Silence by Thich Nhat Hanh

I'm an admirer and a follower (at least intentionally :-)) of the famous Vietnamese Buddhist mont Thich Nhat Hanh. I have read a number of his amazing books. However, I started reading them in the time I stopped blogging, this is why you did not see any review of his books here.

I hope to have some time soon to review the best of them. Now this post is just a signal that my current morning reading (replacing for a short while when I was in hospital, the book about S. Ulam) is now:

Thich Nhat Hanh - SILENCE. The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise.

As all books written by him, this one is very simple, modest and bright explanation why we do need silence. Sounds trivial? Perhaps... But when you start reading Thich's words, you will never think it is trivial or naïve ...

❧

"(...) You don't need a lot of modern gadgets in order to be civilized. You need only a small bell, a quiet space, and your mindful in-breath and out-breath. (...) That is what I call true civilization."

"People usually think that their ancestors have died, but that's not correct. Because we are here, alive, our ancestors continue to be alive in us. (...) They are fully present in every cell of our body. (...) We are a community of cells, and all our ancestors are within us. We can hear their voices; we just need to listen."


I will be coming back to this post again...

Cheers
Mirek

Let's befriend a ... tree ...

I did not expect this book will change so much in my attitude to nature... "The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate—Discoveries from A Secret World" by Peter Wohlleben. (See GoodReads entry) Passionate, scientific, non-fictional - don't know how to label it :-), yet it really changed the way I thought about nature.

There was perhaps something inside me when I was sick seeing a tree cut without a reason or the large parts of forests in North Poland "cultivated" as the lumber industry calls it. Don't take me wrong, I'm not in the camp of people who protest the lumber industry. Not at all. But I saw so many examples of a very bad way the forests were managed... We heard the stories of officials (here in Poland) trying to kill the last pristine forest we have: Puszcza Białowieska...

The book will tell you more about that. I read it audio. Great voice of Mike Grady.

This seems to be my real return to blogging about books. Even short notes are better than nothing.
However, the post like the three earlier, are from my early morning reading of mostly physical books, so they are a bit different in character and the way I write ...

Cheers
Mirek@Lodz

Evilest evil cast upon the future - „Use of Weapons” by Iain M. Banks

I usually try, when writing reviews, not to spoil a given book to its future readers.

This time it is just impossible. All the time that has passed since I read Iain M. Banks „Use of Weapons” I have been thinking how to write the review of that incredible, „moral” sci-fi novel. I was deeply thinking about it when I went to meet, face to face, Iain M. Banks recently in Edinburgh’s Waterstones bookstore, even though he was not talking as „Iain M. Banks” — an author of sci-fi books, but as „Iain Banks” — the author of his, so called, mainstream books.

Unfortunately, to write a true and intimate review of „Use of Weapons” seems impossible without revealing some of its secrets — so please be warned — and if you have not read it yet — please better do not read this post. Come here after to share your thoughts with me…

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Use of Weapons” is a story of two characters, the archetypal good and equally archetypal evil. However, unlike other stories of the kind, it is far from being a cliche where we have a struggle between „forces of evil” and „forces of good”.  Instead, we have here a profound tale where we discover a blending of good and evil into almost impossible oneness…

The main narrative of „Use of Weapons” is the story of Cheradenine Zakalwe — a man who grown up in a noble family in far future. His childhood and adolescence was relatively happy with two sisters and, from some moment in time, with another boy, Elethiomel, who was his foster-brother. Beyond the few chapters about his young life, we know very little about him.  Then a war starts and he becomes a soldier. His foster-brother leads the enemy side. At the final stage of the war, the fighting or rather a deadlock in it, becomes so intense, that the foster-brother invents a cruelest way to crush his opponent — he murders Zakalwe’s sister, (who, incidentally, was also his foster-sister …)  and announces it to him in a most cruel way — the way that later becomes a leitmotif of a false remorse ...

Cheradenine, both depressed and correctly judging his slim chances to win, and knowing that his surrender can bring long awaited end of the war, in the act of utmost sacrifice — commits suicide…
And the peace comes... And this ends the story of the good, though we wait to the last pages of the book to discover it…

From now on, the most of the book portraits the evil. I must note, that literaly the concept of  "from now on" is not well defined in the novel. The temporal relations are deeply entangled, but lets say "from" for the sake of this review.

Elethiomel falsly incarnates into Cheradenine and becomes The Zakalwe. We have no clue how it happened and why. From some of the Zakalwe actions we could gather he tried to redress himself from the horrible sins and crimes he committed. But such thoughts seem to be contradicted by relations of more cruel acts he committed. As life goes on, he develops a kind of approach to his own life, in which he finds at least some acceptance of himself by changing his role:

„It had always seemed to him that the ideal man was either a soldier or a poet, and so, having spent most of his years being one of those — to him — polar opposites, he determined lo attempt to turn his life around and become the other...”

