Author: thepassionatereader

Dinosaurs. Lydia Millet. 2022. 230 pages. (Hardcover.)

The Tucson, Az. prolific novelist chooses Gil, a middle-aged bachelor from the east coast as the main character in this brief tale. In 2016, he sells his home in NYC and relocates to Phoenix. In very small morsels, his unusual personal history is revealed to the reader, and is tied to his very eccentric behaviour and his difficulties with relationships. He is orphaned, insecure, altruistic, wealthy from an inheritance, philanthropic, averse to conflict and confrontation, and frugal in his personal life, but why he has developed these traits is a mystery only slowly revealed.

The title refers to a growing interest shared with a friend in various bird species, the modern descendants of ancient extinct dinosaurs, and different bird species head each of the unnumbered chapters. In a tenuous sense their characteristics are related to his.

There are lots of poorly concealed marital infidelities, but no explicit pornography. Weak attempts to impart universal profound truths about the human condition generally fall flat, and Gil seems almost too altruistic and kind to be real.

One quote worth considering, although a bit enigmatic: “Freedom can only be found in the mind, my dear” she said. “Not in the world.”

An interesting, well-written short but not very memorable read.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks, The New Yorker, Goodreads.

For those who prefer to read about the looming crisis from global warming in fictional form rather than as speculation by the likes of Sir David Attenborough, this is the book for you. Beginning 2025, as a subsidiary body under the U.N and based in Zurich is led by former Irish foreign affairs minister who is a composite character of diplomats Mary Robinson, Christina Figueres, and Lawrence Tubiana.

Beginning in the 2030s (The only mentioned dates are 2032 when all of the Arctic ice melted and 2034 when a drought caused all the wells in an Indian town to go dry.) and extending for at least the next 30 years, the devastating effects are encountered mainly in poorer countries the least responsible for causing the crisis, with whole cities wiped out in a boiling heat and they are also least able to afford mitigating measures like powerful air conditioners or building dams to hold back rising sea levels. An unprecedented heat wave in India, killing 20,000,000 in one week is the spark that ignites massive unrest and controversy around the world.The United Nations forms a Zurich-based Ministry For The Future to give legal standing for people who don’t yet exist following a 2024 Paris Agreement, with the young widow, Irish diplomat Mary Murphy, the main protagonist, as it’s president. A sole aide worker survivor from that Indian disaster, Frank May, suffering from PTSD becomes a terrorist kidnapper and saboteur of leaders of capitalist companies most responsible for emitting greenhouse gases, is eventually jailed, and becomes a victim of one of the worst diseases I can think of. He also kidnaps Mary temporarily to indoctrinate her because he thinks she is not doing enough; she later befriends him in prison in an awkward example of the Stockholm Syndrome.

Later, the dark offshoot of the Ministry, the Children of Kali, holds Davos attendees hostage to highlight the need to change, downs corporate jets with drones, assassinates fossil fuel company executives, infects beef herds with mad cow disease, and sabotages fossil fuel plants and cargo ships, all with ‘plausible deniability’ on her part.

Remediation efforts include pumping vast quantities of lubricating sub-glacier Antarctic water to the top of the glaciers to slow their slide into the Antarctic Ocean by increasing friction on their under surfaces, a carbon-sequestration currency offered by central banks and backed by longterm bonds offered at attractive rates (“go long on civilization”), using idled fossil fuel company kit in reverse to bury captured carbon dioxide in emptied oil and gas wells, and covering open Arctic water with yellow dye to reflect sunlight back into space. India engages in

geo-engineering, spraying particulate sulphur dioxide at 60,000 feet to act as a shield from the sun. Electric-powered airships (dirigibles) and sailing schooners with solar panels and kites largely replace jet planes and cargo ships.

The 106 chapters are generally short, but one pithy one discussing the concept of discount rates in the fields of markets, economics, and insurance as applied to the lives of future generations was particularly poignant to me. Why should my great great granddaughter’s life be of lower value than mine?

