Category Archives: Books


The horrors of the publishing industry

I was looking today for some Haruki Murakami books, because I have to decide to read in Italian or English, and the Italian version of 1Q84 is divided in two parts whereas the American hardcover is one volume (so one point for the latter).

But while looking at another big volume he wrote, “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, I discovered that the English version has been arbitrarily cut. There’s an article here that explains the process and it’s horrifying. Especially because these cuts are somewhat justified by saying that the original writer continues to edit his works, and so no fixed version would exist anyway.

The cutting done on WIND-UP is a complex matter. The more you look into it and into the question of revision, the more you realize there is no single authoritative version of ANY Murakami work: he tinkers with everything long after it first finds its way into print.

[…]

I did virtually all the cutting on WIND-UP, but I would have done none at all if Knopf hadn’t told Haruki that the book was too long and would have to be cut by some number of words (I think it was around 25,000 words). Afraid that they would hire some freelancer who could wreak havoc on the novel, and filled with a megalomaniac certainty that I knew every word in the book–maybe better than the author himself–after having translated all three hefty volumes, I decided to forestall the horror by [doing it myself].

Fuck the publishers (and translators convinced they can write a better book than the original author). Why don’t you go and “edit” Mozart or van Gogh?

The only mitigation to this is merely that Murakami seemed involved in the process, even if the cuts he suggested himself weren’t respected.

Having recently completed Book 3, Haruki felt incapable of cutting that, but he had enough distance from Books 1 and 2 to mark many passages for elimination–many SHORT passages that didn’t add up to much in terms of word count. I included most–BUT NOT ALL–of his cuts as part of my cut version

Later, when the paperback version of the Japanese text appeared, I found that Haruki had incorporated into that many–BUT NOT ALL– of the cuts he had suggested for the translation

Haruki did NOT, however, adopt the large cuts made for the translation into the Japanese paperback

And finally the admission that the English version sucked:

I do think that if THE WIND-UP BIRD CHRONICLE outlives its time and becomes part of the canon fifty years from now, a re-translation will be needed, and scholars can have a fine time screaming about how Jay Rubin utterly butchered the text.

I’m not a scholar and I’d already scream without the need to read the book. You just CAN’T do as you please. Write your own books if you want to mess with them.

See this other horror:

This last point may be related to one of the problems I’ve encountered translating modern Japanese literature: a different notion of editing in Japan. What I mean is, at times I notice inconsistencies, repetitions, and illogical parts in original Japanese texts that I am pretty sure an American editor would have weeded out. When I translated an early novel (not by Murakami) I felt at times that I was both translating AND editing. (They wouldn’t let me get paid for both, unfortunately.)

He even wanted to be PAID twice as much for butchering a text he didn’t write. And then he candidly says this:

Thus when it comes time for people like us to translate them, we–and our editors–have to massage the original to make it fit OUR notions of a tight, logical text.

I’m starting to believe that fan translations of Anime and Mangas are far more competent and faithful than these presumed “literary” works.

The first review that appears on Amazon seals the deal:

But what the previous reviews do not mention is that the American publishers, Knopf, forced Murakami and his translator, Jay Rubin, to significantly abridge the original Japanese text. The casual reader would have no way of knowing this, and, indeed, I only noticed because I was reading alternating chapters of the book in English and Russian translations. Half-way through the novel, entire chapters suddenly started disappearing from the English-language text. Puzzled, I went back to the copyright page of the English-language edition, where, for the first time, I noticed the cryptic notation that the book was not only translated but also “adapted from the Japanese.”

How much of the original text was “adapted” away? I don’t read Japanese, but, based on a comparison with my Russian-language translation, which appears to be complete (no Russian publisher would commit such a travesty on an award-winning novel), it seems that something like 15-20% of the text has been cut. For those of you who find the English-language text of the “Wind-Up Bird Chronicle” choppy, or puzzling, or seemingly incomplete, at least some of the blame lies at the feet of the American publishers who decided, unilaterally, that American readers cannot handle a long book.

Ah, the Communists.

This River Awakens – Steve Lundin / Steven Erikson

I was young and still making my world.

Oh, this book. If you know me from past reviews or forums you know I’m a big fan of Erikson and his immense Malazan series, but it still wouldn’t be just enough to make me interested in whatever he’s going to write in the case it goes out of the boundary of his fantasy series. This book was published one year before “Gardens of the Moon”, the first book in the Malazan series, and it can be considered “mainstream”, meaning that it’s a story set in our world and without any fantasy element in it. That puts it right beyond my reach, because, as I explained, my interest is limited to his fantasy work. I bought it because a new version is coming out in January, revised, and I found out that only used copies were available of the old one, that also had a much better cover. It cost me just around two dollars, so it was an handful of trivial details that made me buy it on a whim, and when it arrived I started to read since it was also a nice change of pace from books exceeding 800 pages (this one being “only” 359). Just curiosity.

