What I've been reading
Jan. 28th, 2023 08:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lucymonsterThe sub-theme of today's post is 'things I almost didn't read for various reasons but am glad I gave a chance to'. And apparently I have a lot to say about them? I didn't think I was feeling especially opinionated, but the post just ballooned. Non-book media to follow later, in a separate post, for everyone's sanity.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir would never have made it onto my list had not my sister and my dad - an unlikely alliance - joined forces in their hype campaign. It was FANTASTIC, 10/10, will read again (probably in audiobook format, since I keep hearing about how great the narrator is). I'm normally a big fan of spoilers, but I would hate to have been spoiled for some of the stuff in this book, so I don't want to do you guys dirty in case any of you are likely to read it. The gist of it, avoiding all major reveals, is that our sun is under attack by a sort of alien algae that's reducing its light output at a rate that will trigger extinction-level climate change within 30 years. Our protagonist is deep in space, fresh out of an induced coma for the journey, trying to figure out how to stop it from happening - and he's alone, because the rest of his crew didn't survive their comas. The long hibernation has also addled his memories, so there's a parallel story told in flashbacks as he gradually remembers who he is and how he ended up on the mission.
If you've read The Martian, it has all the same ingredients that made that novel shine - extremely detailed and accurate science, a narrator whose enthusiasm for his subject radiates off the page, and a thrilling space adventure full of optimism for humanity's future. But Weir is also very aware that most of his audience will have read The Martian, and he's aware of the criticism he's received in the past (such as for weak characterisation and dialogue scenes), and he uses all that knowledge in Project Hail Mary in some really clever ways. It's a genre-savvy novel that knows there are certain things its audience will take at face value, certain questions we won't bother to ask, and uses those blind spots to deliver a twist towards the end that blew my mind. There end up being really good reasons for what start out looking like weaknesses.
...He's still a trifle weak on character, which shows mainly in the caricaturish bit parts where he's not using his Clever Characterisation-Deficit Compensation Device. But since they have minimal screen time and are only there to move the plot along, it didn't detract from my enjoyment.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman sounds so much like one of those 'how to hustle' self-help books that I was initially like, bwuh?? when I unwrapped it for Christmas. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite: it's Stoic philosophy for people who've been trained by our late capitalist culture to think of 'hustle' as a virtue. Burkeman is a self-described productivity geek who's tried every productivity system he's ever heard of and found himself busier and less happy for each one. That's not a personal issue, but the essential trap of productivity: the more tasks you complete, the more tasks you generate (I'm sure we can all relate to the agony of finally clearing our email inboxes only to watch the replies roll straight back in). And the more we commit to hitting our productivity KPIs, the less time and energy we have left for the things we actually find meaningful - time with loved ones, leisure, slow progress on larger projects that don't have a checkbox-friendly end in sight. The day simply never comes when we're finally on top of our workload and can enjoy our coveted 'earned' relaxation. The only way off the hamster wheel is to embrace the fact that it's literally impossible to get everything done, to learn to feel comfortable living our lives in their natural state of disorder and incompletion rather than striving for mastery, and as much as possible to abandon competing priorities so that we can devote ourselves properly to the smaller number that remain.
I found this book more validating than habit-changing, because I'm very much not a productivity geek - my skill in neglecting work I find boring or unpalatable exceeds perhaps even what Burkeman would have me aspire to, lol. Stepping off the career ladder was the best thing I ever did, but often I feel like a bit of a loser for not being more ambitious. Call me biased, but it's nice to see my own rather sloppy thoughts about the Real Point of Life represented in someone else's sensible, coherent philosophical framework.
I'll finish with a quote - or a quote of a quote, really - which was especially relevant to me but also I think generally reflective of the thrust of the book re. our cultural obsession with results, forward progress and economic value:
The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler by Laurence Rees has such an off-putting title that I'd have passed it right by if I loved Rees' other work one iota less. He means charismatic in the sense of Weber's three leadership types, not the complimentary way we tend to use it in everyday speech, but 'dark charisma' has an appealing, almost sexy ring to it that I really don't enjoy seeing near Hitler's name.
BUT I always trust Rees, and he's earnt it. From the opening pages onward he is scathing about the Hitler myth and its proponents. Hitler certainly had a masterful instinct for mass psychology, but there's a strongly self-serving element to the claims of his supposedly irresistible personal charisma: across the board, those susceptible to it were all people who had their own personal, preexisting motives for believing in him. Rees doesn't argue that their belief was insincere - Hitler's converts were often willing to act wildly against their own interests in service of their Führer, which they probably wouldn't have been if they were merely playing tactical lip service to his quasi-mystical greatness. But it's very clear that people who weren't already predisposed to agree with his message did not find him a persuasive or even particularly engaging public speaker. People who didn't already yearn for a heroic strongman leader never saw Germany's saviour in him. Even a number of staunch supporters kept their heads on their shoulders as far as his personal greatness went. Many found themselves able to appreciate his charisma only once he'd been in power for some time, with strength in numbers and a robust propaganda machine to bolster his "innate" appeal.
This book is mainly interested in Hitler's supporters, so it's blunt but mostly quite laconic about the atrocities he committed against his enemies. A large bulk of my readings on the Nazis has really been readings on the Holocaust, so this more domestic perspective on the regime has been an interesting perspective shift. The scale of destructive evil they achieved may be unparalleled, but the political operations that got them there were distressingly workaday. Most importantly in terms of weeding out residual Nazi propaganda from the popular consciousness, Hitler was not an 'objectively' compelling figure. He was compelling only by the common consent of a large enough group of people with overlapping agendas who banded together and agreed to be compelled by him.
