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After the travesty that was Sneeze on Sunday, I cleansed my spirit with The Potter's Field, the seventeenth of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael mysteries, and, in my opinion, one of her best. (Although it was perhaps just the lingering bad taste of 1950s trash.) Whenever I return to Peters, I am surprised at how well her novels are written. Not only are they a far cry from the typical mystery pulp, they hold up well against all but the very best modern writers. The only thing that hampered my enjoyment was remembering who did it and how from a previous reading.
Last night, I finished Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Generally speaking, it was an excellent book, but it made me nervous. I don't know much (if anything) about most of what he covered, but I was disturbed in the few parts where I did. For example, he discussed Linear B's inefficacy, using it as an example of a non-starter script--the kind that developed but eventually went nowhere. What Diamond did not mention that Linear B was peculiarly inefficient because it was being used to write a language other than that for which it was developed; that is, it was not invented to write Greek (or Mycenaean, if you prefer). This may seem like a quibble--after all, we function perfectly well in English using a modified Latin alphabet--but Linear B is a syllabery. It is ill-suited to adaption, because its symbols stand for syllables that may appear differently or not at all in the adoptive language. This is the primary reason why no literature was developed in Linear B. Even more worrisome, Diamond doesn't note that our only examples of Linear B were preserved by accident (fires baking warehouses where tablets were stored). This writing system was not meant for permanence. One could argue that GGS covers a huge span of history in a relatively brief volume, and that I am simply nitpicking. However, I feel that to do so, Diamond must have chosen his examples very careful. Omissions and oversimplification detract from the work. I also disliked Diamond's laundry list of qualifications. If your work is good, it will speak for itself; drawing attention to your suitability only brings it into question. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to those with an interest in anthropology or agriculture.
In other news, it turns out that I may be mildly allergic to the contact lens solution I've been using. No wonder my contacts have been too itchy to wear.
Last night, I finished Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Generally speaking, it was an excellent book, but it made me nervous. I don't know much (if anything) about most of what he covered, but I was disturbed in the few parts where I did. For example, he discussed Linear B's inefficacy, using it as an example of a non-starter script--the kind that developed but eventually went nowhere. What Diamond did not mention that Linear B was peculiarly inefficient because it was being used to write a language other than that for which it was developed; that is, it was not invented to write Greek (or Mycenaean, if you prefer). This may seem like a quibble--after all, we function perfectly well in English using a modified Latin alphabet--but Linear B is a syllabery. It is ill-suited to adaption, because its symbols stand for syllables that may appear differently or not at all in the adoptive language. This is the primary reason why no literature was developed in Linear B. Even more worrisome, Diamond doesn't note that our only examples of Linear B were preserved by accident (fires baking warehouses where tablets were stored). This writing system was not meant for permanence. One could argue that GGS covers a huge span of history in a relatively brief volume, and that I am simply nitpicking. However, I feel that to do so, Diamond must have chosen his examples very careful. Omissions and oversimplification detract from the work. I also disliked Diamond's laundry list of qualifications. If your work is good, it will speak for itself; drawing attention to your suitability only brings it into question. Otherwise, I enjoyed it. I'd recommend it to those with an interest in anthropology or agriculture.
In other news, it turns out that I may be mildly allergic to the contact lens solution I've been using. No wonder my contacts have been too itchy to wear.
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