The last three weeks I've been fairly quiet here, because I've been absorbed in watching the Tour de France. I decided not to post about it daily like I did last year, but now that it's over I've a few thoughts.
It was actually a pretty good race this year. It was a close, interesting, tactical race. No one team or rider dominated too much, which makes the whole thing a lot more interesting. I would always prefer to watch a race where the top three finishers are separated by 31 seconds than a race where Lance/Ivan/whoever wins by 8 or 10 minutes.
There were difficult moments, of course. The abrupt departure of two teams and the yellow jersey wearer in the third week really shook things up, and the final results are rather different than how the race was shaping up a week ago. Three of the riders who got the boot were in the top ten, and I doubt the final podium would have been the same if everyone had stayed in the race.
Non-cycling fans shake their heads in amazement at the scandal, but I choose to be optimistic. I think that cycling is finally headed in the right direction, and that finally we are starting to see intolerance of doping from team management and the other riders. Rabobank made a huge sacrifice by pulling the yellow jersey wearer out of the Tour just days before he would have won. Two years ago, or even last year, most teams would have put their heads down and hoped the rumors about Rasmussen blew over. (Yes, Discovery Channel, I'm looking at you.) They would argue that nothing had been proven, and therefore he was free to ride. This year Rabo spared us another Landis-type scandal by pulling out the suspicious rider rather than letting him win, and we all owe them thanks for that. Riders are finally openly speaking out against the ones who dope, and the tide seems to be turning. It was just two years ago that Lance went out of his way to intimidate and humiliate a rider who'd spoken against doping. Said Lance: "He's trying to destroy the sport." Really, though, it's because of people like Lance that it's taken this long for us to make some progress, and we are all better off with him gone.
I am an optimist, but I am not naive. There will be other riders caught. There will probably be more revelations coming out of Operacion Puerto last year. The Spanish have finally released the evidence to the cycling federations, and they are digging through it. It is quite possible that this year's Giro results were not entirely clean, as I posted in May. I always prefer to believe the best of the riders, and I have been repeatedly disappointed to discover that my faith was misplaced. But the top level of cycling has been scraped clean in the last few years. Between retirements and suspensions, we've lost most of the real GC contenders, including Tyler Hamilton, Roberto Heras, Lance Armstrong, Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Francisco Mancebo, Floyd Landis (who is not going to win his appeal), and Joseba Beloki. Vinokourov and Kloden were the two remaining top riders of the previous generation, and now Vino is implicated, and Kloden is talking about retirement.
This has allowed a new set of riders to rise to the top: those who were always solid, good riders, but not quite at the same level as the ones listed above. We've got Evans and Leipheimer and Sastre rising to the top. Add younger riders like Contador, Cunego, Karpets, both Schlecks, and Popovych, and now we've got a whole new race, and I'm enjoying it very much. Nor am I the only one: millions of people turned out to watch the Tour, as always. In fact, 3 million people turned out to see prologue on the first day. Cycling fans still love cycling, because it's an interesting and beautiful sport.
So, to move past the doping discussion, here is how this year's race turned out:
1. Alberto Contador, Spain, Discovery Channel
2. Cadel Evans, Australia, Predictor Lotto
3. Levi Leipheimer, US, Discovery Channel
4. Carlos Sastre, Spain, Team CSC
5. Haimar Zubeldia, Spain, Euskaltel Euskadi
6. Alejandro Valverde, Spain, Caisse d'Epargne
7. Kim Kirchen, Luxembourg, T-Mobile
8. Yaroslav Popovych, Ukraine, Discovery Channel
9. Mikel Astarloza, Spain, Euskaltel Euskadi
10. Oscar Pereiro, Spain, Caisse d'Epargne
Points Winner: Tom Boonen, Belgium, Quickstep-Innergetic
King of the Mountains: Juan Mauricio Soler, Columbia, Barloworld
Best Young Rider: Alberto Contador, Spain, Discovery Channel
Lantern Rouge: Wim Vansevenant, Belgium, Preditor Lotto
Most Aggressive Rider: Amets Txurruka, Spain, Euskaltel Euskadi
Australia had its first rider on the final podium this year. Five of the top ten are Spanish. Discovery Channel had three finishers in the top ten, and Euskaltel Euskadi and Caisse d'Epargne each had two in the top ten.
189 riders started the race, and 141 finished it.
