The Jane Austen Book Club, The Egyptologist
Still playing catch-up now, remembering stuff I've been reading...
The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler
So I went out and read The Jane Austen Book Club. I don't read much contemporary mainstream fiction anymore because I tend to find it unimpressive, but I love Austen, re-read her every decade or so, and thought this sounded pretty good. And it was, well, pretty good, nothing great. In fact, I thought it was kind of cute but, blah, - what was all the fuss about? I scoured some reviews to see if anyone agreed with me - learned that Karen Joy Fowler writes science fiction too - found that Meghan O'Rourke and Stephen Metcalf at Slate had the same reaction as me. Didn't know that Oprah had chosen Anna Karenina for her book club; wonder how that went.
The Egyptologist, by Arthur Phillips
Went and got this from the library, don't remember why, I think I must have read something about "one of the few contemporary novels in epistolary form", plus it was a mystery, so hey, why not? Like The Jane Austen Book Club, it has some clever writing, but not much else going for it. Two unreliable narrators sort of interest you in trying to figure out what's really going on, but you figure it out about half way through the book (though I may be slow - I'm one of those mystery readers who usually doesn't know whodunit until it's revealed by the author). I sort of kept reading to the end because there was one little inconsistency I couldn't figure out. Otherwise, I don't know if I would have stuck with it because the main characters are only mildly interesting, the secondary characters are leaden caricatures though they're supposed to be comic caricatures, and the antiquated style of the letter-writing is grating. Having said all that, some of the black comedy works well and the main character's slanted reporting of Howard Carter's "trivial" Tutankhamen find is hilarious.
Well, that's it for my disappointing little foray into the mainstream. I'm going back to my science fiction staples after this. At least genre fiction, when it's bad, can have interesting ideas to redeem it. In fact, I'm trying to think back to the last contemporary non-sci-fi novel I really, really loved. It couldn't have been as far back as A Suitable Boy, could it? Geez. The NY Public Libary probably has a record of all the books I've ever taken out; it's too bad I can't get access to it! Though I wonder if, for privacy, they purge each record after I've returned the book? I must ask them the next time I'm in a branch...
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, Blind Lake
Well, I was in the library the other day and I saw a very interesting book on the shelf, picked it up, realized a split second later that I'd read it few months ago - so I said, hmm, I really want to use my blog to at least remember what I read! So, here goes, just some books that I've been reading since I last posted 5 (!) months ago.
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, by V. S. Ramachandran
My dad kept quoting the ideas in this book. At first I was reluctant, because the last book he got me into (Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe) turned out to be, well, too much of a slog. But this was turned out to be a real breeze, the neuroscientist author talking about peculiarities of the human mind and cases of rare neurological disorders and what they might teach us about how the mind works. Yes, a lot like some of Oliver Sacks' stuff, but still fun to read.
Most interesting is how scientists set up truly ingenious experiments to try to test certain neurological functions (using a mirror to trick the mind into thinking a paralyzed limb is moving, for example). Also, the part on synesthesia (cross-referencing perceptions, like seeing colors in numbers or sensing tastes in shapes) leads to an interesting suggestion on how metaphor may be a form of synesthesia. The part on neurological bases of art (neurasthetics, he calls it) is a bit iffy but the final part on meta-representation (the brain makes representations of what happens in the world but it takes meta-representation to make conscious interpretation of these representations) rings true. A short and easy-to-read book, but by the time I finished, I felt I got more out of it than from other, "heavier" books.
Blind Lake, by Robert Charles Wilson
Ok, now this is the book that I picked up off the shelf and realized that I had already read and enjoyed! This is the second book I've read by Wilson, and I found it a lot better than the first one (Chronoliths). While Chronoliths had great momentum and a very interesting premise (gigantic monuments appear, apparently having been sent back in time by a future megalomaniac ruler), it really petered out at the end for me.
