Galileo's Daughter

I particularly enjoyed Dava Sobel's previous book, Longitude, and have been very interested in Galileo (see Galileo's Dream), so it was an unexpected delight to find that back in 1999 Sobel had written this dual portrait of Galileo and his saintly oldest daughter, Virginia.

Virginia and her younger sister and brother were all born out of wedlock.  Because they were neither high born nor wealthy, Galileo could not arrange favorable marriages for his daughters and decided that the best chance they would have in life was to be entered into a convent - which, with help from highly placed patrons of Galileo, occurred before they were actually old enough to become Sisters.  The younger daughter, furious at her father and possibly having unrelated problems, subsequently had very little to do with Galileo.  In contrast, Virginia - later Suor Maria Celeste - was devoted to him, praying always on his behalf, preparing special treats and medicines for him, sewing his collars - and writing heartfelt letters to him.  Galileo described her to a friend as "a woman of exquisite mind, singular goodness, and most tenderly attached to me".  He kept all of her letters - approximately 120 - Sobel translated these and used them as a framework for much of the story of Galileo's life.   Sadly, none of Galileo's letters to Suor Maria Celeste have survived.

The book effectively describes Galileo's radically new approach to understanding the world  - that is, carrying out quantitative experiments and formulating the findings into laws rather than arguing from "first principles".  For this reason alone, he was vilified by adherents of Aristotle, "philosophers" who were accorded higher status and higher pay than mere "mathematicians" or "astronomers".   (Though astronomers, including Galileo, were frequently called upon by the aristocracy to create astrological forecasts).  One striking example of Galileo's experimental genius was illustrated by the astronomical discoveries he made with the telescope.  Galileo did not invent the telescope - but, having heard of it, or perhaps seen one, he carried out systematic experiments to determine the optimum shape and spacing of lenses.  This allowed him to construct telescopes with higher magnification and resolving power than anyone else.  With these, he famously discovered sunspots and how they illustrated the rotation of the sun, the phases of Venus, and the moons of Jupiter -all undermining the Aristotelian view of the celestial spheres as perfect objects that could not be flawed in any way - and also supporting the views of Copernicus, which later caused so much trouble for Galileo.

Interestingly, Galileo was a devout Catholic and believed there could be no real discrepancy between Catholic belief and the Copernican world view his discoveries supported.  He believed that God spoke to man in two ways, for one purpose.  The purpose was to induce men to believe and act properly so that they could enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  The two ways were scripture and the physical reality of the universe.  Scripture need not always be precisely consistent with physical reality, because its primary purpose was to guide people towards the holy light - and some simplification could aid this purpose.  But the physical world, also created by God, must necessarily be consistent with God's message to humanity.  Galileo hoped and urged his ecclesiastical friends to adopt this view - he felt that the Copernican view was certainly correct and that if the church declared it as heresy, the church would suffer when further experiments proved it to be true.  Pope Urban and others, however, believed scripture was paramount and to claim the universe to be other than described by scripture was heresy - and punishable.

In addition to his astonishing brilliance as a scientist, Galileo is shown in the book to be a practiced flatterer, adept at political intrigue, an outstanding prose stylist and....a doting and devoted father to Suor Maria Celeste.  I enjoyed this book immensely.

Game of Thrones: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R.R. Martin

For the past several years, Mark and I have enjoyed watching the HBO series Game of Thrones. Mark had read all of Martin's books up to the time of the TV series premiere, but I never had. Everyone says how great the books are, so I finally decided to give the first book a try. I loved it so much I tore through all 800 pages and am already a third of the way through book 2!

Martin's prose is relatively simple and straightforward, but his world is vividly portrayed in all 5 senses and his realistic character depictions make the courtly intrigues and ancient mysteries come alive brilliantly. One of my favorite characters is Lord Tyrion, a little person and son of the powerful house of Lannister. In a world where warriors rule and a disabled man is worth less than a woman, Tyrion uses his wits and humor to remain relevant and preserve his dignity in a society that has derisively termed him "the Imp." Fond of drink and whores, Tyrion is nevertheless the source of many of the book's words of wisdom. He gives several valuable pieces of advice to Jon Snow, the bastard son of powerful Lord Stark, who holds a similarly low place in their world's hierarchy. One such quote is when Tyrion explains his love of reading by saying that "a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”

Martin famously kills off nearly every major character (and many minor ones), and it is a strong storyteller indeed who can hold the reader's interest in the events of the world, not just in specific people.

Very exciting and more food for thought than in your usual "light reading."

Seveneves - Neal Stephenson

Stephenson's fascinating new sci-fi novel, Seveneves, reads much like Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy in its realistic and highly-detailed portrayal of space exploration technology. The novel opens when an unknown force - the Agent - causes our Moon to explode. After a period of global bafflement, American scientist and media personality Doc Dubois realizes that the moon's fragmentation will continue exponentially, ultimately causing a Hard Rain of meteorites to obliterate the earth's service in a terrible holocaust lasting thousands of years. Scientists all over earth come to the same conclusion within a matter of weeks, and the entire world's resources are dedicated to preparing to save as many humans as possible by getting them onto a space station, along with earth's genetic data. If this feels like a spoiler, it's not, this merely sets the stage for all the action that unfolds from there! About the latter third of the book is dedicated to even more radical extrapolation from these initial conditions... Very unique and thought-provoking.

