Yuval Noah Harari – Homo Deus

Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016) by Yuval Noah Harari, follows on from his 2016 book ‘Sapiens’. While Sapiens examines the history of our species, Homo Deus projects on the future. Harari explores what new technologies the world faces and how they may shape our health, well-being and belief systems. It is the latter which matters most.

Homo Deus begins by discussing the three universal challenges of the past – war, famine and disease. Modern technology has curtailed them all. I admit this seemed ironic in the era of Covid and Russo-Ukrainian War. However, the facts remain the same in 2016 as of 2022. Suicide kills more than war, obesity more than starvation. Modern medicine has curtailed the past’s most vicious diseases. We will see what comes of grain shortages and monkeypox.

Homo Deus has 7 chapters:

1. The New Human Agenda – eternal happiness, perfect health and immortality.
2. The Anthropocene – evolution of human society.
3. The Human Spark – modern science and the nature of consciousness.
4. The Storytellers – rehashes many of the ideas laid out in Sapiens, in particular our ‘intersubjective’ reality.
5. The Odd Couple – the difference between science and religion.
6. The Modern Covenant – how modernity trades meaning for power.
7. The Humanist Revolution – our modern belief system.
8. The Time Bomb in the Laboratory – how new scientific discoveries will challenge our humanist worldview.
9. The Great Decoupling – the power of the AI algorithms.
10. The Ocean of Consciousness – techno-humanism, what it is and how it might evolve
11. The Data Religion – how data drives the universe.

To discuss the future, Homo Deus delves into the past and present to explain where we might go next. It highlights profound ethical considerations; discussing philosophy, science and evolution in the spheres of biological engineering and AI.

The book’s second half is particularly chilling. AI algorithms are outpacing human beings. Not only can they play chess, solve equations or drive better than us, but computers can surpass people in realms we deem quintessentially human, such as art and music. When machines do everything better than humans, what value do we have? The question should concern us more than our ability to reverse ageing, travel in space or edit our genes. Most chillingly, it is inevitable.

Harari’s narration comes across as cold and detatched, as if he were an objective algorithm detailing the history of intelligent beings, and not a Homo Sapiens himself. He maintains the accessible style of Sapiens when tackling sophisticated concepts – which is most of the book. The style is accessible, but the tone is scientific. By reading between the lines, however, one sees Harari is only describing our state of affairs; what the reader makes of it is up to them.

Homo Deus is an intriguing book for anyone interested in the future of our species. Harari is an historian, however, not a life scientist, and we have more data on the past than future. For these reasons, Homo Deus does not hold up to Sapiens, nor should it be the authority on the implications of AI and the changing pace of the planet. It still remains a good read.

See Also:

• Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
• Humanism

The Once and Future King

The Once and Future King (1958) is a historical fantasy epic by TH White. The titular king is Arthur. A collection of five books, it traces Arthur’s childhood as the orphan Wart to his old age and death. Beginning as a whimsical children’s fantasy, Once and Future King gets progressively darker and more dramatic while maintaining steady humour and anachronisms. 

The Once and Future King includes five books individually published between 1938 and 1941:

1. The Sword in the Stone (made into a 1963 Disney film)
2. The Witch in the Wood
3. The Ill-made Knight
4. The Candle in the Wind
5. The Book of Merlyn

The last book reads more like a philosophical treatise where, through Merlyn, White explores the morality of violence and war. Publishers originally rejected this book which is why parts of it are in the Sword in the Stone. The Book of Merlyn did not reach shelves until 1977, 13 years after White’s death. 

White’s primary source was Le Morte D’Arthur (1485) by Thomas Malory. Once and Future King follows the same plot – the Round Table, Guinevere’s adultery and the final battle with Mordred – but gives greater insight into the minds and motivations of its principal characters. The Grail Quest is brushed over.

Arthur is a well-meaning and thoughtful but naive figure. He knows his wife is sleeping with his best friend but turns a blind eye because publically knowing would compel him to execute them both. He intends on bringing lasting peace to Britain by stifling the violent instincts of its lords and believes in following his own laws.

