Some current reading

I mentioned the book on rangeland hydrology. I'm having to take this one chapter a day because I'm sorry to report it's not that well-written and while it's information I can use, it's kind of hard to plow through. I also just started a book on Silviculture that I requested via interlibrary loan. It's somewhere above 500 pages and is due back Feb. 8 (though I think I can request a renewal if I need it). I only read the first chapter but I think this one will be smoother going.

For my own personal reading (both of those count as "work reading") I am reading another Inspector Gamache novel (the first one, called "Still Life") and a nonfiction work called "The Lucifer Effect."

First off: I really like the Gamache novels. They are well-written, I can envision the places and the people from the description. The dialog rings true (nothing turns me off a novel faster than dialog that "feels" unrealistic). They're also interesting for the setting: Quebec, and they often seem to address the tension that exists between Anglo and Franco Quebeckers. Gamache himself is of French-Canadian descent (as you would guess from his name) but he also speaks fluent (and British-accented, we learn in this novel he did some of his higher education in the UK) English. So he kind of straddles the two worlds. But one of the interesting things is the little bits of prejudice different characters express - Gamache observes of one of his young French-Canadian colleagues that she doesn't dress with the normal "flair and style" he expected from a Quebecoise. (Apparently "les Anglais" are seen as dowdy or unstylish by the French Canadians). That kind of thing strikes me; I don't know that I've ever experienced anything similar, where two populations from really rather similar backgrounds (both European) who lived alongside each other for hundreds of years but there's a fundamental distrust and non-mixing of the groups. (I don't think I could pick out an Anglo from a French Canadian, unless they spoke and had a clear accent). Maybe in some parts of the southwest, people of Spanish vs. Anglo heritage might have similar situations, but I also know there's a fair amount of intermarriage and mixing of cultures there.

And yeah, some of the distrust goes back hundreds of years - in fact, the town where the murder took place, Three Pines (and definitely NOT, it turns out, "Trois Pins") was a Loyalist (as in: loyal to the British crown) community, and apparently provided a place for people in the then-Colonies to run to if they feared for their life during the American Revolution. It's said there were always three pines growing in a group on the village green, so people running there would know they were in a safe place.

But beyond all of this cultural information, there are the characters. One of the blurbs compares Gamache to Poirot, which annoys me slightly - they are VERY different people (Probably the comparison was because they both speak French). Gamache feels more real than Poirot does. Also, he strikes me as a more well-adjusted man: he lacks the fussiness Poirot has. He is happily married with adult children. He has an appreciation for good food and good living. He is fundamentally a kind person and is interested in mentoring the younger members of his team. He has friends outside of work.

It's interesting that in this story, some of the same characters in the later novel ("A Rule Against Murder") I read some months back: Peter and Clara Morrow are there. (You would expect, of course, some of Gamache's colleagues to be the same: and yes, there is Beaulieu).

I don't want to give too much away. The murder is of a beloved figure in the town - a retired schoolteacher. There are a couple of characters I dislike and one I already slightly suspect. But I recommend these novels if you like complex mysteries that get a bit into the psychologies of the characters.

The second book is different but perhaps related, in a way. I don't remember where I read a review of "The Lucifer Effect" (Zimbardo) but it struck me interesting and I decided to read it. This is not a book about a happy topic: it is a history of the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment, where young male volunteers were drafted and wound up as either "guards" or "prisoners" for the study of the psychology of prison situations. The very unsettling thing about the situation is how the people involved seem to change personality as they slide into their role - the guards become increasingly cruel and good at dehumanizing the prisoners; the prisoners become servile or depressed or rebellious, depending. (All of the young men were vetted ahead of time and determined to be "psychologically healthy.") Zimbardo, the author, was the director of the experiment, so he saw firsthand what was happening.

And it IS unsettling. I guess I had always thought of one's personality, at least as an adult, as being somewhat fixed: that there was some fundamental bit that didn't change. Zimbardo's argument is that situation has a big effect on how a person reacts and their personality. (Then again: there may be some people with sufficiently strong traits that those don't change. One of the prisoners, nicknamed Sarge, resists doing anything that could hurt the other prisoners; he even refuses - to the rage of the guards - to use what he considers "obscenities*" to refer to or talk to them, even when ordered to use those words)

(*Some of which now show up on network tv)

I'm not very far in though in the introduction Zimbardo has promised that he's not just going to give examples of "Bad situations, particularly power situations, can make otherwise-fundamentally-decent people be abusive and evil" but that also "It's also entirely possible in some situations for people you'd never expect to become what we would call a hero" so I'm hoping to get to the optimistic part soon.

The other thing that strikes me about the situation is how different things were in the 1960s: you could never, ever set up an experiment like this today (and in fact, this experiment was probably one of the things that helped usher in the modern situation of IRBs, where now, if I want to give a survey to a class or similar, I have to get permission first).

Though I will say, the book makes me wonder: how much, in day to day situations, is the "role" a person plays shaped by circumstances rather than some fundamental aspect of their personality? I like to think that if I wound up in a situation similar to that of the "prison guards," that I would still be able to retain compassion and, as I've said before "see the other person" (that is: as a person, not as a thing). But also it makes me see how some of the situations I've been in where I saw someone get power and then change make a little more sense.