I have a theory about the classics of literature that attempts to explain the reason why most are boring to the point of narcolepsy. It distills down to a conspiracy either out of a haughty pretension or a malicious sense of humor. Also note that this theory may isomorph to any fields where certain works are said to be "classics".
The first supposition goes that in order for the experts to remain experts they all have to agree that the best examples of great literature are those which are so dense and unreadable that the laymen would never be able to muddle their way through them. This ensures that the uninitiated will not be able to easily usurp the experts. This also gives the experts a feeling of vague superiority for their virtuous march through the classics just defined on the basis of said march.
But because they're classics everybody who reads feels obligated to make the attempt at reading them. When they unsurprisingly fail, they feel guilty and more importantly inferior to the experts who not only read, but analyze and even define the classics through the analysis. Twain once said that a classic is a book that everyone wants to have read but that no one wants to read. Twain was an observant fellow.
The other theory, or perhaps a corollary as they are not mutually exclusive, suggests that experts are merely playing a tremendous and well orchestrated prank upon the average reader. "Gentlemen!" a literature professor at a prestigious university might inquire, "which book shall we foist upon the masses this year?" This literati might then all go about writing deep analyses (reviews are only for recent works and in any case are not up to academic standards) and start covering them in their upcoming classes. Suddenly we have a new classic solely on the basis of a small group of people who wouldn't know taste from touch, at least not taste as it relates to the average reader.
I honestly believe this is how classics are born, it is only a question of intent as to whether the elite are pranking themselves or pranking us. My new philosophy of books is to read what I like or am interested in and ignore the rest no matter how classic. Besides, enough unread classics already sit on my bookshelves always ready to impress anyone foolish enough to be suckered in by this prank.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
Friday, November 02, 2007
The Reading Shelf Returns
Well, I finished last time stating that I was so far enjoying Life of Pi by Yann Martel. I have since finished the book and it was quite enjoyable. The second part of the book strays from the religious and philosophical and enters the realm of survivalism. Trent Reznor was not involved. The book ends with an interesting hook that ties to the parts together nicely, making the reader question just what has happened and if it really matters. The point made is that the net effects are more important than the some ultimate version of the truth.
Gilgamesh translated by Stephen Mitchell
This seemed to be a decent translation for all I know. There were a few weird poetic devices; some worked while others may have lost something either in translation or in the sands of time. Apparently, repetition was a large part of literature X thousand years ago. It was fairly short and was interesting to glimpse into ancient society, but otherwise a bit dull. I guess I can't claim it was unoriginal since we have nothing older to compare it to, but after millenia of progress in writing, I wasn't too engrossed by the work.
Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson
This is a collection of essays written for the astronomy section of Natural History magazine. It was a fascinating read and quite amusing at times. Of particular interest is Tyson's special care explaining how we know what we know. I didn't realize how important spectroscopy was. Probably the most interesting to me was the life cycle of stars and how they turn out to be the matter factories for the universe. There's plenty of the light weight elements like hydrogen and helium and even some lithium, but the heavier stuff, including all those particles you call your body, are made by the thermonuclear fusion in the heart of a star. The bits of you are here because a star fused those lighter elements and eventually exploded seeding the universe with raw material to make plants and mountains and spleens. Would recommend. Would read again. And that's saying something for nonfiction.
Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem has a way with words. His metaphors and descriptive passages are marvelous. I saw the things described this book clearer than any other book I can recall. I think I may have smelled some things. The story follows a young white boy growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood in a not-the-best-but-not-the-worst part of New York City. He has all the usual childish and adolescent problems in addition to growing up in a hostile environment. He frequently escapes into reading or comics or friendships, but the theme of the book is of the things we as humans do to cope with the solitude that ultimately defines us. Even when others are around, we're still alone. The protagonist fights his battles, weathers bullies, befriends the son of a soul singer, is given a ring that lets him fly (!) and continues to find problems once he grows up and leaves his past behind. He still escapes into his fortress, but is working on breaking down the walls. The ring seemed a bit out of place given the general lack of fantasy in the book, but did work well with the theme of comic books and was ultimately just a plot device. Quite an interesting and delightful book that made me look at myself and the world just a bit differently.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Another Pratchett novel down. I enjoyed this one more than average and am just now realizing that I have a hard time explaining what I like about Pratchett. It was the usual satire, this time with an all new cast. Vetinari plays a bigger part than usual, which made me happy. The wording and situations that pop up really just make this quite a delight to read. A few parts read a bit slow, but overall an enjoyable read.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
An African novel that first looks into the way of life of a certain tribe in Africa and then delves into how those people were affected by what is essentially imperialism. The white man arrives bearing new gods-well one god-but slavery is never touched. The writing was a bit terse in places, probably due to the original language. In other places there are colorful and unexpected metaphors and expressions. If nothing else, it was worth the read just to peer into a vastly different culture and its variances and resemblances to my own.
