Reading Journal Entry: Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell has been a #1 NY Times best-seller, as was his previous The Tipping Point.

Plus, he looks pretty fly:


Blink is about the swift, unarticulate powers of the mind. We have the power to make judgements in the blink of an eye, although often we don't realize the power of these judgements. That's it, in a nutshell. Gladwell presents a number of examples of people's ability to make very accurate snap judgements. He also discusses why people sometimes make the wrong decision. The crux: more information is not always better. This lines up nicely with the recent stories about research into memory: people with good memories don't remember more stuff, they just remember less extraneous stuff.

Blink is a nice light romp through brain power, which will no doubt make it a darling of the business community.

Great Book: David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, part 1 of 2

David Copperfield is supposed to be the most autobiographical of Dickens' works. It has an intensely personal feel to it. Copperfield is a young boy from a good family who is mistreated and misunderstood, is rescued by a fortuitous encounter with a benevolent relation, must make his own way in the world, etc., etc. David Copperfield is the original Mary Sue of Mary Sues.

This book is immense. Over 20 cassettes. You may be tempted to pick up an abridged version. Don't do it! I can't see any way that an abrdigement would be worth reading. The glory of this book is in the digressions and the connections established between all the various characters from very different chapters of Copperfield's life.

It's easy to see how Dickens made his living as a writer of serialized works; each chapter ends with a snap or a bang and is heavily laced with foreshadowings of dark events to come.

The audio version from Books on Tape is read by a woman, which I found incongrous at first. But she's so good I soon got used to it.

Some quirks of Victorian mentality are displayed to disadvantage here. A woman's virtue is placed far above her life in importance. Several relatives lament that they wish a Certain Someone had died rather than been seduced away by a Certain Ne'er-do-well.

I have only finished 'Part 1'. I got through four cassettes of part 2 and had to return it to the library because, well, because I'm moving 3,000 miles away and they like to keep their books. I'll get on it again once I'm settled down and have my new library card.

I love long movies, long books, and long-running tv shows.... I find these thick classics geared to the popular taste make a fine substitute for the massive fantasy series I used to read. (OK, still read - I am planning on picking up A Feast For Crows after I re-read the first four. But I'm done with Robert Jordan, thank you.) The language used to be a barrier to me but listening to this class of books is just the solution. In sum: I'm still having fun here. The project continues.

Much Obliged, Jeeves! By P. G. Wodehouse

Audio version.

Wodehouse is a priceless treasure. All those who do not know him, get ye to your local library immediately. Listening to a Wodehouse book was a new and very pleasant experience. His humor is so dialogue-based that the addition of a performance with accents and idiosyncrasies really put the cherry on the ice-cream sundae.

This is a later entry in the Bertie Wooster/Jeeves canon. Wooster is the scion of a noble house blessed with an income and several healthy aunts; Jeeves is the manservant plentifully supplied with 'the gray matter' who keeps him out of trouble. Per the usual formula, Wooster is invited to a country house; accidentally becomes engaged to someone he has no desire of marrying; hijinks ensue; Jeeves saves the day. General satisfaction all-round.

Reading Journal Entry: Diamonds Are Forever, by Ian Fleming

My second Bond novel. Once again I'm astonished at the casual racism. I guess that's just the fifties for you.... But how can I say that after reading Another Country, published only five years later (1962)? I can't give Ian Fleming a pass. The weird part is that the racist stuff is dropped in out of nowhere, and prefaced by the comment "Bond had a natural affection for colored people". Whaaaa?

Fleming was obviously trying to deal with the issue of race (America was a new setting for Bond, I gather from context) but fails to address it an adult manner. Also critically neglected are the race issues in Africa, the wellspring of the diamond pipeline. We are introduced briefly to the white dentist who smuggles out diamonds obtained by the black miners, but this potential powderkeg is given the brush-off.

In fact, the whole Africa sub-plot which introduces the diamond pipeline weakens the book; I wish Fleming had just stuck Bond into 'the American mob' in some other way.

Fleming makes no pretense of trying to deal with homosexuality in an adult manner; he just calls a couple of the bad guys 'pansies' and leaves it at that.

