Álvaro Enrigue, You Dreamed of Empires **** 1/2

You Dreamed of Empires is a historical novel about the day in 1519 when Hernán Cortés arrived at Tenochtitlán and met Moctezuma. It tells the story from the point of view of several characters both Spanish and Aztecan, each one of them unsure about whether things are going well or very, very badly. Moctezuma welcomed the Spaniards into the city: does he consider them honored guests or is he planning an ambush? Is he a brilliant strategist or is he losing his touch?

Enrigue has an entertaining writing style that mixes historical detail with modern-seeming characters. He loves to deploy Nahuatl words for their interesting sound. The story often has a hallucinatory feel, which is appropriate given Moctezuma's penchant for mushrooms.

I loved everything about the book until the later sections where postmodernist trickery starts to intrude. I wasn't entirely satisfied with the conclusion, which (spoiler alert) is an Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge-type situation except that all of subsequent history, up to an including my reading of the novel, is part of the reverie.

Andy Clark, The Experience Machine ** 1/2

The philosopher and cognitive scientist Andy Clark argues that our minds are best understood as generative prediction models and that our subjective experience derives from the interface between the models' predictions and the incoming sensory signal. We use our senses to validate our expectations, and use "prediction errors" (i.e. mismatch with actual sensory signal) to train our model to make better predictions.

I wholeheartedly agree that we impose our understanding of the world onto the raw sensory data, and that indeed there is no such thing as raw sensory data "untouched by our own expectations." I agree with most of Clark's conclusions, but I find his arguments and conceptualizations hand-wavy. I was particularly unconvinced by his explanation regarding "action as self-fulfilling prediction."

Clark (or his publisher) tries to present this theory as being revolutionary "For as long as we've studied human cognition, we've believed that our senses give us direct access to the world." Really? I don't think we've believed that since the 18th century. He himself cites earlier authorities that go back at least as far as the mid-19th century. Clark's thesis is just an au courant version of the long-standing tendency to understand the mind in terms of the latest technological advances, in this case generative AI modeling.

To me, the most intriguing innovation in Clark's conception is his treatment of conscious attention as comparable to modeling precision.

By increasing or decreasing these "precision-weightings," the impact of certain predictions or of certain bits of sensory evidence can be amplified or dampened. ... What we informally think of as "attention" is implemented in these systems by mechanisms that alter these precision-weightings.

Samantha Harvey, Orbital *** 1/2

Orbital describes a day in the life of six (fictional) astronauts on the International Space Station. They observe the Earth as they circle over it sixteen times—passing from night to day every ninety minutes or so—and ponder their place in the universe.

Many reviewers of the Booker Prize-winning Orbital describe it as "meditative," which turns out to mean that it is the literary equivalent of the music they play when you're getting a massage. It favors atmosphere over development, incorporates images of nature, and encourages contemplation. Like guided meditation, the book is structured around a recurring rhythm (breath, orbits) and makes connections between mundane activities and abstract cosmic questions. 

Dan Charnas, Dilla Time **** 1/2

Dilla Time is the third book I've read in as many months about musical artists whose work I am largely unfamiliar with (following Time's Echo and Cocaine and Rhinestones). The artist in this case is J Dilla, "the hip-hop producer who reinvented rhythm" as the subtitle has it. The great thing about all of these books is that they provide vivid accounts of the contexts in which the artists worked and musicological analysis of their innovations.

J Dilla's most influential innovation was the creation of a new lurching way of keeping time, more complex and "sloppier" than swing time. He used a variety of techniques on drum machine/sequencers to achieve rhythmic friction; in particular, he subtly shifted the timing of the various drum components (snare, kick drum, hi hat) so that some feel rushed while others feel slow. His production technique created an entire genre of hip-hop in the 1990s and early 2000s, comprising such artists as A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, D'Angelo, Erykah Badu, and The Roots.

Charnas does a nice job of explaining Dilla's approach and treating it as an important musical advance. He pays less attention to Dilla's unique way of handling harmony and melody, perhaps because it would take away from his main thesis. 

Charnas' previous book was about the business of hip-hop, so it's not surprising that he clearly navigates the maze of record labels, rights owners, and collaborations. After Dilla's death (at 32 from a rare blood disease) there was a battle over his estate, with different parties having legal authority, moral authority, and artistic authority over his legacy. Charnas presents the messy details even-handedly.

The book gave me enjoyable insights into musical artistry, the music business, the cultural milieu, and how they all impact each other. It reinforced my prejudice that hip-hop was the most innovative form of music over the turn of the century, with its artists exploring advanced techniques like jazz musicians do.

