A few things...
Oct. 9th, 2012 01:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johnny9fingersFirstly, how disappointed I was with "The Hydrogen Sonata".
This is always the problem with the biggest MacGuffin available to story-tellers: which is why, in lit-crit terms, those individuals best at using it are children's novelists like Tolkien or Rowling, or the prophets of major religions.
However, narrative doesn't imply local truth…though in the quantum-contingent realm of chance all things must be, of course. (This notion is always entertaining to me: and, after all, as this form of solipsism is merely the overt over-emphasis of gratification of the ego in its manifest self-regard, I feel entitled to gloat. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Such are the parables of salvation.)
So…"Not in this universe, chum" becomes a pretty damning negative. But away from religion, and back to the novel, which has some moments, but doesn't really tick any of the boxes within its remit. Sub-par, however I don't regret the hours spent reading it, which is something.
Secondly how yet another Old Etonian has won a Nobel prize. And this after being told that he'd never make a scientist. Bah, privilege, eh.
This is always the problem with the biggest MacGuffin available to story-tellers: which is why, in lit-crit terms, those individuals best at using it are children's novelists like Tolkien or Rowling, or the prophets of major religions.
However, narrative doesn't imply local truth…though in the quantum-contingent realm of chance all things must be, of course. (This notion is always entertaining to me: and, after all, as this form of solipsism is merely the overt over-emphasis of gratification of the ego in its manifest self-regard, I feel entitled to gloat. Well, you would, wouldn't you? Such are the parables of salvation.)
So…"Not in this universe, chum" becomes a pretty damning negative. But away from religion, and back to the novel, which has some moments, but doesn't really tick any of the boxes within its remit. Sub-par, however I don't regret the hours spent reading it, which is something.
Secondly how yet another Old Etonian has won a Nobel prize. And this after being told that he'd never make a scientist. Bah, privilege, eh.
