Review: Perdido Street Station

Perdido Street Station by China Miéville

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Perdido Street Station is a great mix of setting, plot and character. I admit that for the first few chapters, I was a little weary. The main plot hadn’t kicked in yet, and I was just getting introduced to the characters, so it felt like the book was spending a lot of time describing the setting. I think it’s a weakness in my reading habits that setting doesn’t capture my attention as much as plot and character development, so I found myself starting to skim over some of the longer descriptive passages. However, the city of New Crobuzon is so unique that whenever my attention started to waver, some imaginative element of the world would pull me back in.

Once the plot started to get going, it really absorbed me. Almost every scene introduced an interesting new element, which made the world seem like it was constantly expanding.

If I had one problem with the book, it’s that there were maybe too many ideas. The fantasy setting was established early on, and it’s a world where anything goes, and anything can happen. This was cool most of the time because there was always a sense that something unexpected would happen. However, there were subplots and tangents which seemed to me like they were just put there to introduce a crazy idea. The meeting with the Ambassador from Hell comes to mind; there’s great imagery in that scene, but the character of the Ambassador, and the fact that our protagonists can freely communicate with Hell, never show up again.

This is a minor criticism, though, and overall, I enjoyed Perdido Street Station very much.



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Review: The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore

The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I spent my time with this book alternately impressed and frustrated at the writing style. The first-person narrator and title character is a chimpanzee named Bruno who has learned how to speak. It's clear that from the process of learning language, he has fallen in love with it, so I guess it makes sense that the narrative is written in such a flowery style. It does read well in some parts, but at the same time, it feels like the author is trying too hard to use big words.

It was nearer to the end when I started to lean more towards frustration. Bruno's friend Leon is introduced. I expected that the dialogue between the two would take a more casual tone than Bruno's elaborate first-person narration. After all, no one talks like that in real life. But, it turns out that Leon is a Shakespearean actor, and he does talk like that.

I realize that in the world of the story, this can be explained by saying that Bruno's speaking style throughout the entire narrative is influenced by his time with Leon. That makes logical sense, but it was still a decision by the author to have them talk that way. It made Leon seem not like a real character, but rather a device to deliver more fancy writing.

The book worked best when it focussed on Bruno's icky but somehow touching relationship with Lydia. Unfortunately, it lost me once it became about his adventures with Leon. I would like to judge the book as a whole, but this is a case where the final impressions took away from my earlier enjoyment.



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Review: The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry by Jon Ronson

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



When I saw the advertised premise of this book—that many world leaders are actually psychopaths—I went “Yeah! Politicians suck! Rich CEOs suck!” It would be a book for the 99-percenter in all of us.

(I was reminded of a speech that the CEO gave in the office at a previous job. Bizarrely, the employees were crammed into the elevator lobby because we had no meeting rooms large enough to hold us all. The CEO was giving his inspirational forecast for the company:

“In five years, we’ll be the market leader. And our competitors... they’ll be working at Dunkin’ Donuts! BWAHAHAHA!!”

A handful of high-ranking execs managed some forced laughter, but most of us had no response except to look around at each other in shock. I thought to myself, “Yeah, this guy’s a psychopath.”)

When I started reading the book, I was expecting a direct, focussed attack on the rich and powerful, which by the end would have me marching into my CEO’s office, with an outraged mob rallying behind me.

To my surprise, Ronson pretty much abandons his thesis halfway, after interviewing Al Dunlap, a disgraced CEO. The evidence wasn’t strong enough to declare Dunlap a psychopath. At this point, I could see that Ronson was struggling to keep his book on track. The point that he was trying to make had basically fallen apart.

To his credit, Ronson manages to recover. He changes gears, and looks into how our culture is fascinated by madness. A reality show producer that he interviews says that there’s a certain type of crazy that we enjoy watching, because it makes us feel happy to be normal. (If only there was a word to express the feeling of taking pleasure in someone else’s misfortune...)

I think some readers will call this a cop-out, but I liked how he rebounds from his failed quest by questioning his motives for undertaking the quest in the first place. The fact that he wanted to uncover hidden psychopaths means that he’s part of the madness industry.

Entertainment, such as reality shows and books about psychopathic world leaders, is one side of the madness industry, but Ronson also covers a more serious side: overdiagnosis of mental illness and overprescription of drugs.

By ending on that note, I think Ronson is making a profound point: that the true madness in the world is seeing madness where it doesn’t exist.



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Review: Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Joshua Foer writes a compelling account of his experiences in memory competition. The memory techniques that he describes are so simple that “anyone can do it,” but it takes a certain type of personality to commit that much effort and time to practicing those techniques. And indeed, the other competitors that he meets along the way are a little bit eccentric.

I enjoyed the variety of topics that Foer weaves into his story. It felt like reading a mashup of non-fiction genres: science, history, psychology, biography. Particularly interesting to me was the chapter on how the modern education system has shunned memorization. The common opinion is that rote memorization as a learning method is rigid and soul-sucking and that broader understanding is more important that knowing the facts themselves. Foer introduces an inner-city teacher who does teach his students to memorize facts, because in his view, understanding can’t occur without knowing the facts in the first place. I always enjoy opinions that are counter to the norm, so this was a high point of the book for me.