Blind Lake was equally intriguing (possibly sentient computers record observations of truly alien life that scientists try to interpret) and held its own all the way to a gripping ending. The various threads (are the computers sentient and how are they actually getting these observations? are the aliens real and what do their actions signify? how do scientists grapple with subjectivity? why has the observation station been completely isolated and how does the society of scientists and administrators deal with it? does the 9-year old girl with a tenuous relationship with reality actually touch upon a deeper reality?) are developed well and the characters are interesting. Really a recommended read.
Well, I was in the library the other day and I saw a very interesting book on the shelf, picked it up, realized a split second later that I'd read it few months ago - so I said, hmm, I really want to use my blog to at least remember what I read! So, here goes, just some books that I've been reading since I last posted 5 (!) months ago.
A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness, by V. S. Ramachandran
My dad kept quoting the ideas in this book. At first I was reluctant, because the last book he got me into (Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe) turned out to be, well, too much of a slog. But this was turned out to be a real breeze, the neuroscientist author talking about peculiarities of the human mind and cases of rare neurological disorders and what they might teach us about how the mind works. Yes, a lot like some of Oliver Sacks' stuff, but still fun to read.
Most interesting is how scientists set up truly ingenious experiments to try to test certain neurological functions (using a mirror to trick the mind into thinking a paralyzed limb is moving, for example). Also, the part on synesthesia (cross-referencing perceptions, like seeing colors in numbers or sensing tastes in shapes) leads to an interesting suggestion on how metaphor may be a form of synesthesia. The part on neurological bases of art (neurasthetics, he calls it) is a bit iffy but the final part on meta-representation (the brain makes representations of what happens in the world but it takes meta-representation to make conscious interpretation of these representations) rings true. A short and easy-to-read book, but by the time I finished, I felt I got more out of it than from other, "heavier" books.
Blind Lake, by Robert Charles Wilson
Ok, now this is the book that I picked up off the shelf and realized that I had already read and enjoyed! This is the second book I've read by Wilson, and I found it a lot better than the first one (Chronoliths). While Chronoliths had great momentum and a very interesting premise (gigantic monuments appear, apparently having been sent back in time by a future megalomaniac ruler), it really petered out at the end for me.
Blind Lake was equally intriguing (possibly sentient computers record observations of truly alien life that scientists try to interpret) and held its own all the way to a gripping ending. The various threads (are the computers sentient and how are they actually getting these observations? are the aliens real and what do their actions signify? how do scientists grapple with subjectivity? why has the observation station been completely isolated and how does the society of scientists and administrators deal with it? does the 9-year old girl with a tenuous relationship with reality actually touch upon a deeper reality?) are developed well and the characters are interesting. Really a recommended read.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
"Dear John" with PowerPoint
OK, of all our complaints about how PowerPoint can be misused, this one (via BoingBoing) has got to take the cake!
OK, of all our complaints about how PowerPoint can be misused, this one (via BoingBoing) has got to take the cake!
Monday, June 21, 2004
Out in Space!
"Thirty years ago if you had asked NASA - and people did in those days - `How long would it be before I could buy tickets to space?' the answer was, `About 30 years.' If you ask today, you'll get about the same answer, 30 years. I think that's unfortunate."
Well, at least while we're waiting we can see a bit of progress! Although really, it's about time, I'm still majorly excited to hear that a private team led by Burt Rutan (quoted above) finally went past the 100 km line into "space"! The test pilot, Michael W. Melvill, opened a bag of M&Ms and watched them float! That's what I want to do - go out into space and float M&Ms :-). I think my dream of seeing earth from orbit before I die may be possible after all.
Which reminds me, I saw The Day After Tomorrow at the cinema over the weekend and really, the most gorgeous parts of it were the (mock) pictures of storm systems from orbit - absolutely, dazzlingly gorgeous. Watching multiple tornados hit LA was enjoyable, too :-). Silly movie, but if you don't take it seriously and you have someone (my sister in my case) watching and making snide comments on it together with you it's great fun.
