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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2581 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 17, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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So, what are you reading?

I'm still working through McGilchrist.

Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, almost finished and I've enjoyed it.

Earlier sci fi is a funny thing. What draws me to sci-fi usually is that it can have this amazing techno-optimism about the future (near or far), usually involving a very creative author to build these worlds/galaxies/universes. I think it actually might be healthy for a person to look past current culture wars and look to a not-so-distant future with hyperdrives and lasers hehe.

But reading more classic sci fi has got me realising that the authors can easily imagine far flung space epics, bizarre aliens, crazy technologies and terrifying transhumanist style body modifications, but their views of what a society looks like in these worlds is basically copy and paste of 1950s-60s America haha. Female characters generally seem to be silly damsels that listen to the wise and often overly verbose men, long descriptions of how sexually exciting they are but barely have any agency. Just rambling here, not sure if this has piqued anyone else's interest.

Started reading Lying for Money on Sunday morning. As I expected I'm finding it extremely absorbing, and I'm more than halfway through it already. Worth reading for the content and analysis, but Davies brings it up a notch with his very particularly English style of wit. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, it's a very sensible chuckle sort of humour that's a perfect match for this kind of "I can't believe someone had the audacity to try this" material.

Just started Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most by Miroslav Volf, Matthew Croasmun, and Ryan McAnnally-Linz (the theologians who teach Yale's "Life Worth Living" course).

Babel by Rebecca Kuang, and boy oh boy is reading contemporary SFF a tiresome experience. Both the characters and the footnotes are constantly filibustering about colonialism and white people. Say what you will about Nora Jemisin, at least her anvilicious books didn't sacrifice worldbuilding for the anvils. Mostly.

I've only read Yellowface by Kuang. It was entertaining and enjoyable for the most part, but the main character, a white woman who steals an Asian American woman's manuscript (a historical fiction novel based on Chinese workers in the European theatre during WW1) after her sudden death seems to evolve into this unhinged and insane representation of what the author must see all white women to be under the surface. Interesting in the sense that I got an insight into what the author thinks of white people, which is that she does not like them one bit lol.

Theft of Fire by Devon Eriksen.

The basic premise is that it's a hard sci-fi adventure novel, starring three characters on a single ship as they attempt a heist.

Very fun, very much a page turner and also does a good job at touching on lots of Big Ideas.

Most relevant to this forum, it is a brilliant illustration of all of @HlynkaCG's bugbear, "Academic vs street smarts", "success in the contested environment", whatever you want to call it. My thoughts are only partially formed right now, but I think I'm going to try and write up a longer review that is also going to be at least a partial defense of @HlynkaCG's philosophy. He actually got banned the day I started the book and I'm pretty bummed about it because I'd love to discuss it with him (if you're reading this, create a new account and PM me or something?).

What ages would you say it's appropriate for?

I'm still working through the best sci-fi from a decade ago, when reading on my own; my best opportunities for finding time to read newer stuff is to kill two birds with one stone and find things I can read with my kids.

I would have loved it at 13, though I wouldn't have understood all of the themes or subtext. "R-rated" graphic violence, though not gratuitous. So far no actual sex, but erections and breasts are occasionally discussed.

He's still active on Reddit under the same name, if you want to reach him.

For an Anti-capitalist Psychology of Community by Nick Malherbe. (ISBN: 3030996956)

Trying to find textbooks for my neighborhood organization that could be used as 'best practices'. This is certainly not going to be one of them. I've never read a community psychology book in full before. Mostly because I wouldn't normally be introduced to this text until I've gone through a full undergrad program. Which ain't happening, lol.

After a scan of Intro To Community Psychology - and seeing their stated core values - I was not surprised that the field would be Left-dominated. Figured I might as well hear experiences from the source as they saw it. It is obvious from the get-go the book would be explicitly anti-neoliberal and anti-capitalist.

It was not obvious this person would seek to (a) be upfront that anti-capitalism & community psychology as movements had inherent contradictions (b) celebrate those contradictions in a "I contain multitudes" sort of way. Nor that he would call out other anti-capitalist works as primarily fatalist in nature - seeking to close on a hopeful note himself. (I have not made it to the end. No telling what the author believes is hopeful rhetoric.)

The writing style is...not great. The overuse of in-the-field phrases ends up creating semantic satiation more than clarifying any points. And yet, it isn't nearly as dense/absurd as Sokal Squared would attempt to create. This is probably not written for a layman like myself. But I can understand the general thrust of the topics contained within so far.

I'll probably get around to finishing the book this week and moving to anodyne on-its-face works like "Cambridge Handbook of Service Learning and Community Engagement" or "Cultural and Critical Explorations in Community Psychology: The Inner City Intern". Culture War addicts will get a kick out of titles like "Decolonial Feminist Community Psychology" and "The Taliban's Virtual Emirate: The Culture and Psychology of an Online Militant Community".

Metro 2033 by Dmitriy Glukhovsky. Basically in 2013 there was a global nuclear war, 20 years later the survivors who holed up in the Moscow metro system have formed their own new society, creepy mutants rule the surface. Despite sounding like "Fallout but in Russia" (and the fact that there was a video game adaptation of the book doesn't help) it's actually very well written, but there are a lot of translation issues with the English version that somewhat mar the overall experience.

The main character, Artyom, is very relatable. And other than his ability to power through certain supernatural events in the metro tunnels that completely debilitate others, he doesn't seem like a Mary Sue at all, he's very normal but quite a bit naive.

Also it's thanks to this book that I learned Russia does criminal convictions in absentia. The author was sentenced to 7 years for spreading false information about the Ukraine invasion supposedly (I can't find any Western news sources that state the exact details of what he was charged with) and is currently living in exile in the EU.

I enjoyed Metro 2033, the sequel less so but still enjoyable. The translation did seem to add a bit of clunkiness to the story, I found conversations between characters to be a bit weird. But thankfully not as many problems with the Russian naming conventions than with older stuff like Brothers Karamazov haha.

I'm not much of a gamer, but I did try out the 2033 game right after finishing the book. Sometimes books should just be books...

I got tricked by an ssc post into picking up a copy of An African in Greenland. I like historical travel diaries, but instead of the implied premise:

African with conservative tribal upbringing is suddenly inspired to go to Greenland and records his interactions with an equally undeveloped group

I'm realizing it's actually:

French educated teenager runs away from home, spends 10-odd years sojourning across Africa/Europe, and in his late 20s tours Greenland and meets a bunch of rezzed out natives. Somebody convinces him to publish a book 10 years later about his experiences.

It's written in the historical present tense and everything is padded like a YA fiction book. My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined.

Near the end of the second-best-known Richard Yates novel, The Easter Parade. Yates is a very fluid, readable writer and I think he improved in this respect after Revolutionary Road.

Comments:

  • People familiar with TRP would recognize so many things in this novel. If you read this, think about concepts like "holding frame," "alpha widows" etc. It's fascinating.
  • Some of the scenes with the mother evoke a positively Ballardian horror.

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