The City, The City, The High Castle and Rufus T Firefly

As threatened following R-Man's extensive coverage of How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered The World by Francis Wheen last week, here are the last 3 books I've read, all of which I'd recommend to you:

The City & The City by China Mieville

I read a brief synopsis of this at the British Library's Science Fiction exhibit this summer, and having also heard rave reviews of Mieville's Kraken (now sitting on my "to read" pile). This is a essentially a great slice of noir with a novel (pun intended) spin: it's set in two cities which occupy the same geographical space, but whose citizens must ignore (or "unsee") their topographic neighbours. The punishment for acknowledging, let alone breaching the border between the cities is to be at the mercy of an unseen force that strikes terror into the populace. If that's not enough of an intriguing concept to draw you in I don't know what is. I loved it and can't wait to see what ideas Mieville has come up with in his other work.

Hello, I Must Be Going: Groucho and His Friends by Charlotte Chandler

Long time followers of the blog will know I'm a big Marx Brothers fan. Since my Dad sat us down in front of a video of Duck Soup as a child I've been sold. Over the years I've read various books about the brothers, including both Groucho and Harpo's autobiographies. Whereas they tend to focus on the early years (well, the first 50 or so years of their lives, through vaudeville and the classic movies), this book finds the author living with Groucho during the 1970s, in his 80's. It's a fascinating view of a super-celebrity coming to terms with old age whilst still entertaining, and often outwitting, an eclectic circle of celebrities, artists and performers including then-young bucks Bill Cosby and Jack Nicholson. As well as a fascinating biography, this book, by the very nature of its subject, reduced me to mirth constantly. It also taught me a thing or two about how to live and age, and saddened me that some great stories are now lost forever; on several occasions it's mentioned how Chico lived the most interesting and unbelievable life, but never committed it to paper. Interestingly it's also noted by several that the funniest brother in real life was Zeppo. All these moments lost in time like tears in rain...

The Man In The High Castle by Philip K Dick

A Scanner Darkly, Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report. Philip K Dick has made an indelible impression on science fiction both written on screen. Amongst the many of his works which haven't [yet] been put on film, possibly the most lauded is this one. I read a great piece by Dick once in which he defined science fiction, as opposed to fantasy, as being set in a world like our own but with one significant difference, and exploring the consequences of that difference. The premise of The Man In The High Castle is a simple one: the Nazis won World War 2. Dick explores the social and political ramifications of such a world, whilst also finding time to pit western and eastern philosophy against each other and trick you into thinking you're not reading science fiction at all...

If anyone wants to swap me for a recommendation of your own, drop us a line!

Mumbo Jumbo Wheen Ween and Guff

As you may well know or suspect, Great Men enjoy a good book. I thought it would be a nice idea to throw a few recommendations at you that we've read recently. I asked R-Man for 2 or 3 reviews; in fairness I did not specify a word limit and in typical thoroughness received the following:

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How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World by Francis Wheen

The technological and democratic advance of humanity and the associated benefits we enjoy are according to Francis Wheen, under attack. For the most part these assailants are predictable and obvious. Although Wheen counters their challenges with humourous élan you do wonder if the defence of reason against religiosity and the Modern Hippies of Complementary Medicine has been done better by messrs Dawkins and Goldacre. If you enjoyed Bad Science, The God Delusion or God is not Great – you won’t find a lot new in these chapters, but Wheen’s language is not as strident as Dawkins and I didn’t get any shivers of smuggery that Ben Goldacre (nice guy that I’m sure he is) provokes.

The fascinating element of this book is that in Wheen’s view perhaps the most dangerous foe of science and reason is the very modern thought prevalent in almost every single western university.

The explosion of Post Structuralist Relativist literary criticism would seem to be an odd place to look for an enemy of reason. However, Wheen explains with clear irritation that the academic fashion for considering almost any interpretation on any subject as valid, erodes our ability to understand the absolute truths that Science deals in. Starting with the original thinkers Derrida and Foucault, the idea that a text could be re-interpreted from a myriad of points of view and that each of these views brings further insight into this text is a strong one. It is how I was taught history as these ideas spread throughout academia. Comparing Marxist and traditional explanations of an event of the past did indeed bring greater insight into why that event happened.

I do recall the moment of realisation of their limitation, however. Someone, deeply in earnest tried to convince me that all Darwin had done in his Origin Of The Species was to re-interpret the natural world through the eyes and beliefs of a mid-Victorian white establishment figure and was more of an act of hegemony than it was biology. The idea that his years of exhaustive research had led him to these findings or even the fact that he was right, simply didn’t occur to them.

Wheen quotes Professor Alan Sokal (then of NYU) who sums it more perfectly.

“…anyone who believes that the laws of physics are mere social conventions is invited to try transgressing those conventions from the windows of my apartment. (I live on the twenty-first floor.)”

Glib as this sounds – it is a fundamental issue for post-modern thought when it is considering scientific truths. Absolute Zero is just that, absolute, everywhere, forever. Scientific ideas are not constructs but provable. For example the idea of supersymmetry in particle physics rather nicely solves many of the issues that Dark Matter creates for the standard model of the universe. It has interpreted the universe in a way that makes it work and has been accepted as a useful way to explain the natural phenomena we experience.

There is one issue with this theory - It probably isn’t true. Latest results from the LHC have cast huge doubt on supersymmetry and as physicist are not post-modern they do not argue that their construct de-constructs their own concept of self, relative to the cultural signifier* and therefore still equally as valid. They throw it away and come up with a better idea.

This started me wondering about how post-modern thought had affected other areas and affected me directly. Music and fashion now seem caught in a loop of retro-interpretation with bands seemingly spending more time splicing their “influences” (do you really all listen to Can all day on the tour bus, really?) on press releases than actually learning to play. Irony has been reduced from the subtle discipline so cherished by Kierkegaard into a brash dumb monster for the use of people to insulate themselves from real life. The actual irony of reality TV is that it is probably the least real thing available. But that’s OK, cos it’s “it’s so bad it’s good”

In letters to a young contrarian Christopher Hitchens advised the budding polemist that it is not what you think, but how you think that is important. Wheen’s book is good just because it encourages you to do so, it is accessible, witty and enjoyable to anyone who enjoys the provocation of their enquiring mind.

*I have simply no idea what this is supposed to mean – I merely copied and pasted a couple of lines from the post structuralism Wikipedia page. It is a queer addiction of post-modernity to wrap itself in un-intelligible guff.

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You've probably read enough for one day, so I'll save my own choices for later. Instead, in keeping with the above, here's my favourite Ween: