Bob's Books

Why this book: It had been gifted to me several years ago by a close friend but I’d never read it. I’m finding biographies and autobiographies enjoyable to listen to – so decided to finally engage with this one. I listened to this on audible and was pleased with the recording.  

Summary in 5 Sentences: Steve Jobs asked Walter Isaacson to write his biography and instructed him to include the good and the bad – he would not edit it.  He knew he didn’t have a lot of time left and wanted to make sure his own voice was included, and that he would have the opportunity to respond to some of the more controversial stories his biographer dug up.  The book covers his child hood and that window when he and Steve Wozniak started Apple in Jobs’  parents’ garage, all the way thru to his funeral in 2011. It provides a fascinating perspective on his Dr Jeckel-Mr Hyde character, his focus and vision, his genius and his failings.  Jobs and his relentless drive and vision are credited with revolutionizing the personal computer, the music industry, the tablet industry, the cell phone industry, and more, making him one of the most influential people of the digital age.  

My Impressions: Fascinating story, wonderfully written.  I’d previously read Isaacson’s  biography of Ben Franklin and both Jobs and Franklin had a huge impact on their times and the direction of American culture.  Isaacson is an engaging writer who shares a balanced perspective on the events and people he’s describing.  Jobs chose well when he asked Isaacson to be his biographer.

It is indeed a unique perspective (as far as I know) for a person who knows he’s dying, to pick his biographer, and then participate in the process of writing the biography. To his credit, Jobs did not insist on reviewing what Isaacson had written, and told him to put it all in there – good, bad and ugly – and there was plenty of all three.  Isaacson gave Jobs a heads up of some of the negatives he’d gotten and Jobs was able to provide his comment and perspective on those sides of his story, which Isaacson (always?) included in this biography.  Jobs sometimes got defensive, but often admitted his failings.

Isaacson provides a brief rundown of relevant stories from Jobs’ youth, most importantly that he was adopted and Isaacson also gives a thumbnail sketch of his biological parents.  Interestingly his biological father a PhD student from Syria, his biological mother from middle class America – he had no real relationship with either. And then the adoption process and his growing up in the Bay Area with solid working class parents – good people who gave Steve a good home and a lot of freedom to pursue his rather esoteric interests.

His late teens and college years were an almost cliche 60s early 70s search for identity, experimentation, and trying out of new opportunities and ideas – just to see what works.  I went thru that myself.  For Jobs, he went to India to develop himself as a Buddhist, tried out being a farmer, as well as (of course) being a computer engineer and developing new ideas in that nascent world of computers.  He experimented with psychedelics, became something of a new-age “hippy” and other 60s/early 70s counter-culture phenomena.  We learn of his partnership with Steve Wozniak, how that partnership spawned ideas that led to the now classic stories of building the first Apple computers in his father’s garage. Isaacson was able to talk to the many people involved with that and sorted out the various versions of that story – most of those early players are still alive – and proud to have been part of it. 

All the while, Jobs was still casting around for an identity – a zen buddhist, a vegetarian, as well as entrepreneur.  He had several girl friends including Joan Baez, fathered a daughter out of wedlock with one of his girlfriends.  This daughter initially plays very little role in his life, but as the years go on, she becomes increasingly important.  One of Jobs greatest expressed regrets was his early neglect of his daughter. 

The initial struggles to get the Mac into the market, his competition with Bill Gates, how and why he was initially fired from Apple, then went on to lead Pixar, and then how and why Apple asked him back.  Eventually he marries happily and fathers two more children who grow up in the household of an increasingly famous, influential and wealthy father, as Jobs and Apple become leaders in the home computer industry.  His development of the Ipod  “a thousand tunes in your pocket” revolutionized the music industry, and then the Iphone, which revolutionized the personal computer and phone industry,  and life for all of us. And then of course,  the Iphone and the Ipad.

 All of these stories are interesting, but the theme that runs through the book is Jobs’ character – a brilliant visionary, but a tyrannical boss, he could be charming and extremely personable, or a rude boorish jerk with little compassion for or sensitivity to other people’s feelings.  Some of this is painful to read – how could he be such an asshole! Treat people so poorly.  And at other times be so human and charming. Part of the mystery of Steve Jobs. 

One of the many things that struck me in this biography was how often he swam against the tide and succeeded.  So many of his ideas were opposed by those on his team, ran against all conventional wisdom, and no one supported him.  Yet with his drive, personality and attention to detail, he made them the ground breaking innovations in their field – the Mac computer, the Ipod, the Ipad, the Iphone.  This reality is part of my argument against the idea that AI can replace humans.  AI does well to integrate, and regurgitate conventional wisdom.  “Conventional Wisdom” said his ideas were impossible to develop, or wouldn’t work, or there would be no market for them.  History has proven conventional wisdom wrong and Steve Jobs right in so many instances.  And that is the case for how so much progress is made.

My view:  “Think Different” (at least for now,) is an argument against the idea that AI will drive everything.   Progress and new insights will depend on people with the vision, and the drive to leap ahead of conventional wisdom, .

I spent four of my most formative years in Palo Alto at the same time Jobs was breaking new ground, and I was  completely unaware of what he was doing. It was fun for me to read about his youth and young adult hood and then his development of Apple in the world that I’d spent so much time in my formative years.   But Jobs was in a different world than I; that said, I am typing this on a MacBook Air, used to have an Ipod, now I have an Iphone and an Ipad;  I am the happy benefactor of so much of what he did.

Fascinating book, fascinating man, and a fascinating look at modern history – at the key events and key personalities in the evolution of our current intense engagement with digital media.  Strongly recommended.  

Why this book:Selected by my literature reading group. One of our members had been advocating for a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book for some time and we finally (thankfully) agreed to read this book.

Summary in 3 Sentences: A young teen aged girl and boy develop an infatuation in pre turn-of-the-century Cartagena Colombia and then their lives go in different directions over the next 70 years, but they continue to be aware of each other. The boy remains in love with her, as he pursues his own career and numerous different love interests, while the girl follows a more traditional path of marrying well, children and becoming an icon in society. In the end and through a rather tortuous process they find each other again, much older, more experienced, having suffered much, but in different ways. . The novel follows their lives their growth, trials tribulations, and increasing wisdom, as well as likewise exploring the lives of the many sub characters in the story.

My impressions:  I loved this book.  I got  so much more out of reading it this time than I did when I first read it about 15 years ago. While anyone will enjoy and learn from this book, I’d argue that people in middle age and beyond  might get more out of it, since so much of it is a perspective on life, love, and the process of maturing and gaining wisdom, as one passes from youth to maturity, and on into middle and finally older age, and finally preparing for death.  I’ll add that I both listened to and read the book. The audible version is very well done, and I listened to more of it than I read.  But I actually enjoyed reading the text more – it slowed me down and I savored the writing more.  

The character’s were competing and interesting – and there were many. The two primary characters were Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza, who we follow and get to know throughout the book.  These two had a brief infatuated love affair at a distance as teenagers, and then their paths diverged and we follow their lives over the next fifty plus years, while they have little or only intermittent contact with each other.  But apart from these two, there are many, many fascinating supporting characters, some of whom are major players in the story – Fermina Daza’s husband Dr Juvenal Urbino and family, as well as several of Florentino Ariza’s most important connections – his mother, mentors and other connections, and his many lovers.  