Merlyn is Arthur’s tutor. In this version of the Arthur story, Merlyn is an absent-minded, quirky magician who lives backwards. Merlyn knows the future – and references it often – but cannot understand where people come from. He tutors Arthur by transforming him into a series of animals to impart valuable lessons. His familiar is a talking owl called Archimedes. 

Guinevere is Arthur’s queen. She does not love Arthur but yearns for his knight Lancelot with whom she shares a tempestuous relationship. Guinevere has a touchy pride and is formidable when crossed. 

Lancelot, in this version of the story, is brilliant but ugly. He battles his insecurities and self-loathing by becoming the greatest knight alive. He loves both Arthur and Guinevere, but cannot stop himself from betraying his king. The strongest character in the book, Lancelot, is delightfully self-destructive. 

White places the Arthurian Myth in the 13th century. Arthur is a Norman King – his father Uther being analogous to William the Conqueror. The real historical kings of England are referred to in this world as legends and myths.

TH White was a troubled soul who lived alone. He was a closet homosexual and a self-admitted sadist who repressed violent urges his whole life. Rather than fight, he spent WW2 in a cabin in Ireland, where he wrote this book. White channels himself into the tortured figure of Lancelot and his futile attempts at doing the right thing.

To this day, critics hail Once and Future King as the greatest adaptation of the Arthur myth. Contrary to fantasies of the time, character supersedes worldbuilding, making it read more like a drama than an adventure novel. 

The blurb of my version reads:

This is the tale of King Arthur and his shining Camelot; of Merlyn and Owl and Guinevere; of beasts who talk and men who fly; of knights, wizardry and war.

It is the book of all things lost and wonderful and sad; the masterpiece of fantasy by which all others are judged.

Books I Read in 2021

Last January, I set out to read ten books in 2021. I did – but the extra two were work-related and I shan’t mention them here. Of those listed, three were translated. Regular reading does wonders, not only for learning but general concentration in our dopamine-saturated age. This year, I hope to read another ten – hopefully more.

January

• Herodotus – The Histories (430 BC). The first book about history. All writings about the Greco-Persian Wars trace back to Herodotus. 5/5

April

• Witi Ihimaera – Navigating the Stars (2020). A comprehensive book on Māori mythology. Well written and humorous. 4/5

July

• Paolo Coelho – The Alchemist (1988). An Andalusian shepherd goes on an adventure to see the pyramids. Poignant but somewhat overrated. 4/5.
• Miguel Cervantes – Don Quixote (1605). Spain’s best book. Hilarious but long. 5/5
• Ernest Hemingway – The Old Man and the Sea (1952). A Cuban fisherman goes out to sea one last time. Gripping. 5/5

August

• Larry Mcmutry – Comanche Moon (1997). A horse thief kidnaps a Texas Ranger captain. Full of violence, adventure and melancholy. I devoured it. 5/5.

October

• Larry McMurtry – Lonesome Dove (1985). Best book I’ve read.  5/5

• Stephen King – On Writing (2000). Part memoir and writer’s handbook. A useful aide. 5/5

See Also:

• Books I Read in 2021
• Books I Read in 2020
• Books I Read in 2019
• Books I Read in 2018

Conn Iggulden – The Falcon of Sparta

The Falcon of Sparta (2018), by English author Conn Iggulden, is a fictionalised account of Xenophon’ Anabasis: a story of ten thousand Greek mercenaries stranded in the heart of the Persian Empire and their journey home. It features such characters as Xenophon, Socrates, Artaxerxes of Persia and the rebel prince Cyrus.

The book’s first half deals with the campaign of the charismatic Cyrus the Younger to take the throne from his scholarly elder brother Artaxerxes under a falcon banner. To do so he assembles a Persian army and hires mercenaries from across the Greek cities, including their old enemies the Spartans. Even before the battle, he faces struggles. Dissension, bankruptcy and mutiny plague his campaign. The date is 409 BC, roughly between the Battle of Thermopylae and the conquests of Alexander.

