1Elanna76
Dear fellow readers, this is my umpteenth attempt at a yearly reading challenge. I probably won't finish it, but I already know that I will have a lot of fun along the way.
I live in Ireland, where it seems that spring will never come, at least this year. But pity me not, reader, because I moved to this Country also for it's awful weather, so very conducive to the sofa-blanket-book trifecta.
After a long spell of videogame obsession, I recently started againg doing anything else than planting flowers online and nosing into Stardew Valley villager's private affairs.
I already finished a book or two, that I will post here shortly, but the bought-to-read ratio is forever embarrassingly tilted in favour of the former.
I am, indeed, the poster child of tsundoku.
More to come!
I live in Ireland, where it seems that spring will never come, at least this year. But pity me not, reader, because I moved to this Country also for it's awful weather, so very conducive to the sofa-blanket-book trifecta.
After a long spell of videogame obsession, I recently started againg doing anything else than planting flowers online and nosing into Stardew Valley villager's private affairs.
I already finished a book or two, that I will post here shortly, but the bought-to-read ratio is forever embarrassingly tilted in favour of the former.
I am, indeed, the poster child of tsundoku.
More to come!
4Elanna76
>2 elorin: thank you!
5Elanna76
>3 drneutron: thanks!
6Elanna76
I'll stop from Monday
Self help book? Novel? Allegory?
By Mark Ryder, life coach
I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers section, and this is my review.
Well, this is my first foray into self-published self-help. It may be my first foray into self-publishing at all, except a couple of friends' books that I read and reviewed mostly out of helpfulness, and I have to say that I felt the absence of a solid editor behind the author, here more than in the other self-published books I read. Some images, concepts and even full lines of reasoning are repeated over and over so flatly, that I thought I had gone accidentally back to the previous chapter.
On the structural side, I cannot understand if this was a novel, a memoir disguised as a novel, or a self-help book disguised as an allegorical narrative: the protagonist/narrator is a woman, a married nurse in her thirties, while the author is a male life coach; on the other side, the book opens and closes with comments by the author about his own journey out of alcohol and into awareness in the Now.
I was pretty sure, though, that your man there wants the reader to identify himself with the alcholic protagonist, and to identify him with the - quite creepy - 75-year-old-yet-50-year-old-looking life coach with 25 year younger wife and young children. Not the age gap bugging me, mind you. Adults do what adults want and I will die on that hill against the fascism of age-gap shaming, but the whole thing looked like the usual male fantasy of power poured on page.
And at the end - after a couple of twists and turns that, honestly, make no sense to me, including and especially the awakening in the hospital - he invites us to buy his life coach package. Subtle as a wrecking ball to the walls. I hate it when I'm right like that.
By the point of view of the proposed solution to anxiety and addiction - mostly addiction - there is nothing new under the sun, it's buddhist theory and discipline, watered down for Westerners - and I doubt that a four day retreat can beat alcoholism on the long run. The author seems to agree with me, since he dissolves the whole ashramy thingy in a... dream? Coma hallucination? Who knows. We never get to know how the protagonist fares ACTUALLY quitting drinking, as we are only presented with her resolution that "it's over". Well if only we all had known that it's that easy! I guess having "dreamt" it all also explains why the protagonist's violent anxiety when removed from alcohol magically disappears during the retreat. Even so, it sounded false to me whole I read it. I mean, I get palpitations when I even think of not eating that chocolate chip cookie, and this b*tch forgets alcohol shakes after six hours in a farm?
This being said, I brought home with me some useful thoughts in my eternal quest to manage anxiety, procrastination and sugar cravings (anything but real therapy here!). There is real goodness in the concept of neural paths being carved into the brain by habits, until it looks like there is no other way to behave; I also agree that distancing ourselves from our thoughts - and therefore from cravings and impulses - is a great way to facilitate detox. It sure helped me quitting smoking 13 years ago.
But... stopping at that? I witnessed alcoholism and I am, myself, a depressed, anxious, avoidant procrastinator if blessedly free from the alcohol gene, and I am not sure that cutting short the deep causes of addictive behaviour - the pain at the bottom of the glass - with "the past does not exist nor do external circumstances" would not have already solved addiction, if it were really that easy. Also, as a Marxist, I tend to give A LOT of importance to circumstances.
