review | The Practical Dilettante

Review: Anathem

Posted on March 16, 2011 by Seonaid

Once A Month Book Club

Welcome to the third month of the Once A Month Book Club! This month we have been reading fantasy stories, which are those “featuring magic paranormal magic and terrible monsters”. Wow, wonder if J.K Rowling used that as a checklist?

Don’t forget to check out the links at the bottom of the page to find more interesting reads from this month’s participants

* * *

Imagine yourself in a cloister. It is medeival in appearance and awesome in scale, having developed over the last 4000 years. Outside the walls, civilizations rise and fall, cities advance and wane, and cultures precipitate and deal with one environmental catastrophe after another. Inside the walls, life is simple, consisting of chores, growing food, cooking, and long periods of reading philosophy and doing geometric proofs. You have three possessions: a robe, a cord to tie it with, and a sphere made of an indestructible super-elastic material that can be expanded and contracted to any size between a pea and a car with a wave of the fingers. Welcome to the mathic world of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem.

Don’t read the description or reviews on Amazon. They have given it all away!

This may be the longest book I have ever finished. 960 pages. A fictional world with a glossary and three appendices. Don’t get me wrong; I enjoyed it. It is a mark of how much I enjoyed it that I managed to finish it in three days (it helped that I was too sick to move for two of those.) I just feel that it should come with a caveat. This is a mathematical/philosophical sci-fi action adventure. It frequently digresses into deep discussion of the precise nature of the world, drawing upon both quantum mechanics and arcane schools of philosophy. You can’t skip over those parts; they are integral to the plot. I have a graduate degree in physics and have spent a significant fraction of the last 15 years reading increasingly obscure bits of philosophy, and I still had trouble following this book at points. It was a great follow up to my last finished book, “The Lost Art of Reading,” because it challenged me to maintain my attention for long periods of time, at levels of detail that exceed my normal interest. It pushed the limits of my visualization ability with its descriptions of the mathic structures; the symmetry is important, there is iconography in the mathematical choices. It means something. Phew. Glad all those years of studying math beyond my ability have finally paid off!

Let us be very clear who the good guys are, here. They’re the ones behind the walls. It is not so much that the characters outside the walls are the ‘bad guys.’ It is just that, as members of the secular world, they are so foreign to the worldview inhabited by the narrator (who has been cloistered since the age of 9) that they are superficially drawn. There are many, many characters in this book, and it is (as I said) sweeping in scope, but the back story is introduced skilfully, as needed, well integrated into the plot. There is a whole vocabulary and history that is necessary to understanding, but you don’t need it all at once, and the author has kindly provided us with both a historic timeline (at the beginning) and a glossary (at the end.)

The thing is, though, I can’t say very much about what goes on without giving away far too much. To sum up: The book is not particularly character-driven. There is a lot of description. There is a lot of thinking. There is a LOT of plot. (Amazon didn’t really give it ALL away, but it would make the first 300 pages sort of anticlimactic, so don’t read it! Don’t read the dust jacket either!) If you like your speculative fiction hard, you have the time to devote, and you’re up for a ripping yarn, I can highly recommend it.

* * *

Amandab has been reading about what life would be like in Post Apocolyptic Melbourne in the Stormbringer series by Kerry Greenwood, and now her brain is hurting from the information overload.

Leechbabe has been enjoying politics, intrigue, epic battles and a little bit of bondage whilst reading Kushiel’s Legacy by Jacqueline Carey.

And joining in for the first time, Seonaid has locked herself up for 3 days for the mathematical/philosophical sci-fi action adventure of Neal Stephenson’s Anathem

Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: books, PostADay2011, review | 12 Comments »

Book: Rational Mysticism

Posted on February 15, 2011 by Seonaid

Rational Mysticism? Surely she mistyped. But no, fair readers (I’ve been into the Austen recently), Rational Mysticism it is.

I’ll give away the ending, shall I?

“Mystical awe is the inverse of knowledge; it is a kind of anti-knowledge. Instead of seeing The Answer to the riddle of existence, you just see how impenetrable the riddle is.” John Horgan, Rational Mysticism, p. 216

This is an extraordinary book, not only for the content, but for the intellectual sophistication and quality of the writing. John Horgan is a science writer who still takes the questions of religious seekers seriously, so he is able to probe without mocking, and to critically assess claims without dismissing them entirely. It was a grand read for somebody such as myself, a doubting agnostic pagan Buddhist physicist. In the end, I came away with the message that none of these great leaders “know” a lot more than the rest of us about the nature of reality*; although many of them are far more certain of their claims… which are, by the way, mutually exclusive in some cases. [If John Horgan happens past, and I have completely misrepresented your book, please let me know. I would hate to do that.]