Another strong anachronism was all the drinking. Bond drinks at breakfast lunch and dinner; there are cocktails before dinner and after dinner, not to mention the afternoon aperitif. He really knocks 'em back.

I was not impressed with Bond. The pacing is excellent: Bond is swept from one action-packed picturesque American locale to another at breakneck speed. But he does several risky things and mostly reacts to events as they occur to him. He doesn't even rescue himself. Tiffany Case, the hard-boiled criminal with a heart of runny golden yolk, is much more interesting.

In sum: watch the movie.

Venetia, by Georgette Heyer

Cute, romantic, so not boring!

Georgette Heyer is one of those few writers who inspires and embodies an entire genre of imitators (Stephen King and Zane Gray being the only others I can think of). Her romance novels set in the Regency period are fun, banter-filled bonbons. They are a little bit of an anachronism in the current sex-heavy romance market. Those who like to think they would be best friends with Elizabeth Bennett should enjoy them. Highly recommended.

Reading Journal Entry: The Illuminated Soul, by Aryeh Lev Stollman

This is a novel written as a reminiscence and a re-creation. An older man, after writing a book about an experience he had as a teenager, retells the experience and reveals the effects it had on his subsequent life. He imagines and researches episodes in the life of the woman who boarded with them for a short time, and who had such a strange effect on he and his family. This twice-removed structure helps to bring a dreamlike quality to the narrative, and the boarder, Eva Laquedem Higashi, takes on the myterious aspect of a visiting angel.

Joseph is 14 when she arrives, and his family has suffered a series of losses. His father has died recently. His younger brother Asa has been diagnosed with a degenerative eye disease. One of Joseph's few friends has been sent to a mental institution. The book is set in a Jewish neighborhood in post-War Canada; references to what has been lost in terms of people and possessions is a constant subtext. Joseph focuses on religion, taking the task of reading the Torah portion with utmost seriousness (and obsessiveness). Asa refuses to use his eyes, so as not to wear them out. His mother, Adele, is a tall but ungainly echo of the wandering Eva, a European Jew via Japan who in crossing the Canadian border accidentally violates the terms of her visa and is thus ejected from yet another country. Her one treasure is a beautiful illuminated 15th century manuscript, the Augsburg Miscellany, a family heirloom which she smuggled out of Europe. The beauty of this object, and of the woman herself, sheds a golden light on each member of the small family in a different way. She brings them a sense of the possible, a sense of the transcendence of everyday life.

The characters are fully realized in a very little space. Impressively written, fully enjoyed, many-layered.

In the end I was disappointed by the mundanity of Joseph and Asa's subsequent lives. Joseph goes on to become a neurologist who, having made an important breakthrough early in his career, skates on his laurels from then on. Asa works as an illustrator and then goes blind. They take care of each other, do not marry. It seems that they only break through to that plane of existence on which they briefly dwelled when Joseph writes his memoir and spends time speaking about, and seeking for, Eva Higashi. What's the point of this transcendence when it is only fleeting and temporary? I wanted Joseph and Asa to go on to have beautiful, interesting lives. I wanted some positive permanent change to have been wrought. Instead they almost seemed trapped by their fascination with her.

The neatest thing since sliced bread (in publishing, at least)....

I signed up for inBubbleWrap.com a couple of weeks ago after reading the article about them in Publisher's Weekly.

The website features a new giveaway every day, usually a business book. Create an account, click on the button, and you are in the running for one of 25 free copies. Why are they doing it? Because publishers are paying them to. So far they've got at least ten publishers on the line.

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is marketing gold. By giving away 25 free copies of the book, the site encourages hundreds of others to look at the book cover, read the copy about it, and click on a big button saying 'I Want One'. Maybe they win one, but probably they don't. If they don't, they've already completely bought in to the idea of wanting and owning the book in question.

I clicked and won, myself, already. I received my free book fairly quickly thereafter, a copy of Petra Rivoli's Travels of a T-Shirt in the Global Economy. It was, as promised, wrapped in bubble wrap.