Et cetera.

2008-04-03T23:47:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted here in...FOREVER.
Between LJ and facebook, my online social life is full. Sorry, but I'm not coming back here until further notice.

2007-12-28T13:41:00.001-08:00

Dictionary of Literary Terms by Barnet, Berman, Burto

I read this from cover to cover, skipping some of the more boring entries such as the six-page entry on different types of meter and versification in poetry (I'll lean all that next quarter anyway). I learned some interesting factoids:

- The first edition of Shakespeare's complete works was published in folio format in 1623.
- deus ex machina literally refers to God coming from a machine. In Greek drama, it referred to a God coming into the drama and solving the characters' problems. Nowadays it can also refer to any unexpected and unlikely agent or action entering a story and resolving the conflict.
- a debat (with an accent over the "a" but I don't know how to do that) is a medieval literary form in which two speakers (often allegorical characters who embody some idea or form) debate/discuss a topic.
- didactic literature: literature that solely has instructive value. An example of this is a fable, which tells the reader how to live life.
- a motif is usually a theme/device/symbol/image that shows up in many different works. An example of this is the Faustian theme (selling one's soul to the devil), which occurs in such varied works as Goethe's Faust, Marlowe's The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus, Oscar Wilde's the Picture of Dorian Grey, and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita.

This is a short read (97 pages) and for me, is a step towards reading larger encyclopedic works. Totally worth reading.

Richard Wright - Rites of Passage

2007-12-22T10:48:00.000-08:00

I didn't like this as much as I did Black Boy. I think this might have been because it was meant for teens, and wasn't really as deep as the other one I read. The characters were very flat and almost parody-like. I finished it in about

two hours.

"Finally Johnny was dreaming, dreaming that the woman had come and had found him, and yet, while dreaming, knowing full well that she would never come, that he was alone, knowing that no such voice would call him home, reprove him with love, chastise him with devotion, or place a cool soft hand upon his brow when he was fevered with doubt and indecision; knowing that he was alone and had to go on to make a life for himself by trying to reassemble the shattered fragments of his lonely heart." (115)

The Science Fiction Hall of Fame vol. 1

2007-12-21T23:43:00.000-08:00

I really liked this anthology. The stories may be old but the best ones deal with themes that are universal. Others were pretty boring and involved themes which are now pretty out of date or which weren't delved into very much. Many of them had almost no characterization.

Authors I want to pursue:
John Campbell
Theodore Sturgeon
Isaac Asimov
AE van Vogt
Clifford Simak (maybe)
Ray Bradbury
James Blish
Arthur Clarke
Anthony Boucher
Jerome Bixby
Tom Godwin
Damon Knight
Daniel Keyes
Roger Zelazny

================================================

End-of-break reading goals:
Richard Wright, Rites of Passage
Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
Dave Eggers, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

2007-12-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

NOTE: I'm starting a funny way of writing, just as an experiment. Instead of backspacing, I'll strikethrough everything that I would have erased, thereby allowing me to gain greater insight into my writing process.

Guess what book this is from (bold emphasis added):

"In Christian marriage the man is said
to be the "head." Two questions obviously arise here, (1) Why should there
be a head at all -why not equality? (2) Why should it be the man?

...

why the man? Well, firstly,
is there any
very serious wish that it should be the woman
? As I have said, I am not
married myself, but as far as 1 can see,
even a woman who wants to be the
head of her own house does not usually admire the same state of things when
she finds it going on next door. She is much more likely to say "Poor Mr. X!
Why he allows that appalling woman to boss him about the way she does is
more than I can imagine."
I do not think she is even very nattered if anyone
mentions the fact of her own "headship."
There must be something unnatural
about the rule of wives over husbands, because the wives themselves are half
ashamed of it and despise the husbands whom they rule.

Uhhhh.......yeah, sure.....

=============================================================================

It's from C.S. Lewis' book, Mere Christianity. I think there's a reason why he was a bachelor, lol! Seriously, I was expecting a book that explained Christian doctrine in a clear and logical (or just THEOlogical, pun intended) manner, but this book left me in utter disgust. I don't know if I can

read

enjoy Chronicles of Narnia the same way again. He's *SO* dogmatic and doesn't explain the assumptions he makes, just recites them as if they are as obviously true to everyone else as they are to him.