And I enjoyed it all.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
Duo by Vivien Armstrong
On two separate visits to the library, I accidentally checked out two different books by the same author. This wasn't deliberate, and in fact I didn't even notice until I was several chapters into the second book. I like police procedurals, and I have had pretty good luck with books published by Severn House, and those factors led me to select these books on separate days. Oops.
Interestingly enough, I did not like both of them equally. In fact, I was surprised to find that they were written by the same person, because one of them was much better than the other.
The first one I read was Roll Over, Play Dead. It's a very short book--168 pages--and read almost like it was an abridged version. The work seemed hurried, and the quality of writing was very poor. I nearly gave up on it, but eventually decided to stick with it because I could get through it pretty quickly. In Roll Over, Play Dead, the pretty younger trophy wife of an EU bigwig is found dead in her home, apparently beaten to death. It is a sensitive case, and so DS Roger Hayes of the Met's intelligence unit is dispatched to look into the matter discreetly and prevent any embarrassment for the husband.
Hayes is frustrated with his rather nebulous role in the affair, and seems to take out some of his frustration on his sergeant, who is female and a fraud specialist. His thoughts about her (for instance, Maybe she could be useful, after all) do not particularly match the actions of the story. This, and the hurried pace, are why I suspected that it may have been pared down to this length from a longer work that actually made sense.
The quality of writing was really bad. What really caught my attention was the point of view: it wanders from character to character at odd times, and the voice was too casural. For instance, in one scene Sergeant Prentice has been sent to go find someone. She is walking by herself, and the narrator seems to be describing her from Hayes's point of view, even though he isn't there. An example: "True, she was tall, not far short of six feet at a guess." Who is guessing? Prentice is alone--there is no one there to guess how tall she is. And she doesn't need to guess--I'm sure she knows how tall she is. It is followed by: "An English Brunnhilde about covered it." Eh? Is that sentence even grammatical? And who is describing her that way? I doubt that she is thinking of herself that way, so the narrator is speaking, and it's an oddly chatty voice.
Our Brunnhilde-like sergeant stops to interview someone, which ends thusly: "The sound of a car stopping outside put paid to all this girly chat and the door burst open to admit Tracey's lover boy, Bill Wickham." Truly, this is the first police interview I've ever seen described as girly chat. And why describe an older, live-in domestic partner as a lover boy? It was just weirdly and inappropriately chatty again.
Add the fact that all the men are called by their last name and all the women by their first name--Eva, Tracey, Mo; Hayes, Wickham, Cosham--and I keep suspecting that the author is actually male. In fact, that was my reaction to the other Armstrong book I read, too--I looked at the back cover to see if the author was male, and realized that it was the same person who wrote this one.
Finally, and unforgivably, I figured out who did it and why long before the detectives did. Overall, this was a real stinker.
The second Armstrong book I read over the weekend was Rewind. This one features DI Ian Preston, recently divorced and moved to the country. A woman is found drowned in a hotel swimming pool, and it is eventually ruled an accident. Her very attractive sister then turns up from Canada and talks Preston into helping her investigate further. I thought the basic idea behind the plot was stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought the love at first sight between the characters was also stupid, stupid, stupid. However it's actually a much better book than Roll Over, Play Dead was.
I really haven't much else to say about Rewind. It started with a stupid and annoying premise, but was actually pretty entertaining, and the crime and its solution were fairly satisfying. I probably won't bother to read another Armstrong, but this one at least was worth a few hours of my time.
Interestingly enough, I did not like both of them equally. In fact, I was surprised to find that they were written by the same person, because one of them was much better than the other.
The first one I read was Roll Over, Play Dead. It's a very short book--168 pages--and read almost like it was an abridged version. The work seemed hurried, and the quality of writing was very poor. I nearly gave up on it, but eventually decided to stick with it because I could get through it pretty quickly. In Roll Over, Play Dead, the pretty younger trophy wife of an EU bigwig is found dead in her home, apparently beaten to death. It is a sensitive case, and so DS Roger Hayes of the Met's intelligence unit is dispatched to look into the matter discreetly and prevent any embarrassment for the husband.
Hayes is frustrated with his rather nebulous role in the affair, and seems to take out some of his frustration on his sergeant, who is female and a fraud specialist. His thoughts about her (for instance, Maybe she could be useful, after all) do not particularly match the actions of the story. This, and the hurried pace, are why I suspected that it may have been pared down to this length from a longer work that actually made sense.