This book is a love story, but not in the style of Nicholas Sparks or other modern romantic writers.  The love story is the context for Marquez to share his insights about love, sensuality, life, youth and young love, mature and middle aged sensuality and love,  marriage, and the declining energies, but increased wisdom of old age.  And death is always present. It is a novel about life in a classic Latin American city through the eyes of many interesting characters.  

We are taken back to Cartagena and Colombia a century and more ago, and we experience through the eyes of our protagonists the changes wrought by the introduction of western world medicine, and technology – airplanes, radios, telephone, automobiles, increasing contact with European and American visitors and more.  The book is also a description of a very traditional, stratified class structure, slowly transitioning into the twentieth century.

I found particularly interesting the ambivalence of Fermina Daza toward her marriage.  It wasn’t clear whether she truly loved Juvenal Urbino,  her husband and clearly a good man, or indeed was somewhat addicted to the privileges she had as his wife.  She wrestles with this, and Marquez expects us, his readers, to wrestle with this as well, as he explores the many variations on, and versions of “love” in this book.  As a relatively independent and stubborn woman, Fermina Daza chafed at being expected to live and comply with the rather strict social norms of upper class Cartagena society of which she was a key figure.  She realized and sometimes resented that in society’s eyes, she was largely an appendage of her well-respected and much admired husband. She was often unhappy, but went along with the flow – got along to get along – she didn’t know what else to do – while indeed she enjoyed the privileged life style her marriage gave her.  In some ways, she reminded me of my mother who as the wife of a very gregarious and successful man, her identity was so much tied to my father – and she quietly resented it. 

Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza are believable, and flawed characters – and there was much to admire, and much to criticize in their decisions and lives.  But they came to life for me in the book, as they matured, grew older and aged.  Florentino Ariza’s character was always understated – he was not someone who attracted attention or stood out in a crowd, but his discipline, intelligence and sensibilities were often astonishing. Fermina Daza on the other hand was a classic upper class beauty and wherever she went, people noticed and admired her. A very incongruous pair of protagonists – which is why their paths diverged for most of the book.

I know in our reading group, there will be some who are uncomfortable with the explicit sensuality that Marquez brings to his characters.  He does not do it in a salacious or erotic way, but to make clear that these aspects of his characters were key to who they were.  In the case of Florentino Ariza’s many affairs, sometimes it isn’t clear who is exploiting whom, or whether both partners are using the other for their own means. Yes and Yes.  And sometimes he is clearly the manipulator/exploiter.  And Florentino Ariza’s life-long infatuation with Fermina Daza, based on a brief but intense infatuation as a young man, will be hard for some to understand.  But perhaps not for those who’ve suffered the pains of an unrequited total infatuation – or love.

I really, really liked this book and look forward to discussing with my reading group.  One of my favorites of the books I’ve recently read.   

Why this book: Selected by my Sci Fi reading group, because it continues to appear on lists of best sci-fi novels, and most intriguing novels of the past half century.

Summary in 4 Sentences: After a World War apocalypse that has devastated the earth, androids have been developed to serve people as assistants and servants, but have evolved to develop agendas of their own, and human society feels threatened when some of them rebel and kill their masters.  The book describes this post-apocalypse America and introduces us to a police bounty hunter who is tasked with finding and killing a group of androids who have rebelled, killed humans and threaten to spread their rebellion.  In the process of interacting with these androids, the police officer begins to appreciate them as more than mere machines and has moral qualms about simply finding and exterminating them. This police officer is torn between his duty to civilization as he’s been tasked and his conscience which is repelled by what he is doing.

My Impressions:  Fascinating and strange book – notable especially for its prescience, having been written in 1968, and anticipating some of the ethical challenges that will ensue from current developments of cyborg-like capabilities in humans, like neuro-link, mechanical replacement organs, automation robots and Artificial Intelligence.  It is a short book at about 250 pages of normal sized print on reasonable-sized pages, and a quick and thought provoking read.  After a somewhat disorienting  initial scene-setting, the pace picks up and quickly becomes a more engaging  page-turner.

Setting: The novel is set 53 years into the future from when the book was written (1968), so the setting is 2021 in the post-apocalyptic city of San Francisco – after World War Terminus referred to as WWT. In addition to widespread death and destruction, WWT left the entire earth contaminated with radioactive dust, so the UN encouraged migration of humans to Mars by promising emigrants a human-like android as a servant/slave as an enticement to emigrate.  As a result, a significant percentage of earth’s surviving human population has emigrated to Mars.  Among those who had to stay behind are those with a low IQ, referred to as “chickenheads,” and those whose health is damaged by radioactivity, referred to as “specials.”   The places described in Androids/Sheep are largely depopulated, many empty buildings and expanses of desert and defoliated earth, where most wildlife, including insects have died from the radioactivity.  Thus live animals – even insects – are rare and valued.

Android technology has evolved to where the latest androids are so human-like that distinguishing them from humans requires a very sophisticated and sensitive test to see if they exhibit any human-like emotions or empathy, that at least theoretically, computer driven androids would not feel.   The latest Nexus 6 androids are manufactured on earth, and are a combination of organic flesh-and-blood material, and electronic/mechanical, computerized components that are programmed to learn and respond as humans would.  They are algorithm driven, extremely intelligent and rational and have been programmed to speak and behave very much like humans.   This level of advancement in android technology led some these highly advanced androids to resent their slave status on Mars, then to rebel and kill their masters and other humans, then to hijacking a rocketship  and returning to earth.  Humans still on earth are afraid that the rebellion that these androids fomented against humans on Mars will spread to earth.  In response, the police departments have initiated an extermination campaign to find and “retire” (the euphemism for “kill” when referring to androids)  the rebelling Androids who’ve escaped from Mars.  Androids are referred to in the pejorative as “andies.”

The Story: Rick Deckard is a police officer in San Francisco who is a “bounty hunter” assigned to find and “retire” these renegade androids from Mars.  In the process, he gets to know some of them and feels moral compunction about killing these very human-like androids, that though they may have committed  crimes on Mars and may not pass the sophisticated test to be classified as humans, seem to him (and to us the readers) to behave as human, or even more human than most  true humans.  In recruiting a female android to help him in his efforts, he actually gets romantically involved with “her” and eventually sleeps with her. Eventually, his moral qualms about “retiring” these seeming sentient beings gets the better of him, and he decides to quit this line of work, but the police department refuses to let him transfer, and he needs the bounty money he gets for each android he kills.  So he continues the work, leading him to “find, fix, finish” several more androids, and become one of the most successful bounty hunters ever – but he doesn’t feel at all good about it.

Themes: The obvious themes are how technology can develop robotic creatures to closely approximate and even surpass human capabilities and sensibilities, and as that happens, do these “machines’ have rights?  What does it to do humans to destroy, retire, “kill” a machine that in all visible and apparent ways resembles a human being? It is significant that having empathy, a sense of “I” and an emotional (loyalty, love, affection, etc) connection to others are the key distinguishing aspects of being human.  The androids we meet in the book already show recognizable versions of those human emotions, such as empathy, sadness, pleasure, excitement, fear, and loyalty – and we the readers and Deckard begin to see them as more human-like. At the same time, they also have a coldness and emotionally detached side, that we would associate with computers, but also with socio- and psychopaths. In the androids, as in humans, we see some of both.