In fact, from this moment, I had some trouble with the character. The book was written in such a way, that, if one reads only superficially — it becomes easy to put oneself on the side of Zakalwe. He is attractive person, ruthless, powerful, yet with „some” grain of remorse. However, deeper reading reveals that the true intent of the author was to show the evil and badness in its purest form.

„(…) given all the things Zakalwe’s done, just since we’ve known him, they’d have to invent a personal deity for him alone, to even start forgiving him.”

Instead of true regret and attempt to redress for his crimes, he plays a life-long game. And finally, to the total moral disgust, he even tries to find an approval for his horrible deeds in the eyes of the sister of both the true Zakalwe and the murdered girl. The same sister who was his mistress in their adolescence. He says:

„Go back: go right back. What was I to do? Go back. The point is to win. Go back! Everything must bend to that truth.”

His attempt to exonerate himself from the crime, trying to prove that the end justified the means, are fruitless. The only leaving member of Zakalwe family rejects him.

„Why do you do this? she said. “Why do you do this ... to him: to me . . . why?  Can’t you just leave us all alone?” (...) Livueta Zakalwe walked out, closing the door behind him.

In the scene that portraits the final and the last rejection, like in Last Judgement, he almost dies from a brain stroke. He is rescued by a drone — perhaps only to feel to the end of his days the pain and the burden of the evilest of evils a human can commit…

I probably should add that the book is written in a very unusual way and its reading is both a great challenge and a specific pleasure. It has a very specific temporal and, so to speak, „spatial” dimension — possible only to sci-fi genre...

Yet it will remain in my mind as a very controversial book — for its apparent yet unspoken admiration to the evil character and its acts:

„But such consummate skill, such ability, such adaptability, such numbing ruthlessness. Such a use of weapons when anything could become weapon... ”

which seems somehow perverse to me. Despite the cold beauty of the language and the meaning of the sentence in the entire experience of its reading.

The discovery of the truth about the character — is the central moral message Banks makes — but it requires some deeper afterthought and I’m not sure how many readers discovered it... For me it took double reading of almost the entire book...

All in all — it is a great and important book, perhaps because of these incredible tension between admiration and condemnation of evil — the evil cast into the future...

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Finished in Paris, April 15th, 2012

My blogging is 300 posts old - in 7 years

Well, when I noticed few weeks ago that I'm close to 300 posts here, I planned to write a good, lengthy review of some of  the recent books I read (e.g. like this one). No way ... My life is periodically getting so busy that all me dreams to have time for a next good review are just dreams :-)

So in celebration of this 300 posts record, let me first thank to you, my readers and specially to you all who commented on my posts.

Second, let me list where am I with my reading (and thinking) now. I just finished Jaron Lanier's great book „You are not a gadget”. On the surface, he could be classified as Web2.0 pessimist, but in fact he is not. He is a true and deep thinker, and I still hope to write the review. To explore the fundamentals deeper, I now started reading James Surowicki's „Wisdom of Crowds” - the classic book in the dialog between those who believe in the collective wisdom and those who seems to oppose it.

So, thematically, I returned to the circles where I started from - my blog adventure started when I found the blog of David Weinberger — incorrigible Web optimist !

Third, let me tell you about the virtual stockpile of my books-to-read, or books I started and could not finish yet. On top is still Iain Banks „Use of Weapons” (second reading), whom I hope to meet in Edinburgh on coming Thursday, then comes „The Emperor of Lies” by Steve Sem-Sandberg (specifically close to my heart as it is the book about my hometown - Lodz's Ghetto). There is also „All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age” by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Kelly , and ... many others...

Reading Web pessimists

Again and again — this can be only a short note. I hope the review(s) will come soon.
Anyway, seems to me it's worth to tell you that, for some (perverse?) reason, I, incorrigible Web optimist, started to read Web big pessimists. I started some time ago with Nicholas Carr and his „Shallows”. And a week ago I finished Andrew Keen's „The Cult of the Amateur”, now I'm in Jaron Lanier's „You Are Not a Gadget”.

Here are my initial thoughts: There is a lot of profound concern in Carr's „Shallows”. No one, can really ignore his book. I devoted a considerable time to write about it. His arguments matter, even if one does not agree with all of them. Similarly, Jaron's Lanier warnings (mostly against Web 2.0) are deep and profound. Maybe a bit less than Carr's; maybe some of his proposals (take Songle) are naive, maybe his „Digital Maoism” term is a pure exaggeration — yet there is a profound concern behind and quite deep understanding of true dangers.

