Siddharth > Books: life-altering‎ (21)

It means in the world picture of press agency, a job, domesticity, interest in some harmless diversion such as baseball and fishing, and a strong antipathy toward abstract ideas. This is the Philistine version of man in pursuit of happiness. Even Carlyle's doctrine of blessedness through work has overtones of strenuousness which are repugnant to the man of today. (p. 94)

Ted Chia

Ted Chiang is a path breaking philosopher and fiction writer. I started saying that after reading his short story "Story of Your Life." His second book, "Exhalation", is a collection of short stories from 2019. It covers an even wider range of topics than his first collection. Chiang has the ability to zoom out of the present moment and write about human nature without providing solutions or trying to pose arguments about complex questions; instead, his writing makes the reader think about what they would do in that situation, and that is the primary method he uses to engage the reader in a discussion. This ability to inhabit someone else' life for a period of time is the reason I read fiction, and the characters in this collection are put in situations where you want to be riddled by the dilemmas and struggles that they are facing. The striking aspect of Chiang's short stories is the amount of time that one remembers their premise and key questions for. The key questions in a handful of his short stories have remained with me despite having last read them 3 years ago.

The collection has 9 short stories of varying length. The shortest story is only 4 pages, while the longest one is nearly 100 pages. To review this collection without giving away spoilers, I will focus on the recurring themes and the various ways in which Chiang approaches them.

Pestilence is in fact very common, but we find it hard to believe in a pestilence when it descends upon us. There have been as many plagues in the world as there have been wars, yet plagues and wars always find people equally unprepared. Dr Rieux was unprepared, as were the rest of the townspeople, and this is how one should understand his reluctance to believe. One should also understand that he was divided between anxiety and confidence. When war breaks out people say: ‘It won’t last, it’s too stupid.’ And war is certainly too stupid, but that doesn’t prevent it from lasting. Stupidity always carries doggedly on, as people would notice if they were not always thinking about themselves.

So, week in, week out, the prisoners of the plague struggled along as best they could. As we have seen, a few, like Rambert, even managed to imagine that they were acting as free men and that they could still choose. But in reality one could say, at that moment, in the middle of August, that the plague had covered everything. There were no longer any individual destinies, but a collective history that was the plague, and feelings shared by all. The greatest of these were feelings of separation and exile, with all that that involved of fear and rebellion.

At the start of the plague they remembered the person whom they had lost very well and they were sorry to be without them. But though they could clearly recall the face and the laugh of the loved one, and this or that day when, after the event, they realized they had been happy, they found it very hard to imagine what the other person might be doing at the moment when they recalled her or him, in places which were now so far away. In short, at that time they had memory but not enough imagination. At the second stage of the plague the memory also went. Not that they had forgotten the face, but (which comes to the same thing) it had lost its flesh and they could only see it inside themselves. And while in the early weeks they tended to complain at only having shadows to deal with where their loves were concerned, they realized later that these shadows could become still more fleshless, losing even the details of colour that memory kept of them. After this long period of separation, they could no longer imagine the intimacy that they had shared nor how a being had lived beside them, on whom at any moment they could place their hands.

These were harmless pleasures. But in other cases, the itineraries were more highly charged, when a lover, giving way to the sweet pain of memory, could say to his loved one: ‘Here, at such a time, I wanted you and you were not there.’ You could recognize these passionate tourists: they formed little isles of whispers and confidences in the midst of the bustling crowd around them. And it was they who, better than the bands on the street corners, announced the true deliverance, because these enchanted couples, locked together, sparing of words, proclaimed in the midst of the throng, with all the triumph and injustice of happiness, that the plague was over and that terror had had its day. Against all evidence they calmly denied that we had ever known this senseless world in which the murder of a man was a happening as banal as the death of a fly, the well-defined savagery, the calculated delirium and the imprisonment that brought with it a terrible freedom from everything that was not the immediate present, the stench of death that stunned all those whom it did not kill. In short, they denied that we had been that benumbed people of whom some, every day, stuffed into the mouth of an oven, had evaporated in oily smoke, while the rest, weighed down by the chains of impotence and fear, had waited their turn.

I'm a very serious "possibilist". That's something I made up. It means someone who neither hopes without reason, nor fears without reasons, someone who constantly resists the overdramatic worldview

When women are educated, all kinds of wonderful things happen in societies.

Some aspects of the future are easier to predict than others. ... Demographic forecasts are amazingly accurate decades into the future because the systems involved -- essentially, births and deaths -- are quite simple. Children are born grow up, have more children, and then die. Each individual cycle takes roughly 70 years.