I couldn’t help but see an analogy between the way that humans used their android servants as disposable means to their ends, not respecting them, ready to kill them as soon as they made demands upon them, as analogous to how the wealthy and privileged often viewed their slaves and employees for many centuries.  The human-android relationship has many similarities to the relationship between whites and black slaves/workers in America up until just a few decades ago.  Also I might note that police and government response to initial signs of rebellion in this book mirror what governments and human societies have always done in the past:   Stamp it out brutally.

Another sub-theme or message is about wildlife and other living co-inhabitants of our planet. The novel shows how important living creatures are and how we would miss them.  There is a message about how the apocalypse would affect more than merely human life and civilization.

Philosophies: There are several sources of external semi-philosophical input to both humans and androids that this book provides us:

• First, there is the Penfield Mood Organ  – a device that a person can hold on to and will modify one’s  moods and feelings.  Each individual has a number which s/he can enter and get the mood s/he requests.  We see several of the humans resorting to this machine when they are depressed, tired, discouraged.  A technological version of taking a drink or getting high – a quick and easy antidote to unpleasant feelings.
• Second, there is a mythological or real figure Wilbur Mercer and his philosophy of Mercerism which emphasizes acceptance, a positive attitude and empathy. : “Mercerism is a technology based religion which uses a pseudo virtual reality technology called ’empathy boxes’ that connects many users simultaneously to a virtual collective suffering experience. That is centered around a supposed martyr character, Wilbur Mercer, who in the context of the virtual reality, eternally climbs up a hill while being hit with crashing stones.”  (from Wikipedia)   Kind of a Sisyphean character. I frankly couldn’t quite figure out what role Mercerism played in the book, but Mercer and Mercerism became very visible themes at the end.
• Third, “Buster Friendly and his Friendly Friends” is an insipid television show which is superficial,  light-hearted and amusing, like a Sitcom or the Mike Douglas show – meant to appeal as light weight entertainment to a broad spectrum of not-very-thoughtful humans and androids and clearly seeks to distract them from the daunting realities of their existence.   At the end, Buster Friendly announces a blockbuster breaking news bulletin  – that Mercer and Mercerism are fakes.  This leads to confusion on the part of those who look to Mercer as a spiritual guide, and begs the question what is the agenda behind Buster Friendly’s fake announcement?  To undermine humanity or support pogroms against the androids? o ne can’t help but think of our 24 hour news cycle with FOX, CNN, MSNBC competing for the short term attention of today’s Americans.

Blade Runner  I watched the movie Blade Runner – the Final Edit the day after I finished reading  Androids/Sheep.  It roughly follows the themes of Dick’s book with many of the same character names, and the plot similarly has Rick Deckard tasked with finding and destroying the androids who threatened human civilization.  But there are a number of supplemental features and sub-plots added,  that serve to “Hollywood-ize” the story, but in the end, we also see Rick Deckard in moral turmoil  with ambivalence about what he has done.  I recommend watching the movie in conjunction with the book – they support each other.  Not sure it matters which first – the book or the movie.

Final Words: This book foresees many of the moral dilemmas that we are beginning to grapple with now, but which I believe will become more pressing in the future. Do robots have rights? Is it ok to torture or abuse a human-like machine?  How do we distinguish between a human and a cyborg (part human augmented with machine and other technological enhancements,) and an android which is MOSTLY machine and technical enhancements?  Where does our understanding of “consciousness” fit in, and how much does it really matter.  Though certainly dated, this book tees these topics up well, and has had significant influence on Sci-fi and movies since.

Another more detailed review can be read in Wikipedia’s article on the book, available here..

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group after 3 in the group said they’d read it before, loved it and wanted to read it again. I’m glad they did.

Summary in 4 Sentences: This novel is written in the first person from the perspective of a young man who grew up in Ethiopia at a Christian hospital with physicians and nurses primarily from India. The protagonist is one of identical twins born in the hospital under difficult circumstance – which led to the death of his mother, his father a surgeon disappearing, and a lot of mystery around what happen. The rest of the book is his story of growing up in the hospital he and his brother being adopted by two other doctors until he decides to become a surgeon and greaduates from medical school in Ehtiopia.  Political instability forces him to leave Ethiopia and emigrate to America, where he becomes a surgeon while also unravelling the mystery of his birth and his parent. 

My Impressions: Cutting for Stone is something of an epic tale of a young man’s life, that begins with his mother, a nun who had grown up in India, meeting his biological father, a doctor also from India on a ship to Ethiopia, where both of them on their way to serve.  Then our protagonist recounts his life in Ethiopia, ultimately moving as an adult and a newly minted physician to America, then finally returning to practice in Ethiopia. It is a longer book at 655 pages bit beautifully written and easy to read.  The story is told from the perspective of Marion Stone, one of twins born near the beginning of the book. It begins with Marion looking back and describing how his parents came to be in the (fictional ) “Missing” hospital in Addis Ababa, the capitol of Ethiopia.

Strengths of this book are the elegant writing, Marion’s descriptions of his childhood growing up in the suburbs of Addis Ababa in the mountains of Ethiopia, and his maturing into young adulthood.  We also learn something of the key events in Ethiopia’s history, the idol worship that many Ethiopians had for Emperor and dictator King Haile Selassie, the political unrest and efforts to overthrow him and how that political turmoil affected the people in Addis Ababa.  And then later, Marion’s fascinating descriptions of his impressions of NYC as he arrives from Ethiopia and how he adjusted to the crazy culture of Brooklyn. 

  Another key strength of the book are the many fascinating characters in Marion’s life – from his childhood and young adulthood in Ethiopia, to the people who shape his life after he gets to America.  The character development for the main characters is well done.   Our view of the characters is from Marion’s perspectives and prejudices, though Verghese does step into a “God’-eye-view”  to provide background and important insights into the lives of several of the key characters central to the story.  In that most of the key characters are surgeons, Verghese (also a surgeon) introduces us to some of the challenges and satisfactions of surgery – he walks us through some of the procedures and indeed I learned quite a few things about human biology and surgery as a side benefit to the book.

The Story Very early in the book, Marions describes – ostensibly from what he had learned from those who had been present – his own very difficult birth with that of his twin brother, and then the sudden disappearance of his surgeon father immediately after his mother died in childbirth.  Marion and his brother Shiva are then raised by two of his father’s colleagues at the hospital. A background theme and question throughout his childhood is why his father left so abruptly, abandoning his two sons, and where did he go?  Marion and his twin Shiva grow up on the hospital grounds, with medicine, surgery, disease, suffering, healing, and dying all around them. As identical twins they are initially inseparable, but eventually grow apart and actually become estranged (over a girl friend, not surprisingly)  Also, not surprisingly, they both eventually go into medicine. 

As is the case in most good novels, there are a number of love stories that move the story along – between his parents early on, between the male and female surgeons who became Marion and Shiva’s  adopted parents, the troubled love story between Marion and his childhood sweetheart, in contrast with the promiscuous Shiva’s many adventures.  But there was also the familial love story between Marion and his adopted family and care-givers in the hospital compound, the long term and troubled brotherly love story between Marion and Shiva, as well as the love – hate – love story between Marion and his biological father.

Wisdom and quotes There was also a lot of wisdom in the book, and i highlighted a number of passages.  Here are a few with page numbers from the paperback edition pictured above.. 