However, make what you like of this review, I am also a firm believer in "whatever helps", so, if you are looking for inspiration to break a cycle, why not give also this book a try?
If you have an alcohol problem, though, I would seek MEDICAL help first. It's a disease, not a spiritual curse, and you deserve to get better.
I would like to add: I have the uttermost respect for self-published authors, but I fear that there are too many ASTOUNDINGLY GOOD books that I already know I need to read, to risk my limited time on earth with the ASTOUNDINGLY LARGE amount of stuff that comes out every year, self-published or not. I am one of those cowards who let others deal with new titles, and only reads what's passed the test of time. Curiously, I do not do the same with movies. Note to self: understand why.
Edited for clarity and typos.
Self help book? Novel? Allegory?
By Mark Ryder, life coach
I received this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers section, and this is my review.
Well, this is my first foray into self-published self-help. It may be my first foray into self-publishing at all, except a couple of friends' books that I read and reviewed mostly out of helpfulness, and I have to say that I felt the absence of a solid editor behind the author, here more than in the other self-published books I read. Some images, concepts and even full lines of reasoning are repeated over and over so flatly, that I thought I had gone accidentally back to the previous chapter.
On the structural side, I cannot understand if this was a novel, a memoir disguised as a novel, or a self-help book disguised as an allegorical narrative: the protagonist/narrator is a woman, a married nurse in her thirties, while the author is a male life coach; on the other side, the book opens and closes with comments by the author about his own journey out of alcohol and into awareness in the Now.
I was pretty sure, though, that your man there wants the reader to identify himself with the alcholic protagonist, and to identify him with the - quite creepy - 75-year-old-yet-50-year-old-looking life coach with 25 year younger wife and young children. Not the age gap bugging me, mind you. Adults do what adults want and I will die on that hill against the fascism of age-gap shaming, but the whole thing looked like the usual male fantasy of power poured on page.
And at the end - after a couple of twists and turns that, honestly, make no sense to me, including and especially the awakening in the hospital - he invites us to buy his life coach package. Subtle as a wrecking ball to the walls. I hate it when I'm right like that.
By the point of view of the proposed solution to anxiety and addiction - mostly addiction - there is nothing new under the sun, it's buddhist theory and discipline, watered down for Westerners - and I doubt that a four day retreat can beat alcoholism on the long run. The author seems to agree with me, since he dissolves the whole ashramy thingy in a... dream? Coma hallucination? Who knows. We never get to know how the protagonist fares ACTUALLY quitting drinking, as we are only presented with her resolution that "it's over". Well if only we all had known that it's that easy! I guess having "dreamt" it all also explains why the protagonist's violent anxiety when removed from alcohol magically disappears during the retreat. Even so, it sounded false to me whole I read it. I mean, I get palpitations when I even think of not eating that chocolate chip cookie, and this b*tch forgets alcohol shakes after six hours in a farm?
This being said, I brought home with me some useful thoughts in my eternal quest to manage anxiety, procrastination and sugar cravings (anything but real therapy here!). There is real goodness in the concept of neural paths being carved into the brain by habits, until it looks like there is no other way to behave; I also agree that distancing ourselves from our thoughts - and therefore from cravings and impulses - is a great way to facilitate detox. It sure helped me quitting smoking 13 years ago.
But... stopping at that? I witnessed alcoholism and I am, myself, a depressed, anxious, avoidant procrastinator if blessedly free from the alcohol gene, and I am not sure that cutting short the deep causes of addictive behaviour - the pain at the bottom of the glass - with "the past does not exist nor do external circumstances" would not have already solved addiction, if it were really that easy. Also, as a Marxist, I tend to give A LOT of importance to circumstances.
However, make what you like of this review, I am also a firm believer in "whatever helps", so, if you are looking for inspiration to break a cycle, why not give also this book a try?
If you have an alcohol problem, though, I would seek MEDICAL help first. It's a disease, not a spiritual curse, and you deserve to get better.