"Thirty years ago if you had asked NASA - and people did in those days - `How long would it be before I could buy tickets to space?' the answer was, `About 30 years.' If you ask today, you'll get about the same answer, 30 years. I think that's unfortunate."
Well, at least while we're waiting we can see a bit of progress! Although really, it's about time, I'm still majorly excited to hear that a private team led by Burt Rutan (quoted above) finally went past the 100 km line into "space"! The test pilot, Michael W. Melvill, opened a bag of M&Ms and watched them float! That's what I want to do - go out into space and float M&Ms :-). I think my dream of seeing earth from orbit before I die may be possible after all.
Which reminds me, I saw The Day After Tomorrow at the cinema over the weekend and really, the most gorgeous parts of it were the (mock) pictures of storm systems from orbit - absolutely, dazzlingly gorgeous. Watching multiple tornados hit LA was enjoyable, too :-). Silly movie, but if you don't take it seriously and you have someone (my sister in my case) watching and making snide comments on it together with you it's great fun.
Friday, May 07, 2004
Education today, Clades
I was reading the Education section of the NYTimes the other week and two things struck me, hard!
The first was about the pressure that high schoolers and even younger kids feel about getting into the "right college" and doing all the right things. I guess it's one of those "Gee, when I was a kid, we never had..." sort of moments because, I swear, even in fairly competitive northern New Jersey we didn't stress out THAT much about getting into the right college. Apparently everyone also preps for the SATs nowadays, whereas we used to make fun of the kids who studied hard for the SAT (a little light reviewing of vocabulary lists was ok though).
Then there was the article about parents starting their kids late in school, so that they'd be developmentally and intellectually ahead of the other kids in their grade. Sounds kind of unhealthy, if not a little sick, to me. But then again, I don't seem to be a very driven parent.
I read a little article the other day (was it on Salon?) that made me feel better. It was in reference to a book about how consumers who don't obsess about making the "perfect" purchase, but rather accept a "good-enough" selection, in today's world of overabundant consumer choices might be happier (or at least less stressed). Then the (column) author says that with your kids, maybe "good enough" isn't acceptable; after all, we all say we want "the best" for our children. However, do parents who spend so much time seeking out "the best" for their kids, end up actually spending less time with their kids? Well,I thought the author made a good point, though maybe I'm just happy to feel less guilty since I try to fall on the "good enough" side of things with Maia. I figure that, after all, I turned out ok, right?
Anyway, the second thing that struck me in the Education section was from an article about online learning, particularly for graduate studies. Many people who don't think it's "as good" as face to face learning claim that you can't have the same kind of (and, by implilcation, equally satisfying) interaction . Well, it's certainly true that the interaction is not the same, but anyone who's every participated in an online class knows that the interaction is very intense, very close, though differently "flavored". I think it's obvious that the people saying this have never been involved in an online class in any way.
All right, running out of time but I did want to mention one other book I read, Clade, by Mark Budz. My first time reading him, and it was pretty pleasurable. The story wasn't much, and I'm not sure I really understood what happened in the end, but the description of near-future post-ecocaust Earth was really fantastic.
So, after most of the enrivonment is destroyed, genengineered flora and fauna (umbrella palms to deal with the uv, etc.) now populate most of the earth. However, humans have also been genegineered to survive, and people modify themselves so that they can fit into their restricted environments. Moreover, all the divisions of class, culture, ethnicity, have been codified into biochemical signatures. Now, if you go into a group/area where you don't belong (you're not "claded"), you smell and taste bad things, feel sick, etc. It certainly makes security easier (if you haven't been claded for that expensive condo, you get hives as soon as you step into the lobby)!
Also, the two protagonists, who are lower-class (clade?) people trying to get by, move on up in the world, are very well drawn, feel authentic. Too bad the plot's a bit of a shambles. Anyway, it's always fun to read near-future stories and I think this one handles the combination of familiar and strange very well; I'll read more by this author for sure.
