31-12-2018                                #readingquestions
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It's been a while since I've posted: some job-hunting & 
flat-hunting, as well as a stab at a phd application, have been 
occupying my time over the past couple of months and will 
likely continue for a little while to come, until I get 
settled. I have been lurking and following what I can of the 
activity around pubnixes, the boom of activity here in CS and 
other systems going live - this is really exciting to see!

For now I'd like to just follow solderpunk and others in 
responding to Twisty's reading questions, as this seems a nice 
way to make a quick end-of-year post (thanks for the prompt, 
twisty!)


>>>>>   What is the first book you remember loving?


I feel like I discovered reading in my early-to-mid Teens, 
largely as a form of escapism and dreaming. I fell deep into 
fantasy fiction more than any other genre, and spent hours 
wrapping myself up in the worlds of fantasy novels, adventuring 
and tasting that kind-of epic freedom that I guess appeared as 
so exotic and imaginitevely enriching compared to my suburban 
life. That said, while there are a handful of novels in the 
fantasy genre that I could name as books that I first loved, I 
would say that actually it was a different kind of literature 
that should get a mention here..

I was 14 and one of the books we studied in my English 
Literature class was 'I'm the King of the Castle' by Susan 
Hill. At the time, this had a big impact on me. I remember this 
as a story of psychological and social depth the likes of which 
I hadn't previously experienced. The story also seemed to 
explore a subterranean or unseen/unspoken world of morbidity, 
ugliness and psycho-social conflict - the whole thing composed 
around some incredibly uncomfortable personal relationships 
that unfold and escalate.

This book made an impact on me as the first real work of art 
I'd ever encountered - and with a kind-of honesty that I also 
hadn't encountered; the writer and also my teachers, for 
including this in the curriculum, helping us explore these 
otherwise hidden worlds - all the horror of the everyday that 
can often be passed over in silence, now presented and exposed, 
explored, genuinely for the first times in my life. I was 
really grateful to have experienced the impact of literature in 
this way.


>>>>>   What, so far, is the best book you've read this year?


I made a point of re-reading Hemingway's 'The Old Man and the 
Sea' at the start of this year. I had read this before, years 
back, and remember it being uplifting and beautiful. On 
re-reading, I wasn't disappointed - and this has been the 
highlight of my reading this year. This incredibly short and 
simple tale is just so captivating; a real work of art, more 
like a painting you spend some smaller time on than other great 
big novels that you work through for weeks or months, but with 
a depth of guidance from the writer and insights that unfold 
through the course of the fable and leave you on the edge of 
having brushed up against some important - perhaps universal - 
subjects and ideas.

I'm going to throw in a second book here as well - a 
non-fiction option: The Cybernetic Brain by Andrew Pickering. 
This is a history of British Cybernetics through the twentieth 
century, drawing in some of the various projects within the 
broad science(s) of cybernetics, as well as other fields or 
sub-cultures influenced by cybernetics, and all drawn through 
Pickering's very subjective and useful lens on what he feels 
groups these activities, technologies, projects, movements, 
etc. Reading this history of some of the wild attempts at 
projects, such as biological computing (e.g. a factory managed 
by a pond...) or the Chilean 'Cybersyn' information system 
(intended to situate feedback loops from industry within 'the 
public') really help make my mind playful in thoughts around 
the possibilities of technologies, but also our mentality 
surrounding these - and the potential alternative cultures, 
movements, ways of life, etc.

Pickering broadly draws a contrast between Cybernetics against 
other 'representational' models or technologies, with Cybernetics 
instead being more-so 'performative'; technologies or 
models that respond to and perform-in-response-to their environment
rather than what he describes as those which take a "detour" through 
representation (that is: technologies or systems that build up 
a representational picture of their world, or their 
environment, or their datum, primarily, rather than 
react/respond). What characterises much of Cybernetics, to 
Pickering, is a kind of 'ontological theatre' in which the 
journey, the unfolding, rather than the representational, 
takes precedence. Pickering articulates this 
far better than I'm going to here, which is why I'd recommend 
the read.


>>>>>   What is your favourite film adaptation of a book?


There are a few sections of Paul Thomas Anderson's adaptation 
of 'Inherent Vice' that shine in their quality of capturing 
good storytelling and also a good reflection of the Pynchon 
feeling. But on the whole I found the film a little bit tricky 
and frustrating (I saw this in the cinema and a great many 
people walked out before the end, many of whom had lasted the 
first hour or two but still wouldn't stay for the end - I can 
only imagine because of similar frustrations with the 
complexity in the storytelling).

My favourite would have to be Orson Welles' adaptation of 
Kafka's 'The Trial'. There are a great many very simple 
techniques used by the film-makers that really capture the 
absurdity and the 'inner space' qualities of the story.


>>>>>   What books have you read the most times?


I'm not entirely sure why, but I know I've read DBC Pierre's 
'Vernon God Little' a number of times. I heard that the 
author's approach, in writing the text, was to write and then 
re-write - and this certainly does leave the text with a lively 
flow that carries the reader. Some of the subject-matter as 
well, of this teenage kid with nothing but sex on his mind, and 
apathy, and a world against him (at least in his experience) 
was something I could definitely relate to, reading it sometime 
in my late teens/early 20s.


>>>>>   If you could meet one author, living or dead, whom would it be?


Thomas Pynchon. Hands down.

I'd ask Pynchon how the f*ck his works have spanned such a 
great breadth of decades yet he's managed to capture such 
great detail and focus on multiple different cultures and 
worlds that he brings into his novels: from cybernetics and 
military technologies, occult and absurdism in 'Gravity's 
Rainbow', to an incredibly rich and unique unfolding of 
psychedelic culture in 'The Crying of Lot 49', then onwards to 
digital start-up culture of the dot-com era in 'Bleeding Edge', 
published in around 2013 I believe, which makes in-joke 
references to mainstream and more indie tech cultures (I 
remember a Linux reference to 'Penguin Piss') and also 
late-90s/early-00s gamer culture. This level of insight 
and focus across such disparate worlds is one sign of 
Pynchon's genius.


>>>>>   What authors do you think more people should read?


A personal goal of mine is to read more broadly. I think we 
should step out of our own habits and interests, or at least 
try to, perhaps explore a bit out of our comfort zone and see 
what we discover elsewhere.

And with that thought in mind - here's to 2019: Happy New Year all!

~ moji.