Tag Archives: Postmortem

One of the best things about vacation is having time to read. I finished six books in the past week.

Homecoming by Cynthia Voigt. A novel about four kids – ages thirteen, ten, nine, and six – abandoned by their mom in a parking lot, who must travel hundreds of miles with very little money, and without being discovered by authorities (who might split them up to put them in foster homes). This book is amazing, one of those rare stories that starts strong, stays good through the middle, and has a satisfying ending. Good characters, fascinating insight into the dynamics, relationships, and power structures that kids will form with each other when left to their own devices. Ultimately it’s a book about family, but with none of the syrupy sweetness that normally implies. My highest recommendation.

In Praise of Shadows by Junichiro Tanizaki (translated by Thomas J. Harper & Edward G. Seidensticker). Nonfiction about how darkness – the literal kind, a lack of photons – is aesthetically superior to bright light in architecture, art, fashion, and other areas. Tanizaki argues that traditional Japanese aesthetics honored darkness, whereas modern and Western trends have lost the old subtlety of shadow. It’s an intriguing idea, but sadly, the book is mostly just Tanizaki rambling illogically about how everything was better in his day and these young’uns and for’gners are ruining the country. He starts by explaining how he spent tons of money trying to remodel a modern house into the old style, to meet his sense of aesthetics, then explains that Japanese culture embraces shadow because they can accept life as it is and don’t need to change everything. A short book, but shorter if you don’t read it, which is what I’d suggest.

The Emperor by Ryszard Kapuściński (translated by William R. Brand & Katarzyna Mroczkowska-Brand). Nonfiction about the last years and downfall of the final Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie. A fascinating look inside an imperial court that was largely disconnected from reality, concerned mostly with maintaining its own power and image, warping the truth 1984-style to do so. Courtiers had absurd jobs; the sole duty of one man was opening doors for the Emperor (a more difficult job than you might think, due to fastidious protocol), while another man was charged with cleaning dignitaries’ shoes when the Emperor’s lapdog, Lulu, peed on them. The pettiness of the power struggles, the way everyone fawned over the Emperor like a god, the terrible danger that hung constantly over all of them – it’s a whole other world, recreated with some masterful detective work by the author.

The Essential Kabbalah by Daniel C. Matt. An introductory essay to give context, followed by selections from various Kabbalah texts, designed to give a newbie like me some idea of what Kabbalah is all about. (I’m researching the subject as one of the many sources for Crane Girl). If you’re wondering, Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism, using meditation and other techniques to approach a direct experience of the Divine. Its function is similar to Zen Buddhism, Sufi Islam, and Christian monasticism, though its form is very different, relying heavily on a structure of ten interconnected points called “sefirot” that collectively give insight into the nature of God and humanity. It’s an interesting little book.

The Spire by William Golding. A novel by the author of Lord of the Flies. This story is about the dean of a cathedral who orders a vast tower and spire built at the cathedral’s peak, even though the master builder says it’s unsafe and everyone else in the world says it’s a terrible idea. (Spoiler alert: it is.) While there are some glimmers of quality here, I thought it was pretty bad overall. The Spire retains and exaggerates all the flaws of Lord of the Flies (overly thick allegory, characters who feel more like symbols than people, trying too hard to Say Something Important) but has none of its virtues (clarity, strong plot, likable protagonist, the sense of a profound message). In The Spire, it’s often hard to tell what’s going on, and there’s little reason to try. My vote: skip it.

Lewis Carroll and Alice by Stephanie Lovett Stoffel. A nice little biography of Carroll, packed with photos and reproductions, supplemented with selections of Carroll’s lesser-known writing (like Sylvie and Bruno) at the end. Enlightening and enjoyable. The book did portray Carroll in a very positive light, so much so that I sometimes wondered about bias, but I don’t know enough about the man to judge for myself. Side note: the publishers didn’t bother to put the author’s name anywhere on the front or back cover, which seems like a real slap in the face.