God's Debris by Scott Adams
This was a very short read. This was a very excellent read. Parts are extraordinarily insightful and fascinating. Other parts fall to Adams' purposeful use of Occam's Razor to explain the mysteries of the universe. He explains many of the mysteries of the universe through the eyes of an all knowing sage. Nothing's safe: religion, science, ethics, truth, math. Sometimes it works extremely well, and other times it just doesn't quite cut it. He claims that part of the purpose is to find the mistakes, but part of me thinks he says this just to cover a few loose ends. The important parts are obviously false and the trickier ones don't really matter in the overall scheme of the book. Overall, it was beautiful and contains some mind-blowing tenets. A clue to the books title, if you'll excuse the slight possible spoiler (look away now if you're worried!): What caused the big bang?
Finally, I've just started Making Money by Terry Pratchett, the sequel to Going Postal. As usual, it's great. Vetinari is setting up the Postmaster from the previous novel, a one-time criminal as the head of the mint. At first he protests with "But I've robbed banks." Vetinari responds, "Capital! You're familiar with the concept then. The only trick is that the money stays in the bank." I'm sure it will be fun, but I may start The Religion War by Scott Adams (sequel to God's Debris) before finishing this one. I used to read multiple books in parallel (but not simultaneously) but have gotten out of the habit due to general time constraints. Stay tuned for the next episode due sometime in the next couple months.
Gilgamesh translated by Stephen Mitchell
This seemed to be a decent translation for all I know. There were a few weird poetic devices; some worked while others may have lost something either in translation or in the sands of time. Apparently, repetition was a large part of literature X thousand years ago. It was fairly short and was interesting to glimpse into ancient society, but otherwise a bit dull. I guess I can't claim it was unoriginal since we have nothing older to compare it to, but after millenia of progress in writing, I wasn't too engrossed by the work.
Death by Black Hole by Neil deGrasse Tyson
This is a collection of essays written for the astronomy section of Natural History magazine. It was a fascinating read and quite amusing at times. Of particular interest is Tyson's special care explaining how we know what we know. I didn't realize how important spectroscopy was. Probably the most interesting to me was the life cycle of stars and how they turn out to be the matter factories for the universe. There's plenty of the light weight elements like hydrogen and helium and even some lithium, but the heavier stuff, including all those particles you call your body, are made by the thermonuclear fusion in the heart of a star. The bits of you are here because a star fused those lighter elements and eventually exploded seeding the universe with raw material to make plants and mountains and spleens. Would recommend. Would read again. And that's saying something for nonfiction.
Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem
Jonathan Lethem has a way with words. His metaphors and descriptive passages are marvelous. I saw the things described this book clearer than any other book I can recall. I think I may have smelled some things. The story follows a young white boy growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood in a not-the-best-but-not-the-worst part of New York City. He has all the usual childish and adolescent problems in addition to growing up in a hostile environment. He frequently escapes into reading or comics or friendships, but the theme of the book is of the things we as humans do to cope with the solitude that ultimately defines us. Even when others are around, we're still alone. The protagonist fights his battles, weathers bullies, befriends the son of a soul singer, is given a ring that lets him fly (!) and continues to find problems once he grows up and leaves his past behind. He still escapes into his fortress, but is working on breaking down the walls. The ring seemed a bit out of place given the general lack of fantasy in the book, but did work well with the theme of comic books and was ultimately just a plot device. Quite an interesting and delightful book that made me look at myself and the world just a bit differently.
Going Postal by Terry Pratchett
Another Pratchett novel down. I enjoyed this one more than average and am just now realizing that I have a hard time explaining what I like about Pratchett. It was the usual satire, this time with an all new cast. Vetinari plays a bigger part than usual, which made me happy. The wording and situations that pop up really just make this quite a delight to read. A few parts read a bit slow, but overall an enjoyable read.
