14 書香人生 B O O K S & R E V I E W S SUNDAY, MARCH 7, 2010 • TAIPEI TIMES Hardcover: US Classical CD and DVDs It’s a crude, crude world out there Oil is running out, quicker than we thought, argues Peter Maass in ‘Crude World.’ But that might not be such a bad thing

by J. Michael Cole STAFF REPORTER

he global economy needs it. Nations laid their foundations Publication Notes Tupon it. It has yielded untold riches. But it has also proven a ruinous curse: wars have been declared over it; tyrants and corporate greed have thrived on it; and lives and nature have been ravaged — often irreparably — by it. Oil. It’s running out, quicker than we thought, New York Times Magazine contributing reporter Peter Maass argues in Crude World. But after reading his expose of the evils, intended or otherwise, of the oil CENTENNIAL GALA DIE ZAUBERFLOTE IF ON A WINTER’S NIGHT industry, this development might not Metropolitan Opera Mozart Sting be such a bad thing. 2 DVDs Gedda, Mathis, Sotin, DGM 06025 270 1743 (CD) In this highly entertaining DGM 073 4538 Deutekom investigation, Maass, whose previous book was about war in the Balkans, takes us from the palatial Crude World: oil ministries of the Middle East to The Violent Twilight of Oil the heart of darkness in Equatorial By Peter Maass Guinea, with stops in the war-ravaged By BRADLEY WINTERTON had been greatness before them — James away as one of the Two Men in Armor. 276 pages streets of Iraq, the militia-infested Contributing Reporter McCracken returning to the Met to sing a The production is essentially a stage jungles of the Niger Delta, a cut- Alfred A. Knopf It would be harsh indeed to criticize Deutsche devastating aria from Otello, Eva Marton one, but adapted for a television studio. It’s throat, spy-infested hotel in Baku, Grammophon for issuing in September what with Turandot’s In Questa Reggia, but most colorful but simple, and heartfelt and lovable Azerbaijan, and the environmental is in fact only a selection from the New of all Birgit Nilsson, by then aged 65, in a to a quite exceptional degree. Horst Stein catastrophe in Ecuador’s Oriente. York Metropolitan Opera’s 1983 Centennial passage from Tristan und Isolde, followed conducts the Hamburg Philharmonic State No less fascinating are the world’s oil reserves were located Gala. The original event, starting in the early by an unaccompanied Swedish folk song as a Orchestra in a vivid accompaniment, and the individuals we meet who are caught in developed and stable countries afternoon, lasted more than eight hours, and prepared encore. chorus of the Hamburg State Opera completes in the unforgiving wheels of the oil like Norway and Canada, where these two new DVDs are around half that Many of the singers were similarly close the lineup. industry. We meet jet-setting star corruption is low and rule of law length at 240 minutes. But the singers featured to the end of illustrious careers, but who Well, not quite completes. William Workman attractions like Saudi Oil Minister Ali well-established, oil would not be are so celebrated that it would be insanity to could possibly complain? What comparable makes a memorably congenial Papageno, and, al-Naimi, who reassures an audience such a debilitating commodity. But lament that this isn’t quite the whole original, talent would we have to show today? Very most remarkable of all, Cristina Deutekom is a in Washington that Saudi Arabia’s oil sadly for its victims — many of massive undertaking. little. Those were the days, my friend, we very striking Queen of the Night. Her shining, reserves are plentiful; and Matthew whom we meet in this book — The Met — as it’s called, even by itself thought they’d never end. But Pavarotti, razor-sharp tones are a wonder, and it’s no Simon, a former adviser to former fate, or geography, would have — opened on Oct. 22, 1883. Exactly 100 Nilsson, McCracken and Alfredo Kraus — all surprise to learn that she’d sung the same US president George W. Bush who it otherwise. years later, to the day, this extravaganza was are now gone. role at the Met three years earlier. The Mozart would very much be part of the oil In many of the cases explored, staged, and telecast for anyone wanting to A collection of honorees appear sitting specialist Edith Mathis is Pamina. nomenklatura were it not for his oil-rich countries suffer from what watch across North America. It’s hard to think at the back of the stage halfway through the This, in other words, was no hole-in- belief that “the American dream and has come to be known as the “Dutch of a top-rank opera soloist who didn’t take evening session. They’re American singers no the-corner, provincial production but a the world as we know it are on the disease,” which can be roughly part — Birgit Nilsson, Montserrat Caballe, longer able to participate, for the most part, major coming together of significant talents. verge of falling apart” because Naimi characterized as a country’s over- Joan Sutherland, Mirella Freni, Kiri Te and it might be instructive to note which of Its reissue is typical of what dedicated is wrong. Guerrilla leaders, crusading reliance on a single or a handful of Kanawa, Eva Marton, Leontyne Price, Marilyn them applauds what, because some of them European DVD publishers searching the lawyers, oil executives from all the primary resources for its revenues. Horne, Grace Bumbry, plus Pavarotti, Bruson, sit sternly with their hands in their