Saturday, December 16, 2006

Not Reading Books on a Going Forward Basis

I had almost finished "Jonathan Srange and Mr Norrell" when I made the mistake I always do: I read the ending. And because it didn't end the way I was hoping it was going to end, I stopped reading it.

I'm a suck that way.

Anyways, my dad had received "The DaVinci Code" for his birthday, but had hated it and was more than happy to foist it on me. So I decided I would give TDC a try.

"The DaVinci Code" was a total piece of trash and I got sick of reading it in about three days.

My mom had managed to read TDC and hated every minute of it. To cleanse her palate, she decided to re-read Umberto Eccho's "Foucault's Pendulum". I decided to do the same.

Unlike my mom, though, I never managed to finish reading FP the first time around: I had gotten massively confused halfway through and had stopped reading it. I also thought it was pretentious and wordy. But I was 18 then and pretty stupid, so I decided I would give FP another go.

A few chapters into FP, I decided to go back to "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell". It wasn't because FP was bad or anything; I was actually finding it pretty cool this time around and felt that it wasn't the book that was pretentious, but rather it was the narrator who was pretentious, making it all OK.

No, what made me go back to "Jonathan Strange" was the desire to finish it before my next trip so that I would be able to bring a new book with me in good conscious.

And that is insane.

Thursday, August 10, 2006

So You Won An Award: Mindscan by Robert J Sawyer

Robert J Sawyer is a nice guy and a really excellent author to interview. He's fun, vivacious, witty and talkative.

And that's why I hate to say that Mindscan, despite winning an award, is a pretty darned disappointing read.

Here's the plot: Dude finds out that he has some inherited brain defect that will kill him off at 40ish. He frets about getting married and having kids cuz he doesn't want to leave a wife and kid(s) with the burden of having him either drop dead or become a vegetable. So he signs up for this procedure that will copy his brain into a "quantum gel" in a robotic body that will inherit his personhood while he gets to retire to some resort on the moon and never come back. His goal is that his robtic self will marry the woman he loves and live out the life that he always wanted to lead.

The only problem is that Dude doesn't realize that the robot is a copy of him and not him in a robot's body. So he's all disappointed that his robotic self will be leading the life he wanted to live.

The other problem, for Mechanical Dude, is that everyone is pretty skeeved out by him and not even his dog will hang out with him. So he's a pretty lonely Mechanical Dude.

This sounds promising, right? I mean, think of all the cool things you can explore with this: how the brain deals without its usual biofeedback mechanisms; how people around you deal with the fact that you're a robot and smell like a car interior rather than a human being; how learning and growth would be affected by a static body; how society would be affected by individuals never dying; how a mechanical body would be maintained. All kinds of cool stuff.

But you know what RJS does with it? He turns it into a courtroom novel about civil rights.

*sigh*

If I wanted to read a courtroom drama, I would have picked up a John Grisham novel. But I wanted a sci-fi novel... Something that explored the limits of technology. And, you know, if the sci-fi novel wanted to go into the rights of robots, it wouldn't have to be heavy-handed and obvious. Like, the best short story in "Island Dreams", "Burning Day", is about robots and humans coexisting. It deals with the Uncanny Valley and prejudice without smacking you over the head with a courtroom.

Halfway through Mindscan, I felt it was all very, very sad and, sadly, boring.

There is no way this was the best sci-fi novel of the year.

Saturday, June 24, 2006

Kodachrome and Velvet Shoes

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all


-- Simon&Garfunkel, "Kodachrome"

Well, it's been a month since I started writing this, but I finally got around to finishing it off.

You know, after writing about poetry last entry, I started thinking about how it's a wonder that I like poetry at all.

As a kid, I really loved poetry. My parents had a couple of books of poetry hanging around the house and I would routinely pick them up and read them. Then I hit High School and I was almost lost forever (thank Heavens for CEGEP!).

I don't know how my High School English classes managed it, but they took all the life and beauty out of poetry. All we ever did was "analyse" poems in the most trite, pointless ways ever. For chrissake, who the hell wants to read a poem and pick out all the metaphors and similes? What the hell will that give you? Will it give you access to the subtle meanings of the poem? No. Will it help you understand why the poem makes you feel the way you do when you read it? No. Will it give you an appreciation for poetry as an art? No.

Will it make you pray for the bell to ring so you can go outside and complain to your friends that you have no idea why "shod in silk" is an oxymoron? Yes.

"Shod in silk". That line has haunted me for sixteen years (and I really do mean the line, because I've never been able to remember the name of the poem or the author). But today, I get my revenge.

