Blink

Read from Monday, April 18th to Thursday, April 21st.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell.  I've read most of Gladwell's other work, like Outliers and The Tipping Point, and now finally got around to reading Blink.  This book is the explanation of the instantaneous impressions that we as human beings make.  Our brains are incredibly powerful instruments, and they often operate behind a 'locked door,' which is our subconscious decisions and impressions.  The argument in this book can seem a bit tricky, because Gladwell argues that sometimes our first impressions and instincts are helpful, and sometimes they are not.  The trick is to learn to distinguish between the two.

As with all books like this, I enjoy reading about the behavioral experiments that researchers have performed.  Gladwell structures his book into a few different chapters about different real life examples of these first impressions.  He tells the story of a museum that was thinking about buying an ancient Greek statue.  Many experts did all kinds of research, testing the stone, the technique, receipts from past collectors, but they concluded it was real.  However, a few experts looked at it and determined that it just didn't feel right.  They were right, it was a forgery.  How did they know it was a fake?  They just did, and they can't explain their reasoning.  That is an example of Gladwell's 'locked door' subconscious. 

Thin slicing is a theory that you don't need a lot of information to make decisions.  There are psychologists that can examine a few minutes of a couple's conversation and determine, with good accuracy, whether they will stay together.  Sometimes, too much information can actually cloud our judgment.  The Pentagon staged a war game about how to deal with a rogue general in the Middle East.  The guy chosen to play this general, Paul Van Riper, didn't have as much intel as the U.S. government, but because of that he was able to move swiftly and launch a successful strike. 

Sometimes our first impressions are not right, however.  Warren Harding was elected president because he looked presidential, and he could sell his looks to the American public.  He was a terrible president.  There are positive and negative connotations that we associate with certain things and looks, and these associations are not always correct.  For example, one experiment showed it is easier to make snap judgments about blacks being 'evil' and whites being 'good' than the other way around.  This does not mean we are racist, it is just that society has permeated so deeply into our subconscious that those connections come more automatically. 

Experts are better at making the snap decisions about their areas of expertise.  For example, music industry people loved this new artist Kenna, but because his sound was different he tested terribly in focus groups and did not get any radio play.  We are nervous about things we don't know, so we wait for other people before we form our opinions.  Our brains are also incredibly adept at picking up facial expressions and discerning what they mean.  One researcher mapped out and categorized all the possible muscle movements of the face.  However, in moments of high stress, our brains can shut off and misinterpret these signals, as displayed in one famous incident in NYC where four cops shot an unarmed man who they thought had a gun.

Blink was interesting and a quick read.  Sometimes it could get confusing because Gladwell sometimes argued quick, snap decisions were good and sometimes not.  However, it was still enlightening to learn what goes on in those first few fractions of a second inside our mind.  I'd definitely recommend it.  Three and a half out of five stars.

Keith to Carthage

Read from Thursday, April 14th to Monday, April 18th.

Again to Carthage, by John Parker, Jr. This is a book that appeals to my past as a long-distance runner.  In high school, I was a decent runner, and I had great times on the track and cross-country teams.  I felt like I was part of a select club that had experienced these long runs and this camaraderie.  Parker is able to capture these feelings of an elite runner perfectly.  ATC is a sequel to Once a Runner, which I read a year or two ago.  While it may not be a critically acclaimed novel, it is still thrilling for the race scenes, and the runner's high he accurately manages to describe.

ATC is the continuing story of Quenton Cassidy, an elite miler in the late 1960's.  He went to college in Florida, and he went to the Olympics in the mile, where he won a silver medal.  ATC picks up his story ten years or so later.  Cassidy is now a lawyer in Palm Beach.  He has good friends at the firm, and he is successful.  He takes boating trips to the Bahamas and loves to spear-hunt fish.   He still runs, but only occasionally, and only for his own fun.  On the surface, life is good, but Cassidy knows that something is missing.  Then his best friend, Mizner, dies in Vietnam, and his grandfather dies, and shortly after his older cousin is killed in a machine harvester accident.  Cassidy has a somewhat mid-life crisis.  He takes an extended leave of absence from the law firm, and he moves into a shed behind his grandmother's house in the mountains of North Carolina.  Cassidy reconnects with his old coach from OAR, Bruce Denton, a gold-medal winning miler himself.  Cassidy reveals his ambitious plan: Make the Olympic team again, but this time in the marathon.

