Michael Mullins
To the extent that this paradigm of classifying people into such categories is valid, I cleanly fall into the INTP category. In my experience, the Myers-Briggs model is at best a paradigm with which to think about oneself and one's place in the grander scheme. Among those who adopt this paradigm, there is an overwhelming tendency to actual believe the labels, taking them on as identities. I.E. “I am an INTP.” Nothing in nature exists that is an INTP. We can look around and see humans, male and female (and those in between). We can see animals and plants and rocks. Try though you might, you will never find an INTP in nature.
It's very easy to see how destructive such an approach has the potential of becoming. “If I'm an INTP, then I'm this way ... I prefer these things ... these are my strengths.” This is a way for people to naturally seek out stability in what can feel like an existence of shifting sands. I think books like this have can do as much harm as good. With that said, if you can approach the whole thing as just a concept and not take it on as a worldview, this book is intelligent if a little scattered. It is, however, too certain of its conclusions by half. I believe the author makes the mistake of extrapolating his experience of identifying as an INTP into something universally applicable. Even though Meyers-Briggs overwhelmingly classifies me — right down the center line — as an INTP, on nearly every page he makes assertions which are foreign to my experience. If this happened here and there, I would chalk it up to the diversity of experience, but the preponderance of these assertions shakes the book completely out of the realm of relatability for me, presumably a key target of the book. At one point near the end the author inserts mention of ‘old soul' and ‘average-aged soul' INTPs, meaning that some INTPs will start out much more developed than the typical INTP, further along in the evolution he lays out in the book. This really does address the major fault not only with this book but with whole paradigm on which it's built.
The more I see Meyers-Briggs bandied about, the less convinced I am of its value and the more destructive I think it may be. I think instead if we simply developed society in a way which made room for obvious core differences among people then the need for having such a system would be obviated. People read these descriptions of personality, relate to them, and then take them on as identities. The reason this happens is largely because they feel alienated. In a society which assumed a wide range of natural personalities and which allowed and encouraged exploration of these differences, there would be very little reason for people to try to fit themselves into these little, typological boxes. The cost of doing so seems to high to me, regardless of the comfort of feeling understood and validated brought on by ‘knowing your type.'
With such a mixed bag, with the foundations of the book so in question, there's very little I can offer in way of conclusion except to say buyer beware.
In a book encompassing nothing less than the entirety of human potential Toby Orb has written a thorough, statistic-laden, intelligent and slightly tepid response to all the things which could go wrong in the worst of all possible nightmares. Asteroids, climate change, nuclear war, volcanos, exploding stars, AI — everything (save one thing) which poses natural or anthropogenic annihilation of all human potential (as opposed to just those threats which could cause the extinction of the species) is gamed out, mathematically and logically. Herein lies the only real problem with the book. In another recent book, The Republican Brain: the Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality, Chris Mooney points out that such factual counterpointing rarely has the desired effect. Mooney says:
[...] as for defending reality itself? That's the trickiest thing of all.
As I've suggested, refuting conservative falsehoods does only limited good. There are more than enough conservative intellectuals out there to stand up (sic.) “refute” the refutations, leading to endless, fruitless arguments. And for the general public, those unconvinced or undecided, sound and fury over technical matters is off-putting, and leaves behind the impression that nobody knows what is actually true.
Rather, liberals and scientists should find some key facts—the best facts—and integrate them into stories that move people. A data dump is worse than pointless; it's counterproductive. But a narrative can change heart and mind alike.
And here, again, is where you really have to admire conservatives. Their narrative of the founding of the country, which casts the U.S. as a “Christian nation” and themselves as the Tea Party, is a powerful story that perfectly matches their values. It just happens to be . . . wrong. But liberals will never defeat it factually—they have to tell a better story of their own.
The same goes for any number of other issues where conservative misinformation has become so dominant. Again and again, liberals have the impulse to shout back what's true. Instead, they need to shout back what matters.