• But she was also filled with a nameless ambition that had nothing to do with love.  What exactly did she want? It was an ambition that wouldn’t let her compete for or seek the same things others sought. p57…….In the last few years she’d come close to defining the nameless ambition that had pushed her this far: to avoid the sheep life at all costs. p 59
• Wasn’t that that the definition of home? Not where you are from, but where you are wanted? p95
• It was called “Tizita“; there was no single equivalent English word.   Tizita meant “memory tinged with regret.”  Was there any other kind, Ghosh wondered. p152
• Maybe it was written on my face that I’d become aware of human complexity – that’s a kinder word than “deceit.”  I was trying to decide where to peg my own truth, how much to reveal about myself – it helped to have such a  steadfast father in Ghosh, never fickle, never prying, but knowing when I needed him.  p272.
• The parable of Abu Kassem’s Slippers (p 350-351) impressed all of us. It concludes with: “If you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more.  Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.” 
• What human language captures the dislocation , the acute insufficiency of being in the presence of the superorganism, the sinking, shrinking feeling at this display of industrial steel and light and might?   It was as if nothin I’d ever done in my life prior to this counted.  p464
• Being the first born gives you great patience.  But you reach a point where after trying and trying you say, Patience be damned.  Let them suffer their distorted worldview.  Your job is to preserve yourself, not to descend into their hole.  p467
• B.C. sat back in his chair.  “Whatever America needs, the world will supply.  Cocaine? Colombia steps to the plate.  Shortage of farm workers, corn detasselers? Thank God for Mexico.  Baseball players? Viva the Dominican Republic.  Need more interns? India Philippines zindabad!” p491
• “Call me old fashioned,” Deepak said,”but I’ve always believed that hard work pays off.  My version of the Beatitudes.  Do the right thing, put up with unfairness, selfishness, stay true to yourself…one day it all works out. Of course, I don’t know that people who wronged you suffer or get their just deserts.  I don’t think it works that way.  But I  do think one day you get your reward.” p508

And Finally Cutting for Stone was a fascinating and fun read. In our reading group, some were put off by some of the soap opera-like aspects of the love stories,  though I’m something of a sucker for that human drama. Indeed Verghese did tie up a lot of loose ends at the end, which was satisfying for me as a reader, but which, had he left more questions unanswered, it might have made it a more classic novel.  It was a worthy selection for our group and we had a great discussion – a highlight being which of the many interesting characters intrigued or inspired our readers most, 

I’d also recommend another short review of Cutting for Stone by Kelly Pettyjohn – which is very much in harmony with mine, and can be read here.

Why this book:  Selected by my SEAL reading group for our July session. I had read it before, when I was in HS and too young to appreciate it.  

Summary in 3 Sentences.  The setting is an Army Air Corps bomber squadron stationed in southern Italy during WW2, flying bombing missions against the Nazis who occupy Italy.  Cpt John Yossarian feels he’s risked death enough and is trying various stratagems to be taken off flight status so that he can survive the war. The book is a satire not only on the unheroic Yossarian but also on the many “interesting” young men in his squadron, whose self-serving actions, fears and eccentricities are caricatures of people we all know.  While the book is a humorous satire of military culture, it is also a serious look at what combat does to men, and the various ways different people respond to military culture in war. 

My Impressions: This is a well known classic that is written in a style that is not always easy to follow.  It’s not simply about the folly of war and the unheroic sides of warfare, but also very much about human folly and human nature- about flawed characters who seem like caricatures of self-centered, small-minded and eccentric people responding in very human, humorous, and even tragic ways to the stresses of combat in a huge event that is hard to fully grasp.  Patriotism and what’s “good for America” are twisted and used to rationalize and justify nearly any action that will serve to satisfy selfish interests.

Joseph Heller has a finely tuned sense for irony and seeing and describing the absurdity and hypocrisy in people, seemingly working together, but mostly pursuing their own interests while claiming pursuit of a larger goal.  The main character, Yossarian sees this self-centered hypocrisy and wants to opt out, but the momentum of the war, the Army, the culture in his squadron, and his ambitious, self-promoting leaders thwart his every effort.

Catch 22 has two formulations: 1. A problem whose solution is denied by conflicting rules, eg “No work unless you have an agent, but you can’t get an agent, unless you’ve worked; and 2. all things are permitted that you can get away with.

Rather than a smooth flowing story,  Catch 22  is more of a collage of events broken up into chapters, which Norman Mailer described as a “crazy patchwork of anecdotes, episodes, and character portraits.”  The main character whose struggles unify the book is bombardier John Yossarian and his on-going effort to have his service completed so that he can survive the war – his primary objective.  He is a competent and capable bombardier – in fact one of the best in the squadron – but he is unapologetic about his fears.  His efforts to get off flight status continue to be thwarted by his squadron commander Col Cathcart who keeps raising the number of combat missions that a flight crewman must complete before being taken off flight status.  In most squadrons, after 40 combat missions, a pilot has risked enough, has done his duty and is taken off flight status.  Col Cathcart raises the number each time many of his pilots reach the required number, so that he keeps his most experienced pilots in the squadron, as he volunteers for the most dangerous missions (which he does not go on) in his quest to be promoted to General. 

Sometimes it seems that Yossarian is the only semi-sane character in the book. I was reminded of the old TV series Green Acres in which the character played by Eddie Albert lives in a community of dimwits and fools –  only in this case, they are Colonels and Majors, and flying airplanes and dropping bombs in war.   Yossarian is the only character who seems to be aware of the irony in their circumstance, the craziness of how they are conducting the war, and is self-aware enough to have a reasonable perspective on what is going on.  He admits his fears, his pain, his cowardice, and unapologetically schemes to use the absurd system to fulfill his goal of surviving the war. 

Yossarian also participated in the craziness and debauchery of the squadron when they go to Rome during their time off, to blow off steam, get drunk, and have orgies with the very available prostitutes who make their living servicing soldiers on leave. These are fun chapters to read, about young men, like young men everywhere, especially in the military, and especially during war, prone to alcohol fueled extremes, ungoverned by reason, wisdom or maturity.  Fun is fun, the crazier the better, and Catch 22 is always in play.

I recently spent an afternoon listening to stories from a retied SEAL friend of mine describing crazy incidents with his SEAL platoon in Vietnam – how they ignored authority and rules, thumbed their noses at common sense, water skiing down the Mekong river with fire-fights going on around them, debauchery that rivaled what Heller describes in Catch 22.  He loved Catch 22.  No wonder the book resonated so well with Vietnam veterans!  