If the UN forecasts for population growth are correct, and if incomes in Asia and Africa keep growing as now, then the center of gravity of the world market will shift over the next 20 years from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. Today, the people living in rich countries around the North Atlantic, who represent 11 percent of the world population, make up 60 percent of the Level 4 consumer market. Already by 2027, if incomes keep growing worldwide as they are doing now, then that figure will have shrunk to 50 percent. By 2040, 60 percent of Level 4 consumers will live outside the West. Yes, I think the Western domination of the world economy will soon be over.

She was able to think critically and express herself with razor-sharp logic and perfect rhetoric at a moment of extreme tension.

The world cannot be understood without numbers, nor through numbers alone. A country cannot function without a government, but the government cannot solve every problem. Neither the public sector nor the private sector is always the answer. No single measure of a good society can drive every other aspect of its development. It's not either/or. It's both and it's case-by-case.

Requiem

noun. (a) a mass for the dead (b) a solemn chant (such as a dirge) for the repose of the dead

Dream

noun. (a) a strongly desired goal or purpose

Requiem

noun. (a) a mass for the dead (b) a solemn chant (such as a dirge) for the repose of the dead

Dream

noun. (a) a strongly desired goal or purpose (b) something that fully satisfies a wish

I understood the title after I had finished reading the book. For almost 3 years, people I know have been telling me how this is the most disturbing movie about drug addiction ever made and how it changed their perception of the parties involved. I concur with them: this is definitely one hell of a disturbing book.

Selby Jr manages to convey the hopelessness and the helplessness of Harry, Tyrone, Marion and Sara in a single sentence:

Their disease made it possible for them to believe whatever lies it was necessary for them to believe to continue to pursue and indulge their disease, even to the point of them believeing they wer not enslaved by it, but were actually free.

This book reminded me of everything that is great about reading and why I stick with this habit in the first place. I don’t have anything except good things to say about this book. This book doesn’t have any punctuations. Single quotation marks (like those in I'll) are replaced by forward slashes. There are no double quotes. Thankfully, there are full stops, the characters are very less so it’s possible to make sense of who is talking. I got used to this after reading around 30% of the book.

Marion’s character is the most fascinating. Her psychologist’s reaction when she asks him for the money and he asks him about the needle marks in her arm is painful and sums up my thoughts about where the book was going to go in the first half:

I mean, you’re not like those … those peopel who roam the streets mugging old ladies for enough money to get dope. Your’re cultured and delicate and have been under therapy – and the therapist – they looked at each other for a few moments. Arnold becoming more and more confused and pained. But why? Why?

And Marion’s answer to that:

Marion stared at him for a moment, then sighed loud and long, her body responding as if it had been squeezed tighter, Because it makes me feel whole … satisfied.

This book is worth a read. And then some. The writing is fabulous; the subject matter is dark and disturbing; the characters are vibrant and extremely troubled.

A few quotes from the book that I have to share here:

It wasnt that they couldnt stop using, it was just that this wasnt the time. They had too much to do and they werent feeling well. When everything was straightened out they would simply cut the whole scene loose, but for now theyd take an occasional taste to hang loose.

Sometimes they would fix up new cookers just for the sake of doing it. It was part of keeping house. The entire routine made them feel a part of something. It was something looked forward to with the greatest of joy and anticipation. The entire ritual was symbolic of their life and needs. The careful opening of the bag and the dumping in the cooker of the dope, and dropping in the water with the dropper. Making a new collar from time to time for the dropper so the needle would fit snugly, Harry using a piece of matchbook cover, Marion a piece from a dollar bill.

There was a voice, loud and clear, saying they were hooked, but good, and they tried to shrug it away but it persisted, more as a feeling than a voice, that permeated their every cell just as the dope they were addicted to had already done, and they tried combating it with another voice saying so what, it was no big deal, they could stop any time they wanted to, it was no big thing and what else was there?

The enemy ate away at their will so they could not resist, their bodies not only craving, but needing the very poison that ground them into that pitiable state of being; the mind diseased and crippled by the enemy it was obsessed with and the obsession and terrible physical need corrupting the soul until the actions were less than those of an animal, less than those of a wounded animal, less than those of anything and everything they did not want to be.

At the end of the day, they just want no hassles.

Prediction requires knowing about technologies that will be discovered in the future. But that very knowledge would almost automatically allow us to start developing those technologies right away. Ergo, we do not know what we will know.

We grossly overestimate the length of the effect of misfortune on our lives. You think that the loss of your fortune or current position will be devastating, but you are probably wrong. More likely, you will adapt to anything, as you probably did after past misfortunes. You may feel a sting, but it will not be as bad as you expect. This kind of misprediction may have a purpose: to motivate us to perform important acts.