I was expecting to find some seeds from which the Malazan series would grow, and a style of writing yet to mature, rougher even compared to GotM, that would show the hints of the kind of writer Erikson would become later. I was expecting to find that kind of hidden talent still to blossom that you can discover when reading the early works of some important writer. Now that I turned the last page, and certain of what I’m saying, I’m bewildered because this is Erikson’s best work, and by a fair, safe margin. It’s so much better, stronger, sharper, more powerful. Despite having liked a lot GotM I’m between those believing it has its flaws. It shows promise but it’s only the spark of what comes after it. It shows a writer that has talent and insight, on the right path but still compromising a lot and finding his voice. I argue about these flaws in discussions, but I recognize they often are legitimate. Well, for me that excuse won’t hold anymore, because I have in my hands a book, published one year before, that turns those specific weakness that many recognized into its sharpest points. This book excels on those specific aspects that were widely recognized as weaknesses in GotM. The characters feeling pulled randomly out of a roleplaying game and not developed, the plot that seemed to move without cause and effect, “not caring” about was going on. Being left cold, unengaged by a story folded on itself and without showing access points to let the reader in. A cold, confusing, contrived and apparently shallow world that only a certain type of geek could find interesting.

“I didn’t care” is probably the most hurtful thing you can tell a writer, any writer. You are telling them that their work left you cold, unaffected. Unfeeling. A story that was a waste and wasn’t worth spending time reading. It means failure even if that work has been interesting in some other ways. Every reader knows of holding that weapon, and will leash out to stab viciously without a second thought. That’s the nature of the deal and I’ve often found it in discussions about the Malazan series. Even if my opinion is different, I still recognize some truth in those claims. This part of the discussion could go on about the details, but it serves me to say that “This River Awakens” turns everything on its head. So often we all suggest readers to try again, to stick with the Malazan series and go at least through the second book, because it gets so much better, the prose is better, and so many of us completely changed opinions reaching that further point. The excuse we make is that almost ten years passed between the writing of the first and second book, and Erikson improved immensely, just you see. Well, that excuse can’t hold anymore because “This River Awakens” shows a sheer talent already fully mature (you could fool me telling me this book was written -after- the whole Malazan series). It has characters I’ll remember forever and that seized forcefully my heart, and then squeezed. Books never, no matter what book, what writer, what genre, get me so emotionally that I feel the swelling of tears and a tightening inside, I don’t know why, but books don’t work for me that way. But this book breached anyway. “Not caring” here is impossible, I dare you. It kept me on the edge, turning pages with the heart tightening (and quickening) to find out what would happen. Sincerely, this book was emotionally the opposite of the Malazan series. That I love, you should know, but never gripped me this much viscerally. Not Itkovian (he’s in this book too), not Felisin, not Heboric, not Coltaine and his Chain of Dogs. This book was more.

I know that the more I gush the less I’m credible, but this is the kind of book you want EVERYONE to read. A thing that can’t be left private and forgotten, knowing you hold a kind of treasure that is your exclusive. But you have to read this book. I imagine it must feel frustrating for Erikson having written such a masterpiece, then become popular for writing three million words in a fantasy. I’m not belittling the genre, I mean that “This River Awakens” is a book that is indispensable to read even if it can’t rely on hooks like epic wars, fireballs and dragons (though, there IS a dragon). It’s a kind of book that too easily gets lost and forgotten in that uniforming sea that is “mainstream” literature, with no stars above to help orientating. This book is a “rite of passage” or “coming of age” story like millions out there, why picking, specifically, this up, from an unknown author (as Erikson/Lundin was at the time)? You write this book, so powerful, mysterious and filled with revelations, and then you see it drift out in the ocean and sink.

And I guess it must be also frustrating, would Erikson be coming to read this I’m writing, declaring that this early, first book is better than the three millions and five hundred thousand words he’d wrote afterwards. That he wouldn’t get any better. But this I say because it’s what I’m honestly thinking, and because this book just can’t get pushed out into oblivion by that juggernaut that is his Malazan series. Admitting no distractions, or indulging outside what is already a pretty huge, even rare, commitment. This book needs to be read. Why, the book itself will tell you.

I’ve said how special this book was for me emotionally, but what it reveals is equally important. The seeds of Malazan are all there. This is a mythical book, filled with deep meaning and mysteries, as many you’d find in a Malazan book. It also shares its generosity, as everything will come together in a powerful way, revelation after revelation. The story will build, seeking a release. It will respect your intelligence and at the same time it won’t bait you only to reveal that there’s nothing behind the curtain (no magic, but permeated by sense of wonder and marvel). I need to say that, unlike GotM, there’s no struggle to get in the story. It will be measured and is as character-driven, slice of life as it’s possible. Something of its structure is shared with the Malazan style as you get to see a small village and a PoV for almost every character. This builds a system and you’ll see as the story develops how each life and action causes ripples in this sort of community, all these stories will come together, naturally, by the time the book ends. In some ways it reminded me of Stephen King’s IT (because of the four kids that make the core of the book) and Under the Dome, seeing this small system and how it develops. Only that Erikson can outmatch King all so easily, in what King does best: dealing with the monsters that brood and stalk in the shadows. These characters so splendidly written and real. If I have to find a flaw, being pedantic, is that in some lines of introspection some of that truthfulness of the characters breaks, because Erikson (as in the rest of his work) has a tendency to put things too beautifully into words, to overly articulate the thought, that is sometimes implausible when you are dealing with a thirteen years old. Even if I know to “never underestimate characters”. (though we could open a discussion here, because it may also be justified and deliberate)

