A Life Spent Reading

Every American citizen, as well as anyone who is financially invested in America, should read this book.

I think that people generally know that America’s time at the top is coming to an end, the usual cheerleading notwithstanding. The collapse of the housing bubble is just the latest manifestation of America’s mania for spending more than it earns, and the country has been doing that for a couple of decades now. The question isn’t if, but when the American lifestyle will undergo a severe readjustment – downward. And the answer is: soon.

Peter Schiff has done the best job I’ve seen in laying out the causes and effects of the coming crisis. (I say “coming”, but really we’re already into the leading edge.) In plain, non-technical language, Schiff lays out the primary movers in the housing crisis, why inflation is much worse than the government would have you believe, and the reasons that America is in for an extended period of adjustment, after which we may or may not emerge whole. Certainly, even in the best scenario, Americans are in for a decade or so of relative austerity, and given America’s dislike of inconvenience, it’s not going to be a pleasant ten years.

The primary lesson is: get your money out of the US dollar, which is already starting to be massively devalued. In the age of the Internet there are plenty of ways for people to move their money into other currencies and so on, even for those who are not experienced investors. My own personal recommendation for those who may not know what to do (aside from: Read this book!) would be to open a bank account with Everbank (www.everbank.com) and put some money into one of their foreign-denominated CDs. Alternatively, you can get an account with an online trading service like Ameritrade and put your money into a foreign index fund. Schiff has some good recommendations for choosing one, as well as a quick discussion about which options are best for your level of tolerance.

Most Americans are financially illiterate; this book will go a long way to help you out if you’re sitting there watching your nest-egg “appreciate” and can’t understand why you’re continually losing ground. Highly recommended.

I really hate it when a publisher fudges on the credentials of a writer, and I also hate it when people who don’t know the first thing about Japan try to set a novel there. Unfortunately, The 47th Samurai suffers from both of these problems.

First, the copy along the top of the book reads, “Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Point of Impact and Hot Springs STEPHEN HUNTER”. I think that it’s fair to assume that a potential customer looking at the cover could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps Mr. Hunter won his Pulitzer for writing, if not one of the two novels listed, at least some novel. But no. He won it for his work as a newspaper film critic – laudable, to be sure, but if I wanted an expert on movies I’d go visit Roger Ebert’s website.

As for the Japan stuff, Mr. Hunter has certainly done his homework on swords and samurai movies (of course). He throws so many Japanese sword parts into the text that it could actually serve as a sort of katana primer course. Unfortunately, he also throws in pretty much every silly stereotype that exists about Japan. We get the salaryman reading horrific porn comics on the train, people crossing streets to avoid having to walk directly past the gaijin, yada yada. It wasn’t fresh (or particularly true) when Michael Crichton wrote Rising Sun back in 1992, and it’s certainly not fresh now. Is it too much to ask that successful novelists, who presumably have the money to spend on research, actually try going to Japan and seeing if there are actually pervs reading bondage comics on the public transportation system, women who will cross the street to avoid them and so on? Apparently it is.

And what about the level of English that’s spoken by virtually (it seems) everyone in Japan? Okay, fine, you need to have at least one Japanese character speak good English in order to explain difficult points, but come on. A guy serving coffee throws out slang that sounds like he’s lived in the States for decades: “I can fire it up in the microwave if you like”. Or this bit from a different character:

Nakago is the rusted steel tang under the hilt. Even it is full of tantalizing communications from the past… It was as if the desecrator was paying homage to his superior… The cutting-edge side is at an acute angle to the bottom end of the shinogi line…

Even native speakers don’t talk like that, and I can tell you that after more than a decade and a half of dealing with Japanese learners of English at all levels, I’ve never met one who would use the word “desecrator” in a spoken sentence, much less that plus “tantalizing” plus “acute” all in the same paragraph. But stuff like this runs throughout.

And that’s too bad, because Mr. Hunter has an engaging style and can plot a book pretty well. Sure, there’s a little too much in the way of Hemingway envy (check out the photo on the back cover), and he doesn’t do the whole honor thing as well as Robert Crais or John D. MacDonald, but still, it’s certainly a readable book – at least those aspects that don’t relate directly to Japan. I might well pick up another of his books next time, one that’s set in the USA. As for this one, if you don’t know anything about Japan and don’t mind being served up a bunch of stale central-casting leftovers, have at it. You’ll probably enjoy yourself.