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Review: Reamde

Reamde by Neal Stephenson

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Reamde represents the first time that I have been disappointed with a Neal Stephenson book.

Before I get into it, I’ll start by saying that Stephenson is my favourite author. Snow Crash became one of my favourite books as soon as I read it, and remains a novel that I feel like reading once every couple years. His essay “In the Beginning...was the Command Line” (which has now been published as a book), influenced my own personal computing habits, and encouraged me to learn Linux. Even though current technology has made the essay obsolete, the ideas contained within it still inform my views on computers.

The common thread that runs through my love of Stephenson’s work is his presentation of new ideas. He likes to spit out long infodumps on nerdy details that connect tangentially to the plot (Sumerian history and mythology in Snow Crash, the mathematics of encryption in Cryptonomicon) and every time he does, I eat it up. I basically feel like I’m learning something, and as deluded as I may be for thinking that I can get an education by reading fiction, it’s very satisfying for me.

At first, Reamde gave me what I wanted: it takes the familiar MMORPG concept and adds some neat ideas. There’s also some geeky humour about the placement of apostrophes in the nomenclature of the game’s fantasy setting.

The problems start about a quarter of the way in, when the book turns into an action thriller. Aside from a couple of scenes where some characters meet up and communicate in the online game world, the cool ideas that got me hooked at the beginning are mostly abandoned. The plot revolves around a terrorist plot, and the secret and not-so-secret agents who try to stop the terrorists. In other words, it’s like a really long season of 24 (not my favourite show in the world).

When the action ramped up, I assumed that it was just a small scene that would bridge into the second part of the novel. Instead, the action pretty much continues for the rest of the way. It’s like the climax starts a quarter of the way in, and encompasses three-quarters of the book.

I don’t mind action, and Stephenson writes it well, but it really feels like a slog when the book is a thousand pages long. Each chapter takes place in one day and are titled as such (e.g. Day 1, Day 15). The “Day 4” chapter lasts for 200+ pages on its own (about 20-25% of the total length). It took me almost a week to get through it and I eventually started thinking to myself, “These characters are still in pretty much the same situation that I was reading about three days ago!”

Let me contrast this with the way Stephenson treated action in his earlier work. This sentence ends a chapter in Snow Crash:

After that—after Hiro gets onto his motorcycle, and the New South Africans get into their all-terrain pickups, and The Enforcers get into their slick black Enforcer mobiles, and they all go screaming out onto the highway—after that it’s just a chase scene.

To me, this is a very clever way to jump forward in time. The narrator is breaking the fourth wall and telling the audience, “We all know what a chase scene is, so let’s not dwell on it.” Now, imagine replacing this line with 200+ pages of actually describing all the things that happen in the chase scene and you have Reamde.

To sum up, I still did enjoy Stephenson’s writing style and humour, but it went on way too long. Too much action and plot, not enough ideas. I’ve pretty much read all of his books more than once, but I don’t see myself coming back to Reamde anytime soon.



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Review: The Geography of Thought

The Geography of Thought by Richard E. Nisbett

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



I’ve spent most of my life at the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures. When I stumbled upon this book, it made me wonder where I stood. Would my way of thinking match up with one side or the other?

One of the book’s main points is that Eastern cultures value interdependence over independence; that is, people are seen as part of a group. Western cultures, on the other hand, are more individualistic; success is measured by personal achievement.

Coincidentally, not long after I finished the book, I had a conversation with my grandma that perfectly illustrates this point. We were talking about work, and I mentioned how my company might be moving offices soon. My Cantonese language skills aren’t the best, so sometimes there’s miscommunication when I speak to my grandma; she thought I had said that I was changing jobs. When I cleared up the misunderstanding, she seemed relieved.

She said that it’s not right to change jobs, because you’ve formed attachments to the people there and it would be hard to leave. This is not something that I’m used to hearing; often, I get advice that changing jobs will help you get ahead and will be good for your career. I might have been confused by my grandma’s words, but seen in the light of what I had just read in the book, it made perfect sense.

For her, work is about being part of a group, one that is not easy to separate yourself from. According to Nisbett, this is classic Eastern philosophy. The opposing viewpoint—that changing jobs is a positive move—is more in line with Western thought because it encourages individual growth.

I wasn’t aware that this was a cultural difference, but I know that whenever I imagine myself changing jobs, I always feel conflicted about the idea. On the one hand, there is a sense of guilt that I would be abandoning my team and letting them down. On the other hand, I tell myself that it’s a case of misplaced loyalty: it’s not personal, it’s just business.

I think these two parts of my thought process directly correspond to East and West. Having been exposed to both sides for most of my life, I’m not always aware of where that line is. Now that I’ve read this book, I think I’ll be better able to understand where my instincts come from, and be better able to choose from the best of both worlds.



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