Science Fiction is not just for nerds.

I watched “Blade Runner” when I was in Seattle, and wanted to read the book after watching it.  Now I’m in Houston, and I didn’t forget about that “book to read” titled “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick.

I’ve read four chapters already, and I’m hooked.  Growing up, I used to think only nerds read science fiction.  Star trekkie types.  Not me, nuh uh.  But science fiction is great!  In some ways, this novel reminds me of the Pixar film “Wall-E”, because both the film and the book have humans living on a different planet after Earth has been damaged by humans.  In “Wall-E”, machines serve humans.  In “Do Androids…”, advanced human-like robots serve humans.  However, in the book, some humans still live on Earth, for reasons that are explained in the book.  The main character of “Do Androids…” is Rick Deckard, a bounty hunter in charge of killing robots who return from the other planet and attempt to live like humans.

It’s been a few months since I’ve seen the movie, and I haven’t gotten deep enough into the book to write much more.

But yes, science fiction is really interesting…I recommend giving it a try, if you ever thought it was just for nerds :).

ME WANT READ

THIS: The Piano Teacher by Janice Y.K. Lee

Update: There’s an excerpt here at her Web site. It’s not what I expected, much more dialogue-driven and modern in tone than I would think to be fitting… but it’s just an excerpt, and still rather compelling!

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Sorry iluv2read for abandoning you.

I have read several books since my last post, but I’m going to start back up with a book I just finished.

“Anthem” is the first Ayn Rand book I’ve read.  I picked it because it was the shortest out of the 3 on the shelf (the others being “Atlas Shrugged” and “The Fountainhead”).

I don’t know much about her philosophy, but just judging from this book, I can tell she believes people should focus more on the individual than on society.  This book made me consider whether it wasn’t so bad to be selfish, and on the flip side, whether it was always good to do things for others.

The premise of the book is that a future society has regressed, and focuses solely on “we”–the society.  No individual has much importance.  Every person is given a distinct role, and no one questions it.

However the main character breaks from the pack, re-discovers an invention from the past, and tries to present it to the others.  I’ll stop here, so I don’t ruin the ending for others.

“Anthem” is one of those good books that makes me re-evaluate how I think, what I believe in.  Here are some excerpts I liked:

• “The Teachers had said to us all:  ‘Dare not choose in your minds the work you would like to do when you leave the Home of the Students.  You shall do that which the Council of Vocations shall prescribe for you.  For the Council of Vocations knows in its great wisdom where you are needed by your brother men, better than you can know it in your unworthy little minds.  And if you are not needed by your brother men, there is no reason for you to burden the earth with your bodies.’”  (22)

• “This would wreck the Plans of the World Council,” said Unanimity 2-9913, “and without the Plans of the World Council the sun cannot rise. It took fifty years to secure the approval of all the Councils for the Candle, and to decide upon the number needed, and to re-fit the Plans so as to make candles instead of torches. This touched upon thousands and thousands of men working in scores of States. We cannot alter the Plans again so soon.”

  “And if this should lighten the toil of men,” said Similarity 5-0306, “then it is a great evil, for men have no cause to exist save in toiling for other men.”

  Then Collective 0-0009 rose and pointed at our box.

  “This thing,” they said, “must be destroyed. (74)

• “I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

  Neither am I the means to any end others may wish to accomplish. I am not a tool for their use. I am not a servant of their needs. I am not a bandage for their wounds. I am not a sacrifice on their altars.

  I am a man. This miracle of me is mine to own and keep, and mine to guard, and mine to use, and mine to kneel before!

  I do not surrender my treasures, nor do I share them. The fortune of my spirit is not to be blown into coins of brass and flung to the winds as alms for the poor of the spirit. I guard my treasures: my thought, my will, my freedom. And the greatest of these is freedom.

  I owe nothing to my brothers, nor do I gather debts from them. I ask none to live for me, nor do I live for any others. I covet no man’s soul, nor is my soul theirs to covet.

  I am neither foe nor friend to my brothers, but such as each of them shall deserve of me. And to earn my love, my brothers must do more than to have been born. I do not grant my love without reason, nor to any chance passer-by who may wish to claim it. I honor men with my love. But honor is a thing to be earned.