Contrary, I almost could not find too many merits in Keen's „The Cult of the Amateur”. His arguments are like a living image of XIX arguments against steam machines, medieval arguments against printing press, XX century arguments against mass press, TV etc. There was literally no substance in his debunking of apparent Web 2.0 sins. His argument against Wikipedia is just a pure elitism of worst kind. His account on the revolution of music distribution is simply blind.

What is more, he takes the real dark side of Web (which, of course, exists — and is indeed bad) as the argument against the freedom on Web at large! That's really ridiculous view, forgetting how much dirt we do have in the real world, and somehow we learnt how to handle it...

It's good to read opponents of your thoughts; no-one could live only in its echo chambers — so I feel Jaron's arguments will resonate in me, will make my optimised rethinked. It is sad that I can not say so about some opponents' books, like „The Cult of Amateur” ....

Anyway — the full reviews will come...

Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

I have been reading this incredible book on all media. Started in paper, switched to e-book on Nook, finished in audio, backing my audio experience by e-book again...

All of them — because the book is exceptionally multidimensional and deep and difficult to comprehend if read casually...

Well, I can't afford to write the full review today, yet let me tell you that it is perhaps the most "moral" sci-fi book I ever read. And this morality is not expressed in any simple, trivial way — it is expressed through a profound understanding of human nature set to extreme, which possibly could only be described with such power, only in sci-fi sort of tale...

Promised — the review will come...

But such consummate skill, such ability, such adaptability, such numbing ruthlessness. such a use of weapons when anything could become weapon...

...

Anatomy of Conspiracy Theories — Umberto's Eco genius shines again ...

What is the mindset of conspiracy theory brewer? What kind of mental characteristic such a person has ?

Umberto's Eco „The Prague Cemetery” attempts to sketch the personalities of those who most certainly invented most incredible and ghastly tales of the turn of XIX and XX centuries.

The book reads like a novel, and those who read it „as is” may not even notice (until author afterwords) that it is rather historical book, referring to existing events, describing realy existing people. Almost. There is one exception — the protagonist of the book. It is the only true „fiction character” — and perhaps only for this character we still could call Eco's book „a novel”...

Set in Italy and in Paris, the plot describes true historical events roughly between 1850 and 1898. In Italy we met Garibaldi and learn about plots instigated by Piedmont secret police. In Paris, we witness Franco-Prussian war and the Days of Commune to see how important was the falsification of truth to gain certain political advantages. We learn about the Dreyfus affair and how it was motivated... Eco unfolds the plots about Masons and Jesuits...
And, at the book crescendo, we learn about infamous „The protocols of the learned elders of Zion”...

It was amazing experience going to Wikipedia with all that names, events and places and literally find them all! In that sense, it is true historical account of some of the most important events of XIX century.

On that specific background we observe our hero Simone Simonini. As Eco explains in afterwords, even this character has been built more like a collage of that time personalities than as a fully fictitious character.

To me, this specific construction of the book was designed to uncover the mentality of conspiracy theories creators. Eco's attributes to such people several personality traits, not necesserily all present in the same person. In our Simone Simonini we see the trait of indifference (he would create a forgeries just for money), we see the sheer hate (his deep anti-semitism led him to "protocols" and his part in Dreyfus affair), we see specific gluttony and sybaritism, and above all — we see schizophrenic personality split (during the large part of the story we do not know who is who...).
Despite all these, Eco analyses also the other motivations — as the need to justify specific political agendas, to name the one...

By all these means, Eco opens anew the old discussion, which does not loose relevancy. I still see around me people and their fantastic „stories”. Stories that sometimes are as far from the truth as day from night. Yet people believe in them, spread them, discuss them... In many „echo chambers” of the current horizon of public discourse and on the Web, the creation and spread of such tales is even more prevelant than it was in XIX century... (See e.g. Jew Watch project ...). I was completely shocked to learn the „The protocols of the learned elders of Zion” are still printed and read as „true” in many countries of the Middle East....

Above all that, as it was with all Eco's book — it is fantastic reading experience, and is beautifully illustrated. Strongly recommend...

My first Nook-Book is ....

I must say I'm quite happy with Nook applications. I have them on my new Android phone (Galaxy Note), on my old Android tablet (Archos 101) and on my PC ....

The first book I'm now reading, from cover to cover (what that means in digital world ?) is "Use of Weapons" by I.M. Banks... Started it in paper some time ago, but never finished...

BTW, the book is amazing ...

Two new books read ...

As my time for reviews shrinks, I just wanted to tell to my visitors, that two new great books are consumed and wait for their turn for reviews:

Umberto Eco's — „Prague Cemetery” — one of the most important account on mechanisms of conspiracy theory creation from the view point of its authors....