laps at archives can achieve. best-known oil giants and ordinary In other words, even when oil wealth Carreras, Domingo, Kraus, Gedda, Raimondi, the conclusion of some of the items. Levine The Newcastle-born superstar Sting has for soldiers, all get sucked in by the isn’t plundered, the sudden influx of McCracken and very many others, all demonstrates his extraordinary involvement, a long time been incorporating music in the folly of oil, and Maass provides us an money generated by the discovery oil appeared. James Levine took the lion’s share visibly moved by Verdi, Puccini and Wagner. classical tradition into his music. His latest intimate portrait of their motivations. can, in the long term, turn into a curse of the conducting, but Leonard Bernstein also This footage has been previously issued by CD, If on a Winter’s Night ..., does indeed The full spectrum of (another unfortunate made a rare Met appearance to conduct a Pioneer Classics, in a version castigated by at contain classically influenced tracks, notably emotions, from greed consequence of the Beethoven overture. least one critic on Amazon.com. The content an item from Purcell’s opera King Arthur, to fear, alienation Dutch disease is that So, what are the highlights, and what seems to be identical, but no one could now the last song from Schubert’s Winterreise and to desire, inhabit the large revenue criticisms might be made? The only criticism complain at the sound and visual quality of a song inspired by the Sarabande in Bach’s this bizarre world; created by the primary really possible is that film of some of the DGM’s magnificent offering. Sixth Cello Suite. appropriately, they resource tends to famous older names, such as Caruso, might It’s extraordinary what you can come The essential ambiance, though, is are used as titles ‘ drive up the currency, have been included, but no doubt this was across when casually browsing in a DVD of a group of friends playing acoustic for each section. Page after page, which makes locally considered and rejected on grounds of the store. I recently stumbled on a version of instruments at Sting’s hidey-hole in Tuscany, (Interestingly, almost greed is joined produced goods more time available. As for the highlights, there are Mozart’s Die Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) accompanying songs celebrating winter. every person we expensive for export almost too many to list. from 1971, reissued by ArtHaus Musik in 2006. “There is something in winter that is primal, meet is male, which, at the hip with and can consequently Seeing Pavarotti billed as the last to It was directed by the British author and TV mysterious and profoundly beautiful,” Sting from a sociological wipe out other sectors appear, singing the love duet from Verdi’s personality of those days Peter Ustinov, and writes, “as if we need the darkness of the perspective, says tragedy and of the economy). Un Ballo in Maschera with Leontyne Price, starred some exceptional soloists — Nicolai winter months to replenish our inner spirits a lot about the Countries with an I assumed this placing was on his insistence. Gedda as Tamino, Hans Sotin as Sarastro, as much as we need the light, energy and oil sector.) human suffering over-reliance on oil, It did feel like a climax, nonetheless, with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the small part of warmth of the summer.” The CD, incidentally, Page after page, such as Saudi Arabia both artists in resplendent voice. But there The Speaker, and Kurt Moll similarly hidden is manufactured in Taiwan. greed is joined at as dictators and Venezuela, among the hip with tragedy others, will often and human suffering like President embark on massive as dictators like and hugely expensive President Teodoro Teodoro Oniang of infrastructure projects Oniang of Equatorial (or, as in Venezuela’s Guinea — possibly Equatorial Guinea case, a Bolivarian “the most brutalized revolution fueled country on Earth” ... plunder their by oil money). As Hardcover: UK — plunder their long as oil prices are countries, often countries, often relatively high, they with the assistance will be able to afford of Big Oil and the with the assistance it. But as the recent West. In Oniang’s global financial crisis One man’s meat is another man’s poison case, the plunder (he of Big Oil and so painfully showed bought, for US$55 us, when the economy Jonathan Safran Foer’s solicitation to remove meat from the menu is half-baked at best million, a Boeing the West slows down, so does 737 that comes oil consumption and with gold-plated demand, which drives By Matthew Fort force. Successively describing the well-educated, well-fed person for bathroom fixtures) and laundering prices down. The result? A fabulous The Guardian, London Publication Notes treatment and suffering of chickens, well-educated, well-fed readers. Nor was facilitated by an unscrupulous airport in the Saudi desert that turned It’s a dog eat dog world out there among pigs, salmon and cattle, he paints does he contextualize his argument. It little bank in Washington called into a hollow castle in the sand and the born-again, food-loving, animal- a devastating portrait of the systematic never ranges beyond the confines of Riggs Bank. schemes similar to ones that foundered caring literati. Barbara Kingsolver, Alisa cruelty and sinister secrecy of the US. He doesn’t seriously examine Next on the list is