Now, to put my own claims in context, let me tell you something that I usually don’t talk about (but now it will be Out There! for All To See!):

Mystical experiences are a fairly common occurrence in my world. They don’t strike on a weekly basis, but certainly come around more often than I go on vacation. I find myself dumbfounded, staring at a stranger on the subway and feeling that profound connection of one human being to another, feeling deep mother-love, wishing them all the good in the world… for a flash, and then it’s gone. I have a moment of perfect peace during meditation and think “Oh! It’s that easy, is it?” I sit under a tree, and I feel the presence of the Buddha, and it is clear in my mind… “Buddhism isn’t a religion. It’s just the Way Things Are.” Sometimes, the gods talk to me, and sometimes it is mediated through another person, but non-verbally, and later that person confirms that what I “heard” was what they were “saying” and let me tell you, that is freaky. (These are deeply trusted people in my world, not paid mediums or professional charlatans, in case you were inclined to pat me on the head in that particular way.) Mystical stuff. Universe dissolving, oneness. All of it.

And then I come back to myself, and the house needs cleaning, and the car breaks down, and the kids are hungry, and I don’t know what I’m going to do when I grow up, and I make mistakes, and I still think like a scientist. I don’t know what to make of all of this, I really don’t. The most clear claim that I can make is, “At least part of the universe wants to know why it is here at least some of the time.” As a result, I spend a lot of time in conversations about whether science and religion are necessarily incompatible, and what sort of claims can we make that are not fundamentally at odds with current scientific models of the world. Is the world fundamentally material? Is it reasonable to claim that all religious experience is purely delusional? Am I entirely fooling myself?

You can understand that all this contributes to an unsettling and demanding quest to understand the “true nature of reality.” Come to think of it, that was what I was after when I went to study quantum mechanics and general relativity, so none of this is new. But it means that I was predisposed to enjoy Horgan’s agnostic position on this; it makes a refreshing change from the dogmatic positions of most skeptics, or the sweeping (and frankly, strange) claims of many mystics.

This book explores one set of ideas at a time, primarily through interviews with individual mystics, or people who have made the study of mystical experience their life’s work. These people are experts in many aspects of mysticism, and the line connecting them is beautifully woven, starting with the work of Huston Smith. Smith’s position of Perennial Philosophy is that all mystical experiences are incomplete glimpses of one Truth.**/*** Horgan takes us from here to the postmodern position, that there is no Truth, only endlessly deferred descriptions and texts. For the rest of the book he dances among the implications of these two nearly diametrically opposed claims, incorporating current neurological, psychological and philosophical investigations, even into psychedelic drugs as routes to transcendence. Or nirvana. Or the unico mysterium. Or whatever the particular variety of mysticism calls their peak experience/goals. Along the way he subjects himself to The God Machine (a device designed to stimulate brain waves and create artificial mystical experiences) and Ayahuasca (an Amazonian sacramental hallucinogen,) all in the service of science. And mysticism. And helping to find the nature of truth for those of us still seeking.

The chapters have such intriguing titles as “God’s Psychoanalyst” and “The Man in the Purple Sparkly Suit.”**** In the end, Horgan returns us to the mystery of it all, the wonder that there is something rather than nothing, and the possibility of joy in being alive. Because of the possibility, at least, we can have some certainty.

* Although they might know a lot more about lots of other things, like neurology, comparative religion, meditation, and/or psychedelic drugs.
** I recently read a feature article on Huston Smith in the November 2009 issue of Shambhala Sun, which I can also recommend.
*** Also, I’m reading a book by another professor of Comparative Religion, whose position is that the various religions of the world are in fact not all paths to the same truth, but are expressing fundamentally different positions on the nature of reality. But I’m not done that one, so I can’t incorporate it right now.
**** Really, don’t you want to read it just for those titles?

Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: books, PostADay2011, review, science and religion, truth | 3 Comments »

Book Review: Wolves and Goldfish with Neil Gaiman

Posted on January 8, 2011 by Seonaid

“If the wolves come out of the walls, then it’s all over.”
“What’s all over?” asked Lucy.
“It,” said her mother. “Everybody knows that.”

Every now and then our children bring home badly written corporate books from the library, and I roll my terrible eyes and gnash my terrible teeth! The world is full of fabulous children’s books, and there is no excuse for a book “written” by Nickelodeon, Disney, or Mattel. Book length advertisements, and we’re supposed to pay for them. I think not. So, since I have an opinion about this (1) and in my quest for a Post a Day, I will be highlighting some of the Good Books I have discovered over the years.

