's Guide to Feminism
by Michael Kaufman & Michael Kimmel
Seal Press, 2011
Buy it at Amazon or Barnes & Noble
Recommended by John Funk

Speaking as someone who works in the games industry, feminism is a hot topic these days. It seems that we can't go two weeks without some new scandal cropping up about the role of women in gaming, whether as protagonists, content producers, or players. Given that it's such a big part of the discussion surrounding nerd culture lately, just what is feminism? Should men be feminists, too? Does feminism adequately address the needs of all women? How does it tie into concepts like racism and homophobia?


Michael Kaufman and Michael Kimmel set out to answer these and many other questions in their 2011 book The Guy's Guide to Feminism. They buoy a tough topic with engaging writing, a wide breadth of information, and a few legitimately funny jokes.


Unfortunately, that is literally all they do right.


The Guy's Guide to Feminism does so much wrong that it's actually insulting to read. For starters, the book opens up with an egregious anti-joke. The authors set up a situation where a rabbi, a minister, and an imam are having coffee. A Buddhist monk walks in. This sounds like a setup for comic gold, but instead of a corny punchline, all we get is a three-page treatise on why women feel angry about their place in the modern world, full of righteous indignation and sedate, respectful exchanges.

With all due respect to Drs. Kaufman and Kimmel, who are obviously gifted writers and smart men, their book is often incendiary and wrongheaded. Take, for example, their section on Emotion. Kaufman and Kimmel argue that the only emotion that men are "allowed" to convey in modern society is anger, and that other emotions - save for rare flashes of happiness, grief, or compassion - are bottled up behind a layer of stoicism because of outdated ideas of masculinity. Feminism, they argue, will improve the role of men, because it will allow them to be more in touch with their emotions.


This sounds like a good argument until you think about it for a moment. The whole point of feminism, as I understand it, is to point out the absurdity of many "predefined" gender roles. If that is the case, then Kimmel and Kaufman have absolutely no right to dictate how men should and shouldn't comport themselves (save for the obvious anti-violence and tolerance angles, of course). If men want to be emotional and open, that's certainly their prerogative, but it is also my prerogative to think they should be a little more restrained. Neither one of us is "right," but Kaufman and Kimmel make an impassioned argument for why my view is "wrong." That is not the way to win supporters.


The sections on Pornography and XX/XY (a short primer on male/female biology) are perhaps the most reprehensible. They both feature conversations between imaginary men and women; in both cases, the men are absolute ignoramuses who need the wise, reasoned woman to show them the light of feminism. Just once in the book, it would be nice to see a man and a woman converse when the man isn't absolutely wrong and the woman is absolutely right, but sadly, this never happens. There is, apparently, a lot men can learn from women, but nothing women can learn from men. This is an extraordinarily bleak way to look at the world.


The books failings are too numerous to list, but as a few examples, Title IX did bankrupt many successful collegiate men's sports teams, rape is often motivated by sexual desire rather than a power struggle, and there are biological differences between men and women that go beyond genitalia. If you don't believe me, look them up; the authors did not.


To be fair, some of the sections are fantastic, especially Chivalry (chivalry isn't dead!), Dads (dads should be given paid leave to take care of kids, too), and Fundamentalism (religious fundamentalism is not compatible with a modern worldview, period). It's a shame that they are short and tend to taper off just as the authors bring up interesting points.


While the author's sources are as solid as solid gets, they do not actually match specific statements to citations, opting instead to give a reference list for each chapter as a whole. This is not particularly helpful, and brings many of their conclusions into question.


There's no doubt in my mind that feminism is a useful philosophy and that the authors behind this book are stand-up guys; that much is evident in the way they try to celebrate hardworking men and women of all races and sexual orientations. It's a shame that the book does not deliver on its intriguing premise, too often falling victim to strawman arguments and the idea of shared guilt instead.


As always, if you want to learn the real deal about men, women, and the overall evolution of culture, I recommend The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins instead. This is not even remotely a book about gender studies, and yet it still has more of substance to say about why men and women grew to occupy different places in society, and why such ideas are now outdated.

A Receipt for that Popular Mystery

If I asked you to list Gilbert and Sullivan operas, you could probably come up with three off the top of your head: H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance, and The Mikado. Did you know that they actually wrote 11 more? It's true! From the outdated feminist critique Princess Ida to the heartbreaking grand opera The Yeomen of the Guard, there's a lot more to Gilbert and Sullivan than high seas mischief and execution antics. With that in mind, let's talk about Patience.


Patience tells the story of Reginald Bunthorne, an Aesthetic (capital A) poet ever-so-loosely based on Oscar Wilde, who falls in love with a simple milkmaid named Patience. While all of the women in town fall madly in love with Bunthorne's pretentious poetry and artistic attitude, Patience remains unimpressed. Things only get worse when her old flame, Archibald Grovesnor, comes to town and steals the affections of Patience - and every other girl in town!


