February 24, 2005
Calculated Risk, Gerd Gigerenzer
A good solid book explaining why percentages really should be stated in terms of how many people they affect. In other words, we shouldn't be told that "30% of people suffer sexual problems when they take Prozac"; we should be told that "3 in 10 people do". As it turns out when he asked, the doctor that told his patients this information about Prozac, they assumed they would have problems in 30% of their sexual encounters. The book labors its thesis somewhat.
It also opens up a very provocative argument. He argues that patients should be told the odds of the correctness of their diagnosis and their chance of a cure. It occurs to me that a lot of patients with rather dire diagnoses may just want to be told what to do. If anyone is still reading this blog, let me know what you think. I'm not so certain myself that I'd really want to know what my chance of surviving is and try to compare that to the pain I would have to suffer. Guess I should get the living will in order.
Posted by deaconmf at 03:13 PM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2005
The Years of Rice and Salt, Kim Stanley Robinson, 2/20/05
It's not often you see a novel with a Buddhist point of view built in, but here's a sci-fi novel that takes it so seriously, the characters keep getting reborn. The history of the world changes when the Europeans are largely wiped out by the Black Plague in the 13th century. The other Eurasian civilizations (most notably, Islam, China and India) conquer the rest of the world and for the most part ape much of the history of our world in very different configurations. Here, the scientific revolution takes place in Samarkand and instead of Locke, we get a Chinese Moslem and his quasi-feminist wife.
It's an interesting book, but I'm not sure it has much of an audience outside of science fiction readers. I wonder if I'm actually part of a much larger existence, but really can't tell what the raft of character I know could possibly be doing in the world.
Posted by deaconmf at 12:41 PM | Comments (0)
January 29, 2005
Port Mungo, Patrick McGrath
Not a bad book, but he has better ones. It's about a painter and his family as told by the sister who sticks with him no matter what. It's told well, I guess, but it has another one of his unreliable narrators and a plot twist toward the end that seems so obvious. I'd just rather not have plot twists anymore. He keeps the pace up by revealing things slightly sooner than you would expect, but after Asylum, I'd like a new story out of similar characterizations.
Posted by deaconmf at 12:51 PM | Comments (0)
December 27, 2004
The Dream Life, J. Hoberman
I've always liked J. Hoberman's reviews in the Village Voice, so when I saw this at the library, I had to pick it up. Strangely, I was disappointed. Mr. Hoberman's reviews in the Voice are always so perceptive and surprising. He's still perceptive here, but not so surprising. His interpretation of how the movies of the 60s reflected the confused politics of the time seem obvious. Hell, by just watching The Lord of the Rings you can see both the times of its origin and the current world. I still think that it's a worthwhile read for one very important thing. It makes it clear how desperate, strange and immediate the 60s really were. The real possibility of change hung in the air as well as the fear that always accompanies that change. The description of the riots at the '68 Democratic Convention feel like he was there. (And maybe he was.) Also, pointing out the Dirty Harry is a right-wing film archetype may not be original, but it does have a lot of lasting value. Films well into the middle 80s had these avenging angel types. There's still a couple of them around today, though they seem to have retreated into fantasy and science fiction.
Posted by deaconmf at 11:23 PM | Comments (0)
December 16, 2004
"History, like any other verdict, is not a matter of fact but a point of view." The Hamilton Case, Michelle de Kretser
I've never read a book about Sri Lanka, which saw part of the reason I picked this up. The other was a review in Salon which saw this as a complex novel about colonialism, mystery novels and miserable families. It definitely resembles these recent post modern books about colonial times in South Asia, like The Piano Tuner and the Death of Vishnu. Its immediate concerns are a bit different though, partly because this also uses Agatha Christie as a touchstone of English colonial thought. Sam Obeysekere ia half-Sri Lankan growing up in the late colonial period finds himself in love with the colonial culture. In the first part, he writes his autobiography and keeps referring to himself as the man who solved the Hamilton Case, though the narrative ends strangely ends before we get to his description of the case. The narrative continues in the third person in the second part where we hear about the Hamilton case and the crucial part Sam plays in its solution. then the third part continues with the slow decline of both the Sam Obey and his aging mother. In the last part, we finally find out what the true story of the Hamilton case was. Worse, we find out how wrong Sam had been about it all. I figure there's no sense concealing that's Sam's been wrong all along. This damned entry is rambling. I'm going to just end it here. LOL.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:51 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
Strange But True, John Searles
So let's say your brother died the night of his prom 5 years ago. Then, let's say his girlfriend comes to your home. She looks nothing like what she used to look like. She's gained weight, has this horrid scar from the accident that killed your brother and is missing her front teeth. She's obviously pregnant and confides that the child must be your brother's.
Most of us would throw the damned woman right out of the house. Well, in this novel, they do. Yet the plot continues anyway. The initial premise is ridiculous, but it is intriguing. The plotting works well, considering that certain events feel forced to create a satisfying ending. Also, very little seems to happen. It's still a decent book. It delves into the lives of people not just marked by tragedy, but horribly brutalized by these events. It also tells this story from individual points of view with nice details about each person's loss. The story ends relatively happily, in case you need to know. So, it's likeable but don't buy it. You can always borrow the book from the library.
