Cannonball read #14 and #15

Um. So. Yeah. I have kind of gone underground the last few weeks. Training is going well, I guess, though in smaller quantities than usual. Life is also going well: I am healthy, I am lucky enough to have people around me whom I love and who love me, I have a job and summer is around the corner with lots of fun plans to look forward to. I've been on holiday and recharged my batteries. I've run races and done well, much better than I thought I would. But you wouldn't know it by reading this blog. Mainly because, well, there's nothing happening in it nowadays. I mean, look at that banner. March 2013? Today is the first of May and I still haven't updated that banner. At least the year is still right.

There is no real explanation as to why I haven't felt motivated to update the blog. Just lack of inspiration, I suppose. I am not going to go so far as to say that I will shut it down, but if I do update it, it will be even less often than it has been so far. Unless, of course, my muse decides to pay me a visit and stay a while.

But there is one thing I still have to do. I am still doing the Cannonball Read, and I still have to write reviews for the books I read. So here come two of them:

Cannonball Read #14: And another thing...by Eoin Colfer

I read ”The hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy” a zillion years ago. I don't remember much about it, except its nuttiness. Yes, yes. I remember the towel. And 42. And the characters' strange names, like Zaphod Beeblebrox. But the details escape me. So I wondered how it would be reading part 6 of the trilogy, a part that wasn't even written by the original author of the series, Douglas Adams (who is, unfortunately, dead). It was written by Eoin Colfer, the author of Artemis Fowl, an author whose work was new to me.

I needn't have worried. Judging by the response the book got it was just as well. Some readers thought that Colfer tried to copy Adams' style of writing but the book didn't live up to Adams' standard. Others complained that it was nothing like Adams had ever written. Either way, the readers compared the book to Adams'. So, lacking that point of reference, I was going to read the book for what it was, on its own merits, and not through comparisons to the original books.

And this is where you expect me to write a summary. The problem is that for the first half of the book or so I wasn't really sure what was happening – but that could have been my own fault for not concentrating hard enough. Earth is to be demolished by some alien bureaucrats, to make way for a hyperspace bypass. Does that sound familiar? That's because this is how the first book started. Arthur and his friends escape unscathed (again), but the aliens are determined to not let them slip this time. Cue the shenanigans.

Once I focused long enough to understand what was going on, I could relax and enjoy the humour. Because it is an entertaining book, even if it isn't roll on the floor laughing your arse off-funny. There are no likeable characters to speak of (one of them is outright slappable – I'm looking at you, Random Frequent Flyer Dent), nor character development; what you get instead is a story that is crammed with odd personalities that fight for your attention. Perhaps the book would have benefited from a little more focus on the main characters, but then we might have missed the craziness of the secondary characters. Come to think of it, I don't really know who the main characters were, and which characters were secondary.

It is not for lack of trying that ”And another thing...” doesn't top the list of my favourite books. All the ingredients for a good fun book are there; I would even go so far as to say that it was a book written with love for Douglas Adams, not an attempt to make money off the success of ”The hitch-hiker's guide”. But it is not a great book. Maybe it relies on the originals too much. Maybe it counts on nostalgic readers who try to quench their thirst, loyal Adams fans who were deprived of their favourite author way, way too soon.

Cannonball Read #15: Ender's game by Orson Scott Card

Ender is a 6 year old boy that gets chosen to join Battle School, an elite programme that is meant to produce extraordinary generals. These generals will later fight the war against aliens. Through intensive training, facing new dangers every day, Ender will have to stand his ground and prove his worth.

Ender's game was one of those books that confuse you. On one hand, action! Spaceships! Aliens! Drama! On the other hand, the cognitive dissonance of having a 6-year old behaving and thinking like an adult. Despite Orson Scott Card telling me that this is no ordinary 6 year old, I couldn't overlook the fact that this just doesn't happen. No suspended disbelief for me. What made it worse, perhaps, was that this 6-year old was as precocious at 6 as he later was at 12; there was no progression in his maturity, no painful lessons learned. He seemed to know everything right from the beginning.