In short, if you are a non-Christian who wants to read about the positive side of the faith, then I would suggest a less sexist, homophobic, unclear book.

2007-12-16T00:36:00.001-08:00

I want to get back into book postings, so you'll be seeing more of this stuff.

The Science fiction Hall of Fame, Volume I contains some horrible stories. For something that is supposed to have the best pre-1970 scifi, there are some really trashy works - stuff that is either just plain horrible or maybe was interesting at the time but wouldn't be now due to scientific advances (such as that story from the 1930s about meeting little green men on Mars...lol).

However, this will introduce me to some authors who bring up relevant and interesting ideas about how science will affect peoples' lives. The ones whose stories I enjoyed so far are Campbell, Sturgeon, van Vogt, Clifford Simak, Bradbury, Clarke, Jerome Bixby, Tom Godwin, Damon Knight, Daniel Keyes, and Zelazney.

I especially like Bradbury's "Mars is Heaven!" story. Questions and spoilers below:

- if the captain imagined his family back into being simply because he thought about it, did he also make his family murderers just by imagining it? Or were they illusions created by Martian technology, designed to kill him all along?

- if the world that the Earthmen found is fake and imagined, then why didn't it disappear when they died? Or did it just live on in concept, a la Raw Shark texts?

- I love how he brings up this idea of rugged, professional spacemen having the weak spot of their own families. Pretty much every human would have this weak spot because we have dual identities, i.e. the professional work identity of someone (if their job is an astronaut) and the personal familial identity of someone. Perhaps Bradbury is pointing out that our humanity (what makes us "human" in a more-than-biological sense) will always hold us back from being perfect scientific explorers or objective beings.

Wiesel - The Accident (later republished as Day)

2007-10-27T13:45:00.001-07:00

Wiesel's deeply philosophical works always captivate me, and this is no different. Throughout the book, Elie struggles between life and death and his commitments to both. Who is he responsible to - his dead relatives or his living friends?

He deals with the same issues many survivors of horrible tragedies deal with - the "why am I alive and everyone else isn't?" question. Yet his grief and anguish is magnified to the extreme, and the prose he paints it with makes it exquisite.

"'I began to drink the salt water of the sea,' he said. 'There was no fear in me. I knew that I was dying, but I remained calm. A strangely sweet serenity came over me. I thought: at last I'll know what a drowning man thinks about. That was my last thought. I lost consciousness.'" (120)

"Hatred puts accents on things and beings, and on what separates them. Love erases accents. I thought: here's another minute that will punctuate my existence." (107)

"Love is a question mark, not an exclamation point. It can explain everything without calling on arguments whose weakness is based on logic. A boy who is in love knows more about the universe and about creation than a scholar. Why do we have to die? Because I love you, my love. and why do parallel lines meet at infinity? What a question! It's only because I love you, my love.
.....Yes, it was easy. I love Kathleen. Therefore life has a meaning, man isn't alone. Love is the very proof of God's existence." (81)

I finished my library cataloging!

2007-10-05T08:12:00.000-07:00

Wagner's Mage

2007-09-23T00:18:00.000-07:00

Okay, I've never read a graphic novel in my life, so this wasn't too bad a start.

I saw it at the library and remembered that recommended it to me. A quick read, only took about three hours.

Great mythical overtones! It's like a modern-day King Arthur tale. When I was little I LOVED those kind of stories, Robin Hood and The Sword in the Stone and such. But this is in an urban setting and has different pop-cultural settings, like the Edsel.
It never occurred to me that any day, I could be called on to be a hero....and would I have the strength? the courage? Matchstick definitely does.

Could our lives be part of some greater purpose which we may never know of?
Is human existence an allegory? Wagner goes into this, as Kevin struggles to deal with the fact that his life is the main part of an allegory.
Duty. Being needed. Honor. Bravery. Heroism. ..........Such scary words.

