The audience watched people send and receive real e-mail, collaborate on joint projects, write memos in Japanese characters, and conjure up engineering schematics on the Alto’s arresting black-on-white display – all live.  Secretaries typed letters and shot them over the network to a laser printer, while engineers designed buildings on a video screen and software developers debugged code.

[..]

The results were mixed.  [..]  Xerox’s top executives were for the most part salesmen of copy machines.  From these leased behemoths the revenue stream was as tangible as the “click” of the meters counting off copies, for which the customer paid Xerox so many cents per page (and from which Xerox paid its salespersons their commissions).  Noticing their eyes narrow, Ellenby could almost hear them thinking: “If there’s no paper to be copied, where’s the ‘click’?”  In other words: “How will I get paid?”

For Geschke, the most discomfiting revelation was the contrast between the executives’ reaction and those of their wives.  “The typical posture of the Xerox executives, and all of them were men, was this” – arms folded sternly across the chest. “But their wives would immediately walk up to the machines and say, ‘Could I try that mouse thing?’” [..]

“It didn’t register in my mind at that event, but that was the loudest and clearest signal we ever got of how much of a problem we were going to have getting Xerox to understand what we had.”

- Michael A. Hiltzik, Dealers of Lightning, Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age

The Cornelius Quartet by Michael Moorcock is not what I expected.  The back cover (not that I ever read back covers)  describes it as “the saga of .. Jerry Cornelius, English assassin, physicist, rock star, messiah to the Age of Science, time-hopping anti-hero”, which implies a certain level of clarity in the narrative.  That’s more than I could find.  The story is fractured across all four books, and treats the reader much like a rodeo bull treats its rider.

It’s disorienting to read a book that, from one chapter to the next, jumps unannounced to a different place, a different time, or even a different timeline, often without offering clues about which (if any) of these have changed.  The same few characters show up everywhere, taking on a different role each time.

Imagine 800 pages of The Surprising Adventures of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar, only not funny:

I didn’t like it.  Well, a bit, but only because I’m impressed by how Moorcock sort of ties it together in the end.  Moorcock is one of my favorite authors, precisely he always surprises me.  I’ll read anything he’s written on trust, even if, in this case, it didn’t pay off.  But it certainly was a wild ride.

Instead of this, read Steve Aylett’s surreal satires.  They’re like the good parts of The Cornelius Quartet, only condensed and somewhat coherent.

With everybody making lists of their favorite books of 2009, here are my favorite books of 2010:

The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan, abridged edition, 800 pages.  Half the cuts were achieved by removing all references to braid-tugging (whatever that is).

Supercalifragilisticexpialidociousconomics by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner, in which we learn that if you approach it as a sort of game, even cleaning your room can be fun.  We also follow a rogue sociologist’s initiation into the suprisingly jolly life of chimney sweeps.

On Getting a Grip by Aristotle.  Previously thought lost, this rediscovered appendix to the Nicomachean Ethics argues that people should just calm the fuck down and quit whining, because it’s not the end of the world.  It becomes the best-selling book of the year, and a whole world leaves 2010 with the ability to not be such stupid assholes all the time.

Yes We Did It All by Anonymous.  In this tell-all memoir by a former member of the secret world government, we learn how NWO and the Bilderberg Group killed the Kennedys, faked the moon-landing, blew up the World Trade Center, and ruined the Star Wars prequels.

Zombies Are Totally Awesome.  In this brain-splattering retelling of World War II, zombie Roosevelt, zombie Churchill and zombie Stalin join forces against zombie Hitler, zombie Mussolini and zombie Hello Kitty.  In the apocalyptic climax, G. I. zombies and zombie Comrades fight their way through the last line of Nazi zombies, only to find that zombie Hitler has already eaten his own brain.

I’m reading all of Heinlein’s books, chronologically.  Slowly, a couple a year, because wouldn’t it be horrible to find that there weren’t any more left?  I do the same with Terry Pratchett.  There’s no hurry.  I don’t plan to die soon.

Now I’m at Between Planets from 1951.  It’s a variation over a theme Heinlein used often: The American Revolution, with emphasis on the second word.  Heinlein didn’t believe nations were Eternally Great because of something someone wrote in a constitution centuries ago.  Any state, no matter how well it started out, might eventually deteriorate into an oppressive police state.

And then you’d have to start a revolution all over again.  Which is where the Heinlein protagonist usually enters the picture.  On the verge to being ready to chase the diseased, remote, authoritarian state off his land.  All he needs is one final outrage to push him over the edge.

