Books: Last Book You Read and Rate It

[Pink Mist]

Don’t Look Now, and other stories by Daphne du Maurier

A collection of creepy “long stories” or “long short stories” or “short novellas” - however you want to define short stories of between roughly 50 to 75 pages in length - by du Maurier, an author I hadn’t read prior but was aware of her work through the many film adaptations of her work (Rebecca, The Birds, and Don’t Look Now). There are a few different editions of this collection which have different stories but mine had Don’t Look Now, Not After Midnight, A Border-Line Case, The Way of The Cross, and The Breakthrough. Don’t Look Now is the most famous story in the collection, primarily because of the 1973 Nicolas Roeg film based on the story – which I have not actually seen but I plan to shortly – and it is also the best of the bunch. It tells the tale of a couple on holiday in Venice following the death of their daughter, who encounters a pair of creepy elderly twins, one of which is blind and has psychic ability and can see the ghost of their daughter. Du Maurier is a professional at building tension and suspense in her stories, but she’s even better at developing atmosphere and evocating place in her stories. She flips the script on the city of Venice from a city known for honeymoons and romantic gondola rides to a place of confusion and dangerous encounters made up of a creepy and foreboding labyrinth of alleys and canals. Similarly du Maurier develops this sense of place that plays with our expectations of the location with stories set in Crete, Ireland, and Jerusalem. You could say this is a travel novel as all of the stories are about British people as tourists in foreign lands.

Du Maurier also seems to have a preoccupation with the natural unevenness in ties of affection within relationships in which in a relationship one partner is more attracted or more fond of their partner than the other. For example, this is highlighted in Don’t Look Now, as in the couple the man is closer to his wife than his (deceased) daughter while his wife is closer to his daughter than him. All of these stories have some element of horror, not scary monsters or gore, but for the most part the horror comes from within, from the very human flaw of misreading a situation or other people, from imagining something that isn’t real. For example, The Way of The Cross is not a horror story, it is a social satire on the British upper-middle class who come to reckon with their flaws and errors on a guided tour of Jerusalem but all the characters meet internal horror in some way through humiliation and embarrassment. After Don’t Look Now, it is my favourite of the collection, but the collection is for the most part a collection of very compelling stories full of suspense that will have you quickly rushing to find out how the story ends (aside from The Breakthrough which is a sci-fi story that feels lacking).

 

[Thucydides]

Great in theory , but i haven’t seen any major improvements in my game as of yet (85-95 average) , though the advice is sound . It’s sometimes hard to implement it on the course . The book itself is a 6.5-7/10 the message tends to get a little repetitive . If you enjoy golf it’s a good read.

Did not finish. One of the most dense books ever written . I got about 1/4 through it and realized I was picking up very little of what Aristotle was putting down, and the parts I picked up were in the short introductions to each chapter by the translator. Ah well.

 

[Hammettf2b]

Not as good as the first one but still really enjoyed it. 7/10. If you like stuff with UFO's/Aliens, you will like this series imo.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Let it Come Down by Paul Bowles (1951) - Kind of similar in theme to The Sheltering Sky, where the American underestimates what he does not know (or overestimates his capabilities within it) and ends up in over his head. The plot is secondary in this novel. Dyar, a 29 year-old bank teller who's going through a major existential crisis - which only worsens abroad - decides to dump it all and move to Morocco in a somewhat europeanized Tangier on the basis of a flimsy job offer by an acquaintance. It's impossible to understate the lack of importance this detail holds in the story. In fact, it's difficult to view the story as anything but a mere vessel for Bowles to meditate without writing a philosophy essay or an outright book of lonely citations. That is to say, the story is always paused for him to go on tangents about human existence, an individual's struggle or symbiosis within and against it and all that other good stuff. Granted, lots of it is intelligent and brilliantly written. I don't think Bowles is a poser at all. But in terms of artistic structure, it's a bit of a disappointment and I don't think it holds up to the narrative satisfaction of his debut work. For example, Dyar's final action, while beautifully described and reacted to, is a hell of an achievement. But I couldn't help but be puzzled/unsure of its actual value within what Bowles had been doing up to that point. Whatever. I'm willing to admit it maybe went over my head. Bowles can be a little dense but rarely tedious. After reading two of his four novels, a large short story collection and another novella, I have no hesitation about holding him up as a consistent favorite.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Just wanted to properly review this because I did not last time (I just riffed) I've just re-read it for the third time and it's probably become anywhere between my favorite to third/fourth favorite work of literature.