But since so few people are actually involved in the allegory, does it really matter? If it doesn't affect people much then it's not an overarching plan for all humanity, since any overarching plan would have to affect many people.

The idea that any small thing in this world could really be part of some other context for existence, some other metaframework, but we don't realize it. Example: muscle tics. I get those in my right hip a lot; are they merely muscle tics or are they part of some allegorical fight between good and evil, between yin and yang?
Physics dictates that every action in the universe is part of the struggle between entropy and order. So there's an allegorical fight which took humanity a long time to figure out. May there be others yet undiscovered?

Still, the plot was a bit formulaic, which may or may not be a good thing - basic literary conventions of the hero's journey. Not entirely my cup of tea, but still more depth than a literary snob like me would expect in a graphic novel.

"Fate has certain games that it choose to play, Kevin - a hand for every player. But we all pick our final paths. Our roles and situations may seem haphazardly set, but it is our own decisions that turn the cogs." (341)

Some further thoughts on Oscar Wilde.

2007-09-23T00:09:00.000-07:00

Part of this new reading system involves studying reviews, essays, and criticism on a book to gain further understanding of the text.
OMG literary analysis! I agree that a lot of it is superfluous (one that I ran across is called "AESTHETICISM, HOMOEROTICISM, AND CHRISTIAN GUILT IN THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: A DARWINIAN CRITIQUE") but learning about the dominant philosophies of the time and biographical background of the author really *DO* add context to and make the book so much more interesting. For example, The Picture of Dorian Grey took on a whole new meaning when I learned that if Oscar Wilde were alive today, he'd probably be a NAMBLA member. The Dorians, an ancient Greek tribe, had a very common cultural practice of man-boy love.

In no way does this diminish the pleasure from the book, unless it's taught badly. What I usually do is read it through once with no thinking, just for the pleasure of the read, then analyze afterwards. The only problem with this method is some literary devices, like foreshadowing, are lost on me!
I think a great author will make a book that is very ripe with room for analysis but at the same time is fun to read on the surface. The "surface" things, like plot, character, dialogue, etc., are important in any book, even a dime novel, and if a book hasn't mastered those then it shouldn't try to do analytical stuff or philosophical exposition.

Wilde was a member of the "fin de siecle" late Victorian school of aesthetic philosophy knows as Aestheticism. Basically they thought that art should have NO purpose; no hidden meanings, no political messages, just the beauty to be contemplated. Even things like morals do not belong in a work of art.

"#4. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.......
#15. All art is at once surface and symbol.
#16. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
#17. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril."
(from the preface to Picture of Dorian Grey )
I interpret this to mean that any sort of symbolism in art only brings out the ugly meanings; therefore, people who look for these ugly meanings are not contemplating art properly.

Yet the novel itself contradicts this theme. The main character (Dorian) sees only beauty and does not consider ethical meanings; he has made a Faustian (use that word if you want to sound smart) pact with the devil.
Is Dorian supposed to be considered an example for how to live life? He may have committed murder but he was outwardly liked for his charm and youthful beauty.
Or maybe I am not supposed to be analyzing the novel, since it is a work of art.

A very unorthodox interpretation of the novel can be found here; I'm not sure what to think of it.

"Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps." -Oscar Wilde, in a letter

Links:
Interesting survey of criticism on Wilde
Some interesting info about how he related to the public

Further thoughts on Oscar Wilde

2007-09-19T21:49:00.001-07:00

Part of this new reading system involves studying reviews, essays, and criticism on a book to gain further understanding of the text.
OMG literary analysis! I agree that a lot of it is superfluous (one that I ran across is called "AESTHETICISM, HOMOEROTICISM, AND CHRISTIAN GUILT IN THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY: A DARWINIAN CRITIQUE") but learning about the dominant philosophies of the time and biographical background of the author really *DO* add context to and make the book so much more interesting. For example, The Picture of Dorian Grey took on a whole new meaning when I learned that if Oscar Wilde were alive today, he'd probably be a NAMBLA member. The Dorians, an ancient Greek tribe, had a very common cultural practice of man-boy love.