I was reading the Education section of the NYTimes the other week and two things struck me, hard!
The first was about the pressure that high schoolers and even younger kids feel about getting into the "right college" and doing all the right things. I guess it's one of those "Gee, when I was a kid, we never had..." sort of moments because, I swear, even in fairly competitive northern New Jersey we didn't stress out THAT much about getting into the right college. Apparently everyone also preps for the SATs nowadays, whereas we used to make fun of the kids who studied hard for the SAT (a little light reviewing of vocabulary lists was ok though).
Then there was the article about parents starting their kids late in school, so that they'd be developmentally and intellectually ahead of the other kids in their grade. Sounds kind of unhealthy, if not a little sick, to me. But then again, I don't seem to be a very driven parent.
I read a little article the other day (was it on Salon?) that made me feel better. It was in reference to a book about how consumers who don't obsess about making the "perfect" purchase, but rather accept a "good-enough" selection, in today's world of overabundant consumer choices might be happier (or at least less stressed). Then the (column) author says that with your kids, maybe "good enough" isn't acceptable; after all, we all say we want "the best" for our children. However, do parents who spend so much time seeking out "the best" for their kids, end up actually spending less time with their kids? Well,I thought the author made a good point, though maybe I'm just happy to feel less guilty since I try to fall on the "good enough" side of things with Maia. I figure that, after all, I turned out ok, right?
Anyway, the second thing that struck me in the Education section was from an article about online learning, particularly for graduate studies. Many people who don't think it's "as good" as face to face learning claim that you can't have the same kind of (and, by implilcation, equally satisfying) interaction . Well, it's certainly true that the interaction is not the same, but anyone who's every participated in an online class knows that the interaction is very intense, very close, though differently "flavored". I think it's obvious that the people saying this have never been involved in an online class in any way.
All right, running out of time but I did want to mention one other book I read, Clade, by Mark Budz. My first time reading him, and it was pretty pleasurable. The story wasn't much, and I'm not sure I really understood what happened in the end, but the description of near-future post-ecocaust Earth was really fantastic.
So, after most of the enrivonment is destroyed, genengineered flora and fauna (umbrella palms to deal with the uv, etc.) now populate most of the earth. However, humans have also been genegineered to survive, and people modify themselves so that they can fit into their restricted environments. Moreover, all the divisions of class, culture, ethnicity, have been codified into biochemical signatures. Now, if you go into a group/area where you don't belong (you're not "claded"), you smell and taste bad things, feel sick, etc. It certainly makes security easier (if you haven't been claded for that expensive condo, you get hives as soon as you step into the lobby)!
Also, the two protagonists, who are lower-class (clade?) people trying to get by, move on up in the world, are very well drawn, feel authentic. Too bad the plot's a bit of a shambles. Anyway, it's always fun to read near-future stories and I think this one handles the combination of familiar and strange very well; I'll read more by this author for sure.
Friday, April 23, 2004
More on Morris, Star Trek junk
Making my way through the Morris convergence book. Must admit I skimmed the whole chapter on the origin of life. Biochemistry makes my eyes glaze over. Much more interesting was the chapter on earth and the conditions on earth that make life possible (size not too big and not too small, not too much of an axis, not too far and not too close to the sun, just the right-sized moon, Jupiter just where you need it). Morris seems to think that the correct combination of all the factors necessary for life is pretty rare, so earth may be a "cosmic fluke". I'm not entirely convinced, but I'll keep my mind open at least through the rest of the book. I guess my doubt arises because I'm not sure that some type of life can't exist in conditions that we think are fatal. Unfortunately I don't feel I have the expertise to make a judgement.
I will admit, however, that before going back to Morris I read Star Trek TOS: The Brave and the Bold. How's that for a trashy title. Sometimes I feel almost as embarrased reading a Trek paperback on the subway as I would if I had a bodice-ripper (especially since they fulfill the same escapist function!). Then again, the convergence book has a picture of a small human on an empty, flat beach, and since the title is Life's Solution, people must guess I'm reading a self-help/spiritual book. And that's even more embarassing!