You could argue that the three main legacy branches of modern psychology are Freudian, Jungian and Adlerian. Everyone has heard of Freud; most everyone has heard of Jung; some have heard of Alfred Adler. Don't believe me? Type in ‘Freud' (just the one name, no first name) into a Google search field. Now try it with ‘Jung'. Finally, try ‘Adler.' Assuming the search results have not significantly changed since this writing ‘Freud' and ‘Jung' will return the desired figure as the first result, as well as a biographical strip down the side of the page: Wikipedia snippet, birth and death dates, etc. ‘Adler' will get you a page filled with various Adlers — as names, as places — with poor Alfred down near the bottom of the page with one, pathetic entry. Kishimi quotes Adler early on, saying, “There might come a time when one will not remember my name; one might even have forgotten that our school ever existed.” Kishimi then writes that, “[...Adler] went on to say that it didn't matter. The implication being that if his school were forgotten, it would be because his ideas had outgrown the bounds of a single area of scholarship, and become commonplace, and a feeling shared by everyone.”
We are somewhere in between these two events, between the forgetting and an all-pervasive adoption of his ideas. It would be unfair to say that his name is forgotten; fading into the background, sure. With the advent of the internet, nothing is truly gone. An endlessly republished encyclopedia means that the curious and persistent can just about remember it all. You could also not say that his ideas have reached dominance; but if you stand back far enough and get quiet long enough, you can see another perspective beginning to shift into focus in a big way. Before Adler — linked in this book to the ideas of ancient Greece — you have Eastern philosophy: the Taoists, the Buddhist; a little later Zen shows up — in short, an understanding of power and ease which is hardly new and has found greater expression than just in the writings of the ancient Greeks. It is this forgotten wisdom with which The Courage to be Disliked concerns itself, even if it isn't fully aware of what it's doing.
In the form of a Socratic dialogue between teacher and student, the material is clear, methodically presented and comprehensible even to someone coming to these ideas for the first time.
Focus on something and it will grow. It seems to be universal. The best way to get a difficult teenager to be more difficult it to focus on their difficulties. Meet political strife with more political strife and where there was a kitchen fire suddenly the whole neighborhood is alight. This is an extreme oversimplification of Adler's ideas, but the difference between etiology (Freud) and teleology (Adler) in many ways comes down to such a focus. Adler puts the power of our lives right where it belongs, in our hands and on our shoulders. We alone bear responsibility. The notion that we somehow created situations apparently beyond our control is harsh medicine, at the very least, and baffling to many first encountering it. Someone reacting to Adler's ideas might justifiably say, “But we can't blame the victim for the crime.” Adler might respond, “What's past is prologue.” He would probably have said it in German, though.
It might be time that we re-remember the name Alfred Adler. If this book is just one in a line of such books I would call that good news.
A successful, creative comedian/actor mistaking randomness for creativity. Let me be clear, my estimation of this book is not some puritan knee-jerk reaction to base material — I have no such prejudice — but simply a reader responding to the lack of structure or vision in the material. A memoir by any other name does not a memoir make: many forget that a memoir not written explicitly and carefully for an audience is just a diary or journal written in retrospect. Better writers than Oswalt have forgotten this. I recently read Venice Observed by Mary McCarthy, an esteemed writer apparently. She likewise failed to connect the reader with the material. You could make a convincing argument that this is the primary job of all writers. Fail at this and nothing else matters. The comparison between McCarthy and Oswalt is an interesting one, I think. The writing style and subject matter could be no further apart, and yet both authors fail in very much the same way. Random memories are just that, your random memories. If you expect a reader to care you need to make those memories the reader's, vicariously, so that the reader can invest. Oswalt tells us he understands this on some level. About half way through the book, the origin of the book's title is made clear. He says:
But for me, and my circle of high school friends, it came down to Zombies, Spaceships, or Wastelands. These were the three doors out of the Vestibule of Adolescence, and each opened onto a dark, echoing hallway. The corridors twisted and intertwined, like a DNA helix. Maybe those paths were a rough reflection of the DNA we were born with, which made us more likely to cherish and pursue one corridor over another.
I'm going to try to explain each of these categories (and will probably fail). And then I'll figure out where I came out, on the other end, once the cards were played. I think this chapter is more for me than for you.