I would like to add: I have the uttermost respect for self-published authors, but I fear that there are too many ASTOUNDINGLY GOOD books that I already know I need to read, to risk my limited time on earth with the ASTOUNDINGLY LARGE amount of stuff that comes out every year, self-published or not. I am one of those cowards who let others deal with new titles, and only reads what's passed the test of time. Curiously, I do not do the same with movies. Note to self: understand why.
Edited for clarity and typos.
7Elanna76
A Fire Upon The Deep
By Vernon Vinge
A science fiction masterpiece! Mind-bending, stimulating and full of wonderful characters.
Review to come shortly!
By Vernon Vinge
A science fiction masterpiece! Mind-bending, stimulating and full of wonderful characters.
Review to come shortly!
8Elanna76
An image of Africa
by Chinua Achebe
I will need to reread all Conrad because the argument that Achebe makes is compelling. Since I remember Heart of Darkness as one of my favourite books, this may end in some embarrassing soul-searching about my own blindness (participation?) to the inbuilt racism towards African people, that Achebe accuses Europeans of.
---
(EDIT) And rightly so, whatever my final opinion about Conrad will be. A black friend of mine was asked by Irish people: "which boat did you arrive with?" And another: "how did you get to Ireland?" (Immortal answer: "swimming lessons").
---
Or I may find that his reasoning is flawed, even if his heart is in the right place. As soon as he strays from his literary knowledge, Achebe does seem to assert as unmistakable truths some blatant misunderstandings: The Great Wall is not visible "from the moon" (WTF!), and anyway Marco Polo may as well have missed it as China is fecking BIG - I was there, was Mr. Achebe? His opinion on the matter seems far-fetched; "native language" is not a slur towards Nigerian languages' speakers in London, but a way to define one's primary language in educational and sociological practice/research contexts; and a few other signs of a big ego prone to superficial research - oh, look, the same opinion I hold of Harold Bloom, who shines between the ones responsible for the Western Canon that Achebe rightly attacks. Which means that I will need to read all Achebe, too, to get to the bottom of this controversy.
Because the controversy, mind you, reader, does be crucial, because to this day we are still plagued by white old men establishing "Canons" that only speak to other white old - or young - men.
Achebe makes a very good point, whatever you can say of his brashness: the language and themes of Heart of Darkness DO depict Africa and the Congo people as a chaotic, inhuman and incomprehensible backdrop, and at the same time a foible, to the European geography and soul. I would be pissed off too, if someone used my whole land, culture and appearance as a paragon of wilderness, with the added insult of mashing up a whole continent's cultural diversity in a flat paradigm of mute, brute otherness.
"There is a preposterous and perverse kind of arrogance in ... reducing Africa to the role of props for the breakup of one petty European mind. " Hear, hear.
Achebe is also right in reminding us that sculptures from the Fang people, not far from the setting of Heart of Darkness, were in those same years bringing a revolution to European art, by shocking and influencing the likes of Picasso. Chapeau.
I will be back with part II of this review - and, hopefully, with a personal answer to the controversy - after much more reading.
by Chinua Achebe
I will need to reread all Conrad because the argument that Achebe makes is compelling. Since I remember Heart of Darkness as one of my favourite books, this may end in some embarrassing soul-searching about my own blindness (participation?) to the inbuilt racism towards African people, that Achebe accuses Europeans of.
---
(EDIT) And rightly so, whatever my final opinion about Conrad will be. A black friend of mine was asked by Irish people: "which boat did you arrive with?" And another: "how did you get to Ireland?" (Immortal answer: "swimming lessons").
---
Or I may find that his reasoning is flawed, even if his heart is in the right place. As soon as he strays from his literary knowledge, Achebe does seem to assert as unmistakable truths some blatant misunderstandings: The Great Wall is not visible "from the moon" (WTF!), and anyway Marco Polo may as well have missed it as China is fecking BIG - I was there, was Mr. Achebe? His opinion on the matter seems far-fetched; "native language" is not a slur towards Nigerian languages' speakers in London, but a way to define one's primary language in educational and sociological practice/research contexts; and a few other signs of a big ego prone to superficial research - oh, look, the same opinion I hold of Harold Bloom, who shines between the ones responsible for the Western Canon that Achebe rightly attacks. Which means that I will need to read all Achebe, too, to get to the bottom of this controversy.