Anyway, Keith deCandido's latest is actually not too bad as Trek books go, but nowhere near the level of Diane Duane or the Reeves-Stevenses. The story is hokey, about four superpowerful boxes from a civilization 90K years ago (why am I even summarizing this?), and there's a little too much strained humor about Spock, but I enjoyed seeing Matt Decker's character developed. Hmph, and it's only part 1 of 2, so I get to read The Brave and the Bold Book Two as soon my library hold comes through!
Making my way through the Morris convergence book. Must admit I skimmed the whole chapter on the origin of life. Biochemistry makes my eyes glaze over. Much more interesting was the chapter on earth and the conditions on earth that make life possible (size not too big and not too small, not too much of an axis, not too far and not too close to the sun, just the right-sized moon, Jupiter just where you need it). Morris seems to think that the correct combination of all the factors necessary for life is pretty rare, so earth may be a "cosmic fluke". I'm not entirely convinced, but I'll keep my mind open at least through the rest of the book. I guess my doubt arises because I'm not sure that some type of life can't exist in conditions that we think are fatal. Unfortunately I don't feel I have the expertise to make a judgement.
I will admit, however, that before going back to Morris I read Star Trek TOS: The Brave and the Bold. How's that for a trashy title. Sometimes I feel almost as embarrased reading a Trek paperback on the subway as I would if I had a bodice-ripper (especially since they fulfill the same escapist function!). Then again, the convergence book has a picture of a small human on an empty, flat beach, and since the title is Life's Solution, people must guess I'm reading a self-help/spiritual book. And that's even more embarassing!
Anyway, Keith deCandido's latest is actually not too bad as Trek books go, but nowhere near the level of Diane Duane or the Reeves-Stevenses. The story is hokey, about four superpowerful boxes from a civilization 90K years ago (why am I even summarizing this?), and there's a little too much strained humor about Spock, but I enjoyed seeing Matt Decker's character developed. Hmph, and it's only part 1 of 2, so I get to read The Brave and the Bold Book Two as soon my library hold comes through!
The Page 23 Exercise:
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Well, the first book I grabbed, page 23 was the end of a chapter summarizing an opera, so there was no fifth sentence. OK, I've grabbed The Robot Novels by Isaac Asimov:
"Unexpectedly, he found R. Daneel still behind him."
Hmm. Still awaiting revelation. Maybe it's one of those Buddhist things?
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
Well, the first book I grabbed, page 23 was the end of a chapter summarizing an opera, so there was no fifth sentence. OK, I've grabbed The Robot Novels by Isaac Asimov:
"Unexpectedly, he found R. Daneel still behind him."
Hmm. Still awaiting revelation. Maybe it's one of those Buddhist things?
Wednesday, April 21, 2004
Otherland, Tad Williams and Jared Diamond on farming
Well, daughter's still sleeping so I'll take this 15 minutes or so to catch up. Just got a notice that the second part of the Otherland triology is ready for me at the library. City of Golden Shadow, the first part, was all about an extremely detailed virtual reality built in the near future by a group of rich, secretive people. It was long and meandering, and had too many passages that didn't add anything new to the story. There's only so much I can take of Renie being desposdent and about Paul feeling confused as to where he was (yes, Paul's an amnesiac thrown into the virtual realities, but still, I got the point early on).
So why keep reading it? Well, the characters are not bad, the journeys through the various virtual realities can be quite interesting (a club for sadists, Meso America not conquered by the Spaniards, a chess-board land, Egyptian gods come of life), and I want to know why this group is building this extremely expensive virtual reality (apparently it's not just for fun, there's something that may be an alien or something otherwordly involved too).
