In the 19th century two distinct empires almost collided around the Eurasian landmass bordering the Russian and British Empires. For almost 150 years their agents fought a shadow war of influence and power, a war that was called The Great Game. A game that was described by one of it’s last living participants Harry Hodson:

The Game was really a game, with scores but no substantive prizes.

The geopolitical reality that motivated the game was that the Russian Empire through it’s eastern expansion threatened the British Raj. The British Raj maintained by the passive acquiesence of the locals and a tiny garrison, could not hope to withstand a determined assault by the Russian Empire. So the British struggled to ensure that Afghanistan and Tibet continued to be neutralized as pathways into India.

So much for history. The book itself is a cross between real history and a fantasy novel. In real history we are presented with a coherent thesis that is buttressed by facts and rationale argument. This book is a collection of tales about the various adventurers with no rhyme or reason to the story. So for example, we learn in Chapter titled: High Mischief as much about Dolan’s, an American explorer of Tibet, sexual piccadillos as we do about what he did in Tibet. The authors are torn between the colourful tales of the persons and the colourful tale itself.

I wish there was more exploration about the motivations for the Great Game. Why the Great Game was fought with so much passion. How the politics of the Great Game evolved and less vignettes into the personal lives of the protagonists. This reminds me of NBC’s Olympic Games Coverage where we learn of every athletes tragic childhood.
Nevertheless, the book is a fun read. It’s not good history, but the again Afghanistan and power politics between the Russian and British Empires are probably not sexy areas of modern historical research so this will have to do.

One of the more fascinating aspects of the book was the description of the “Forward Theory”. The British government was torn between two conflicting approaches to dealing with the Russian threat. On the one was the forward school that said that continuous expansion and creation of buffer zones was essential to the defense of the Empire. This theory said that unless the British occupied Afghanistan or at the very least neutralized Afghanistan, the Russians would swoop through her and destroy the British Raj. To this theory, Sir John Lawerence said:

In that case let them undergo the long and tiresome marches which lie between the Oxus and the Indus; let them wend their way through poor and difficult countries, among a fanatic and courageous population, where in many places every mile can be converted into a defensible position; then they will come to the conflict on which the fate of India will depend, toil-worn with an exhausted infantry, a broken down cavalry, and a defective artillery.

Sir John Lawerence, was pointing out that occupying territory was less valuable than occupying defensible territory. Sadly his position did not allow for conquest only defence and the adventurers in India would have none of that. So of course he was described as defeatists. One could observe reading this passage a lesson to all would-be conquerors and occupiers of Afghanistan.

Another interesting tale in this book is the obsession the West had with Tibet. Tibet in my mind is a country that was ruled by a parasitical monastic order that was absorbed into the China. I could never fathom why so many people for so long were fascinated with the country. It turns out that mystery and absurd race theories explain all. Tibet was the original forbidden country. For centuries no one was allowed in. This created a theory of what would be found inside. Including a belief that it was in Tibet that the Aryan race was born, and that the original pure Aryan’s lived there.

I wonder what Hitler would have said if he could have seen Tibetans…

This is a fun book. And once you take it for what it is: a history channel special it’s quite informative.

Never Let Go is a classic gothic horror story. In a good gothic horror story, everything seems perfectly normal. The world is a picture of beauty except for one minor detail that reveals a horror, a terror that is so disturbing that it causes your skin to crawl.

The book is ostensibly about growing up and learning to accept the responsibilities and roles the world has created for you. The story is said in the first person by a 30 something thinking back to the set of events that have lead her to where she is right now. We go back to her childhood, to her teenage years, to her first love to her first explorations of the outside world.

SPOILER ALERT!

Except that she is a clone, whose sole purpose in life is to be harvested for organs so that the rest of the normals out there can live. And that’s what’s creepy. This is the story of how clones grow up to be harvested and killed so that the rest of us can live. And how they learn to accept their lot in life.

What makes the book creepy is that the fact they are clones and what exactly they are created for is never actually revealed to the reader until about 2/3 of the way through. The narrator assumes you know what she’s talking about when she talks about being a carer or when she talks about friends who completed and the fact that she attends operations. What she’s really talking about is that her lot in life is to console clones and ensure that the clones whose organs are being harvested do so without too much fuss. And she seems to be curiously fine with that job.

What makes the book even creepier is that everyone acts as if this is perfectly normal. As the reader your taken aback by the heartlessness of the society that would destroy these living beings so that the rest of us can stay alive. And that in some sense is the point of the book. That in our pursuit of eternal life we are willing to create a meaner world.

In the debates around cloning, stem-cell research etc, Kazuo asks us: if we had to choose between our children and a clone who would we choose? And Kazuo also asks what would the clones do? Could we make them believe that they were serving a higher purpose by being harvested?

At points in the book the clones will scream about the horror of dying, the fear of dying the pain of dying and the injustice of it all, but no point do they protest or run.

The only real limitation of the book is that no one explains why the clones don’t just run. Our narrator has a car, why she doesn’t take her lover, another clone, and just run away.

And that’s the most horrifying part of it all. What if we could teach the clones to want to be harvested so that we could live?

I liked this book. But it does force me to think about choices we make.

What if the Devil showed up and no one believed he was the Devil?

Starting with this rather absurd premise Bulgakov explores Moscow, faith, religion, politics, the world at large and religion. Reading the book you are struck by the wierd thought that Bulgakov must have known that the book would never be published. This book must have existed for his own personal entertainment. And so it’s almost like exploring the author’s brain as he ran through different streams of conciousness.
Which brings me to the thought that the most famous quote in the book: Manuscripts don’t burn was an attempt to convince the author that eventually at some point the story this book would be published.

The book oscillates between the sublime, such as when he is describing the first arrival of the Devil, the surreal such as when the author describes the Devil’s ball, and the fascinating during the long sections when the author describes daily life in Moscow under the Soviets.

My favourite section, by far is when Woland does his little magic trick in front of an entire audience and spreads chaos and mayhem throughout Moscow. And everyone assumes it must be anything but the Devil. The money changing into random coins, tricksters and liars, the empty suit something bizarre in the atmosphere, spontaneous dancing and singing a group dementia.
The book ends well, even though it was never polished.

This is not an easy book to read and requires a substantive personal investment of time and effort.