It is crazy of course, but with Denton's help drawing up a rigorous training schedule, Cassidy jumps eagerly back into competitive running.  It is what has been missing in his life.  His identity was an athlete, and as an athlete he was constantly improving, continuously ascending and moving away from death.  Now that he has confronted his own mortality, Cassidy needs to keep improving again.  He runs over a hundred miles each week, increasingly getting better and back into his old racing form.  He doesn't have his youthful speed, but that isn't necessary in the marathon.  Cassidy trains for almost two years, in NC during the summer (once suffering a heat stroke, something that actually happened to me after a race), and Florida in the winter.  He struggles through the mental isolation of the training regimen, but he is happy to have his youthfulness back.  

Finally, he makes it to the marathon trials in Buffalo.  The top three in the race get to be on the U.S. team.  However, Cassidy's Olympic dreams are almost derailed as he is accused of doping by the head of the Amateur Athletic Association, J.J. McGruder.  He has an affidavit by one of Cassidy's coworkers at the firm saying that he admitted using steroids.  Cassidy's friend and fellow attorney Roland shows up though, and defends Cassidy from these ludicrous hearings, and he is allowed to compete.  The next few chapters are all about the race, and they are fantastic.  Cassidy runs with the lead group most of the way, but at one point while getting water, he is knocked over by some guys believed to be thugs of McGruder.  Cassidy recovers from the fall, although he is all banged up and he hit his head.  He regains the pace and reels in the runners again.  He is allegedly helped up by an old teammate, Jack Nubbins, who helps get him back in the race. Cassidy is hurting real bad by the last few miles, and he cannot catch the lead group, and he thinks he is in fourth, behind Nubbins and two other guys.  He starts getting delusional, seeing old friends, some dead, and singing songs in his head.  Finally, he finishes and collapses in a medical tent.  Later it is revealed to him that he finished third and made the team.  Jack Nubbins had been dead for two years.  However, in the epilogue, although Cassidy made the team, the year was 1980, and the U.S. boycotted the games in Moscow.  But he is still happy, knowing that he did make it, and he was good enough, and he was a runner once again.

This is not the best book for its literary qualities.  There are many cliches and it skips around a lot.  I did not like the first half of the book at all.  It had nothing to do with running, just bad fishing jokes and lawyers on boats.  It was not until he started training in the second half that it got better.  The race was great, and I liked the idea of Jack Nubbins being just a figment of his imagination.  However, I didn't like the plot-line with McGruder that seemed to be thrown in half-haphazardly at the end.  It seemed like Parker just needed a bad guy to make it a good story, but he wasn't necessary.  Running is about a conflict within oneself, there do not need to be external forces. I love the banter among runners, especially when they tell old stories of teammates, like how they jumped a train.  These are the types of stories that I remember from my days as a runner.  ATC and OAR are like chicken soup for the runner's soul, and they bring back fond memories.  Although I could never be like Cassidy, it still makes me want to get back out in the woods and run some trails.  Recommended for the runners out there, but not many other people.  Three and a half out of five stars.

Also, it was a strange coincidence that I read the final marathon scene while the Boston Marathon was actually being run.

Moon Palace

Read from Friday, April 8th to Thursday, April 14th.

Moon Palace, by Paul Auster.  This book caught my attention solely based on it's cover art.  It was a very interesting story, told in a unique way.  It is the story of three generations of a family that are united purely by chance, and the story is not in sequential order.  I will do my best to sum up the complicated plot.

Marco Stanley Fogg is the narrator and main protagonist.  Born shortly after WWII, his mother is killed by a bus when he is five, and he has never known his father, so he is raised by his Uncle Victor.  He is an aspiring musician, and when M.S. is old enough to go to college, Victor takes off on tour, and he gives M.S. his collection of 1492 books, which M.S. dutifully reads through.  M.S. is an introvert for the most part.  He survives on his mother's settlement money, and this gets him through most of college at Columbia in NYC in the 1960's.  However, Victor dies on the road, and M.S. is devastated, and soon his money starts running out.  M.S. refuses to do anything about it though, he doesn't want to get a job.  The reasoning for this is complicated, but M.S. wants to ask for no help, and he hides his poverty from his college friends.  He rations everything, and sells the books to prolong things, but eventually he is forced out of the apartment and he lives like a hobo in Central Park.  He gets hit with a flu after a storm, and he almost dies in a bush before being rescued by his friend Zimmer and a girl named Kitty that M.S. met recently.