One of the main characters is a Bushman named !Xabbu, whose dream is to recreate (virtually) the life of his people, which has been pretty much wiped out. He speaks quite evocatively of the hunting-gathering life and the bonds within and among tribes, and interestingly enough I read an article by Jared Diamond yesterday about the disastrous mistake humans made in turning to farming (I thought I first read it on edge.org but couldn't find it so I've linked to another site).
Diamond first lays out evidence that hunter-gatherers (h-g) were taller, less subject to disease, had better nutrition, had more leisure time, and in general were better off, than farmers. So why turn to farming? Population pressures - you can support more people on the same land by farming than by h-g'ing. In essence, you give up quality (of life) for quantity. Another interesting point he makes is that farming makes "class" possible; in h-g there are no resources that one can grab and keep for oneself, but in farming land becomes a resource that can be owned, and crops can be appropriated by the elites.
Well, daughter's still sleeping so I'll take this 15 minutes or so to catch up. Just got a notice that the second part of the Otherland triology is ready for me at the library. City of Golden Shadow, the first part, was all about an extremely detailed virtual reality built in the near future by a group of rich, secretive people. It was long and meandering, and had too many passages that didn't add anything new to the story. There's only so much I can take of Renie being desposdent and about Paul feeling confused as to where he was (yes, Paul's an amnesiac thrown into the virtual realities, but still, I got the point early on).
So why keep reading it? Well, the characters are not bad, the journeys through the various virtual realities can be quite interesting (a club for sadists, Meso America not conquered by the Spaniards, a chess-board land, Egyptian gods come of life), and I want to know why this group is building this extremely expensive virtual reality (apparently it's not just for fun, there's something that may be an alien or something otherwordly involved too).
One of the main characters is a Bushman named !Xabbu, whose dream is to recreate (virtually) the life of his people, which has been pretty much wiped out. He speaks quite evocatively of the hunting-gathering life and the bonds within and among tribes, and interestingly enough I read an article by Jared Diamond yesterday about the disastrous mistake humans made in turning to farming (I thought I first read it on edge.org but couldn't find it so I've linked to another site).
Diamond first lays out evidence that hunter-gatherers (h-g) were taller, less subject to disease, had better nutrition, had more leisure time, and in general were better off, than farmers. So why turn to farming? Population pressures - you can support more people on the same land by farming than by h-g'ing. In essence, you give up quality (of life) for quantity. Another interesting point he makes is that farming makes "class" possible; in h-g there are no resources that one can grab and keep for oneself, but in farming land becomes a resource that can be owned, and crops can be appropriated by the elites.
Friday, April 16, 2004
Feel pressure to actually blog after reading so many, and talking so much about, other people's blogs...
Before I go on to the next book, just want to go back to 1968 for a mo. Read an interesting comment in Slate/Salon/some blog I was reading that mentions the imagery of current Iraq events on TV. Like we saw bloody images on TV during Vietnam, bloody images of Iraq are being transmitted on TV, but on Al Jazeera. Imagine the effect on the viewers. While we, in the US, really don't see all that much gruesome stuff (or maybe it's just me because I don't have much time to watch TV).
Anyway, am now reading Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, by Simon Conway Morris., prof of Evolutionary Paleobiology at Cambridge. His main theme is that despite the dizzying variety of possibilities that we think evolution has to choose from, in actuality there are only a few workable paths that it can take. His evidence, from what I gather after 24 pages, is the fact of convergence on the same forms or the same functionalities from diverse beginnings. I find Morris hard to read, his point slipping past me and forcing me to backtrack a few paragraphs and re-read. Is it me or is it the writing style?
It's always interesting to see how "hard" science can lead to different philosophies. More on Morris's rant against what he sees is the materialism inherent in other views of evolution later.
Before I go on to the next book, just want to go back to 1968 for a mo. Read an interesting comment in Slate/Salon/some blog I was reading that mentions the imagery of current Iraq events on TV. Like we saw bloody images on TV during Vietnam, bloody images of Iraq are being transmitted on TV, but on Al Jazeera. Imagine the effect on the viewers. While we, in the US, really don't see all that much gruesome stuff (or maybe it's just me because I don't have much time to watch TV).