The Maze Runner by James Dashner. A Young Adult sci-fi dystopian novel, in roughly the same vein as The Hunger Games, about a bunch of boys trapped in a giant, mysterious maze from which they must escape, overcoming all sorts of deadly horrors. Except that Hunger Games is fast-paced, tightly written, and engaging, whereas Maze Runner is slow, full of awkward sentences, and spends a long time explaining stuff while nothing much is happening. I read the first few chapters, got bored, and skimmed through the rest to see what the big secret of the maze was. It turns out to be a huge surprise – if you’ve never read any other science fiction, ever. Honestly, I’m not sure how this became a bestseller. It isn’t just that I didn’t like it, it didn’t seem like something that would have wide appeal in general. C’est la vie. (Not pictured in photo above because I didn’t take it home with me from England.)

Read anything good lately?

Anger, Joy, Disgust, Sadness, and Fear, living it up at Riley HQ.

Warning: Spoilers.

Say what you will about Rotten Tomatoes – when a movie scores 98%, it’s usually pretty damn good. Pixar’s latest offering, Inside Out, scored 98%, so Betsy and I saw it, and I can confirm it’s pretty damn good. For my money, it’s tied with The Incredibles for best Pixar film. And that’s saying something.

The premise is simple. Every person’s mind can be visualized as a mini world, overseen by the personifications of five main emotions: Joy, Sadness, Anger (Lewis Black!), Fear, and Disgust. Our hero, an eleven-year-old girl named Riley, has these little guys in her head like everyone else. Of the five, Joy is the leader – or at least first among equals – and the other four all share her goal of making Riley happy.

When Riley and her family move from her hometown (in Minnesota, eh?) to San Francisco, she does her best to cope. It’s a struggle, but she’s a positive kid – Joy has done her work well.

And then one day, Joy and Sadness get yanked out of Headquarters. To get back, they’re forced into a journey across the vast expanse of Riley’s mind. Meanwhile, Riley is left with only Anger, Fear, and Disgust running the show. She has lost the capacity for both happiness and genuine sadness. Her life spirals rapidly. Her relationships break down. She stops caring about anything. Finally, she loses the ability to feel any real emotion at all. She’s dying inside.

They never spell it out, but it’s abundantly clear what’s happening. Riley, an eleven-year-old girl, is sinking into clinical depression.

And if you think that’s heavy, how about the conclusion of the film: that mere happiness is not the goal of life; that sadness and joy are symbiotically linked, like yin and yang, and neither can exist without the other; that Riley can only grow up by accepting that sadness is a fundamental part of who she is.

Pretty adult stuff for a Disney cartoon. I mean, when they bust out the PG rating, you know shit has gotten real.

What’s happening to our daughter?

Of course, despite its moments of darkness – and there are many – Inside Out is basically a happy movie, bursting with color, energy, cleverness, humor, and the exceptional polish and attention to detail we’ve come to expect from all of Pixar’s work. And sprinkled in with the humor are genuine insights, as when  a character casually explains that the contents of two boxes – Facts and Opinions – are always getting mixed up, and nobody really bothers to sort them out properly.

Complaints? Well, I have a few minor ones. I think Inside Out‘s vision of the mind places far too much emphasis on feeling, with almost no weight given to reason-based thought. I also got annoyed with the movie sometimes for leaning a little heavily on cliches, as when Riley’s father is shown to be obsessed with sports, emotionally clueless, and concerned with whether he’s angered his wife by leaving the toilet seat up.

But these are small problems, the kind of “problems” that all movies have, merely because you can’t please everyone all the time. The upshot is that Inside Out is utterly brilliant, and if you’ve ever liked anything Pixar has done in the past, I highly recommend this one.

I was planning to end the post here. But yesterday, I came across a negative review of the movie on NPR, by philosopher (and critic?) Alva Noë. Now, obviously reviewers are entitled to their opinions, and I don’t make a habit of writing rebuttals. But in this case I was drawn to respond, because (1) I ordinarily respect what NPR has to say, (2) Noë’s criticisms seem patently absurd, and (3) Inside Out is just so friggin’ sweet.

