Review: Conversations with Friends

Sally Rooney is a great author, and well-known among Millennial yuppies who read the New York Times. So well-known and liked in fact, that my copy of Normal People was stolen. Not the expected behavior of a New York Times subscriber, but Rooney's books are good!

Conversations with Friends is as good as Normal People* and that is strong praise. The two are both similar: they are both the coming-of-age romances of Irish college students where misunderstandings plague the characters. Misunderstandings run rampant, chaotically, viciously. Rooney captures how they appear from past life and intrude on the romantic sanctuary: classism, ambition, parental scars and more burrow their way into personal anxiety which extends itself into relationship anxiety which swings the souls of our poor lovers.

This leads to a rather stressful reading experience: We know the characters love each other- we don't even need their internal monologue in some cases- but they remain adamant to stick to their own psychological problems. "See a therapist, you depressed asshole!" you want to shout at characters fifty pages before they coil up on the floor in their first episode. "Don't you see you're giving up your love!"

There is a level of will-they-won't-they that runs through these novels, and this is the primary source of intrigue, but the conclusion is never brought. There is no ending. At the end of both novels, the lovers have left and come back together multiple times. The novels end- spoiler alert- with them together... but...

"Together... but" is what we're left with, then. The anxiety never releases itself, the dramatic irony never resolves. "They love each other, but they might fuck it up" is what you're forced to grapple with. In a Millennial world where uncertainty is ascendant (Peter Thiel would say that they are "pessimistically indeterminate") this is the best we can hope for.

The biggest flaw in Rooney books is not the kind of happy-sad endings. It's the flat characters. Our characters are buffeted by school chums and work buddies that are props on the stage of love. They are acted upon by our lovers' wit, but never challenge them, or they act like natural forces, and have no consciousness at all.

Perhaps this is also a strength- after all, our narrators are horribly unreliable and sometimes stupid, so maybe the flattening isn't an accident. Our main characters are really just so enraptured that everyone around them seems stale in comparison.

Aside from my quibbles with these side pieces, the main characters are quite fleshed out. Their cares and motives propel not only the story, but the reader. They're funny, and we quickly build rapport with them and want to see them happy. We don't often, which causes us to read even more.

* which I did not review

Review: No Matter the Wreckage

We are not taught how to read poetry in school. We're taught to memorize it, and to analyze it. Enjoyment is something that maybe college students get to do. But for those of us who had to read in high school? Poetry is something you have two hours to write a thousand words about.

People therefore come to poetry via. other means. In the digital age, that's social media: Tumblr poets get reblogged, Instagram poets flash couplets on manicured pictures, and people press play buttons on YouTube in front of a black wall. This is a weird situation to be in! It's a very happy one.

Poetry, it turns out, is alive and well. Sarah Kay is fantastic. I have a good twenty five minutes everyday when I take a subway- not Kay's charismatic New York subway, but a subway all the same- and twenty five minutes is the perfect amount of time to do nothing, like surf the web or Twitter or Reddit or godforbid Facebook. However, twenty five minutes is also the perfect time to read a poem or five. It lets you chew them, like you're supposed to, without the pressure of a paper to write.

Of course, when you get off the subway, and sit where you're going, you can throw on a video of Kay reading the poem in its full glory. Poetry is meant to be spoken, after all. Poetry is an artform that is by its nature, both meant to be read and meant to be spoken. You have to do both, (or at least have somebody speak it for you) or you miss out on it, like reading the captions of a comedy special while its on mute or only listening to the special's audiotrack.

Sarah's poems are relieving reads. They're not relaxing because they certainly stir the mind. They're not exactly fun, because they're often heavy (though not exclusively in the slighest). They relieve certain unseen stresses that you might not know you have, or they prick your feelings in a way that reminds you those feelings still exist. The poems do not make you feel better, but they remind you that you will. They remind you that, like poetry, you will be alive and well.

Review: The Perfectionists: How Precision Engineers Created the Modern World

At the beginning of the book, Simon Winchester plays the language game that everybody who ever talks about precision has to: What is precision, accuracy, perfectionism? How are they different? How do they relate?

What Winchester ultimately tells us is a story of intentionality. Our brains create platonic worlds and communicate in platonic ideals. The history of precision is a history that begins in pre-industrial England, but I would propose that it begins with the first stone tools, when humans first began graphing our intent on the universe. It is from there- with flint and rock- that humans first began with an idea and then extruded it into reality.

The machines our industrializing ancestors built- cannons and muskets -were machines of intent. Indeed, the advantages of the original Rolls Royce's and Ford's Model-T came from the intentful design and the intentful manufacturing, respectively. A century later, humankind has graphed our intent onto the most basic structure of the universe. We align atoms in lines and bid them individually to do our bidding.

This book is fantastic, and it uncovers the self-ratcheting power of human precision. It should help those who are interested in scientists, engineers, the history of either, and developmental economics.

Review: Unsong

There are lots of Christian fantasy stories, and there are lots of Christian science fiction stories. It turns out there are _Jewish Science Fantasy_ novels, too.

Scott Alexander’s Unsong is a deep dive into a world turned on its head. Jewish Kabbalah and its esoteric teachings are not just real, but copyrighted and commoditized. The adventures that arise are ultimately set pieces on a stage that answers the ultimate question: Why does God allow suffering? Or rather,

“Hey God, what the fuck?

This is not within the scope of Tolkein or Lewis. Explicit Christian authors rarely attempt to do more than inspire their readers with stories of hope, faith and love. Implicit Christians- Orson Scott Card, Madeleine L'Engle, etc- repackage Christ myths into dualistic worlds about temptation and personal sacrifice. Secular science fantasy/fiction writers deal with human issues of relationships, identity, and sex.

Saying “Hey God, what the fuck?”, in the Jewish tradition, is normal.

Jacob fought an angel thereby becoming Israel, and Elie Wiesel wrote the Trial of God. Scott continues this tradition, and launches his line of inquiry with Peter Singer, Derik Parfit, and lots of puns. Lots and lots of puns. Puns in this universe are literally weapons capable of destroying entire cities.

This is Bay-area, Bayesian bait. Sometimes the plotting is off, and sometimes the characters do stupid things, but the world building, humor, and the characters make the book an addictive read. I’m unsure if Scott’s answer to the question of theodicy is satisfying. I’m still mulling it over, crunching it in my brain. That, at least for now, is a good sign.