Because the controversy, mind you, reader, does be crucial, because to this day we are still plagued by white old men establishing "Canons" that only speak to other white old - or young - men.
Achebe makes a very good point, whatever you can say of his brashness: the language and themes of Heart of Darkness DO depict Africa and the Congo people as a chaotic, inhuman and incomprehensible backdrop, and at the same time a foible, to the European geography and soul. I would be pissed off too, if someone used my whole land, culture and appearance as a paragon of wilderness, with the added insult of mashing up a whole continent's cultural diversity in a flat paradigm of mute, brute otherness.
"There is a preposterous and perverse kind of arrogance in ... reducing Africa to the role of props for the breakup of one petty European mind. " Hear, hear.
Achebe is also right in reminding us that sculptures from the Fang people, not far from the setting of Heart of Darkness, were in those same years bringing a revolution to European art, by shocking and influencing the likes of Picasso. Chapeau.
I will be back with part II of this review - and, hopefully, with a personal answer to the controversy - after much more reading.
9Elanna76
The Gardener Parent - Stop Yelling and Start Guiding Using Ericksonian Methods
By Jonathan P. Hayes
This guy really likes Erickson theories and practice on education! The problem is that it all feels a little preachy, cultish and forced, especially when an intervention inspired by Erickson, or carried out by the Man himself in a sort of weird quasi-religious parabolas narrated by the author, magically solves parenting conundrums, severely challenging behaviours and even decades old mental health problems. Well, I am no psychologist; but, as a former early childhood educator, I have never seen a one-off intervention flipping a situation so quickly.
It's a pity, because the general methods proposed - divided into different interventions - are mostly valid.
I also need to say that some of the examples and advice are a bit perplexing. Especially the way the author frames the double choice system, that consists in the following: instead of insisting that a child dress themselves when they are stubbornly refusing to comply, give them a choice between two tops. This will give them control over the process at a level that is appropriate to their maturity, while keeping the authority about the need for dressing in the hands of the adult where it belongs.
This is a method I swear by, but the writer here makes it look like a deception or a trick, all the while insisting that we need to remember that it needs to be done respectfully and for the child's good, not in our own interest. BRO. Projecting much? Also, I am not sure that Erickson was the originator of the method.
One thing I am sure of is that the concept of the parent educator as a gardener, who curates the ground and lets the seed-child grow and flourish on its own, is most definitely not Erickson's original idea. For a short and very enthusing glance at the glorious history of the concept, that goes back to Rousseau and takes practical shape with the Kindergarten movement of the Nineteenth Century, see the gorgeous little book The Ab Cs Of Triangle, Square, Circle: The Bauhaus And Design Theory by J. Abbot Miller et al.
In synthesis, this is a very interesting read for people who are curious about more aware and connected ways of educating and parenting, but I would take it with a grain of salt. I fear it may even be dangerous, in the hands of very naive new parents...
By Jonathan P. Hayes
This guy really likes Erickson theories and practice on education! The problem is that it all feels a little preachy, cultish and forced, especially when an intervention inspired by Erickson, or carried out by the Man himself in a sort of weird quasi-religious parabolas narrated by the author, magically solves parenting conundrums, severely challenging behaviours and even decades old mental health problems. Well, I am no psychologist; but, as a former early childhood educator, I have never seen a one-off intervention flipping a situation so quickly.
It's a pity, because the general methods proposed - divided into different interventions - are mostly valid.
I also need to say that some of the examples and advice are a bit perplexing. Especially the way the author frames the double choice system, that consists in the following: instead of insisting that a child dress themselves when they are stubbornly refusing to comply, give them a choice between two tops. This will give them control over the process at a level that is appropriate to their maturity, while keeping the authority about the need for dressing in the hands of the adult where it belongs.
This is a method I swear by, but the writer here makes it look like a deception or a trick, all the while insisting that we need to remember that it needs to be done respectfully and for the child's good, not in our own interest. BRO. Projecting much? Also, I am not sure that Erickson was the originator of the method.