As befits a philosopher, his main gripe with the movie is philosophical:

Riley is not a person, she is a robot, a complicated vessel whose actions and intentions are controlled by persons — emotions and memory workers — inside of her. Riley is no more an agent in her own right than is, say, a ship an agent in its own right.

He adds that “there is something downright terrifying about this nihilistic conception of ourselves as zombie puppets living in a confabulated universe.”

This criticism seems to misunderstand the basic premise of the story. Of course Riley is controlled by the “persons” inside her – because those persons, collectively, are her mind. The Self is not a single, monolithic whole; it’s composed of various departments and tendencies operating in tandem, which together make up the core of Who You Are.

If having a body controlled by a mind makes you a “zombie puppet,” well, I’ve got some bad news for everybody on the planet. And if Noë thinks Inside Out is nihilistic, I’d hate to see his reaction to Requiem for a Dream.

His other criticisms include:

• Riley, with her “boy’s name” and love of hockey, is basically a male character, allowing the film’s creators to avoid having to depict a real girl. Yes, because no real girl could like a traditionally masculine sport or have a unisex name. If only she had been named Annabelle and played with Barbies, that would have been a victory for feminism.
• What should we make of the fact that Anger and Fear are portrayed as male, while the other three emotions are female? Well, mathematically speaking, you have two genders and five emotions, so it’s literally impossible to avoid reducing one of the genders to two or fewer emotions. Would Noë have been happier if Fear were female? If Joy were male? Is there any way to reduce a gender to two or three emotions that won’t cause offense if you take it too seriously?
• Why is there no racial variation in our internal population? Judging by his reaction to the gender variation, I’m guessing racial variation would be a no-win scenario too. A black man as Anger? No, that would be offensive. What race should be Fear? How about Disgust? What magic combination could please a critic like this?
• Nothing much happened in the story. Correct. Aside from Riley moving to a new city, having a breakdown at school, cutting off contact with her friend, losing her connection with her parents, running away from home, returning for a cathartic reunion, and learning a profound lesson about what it means to be human, all while the characters inside her head are undertaking an epic journey whose stakes are the soul of our protagonist – aside from all that, nothing much happened.

Maybe it’s telling that, throughout his review, Alva Noë never managed to spell the director’s name right – he called him “Pete Doctor” instead of “Docter.” (To NPR’s credit, the spelling has since been corrected.)

Or maybe he just needs a copyeditor. Hey, Alva. I know a guy.

Warning: spoilers ahead. But, I mean, this isn’t Game of Thrones we’re talking about here.

I had heard that Amélie was a bubbly, joyful, heartwarming kind of movie. It was – but it’s also deeper, heavier, even a little darker than I expected. That’s a good thing.

It’s a French film, French-language with subtitles, released in 2001. Nominated for five Oscars. I kept finding little references to it in various corners of the Net, and finally decided I should give it a try. Betsy and I watched it on Sunday.

Amélie is an introverted young Parisian woman with a menagerie of eclectic neighbors, including a brittle-boned old painter who can’t leave his apartment, a grocer who abuses his slow but kind assistant, and a middle-aged woman who obsesses over her long-dead husband. Amélie’s father is distant and cold (think Spock without the charm or the science). She has no close friends and has never formed a serious romance.

Then one day she finds a tiny old box of toys and tracks down its owner, a grandfather who lost the mementos a lifetime ago. She moves him to tears and vows to become an angel of kindness in her complicated little society, enacting elaborate schemes to give people what she thinks they want.

Not all her schemes end well, and even the successful ones remind her of the gaps in her own life. She eventually finds love of her own and must confront her fears of getting close. Of course, it all turns out happily in the end.