The poem: Velvet Shoes by Elinor Wylie
The class: Secondary 4 English with Mrs. Gualtieri (Hi there if you managed to find this! Yes, I'm bitter. You can continue feeling sorry for me the way you did back in HS.)
The task: Find examples of metaphors, similes and oxymorons in this poem.
The result: I got a really shitty mark because I couldn't find an oxymoron in this crap-ass poem.

I told Mrs Gualtieri that there were no oxymorons in this poem. Try as I might, I couldn't find one. She patronizingly replied that "shod in silk" was an oxymoron. I was all, "Um, how the hell is that an oxymoron?" She became even more patronizing (she felt that I thought I was too smart for my own good) and was all, "because to be shod is to be badly dressed and you can't be badly dressed in silk."

I still don't get it. Especially since my Oxford English Dictionary defines "shod" as the past tense of "to shoe".

Did this stupid high school excercise help me appreciate the poem? No.

Did it make me resent poetry, English class and Mrs Gualtieri? Yes.

But after all these years, I tracked down the poem. I still think it blows. The measure seems to be all screwed up, like the stanzas are one line too long, giving it an akward cadence. It's also pretty vapid. It's Bad Teen Poetry quality, in my opinion (your opinion may differ).

So for your reading pleasure, I present the poem that almost made me hate poetry forever, "Velvet Shoes" by Elinor Wylie:

Let us walk in the white snow
In a soundless space;
With footsteps quiet and slow,
At a tranquil pace,
Under veils of white lace.

I shall go shod in silk,
And you in wool,
White as white cow's milk,
More beautiful
Than the breast of a gull.

We shall walk through the still town
In a windless peace;
We shall step upon white down,
Upon silver fleece,
Upon softer than these.

We shall walk in velvet shoes:
Wherever we go
Silence will fall like dews
On white silence below.
We shall walk in the snow.

Saturday, June 17, 2006

Winding Down After a Rough Week: Poetry That Heals My Soul

I'm slowly slowly going insane
I look at the signs and see your name
I'm slowly slowly going insane
How will life ever be the same

It's like a pain inside my head
It sits on my heart like a piece of lead


That, my friends, is as much as I can remember of a Bad Teen Poem I wrote when I was 16 for my quasi-punk/goth friend who was in love with a guy named Denis who prefered rocker chicks in bustiers. My friend kept seeing Denis's name everywhere and it was driving her nuts (there was a soda distribution company called "Les Boissons Denis" that parked its trucks near our High School, incidentally). So, one night when we were on the phone and she was telling me all about this guy, I wrote this poem. She absolutely loved it.

I was actually considered quite the poet at my HS and people would often remark that my poems could easily be turned into songs. It all ended, though, when I hit CEGEP. I was told by the snooty, Anglo, private school kids in the poetry club that (a) my poetry sucked and (b) only free verse poetry about Important Things (like The Environment or War or Alienation or Kurt Cobain) was cool. So I stopped writing poetry. Deep down inside, though, I still had a soft spot for the uncool lyrical, rhyming poetry.

Anyways, this week, I had a pretty crazy week at work, full of meetings and more meetings with some folks from New York (I used to think I'd like to live in NY, but now I think that all I'd get out of it would be high blood pressure) and my mind started to drift to "Lochinvar" by Sir Walter Scott. I had to memorize it in HS and it has stuck with me forever. It tends to play through my mind when I'm stressed. Have you ever had a poem stuck in your head during a heavy meeting? It's not fun.

To make matters worse, I had downloaded a CBC podcast discussing the different rhythms in poetry: iam, bacchus, "tripping girl wth her skirt up," etc. And that caused more poems to start popping into my head.

So, in the name of cathartic release, here are my top five favourite poems:

1. The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliott

In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo


I analysed this poem for an English class once. I can't remember what kind of bullshit I wrote, but I'm positive it was bullshit. It doesn't matter, really, because (in my opinion) what really matters is how I feel about the poem. This poem makes me sad and introspective. You know that Joe Jackson song, "Stepping Out?" This poem reminds me of that song. It reminds me of parties I've been to where I've known no one and pretended to be having fun. It reminds me that you feel the most lonely when you're surrounded by people. And it reminds me that you should just go out and eat that damn peach! Grab life by the horns and get to it!


2. To His Coy Mistress by Andrew Marvel

Andrew Marvel says, "Yo, fuck, sleep with me," but in a funny, clever way that will guarantee that the girl will sleep with him. You can't not like that kind of poem (unless you have something against sex, but then you have other problems and you're probably not reading this blog anyways).