  I shall choose my friends among men, but neither slaves nor masters. And I shall choose only such as please me, and them I shall love and respect, but neither command nor obey. And we shall join our hands when we wish, or walk alone when we so desire. For in the temple of his spirit, each man is alone. Let each man keep his temple untouched and undefiled. Then let him join hands with others if he wishes, but only beyond his holy threshold.” (95-96)

• “I look upon the history of men, which I have learned from the books, and I wonder. It was a long story, and the spirit which moved it was the spirit of man’s freedom. But what is freedom? Freedom from what? There is nothing to take a man’s freedom away from him, save other men. To be free, a man must be free of his brothers. That is freedom. This and nothing else.” (101)

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho

For about the first forty pages, I thought I might give up on this book, but after that slow start, it really picked up and I ended up enjoying it a lot.

In Veronika Decides to Die, Coelho uses the theme of insanity to create a discourse on life and living. His own time in an insane asylum informs the experiences of the characters in Villette, the Solvenian mental hospital where most of this story takes place. I appreciate the lack of “magic” in this book, and the limited mention of religion. Instead Coelho focuses on realistic people with realistic experiences, and thus I was able to sympathize and relate much more easily. It was less of a fantastical adventure (like The Alchemist, although I did like that book quite a bit) and more of an eloquent story. He does, as usual, have the tendency to tell just as much as he shows, but I think this novel is an impressive feat in that the story and its messages expand well beyond the limits of the setting.

There are way too many passages I liked, so here is just a sampling (about half):

Veronika knew that life was always a matter of waiting for the right moment to act. (p 4)

In adolescence she thought it was too early to choose; now, in young adulthood, she was convinced it was too late to change. (p 43)

“… insanity is the inability to communicate your ideas. It’s as if you were in a foreign country, able to see and understand everything that’s going on but incapable fo explaining what you need to know or of being helped, because you don’t understand the language they speak there.”

“We’ve all felt that.”

“And all of us, one way or another, are insane.” (p 62)

Charmed Thirds by Megan McCafferty

I didn’t finish this book, not because it was bad but just because it wasn’t my thing, but I did have a couple favorite passages from the first third of it that I read:

Whoever said that you can’t go home again was wrong. You can go home again. Just don’t be surprised when it totally sucks. (p 3)

Women will always choose the the man over the best friend. This is a sad but true fact of life, and it’s only this certitude that makes me unashamed to admit it. (p 30)

I didn’t know anything about anything. And the only difference between then and now is this: I may know more than I used to, but my wisdom pales in comperison to that which I’ve yet to learn. (p 41)

Drown by Junot Diaz

In a nutshell, this is a very well-written book, and a quick read despite its literary nature, BUT. It’s rather… bleak.

With 10 stories, I would have expected at least one or two to have a more upbeat tone. But no, all of them describe the rough circumstances of Dominicans either in their own country or here in the US. There’s really nothing wrong with that, per se, but the barrage of hopeless situations can be hard to take for 200+ pages with few, if any, rays of sunshine or laugh-out-loud moments.

Still, it IS smooth, and full of rich details and lively characters, so I enjoyed it and can understand why it brought Junot Diaz to the attention of the literary world. I also appreciated how the stories connected and I could mostly follow/construct the whole story of the family as I went along. I found myself, as a “student” of writing and aspiring writer, most intrigued by where he chose to end each story. They were poignant moments, but not necessarily places where things felt finished or closed. I see this often lately, to varying degrees of success. I think Diaz did a pretty good job.

Favorite lines:

You know how it is when you get back with somebody you’ve loved. It felt better than it ever was, better than it ever could be again. (p 64)

Intuitively, I knew how easily distances could harden and become permanent. (p 75)

The Kitchen God’s Wife by Amy Tan

This was not my favorite Amy Tan book, but I did love it. More than any other, this focused on the mother’s story in China, and it was a wrenching one. (Usually there’s a pretty good balance between the mother and daughter generations.) Because of what I read in The Opposite of Fate, Amy Tan’s memoir of sorts, I found myself thinking of this as her own mother’s true story, which may or may not be a fair assumption. And my heart broke for this woman and all that she endured, all her suffering, the lows and — thankfully — the eventual highs. It made me wonder about my own mother, how little I know, how much she might have to tell me. Will we wait until we think it’s almost too late to finally share all our secrets with one another? Will I have to reconstruct her life in a novel in order to understand her?

Anyway, a good book. Favorite passages below. Warning: there are a lot.

