To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis

To Say Nothing of the Dog: Or, how we found the Bishop's bird stump at last by Connie Willis is a book that I picked up in the Labor Day sale thinking that it would be good to have something funny on the shelves.

Started: 3/25/2020
Completed: 3/30/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

Aspidistra -- a genus of flowing plants native to eastern and southeastern Asia

jumble sale -- a sale of miscellaneous secondhand articles, typically held in order to raise money for a charity or a special event; a rummage sale

MacGuffin -- an object, device, or event that is necessary to the plot and the motivation of the characters, but insignificant, unimportant, or irrelevant in itself.

Review:

Completely disoriented again.  Of course, so is the protagonist.  Still mostly confusing.  This reminds me of Jonathon Strange & Mr. Norrell which I started 3 times, but could never get through.

I did not find this book funny.  It is several layers of love story facilitated by time travel, which is truly just a mechanism to tell the story and allow most of the story to occur as though it were a historical novel.  The mechanism of time travel also allows for both confusion and for the protagonists to reveal their hearts to one another (as the "time lag" causes them to say things they would otherwise not).

The Bishop's bird stump is a MacGuffin, so one needn't really focus on it.  It could be that the book is a mystery, although I didn't really feel it was. It sort of defies a clear catalog.

Tightrope, Kristof and WuDunn

Tightrope: Americans reaching for hope by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn is a book that I had identified to read, but I cannot remember why.

Started: 3/22/2020
Completed: 3/25/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

In the beginning of this book, the authors mention their friend Wes Moore (The Other Wes Moore) and I know that this book is going to be similar to others I have read on poverty in America.  It is heartbreaking to read these books and shocking how clearly the issue of a single mistake by a poor family simply crushes the whole family.

It seems like the authors have unwittingly used Bernie Sanders stump speech numbers and woven them into the life stories of people the authors knew.  This brings the statistics to life and serves as a single point of validation.  It makes the numbers more believable and easier to remember.  The policy proposals are more modest than what Bernie has proposed, but that does not invalidate them as a stepping stone to a better America.

The Flight Portfolio, Julie Orringer

The Flight Portfolio by Julie Orringer was on a list of top books to read.

Started: 12/31/2019
Completed: 3/23/2019
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By:  A list of top books for 2019

Review:

I really did not enjoy the narrator, Edoardo Ballerini, who seemed to be moaning plaintively throughout the book.  Everyone has there own predilections, but, to me, this seemed to give the book a certain draining quality.

There were some nice twists of phrase and I particularly enjoyed:  "He put the ticket into his vampiric device and returned it double punched and drained of value."

The summaries of this book suggest that there is a huge moral question addressed:  How do we weigh human lives?  This book does not suggest that there is more than one way.  It seems to be largely an issue of chance and even more one of opportunity.  The main character seemed unable to discern what is truly a matter of life and death and what is not.

This book, in general, is a love story.  It uses the Nazi invasion of France as a back drop.  I've noticed that poor romances often use dramatic circumstances to force drama into a romance which can hardly stand on its own.  I find this romance to be rather hollow (lots of heavy breathing, moments of wrapping one another for safety, and endless longing).  It has an odd addition of some sort of comedy of errors due to statements that "could not be made" and misunderstood intentions (coupled with dubious calls to honor).  In general, I did not enjoy the book, but felt I was slogging through it looking for something that simply never came.

There was a reference to the Master's School motto (my mother's alma mater...she called it Dobbs), "Do it with thy might."

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, Richard P. Feynman

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out:  The best short works of Richard Feynman by Richard P. Feynman.  I just enjoy reading his writing.

Started: 3/20/2020
Completed: 3/22/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

Richard Feynman was both brilliant and insightful.  He did not think much of sociology or psychology (he classed those basically with astrology and religion).  He was a misogynist who was shocked to think that women could learn linear algebra.  On the slightly bright side, he fully accepted that his understanding of women's brains (with respect to linear algebra) was incorrect.  It is unclear to me that he ever progressed beyond that, but he may have.

