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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)