If “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy won (deservedly) the Pulitzer, this book should win symbolically twice the prize. That book dealt masterfully with the father/son relationship and you’ll find some similar themes here, bereft of rhetoric. In a review on Amazon I’ve read the book described as repulsive because it contains “graphic descriptions of sick human behavior”, well, that should be a warning because it can be indeed VERY dark and reveal unashamedly the ugly bottom of human soul. It won’t flinch. Some themes may be eye-rolling inducing because already seen and refashioned millions of times in all mediums. There’s an alcoholic father, there’s domestic violence, violence on animals, a veteran from the war. But believe me that Erikson here has talent enough to veer away from that kind of rhetoric and commonplace. Not unlike David Foster Wallace, the worst of the worst characters with the depths of hell as their souls will still make you care for them. This kind of merciless and dark style of narration is never for sensationalism. But this is the kind of book that doesn’t need any excuse or guidance, just read it, I’m sure you’ll see on your own. I dare you to read it and “not care”, just try, I’ll eat my hat if you don’t. No forum discussions needed to explain why this book is a masterpiece above any genre, or demarcation of any kind.

I thought about the stranger, the one who’d once used this secret room, the one who’d sat here at this desk absorbing words and words and words, swelling, bloating and still devouring pieces of the world, until its face had become every face, and no face. The stranger, who was no more in anyone’s mind but mine. And the stranger’s secret, this room and all its books, nothing but food for the rats.

I’d tried so hard. Dragging the giant to the history in this room. Dragging this history to the giant on his bed of sticks. I’d thought it important, as if in remaking the world I’d find in my hands a gift. Of understanding, of feeling, of something other than this shivering solitude.

Some other quotes here.

Choice

I’m now on the last 100 pages of “This River Awakens” and my impression from the first pages was confirmed and reinforced: it’s a masterpiece. I’m wondering if the new version coming in January could be any better or if the changes aren’t modifying stuff that I loved (my suspicion is about removing a 1st person PoV, which I believe works great in the way it was handled). But obviously Erikson should follow his own mind whether or not I “approve”.

But what I wanted to say is about the choice of what book to read. This one specifically is a kind of book that wouldn’t normally have any hope of getting my attention. Within the fantasy genre, being a genre, things are organized and somewhat easier to parse. Only an handful of big debuts during the year, and another handful of blogs and forums where you can easily form an idea of the “scene”, and what book or author deserves your attention.

Outside the “genre” it’s really hard to FIND your book. I always imagine that there are THOUSANDS of books out there that I would absolutely love, but I have no chance of “reaching” them. It’s not a problem of not being immortal and not having enough time, it’s just that you don’t have ways to make your choices. You sample here and there at random, then stick to your genre like a funnel.

“This River Awakens” is specifically one kind of book that I would have no hope to read, if it wasn’t because its fantasy author wrote my favorite fantasy series and SO got that much attention from me to push me to get one of his books outside that specific area of interest. I had no hope to meet Steve Lundin, the author of “This River Awakens”, and it saddens me to realize that this book can’t find its way out on its own. A book like this too easily gets lost in that undistinguished ocean of “mainstream” literature. How can you get your bearings there? It’s impossible.

I guess I’ll try to write a review, but I obviously won’t accomplish anything with it (maybe I’ll trigger the opposite reaction if I end up praising it too much). I’d hope that at least Erikson’s fans will get this book, because it’s GREAT, and in no way a minor, negligible work compared to the masterwork that is the Malazan series. In fact if you ask me right now I’d tell you that it’s THIS book everyone should read, Malazan is optional. But what are the hopes for this book to reach its public? In a genre, the genre itself makes that shared “hook” that leads you to the most interesting works, but outside it, and without the ruthlessness of, say, Bakker (where his ideas can give it its power and unique space), a masterpiece like this is simply doomed to be overlooked and forgotten. Even if a reader like me points it out in forums and blogs and begs people to read it. It’s one of those stories that wants to be listened, but there’s no one around to receive them. Oh, it pains me so much.

If you are a Malazan fan then read this book because you’re going to love it. If instead you are among those who tried to begin reading Malazan because someone recommended it to you and you still didn’t like it at all, stop right there, don’t force your way through and READ THIS BOOK first. “This River Awakens” will tell you whether or not to spend another precious minute reading the Malazan series.

