Reading Log, no. 7

It's been many months since I previously blogged about what I've been reading. The format of these reading log posts may have lost my favor, but I'm sure that I wish to continue writing about my reading in some form or another, and so I'm mulling over a new format for the new year. Until I figure out what I wish to do, here's a quick catch-up on the books I read in the closing months of 2009. I hope I remembered to include each one.

* * *

The townspeople still suffered from the disaster of the war and the inflation. Oppenheimer and other American students lodged at the walled mansion of a Göttingen physician who had lost everything and was forced to take in boarders. "Although this society [at the university] was extremely rich and warm and helpful to me," Oppenheimer says, "it was parked there in a very miserable German mood … bitter, sullen, and, I would say, discontent and angry and with all those ingredients which were later to produce a major disaster. And this I felt very much." At Göttingen he first measured the depth of German ruin. Teller generalized it later from his own experience of lost wars and their aftermaths: "Not only do wars create incredible suffering, but they engender deep hatreds that can last for generations."

Richard Rhodes
The Making of the Atomic Bomb

I'm a fan of the publisher Modern Library and their two lists of 20th century English books: the 100 Best Novels and the 100 Best Nonfiction. I first came across the lists about two years ago and have since been using them for much of my to-read list. And what a big to-do the lists are! When I started, I hadn't read more than 190 of the 200 books from the two lists combined, and I hadn't read any one of the 100 books on the nonfiction list.

Finally, though, I'm able to put a satisfying check next to one on the nonfiction list. And better still, Modern Library's lists proved themselves again; The Making of the Atomic Bomb is an amazing work. It's so amazing, so thick with fascinating bits, that it's very difficult to write a short blurb about. It's not just a book about physics, though it contains much about the technical aspects of the bombs; it is a detailed and fascinating narrative of the myriad of characters from the late 19th century through the end of the Second World War and how their individual lives and discoveries came together to create the bombs. And it's also a war book, as it narrates the exciting race towards the bomb by both Axis and Allies as well as describing the general devastation caused during both world wars.

The Making of the Atomic Bomb is a long book that I found myself pleasurably lost within.

* * *

Of course there were scientists who thought the evidence favoring DNA was inconclusive and preferred to believe that genes were protein molecules. Francis, however, did not worry about these skeptics. Many were cantankerous fools who unfailingly backed the wrong horses. One could not be a successful scientist without realizing that, in contrast to the popular conception supported by newspapers and mothers of scientists, a goodly number of scientists are not only narrow-minded and dull, but also just stupid.

James D. Watson
The Double Helix

And so immediately after reading my first "100 best" nonfiction book, I read my second and another one about the history of science. The Double Helix is Watson's firsthand account of the discovery of the structure of DNA several years after the fact. Contrasted with the The Making of the Atomic Bomb, The Double Helix is a much faster and lighter read. It is surprisingly light on the pure science of the discovery and instead mainly narrates the human workings behind the science and, as you may extrapolate from my selected quote above, does so in a funny and damning way.

Upon reading this book, I think Watson is a rare individual who has experienced the loftiest of success in his field but has retained a genuine cynicism towards his own success (and others'). What makes The Double Helix such a great read is that Watson is so dry and cunning in imparting that cynicism.

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a copying mechanism for the genetic material.

J. D. Watson and F. H. C. Crick
A Structure for Deoxyribose Nucleic Acid

* * *

I failed to record a quote from The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls, which is unfortunate because a few months of hindsight have revealed the novel to be memorable.

The book is written in clear prose which well illuminates the ups and downs of the author's childhood. What I remember liking most about the book is how I as the reader would flip between perceiving the various characters as protagonists and antagonists, and eventually I concluded that the characters were each complex people in complex situations and not to be judged so lightly as mere literary characters.

* * *

"Do you think our world is coming to an end?" Dad asked, and with no warning at all, I almost started crying. I had all I could do to hold it back. What I thought was, "No, I think _your_ world is coming to an end, and maybe you with it." That was terrible. I hadn't thought about it in such a personal way before. I turned and looked out a window until I felt calmer. When I faced him again, I said. "Yes, don't you?"

Octavia Butler
The Parable of the Sower

I think The Parable of the Sower is an okay book best suited for less mature consumption.

It's an apocalyptic-type book set in a near-future United States whose economy, infrastructure, and governance are fast crumbling into anarchy. I'm totally into this sort of thing. Maybe that's why I had higher expectations for the novel.