A few of the more memorable characters in Catch 22, in addition to Yossarian: 

• Milo Minderbender who used his position as supply and mess officer to create a financially lucrative network trading, buying, selling, speculating across all of Europe and beyond makng lots of money but always claiming that what is good for the the men is good for America. A caricature of the ingenious businessman who’ll rationalize everything for the sake of profits. 
• Major Major who was promoted to Major by a computer glitch, is made a leader because he would be ignored, is only a figure-head section leader, who wouldn’t see anyone or do anything.
• Col Cathcart – the commander whose sole ambition in the war was to become a general.  He distrusted anyone who might get in the way of that ambition, and would kiss the butt of any senior officer who might help him.
• LtCol Korn Cathcart’s hard-nosd, but slimy Executive Officer who is clearly smarter than Cathcart his boss, and is also a self-serving schemer who advises Cathcart in how to get ahead, so that he can get ahead on his coattails 
• Lt Scheisskopf who had been Yossarian’s ridiculously narrow-minded and pedantic company officer in his basic officer training, who, by the end of the novel has been promoted to LtGeneral.
• Cpt Nately from a wealthy family, straight arrow patriot, wouldn’t violate his Christian principles, believed in his service as supporting a great cause, with a traditional view of duty and heroism.  He fell madly in love with a prostitute in Rome – who found him boring and uninteresting.
• Maj Orr – an eccentric outcast, very smart and competent pilot, Yossarian’s tent mate who has a propensity to get shot down and land his plane in the ocean. The one character in the book who outsmarts everyone and the system in the end. 
• Nately’s Whore  when the boys went to Rome for their regular debauch, she was always there, and serviced any of the men who would pay her, much to Nately’s disappointment. In the end, she plays an even more absurd role, trying to kill Yossarian for giving her bad news. 
• Chaplain Tappman An Anabaptist minister, essentially a good man but who is shy, self-conscious and submissive, he is ignored and disrespected, by the men, squadron leadership, and his subordinate, Sgt Whitcomb. He is homesick and yearns for his wife and family.  But Yossarian treats him with respect.   

By the end of the novel it is clear that the humor and absurdity have a very tragic side, and I had already begun to side with Yossarian in his efforts to not be a part of it.  We also see in Yossarian a more humane side, as he gets emotionally involved with his girlfriend(s) sees the horror of what the war has done to Rome, feels the pain and loss of so many of his friends.  There is a chapter toward the end where Yossarian is walking through Rome at night and observes some of the worst in human behavior, of violence begetting violence, of people using whatever power they may have to harm or exploit those who are unable to fight back.

SOME QUOTES from the book representative of Heller’s sardonic wit and insights about the self-delusional way people think: (page numbers from the paper back version pictured above)

• That men would die was a matter of necessity; which men would die, though was a matter of circumstance, and Yossarian was willing to be the victim of anything but circumstance. p68
•  Everyone agreed that Clevinger was certain to go far in the academic world.  In short, Clevinger was one of those people with lots of intelligence and no brains, and everyone knew it except those who soon found it out….He knew everything about literature except how to enjoy it. p68
• It was the despair of Lieutenant Scheisskopf’s life to be chained to a woman who was incapable of looking beyond her own dirty, sexual desires to the titanic struggles for the unattainable in which noble man could become heroically engaged.   p73
• Major Major had been born too late and too mediocre.  Some men are born mediocre, some men achieve mediocrity, and some men have mediocrity thrust upon them.  With Major Major it had been all three. Even among  men lacking all distinction he inevitably stood out as a man lacking more distinction than all the rest, and people who met him were always impressed by how unimpressive he was. p83
• Open your eyes Clevinger. It doesn’t make a damned bit of difference who wins the war to someone who’s dead. p123
• “You know, that might be the answer – to act boastfully about something we ought to be ashamed of. That’s a trick that never seems to fail.”  p139
• Yossarian laughed and turned her arms loose. “Let’s have a little more religious freedom between us,” he proposed obligingly.  “You don’t believe in the God you want to, and I won’t believe in the God I want to. Is that a deal?” p180
• Col Cathcart lived by his wits in an unstable, arithmetical world of black eyes and feathers in his cap, of overwhelming imaginary triumphs and catastrophic imaginary defeats.  He oscillated hourly between anguish and exhilaration, multiplying fantastically the grandeur of his victories and exaggerating tragically the seriousness of his defeats.  p188
• The colonel (Cathcart) was certainly not going to waste his time and energy making love to beautiful women unless there was something in it for him.  p211
•  The old man continued, “The frog is almost five hundred million years old. Could you really say with much certainty that America, with all its strength and prosperity, with its fighting man that is second to none, and with its standard of living that is the highest in the world, will last as long as….the frog?”               Nately wanted to smash his leering face. p243
• The chaplain had mastered, in a moment of divine intuition, the handy technique of protective rationalization, and he was exhilarated by his discovery.  It was miraculous.  It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice.   Anybody could do it; it required not brains at all.  p263 
• “Catch -22 says they have a right to do anything we can’t stop them from doing.”   “…Didn’t they show it to you?” Yossarian demanded. “Didn’t you even make them read it?”  “They don’t have to show us Catch-22,” the old woman answered. “The law says they don’t have to.”    p407
• Catch-22 did not exist, Yossarian was positive of that, but it made no difference.  What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse….  p409
• Colonel Korn nodded approvingly. “That’s good. I like thew way you lie. You’ll go far in this world, if you ever acquire some decent ambition.”  p422

The 50th anniversary edition of Catch 22 that I read concluded with essays about the book by prominent literary figures Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, provided added perspectives, to include how the book came about, Heller’s process, how it was received, controversy and popularity. I would also add that the introduction in the 50th anniversary edition by Christopher Buckley (Wm F Buckley’s son) also provides great perspective on the book.

For me it was not easy to get through the beginning – it seemed unfocused and uninspiring, though often quite humorous.  About half way through, it started to flow for me, and the unfocused beginning started to make sense. By the end, I was truly into it, sensed the humanity of the book, and was very glad I’d read it.  

Why this book: I’d read it before and recall being quite impressed with it.  I’ve also found other books by Camus insightful and provocative  – The Stranger, The Plague.  A friend of mine had a copy of  she was trying to give away, and I accepted this one and was interested in reading it again.

Summary in 3 sentences: This is the story of a man who had achieved all that most men would aspire to in life, as an attorney in Paris: a successful career, a great professional and social reputation, respected within the best societies, toasted as a generous philanthropist, and having had amorous affairs with many beautiful women.  And when he was at the apogee of his success, he walked away, escaping to Amsterdam where he lives alone and spends his evenings as a bar-fly in a seedy bar, sharing his story about how hollow, phony, hypocritical his life had become to any one who would listen.   This book is all in the first person, as he tells his story to another patron he’s met in the bar.

My Impressions: The Fall is a short book – 147 pages of relatively large print in the version I read (not the one pictured here).  It begins with Clamence, an expatriate Frenchman, seemingly bragging about the life he’d lived in Paris, all he’d accomplished and how much success he’d had. “But just imagine, I beg you, a man at the height of his powers, in perfect health, generously gifted, skilled in bodily exercises as in those of the mind, neither rich nor poor, sleeping well, and fundamentally pleased with himself without showing this otherwise than by a felicitous sociability. You will readily see how I can speak, without immodesty, of a successful life p 27 And a bit later he notes:    “I have to admit it humbly, I was always bursting with vanity…I, I, I is the refrain of my whole life, which could be heard in everything i said.” 

Then he gets into how so much of his persona was for show, intended to impress, but not truly authentic.  He shared how he realized that so much of what he was doing was in order to be judged positively by others in his successful  and wealthy social circle  – but he intimates, that those whose admiration he sought and had won, were themselves playing the same game.  When he judged himself, he realized he was not really who he pretended to be, that he was indeed a phony, and eventually couldn’t stand himself any longer.  

