Paul Theroux, The Lower River *** 1/2

I read a number of Paul Theroux's novels and travel books back in the 1990s, but lost track of him by the turn of the century. The Lower River, from 2012, is just the second of his recent books I've read (along with Blinding Light, which I didn't care for).

Like much of Theroux's best work, The Lower River takes place in a remote part of the world and has autobiographical overtones. The protagonist, Ellis Hock, send his critical formative years in the Peace Corp in Malawi. When his marriage falls apart at age 62, he decides to return to the village where he was stationed, since he remembers it as the happiest time in his life. Life there is just as he remembers it, except that it is not really. The locals have become a lot more cynical in the forty years he has been gone, and they start exploiting him right away.

The themes and narrative structure are quite good, and Theroux writes natural description well. I had two issues, though. First, Hock's character is a bit too nice and monochromatic: one of the things I used to love about Theroux was that his characters -- including himself in the travel books -- were inevitably prickly. Second, the back half of the book is repetitive as Hock's attempts to leave are repeatedly thwarted.

David Lewis, We the Navigators **** 1/2

My most substantial souvenir from our recent trip to Hawaii, We, the Navigators explores The Ancient Art of Landfinding in the Pacific. In other words, it explains how South Sea islanders navigated their watery world without instruments. How does one sail 1000 miles across open ocean and arrive at a tiny atoll?

The book provides practical details about many specific techniques, such as using star compasses, reading swells, identifying land clouds, and following birds. (Flying fish always head into the current just before re-entering the water!) More impressively, it presents the conceptual worldview of the traditional navigator, which is quite different from the modern Western approach.

Lewis writes the book in a very academic style. He culls data from many sources, but the clearest and most entertaining illustrations of the techniques come from voyages he undertook himself with actual practitioners of the art.

Like Thinking in Jazz, We, the Navigators elucidates a complex and esoteric skill in a way that makes it simultaneously less mysterious and more impressive. 

Harry Brandt (Richard Price), The Whites *** 1/2

The Whites differs from a typical crime pot-boiler by having Richard Price's signature touch with gritty realistic urban settings and peerless dialogue. It differs from a typical Richard Price novel by having a somewhat preposterous plot with multiple connected murders.

Billy Graves is a cop on the Manhattan Night Watch, an assignment he ended up with when he made a mistake as part of the Wild Geese, an aggressive anti-crime unit back in the 1990s. Murders start popping up that seem to connect to his former unit. Meanwhile, another cop sets out for revenge on the person he holds responsible for his brother's death.

The experience of reading a Richard Price novel is immersive, and he creates unique individual characters even for minor players. The Whites has too many characters to keep track of though: there are the cops on the Night Watch, the retired members of the Wild Geese, the families of the former Wild Geese, the criminals that each Wild Goose continue to obsess over and their victims. (The criminals are the Whites of the title.) All of these characters have clear traits and motivations, but it gets hard to keep track of all the names.

If you're going to read a Richard Price novel -- and I recommend that you do -- I'd start with Clockers, Freedomland, or Lush Life. The Whites isn't bad by any means, but it doesn't measure up to Price's best (hence the pseudonym?).

Patrick O'Brian, The Reverse of the Medal ***

The immemorial sequence of cleaning the upper decks in the earliest morning, pumping ship, piping up hammocks, piping hands to breakfast, cleaning the maindeck, ... the solemn observation of noon, hands piped to dinner... the immemorial sequence, punctuated by bells, was quickly and firmly restored...

Reading a Patrick O'Brian book is like settling back into the immemorial sequence, a comfortable routine. The Reverse of the Medal unfortunately has very little sailing action, but its land-based action is more interesting than it was in The Fortune of War, for example. It also felt like O'Brian explained things a bit more explicitly than he usually does. Another notable feature of this episode is that it clearly sets up the action of the next book. 

Halldór Laxness, Under the Glacier ** 1/2

Halldór Laxness is Iceland's only Nobel laureate. He won the prize in 1955.

Under the Glacier is a modernist novel with a satirical tone and Beckett-esque dialog. A young unnamed narrator travels to a town at the base of Snæfellsjökull on behalf of the bishop to investigate rumors of odd behavior from the local pastor. He meets a collection of odd and unlikely characters, with whom he speaks at cross purposes about their religious practices. The town practices a faith that is an amalgam of Christianity, paganism, and pretty much every world religion, and they may be preparing for a resurrection.

Many years ago I read and really enjoyed Laxness' early masterpiece Independent People (from 1934). I've tackled other Laxness books since then, but none have come close to Independent People, or even been similar in style or tone. To be fair, the other books are from much later in his career (The Fish Can Sing from 1957, Under the Glacier from 1968), and they seem to have more insider Icelandic references. Maybe I should try Salka Valka from 1932?

John McPhee, The Control of Nature *****

The Control of Nature comprises three accounts of man against nature: constraining the route of the Mississippi River, saving an Icelandic harbor from volcanic lava flows, and catching debris flows from the San Gabriel Mountains outside of Los Angeles. Engineers and scientists deploy a variety of creative and ambitious strategies against the powerful forces of water, lava, and rock.

All three sections feature clear explanations of the natural forces, the attempted solutions, and the escalating complications. They offer dramatic human-sized stories of individuals caught in the crossfire, such as the Genofile family nearly crushed in their home by a huge flow of debris. Fascinating details abound; for example:

As lava moves, under the air, it develops a skin of glass that is broken and rebroken by the motion of the liquid below, so that it clinks and tinkles, and crackles like a campfire...

All of it it told with John McPhee's idiosyncratic sense of organization, jumping between past and present unpredictably and occasionally confusingly.

Awesome all around. I learned a lot and enjoyed the drama.

Renata Adler, Speedboat ***

Speedboat is stylish, elusive, aphoristic, and funny. All it lacks is a narrative. I thoroughly enjoyed the individual incidents and stories, but I lamented the lack of an overarching structure. On the plus side, it'll be a great book to dip into for enjoyable anecdotes.