The quality of writing was really bad. What really caught my attention was the point of view: it wanders from character to character at odd times, and the voice was too casural. For instance, in one scene Sergeant Prentice has been sent to go find someone. She is walking by herself, and the narrator seems to be describing her from Hayes's point of view, even though he isn't there. An example: "True, she was tall, not far short of six feet at a guess." Who is guessing? Prentice is alone--there is no one there to guess how tall she is. And she doesn't need to guess--I'm sure she knows how tall she is. It is followed by: "An English Brunnhilde about covered it." Eh? Is that sentence even grammatical? And who is describing her that way? I doubt that she is thinking of herself that way, so the narrator is speaking, and it's an oddly chatty voice.
Our Brunnhilde-like sergeant stops to interview someone, which ends thusly: "The sound of a car stopping outside put paid to all this girly chat and the door burst open to admit Tracey's lover boy, Bill Wickham." Truly, this is the first police interview I've ever seen described as girly chat. And why describe an older, live-in domestic partner as a lover boy? It was just weirdly and inappropriately chatty again.
Add the fact that all the men are called by their last name and all the women by their first name--Eva, Tracey, Mo; Hayes, Wickham, Cosham--and I keep suspecting that the author is actually male. In fact, that was my reaction to the other Armstrong book I read, too--I looked at the back cover to see if the author was male, and realized that it was the same person who wrote this one.
Finally, and unforgivably, I figured out who did it and why long before the detectives did. Overall, this was a real stinker.
The second Armstrong book I read over the weekend was Rewind. This one features DI Ian Preston, recently divorced and moved to the country. A woman is found drowned in a hotel swimming pool, and it is eventually ruled an accident. Her very attractive sister then turns up from Canada and talks Preston into helping her investigate further. I thought the basic idea behind the plot was stupid, stupid, stupid. I thought the love at first sight between the characters was also stupid, stupid, stupid. However it's actually a much better book than Roll Over, Play Dead was.
I really haven't much else to say about Rewind. It started with a stupid and annoying premise, but was actually pretty entertaining, and the crime and its solution were fairly satisfying. I probably won't bother to read another Armstrong, but this one at least was worth a few hours of my time.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Socks #2
I have just finished knitting my second pair of socks. I knit it from Tofutsies (50% wool, 25% soysilk, 22.5% cotton, 2.5% chitin) in color 786. I used size 2 needles with a pattern from Sensational Knitted Socks.
Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser
I've been hearing people mention the Flashman books for years, but this is the first one I've tracked down. It is historical fiction about Harry Flashman, an officer (but not a gentleman) of the British Empire in the 19th century. It is told in memoir style, including endnotes & appendices. I think that Fraser did a great deal of research before writing the work.
I usually don't like historical fiction, but this novel was a hoot. Flashy is a coward and a scoundrel, and he knows it. His primary preoccupations are his own safety and seducing all the women he meets. However, he must pretend to be brave and heroic, and it seems to work for him. He notes: "When I think of the number or eminent men - and women - who have taken me at face value, and formed a high opinion of my character and abilities, it makes me tramble for my country's future. I mean, if they can't spot me as a a wrong 'un, who can they spot?"
In this novel, Flashy has been sent to India in 1846. The Sikhs are about to declare war on the British, and Flashman has been sent into enemy territory because he speaks Punjab. He has lots of sex with beautiful women, narrowly escapes death more than once, and comes out of it all looking better than he probably deserves. It was a lot of fun, and I will definitely track down more of Flashman's adventures.
I usually don't like historical fiction, but this novel was a hoot. Flashy is a coward and a scoundrel, and he knows it. His primary preoccupations are his own safety and seducing all the women he meets. However, he must pretend to be brave and heroic, and it seems to work for him. He notes: "When I think of the number or eminent men - and women - who have taken me at face value, and formed a high opinion of my character and abilities, it makes me tramble for my country's future. I mean, if they can't spot me as a a wrong 'un, who can they spot?"
In this novel, Flashy has been sent to India in 1846. The Sikhs are about to declare war on the British, and Flashman has been sent into enemy territory because he speaks Punjab. He has lots of sex with beautiful women, narrowly escapes death more than once, and comes out of it all looking better than he probably deserves. It was a lot of fun, and I will definitely track down more of Flashman's adventures.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Maigret & the Man on the Bench by Georges Simenon
Georges Simenon was a very prolific writer, penning nearly 200 novels. 75 of those featured Inspector Maigret. They are small books, probably only 50,000 words or so, and are quick reads. I've read a few of them over the years, and yesterday picked up this one, written in 1953.