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir would never have made it onto my list had not my sister and my dad - an unlikely alliance - joined forces in their hype campaign. It was FANTASTIC, 10/10, will read again (probably in audiobook format, since I keep hearing about how great the narrator is). I'm normally a big fan of spoilers, but I would hate to have been spoiled for some of the stuff in this book, so I don't want to do you guys dirty in case any of you are likely to read it. The gist of it, avoiding all major reveals, is that our sun is under attack by a sort of alien algae that's reducing its light output at a rate that will trigger extinction-level climate change within 30 years. Our protagonist is deep in space, fresh out of an induced coma for the journey, trying to figure out how to stop it from happening - and he's alone, because the rest of his crew didn't survive their comas. The long hibernation has also addled his memories, so there's a parallel story told in flashbacks as he gradually remembers who he is and how he ended up on the mission.
If you've read The Martian, it has all the same ingredients that made that novel shine - extremely detailed and accurate science, a narrator whose enthusiasm for his subject radiates off the page, and a thrilling space adventure full of optimism for humanity's future. But Weir is also very aware that most of his audience will have read The Martian, and he's aware of the criticism he's received in the past (such as for weak characterisation and dialogue scenes), and he uses all that knowledge in Project Hail Mary in some really clever ways. It's a genre-savvy novel that knows there are certain things its audience will take at face value, certain questions we won't bother to ask, and uses those blind spots to deliver a twist towards the end that blew my mind. There end up being really good reasons for what start out looking like weaknesses.
...He's still a trifle weak on character, which shows mainly in the caricaturish bit parts where he's not using his Clever Characterisation-Deficit Compensation Device. But since they have minimal screen time and are only there to move the plot along, it didn't detract from my enjoyment.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman sounds so much like one of those 'how to hustle' self-help books that I was initially like, bwuh?? when I unwrapped it for Christmas. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite: it's Stoic philosophy for people who've been trained by our late capitalist culture to think of 'hustle' as a virtue. Burkeman is a self-described productivity geek who's tried every productivity system he's ever heard of and found himself busier and less happy for each one. That's not a personal issue, but the essential trap of productivity: the more tasks you complete, the more tasks you generate (I'm sure we can all relate to the agony of finally clearing our email inboxes only to watch the replies roll straight back in). And the more we commit to hitting our productivity KPIs, the less time and energy we have left for the things we actually find meaningful - time with loved ones, leisure, slow progress on larger projects that don't have a checkbox-friendly end in sight. The day simply never comes when we're finally on top of our workload and can enjoy our coveted 'earned' relaxation. The only way off the hamster wheel is to embrace the fact that it's literally impossible to get everything done, to learn to feel comfortable living our lives in their natural state of disorder and incompletion rather than striving for mastery, and as much as possible to abandon competing priorities so that we can devote ourselves properly to the smaller number that remain.
I found this book more validating than habit-changing, because I'm very much not a productivity geek - my skill in neglecting work I find boring or unpalatable exceeds perhaps even what Burkeman would have me aspire to, lol. Stepping off the career ladder was the best thing I ever did, but often I feel like a bit of a loser for not being more ambitious. Call me biased, but it's nice to see my own rather sloppy thoughts about the Real Point of Life represented in someone else's sensible, coherent philosophical framework.
I'll finish with a quote - or a quote of a quote, really - which was especially relevant to me but also I think generally reflective of the thrust of the book re. our cultural obsession with results, forward progress and economic value:
The writer Adam Gopnik calls the trap into which I had fallen the 'casual catastrophe', which he defines as the belief 'that the proof of the rightness or wrongness of some way of bringing up children is the kind of adults it produces'. This idea sounds reasonable enough - how else would you judge rightness or wrongness? - until you realise that its effect is to sap childhood of any intrinsic value, by treating it as nothing but a training ground for adulthood.
...
'Because children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up,' [Tom Stoppard in The Cost of Utopia] says. 'But a child's purpose is to be a child.'
The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler by Laurence Rees has such an off-putting title that I'd have passed it right by if I loved Rees' other work one iota less. He means charismatic in the sense of Weber's three leadership types, not the complimentary way we tend to use it in everyday speech, but 'dark charisma' has an appealing, almost sexy ring to it that I really don't enjoy seeing near Hitler's name.
BUT I always trust Rees, and he's earnt it. From the opening pages onward he is scathing about the Hitler myth and its proponents. Hitler certainly had a masterful instinct for mass psychology, but there's a strongly self-serving element to the claims of his supposedly irresistible personal charisma: across the board, those susceptible to it were all people who had their own personal, preexisting motives for believing in him. Rees doesn't argue that their belief was insincere - Hitler's converts were often willing to act wildly against their own interests in service of their Führer, which they probably wouldn't have been if they were merely playing tactical lip service to his quasi-mystical greatness. But it's very clear that people who weren't already predisposed to agree with his message did not find him a persuasive or even particularly engaging public speaker. People who didn't already yearn for a heroic strongman leader never saw Germany's saviour in him. Even a number of staunch supporters kept their heads on their shoulders as far as his personal greatness went. Many found themselves able to appreciate his charisma only once he'd been in power for some time, with strength in numbers and a robust propaganda machine to bolster his "innate" appeal.
This book is mainly interested in Hitler's supporters, so it's blunt but mostly quite laconic about the atrocities he committed against his enemies. A large bulk of my readings on the Nazis has really been readings on the Holocaust, so this more domestic perspective on the regime has been an interesting perspective shift. The scale of destructive evil they achieved may be unparalleled, but the political operations that got them there were distressingly workaday. Most importantly in terms of weeding out residual Nazi propaganda from the popular consciousness, Hitler was not an 'objectively' compelling figure. He was compelling only by the common consent of a large enough group of people with overlapping agendas who banded together and agreed to be compelled by him.