3. Annabel Lee by Edgar Allen Poe

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,
In her sepulchre there by the sea--
In her tomb by the side of the sea.


Don't you just want to go back in time, find Edgar Allen Poe and give him a big, giant hug? This is the most melancholy poem I have ever heard (OK, I have a limited knowledge of poetry, I admit). I know it's morbid and gothic and my mother yelled at me for liking this poem ("Why would you like something about a dead person?"), but the sentiment is so strong and pure that you can't help be moved. And when you've spent your day listening to business speak, it really does the soul good to feel some strong emotions.


4. Shakespere's Sonnet #130: My Mistress's Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun

Brutal freaking honesty. It's so refreshing. And who can't love a poem that says, "My girlfriend may not be perfect, but she's better than any chick who has flowery superlatives applied to her." This sonnet is a love poem for every couple who's been together more than five years.


5. Poem #260 (I'm Nobody! Who are You?) by Emily Dickinson

Apparently almost all of Emily Dickinson's poems can be sung to the tune of "The Yellow Rose of Texas." I can't remember how that goes (something like "Oh Susanna" I think), but I'm pretty sure this poem is one of them.

I realize the irony of posting that I understand the feeling of wanting to be nobody on a blog (which is, by its nature, exhibitionist), but sometimes, you really feel like being nobody. You just want to blend into scenery and let someone else be asked the tough questions or be put on the spot. Or even, sometimes, you don't want to be popular. But the world hates a wallflower: it's all about being outgoing and happy. Of course, Emily Dickinson was a recluse, so I think there was more than just introvertness or a need to unwind going on.

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us—don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

Tuesday, June 06, 2006

"I'd know you better if you told me what you reread": Tales of the City

"Dis-moi ce que tu lis, je te dirai qui tu es, il est vrai, mais je te connaîtrai mieux si tu me dis ce que tu relis."

François Mauriac

Sigh.

I'm having a bit of a stressful time at work. I've been put on a really crazy project with a really demanding client and I've been going to non-stop meetings and generally feeling anxious. I must have looked pretty harried after one of the meetings because my boss came up to me and said, "Look, it's OK to be stressed out, but don't lose sleep over this." So I went home, put aside Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell and took out Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin.

Tales of the City is one of my favourite books to read when I need to unwind. It's written in a flowy, breezy style that offhandedly says "laid back." The book's chapters are really short because it was originally written as a serial in a newspaper (can't remember which right now), so it takes about 5 minutes to read each chapter and it's not hard to find your place in the event that you're so tired that you pass out mid-read with the book on your face.

Tales of the City is about twenty- and thirtysomethings living in San Francisco in the late 70s: their work, their friends, their loves and their seemingly random interconnectedness. I went through this kick in the 90s where I really dug the whole 6-degrees-of-separation thing and sought out books and movies where several seemingly disparate storylines would eventually come together at the end. Unfortunately, the genre caught on in a big way in the late 90s and it was taken to such levels of crappiness and pretention (I'm looking at you, "Thirteen Conversations About One Thing") that I swore off the genre for good. But I still loveLoveLOVE Tales of the City.

TotC is so charming and funny and full of real life that it's just fun to read. It's easy to get transported into the world of these characters and I really care about the shitty time they're having at work and the bastards they date and the self they need to find. I also probably love this book because of the memories that I have of the first time I read it. I was in grad school in Montreal, it was summer and I would sit in Carré St-Louis and read TotC while watching the denizens of the park (squeegees and punks; business men and women; the homeless; kids playing hacky sack; students) do their thing while the wind blew through the trees and sprayed the water from the fountain. It was a really nice summer, the park smelled really sweet and I felt really good. I felt like the folks in the book: young, generally happy, but on a quest for True Love and Meaning.

So when I read TotC now, I'm not just reading an amusing, relaxing book; I'm remembering a time when my Universe was full of hope and happiness and carefreeness. And that is why I love Tales of the City.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Book Addiction: Part II

As Britney Spears's writing committee once said, "Oops, I did it again!"

I went out and bought more books. But it wasn't my fault. They were on sale and I can't resist a sale!

Here's what happened: York University was having this book fair as part of some humungous conference and there were all these publishers there selling books at a reduced price. So I went to all the independent publishers and shmoozed with some of the folks I knew from when I used to do The Show (because now that I have gainful employment, I no longer have time to volunteer for community radio) and one thing led to another and I walked away with three books: "Heartways" (many authors, Arsenal Pulp Press), "Pure Inventions" (James King, Cormorant Press) and "Race Against Time" (Stephen Lewis, Anansi Press).