This River Awakens – Quotes

“This River Awakens” is a book written by Steven Erikson (as Steve Lundin, his real name) whose publication (1998) precedes “Gardens of the Moon” by one year. This makes probably his first published work ever. It is going to be republished next year by Bantam UK, and it seems that this new version will differ in some ways:

I know I battled with an editor over my first novel, This River Awakens, and on some fronts I lost that battle — which is why the re-release of that novel will see my fixing it and thus bringing it closer to its original, un-surrendered state. And I use the [nonexistent] term ‘un-surrendered’ quite deliberately here, because I felt that in losing those battles I surrendered some of the sanctity of that novel, and that it suffered for it.

Since I was curious about some opinions on that book I was able to get an used copy of the first version. I was expecting to find some talent in embryonic state, that would then develop in the Malazan series as we know it. Something “greener” than Gardens of the Moon, which is usually considered a bumpy ride on its own. Instead I could be totally fooled if you told me this was Erikson’s most recent and mature book, the result of his craft being honed through 3 millions+ words.

One would also expect that a story set in our world and without fantasy elements would have a kind of prose that is far, far away from Malazan stuff. Instead it couldn’t be closer and even more powerful, as there’s not a secondary world to “separate” and insulate the feelings coming from it. Prose and characterization as sharp as they can be, seemingly coming from an author at the very apex of his possibilities.

I wanted to put here some quotes to show a couple aspects. The beginning of the book is similar to the beginning of Memories of Ice, and you can see how the style carries over (to non-fantasy stuff) without losing anything of its power and suggestion (and the first line is worth among the memorable ones).

Memory begins with a stirring. Spring had arrived. There was life in the air, in the wind that turned the cold into currents of muddy warmth. And life in the ground as well – a loosening of the earth and its secrets, a rustling of spirits and the awakening of the dead.

Like remembrance itself, it was a time when things rose to the surface. Forces pushed up from the tomb of wintry darkness, shattering the river’s ice and spreading the fissures wide. Sunlight seeped down, softening the river bottom’s gelid grip. And things were let go.

What I look on now, after all these years, is a place of myth. For this was a place that told us that there was more than just one world.

This instead a quote from later in the book, again displaying a power of prose and anthropomorphic style of description that permeates everything. The “simple” world seen by a young boy.

The machine in the driveway seemed to be decomposing all on its own: every time I looked it was smaller, as if, now that its soul had been exposed, it was crumbling under the sun. Father had removed most of the larger parts and had carried them into the garage, where each part was placed in its own bucket of gasoline, like organs in jars. A pool of black oil had spread out from the machine – a tar pit collecting plant stuff, insects – I grinned at the thought – woolly rhinoceroses, mastodons…

The pool’s placid surface showed nothing – it might be miles deep – there was just no way to tell. Somewhere under that surface might hide the history of mankind, of the whole world. And, somewhere down in the thick, congealing blackness, there might lie giants, suspended for all time.

But when I picked up a stone and dropped it into the pool it was, of course, less than half an inch deep. And the machine was not the body of some god, exposed and bleeding out Creation like an afterthought. It had no soul, only parts, and none of those parts worked. And it was not as massive and imposing as it had once been. Still, since I as yet had no idea of what its function might be, there was an air of mystery about it; a secret with all the clues laid out, yet still a secret.

I left the garage and walked to the front porch. The door opened and Father stepped out, dressed as usual in his blue coveralls. Placing his hands on his hips, he glared at the machine, then sighed.

“Think you’ll get it to work?” I asked.

And finally another little quote because it’s pertinent with the discussion over at Scott Bakker’s blog:

The room reeked of blood and bile, and the hot air seemed laden with steam. Laughter filled Sten’s skull – the monsters. And yet, suspended somewhere in the haze of his thoughts, remained a detached awareness – a small piece of sanity looking outward into the maelstrom, offering comments now and then with a voice cold and sardonic. Of course they’re laughing, the voice told him now – look around you, Sten, smell the air, taste your lips. It’s reality that’s all around you now, Sten, and it’s no different from this pleasant little house that’s in here – right inside your head. You’ve done it, Sten. You’ve achieved the dream of a million philosophers. You’ve shaped reality to fit your ideal, to a tee. Aren’t you proud?

The Dream of Reality

I received today an ancient-looking book with a stamp of “Berkeley Library, University of California” that I ordered used from Amazon. Title is “The Dream of Reality”.

This Saturday I was randomly discussing “Infinite Jest” with my friends, I come back home and find out Scott Bakker had posted a review of the book. From there, as you can see in the comments, spawned a long discussion between me and him (mostly) as much about the book as about these extreme theories on “reality” and “science”. One of those coincidences, patterns that bend and return to origin.

Anyway, the discussion is mostly there, in the comments, and I won’t even TRY to give a summary over here.