A lot of the book had to do with battle strategy that flew over my head, possibly because I don't find it interesting enough to read about. What I found most interesting was Ender's relationship with his sadistic older brother, Peter. In the beginning of the book it is implied that their story will have a dramatic ending.

SPOILERS

Yet nothing happens. Their relationship, which seemed to be a central element in the book, an important contributing factor to Ender's decisions and even his personality, just fizzles out. There is no resolution to their conflict. Peter, who is fleshed out as an important (and interesting!) character in the beginning of the book, just disappears during the second half. I realise that the most important decision Ender makes in this book is meant to show that he is a caring individual and not at all a murderer like his brother. Still, this juxtaposition comes at a time when we've lost interest in the brother, who has been shown to have redeeming qualities after all, and is not the bogeyman he was during Ender's early years.

END SPOILERS

This was an easy, entertaining read, but I failed to see why it has won prizes and a place among the classics of science fiction.

Cannonball Read #13: The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce

In her debut novel, The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Rachel Joyce tells a story of regret, redemption and forgiveness. Harold Fry is a pensioner, living in Southern England. He spends his days quietly and without fuss, barely exchanging any words with his wife, Maureen. One day, Harold receives a letter from Queenie, an old colleague and friend, with whom he hasn't spoken in many years. Queenie is in a hospice in Northern England, dying of cancer, and she is just writing to say goodbye. Harold writes a quick reply and he's on his way to the post office to send it, when he suddenly gets the urge to keep walking. He needs to keep walking, believing that he can keep Queenie alive as long as he continues his walk towards her. This is the story of his journey.

I am a long distance runner. The thing that I find most exciting about running far is that I get to see new places. That is why I was immediately fascinated by the premise of this book. Harold's journey, especially in the first 50 or so pages of the book, capture the powerful wanderlust which I feel when I travel on foot. I could just picture myself running along those same roads, surrounded by flowers and lush green fields, as Harold walked. I could easily identify with his desire to keep going.

But this book is ultimately not about wanderlust. It's about life, and death, and how sometimes you're alive even though you don't actually live your life. It is about overcoming personal obstacles and fears. It is a simple book, on the surface. Joyce's writing is easy to read and keeps the reader turning the pages. Still, once the book is finished, the emotional impact can be very deep indeed, the simplicity of the book an illusion. Because underneath his polite exterior and his quaint ”Englishness” lie Harold's repressed feelings.

This bitter-sweet tale sags a bit in the middle and almost runs out of steam, but perhaps it is meant to feel that way. After all, it is a huge undertaking of a journey, and Harold is bound to get tired at some point. But, if you stick with it to the end, it will not disappoint you. The unlikely pilgrimage of Harold Fry is the kind of book that grows on you the more you think about it, and you are likely to think about it a lot.

Cannonball read #12: The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury

What a strange book this was. What a difficult task to review it. Its structure resembles more a collection of short stories rather than a novel, which makes it way too easy to get stuck on the parts and miss the whole, but there is a red thread through it, thin as it may be.

The Martian Chronicles was written in 1945, around the time World War II was coming to an explosive end in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The year is 1999. As more and more people flee our planet to start a new life on Mars, to escape such things as slavery and bureaucracy, Mars puts up resistance. Strange things start happening. But that doesn't stop mankind from colonising the red planet.

The red thread that I mentioned above, the common denominator of all the episodes described in this book, is the uneasy feeling that nothing is how it is supposed to be. My first encounter with Bradbury was the excellent, superbly creepy Something wicked this way comes. I read it as a teenager, and, even though I no longer remember the details of the book, I remember very well how unnerving it was, how deeply disturbing. While The Martian Chronicles isn't quite the waking nightmare that book was, it has a dark, foreboding character that never lets you forget who wrote it.

I found it hard to get past the episodic nature of the book. All characters were bound by the same history, were facing the same threat, were heading towards the same future and inhabited the same planet. Yet, with only a handful of pages dedicated to each of them, there was no room for character development. I felt detached, almost indifferent to the fate of these pioneers.

Yet, the poetry. The poetry! Bradbury writes beautifully, his descriptions casting spells on the reader. His storytelling is as vivid as his imagination, his world -although at first dated when seen through our modern eyes- believable. His message is as important and relevant today as it was in 1945. All in all, The Martian Chronicles is not one of my favourite books but it did make me want to read more Bradbury.

Love affair

I have been fighting a cold the last few days. I haven't been able to train at all. In fact, even walking to work has felt like a struggle on a couple of occasions. As my mood deteriorated in step with every sunny day wasted lying on the sofa building a tissue pyramid on the coffee table that would turn Egyptians green with envy, I started feeling resentment towards running. Why does it treat me this way, causing me several injuries per year, when I love it so much? I am sick of its antics, its blatant disregard for my well-being! Surely, if I had any self respect I'd kick it out the door and change the locks.

Then, this morning, I spent my break at work reading an article in the latest ”Turist” magazine about running in the mountains. I remembered the sense of wonder and awe I felt while running in Hemavan, rolling down the Kungsleden trail, surrounded by nothing but majestic snow-clad mountain tops and the absence of time. I thought about my running friend N, with whom I've been planning a running holiday in the mountains this summer. My heart started waking up from the deep slumber it's been in the last few weeks and wrote running a love poem.

When I got home, I put on my VFF for the first time in 2-3 months. I ran with the wind on my back, under a spring sun, aiming to get as much mud on my shoes as possible. Just before I got home after this short run, a cloud directly over my head started dusting minuscule snowflakes all around me, at the same time as the sun warmed my face. 

Running, I know we've had some hard times. Things haven't always been easy between us. But I still love you.

Cannonball Read #11: The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

Does God exist? This is the question that is central in Richard Dawkins' ”The God delusion”. Dawkins is an atheist and he thinks that you should be, too. That is why he provides arguments in favour of a scientific explanation for our existence and deconstructs the arguments against it and in favour of a creationist theory.

My parents are not religious, but my grandmother is a devout Christian. We have always been close, and some of her beliefs rubbed off on me when I was growing up. She took me to church a few times, told me stories out of the Bible, spoke of the importance of prayer. Religion had such an impact on me during my early formative years that I became superstitious about it. Was the headache I was experiencing a punishment from God, because I had forgotten to pray? But then, when I turned 13, I started questioning things. Why didn't God listen to my prayers? Why was there so much suffering in the world, if God was benevolent? All the answers religion provided seemed very unsatisfactory to my curious mind.

Since then, I have been calling myself an agnostic. There are things in the world that I don't understand, that no one understands, that have stopped me from becoming a full-blown atheist. Dawkins book gave me a firm nudge in that direction. Just because we can't understand these things now, with the amount of knowledge that we have today, doesn't mean that we will never understand them, and it certainly doesn't prove that God exists. This is just one of various ”myths” about religion that Dawkins debunks.

The God delusion is an intellectual and philosophical exercise on the existence of God. Being prone to philosophical musings myself from time to time, I found it immensely enjoyable. It touches on many religion-related subjects, psychological and evolutionary explanations why it exists, the reason why it is so wide-spread, etc. It was informational, both about the history of religion but even about the influence it currently has in other countries (mainly in the USA, but Dawkins doesn't discriminate against any religion. He thinks they're all unnecessary, and in many cases even dangerous). It was thought-provoking, even thought-altering.

If there is anything that I disliked about the book, it was his badly disguised contempt for religious people. This is particularly evident in the first half of the book. He makes snide remarks against believers, and that, coupled with the fact that he delves into scientific facts without adequately explaining what some of the terms mean (”memes”, for example, or even natural selection for that matter), make it seem like the whole enterprise is nothing more than Dawkins winking at the educated ones among us (who are, of course, also atheists. Dawkins seems to imply that you can't be highly educated without being an atheist).

If Dawkins is out to convert (sorry about the choice of word) believers to atheism, he's certainly not going to succeed by presenting them as small-minded fools. He states right from the beginning of the book that he doesn't think that religion should be dealt with with kid gloves (and I agree) but we should make the distinction between religion and its followers. You don't want to respect religion? Go ahead, disrespect it! But you shouldn't disrespect people just because they are religious.

I would recommend this book to everyone, religious people and atheists alike. The latter will enjoy adding arrows to their conversational quiver, the former might enjoy the challenge of thinking outside the box. But, at the end of the day, the only people Dawkins will probably manage to convince will be people like myself: agnostics.

