The Futile Cycle

In between running around to experiments, attending classes and seminars, reading the literature, eating, and sleeping, I’ve manage to catch chapters of Intuition, by Allegra Goodman. I started the book because of a glowing review from Dr. Free-Ride. I finished it last week, and I’ve been mulling it over in my head.

This book is quite possibly one of the best novels I’ve read in the past year (though, it’s looking like it might be the only novel I’ll read this year…).

It is set in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at a biomedical research institute that’s right next to Harvard’s campus. If this sounds familiar, that’s because the author did some research for the book at the Whitehead Institute, a huge biomedical research institute geographically in between MIT and Harvard. Allegra Goodman did some wonderfully thorough research for the book, because it abounds in the small details of a real lab. Old machines, nude mice, foil-capped bottles of reagents and media.

And the people, the characters, the scientists: how wonderful! They are the classical archetypes that anyone who’s worked for a while in academia would recognize instantly: the hard-working, technically brilliant East Asian immigrant, the powerful lab techs, the rising star who suffers from “imposter syndrome”, the senior post-doc who resents the rising star for all the breaks he’s had going to prestigious schools, the lab head who’s too scientifically cautious to promote her lab well, the star oncologist with a flair for selling the research (”a poet of the NIH form”) but with less-than-stringent scientific skepticism.

Yet, none of the characters are stereotypes. None of them fit their archetypes. All of the characters are quite real, with real motivations, dreams, emotions, and agendas. That, in the end, is probably what ignites the central conflict of the entire book. I will not divulge much about the book’s plot, as I suggest to all of you that you go out and read it if you haven’t yet.

Still, a little thought as to what I see from the book, without spoiling the book (I hope). It seems like the book makes plain that truth — even in science — is hard to know, as it is always seen through the eyes of a person, through a glass darkly. Even the events of the story, told from so many points of view, are not clear. Agendas are confused. All because of people.

The conflict between the exacting requirements of science and the people who actually synthesize and propagate the knowledge seems to be almost the central conflict in the book. Science — true science — happens on the scale of years and decades: ideas are proposed, experiments are done, hypotheses are rejected or accepted, experiments are replicated. Science takes time, and truth only emerges with a grain of certainty years after the fact.

But for many of us in science, especially in the present day, we are forced to live on a faster time scale. Grants are due, demanding results. Jobs demand papers. Papers, of course, require experiments. One can get scooped, if one doesn’t move fast enough. Scientists don’t have the luxury to wait for science proper to catch up, and so sometimes, in the milieu of researchers running back and forth in their frantic-paced lives, some can trip and get crushed under the slow-moving glacier that is real, absolute truth, not for evil or malicious intents in their souls, but for the fact that they, too, have dreams.

But the book does hold out hope. Although science is harsh, people are resilient, and that is why science is able to happen at all. The book is almost a tribute to scientists, and an acknowledgment of the many sacrifices that people make to pursue a career that they love.

Go read it. It is delightful!

After writing about a series coming to an end in my last book post, I thought I would write about a series (or rather, trilogy) that I’m in the middle of right now.

I discovered Brandon Sanderson on Chad Orzel’s blog review of Elantris, actually. I read the review, though, “eh, maybe I’ll peak at it at some point,” and then saw that Sanderson (the author of Elantris) had actually responded to Chad. At the time, I guess it had never consciously occured to me that authors would go looking for reviews of their own work. Of course, it’s obvious in retrospect that they would, but I didn’t realize at the time how easy it was for them to find such things.

Anyway, Sanderson sort of suggested Mistborn as something that would redeem some of the “saggy” qualities of Elantris (read the post), and — intrigued as much by the author as by the review of Elantris and the suggestion of Mistborn — I found some Mistborn sample chapters on the author’s website. I was hooked, so I checked out the book from the library.

