My Quiet Life

So I finally got around to reading Arthur C Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, last night. I caught up with a friend over drinks last week, and during our conversation it dawned on me that I had read basically NO science fiction. Zero. Zilch. The closest I could think of was the Hitchhiker’s Guide . I did read Mars by Ben Bova when I was like 10 or so, but I remember essentially nothing about it. This is weird, because I am a pretty nerdy guy. I’m pretty well-versed in scifi movies. Bladerunner is one of my favorite movies ever. I’ve read fantasy stuff. I’ve even read the friggin Silmarillion. And yet, no sci-fi. So, this weekend I went to McKay’s and got 2001 and 2010, and Ender’s Game as well (which I got, because I’ve heard it’s good, despite the fact that its author is apparently a bit of a homophobic nutjob).

Predictably, I enjoyed 2001 quite a bit, and I’ve already started on 2010, since I got sorta sucked into that particular plotline. I like Clarke’s writing style — how he manages to be very epic and grandiose without sacrificing any scientific accuracy. I also like how his writing style addresses the reader as a resident of the present, and not a resident of the future he’s elaborately describing — rather like he’s writing a science textbook about the future for members of the present. And it happens to be fiction. I suppose this is probably rather common in scifi writing, but I found it amusing — particularly how this manifests in him heaping paragraphs upon paragraphs describing rather commonplace (from the perspective of the characters in the novel) actions. He’s all like “And Bob pressed the RG-1 actuator button, setting to work calculations of an advanced neural network, operating at a speed the human brain can hardly comprehend. This computer — infinitely more powerful than early prototypes dating to an arbitrary time in the past, say, for example, when I happen to be writing this book — by measuring and calculating the complex angles and momentum of the CCB (Closed Chamber Barrier) unit, aligned it precisely into place. This was completed in the blink of an eye — the work that would have taken hours for a human brain, this pinnacle of millions of years of evolution. With narry a whisper, the shielded unit whisked open, and a rush of fresh O2-infused air mingled briefly with the stale air of the cockpit. This invigorated Bob, and he considered the path that had led him — and the human race — to this point at the edge of the known universe.” Whereas, you know, if you were writing for an audience in that particular time, it’d be “Bob opened the door.”

Anyways, 2010 has already sorta sucked me in, so it seems like it’ll be pretty good. Maybe you nerds are right — sci-fi doesn’t seem half-bad.

Also, do you like my penchant for writing book reviews of well-accepted classics by authors that are considered masters of their time? “Yeah? Well, here’s what *I* think about this beloved classic of modern literature … … Um. It was pretty good, actually. I liked it — how it was good. and stuff.”

If anyone has any recommendations, feel free to toss them out below.. Quick list of things I already know about, cus I’m not a total dummy: Neal Stephenson (is this scifi or “cyberpunk”?), Ursula Leguin, Asimov (Foundation, in particular, which I used to have, but never read), Dune. What else?

By request:

• Bookshelf #1
• Bookshelf #2
• Bookshelf #3

I am beginning to think that I need to read more (okay, any) of the beat generation authors. For the same reasons that I’ve always felt the need to read Marx, the Bible, and Ayn Rand: to understand Certain Types of People.

UPDATE: Appropos of very little, courtesy of rev: “In my mind objectivists are kind of like scientologists with a higher chance of recovery. Libertarianism: YOU’RE DOING IT WRONG”

Through a chance confluence of events, it happened that I had a few Nazi-related history lessons this weekend..

I read This Way for Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen over the weekend, by the pool and on the plane. It’s a collection of Tadeusz Borowski’s stories from his experiences in Auschwitz. I first became interested in Borowski via the portrait of him in Milosz’s Captive Mind. Borowski was a holocaust survivor and poet, who later joined ranks with the communists in Poland, only to commit suicide at the age of 28. Although the motivation for someone’s suicide can never be known for sure, there’s little doubt in my mind that his disillusionment with the Communist regime played a large part. Shortly before his suicide, a close friend was locked up and tortured by the Communists.. After surviving the horrors of the Nazis, his one hope for a “new and better order” (as Milosz put it) ended up a mirage.

Anyways, his melancholy spirit is evident in his stories from Auschwitz.. A sortof detached, sad commentary on the brutal reality of an environment where humanity has basically lost all meaning. Milosz called Borowski “The Disappointed Lover”, and in reading these tales, you start to understand the depth of that statement. He also had a keen eye for the surreal.. Here’s a bit from a story describing a soccer match they had orchestrated on a newly constructed soccer field:

The procession moved along slowly, growing in size as more and more people poured from the freight cars. And then it stopped. The people sat down on the grass and gazed in our direction. I returned with the ball and kicked it back inside the field. It traveled from one foot to another and, in a wide arc, returned to the goal. I kicked it towards a corner. Again it rolled out into the grass. Once more I ran to retrieve it. But as I reached down, I stopped in amazement - the ramp was empty. Out of the whole colorful summer procession, not one person remained. The train too was gone …

Between two throw-ins in a soccer game, right behind my back, three thousand people had been put to death.