Leaderless in the desert and hopelessly outnumbered, the Greeks must confront the impossible. Iggulden focuses just as much on the logistics of moving an army and the challenges that come with it, as combat itself. The Greeks must assail long deserts and snowy mountains to get to the Black Sea.

The Battle of Cunaxa is described in an epic and near-legendary tone. It is hard to imagine that the greatest armies in the world did clash in such numbers but Iggulden does a good enough job in describing the fight from the perspective of the combatants in as historically accurate terms as possible. Aspects of the second half, such as the Greeks’ battle with the Carduchi mountain tribes, seem a little rushed but are compelling enough.

Prince Cyrus, and his Spartan general Clearchus, are well portrayed as characters. Xenophon, who wrote the story in real life, is somewhat of a self-hating Athenian, associated with the Thirty Tyrants, a Spartan puppet regime and preferring the Spartan system to his own. Beginning the story as an intelligent but resentful young man, it is Socrates who persuades him to head east and make something of himself. Tissaphernes, the conniving former tutor, makes an easy to hate villain.

Though the story is told largely from the Greek perspective, I liked how it begins with the Persians and portrays the Greek culture as alien and strange, rather than the other way around. The story occurs at a time when the Greeks were more busy fighting each other than the Persians, who cooperate with powers like Sparta.

The Sunday Express called The Falcon of Sparta Iggulden’s ‘finest work to date’ and that quote made me buy the book. While better than his Roman series, I still prefer his Conqueror books about the Mongol khans, if only because the murkier history allowed more creative liberties.

See Also:

• Cyrus the Great (not to be confused with his namesake Cyrus the Younger)
• Cities of Ancient Greece

Uttermost Part of the Earth

Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948), by E. Lucas Bridges, is the definitive story of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina. The memoirs of the land’s ‘third white native’, it details his life amongst the indigenous Fuegians, their cultures and the effects of colonisation. Part autobiography, part ethnography, part history book and part adventure novel, Uttermost Part of the Earth is the most detailed account we have on a people now extinct.

Lucas Bridges (1874 – 1948) was the eldest son of Reverend Thomas Bridges, who established the Anglican Mission at Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. He grew up amongst the coastal Yaghan people and, as a young man, explored the island’s interior, where previously uncontacted tribes lived.

AF Tschifferly, who rode from Argentina to Washington DC on horseback, convinced Bridges (below) to write down his stories. In his 70s, Bridges applied his lifelong energy to writing this book. It describes his later life – service in WW1, adventures in Paraguay and South Africa, only in passing. Tierra del Fuego is the focus.

The book five parts:

• Ushuaia, 1826-1887: European exploration, Bridge’s early life, the Yaghan.
• Haberton, 1887 – 1899: adventures on the coast, the Manek’enk (Aush), first contact with the Selk’nam.
• The Road to Najmishk (1900-1902): Selk’nam conflict, adventures in the interior
• A Hut in Ona Land (1902-1907) Bridges’ sheep farm. Selk’nam culture, Fuegian animals, myths and legends.
• The Estancia Viamonte, (1907-1910) The story concludes.

Vivid descriptions bring the prehistoric wilderness of Tierra del Fuego to life, its rugged cliffs and islands, snowy forests, mountains, moors and bogs, and the creatures who call it home. Bridges alternates between the main narrative and such descriptions, peppering them with strange and fantastic anecdotes.

While his father dedicated his life to transliterating the Yaghan language, Bridges is most interested in the mysterious tribe beyond the mountains. After making contact, he lives and hunts amongst the Selk’nam hunter-gatherers (whom he calls ‘Ona’, their Yaghan name) for over ten years. He learns their language and customs, makes friends and enemies, and is eventually the only outsider initiated to their lodge. His accounts cover everything from courtship to clothing to secret societies and the Selk’nam’s (lack of) religion. Though the author veers on paternalistic, he treats the Fuegians with genuine respect and is free from the naked racism so common in his time. He tries but does not succeed, to ‘soften the blow of civilization’ and help the Selkn’am adapt. They left no records of their own.