When I first dabbled in this book, years ago, I remember placing it in lineage with so many others, an endless parade of books which all say more or less the same thing when it comes to that most workaday aspect of storytelling, the plot. Campbell is invoked, the hero's journey extolled, and careful and precise subdivisions of what makes a plot are enumerated. If you watched Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society this would be the point to rip up the book in question and proclaim it “Excrement!” I wonder sometimes if the reason for so many bad movies and books now isn't due to the readers of these books growing into their own and writing the way they've been taught; badly, I mean, using shortcut and formula instead of craft and artistry. I'm a different, older writer now, and whereas before I missed them, the nuance and wisdom of Dibell's book and how it stands out from these other books became apparent with this latest reading.
Myself, I think focusing on plot is putting the cart before the horse and something like Dibbel's book would better serve a book's second draft, but better writers than I — which is to say writers who have actually finished a book — would disagree. There's more than enough pantsing/plotting debate going around, though. I'm of the mind that we don't go to story to find out what what happens, but rather seek to find out what happens in order to have an excuse to immerse ourselves in story.
At one point Dibell says
As I've said before, stories—especially live, convincing stories—will change under your hands. That's the reason I've never been persuaded of the usefulness of outlines. By other writers' experience and my own, I judge that you generally won't know how a story's going to go until you get close to the place where something is just about to happen. It will take its own shape and tell you how it wants to go, if you listen and watch attentively for the ways it's telling you.
The author holds a myopic view of books and writing, disdaining anything which isn't lowbrow. This note grinds away persistently underneath the text, constantly irritating. He has staked out his little enclave of interesting books and defends it, never aware that he is confusing anything elevated and challenging with pretentiousness. Somehow if one likes Stephen King or James Patterson this precludes a love of Tolstoy or Vollmann. Or so the author implies. What saves the book (and confuses the reader) is the obvious intelligence of the author and his ability to write well, the stuff of the very books he derides. Despite it all, Michael Allen is an interesting writer. I just wish he saw a little more.
Very well done. I wouldn't say I read it in a white-hot heat, but in this small volume Gottschall manages to pack in a lot: dreams, identity, online fantasy worlds, Wagner/Hitler and that most destructive of myths which resulted, the real nightmare quality of children at play. There was something mildly depressing about the whole enterprise, story as a concept reduced in parts to a balm we slather over ourselves in order to get through life. Story is something else for me, as I suspect it is with most writers. Story hums with life, especially when it comes unbidden to the writing mind, transporting the soul to someplace altogether bigger, realer, weightier than the shell which normally houses us and our day-to-day experiences. Definitely worth one's time though, this book. Just don't expect a paean to escapism.
I realize that mine is the only rating on this book so far and that I should explain why I ranked it so low. Mostly, this seems less like a unified book and more like a collection of lists, borrowed ideas and repetition. Some of the information is correct, some is just wrong: the admonishment not to fast, that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that one should eat a little throughout the day — all these concepts are questionable at best and much disputed by modern research. The core idea here, of course, is mindful eating. As an approach to food, mindful eating could not be more important. So those two stars are for the central idea.
If Zoe Silva reads this, I would like to say that the start of a good book is here, but it needs to be organized around a central plan, repetition removed and please, please, please have it proofread, not just for typos but for a writing style which sometimes dips into incomprehensibility.
But do write the book that this book should have been. We need mindfulness in all aspects of our live right now, in eating most of all.
The work of highly successful artists is often described in the work's place in time relative to the artist's career. Thus you have early Picasso, late-period Beethoven. Sometimes the word vintage is employed as in, “Jaws is vintage Speilberg...” Writers seem to fare less well than their non-literary counterparts as their careers mature. Late-period Beethoven could be summed up by terms masterful, exquisite and revolutionary. Picasso never stopped innovating and only in very old age, right at the end, did he struggle and fail. My perception is that writers seldom get a glittering third act. Maybe time and further reading will prove me wrong. DeLillo seems to have the reputation of the artist whose best work is strictly in the rear-view mirror. I don't agree.