It is the venture capitalist who invested in a speculative company and sold his stake to unimaginative investors who is the beneficiary of the Black Swan, not the "me, too" investors.

Snub your destiny. I have taught myself to resist running to keep on schedule. This may seem a very small piece of advice, but it registered. In refusing to run to catch trains, I have felt the true value of elegance and aesthetics in behavior, a sense of being in control of my time, my schedule and my life. Missing a train is only painful if you run after it! Likewise, not matching the idea of success others expect from you is only painful if that's what you are seeking.

So you’re waiting, even if you don’t quite know it, waiting for the moment when you realise that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you any harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you – of how you were brought into this world and why – and who dread the idea of your hand brushing against theirs. The first time you glimpse yourself through the eyes of a person like that, it’s a cold moment. It’s like walking past a mirror you’ve walked past every day of your life, and suddenly it shows you something else, something troubling and strange.

So we went into the Woolworth’s, and immediately I felt much more cheerful. Even now, I like places like that: a large store with lots of aisles displaying bright plastic toys, greeting cards, loads of cosmetics, maybe even a photo booth. Today, if I’m in a town and find myself with some time to kill, I’ll stroll into somewhere just like that, where you can hang around and enjoy yourself, not buying a thing, and the assistants don’t mind at all.

I was still feeling a pang of regret that we’d found it so quickly, and it was only later, when we were back at the Cottages and I was alone in my room, that I really appreciated having the tape – and that song – back again. Even then, it was mainly a nostalgia thing, and today, if I happen to get the tape out and look at it, it brings back memories of that afternoon in Norfolk every bit as much as it does our Hailsham days.

On that journey home, with the darkness setting in over those long empty roads, it felt like the three of us were close again and I didn’t want anything to come along and break that mood.

But by the time people became concerned about … about students, by the time they came to consider just how you were reared, whether you should have been brought into existence at all, well by then it was too late. There was no way to reverse the process. ... There was no going back.

I shall never again think that all tramps are drunken scoundrels, nor expect a beggar to be grateful when I give him a penny, nor be surprised if men out of work lack energy, nor subscribe to the Salvation Army, nor pawn my clothes, nor refuse a handbill, nor enjoy a meal at a smart restaurant. That is a beginning.

When you see a man distributing handbills you can do him a good turn by taking one, for he goes off duty when he has distributed all his bills.

But there is also a paradox about it, namely this: Our intention in a swearing is to shock and wound, which we do by mentioning something that should be kept secret-usually something to do with the sexual functions. But the strange thing is that when a word is well established as a swear word, it seems to lose the original meaning; that is it loses the thing that made it into a swear word.

If you set yourself to it, you can live the same life, rich or poor,. You can still keep on with your books and your ideas. You just got to say to yourself, "I'm a free man in here" - he tapped his forehead and you're all right.

I think it is disturbing that Nabokov can portray a modern paedophilic man as a sweet and lovable character. That's what disturbs me more than the really rare reader who stares at me when I read or leaf through this book in public

I envied them, and found them attractive; moreover this strange quality, far from being natural, gave every indication of having been intensely cultivated. (It was the same, I would come to find, with Julian: though he gave quite the opposite impression, of freshness and candor, it was not spontaneity but superior art which made it seem unstudied.)

I did know. Bunny had an uncanny ability to ferret out topics of conversation that made his listener uneasy and to dwell upon them with ferocity once he had. In all the months I’d known him he’d never ceased to tease me, for instance, about that jacket I’d worn to lunch with him that first day, and about what he saw as my flimsy and tastelessly Californian style of dress.

One might expect that I, being at that time perfectly innocent of any crime against either Bunny or humanity, would not myself be a target of this ongoing sniper fire. Unfortunately I was, perhaps more unfortunately for him than for me. How could he have been so blind as not to see how dangerous it might be for him to alienate the one impartial party, his one potential ally?

Camilla was no different, secretly preferring, as I did, the easy delights of English literature to the coolie labor of Greek. What was laughable was that poor Bunny should display concern about anyone else’s intellectual capacities.

What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

What are you thinking, Amy? How are you feeling? Who are you? What have we done to each other? What will we do?

What's the point of being together, if you are not the happiest?

I waited patiently - years - for the pendulum, to swing the other way, for men to start reading Jane Austen, learn how to knit, pretend to love cosmos, organize scrapbook parties, and make out with each other while we leer. And then we'd say, Yeah, he's a Cool Guy