His relationships with women, about which he goes on at some length, are exploitative and manipulative.  “Sensuality alone dominated my love life.”  p58 There appears to have been little true intimacy or emotional connection, though he enjoyed the company of his many lovers, as they kept him from being bored – until indeed they did bore him, and then he moved on to a new conquest.  “In as much as I needed to love and be love, I thought I was in love. In other words, I acted the fool.” 99  Given the relatively superficial nature of his relationships, he was able to sometimes keep more than one lover at a time.  “I used to advertise my loyalty and I don’t believe there is a single person I loved who I didn’t eventually betray.” p86

The main themes I took out of this book were that this man Clamence is much more thoughtful and introspective and honest with himself than most men who pursue the lifestyle he had enjoyed in Paris – and that is why he eventually couldn’t stand the hypocrisy of his superficial life and inauthentic values.  As he judged himself, he realized that he feared being judged – because he knew he was such a phony.  He imagined his “friends” – his adoring public – laughing at him.  

He writes: “My friends hadn’t changed. On occasion, they extolled the harmony and security they found in my company. But I was aware only of the dissonances and disorder that filled me.  I felt vulnerable and open to public accusation. In my eyes my fellows ceased to be the respectful public to which I was accustomed…and they lined up in a row as on the judge’s bench.” 78

He even noted that telling his story is an attempt to appear wise and insightful and honest to those to whom he related it.  He does find comfort and absolution in admitting his “guilt.”   He in fact takes pride in it.  ‘The more I accuse myself, the more I have a right to judge you.  Even better, I provoke you into judging yourself, and this relieves me of that much of the burden.” p140

He writes that in his current Amsterdam life, “I haven’t changed my way of life; I continue to love myself and make use of others. Only the confession of my crimes allows me to begin again lighter in heart and to taste a double enjoyment, first of my nature, and secondly of a charming repentance….Since finding my solution, I yield to everyone, to women, to pride, to boredom, to resentment….Once more I have found a height to which I am the only one to climb and from which I can judge everybody.” p142 

He talks about how he had come to realize that  freedom is not a prize and a privilege,  but is a burden –  knowing that one indeed does have choices but also much responsibility. “Once upon a time, I was always talking of freedom.  At breakfast I used to spread it on my toast. I used to chew it all day long and in company, my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom.”  But then he later notes that he had finally come to realize that  “freedom is not a reward or a decoration that is celebrated with champagne, Nor yet a gift, a box of dainties designed to make you lick your chops.  Oh no!  It’s a chore, on the contrary, and a long distance race, quite solitary and very exhausting…At the end of all freedom is a court sentence; that’s why freedom is too heavy to bear, especially when you’re down with a fever, or distressed, or love nobody.”  p133

He addresses religion’s effort to deal with the problem of guilt – the guilt that comes with living in human society.  “Believe me, religions are on the wrong track the moment they moralize and fulminate commandments. God is not needed to create guilt or to punish.  Our fellow men suffice, aided by ourselves. You were speaking of the Last Judgment.  Allow me to laugh respectfully.  I shall wait for it resolutely, for I have known what is worse, the judgment of men…..Don’t wait for the Last Judgment. It takes place every day”. p 110,111

He tells a story of having been alone on a bridge many years ago in Paris late at night and having been approached by a young woman.  He turned and walked away, and a moment later,  he heard a splash and a scream in the water below the bridge.  He looked back and the woman was no longer on the bridge. He then continued to walk, and did nothing, notified no one, and didn’t even check the papers the next morning. His sense of guilt and cowardice has remained with him ever since.

The Fall is a disturbing book, but it is impressive in its simple style – as a first person monologue, one side of a conversation, as the narrator is confessing his own cowardice, sense of guilt and inauthenticity, to another man he’s just met, describing feelings and sensibilities that he believes we should all feel to some extent, but are afraid to examine or admit..  The back page of my copy says it well – describing it as a “monologue on the human condition” which “implicates us all.”

(page numbers refer to where the quotes are found in the  First Vintage International Edition 1991, which I read, and are included primarily for my own benefit.)  

Why this book: I continue to be inspired and fascinated by Alaska – especially remote areas.  I saw this book in a used book store in Florida, and picked it up.

Summary in 3 Sentences: As Tom Sims was finishing up his medical internship in 1971 on his way to becoming a practicing physician, he got a letter from the draft board telling him to report to his local recruiter, which he knew would probably mean being sent to Vietnam.  Recently married with a child, he accepted as an alternative an offer to join the Public Health Service in Alaska (part of the Uniformed Services of the US) and after reporting, learned that he would be the lone doctor in Nome and a radius of close to 150 miles. He spent just short of 2 years there and this book is him telling his story in the first person, chronicling his challenges, adventures, life and other amazing experiences as the only doctor in a small town on the Bering Sea above he arctic circle, 50 years ago.   

My Impressions: This was a fascinating memoir of about 2 years in the authors life. The book is written in a first-person, conversational and personal style, as if he were sitting with the reader and telling the stories.  The chapters are short, the print is easy to read, and these 307 pages were fun and went by quickly.  

He begins with a little bit of background on himself and his life, and the series of events that led to him finding himself in Anchorage, getting a very brief indoctrination into being in Alaska, the Public Health Service and his role in it.   In very short order, he, his very pregnant wife Pat and their daughter were on a plane to Nome, where they would live for the next 20 months.  Sims is humorous in describing his introduction to government military bureaucracy -very different from being an intern in a civilian hospital in California. 

His introduction to his new life in Nome was not auspicious.  His home was temporary, he had very little support, his personal goods wouldn’t get there for months, his wife was soon to give birth – and he was quickly thrust into the breach of being the only doctor in that entire region.  The nurses and assistants in what passed for a “hospital” were hard working and resilient, but from day one, he was on- call, largely on his own, and expected to respond to cases 24/7/365.  

He shares with us the challenges of adapting to an austere life in Nome which indeed was a good sized town by remote Alaskan standards.  But the meat of the book is the author relating stories of medical emergencies he had to deal with, for which he had little to no training, and very little support. He was on his own to improvise and trust his instincts to save people’s lives, under very austere conditions, and he shares numerous such incidents – some in Nome itself, and some in remote villages where he had to fly in to deal with a crisis which demanded immediate personal attention.

The remote Eskimo villages each had a health and medical advisor who could contact the hospital in Nome for guidance or counsel,  or to report serious incidents that might require the doctor’s presence. In emergency cases, Dr Sims would call on one of the bush pilots to fly him out to the village, where he could treat the patient in person, and occasionally, a patient would have to be flown to Anchorage if the problem required advanced care or facilities. In one case, he was flown to a village, saved a patient’s life, and then a storm came in and it took him 9 days to get back to Nome. And just getting back to Nome proved to be an edge-of-the-seat adventure in its own right. 

During the winter, Nome only got a few hours of daylight per day, and then total darkness. Sims became depressed and struggled with the lack of daylight, experiencing a condition known as SAD – Seasonal Affective Disorder.  He describes how slowly after 21 Dec, they got a few more minutes of daylight per day and slowly he recovered.  He also described the breaking up of the ice in the Bering Sea in the spring as a remarkable and dramatic event, with what sounded like explosions and the crashing of the huge ice blocks against each other.  