With catchy music, an incisively funny libretto, and some very memorable characters, Patience is a thoroughly charming opera, in spite of a surprise downer ending. My favorite piece comes from the Colonel of the Heavy Dragoons. You see, before the women fell madly in love with Bunthorne (and later, Grovesnor), they were engaged to be married to a squadron of soldiers. When the soldiers return, they sing a song to introduce themselves.


The Heavy Dragoon (also called "If You Want a Receipt for that Popular Mystery") is a patter song in the style of "I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General" or "My Name is John Wellington Wells." These songs are characterized by fast tempos and tongue-twisting rhyme schemes. In this piece, the Colonel lists a number of historical figures whom the dragoons aim to emulate. In this post, I would like to explain who each one is. So, without any further ado:

"The Heavy Dragoon"
by William Schwenck Gilbert

If you want a receipt for that popular mystery, Known to the world as a Heavy Dragoon,Take all the remarkable people in history, Rattle them off to a popular tune! A "heavy dragoon" is an armored footsoldier The pluck of LORD NELSON on board of the VICTORY - Genius of BISMARCK devising a plan;The humour of FIELDING (which sounds contradictory) - Coolness of PAGET about to trepan -  Horatio Nelson, aboard the HMS Victory, was a British naval hero Otto von BIsmarck was the founder of modern Germany Henry Fielding was a humorous British novelist James Paget was a British surgeon (trepanning is a medical procedure) The grace of MOZART, that unparalleled musico - Wit of MACAULAY, who wrote of QUEEN ANNE - The pathos of PADDY, as rendered by BOUCICAULT - Style of the BISHOP OF SODOR AND MAN - OK, you should know who Mozart is Thomas Babington Macaulay was an English baron, and wrote biographies of royalty like Queen Anne of England Dion Boucicault was an Irish playwright; Paddy was a character in a song he wrote The Bishop of Sodor and Man was a man named Rowley Hills, DD when Patience premiered The dash of a D'ORSAY, divested of quackery - Narrative powers of DICKENS and THACKERAY - VICTOR EMMANUEL - peak-haunting PEVERIL - THOMAS AQUINAS, and DOCTOR SACHEVERELL - TUPPER and TENNYSON - DANIEL DEFOE - ANTHONY TROLLOPE and MISTER GUIZOT! Alfred d'Orsay was a French dandy Dickens? Come on now W.M. Thackery was a British novelist Victor Emmanuel was the first king of modern Italy William Peveril was a knight who built a hilltop castle Thomas Aquinas was a Catholic priest and philosopher Henry Sacheverell was an English politician Martin Tupper was an English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson was an English poet Daniel Defoe was a British novelist Anthony Trollope was a British novelist François Guizot was a French historian Take of these elements all that is fusible, Melt 'em all down in a pipkin or crucible, Set 'em to simmer and take off the scum, And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum! A pipkin is a small cooking pot Residuum is a fancy word for residue If you want a receipt for this soldierlike paragon, Get at the wealth of the CZAR (if you can) - The family pride of a Spaniard from Arragon - Force of MEPHISTO pronouncing a ban - The czar was the ruler of Russia Aragon was a lawful Spanish kingdom Mephisto is the demon from Doctor Faustus A smack of LORD WATERFORD, reckless and rollicky - Swagger of RODERICK, heading his clan - The keen penetration of PADDINGTON POLLAKY -Grace of an Odalisque on a divan - Lord Waterford was a nobleman who coined "painting the town red" Roderick was a Gothic king who lived in Spain Paddington Pollaky was a Hungarian private detective (and forerunner of Sherlock Holmes!) An Odalisque was a Turkish concubine The genius strategic of CAESAR or HANNIBAL - Skill of LORD WOLSELEY in thrashing a cannibal - Flavour of HAMLET - the STRANGER, a touch of him - Little of MANFRED (but not very much of him) - Beadle of Burlington - RICHARDSON'S show -MR. MICAWBER and MADAME TUSSAUD! Caesar was the title of a Roman emperor, so this could be a number of people Hannibal was a Carthaginian who attempted to invade Rome Lord Wolseley was a British soldier who served in the far reaches of the world Manfred was the hero of Lord Byron's epic poem of the same name The Beadle of Burlington was a security guard who patrolled the Burlington arcade Richardson's show was a sort of traveling Victorian circus Wilkins Micawber was a character from Charles Dickens's David Copperfield Marie Tussaud was a wax sculptor who founded a museum Take of these elements all that is fusible - Melt 'em all down in a pipkin or crucible - Set 'em to simmer and take off the scum, And a Heavy Dragoon is the residuum!  And that's that! Why not take a listen to the song for yourself? Try to follow along with all the shout-outs. Big thanks to the Patience Glossary for helping me out on a few head-scratchers.