In no way does this diminish the pleasure from the book, unless it's taught badly (and in a high school English class, OMG this is usually the case!). What I usually do is read it through once with no thinking, just for the pleasure of the read, then analyze afterwards. The only problem with this method is some literary devices, like foreshadowing, are lost on me!
I think a great author will make a book that is very ripe with room for analysis but at the same time is fun to read on the surface. The "surface" things, like plot, character, dialogue, etc., are important in any book, even a dime novel, and if a book hasn't mastered those then it shouldn't try to do analytical stuff or philosophical exposition.

Wilde was a member of the "fin de siecle" late Victorian school of aesthetic philosophy knows as Aestheticism. Basically they thought that art should have NO purpose; no hidden meanings, no political messages, just the beauty to be contemplated. Even things like morals do not belong in a work of art.

"#4. Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.......
#15. All art is at once surface and symbol.
#16. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.
#17. Those who read the symbol do so at their peril."
(from the preface to Picture of Dorian Grey )
I interpret this to mean that any sort of symbolism in art only brings out the ugly meanings; therefore, people who look for these ugly meanings are not contemplating art properly.

Yet the novel itself contradicts this theme. The main character (Dorian) sees only beauty and does not consider ethical meanings; he has made a Faustian (use that word if you want to sound smart) pact with the devil.
Is Dorian supposed to be considered an example for how to live life? He may have committed murder but he was outwardly liked for his charm and youthful beauty.
Or maybe I am not supposed to be analyzing the novel, since it is a work of art.

A very unorthodox interpretation of the novel can be found here; I'm not sure what to think of it.

"Basil Hallward is what I think I am: Lord Henry what the world thinks me: Dorian what I would like to be--in other ages, perhaps." -Oscar Wilde, in a letter

Links:
Interesting survey of criticism on Wilde
Some interesting info about how he related to the public

books and stuff.

2007-09-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

9/2/07 3:36 PM

Today we went to a thrift store and a used book store called The Book Nook.
It's entirely possible that I am addicted to books.
The thrift store was benefitting a home for orphans and abused children. Being an orphan, I HAVE to support an orphanage. Today I bought:
Wilderness and the American Mind by R.F. Nash (this is for my grandma)
Seven Contemporary Short Novels - includes Roth, Porter, Bellow, McCullers, Triling, Steinbeck, and O'Connor. A textbooky anthology with discussion questions.
Chaucer's Canterbury Tales translation by R.M. Lumiansky. (I later realized this was a prose translation, EWWWWW. I gave it away.)
Jennie Gerhardt by Dreiser. If you recall, I read An American Tragedy and The Genius and loved them, so this one should be good.
Darkness at Noon by Koestler. By an English author but it's a novel about the politics of Soviet Russia.
The Genius of the Early English Theater , an anthology of Medieval and Renaissance drama
The Cabala by Thornton Wilder
A Short History of England's and America's Literature , from 1906. I want to see what the historical bias is and it sounds very interesting. I do have a fetish for literature textbooks and anthologies, especially old ones. I keep a big stack of anthologies of all different sorts on my nightstand and read something when the mood strikes me.
Modern English Readings from 1951. It has biographies, short stories, poems, essays and plays, organized thematically and including stuff that isn't in most anthologies.
The Beauty of Fractals: Images of Complex Dynamical Systems - seems very in-depth on the math of fractals, I don't think I'll be able to understand it too well unless I study something simpler first. However it was only 50 cents, and this is supposed to be a classic of fractal geometry writing.
Total cost: $11. Of course I have to mail them home but HEY, don't use your facts and logic on ME!
(That's my catch-phrase, BTW FYI. Not JK LOL)

Today I started Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak after finishing The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde. (I MUST read more Wilde, his work is fantabulous.) I'm still in the middle of Hixon's Coming Home , Golding's Rites of Passage , and The Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Volume I.

In a few weeks I'll post a list of all the books I bought on this trip. It's gonna be long! I'm gonna have to go on book-buying moratorium for a while, allowing myself to ONLY buy books from existing threads and not buy more books for the random books thread.

