by Umberto Eco
Your review is certainly more verbose than mine, but is it poetry?
By the way, the more I learn about grammar and style, the less "accessible" I find the Da Vinci Code to be. :)
Incidentally, I think it's interesting to hear your review influenced by shades of Queen Loana and Rose. I read this book first, so for me, the connections were reversed, and I saw Foucault wherever I went. I think the chronological order was Rose, Foucault, Queen Loana, so who knows what we're SUPPOSED to think was derivative.
Have you read The Island of the Day Before. I kind of assumed I wouldn't like it, but it's turned out to be my favorite of the Umberto Eco novels (though I still haven't read Baudolino) ]]>
Neil
read and liked
Quinn's
review of Foucault's Pendulum:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
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bookshelves: currently-reading
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bookshelves: logic, mba, philosophy
Okay, let's see if I got it straight...
An anti-academic academic weaves a non-narrative narrative about predicting the unpredictable into the theory that rigid theories are bad.
Oh, and count on things you can't conceive of happening happening.
Something like that.
Taleb's observations on the expectations and biases we hold, especially when estimating risk or uncertainty, are pretty dead on.
His key practical point is about the need for a NON-parametric look at any situation in which low-probability events can carry a high-impact. He's almost certainly right that we over-apply the "bell curve" and other normalized frequency distributions, with the consequence of underestimating the probability of very rare events.
But he's kind of a jerk about it.
If you don't mind that kind of thing (I don't, really), then this is a pretty good read. If you've thought along these lines before, though, don't expect to be startled. There are no magic recipes for success in Taleb's "Extremistan" here, just some common sense principles that you can pretty much derive from the first 50 pages of the book.
My only other complaint--and it's not one I can really spell out with any confidence--is this: I came away with this diffuse sense of overconfidence from Taleb...that he believes his metaphors and conjectures, etc. apply in more instances than they actually do.
All told, it's a good book, and if I could force it on MBA graduates, I would. I'd just package it with a single grain of salt. ]]>
Time moving backwards
Forgives all atrocities
Take that, Ben Button! ]]>
Ugh. I can't just haiku this one away.
There are very good reasons why a reasonable command of the rules of grammar and punctuation is important. This book does not provide them.
Instead, Lynne Truss spends a lot of time harping on all the *bad* reasons. Key to her argument are these two:
- Follow rules set by historical precedent; oftentimes rules that are quite arbitrarily chosen
- To placate grammar pedants and their (self-mocking-seriously-but-not-really) militant attitude towards grammar offenders
She couches these arguments in humor and a self-deprecating voice, as if this makes them okay. For me, the humor fell flat more often than not, and the self-aware I-know-I'm-being-a-nerd-about-it-but-still-! voice she adapts smacks more of pretension and condescension than anything else. Like most grammar mavens, she also misses the boat widely on the conflict between prescriptive and descriptive approaches to grammar.
Why *should* we learn to use grammar and punctuation "properly"? I can think of a few good reasons:
- To ensure clarity of communication: meanings should be as precise as possible and potential ambiguities should be eliminated.
- (on punctuation) To breathe more life into written words; to provide it with a cadence that mimics that of the spoken word
- To make a good impression. At some point, we are all judged based on our writing, be it an application letter, a resume, a paper or presentation. For better or worse, proper language usage is a dry-cleaned suit and nice tie for those who notice such things.
I think those are the big ones. If this book spent more time talking about effective communication and less time making fun of hapless shopkeepers' misuses of the apostrophe, maybe I wouldn't have been rolling my eyes the entire way through. ]]>
bookshelves: fiction
Cultural mishmash
Insightful fun at best.
"Gilmore Girls" at worst. ]]>
bookshelves: fiction
Private dick takes drugs;
confronts babies, kangaroos.
Just coincidence! ]]>
bookshelves: fiction
Stranded on a boat,
Umberto plays with language
...and reflects on war? ]]>