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
An African novel that first looks into the way of life of a certain tribe in Africa and then delves into how those people were affected by what is essentially imperialism. The white man arrives bearing new gods-well one god-but slavery is never touched. The writing was a bit terse in places, probably due to the original language. In other places there are colorful and unexpected metaphors and expressions. If nothing else, it was worth the read just to peer into a vastly different culture and its variances and resemblances to my own.
God's Debris by Scott Adams
This was a very short read. This was a very excellent read. Parts are extraordinarily insightful and fascinating. Other parts fall to Adams' purposeful use of Occam's Razor to explain the mysteries of the universe. He explains many of the mysteries of the universe through the eyes of an all knowing sage. Nothing's safe: religion, science, ethics, truth, math. Sometimes it works extremely well, and other times it just doesn't quite cut it. He claims that part of the purpose is to find the mistakes, but part of me thinks he says this just to cover a few loose ends. The important parts are obviously false and the trickier ones don't really matter in the overall scheme of the book. Overall, it was beautiful and contains some mind-blowing tenets. A clue to the books title, if you'll excuse the slight possible spoiler (look away now if you're worried!): What caused the big bang?
Finally, I've just started Making Money by Terry Pratchett, the sequel to Going Postal. As usual, it's great. Vetinari is setting up the Postmaster from the previous novel, a one-time criminal as the head of the mint. At first he protests with "But I've robbed banks." Vetinari responds, "Capital! You're familiar with the concept then. The only trick is that the money stays in the bank." I'm sure it will be fun, but I may start The Religion War by Scott Adams (sequel to God's Debris) before finishing this one. I used to read multiple books in parallel (but not simultaneously) but have gotten out of the habit due to general time constraints. Stay tuned for the next episode due sometime in the next couple months.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Reading Shelf
I've been reading more of late and I wanted to express some thoughts about the material as well as some subjective judgments about their quality.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan is essentially a long essay on the problems with probabilities that depend on Gaussian distributions (i.e. the Bell curve). As it turns out, the Bell curve is only useful in describing mostly useless qualities such as the height or weight of a population. Things that defy the Gaussian distribution (but perhaps not obviously or within a certain sample) are those such as wealth, performance of a stock market, or weather trends. The problem is that you can't just take past data as a good indicator for future performance. Because that's when the Black Swan bites you in the ass. The namesake of the book derives from the once commonly held belief that all swans were white, simply because all observed swans were so. Then, surprise! The same sorts of things happen in the real world. The stock market can steadily climb, and then for no apparent or attainable reason, crash. The book claims that the reasons that things happen is almost impossible to know for anything worth knowing. Therefore you can't really predict anything. Even worse, it's often harder to tell what happened in the past than what will happen in the future. At least, barring the Black Swan. There's really so much more to the book than this, but this is its central thesis as seen by me. An excellent read for anyone interested in philosophy, economics, mathematics and probability, or history.
Hiding in the Mirror by Lawrence M. Krauss
Essentially the history of physics from the discovery of electrodynamics through relativity and up to current postulations using string theory. It claims to focus on mankind's fascination with extra dimensions and it does to some degree. There are, however, only a couple of chapters directly dealing with cultural and artistic relations to the idea of living in a place with more dimensions than we can sense. Otherwise, it falls back to the journey from electricity to strings. There are, during this history lesson, consistent references to humanities preoccupation with these hidden dimensions, including the use of such to attempt to describe religious and psychic "phenomena". As it progresses the physics gets thicker and thicker and stretches the capacity of the average reader's cognition. Or at least mine. There were some pretty heavy physics going on, without enough detail for me to really "get it". But that's somewhat understandable, given the depth of its subject matter covered in relatively so few pages. Still an interesting read, infused with amusement (reference to the mathematical equivalent to masturbation) and a realism about the state of affairs in theoretical physics. Krauss makes no arguments that string theory is going to do anything for real physics and indeed, still seems on the fence about the matter. He also refers to the hubris of theoretical physics and admits that it may be so far into left field that in may actually be in the infield (this is, of course, a reference of my own invention relating to the possible curvature of space discussed in the book). Still a good read, but I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. Physicists probably wouldn't find too much insight and the layman will probably have an aneurysm. Recommended if you enjoy science and have some intuition with it.
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
This is a Discworld novel. My twenty-fifth have I not lost count. It's definitely in the better fifty percent of Discworld novels, but probably not much further on the list of my personal favorites. It is, as usual, satire of the real world, about an army regiment in Russi..., I mean Borogravia, where women aren't allowed to serve, but have nonetheless snuck into the service by cutting their hair and finding a creative use for a sock. Very entertaining and simultaneously poignant regarding the position of women in the past and to some degree the present. A nice twist in the plot and change of pace with all new characters in the Discworld universe, with cameo appearances from some of the Watch.