Centered on a trio of characters, this novella seems to vibrate with what must be a distinct Delilloness. I felt it in White Noise and I felt it here in this compact story of an experimental filmmaker (whose career it seems will never have a second act, let alone a late-period/vintage/revolutionary phase); a fading, retired military scholar — the intended subject of the filmmaker's new project; and the scholar's disturbed daughter. My overall impression is much the same as it was for White Noise. Somehow I sense that DeLillo is playing three-dimensional chess, and while I might be stuck playing checkers, I can feel the genius in his work. I will leave in-depth interpretation of the book up to readers more familiar with his entire body of work. All I can offer is an assertion that whatever skill you can identify on the page is just the tip of the iceberg. The uneasy, almost other-worldly quality and the characters which practically slip from the page they are so alive attest to much more going on than meets the eye.
If anything, reading this short work convinces me that DeLillo deserves a full hearing, that I owe it to him and to myself to read all his books. I started Underworld as a teenager, loved it even then, but stopped for whatever reasons. Let's blame it on the hormones. Mao and Libra have been on my (virtual) shelf forever. I will now try to make my way through the entire heap. I can't offer a higher recommendation than to say it makes me want to read more.
This has to be my favorite book on writing and I've read it at least three times in as many years. Victoria Nelson lays out the anatomy of the blocked writer, inch by inch, the bare corpse split open on the table before us. The three overarching themes of the book are:
(1) the tension between authenticity and ambition
(2) the truly complex nature of the beast; there is not one block but many, their shapes varied and causes many
(3) a block is not a curse but a blessing, a message from the creative self, whence the writing comes
Heartbreaking.
I prefer to know as little about a book going in as possible. If it's good by reputation and of a general subject matter to interest me — or if it seems an especially important work, as this one — then I prefer to take the ride the author intends, discovering the book in the initial read. Such was the power of ‘The Nickel Boys' that I was unsure if I was reading a disguised memoir, what they unfortunately now refer to as a ‘nonfiction novel', or if it was a work of pure, if brutalized imagination. The truth was, as many truths are, somewhere in the middle. Based on the all-too-real Dozier School for Boys, this book's characters may be fictional but their stories are true. From here arises the heartbreak.
It is unfortunate that the story which unfolds is in many ways predictable. Stories of brutalized prisoners litter history as do stories of abused children, and the story of the torture of the Black Man in America is so common that it has permanently warped us as nation, an eternal specter hovering over the shoulder of anyone speaking of American exceptionalism and greatness. ‘The Nickel Boys' is very much a story of that torture, but these tortured boys were not only black, and so calling this a story of black oppression doesn't quite hit the mark. Should we ask how can we as a society imprison our young? I think the question is larger than even that: Can we really punish people into falling in line? This seems to me the greatest myth in a book filled with the misdeeds of people acting out whole hosts of destructive myths. While it is surely necessary to remove people who endanger others, the notion that we need to do so brutally in order to punish is one of the great tragedies of society. We should imprison with regret, trepidation. We should mourn all those whose freedoms are so taken away, no matter how warranted. Until we can do so, ideas of greatness and exceptionalism need to be stricken from our collective hearts.
Colson Whitehead is a very good writer, at least as far as this book demonstrates. I've not yet read another. The novel's power is found in the story's arc, and so reading ‘The Nickel Boys' in one sitting would be best. At about 250 pages, this is not unreasonable. Much of the book is a straightforward telling, without artifice and literary tricks. Whitehead understands language and can dip into poetic registers when it suits the narrative, but generally let's the power of the story tell itself. Mostly it's an important book. And heartbreaking. Did I mention heartbreaking?
Agatha goes here... Agatha goes there...