The best children’s books are works of art that entice, engage, and enthrall. They teach by example, not by telling. They don’t say, “Language is beautiful if you get the cadence right.” They just get the cadence right. Alliteration, meter, rhyme, and word play all come naturally to children when they are exposed to good books all along.

You might know Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean from their graphic novels, DC comics, Sandman, or their two books that have been made into movies (Coraline and Mirrormask). They have also written and illustrated two wonderful picture books for slightly older children, and I can wholeheartedly recommend them. They came to us from a friend of the family who aspires to be the quirky aunt who introduces the children to great art. She’s doing an excellent job so far.

This links to a very interesting article by the illustrator on the art process.

The Wolves in the Walls is darkly humorous, vividly and dynamically illustrated, and enormously fun to read aloud. The main character, Lucy, is a wee heroine, about 6 or 8 years old. Maybe 10. Her parents are oddly quirky and amusingly incompetent. Our children love the story, and I love the mixed-media artwork. It is immersive. (As it is sitting beside me on the desk, I’ve just had a request for a reading from the 3-y.o., who reads the title and cover with Great Gravitas. “Loook! A wolf is looking out of his drawing!”) In case you are concerned about content, it’s not nearly as scary as it sounds, certainly not any worse than our traditional fairy tales.

Just to keep things balanced, this links to the author's website.

This is a kids’ story. By that, I mean, this is the kind of story that we would have told as kids. The parents are nearly incidental, except as possessions to be swapped, and thwarters of brilliant ideas. And really, for children of a certain age, isn’t that what we are to become? After the unfortunate “swapping” incident is discovered by the (thwarting) mom, the remainder of the book becomes a quest to retrieve the missing dad (complete with maps including children’s landmarks… such as the neighbour’s cat). My kids love this book, AND I can enjoy reading it several evenings a month. In the world of children’s literature, that is a winning combination.

I am not one to give away the plot, especially when the humour of the book depends upon it. Suffice it to say that these books are both well worth picking up and enjoying. Possibly with a strawberry jam sandwich.

1. Or according to an irate great-aunt with whom I once had the audacity to disagree, about everything.

Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: PostADay2011, review | 1 Comment »

Better Music for the Kids!

Posted on December 2, 2010 by Seonaid

I am not getting paid for this, I just like fellow musical parents to have some better options.

Let’s be honest here. Most music sold to children sucks. I have begged and pleaded with my parents not to purchase “music” that doesn’t have an actual performer, or claims a corporation as its writer. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Baby Einstein.) As a result we have acquired a decent little collection of “other” kid’s music over the years.

So, since Christmas is a-comin’, and some of your grandparental types may require guidance, here are some suggestions for music you might actually want to listen to several thousand times:

1. Connie Kaldor. I seem to recall an interview in which she said that the title song came to her in a cab in New York, but I can’t prove that. This is her first of three children’s albums, but follows an (ongoing) career as a folk singer for adults. The songs are musically diverse, interesting, fun, and funky. Also, the book that comes with the CD is a good bedtime story. We got the second one, too. (A Poodle in Paris.)

2. They Might Be Giants. This link goes to their very own store, which I see has some sweet deals. I think I might get one. This is their newest kid’s CD, which was apparently just nominated for a Grammy. Like, today. Sweet! I feel so with-it for a change.

Also, they do a weekly podcast on youtube so you can preview the videos and music. I think this would be best be categorized as “quirky”. Or possibly “absurd”. They are a favourite of both parents and children at our house (from 3 to 38 years old.)

3. Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery. Actually, the whole Classical Kids line is well-reviewed, but I have only actually listened to this one. Again, and again, and again. It includes a story with intertwined muscial excerpts. I tried to pawn off Bach as Vivaldi to my 3-yr old the other day because this CD was away from home in the car. He caught me at it. C’mon… a favourite Baroque composer? At three? I blame this CD. There are others from the series in the stash – don’t tell my kids. (I’m pretty sure they don’t read my blog.)

4. Sandra Boynton. You probably know some of her board books. They’re very popular. We’ve had more than one copy of a couple of them because the first one got worn out. This is her imaginary musical revue. With 100% real musicians, cows, and aardvarks. (The aardvarks turn up for intermission.)

5. Yo Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin. Yes, I saved my favourite for last. I hope you got this far. Go ahead, push the button. I’ll wait.

They did a whole album like that. Brilliant. Get it and be wowed. (Also, I didn’t realize it might be a kid’s album until we’d had it for years. I’m still not sure, but my husband claims it is, so that is the shelf we keep it on. He is also a cellist, in case that holds any sway.)