The Maigret novels are French police procedurals. They are different than most British and American police procedurals, and I am uncertain if the difference is national, or merely a reflection of Simenon's personality. Unlike in many British & American mysteries, Maigret deals nearly always with the lower classes--the working class, the poor, and criminals. His novels are full of prostitutes and petty thieves. He conducts interviews in the cramped, overheated kitchens and shops of the working poor.
In this book, a man is found stabbed to death in a narrow alley between two businesses. As they investigate, the police find that his life is a charade staged for his awful wife, and that he has no visible means of support. He is being blackmailed by his self-centered daughter, who holds both per parents in contempt and just wants money to get away. She has an equally whiny boyfriend who whinges on about how hard it is that his parents expect him to work and earn a living. Meanwhile they are keeping an eye on the victim's other place of residence, which is populated by whores who spend all day lounging about without any clothes on.
Simenon has a very dirty and cynical view of people.
Eventually Maigret catches the killer, whose existence we were previously unaware of. The solution makes some sort of sense, but it certainly doesn't play fair with the readers. However, I don't think Simenon cared about playing fair with the readers. As I said, his works are different than English-language mysteries.
The Maigret novels are French police procedurals. They are different than most British and American police procedurals, and I am uncertain if the difference is national, or merely a reflection of Simenon's personality. Unlike in many British & American mysteries, Maigret deals nearly always with the lower classes--the working class, the poor, and criminals. His novels are full of prostitutes and petty thieves. He conducts interviews in the cramped, overheated kitchens and shops of the working poor.
In this book, a man is found stabbed to death in a narrow alley between two businesses. As they investigate, the police find that his life is a charade staged for his awful wife, and that he has no visible means of support. He is being blackmailed by his self-centered daughter, who holds both per parents in contempt and just wants money to get away. She has an equally whiny boyfriend who whinges on about how hard it is that his parents expect him to work and earn a living. Meanwhile they are keeping an eye on the victim's other place of residence, which is populated by whores who spend all day lounging about without any clothes on.
Simenon has a very dirty and cynical view of people.
Eventually Maigret catches the killer, whose existence we were previously unaware of. The solution makes some sort of sense, but it certainly doesn't play fair with the readers. However, I don't think Simenon cared about playing fair with the readers. As I said, his works are different than English-language mysteries.
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Robert's Rules of Writing by Robert Masello
I've read a lot of writing books over the years. I've read enough of them, in fact, that I don't read them any more. This one, however, was mentioned by Joe Haldeman in his sff.net group, which got me interested enough to track it down.
The book is divided into short lessons, each only a page or two. Haldeman mentioned a couple which got my attention: Burn Your Journal and Skip the Starbucks. Many writing books suggest that you keep a journal because it will make the words flow more easily when you are ready to work on your book. Journaling doesn't work for me. I find it tedious and boring. Masello seems to agree:
"If you feel like keeping a journal--that neither you nor anyone else on earth will ever want to read--be my guest. But if you want to write something that may eventually see the light of day, that a magazine might buy or a publisher publish, then you'll have to knock off the journaling and do the grunt work that real writing requires."
"The hard part of writing isn't scribbling words on a page. The hard part is scribbling words that mean something, that make sense, that build a narrative or lay out an argument, that construct a scene or articulate a position. It's not about how many pages you can cover with ink in a day."
Burn Your Journal is chapter one, and Masello won me over right there. My psyche was scarred by journaling when I was in high school, when one of the English teachers recommended that we keep a journal; and one of my closest friends kept insisting that I read her journal entries in which she went on for pages about how miserable she was. Journals aren't interesting to anyone except the writer, and personally I find my own journal entries as dull as hell, too. Nor is journaling useful to me in writing, as I don't have difficulty finding the right words, I have difficulty with plotting.
In chapter seven, he takes on another habit of wannabe writers: Skip the Starbucks. He isn't the only one with this advice--John Scalzi's book on writing is entitled "You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Cofffee Shop." Masello's comments are pointed:
"The theory behind the Starbucks School of Writing, to which countless aspiring writers subscribe, is simple--you'll do your best and most concentrated work when you're out of the house....Of course, the theory is wrong--what you really get out of trip to Starbucks is a nice caffeine buzz and the heady impression you've been working when in fact you haven't. Starbucks is where writers who want to be seen in the act of creation go, who treat writing as if it were some kind of performance art. They want to be admired, they want to be soothed by the ambient noise and the occasional glance from an attractive patron. They want to be asked, "What are you working on?" so they can sit back and talk about it....When, if they really and truly wanted to be undisturbed, they'd stay home in the first place, make a cup of Folgers instant (for about a nickel), and concentrate."