The cast of characters can be bewildering. Many key players have unfamiliar Fuegian names. Bridges does well, however, in describing their backgrounds and personalities, while reminding the reader of past events. Memorable individuals include the insane ‘wizard’ Minkiyolh, the hunter Ahnikin and the gaucho Serafin Aguirre.

The many stories in these pages are fascinating, heartwarming and sad. There are true tales of abduction, murder, hunting trips, shipwrecks, escaped convicts, massacres and suicidal horses woven throughout its pages in simple and matter-of-fact prose.

Overriding the stories, however, is the sobering doom Bridges alludes to from the start. Civilization will triumph. Roads and airstrips will conquer South America’s last frontier, and guns, alcohol and measles will destroy the indigenous way of life.

Bridges does not discuss the Selk’nam genocide at length. That happened in northern Tierra del Fuego in the 1890s, before Bridges made contact. Those he meets are the remainders yet untouched by colonialism. Due to libel, Bridges does not disclose the names of murderous settlers. Their children were still prominent landowners when the book was published.

Obtaining this book was difficult. It went out of print years ago and the only copies online are expensive second-hand ones or third party reprints. I opted for the latter option and paid  $30 to have it delivered from New Delhi. It is a hefty book with well over 500 pages. Unfortunately its many black and white photographs and maps were barely visible. They are one of the books’ main draws.

This passage on page 336 stands out:

“Talimeoat was a most likeable Indian. I was much in his company. One still evening in autumn, just before business was to take me to Buenos Aires, I was walking with him near Lake Kami. We were just above the upper tree level, and before descending into the valley, rested on a grassy slope. The air was crisp, for already the days were getting short and, with weather so calm and clear, there were bound to be a hard frost before sunrise. A few gilt edged, feather clouds broke the monotony of the pale green sky, and the beech forest that clothed the lake’s steep banks to the water’s edge had not yet completely lost its brilliant autumn colours. The evening light gave the remote ranges a purple tint impossible to describe or to paint.

Across leagues of wooded hills up the forty-mile length of Lake Kami, Talimeoat and I gazed long and silently towards a glorious sunset. I knew that he was searching the distance for any sign of smoke from the camp-fires of friends or foes. After a while his vigilance relaxed and, lying near me, he seemed to become oblivious to my presence. Feeling the chill of evening, I was on the point of suggesting a move, when he heaved a deep sigh and said to himself, as softly as an Ona could say anything:

“Yak haruin.” (“my country”)

See Also:

• Fuegians
• How Syuna the Rockfish got his Flat Head (Yahgan Legend)
• Books I Read in 2019
• Why Did Europe Take Over the World?
• Were We Better off as Hunter-Gatherers?

Books I Read in 2019

I read more non-fiction last year and was happy with what I read. Books are dated by the month I finished reading them, click hyperlinks for full posts.

February

• Mark Twain – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885). A boy and a runaway slave go on an adventure down the Mississippi River. A Great American Novel known for writing dialogue in the actual dialect of the time. Not as engrossing as I hoped. 4/5

April

• Larry Gonick – The Cartoon History of the Universe III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Rennaissance (2002). Informative and funny.

May

• Larry Gonick – The Cartoon History of the Modern World Part 1: From Columbus to the U.S. Constitution (2006).
• Nicholas J Wade – Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors (2007). About the first migrations out of Africa and the founding of world populations. 4/5
• Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind (2014). I cannot recommend this book enough. Everyone I know who read it loved it. 5/5

July

• George RR Martin, Elio M Garvia, JR and Linda Antonson – The World of Ice and Fire (2014). About the fictional history of the Game of Thrones universe. Quite imaginative but I lost interest soon after the show finished. 4/5

August

• John Mann – Attila: The Barbarian King Who Challenged Rome (2006) Less is known about this figure than we hoped but Man pads the pages with background and his trip to Mongolia. 4/5
• Steven Pinker, Matt Ridley, Alain de Botton and Malcolm Gladwell – Do Humankind’s Best Days Lie Ahead? (2016). A paperback transcript of the 2015 Munk Debates.  Interesting perspectives on an interesting question. Only 100 pages. 4/5.