Kaveh Akbar, Martyr! ***

Martyr! is a hard book to describe. Its tone is that of an earnest novel of ideas, despite the exclamation point in the title implying comedy. Its main character is Cyrus Shams, a young Iranian American struggling to overcome addiction and make his life and/or his death matter. However, many chapters are written from other characters' points of view, especially those of his parents who both died apparently meaningless deaths. The plot is minimal, relies on a few coincidences, and seems almost beside the point. Fascinating thoughts appear at regular intervals, but they fail to add up to a clear conclusion.

When people think about traveling to the past, they do it with this wild sense of self-importance. Like, 'gosh, I better not step on that flower or my grandfather will never be born.' But in the present we mow our lawns and poison ants and skip parties and miss birthdays all the time. We never think about the effects of that stuff. Nobody thinks of now as the future past.

 

David Wallace, Philosophy of Physics ***

Philosophy of Physics is part of Oxford University Press' Very Short Introduction series. It identifies the metaphysical mysteries that arise when we try to understand modern physics, from relativity to quantum mechanics. What is the nature of space and time? How do we interpret probability? What the hell is happening with quantum mechanics?

I like to ponder these mind-benders from time to time. The unintelligibility of the undeniably successful mathematics must mean that our conceptual understanding has gone wrong somewhere, right? But where?

Wallace does a decent job of demonstrating the seeming paradoxes. However, I find the enigmas compelling enough that I want a longer introduction.

Earl Swift, Chesapeake Requiem *****

Chesapeake Requiem is an intimate portrait of the small crab-fishing community of Tangier Island, located in Chesapeake Bay. Their way of life is vanishing both literally and figuratively: every year the Bay washes away more of the island, and every generation loses more of its people to the mainland. The journalist Earl Swift lived on the island for a year. He describes the history of the island, both natural and cultural, the lifestyle of the residents, and the social questions raised by its not-so-slow erosion. 

I enjoyed the book for its detailed anthropological depiction of the day-to-day life and work of the islanders, and for the mostly subtle way it approached larger issues. Swift sticks closely to the lived experience of the people on the island, rarely making explicit the abstract ethical and political principles involved. For example, he explains how the watermen understand the causes of land loss rather than emphasizing their disbelief in climate change and sea-level rise. Ultimately, it doesn't matter what the causes are, what matters is the most effective way to combat the problem. The specifics of Tangier's situation are unique, but similar forces are at work undermining traditional communities around the world.

Swift's year on the island was 2016 to 2017, which means he was on hand when islanders voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in his first election. Explicitly political discussions appear only in the final few chapters, but the sources of the residents' conservative views emerge clearly from their perspective on quotidian topics such as fishing licenses. 

The fundamental question at the heart of the story is how or whether to preserve the island and its community. How do we as a society decide what natural and social resources are worth saving? There are just over 400 people living on Tangier Island. Dropping enrollment at the school is as much a threat to their community as the shrinking land. Which is the more important reason to protect the island: the crab fishery or its position on the flyway for migrating birds?

Jennifer Croft, The Extinction of Irena Rey ***

The Extinction of Irena Rey is a comic novel about the relationship between an author and her translators, written by the acclaimed translator of Olga Tokarczuk's recent work. A group of translators gather at the author's house to work on her newest book. Their rivalries and differing approaches to translation lead to conflict and to the disappearance of the author.

I was not a fan of the absurdist humor in the first half of the book. There's nothing more painful than comedy you don't find funny. Croft's themes—the codependency of authors and translators, the relationship between human and ecological trauma, the appropriation at the heart of great art—come to the fore in the second half, making it far more engaging and thought-provoking than the first half.

Charan Ranganath, Why We Remember ****

I'll bet that Charan Ranganath is a great teacher (he is a professor at UC Davis). He has a talent for fitting scientific details into a clear big picture conceptual framework, while also tying it back to everyday experiences. He includes personal stories so that we feel like we know him; for example, the preface includes references to Hüsker Dü and fIREHOSE and many of the chapter/section titles are unattributed musical references.

The book is about the neural mechanisms of memory. Ranganath suggests that we should consider the purpose of memory.

Contrary to popular belief, the most important message to come from the science of memory is not that you can or even should remember more. The problem isn't your memory, it's that we have the wrong expectations for what memory is for in the first place. ... The mechanisms of memory were not cobbled together to help us remember the name of that guy we met at that thing.

When you think about why we remember, how we use memories to learn and make decisions, many vagaries of the mind start to make sense: the things we remember vs the things we forget, the malleability of our recollections, the "tip of the tongue" phenomena. Our goal should not be to remember more but to be more intentional about what we remember.

The chapters in "Part 3: The Implications" felt more vague and speculative than the rest of the book. Perhaps that is appropriate given their broader scope, but it means the end was anti-climactic.

