I'm doing an experiment where I'm trying to understand what people see in Stephen King. So I'm reading the Dark Tower (the series he considers his magnum opus) and connected books. Since The Dark Tower and the Stand contain the same big bad, it seemed like a book I needed to read. The Stand has not convinced me that the man can write. This book was more of a mishmash of lazy cardboard cutout characters interacting than an actual story. The edition I have is the newer version with over an extra 100,000 words, but the book could easily be cut down from 1300+ pages to under 700 without changing anything important. It could probably be cut to 400 pages and become a better book in the process.
This is obviously one of his very early works, so he hadn't honed his craft yet. But I feel like I might have lost a few IQ points just from having read it. Definitely not recommended.
This is a book about the eviction crisis in America. It is an incredibly powerful, but ultimately very sad book. It really brought the stories of the tenants and the landlords to life in a very powerful way. The tenants in this book are all victims of our unwillingness to assist the poor with housing, even though housing costs continue to rise. People were living in places without stoves, refrigerators, heat, etc., because they had no choice. In some cases, even homeless shelters provided better services than one's own apartment.
The system, at least in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is rigged against tenants (and Wisconsin is not alone in this). Very few states have strong protections for tenants. Entire neighborhoods are torn apart by evictions. For some of the people in this book, their lot in life appears to be their own fault (addiction, inability to hold a job, etc), but eviction becomes a vicious cycle. You don't go to work because you're moving, and you lose your job. You lose your job, and you can't pay your rent and you get evicted. Landlords evict people for calling the police because of domestic abuse happening in a nearby apartment, because landlords get cited if the police show up too often at their properties. People lose their welfare benefits because they've moved and remembering to call the welfare office was the last thing on their mind. And then they get evicted. Landlords purposely refuse to repair property because it costs money, and if residents complain, the landlord finds a reason to evict them. In other words, no one wins but the landlords.
This book is incredibly depressing, but incredibly important. I highly recommend it to anyone who is interested in sociology, or just the plight of the poor in the United States.
While I think John Cassidy's [b:How Markets Fail: The Logic of Economic Calamities 6691186 How Markets Fail The Logic of Economic Calamities John Cassidy https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1442955895s/6691186.jpg 6886629] is more accessible, this book definitely covers more ground. I think anyone planning on reading this book, though, might do better to start with [b:The Undoing Project: A Friendship That Changed Our Minds 30334134 The Undoing Project A Friendship That Changed Our Minds Michael Lewis https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1464874845s/30334134.jpg 50830817] by Michael Lewis, because an understanding of Prospect Theory and Behavioral Economics would go a long way to understanding why the Efficient Market Hypothesis is based on false premises (the biggest false premise being the belief in rational actors). While the Efficient Market Hypothesis is an important and usable model for equities, and this book does make sure to emphasize that, it is a limited model that is not always correct. In fact, when it is wrong, it is very wrong. In the end, attempts to beat the market will always fail. More importantly: efforts to beat the market by creating new derivatives or other financial products will always lead to financial disaster.
A WMD, Weapon of Math Destruction, is an algorithm that is a block box (opaque), used at scale, and damages the lives of people, generally poor minorities. Cathy O'Neil goes through a lot of detail describing several of these WMDs and how they are ruining people's lives. Hate Clopening? (working at Closing and then Opening up the next morning). It's likely an algorithm created that schedule. Hate the fact that employers now use opaque personality tests to look for mental illness while you're applying for a job? Another WMD.
This book is important, and I think it should be read by anyone concerned about how Big Data can be used to harm us all. As someone whose future career depends upon algorithmic learning, statistics, and mathematics, I can say this book was eye opening. I'm used to hearing about the power of algorithms and modeling, but really, a model is not the thing that it models (as every mathematician knows).
This book is a lot more accessible than Derman's Models.Behaving.Badly, even if it is in the same vein. It has a much clearer focus, and it very clearly explains the traps mathematical modeling has created. I highly recommend this book to everyone. It doesn't require an understanding of math (there are no models or equations in this book). Just an understanding of how algorithms can contain bias through the use of proxies. Read it and share it.
I don't often read comedies (or watch them for that matter. I haven't watched a sitcom in years). I'm much more drama oriented. That being said, this book was wonderful. Dark humor is my favorite style of comedy, and this book certainly fits into the dark humor genre. This is a much different book than [b:Fight for Your Long Day 8612461 Fight for Your Long Day Alex Kudera https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1279743920s/8612461.jpg 13482868], which shares the same protagonist. In fact, I enjoy this book quite a bit more than the first novel (which is saying something, because I liked that book a lot). I started out reading slowly because my schedule didn't allow much time to read, but by the middle, I couldn't stop. I kept staying up late to get further and further into the very engrossing tale. Watching Michael's life unfold in the way that it did was morbidly fascinating. There's a bit of absurdity to the humor, especially as the novel progresses. Michael's situation, already bad because of his job as an adjunct, spins somewhat out of control. It is all of his own making, of course. No one can undo a life better than the person living it. There's a fair bit of philosophy imbued within the novel (relevant because Michael is a professor of Philosophy). In a way, Michael's path in the novel follows a philosophical path, from simple existentialism to an almost Dada like life near the end of the book. All in all, I would highly recommend reading Auggie's Revenge.This is very much a book about Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. They are both characters in this novel. Fairly current events, though fictionalized, play a large role in the novel, especially near the end. As someone who has made Pennsylvania his home, and who loves Philadelphia, I was glad this was the case.
