Brian Clegg - Dark Matter & Dark Energy (Icon Books, 2019) ***

If there's anything enigmatic in moder physics, it's the nature of dark matter and dark energy, both the topic of this book by science writer Brian Clegg. 

The book ends with the following sentence: "It might seem that as this book draws to a close it has been a study of epic failure. We still don't know what dark matter is or even if it exists. We still don't know what dark energy is, and the cosmological constant is a factor of 10¹²⁰ away from prediction. We are, appropriately, still in the dark". After having explained all the current theories about dark matter and dark energy, we have to concede that there is a lot we do not know yet. And in a way that's a delight. With the speed of scientific development of the last century, we can only hope to get a better understanding about the great mysteries of our universe (and other universes?). 

An insightful, accessible and humble book. 

Ocean Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous (Penguin, 2019) **

One more novel I did not finish. It starts quite well. Then it becomes boring. Not original enough. Not enough unexpected angles. Not enough narrative power. Too many emotional and psychological digging and not enough action or structural tensions. And maybe it's a personal thing too. As a heterosexual man, I find it extremely difficult to put myself in the position of a gay lead character who has feelings for another man. Somehow it just does not work. And the writing was not strong enough to overcome that hurdle. 

Denis Johnson - The Largesse Of The Sea Maiden (Vintage, 2018) *

I did read this book. I am sure I did. I have it now in my hands, and I do not remember what it's about, nor whether it was any good. The fact that I do not remember anything about it, means that 

1. I must be wrong and I never read it in the first place or 
2. I read it but forgot it completely because it was not memorable at all, to the extent of having been wiped from my memory, if it ever got into it. 

But now I can exclude the first option. The book has been read, considering its physical state, and it must have been read by me, because my wife always writes her name in any book she finishes reading, and this book has clearly not been read by her. 

So be it. 

Guillaume Tarche - Steve Lacy - Unfinished (Lenka Lente, 2021)

What a pleasure to browse through this book on Steve Lacy. In over 460 pages it gives testimonials - and even essays - by musicians who worked with Lacy in various capacities in his life. It's written in various languages: primarily English (70% according to the publisher), French (25%) and Italian (5%). Next to testimonials it offers some interesting pictures, factoids, sheet music and even an overview of all albums that interpret music by Lacy. 

The texts and testimonials, sometimes short, some very long are by Steve Adams, Irene Aebi, Guillaume Belhomme, Etienne Brunet, Frank Carlberg, Kent Carter, Andrea Centazzo, Allan Chase, Alvin Curran, Martin Davidson, Jean Derome, Jorrit Dijkstra, Jean-Marc Foussat, Christoph Gallio, Ben Goldberg, Guillermo Gregorio, Phillip Johnston, Peter Katz, Suzanna Klintcharova, Gilles Laheurte, Vincent Lainé, Pablo Ledesma, Urs Leimgruber, Dave Liebman, James Lindbloom, Giancarlo nino Locatelli, Michala Marcus, Gianni Mimmo, Uwe Oberg, Roberto Ottaviano, Evan Parker, Jacques Ponzio, Jon Raskin, P.-L. Renou, Patrice Roussel, Bill Shoemaker, Josh Sinton, Bruno Tocanne, Jason Weiss, Elsa Wolliaston and Seymour Wright.

The book is not intended to be read in one go, but it's a great publication for some short reading bouts every day, full of personal anecdotes, little stories but also insights into Lacy the composer, the soprano player, the songwriter, and also the person, his dedication and vision on music. 

With humble honesty German pianist Uwe Oberg's first paragraph reflects what was also my first impression of Lacy: "I didn't catch the spirit of their music. I found Lacy's playing cool and reserved, austere, maybe not fast enough. Too little drama, not enough dynamics. And merely soprano saxophone. I was 23 and had never heard someone play like Lacy". Obviously that changed quickly, and he gives interesting views of what it means to play Lacy on the piano, how structure, themes and improvisation so unique to the saxophonist remain intact yet open possibilities for interpreters. He writes about Lacy Pool, his own tribute band, ending his text with the words: "I love to play Lacy because of the intrinsic logic of his music, the beauty of his lines, the vibrant radiance of his sound, his awareness for tradition, his eagerness to experience new things. And of course the unconditional freedom his music exudes". Oberg, like me, is no longer 23, and our tastes have clearly changed in the same direction. 

Canadian saxophonist Jean Derôme explains how he went to a music summer camp in France as a 22-year old, where Lacy was one of the teachers, and receiving Lacy's note books for the day with his handwritten music, each item dedicated to another artist, with a picture attached. The young Derôme ran to the nearest copy shop to copy the books, as a basis to start imitating his great example. Today, Derôme has his own Lacy project, called "Somebody Special", which released an album two years ago with Lacy compositions and songs. 