Zimmer nurses him back to health, and M.S. and Kitty start a torrid love affair.  Finally M.S. gets a job working for a nasty old blind rich man named Effing.  He reads to him and takes him for walks outside, and Effing is strange.  He teaches M.S. to describe everything he sees in absolute detail, and to leave nothing out.  Eventually they start reading obituaries, and Effing reveals that he will die soon, and he wants to tell M.S. his whole life story.  Effing was originally a painter named Julian Barber.  He married after WWI, but was dissatisfied with life on the East Coast, so he decided to travel west to see the country and paint out there.  However, the guide he hired in Utah practically led him off a cliff, and his friend died, and Julian/Effing was left all alone.  He almost died, but he found a furnished cave that's previous owner had been murdered in.  Effing takes on that hermits identity and stays there for a year.  Eventually the gang of robbers that use the cave as a hideout come back, and Effing kills all three.  He takes the money they had stolen and uses it to start a fortune in California and in Europe, before settling in NYC. 

M.S. helps write the obituary, and Effing reveals that he probably has a long lost son named Solomon Barber with his original wife.  He makes M.S. promise that he will search for this man, since he is leaving his entire fortune to him.  Effing dies on the exact day that he predicted, but not before giving out $20,000 in fifties to random people on the street.  He hoped that would atone for the money he stole after the murders.  M.S. meets Solomon, who is a heavyset professor from the Midwest.  His career is in the tank because decades ago he got caught sleeping with a student.  It is revealed to the reader and Solomon, that that student turned out to be M.S.'s mother.  Solomon says that he knew Marco's mother, but he doesn't reveal that he is his long-lost father.  Solomon moves to NYC with his new inheritance, and they become good friends.  However, Kitty becomes pregnant, and she wants an abortion, but M.S. won't allow it.  She gets it, and they break up, refusing to talk to one another. 

M.S. is in a funk, and Solomon suggests they travel out West to search for Effing's cave.  However, they only make it to Chicago, where they stop to grieve at the grave of Uncle Victor and M.S.'s mother.  When Solomon starts blubbering over the grave, Marco realizes the truth.  He freaks out and starts shouting at Solomon, and Solomon runs away and trips over an open grave and falls in, breaking his back.  He is in the hospital for a long time, and they are able to reconcile from the fight, but eventually Solomon dies.  M.S. gets the inheritance, and tries to get Kitty back, but she won't take him.  The only thing left for him to do is continue West.  He tries searching for the cave for a long time, but he finds out it is now underneath a man-made lake.  Worst of all, his car and all his money are stolen.  However, Marco recovers and continues walking West, all the way to California, all the way to the Pacific, where he resolves to start his new life. 

It is a book about searching for your identity that is mixed up with American expansion and rebellion.  The cover description of the plot says it is an adventure out West, and I didn't realize that Effing's story was that adventure.  Him being M.S.'s grandfather is not revealed until after his death.  The plot is twisted, and the near death of M.S. in the beginning seems to be quickly forgotten as he takes the job at Effing's.  It is a strange set of adventures that make up the lives of these three generations.  However, the writing is poetic and beautiful.  Auster focuses on the moon as a symbol guiding Marco through life.  It is a symbol that is found in the paintings, Chinese restaurants, fortune cookies, and the final image looking out on the Pacific.  Though strange, the book was compelling, and although the ending left me hanging, I felt it was appropriate.  Marco knew his family history, and he finally is able to chart his own path.  His name is interesting as well: Marco for Marco Polo, Stanley for Stanley Livingston, and Fogg for Phileas Fogg of Around the World in 80 Days.  They are all explorers, searching for something, just like M.S.  Four out of five stars.

