Adaptation

I was in New York a little while back and I did what New Yorkers do (in my imagination); lie lazily in Central Park between trips to the MoMA and Met, with a copy of New Yorker. I read among other things a glowing profile of John Green, an author, vlogger and all-round nerdfighter. I was beyond intrigued and bought a copy of his latest book 'The Fault in our Stars'. I read it in a day and I haven't wept so much in like forever (I think the last weeping was post-M heartbreak in 2008). And thus began an obsession with all things Green. 

However....

Returning from the TFioS screening, I have to share my disappointment. Don't get me wrong, they were true to the book but I felt like something was missing. You know how for instance they made the Harry Potter movies but made them like a bunch of muggles... without the magic and sense of wonder. I thought the movie lacked the soul of the book. 

Wait, Can books have souls? 

Un-shrugged

I am a book-lover and a book-snob. I admit it. I don't like Chetan Bhagat. I think he is a talentless hack. I could live with one more hack-author (hackthor) raking in the big money but what needles me is his fawning readership that look at every vacuous emission as an edict from the Writing-Gods. I understand that reading is a subjective experience but I do wish that folks are more discerning in their book choices. Surprising as it may sound, this post is not about Bhagat but another writer whose acolytes are legion; Ayn Rand. Though her philosophy and her writings have been eviscerated by critics, she surprisingly continues to win new readers in India (as does Mein Kampf). Part of the problem is that Indians of a particular generation (who went to universities in the 60s and 70s) belonged to the 'Atlas Shrugged' era. Hard as it is to imagine, it was the Twilight saga of that period. A transitional generation came to age reading Ms.Rand whose message of 'self' before 'society' resonated with the newly minted rebels. It was considered a rite of passage; a serious book that serious people read instead of Sidney Sheldon and Harold Robbins. Every generation is part of some Zeitgeist but the influence that Ayn Rand continues to exert over Indian youngsters seems to be because the Zeitgeist never ended; the original devotees handed the torch of the 'serious book' to the university student who enjoyed the titillation of the Danielle Steels and the Dan Browns but perhaps wanted not to be seen as a shallow fellow. The world had moved on and youngsters in other countries had all but forgotten Ayn Rand and it sure was no badge of honour having read her as say, reading Dostoevsky.  Still, Ayn Rand books proliferate, in railway platforms and streetside bookshops. And unsuspecting youngsters are hoodwinked into buying another copy of Atlas Shrugged for its social currency.

I want to suggest 10 books that could better serve the aspiring reader who wants to dip their toe in the vast ocean that is literature. Disclaimer: This is my list. It is not a list of my favourite books and it is not exhaustive (no David Foster Wallace or Vikram Seth) but it is a good start.

1. Farewell to arms by Hemingway
2. Things fall apart by Chinua Achebe
3. God of small things by Arundhati Roy
4. Midnight's children by Salman Rushdie
5. Catcher in the rye by Salinger
6. Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut
7. One hundred years of solitude by Garcia Marquez
8. Portrait of the artist as a young man by James Joyce
9. 1984 by George Orwell
10. The unbearable lightness of being by Milan Kundera

If I could include a few other books which while not quite "literature" are wonderful reads and a perfect stepping stone to my previous list, they'd be

1. Harry Potter series by JK Rowling
2. Lord of the Rings by Tolkien
3. Foundation series by Asimov
4. The fault in our stars by John Green

Go forth and read.

History of science

We were watching, of all the things, an episode of Cosmos when my friend remarked that Newton was so steeped in mysticism that if it weren't for the church we wouldn't have the great scientific breakthroughs that we did. I raised my eyebrows. Oh! one of these days I got to learn to smile, nod and walk away. He went on to aver that it is not just science, it was art, music and culture, the pillars of our civilisation and all modernity that wouldn't have happened if it weren't for the church.

Take a deep breath! Don't pop that vein.

Barring the simple fact that art and culture and science have existed for hundreds if not thousands of years before Jesus was born, that was a remarkably arrogant statement from a white boy who doesn't think that the rest of the world did anything of worth.

How do I say this without popping his western-centric bubble? People existed outside of Europe for millenia and some of these people weren't total savages. You know the scene where they scoop the brains out of the monkey head in Indiana Jones, that wasn't us. There were artists in the east; Japanese art for instance was so beautiful that it inspired artists like van Gogh. There were scientists in the east too; who for instance came up with numbers and they did things like Algebra. They also experimented with gun powder and rocket propulsion. Let's not forget the Egyptians and their long and rich history that included contributions like papyrus, written language and toothpaste .