Agatha goes absolutely nowhere. Bouncing from one to another of a series of forgettable characters, from the Cotswolds to London, there and back again... a Habit Story. Not until the seventy-five percent marker do we encounter anything resembling an endearing, memorable character in the form of a small tabby. Yes there is some trifle of a plot revolving — hardly a spoiler this, given the title and genre — around a murder. But I just could not summon the ability to care. Perhaps it's the bland, clotted cream world in which Agatha finds herself, but it seemed to me more a picaresque, badly-paced series of events than anything whole and structured, something providing a unity. Maybe Aristotle was onto something. This series seems popular so perhaps I'll give it month or so and try another one, hoping that the author is slow in starting. Alas, things do not bode well for Ms. Raisin.
A headlong plunge into this clash of ideals, this history of the fight for the American soul drives recent events into perspective. Just how far have we actually evolved in the hundred-and-fifty-plus years since the ending of the Civil War? Every glance at the news has to make us question our own collective enlightenment, our wokeness. Even if Catton were not such a good writer, this book would be well worth the reader's time because of its relevance. But Catton can write. Those — myself included — unfamiliar with the intricacies of Civil War tactics and maneuvering need not be put off. The true value here lies in the sweep of the narrative.
Read in a gulp, Catton's history was most valuable in providing an understanding of the countervailing forces which very nearly cleaved the country in two. There are no heroes here, and in this was the greatest surprise for me. While the evils of slavery and the necessity of destroying the institution are obvious, much less so is the character of the southerner. For what did he fight? The answer is not obvious and was not made so by the end of the book. This is at least part of the point. The reasons for the war are ultimately as varied as the people which participated. More than anything, it is the humanity of all involved which comes through on these pages.
Read it twice, and on the second reading I found myself equally charmed but also disappointed. It hardly begins before it's over. A fictionalized Queen Elizabeth stumbling unexpectedly into the labyrinth of literature, becoming a bookish Queen, causing problems for those who seek to keep her comfortably in her own lane. This book could have been so much more, the book that exists just the starter's pistol for a long exploration of the monarchy, the history she saw and created, veering away from the simple interest of literature into . . . what? A million possibilities appear, the simple opening dominoeing, consequences befalling consequences, wars perhaps breaking out as a result, beheadings in the Middle East, regimes toppled. Rushdie, after all, failed to contain the drama and the absurdity to the page. The Crown isn't popular accidentally. What a great feast of a novel this could have been. And maybe will be. Probably not by Bennett as he is only 7 or so years shy of the Queen at the age of her death, a death which still feels surprisingly untimely — but by someone. It's the type of novel I'm not sure we really get anymore.
Anyway. Read it if you haven't. Bennett is, as previously stated, charming, if a little on the surface.
Three stars are for the book, with maybe one of those stars born of a gravity effect from the five-star drama - of the same name and similar pedigree - pulling up the score of this lackluster adaptation. Hidden within the BBC show are depths unspoken. Unfortunately, that depth is of an elusive, almost silent variety. A better novelist could have listened, through the silence, and found the truly literary amongst the dramatic. Instead, we have a thinly disguised, reformatted teleplay. Even the tense carried over, as if the author couldn't be bothered to transform the most surely present-tense script (scripts are almost universally written in the present-tense) into a more traditional, past-tense novel. Simply set the writing application for stun - reformatting the script - and insert the odd detail, a bit of inner-dialogue, a novelistic touch. I exaggerate, but by how much I'm not sure.
But do catch the BBC program.
If anywhere the idea applies that in order to suck the life out of something all you have to do is overanalyze it, then it is here. When I approached the book initially — intrigued by its title — I was hoping for a reflection of what I believe New TV to be about: an extension of the novel as form. Many of the series of this new era, both good and bad, are nothing more than dramatized novels: they exist in large form, over at least dozens of hours, and contain stories which arc and which all, more or less, come together under a ur-story, the spine of the work. Deadwood, Breaking Bad, House of Cards (both the UK and US versions), and The Sopranos represent perhaps the best of the lot. It is serial storytelling, as apposed to episodic. Others — House pops most readily to mind — are a combination of the serial and the episodic, still important perhaps for the larger story, told over seasons rather than minutes.