At thrift strores that have a small selection of random books, I'll get whatever random books I want.
But at bookstores I will only look for specific books from threads and specific subjects I want to explore.
Also, I think I will put my nonfiction books on LibraryThing, so people can see what my interests are.

Linda's husband was right, though I hate to admit it. I can't read everything in the world. If I lived in 1700 or maybe even 1800, it would be entirely possible to absorb the entire sum of Western thought in history, science, and literature in a 70-year lifespan, but now....*sob* I CAN'T. I HATE that fact but it must be faced.

Kline's Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

2007-09-02T06:52:00.000-07:00

Kline's Mathematics for the Nonmathematician

Was good except for:
1. blatant Eurocentricity.
2. Didn't explain proofs and logic well at all.

Revised description of book system.

2007-08-29T07:20:00.000-07:00

Earlier I described a system that I have devised for organizing my reading. Now I am extending it to other forms of media. I'm actually quite interested in this and when I have one established thread, I will post a mindmap of it so you can see how it works. :-)

Description of Personal Information Management System (PIMS)

I. What it is

A. A system for organizing what I read, what I listen to, what I watch, what websites I surf – in short, what media I access and how I access it.

B. A database of subjects to pursue and books to buy; this encourages the intake of different information that is wholly related.

II. Why?

A. Before my PIMS, I found that I was:

i. completely unorganized in my reading. I would haphazardly read many books at a time and buy even more, so that I never got around to pursuing the subjects that I really wanted to

ii. Finding all kinds of cool informative stuff in the iTunes podcasts and iTunes U, but never getting around to actually listening to those things

iii. Finding many interesting, informative websites with tons of content, but never actually reading that content

B. Due to this procrastination, excess, and lack of satisfaction, I decided that I needed a way to organize my media intake. This would also help me cut down on my excessive book-buying

C. I wanted a way to create webs of interconnected knowledge, all starting from one point

III. How it works

A. Time-centered media (TCM)

i. This is information which I take in on a chronological basis. It is timely, usually current events and news.

ii. Blogs at Google Reader

iii. Some of my podcasts in iTunes

B. Subject-centered media (SCM)

i. This is information which is usually timeless; current science, history, arts and humanities.

ii. SCM is organized into threads. Each one of these threads starts with a central meda (piece of media). I could start a thread with:

a) a book, movie, poem, essay, magazine article

b) a podcast or lecture on iTunes

c) a lecture on YouTube or the University Channel

d) a Wikipedia entry or an interesting website

e) something I learned in class

f) a TCM meda

iii. Continuing the thread

a) Once the first meda in a thread has been absorbed, I list related things to pursue:

· specific works. These can be from:

· reviews of the first meda, like book reviews

· recommended reading lists or bibliographies

· subjects or ideas. These can be pursued through:

· bookmarked websites in that field. For example, if I want to pursue a topic in math, I would go to mathworld or a similar website. General sites like Wikipedia are also good springboards for further study.

· Posting to a forum on livejournal.com or librarything.com, asking what some recommended books are.

· Search information aggregators of non-book form such as Youtube, iTunes U, article databases, and course pages online

iv. Characteristics of threads

a) Length: can be prechosen before beginning threads, or can be undetermined.

b) Subject specifity: Does my thread zoom in or zoom out? Or does it stay at the same zoom level?

v. “R” thread

a) Used for random medas. Any meda from here can be expanded into its own thread. This allows me to branch out in knowledge.

C. Interaction

i. TCM can be the start of a thread of SCM. All I need do is decide to research a topic more in-depthly

IV.Implementation

A. Computer

i. Create mindmap files with FreeMind detailing what is in each of my threads and how I branched off into different subjects.

B. Notebook

i. Carry with at all times. In it I list possible threads and books to buy.