Dutch saxophonist Jorrit Dijkstra tells about how he received lessons from Lacy in Boston, and how the master started playing "raindrop sounds" on his horn, while watching the rain outside. Dijkstra asked why he played these particular pitches. "He answered, a bit mysteriously, 'because they sound like the rain'. I'm not sure if he had another secret theoretical explanation, but I immediately agreed that this scale ressembled the melancholic, droopy feeling of being in a rainstorm." Dijkstra revels in Lacy's compositional talent ("not just nice tunes with a cool harmony, or vehicles for blowing"), offering deep insights in some Lacy compositions such as "Existence". He also mentions that when he visited Lacy's widow, the singer Irene Aebi, she gave him scans of the 50-odd composition notebooks that Lacy penned. All the originals are now available for consultation at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. 

In a very long essay, French producer Vincent Lainé gives a deep analysis of Lacy's music (unfortunately for many of our readers it is in French) in which he mentions an interview with Lacy by Philippe Carles, "qui lui demande à quoi il pense quand il joue - un paysage, une femme ou des accords - le saxophoniste répond: "Non, je ne pense jamais ni aux accords, ni au changements d'accords. Jamais à ce genre de choses. En fait, je ne pense pas en quoi que ce soit. J'essaye seulement de suivre la musique, de rester avec elle, de ne pas la perdre de vue. Si vous la perdez, vous êtes dans le pétrin, vous en faites des gâchis, mais si vous ne la perdez pas, c'est parfait" ("who asks him what he thinks of when he plays - a landscape, a woman or chords - the saxophonist replies: "No, I never think of chords or chord changes. Never of that sort of thing. I don't think about anything at all. I'm just trying to follow the music, to stay with it, not to lose sight of it. If you lose it, you're in trouble, you mess it up, but if you don't lose her, that's perfect"). 

He also mentions the incredible amount of time Lacy spent on refining his music: "Le premier morceau composé du cycle Tao est 'The Way', en 1967. 'The Breath' suivra en 1969 et les autres l'année suivante. Le cycle est enregistré en intégralité en 1971, mais sans paroles, comme l'indique sans ambages la pochette de l'album Wordless. Ce n'est qu'en 1979 qu'il est enregistré en version vocale, soit '20 ans pour lire six poèmes'. ("The first piece of the Tao cycle is 'The Way', composed in 1967. 'The Breath' is from 1969 and the other ones the following year. The cycle is recorded in its entirety in 1971, but without lyrics, as indicated in the liner notes of the album Wordless. It is only in 1979 that it is recorded in vocal version, or to put it differently, it took him '20 years to read six poems')

Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber writes: "Steve was not only a musician, he was a real artist and creator. He had a totally open mind toward any form of music, visuals, film, literature, dance. His definition of jazz: "We want to play like that, never mind the others, we want to play our own way - it's partisan music - we are the partisans of music"". 

Italian percussionist Andrea Centazzo mentions that "in this horrible pandemic 2020, sitting at home without gigs, I had the opportunity to go over about 300 tapes (!!!) which I had in storage without labels, being a total disaster at archiving my work. And suprise! I found some recordings left over from the duo and trio sessions! Once again, restoring the sound, I got enough material to release my seventh album with Steve, entitled Scraps". Who knows what more will turn up from other sources. 

It's impossible even to capture the wealth of information and the depth of the insights you receive here from many people who knew Lacy personally or who dug deep into his music, his philosophy, his admiration for Monk, and so much more. One of the fun aspect of this book is the enthusiasm with which it is written, as well as the creative angles used by some musicians to capture Lacy's essence. One nice example is Giancarlo nino Locatelli who writes a number of short poetic lines about Lacy, mentioning his last words to visitors at the hospital: 'Drop the bullshit and keep the tempo'. 

The few examples given above demonstrate that Lacy's legacy is still very much alive, and will continue to inspire and offer ingredients for today's music. 

You can order directly from the publishing company. 

A must-have for all fans of modern music. 

This is not the first book written about Steve Lacy.  Jason Weiss published "Steve Lacy: Conversations" in 2006, a collection of 34 articles and texts written about Lacy during his life. 

Lynn Formesyn - Zinvol Ziek (Lannoo, 2021)

Een fris van de lever boek over chronisch ziek zijn. Over wat het doet met een mens en met het jonge gezin. Over wat het betekent voor het werk en de arbeidsongeschiktheid. Ze heeft het over onbegrip en warmte, over de worsteling met idiote regeltjes en met menselijke steun, de momenten van hoop en de momenten van ontmoediging. De herkenbare momenten van vertwijfeling en het gereduceerd worden tot je ziekte. De soms domme vragen en commentaren, vaak goedbedoeld maar onhandig gebracht. We hebben het als patiënten allemaal wel meegemaakt.