Spring in Fialta (1936, translated, revised and published in 1959) by Vladimir Nabokov

Stunned that any publisher ever denied this short story. To me, it's a work of genius and - potentially by far - the greatest achievement of Nabokov's career. I can't think of a single work of art that completely personifies everything that the artist went for in a storied career. Its got all of his favorite themes: memory, nostalgia, affairs, doppelgangers and cruel comedy. It also works as a profound declaration of artistic intention. There is not a false note in this one, and its setting and shades are as satisfying as the story and the prose themselves are. Its plot makes one swoon and is infused with intense romantic ideas despite its cynicism and jealousy: Victor, a businessman, is in Fialta for a few days, a fictional city on the mediterranean sea. By chance, he runs into Nina, an aloof woman with whom he's had a couple of encounters (some sexual and some not, before and after marriage) over the past twenty years in various cities in Europe. She likes him fine enough but not anymore than the many men she's apparently been with. On top of it, she's now married to an arrogant, semi-successful Franco-Hungarian writer (hum, hum) Victor claims to hate despite overt friendliness (sensing that this writer, Ferdinand, mocks and hates him without any indication besides Victor's own jealousy that this is the case. By all indications besides Victor's, who is the unreliable narrator, Ferdinand seems to genuinely like him). While Nina's husband is out roaming with a friend, Victor walks with her (but really, behind) while she shops in the medina and Victor alternates and fuses the past and present as he reminisces and contemplates a futile future with her. As it gets sunny in town, it ends. I'll stop here.

I'll just quote a leafy string of passages:

'Must be loafing somewhere around with Segur,' she went on in reference to her husband. 'And I have some shopping to do; we leave after lunch. Wait a moment, where are you leading me, Victor dear?'

Back into the past, back into the past, as I did every time I met her, repeating the whole accumulation of the plot from the very beginning up to the last increment - thus in Russian fairy tales the already told is bunched up again at every new turn of the story.

My memory revives only on the way back to the brightly simmetrical mansion toward which we tramped in single file along a narrow furrow between snowbanks, with that crunch-crunch-crunch which is the only comment that a taciturn winter night makes upon humans.

...and in that life-quickening atmosphere of a big railway station where everything is something trembling on the brink of something else, thus to be clutched and cherished, the exchange of a few words was enough to enable two totally dissimilar women to start calling each other by their pet names the very next time they met...

Today one does not hear much about him; and this is good, for it proves that I was right in resisting his evil spell, right in experiencing a creepy chill down my spine whenever this or that new book of his touched my hand. The fame of his likes circulates briskly but soon grows heavy and stale; and as for history it will limit his life story to the dash between two dates.

Having mastered the art of verbal invention to perfection, he particularly prided himself on being a weaver of words, a title he valued higher than that of a writer.

At the beginning of his career, it had been possible perhaps to distinguish some human landscape, some old garden, some dream-familiar disposition of trees through the stained glass of his prodigious prose...but with every new book the tints grew still more dense, the gules and purpure still more ominous; and today one can no longer see anything at all through that blazoned, ghastly rich glass, and it seems that were one to break it, nothing but a perfectly black void would face one's shivering soul.

…and I remember once saying to him as I braved the mockery of his encouraging nods that, were I a writer, I should allow only my heart to have imagination, and for the rest rely upon memory, that long-drawn sunset shadow of one's personal truth.

…and overheard one man saying to another, "Funny, how they all smell alike, burnt leaf through whatever perfume they use, those angular dark-haired girls," and as it often happens, a trivial remark related to some unknown topic coiled and clung to one's own intimate recollection, a parasite of its sadness.

...and I still hear Nina exclaiming with a moaning tenderness that did not commit her to anything.

…the yellow car I had seen under the plane trees had suffered a crash beyond Fialta, having run at full speed into the truck of a traveling circus entering the town, a crash from which Ferdinand and his friend, those invulnerable rogues, those salamanders of fate, those basilisks of good fortune, had escaped with local and temporary injury to their scales, while Nina, in spite of her long-standing, faithful imitation of them, had turned out after all to be mortal.

I can't help but think the story would make an absurdly good short film. I also can't help to think that this song could fit in there somehow.