One thing I am sure of is that the concept of the parent educator as a gardener, who curates the ground and lets the seed-child grow and flourish on its own, is most definitely not Erickson's original idea. For a short and very enthusing glance at the glorious history of the concept, that goes back to Rousseau and takes practical shape with the Kindergarten movement of the Nineteenth Century, see the gorgeous little book The Ab Cs Of Triangle, Square, Circle: The Bauhaus And Design Theory by J. Abbot Miller et al.
In synthesis, this is a very interesting read for people who are curious about more aware and connected ways of educating and parenting, but I would take it with a grain of salt. I fear it may even be dangerous, in the hands of very naive new parents...
10Elanna76
Revelation Space
By Alastair Reynolds
3.75 stars. Hard sci-fi space opera meets dark forest solution to the Fermi paradox! Magisterial world building! What's not to love? I only wish editors would do their job better on repetitions, but you can see that this one did their best to keep Reynolds' tendency towards purple prose at bay.
I, on my side, did my best not to spoil plot points, and this review came out a bit patchy and flaky as a consequence. I sincerely apologise, but you'll find out, reading the book, that spoilers would be a crime. There are wonders ahead for you, fortunate reader.
Lately, I came to realise that I crave big-hair space opera. A LOT.
The only problem is that I also like hard sci-fi, and the limitations to interstellar travel set by relativity tend to poop the party.
To this problem, the solution is three-fold: let's say that my voluntary suspension of disbelief and my shameful ignorance in the fields of maths and physics try and meet the author half-way.
And boy, did Alastair Reynolds uphold his side of the truce! His solution to relativistic speed problems - the offensive fact that time passes oh-so-faster for stationary me than for the guys on the spaceship travelling close to the speed of light - is imperfect but convincing. Centuries DO go by on planets and orbitals while lighthuggers crews ("lighthugger" is the very cool name for a spaceship capable of flight at relativistic speeds) experience few months and years of subjective time.
It's a pity that the verosimilitude stops short of acknowledging that the gap in subjective time would be there anyway, were the crews not to spend most of their time in cold storage. I also suspect that the difference with time flow in stationary environments would be WAY bigger than depicted here, but I am not available to find out, ye party poopers. Suspension of disbelief will have to carry this part of the weight, and, thanks to luck, I never really studied this stuff.
Reynolds has a lot of cool ideas under his belt, anyway. Human settlements without a lighthugger at hand remain dreadfully isolated, and this is interwoven in the plot structure in a very organic way, as is the fact that the crews of the starships live their lives in cold storage and at relativistic speeds, experiencing centuries of history in their lifespan. The wonder is somehow dampened by the fact that pretty much everybody else who counts for the story has access to anti-aging technologies, but the ship crews manage to seem fairly transhuman in the eyes of others, while staying quite mundane in their own eyes. This makes for a wonderful sense of depth, and the vertigo is there, especially in the first part of the book, with its complex timelines and the emerging sense that human civilisation is stagnating and crumbling - none really knows how to build the technology they use except for a caste of technicians who stay mostly in the shadows. They may as well be all dead.
The second part of the book suffers from a bit of fatigue, once you realise where the whole thing is going, but I have to confess that I stayed gripped most of the time, especially as soon as the info-dumping proved itself still mind-bending.
Because I will be honest here, I will never understand people who complain about info dumping. Isn't all the plot, with characters and all, just an excuse for some hair-raising, four-page explanation of the ins and outs of the eldritch horror/cool worldbuilding/mind-bending pseudo-science at the heart of the story? Really? Well, you do you. I live for that shit. And Alastair Reynolds info-dumps with relish. And I am here for it.
Which brings us to another weakness of this novel: some characters are better fleshed out than others, and, even in the best cases, motivations do not always build up towards the choices they make at the end. Especially the journalist: she comes across now as mysterious in her motivations, now extremely weak, now wise and reasonable, without justification for the apparent shifts in her personality. This can only be due to a lack of character planning, or development, or even to a sheer lack of understanding of (interest in) her personality on the part of the author. She does function a lot as an info-dump device and as an indicator of the fact that another character has feelings. But she has cool hair.