Stephenson is a brilliant social critic, and his book is rich with insights and neologisms like "amistics" -

"choices that different cultures made as to which technologies they would, and would not, make part of their lives. The word went all the way back to the Amish... who had chosen to use certain modern technologies, such as roller skates, but not others, such as internal combustion engines. All cultures did this, frequently without being consciously aware that they had made collective choices."

Highly recommend!

The Peripheral - William Gibson

The Peripheral is Gibson's most recent novel, and it did not disappoint. The tale opens in a a world that appears to be our near future, the logical extension of our society's tendency to favor technological advancement amidst crumbling physical infrastructure. The increasingly unstable economy is marked by intensified monopolization, and the average person can only get wealthy by "funny" means - "building" (producing and selling drugs), or "fabbing" (3D printing) prohibited items. Our morally-conscious protagonists - a wounded special ops veteran named Burton and his spunky sister, Flynne - choose instead to eke out a living by playing security forces in a video game for a mysterious employer. It is during one of these gaming sessions that Flynne becomes sole witness to a gruesome murder, an event that ignites a series of radical changes in their lives and world. The novel is ultimately set in two futures, whose inhabitants are able to influence each other by means of shared "peripheral" technology. Fascinating stuff, as always!

Rudin

I have been undergoing a change in viewpoint with respect to Turgenev.  I love Dostoevsky's novels - powerful, compelling, and full of passionate beliefs and actions.  And I know that Dostoevsky despised Turgenev, believing he had lost his roots in the Russian soil and people, and had become infatuated with Western culture - probably the greatest sin a Russian writer could commit in Dostoevsky's eyes.  Dostoevsky drew a wickedly funny, vitriolic parody of Turgenev in The Possessed.  But I really enjoyed Turgenev's Fathers and Sons, and Turgenev is portrayed as charming and shrewd in Stoppard's Coast of Utopia plays.

Well, like Fathers and Sons, Rudin is lyrical, thoughtful and, finally, sad, though leavened with a little uplifting sentiment.  Like the nihilist Bazarov in Fathers and Sons, Rudin also represents a kind of Russian type - in this case, a lofty intellectual who cannot transform his dreams into action.  When young, he is handsome, articulate and inspiring, attracting the interest and sympathy, particularly, of women.  But he is incapable of realizing his idealistic goals and, ultimately, fails those who placed trust in him.

"You have so often talked of self-sacrifice," she broke in, "but do you know, if you had said to me to-day at once, "I love you, but I cannot marry you, I will not answer for the future, give me your hand and come with me" - do you know, I would have come with you; do you know, I would have risked everything?  But there's all the difference between word and deed, and you were afraid now, just as you were afraid the day before yesterday at dinner of Volintsev."

and

"But up to this time I believed in you, believed in every word you said....For the future, pray keep a watch on your words, do not fling them about at hazard."

This is all terribly sad, but Rudin is redeemed somewhat at the end by an unlikely defender, Lezhnyov, who says:

But as for character, that's just his misfortune, that there's no character in him....But that's not the point.  I want to speak of what is good, of what is rare in him.  He has enthusiasm; and believe me, who am a phlegmatic person enough, that is the most precious quality in our times.  We have all become insufferably reasonable, indifferent, and slothful; we are asleep and cold, and thanks to any one who will wake us up and warm us!  It is high time!  Do you remember, Sasha, once when I was talking to you about him, I blamed him for coldness?  I was right, and wrong too, then.  The coldness is in his blood - that is not his fault - and not in his head.  He is not an actor, as I called him, or a cheat, nor a scoundrel; he lives at other people's expense, not like a swindler, but like a child....Yes; no doubt he will die somewhere in poverty and want; but are we to throw stones at him for that?  He never does anything himself precisely, he has no vital force, no blood; but who has the right to say that he has not been of use?  that his words have not scattered good seeds in young hearts, to whom nature has not denied, as she has to him, powers for action and the faculty of carrying out their own ideas?  Indeed, I myself, to begin with, have gained all that from him..."

I really enjoyed this book and recommend it highly.

Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years

Recently finished this book by Tom Standage, author of An Edible History of Humanity. I would not have picked this book up if I'd realized who it was by, because Standage's unsavory politics in AEHH left a bad taste in my mouth, and I was unimpressed by his derivative style. However, this book was (mostly) free of political rhetoric, and I really enjoyed the discussion of "really old" media. I particularly enjoyed the descriptions of the graffiti at Pompeii and the Roman letter abbreviations like SVBEEV (si vales, bene est, ego valeo = If you are well, that is good; I'm well.) I would like to find a book dealing just with this period of social media.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running

Running is what he talks about.  The book is less a memoir than a journal of Murakami's daily running and participation in marathons over a period of several years.
By his own account, he's not an exceptional runner, but he's a very determined runner, for whom finishing marathons, ideally with a time improvement, is extremely important.  Although focused on running, the book does relate his decision and determination to run to his writing. He desires to write into old age and states that fatigue is the enemy of writing - thus, for him, running is a discipline to maintain the strength and endurance necessary to continue writing.
I found the book to be mildly interesting, but one feature really struck me.  When I had read The Wind-up Bird Chronicle, I felt that the main character, Toru, was so flat, rational and unemotional that he did not seem real to me - his character was so different from my own and people I know that I almost believed that no one could actually be like that.  In What I Talk About, Murakami seems to have a personality very similar to Toru's, very flat and rational, so that it seems startling and almost incomprehensible that his writing is so vivid!  In fact, I almost wondered if the voice of Murakami in this book is actually not his own, but a deliberate replication or recreation of the persona he invented for Toru.