It is to this aspect that I was hoping the book would address itself. Instead, we are offered an inane psycho–spiritual analysis of the series, using Lost's many literary allusions, direct or implied, as lenses through which to view the show. OK, this would have been an intriguing aspect in the context of a larger book, but half that would have been fine, thank you all the same. Hell, half of half that would have been too much. Ironically, the approach that the author has taken to the work leaves the book itself feeling very episodic. There is no cohesion, mere endless and exhaustive (exhausting) analysis. A reader of the book which had never experienced the series would likely find something else to watch after putting the book down.
In the end, “Lost” is not Dostoevsky. Whatever pretense to depth the series offers is just that, pretense. Saying so isn't a slight. The series writers knew what they were doing. They were telling a fun story, but doing so with the courage to extend themselves over a very long expanse of time. This is the novelist's courage, the reason that the novel as form is still relevant today. A book which addressed itself to this aspect could have been a fascinating read. Unfortunately, this is not that book.
As with many things, my relationship to this book is complicated at best. Over the course of a few of his books on literary theory, Pressfield's voice grinds consistently in that ‘aw-shucks' gear which I associate with the 1940's or 50‘s. But the problem is greater than just tone. At heart, is a philosophy. Actually two. And here is where the complications arise.
From the book, about 16% of the way in:
The Gita is not like the Old or New Testament or any Buddhist or Confucian or Native American scripture I have read. It advocates killing. “Slay the enemy without mercy,” Krishna instructs the great warrior Arjuna. “You will not be killing them, for I have slain them all already.”
A master of the art of war has said, ‘I do not dare to be the host (to commence the war); I prefer to be the guest (to act on the defensive). I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshalling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms (to fight) where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing against the enemy where there is no enemy.There is no calamity greater than lightly engaging in war. To do that is near losing (the gentleness) which is so precious. Thus it is that when opposing weapons are (actually) crossed, he who deplores (the situation) conquers.
Now arms, however beautiful, are instruments of evil omen, hateful, it may be said, to all creatures. Therefore they who have the Tao do not like to employ them.[...]He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in battle has his place (rightly) according to those rites.
Wherever a host is stationed, briars and thorns spring up. In the sequence of great armies there are sure to be bad years.
There really is no secret. A positive attitude tends to produce a positive life; a negative attitude, a negative one. This is not rocket science. I enjoyed the movie because of the music, funnily enough. I ripped the soundtrack and have listened to it numerous times. This is no philosophical heavyweight. Nonetheless, you could do worse than to spend a few hours with something of a positive message, Pollyanna notwithstanding.
There are certainly deeper truths. True and great philosophies to explore and inhabit. Taoism and Buddhism spring to mind — my personal favorites. The philosophies which propelled the Renaissance and the Enlightenment have something to offer. The smorgasbord with which we are not presented in terms of available literature means you can range far and wide, pick and choose, and with a little work come away from the experience with a fairly sophisticated worldview.
So why the high rating? I tend to judge things more and more on their own merit as apposed to comparing, one to the next. The perspective presented here is very positive. And as I said, I liked the music. If you want deep, read Nietzsche. If you're looking for a game-changer, I would recommend Lao Tzu. If darkness encroaches and fear is taking over, consider the words of Siddhartha Gautama. Whatever you do, please don't turn it into a religion. And if you do, please don't foist it on your neighbor.
If you simply want to turn off you brain for a few hours and have someone tell you it can all be alright, well, you could do worse than this.
Rand succeeds despite shitty politics and a sophomoric world-view. The more I explore literature, the more I realize just how flawed a novel can be and still hold up. With Rand there are two types of characters and that's all you get: White Hats and Blacks Hats. The White Hats are the heroes, standing alone against an inferior sea of snivelling underlings, incapable of seeing just how magnificent the White Hats actually are. The Black Hats are any of the aforementioned underlings unfortunate enough to show up in the foreground sufficiently for Rand to take notice. Their job it to try to thwart the noble (and capitalistic) ambitions of the White Hats.
On one level this is so much roman à clé, used to support Rand's philosophic darling, Objectivism. And in her mind, I have no doubt, the staring role of Chief White Hat belonged to Rand herself. The problem with literature as rhetoric is that humanity is invariably more complex and flawed than any such Black and White thinking can represent. In the real world, every White Hat riding in on White Horse probably has a whore tied up in the closet, just waiting for him (or her) to stop saving the world long enough to return and do whatever depravity White Hats do when no one is looking. Without nuance, character remains caricature.