But even if we were to assume that the non-western civilisations had nothing to offer, let us not forget that the Greeks pre-date JC by a few centuries. Aren't we forgetting Archimedes and Democritus, Parmenides and Plato? The establishment of Alexandrian library. If anything the establishment of the church delayed the ushering in of the modern era by a thousand years. The dark ages were called dark ages not for their fashion sense. Remember that the Greeks not only knew that the earth wasn't flat, Eratosthenes actually measured the circumference of the earth in 230 BCE.  The church, with the collapse of the Roman empire became the top dog and was almost entirely responsible for the intellectual regression. That somehow by supporting Galileo (which they didn't) or Newton or Michelangelo, the church simply conjured civilisation is such a pig-headed statement as to demand ridicule.

I asked if one were to imagine an alternate universe where everything was the same in the world except that JC was never crucified and died a bitter old man who yelled at children to get off his lawn and the church was never established, what would the world become. And my friend, who from this point on I should just call white guy, said that he wasn't sure that we would have Newton's discoveries or Michelangelo's paintings. I say BULLSHIT. Is is possible to imagine a world without great scientific progress because the church didn't build cathedrals and universities? Yes, absolutely. But is it likely? Hell, no!

Men and women have had great wonder at the natural universe since time immemorial. And each generation has built on the knowledge of the previous generations to ask the big questions and take the big leaps. Really, when Newton said that he was standing on the shoulders of giants, he didn't mean the church. He meant the hundreds and hundreds of scholars, thinkers, tinkerers that came before him and paved the way for him to do what he did. Galileo and Newton, Michelangelo and Bach were products of their time and because the church was a strong presence in their universe, their talents found expression in the manner it did.

That is not to deny that the church had a great influence in the works of the masters; merely that in the absence of the church the masters wouldn't have ceased to exist but have found expression through other institutions. To state that if not for theology, there wouldn't be science is a gross misunderstanding. The wonder and curiosity to find answers to the central questions of our existence and our place in the universe is a defining feature of our species. It is incidental that this found expression in a religious path. Without religion, we would simply have followed another path.

And for you who still believes that the sun shines off the church's arse, go read a book. Or go to a museum.

Rant over.

Sapio-philia

I find intelligence the most attractive trait in friends/ prospective partners. I get a hard on whenever someone impresses me with an amazing insight, intellectual ability or their scientific prowess. (Example: I saw this incredible comic exposition of the cosmic inflation that blew my mind today). I like people who are passionate about their work... and they are rare. Even among PhDs you tend to find few. Nothing is better than a long, very stimulating conversation that challenges my thinking. 

I was discussing my sapiosexuality with a like-minded friend. She described that the brain is likely the biggest sexually selected organ and that there is some scientific evidence that it purely evolved due to sexual selection (See earlier post). 

She needled me with a "What about all the other people that do not have the same reaction, but still do have a brain?". I kinda made a faux pas by saying that obviously there is no evolutionary advantage to having everyone be attracted to the same thing. I don't know if the "obviously" is what stuck her nerve but she countered my pronouncement with "The hypothesis of Fisherian run-away does exactly ask this and several studies show that there can be an advantage to being attracted to the same thing. Just think if a large brain means you are better at solving problems and thus finding food and securing a territory this will certainly increase your reproductive success". 

This friend was doing her PhD in evolutionary biology with a particular focus on sexual selection and my knowledge of evolutionary biology, given my engineering background, is limited to that one time I read Richard Dawkins during a long layover in Singapore airport. I was getting schooled (and I was loving it).

Ah! the plot thickens.

I defended myself that it is good from an evolutionary point to be interested in a variety of traits. Vague terms like Biodiversity, evolvability, and genetic variability come to mind. But to give a layperson example, I'd have thought that if all women were interested in nerdy guys who have never done a push-up in their life and the gene becomes dominant overshadowing all the gym-nut types, what would we do when there is a zombie upraising that requires some folks with muscular genes to run and drive stakes and cross-bow hunt them zombies. Oooh! bad example. That is essentially me saying that you are better off dating a muscular guy instead of me (Yes, I was hoping to date an evolutionary biologist). Terrible example. Strike that. Let's suppose that brawny-ness won the gene-survival fight and all the single nerdy men and women took their high IQ genes to their grave, what would we do when the computers develop consciousness and want to enslave the human race. Who will press Ctrl + Alt + Del.

And that boys and girls, is how it is done.

Update: Despite my charm, I didn't get a date with her. But that was mainly because she was an exchange student and has already left our shores for Europe.