The Stranger

Read from Wednesday, April 6th to Thursday, April 7th

The Stranger, by Albert Camus.  The famous work by the French existentialist has been on my list for awhile.  It is a short story divided up into two distinct parts.  The first part tells the day to day life of Mersault, a Frenchman living in Algiers in 1942.  He is notified by the nursing home that his mother has died, and he travels to the country to attend her funeral.  He doesn't show any of the typical emotions however; declining to view the body, never crying, and seemingly indifferent.  Once back in the city, he strikes up a romantic, sexual relationship the next day with Marie, an old co-worker.  He befriends his neighbor Raymond, and he agrees to help him get back at a girl who was cheating on him.  Mersault wrote a letter to the girl, trying to get her to come back to Raymond, and when she did, Raymond beat her up.  Mersault even testified that the girl was cheating on Raymond, and he was only let off with a warning.  Mersault, Raymond and Marie go to a beach one day, and they notice that the girl's brother, an Arab, and some of his friends are tailing them.  There is a fight on the beach, and Raymond is cut with a knife.  He pulls out a gun, but Mersault restrains him and takes the gun away from him.  They go back to the beach house, but then Mersault leaves by himself and wanders along the beach, eventually coming upon the Arab.  The sun is hot, and when the Arab pulls his knife Mersault shoots him five times.

The second part describes Mersault in jail.  His attitude is strange and it mystifies many people around him.  He is not repentant for the action, claiming that his physical impulses triggered the reaction.  He refuses to believe in God or ask forgiveness.  He is appointed a lawyer from the state.  Mersault's detached demeanor makes jail tolerable, and he spends time sleeping and counting his things back home.  Marie visits him once or twice, and he misses the sex.  The trial begins, and the prosecutor focuses on Mersault's actions at his mom's funeral, and his indifference to her death.  He claims Mersault is a soulless monster, focusing on his whole life rather than just that murder.  Mersault's lawyer is not as effective, and he is found guilty.  However, although he is assured the sentence would be light, Mersault is sentenced to a public beheading.  Mersault is shocked, and he works his way through his emotions and thoughts of the world in a famous discourse on the philosophy behind the book.  It is more of the Absurd of the world.  The chance indifference of the time of day, the country he is in, the physical surroundings.  The world is indifferent to him, and since he is likewise indifferent, it is his own best friend.  A chaplain comes and tries to get him to accept God, but he refuses, in a final outburst where he comes to terms with his execution.  The universe doesn't care, and his one last wish would be for lots of people to turn out at the guillotine. 

It was a quick novella, and a simple story that Camus uses to brilliantly expound his views in the last thirty pages or so.  Easy to read, with quick sentences, Camus does not bore the reader with complex philosophy.  Instead he lets the story and the character show through their actions what is going on.  I enjoyed it, and would like to check out some Sartre soon as well. Three and a half out of five stars.

God is Keith

Read from Monday, April 4th to Tuesday, April 5th.

God is Dead, by Ron Currie, Jr.  Continuing on my God theme (culminating in the next post of The Stranger), this is a collection of short stories centering around a basic, creative and interesting premise: God has been killed.  Currie was the author of Everything Matters! and I wanted to check out some of his other work.  This was a pleasant, quick read, and it was his first work from early 2007.  Darkly comic, Currie has been compared to a young Vonnegut, which is a comparison that always piques my interest.

God starts the story by taking the form of a Sudanese woman caught in the civil war in the early 2000's.  She wanders around with a never-ending supply of food, quietly helping refugees.  She ends up at a refugee camp where Colin Powell is visiting.  While there, Powell has a change of heart and breaks with the administration.  He embraces his black roots, and vows not to leave until the government shows some good faith and helps find God's missing brother.  I thought the Colin Powell story was a little weak, and my least favorite part.  After Powell leaves, the Janjaweed bomb the camp, and God is killed. 

The world doesn't know this at first, but some feral dogs feed on the corpse and they start communicating telepathically.  The story of the dogs is told later in the book.  They try to make contact with humans, but one human betrays them to get the same power they have.  Most of the dogs are killed, but one survives and becomes a religious icon for the people of Africa, who are desperate for a new God to worship.  Eventually of course, the government of Sudan tries to squash this religious fervor and the dog is forced to flee. 

The world goes through many changes after the news that God has died.  At first there is chaos.  Power disappears, neighbors become murderers, and a group of teenagers make a suicide pack.  One by one they shoot each other, spurred on by a megalomaniac teen who has a thirst for blood.  One manages to survive, not because he backed out, but because he was last to go and his gun was out of bullets.  The world survives from that post-apocalyptic wasteland, and it morphs into a society where parents worship their children.  However, that too became dangerous as it was not a healthy love, but an obsession for many people.  The U.S. government gathers all the psychologists and requires every parent attend weekly meetings where they are taught how mediocre their kids actually are.  Thus begins the story of one psychiatrist in Maine.  He is hated by the entire community because of his job.  He has a secret affair with Selia, but when one father in town finds out and threatens to expose the relationship, the psychiatrist sacrifices his career and goes to jail in order to protect Selia. 