Anyway, am now reading Life's Solution: Inevitable Humans in a Lonely Universe, by Simon Conway Morris., prof of Evolutionary Paleobiology at Cambridge. His main theme is that despite the dizzying variety of possibilities that we think evolution has to choose from, in actuality there are only a few workable paths that it can take. His evidence, from what I gather after 24 pages, is the fact of convergence on the same forms or the same functionalities from diverse beginnings. I find Morris hard to read, his point slipping past me and forcing me to backtrack a few paragraphs and re-read. Is it me or is it the writing style?
It's always interesting to see how "hard" science can lead to different philosophies. More on Morris's rant against what he sees is the materialism inherent in other views of evolution later.
Thursday, March 04, 2004
Started reading Mark Kurlansky's 1968 this morning on the subway, after spending too many days reading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover books. Thought it was time for some non-fiction after all the feudal lost colony of Earth telepath stuff!
I've always thought 1968 a very romantic year - all that student revolution stuff - and regret, in a way, that I was only 4 at the time. Maybe the author is exaggerating (as too many of these popular non-fiction authors do - I mean, does everything in history have to turn on codfish, or establishing longitude, or the Irish saving civilization?) when he describes how "special" it truly was, but he has a good point about how television, for the first time, allowed people to know what was going on almost immediately, and how remarkable it was for people in one country to see that their counterparts on the other side of the world were doing some of the same things. Also, having an audio-visual, well, that elicits a visceral reaction, rather than the more cerebral reaction one would have to, say, a printed newspaper report.
Kurlansky claims that we'll never have another 1968, in part because we cannot repeat the impact of how new the new medium was. But nowadays TV is so controlled that it's the web and the internet, I think, that will provide a revolutionary means for, well, revolution.
Some interesting tidbits of information thrown out as the author tries to evoke the tenor of the times:
1. The mind-set in which ghettoes are enemy territory and tanks being considered for use in them
2. The perception of the French that the Americans are out to humiliate them - well, I didn't realize how old that theme was, freedom fries!
3. The fact that in 1954 the US was financing four-fifths of the French war effort to keep Indochine
4. The "shocking" nature of an admission that PR was gonig to be strongly used in an election year to make the war look successful (vs our present conviction that everything out of a presidential administration is spin)
Well, that's all for now. I have a daughter to go see...!
I've always thought 1968 a very romantic year - all that student revolution stuff - and regret, in a way, that I was only 4 at the time. Maybe the author is exaggerating (as too many of these popular non-fiction authors do - I mean, does everything in history have to turn on codfish, or establishing longitude, or the Irish saving civilization?) when he describes how "special" it truly was, but he has a good point about how television, for the first time, allowed people to know what was going on almost immediately, and how remarkable it was for people in one country to see that their counterparts on the other side of the world were doing some of the same things. Also, having an audio-visual, well, that elicits a visceral reaction, rather than the more cerebral reaction one would have to, say, a printed newspaper report.
Kurlansky claims that we'll never have another 1968, in part because we cannot repeat the impact of how new the new medium was. But nowadays TV is so controlled that it's the web and the internet, I think, that will provide a revolutionary means for, well, revolution.
Some interesting tidbits of information thrown out as the author tries to evoke the tenor of the times:
1. The mind-set in which ghettoes are enemy territory and tanks being considered for use in them
2. The perception of the French that the Americans are out to humiliate them - well, I didn't realize how old that theme was, freedom fries!
3. The fact that in 1954 the US was financing four-fifths of the French war effort to keep Indochine
4. The "shocking" nature of an admission that PR was gonig to be strongly used in an election year to make the war look successful (vs our present conviction that everything out of a presidential administration is spin)
Well, that's all for now. I have a daughter to go see...!
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