What I’ll do is paste the last page of this book:

THE FINAL SUMMARY

So we have come full circle. Chapter 1 began by identifying how we live in language, an object language that generates an objective reality. The notion of objectivity was then explained from epistemological, linguistic, and neurological perspectives. The principle of undifferentiated encoding was also discussed.
Chapter 4 through 7 then addressed the question: Can we account for cognition without first positing the existence of an objective reality? A closed computational view of the nervous system was offered as an alternative explanation for cognition and our experience of reality. Thus, we have two different accountings for cognition.
The problem of solipsism was introduced, the identity of another stipulated, and, by evoking the principle of relativity, the world postulated. The observer’s choice to infer the world based upon the experience of perceiving another observer was then offered as the basis for ethical behavior.
The question was then raised: Since these two accountings, these two epistemologies, use and need language, can they account for language? We found that only constructivism’s connotative notion of language allows for the emergence of language – second-order behavior arising in social context.
A denotative language generates an objective reality but cannot generate itself; it cannot account for itself. A connotative language can account for both human experience and the emergence of language.
Thus, the final chapter closes the thoughts in this book by folding Chapter 7 back to Chapter 1, closing this system of ideas – the final closure. Therefore, I would like to suggest that if the reader has the time and interest, it would be extremely useful to reread this book. If one accepts the notion that we are nontrivial machines, then it is but a short step to assume that each recursive journey through these seven chapters will be a different experience.

Heinz Von Foerster, a man of infinite jest.

A fairy tale escapism

Some quotes from a randomly found article.

What does cultural materialism do? It seeks “to allow the literary text to ‘recover its histories’ which previous kinds of study have often ignored” although the “relevant history is not just that of four hundred years ago, but that of the times (including our own)

The cultural materialist is likewise “optimistic about the possibility of change and is willing at times to see literature as a course of oppositional values”—oppositional, that is, to the “structures of feeling” that are the “dominant ideologies within a society” (Barry 183-4). This creates a need to consider “ALL forms of culture” (183), or in other words to climb deeper the way Oedipa does.

Oedipa’s paranoia could well be called optimism, faith that she is not crazy, but that a structure exists in which she CAN find answers. In fact, she can hardly afford NOT to believe it, with so many showcases of that structure materializing around her.

This cultural materialist optimism about “the possibility of change” would suggest, in both cases, that the disinheritance serves the characters for the better, directing them toward a more enlightening epiphany of their place in the world.

In fact, this theme persists in many examples that find room in those branches of that tree. This theme is better defined as a fairy tale escapism, the classic stepping into another world in hopes of a higher understanding. Could it be that, for example, THE MATRIX of the Wachowski brothers has more in common with LOT 49 than just postmodernism?

Like Neo of THE MATRIX, she seeks an escape from isolation and ignorance into a Wonderland where if nothing else she might feel free.

Everything from a rabbit hole and a looking glass to a wardrobe and a vision becomes a doorway into an underworld, or simply ANOTHER world in which the characters at least hope to find clarity.

Wonderland, the Matrix, Never Land, Narnia…these are only advantageous to their guests so far as they can provide a better way for them to see themselves.

This is an escape and indoctrination into a world to the extent that the visitors become “aliens” to their own original setting, no longer contributing to its dominant morality. Alice cannot forget Wonderland, Neo chooses to remain separate from the Matrix, and Oedipa, apparently, cannot continue unless as “unfurrowed, assumed full circle.”

The cultural materialist would best identify with the question Oedipa asks herself: “Shall I project a world?”

In this case, the theory and the texts do not simply validate each other, but instead confirm the structure to which they belong. This structure, in its very essence, seeks to “project” in a variety of ways new worlds by which to interpret reality.

Beyond Post-modernism

Chasing red herrings in the hope they lead somewhere. But the number of overlapping analogies and returning ideas is quite amazing. As usual, when things make TOO MUCH sense, I label them as “consolatory”, and so unreliable and most likely false.

The journey through Post-modernism led me beyond, then back in, as in a loop. Another starting point was again provided by mass-entertainment, Fringe (the TV series). This time it was a frame, specifically episode 12 of the third series. It briefly shows some books belonging to William Bell (a character in the series). The first and last are too out of focus to recognize, but the others are explicitly shown and one of these two is a recurring book, as it was also shown in LOST. The curious fact is that I also owned some of those books:

– A Separate Reality – Carlos Castaneda
– The Second Ring of Power – Carlos Castaneda
– In the Wake of Chaos – Stephen H. Kellert
– Gödel, Escher, Bach – Douglas R. Hofstadter
– The Tao of Physics – Fritjof Capra

I own “Gödel, Escher, Bach” and a book of Castaneda not on that list: “The Art of Dreams”. The interesting part is the links between these books and some of what I wrote in my previous post. Chasing after magic, spirituality and metaphysics means getting lost very easily, waste a lot of time and get sidetracked without gaining anything really useful. I’ve always been a curious skeptic, and so I’ve dabbled here and there with these kinds of studies in my life, without getting a whole lot out of them. Often they are empty lures. This time I think I have a better orientation system I’ve built. I know where to place things and I can separate better between the garbage and something that has some deeper relevance.