Now, you may be wondering why I shun the large publishing houses, like Random House and Penguin. The thing is, me and the large publishing houses, we don't get along. When I did The Show, the large pubs would send their new, sexy, hardcover books with their glossy press kits to us whether we wanted them or not. Then their publicists would call us and ask when we would have the authors on. And I swear, 90% of the time, the books blew goats. I mean these books, even if they were by major authors, were unreadable. I don't ever give books away (or even sell them or lend them out), but recently I took a bunch of these hardcover monstrosities and left them in my building's lobby for people to grab. They were that bad.

And, you know, I don't fault the publicists for sending us these books and pestering us to do the interviews because, frankly, it's their job to get exposure for the authors and the books. They're just doing their job. I hate whatever machine keeps these cruddy books with their sub-standard editing and poor-quality writing published. I have two books on my shelves that have glaringly obvious factual errors in them -- factual errors that could have been corrected with one Google search. How can a large publishing house justify that? Forget James Frey and his dumbass fiction-cum-autobiography, it's the small, minor-league editing errors in real non-fiction that shows that a publishing house only cares about the cash.

That is why I don't go near the large publishing houses anymore. Occasionally I'll still buy one of their books if it's by an author I know and respect (and who I often feel happy for because they're finally making some money). But, in general, I'm so disillusioned by the whole thing that I'd rather take my chances with some small press book by a no-name author. Then, at least, I know that my money is going to someone who loves what they do.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

No More Freakin' Books, Please

I mentioned Bram Stoker's Dracula to a coworker the other day and today, he showed up at my cube and plopped his copy on my desk. He left before I had a chance to say that he should just take it back because I've got a backlog on my to-read list.

This episode, though, has made me realize that most people read one book at a time and finish each one before starting a new one (unlike me who gets impatient midway through a novel, skips ahead to the last chapter and then loses a bit of interest and moves on to the next victim).

Oh well. I'll give it back tomorrow. For now I'll ponder whether to read ahead to the end of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell so that I can move on to something else.

Also: I have to stop blogging when I'm tired.

Monday, May 22, 2006

Weird

I used the word "weird" way too often in that last post. I gotta stop writing when I'm tired. I'm usually much more articulate. I hope.

Sunday, May 21, 2006

Mid-Read Review: Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell

I am a fickle, fickle girl.

I was fully intending to finish "Lust for Life" (esp after reading Claude Lalumière's comment), but then, something happened.

I was taking a train trip out of town and figured that "Lust of Life" would not be the best book to read on the train. I mean, you're stuck on the train for a few hours with strangers next to you, so you don't want to weird them out too much. (For example, one time I sat next to this woman who was reading a book titled "Ritualistic Candle Burning" and it kinda weirded me out. I can't imagine what erotic literature would do to someone more prudish.) Also, the train doesn't really have the right, shall we say, atmosphere for erotica. So I packed "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe" and "Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell" (JS&MN) instead. (Incidentally, it was Claude Lalumière who recommended the book to me.)

I had started reading JS&MN about a month earlier, but had put it down a quarter of the way through because I found it dull. But I figured that it had the potential to put me to sleep on the train so I brought it along.

On my way out of town, I wasn't in the mood of sleeping and I mostly read a magazine and occasionally read the time travel book. My ride back to town was a completely different story. We were trapped behind a freight train and moving super-slow. My train was delayed by something like two hours (enough for Via Rail to reimburse half the cost of each passenger's ticket) and I was sitting next to a woman who was possibly the most annoying person to ever walk the earth. The whole time she kept grumbling about how slow the train was going and how this would not stand ("This slowness will not stand!"). I desperately, but desperately, wanted to pass out so I wouldn't have to interact with her. So I put my earbuds in and cracked open JS&MN.

To my astonishment, the book was really fascinating and engaging. I couldn't stop reading! I became enveloped more and more into Part I of this novel about a strange, reclusive magician (Mr Norell) who is very greedy about his magical knowledge and prowess. It was well-written, funny and spooky, in all the right proportions (like when the book gets too funny, it turns spooky and when it gets too spooky, it turns funny). I was so enthralled with the book, that when Annoying Lady Next To Me would start crabbing to me, I'd take out my earbud and say, "I don't mind that we're delayed; this book is really good." Man, did that piss her off! (She only had two dinky magazines with her and no portable music device. She was obviously an amateur Via Rail traveller.)