For those who have seen the movie based on this book, I still think it is in your best interests to read the book. It's fascinating, to put it mildly. This isn't exactly a story where I can ruin the ending: the big investment banks created derivative products called CDOs based on subprime (meaning unlikely to be paid back) mortgages. The CDOs were insured (mostly by AIG) by Credit Default Swaps, and AIG and others happily allowed people without any investment in CDOs to buy Credit Default Swaps on their own (basically allowing the creation of a derivative of a derivative, the synthetic CDO). The financial rating institutions, like Moody's and Standard and Poor's, rated these CDOs as AAA, which meant that insurance companies and retirement funds could invest in them. (As a note: AAA means as safe as a government bond, and therefore, riskless). This was a catastrophe waiting to happen and it appears that the banks really had no idea what they were doing, despite being warned by at least a few people. While this all sounds very technical, Lewis manages to make it entirely understandable.
This is essentially a story about what happens when we let our financial institutions run amok through deregulation. Deregulation began with Reagan, and then continued onwards through the Bush Sr, Clinton, Bush Jr., and Obama administrations (I can only imagine it will continue through the Trump administration as well). This book is a perfect story of a perfect storm, and if it is missing anything, it is a call to action. But I think the call to action is implied by the very nature of the events Lewis describes.
I can understand why some people were disappointed with this book. It's not what I expected when I purchased it. There's a good deal of memoir, philosophy, history, and physics in the book before Derman talks about Economics and the Financial Markets. It is worth it. Derman makes the obvious case that the model is not the thing it represents (similar to how Derrida and other Deconstructionists explained that a word is a symbol for a thing, and not the thing itself). He also stresses the importance of theories and how models are very different from theories.
As a dual major in Data Analytics and Applied Mathematics, the math in this book was easy to follow. There's little of it, and it's concentrated at the end of the book. If you're math-phobic it might be difficult to understand what Derman is demonstrating. Basically, he is showing that models build on the Efficient Market hypothesis (he calls it the Efficient Market Model) and the Capital Asset Pricing Model are based on false premises. This is easy to understand when you realize that Economics, despite its adherents claims to the contrary, isn't actually a science. It's a branch of the social sciences and often doesn't stand up to the rigor of actual science. Derman's discussion of Physics earlier in the book provide an interesting contrast to the models used on Wall Street which aren't build on theory, but are simply built on other models.
The markets are unpredictable because the markets are influenced by people. This isn't a matter of just too many variables: it's a fundamental problem of markets. People react to the markets, and the markets react to people. This means that predicting future performance (generally based on present value) isn't possible because you can't predict how people will act/react. This is the fundamental flaw of any model of financial markets. Derman steers clear of the morality of things like swaps and the subprime mortgage crisis. Instead, he demonstrates that our entire financial industry is essentially built on a house of cards. The traders are worshipping at the altar of mathematics, but the mathematics of economics in general, and financial markets in particular, are built of flimsy material.
Cooper writes about the intersection of sex and violence. This novel, mostly told through anonymous message boards provides a slew of unreliable narrators. While Cooper is often labeled as a transgressive writer, I really believe he transcends such labels, and it would be reductionist to say that his novels are transgressive. I find them wrapped in so many layers of honesty that isn't always present in the works of other transgressive writers. Highly recommended unless you have a low tolerance for sadism.
As much as I wanted to love this book, the narrator is just too much of a monster. In the end, I found him convincing, but too terrifying to relate to. There are no soft edges to grab, and so every encounter with the book made me both disgusted and nauseated. I love the work of Dennis Cooper but I found nothing redemptive, and in the end, the book is both empty of meaning and heart. I'd give the book 3.5 stars if I could, but only because of the incredibly high quality of Cooper's prose. I could only recommend this book to Cooper completists.
This book tells the story of an adjunct professor in English who has to work five jobs to support himself. It covers one day in his life: his long day, when he has to work all five jobs. While Duffy has the noblest of goals at times, reality and his own human frailties make this day a particular difficult one.
I came to this book with an open mind, but I was sure that I would disagree with Shivani on every point. However, Shivani makes a pretty good case for the idea that MFA writing programs have created a conservatism in American fiction. If I had one complaint, it is that the book provides plenty of great arguments with very little evidence. Having widely read many literary journals over the years, I don't need any examples, because I've seen it for myself. If I came to this book cold, however, I might find his arguments less convincing. Still, if you're a writer, and you have some background in literary theory and criticism, I recommend you read this. It's a pretty quick read. The very last essay is the most powerful, in my opinion.