In one of the longer chapters, Mary Murphy, that President of The Ministry of the Future, a then low budget almost powerless institution, fails in attempts to engage the world financial system and very powerful central bankers, in the decarbonization efforts, but later they see the need and establish a world carbon cryptocurrency using block-chain and distributed ledger technology to reward people and companies for reducing their carbon footprint. The House of Saudi is dethroned and it’s replacement is rewarded for oil not burned and for switching to solar energy with trillions of dollar-equivalents in the new carbon coins. The world eventually sees a steady decrease in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Remaining global problems are not glossed over, including income inequality, gender discrimination, mass migration, and ozone layer and biodiversity depletion. In spite of development of a vast network of wildlife corridors around the world, creation of huge wildlife reserves, and promotion of regenerative farming, protecting biodiversity remains a global problem.

The American author’s impressively broad knowledge of atmospheric science, human psychology, (Jevon’s Paradox and Lima Syndrome are discussed) philosophy, and literature, languages, geography, macro economics, international law, inequality, biodiversity, mass migration of many species including Homo sapiens, regenerative farming, is all integrated in a complex and imaginative plot.

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Some great quotes:

“Of course there is always resistance, always a drag on movement toward better things.The dead hand of the past clutches us by way of living people who are too frightened to accept change.”

“Maybe that was what PTSD was- the inability to do the work of forgetting or of not recalling.”

“Easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.”

The Tipping Point, a phrase made famous by Malcolm Gladwell, is a valid concept that could be applied to the climate crisis. In Europe, it appears that that point with respect to converting to electric vehicles is when 10% of vehicles seen on roadways are electrically powered. Will it be the same in N.A.?

I see one theoretical contradiction in this great science fiction story. The new Carbon Coalition of Central Banks for Carbon Currency the agency urged on to the central banks by the Ministry For The Future uses block-chain and distributed ledgers in administering the carbon cryptocurrency. Most computer geeks I know allege that these are tech solutions looking for a problem to solve and need huge amounts of energy to operate, most of it currently coming from the burning of fossil fuels; they are helpful only to criminals trying to hide money, as the recent FTX fiasco has demonstrated long after this book was published.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks, Mike I.

Main Street. Sinclair Lewis. 1920. 924 pages (Libby Ebook)

Our Williams Court Book Club 2, has scheduled a series old classic novels, most of them quite lengthy, for the next few months. Some must feel that their education in literature has been deficient, as mine certainly has. We start with this vivid but dismal picture of the boredom, hardship, uncertainty, and loneliness of life in the early twentieth century small towns and rural expanses of middle America, specifically in northern Minnesota, in the decade of 1910s. It is made to seem doubly problematic for Carol Milford, the new bride of one of the town’s three doctors; she was formerly a sophisticated educated librarian in St. Paul. As she adapts to her new role and environment in the fictitious Gopher Prairie, modelled after the author’s home town, she runs into a brick wall in her multiple attempts to institute the minutest liberal changes in the very conservative mindsets of the denizens, let alone any of her grand schemes to convert the town into a socialist artsy utopia with equal rights, women’s voting rights and free speech. The contrasting ambitions of Carol and her husband are dramatically played out in a spiteful escalating quarrel that threatens their marriage, and then on observing his advanced surgical skills, primitive by modern standards, her admiration and devotion is rekindled for a while. But later she departs with their toddler son for cosmopolitan Washington D.C. for almost two years before returning to grudgingly accept the staid conservatism of Main Street, Gopher Prairie, almost equally disillusioned with Washington society and politics.

The political atmosphere of the time is alluded to repeatedly with suspicion and hostility to all Germans and anything Germanic and bitter societal divisions over socialism and the new-fangled Russian Revolution. There is an abundance of circuitous dialogue, as everyone seems to be belligerently opinionated on the outside and hesitant, self-doubting, and insecure on the inside -except for the dogmatic bombastic, nosy and self-righteous Baptist preacher and his wife. Almost everyone seems to want to conform but refuses to compromise.