Heinlein’s message to the teenagers his early books were written for, was: Question all authority – including your teachers.  Make up your own mind.  That was subversive in 1951, and it still is.  His strong anti-racist message isn’t, but the way it’s presented remains fresh and un-p.c today.

The plot of Between Planets is basically just a series of fortunate accidents.  Come to think of it, most of Heinlein’s novels were.  But he was often better at hiding it.

You don’t need a guide for how to find good books.  To find good books, just pick somebody’s pre-digested list of The 100 Greatest Novels in whatever genre you usually read.  Most of them will be fairly good.

Interesting books are different.  They change you by offering something you didn’t expect.  You may not end up liking them, but at least they’ll be bad in a fascinating way.  And the ones you do like, you’ll love.  They may have flaws that disqualify them from being The Greatest Novel of All Time, but that’s part of the charm.

The trick to finding interesting books to do a sort of focused random walk, like you might do in an unknown city.  You find an interesting street, and then that opens up more choices.

Visit used book stores.  This is where the interesting books go to die.  Books that changed the world, but went out of fashion – or books that might have changed the world if they’d been given the chance.

Read interviews with authors you love.  They often mention obscure books they’re passionate about.  Anyone should be listened to when they get passionate about books.  “This book changed my life.”  Go get it.

Don’t think too much.  The more you “research” a book before buying it, the more likely you’ll just end up with whatever you’re already used to.  Buy something just because you saw someone mention it.  Or because the you like the cover or title.  Stand somewhere familiar, and take a leap into the unknown.

Good luck!

Det som fascinerer meg mest i Den store ml-boka av Jon Rognlien og Nikolai Brandal er all hemmeligholdelsen ml’erne drev med. Ingen skulle vite hvem som var hvem. Man brukte dekknavn, snudde seg vekk fra fotografer, og lot være å ringe og sende brev. Man skulle oppføre seg som om man alltid ble overvåket.

Ml’erne levde egentlig litt som de paranoide tenåringene i Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother. Og sikkerhetslinjen fungerte. Det er ikke enestående at studenter har voldelige visjoner om en kommunistisk utopi. Men det er litt imponerende at en gjeng med norske marxisme-nerder – i fredstid – klarte å holde så mye av det de drev med skjult for et overivrig overvåkningspoliti.

Tross hemmelighetsholdelsen fungerte det hele som en enhetlig bevegelse, med en felles visjon. Når ledelsen bestemte at alle skulle bli proletarer, så gjorde man det. Det førte riktignok ikke til noe, men det var arbeiderklassen som sviktet. Organisasjonen fungerte. Demokratisk sentralisme i praksis.

Hvor mye dette minner om en religiøs bevegelse, som berører alle aspekter av livet, kommer godt fram i intervjuene med ml-barna. Jeg vokste også opp med sommerleirer og merkelige læresetninger i en avgrenset subkultur, med egne forfattere og egne musikere – og fortellinger om Kina! Men da i kristen regi.

Kristne har hatt lang tid til å venne seg til at Dommedag ikke kommer med det første, og at man derfor kan ta det litt med ro. Ml’erne var mer som en nyfrelst kult-bevegelse, de ville ha Revolusjonen med en gang. Da er det vanskelig å holde ut i lengden.

In Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven from 1971, a therapist gets a patient who can change the world with his dreams. When things change, they change so that it has always been that way, and nobody knows the difference.

The therapist believes he can use this power to make the world a better place, and also get himself a nicer office, and he starts to take control over the patient’s dreams. He gradually changes the world from an over-populated, starving, war-crazed mess to a sparsely populated, well-fed world that is ordered according to his ideals. Which include eugenics and state-run child upbringing.

And everybody knows it’s always been like that.

This is a story about utopianism versus real life. The therapist never gets exactly what he wants. The dark side of human nature keeps reasserting itself. And when he gets what he wants, there’s a price. To solve over-population, the dreamer’s subconscious invents a plague in which billions of people died. To solve race conflicts, everyone must turn the same grey skincolor. The world becomes gradually duller, joyless.

Le Guin introduces the chapters with taoist quotes, and the patient eventually arrives at a taoist point of view: You can’t force your will on the world, even when you think you’re right. You have to respect the dynamics of things as they are.

Or as Lao Tzu says in Ron Hogan’s creative translation of Tao The Ching:

Stop doing stuff all the time,
and watch what happens.