Based on the pic on the back, I can't tell if I'd sleep with the author. Probably not though, since he's an editor at Cosmo. LOL.
Posted by deaconmf at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)
December 03, 2004
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Jean-Dominique Bauby
Does anyone remember "One", that old Metallica video where the soldier can't move any muscle in his body? I always wondered if this situation could actually exist. Turns out it can. Jean-Dominique Bauby was an editor for French Vogue when he suffered a stroke that took out his voluntary muscle movement. The only thing he could manage beside twisting his head around was blinking. He dictated this book by blinking and compared his captivity in his body to a diving bell. It's a horrific situation, but he manages to keep going. A good portion of the book is about his hallucinations. Apparently, people in bed for long periods of time suffer ICU psychosis. A good friend of mine imagined going all sorts of places and doing all sorts of things but always dreamed about the bed surrounding him. It actually sounded entertaining. My friend decided to call it "Magic Hospital Bed". When Jean was aware of the world, he discovered that his sense of hearing was greatly magnified. He could now hear butterfly's wings outside. The poor man died 2 days before the book was published in France. For the most part, the book is amazing because the peculiarity of details in this strangest of horrible situations is always striking. I wasn't crazy about him describing his last day of normalcy. There's something about it that lacked the urgency of his situation. Of course, that may be the point.
(And no, I'm not speculating if I'd sleep with a man in this condition. LOL.)
Posted by deaconmf at 12:48 PM | Comments (0)
November 17, 2004
"'I think I'm going to be sick,' said Nina." Vile Bodies, Evelyn Waugh, 11/13/04
There's some novels that are about the deliberate slow burn of details and intricate plotting, like "Jonathan Strange". Then there's this book which seems to be about speed. The characters are not so much drawn as driven from one plot point to another. Conversations seem overheard and no one really seems to be expounding on anything particularly significant. The cast of improbably named characters whizz by in a mad rush and no one seems to connect with anyone fully and no topic, money, marriage or death seems to cause anyone the slightest bit of difficulty. An engagement gets broken in a conversation that lasts about 50 words, yet the disengaged end up sleeping together a few pages later. Money seems to be a huge problem for those who don't have it and so much piety seems to go flying out the window. Maybe everybody gets nauseous from moving around so much. It's not a great novel, but it is a funny one.
Posted by deaconmf at 11:16 AM | Comments (0)
November 01, 2004
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, Susanna Clarke, 10/30/04
So you've got these two characters. One is a semi-reclusive, egotistic, yet insecure magician determined on bringing magic back to England as well as useful to his government. He owns every book on magic in England and fancies himself the best . The other is charismatic, married, tall, but not handsome. He seems to be somewhat of a magical prodigy. They're destined to work against each other.
That's the set-up in this strange cross between Dickens, historical and fantasy novels. It's so much fun that it's one of the few novels I really did wish it didn't end. It begins with singing saint statues in York and ends with these two sorcerors coming to terms with the circumstances of the rebirth of English magic. Along the way, the two of them deal with the Napoleonic Wars and the insanity of King George III. Footnotes make it seem researched and, better yet, allow Susanna Clarke to add in stories that don't quite fit into the rest of the novel. And she's got a million very inventive ideas about how magic and eccentric characters work. It's not a very deep novel, but it is quite satisfying, partly because the decision characters make in this novel are never entirely escaped. But it's a perfect escape for the rest of us.
Posted by deaconmf at 12:17 PM | Comments (0)
October 26, 2004
Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell, 10/23/04
While I liked Cloud Atlas, I didn't think it should be on the Booker shortlist. It's one of those novels where the events in one uncompleted story ends, another story begins which refers to in the previous story. Then you hit the sixth story which completes itself, and the stories are now resumed in reverse order as the author finishes each one. While it seems very intricately plotted, I'm not sure the parts of Cloud Atlas really work together. It's a mish-mash of genres all vaguely connected though I don't really see how the themes work in this novel. The six stories, embedded in each other, are a fascinating idea, but I don't think they're connected to one another well. I wished that the stories didn't simply reference the next story in order, but that all the stories referred to one another. The genre shifting (from Typee-type journal to letters to mystery novel to etc.) isn't confusing , but it does make this seem like a very synthetic work. While he does an amazing job of creating each entry, I still wished the whole thing connected more. I wish the novel didn't seem like a long meditation on the insatiability and destructiveness of materialism. And I really doubt people in Hawaii will ever sound like the characters in this novel even in a thousand years.
And yes, I would sleep with David Mitchell if asked politely.
Posted by deaconmf at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
September 27, 2004
China Mieville: Perdido Street Station, The Scar, Iron Council
It's been awhile since I read a fantasy novel and now I've read three in less than three weeks. These damned books are about 600 pages each and like any good fantasy writer, he burns up nifty ideas at a prodigious rate. Some of these ideas are disturbing like giant black skeletal moths that devour personalities and shit nightmares. Others are subtly funny like the ambassador of Hell rejecting an offer for a contract. He handles his labyrinthine plots well and his pacing moves everything right along. He has this real distrust of governments that claim to be democratic and this distrust seems enhances the whole atmosphere of dread. His cynicism and dread make him an disturbing read, but certainly worthwhile. His latest one, Iron Council, isn't as good as the other two, but it has an interesting plot twist at the end.
Posted by deaconmf at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)