Anyways, I'm halfway through Part II now (it's a three volume novel) and it's getting weirder and weirder and I'm wondering if Jonathan Strange will be able to clean up Mr Norell's messes. It's fantastic and I can see why so many people recommend it.

And I promise -- promise! -- that after this I'll give "Lust for Life" another go.

This is Me...Or Rather my Avatar

Saturday, April 22, 2006

Mid-Read Review: Lust for Life

Previously, I mentioned that I fully expected "Lust for Life" (edited by Claude Lalumiere and Elise Moser) to be weird and twisted. Well, I was right.
I'm halfway through the collection of short stories and so far I've read about a woman who prefers her nymphomaniacal, schizophrenic hallucination to her girlfriend; about a group of guys who cross-dress to catch a would-be serial kisser; and about a support group for suck sluts. I dunno about you, but I think those are some pretty weird topics.

But aside from the novelty of the odd story topics, I'm not sure if I like the collection. On the one hand, the stories make for fairly decent leisure-time reading, but they seem a bit unfinished. Like the story of the nymphomaniacal schizophrenic hallucination really felt unresolved, and it had really piss-poor character development. And the story of the suck sluts seemed like random porn disguised with a thin veneer of art. Only the story about the cross-dressing youth was insightful and had real character development.

So far the book is just a collection of random, mostly mediocre stories that deal, in varying degrees, with sex and/or sexuality. The collection doesn't have the cohesion of "Island Dreams" (also edited by Claude Lalumiere). I'm actually a touch disappointed. But I'm only halfway through, so it might get better.

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Book Addiction!

Oh no. I've done it again!

Even though I have a huge pile of books on my "to be read" shelf, I've gone out and bought more books!

I went to the bookstore yesterday just to browse.

I saw Burroughs's "Naked Lunch" and said to myself, "I should read this because 'The Iron Whim' has a whole chapter on 'Naked Lunch.' I didn't really understand that chapter and so I should read 'Naked Lunch.' And, while I'm at it, I should get Bram Stoker's 'Dracula,' because that's about communication and not about vampires, as I learned from 'The Iron Whim.'"

But then, next to "Naked Lunch" was "In Cold Blood." And I said to myself, "I've always meant to read 'In Cold Blood.' I should pick it up. Or maybe I should get the book of short stories that contains 'Breakfast at Tiffany's.' That would be good."

Then I saw the Small Press section and I really went nuts.

"OMIGOD! I wanted to request a lot of these books for The Show, but never got around to it! Which should I get? Which?"

After spending a lot of time looking at the Small Press books and noting that I already had a lot of them, but hadn't read them yet, I bought two books:

"Lust for Life: Tales of Sex & Love" edited by Claude Lalumiere and Elise Moser (Vehicule Press). I bought it because (a) it's
Claude Lalumiere who edited it, so it's probably good and (b) because everyone needs some tales of sex and love that aren't Harlequin Romances. I expect it will be weird and disturbing.

"Bowlbrawl" by Nathaniel G. Moore (Conundrum Press). In this day and age where guys like James Frey try to pass off their unbelievable works of fiction as non-fiction, you need a book about full-contact, hypermasculine bowling (in Canada!) to remind you that reality is, in fact, stranger than fiction. I expect that this is going to be really good.

Meanwhile, on my in-progress shelf, I've got: "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell," "Adieu Betty Crocker" (original French version) and "Time Travel in Einstein's Universe." That's just books I started reading and fully intend to finish. The list of books I haven't gotten to yet is too long to list. I've actually started giving some away to friends and family because I'm running out of shelf space and I can't bear to part with books I've read, even if they're crappy.

Friday, March 03, 2006

Fit for the Pit: Think Redux

My mom was pretty pissed off at me for my last post about Think: "That's a really mean thing to write," she said. "The author obviously thought his book was good when he wrote it and someone thought it was good enough to publish, so you shouldn't be mean about it."

My mom was obviously right. Being harsh doesn't really tell anyone anything about the book. All it does is just tell you that I hated it and that I'm a bit fanatical when it comes to books. So I figured I would write a comprehesive review and post that. I wanted to post this ages ago, but couldn't because my computer decided to have a billion issues. But at least that gave me time to cool off and gather my thoughts.

