Book review -- The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

My most recent expedition into the realm of fiction was the reading of The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. A friend of ours lent it to my wife, and of course, if there is a book lying around, I have to pick it up and read it. This time, my spending the time on this fairly short novel paid off handsomely.

This is a book one could perhaps compare to The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupèry . The richness of their story telling while keeping the language simple, the imagery, the clear lessons given, the heavy emphasis on finding one's true treasure, and listening with one's heart are all common themes between these two beautiful books.

The story itself is as follows (not to worry, I will not give away enough of the story for anyone to think there is no more need to read the real book): Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who one night dreams of a distant treasure near the Egyptian pyramids. He leaves Spain to literally follow his dream, and along the way he meets many spiritual messengers. Santiago learns about the alchemists--men who believe that if a metal were heated for many years, it would free itself of all its individual properties, and what would be left is the pure "Soul of the World". Of course, he does eventually meet a real alchemist, and the ensuing student-teacher relationship clarifies much of the boy's misguided agenda, while also emboldening him to always stay true to his dreams. "My heart is afraid that it will have to suffer," Santiago confides. "Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself," the alchemist replies. "And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second's encounter with God and with eternity." The treasure will be found in a strange twist that I will not spoil for those who will want to read this rewarding book.

Through dreams, symbols, signs, and adventure, Coelho's book speaks about growing up, not about remaining childlike, like the hero of The little prince. Santiago has to peel away his immature fantasies about the treasure and immerse himself in the spirit of the world. The spirit that speaks through everyone and everything. One just has to learn listening to its voice and understanding the meaning. Once one put himself or herself in complete harmony with the way of nature, of the world spirit, one can realize that: "when you really want something to happen, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true".

Rating (out of 5): *****

LADIES send your Ostrich Feathers to G. EMERSON

I found this ad in a 1910 edition of the The Society Blue Book of Toronto, Hamilton and London. A Social Directory. The Blue Book was like the Yellow Pages today. If you weren't in it, you weren't in.

Book review -- Prey by Michael Crichton

Yes, another Crichton book (2002). And yes, as most, this one is fast paced, engaging and highly enjoyable techno-corporate-thriller. One that is most difficult to put down. Assuming, of course, you actually decided to pick it up, which is a hard decision to make in a world filled with such a wealth of great literature. But read the first page or so and you are sucked into it.

Prey will probably not bring Crichton much closer to the Nobel Price for Literature for brilliance of style or powerful character development amidst sociopolitical turmoil. Still, this certainly belongs in the list of recommended reads.

In style, Prey is reminiscent of The Andromeda Strain, anther one of Crichton's classics, but with a much faster clock and a lot more twists and turns in the story line. It mixes in a spoonful of gender conflict and office hocus-pocus, some charade and extramarital affairs as well as some of the archetypical good guys against bad guys motif. All this in the context of the rapidly evolving nanotechnology industry.

The story - no worries, I will not kill it for you - begins with the scenario that if we and our all-powerful machinery have physical limitations in building extremely small gadgets, such as a bunch of molecules put together for a certain task, then why don't we turn to those natural factories, that have been doing exactly this type of manufacturing for millions of years: bacteria. And of course, this, the beginning of a strikingly elegant solution, is exactly where the deadly problem also begins. Since H. G. Wells we know microbes are fatal allies. They may serve and survive by killing. But of course, they themselves may have their greatest enemies in the world of microbes.

Such experimentation brings with itself the inherent serious risks. This is the usual warning of techno-thrillers. Messing with technologies, if not controlled properly, can and will lead to serious environmental hazard, even to destruction of life.

Crichton knows perfectly how to play this theme. In Prey this danger is represented the runaway experiment of the nanotech company Xymos. In The Andromeda Strain this danger came from outside the planet, in Timeline death comes in the face of the time machine, in Jurassic Park and The Lost World, another runaway experiment with recreating a long-gone era causes disaster, and in Crichton's latest, State of Fear it's the 'environmentalists' themselves messing with our understanding of our own planet who bring massive trouble.


Chris Phoenix has an interesting overview of the "exaggerations and mistakes in science" and the reality of the nanotechnology capabilities as related to Prey:
http://www.nanotech-now.com/Chris-Phoenix/prey-critique.htm

Rating (out of 5): ***

Cactus Flower

My Astrophytum myriostigma (more commonly knows as Bishop's Miter or Bishop's Cap) is finally blooming. It is beautiful, and I am very proud of it.