David K. Shipler — „Arab and Jew: Wounded Spirits in a Promised Land” — painfully honest and impartial description of the fundamental conflict of the Middle East....

See you later :-)

Waiting for the movie after a little disappointment of the audiobook ...

This is about Brian Selznick's novel „The Invention of Hugo Cabret” that gave rise to famous 3D movie by Martin Scorsese. The story of 12 year old boy living in Paris, who cares for Parisian train station clocks after his father's death. The hunger and solitude force the boy to steel food. The boy tries to restore the artificial, mechanical man - The Automaton, discovered by his father in the museum he worked for, and where he later dies from fire. The boy finally succeeds to animate it and the automaton draws sketches that led to discovery of ... Well, I will not spoil it completely ...

I must admit, that the audio rendering in this case was not a good idea for such a book. It seems to have no climax, no conclusion one expects from the first few minutes of listening ...
Now, the physical book had about 300 illustration. And apparently these illustrations are as important as the words themselves.... See it in the book website.

The audio book has a lot of sound effects, but as it often happens these media are not quite convertible ...

So I do not say it was not good — I say that such books are designed to be visual... I also doubt it could be rendered properly as e-book. And that's paradoxically the best outcome from this disappointing experience. Finally we've got a book that saves the value of real, paper, physical books against all these bits...

And I will await the movie to be in cinemas in Europe....

.„... but we still carry its genes” — reflections on David's Bezmozgis „The Free World"

I had quite special and unique impressions when I was reading „The Free World. A Novel” by David Bezmozgis. Born 1973 in Riga, Latvia Bezmozgis came to Canada as a child. Well educated in both Canadian and American universities, Bezmozgis debuted in 2004 with his „Natasha and Other Stories”. He is now well known filmmaker and writer. As it was for his debut, his new novel (published this year, 2011) „The Free World” reflects the experiences of Jewish refugees from former Soviet Union. The action of „The Free World” is set mostly in 1978 Rome with some episodes in Vienna and frequent comebacks to then soviet Latvia. Three generations of Krasnansky family of Latvian Jews, who escaped from USSR come through the painful process of getting accustomed to the free world. They look at this new world with their eyes which not long ago looked at the world through communist lenses. And to me this transformation, this change is the essence of the book. They are in the free world, but, to various degree they still „carry communist genes”.

On the other plane the book is very nostalgic and sad. There is a notion and a feeling of specific „uprootedness” the characters experience in Italy. A lot of thoughts about the feeling of Jewish refugees to the state of Israel, so often painted by remnants of soviet propaganda residing in their heads... Their specific reactions (Jews on one side of their souls and former soviets on the other...)  to swift change of Popes (this was the year of Paul VI, John Paul I and John Paul II)

Reading (i.e. listening to incredible voice of Stefan Rudnicki) the book I had that specific feeling of listening to debutant, although that does not make it worse than any other books I recently read...

BTW, here is 8 minutes long recording of Bezmozgis reading from the novel...

Published in the last hour of 2011...

Steven’s King harmonic theory of time and universe – 11/22/63

Stephen King’s writing has always been above the level of popular literature — whatever he used to write about. His horror books were not interesting because of the frightening horror scenes and plots — they were interesting because of the author mastery of storytelling. I could imagine King writing anything, even stupidest tales, yet I’m sure, it would be worth reading.

Travels in time, alternate histories — such themes were no seldom in novels. So, in some sense, the main theme of 11/22/63 is not very original. Yet King converts the seemingly banal sci-fi theme into a vehicle that he uses to portrait America of nineteen sixties with incredible meticulousness and color (we could even say — with a smell). He also uses it to tell us about his philosophy of time, of past, present and future…

In a synopsis to the novel I could only tell (not to spoil the pleasure of reading it) about its main hero, high school teacher of English from Maine who, with the help of seriously ill local diner owner, finds in this diner a time slip that enables him to travel in time to nineteen sixties. He finds many reasons to go there and “to correct” the flow of events that would later lead to some tragic facts. However, the diner owner’s mission, which he could not accomplish, was to revert the history of America by saving J.F. Kennedy, killed on November 22nd, 1963… 

Let’s leave it for now whether the mission was successful or not. The paradox is that with King’s imagination comes deep thinking about history and its essence.

“The past is obdurate and it does not want to be changed”.

Would we have better world if Kennedy was not killed in Dallas?