He talks about how he came to science largely through his father (who was a uniform salesman).  His father encouraged him to look at the world as though "he were a Martian."  This led Feynman to look at the world in a novel way and ask questions that many never think to ask.  That is, without doubt, the greatest thing that Richard Feynman brings to the game.

Red Rising, Pierce Brown

Red Rising by Pierce Brown is a book I tried reading once before and stopped due to the violence.  A friend (Joe) tells me that this is his favorite book and that I should try it again.  So I will.

Started: 3/19/2020
Completed: 3/20/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: Joe

Review:

The opening of this book is horribly violent.  It is violating.  I could not take it and put the book aside.  My friend, Joe, told me that this was a one off and important to the story.  Eh.  The rest of the book is less horribly violent, it is terribly violent.  The violence, however, is odd.  It is both shocking and it is numbing.

The story is excellent and oddly triumphant.  Several times I simply cringed.  There is so much more to the story, so much more that I did not realize as I read each piece.

The violating violence at the beginning was needed for this story to work.  I am not sure that this story needs to be told.  It is, however, very well told.

"The blood feud runs deep and I feel it pulling at my ankles."

Mindf*ck, Christopher Wylie

Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the plot to break America by Christopher Wylie was something my wife thought I might be interested in learning more about.

Started: 3/16/2020
Completed: 3/19/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: My Wife

Words for which I sought help:

fungible -- able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable

Review:

This book is just unbelievable.  It is staggering how effectively Cambridge Analytica created a method for simply destroying any sense of honor in American society.  This was done systematically, intentionally, and led to the horror of the current Republican president, Brexit, and numerous other abuses in smaller countries.

After a series of interviews and focus groups, Wylie said, "It turns out that Republicans can accept a bat-shit, insane candidate so long as it is consistent insanity."  Being able to develop this kind of hypothesis and then test it in focus groups is classical political strategy.  Being able to expand the focus group to near the entire population (as Cambridge Analytica did via Facebook data) means that message testing can be done on a 1:1 scale.  As daunting as that is, it turns out that being able to identify what message to send to individuals in order to change their perspective and then being able to send that message anonymously can cause individuals to hew to another's belief.  What is more, certain individuals (thought influencers if you will) can be bombarded with completely false, but logically consistent narratives until those vulnerable individuals start to share the false narrative with others.  Through incremental change, large shifts in perception can be implemented.

We all feel that we should be protected from this kind of influence.  The problem, however, is that there is no penalty for cheating in this way.  "The integrity of the sport demands a clean race.  But, in politics we do not presume integrity as a necessary prerequisite for our democracy."  In politics cheating is fine if you win because, having won, you can insulate yourself from the reasonable consequences of your criminal behavior.  This is a new perspective to me and though I should have seen it, I simply did not.

At the end of the book, Wylie calls for software engineers to be held accountable for ethical behavior.  This is a good idea.  There is a problem, however, based upon code reuse (one piece of code can be used in many, many different ways never envisioned or intended by the original author), but I think that can be handled.  At least it is a start.

I feel, however, that politics should also demand integrity.  Integrity should be a prerequisite for democracy.  Politicians should also have a code of ethics that is enforceable on every level.  With the risk that the powerful/rich can literally generate favorable opinions through false narratives, the penalty for attempting to do that should be brutal.  How to make that happen is something else entirely...maybe this requires some sort of Constitutional amendment in  the United States involving ill-gotten political gains.

FWIW, Trump has hired the data experts from Cambridge Analytica with a new company name for his 2020 reelection bid.

Pachinko, Min Jin Lee

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee is a National Book Award finalist.  This book is part of my effort to broaden my horizons and read more books from different cultures.

Started: 3/13/2020
Completed: 3/16/2020
Recommendation: Recommended
Recommended By: Nobody

Review:

I sort of thought that this book might be like Leon Uris', Trinity, but it is not.  There are many interesting parallels that can be drawn, but it feels like those are done in hindsight.  The parallels are rather shallow and not illuminating.

