DrunkenBlog

Dogs of Babel

I've just finished rereading "The Dogs of Babel" last night, and can't say enough good things about this book. I also can't recommend it to everyone. IE, it goes something like this: Mild-mannered 50's-ish linguistics professor comes home to find his much younger wife dead in an ambiguous, with some odd signs, and the only witness was their family dog. He becomes obsessed with teaching the dog how to speak/communicate, so that it can tell him why his wife died, or what happened to cause the woman he loved to die... whether from suicide, accident, foul play, etc.

Sounds kinda trippy huh? Yeah, well, it is. I had it passed on by a friend, and wasn't really interested, but gave it a shot, and within 3 pages was hooked. The writing is just that good. The plot seems a little absurd, and it is (and gets more absurd) but it's really just an inventive way for the author to explore their relationship.

It's probably the most emotionally "raw" book I've ever read. The circumstances are unreal, but the emotions aren't. Maybe those who have lost significant others are bad control subjects for reading this book, but it actually made me a bit afraid. I'd read a chapter, or half of a chapter, then close it and put it somewhere because it was just too emotionally exhausting. But it'd always be there in the back of your mind, and call you back to it, like a good horror movie. I don't know how this author, as a woman, got into this characters head like she did...

Yeah. Amazing read, but not for everyone. This is something to read after you need to bring yourself down from Dr. Seuss, but if you read this after Ginsberg or something you've pretty much just sealed your fate of jumping off a bridge. I'm actually really looking forward to her 3rd book that's out, "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time", which looks to be just as trippy & original.

Otherwise, my reading list has gotten to be fairly long, and stacked up. Next up was supposed to be Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. But you know, I've gone back and reread Cryptonomicon three times, the Diamond Age twice, Snow Crash twice, and you know I'm going to wait until more friends have gotten through it and can honestly tell me that the ending doesn't suck hardcore. If you've ever read one of his books you'll know what I mean. I haven't read Zodiac, but I've heard it's just as bad. How such an amazing writer seems to destroy ever single ending is beyond me.

Which means for now I'm stuck with going back and forth between "Good to Great" and "A New Kind of Science". Everyone of my friends in the industry seems to be having it shoved down their throat. I was afraid it was going to be full-on Tony Robinson territory, but so far it seems to be quite good. Especially like the analogy of "It's not just about having the right people on the bus, it's about having the right people in the right seats on the bus".

And yeah, I've been reading "A New Kind of Science" off and on for a good year, and mentioned it before, but keep having to put it down as he just wigs me out hardcore sometimes. Or I get interested in a point he brings up and spin off into find material on that instead of pushing ahead with it. A lot of what Wolfram is proposing in that is scary shite. I have a feeling I'll need to read this 3-5 times before I feel I have a true handle on a lot of it.

 Posted by drunkenbatman
    December 01, 2003, at 06:38 PM