Filed under: Reviews | Tagged: children, fun, music, review | 4 Comments »

Book review: Diabetes Rising

Posted on June 4, 2010 by Seonaid

Diabetes Rising by Dan Hurley (Kaplan Publishing, January 2010)
Diabetes Rising - cover

Let’s start this way: I picked this book up at random at the public library yesterday morning and finished it at 2 o’clock this afternoon, even though we had a ‘home sick’ day today. There might have been Backyardigans involved in the rapid read. I will say, in fairness, that this is more of a synopsis than a review. The book is awesome. Read it (that’s the review part).

This book is a beautiful example of science reporting, in which the illusion of objectivity is shed, scientists and the people suffering from diabetes are presented as all-too-human, and the reporting of research/ideas/plans are actually fair and balanced. It is also a fascinating and enjoyable read, which one might not expect from a subject this urgent. And just in case we think that the use of the word “pandemic” in the subtitle is scaremongering, he spends the first third of the book tracing the emergence of diabetes, and showing convincingly that this is NOT an artifact of reporting, diagnostics, or our culture’s hysterical fear of fat. Diabetes is on the rise, worldwide, in all situations, and at all ages. Type 1, which is an autoimmune disease that was one called juvenile diabetes has increased at the same time as Type 2 has become so prevalent.

The middle of the book looks at five of the most dominant lines of research, one chapter for each. As outlined, the reasons are:
- general increase in weight, possibly including rapid weight AND HEIGHT growth in childhood (Accelerator Hypothesis)
- early feeding of foreign proteins to infants with immature guts (“Cow’s milk hypothesis”)
- exposure to (or a tendency to accumulate) artificial chemicals (POP Hypothesis)
- Vitamin D deficiency (Sunshine Hypothesis)
- Lack of exposure to natural pathogens which in some way help to keep the immune system regulated (Hygiene Hypothesis)

In fact, none of these things cause diabetes. But avoiding them may prevent it. (Got that?) We can reasonably address three of these by 1) following the WHO’s recommendation for exclusive breastfeeding for at least six months, 2) supplementing our diets with Vitamin D (which is also recommended for a number of other chronic illnesses) and 3) not being obsessive about sterilizing our environments.

Those are the easy parts (yeah, I know. exclusive breastfeeding for six months ain’t easy. but, y’know. in principle.) The harder things to control are weight gain and the toxic burdens on our bodies.

He is particularly clear in the section on solving the problem (the last third of the book) that the current tendency to blame Type 2 diabetics for getting fat and developing the disease is… um… unfair, shall we say? In examining the POP hypothesis, for example, he reports the observation that very overweight people with low levels of pollutants may not, in fact, be at increased risk of developing diabetes. In his chapter on the “Public Health Cure”, he quotes Kelly Brownell, Ph.D. (a Yale professor of… wow. A LOT of things: psychology, epidemiology, public health, and Food Policy and Obesity) who compares the ‘personal responsibility’ approach to diabetes prevention to “telling people who live near a factory that’s spewing out pollutants not to breathe the air.” It’s really, really hard to follow any kind of dietary restrictions, even if you are becoming ill as a result of it. (I know. It’s possible to be fat, active and healthy, and skinny, sedentary, and ill. BMI’s below 19 are at greatest risk of mortality. Different post, different time.)

So, I will finish where he does: With the stats. In 1866 the death rate in New York due to diabetes was 1.3 per 100,000 residents. If that had remained steady, by 2006, it would translate to 4,284 deaths nationwide. But in that year, 72,507 deaths in the U.S. were attributed to diabetes. In response to this new reality, Hurley calls for a move beyond ‘personal responsibility’ to joint advocacy: “united action … to face down a public, and therefore political, danger to our well-being, and to the well-being of our children”. (And I’ll let you read the last line of the book yourself. It’s worth it.)

Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: health, review, the body | 1 Comment »

Review: Acting the Giddy Goat

Posted on April 23, 2010 by Seonaid

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am reviewing old books that have been languishing on the shelves. I am picking these books entirely by the content of their covers (no peeking inside), to determine for my own edification whether one can, in fact, judge a book by its cover.

So far, so good. I posted the following review on Library Thing:

“As promised on its cover, this is a novel of ideas. Focused on a group of friends/acquaintances in modern urban Toronto, the story is more about the internal struggles with identity, self/other, compromise/authenticity than it is about action, or even narrative. That is not to say that nothing happens; it is just that nothing particularly unusual happens. Couples argue, deals are signed, beer is drunk, and the fates intervene… well, maybe a few unusual things happen. Well worth a read if you are an overeducated or thoughtful late-60′s/early 70′s baby. You’re likely to encounter yourself in these pages.”