There is no very vulgar language and no explicit description of sex, although one character is ascribed characteristics that would make any modern readers think that he is gay and he is described as ‘queer’ a word that did not have the same connotation 100 years ago. And he assiduously tries to seduce some married women including Carol; there are many hints of extramarital affairs. The age-old practice of blaming the victim in a sexual scandal, particularly if a woman, is graphically illustrated by the case of the school teacher who is driven out of town, accused of immoral behaviour by her political and religious opponents. Paranoid intrigue, indignant self-righteousness and vicious gossip prevail in many of the characters.

The writing is dominated by dialogue rather than narrative and even unspoken thoughts are mostly enclosed in quotation marks, which can be confusing. I found a lot of the writing unnecessarily wordy and the ideas expressed were often vague and vague social constructs.

There are a few memorable quotes and descriptions. “Carol was discovering that the one thing more disconcerting than intelligent hatred is demanding love.” Rabbit and chipmunk tracks in snow are called hieroglyphics.

There are a few errors and puzzling obsolete words like ‘Jocosity’. One would think that after more than 100 years, errors such as repeatedly referring to Baptist clergymen as priests could have been corrected in newer editions. (I have never heard of a Baptist priest.) And spellcheckers could correct the references to the famous 1880s atheist as Robert. J. Ingersoll. (He is universally referred to as Robert Green Ingersoll.)

I am ambivalent about recommending this lengthy tome, but will be interested in the other book club member’s assessment of it.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

I will not reveal any of the details of the extremely complex plot which is nevertheless easy to follow and beautifully and completely integrated with no loose ends but lots of surprises. There are strong themes of feminism and the deeply embedded cultural gender inequality of the era that the author, with Elizabeth as her mouthpiece, points out in many everyday situations and conversations, and some episodes of overt violence against women. Men appropriate women’s research findings as their discoveries and are anxious to keep women in the home, cooking and producing babies. The hypocrisy of the clergy and society at large is another recurring theme of the declared atheist Elizabeth. One clergyman muses in private that “The problem with being a minister was how many times a day he had to lie.”

I mentioned that this was a quirky story, but that hardly explains it; perhaps bizarre would be a better word for some of the happenings. Many are highly unrealistic bordering on magic but all are made to somehow seem possible, and the connections between some characters are tenuous at best. But what will make you forget the improbabilities is the pauses you will need to laugh at the hilarious descriptions. The unfortunate title may turn some potential readers away but you do not need any but the most basic knowledge of chemistry to love this tale.

There are so many great quotes that is difficult to choose only a few:

“a horrible man broke into the house and said if I didn’t give him all our money, he’d take the baby. I hadn’t slept or showered in four days, hadn’t combed my hair for at least a week, hadn’t sat down in I don’t know how long. So I said, ‘You want the baby? Here.’ ” She shifted Madeline to the other arm. “Never seen a grown man run so fast.”

“She supposed it took a certain type of skill to be able to say exactly the wrong thing at exactly the wrong time. Maybe that was a prerequisite for a position in Personnel.”

“Like most stupid people, Mr. Sloane wasn’t smart enough to know just how stupid he actually was.”

A few nit-picky errors: Sidewalks are made of concrete, not cement. Blood pressure and pulses are reflected in arteries, not veins but here veins pulse and “her blood pressure skipped through her veins like an unsecured fire hose.”

This is a fun read combining a complex imaginative plot, laugh-out-loud hilarity, and many surprisingly serious unusual observations about human interactions, life and death.

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A close friend suggested that I was reading too much heavy nonfiction lately and recommended this quirky recently published debut novel, as did my wife. Set largely in fictional Common, California in the fifties and sixties, the central character is Elizabeth Zott, a brilliant and beautiful but very eccentric research chemist, trained at elite British and American universities, and for four years, a celebrity TV cooking show host. Her live-in star partner, Calvin Evans who was her research rival before hormonal chemistry bonded them together, their illegitimate precocious misfit daughter Mad, and their unrealistically intelligent mongrel dog named Six-Thirty complete the family.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks, Sheila and Floyd.

The Connecticut-based journalist with The New Yorker expands and updates the extensive data from his article in the April, 2017 issue of this weekly. The prevalence of deafness and the resulting social isolation and misunderstandings are increasing, in part because of noise pollution everywhere.

