#114 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Wednesday August 11)
Good morning!
READ THIS BOOK
I realized I hadn’t been sharing books for a while. But I just finished one that, to use a hackneyed phrase, “I couldn’t put down.” It is The Glass Hotel, by Emily St. John Mandel. It is the story of semi-lost partially achieving half-siblings (one a drug addict and composer), a Madoff-style Ponzi scheme, art, escape from the world, embrace of the world, visions of ghosts, and characters wondering “what could have been.” There is certainly plot and there is evolution of the characters but it is all a bit odd, not quite normal, yet evocatively and exquisitely described by a remarkable author.
Ms. Mandel is the author of the immensely successful apocalyptic work of speculative fiction, Station Eleven, a National Book Award Finalist, also a great read (even greater, in my opinion). Where The Glass Hotel clearly is a riff on the Madoff scandal and the 2008 financial crisis, Station Eleven is the story of a global pandemic (but written before the one we are living through). What begins with a death in the midst of a performance of King Lear becomes the story of the death of civilization as we know it, preserved by a ragtag group of performers known as “The Traveling Symphony.” Art saves humanity? Why not. A great book.
And while you’re at it, pick up Ted Chiang’s Exhalation. Short stories, I know. But fully conceived and Obama loved it. Me too. Speculative. Thoughtful. What place we have in the universe. What place technology has in the universe and with us. Inevitability and free will and, of course, time travel.
THINKING ABOUT MARK HELPRIN
He is a brilliant writer of many words. But read Winter’s Tale (“to know who you are, first you have to learn what it is you love”), A Soldier of the Great War, and Memoir From Ant-Proof Case. Anyone who loves New York, stories of the implausibility of love mixed, all mixed in with a dose of New York crime and scandal, Winter’s Tale is a great read.
And here’s a wonderful Helprin quotation:
“Who said that justice is what you imagine? Can you be sure that you know it when you see it, that you will live long enough to recognize the decisive thunder of its occurrence, that it can be manifest within a generation, within ten generations, within the entire span of human existence? What you are talking about is common sense, not justice. Justice is higher and not as easy to understand - until it presents itself in unmistakable splendor. The design of which I speak is far above our understanding. But we can sometimes feel its presence.” –Mark Helprin
Or, as Micah says:
“Do justice, love mercy, walk humbly with your God.”
Have a great day,
Glenn
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