To say a bit more, each of the characters in this book is encountering the types of decisions, disappointments, opportunities, and challenges that we run into on a daily basis. Are you ready to be a parent? Do you stay at a job you hate to pay the bills? Do you value your work more than your family? Can you really be rational, or do you simply rationalize emotional decisions? How much do you relinquish artistic control for the possibility of making a lot of money? Overseeing all is Bill the Brewmaster, the narrator/chorus, whose own voice becomes that of the observer. Bill’s notes are interspersed with pieces of the narrative, possibly providing a framework for the author’s own observations of the world.

Had I not recently read Introducing Nietzsche, I would probably have missed the conflict between the Sons of Dionysus and the Sons of Appolo (shockingly glibly: art and the sensual temperament vs. rationalism) that seems to be the key theme in this work. It culminates in a wonderful prolonged scene of a thunderstorm in downtown Toronto and the band playing in a bar where the lights keep going off.

Beautiful work. Well worth a read.

Filed under: WorldView | Tagged: by its cover, philosophy, review | Leave a Comment »

By Its Cover 1

Posted on April 11, 2010 by Seonaid

This time I am making myself post my book choice *before* reading it.

The book of the week is Acting the Giddy Goat:
Cover Art

I picked it out because it is a trade paper back (sorry, it’s true… that’s why it won this week). I really prefer holding TPB’s, since I usually read lying in bed, and if I can get that format I choose it.
The rules I’m setting myself for this task go something like this:
1. It must be an author I’ve never heard of. Since I’ve been listening to CBC book reviews and the Arts Tonight and Writers and Company, and reading voraciously for two decades, this turns out to be a fairly difficult rule to follow. Good thing I’ve got a library to work with!
2. I’m not allowed to read the first page before I decide to pick it out.
3. I *am* allowed to read reviews etc. even on the flaps of the cover.

A first glance makes me suspect that the fellow on the front cover mightbe Dionysus, but I’m guessing. I presume that, were my education in something more classical, I would know better. Feel free to chastise me for my ignorance. It has three very good reviews on the back, one from an author I have heard of. It is referred to as a “huge glorious symphony of a novel” and a “genuine novel of ideas”. Apparently the author is also a musician, English teacher, and songwriter. It is enticing, and modern, and (I suspect) deeply intellectual. This copy of the book has been languishing unread since August of 2003, which makes me sad.

So, I’m reading it. I’ll let you know how it goes in a week.

Filed under: Library | Tagged: by its cover, review | 2 Comments »

Book Review: Cheap

Posted on November 27, 2009 by Seonaid

Title: Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture
Author: Ellen Ruppel Shell
Penguin, 2009

This book begins in the same place as a surprisingly large number of books of this type: with the author’s (seemingly sudden) realization that something she takes for granted might be a problem. In this case, it is the purchase of a pair of boots. Having to choose between expensive and cheap, she chooses the cheap ones. Unsurprisingly, they turn out to be uncomfortable, and are tossed on the ‘regrets’ pile after a single wearing. This leads her to question this state of affairs: what has happened to the middle ground? Well-crafted, durable, affordable objects that can be maintained, she argues, are missing from our culture, and we have driven them out by our relentless pursuit of the cheap.

She takes us on a compelling and readable trip, touching on economics, psychology, history, sociology, marketing… the list is long, as is the Bibliography. If you have been paying attention to the last 20 years of globalization research and rhetoric, there is little surprising here, although her inter-disciplinary approach gives us a well-argued story of where we are, what compromises and decisions got us here, and why it is difficult to extricate ourselves.

I was, however, disappointed in this book, not because it doesn’t propose solutions (although it doesn’t really), but because the author is nearly glib when she encounters the seeming intractibility of the problems. She emphasizes that we can’t simply allow the price of healthy food and other essentials to continue rise beyond the reach of the American working class. She documents environmental and social devastation in one location after another and how American trade policies continue to contribute. She devotes a chapter to how we are seduced by pricing and marketing to purchase more than we intend to. Yet she seems to be optimistic that the myriad issues can be overcome… somehow. In the end she comes back to the purchasing power of the consumer, despite having spent 200 pages explaining the limitations of that position. She hints at, but never quite explicitly states, a need for moral and ethical development, polictical engagement, and strengthened public institutions. Other books in the category have done a better job with the wrap-up. This book might work well in conjunction with a library on ‘what to do next’, but as a stand-alone, I find it ultimately unfulfilling.

I give it three stars and a sad-face emoticon for failing to live up to my expectations. ***