Reading is sexy IV
[image via Guarda chi legge] 24. I thought I'd never finish Douglas Hofstadter's "Fluid Concepts and Creative Analogies: Computer Models of the Fundamental Mechanisms of Thought". While interesting and thought-provoking, I stick with my initial impression, "you probably have to be a cognitive scientist, computer scientist or hardcore Hofstadter fan to want to read this book. I'm very stubborn. This book is much more restricted (hence less fun) in terms of subject matter than his more popular books."
25. Carlos Fuentes' "The Old Gringo," was a very enjoyable read. I was interested to read him since he is credited as such an influence on Latin American authors whom I enjoy. His work is sometimes called magical realism, but the magic in this story was strictly in the plot and the atemporal manner in which it unfolds. It is the story of the end of Ambrose Bierce, who, according to legend, simply walked to Mexico to join Pancho Villa's army, when sick of life. Strangely, it's a love story.
26. Edward Carrey "Alva and Irva: The twins who saved a city" is a most unusual book. It is a novel, disguised as a guidebook for the imaginary, seismically-active, and rarely-visited European city of Entralla. The eccentric twin sisters become local heroes, when their immense plasticine model of the city remains the only record of what once was. The author is also a sculptor; the narration relies not only on his drawn map of the city, but on his sculptures of and those attributed to his 'heroines'- though a more socially backward set of heroines would be hard to find. This is a quirky book. It contains the best description of an earthquake that I've read in fiction.
27. Jorge Luis Borges, "Collected Fictions" kept me busy in many-an-airport recently. I had read several of the stories previously, in older translations, but I read the entire book anyway. As always I enjoyed his particular take on the world, the infinite, the unknown, literature, knife-fighting gauchos and imaginary permutations thereof. Dividing the works of Borges into "Collected Fictions" and "Selected Non-Fictions", as Penguin has, seems a particularly arbitrary choice for an author obsessed by blurring the line between real and imaginary. The painting is by Xul Solar, an Argentinian "painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor; a visionary utopian; an occultist and astrologer who yet remained catholic; an accomplished musician who was fluent in seven languages, two of which were of his own devising; and a minor character in Borges’s Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius." [via Giornale Nuovo]
28. Yann Martel's "The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios" is a collection of his early short stories (prior to "The Life of Pi"). The title story is more like a novella- a very sad and moving story. The stories are very human. The author's preface includes the caveat that the stories remain as written when he was just starting to write- they nonetheless have that spark of life.
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In other news:
The credit card company who canceled my card without notice due to an outstanding balance has forwarded me my bill. For three months, I failed to pay the balance of $0.00! Ah, that explains it; clearly, I am a deadbeat.
I went to the bank and explained that this was my third attempt to get cheques with accurate information printed. The small girl with braces, behind the counter, was apologetic and muttered under her breadth (apparently about the incompetence of her colleagues). She ordered new cheques, and refunded me the previous charge (having decided that anyone who has to try three times should get her cheques for free). She noted that I get statements for separate accounts separately, about which I have previously complained. So she fixed that too and refunded me the charges for separate statements to boot. Clearly, I've found the teller with the brain. Now I know which one to wait for.