V. Advantages and Disadvantages

A. Benefits

i. no time requirements, so can be kept up in summer and during school year

ii. synthesis of knowledge for better comprehension of the things that I learn. This also improves critical thinking and builds a factual background from different sources in a subject

B. Problems

i. If not careful I could get into narrow topics and never get out. This system is supposed to diversify and broaden my knowledge, not make it more specific

Two books in one

2007-08-29T07:08:00.000-07:00

Heinlein's The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

I didn't like it. After 100 pages I quit. The characterization is nonexistent.

Jerry King's The Art of Mathematics

Really great, thought-provoking book. I'm curious about this idea of math and art being related.

How do I learn about art and music criticism? *pulls hair*

He discusses art's audience, going back to a 1912 work by Bullough titled "Psychical Distance as a Factor in Art and an Aesthetic Principle." Bullough asserts that those who are psychologically too close to an artwork are unable to appreciate it; instead, they link it to themselves and fail to see it from an aesthetic point of view. He also asserts that there are those who are too psychologically far from the artwork and are unable to understand it from an aesthetic point of view. He goes as far as saying that the only people who can understand anything from an aesthetic point of view are the true artists themselves. An odd idea on the whole.

He also discusses how the ivory tower, elitist math departments are bad for the growth of their subject. He longs for the day when math will become an integrated part of a liberal arts education. I'm frankly so fed up with the "publish or perish" idea, and so are most professors, I am sure. It's a sad state when our universities are more focused on research than on actually teaching.

2007-08-24T06:36:00.001-07:00

NOTE: I know this is quick, but I am not going to put my book system posts in here after this. I don't want to overload you with text. I will put it at my book blog at http://lilbrattyteen.blogspot.com

Current threads are:

*****Religion and Spirituality for n00bs****
1. Lex Hixon - Coming Home.

*****Heinlein and suggested fiction****
1. Heinlein - The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress (finished)
2. Heinlein - The Cat Who Walks Through Walls

****Solzhenitsyn and suggested Russian fiction****
1. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (finished)
2. The First Circle

****math****
1. Mathematics for the Nonmathematician - finished
2. The Art of Mathematucs by Jerry King

****Random books****
1. The Picture of Dorian Grey
2. Rites of Passage by William Golding

Book System 1

2007-08-23T21:05:00.000-07:00

Following my post yesterday, I am going to start a new system for organizing my books and reading them.

THREADS: I usually read more than one book at a time, so I will start a threading system in which I explore books relevant to a central theme/subject/author. For example, in one thread I may read books by Solzhenitsyn, then branch out into other Russian literature that people have recommended to me.

Threads must have the following properties:
- scope: the subject/theme must be fairly limited. For example, having my theme be "Russian literature" is too vague, but a theme like "Solzhenitsyn and other Soviet authors who wrote protests against the Stalinist system" would be good. Another way I could group it is from the "recommended readings" appendix of a book that I recently read.
- length: a thread can't go on forever. I must stop reading about any given subject so I can start a new one. But should I have a cut-and-dry rule for all threads or should I make rules as I go along?

I must also have a "random books" thread that I can read random books in. Then if I like a book enough to pursue the subject further then I can make a new thread starting with that book.
(Another part of "random books" is that there are a lot of books loaned, given, or recommended to me which I give reading priority to. This way I can read them.)

NOTEBOOK: lapis1 had a GREAT idea! I'll carry a notebook with lists of books that I want to read. I'll group these books by thread but also be sure to have the genre, author, title so I can find them in a bookstore.

This is rudimentary, but I WILL start making my "books to buy" list right now. I have lists of books to buy but they are all over the place.

Oh, and as for podcasts, I made a document listing how long each one usually is and how often they come out, and I calculated how many hours I have to spend every day and week in order to listen to all the podcasts I want to listen to. 1 hour a day and 13 hours a week, so 20 hours per week. Too much. Grr.

I LOVE Google Reader.

Foster's How to Read Literature Like a Professor

2007-08-23T21:04:00.000-07:00

I'm actually only 60 pages into this, but it's really boring. It's good for a casual reader but I want something more in-depth.
Hey, the list of recommended books at the back looks good though!

Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

2007-08-18T11:30:00.000-07:00

I finished it! I liked it more than I thought I would.