And I liked it! It was engrossing, fun, and I think mostly well-paced. Some of the castle intrigue was a bit long, but there was enough tension that the scenes held my attention. The twists and turns of the book were quite good, and the ending was quite satisfying, leaving the ominous threat looming overhead.

One thing that always plagues fantasy books, especially heavily plotted ones where there are twists and turns and jump surprises (see Harry Potter), is that there are times when one might go, “Woah, where did that come from?” It sucks, because then the suspension of disbelief breaks and you feel the heavy hand of the author. Thankfully, that phenomenon only really struck once or so in the book (near the end; I’ve ROT13′d the spoiler: jura Znefu pbzrf onpx, erfheerpgrq bhg bs abjurer), but strike it did, nonetheless. So not a perfect book, by any means.

But I still liked it very much. The world is very interesting and vivid, which I like. Sanderson manages to sketch the world quite well without feeling as though he’s spending pages on boring exposition and scene-painting. He uses broad strokes to set the scene, and then uses details introduced by the characters in order to fill in the smaller features. The magic system is quite cool. And the characters are mostly very well done, though the main character’s inner monologue is exasperating at times. I’m not a fan of inner monologue, as it’s usually a very blunt technique, but I tolerate it if I like the book otherwise, and I very, very much do.

All in all, a good, very modern, fantasy that hints at greater things to come.

I borrowed my brother’s copy after he was done, and after a straight 5 hours or so of reading, I’m done with Harry Potter. It took me a bit of time to surface from the deluge, so I’m still pondering whether I really like the book or not.

First of all, it isn’t great. Not masterful, not horrifically tragic, not stupendously inspiring. My first thought was, “it’s finally just done.” I mean, it’s been at least 10 years that I’ve known about the phenomenon, so after all this time, the beginning feels simultaneously long ago (I barely remember even reading the first book) and yet very near. My second thought: “It was ok,” in a “that meal was filling and tasted fine” sense. Perhaps I’m a sentimentalist at heart, but I rather like (mostly) happy endings. My third set of thoughts was more complicated. They were very similar to this review in the Atlantic (there are spoilers after the first paragraph or so). “A children’s story after all.”

In the end, I think I settled somewhere between “I’m glad it’s over” and “I guess I enjoyed parts of it.”

My favorite part about Harry Potter was probably that the world J. K. Rowling constructed was so accessible. Tolkein’s works, though masterful, always had that academic, stuffy, history-tome feel that just made me sleep (I never did get through the Silmarillion). Not only that, but the magic never did have a sense of logic; it was foreign, completely enigmatic. I think that was the point, because then users of magic, like Gandalf, became mythic and inscrutable, a little like Merlin from the Arthurian legends. Phillip Pullman’s world in His Dark Materials was difficult to understand as well, and very creepy. There was just something wrong with it, I can’t really place my finger on it. I think that was intentional, too, in its construction, as the plot was pretty dark and creepy, and from the perspective of the young protagonists, confusing and foreign.

On the other hand, Potterworld was quite charming and friendly, with magic a part of everyday life. There was a degree of casualness that very few other settings had. Magic was common, in a sense, and that made for some very entertaining little details in the world. It wasn’t a rigorous, self-consistent world-system, but just a cartoon of what it would be like to live with magic all around. This friendliness was all, no doubt, designed because the first book or two were meant to make the magical world as inviting as possible to the young audience.

Unfortunately, very little of that was given in the last book, which was a bit disappointing. It was mostly action, with bits of plot-ish-ness in the in-betweens. And, of course, characters die off. It felt formulaic, at times; “oh, she’s offed another one.” Plotting is not J. K. Rowling’s greatest of abilities. But no matter. In the end, the story wrapped up, much in the ways I expected, and then that is that. The series is over. And I’m not unhappy with the way she ended it (even the epilogue, to cap off the whole book of misdeeds, isn’t really that bad).

Now all that has to happen before the second coming is that Robert Jordan actually finish his series. Which may never happen.