Sims and his wife established close relationships with the local community and made many friends.  They were’n’t always welcomed though – there was jealousy on the part of one of the other senior government officials in Nome, who was jealous of Sim’s close ties and credibility with the locals and he sought to make Sims’ life difficult.  One of the older local indigenous women resented that Sims and his family had integrated so well with the indigenous community; she didn’t like that their popularity lent credibility to some of their “white culture” practices and many of the locals enjoyed participating in such things as a fourth of July parade. 

The book concludes with Sims being offered another position in Anchorage, which would give him and his family access to many of the comforts of the lower forty-eight, as well as a position that gave him regular hours, and thus more time to be with his family. He was happy to leave the harassment from the other senior official in Nome, and being on-call round the clock 365 days a year, but he knew he would miss the intimacy of small town living. The final chapter is an epilogue which shares that Sims and his family then moved to a small town in Oregon with many of the charms of Nome, but without the many inconveniences. 

This is short and fun book provides insights not only into life in remote towns in northern Alaska, but also the tribulations of medical doctors treating people in remote areas with little support. This is a great book for people like me who are fascinated with Alaska, its culture and people and how intrepid men support people living on the edges of civilization.  

Why this book:  I loved An Immense World which gives a lot of attention to the octopus,  and I had really enjoyed the Netflix documentary My Octopus Teacher. My wife had read The Soul of an Octopus twice and highly recommended it.  The author has written several successful and highly regarded books on the natural world.

Summary in 3 Sentences: This book is Sy Montgomery’s personal exploration into how octopuses live, behave and have many human-like abilities and emotions. She writes in the first person, full of fascination and energy as she tells of her experiences and in fact relationships with several octopuses in the New England aquarium, as well as digressing to describe research and the experiences of many others who’ve made octopus research their life’s passion.

My Impressions:  What a fun and fascinating book, full of joy, new insights, the wonder of learning about a species so very different from humans, but with abilities that in some cases put us to shame. A large source of her information and experience comes from becoming a part of the Octopus team at the New England Aquarium in Boston, and we get to know the various members of that “team” of octopus followers and how their relationships with different octopuses have affected them.

Additionally, she visits and spends time at other aquariums that have octopus tanks. and shares what she learns from them that adds to what she experiences in Boston. And finally, she learns how to SCUBA dive, a process which didn’t come easy to her, but which she also describes. As  then as a certified SCUBA diver, she takes us on diving expeditions to other parts of the world with researchers in octopus behavior and biology and she shares those experiences with us.

A few things about the octopus that people may not know:

1. They recognize individual people and can be affectionate and playful
2. Every octopus has a different personality -some are reserved, others outgoing and social, others aggressive.
3. They display emotions in their behavior as well as in how their coloring changes.
4. They have 3 central brains, but each of their tentacle receptors also has neurological decision making, brain-like abilities. The central brain(s) is more like a federal governor.
5. Different species of octopus which live in different parts of the world can behave very differently. Fore example most octopuses are solitary creatures, but there are species which live and work together. 
6. When octopuses mate and lay their eggs, they have fulfilled their biological function and (in most octopus species) when male octopuses mate, they die soon after.  When a female octopus lays its egg, she protects them until they hatch and then dies soon after.  

Montgomery concludes her book with a chapter entitled ‘Consciousness’ and raises the question of whether octopuses have self-consciousness and to what degree can we compare their consciousness with ours. 

She writes, “But what is the soul? Some say it is the self, the ‘I’ that inhabits the body…..Others say that soul is our innermost being…..One calls soul ‘the indwelling consciousness that watches the mind come and go, that watches the world pass.’  Perhaps none of these definitions is true. Perhaps all of them are.  But I am certain of one thing as I sit in my pew: If I have a soul – and I think I do – an octopus has a soul, too.”  (p 227-8)

This is not only a fascinating book, it is a fun read as we explore this very different world – not only of the octopus but also other marine life in the world in which they live – from the joyful and fascinating perspective of a woman who is in love with her subject.  It is uplifting and enlightening. The big message one takes from this book is that the world of marine life is much more complex and fascinating than most of us realize, and the octopus is a prime example of that.  It is humbling.  There is SO much we don’t know, understand, or appreciate in the world, and especially in marine life.  

Why this book:  Selected by my Science Fiction Reading Group which has decided to focus on how AI plays out in Sci Fi especially with the possibilities of AI and humanoid robots.

Summary in 4 Sentences: Klara is an Artificial Friend (AF)  who has been purchased to serve as a friend and companion to a young girl who is afflicted with a long term disease.  The book is written in the first person  through Klara’s eyes in her role as a friend and companion to a young girl, and Klara in this role becomes engaged not only in the young girl’s life, but also in the lives of those around her – her family and friends, and their close friends – not acting as a mere machine, but not as a human being either.  We experience drama that is common in the relationships people have with close friends and family in their lives, but as experienced through the perspective of a very perceptive non-human AI robot.  The novel concludes with some fundamental questions about the interface between humans and extremely intelligent and human-like AI robots. 

My Impressions: An interesting and provocative book telling a story that brings to the surface issues that our culture is now beginning to face.  As we begin to wrestle with the rapidly increasing capabilities of AI and ChatGPT, Ishiguro writes a novel in the voice of a robot who was serving as an Artificial Friend (AF) for a young girl who is struggling with an illness. The story is told entirely from the perspective of Klara, the AF, and we experience the world through “her” eyes.  It  takes a while to adjust to her AI perspective when she describes the world and the people in it, but how Klara perceives the world (definitely differently from most of us) is an important part of the story

The story begins in the store which sells Artificial Friends and as we are reading Klara’s voice, it is initially not clear who she is or what is happening.  But slowly Ishiguro gives us clues and the story starts falling into place.  The first part of the story takes place in the AF store and we get to know Klara, how she sees the world, some of the dynamics in a store which sells robotic AFs.  We get a clue regarding the title when we learn that AFs are energized by solar power and need to be recharged by sunlight.   We learn that AFs seem to have their own personalities and character qualities – each one different.  My own opinitos is that Ishiguro made them a bit too similar to people, but Klara’s personality and character ,and her detached AF perspective are an important part of the book.  Eventually Klara is selected and purchased to be a friend and companion to Josie, a young girl about 13 years old who is not well.  . 

Klara goes home with Josie and her mother, and in the next portion of the book, we get to know Josie, her mother, the housekeeper, and Josie’s boy friend Rick through Klara’s eyes.  And we begin sensing that  something uncomfortable is going on.  We learn that Josie has an undetermined long term, debilitating  illness and her mother is very stressed about that.  But we are not only getting to know Josie and her home environment, but we are also getting to know Klara, as she serves Josie as a friend and helper. Klara shares with us her observations, what she perceives is going on, without judgment.  At this point in the book, I was beginning to wonder where this was going.  But as I suspected, it was building to something more interesting, and dramatic, which I’d prefer not to reveal without a spoiler alert. 

Josie and her mother connect with an artist doing a “portrait” of Josie and in that process, we meet Josie’s father, divorced from the mother, and we get insights into their fractured relationship. Klara observes the tension between the two of them, and Josie’s reaction, and we learn of tensions in the household of Josie’s boyfriend Rick, between him and his mother.  Klara gets pulled into all of these complicated relationships as a dispassionate observer, asked for her advice and perspective. Again, her dispassionate and selfless perspective and insights are interesting and provocative, as she is drawn into very contentious and emotional interpersonal issues.  .