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
I had always meant to read a translation of Beowulf, so here was one I found. The book itself is bilingual with the original text set parallel with the translation. This was a nice touch. As a heroic myth, it was enjoyable and I can see where authors, such as Tolkien, got some of their inspiration. I can't really remark on the quality of the translation since I don't read Old English. For a poem, however, the translation's not very poetic, but that may be an artifact of the original; I can't say. Lots of fighting, death, singing, drinking, etc. Honor and tradition play a big part in the story and probably bring more harm than good to the characters. Even though it's over a thousand years old, it's not completely antiquated in its views of the world. But mostly it is. But what do you expect? Recommended if you've never read it and enjoy that sort of thing.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
This is a delightful little book about the spiritual journey of a man named Siddhartha. He suspects teaching and teachers of being useless and that real lessons and ultimately enlightenment must be learned through experience. Interestingly enough, he later learns this lesson itself through experience. It's about finding happiness and contentment but not seeking for it. It's about learning about the self and about wisdom. Again wisdom isn't something that is taught or learned as much as it is trained through experience. Life is a pretty amazing place to be and just getting to be there is pretty sweet. It rang some bells with with its treatment of asceticism and its allegory of the Hindu/Buddhist concept of samsara. An excellent read that can be finished in an afternoon, although I recommend taking longer, eyes open.
And I'm currently reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This was in the queue and I was itching to get to it, not exactly remembering why it was that I bought it. I opened to it randomly and saw a reference to atman and Krishna and thought, "well, this will be a good follow up to Siddhartha." I started it yesterday and so far I've been blown away. It's the story of an Indian man told from his perspective (possibly as told to the author as a plot device, but I haven't figured that out yet). The man goes by Pi Patel, was raised in a zoo and simultaneously considers himself Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. He doesn't mind atheists, but agnostics bother him. The most amazing piece yet was his comparison of religion to a zoo - in that people always assume that the animals would be better off out of the zoo and "free", while Pi shares that this is not generally the case. The parallels here go further and are only hinted at subtlely. So far, so great.
The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb
The Black Swan is essentially a long essay on the problems with probabilities that depend on Gaussian distributions (i.e. the Bell curve). As it turns out, the Bell curve is only useful in describing mostly useless qualities such as the height or weight of a population. Things that defy the Gaussian distribution (but perhaps not obviously or within a certain sample) are those such as wealth, performance of a stock market, or weather trends. The problem is that you can't just take past data as a good indicator for future performance. Because that's when the Black Swan bites you in the ass. The namesake of the book derives from the once commonly held belief that all swans were white, simply because all observed swans were so. Then, surprise! The same sorts of things happen in the real world. The stock market can steadily climb, and then for no apparent or attainable reason, crash. The book claims that the reasons that things happen is almost impossible to know for anything worth knowing. Therefore you can't really predict anything. Even worse, it's often harder to tell what happened in the past than what will happen in the future. At least, barring the Black Swan. There's really so much more to the book than this, but this is its central thesis as seen by me. An excellent read for anyone interested in philosophy, economics, mathematics and probability, or history.
Hiding in the Mirror by Lawrence M. Krauss
Essentially the history of physics from the discovery of electrodynamics through relativity and up to current postulations using string theory. It claims to focus on mankind's fascination with extra dimensions and it does to some degree. There are, however, only a couple of chapters directly dealing with cultural and artistic relations to the idea of living in a place with more dimensions than we can sense. Otherwise, it falls back to the journey from electricity to strings. There are, during this history lesson, consistent references to humanities preoccupation with these hidden dimensions, including the use of such to attempt to describe religious and psychic "phenomena". As it progresses the physics gets thicker and thicker and stretches the capacity of the average reader's cognition. Or at least mine. There were some pretty heavy physics going on, without enough detail for me to really "get it". But that's somewhat understandable, given the depth of its subject matter covered in relatively so few pages. Still an interesting read, infused with amusement (reference to the mathematical equivalent to masturbation) and a realism about the state of affairs in theoretical physics. Krauss makes no arguments that string theory is going to do anything for real physics and indeed, still seems on the fence about the matter. He also refers to the hubris of theoretical physics and admits that it may be so far into left field that in may actually be in the infield (this is, of course, a reference of my own invention relating to the possible curvature of space discussed in the book). Still a good read, but I'm not sure who the audience is supposed to be. Physicists probably wouldn't find too much insight and the layman will probably have an aneurysm. Recommended if you enjoy science and have some intuition with it.