October

• Khaled Hosseini – The Kite Runner (2006). A moving tale of fatherhood and friendship in Afghanistan.  5/5

 November

• Time–Life Books – The March of Islam, AD 600-800 (1988). Discusses the Arab Caliphates, Byzantium, Charlemagne, Tang China, The Khmers and Early Japan. Interesting subject matter but the prose is too flowery at times. 3/5

December

• Lucas Bridges – Uttermost Part of the Earth (1948). A meticulous and evocative account of life amongst the lost tribes of Tierra Del Fuego. Recommended for anyone with an interest in anthropology. 5/5.

See Also:

• Books I Read in 2018
• Top Films of 2019

The Kite Runner

“I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.”

So begins the first novel by Afghan-American writer Khaled Hosseini. The Kite Runner (2003) follows the story of two boys in Afghanistan before the country fell apart. One builds a new life in America, the other stays behind. Literary to the bone, the Kite Runner spans thirty years and takes place in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the USA. It is a harrowing tale of friendship, coming-of-age, betrayal, lost innocence, fatherhood, and redemption. Evil and cowardice play no small part.

Narrator Amir lives with his father Baba, a noble and well-connected businessman, their servant Ali and his son Hassan. Amir yearns for his father’s approval and will do anything to earn it. Like most Afghans, Amir is a Pashtun but harelipped Hassan, his best friend, is a Shia Hazara, an oppressed minority. This embarrasses Amir and he downplays their friendship in front of his Pashtun friends. Amir is better educated and more creative than Hassan, ‘the harelipped kite runner’ but lacks his resolve and strength of character. The distinction defines the story’s course.

The early chapters embellish the innocence of Amir and Hassan’s childhood, in the lost world of a peaceful Afghanistan. Internal events mirror the external forces that shatter their lives forever. A coup topples the monarchy, communists seize power, the Soviets invade and the country plunges into war. When the Taliban take over they ban kites from the skies of Afghanistan. By 2001, the Kabul Amir knew is a relic of history.

The Kite Runner is semi-autobiographical. Like Amir, Hosseini (right) grew up in Kabul and moved to California at 15. Amir is a writer too, which explains his well-crafted prose. Hassan is loosely inspired by a Hazara servant Hosseini once knew but his story and relationship with Amir are fictional. The Kite Runner embodies the survivor’s guilt Hosseini felt when he visited his home country in 2001, a few months before 9/11. He felt like a tourist in his own country.

A film adaptation was made in 2007, which I have not seen.

Khaled Hosseini came to the USA as an asylum seeker. He studied medicine at Santa Clara University and wrote the Kite Runner while working as a doctor. For 18 months, he rose every morning at 5 to write. The Kite Runner’s success allowed him to write full time. Hosseini has since published two other novels, ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ (2006) and ‘And the Mountains Echoed’ (2013). Like the Kite Runner, both are set in Afghanistan.

Gripping, heartbreaking and full of evocative imagery, the Kite Runner is utterly deserving of its bestseller status.

See Also:

• Peoples of Afghanistan

Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind

‘Seventy thousand years ago, Homo sapiens was still an insignificant animal minding its own business in a corner of Africa. In the following millennia it transformed itself into the master of the entire planet and the terror of the ecosystem. Today it stands on the verge of becoming a god, poised to acquire not only eternal youth, but also the divine abilities of creation and destruction.’

The final paragraph of the final chapter offers a fitting summary to Israeli professor Yuval Noah Harari’s magnum opus. ‘Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind’ (2014) traces the human story, from our humble beginnings to our exceptional rise, by identifying a series of key biological, social and technological developments that shaped the world we know today. Harari explains why and how homo sapiens are, illustrating the big picture with pertinent and oft amusing historical anecdotes. In the spirit of Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs, and Steel’, it provides a scientific perspective on world history.