The movie has a warm, quirky style that reminds me of Wes Anderson. (The actual director was Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who also directed, of all things, Alien: Resurrection.) A faceless omniscient narrator explains the likes and dislikes of characters as they’re introduced, giving us an insider’s guide to this colorful world.

We learn Amélie’s entire life history, from conception (complete with a photo of the exact sperm that created her) to her mother’s death (caused by a suicidal jumper landing right on top of her) to her unusual hobbies (trying to guess how many orgasms are happening in the city right that moment, as we are treated to vivid footage of the same). Special effects create visual metaphor, as when Amélie literally melts into the floor from emotion, or when we actually see her heart pumping away inside her.

Most of all, I was struck by Amélie‘s boundless energy, endless creativity, and hilarious audacity. Streaks of darkness are often played for laughs, but there’s sadness and magic in her world as well. By the end, I felt lucky to have been a part of it.

Image source

Alan Turing is one of the patron saints of computer science. I should know. I spent four years getting a degree in the subject, studying Turing Machines, reading about the Turing Test.

I knew the broad outlines of his life: foundational work in the theory of computing, instrumental in cracking the German Enigma code in World War II, chemically castrated for being a homosexual, died soon after by an apparent suicide.

But The Imitation Game – a Turing biopic focusing mainly on his work breaking Enigma – made me see him in a whole new way.

It’s a dramatization, of course, not a documentary, and it certainly takes liberties with the facts. Most notably, it portrays Turing as far more arrogant, antisocial, and humorless than he really was. Certain events are fabricated or exaggerated. And so on. I’m not exactly outraged. They wanted to make a good story, and they did.

For me, the film succeeds on every level. The script is funny, stirring, and sad. The acting (by Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, Keira Knightley as a fellow code-breaker, and really, everyone) is brilliant. Visually, it’s very well done. I’m about as good a film critic as I am a master chef (i.e., not, for those wondering) so I won’t go into enormous detail, but it’s really just a beautiful movie.

Beyond that, it made Betsy and me curious about the actual person, the actual events. What was it really like, cracking Engima? Did Turing really write that letter to Churchill? What was his real relationship with Joan Clarke?

A work of fiction that moves you, and spurs you to learn about the facts. Doesn’t get much better than that.

Highly recommended.

The Professor and the Madman, by Simon Winchester, is a history book – and probably the most gripping, page-turning, can’t-put-it-down, stay-up-till-2-am history book I’ve ever read. It tells the story of how the Oxford English Dictionary was made, and of two men who were instrumental in making it.

First off, the Oxford English Dictionary (or OED) is way more interesting than I ever suspected – and this from a guy who loves words. I had no idea how huge it is: over 300,000 entries, over 20,000 pages, 20 volumes, at last count. Literary quotations for every word. It’s like an encyclopedia for a language. The first edition took 70 years to make. A monumental work.

James Murray (the professor) was head editor of the OED’s first edition. Nothing like the OED had ever been attempted before, and he had no idea if he would succeed. But he knew he and his small team couldn’t possibly do it alone. So they sent out paper slips all over London and beyond, requesting volunteer readers to hunt out all different shades of meaning for all different words in all different works of literature. He was, in other words, crowd-sourcing – a radical idea at the time.

William C. Minor (the madman) was an American born in Sri Lanka, a brilliant surgeon who served in the Army and found himself exposed to the horrors of the Civil War. As he grew older, he struggled more and more with paranoid delusions and powerful sexual urges. He moved to London, shot and killed a man while in a delusional state, and was committed to an asylum, with a room full of books.

While he was there, he received a certain paper slip about creating a certain dictionary…and, with a brilliant mind and abundant free time, he became one of the OED’s most prolific contributors.

The two men’s paths converge from there, and they become close friends, their lives inextricably tangled.

Well-written, thoroughly detailed, meticulously researched, surprisingly suspenseful, The Professor and the Madman is simply a beautiful book. Read it if you can.

(Or, I mean, if you want to. I’m not the boss of you!)