And whenever I’m with my mother, I feel as though I have to spend the whole time avoiding land mines. (p 16)

To me, ying-gai meant my mother lived a life of regrets that never faded with time. (p 29)

I think about a child’s capacity to hurt her mother in ways she cannot even imagine. (p 33-34)

I was born with good luck. But over the years, my luck — just like my prettiness — dried out, then carved lines on my face so I would not forget.

I cannot explain exactly how this happened, these changes in my life. If I try to say what happened, my story would not flow forward like a river from the beginning to the end, everything connected, the lake to the sea. If my life had been that way, one thing leading to another, then I could look back and I would know the lessons of my life: the fate that was given me, the choices I took, the mistakes that are mine. And perhaps I would still have time to change my luck. (p 62)

Notice

Veronika Decides to Die is the free book of the month from Paulo Coelho!

I’ll be reading this on Thurs/Fri (at work… *halo*) and will post my usual review afterwards.

Bereft by Jane Bernstein

(Disclaimer: Jane Bernstein was a professor of mine. She intimidated the heck out of me at first, but she quickly grew to be someone I respected and adored, and even considered a friend. I never read her books while taking her classes because I didn’t want to be influenced by them in any way, or violate her privacy since she mostly writes creative nonfiction, but now that I’ve graduated, I’m so, so glad I can finally check out her work.)

I read this book quickly, as it is written in a quietly compelling voice and tells an interesting, well-woven story. I doubt if there are many women who couldn’t find something to identify with in this story. From losing a sister to a senseless murder, to living with a tough (but loving) Jewish mother, to marrying a volatile man, to giving birth to two daughters, one with disabilities, Jane has lived through an incredible number of challenges in her life. She dealt with some more easily and gracefully than others, but all of them left their mark. Whatever admiration I had for her before has increased tenfold after (a) reading her story, her struggle to reclaim herself and allow herself to really feel her own emotions, and (b) reading her tightly crafted prose, in which no word is wasted yet poetry can still be found.

If I’m being perfectly honest, my interest lagged slightly near the middle of the book, but that was brief, maybe like 20 pages or less. The rest is beautiful and heartbreaking and heroic, and I loved it. I openly teared up on the plane as I read the ending. I was hoping someone would ask me if I was okay, so I could answer, “Oh yes, I’m fine, I’m just reading a wonderful book by an amazing woman. You really ought to check it out.”

Favorite passages (best one last):

I was so puffed up with plans. Not a husband or children, not a bottomless stash of recreational drugs, or money to buy pretty things. I wanted to be published. (p 108)

We began to hurt each other. We didn’t mean to do this. It was just that we were young and aching inside.

She will not choose him, will not choose someone who asks for so much and so directly, who wants to touch the sensitive places where the tears and heartache and love are twisted together. (p 129)

The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston

Long story short, I liked 4 out of the 5 sections of this book. The first, No Name Woman, was my favorite, and I think it works best as a standalone. I didn’t much care for White Tigers, which is where fiction is most strongly blended into this nonfiction piece. Shaman and At the Western Palace were both strong, and I loved delving more into the mother’s and aunt’s lives. A Song for a Barbarian-Reed Pipe was, I thought, good up until the very end, which I didn’t completely get. Like, I <i>think</i> I understand it, but considering it’s the last section of the book, I would have preferred to end on a stronger note.

But 4 out of 5 “ain’t bad”, not at all, and I can totally see why Maxine Hong Kingston has a special place in Asian American literature. Though her experiences were undoubtedly different from my own, I found something universal in her descriptions, something compelling in her storytelling. White Tigers not withstanding, I <i>did</i> enjoy how she blended fact and fiction, much the way we all blend fact and impression (or belief) to create memory, history. She also had a great way of bending or ignoring grammatical rules for the sake of her literary voice, and I thought that was particularly effective. See excerpt from p 171 below.

My favorite excerpts:

Those of us in the first American generations have had to figure out how the invisible world the emigrants build around our childhoods fits in solid America. (p 5)

“Don’t tell anyone you had an aunt. Your father does not want to hear her name. She has never been born.” I have believed that sex was unspeakable and words so strong and fathers so frail that “aunt” would do my father mysterious harm. I have thought thought that my family, having settled among immigrants who had also been their neighbors in the ancestral land, needed to clean their name, and a wrong word would incite the kinspeople even here. But there is more to this silence: they want me to participate in her punishment. And I have. (p 15-16)