The first part details the epidemiology, comparative anatomy, physiology and even evolution, with discussion of the different frequencies of sound waves audible to different species (about 20-20,000 hertz for humans), echolocation used by bats, owls, and some blind people and the asymmetric anatomy of owls’ ears assisting them to accurately pinpoint where a sound is coming from.

A chapter on tinnitus relates the peculiar remedies that have been advocated throughout history, most of them dubious at best, and none subjected to double-blind controlled trials, the gold standard for proof of efficacy. The very subjective nature of this common symptom was made obvious to me on reading about it. As I read this chapter, the very high-frequency ringing I had experienced years ago, but that my auditory cortex had finally learned to ignore returned to torment me for the last several days.

The hearing aid industry is marked by very effective lobbying by the audiologists to maintain strict licensing requirements, and exclude other entrepreneurial outfits, securing a massive monopoly with unconscionable profit margins.They also seldom do not recommend aids as they self-serve as both tester and treater, like a doctor prescribing drugs from the pharmacy he or she owns, without ever acknowledging any conflict of interest The author predicts that these alternative researchers will be able to mass market their very useful products by 2022. (Peculiarly the book’s Copyright is shown as 2019, but in the text the author relates an episode of his experience in 2020.) The “Beyond Conventional Hearing Aids” chapter showcases several of these devices but in places reads like a infomercial for Bose’s Hearphones.

Denial of the damage done by exposure to loud sounds is not limited to the military and industrialists but includes the whole music industry, and that damage can include such settings as busy city streets, sports venues and motor car racetracks. The Occupational Health and Safety legislation in the U.S. at both national and local levels set the threshold for protection far too high, and those standards are seldom enforced unless there are complaints.

The description of the intricate micro-infrastructure of the human hearing apparatus was impossible for me to visualize in three dimensions, even with my medical background. A page or two of reference sketches would have been helpful. There is no discussion of such phenomena as other sensory modalities compensating for hearing loss, synaesthesia where sensory inputs get crossed and people hear colours and see sounds, or taste sights. Or my granddaughter’s peculiar affliction of misophonia, where certain common sounds, such as hearing others walking on gravel triggers a panic attack or anger and aggression.

There is a lot of irrelevant detail in this rambling U.S.-centric book. E.g: “If you are traveling on the Red Line, get off at the stop closest to the Charles River, which is the stop for both the Mass. Eye and Ear and the Massachusetts General Hospital, and if you are early for an appointment at either place, you can hang out in the lobby of the Liberty Hotel, which is right between them. You can sit on a comfortable couch with a cup of coffee from the big urn over by the stairs and read the newspaper on your phone. Nice washrooms too.”

Now a brief note about my experience with hearing specialists and aids. At an unspecified age, 19 months ago, I went to a local audiology outfit, was tested and fitted with a pair of small Oticon rechargeable aids, for almost $6,000. When I asked the audiologist if improving my hearing would slow the progression of my subacute galloping brain rot, she said the evidence was iffy. I then lost one aid three times in six months- they often fall out when removing a mask, hat strap or sunglasses. So for $30, I bought a plastic cord that would attach then to my collar from the audiology shop: that fell apart within two weeks. So I devised my own anchor, a thin thread tied from the arms of the aids to a small safety pin I attach to my collar (photo attached). I have not not lost one since.

I cannot recommend this book. Most readers interested in this important subject would be better off to read the author’s more concise article in The New Yorker. Because it was a gift, I felt obliged to read to the end, but I’m not obliged to enjoy it. It will now be regifted.

⭐️⭐️

Thanks, Andra.

Based on extensive interviews with two generations of her fore-bearers and their friends, and extensive research, this historical account of an extended Polish Jewish family scattered around WWII Europe spans from early 1939 to 1947. It thus joins hundreds of what are labelled historical novels of WWII. But this one is, by all accounts, more embellished family history than novel-on the spectrum of History-Novel, it is definitely on the History side. As Naziism grips more and more of Europe, the members of the family become scattered even further around the globe from Siberia to Africa, Palestine and South America losing all of their possessions. For years they are unable to contact each other or determine whether any of the others are alive. Describing unconscionable acts of cruelty and killing, the Connecticut author does not spare readers the details of inventive cruelty, but the inspirational stamina and determination of the family members shines through. After the war, thanks in large part to the crucial role of the International Red Cross, the new United Nations Rescue and Rehabilitation Agency, and various Jewish organizations, all the members of the immediate family are able to reunite, first in Rio De Janeiro and later in the United States. But they also learn of many other friends and relatives who did not escape death by starvation, disease, Nazi bullets or gas chambers, including many of the spouse’s families.

