Reading updates
It’s mid-August already and I’ve not updated my “What I’m Reading” section with an entry for this month. That’s not quite right — by the time this is posted I will have posted my August notes.
However, I’ve fallen behind schedule, in the reading, the note-writing, and the posting. We were traveling the last 10 days of July — a work trip for my wife. I was the designated driver (we were in 5 different cities over the 10 days), and I found it rather difficult to read while driving from city to city. In addition, I was in the middle of a couple of rather large books that I decided not to carry with me, and didn’t finish those until after we returned.
And there are quite a few books on the reading page for July that have the rather embarrassing phrase indicating that notes are pending. Most of those are books by and about Hannah Arendt. I’ve found this reading both fascinating and overwhelming. Her thought is so much more complex and extensive than I thought when I set out to read her; after finishing one book I would decide that I really need to read another book to solidify my understanding of the first. And then, well, rinse and repeat. So, thoughts about Arendt are still percolating. I’ll say now that I think she is very much worth reading. But there are other books described on the July page that I think are well worth reading — I especially liked the novel Perfection, by Vincenzo Latronico.
Moving on to August, there are three books there that I’ve finished reading but still haven’t written notes. A couple of those are the large books I didn’t take with me on our travels, and the third is a novel that I was able to check out for only two weeks. I was eager to finish all of those before leaving town again tomorrow (see above about not wanting to carry large books with me). I’m telling myself — and you — that I’ll write notes on those after returning home next month.
One point from that novel I just mentioned — The Dream Hotel — is haunting me as I continue reading while my world is falling apart. The novel’s protagonist is in a retention center (Don’t call it a prison!) because the algorithm has determined that she might commit a crime. That is, her “risk score” (as determined by the algorithm, a black box that has access to all sorts of data about her, including her dreams) has crossed a crucial threshold. She’s forced to stay in the retention center (Don’t call it a prison!) until her score drops back below the threshold. While there, she has occasional access to online news reports. And this is the point that haunts me: while she’s reading the news, a story about some everyday event catches her attention. Even in the midst of living in a society where the algorithm can force the retention of individuals, she who is retained sees that there are still people living lives as if none of this is happening. The point haunts me because I still wonder how I can continue to read books as if our country weren’t falling apart. Even the simple act of shopping for groceries, to say nothing about reading philosophy, seems out of place somehow.
I take some comfort in Heinrich Blücher’s report of his excitement reading Kant while imprisoned in Nazi occupied France.