While this is a good scholarly review of Chaos Theory as it applies to contemporary American Fiction, it leans very heavily on Postmodern Fiction and ignores the more recent “Hysterical Reality” movement. If you know nothing about Chaos Theory, be sure to read [b:Chaos: The Making of a New Science 64582 Chaos The Making of a New Science James Gleick http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1327941595s/64582.jpg 62690] by [a:James Gleick 10401 James Gleick http://d.gr-assets.com/authors/1304671926p2/10401.jpg] first to get a proper introduction to the basics. It also helps if you've read books by Don Delillo, Barth and Cormac McCarthy
I'll start by saying that I understand why many contemporary novelists are fans of this novel. The family dynamics in this novel are so life-like, I felt like a fly on the wall who is observing a real dysfunctional family. That being said, the novel suffers from a lack of critical editing. It could easily have been cut to half the length without any loss of resonance or truth. Still, I recommend it to anyone that writes about family dynamics and any fan of novels centering around those dynamics. Just be prepared to work hard to make it through the overly drawn out center of the novel.
There are many different ways to look at A Greater Monster. There's the obvious analysis: a book about one man's transcendental journey brought about by the use of a psychoactive drug. The novel is certainly enjoyable at that level. To me, there's a lot more too it than that, though. The book is, in many ways, a Katabasis (a journey to the underworld). Early on in his journey, the protagonist meets Charon (who calls himself Ron), implying a descent into Hades. His descent, though, has more to do with Alice in Wonderland than it does with Greek mythology. There's a whole cast of incredible characters: The Trickster Coyote, the Sphinx, the three seer sisters, The Snow Queen, and even G'nesh (Ganesh). Like Alice, the protagonist undergoes a series of transformations.
There is also a sense that the hero is passing through various worlds, much in the same way a dying man passes through Bardos in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Each transition and each transformation leads the protagonist into the next level. He eventually ends up at a bizarre circus, which is beautifully illustrated. The book, in a nod to our modern age, also contains 2 URLS that lead to supplementary material for the book (much in the same way that The Raw Shark Texts has unchapters hidden both in the real world and online.)
A Greater Monster is an enjoyable read. It is not “light” reading, however, and the reader needs to pay close attention. The effort is worth it.
Note: The book does contains sexual imagery and is not appropriate for children.
I wish Goodreads would let us give half stars, because this is definitely 3.5 stars, but not quite 4. The book is about a therapist who has a sexual addiction, and he acts on that addiction with patients that he finds fascinating (both female and male). In the meantime, he deprives his loving wife of her sexual needs. The book is written in very short chapters and moves quickly. While the main character is entirely unlikable, he's so fascinating, that we actually have to see what he does next. This book is only recommended to people who can handle strong language and descriptions of sex(not extremely detailed, but sometimes disturbing).
Without a really good grasp of Derrida, Barthes and deconstruction, much of the beginning of this book will feel more like a philosophy text than a novel, but it's worth it. What this novel really is is a deconstruction of the Victorian Marriage plot. It twists the ideas of that stilted and outdated formulaic plot and turns it on its head. The characters are reflections of people; they are not the real thing. Each of them is a deconstructed trope from the Marriage Plot. The ‘bad choice' becomes the mentally ill man. The ‘good choice', usually a strong, moral man, becomes a seeker (with a moral failing). The woman they both desire is a woman who studies the Marriage Plot, but fails to see it right in front of her face. All in all, it is an incredibly fun read.
I'm going to write a more complete review on my blog after a second reading, but here's the ‘first impressions' review.
Jack Addington has a past that many of us would envy. He has traveled the world and seen a lot. His present, though, is a form of hell that many of us have experienced: a soul-destroying job with supervisors who only care about climbing the ladder, maximizing profits, and covering their own asses. Jack's experience of the world is filtered through the lens of both boredom and apathy. Like i would with any novel written in the first person limited POV, I treated the narrator as unreliable. Since we see the world entirely through Jack's eyes, we have no idea what s real and what's fake. That murkiness is further intensified by Jack's flashbacks to his more exciting youth, a youth that often included plenty of chemicals. His present is also filled with chemicals; he is prescribed psychiatric medication by his psychiatrist.
My first marginal note was about the POV. 1st person present immediately draws attention to itself. It's recently become common among MFA Graduates. That being said, once I settled into the novel, I understood why that POV was chosen. A quarter of the way through and I barely noticed it anymore.
My only complaint with the novel - besides the POV issue, which is a stylistic choice, not a technical flaw - was Jack's only work friend, Uri. To me, Uri seemed to be the voice of the author on social issues. That may or not not be Uri's purpose, but that's what it certainly felt like to me. The intrusion of the Authorial Voice always makes me aware that I am reading.
The ending of the book lends support to my belief that Jack is an unreliable narrator. The end, in fact, is the reason I chose to wait awhile before writing any review at all. I really needed time to mull it over. This isn't a book that immediately slips away as soon as you start reading something else. It creeps into your thoughts and you're left considering many things. I highly recommend this book.
—-typed on an iPad, so probably littered with spelling errors. My apologies if so.