The Farthest Shore, by Ursula K. Le Guin

****

By far the best in the series so far. By sending the two main characters on a lonely voyage over sea, Le Guin eliminates the need for any supporting characters. Indeed, the few people the heroes encounter along the way have been transformed into mere shells of humanity, so Le Guin's tendency to produce two dimensional (or even one-dimensional) supporting characters actually works to her advantage here.

The story, too, is quite compelling--a moving allegorical tale of the danger of pursuing immortality and power and your own self-interest. It has all the elements of good fantasy: dragons, magic, a young prince, an old wizard, strange lands, friendship, loyalty, danger, courage, self-sacrifice. Once again, there are glimpses of Harry Potter, though this time Ged, the young wizard prodigy in A Wizard of Earthsea, is himself the careworn master wizard with a protegee of his own.

I'm still not as blown away by Le Guin as I expected to be, based on her reputation, but I look forward to reading more (after all, I haven't read any of her (many) Nebula and Hugo award winners).

Op Ed for beginners

I recently came across a discussion online about the merits of protecting employees' rights to refuse to perform certain tasks because of their religious beliefs.  It was surprised to see how quickly and summarily the benefits of conscientious objection were dismissed.  So I wrote a response.  This is it.

Diversity has its limits

“Conservatives may be self-selecting out of graduate school, but they’re doing it on a rational basis,” he told me. “It’s become clear to them that they’re unlikely to succeed at the same level as someone going into these fields with more socially approved political convictions and attitudes.” They’re discouraged not by a letter from the director of graduate studies but rather by more subtle obstacles blocking the way to tenure, in Dr. Wood’s view. Writing in The Chronicle of Higher Education in March, he criticized liberal social scientists for failing to heed their own extensive research into bias. [...]

Dr. Yancey, a professor of sociology at the University of North Texas, asked more than 400 sociologists which nonacademic factors might influence their willingness to vote for hiring a new colleague. You might expect professors to at least claim to be immune to bias in academic hiring decisions.

But as Dr. Yancey reports in his new book, “Compromising Scholarship: Religious and Political Bias in American Higher Education,” more than a quarter of the sociologists said they would be swayed favorably toward a Democrat or an A.C.L.U. member and unfavorably toward a Republican. About 40 percent said they would be less inclined to vote for hiring someone who belonged to the National Rifle Association or who was an evangelical. Similar results were obtained in a subsequent survey of professors in other social sciences and the humanities.

Dr. Yancey, who describes himself as a political independent with traditional Christian beliefs and progressive social values, advises nonliberal graduate students to be discreet during job interviews. “The information in this research,” he wrote, “indicates that revealing one’s political and religious conservatism will, on average, negatively influence about half of the search committee one is attempting to impress.”  

[...] If you were a conservative undergraduate, would you risk spending at least four years in graduate school in the hope of getting a job offer from a committee dominated by people who don’t share your views?

You might well select another career for yourself — but you wouldn’t exactly call it self-selection.

~"The Left-Leaning Tower," by John Tierney (in The New York Times)

Oft-turned phrases

Using the Oxford English Corpus, encompassing about two billion words of 21st-century English, Hargraves found peculiar patterns in simple words like the verb “brush.” Everybody talks about brushing their teeth, but other possible companions, like “hair,” “strand,” “lock” and “lip,” appear up to 150 times more frequently in fiction than in any other genre. “Brush” appears near “lips” when two characters’ lips brush against each other or one’s lips brush against another’s cheek — as happens so often in novels. For the hair-related collocations, Hargraves concludes that “fictional characters cannot stop playing with their hair.”

“Bolting upright” and “drawing one’s breath” are two more fiction-specific turns of phrase revealed by the corpus.

~"The Mechanic Muse: The Jargon of the Novel, Computed," by Ben Zimmer (in The New York Times)

Presumably the study would also reveal the myriad barking dogs in the fictional distance. 

Guilty as charged

As soon it's inevitable that a writer must begin their first word, it becomes (almost) equally and conflictingly inevitable that the writer must do something else really quickly before scribbling breaks out. Hence the kettle. Tell you what, I'll just go and make a fresh beverage, then I'll get down to things properly. Absolutely. Of course I will.

Writers can generate industrial quantities of procrastination before their first sonnet is rejected, or their first novel-outline-plus-sample-chapter is exorcised, burned and its ashes buried at sea. Are my pens facing north? Or magnetic north? What's that funny noise? Oh look, it's raining outside. My fingernails need cutting. I think my computer is going to break, better get it checked. Do I have toothache? Will I have toothache? The possibilities lend new meaning to the words eternity and purgatory.

~"Off-putting Behavior," by Al Kennedy (in the Guardian)

A woman's right to choose?

The presumption is that women pursue reduced or flexible hours because men refuse to take equal responsibility for the children and because the United States does not have “family-friendly policies.” Child care is frequently described as a burden to women, a patriarchal imposition on their ambitions, and a source of profound inequity. But is this attitude accurate? Do women want to be working more, if only the kids—and their useless husbands—would let them? And do we know that more government support would enable them to do so and close the wage gap?

Actually, there is no evidence for either of these propositions. If women work fewer hours than men do, it appears to be because they want it that way. About two-thirds of the part-time workforce in the United States is female. According to a 2007 Pew Research survey, only 21 percent of working mothers with minor children want to be in the office full-time. Sixty percent say that they would prefer to work part-time, and 19 percent would like to give up their jobs altogether. For working fathers, the numbers are reversed: 72 percent want to work full-time and 12 percent part-time.

~"Why the Gender Gap Won't Go Away. Ever.", by Kay S. Hymowitz (in City Journal)

Artemis Fowl, by Eoin Colfer

****

Quite enjoyable, especially on audiobook. But then, I am a sucker for Irish accents.

ADDENDUM: The actual book is pretty readable, as young adult books go, but I still think the audiobook is better, if only because of the delicious accents. And really, it's a creative concept--the anti-hero is rarely seen in young adult literature. Artemis Fowl is presented as the villain, but that's really just an opportunity for the reader to watch him grow and develop in a way that a "good guy through and through" simply can't. Artemis' struggle with his own devious desires is more compelling than many an external villain. And Colfer is adept at creating amusing characters, who treat each other with annoyance undergirded by real loyalty and affection. Pretty complex relationships for a children's book, if you think about it.