The description of the geography, the real battles in Italy and the precarious travel conditions are vivid and realistic. For Gentile readers, the details of the Jewish family rituals surrounding Passover and Hanukkah are enlightening.

It is difficult to exaggerate the inhumane horrors that Jews experienced in the Holocaust, but some of the physiologic responses described here are exaggerated or impossible for humans to experience. Some animals raise the hair on their necks when angry- humans do not; our neck veins do not throb, unless we are recumbent or in heart failure; it is not possible to deliver a fist blow to the esophagus; our corneas do not change colour in response to emotions; the skin manifestations of scurvy are inaccurately described. I encounter such anatomical and physiological impossibilities in novels so often that I would suggest that aspiring novelists should take short courses in human anatomy and physiology, and perhaps psychology. There are imaginative embellishments that seem to this reader to be obvious attempts to amp up the suspense that do perhaps do just that for readers who like suspense novels, but did little to enhance my enjoyment. Unless a reader pays close attention or perhaps takes notes to refer to, it can be difficult to keep track of the many family members and their spouses and children.

This tale compares favourably in my estimation with the limited number of other historical war novels of the era that I have read including Heather Morris’ ‘The Tattooist of Auschwitz’, Anthony Doer’s ‘All the Light We Cannot See’, and Kristen Hannah’s ‘The Nightingale’. Of them all, it seems to tack closest to truth.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks,

Goodreads and Williams Court Book Club

This science document is a quick read chock full of interesting biologic data and the role of many small creatures in the struggle for survival on earth. The writing is scholarly but not difficult to follow and the line drawing of lifecycles was very helpful as was the appended guide to those lifecycles. I wish they had been available to me in my boring microbiology classes in 1967.

One good quote among many: “Parasites have a special problem since their survival depends not only on their own adaptations, but also those of its host. Choose a host on its way to extinction and that could be the end of the parasite.”

I never cease to be amazed by the complexity and adaptations of various life forms, and never more so than with the intricate changes they go through in the struggle to survive. I was aware of many of these genera, having seen one or two patients with liver flukes,(trematodes) amoebic liver abscesses, toxoplasmosis, hydatid cysts, and schistosomiasis and other patients with intestinal tapeworms, hookworms, pinworms, ascariasis, and giardiasis. But my favourite true story of parasite adaptation is a flatworm that when cut in two both, survive and remember how to navigate a maze they have been trained on. And as cannibals the memory of the eaten shows up in the consumer! Toxoplasma gondii only reproduce in the intestine of cats but they get there by making rats and mice lose their fear of cats and run up to the felines to befriend them. There is other documentation of parasites altering the the behaviour of their onboard hosts to ensure their survival although neither of these phenomena are mentioned here. The nasty spirochete Borellia burgdorfii makes its way from deer via black-legged ticks to humans, including me. But that is a fatal one way route to extinction for this Lyme disease bug as it must be almost impossible to get back to deer via the ticks. As an aside, it seems to me that Covid19 thrives because, unlike it’s cousin SARS, it kills only a small percentage of its human hosts. SARS was too lethal for its proliferation, at least in humans.

The Nebraskan pocket gopher seems to take the prize for hosting the most parasites, most of them neither harming nor helping the host, but the small South American rodent tuco-tucos may challenge them for that prize. And the northern migration, because of climate warming, of Trypanosoma cruzi, the cause of Chaga’s disease that has killed millions of South Americans is cause for concern. It has now reached the middle of the United States.

Scientists and especially biologists everywhere will enjoy this very informative book but is probably too technical and loaded with unpronounceable Latin species names for many others.

⭐️⭐️⭐️

Thanks, The New Yorker.