The rest of Masello's advice is fairly standard, and could probably be boiled down to: "Don't suck." It's all the usual stuff: learn to spell and punctuate, leave out the boring bits, revise your work before submitting it, create interesting characters, read your dialogue aloud, and don't be an asshole to your editor. It's mostly pretty good and standard advice, stated tersely.
There was one chapter that I don't particularly agree with: Stop Reading. He doesn't mean it literally, but he says that you shouldn't read work that's too similar to what you're working on, lest the other writers' material rub off on you, rendering your book less a unique product of your creativity. I've seen this theory before, and I suppose that its validity depends on the individual writer. However I am more of Stephen King's view on the matter:
"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life....The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one's papers and identification pretty much in order....It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been and done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor." ( from On Writing)
Robert's Rules of Writing is a fairly good little writing book. I found most of it pretty obvious, but I think it could be useful to a new writer.
The book is divided into short lessons, each only a page or two. Haldeman mentioned a couple which got my attention: Burn Your Journal and Skip the Starbucks. Many writing books suggest that you keep a journal because it will make the words flow more easily when you are ready to work on your book. Journaling doesn't work for me. I find it tedious and boring. Masello seems to agree:
"If you feel like keeping a journal--that neither you nor anyone else on earth will ever want to read--be my guest. But if you want to write something that may eventually see the light of day, that a magazine might buy or a publisher publish, then you'll have to knock off the journaling and do the grunt work that real writing requires."
"The hard part of writing isn't scribbling words on a page. The hard part is scribbling words that mean something, that make sense, that build a narrative or lay out an argument, that construct a scene or articulate a position. It's not about how many pages you can cover with ink in a day."
Burn Your Journal is chapter one, and Masello won me over right there. My psyche was scarred by journaling when I was in high school, when one of the English teachers recommended that we keep a journal; and one of my closest friends kept insisting that I read her journal entries in which she went on for pages about how miserable she was. Journals aren't interesting to anyone except the writer, and personally I find my own journal entries as dull as hell, too. Nor is journaling useful to me in writing, as I don't have difficulty finding the right words, I have difficulty with plotting.
In chapter seven, he takes on another habit of wannabe writers: Skip the Starbucks. He isn't the only one with this advice--John Scalzi's book on writing is entitled "You're Not Fooling Anyone When You Take Your Laptop to a Cofffee Shop." Masello's comments are pointed:
"The theory behind the Starbucks School of Writing, to which countless aspiring writers subscribe, is simple--you'll do your best and most concentrated work when you're out of the house....Of course, the theory is wrong--what you really get out of trip to Starbucks is a nice caffeine buzz and the heady impression you've been working when in fact you haven't. Starbucks is where writers who want to be seen in the act of creation go, who treat writing as if it were some kind of performance art. They want to be admired, they want to be soothed by the ambient noise and the occasional glance from an attractive patron. They want to be asked, "What are you working on?" so they can sit back and talk about it....When, if they really and truly wanted to be undisturbed, they'd stay home in the first place, make a cup of Folgers instant (for about a nickel), and concentrate."
The rest of Masello's advice is fairly standard, and could probably be boiled down to: "Don't suck." It's all the usual stuff: learn to spell and punctuate, leave out the boring bits, revise your work before submitting it, create interesting characters, read your dialogue aloud, and don't be an asshole to your editor. It's mostly pretty good and standard advice, stated tersely.
There was one chapter that I don't particularly agree with: Stop Reading. He doesn't mean it literally, but he says that you shouldn't read work that's too similar to what you're working on, lest the other writers' material rub off on you, rendering your book less a unique product of your creativity. I've seen this theory before, and I suppose that its validity depends on the individual writer. However I am more of Stephen King's view on the matter:
"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life....The real importance of reading is that it creates an ease and intimacy with the process of writing; one comes to the country of the writer with one's papers and identification pretty much in order....It also offers you a constantly growing knowledge of what has been and done and what hasn't, what is trite and what is fresh, what works and what just lies there dying (or dead) on the page. The more you read, the less apt you are to make a fool of yourself with your pen or word processor." ( from On Writing)
Robert's Rules of Writing is a fairly good little writing book. I found most of it pretty obvious, but I think it could be useful to a new writer.
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