Moby Dick

After a few chapters my suspicion was that Moby Dick would be one of those turn of the century novels which would be justified by a few beautiful paragraphs. At least, at the rate I read and general difficulty when it comes to concentrating, I tend to get a bit lost in books like Heart of Darkness, The Great Gatsby - books from this time period where the short novel was emerging from realist fiction. So after the first few chapters, I figured Moby Dick was going to do this to me, and in particular I was waiting for a line referred to by Patrick Stewart in Star Trek: First Contact, "If his chest had been a cannon" or something like that.

The line never came. I think it's misquoted and actually should be "if his chest had been a mortar," and either way, I missed the sentiment. I did find the writing all very good, but the ideas of nobility in whaling were lost on me a bit, even trying to appreciate the whole 'different times' thing.

So, yes. Good, and some nice sentiments somewhere in it - and the depictions of a hostile ocean are quite full-on for a shark-fearing man like myself, but I think maybe this book didn't change my life. Oh well.

not a literary critic

I made it through the slap - and i decided that from now on, I will not pretend that I have decent opinions on literature and retreat into books that i like.

my problem with the slap is, as i remarked for dfw, that by articulating inner thoughts of people that occur on the periphery (if at all), it privileges them to the point that they seem like the central driving force of each character. E.g., I might walk past a billboard of a sports-woman, and for whatever reason, will imagine her losing her leg below the knee, then perhaps in order for that to happen i will imagine sawing it off with a hack-saw. It's not something i set out to think about, it's not a thought that i entertain for any amount of time, in fact, i will usually move on without thinking that i have thought it, but somewhere in that brain of mine it was there. It's not that i actually want to torture someone, or become a surgeon or anything, though. So - with The Slap, is it really capturing the essence of a character if he sees a girl and then just thinks of aggressively f*ing her? Is it naive of me to think that, in general, most people are reasonably well-intentioned?

Secondly, sometimes the dialogue between characters is just awful. I'll admit that sometimes it's realistic enough, but sometimes I sort of feel insulted that I have to read a passage and buy it.

I'm happy for others to call this good. It's just not something that I get much out of, and in the future I will not be duped into such exploits. I will, instead, read Kurt Vonnegut's posthumous release which has some nice sentimental goings on... but sentiments that I like and am happy to read about.

Tom tom cho

Stuck in the middle of unenthralling "The Slap", I reached up to the pile of books above my head and started reading Tom Cho's short stories. Man, so funny! Some of the stories draw upon his life as an Asian Australian: sweet and sour pork recipes passed down from generation to generation, an aunt who likes to point out how similar "this house is mine" and "do i smell burning" look in cantonese -and other bits from his life as a geek: dungeons and dragons, 80s movies. I read this within a couple of days, often sitting up in bed by myself and giggling.. if not sitting in a crowded university cafeteria doing the same thing.

The brilliance of Tom Cho, I think, is not just that he's funny - but that some of his derivatives quite complex and intelligent. The majority of these stories touch on a real emotion, a real problem or dilemma, and only use comedy to belie the absurdity inherent in life, or as something to ease the tension. I wonder how he goes about writing these stories - does he base the story around the serious bit? or does he insert serious bits into a comedy sketch? or is this all just Tom Cho winging it? Given that he has just finished his PhD, I must assume that he really thinks out these pieces and it pays off.

Having finished Look Who's Morphing, i had to return to the Slap. I have never been so tempted not to bother finishing a book... it is a hard slog. I'm not saying it's not good. I can understand that some of it demonstrates acute observations into Australian middle-class culture - but some of it just seems too contrived and yet too shallow. He produces characters who live, breathe, speak like someone you know well - and yet this character is empty and it doesn't quite make sense... as if he has noticed how a person acts but doesn't understanding why they act that way - drawing instead on an amalgamated understanding. Is it really the case that everyone cheats on their wives so determinedly? Is a woman who breastfeeds her child for a long time really the sort of person who will be so vindictive when it comes to a cousin of her friend? Is it necessary to begin each sexual encounter with "she cupped his balls" - frankly I much prefer to hear about Tom Cho "having the hottest sex you can imagine".

So there you go, who'd have thought one could compare these books in a meaningful fashion? Looks like I found a way!

I wish I were a better physicist/mathematician/astronomer/genius

I enjoy pop-science... perhaps because I am only a mediocre scientist. Bryson's book was recommended to me by a student, and I mainly enjoyed it so much because of all the talk of giant and tiny things. He has a nice way of using absurd measurements "enough marbles to fill the superbowl" or the number of years it takes to reach pluto travelling at a reasonable speed.

As with most science books like this, I am unable to recall most of the facts, but Bryson's stuff seems well researched and is obviously very accessible.

I will not go on and on and on and on. Except to say that it's these sorts of books that make me wonder what on earth it all means...