Think is marketed as a case for critical thinking and a response to Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, which LeGault equates with emotional, gut-feeling thinking. I read Blink. In it, Gladwell explores the idea that, if you're an expert at something, you can make decisions (many times correct, but also sometimes wrong) in the blink of an eye, before you've consciously thought about it. Which makes sense because if you're, say, an art appraiser, you know what to look for when deciding if some piece of art is fake. To everyone around you, it looks like you made some random, gut-feeling decision, but you actually just know your stuff and don't need a billion years to figure out what's going on (though it'll take you a billion years to write out the report explaining your reasoning).

The unfortunate thing about Blink is that the whole book is a series of anecdotes, giving the whole book a "truthy" feel, as Stephen Colbert would say. So while Gladwell doesn't advocate emotion-based thinking, the book isn't really full of cold, hard research either.

That said, I can see how Think would be a response to Blink. On the other hand, once you start reading the book, you get the feeling that Think isn't going to be doing a great job at hard, unbiased critical thought either (page 53):

Ultimately, I trust that my libertarian instincts will ring true with the reader.

I don't know about you, but I never equate something "ringing true" with critical thought. In my universe, critical thinking usually involves picking things that "ring true" apart into little smithereens using logic and analysis.

This inability to stay on message was one of the main reasons why I wanted to send the book back to the publishing house. Think is a poorly-written rant against...something. I can't say that it's a rant against gut-feeling thinking or liberalism or anything really because the book is totally disjoint. The only underlying theme that seems to hold the book together is Einstein.

LeGault keeps bringing up Einstein throughout the book. The author feels (note that I say "feels" and not "thinks") that had Einstein not been a critical thinker, he would never have been creative enough to come up with the Theory of Relativity (special and general) or Brownian Motion (though LeGault doesn't seem to know about Brownian Motion, for which Einstein won the Nobel Prize). LeGault holds up Einstein as this paragon of critical thought and even praises him for questioning authority -- about two paragraphs after getting all in the face of Pink Floyd's "The Wall" for being anti-authoritarian and thus anti-intellectual. From pages 30-31:

Rock and roll culture has helped glorify a number of macho, monosyllabic myths about education and intelligence in general. As Pink Floyd sings:
"We don't need no education
We don't need no thought control"
("Another Brick in The Wall," 1979)

Multiply the above anthem by a thousand variations and you begin to get the picture. Thinking and learning are for boot-licking conformists destined for lives as cubicle mice.

[...] Or one more common take found in the tough-guy world of many adolescents, including grown-up ones: To read, reflect and think is to be an egghead, a genius. Here we also detect that hint of social ostracization that awaits the unsuspecting egghead: "You're intelligent. That's pretty uppity and pretentious of you, buster."

Yet the consummate egghead, Al Einstein, was neither pretentious nor obedient nor conventionally bright in his youth. In her memoir, Einstein's sister, Maja, writes that [...] Einstein "had formed a suspicion against every kind of authority."

Hello convoluted reasoning! I'm not sure what LeGault was getting at in that passage. Was he saying that rock music is bad because it turns people against authority and makes them hate education and be stupid? Or was he saying that it's OK to hate authority as long as you're doing so "critically?" Or is he saying that smart people can be cool cuz they also hate The Man, dude!

LeGault also conveniently omitted the next line of "Another Brick in The Wall" ("No dark sarcasm in the classroom"). I'm not sure where LeGault went to school, but where I was, "Another Brick in The Wall" was the anthem of the alienated smart kids, for whom the whole point of The Wall was how society focused on obedience rather than independent thought. Then again, until I read Think, I never realized how much cherry-picking was involved in critical thought, so what do I know?

The book just goes on from there. LeGault basically decides that anyone who comes to different conclusions than he does isn't thinking critically (like "unscientific environmentalists" who still think that carbon dioxide causes global warming). And you know who the hero of all this is? Managers in large multinational corporations (bet ya didn't see that one coming!). Yes because (page 319):

Managers at today's companies display a concrete understanding of how reason and the pursuit of self-interest advance the betterment of the whole when they aspire to make their organizations "lean."

LeGault just throws ideas like this onto the page without any supporting statements or analysis. OK, my debating and persuasion skills aren't fantastic (which is why I ended up in the mathematical sciences rather than in, say, political science), but even I know that you need to back up your statements with some kind of argument. And, again, I'm not writing books, here. (Though the more uber-crappy books I read, the more I wonder what's stopping me from getting a book deal.)

In the end, it wasn't as if LeGault didn't make good points about society. It's true that most people nowadays don't read and don't really think about what the media feeds them. It's also true that we're over-medicating children with Ritalin instead of just changing the way schools are run (I'll let you put your own reference to The Wall here). But the author jumps around so much and says so many weird things (like lamenting the "feminist agenda") that the good bits get lost amid the insanity.

