When I was 15 I spent a few weeks at a camp in the summer. We were sailing. Up in the top right corner of Poland there's a region called Masuria, a region of lakes. It's pretty much the only place in the country you really wanna go sailing. It's vast and quite uncontaminated by urbanity and worse: industry. You'll find small picturesque towns scattered between the lakes and the way of life is to stay on the lake most of the day and set up shop at night in tents.

So where was I going with this? Oh yes, sailing is fun, but it's hard to fill 14 consecutive days to the brim with it. There was a lot of down time, and plenty of boredom as well. I didn't know any of the people and I felt quite alone. I was also the youngest. There formed cliques, but I wasn't in any of them. I shared a tent with a guy who was 18 and we didn't fraternize. And anyway he was busy with his girlfriend.

Toward the end of the camp it got a little better for me. I had nothing to do, but I noticed my tent partner started reading a book he'd brought with him. I wasn't big on reading back then, but when you're that bored, a book will do nicely. One time he was out I got curious. It was a nicely bounded volume and I started looking through it, reading a few words out of the middle. The characters appealed to me, I kept on reading. Before long I was caught up in the book.

I guess my tent partner was a little put off, but well he knew I had nothing to do and most of the time I was indeed not doing anything, so he just let me. Anyway, it was his book, he could read it anytime, and his girlfriend was more interesting to him. Somehow word got around that there's a good book in the camp and several people got interested. The camp was coming to a close and I started to worry that, especially with this new interest, I wouldn't finish it. But despite the hype I kept on reading it pretty much all the time, and most people aren't the type to rip an item you're holding out of your hands, so I was in control. On the trip back from camp I finished the book with about 2 hours to spare.

Unfortunately, I forgot the title and years later I remembered the incident and tried to figure out what it was. That turned out to be harder than I expected. All I could remember was that it was a story about prisoners of war held by the Japanese during World War 2. And I vaguely remembered the title, but not accurately. I also didn't know what it would be called in English.

At one point I thought it might be Lord of the flies, the title sounded close enough. But that turned out to be a children's book, and a bad one at that. Eventually I tracked down the story, called King Rat, which is a literal translation of the title in Polish.

I read it a decade ago, and when I read it today the story is still captivating. It's a tale of Allied troops being held in a POW camp in Singapore during the war, under strict Japanese rule. Their living conditions are difficult to imagine, and prisoners have regular afflictions of fever and disease, those that are surviving. Food is scarce, drugs are lacking. They know nothing of the outside world, nothing about how the war is going, no news of home.

These are the circumstances in which survival is a privilege. From a sociological point of view it's almost like.. a controlled experiment. Prisoners realize they cannot survive alone, so they form groups of 2 of 3, accomplices they can trust, and take care of each other. They share food, help the sick, and look out for trouble. Everyone is putting some food aside just in case it might get even worse.

And this is the world of the King. A lowly American corporal is the one man who knows how to survive, nay how to live, in these surroundings. The only one not malnourished, the only one not diseased, the only one not clad in rags. He is.. a business man. Those prisoners who have somehow managed to hide their last possessions are keen to sell them when they have no other choice. Watches, jewelry, things that can buy a wealth of food to last weeks. The King is the only man who can arrange such a trade. He trades with the outside, clandestinely. The Japanese overlords strictly forbid it.

And this is the gripping story of a not-so-distant past.

If there's one thing about reading classics it's that they're instantly demystified and reduced to being judged on merit rather than reputation. Quite often this merit does not justify the reputation. So it is also with the Odyssey.

Homer's poem is a long story about a man's journey. He may have set the precedent for contemporary travel programs on tv, basically island hopping in the Aegean Sea. But I suppose what you expect (or I expect) from a classic work is a certain sophistication, a uniqueness, an outstanding quality. But there is little profundity to be found in the Odyssey. It goes along the lines of a fairy tale, expounding on the basic human qualities, but offers little depth.

It also illustrates the limitations of human imagination. It regularly astounds me just how incapable we are of imagining things without seeing in them most of ourselves. A monster with one eye? Not the most creative idea ever. And then you have the mythological gods who are no different from humans in fact, driven by the same urges, the same motives. And the only thing that makes them gods is their immortality and super natural powers, meanwhile mentally they are identical to us. At least our monotheistic religions have gods more sophisticated than that.

So what is it that makes Homer's work earn such a reputation? Other than being an insanely long poem.

I find that Sam Harris is a more articulate critic of religion than Richard Dawkins, who is clearly more hostile. His two books The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation raise a lot interesting issues. The latter is not particularly interesting, but the former presents much insight.

The text is actually quite comprehensive at times, and piecemeal reading doesn't do it justice. I think he makes excellent points about the suffocating role of religion as opposed to progress and the evolution of knowledge. And his criticism of religion as a driving force in politics and policy making leaves little to dispute. Furthermore, the distinction of religions in terms of their values is a very relevant point. As is the condemnation of the taboo against criticizing irrational beliefs.

But what ultimately drives his "war on religion" is the premise that unless we do something right now we're going to destroy ourselves. It would be perfectly fine to make all the arguments he does as a crusade for intellectual honesty. And there is certainly enough social and political justification for it. But his bottom line is a doomsday scenario which I find rather extreme.

For more on this (and yes, he's an excellent speaker), youtube it:

• The End of faith (4 parts)
• Sam Harris at Aspen Ideas Festival (7 parts)
• Sam Harris debates Reza Aslan (5 parts)

The talks are rather focused on the struggle between religion and rationality, they don't go into his ideas about world destruction that much.