There are other short stories, and a few follow the lives of this psychiatrist and Selia.  America and the West adopt a Post Modern Anthropological world-view, in which every society is deemed equal and worthy to each other.  The Eastern countries adopt a position called Evolutionary Psychologist, which is basically only the strong shall survive and we must fight to prove it.  There is a huge World War, and Selia's teenage son Arnold feels pressure to join.  He doesn't want to feel left out from all the other kids, and he wants to impress his imaginary girlfriend (which all teenagers are required to worship in the absence of God).  However, joining the army would kill Selia and his father.  Arnold eventually leaves, and severs the relationship with his parents.  He spends many years in the Pacific, and Mexico, and finally retreats to America as the U.S. forces are almost wiped out.  He wants to reconnect with his parents, but his future is left unclear as he races home ahead of the invading troops. 

It was a very interesting portrayal of the future from a simple, though unrealistic event.  Currie has got a fascinating imagination.  Some parts took me out of the story and I didn't see them as being very plausible.  The thing about the child worshiping and Colin Powell were not that good.  But on the whole it was an enjoyable read.  Three and a half out of five stars.

Keith Hates Us All

Read from Sunday, April 3rd to Monday, April 4th.

God Hates Us All, by Hank Moody.  I am a huge fan of the Showtime series Californication, starring David Duchovny.  He plays a tortured writer Hank Moody, who once became famous having written God Hates Us All, which was later adapted into a movie called "A Crazy Little Thing Called Love."  The series follows the exploits of Hank in LA as he tries to get his family life back in order.  So when I saw this book for sale on Amazon, I leaped at the chance to buy it.  It is obviously a tie-in novel ghost written by someone or a team and attributed to Hank Moody (a fictional character), but it was fun nonetheless.

 In New York City in the early 1990's, the narrator, a young college dropout, is stabbed by his girlfriend at the time Daphne.  He is lost, living in Long Island with his folks, and when he is offered a job as a weed dealer in Manhattan, he takes it.  The narrator meets many strange people, one of them a rock star named Nate living in the Chelsea hotel.  The narrator is enamored with the charming hotel, and most of all with Nate's girlfriend, a likable supermodel named K.  He moves into the hotel, woos K, and when her and Nate break up, he moves in for the kill and sweeps her away.  And when K has a fashion show in Korea, he scrounges up whatever money he can get to go and surprise her.

But Surprise! Nate got to Korea first and got K back.  The narrator was left heartbroken, and flat broke, and with his only friend Ray, a photographer, they went out and got drunk at a brothel, and nearly arrested before flying back to New York.  The narrator here had a change of heart, and resolved to spend more time with his dying mother, and he reconciled with his dad, who was cheating on his mom.  He ended up getting back together with Daphne, and they tracked down her long lost dad, a homeless man in a subway tunnel.  However, when Daphne tried to set him afire, she had to go back to the mental institution.

 It is a fucked-up, debaucherous story, similar to the Bukowski books I've been reading.  The narrator is a lost soul, and he does what he can for his own pleasure and self-interest.  At one point, he had sex with a client from behind while she nursed her baby.  It was very entertaining and comical, similar to the show in a lot of ways.  Of course it didn't live up to the expectations I had for the novel, but I'm sure nothing would have been able to, the way it is glorified in the show.  It was still enjoyable for a fan like me.  Three and a half out of five stars.

The Bone People

Read from Friday, March 25th to Sunday, April 3rd.

The Bone People, by Keri Hulme.  This was a very interesting and different book.  Written in New Zealand in 1984, it won international prizes and recently has been re-released here in America.   Filled with Maori phrases and sentences, as well as an unorthodox paragraph style, it was difficult to read at times, and I read it much slower than other books.  However, once things got rolling, it became a very moving and intense book.