Traditional views and our hero say — yes, but are such views justified? King takes us on a journey, where we start with strong conviction of the veracity of such conviction, but where we later end with deep doubts. Yet King's conjectures are not politically motivated, instead he sheds light on the nature of causality itself, on the incredibly connected world where „butterfly effect” of individual human freedom of choice is profound. Its effect is so strong that for many, the world existing in time appears like the pre-ordained rigid and obdurate structure, but when one dares to trust his own sense of freedom — he finds that he could indeed change the course of events. Would it be for good or for bad — that’s another question which usualy remains unanswered… (The novel seems to claim - for bad)

King's mastery allows the mere mortals to ponder on these deep philosophical conundrums without any kind of abstract and unrealistic “philosophizing”.
How often we, in our lives try to rewrite our past? It is hard to find a person who passed his life without thinking (or sometimes even doing) „it would have been better if I did so and so”… Many tried, usually to no avail. In almost all known cases, we come to that simple fact of the persistent obduracy of the past…

It is not a first time when the great literature of our age contemplates time. Kurt Vonnegut in his Slaughterhouse No. 5 makes his hero “unstuck in time”. For Vonnegut events in time are fixed and frozen:

A Tralfamadorian test pilot presses a starter button, and the whole Universe disappears.' So it goes. "If You know this," said Billy, 'isn't there some way you can prevent it?
Can't you keep the pilot from pressing the button?' 'He has always pressed it, and he always will. We always let him and we always will let him. The moment is structured that way.  

For King, the time is open ended and our will can create parallel universes. They harmonize and we perceive all them as one single and consistent universe:

The multiple choices and possibilities of daily life are the music we dance to. They are like strings on a guitar, Strum them and you create a pleasing sound. A harmonic. But then start adding strings. Ten strings, a hundred strings, a thousand, a million. Because they multiply! (…) Sing high C in a voice that’s laud enough and true enough and you can scatter fine crystal. Play the right harmonic notes through your stereo loud enough and you can shatter window glass. It follows (to me, at least) that if you put enough strings on time’s instrument, you can shatter reality.

Here we come to the essence of the novel. The travel in time and Kennedy case are used to teach us the fundamental lesson about the higher harmony that exists in time and in events of history.

It is so easy to shatter the delicate harmony of the world. We must walk and live carefully.

“Every breath we take is a wave”…

The novel ends beautifully. You can read these words, they will not impair your future reading:

„She speaks in a voice almost too low to be heard over the music, but I hear her — I always did. „Who are you George?” „Someone you knew in another life, honey.” Then the music takes us, the music rolls away the years, and we dance.

It was one of the best novels I ever read...

Too short — (but still timely) — A review of The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments” by Jim Baggott

Jim Baggott wrote one of the most fascinating books about history of science I ever read. It is written with a kind of wit and vigor that makes its reading no less fascinating than a good criminal story.

But quite seriously it brings readers closer to the understanding of the huge importance of quantum mechanics for our modern thinking, for our understanding of reality and for modern philosophy (although Jim does not indulge in „philosophizing” at all!). There are many important spindles around which the author threads his tale, like that about the responsibility of scientists for using their discoveries in politics and in wars (important part of the book is auto-citation from another Baggott's book „Atomic — The first war of physics”).

But the most important motif of the book is the quest to understand the peculiar nature of reality revealed by Quantum Theory in the beginning of XX century. The discoveries made by then became the central in the famous debates between Einstein and Bohr, and they continue to this day. Jim Biggott presents the latest experiments and their interpretations and shows how bizarre is this reality. It is the reality of our bodies and of our world and of everything we know. The reality QM portraits is of  the world which cannot be thought of as objectively existing as it was assumed to be when only classical mechanics and our common perception were known. The book ends with this disturbing picture of the reality and leaves us with more questions then answers....

This is extremely interesting and open issue in science and it is really amazing that through exact science human knowledge comes to the fundamental problems philosophy tackled for centuries. Are we closer to solutions of these problems? Not really...

From the other perspective, the book was exceptionally pleasant to read for me, because the large part of my own life was closely bound to Quantum Physics. My 1992 PhD (Oh G ! — it was almost 20 years ago) and later, my great and long adventures (I was working for HyperCube) with Quantum Chemistry gave me fantastic opportunities to come closer to understanding of all these matters. In my PhD (link to database in Polish is here) and in my related works (see this) I explored the Feynman's Path Integrals. It was so nice to read a part of the book devoted to this remarkable theory! With Quantum Chemistry  the book is not dealing — perhaps it could not deal with all offsprings of Quantum Mechanics :-)

Here is also a nice video recording of Jim, talking about the book himself !

Reading report :-)

I hoped to find a time today for a review... Alas, despite "free" day, I had plenty things to do and I also was jogging for more than 2 hours reaching my record of 18 km in a single run...