 

[Thucydides]

A young guy is getting ready to go to war , but the war quickly turns into a war for the self. An epic poem that focuses on one finding their highest self. Remove outward pleasures and desires and free yourself , and in doing so, reach the highest self!

he’s a lot more poetic and convincing than I am.

a quick read one could finish in an afternoon.

 

[kihei]

Inside Story by Martin Amis

It is a shock when English author Martin Amis hints that this will likely be his last long book as he may just be too old to have another one in him. Or such a sentiment may just be a reaction to writing about the death of his father (Kingsly Amis), his godfather (Philip Larkin), his mentor (Saul Bellow) and his lifelong best friend (Christopher Hitchens) whose death seems to wound him most greatly. Inside Story is that slipperiest of literary forms, the non-fiction novel. With the exception of a central love interest who seems fanciful at times, one of the many dangerously neurotic women who historically populate Amis' darker thoughts, the rest of the work certainly appears convincing as lived experience. Though Amis writes incisively about the key male figures who shaped his life and sensibility, the most compelling parts of the book deal with Amis' relationship with Bellow and with Hitchens. As he notes, death is difficult to write about in prose, only poetry can occasionally capture its harrowing and inescapable certainty. But Amis writes about death with clarity and insight. Most of the book reads like a series of musing by an intelligent man (complete with writing tips) accompanied by many moments of locker room chatter, that is if locker rooms were inhabited by English intellectuals with sex on the brain. While at its lowest Inside Story can appear no more substantial than really classy, high-toned gossip, at its best the novel contains a clear-eyed account full of insights and memorable descriptions about what it is like to grow old when almost all the people who have been most important to you die before you do. Inside Story is compelling and fascinating, especially, I suspect, to those readers who are decidedly closer to the short end of the candle than is strictly comfortable Best read after you are familiar with several of Amis' earlier works (for instance, Money, Night Train, The Information, Time's Arrow and the memoir Experience).

 

[kihei]

Just skimming all the good reviews that I haven't checked out in awhile. Haven't been paying much attention these days as I managed to read a grand total of four books in a year. Just weird.

Pink Mist and others who like mystery fiction: get thee to Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano quick. Start with his first The Shape of Water and just rock on.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/crime-thriller/inspector-montalbano-series-in-order-camilleri

 

[Pink Mist]

Just skimming all the good reviews that I haven't checked out in awhile. Haven't been paying much attention these days as I managed to read a grand total of four books in a year. Just weird.

Pink Mist and others who like mystery fiction: get thee to Andrea Camilleri's Inspector Montalbano quick. Start with his first The Shape of Water and just rock on.

https://www.panmacmillan.com/blogs/crime-thriller/inspector-montalbano-series-in-order-camilleri

Been meaning to check out that series. I've heard nothing but good things about it

 

[Pink Mist]

The Shipping News by Annie Proulx

After his beloved but adulterous wife dies in a car accident and leaves him to care with his two young daughters, Quoyle, a pathetic and gentle giant, uproots his family from upstate New York to the family home in Newfoundland to write for a local newspaper. I’m always weary about reading novels about places where the authors are outsiders from, especially places like Newfoundland where the local character is easily caricaturized . However, while at times I think Proulx’s prose (who comes from America not Newfoundland) caricaturizes some aspects of life on the rock, she does a great job evoking a sense of place, especially of the weather in Newfoundland. (I’m assuming based on what I know about Newfoundland and from people I know from there, I’ve never actually been to Newfoundland though it is on my bucket list). The setting is definitely the star of the story and Proulx excels at letting it shine – I could easily read an entire novel of Proulx writing about weather of Newfoundland. Proulx writes in such rich language full of great imagery which is very suitable to the setting of her novel – although at times it is too much and she overloads on metaphors sometimes using two or three similes to describe something in a single sentence. Still, her use of language is brilliant and beautiful and is a joy to read – though the pace is a bit of a slow burn. Though a part of me is sad that the best known book about Newfoundland was written by an outsider especially as Newfoundland has a thriving local literary scene.