Monstrous Regiment by Terry Pratchett
This is a Discworld novel. My twenty-fifth have I not lost count. It's definitely in the better fifty percent of Discworld novels, but probably not much further on the list of my personal favorites. It is, as usual, satire of the real world, about an army regiment in Russi..., I mean Borogravia, where women aren't allowed to serve, but have nonetheless snuck into the service by cutting their hair and finding a creative use for a sock. Very entertaining and simultaneously poignant regarding the position of women in the past and to some degree the present. A nice twist in the plot and change of pace with all new characters in the Discworld universe, with cameo appearances from some of the Watch.
Beowulf: A New Verse Translation by Seamus Heaney
I had always meant to read a translation of Beowulf, so here was one I found. The book itself is bilingual with the original text set parallel with the translation. This was a nice touch. As a heroic myth, it was enjoyable and I can see where authors, such as Tolkien, got some of their inspiration. I can't really remark on the quality of the translation since I don't read Old English. For a poem, however, the translation's not very poetic, but that may be an artifact of the original; I can't say. Lots of fighting, death, singing, drinking, etc. Honor and tradition play a big part in the story and probably bring more harm than good to the characters. Even though it's over a thousand years old, it's not completely antiquated in its views of the world. But mostly it is. But what do you expect? Recommended if you've never read it and enjoy that sort of thing.
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
This is a delightful little book about the spiritual journey of a man named Siddhartha. He suspects teaching and teachers of being useless and that real lessons and ultimately enlightenment must be learned through experience. Interestingly enough, he later learns this lesson itself through experience. It's about finding happiness and contentment but not seeking for it. It's about learning about the self and about wisdom. Again wisdom isn't something that is taught or learned as much as it is trained through experience. Life is a pretty amazing place to be and just getting to be there is pretty sweet. It rang some bells with with its treatment of asceticism and its allegory of the Hindu/Buddhist concept of samsara. An excellent read that can be finished in an afternoon, although I recommend taking longer, eyes open.
And I'm currently reading The Life of Pi by Yann Martel. This was in the queue and I was itching to get to it, not exactly remembering why it was that I bought it. I opened to it randomly and saw a reference to atman and Krishna and thought, "well, this will be a good follow up to Siddhartha." I started it yesterday and so far I've been blown away. It's the story of an Indian man told from his perspective (possibly as told to the author as a plot device, but I haven't figured that out yet). The man goes by Pi Patel, was raised in a zoo and simultaneously considers himself Hindu, Christian, and Muslim. He doesn't mind atheists, but agnostics bother him. The most amazing piece yet was his comparison of religion to a zoo - in that people always assume that the animals would be better off out of the zoo and "free", while Pi shares that this is not generally the case. The parallels here go further and are only hinted at subtlely. So far, so great.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Channeling David Letterman
This is a somewhat unusual post for this blog, but I think it's pertinent, given the subject matter and concept here. This is a list of 10 books that I consider among my favorites for reasons of preference and due to their effects on my life. Following is the unordered list with a short blurb of reasoning. There're no links because if you're reading this, you can probably figure it out and truthfully you've probably already heard of or read them by now.
Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu - improved my balancing act.
Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - introduced me to satire and influenced my writing style tremendously.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut- darkened my doorstep.
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran - taught myself about myself.
Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams - solidified my doubts.
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - introduced proper fantasy and storytelling myth.
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - dramatized important and funny philosophy.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche - rewrote common ideology and morality.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman, et. al. - illustrated the dark places of the mind.
You may also notice a certain peculiarity to my Top 10 list. I'm a big fan of irony, no matter how slight.
Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu - improved my balancing act.
Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams - introduced me to satire and influenced my writing style tremendously.
Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut- darkened my doorstep.
The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran - taught myself about myself.
Salmon of Doubt by Douglas Adams - solidified my doubts.
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien - introduced proper fantasy and storytelling myth.
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett - dramatized important and funny philosophy.
Thus Spoke Zarathustra by Friedrich Nietzsche - rewrote common ideology and morality.
Sandman by Neil Gaiman, et. al. - illustrated the dark places of the mind.
You may also notice a certain peculiarity to my Top 10 list. I'm a big fan of irony, no matter how slight.
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