Of course, jogging is also my best time for „reading” audio books, so from this perspective it was the another reader's good day :-)

I finished „The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments” by Jim Baggott and I must say it was extremely pleasant and rich experience. It deserves a longer review — and I promise, it will come !
Let me only tell you how sweet was reading about the importance of Feynman's Path Integrals in the evolution of Quantum Theory — the same Path Integrals I devoted my PhD dissertation to. It was 20 years ago ...

Them, in audio I switched to ... Walter Scott's „Ivanhoe”. Surprising ? Well - it is a bit of my tribute to Scotland, Edinburgh and my daughter studying there ... BTW, quite nice reading/listening.

In paper I'm inside „The use of weapons” though I made relatively small progress...

On Kindle, I put „All things shining” temporarily on shelf for the long awaited new Umberto Eco novel „The Prague Cemetery” and it indeed promises good reading !

That's all for today :-)

Neuromancer — „what if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?”

There are two kinds of Sci-Fi books. Of the first kind are books that once described the space travels in gigantic cannon cartridges.The second kind of books uses the Sci-Fi „tools” to transmit a specific message. The message or thought that does not reduce itself to any specific implement or concrete futuristic scenery.

There are many primitive books (and movies) of the first kind.
There are much fewer books of the second kind….

I read number of books of both kinds. Sometimes you start a book, with a hope to find there a message, but it ends up in the proverbial „trip to moon in cannon ball”. Unfortunately the Sci-Fi book I read and reviewed here recently „WWW trilogy” is nothing more than such a stupid story. Even though its theme was artificial intelligence.

William Gibson’s „Neuromancer” is certainly of the second kind. But in the very beginning of this review, let me tell you that from the first sentence you know you encountered a great literature:

„The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

The language of the entire book has such specific colouring. As with many other books I read and reviewed, I find that kind of specific atmosphere, the best described via an analogy to color, as something rear and extremely valuable in books. However the colouring of Neuromancer is dark and void. Is not friendly, nor quite humane. Yet it exhibits beauty of its own kind.

What is so special about this book, the book that I discovered because of my son recommendation (he read it about 10 years ago !) and because of another book, „Infinite Reality:…” (by Jim Blascovich and Jeremy Bailenson) ?? Perhaps it did not correctly predicted WHAT is cyberspace now, or HOW it is built. But many years before Web it very accurately captured its spirit:

„Cyberspace. A con sensual hallucination experienced daily by billions of legitimate operators, in every nation, by children being taught mathematical concepts . . . A graphic representation of data abstracted from the banks of every computer in the human system.  Unthinkable complexity. Lines of light ranged in the non space of the mind, clusters and constellations of data. Like city lights, receding....”

As many agree, it was Gibson, who in some metaphoric sense “invented” cyberspace. How true is  this review title, borrowed from Jack Womack’s note about Neuromancer: „ what if the act of writing it down, in fact, brought it about?”. Impossible? Well… If you think about all these geeks and web inventors of the nineties who certainly have been reading Neuromancer before or during starting up their garage businesses? He also shed light on the aspect of cyberspace which we only recently discovered in web2.0 communities:

„It wasn't a name he knew. Something new, something that had come in since he'd been in Chiba. Fads swept the youth of the Sprawl at the speed of light; entire subcultures could rise overnight, thrive for a dozen weeks, and then vanish utterly.
"Go," he said. The Hosaka had accessed its array of libraries, journals, and news services.”

Gibson's painting of the virtual reality touches the most important aspect of it – total controllability and enumerability:

„And here things could be counted, each one. He knew the number of grains of sand in the construct of the beach (a number coded in a mathematical system that existed nowhere outside the mind that was Neuromancer). He knew the number of yellow food packets in the canisters in the bunker (four hundred and seven). He knew the number of brass teeth in the left half of the open zipper of the salt-crusted leather jacket that Linda Lee wore as she trudged along the sunset beach, swinging a stick of driftwood in her hand (two hundred and two).”

However, Gibson went further and beyond cyberspace as we know it today. He explores matters that are related to AI in a way nobody at his time did. Instead of writing about robots, he explores the roots of AI:

„The matrix has its roots in primitive arcade games," said the voice-over, "in early graphics programs and military experimentation with cranial jacks.”

Any doubts he is right? The game industry was, if not strongest, driving force of virtual reality technology — at least its most popular. But he drills it deeper. He explores what could be defined as personality problems associated with AI. He somehow predicted what later proponents of so-called Apocalyptic AI would preach. However, Gibson notices issues that, despite many years of development, were not yet addressed:

„Wintermute had built Armitage up from scratch, with Corto's memories of Screaming Fist as the foundation. But Armitage's "memories" wouldn't have been Corto's after a certain point.”