 

[Thucydides]

John Reed is great at capturing the mood of Russia at the time of the revolution when Lenin came into power . He can spin a phrase, but there’s way too many factions , unions, and other groups to keep track of. There’s even a union of the unions. Makes the book harder to read when you’re trying to keep track of them all and it becomes a bit of a bore to keep up with.

if you haven’t seen the movie “Reds”, directed by Warren Beatty and based on this book, i would recommend that over this. It is a masterpiece with tons of great actors - Diane Keaton, Jack Nicholson, etc.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961) - Probably my favorite piece ever, all artforms included, in the Realism genre. Here, we follow the breakdown of Frank and April Wheeler's marriage, two young suburbanites who could best be described as the intellectual version of Temporarily Embarassed Millionaires. Lazy office worker and lazy housewife, both Frank and April fancy themselves as above their current, comfortable station and neighbors, who they secretly hold their nose at for being dull, sedated dummies. Yates, expertly, both recognizes the danger of such vapid thinking and treats Frank and April as flawed human beings whose tragedy is as serious as any war, famine or disease. Far from a match made in Heaven (these matches can only be made on Earth), they eventually make plans to leave for Paris, where April intends on working while her husband searches for himself, which really only means that Frank's ambition to be anything but an office worker is extremely abstract and has no discernible sensibility besides his certainty that he is A Most Interesting Man. Their two children are treated as mere inconveniences that will go along and get over their parents' selfishness - Boy! - and surely enough, when dealing with a man as precarious as Frank and a woman as jaded and resentful as April, the entire operation collapses (Frank becomes enticed by a potential promotion and April gets pregnant) to disastrous consequences.

It's a beautiful story, conventionally structured, but with little quirks that make it such a kick to read, such as the author's propensity of adding an offhand, unrelated line of dialogue in parentheses to accentuate a memory or emotion. The opening chapter, describing the breakdown of play (April is the lead actress) is a hell of an opening chapter that immediately sets the tone for what is to come. Another masterful moment is Yates opening the third act with demonstrations of how a man's ability to plan time brings considerable comfort and confidence, which he weaves expertly into Frank's manipulation of April to prevent an abortion (I get that this is set in 1955, but uh, wrong call). His ability to delve into a number of characters, their hopes, fears, frustrations and sadness is of a remarkable quality and he seems equally adept as a psychological observer as he appears to be as a storyteller. Since Yates' fiction was autobiographical, the only skill that I assume he had and which may have surpassed the former two was as a domestic opponent. He must have been a formidable contender in a verbal row with a girlfriend or a wife.

In 1961, in Frank and April's desired destination, France, another great writer named Alain Robbe-Grillet published a seminal essay titled Pour un nouveau roman, in which he argued that novelistic tools such as character, humanity, story, messages and the likes were unimportant (and he certainly held up his end of the bargain in that regard) and had to be done away with, so the novel could move forward in strange ways that will eventually be accepted as benchmarks before also being reinvented by a new generation of artists. Sympathetic as I am towards his views - and I very much doubt either Yates or Robbe-Grillet were aware of the other's work, but who knows - it was not lost on me that Revolutionary Road constitutes a powerful rebuttal to his argument (Revolutionary Road is constructed completely around character, story and depth of thought) and that the only conclusion that I can come to is that many forms, including the conventional ones, are valid, that what we tend to perceive as a bad idea is usually bad or incomplete execution, that there are many ways to skin a cat and that what truly ends up mattering in any work of art is how individual talent can redeem and enhance anything, be it form, conventionality, you name it. It can all work. And Yates does so brilliantly here.

 

[Thucydides]

Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates (1961) - Probably my favorite piece ever, all artforms included, in the Realism genre. Here, we follow the breakdown of Frank and April Wheeler's marriage, two young suburbanites who could best be described as the intellectual version of Temporarily Embarassed Millionaires. Lazy office worker and lazy housewife, both Frank and April fancy themselves as above their current, comfortable station and neighbors, who they secretly hold their nose at for being dull, sedated dummies. Yates, expertly, both recognizes the danger of such vapid thinking and treats Frank and April as flawed human beings whose tragedy is as serious as any war, famine or disease. Far from a match made in Heaven (these matches can only be made on Earth), they eventually make plans to leave for Paris, where April intends on working while her husband searches for himself, which really only means that Frank's ambition to be anything but an office worker is extremely abstract and has no discernible sensibility besides his certainty that he is A Most Interesting Man. Their two children are treated as mere inconveniences that will go along and get over their parents' selfishness - Boy! - and surely enough, when dealing with a man as precarious as Frank and a woman as jaded and resentful as April, the entire operation collapses (Frank becomes enticed by a potential promotion and April gets pregnant) to disastrous consequences.