Eric LaRocca, This Skin Was Once Mine ** 1/2

This Skin Was Once Mine is a short collection of four horror stories. The horror in each story derives from a character's mental derangement which turns out to be greater than it seems and/or falls prey to even greater derangement in another character character. 

The plots were fine but the stories disappointed me for three reasons:

• None of the characters think or act like normal human beings
• The metaphors for emotional trauma were obvious and not developed in any insightful way
• The prose was clichéd and repetitive

The title story did surprise me. It broadly telegraphs that the narrator's troubles come from misinterpreting why her parents forced her out of the house twenty years before, but her reaction to the truth is unexpected and interesting. Alas, LaRocca adds two more unnecessary plot twists.

Adam Shoalts, Where the Falcon Flies ***

Where the Falcon Flies is a travel adventure in which Shoalts travels by canoe and foot from his home in southern Ontario to the Torngat Mountains in Arctic Quebec. As the title suggests, this is the migration route for peregrine falcons.

For the first half of the book, Shoalts canoes in developed and populated areas, across Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and up the Saint Lawrence River past Quebec City. He stashes his canoe and hikes north to Labrador City, buys another canoe and navigates the maze of lakes and rivers in northern Canada. He stops in the Torngat Mountains to see the falcon nests, then arrives at the Arctic Ocean.

There's plenty of adventure along the way, but Shoalts neglects to develop any unifying theme to make the journey feel meaningful rather than just one thing after another. He rarely mentions falcons despite their role in motivating the trip, and offers three measly pages about their Arctic home. He tosses out the kind of miscellaneous historical facts you'd find in a guidebook (about battles in the War of 1812, for example, or iron mining) but moves on quickly. His descriptions of the natural environment are competent but uninspiring.

Weather conditions on his trip were uniformly miserable. He always seemed to be paddling against the wind, getting soaked with rain, or portaging amidst clouds of mosquitoes. The one bright spot was the repeated kindness of strangers.

Percival Everett, James ***

Let me start by admitting that I'm not a fan of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and recall very few of its plot points. I generally don't care for picaresque novels and didn't find the comic elements humorous.

James tells the same story from the point of view of the runaway slave Jim. The gimmick is that Jim is extremely well educated and merely plays the fool for the benefit of his white oppressors. The first few chapters show Jim teaching young black children "the correct incorrect grammar" for the "slave filter," and several plot developments involve white folks being confused when they hear a slave speak "proper" English.

It is not surprising that James focuses on language given that the vernacular is the most notable aspect of Twain's book and of Everett's earlier book Erasure (filmed as American Fiction). 

Everett leans too heavily on his themes. Not only can Jim read and write, he is inexplicably well educated. He has a dream in which he argues with Voltaire about natural versus civil liberties, and has visions of John Locke. When alone, the slaves have explicit conversations about their predicament. At the same time, Everett skims past the adventures, such as when Huck and Jim explore a house that comes floating down the river.

The story comes alive once it deviates from Huckleberry Finn. The ironic humor, the action, and the intensity all increase during the period when Huck and Jim are separated. When they are reunited, it is Jim who drives the action, not Huck. The final chapters are completely different in both incident and tone: Huckleberry Finn ends with controversial chapters that "devolve into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" (says Ernest Hemingway); James ends with violence and righteous anger.

Tyler Mahan Coe, Cocaine & Rhinestones ****

Cocaine & Rhinestones is a podcast about the history of country music. This book, adapted from its second season, centers on the tragic stories of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Or, rather, it uses their story as the main through-line for a wide-ranging exploration of country music and beyond. 

I enjoyed Coe's discursive style and was especially impressed with his insights into the art and business of country music: the meaning and development of "the Nashville Sound," the marketing of recordings in the era of regional distribution, the changing role of producers, the importance of artists' personas, the line between country and pop.

Many fans believe that the "& Western" part of the genre Country & Western is a reference to western swing. It's not. It's a reference to western music, or at least Hollywood's version of western music, performed by singing actors in Western movies, a.k.a. "horse operas," the biggest of which were given exponentially larger marketing budgets than the entire country music division of any record label at the time.

I appreciated Coe's firm convictions about the quality of the songs and his willingness to call bullshit on significant parts of the official narrative.

I was mostly fine with the totally tangential interpolations about pinball machines, bullfighting, the age of chivalry, and so on. Coe generally brought an interesting perspective to the subjects, and they provided a break from the relentless misery of George and Tammy's lives.

I found a 500+ track Spotify playlist that provided easy access to the referenced music. My favorite discoveries were not tracks from George or Tammy. Cocaine & Rhinestones is the second music book I've loved in the past month despite not being a huge fan of the artists in focus. I would have liked the book to have photos – of Nudie suits, for example, or of Jones' evolving haircuts – but I suppose podcasts don't have photos either.

By the way, the proper pronunciation of "Wynette" is win-net not why-net.