This sort of thing makes for good airplane reading, because it’s really hard to complain about being cramped on a plane while you’re reading about millions being herded naked onto cattlecars to their deaths. Not the most uplifting book, though, no. I’d offer to let you borrow it (I think I even promised it to Aaron), but alas, I left it on the plane home from Wisconsin, so some flight attendant or passenger gets a crack at it.

Last night, then, I checked my mail and saw I had gotten Sophie Scholl - Die letzten Tage in from Netflix. I had read a bit about White Rose and the Scholls a bit in the past, and so I thought I’d check out this movie. It was pretty good — a straightforward account of what happened. The performances were all excellent. What I enjoyed even more than the movie, though, were interviews with the original witnesses and friends in the special features. There’s also a clip of Roland Freisler that is nothing short of amazing. Freisler was the eccentric (to say the least) judge who ordered the execution of Christopher Probst, Sophie and Hans Scholl. I thought in the movie that the actor playing Freisler laid on the “crazy nazi” a little bit too thick. Wow, was I ever wrong — if anything he underplayed it. The same clip — from some trial where Freisler preside — is on youtube, check it out.

One thing I find interesting is the extent to which Sophie Scholl is heralded as the prime actor and hero — both historically and in fictional portrayals, whereas Hans is relegated to the background, comparatively. Given the story of how things played out, and their respective involvement with White Rose, I can’t quite figure it out.. I suppose it could be as simple as the fact that she was a girl, and a relatively pretty one, making it even more exceptional or surprising that she’d be this ballsy underground revolutionary. And so we have sortof this projection of romanticism in it because of that — some sort of Joan of Arc syndrome. I don’t know. She was clearly a remarkable woman, arguably more interesting in several aspects, perhaps, than her cohorts. But I find myself wondering if the focus on her alone diminishes the contributions of Probst, her brother Hans, and others who were involved in White Rose. Anyway, if you’re not familiar with the story, check out the movie, it’s interesting.

I need something a little more uplifting, now, though, sheesh.

It was in February, actually, that I first picked up The Captive Mind, while in Thomas, WV with Aaron and Claire. I’d imagine it’d be hard not to enjoy a book in that cozy little coffee shop while snow slowly covered the hills, but I think that this one would stand the test nonetheless. It took me a while, though, to finally finish it — coming back to it in my characteristically roundabout way, as I read 6 other books simultaneously.

It is one of the more beautiful books I’ve read in a while. Czeslaw Milosz broke with the Polish communist government in 1953 and wrote this book upon his arrival in Paris. In it, he lays the groundwork for his analysis of the psychological breakdown that occurs in the face of Stalinism. But the bulk of the book is spent demonstrating it in a less weighty and more accessible way: via portraits of his friends and comrades in their turn from poetry and art to outright propaganda in the name of the regime. Alpha (Jerzy Andrzejewski), Beta (Tadeusz Borowski), Gamma (Jerzy Putrament), and Delta (Konstanty Ildefons Gałczyński).

What makes his portrait of each so affective is the extent to which he provides a genuine and loving representation of the writer’s gifts and personality. This is no ascerbic rant by a slighted dissident — these people really were his friends. In the introduction, he discusses briefly how he came to his break with the government:

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I found myself earlier today reading Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago while listening to Shostakovich’s 9th symphony.

Mmm, irony.

Dean Baker has a new book online as a free PDF download.

I just spent $22.50 to buy the Agile Development with Ruby on Rails book in the PDF version, and this is what I get:

We’ll send you an e-mail when the books are ready to download, and that e-mail will also contain the download location, but you might want to save this page, as e-mails have been known to go astray.

Downloads are available for roughly four days after shipping, so be sure to download your purchase fairly promptly.

Wtf? Four days to deliver a PDF? Why did I even bother? What is the point of buying a PDF copy of a book if you don’t get instant gratification? If I’m going to wait four days I might as well get the physical book. I am going to try to cancel my order..

UPDATE: Okay, well, I downloaded it like 10 minutes later. I am not sure what that ominous warning is. Perhaps to freak out lazy, demanding people like myself.

UPDATE 2: Erik points out that my reading skills are lacking.

I have a problem with reading books. I have a mild form of ADD when it comes to reading, so I jump around a lot, and find myself reading 4-5 books at once, none of which I ever actually finish. I also buy books compulsively at a faster pace than i could realistically read them.

So, I’ve decided to do two things:

1. Finish all the books I have started but not finished. This starts with The Marx-Engels Reader, which I am reading right now.
2. Read all of the books we own before I allow myself to buy another book.

Here’s a list of books I have started in the last few years but never finished that I intend to finish:

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How to write a dishonest book review.