Reumapatiënte Lynn Formesyn - en stafmedewerker bij GRIP - biedt een wat meer tegendraadse en zeker ook constructieve visie op hoe ziekte wel kan worden aangewend om de zaken anders aan te pakken. En dit in een prachtig, levendig en creatief Nederlands. Ze noemt zichzelf een "mankemens", als alternatief voor onze gewone woorden voor ziek zijn. Ze spreekt van "pijnvenijn" en ze heeft zo nog meer nieuwe woorden om haar gevoelens en ideeën op papier te zetten, naast liedjestesksten en gedichten om moeilijk te vatten ervaringen iets reëler te maken.

Ziek zijn wordt zinvol wanneer je die ziekte bespreekbaar maakt, weghaalt van tussen de vier muren van de eigen ervaring, de vooroordelen en de taboes. Ze laat lotgenoten aan het woord, patiënten met hun eigen verhaal, hun eigen beleving, hun eigen visie op ziek zijn ook. Maar ook andere deskundigen worden geïnterviewd: psychiater Dirk De Wachter, gezondheidspsycholoog Manu Keirse, CM voorzitter Luc Van Gorp, Vooruit-cabinetard Ri De Ridder, en nog veel anderen.

Ze heeft ook voor de gelegenheid alle Vlaamse partijen geïnterviewd (van de Radicaal-linksen tot de Radicaal-rechtsen), en presenteert - opnieuw creatief - hun antwoorden anoniem met een quiz over wie wat heeft gezegd (en mijn score was bijna perfect!).

Ze geeft een snel overzicht van gezondheidseconomie en stoot snel op het arbitraire systeem van Quality Adjusted Life Years (QALYs) die wij hanteren (wat overigens in Duitsland als onethisch wordt beschouwd). Ze botst op de regeltjes, de systeempjes en de nodeloze administratie. Ja, het is nog altijd zo dat chronische patiënten met een ziekte waar geen remedie voor bestaat nog halfjaarlijks of jaarlijks een attest moeten afleveren na medisch onderzoek dat ze nog altijd ziek zijn.

De grote vraag is ook mijn grote vraag: waarom wordt de expertise van al die patiënten niet gebruikt om het beleid te veranderen, om per ziekte het zorgtraject sneller, doeltreffender en efficiënter te maken? Iedereen heeft de mond vol van patiëntenrechten en patiëntenparticipatie, maar dat blijft in de praktijk jammer genoeg nog altijd dode letter.

Patiënten moeten de middelen en de opleiding krijgen om mondiger te worden, om zich te organiseren en om hun gemeenschap te kunnen vertegenwoordigen naar de buitenwereld toe. We gaan er te veel te snel van uit dat overheid en medische gemeenschap alle antwoorden hebben. Die hebben ze jammer genoeg niet. Ze hebben slechts een klein fragmentarisch beeld van wat het echt betekent om ziek te zijn. Heel veel patiënten zouden kunnen genieten van een veel betere levenskwaliteit als hun stem systematisch werd gehoord en hun ideeën geïntegreerd in de medische praktijk of in aangepaste beleidsmaatregelen. In Scandinavië en in Nederland krijgen alle patiëntenverenigingen subsidies, en worden ze systematisch formeel geconsulteerd bij beslissingen per ziekte. Voor elke ziekte hebben we professioneel gerunde patiëntenorganisaties nodig. Zij alleen hebben de nodige collectieve ervaring en kennis om de beste zorgtrajecten uit te tekenen.

Je hoeft geen reumapatiënt te zijn om dit boek goed te vinden. Vanuit de gedrevenheid van haar eigen ervaring, de bevraging van de experts en de bijkomende lectuur, heeft Lynn Formesyn een open vraag gesteld aan al wie met gezondheid bezig is: kan het even anders? Kan het met meer inspraak? Kan het met meer waardigheid? Kan het met wat betere omkadering? Ze heeft niet alle antwoorden, maar dat siert haar, net als het feit dat ze anderen het laatste woord geeft.

Ze eindigt met de volgende vraag aan andere patiënten: "Als ik luidop mag dromen, hoop ik dat Zinvol Ziek mensen zal prikkelen om bepaalde topics zelf verder te onderzoeken, maar ook om openhartig(er) te praten over alles wat mankementen in al hun vormen met iemand kunnen doen".

We hopen het met haar. Een sterke aanrader voor iedereen die met gezondheid en gezondheidsbeleid bezig is.

Het boek kan hier worden besteld.

Francesca Stavrakopoulou - God - An Anatomy (Picador, 2021) *****

What a wonderful book! Its author, Francesca Stavrakopoulou is a British biblical scholar and broadcaster. She is currently Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter in the UK. 