The basic plot outline is as follows:  Kerewin Holmes is a reclusive artist who recently won a lottery and built a tower for herself on the beach in New Zealand.  She is estranged from her family and has never connected well with others.  One stormy night, a little boy appears in her window.  His name is Simon, 7 years old but he is a mute.  She reluctantly lets him stay for the night, and in the morning his father Joe picks him up.  This sparks an unusual friendship.  Joe is a widower, and Simon is a boy who washed up on the beach a few years ago with no memory of his former life.  Joe takes care of him, but Simon is very strange.  He claims to see auras, and he steals, skips school, and does what he likes.  He can get violent, and it is eventually revealed that Joe gets violent back.  Whenever he gets drunk, Simon gets beaten senseless.  Kerewin is hesitant about getting involved, but they all spend lots of time together, and she feels protective toward Simon.  She likes Joe and they are seen as a couple in town.  They go on vacation for a few weeks to a beach house.  Joe misses his wife and wants a new one, and Simon sees her as a mother. 

However, as things are seemingly going well, disaster strikes.  Simon gets expelled from school and then sees a mortal accident.  He tries to talk to Kerewin, but she is angry because he stole stuff from her.  Simon freaks out and smashes her prize guitar.  He is kicked out and goes and smashes all the windows on Main Street.  Kerewin and Joe are furious, and Kerewin gives her consent for a beating.  Joe savagely beats Simon, but Simon had hidden a small shard of glass, and stabs Joe.  Simon is knocked into a coma.

Subsequently, the police get involved, Simon is in a coma, Joe is in jail for child abuse, and Kerewin discovers a tumor in her stomach.  She dismantles the tower and leaves town, intending to refuse medicine and die on her own.  The novel enters a second phase with long chapters describing each character's journey.  Joe spends a few months in jail and when he's released he wanders in the jungle.  He jumps into a ravine, possibly trying suicide.  He breaks his arm, but an old Maori saves him and takes him back to his hut and heals him.  The Maori claims he protects the soul of the country, which is a shimmering object underwater in a small pond.  He says that Joe is now the protector, and he is going to die now, which he promptly does that day.  Joe lives as a hermit in the woods, until one day an earthquake strikes and the pond is destroyed.  He finds a glowing magical stone and takes it with him.  Seeing that his job is done, Joe knows what he has to do, and sets off back home. 

Simon spends many months in the hospital, but he makes a miraculous recovery.  He has hearing loss, and has to use aids, but eventually he is back to normal.  However, he cannot go home, and he has trouble understanding that.  Joe is obviously an unfit father, but Simon loves him tremendously, and Kerewin as well.  Simon is sent by the state to a religious school, but he rebels constantly.  He runs away often, and eventually he makes it all the way home, only to find the house he lived in had been sold, and Kerewin's tower destroyed.  After the court case, Kerewin increasingly felt the growth in her stomach.  She refused to be diagnosed and treatment, except painkillers.  She was devastated by allowing herself to grow close to people and then being hurt, and also the loss of her artistic ability.  She roamed around the countryside, and found a small cabin in a field, where she intended to die.  She almost did, but a mysterious woman appeared and gave her a concoction, and one morning she woke up and found the tumor gone.  She had another chance at life and resolved not to waste it.  She went back home and eventually adopted Simon so he could stay with her.  In the epilogue, Joe and Simon and Kerewin are reunited at a party in her new tower, but it is not clear what their relationship is, but nevertheless it is a happy ending, considering the pain and solitude each had to go through.

It was very moving and emotionally exhausting at times.  I originally thought Joe had beaten Simon to death, because it is left unclear for many pages, and I was very shocked at first, but relieved when he was alive.  The individual journeys are sad, especially for Simon, who just missed home and the people he loved.  It is eventually revealed that he was the son of an Irish heroin smuggler, whose boat crashed in a storm. 

It was difficult to read, and I had to constantly flip to the back for the Maori translations.  Also, Kerewin has an interesting way of speaking.  She uses many nonsensical, gibberish alliterations and plays on words.  The point of view shifts constantly, and there are plenty of thoughts that I had trouble identifying who the thinker was.  However, the overall effect was something like a long, epic poem.  It is beautifully told and very original.  I also liked the ability to explore life on New Zealand, a place I know little about.  The differences between the cultural origins of the Maori and the Europeans form the background of the conflict.  The Bone People refers to our ancestors, the people of the bone, who created the world.  Four and a half out of five stars.