Spoilers below.

The end was sooo sad. Mike, the computer, stopped talking. Nobody knows whether he is too scared to talk again or if he lost the capacity to talk when part of him was blown away.

Is he really a sexist author? As a man, I'm not as sensitive to sexism as women are, but in the battle scenes, the men were fighting and the women were there for morale and didn't do any fighting. He had a strong female protagonist though, and she was instrumental in the plot as well as good-looking.
"Women are amazing creatures - sweet, soft, gentle, and far more savage than we are." (148)

I like how he makes fun of our society, like on page 161 where he discusses the woman who wanted a long list of insane rules made into laws. Also, the stupidity of the Earth dwellers who put Mannie in jail for being polygamous (um, Puritanical, much?). And ESPECIALLY the idiots who went to the sites that they knew would be bombed, and the idiots who were outraged by the death of those idiots.

"I used to question Mike's endless reading of fiction, wondering what notions he was getting. But turned out he got a better feeling for human life from stories than he had been able to garner from facts; fiction gave him a gestalt of life, one taken for granted by a human; he lives it." (109)

I would think that fiction doesn't give a good idea of what normal human life. Most fiction is far from real, everything is happy in the end and the characters all have this hunky-dory lifestyle in which any two people can fall in love. Also, it doesn't present a normal life, it presents only the events in each character's life that are relevant to the plot. It's like that Wierd Al song "Stuck in the Drive-Through," look it up on youtube and you'll see what I mean.

What are your thoughts? What are some good, thought-provoking scifi books you have read that deal with artificial intelligence?

Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich

2007-08-18T11:22:00.000-07:00

Finished this in two days! Like Cancer Ward it was very good, though less in-depth and more politically oriented; he wrote it as an expose of Stalinist labor camps because he had been in one for 8 years. I can't believe that he spends 200 pages writing about a ~20-hour period.

Again, sorry for writing so much. You can ignore these book thoughts, they're not as relevant to my own life as the personal writing.

Some quotes I liked:

"The hospital block was the most out-of-the-way corner of the compound, and there was no noise from outside. ....You didn't even hear a mouse scratching. They'd all been caught by the hospital cat appointed for that purpose." (22)

A cat APPOINTED to a position? LOL that's just funny, but also revealing.

The man are working...
Then they brought in a can to melt snow for the mortar. They heard somebody say it was twelve o'clock already.

"It must be,"Shukhov said. "The sun's right overhead."

""If it's right overhead," the Captain shot back, "that means it's one o'clock, not twelve."

"How come?" Shukhov asked. "Any old man can tell you the sun is highest at noon."

"That's what the old guys say!" the Captain snapped. "But since then, there's been a law passed and now the sun's highest at one."

"Who passed the law?"

"The Soviet Government!" (73-74)

If the sun breaks the law, will they put it in jail? Give it the death penalty, thereby destroying our entire ecosystem? A laughable idea.

I also liked the dialogue between Shukhov and Alyoshka on pages 195-199, when they discussed God. But it's too long to type, if you're really interested then go read the book. It's a quick read, definitely worth it.

Tolstoy's Death of Ivan Ilyich

2007-08-18T11:19:00.000-07:00

They all saw that he was suffering, and said: "We can stop if you are tired. Take a rest." Lie down? No, he was not at all tired, and he finished the rubber. All were gloomy and silent. Ivan Ilych felt that he had diffused this gloom over them and could not dispel it. They had supper and went away, and Ivan Ilych was left alone with the consciousness that his life was poisoned and was poisoning the lives of others, and that this poison did not weaken but penetrated more and more deeply into his whole being.

With this consciousness, and with physical pain besides the terror, he must go to bed, often to lie awake the greater part of the night. Next morning he had to get up again, dress, go to the law courts, speak, and write; or if he did not go out, spend at home those twenty-four hours a day each of which was a torture. And he had to live thus all alone on the brink of an abyss, with no one who understood or pitied him.

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Ivan Ilyich was an emo child long before Evanescence began selling CDs.
Like most Russian literature, it was sad. Go figure.