This book is a story of oppression.  Oppression of women.  Oppression of Koreans.  Even some self-oppression and some just plain bad decisions.  Because this book spends so much time wrapped in poverty, simple mistakes or bad decisions are not lessons, but catastrophes.  Good decisions are simply steps in survival.

The book is not as sad as the previous paragraph makes it sound.  Humans seem to try to enjoy themselves in some way even if the opportunities are sparse.  The poignant moments sparkle in the melody of oppression.  The book is also not without success and victory, but even the characters themselves feel these victories are cheats of a sort.

Good character is honored (despite not really being rewarded for the most part) in general and that is a little refreshing.  This is a story that is different from the themes of European books.  This book seems to be run on the theme of suffering and, particularly, women's suffering.  At the same time, it is a tale of women's strength.  One serves as a foil for the other with neither claiming the ascendancy.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena, Anthony Marra

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra was on Obama's Reading list.

Started: 3/10/2020
Completed: 3/13/2020
Recommendation: Highly Recommended
Recommended By: President Obama

Review:

This book wraps together the horrors of poverty and war with the richness of people who support one another.  The characters are generally rich and none are truly noble, but most carry a nugget of nobility.  The story is intricate and the ties between characters in many ways unexpected.  The brief vignettes that are used to tell the story feel disjoint as they arrive and, yet, knit together clearly in a subtle way.  When talking about one character slowly losing his wife and reflecting on how their combined lives are becoming an increasing collection of things that they no longer share "...just as a web is no more than holes woven together...."

Some of the descriptions are evocative, others distasteful, but all are striking.  My favorite was:  "The slender beard descending from his chin looked like the tail of a squirrel hibernating in his mouth."

Parts of some of the stories seemed like a reliving of an old wive's tale:  "If you want to keep a man, hide his shoes under the bed every night so that he cannot run away from you."  Others, seemed to be lifted from the very fabric of Chechnya.  "She was harder to pin down than the last pickle in the jar."  This is such a Slavic expression.  Americans would talk about the bottom of the barrel or the elusiveness of a greased pig.  How did a Landon boy get this expression?  He lived in Eastern Europe for several years and wove his experience into the novel.

"Latin is a problem with which I have no experience,"  is wishful thinking from a prep school boy.  To me, some of these expressions kept the novel alive with the voice of the author unexpectedly appearing from one of the characters.  This was well done, however, so it was not jarring to an American reader, but invited the reader into the book.

Wolf Hall, Hilary Mantel

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel is the prequal to Bring Up the Bodies which I noticed on President Obama's reading list.  This book is extremely well respected as a winner of the Man Booker Prize.

Started: 3/6/2020
Completed: 3/10/2020
Recommendation: Not recommended
Recommended By: President Obama

Review:

The minutiae of Thomas Cromwell do not interest me.  I would say it is just Henry VIII trying to get his groove on, but I have read a couple of books that touch on this subject.  I even read The Life of Thomas More a couple of decades ago and made it all the way through that--a much more boring read from the view of content.  This book, however, I just could not take.  The novelization did not catch me and I found the characters (though big players on the stage of their time) to be uninteresting.  The dialog (maybe taken from letters?) did not grab me and I was constantly trying to figure out the time period of the book as it seems to jump back and forth in Cromwell's life with few clues that a transition had been made.  I just don't get it and gave up half way through.

Very Stable Genius, Rucker and Leonnig

  

A Very Stable Genius:  Donald J. Trump's testing of America by Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig is another in the long list of trying to understand this administration.

Started: 2/28/2020
Completed: 3/5/2020
Recommendation: Mild Recommendation
Recommended By: Nobody

Words for which I sought help:

opprobrium -- harsh criticism or censure

salubrious -- favorable

Review:

As expected...Trump's white house sucks.  He is wild and careening.  This book rehashes a lot of events with which I am familiar from a number of other books and offers a little more insight since some of the people involved are not in government right now.  There is more about the Mueller report then I have read elsewhere and the timing is fantastic as a Federal Judge announced today that Barr may well have mislead on that report.