climate change policy, science, and activism; photography; cartography and mapmaking
Discussion of books and other literature
Tomorrow will be the tenth anniversary of the death of Carl Sagan: an American astronomer, author, and popularizer of science. Like Arthur C. Clark and Isaac Asimov, he is among those authors of science fiction who have also made a contribution to the accumulation of scientific fact, and to the development of the social role of science within society.
He has been quoted here before.
This morning, I finished Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red. The fact that I left the last fifteen pages of this mystery story unread for a day is not a good sign. Indeed, each of the potential murderers was so similar that the final revelation felt a bit trivial. One pretentious and vindictive illustrator rapidly blurs together with all the others. Likewise, the potentially interesting commentary about European influences on Islamic art quickly became repetitive. The best part about the book were the vignettes presented by the coffee shop storyteller, as he personified a gold coin, a dog, and other similar things. I also very much appreciate my mother’s consideration in sending me such a book just before my trip to Turkey.
Given Pamuk’s acclaim, it seems most sensible to say that the book was simply not for me. Just as I can appreciate bits of Joyce, without appreciating the sweep of his longer books, the same can be said with regard to this novel. Time permitting, I will read my father’s copy of Pamuk’s non-fiction book Istanbul over the remainder of the trip.
In preparation for the trip to Turkey, I have moved on from V.S. Naipaul’s Half a Life to the copy of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red that my mother sent as a birthday gift. Somewhat surprisingly, I find that I get more non-fiction reading done when I intersperse it with chapters from good fiction. It lets you take a break while remaining in a reading mode, and achieve a bit more balance without compromising your ability to get things done.
Written from the perspective of someone who has died violently, but remained capable of immortal communication, the beginning reminds me a bit of Orson Scott Card’s macabre short story “Memories of my Head.” There is an interesting contrast in literature between those who have passed through death to be uncaring about worldly things and those, like this narrator, who remain concerned with matters like wealth and revenge. The most sensible view has always seemed to be that expressed in Emily Brontë’s “Song.” It is a great shame that she herself died so young.
Academically, I have mostly been reading for the seminar this Thursday. Interesting as they have been, it will be a great relief to have the weekly effort they require ended, allowing greater opportunity to focus on the thesis.
At Tristan’s urging, I have added a thick collection of philosophy of science books to my thesis reading stack. At 212 pages, Thomas Kuhn‘s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions looks fairly reasonable. Rather more daunting are the two square books by Karl Popper: Conjectures and Refutations at 580 pages, and The Logic of Scientific Discovery at 513. Popper and Kuhn are the two names that have come up again and again when I discuss this project with people and, judging by the blurbs on the back and a scan of the introductions, these are the three more relevant books by them in the vast shelves of the Norrington Room at Blackwell’s.
Collectively, they are about ten times longer than my thesis will be. My hopes, in reading them, are to avoid embarrassing myself with ignorance of the philosophy of science, at a minimum, and to generate some interesting ideas, from a more optimistic perspective. Notes on all three will appear on the wiki, as I progress through them. I will begin with the Kuhn, once I have dealt with this week’s reading for tomorrow’s seminar, and the preparation of something to say about the thesis project with Dr. Hurrell on Friday.
Tolkien fans will recall that the Ents (a mythical species of animated trees) consist entirely of males, with the females having been lost at some forgotten point in the distant past. It seems that there is an actual tree species (Encephalartos woodii) in a similar predicament. Only four stems were ever found in the wild, in 1895, and the last of those died in 1964. All surviving examples are clones of that last plant, and no females are known to exist anywhere in the world. Both the clones and their seeds are protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
People in the vicinity of London can see one of the clones at the Kew Botanical Gardens.
While flying home, I finished Micheal Ignatieff’s Blood and Belonging. The main subject of the book is the examination of a number of contemporary examples of ethnic nationalism, both more and less violent in character. As he intended, it is a fairly chilling depiction of some of the uglier elements of human relations, in the more disputed parts of the world today. His description of the use of chemical weapons against the people of the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq makes his initial support for the American led invasion more comprehensible.