He also comes to the matters related to such, potentially omnipresent (nothing strange in today’s cyberspace) reality:

"So what's the score? How are things different? You running the world now? You God?"
"Things aren't different. Things are things."
"But what do you do? You just there?" Case shrugged, put the vodka and the shuriken down on the cabinet and lit a Yeheyuan. "I talk to my own kind." "But you're the whole thing. Talk to yourself?"

In many ways Gibson’s depiction of Virtual Reality denudes its deep and dangerous ramifications. What is human reaction to it? Suddenly we discover that rage is perhaps the most human reaction to it:

"Mean, motherfucker," he whispered to the wind. "Don't take a chance, do you? Wouldn't give me any junkie, huh?
I know what this is...." He tried to keep the desperation from his voice. "I know, see? I know who you are. You're the other one. "So what now?" He swung them back into the bank of cloud. "Where do we go from here?" "I don't know, Case. Tonight the very matrix asks itself that question.

This very aspect of Neuromancer – disclosing and denuding the consequences of AI concepts, plans and steps toward it – should be studied with diligence by any adept of the nascent Brave New World….

Great book. The movie is coming.

"Foucault's Pendulum" & "The Name of the Rose" revisited...

Parallel to my life and other books I went through Foucault's Pendulum and The_Name_of_the_Rose again. I guess it was at least my third reading of each of them, and again and again a lot of new discoveries, new senses, new colors....

The reviews will come soon ...

Finding a great book by fluke :-)

That happened in Edinburgh, during my first trip to Scotland and its beautiful capital...

I was passing by a street full of little bookstores - mostly antiquarian, when I dropped into this one:

And there among mostly old books of Philosophy, I found this very recent one: „Apocalyptic AI” by Robert M. Geraci. Minutes later I read a couple of chapters while sitting in a little French restaurant....

And I must say, I'm deeply and positively surprised. The author, who is a professor of religious studies at Manhattan College, wrote an extremely interesting account about the parallels between certain "hard" AI theories and predictions and ... religious experiences and attitudes. In the conclusion to the first chapter he writes:

„Apocalyptic AI is a technological faith that directly borrows its sacred worldview from apocalyptic Judaism and Christianity”

Sounds interesting ...

I started to think  a bit, and when I recalled my first encounter with Ray Kurzweil thought (despite my criticism there) I came quickly to a realization that there indeed must be a deeper link between highly technological belief in the possibility of uploading our mind with our consciousness to a computer and the beliefs in human immaterial soul. What at the first glimpse looks like the strong anti-religious argument (i.e. the mind can be „run" by a machine) is paradoxically just the argument for the opposite view. If one, indeed could upload our mind - that means this mind is completely different from the brain and indeed is the soul sought by religious people through our history....

Well, don't take me wrong. As the author in the introduction, I'm not a strong AI faithful..
However, the argument and the whole idea — and The Book — seems to be extremely interesting ...

The review will come ... :-)

Written in Edinburgh ...

Orhan Pamuk's great novel — „My Name is Red”

I start this review of the acclaimed Orhan’s Pamuk novel „My name is Red” in a specific climate. As I indicated in my harbinger of this review, when I was reading the novel, I could not put away all my recollections and feelings related to Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose”.  So just after I finished great Pamuk’s  novel  and even before writing this review, I switched my MP3 player to equally  famous Umberto Eco’s book. That gives me another opportunity to ponder over the cultural differences between the European culture I was born to, and the Eastern, now by-gone culture of Ottoman Empire, that has some reflection in today’s Turkish culture, and with more general outlook — in Islamic culture.

However, before exploring the analogy deeper (what I probably postpone to another post) I will try to tell something about „My name is Red” itself.
The novel takes place in Istambul at the end of XVI century.  It introduces its readers into a world of miniaturists and painters devoted to book illustrations. At the outset, this is extremely interesting – as we well know, painting in Islam is quite restricted – even a depiction of any human form is a kind of idolatry and is forbidden.  This is why Islamic cultures developed more in directions of calligraphy, illumination of manuscripts, miniature painting, painting on ceramics and extremely flowery rugs and carpets creation.

