Christmas Reading
I managed to get the opportunity to have the brain cool down from work and other stresses for a whole day over the XMAS period and managed to read a few books.
The first one, a present, was Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Superb. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book. When I read it I thought, hmm, I bet this is one of those books that has complex hidden meanings. But Hemingway himself said
"No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things"
How right he was. Its just a very enjoyable read and you get the sense that you can pick what it represents for yourself. No hidden meaning that only academics will spot. Its also short and you can read it in a few hours. Its a good book for a train journey or a flight.
The second book I have read is by Mark Fisher entitled Capitalist Realism, is there no alternative. Heavy? Yes. Very. But it sets out clearly what is wrong with society and capitalism. The thing that got me most about his theories is that it answered something I already knew but could not articulate. Simply put, that we live in a world of systems that none of us can change, that do not work as they should and there is no responsibility to be found in the subjects that we regularly talk about. By this I mean things like 'banking' 'corporate' 'capitalism'. These systems have no voice, are not human and cannot take responsibility. They are a consequence of the way the world works and not the cause.
He describes these systems with a wonderful analogy of the dreaded call center. You have to explain your problem over and over to different people who have no power to change anything and there is nobody in charge. It is the hopelessness of being caught in a system that does not work and there is nobody to do anything about it.
The reason I liked it most is because it beautifully describes the problem we have with IT in government. If you read this book you will understand why government is as it is today, why it does not work, why it can never work, and why there is nobody that can change it.
We have let ourselves pass through a one way door and found ourselves in a hellish place with only further one way doors ahead. And you just know that what lies beyond is worse.
The first one, a present, was Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Superb. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature for this book. When I read it I thought, hmm, I bet this is one of those books that has complex hidden meanings. But Hemingway himself said
"No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things"
How right he was. Its just a very enjoyable read and you get the sense that you can pick what it represents for yourself. No hidden meaning that only academics will spot. Its also short and you can read it in a few hours. Its a good book for a train journey or a flight.
The second book I have read is by Mark Fisher entitled Capitalist Realism, is there no alternative. Heavy? Yes. Very. But it sets out clearly what is wrong with society and capitalism. The thing that got me most about his theories is that it answered something I already knew but could not articulate. Simply put, that we live in a world of systems that none of us can change, that do not work as they should and there is no responsibility to be found in the subjects that we regularly talk about. By this I mean things like 'banking' 'corporate' 'capitalism'. These systems have no voice, are not human and cannot take responsibility. They are a consequence of the way the world works and not the cause.
He describes these systems with a wonderful analogy of the dreaded call center. You have to explain your problem over and over to different people who have no power to change anything and there is nobody in charge. It is the hopelessness of being caught in a system that does not work and there is nobody to do anything about it.
The reason I liked it most is because it beautifully describes the problem we have with IT in government. If you read this book you will understand why government is as it is today, why it does not work, why it can never work, and why there is nobody that can change it.
We have let ourselves pass through a one way door and found ourselves in a hellish place with only further one way doors ahead. And you just know that what lies beyond is worse.
posted by So long and thanks for all the fish at
5:11 pm
2 Comments:
Interesting. Must read the Capitalism book then.
Done the Old Man and The Sea. Looking forward to The Not-So-Old Man and the Medway.
Interesting. Must read the Capitalism book then. Done the Old Man and The Sea. Looking forward to The Not-So-Old Man and the Medway.
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