At the same time as this book makes one fearful about the kind of world we will inhabit in twenty years, it also provides some hope. While I have not personally visited Quebec or Northern Ireland, it seems, on the basis of the coverage I have seen, that things are not as bad as they were when this book was written in the early nineties. Economic prosperity and civic forms of nationalism have the capacity, at least in theory, to slowly erode the bases of hatred and violence. Let us hope that this trend can win out in the long run over the one that seeks to define nation by something as arbitrary and damaging as an ethnic notion of identity.
I started reading this book in order to get a better sense of Ignatieff as a thinker and as a prospective leader. While my new sense is not sturdy enough to be definitive, I definitely think more of the man than I did in the period before I had read any of his writing. His understanding of difficult issues seems to have a subtlety and a compassion that is definitely not the mark of your standard politician. I will have to read more of his thinking, however, before I can issue or withhold a final endorsement.
Despite having lived in Canada for more than twenty years, and being interested in all matters political for much of that time, I really don’t know a great deal about Canadian politics. This is especially true of the raft of individuals who comprise Canada’s political elite; I could definitely tell you more about, say, Tom Daschle and Barack Obama than any of their Canadian equivalents. References that people like Tim, Tristan, Spencer, and Emily make regularly leave me with no idea of what they are talking about. That probably has something to do with a lifetime in which I have skipped straight to the ‘international’ section of the newspaper, followed by ‘United States,’ and then ‘science.’ I rationalize it to myself on the basis of the general hope that Canada will muddle through on its own and that if something really spectacular is going on, I will hear about it anyway.
In a bid to partially reverse this long time trend, I have decided to learn a bit about Michael Ignatieff: at least to the point where I can endorse or reject him as a possible leader for the federal Liberal party and, by extension, a possible Prime Minister. To that end, I am now reading his book Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism. It seems to be more about the world in general than about Canada specifically, but it should at least lay bare some of his assumptions and modes of thinking.
To those much more aware of this contest than I am, which of the other potential Liberal leaders are worthy of some examination?
For years, Project Gutenberg and related endeavours have been seeking to produce digital copies of books that are no longer under copyright. The Gutenberg people have already digitized 17,000. Purposes for doing so include making machine-readable copies available for those with disabilities, allowing for their use with e-book readers, and even in more creative applications – like printing books onto scarves, so that you can read them on flights from the UK to the United States.
In the grand tradition of huge companies incorporating the results of smaller enterprises, many (if not all) of the Gutenberg books are now available through Google Book Search. Figuring out which Jane Austen book a particular passage stuck in your memory is from has thus become a far simpler task. For years, I have been using The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, provided by MIT, to search through plays.
Admittedly, not many people want to sit in front of a monitor to read an entire book. With the development of electronic paper that has high resolution, high contrast, and no requirement for power consumption while displaying static information, perhaps this will all become a whole lot more useful.
A friend of mine challenged me to come up with the collection of items that I would submit to ‘Desert Island Discs’ – a British radio show in which interview subjects are questioned about what they would bring along to soften the experience of being stranded on a desert island:
“Created by Roy Plomley in 1942, the format is simple: each week a guest is invited by Sue Lawley to choose the eight records they would take with them to a desert island.
The discussion of their choice is a device for them to review their life. They also choose a favourite book (excluding the Bible or other religious work and Shakespeare – these already await the “castaway”) and a luxury which must be inanimate and have no practical use.”
First off, I must complement the erudite Gideons who have already stocked the world’s islands not only with Bibles, but also with Shakespeare’s works. Am I allowed to bring Paradise Lost or a book with spiritual importance for me as my “Bible or other religious work?”
Music
Starting with the choice of musical albums, this is no easy matter of selection. I have 667 albums in iTunes alone, and this is a time at which the term ‘album’ is rapidly losing meaning. Thinking about, for instance, how often artists have taken to re-organizing, re-mixing, and re-combining their tracks, the medium of album is becoming more like that of the playlist, of which I have only a few dozen. Of course, each of those is rather too long to fit on a CD (even as data files) and would most definitely not fit on a record, so I am back to the contemplation of albums.
One natural way to proceed would be to choose eight critical artists and then simply select either their best work, or the work that you think would stand up best to very frequent re-listening. In the interests of fairness, I will treat two-disc albums (such at Tori Amos’ To Venus and Back or the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie) as two albums, if chosen.
I have long treated music partly as a mechanism for altering moods. Given the dire desert scenario, it seems wise to think that way when planning.