The same can be said for the Triumvir Sajaki - he is the poster child of telling-not-showing, at least when it comes to the tensions in his storyline. His story itself was very interesting and a major plot point, and it would have called for more nuances. Instead, he just comes across as your classic bastard ,and we only know there is something going on because another protagonist reflects on it.
One apparent character defect that I invite you to bear with patience is Sylveste's whole doggedness. There are reasons. They are interesting. His father's hologram does act a bit as a cartoon villain down to the armchair and the over-the-top clothing, but he is a simulation and not a first-class one, so it does make sense, and it is clear that Reynolds had a lot of fun writing him. His interactions with Sylveste are clunky and cringy at times, sign that the author left this side of the narrative a bit unpolished because writing big-space-time-goes-whoop is funnier (it does be).
I remember Pushing Ice, by the same writer, being way better by this point of view, but way slower in its first half. It's entirely possible that Reynolds has a problem with consistency, but I will go on reading him because his stories have breadth and depth in space and time, and they don't shy from existential questions about identity at personal and collective levels. Also, cool info-dumping.
By Alastair Reynolds
3.75 stars. Hard sci-fi space opera meets dark forest solution to the Fermi paradox! Magisterial world building! What's not to love? I only wish editors would do their job better on repetitions, but you can see that this one did their best to keep Reynolds' tendency towards purple prose at bay.
I, on my side, did my best not to spoil plot points, and this review came out a bit patchy and flaky as a consequence. I sincerely apologise, but you'll find out, reading the book, that spoilers would be a crime. There are wonders ahead for you, fortunate reader.
Lately, I came to realise that I crave big-hair space opera. A LOT.
The only problem is that I also like hard sci-fi, and the limitations to interstellar travel set by relativity tend to poop the party.
To this problem, the solution is three-fold: let's say that my voluntary suspension of disbelief and my shameful ignorance in the fields of maths and physics try and meet the author half-way.
And boy, did Alastair Reynolds uphold his side of the truce! His solution to relativistic speed problems - the offensive fact that time passes oh-so-faster for stationary me than for the guys on the spaceship travelling close to the speed of light - is imperfect but convincing. Centuries DO go by on planets and orbitals while lighthuggers crews ("lighthugger" is the very cool name for a spaceship capable of flight at relativistic speeds) experience few months and years of subjective time.
It's a pity that the verosimilitude stops short of acknowledging that the gap in subjective time would be there anyway, were the crews not to spend most of their time in cold storage. I also suspect that the difference with time flow in stationary environments would be WAY bigger than depicted here, but I am not available to find out, ye party poopers. Suspension of disbelief will have to carry this part of the weight, and, thanks to luck, I never really studied this stuff.
Reynolds has a lot of cool ideas under his belt, anyway. Human settlements without a lighthugger at hand remain dreadfully isolated, and this is interwoven in the plot structure in a very organic way, as is the fact that the crews of the starships live their lives in cold storage and at relativistic speeds, experiencing centuries of history in their lifespan. The wonder is somehow dampened by the fact that pretty much everybody else who counts for the story has access to anti-aging technologies, but the ship crews manage to seem fairly transhuman in the eyes of others, while staying quite mundane in their own eyes. This makes for a wonderful sense of depth, and the vertigo is there, especially in the first part of the book, with its complex timelines and the emerging sense that human civilisation is stagnating and crumbling - none really knows how to build the technology they use except for a caste of technicians who stay mostly in the shadows. They may as well be all dead.
The second part of the book suffers from a bit of fatigue, once you realise where the whole thing is going, but I have to confess that I stayed gripped most of the time, especially as soon as the info-dumping proved itself still mind-bending.
Because I will be honest here, I will never understand people who complain about info dumping. Isn't all the plot, with characters and all, just an excuse for some hair-raising, four-page explanation of the ins and outs of the eldritch horror/cool worldbuilding/mind-bending pseudo-science at the heart of the story? Really? Well, you do you. I live for that shit. And Alastair Reynolds info-dumps with relish. And I am here for it.
