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It now becomes a little more clear what Dedalus has to do with Bloom’s narrative, framing it with epic potential as if Homer’s Odyssey could happen at any place while it stretches out (traditional twenty years) or compresses into a single day. While merely an hour in an uninspired classroom passes by in this chapter, his inner thoughts open up poetically to Aristotlean possibilities, triggered by Caesar!

Between return of archenemies Nightmare and Baron Mordo (and their reiterative plans to trap Strange), we have the first of many crossover events as Loki causes havoc in the Sanctum while the next issue must have been inspired by the art direction wins for Mankiewicz’ epic movie Cleopatra, another crossover event? I wonder how Kirby retaliated for Ditko drawing Thor when Doctor Strange meets the Asgardian?

Equally interested to explore what make a good pedagobot as he is with what counts as good pedagogy, Selwyn ramps up the uncertainty by querying a complex-sounding question in the book title polished down somewhat in the opening chapters to a more manageable yet still shiny inquiry. Lots to say about advancements in actual robots teaching children in Japan, to the point of effectively berating the genki kid to tears.

The hyperbole of the creation now extends to its creators: Lee, Ditko and their letterers getting fancy titles themselves. And it is good to see how Strange has retained his arrogance and antisocial habit, barely regarding the foes or even people he protects, and yet there’s the greater good, humanity, which he swore to serve perhaps make Simek’s claim “most mystic character in all of literature” mostly true.

Stephen’s popularity assuredly announced in each issue reaches its prominence as his name and face begin to appear on the front cover of Strange Tales. The magical, mystical, mysterious creative team lean into uncertainty as the stories shift away from regular villains like Baron Mordo and Nightmare, and begin to touch upon the folkloric with nameless terrors facing off against his skills in the dark arts.

One of the modernest novels in English literature starts off inauspiciously as Stephen Dedalus begins his day with Buck Mulligan, presumedly with little to do connected to Joyce’s Portrait of an Artist. Odd there is an unwillingness for some authors to let go of main characters from one book to the next. Readers relive the events of Thursday, June 16th as their Bloomsday but the namesake has yet to appear.

Very strange tales, indeed! Mostly standing in rooms, flying and fighting in an ethereal form while occasionally making use of his amulet, Doctor Strange so far is one of the most stationary superheroes. Fortunately his greatest adversaries are not so mobile either, with Nightmare stuck in the dream dimension and Baron Mordo falling into easily-avoided traps. How is it a nameless guy with gun was closest to the kill?

Not another history of computing disguised as a socio-cultural study of all things digital! The first chapter “Chasm” brought about this worry over falling into the same kind of machine learning trap. But once past this obstacle, I find it is still that old abyss-staring-back message as the world seems to be responding to, even violently rejecting, our increasing need for content as seen in clouds and permafrost.

A fitting play to end my current reading of Chekhov: the soul-crushing boredom of the bucolic life with endless philosophical chit-chat and yet nobody seems to get why each of the sisters suffer. The drunk doctor Chebutykin May come close with his metanarrative views on reality. Still there is hope that future generations will have it better, a idea shared by many teachers in the play, just none for the here and now.

A continued analysis of Miss Miller’s dreams, yet Jung now seems to be riffing on the symbolic possibilities related to the libido and the whole range of ancient art and wisdom, from pagan statues and passages from the bible to favourite lines from Faust. While his dizzying analysis of sexual nature in archetypal myths stays on track, there are flourishes like his interpretation of a “childish” Sphinx.

Nearly all the plays read so far reveal the upper classes at their country estates, lounging and complaining while servants toil to give them more unappreciated ease. Ivanov includes a scene of civic duties, but mostly family drama ensues. Here, in A Jubilee, regular Russians are at work, asides from a sociopathic clerk, and show a slice of everyday life suddenly invaded by Chekhov’s family drama.

The title page says “drama” but this early play is perhaps the most Monty Pythonish comedy I’ve read so far: everyone is bored and socially inept, the titular lead loathes himself and launches into lengthy speech about how worthless he is, the young doctor prides himself as honest, an elderly matron and widow are shrewd investors yet get caught up in numerous shams, and ingénue Sasha’s wedding gets shot off.

The double-edged sword of digital technology as argued in early chapters of Selwyn’s book show it slicing through red tape and inequalities of traditional education, yet creating more entitlement among the sword-handlers and potential victims indiscriminately sliced up. Even though a smartphone-equipped learner may be more able to access a wealth of information, each is reduced to a cog in a philanthropist machine.

A short jest that could have successful wrapped up its main point within a couple of pages, an eventless proposal as the title suggests, had it not been for the pride and wrath of the almost affianced couple. A mere mention of the Freedom that Feers fretted over in The Cherry Orchard, but neither Lomov or Natalyia seem to care who works the land so long as the right family name is given. How about her dowry?

Having seen this play performed recently, it is hard to believe it is the same plot: not so much a question of which lines translate better into English, but which scenes come before another. The climatic gunplay comes in at the end of the third act but a fourth one follows. And for all the warning of academic ennui and the toll it takes upon the family, it now seems a more pressing issue when forests go up in smoke.