In no particular order, then, my albums would be:
Naturally, lots of albums were very close to making the cut. It is not necessarily that I think these are my eight best albums – the circumstances of where they are to be enjoyed have been taken into consideration. I have intentionally not considered classical or opera albums, because that would make the selection too daunting.
Book
This is a tough one indeed. The first obvious choice is between taking something you have read and enjoyed or bringing something new. I would opt for the former. Chances are, you will read this book many times. As such, however many times you read it before arriving will soon be trivial. Out the window goes Ulysses, then, which I have tried to read four times but never managed to progress more than fifty pages into.
I am fairly sure attempts to bring something like The Encyclopedia Britannica would defeat the purpose of this exercise, but if I could bring a really massive reference book on scientific, literary, and historical themes, I would definitely do so. I have always wanted an undisturbed chance to brush up on classical and art history, music, botany, and the many other topics about which I know little or nothing.
Given the length of time, the book should be a thick and complicated one. Much as I adore Lolita, it really doesn’t have the kind of physical bulk a person would want for a desert island book. In the end, I think I would go with Anna Karenina. I’ve only read it twice, so there is plenty of depth into which I could yet descend. Also, there might be a good market for an autobiography of someone who slowly went mad reading Anna Karenina, provided he is at some point rescued in a condition sane enough to write subsequently.
Luxury
To me, this is by far the least important. Luxuries are not useless items, but useful ones that are unusually fine. A fancy pen is a comprehensible luxury, as is a fine meal or expensive audio equipment. I assume, if I am being allowed to bring albums, that the audio gear is provided and acceptable.
Ultimately, I think I would choose a musical instrument. I have never learned to play one, and have long wanted to. Naturally, doing so alone on a desert island is not ideal. I would have no scores, no instruction, and no audience. Nonetheless, it would certainly help pass the time – and perhaps express the many longings and madnesses that are certain to arise in such a place. As for which one, the relevant considerations would be resistance to sun and sand, and a low need for maintenance. Anything that needs tuning or new parts is out. Given that I cannot think of any instrument that I would trust to survive the conditions and trust myself to learn, I am abandoning this idea in mid stride. The idea of myself stranded with a clarinet that I have no idea how to play is actually quite heartbreaking.
No musical instruments, then. Writing materials are both useful and not a luxury (at least in this day and age). A fruit tree would be both useful and animate, while the same goes for an olive bush.
Perhaps the thing to bring along is a corrosion resistant razor of a variety that will not dull for many years. In the first instance, it would provide a daily ritual that would help in the recording of the passing of time. In the second, imagine the surprise of your rescuers when they find you clean-shaven and very well versed in Shakespeare!
[Update: 25 February 2007] Since so many people were looking for them, some Idal Raichel lyrics translated into English have been added.
I bought John Banville’s The Sea in Dublin because I so enjoyed Shirley Hazzard’s The Great Fire: the last Man Booker Prize winning novel I had read. Actually, I note with some surprise that, upon looking it up, Alan Hollinghurst’s The Line of Beauty won the Booker Prize, while Hazzard’s book did not. Nonetheless, from the moment I bought Banville’s book to the instant I checked the list a moment ago, I believed the converse. As such, my expectations for this book were established by Hazzard’s work and not Hollinghurst’s, with which I have very different associations. Primarily, those had to do with arriving in Oxford not expecting it to have moved beyond the Thatcherite era.
I hadn’t known that Banville was Irish, or that the book was set in Ireland, so it ended up being rather more appropriate than reading Hazzard’s account of Asia after the second world war in the break room of the West Vancouver Staples location. Despite the appropriateness of the setting, this book did not quite live up to the expectations I had of it.
Told as a kind of layered story with a less than entirely sympathetic narrator, Banville‘s novel describes the life of a man who experienced a strange and tragic series of events as a child, followed by the sickness and death of his wife, and then a troubled relationship with his daughter. While some of the writing is undoubtedly fine, it is not a story that particularly resonated with me.
At a few points, in tantalizing fashion, the narrative voice breaks down in order to reveal the way in which it is an artificial abstraction on the part of the narrator. At one point, it does so in proper dramatic, provocative Joycean style. While these glimpses are certainly exciting, they are never followed up. We are left with proof that we are having a hollow tale spun around us, but no hope of seeing anything more solid.