Med en fersk finanskrise forhåpentligvis mer bak oss enn foran oss, passer det godt å kikke litt nærmere på den forrige. Bankerott (1993) av Stein Imset og Gunnar Stavrum forteller historien om de villeste årene i nyere norsk bankhistorie. En periode som begynte med liberalisering og endte med milliardtap og statlig overtagelse av storbankene.

Hvert kapittel følger omtrent samme mønster: En traust regionalbank møter 80-tallets økonomiske tøvær med friskt mot. De dytter millioner i hendene på luringer med spinnville prosjekter. Problemene som så oppstår møter banken i fire stadier: 1 – gi de dårligste kundene mer penger, 2 – budsjettjuks så det ser ut som det går bra, 3 – fusjonering med andre, forhåpentligvis mer stabile banker, 4 – total kollaps og statlig inngripen.

Bank etter bank gjør de samme tabbene. Hadde dette vært en roman ville det vært kjedelig forutsigbart, og ikke helt troverdig.

Imset og Stavrum legger skylden på Willoch-regjeringen, for å ha oppmuntret til utlånseksplosjonen, og på et umodent bankvesen, som brukte sin nyvunnete frihet til å avholde historiens dyreste hjemme alene-fest.

Lærdommen er at finansielle institusjoner ikke alltid vet sitt eget økonomiske beste. Spesielt ikke når de har blitt skjermet fra virkeligheten gjennom tiår med kvelende reguleringer.

Imset og Stavrum skriver at krisen kunne vært unngått hvis aktørene hadde kjent sin bankhistorie, for den var et ekko av tidligere kriser. På samme måte er det mye her som går igjen i dagens finanskrise. Lære, denne gangen?

In his preface to Gardens of the Moon, Steven Erikson dares the reader to give up. There’ll be no gradual introduction to the world he has created. You’re thrown right in the middle of it, with confusing events happening unexplained, and a shitload of characters to get to know. If you don’t like it, go read something else.

I’m vulnerable to reverse psychology, so I accept the challenge. And for the first few hundred pages the story jumps and runs without waiting for you to catch up. Later it slows down. Gardens of the Moon does the opposite of certain sprawling fantasy novels – it begins confusingly, and converges towards the end.

The story is that an empire is invading a city, and the gods interfere. The gods are merciless beings who use humans as tools for their own purposes, and the leaders of the empire are no better. So there’s death and eternal damnation in all directions. Also a mad puppet, a girl posessed by an evil god, and an ancient beast reawakened from its eternal slumber.

So there’s little to be happy about in this world. Erikson says in his preface that his aim was to write an ambitious novel, and, well, I don’t think that it is. It’s an ambitious attempt at world building, but it’s not an ambitious novel. The bleak setting is too restrictive for that.

There are many sequels to Gardens of the Moon, but thankfully they’re self-contained novels. I haven’t decided if I’ll read them.

Tor Andre har testet Kindle, og synes det er greit å ta farvel med papirboken:

Styrken til papir ligger i kombinasjonen av skumming og dybdelesing, ikke luftig nostalgi om lukten og følelsen av et fysisk produkt. Den holdningen ligner litt for mye på villfarelsen til musikkbransjen om betydningen av CD-plater.

Praktbøker vil fremdeles fungere som et nisjeprodukt, men i fremtiden vil det komme lesebrett som klarer å kombinere leseligheten til e-ink og grensesnittet på nettet. Da er papir blåst av banen som lesemedium nummer en.

Jeg testet e-bøker for noen år siden. Det var ikke for meg. Jeg kom fram til at jeg har samme forhold til papirbøker som Onkel Skrue har til pengene sine. Det er de samme bøkene selv om de er elektroniske. Men det er ikke det samme allikevel.

Jeg liker å fylle bokhyllene mine til bristepunktet.

Jeg liker å bruker bøker som veggdekorasjon.

Jeg liker å brette bøkene mine, lage eselører, skrive navnet mitt, og sette teite ex libris-merker i dem.

Og jeg liker å ha en bokkø stående på gulvet til å organisere lesingen med.

Men mest av alt liker jeg å legge alle bøkene ut på gulvet og bade i dem.

Leiligheten min ville rett og slett se naken ut uten papirbøker. Så der står jeg. Det er ikke slik at papirbøker er riktig og e-bøker feil. Men for meg er det ikke noe tema.