The novel’s  intriguing plot throws us into the world of late Ottoman empire, under the rule of Sultan Murat III, who  purportedly, ordered an extended and rich set of illustrations, apparently borrowing from Venitian style of painting, to the book (Thousands Years of Hagira) which was to be offered to some European envoys as an expression of Ottoman or, more precisely — his own, pride. However, amid strong opposition from fundamentalists of the era, he did that in secrecy and commissioned the task to a specific workshop of talented miniaturists and illuminators. Partially because of another wave of pride and competition among them, partially because of the restrained love affairs and desires of the young people, and most importantly because of the influence of fundamentalists – the mysterious murders start to shadow the peaceful work of the illuminators.  And this face of the book — the numerous plots, almost criminal-like tension and great dramatizing is extremely well designed and rendered in words.  Let me however not reveal anything from these plots because I do not want to spoil the readers’ future impressions.  Anyway, let me only say shortly that the mystery about the identity of the main murderer is not revealed almost to the end of the novel. Yet when the conundrum is finally solved, it is of a very specific climate of surprise. Contrary to our today’s literary experiences it is almost non-surprising, we could probably conclude the truth well in the mid of reading – yet – just because of the fantastic way Pamuk intertwines the plot – it becomes a true crescendo of the book.

There is also a beautiful love story. The love from the first sight, yet almost tragic and almost unfulfilled, it finally finds fulfillment in a way perhaps different than its actors expectations, and a bit different to our expectations as readers. And that makes it even more beautiful. As its frequent references to the story of „Hüsrev and Shirin”  by Persian poet Nizami …

Beyond all these features, the book has also many philosophical connotations. We are exposed to specific way Muslims in Ottoman Empire pondered about God and human soul, the afterlife, the reward and punishment. I wanted to stress a thought that, to me, was probably the most important. It is a consideration about books and painting. First and foremost, it shows the incredible role of writing, books and libraries in the development of Islamic culture. But it also shows, that just after armies, their soldiers and all the military power, the books were assumed to have equal power. Pamuk recalls an attack on a city where, after the massacre of its inhabitants, the books were the next victims ...

We are exposed to the numerous deep thoughts that decorate the action packed pages, like:

„Painting is the silence of thought and a music of sight”

„I don't want to be a tree; I want to be its meaning.”

„Books, which we mistake for consolation, only add depth to our sorrow.”

„A letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, 'Go on then, read what the letter tells you!' whereas the dull-witted will say, 'Go on then, read what he's written!”

„What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand.”

„Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.”

The ideas about painting („… the farthest one can go in illustrating; it is seeing what appears out of Allah’s own blackness”) are also thought provoking.  And the parts of the narration were we discover that the true essence of painting can be discovered only by blind painter.  That parts of the book were very deep – and one could not avoid an analogy to Beethoven who was almost deaf when composed some of his masterpieces.  And the mystical self-blinding of some of the book heroes in  the critical events of the plot…

Pamuk explores the European influence on Islamic art, the opposition and admiration of it. In fact the attempt to apply European style of painting into Islamic illustrations becomes one of the key controversies among the characters of the novel. Rich parallels shed some light on wider context of the cultural connections between East and West,  their evolution in the Middle Ages and the tolerant approach of religious Muslims of the age  („Unto Allah belong the East and the West”)

I guess it is worth mentioning how beautiful and unusual writing instruments are used by Pamuk.  For example there is a chapter were the narrator is a tree or a horse or a coin… And the chapters with have such unusual narrators, play an important role in this amazing book…

Finally, if you let yourself to live with this amazing book for a considerable amount of time, you start to feel the climate of the time it describes… And when you compare that feeling to the feeling we Europeans experience while reading  „The Name of the Rose” or  “The Book of Abraham” (Marek Helter) on the another – we lose our pride and typical conviction of the superiority of our culture over the ancient cultures of Judaism or Islam…

„My Name is Red” is a monumental book, the book that will stay with you long after you flopped the last page of it, or, as was in my case, when you switched your AudioBook off for a long time after it…

Finished in Woodbridge, UK.

„The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco

When I noticed the parallels between  „The Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco and Orhan's Pamuk „My name is Red” I spent several hours with the former. It was my second encounter to the book (first in my mother tongue many years ago). However, fo a moment I will restrain myself from writing about it. First I feel un urge to publish first my review of „My Name is Red”, second, the version of „The Name of the Rose” I listened to was abridged version, and I do not want to review it from it. Already have the unabridged and it waits ...

Meanwhile, having my fascination of Umberto Eco prose returning to me, I read „Foucault Pendulum” again... The review will come one day :-)

My Name Is Red — The Mysteries of Books, Illustrations, Islam and Love ...

This short note is not a review yet.
Contrary to my hopes, I could not find time to catch up with the growing pile of unreviewed book....
Maybe soon...

But I cannot withhold myself from telling you how fantastic is Orhan Pamuk's "My Name Is Red" novel.
It touches so many important matters — the Islamic philosophy and religion, importance of books and paintings, reaction to European influence upon Ottoman culture....

Deeply immersed in Islamic tradition, it reminds me about "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco... As the later was related to the importance of books to medival Christian/European culture, so the former was to Islamic culture of Ottoman Emipre...

I only hope I will find time soon to tell you more about it....