Chekhov was too clever to recycle characters from one story to the next, relying on an endless supply of stock characters than an extended universe of same ones. That said, it isn’t too much of a stretch to see his Bear jest as a mash up of Uncle Vanya barging his way into the drawing room of Lady with a Lapdog demanding money and losing his head. Popova sticks to her guns, but can’t let him go.

The absurd sense of humour in these comedies! This particular one taking aim at pretensions of artists: those who barely have to think in order to be showered with fame and the poor creatures who follow in their footsteps to ruin their lives. Chekhov must have had a few peers in mind when crafting the tragic Trepliov and his fiendish foil Trigorin. How quickly Zaryechnaia’s dream turns abysmal yet not Arkadina’s.

Less of foretelling of future AI strife, this brief book surveys what is happening now, compared to the relatively AI-free past from the first half of the book, to reassure readers that there is nothing to fear from machine learning. It optimistically points out how helpful the robots are. The only thing we humans really need to fear are the humans using AI, or so the so-called human author Ramge wants us to believe!

As monstrous as it seems to base theories of learning on electric shock and puffs of air in creatures eyes, the way of knowing flies in the face of modern science’s old saw, correlation is not causation. Every bit of evidence in this book is extrapolated from a theory that mostly confirms what the tester already suspected would be the result. So even happy accidents like discovering mirror neurons feel like a sham.

The narrative draws to a close with a couple mild discoveries, one concerning the eternal bumbling of Mr. Guppy, the other tugs at the bit of yarn sticking out from the everlasting court case, unraveling the very fabric that kept the various levels of society and all its related personal tragedies together. Seems fitting that such damaging legality and the marital status of a foolish man are how Esther’s tale ends.

AI, as seen in the grand scheme of modern human development much like the airplane or similar hitherto impossible feats that are now everyday facts of life, get an appropriate amount of attention in Ramge’s short book. Just the sort of thing I want to build a career writing about: a history of possible futures alongside technological improvements that is more than just increasing value in Tesla or Google’s stock.

I can tell how Dickens remains in no rush to get to this novel’s conclusion, but how about a Hemingwayesque summary of the penultimate part: mother missing, lord languishes, dismal discovery. It shouldn’t really take around fifty pages to narrate this tragedy, with all the nearly-forgotten characters being thrown in to pad out the print order. Inspector Bucket suggests Mrs Snagsby watch Othello for clarification!

The remaining chapters have much bigger questions that are still unanswered, not so much because of some missing part of a formula or ability to see something invisible, but rather because humans only have a way of knowing things based on our Earth-based upbringing. An alien race would have a very different perception of the 95% we do not know and yet it is very unlikely we can comprehend even those truths, unless...

It’s a curious thing how some directors or playwrights can be so droll and repetitive when talking about the amazing plays they made, but give them an abstract topic like scientific behind of quantum computing or synchronized blinking, get them to go outside the world that they know and they share amazing insights. Or maybe I don’t know the author or contributor as well as I think not to be amazed by their plays.

For all the meandering instalments, these three crisp chapters tell a succinct story of a criminal being caught (albeit with a very confusing cover story to smoke out the real murderess), a miscommunication (in the hands of a briefly returning Mr Guppy no less) and the search for a would-be criminal on the lam. Must say, when Esther’s narrative is removed, it is almost as if the story has somewhere to take readers.

With a reasonable shrug for all things we don’t know about matter and the forces that keep the goo-ish spacetime in balance, the book starts to pose questions about what comes from beyond our observable sphere, whether they are bullet-like particles, antimatter that cannot exist with our (presumably) cismatter or a giant kitty from before the Big Bang. How does holographic principle fit into the vast no-idea-verse?

It is a tall order for a Short Introduction to cover every aspect of a given topic, but I am a bit let down by the limitations of Haselgrove’s focus on learning. So much of it explains the dastardly run experiments on rats, pigeons and people. Not so bad being compared to animal peers, but the implications of higher minds designing shock treatment is wrong, especial when income and profit temper the study.

Physicists generally are, based solely upon observation, odd people who are both painstaking particular and abrasively aloof. Cham and Whiteson are the exception proving my made-up rule: they enjoy knowing lots of things and actively make an effort to share what they know, or in this book’s case, don’t. Key to their charming formula is discussing spacetime mysteries with random pets. It must piss off their peers!

It is a trying task to keep track of what Esther’s narratives, roughly a quarter of the chapters, have to do with the remaining three fourths, other than checking in with a random assortment of caricature while a murder case slowly gets solved. A similar case could be made for many of the way-too-many characters populating their own narratives but barely connecting to others such as absent Mr Boythorn and Mr Guppy.

Truly a comedy of tragic proportions, a sign of a country in transition that is both particular to the end of Czarist Russia and also general enough for every generation facing upheaval. I plan to use the play as a template for differences between parents and children over their digital devices; not looking so good for the old landed gentry, whenever they are, who don’t seem to clue into the actual lay of the land.