It's a beautiful story, conventionally structured, but with little quirks that make it such a kick to read, such as the author's propensity of adding an offhand, unrelated line of dialogue in parentheses to accentuate a memory or emotion. The opening chapter, describing the breakdown of play (April is the lead actress) is a hell of an opening chapter that immediately sets the tone for what is to come. Another masterful moment is Yates opening the third act with demonstrations of how a man's ability to plan time brings considerable comfort and confidence, which he weaves expertly into Frank's manipulation of April to prevent an abortion (I get that this is set in 1955, but uh, wrong call). His ability to delve into a number of characters, their hopes, fears, frustrations and sadness is of a remarkable quality and he seems equally adept as a psychological observer as he appears to be as a storyteller. Since Yates' fiction was autobiographical, the only skill that I assume he had and which may have surpassed the former two was as a domestic opponent. He must have been a formidable contender in a verbal row with a girlfriend or a wife.

In 1961, in Frank and April's desired destination, France, another great writer named Alain Robbe-Grillet published a seminal essay titled Pour un nouveau roman, in which he argued that novelistic tools such as character, humanity, story, messages and the likes were unimportant (and he certainly held up his end of the bargain in that regard) and had to be done away with, so the novel could move forward in strange ways that will eventually be accepted as benchmarks before also being reinvented by a new generation of artists. Sympathetic as I am towards his views - and I very much doubt either Yates or Robbe-Grillet were aware of the other's work, but who knows - it was not lost on me that Revolutionary Road constitutes a powerful rebuttal to his argument (Revolutionary Road is constructed completely around character, story and depth of thought) and that the only conclusion that I can come to is that many forms, including the conventional ones, are valid, that what we tend to perceive as a bad idea is usually bad or incomplete execution, that there are many ways to skin a cat and that what truly ends up mattering in any work of art is how individual talent can redeem and enhance anything, be it form, conventionality, you name it. It can all work. And Yates does so brilliantly here.

great review . I’ve added this to my re-read pile.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

great review . I’ve added this to my re-read pile.

So, so, so good. Anything from Richard Yates will be an automatic purchase from this point on. The movie's pretty good too if you haven't seen it!

 

[Spring in Fialta]

My Appearance by David Foster Wallace (1989) - How I like my didactic fiction. Weaving it into a compelling story without bashing the reader's head too much with its point. In fact, Wallace does it pretty humorously here. It tackles one his favourite subjects and the one where I find him the most compelling, irony and its place in the cultural landscape. The plot follows a middle-aged TV actress who plays on a popular cop drama who is going to be a guest on the David Letterman show. She's also recently been involved in a wiener commercial, which sends her husband and his friend in a panic because they think Letterman, troll extraordinaire who will chew up anyone corny or self-important, won't hesitate to dunk on her. They coach her before and throughout her interview with Letterman, where we're treated to a fictional version of the late night Host and his sidekick Paul Shaffer. I thought it was a brilliant story. Humorous, Wallace, who seemed to hold nothing but disdain for a certain type of irony - the one which taps itself on its back for its cynicism - takes a stand against it in the form of an actress who is aware of her lot (or the lack of it) in art but who is sincerely proud of the work that she does and, in short, has no reason to believe that she should have any shame in it. She turns the tables on Letterman, who soon enough becomes endeared by her and obviously is not the calculating monster that her husband made him out to be. The ending is a comedic knockout between husband and wife when she takes her husband's nothing is ever as it's really presented to its logical conclusion.

Girl With Curious Hair by David Foster Wallace (1989) - A fairly obvious satire of Bret Easton Ellis' style - which I think gets bashed a little too much by a certain group of folks - but where he still lets his own style and voice shine through. It's sordid, bizarre but ends with one of the most satisfying images I've enjoyed in a short story. A young and disturbed Republican nicknamed Sick Puppy has become friends with a group of Punkrockers who use him for his dough and he pays to take them to a Keith Jarrett concert. The punks take acid and it all goes haywire while delving into how Sick Puppy met the freaks. It definitely stuck with me. Pretty damn funny again in certain places.

 

[kihei]

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli

Given the fact that I have absolutely no aptitude for physics and math whatsoever (flunked a course in each in secondary school), the notion that I am interested in quantum theory seems laughable. I know I am not going to go beyond anything more than a tenuous grasp of terms like superposition, decoherence and entanglement. But while the theory itself is beyond me, what really interests me are the implications of the theory. Quantum theory works; it has worked for about a hundred years; it is here to stay. We would not have iphones, communication satellites, computers, lasers, MRI scans, and on and on without it. Where the problem comes in is that one of the other things that quantum theory tells us is that reality as we know it is nothing at all like we think it is. Not even close.

Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland is a little book that has caused quite a stir. He explains the basics of qunatum theory better than most scientists--the theory tells us that a particle can exist in more than one place, that a cat can be dead and alive at the same time, that particles and waves behave differently when observed, that at sub-atomic levels, reality is granular, and that there may be as many as eleven dimensions. The theory really places great emphasis on the observer. In fact, Rovelli posits that if there is no observer there is no reality, not even space or time.

One of the most insane implications of the theory is that there is a universe waiting for every choice we make. Can't decide between rewatching Star Wars or Jaws? No problem, an infinite number of you do one or the other or both or neither. Flying to Paris or Vienna? You choose Paris; another you chooses Vienna. Why because both choices are perfectly plausible, so there must be a universe that contains both possibilities, where one destination is picked and then in another universe the other destination is chosen. This isn't crank science either. Serious, respected physicists like Sean Carrol believe the "many worlds" theory to be true.

Rovelli, who provides a brief intellectual history of the originators of the theory and delves far afield into transcendental philosophy and history. has a different take on the situation, one that emphasizes the significance of the observer, which he calls relational quantum theory. His belief is that reality is not dependent on matter, which at some level may be waves anyway and not actually exist, but on relations between things, which he means in a rather technical way. While we still function in what for us is a Newtonian universe, where there is an objective reality, where multiplying one number by another always gets the same result regardless of order, and where matter is contained in space and time, Rovelli believes that reality is very different, that space and time are not the containers of reality. Rather space and time don't actually exist unless there is an observer to interact with objects, unless there is a relation between the observer and what is observed (relations also occur between things, which is why the book and table in your study don't disappear when you are not there). But the larger implication is: no observer, no nothing. No single thing exists in isolation from everything else. And there can be no meta-observer either, as nothing exists beyond the cosmos. As Rovelli finally puts it, "reality, including our selves, is nothing but a thin and fragile veil, beyond which...there is nothing." To paraphrase Gertrude Stein's line about Oakland, there is no there there. Anywhere.

 

[Pink Mist]

Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli

Given the fact that I have absolutely no aptitude for physics and math whatsoever (flunked a course in each in secondary school), the notion that I am interested in quantum theory seems laughable. I know I am not going to go beyond anything more than a tenuous grasp of terms like superposition, decoherence and entanglement. But while the theory itself is beyond me, what really interests me are the implications of the theory. Quantum theory works; it has worked for about a hundred years; it is here to stay. We would not have iphones, communication satellites, computers, lasers, MRI scans, and on and on without it. Where the problem comes in is that one of the other things that quantum theory tells us is that reality as we know it is nothing at all like we think it is. Not even close.

Theoretical physicist Carlo Rovelli's Helgoland is a little book that has caused quite a stir. He explains the basics of qunatum theory better than most scientists--the theory tells us that a particle can exist in more than one place, that a cat can be dead and alive at the same time, that particles and waves behave differently when observed, that at sub-atomic levels, reality is granular, and that there may be as many as eleven dimensions. The theory really places great emphasis on the observer. In fact, Rovelli posits that if there is no observer there is no reality, not even space or time.

One of the most insane implications of the theory is that there is a universe waiting for every choice we make. Can't decide between rewatching Star Wars or Jaws? No problem, an infinite number of you do one or the other or both or neither. Flying to Paris or Vienna? You choose Paris; another you chooses Vienna. Why because both choices are perfectly plausible, so there must be a universe that contains both possibilities, where one destination is picked and then in another universe the other destination is chosen. This isn't crank science either. Serious, respected physicists like Sean Carrol believe the "many worlds" theory to be true.

Rovelli, who provides a brief intellectual history of the originators of the theory and delves far afield into transcendental philosophy and history. has a different take on the situation, one that emphasizes the significance of the observer, which he calls relational relative quantum theory. His belief is that reality is not dependent on matter, which at some level may be waves anyway and not actually exist, but on relations between things, which he means in a rather technical way. While we still function in what for us is a Newtonian universe, where there is an objective reality, where multiplying one number by another always gets the same result regardless of order, and where matter is contained in space and time, Rovelli believes that reality is very different, that space and time are not the containers of reality, rather they don't actually exist unless there is an observer to interact with objects, unless there is a relation between the observer and what is observed (relations also occur between things, which is why the book and table in your study don't disappear when you are not there). But the larger implication is: no observer, no nothing. No single thing exists in isolation from everything else. And there can be no meta-observer either, as nothing exists beyond the cosmos. As Rovelli finally puts it, "reality, including our selves, is nothing but a thin and fragile veil, beyond which...there is nothing." To paraphrase Gertrude Stein's line about Oakland, there is no there there. Anywhere.