And yet the novel works. There are two overarching skills that come into play for novelists. Writing and storytelling. And while Rand is a bad writer she is a very good, if not great, storyteller. (This same argument could be made about J.K. Rowling, save that she doesn't have a political ax to grind - unless you include muggle discrimination in and amongst the wizard world. Also, literary theory doesn't always carry over well between mainstream/literary books and genre writing.) So while Rand's prose suffers from simplistic characterizations and a mind stuck somewhere in deep adolescence, the book itself is underpinned by an engaging story, a phenomenal sense of world and place, and a real talent for plotting that would be equally at home in, say, a book by Rushdie or Pynchon as one by Stephen King or Dan Brown.
By all means, give it a try. Even with its deep flaws I gave it four stars. And I stand by that. Despite her considerable efforts to ruin it this novel has good bones. The only caveat would be for a young person approaching the book for the first time. Please understand that the politics presented here - those explicit and those implied - are untenable when held against the light. Neoconservatism (also confusedly referred to as Neoliberalism) is ultimately an attempt to justify our baser instincts as not merely acceptable and unavoidable, but noble. (For a more adult perspective, check out Ken Wilber, though his novel Boomeritis is lacking in all the places Rand excels. In short, he's not much in the novel-writing department. Luckily he writes mostly non-fiction. Start there.)
If you can see past the sophism, you might just enjoy Atlas Shrugged. You'll also come to understand why Randall Jarrell referred to a novel as “a long piece of prose with something wrong with it.”
Fact #1: As a rule, I refuse to DNF books. I would estimate that the ratio of books which I put down and say, “Nope, I'm done.” is about 1:150. I put books down all the time, but that's because I read like an ADHD howler monkey on cocaine, surrounded by the many shiny objects which comprise our ever-increasing shared literary heritage. My intent is always to pick them back up at a later date.
Fact #2: As a rule, I do not write reviews of books which I have not read front to back.
Fact #3: I have no problem viewing women as equals, and in the case of individual skills, betters. I've never understood the need to denigrate women. Accuse me of misogyny if you want — and some will want to by the end of this review — but I have no problem with the ongoing sexual revolution.
Fact #4: I was very much in the mood for an intellectually stimulating book on programming, a perhaps philosophical smorgasbord of interesting and at times fascinating essays and stories about the history of computers and that surprisingly engaging pastime some of us engage in known as programming.
Fact #5: This book — or what I read of it — seems to be (wait for it...) an intellectually stimulating book on programming, a perhaps philosophical smorgasbord of interesting and at times fascinating essays and stories about the history of computers and that surprisingly engaging pastime some of us engage in known as programming.
Fact #6: But the women (and perhaps some men) involved in the production of this book ruined it. Instead what we have is actually a smokescreen. The authors and most certainly the editors of the book wanted you to think this was a book about programming but actually this was a book about the contributions of women to programming, and any actual entertainment value derived from the book about the fascinating subject of programming was purely accidental. They had an ax to grind and they ground it at every available opportunity.
Fact #7: If they had written a book about the contributions of women to the discipline of programming and billed it as such, I might have read it, finished it, and then praised it. Assuming of course it was well-written. But instead they tried to backdoor an agenda in there, reminding the reader continuously of the unfairness of being a women.
For anyone interested, I put do the book down at this paragraph:
“““
During the first half of 1964, two college-age White men, John McGeachie and Michael Busch, devoted hours to computer programming. So much time, in fact, that McGeachie was known as 225, short for the GE-225 mainframe computer for which he was responsible, and Busch was known as 30, short for the GE Datanet-30 computer that he programmed. They were students at Dartmouth, an elite, overwhelmingly White, Ivy League college that admitted only men as undergraduates, and they were coding a new computing network. In the early 1960s, McGeachie's and Busch's access to technology was extraordinary.
”””