It's science

Hypothesis: The ”Fight fire with fire” method works on my troubled leg.

Previous empirical evidence: My leg felt fine the day after I put it through a torturous 23 km long run. I ran the first 30 km of an ultra with an injured, really painful knee, whereupon the injury promptly disappeared out of my life.

Experiment: The goal with today's experiment was to see how far I could run before my leg started complaining. Also, to see how it felt afterwards.

Results: As long as I stayed on flat ground and avoided hills, the leg was happy. It's a bit stiff now afterwards but it's an ache that resembles sore muscles more than it does injury.

Hypothesis: More is better. More would not make my runner's knee worse (Many runners' famous last words before he or she gets injured: ”21,5 km is good but 22 is even better”).

Previous empirical evidence: All previous evidence suggested that more is not, in fact, better when it comes to runner's knee. Even if the knee doesn't get worse following the run, the sensation during the run gets gradually worse.

Experiment: Push myself a few kilometres further even though my knee started bothering me after only 17 km.

Results: Stiff knee.

Hypothesis: The marathon I have my eye on at the end of April is a flat one, therefore I could run it if I take proper care of my runner's knee from now until then.

Previous empirical evidence: Neither bargaining or praying has helped an injury heal faster before.

Experiment: Stretching, rehab exercises, and alternative training as much as possible in the 3 weeks leading up to the marathon. Short runs in VFF. Then enter the marathon a day or two before the race if all feels fine.

Results: Stay tuned.

Green plastic grass

The piste machines got replaced by great yellow tractors carrying big chunks of frozen snow and laying them in a heap, revealing a green plastic football field. The year's Nordic skiing competitions that kept us company every weekend came to an end last Sunday, and with them the skiing season drew its last breath, inhaling skiers and exhaling joggers. A passionate spring sun, eager to wake nature up with a warm kiss and turn barren ground into fertile flowers and naked branches into haute couture, melts the snow. But, when night comes and the cold returns, the water turns into ice, and winter makes a last effort to resist the onslaught of bird song and sunburned cheeks.

And me. I am lost, standing on my one good leg, balancing precariously on the ledge between white and green. My heart is indifferent to the change of season this year. It loves spring, but it loves the white winter of the North, too. But my body wishes that the winter would stick around a couple of weeks longer. My feet want to find their way back to the soft trails of last autumn, but my knee cannot follow. So it tries to ski instead. Skiing is not as demanding for it. Skiing works. Please, let it be winter until the injury heals.

I tried to run with AIK last Saturday, a 23 km run. I couldn't decide until the last minute if I was going to attempt a run or not. What finally made up my mind for me was the wonderful weather. I had to get out, I had to try. It went well for the first 6 kilometres. Then, it went worse. I describe it as a knee problem, but both the backside of my thigh and my calf are involved. They weren't happy with all the uphill running. Downhill, it felt better, and I thought I would make it the rest of the way home without any more pain, but then my runner's knee decided to join us. Despite having the opportunity to stop running and get a lift home a couple of times, I marched on, pig-headedly. In the end, I told the others to go on without me and stopped to stretch. It helped; I could continue running after a while and made it home.

The aftermath was not as great as I had feared. Whatever leg muscle is injured felt inflamed the rest of the day, and I had some difficulty bending it, but the next day it was as pain-free as it had been the day before the run. I went skiing, breaking my distance record and making some progress technique-wise, which gave me hope that I would be able to maintain my level of fitness until my leg got better.

Now, snow is turning into ice. Ice is not as soft as snow. I went skiing yesterday, wisely avoiding the hilly terrain in the forest and sticking to the flat surfaces around the camping area. I had thought I'd practice switching from one track to the other, a balance exercise that, if done right, could do wonders for my confidence and skill level. Then, failing spectacularly at doing the exercise right and while I was trying to place my skis into the tracks, I fell. My knee hit the hard ice. I took a minute to rest right there on the ground, wincing and swearing.

It is probably nothing serious, just a bruised knee. But it is a reminder that spring is coming, and I am not ready for it.