I discovered that “Gödel, Escher, Bach” has now a preface by the author done for the anniversary. My copy of the book is very old and doesn’t have it, but I’ve figured out it can be read online. Amazon preview has it, but it misses some pages, but by mixing the amazon.com preview with the amazon.co.uk one it’s possible to read the whole of it (which now resides complete in a folder on my desktop, in the case they decide to “fix” it). This preface is extremely useful, as it explains concisely “what the book is about”, and its purpose is far more important and pivotal than the title may suggest. It’s a research on consciousness, and perception as consequence (bringing back to the essence of postmodernism, as way to read and portray the world).

This book sits right beside some other studies of mine that are at the very foundation of my (scientific) “beliefs”, and they earned this position. One is Niklas Luhmann, the other, that I discover now, is Heinz von Foerster. Both build a logic system that works like math. It explains the world outside through rigorous rules that are meant to be unassailable, still very close to the original methodology of GEB (the book above). They deal directly with the partiality of the observation. They know human limits and so their systems have to exist wholly within. Systems that recursively observe themselves (which is, the recursion and “strange loops”, where the GEB believes the consciousness emerges). Two books of Heinz von Foerster I have already on the way, another I found online.

A step back to Japanese Anime. Relevant quote:

“How about I observe. Therefore the universe is. Therefore, we can say if the human beings who observe the universe hadn’t actually evolved as far as they did, then there wouldn’t be any observations and the universe wouldn’t have anyone to acknowledge its existence. So it wouldn’t really matter if the universe existed or not. The universe is because human beings know it is.”
— Itsuki Koizumi, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya

This will recur. Now follow the trail to this, skip to page 37 (this book was published in 1865 and about the ideas of a philosopher who lived at the end of 1600, someone truly postmodern then):

Everything exists in the mind that perceives it; and apart from the perceiving mind nothing exists. The real place and form of existence is in the idea. The desk I write upon, the paper I feel – they exist in my ideas, and nowhere else; and they may exist in the ideas of all others, if they only saw and felt them, at the same time. If the perceiving ego did not exist, the desk and the paper before me could not have existed. Ideas are objects of perception, and their existence is in the fact that they are perceived. Ideas are different from the mind, and yet they exist in the mind.

[…]

If it is not perceived by anybody, it does not exist; for its real existence is in the fact it is perceived by some intelligent mind.

Now something more recent. “Radical constructivism: a way of knowing and learning” By Ernst von Glasersfeld.

What is radical constructivism? It is an unconventional approach to the problem of knowledge and knowing. It starts from the assumption that knowledge, no matter how it is defined, is in the heads of persons, and that the thinking subject has no alternative but to construct what he or she knows on the basis of his or her own experience. What we make of experience constitutes the only world we consciously live in. It can be sorted into many kinds, such as things, self, others, and so on. But all kinds of experience are essentially subjective, and though I may find reasons to believe that my experience may not be unlike yours, I have no way of knowing that it is the same. The experience and interpretation of language are no exception.

Heinz von Foerster follows similar ideas:

”Objects and events are not primitive experiences. Objects and events are representations of relations. Since ‘objects’ and ‘events’ are not primary experiences and thus cannot claim to have absolute (objective) status, their interrelations, the ‘environment’ is a purely personal affair, whose constraints are anatomical or cultural factors. Moreover, the postulate of an ‘external (obective) reality’ disappears to give way to reality that is determined by modes of internal computations.”

Only he clings more to mathematics and sometimes the (my) brain can’t compute:

Assume a finite universe, U0, as small or as large as you wish, which is enclosed in an adiabatic shell which separates this finite universe from any “meta-universe” in which it may be immersed. Assume, furthermore, that in this universe, U0, there is a closed surface which divides this universe into two mutually exclusive parts: the one part is completely occupied with a self-organizing system S0, while the other part we may call the environment E0 of this self-organizing system: S0 & E0 = U0.

Bu lets keep it to ideas that the brain can try to grasp. This from another book (whose name fits: “The Dream of Reality“):

The constructivism of Heinz von Foerster is concerned with the convergence of two central themes: 1) how we know what we know, and 2) an abiding concern of the world and its humanity. For the constructivist, the dreams of reason denote a common denominator running through our language and logic, manifest as a wish for what we call “reality” to have a certain shape and form. The wish has several dimensions.

First we wish reality to exist independently of us, we who observe it. Second, we wish reality to be discoverable, to reveal itself to us. We wish to know its secrets, i.e., how it works. Third, we wish these secrets to be lawful, so we can predict and ultimately control reality. Fourth, we wish for certainty; we wish to know that what we have discovered about reality is true.

