Books with this much hype don’t usually appeal to me.  There may have been some sort of collective unconscious peer pressure at work here, urging me to put this book on my Christmas list.  What is more interesting is that I am not really an Apple guy, I only own one iPod that I bought almost a decade ago and have used a Windows PC for as long as I can remember.  So really I read this book out of curiosity.  I wasn’t interested in any detailed, month by month review of Apple’s development or product releases, as I am not that much a cultist of the brand.

Thankfully, Isaacson’s biography does not do this.  And despite the hardbacks bulky appearance, the book flows relatively quickly.  Jobs life and it’s development alongside Apple move along without getting bogged down by delving too deeply into every single product development, focusing instead on the game changers and Job’s overarching philosophies, while instances of Jobs personality (good, but mostly bad) are dropped liberally throughout.

Much has already been written about Job’s “reality distortion field” – his ability to force superhuman feats of engineering and design to be accomplished through the power of his own will and his knack for blocking out all things (people, emotions, other ideas) that could impede his progress.  This idea is discussed at length everywhere in the book.  So too, is Jobs bipolar attitude towards everyone and everything: crap/or incredible, a shithead/ or a genius.  There was no gray areas when it came to Steve Jobs judgement of people or products.  However, Isaacson refers to these traits so relentlessly that it almost becomes unbearable by the end of the book.  But then again, he does hammer the point home quite well.

Of course with all the current news about supply chain atrocities in China, one has to wonder if this book was rushed to print a little too hastily, without giving a fuller review of Apple’s global sense of ethics.  Just like Job’s own Macworld keynote speeches, this book was released with all the fanfare of a revolutionary Apple product.  But, unlike all his other products, which didn’t suck me in (Ipad, Iphone, Mac’s – not yet anyway), this posthumous one is the one that finally did me in.

A sudden, cathartic end to one of my more mammoth undertakings.  And to think that two equally sized volumes remain!  Biblio-exhaustion is rarely so enjoyable.  As I read this massive tome, I came across an excellent article on The Millions about ‘Literary Stockholm Syndrome’.  In essence, it is the theory that long, seemingly tedious works, hold us hostage only as long as they offer glimmers of hope, perceived rewards in the face of so much despair.

That being said, Foote’s first volume in his epic trilogy does not strangulate and/or water-board torture you like Joyce’s Ulysses or Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow.  Foote’s is a pleasant kind of torture, a pain like the back of one’s legs after a long day of mountain climbing or a prolonged period of calisthenics.

Perspective changes, whether between generals and common soldiers or locations throughout the different theaters of the war, occur with just enough regularity that no subject ever become stale.  The research is impeccable, while the combination of memorandum between major strategic players and anecdotal passages from all walks of life, make this a truly fluid (though time consuming) read.

Prior to reading this novel I had read reviews by both established authors and critics.  Harold Bloom gave the most negative of Wolfe, stating rather bluntly the Asheville native’s body of work exhibits no literary merit.  Others were more favorable, especially those coming from more renowned writers, most notably William Faulkner, who considered him one of the best of his generation.  So from the outset I was a bit perplexed on how to approach this novel.  However, after laborouring through this painfully long work, I can firmly place myself in the bloom camp, something which is difficult to do considering how obtuse the Yale Professor can be.

The problem is, that this mostly autobiographical piece of fiction forces the reader to have considerable difficulty pulling for the main protagonist, Eugene Gant.  That is a great shame, for the story desperately needs someone or something to draw us through the end.  The dysfunctionality of everyone within the Gant family, their inability to break from the grasp of their abusive dependence to one another, makes for a rather morbid reading.

There are some passages which hint at Wolfe’s Modernist writing style acumen, but these all too often are assembled in such a haphazard fashion without any semblance of having a necessary place within the overall coherence of the novel.  Describing a walk down a street approaching a local eatery, the pedestrians shown in wonderful stream-of-conscious detail, can be done with great effect, but only if the focus of such a book uses a more Ulyssesesque treatment of time (as in the passing of a single day).  It only causes confusion when the novel portraits the twenty plus years of a person’s upbringing.

Perhaps, with time, I’ll return to Wolfe and attempt one of his more concise works. But having slogged my way through this catastrophe, hoping on every page for something drastic to occur – a death, an accident, a simple twist of fate, anything other than the despondent hopelessness that hurls itself at you through nearly the entire work – I will gladly avoid this writer, and possibly anything that comes out of North Carolina, for quite some time.

For students hoping to grasp the political  and cultural underpinnings of Japan prior to the Meiji Restoration, Conrad Totman’s Japan Before Perry: A Short History is an excellent starting point.  This work deals mainly with abstract elements, focusing on aesthetic primary sources like early warrior tales, No theater, and popular treatises.  Surprising, very little is concretely discussed in terms of historical events.  Major battles are only vaguely described.  The rise of the Tokugawa Shogunate, its transition into power, is almost completely ignored.  Instead focus is placed on the socio-political trends leading to that epoch.

If battle maps, military maneuvers, and concise descriptions of daily life in early Japan are what you are after, then Japan Before Perry would not leave you satisfied.  However, if one is interested in understanding the dynamics between early Japan’s classes: aristocratic, warrior, peasant, and merchant – then this is a great introduction while remaining relatively concise.