Klara is very intelligent, very observant, curious and thoughtful, has been programmed to behave in accordance with values of service and compassion. She is very human-like, with a couple of caveats – she doesn’t get bored, she doesn’t need to eat, sleep, or have any of the other biological functions of humans, but she can be sad,  disappointed, or pleased,  and she seems to be completely selfless.  In many way Klara is moving toward an ideal – it occurred  to me that she resembles in many ways my image of a Zen Master – compassionate, caring, constantly observing, acknowledging,  but not judging. 

But she also has some flaws in her reasoning based on an incomplete perspective and inadequate background or programming. For example, she assumed that since she gets energized by he sun, and sunlight cures whatever ails her and other AFs, she believes that these powers of the sun extend to humans as well.  She also assumed that because AFs exist to keep humans company, there is nothing more important to humans than avoiding loneliness.

In the end I see the following issues that Ishiguro novel brings up

1. Is there something unreachable, un-programable deep inside a human that can’t be replicated in a superbly competent AI Robot, well-programmed to be as human-like as possible?
2. Does a human-like AI have rights?  Klara is sometimes treated as if she were human, other times as if she were a piece of practical machinery, like a vacuum cleaner, to be ignored or discarded when convenient.
3. What does it do to a human to treat an almost-human AI as a mere servant, a mere means to one’s ends and ultimately disposable?
4. The emotional and personal issues that Klara observed in the tense relationships between Josie and her mother, between Josie’s mother and her ex husband, between Rick and Josie, between Rick and his mother, between Rick’s mother and her former lover contrast starkly with Klara’s life and perspective.  Are THESE the essence of being human – compared to the dispassionate reasonableness of Klara? 

I felt that Ishiguro made Klara a bit too human – with feelings such as fear, sadness, anticipation and excitement, pleasure and disappointment that are not currently considered part of the AI robotic portfolio.  Klara didn’t simply express and exhibit these emotions – the way Ishiguro wrote the story, in the first person from HER perspective, she actually seemed to “feel” these emotions as she expressed them to us the readers, and she seemed to be indeed “self” conscious.  In my mind those are huge steps from being a smart computer toward being near-human.   But if I’m correct in assuming that the above four issues were Ishiguro’s main points, her near-humanity helps make those points and highlights those issues. 

Klara and the Sun is not a difficult read, but it takes a bit of faith in Ishiguro to hang with it.  It moves along slowly at first, as he sets the scene, introduces us to Klara, the AI perspective and the environment in which she is serving her role. About 2/3 of the way through the book, the drama begins which was for me worth waiting for.  The ultimate drama delivered to the reader the issues I think Ishiguro wrote the book to highlight.  It will be a good discussion in my Sci Fi reading group.  

Why this book: Selected by my literature reading group as an appropriate shorter female oriented follow- up to the much longer and very male-oriented previous  book we’d read, The Count of Monte Cristo.

Summary in 3 Sentences: An autobiographical novel written in the first person by a woman living in biblical, pre-Judaic times telling her life’s story.   The author chose Dinah, an obscure person in The Book of Genesis, a great granddaughter of Abraham, and gives her a voice to tell a novelized version of her life’s story, which reveals much about life in the Near East several thousand years ago. The first half of the book Dinah coming of age as the daughter of Jacob and one of his  wives, but since polygamy was normal in those times, Dinah had several other “mothers” – other wives of Jacob, who lived in the red tent who took care of each each other as sisters, and each other’s children. As Dinah matures into womanhood – which in that day meant child bearing age – her life changes rather surprisingly and dramatically, and the remainder of the book is about her transition into becoming a woman and a mother and her later adult life, which includes trauma and several unexpected turns of events, as she has to move to Egypt. 

My Impressions: Powerful book.  Fascinating context and glimpse into life in an era so much different from our own.  Dinah, the narrator and protagonist in this book, is a quiet and precocious young girl who shares with us her feelings and impressions of the world in which she lives and the extended family of which she is a part. She is believable and likable.  Most of the key characters in the book are women; her father Jacob is described in affectionate terms, but he is distant and busy with the work required to care and feed his large family.  

Dinah is the only daughter of the four wives of Jacob and as such she has a special status in the red tent of Jacob’s wives. As she grows up she becomes close with one of Jacob’s other wives who is a midwife. Dinah eventually accompanies her “auntie” in delivering babies, and over the years, she becomes skilled in midwifery herself.   She has favorites among Jacob’s other wives – her other “mothers,” as well as favorites among her many male siblings.   Her “milk-brother” Joseph was her close pal growing up – milk brother meaning they both nursed from the same woman at the same time frame.  A couple of her half-brothers tormented her, others she was indifferent and not particularly close to her.  As soon as the boys were old enough to follow adult guidance, they were out with their father helping with the sheep and goats, while Dinah helped the women in women’s work.

The first third to half of the book is Dinah describing her child hood and life in and around the red tent.  We follow Jacob’s large family as they move to another area to reconnect with Jacob’s brother Esau, and we are exposed to a different culture, a number of new characters in Esau’s family, and the challenges of travel in those days.  Here we meet another strong figure, Jacob’s and Esau’s mother, Isaac’s wife, a stern and shamanistic old woman known as The Grandmother.  She was the keeper of traditional values, possessed para-normal powers of healing and clairvoyance, and had a retinue of women servants known as ‘the Deborahs’ – as they all had the same name, and were virgins, committed only to her service.   

The Red Tent refers to the women’s tent and the menstrual cycle that is required to be a full fledged member of that tent. Pre-menstrual girls were only rarely allowed in, and the red tent was where the society of women kept secrets from men, and it was a major breach of trust for a woman to share with men what she’d heard and learned in the red tent.  A sense of mystery was cultivated. 

When Dinah finally has her first menstrual cycle, there are rituals and ceremonies that go with that key transition, and she becomes a full fledged member of the red tent.  A woman’s monthly cycle gave her the privilege of three days of being idle in the tent, to relax, and celebrate.  Naturally all the women’s cycles synchronized, so this was a special period of communion among the women.

Soon after Dinah’s first menstrual cycle, the book takes a sharp turn as Dinah falls in love, becomes pregnant and tragedy ensues which forces Dinah to move to Egypt.  The next phase of the book is her life in Egypt – a very different culture and life than she had lived in Canaan.   She joins a different family group, and her experiences as an adult woman and mother take a number of different turns.   This is a fascinating period and Dinah indeed lives the rest of her life in Egypt, but we see some of the earlier characters reappear.  In order to avoid a spoiler alert, I’ll leave it at that.

I thoroughly enjoyed the story, the Dinah character and immersing myself in the culture of that part of pre-western history,  well before Christian times.  As different as those times, customs and cultures were from our own, one of the key takeaways was how the humanity of the people of that time shines through as not so different from our own. Most of the key characters of the book – Dinah, her mothers, her mentors, close friends women;  men did not play a major role in the story, except for a few key scenes and incidents that indeed drove the story.  The author noted in her notes at the end of the book, that though most of the feedback she’d gotten on the novel had been from women, she had also gotten positive feedback from men, one of whom she quoted as saying he “enjoyed a sense of getting ‘fly-on-the-wall’ insights into women’s hearts.”  That describes my response as well.  I believe I got some important insights into women’s perspectives on a number of things that surprised me.  

I think men and women both would enjoy this book, but will get different lessons and takeaways.