Qfwfqt0 Thought Cabinet

More thoughts on Lem’s Mortal Engines: the telling of stories from the perspective of robots, for whom humans are an extraterrestrial force bearing an ancestral grudge is such an interesting framing, he exposits us on all these robotic societies and then presents humans as a cataclysmic destroyer, an almost robotic (if you’ll pardon me) enemy bent only on vengeance. It’s quite the interesting take, and I’m enjoying it a lot.

Started Mortal Engines by Lem, and it’s been fine so far. The main thing that’s struck me is how well his folktales for the modern age match the Slavic folk tradition he’s drawing from, the pacing and description from the stories are almost pulled from an Ivan and the Firebird or The Sea Prince but with science fiction terms instead of knightly heroic ones.

Unfortunately Pale Fire simply didn’t do it for me, I went in expecting to enjoy it immensely but came out with nothing else but “it’s pretty good.” The story itself was fine, and the ending jumble of unreality and reality was predictable from the jump and not terribly compelling to me. Of novels with similar formatting, Dictionary of the Khazars comes to mind, which I enjoy much more than Pale Fire, perhaps because of the more interlinked nature of the three stories or perhaps because I enjoyed the historical background more. Anyways, this will put Nabokov on the back burner for now, though I may check out his short stories at some point.

The poem portion of Pale Fire is excellent on its own merits, a very good and engaging read. The juxtaposition of tones (going from somber reflections on the fountain beyond the veil of death to “what the hell? Pale Fire” is certainly quite the trick to manage as well as Nabokov does.) I’ve begun to wade into the commentary, and I’m unsure whether Nabokov wants us to think Kinbote a fool or not, and I’m of two minds on the issue personally. For one, I think he’s reading his own life so forcefully into the poem and is so caught up in his own narrative as to be missing things that make it beautiful, but perhaps it’s that act of the readers deep interpretation that is the beauty in itself? I think it’s valuable to say damn the author, I’ll scrounge the meaning out of this work on my own, but sometimes placing it in your own mileu robs you of that experience of empathy that literature can grant.

Memoirs Found in a Bathtub is… quite the book. Incredibly frenetic, it answers the question of “what if all Cold War espionage took place in one underground bunker?” Two things that shine are the narration and Lem’s wordplay. The book begins with liberal use of ellipsis, as the tepid and uncertain narrator stumbles from one place to another. As his thoughts grow more variegated and winding, the narration becomes paragraphs of spiraling thoughts, before dissolving into masses of dashed off clauses, which represents the narrators growing paranoia very very well. Lem invents copious amounts of new words (Decerebration and Scoposcopy being some favorites) that mimic the nature of a technologically advanced military evolving numerous layers of jargon (and must have made it an absolute beast to translate. I’m not sure what it’s like in Polish, but conveying Lem’s nonsensical language that the narrator doesn’t understand and can’t explain into equally inscrutable English that still retains some roots is an impressive feat.) The story isn’t the best that’s ever been written, but the whirlwind tour of the Building he takes you on hits you with comic, tragic, and biting world building reflecting the depths of paranoia. It reminds me heavily of a Kafkaesque or Gogolian inscrutable bureaucracy, but adapted for the militaristic era of the Cold War. It was a very fun read, the skill of narration made it entertaining despite lacking the philosophical and comic potentials that hooked me in The Starship Diaries or A Perfect Vacuum.

Perhaps one of the strongest senses of anachronism I’ve got from reading anything was the opening to Lem’s Memoirs Found in a Bathtub. Writing 8 years before ARPANET, the opening (in the anthropological style of some future galactic civilization) dismisses computers as bulky and constrained before launching into an account of a subatomic paper-destroying mechanism that corrodes human knowledge. This societal collapse just from the loss of paper seems extreme today, but not quite as distant if you were to imagine it of the internet (a subject quite well explored in the literary canon.) I quite enjoy the obviously anthropological perspective Lem takes the with the intro (it’s a masterclass in that old maxim of seeing the strange in the familiar and the familiar in the strange), and it’s clear he loves reading academic writing and emulating the style while placing it into the mouth of science-fictional entities.

Eco certainly does know how to write an ending and a good con artist, and both of those are on display in Baudolino. It was a fun read, but I think the ending really elevates it.

A few chapters into Baudolino, quite enjoying it so far. Eco avoids indulging in his vice for long winded historical exposition that prompts the plot to take a backseat at the beginning of a book by setting the immediate circumstance at the sack of Constantinople, then having Baudolino flashback through his travels. We get a nice interplay between current happenings of Niketas’ interview and thoughts with Baudolino’s past, avoiding Eco’s shelving of the plot while still getting his rich historical exposition.

Dictionary of the Khazars is an absolutely brilliant read and masterpiece of literary design. Pavic weaves so many intricate threads throughout the book, and brings them all so brilliantly together, giving you the whole picture just as the end is reached, regardless of how you read the book. A spiritual sucessor to Foucalt's Pendulum that exploits the form to great effect. Highly reccomend for any fans of Eco.

The final two stories of A Perfect Vacuum are excellent. If The Star Diaries was Lem’s attempted work in the area of satire and humor, then A Perfect Vacuum is him flexing his philosophical muscles. I absolutely love him as an author, he has the humor of a Douglas Adams or Vonnegut, and the philosophical musings of a modern philosopher of mind. I absolutely adore books that make me think, and Non Serviam and The New Cosmogony are certainly good at that. Applying game theory to the origin of physics is a fascinating and incredible leap, and I look forward to reading more Lem.

Other than A Perfect Vacuum (which was incredible) and Rien du tout, ou la consequence, I haven’t been as impressed with the contents of A Perfect Vacuum as I was with The Star Diaries, but these last few stories are bringing it around. In particular, Non Serviam is a highlight, I think it grapples very well with problems of qualia, consciousness, and philosophical zombies through the personoid hypothetical. Deeply philosophical and engaging.

Cloud Atlas was pretty middling, not much else to say. He didn’t bring it around in a way that was compelling to me at all.

Cloud Atlas is fine, the individual stories are compelling but it’s lacking the thematic structure of an If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler to tie things together. Perhaps Mitchell can pull it all through at the end, but I doubt he has the craft of a Calvino or Eco for a grand connecting finale. I’d be happy to be proven wrong, however.

God Lem is killing it, The Star Diaries so far is just “what if Hitchiker’s Guide but better” and it’s so perfectly to my tastes, humor, and knowledge. I’m like 2/3 of the way through and it’s a favorite of all time already.