Finally, as for Einstein, even the real Einstein wasn't the mythical Einstein. It took Einstein 8 years to come up with the General Theory of Relativity. Eight years of learning topology and differential geometry and playing around with equations and proving theorems. To me, that's more of a proof of perseverance than critical thought.

Wednesday, February 08, 2006

Fit for the Pit: Think by LeGault

I'm considering buying a bird just so I can line the cage with the pages of this book.

That is all for now. More later.

Friday, January 27, 2006

I Give Up: Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Ten years after I dated the first guy who told me that this book changed his life, I finally picked up Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And after a month of trying to read this book, I've given up. It's going back to where I found it, namely on my aunt's bookshelf, where it had sat half-read since 1983.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is the biggest pile of self-aggrandizing, narcissistic, pseudo-philosophical conversation-with-yourself I've ever been party to. The four chapters I managed to read before throwing the book at the wall in utter frustration consisted of the protagonist explaining to the reader that his attitude toward motorcycling is better (more intuitive, purer, etc) than his biking companions'. But it's all a metaphor: the author/protagonist's view on biking is just a way to convey his worldview, which is The Bestest, Rightest Worldview Ever!

I wish I could say that this bit of ego-stroking was at least interesting or amusing, but it isn't. The writing has all the soul of a midlife crisis. It's hard for me to articulate what's wrong with the writing, aside from saying that it's dull, but at the same time, over-done. One might say that the book is full of the author's bloviations.

Take Chapter 3, The Chapter That Made Me Scream. That's the Chapter where the protagonist/author has a "conversation" with his riding companions about the existence of ghosts and spirits. The author/protagonist's view is that spirits are just as real as atoms and "quants" (did he mean "quarks?"). He goes on to tell them (because it's more of a lecture than a conversation) that gravity is also a "ghost." Let me just quote the book:

"So when did this law start? Has it always existed?"
[...]
"What I'm driving at," I say, "is the notion that before the beginning of the earth, before the sun and the stars were formed, before the primal generation of anything, the law of gravity existed."
[...]
"Sitting there, having no mass of its own, no energy of its own, not in anyone's mind, because there wasn't anyone, not in space, because there was no space either, not anywhere -- the law of gravity still existed?"
[...]
"If that law of gravity existed," I say, "I honestly don't know what a thing has to do to be nonexistent. [...] I predict that if you think about it long enough you will find yourself going round and round and round until you finally reach only one possible, rational, intelligent conclusion. The law of gravity and gravity itself did not exist before Isaac Newton."

AAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!
My head EXPLODES each time I read this!

The "law of gravity" is a mathematical model for describing how gravity works at a macroscopic level. Gravity is a force, it need not have energy or mass. ARGH!

OK, but setting aside the poor grasp of physics this guy has, there are, like, a billion things wrong with this passage. The writing is of the same caliber as a high school student's (I'm not saying my writing's better...it isn't, but I don't write books) and there are enough logical fallacies in that one exerpt to send my CEGEP philosophy prof's head spinning. Moreover, the author has been lazy creating the biking companions because they never once come up with an objection to his ramblings! Neither of them ever says, "Dude, um, just because you don't know about something doesn't mean it doesn't exist."

That never happens. I mean, if the author had made the biking companions with half a brain, he would have had to construct a strawman to tear down instead of just lecturing to an enraptured audience.

Lazy. That's what this is. Lazy.

But now at least I know where my ex-boyfriends they got their insane ideas from and why conversing with them was like talking to a ten year old. It all makes sense now.

I should have read the book sooner. An ounce of prevention could have spared me several painful dinner dates.

Thursday, January 19, 2006

Three Science Fiction and Fantasy Books I Should Finish

These are three books taken from my Couldn't-Finish-But-I-Feel-That-I-Should-List. It is going to take forever to discuss all the books sitting on my shelf and I'm starting to doubt my sanity for doing this. Anyhoo, here are the three books, in no particular order.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by JK Rowling
How I really wanted to read this book! I got about four or fivechapters in and started getting antsy cuz I felt that the story wasn't really moving along. Everyone told me that this was "tension" and "suspense," but to me it was like reading through writer's block. I kept thinking that JK Rowling had something to say, but was having a bit of a hard time of it, but decided to write through it. Then, for reasons I don't understand (probably due to publication deadlines or something like that), the editor left in the flabby writing. *sigh* Anyways, I want to finish reading the book, though, mostly because I want to find out how Sirius dies and because I got the follow-up, The Half-Blood Prince, as a birthday gift.

Humans by Robert J. Sawyer
If you don't know, Humans is the second book in Robert J. Sawyer's Neanderthal Parallax series (Hominids, Humans and Hybrids). I read Hominids and I thought it was a pretty good book. The basis of the story is that there's a parallel earth where the Neanderthals beat out Homo Sapiens as the dominant species of homonid and, through a freak quantum computing accident, a Neandethal crosses into our reality. It's a really cool book and while it can be a bit contrived and the Neanderthal world is way too idyllic for my taste (hammering in the "the environment is important, mmkay" message of the book), it kept me interested. But Humans was a whole other story. I got it as a gift and started reading it and could see right away where it was going. I felt even more manipulated by the lesson-of-the-week feel of some parts of the book and I really didn't like the sex scenes, so when I got sidetracked and put Humans down, I wasn't really in a rush to pick it up. But then all my friends read it and told me that it was good, so now I'm going to finish reading it. Eventually.

Island Dreams edited by Claude Lalumiere
Of all the books I've had a hard time finishing, this is the most interesting and well-written of the lot! It's an anthology of weird fiction, ranging from speculative fiction to macabre, by Montreal-based writers. It's a really excellent collection and I have to congratulate Claude Lalumiere for finding such top-notch fiction. I mean, the future worlds don't overpower the stories, nor do they seem like irrelevant contrivances; the future worlds just mesh really well with the stories, making them seem natural and almost commonplace (it's tough to make your spec-fic look like Blade Runner rather than, say, Total Recall). I stopped reading the anthology at a story called "Carrion Luggage" (Claude told me that the anthology was meant to be read sequentially). It was going to be the third or fourth macabre story and I was really starting to get freaked out by them. Already the zombie love story set in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetary in Montreal had given me nightmares (probably because my psyche wasn't prepared for thinking of Montreal flooded by global warming and corpses rising in the cemetary where the bodies of people I know are burried), I didn't need to know about carrion in luggage. I have a really active imagination and this book was like caffeine and chocolate for it! So I stopped reading the book, despite the fact that I had to interview Claude for The Show. (I justified it as saying that he was the editor and not the author, so it was OK.) Now Island Dreams sits on my shelf, waiting for me to get a grip.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006


OK, if I'm going to write about books, I gotta write about the books on my to-read list. Actually, I have four book lists: To-Read-For-The-Radio-Show, To-Read-For-My-Own-Edification, On-Hiatus and Couldn't-Finish-But-Feel-That-I-Should.

Here's an explanation of the lists:

To-Read-For-The-Radio-Show: These are books that I've received from publishers that I have to read so that I can eventually interview the authors. Even if the books are boring as all get-out, I have to finish them or else I can't really do a good interview. Mind you, most of the interviewers on TV or on the radio haven't read the books at all, but you can tell. Or, at least, I can tell. In any case, these are books I have to read.

To-Read-For-My-Own-Personal-Edification: These are books I bought because people have recommended them to me or because I've heard good things about them. I stack them nicely on my bedside table and then I dutifully forget to read them.

On-Hiatus: I have so many books on this list, it's just nuts. What'll happen is that I'll actually get around to reading a book I've bought and I'll be really digging it until I realize that I've totally neglected a book I have to read for The Show. So I'll read the book for the show and then, because I have a short attention span, I'll forget about the book I was reading initially and move on to some other book that caught my fancy. This happens more often than you'd think, which is why this list is insanely long.

Couldn't-Finish-But-Feel-That-I-Should: You know how many people have said that I should read Wuthering Heights? At least 30. I can't finish Wuthering Heights, but everyone tells me it's a great book and I feel I should finish it. This list is full of books like Wuthering Heights.

There you go. A list of lists. At some point I'll elaborate on these lists and bore you to death with more random info that you don't need. Kinda like the guy who listed all the flavours of Jolly Ranchers he had in his desk. Info you need.

So here's the thing with me. I like books and I do this literary show on community radio. I get a bunch of books for free because of this literary show and, because I'm a big nerd, I also buy other books on my own. The result is that I have more books than you can shake a stick at. This blog is partially to keep track of the books I'm reading and have read.

The other reason I started this blog is because I hate book reviews, yet I feel this overwhelming urge to review books. Most book reviews are, you know, pompous and have these snotty attitudes. I want to write reviews for The People.

Does any of this make sense?