Sapiens has four parts:

• One: The Cognitive Revolution –sentience and self-awareness, language, hunter-gatherers and our role in the Pleistocene Extinction.
• Two: The Agricultural Revolution – farming, hierarchies and the stories which underpin them, writing, prejudice and injustice.
• Three: The Unification of Humankind – global civilization, money and commerce, empire, religion and ideology.
• Four: The Scientific Revolution – the Scientific and Industrial Revolutions, capitalism, happiness the state of the modern world and our possible future

Harari’s premise is the impact of ‘shared fictions’: societies’ beliefs and values, the way we view the world, the ideologies we share and the stories and myths which uphold them. A corporation, a nation, a higher power or even money itself, is not real in the tangible sense, yet through shared belief in the system, it holds sway over our daily lives, unifies peoples and upholds social structures. In Harari’s view consumerism and liberal humanism – the dominant ideologies of today –  are just as much ‘religions’ as Buddhism or Islam, for they shape how we view and interact with the world and our fellow man.

Released in 2011 in Hebrew and 2014 in English, Sapiens was immensely successful. It sold over a million copies and catapulted Harari from an insignificant history professor to one of the world’s leading intellectuals. Barack Obama, Bill Gates, Jared Diamond and Mark Zuckerberg are fans. While Sapiens deals with our human past, his newer books Homo Deus (2016) and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018) deal with the future and present, respectively. I have not yet read them.

Despite his heavy-hitting concepts, Harari writes in an eloquent and accessible manner. His prose is thoughtful, punchy and descriptive, his content insightful and often provocative. This book will change how you view the world.

I don’t think I’ve ever had so many ‘aha’ moments in so short a time. It might be the best nonfiction I’ve ever read.

Yuval Noah Harari is a professor of world history at Hebrew University. He lives with his husband on a cooperative farm near Jerusalem and is an ardent vegan. He meditates for two hours every day.

See Also:

• Why Did Europe Take Over the World?
• The 1769 Transit of Venus
• Were We Better off as Hunter-Gatherers?

Larry Gonick – The Cartoon History of the Universe

The Cartoon History of the Universe is a three part, 19 volume book series by American cartoonist Larry Gonick about the history of mankind up to 1492.  It presents detailed and well researched material in a humorous and accessible black and white comic style. Cartoon History was originally serialised as a comic book series from 1978-1990, when the first book was published.

• Cartoon History of the Universe I: From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (1990)
• Cartoon History of the Universe II: From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome (1994)
• Cartoon History of the Universe III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Rennaisance (2002)

A smaller two part series, Cartoon History of the Modern World takes off where it leaves, but is shorter and slightly more Eurocentric.

In Cartoon History, Gonick’s avatar – a frizzy haired Einstein-esque professor explains the historical narrative while the cartoon panels provide visual representation and gags. The often raunchy and irreverent humour ranges from absurdism to parody, anachronisms and dramatic irony. Running gags, like Byzantines’ penchant for eye gouging and Central Asian nomad’s adversity to vegetables, play a big part. Sometimes the events are funny in their own right. Who would know, for example, that (pre-Islamic) Meccan spies triggered war with Ethiopia by pooping in a church?

Despite its accessible style, content is factual and dense. Gonick explores the lives of history’s big personalities and ordinary men and women with an eye for economic trends and cause and effect. Interesting trivia and gory details accompany the main narrative, often as footnotes. Cartoon History’s topical weight and adult appeal distinguish it from less serious kids’ books like Horrible Histories.

Book One surveys the Big Bang, dinosaurs, and human origins in the first third before moving to the ancient Mediterranean civilisations, with a particular focus on Israel and Greece.

Book Two alternates between the great civilisations of Rome, India and China, including the origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese philosophies and Christianity. Jesus is portrayed in historical terms as a wondering Jewish preacher called Jeshua Ben Joesph. Gonick has received criticism for his skeptical attitude.