Radical constructivism challenges this wish, thus taking on the unpopular job of shattering the fantasy of an objective reality. Constructivists argue that there are no observations — i.e., no data, no laws of nature, no external objects — independent of observers. The lawfulness and certainty of all natural phenomena are properties of the describer, not of what is being described. The logic of the world is the logic of the description of the world.

Constructivism identifies, for all who care to look through the lens of its epistemology, the limits of what we can know.

But is this “bias” just the result of subjective, limited perception (and so the impossibility of breaking the shell and see what’s outside), or there’s a method to it, a purpose? That’s exactly the point that divides science from metaphysics. But it is the science itself leading to that edge and then leaving you alone. Science has a direction, it leads there and then surrenders. So I make this leap and cross to a less orthodox book: Initiation Into Hermetics, by Franz Bardon.

Man is the true image of God; he has been created in the likeness of the universe. Everything great to be found in the universe is reflected, in a small degree, in man. For this reason, man is signified as a microcosm in contrast to the macrocosm of the universe. Strictly speaking, the entire nature manifests itself in man.

It forms itself a loop, a recursion. Bringing back to that pivotal idea of conscience revealed by the GEB. The “strange swirl”. It is in nature and it is in us.

Kabbalistic ideas essentially rely on the same tenet.

These ideas can even be brought to their limits. For example by von Foerster himself:

”At any moment we are free to act toward the future we desire. In other words, the future will be as we wish and perceive it to be. This may come as a shock only to to those who let their thinking be governed by the principle that demands that only the rules observed in the past shall apply to the future. For those the concept of ‘change’ is inconceivable, for change is the process that obliterates the rules of the past.”

And while I’m unsure to what extent he intends this, there are some (tapping from Kabbalistic ideas, that are at the foundation of reality as a “fake” illusion) that intend it literally: Neville Goddard.

The Power of Awareness

I AM is the self-definition of the absolute, the foundation on which everything rests. I AM is the first cause-substance. I AM is the self-definition of God.

I AM hath sent me unto you.

I AM THAT I AM.

Be still and know that I AM God.

[…]

Can man decree a thing and have it come to pass? Most decidedly he can! Man has always decreed that which has appeared in his world and is today decreeing that which is appearing in his world and shall continue to do so as long as man is conscious of being man. Not one thing has ever appeared in man’s world but what man decreed that it should. This you may deny, but try as you will you cannot disprove it, for this decreeing is based upon a changeless principle. You do not command things to appear by your words or loud affirmations. Such vain repetition is more often than not confirmation of the opposite. Decreeing is ever done in consciousness. That is; every man is conscious of being that which he has decreed himself to be. The dumb man without using words is conscious of being dumb. Therefore he is decreeing himself to be dumb.

When the Bible is read in this light you will find it to be the greatest scientific book ever written. Instead of looking upon the Bible as the historical record of an ancient civilization or the biography of the unusual life of Jesus, see it as a great psychological drama taking place in the consciousness of man. Claim it as your own and you will suddenly transform your world from the barren deserts of Egypt to the promised land of Canaan.

But in his own thinking this omnipotent “free will” is not everything. Beside “The Law” (what I’ve quoted), there’s another part: “The Promise”. “Not one shall be lost in all my holy mountain.” Meaning that there’s a purpose that drives all things. In the end God is waiting at the end, waiting that you learn and go through that path, however long it will take you (another idea coming from Kabbalah).

And this idea, of two kinds of perspective (and realities), one short term, the other long-term, recurs into that wonder that is The Red Book, by Carl G. Jung (this requires youtube).

The overall theme of the book is how Jung regains his soul and overcomes the contemporary malaise of spiritual alienation. This is ultimately achieved through enabling the rebirth of a new image of God in his soul and developing a new worldview in the form of a psychological and theological cosmology.

Jung:
If I speak in the spirit of this time, I must say: no one and nothing can justify what I must proclaim to you. Justification is superfluous to me, since I have no choice, but I must. I have learned that in addition to the spirit of this time there is still another spirit at work, namely that which rules the depths of everything contemporary. The spirit of this time would like to hear of use and value. I also thought this way, and my humanity still thinks this way. But that other spirit forces me nevertheless to speak, beyond justification, use, and meaning. Filled with human pride and blinded by the presumptuous spirit of the times, I long sought to hold that other spirit away from me. But I did not consider that the spirit of the depths from time immemorial and for all the future possesses a greater power than the spirit of this time, who changes with the generations. The spirit of the depths has subjugated all pride and arrogance to the power of judgment. He took away my belief in science, he robbed me of the joy of explaining and ordering things, and he let devotion to the ideals of this time die out in me. He forced me down to the last and simplest things.

The spirit of the depths took my understanding and all my knowledge and placed them at the service of the inexplicable and the paradoxical.

To note that Jung was convinced that what he wrote and drew was not a product of his own conscience and imagination, but that it was some kind of alien or external knowledge that seeped in, to the point that he questioned his own sanity.