This amazing plant is one of the genus Astrophytum, also called "Star Cacti" for their interesting shape. Some have spines, others have warts. Some have hair, some are twisted. Some have white flecking while others are completely 'nude'. They all seem to have unique personality as well. Alright, I know it's just me projecting some of my own into them but still. They sure are magnificent and unique.

Good source of information on cacti (or cactuses if you do not want to have to deal with the proper plural) is: Plants of the Cactaceae Family by desert-tropicals.com


Good reference books on cacti and other succlents:

• Simon & Schuster's Guide to Cacti and Succulents
• Cacti and Other Succulents by Keith Grantham
• Cactus Basics : A Comprehensive Guide to Cultivation and Care by Tony and Susan Mace

Book review -- Destination: Void by Frank Herbert

I have just finished reading Frank Herbert's Destination: Void (1966 - unfortunately, out of print).

It deals with the problem of what consciousness is, how it can be possibly created artificially, how its awakening can be deliberately achieved, and how dangerous this very act could be. In the context of the story of Voidship Earthling, a spaceship and her crew destined for a planet orbiting Tau Ceti to colonize it for human life, the book muses over the possibility of merging of human and computer consciousness. It brings in a lot of philosophy (and sometimes a bit tiring mathematical speculations) to explore questions of destiny, free will, and the relationship between religion and society, among other subjects.

The classic Herbert style shines through: very explicit separation of words and deeds from those thoughts that generate them; multiple levels of communication and meta communication; the amazing vision of the emergence of a new consciousness. All these are reappearing themes in his books: the transformation of Paul Atreides into Muad'Dib, the worm-man-god whose consciousness reaches back millennia trough his ancestors' memories and forward into the remote future through chains of possibilities shows a rather similar metamorphosis in the Dune series.

There is, however, one sentence, that I distinctly remember from the whole book (a mere 190 pages): "Isn't a man just a machine's way of making another machine?" An interesting twist of thought, a vague reflection on an old philosophical model (Plato's Allegory of the Cave in The Republic) on us not being able to perceive the world's true reality, our true nature and our own reason for existence.

Also notable: "The thing about computers—it's like training a dog. You have to be smarter than the dog. If you make a computer smarter than you are, that has to be accident, synergy, or divine intervention."

I am now looking forward to reading the rest of the series: The Jesus Incident, The Lazarus Effect, and The Ascension Factor (all of the out of print :( ).

Rating (out of 5): ****

Ki látta Tarnóc Jánost?

A Hallelujah az egyik legkedvesebb dal számomra Leonard Cohen és Rufus Wainright előadásában. Ahogy most is hallgattam, egyszercsak ezen a szakaszon akadtam meg:

"Your faith was strong but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah"

És eszembe jutott régi kedves ismerősöm (és feleségem angoltanárja) Tarnóc János egyik csodálatos verse.

Ki látta Uriást?

Vér tapad a királyi kézhez.
De ki látta, ami történt? És
ki látta Uriást?

Dávid fölkelt a fekhelyéről.
Kényelem.
A hatalom évek, évtizedek
szolgálata volt.
Aztán meglátta az asszonyt.

Kerestelek Betsabé, ezer nő között.
Iszonyú erő volt szépséged.
Egy idegen felesége? Ki a
felebarátom?
A halotti lepel fátyol.

Izráel a harcban van, s én
uralkodom e néptelen város felett.
A szolgálat nem uralom, mégis
király vagyok. Jóáb,
küldd hozzám a hettita Uriást!

Amikor az igaz ember szenved,
a szertartás pózzá merevül
és a közös étkezés hazugsága,
mint a méreg, átjárja a
testet.

Nem véd az engedelmesség.
Meztelenül jövünk és távozunk
mélyvilági küzdelmeken át.
Beállítva az arcvonalba
meghalt a hettita Uriás is.

A fegyver hol ezt, hol azt
pusztítja el.
Szemünkben lángol a napfogyatkozás.

-

Ki látta Tarnóc Jánost?

What is a saint?

"What is a saint? A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love. Contact with this energy results in the exercise of a kind of balance in the chaos of existence. A saint does not dissolve the chaos; if he did the world would have changed long ago. I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory. He rides the drifts like an escaped ski. His course is the caress of the hill. His track is a drawing of the snow in a moment of its particular arrangement with wind and rock. Something in him so loves the world that he gives himself to the laws of gravity and chance. Far from flying with the angels, he traces with the fidelity of a seismograph needle the state of the solid bloody landscape. His house is dangerous and finite, but he is at home in the world. He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love."

Leonard Cohen -- Beautiful Losers (1966)