When I was in grad school for international relations, the big new hot trendy theory was "quantum international relations theory" or "the quantum turn in international relations" which merged quantum physics like entanglement and decoherence with international relations theory. Being a grad student I obviously wanted to be on top of the new hottest theories so I read a chapter from one of the latest books on it and jeez did it ever go over my head. Wasn't for me, but I could see why international relations theorists were attracted to it

 

[kihei]

When I was in grad school for international relations, the big new hot trendy theory was "quantum international relations theory" or "the quantum turn in international relations" which merged quantum physics like entanglement and decoherence with international relations theory. Being a grad student I obviously wanted to be on top of the new hottest theories so I read a chapter from one of the latest books on it and jeez did it ever go over my head. Wasn't for me, but I could see why international relations theorists were attracted to it

Oh, relativity. I read my review over just now and shortened a long sentence or two and thought to myself, damn, that's as clear as I can make it. I'd bet other, actually knowledgeable writers who I have read on the subject think the same, too--"that's as clear as I can make it". And then it dawned on me that probably 90% of people who have the patience to read that review won't have the faintest bloody idea what I am talking about either. It's both a fascinating and frustrating subject. It's like something can be known but not communicated.

 

[Ceremony]

Oh, relativity. I read my review over just now and shortened a long sentence or two and thought to myself, damn, that's as clear as I can make it. I'd bet other, actually knowledgeable writers who I have read on the subject think the same, too--"that's as clear as I can make it". And then it dawned on me that probably 90% of people who have the patience to read that review won't have the faintest bloody idea what I am talking about either. It's both a fascinating and frustrating subject. It's like something can be known but not communicated.

Sounds like a massive con to me. "Yes, I and my fellow scientists are all very intelligent. We exist in different realities that we just can't see. Give us some money and we'll try to prove it."

 

[tarheelhockey]

Absolute must-read if you:

1) Are from Cleveland or are interested in the history of Cleveland
2) Enjoy Prairie Home Companion and similar Americana humor
3) Enjoy light historical fiction that has literary merit


Quick summary: A fictionalized first-person account of the reluctant bridging of Cleveland with Ohio City (an independent city swallowed by the metropolis) across the Cuyahoga River. The narrative voice evokes Mark Twain, including that Midwestern sense of exaggerated folk humor. A pervasive "bridge" theme expands to encompass the bridging of the East to the West, pioneer America to industrial America, mythology to reality, insiders to outsiders, and of course various personal subplots usually having to do with a man chasing entirely the wrong idea of happiness.

Seriously, it's a fast read and well worth the time if you enjoy Twain-style literature.

 

[tarheelhockey]

Sounds like a massive con to me. "Yes, I and my fellow scientists are all very intelligent. We exist in different realities that we just can't see. Give us some money and we'll try to prove it."

The crazy part is when they do mange to prove it. The walls of science are closing in very slowly toward inescapable, somewhat uncomfortable conclusions about the nature of the universe.

 

[Ceremony]

The crazy part is when they do mange to prove it. The walls of science are closing in very slowly toward inescapable, somewhat uncomfortable conclusions about the nature of the universe.

I'm sure they are. It'll be very helpful when nobody can understand them.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I'm sure they are. It'll be very helpful when nobody can understand them.

Most people don’t understand how a carburetor works.

What’s important is that at least a few people get it, and those people do stuff like invent Iron Man suits and what not.

 

[Spring in Fialta]

Richard Yates interview from 1972. Well worth a read. Boy, does he nail some issues with today's acclaimed art. We seem to have no more time for slick liars but all the time in the world for the self-serving ones.

From the Archive: An Interview with Richard Yates | Ploughshares

 

[Thucydides]

Moneyball on steroids.

A great book that peers into the future of not only baseball, not only sports , but well beyond. Entrepreneurs , business leaders, CEO’s, really just about anyone could read this and walk away with some positives. Highly recommend.