One thing that Parable of the Sower does well is to show, not tell, of the setting of decline. There remains a president in D.C., however ineffectual, while millions in southern California literally fight and kill each other for potable water. The police have become a pay-for service. The electric grid rarely provides any power. These are all things that just are; they're not explained and are instead left to the reader to imagine how they became that way.

Some things in the novel don't make much sense to me. For example, money still oddly has substantial value, though heavily deflated. Where is the manufacturing base? The agriculture base? Things are so stark with people killing each other for the basics, and yet food can still be purchased. This seems inconsistent to me. Overall, I felt that the novel, like so many apocalyptic-set novels, oversimplifies mayhem.

One thing I cared little for was the main character's presentation of a "new" and "unique" philosophy involving a worshipful appreciation for change and flux.

Any Change may bear seeds of benefit.
Seek them out.
Any Change may bear seeds of harm.
Beware.
God is infinitely malleable.
God is Change.

Fine, whatever. But better still just to be honest about it and copy Heraclitus verbatim: "You cannot step twice into the same river.'', et cetera. It was much more poetic when said twenty-five centuries ago.

* * *

He clenched his fists in fury--and desperation. For he knew that humanity would run from star to star as easily as it had run from continent to continent and before that from region to region. There would be no isolation, no self-contained experiments. _His_ grand experiment had been discovered, and doomed.

The same anarchy, the same degeneration, the same thoughtless short-term thinking, all the same cultural and social disparities would continue to prevail--Galaxy-wide.

What would there be now? Galactic empires? All the sins and follies graduated from one world to millions? Every woe and every difficulty horribly magnified?

Who would be able to make sense out of a Galaxy, when no one had ever made sense out of a single world? Who would learn to read the trends and foresee the future in a whole Galaxy teeming with humanity?

Nemesis had indeed come.

Isaac Asimov
Nemesis

Nemesis is something special in that it's the first Isaac Asimov work I've read that I feel was too long-winded and insufficiently edited. It's not a bad book, and actually I enjoyed it overall. It just carried on too long and without that certain element of surprise that I've come to expect from Asimov. Though, I did like how the novel was written as two threads starting fifteen years apart and how the earlier thread raced to catch up and unify with the later thread.

* * *

"All right," said the Consul, "we vote. Our first decision relates to M. Weintraub's suggestion that we tell the stories of our past involvement with Hyperion."

"All or nothing," said Het Masteen. "We each share our story or none does. We will abide by the will of the majority."

"Agreed," said the Consul, suddenly curious to hear the others tell their stories and equally sure that he would never tell his own. "Those in favor of telling our tales?"

"Yes," said Sol Weintraub.

"Yes," said Het Masteen.

"Absolutely," said Martin Silenus. "I wouldn't miss this little comic farce for a month in the orgasm baths on Shote."

"I vote yes also," said the Consul, surprising himself. "Those opposed?"

"Nay," said Father Hoyt but there was no energy in his voice.

"I think it's stupid," said Brawne Lamia.

The Consul turned to Kassad. "Colonel?"

Fedmahn Kassed shrugged.

"I register four yes votes, two negatives, and one abstention," said the Consul. "The ayes have it. Who wants to start?"

Dan Simmons
Hyperion

Hyperion was recommended to me by a friend who described it as Canterbury Tales in space. What's not to like?

Though expecting something good, I was pleasantly surprised by this one. Hyperion is an excellent work of modern science fiction. The framework for the plot is simple: seven people on a pilgrimage to the planet Hyperion to see a mysterious, homicidal, godlike being called the Shrike; the seven agree to tell their stories of how they are involved with the planet and the Shrike.

The novel that follows is a fantastically complex and bizarre narrative that weaves through time and space, relativistic time dilation and all, and slowly establishes its seven main characters as being intricately related to each other and their pilgrimage.

Hyperion absorbed me whole.

* * *

And last, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, authored by Seth Grahame-Smith. I failed to record a suitable passage from this book, too.

I almost gave up on this one because I felt, after reading fifty pages or so, that the joke was played out--not to mention that I was running out of time on my library loan of the book. But I was encouraged by friends to continue reading, and so I did finish and found the story to remain quite fresh and funny throughout. (Jane Austen's text is liberally abridged, and this helps to keep the pace fast.)

For once I look forward to Hollywood's adaptation of a book