Nigeria, which, years ago now being unleashed by Smith, JB MacKinnon and Michael US agro-industry. why people might want to, or have though it is the world’s eighth-largest Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Pollan have recently woken up, in At the same time, he is at pains to to eat meat, or what meat means to oil exporter, fares little better. Despite the utterly depressing tone print anyway, to the deplorable state of give another side to the agricultural individuals or societies. He proposes no Despite more than US$400 billion in of the first 200 pages, Crude World American agriculture. Jonathan Safran story, providing pen portraits of more solutions other than mass conversion to oil revenues in recent decades, nine concludes on a more optimistic — if Foer’s Eating Animals is the latest ethical producers and farmers. And vegetarianism, although it doesn’t seem out of 10 Nigerian live on less than perhaps a little naive — note, with jeremiad to hit the book stands, and it is this is where the confusion begins. Is to occur to him that the damage done by US$2 a day and one child out of five mention of the opportunities created a depressing book in almost every way. Eating Animals a personal journey, a factory farming doesn’t begin and end dies before the age of five. Eighty by renewable energy and programs, Safran Foer was converted to rant or an even-handed debate? Safran with animals but embraces all foods. percent of oil wealth in Nigeria, the such as Publish What You Pay, to vegetarianism after the arrival of his dog Foer never seems to make up his mind. Most damagingly of all, he says World Bank tells us, has gone to 1 encourage governments and oil and the birth of his son. He had been an Worse, a startling naivety and smugness “It shouldn’t be the consumer’s percent of the population. (In Nigeria firms to become more transparent. on-off vegetarian for a number of years, run through the book, undercutting responsibility to figure out what’s cruel and elsewhere, oil firms often do Whether these would be sufficient to but these twin events caused him to the thrust of the argument. There are and what’s kind, what’s environmentally not hire locals to do construction diminish our dependence on oil and think more deeply about the food he ate, sections when his ruminations read like destructive, and what’s sustainable.” But or other menial jobs, and import bring good governance to Big Oil and and investigate where it came from. One the grumbling of a philosophy student. it is precisely because we have abrogated construction material rather than oil-inebriated governments, however, is tempted to ask why it took him so At times he posits a distance between our responsibilities that the excesses of purchase it locally.) remains to be seen and will be long when the evidence has been there best-practice, traditional farming and factory farming have flourished. Decades of low-intensity warfare contingent on human nature’s ability for decades. Safran Foer tells us nothing Eating Animals factory farming, while at others they The contemporary model of market- — the result of this criminally to transcend its most basic desires. that hasn’t been written about, filmed become synonymous. And although he driven capitalism has created monsters inequitable distribution of wealth and Maass’ book does little to convince us and documented dozens of times before, By Jonathan Safran Foer is scrupulous in acknowledging that that governments can no longer severe environmental damage — and that this is possible. but that doesn’t prevent him from 352 pages vegetarianism may not be everybody’s control — food companies which can tens of thousands of deaths later, Crude World is a great read, but oozing the self-congratulation of the cup of tea, he nevertheless subverts this thumb their noses at standards and the Niger Delta is no closer today to would have been more complete if newly converted. Hamish Hamilton apparent reasonableness by reminding regulations. We have been bribed by the resolution than it was half a century it had had a section on the impact However, the case that he builds the reader on every possible occasion false promise of cheap food, we have ago. In fact, new, increasingly violent that China’s entry in the oil business against factory farming is unanswerable. that he is one and, by implication, so acquiesced in the name of convenience. groups such as the Movement for — especially in Africa — will have Factory farming is utterly disgusting in should we be. As individuals acting collectively, the Emancipation of the Niger Delta on those countries both fortunate all its parts. There is no justification for the opening autobiographical sections, More disturbingly, he only considers in theory we do have the power to (MEND), are emerging and promise and unfortunate enough to have it in any country, let alone one the size written in a gratingly winsome style, and a world where people are in a position end industrial agriculture, but in all decades of nothing but violence. rivers of black gold flowing through of, and with the wealth and the obesity anger begins to suffuse and pare down to make choices about what they likelihood we will remain slaves to this As Maass argues, if most of the their veins. problems of, America. Once he gets past his prose, he argues with formidable eat. Eating Animals is written by a pernicious system because it suits us.