In 1913 at the age of thirty-eight, Jung experienced a horrible “confrontation with the unconscious”. He saw visions and heard voices. He worried at times that he was “menaced by a psychosis” or was “doing a schizophrenia.” He decided that it was valuable experience, and in private, he induced hallucinations, or, in his words, “active imaginations.” He recorded everything he felt in small journals. Jung began to transcribe his notes into a large, red leather-bound book, on which he worked intermittently for sixteen years.

In the end, he believed that this book came out of the “collective unconscious”, or Akashic Record. Make of this what you will, but it is interesting how many ideas in it recur and resonate with the rest.

All this oddly brought me back to Malazan and Erikson’s work. Because that’s not truly “fantasy secondary world”, but more an internal, symbolic landscape. Something of the mind. And in particular, it is not “alien” or fabricated as we may naturally intend it. It mimics and reflects more our world than what one assumes. One tenets of that work is about the disparate number of mythologies and beliefs specific to each population. “Systems” that seem quite hard to conciliate with each other. Appearing contradictory. And often things reveal a common root, that was disguised by limited, blind perception. More often than not, those branches are revealed having shared origins.

Without thinking how all this applies to the Malazan world, lets think to how it applies to ours. We also have as many “mythologies” and belief systems as different populations. As this blog post makes a meager example, culture develops outwardly. It ever expands, seemingly limitless and infinite. The more you know, the more you perceive how much you miss. But counter to this outward expansion there’s another force. Which returns. You can study Castaneda’s spirituality, Yoga or other eastern philosophies, Hermeticism, the Kabbalah or whatever else, and there are often ideas that essentially recur and are only slightly refracted and distorted from one mythology to the other. A sort of common root that gives me the illusion (or possibility) that there’s a “point”. That consolatory sense of “purpose”, or idea of “God” ordering the world and having a “plan”.

The patterns of culture move outward, following an idea of progression, ever expanding knowledge. But in the end they have to return, as this Grand Design has a center, and that is “man”. We cannot transcend ourselves (as illustrated above). And through ourselves we perceive everything. Sometimes I imagine the world as an endless loop. It (itself) recurs. And every cycle is some desperate attempt to reach a “solution”. I have this idea that if God created the world, then there are essentially two possibilities. The first is the cynical one. The aquarium. The world is created to amuse. A quirk. The other is that if God created something, it is because he wished to be surpassed and not simply obeyed. That what he created could be better than himself. As a father hoping his son will have something more than he had. And so this idea of the looping world set in motion by God, trying to find the answer, and carefully programmed for that task.

Which brings back to Fringe. One theme is how the “wounded”, broken Walter is a better man. Because he’s vulnerable and so is able to better weigh his choices and their consequences. This leads to another general idea about the pains and difficulties of the real world. Without them we would all live in stasis, because there would be no stimulation (Infinite Jest also uses this theme at its core). The rules and boundaries are needed to give things a structure and establish a reaction. Relationships that bring you forward, sometimes forcefully.

I was reading Proust yesterday and this particular idea was strong. What Proust became and what made him write “In Search of Lost Time” was the product of “wounds” and weaknesses. He was suffering for the death of his mother and for his illness. But that “heightened awareness” is what gave him his sensibility and why we remember him today. Something similar could be said about David Foster Wallace. They were both great men because they were broken. Neither of them feeling privileged because of this, obviously. But this leaves also this consolatory idea of progress. That the world outside hurts so that we can eventually be “aware” and learn. It seems there are infinite paths through this kind of journey, but it is also possible they all lead to the same destination.

Proust’s work is also a world, an internal landscape with incredible complexity. Itself a microcosm explored through involuntary memory.

(here I’m doing a translation of a Preface and Proust’s words, so excuse the suckyness)

He was then choosing isolation, after his life deemed to leave him alone; he was withdrawing from the world, so that another, the internal one, would freely take shape; he was shutting himself, like Noah, inside an ark, to save himself from the Great Flood outside, but also to be able to observe and understand better what was outside. He was examining obsessively a number of themes about his soul and his body, memory and oblivion, waking life and dreams, will and inactivity.

[…]

He had to cohabit with his illnesses. After all, if that intermittence of death, presented to him as suffocation, was stealing from him the hope of life, it is also true that it was giving him a kind of second sight that let him see what others couldn’t. “Only pain lets you observe and learn and break down those structures that otherwise you wouldn’t understand. A man that, every night, would fall asleep like a stone on his bed and wouldn’t live till the moment he had to wake up, would that man think of making, if not big discoveries, at least some small observations about sleep? He’s barely aware of the act. Some insomnia wouldn’t be useless to appreciate sleep, to throw a ray of light in such darkness. A memory without flaws wouldn’t be a powerful stimulant to study the phenomena of memory.”

So seclusion and sickness, freeing him from the world and social life, offered Proust the occasion to analyze his life and the human passions. And the moments of oblivion, the emptiness, the confusion of the past, far from thwarting the memory, would infuse it a new impetus and a rare expansive strength.