Book Three covers, amongst many, the rise of Islam, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Turks, Byzantine Empire, Crusades, Mongols, Black Death and the Renaissance. Having owned the book for many years I am biased, but do believe this is the best. Gonick’s artwork and humour are better developed, content is more varied and the time period is most interesting. The first volume ‘No Pictures Please’ is especially pertinent, giving an accurate explanation of the life and times of Muhammad and the origins of the Sunni/Shia split, all without idolatry.

Larry Gonick (1946-) was born in San Francisco and studied Mathematics at Harvard.  From 1977 onwards he wrote a series of ‘cartoon guides’ on a variety of subjects including algebra, physics, computer science and tax reform.  The Cartoon History of the Universe, which he serialised from 1977, was his most successful work, and named one of the top 100 comics of the 20^th century by Comic Journal. Jackie Kennedy was an early fan and helped get it published. Carl Sagan described it as “a better way to learn history than 90% of school textbooks”.

The Catcher in the Rye

Disclaimer: No spoilers, but this review will discuss the premise and themes of the book. If you wish to go in blind, as I did, I suggest not reading.

The Catcher in the Rye is the quintessential book on teenage angst. Written by JD Salinger and published in 1951, this Great American Novel follows the escapades of antihero Holden Caulfield in New York City over three days.

It is notable for:

• selling over 65 million copies
• being the most censored book in American schools and libraries from 1961-1982
• the reclusive nature of its author
• association with the murder of John Lennon

Catcher was ahead of its time. Nonconformist icon Holden Caulfield foreshadowed the likes of James Dean, rock ‘n roll and the adolescent backlash against conservative 1950s American society. Not surprisingly this is the era the book’s popularity exploded.

Holden Caulfield narrates.  An intelligent but troubled rich kid, Holden is expelled from his fourth school after flunking all his subjects but English.  Not expected home by his parents until Wednesday he packs his bags heads to New York.

Caulfield talks in the New York vernacular of the late ‘40s, back when the often invoked ‘goddamn’ and ‘chrissake’, were considered highly offensive. It is one of the first novels to use the f word in print; moral guardians of the time lampooned it accordingly.

Other words in Holden’s lexicon:

• Sexy – In 1940s lingo this meant ‘horny’, not sexually attractive.
• Crumby – Dirty/unpleasant
• Phony – Holden’s favourite word. Fake, disingenuous and hypocritical.

On the surface the Catcher in the Rye is a coming of age story. The problem is Holden doesn’t want to grow up. Adulthood, as far as he can see, is as corrupt and materialistic as it is morally insolvent and, above all, phony. Even so, Holden lies, chain smokes, drinks and thinks of sex constantly. Only children are truly innocent.

Despite his individualist bent, however, Holden still craves human companionship. Throughout the book he stumbles his way through interactions with a variety of characters which range from hilarious to downright depressive. There is subtext aplenty, not all of which is obvious on first reading.

The Catcher in the Rye is a favorite of Bill Gates, Woody Allen, George HW Bush and, most notoriously, Mark Chapman. The Beatle killer was obsessed by the book, and was found reading it moments after he shot John Lennon dead in 1980.

The Catcher in the Rye is still a polarising book. Your perception depends on the stage in life in which you read it. Fans tend to either identify with Holden, or at least appreciate the style and literary significance.  Detractors dislike the protagonist, his vernacular, or were forced to read it at school.

JD Salinger admitted in 1953 his “boyhood was very much the same as that of the boy in the book.” He too grew up in Manhattan and wrote early drafts while serving in WW2. At the peak of his success Salinger withdrew from the public eye and gave his last interview in 1965. He wrote 15 novels over the following decades, all of them unpublished.

Catcher is the bestselling novel never adapted into a film. Though Marlon Brando, Jack Nicholson and Leonardo Dicaprio all campaigned for the role of Holden Caulfield it was not to be. Salinger guarded the book’s rights viciously on the assertion its subjective voice could only work in print. Though the author died in 2010, rights to the book remain firmly in Salinger’s estate – The Catcher in the Rye will not enter the public domain until 2080.