Which brings us to another weakness of this novel: some characters are better fleshed out than others, and, even in the best cases, motivations do not always build up towards the choices they make at the end. Especially the journalist: she comes across now as mysterious in her motivations, now extremely weak, now wise and reasonable, without justification for the apparent shifts in her personality. This can only be due to a lack of character planning, or development, or even to a sheer lack of understanding of (interest in) her personality on the part of the author. She does function a lot as an info-dump device and as an indicator of the fact that another character has feelings. But she has cool hair.
The same can be said for the Triumvir Sajaki - he is the poster child of telling-not-showing, at least when it comes to the tensions in his storyline. His story itself was very interesting and a major plot point, and it would have called for more nuances. Instead, he just comes across as your classic bastard ,and we only know there is something going on because another protagonist reflects on it.
One apparent character defect that I invite you to bear with patience is Sylveste's whole doggedness. There are reasons. They are interesting. His father's hologram does act a bit as a cartoon villain down to the armchair and the over-the-top clothing, but he is a simulation and not a first-class one, so it does make sense, and it is clear that Reynolds had a lot of fun writing him. His interactions with Sylveste are clunky and cringy at times, sign that the author left this side of the narrative a bit unpolished because writing big-space-time-goes-whoop is funnier (it does be).
I remember Pushing Ice, by the same writer, being way better by this point of view, but way slower in its first half. It's entirely possible that Reynolds has a problem with consistency, but I will go on reading him because his stories have breadth and depth in space and time, and they don't shy from existential questions about identity at personal and collective levels. Also, cool info-dumping.
11Elanna76
Towards a new manifesto
By Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer
I have two disjointed considerations about this dialogue between Adorno and Horkheimer. The topic is how to go about creating a new communist manifesto in 1950s America, where the Communist party was not there anymore, in a homogeneous world in which nobody believed anymore that a different world be possible, and in a marxist environment where Russia and China were accused of ominous acts against their own people, yet calling themselves communists meant either being coopted or rebelling against orthodoxy.
First: the exact same description fits 2026 - bar marxist orthodoxy and being coopted. I don't know what this entails, but it feels ominous. Socialism or the barbarian ages, you say? Well, it looks like, having failed to achieve socialism, we have been getting more of the barbarian ages and then some, in constant escalation in the last 70 years.
Second: Horkheimer talks about how the West should feed the poor and needy. Whatever happened to the Marxist intellectual vanguards' role in awakening the needy to their own means to emancipate themselves? And yet they talk about being Leninist? I'll need to delve more into Adorno and (maybe not) Horkheimer, who seems more a liberal American in the making than anything else.
N.B. I use "emancipate" rather than "empower" as a political statement. American liberalism speaks of empowerment. I, as a wannabe marxist and whole metal jacket proletarian fighter, prefer to go beyond taking power from someone to gove it to someone else in the same system. I want it all. I want a system where are not power dynamics to dictate relations. Wrap me in a black flag and call me an AntiFa.
By Theodor W. Adorno & Max Horkheimer
I have two disjointed considerations about this dialogue between Adorno and Horkheimer. The topic is how to go about creating a new communist manifesto in 1950s America, where the Communist party was not there anymore, in a homogeneous world in which nobody believed anymore that a different world be possible, and in a marxist environment where Russia and China were accused of ominous acts against their own people, yet calling themselves communists meant either being coopted or rebelling against orthodoxy.
First: the exact same description fits 2026 - bar marxist orthodoxy and being coopted. I don't know what this entails, but it feels ominous. Socialism or the barbarian ages, you say? Well, it looks like, having failed to achieve socialism, we have been getting more of the barbarian ages and then some, in constant escalation in the last 70 years.
Second: Horkheimer talks about how the West should feed the poor and needy. Whatever happened to the Marxist intellectual vanguards' role in awakening the needy to their own means to emancipate themselves? And yet they talk about being Leninist? I'll need to delve more into Adorno and (maybe not) Horkheimer, who seems more a liberal American in the making than anything else.
N.B. I use "emancipate" rather than "empower" as a political statement. American liberalism speaks of empowerment. I, as a wannabe marxist and whole metal jacket proletarian fighter, prefer to go beyond taking power from someone to gove it to someone else in the same system. I want it all. I want a system where are not power dynamics to dictate relations. Wrap me in a black flag and call me an AntiFa.