Hot on the heels of the Prometheus Deception comes another Ludlum novel. This one has a rather different ring to it, it's also an espionage plot, but it's set in World War 2. I have to say I did not find it equally gripping at first, rather than the single person focus of the previous book, this one involves a lot of people and their fates. Only later does Ludlum narrow the view a bit and center on the viewpoint of the agent David Spaulding. He needs to develop and introduce Spaulding first, which he does by sending him to Spain on covert missions for four years during the war. This feels like a bit of a hack, but then again it also builds a very nice reference point - the man from Lisbon, which says a lot without speaking a lot.

The whole affair, as usual, is very complex. And credit to Ludlum for keeping a lid on it while he lets small pieces come to light a little at a time. This very precise unveiling seems a bit too mechanical at times, it moves at a very steady pace without any bursts.

Ludlum's premise is carefully crafted, and although he tells you from the beginning what it's all about, the big picture, you can appreciate the nuance and complexity of his story as he fills it in with details. In fact, rather than writing a developing story, it is more in the vein of setting things up so they will unfold in a very specific way. Like an elaborate domino effect. The basic idea is that in an ongoing world war, the two powers Nazi Germany and the not-yet-committed United States have both found themselves cornered on technical limitations. Interestingly, each has what the other needs. An obscene arrangement is drawn up so that basically each party gets what it needs and they can fight it out.

This deal is brokered by the magnate Rhinemann in Buenos Aires, a German Jew expelled from the Reich, who ponders the prospects of his very significant post war influence. His fortune is sure to be sought to rebuild Germany after the war. Meanwhile, both sides have conceived this plot with the maximum of secrecy, and very few people actually know about it. Spaulding, the agent sent to implement the plan, and then eliminate Rhinemann to remove the evidence, knows only half the story.

There is one thing a bit odd about Ludlum's stories. Firstly, he tends to always pick one central character, whose interests are made compelling to the reader, and also makes the direction of the story well defined. This does feel simplistic at times, but it's a fair choice. However, the character's superhero-like ability to survive is a bit exaggerated, and the story always ends in a way that allows him to accomplish most or all of his objectives, without really losing anything for it. Well, of course, he's always injured badly, but the way in which Ludlum always expedites his recovery, you can't really doubt that he will fully recover whatever the circumstance may be.

Robert Ludlum, author of the Jason Bourne trilogy (of Bourne Identity fame) authors this spy novel in 2000. It seems to have been, although I was not aware, his last novel, at least the last one published in his lifetime.

I don't read much of these stories, but I do like them. Ludlum bears resemblance to Frederick Forsyth, of whom I've read two books in the past, but his style is different. Forsyth is more meticulous, Ludlum prefers to be direct. He will describe a hand-to-hand combat scene in great detail, greater in fact than I care to witness. For precisely where the punches land isn't awfully interesting. But unlike Forsyth, the plot is more to do with intelligence and espionage, which is an angle I generally enjoy.

The Prometheus Deception is an elegantly crafted story, but may I suggest it could use a better ending. Nick Bryson narrates an intricate conspiracy on several levels, whose unraveling is both timely and interesting. He is the classic retired-spy-brought-back character, and basically indestructible. The scenes are described well, with good pacing and lots of suspense. Ludlum is good at setting the scene so that you know that potentially there is a lot you don't know, but all the same there is always one thing you know exists that you strive to discover, which imbues the plot with urgent purpose.

The Bryson character is sharp in combat and sensual perception, he can detect the slightest sound, sense subtle movement and so on, playing on the old super-attune-to-his-senses idea. What does seem strange at times is that despite this, he isn't all that bright about the greater pictures and the powers that be. The structure of power in the story is very complex, and Bryson is not the kind to question or doubt what he supposedly knows, where you would expect him to. At times this is almost a little embarrassing, how far he is led astray before he stumbles upon the truth. This is basically his only weakness, but it's not altogether convincing. Ted Waller, his mentor, plays the classic role of the-one-who-always-is-a-step-ahead, whose maneuvering is not explained to the reader.

The plot is very contentious, and the expediency with which Ludlum introduces new foes, and their relative positioning is well crafted. Ted Waller is Bryson's boss, and in many ways they're on the same side, but in many ways they are also enemies. It is enjoyable how characters are not created as traffic cones around which the main character must swerve; their interests migrate, which evolves their relationship to Bryson.

The ending is a problem. Ludlum's plot ascends a steep hill to what appears to be a powerful climax. But somewhere before the end he falters and the pattern of the plot shifts uncharacteristically into what appears to be trouble at tying it all together. What I mentioned as a clear intention in every scene is now missing, and after London, Bryson and Elena (his long lost wife) reunited do a lot of brainstorming, traveling from place to place, picking up tidbits of information that lead them to the final scene. This seems too random in an otherwise watertight story.

As for the final plot resolution, it doesn't quite come. It isn't actually said how "power would be shifted" at all. All we know is that all or virtually all the high rollers of the conspiracy die in a giant fire, but just what they were about to do isn't at all said. Nor is the purpose very clear at all. Right at the end, I'm not even sure what Bryson is fighting against, nor am I convinced of his values. The conspiracy is a plot to abolish national intelligence agencies and deliver all power to an international agency with infinitely superior surveillance power, centered around the single company that provides all this equipment. But is that really so much worse than a CIA acting in national rather than personal/corporate interests? I don't see how. A big stain on an otherwise slick story.

Of course, the valor of a story like this isn't in how it ends, but in how it moves. And with that I'm very satisfied. Ludlum also amuses me in how he insists on using real technical terms. Most authors conceal supposed hi-tec in empty phrases and foggy terminology, but Ludlum actually uses the real words. All the stuff about weapons I wouldn't know, but most of the computer terminology is correct. One head scratcher is his insistence on mentioning software all the time, where software rarely is presented as exciting technology in stories like this. He slips when he says that Elena had brought along specially written software "just for this occasion", written in supposedly a few hours.

Anyway, it's a good story. :)