The book is wonderful for many reasons. First, its structure is quite exceptional for a book on religion, in that it uses the human anatomy from feet to head as the structure around which to describe the physical body of the biblical god. Second, it expands throughout ancient myths and legends what each anatomical element means and has meant, going back to Sumer, Mesopotamia, ancient Egypt and Greece, tracing back why some - often obscure - parts and verses of the bible say what they say. It helps to interpret sometimes post-dated metaphorical interpretations back to their physical origins. Third, Stavrakopoulou writes with passion, fluently, accessibly, narrating her story of the bible in such a way that the readers remains captivated by the often minute details that substantiate her claims. Fourth, because she is herself not a religious person, she has nothing to defend, just to explore, unhindred by religious canons and interpretations. Fifth, it is fun to read, with even funny moments. 

Here is just one example of her passionate writing. 

You could argue that using God's anatomy to describe him, is a very artificial way to describe Yahweh the god of judaism and christianity, and in a way it is, of course, with some aspects coming back in the various chapters, because god is much more than just an assembly of organs and limbs, but still, because the physical nature of the god - in contrast to the more modern abstract interpretations of his being - was absolutely essential to the original writers of the bible. 

The book is grand in its scope, erudite in its knowledge, brilliant in its delivery, and entertaining to read. What more do you need? 

Fiona Mozley - Elmet (John Murray, 2018) ***½

"Elmet" is the story of a boy and a girl who live in the woods, outside society, in the sometimes presence of a father who lives from poaching, boxing and day jobs. Soon they are confronted with the nastiness of those in power, with property and money, and they are sucked up in a life they do not want. 

The brutal, raw and pure power of the father, almost stripped to a basic human form of fatherly love, and violent emotions, who does not understand property deeds, bureaucracy and the subtleties of legislation and regulations, is in stark contrast to the hypocritical, sly and evil attitude of the world around them. 

Despite this almost black & white opposition of positions and characters, Mozley manages to turn the story into a very likeable and compelling narrative, in which all characters come to life in a credible and human form, with the children somehow caught in the middle, full of love for their father, but uncertain how they fit in. 

A memorable book. 
 

Tim Winton - That Eye The Sky (Penguin, 1986) ***

 I have read several novels by Tim Winton that I really appreciated, and so I read this one too. It is the story of a young boy, Ort Flack, whose father becomes the victim of a car accident, and who now lives in their house, paralysed, and not aware of what's happening to him. The family gets the unexpected support from a religious man who helps out and moves into the house. From the perspective of the young man, the situation is both incomprehensible as welcome. He no longer understands his mother, nor his grandmother, who increasingly withdraws within herself, and least of all his older sister who lives in a permanent state of anger. 

As usual, Winton's writing is strong, and he manages to create a very sophisticated novel full of ambiguity and shifting loyalties. 

If you're interested, I can easily recommend "Cloud Street", "Breath" and "Dirt Music" by Winton. 

Books of the Year 2020

 For once, the winner is the same in the category of Fiction and Non-Fiction. The reason is simple: even if it is in essence a history book, the literary qualities are such that it outperforms many of the novels in the list below. 

Julian Barnes' "The Man In The Red Coat" is a must read for anybody. I also got to know French author Sorj Chalandon, whose "Profession Du Père" is equally powerful, and Coetzee's Jesus trilogy. 

In the non-fiction department, cognitive science and the history of science are high on my list of interests, so there is no surprise here. I really enjoyed Stephen Fry's "Heroes", and I was very disappointed by some other books, but OK, not everything can be good. 

The volume is less than in the previous years. Too much work, and much less travel. Usually hotel rooms, airports, planes and trains are good for reading. (Un)fortunately, that was not the case this year. 

Fiction

1. Julian Barnes - The Man In The Red Coat *****
2. Sorj Chalandon - Profession Du Père ****
3. J.M. Coetzee - The Death Of Jesus ****
4. Marieke Lucas Rijneveld - De Avond Is Een Ongemak ****
5. Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt - Madame Pylinska Et Le Secret De Chopin ****
6. Olga Tokarczuk - Primeval And Other Times ***½
7. László Krazsnahorkai - Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming  ***½
8. Lisa Huissoon - Alle Mensen Die Ik Ken ***
9. Elif Shafak - 10 Minutes 38 Seconds In This Strange World ***
10. Mario Vargas Llosa - The Neighborhood **
11. Yoko Ogawa - The Memory Police  **
12. Natsu Miyashita - The Forest Of Wool And Steel **
13. Louis de Bernières - The Autumn Of The Ace *

Non-Fiction

1. Julian Barnes - The Man In The Red Coat *****
2. Hugo Mercier - Not Born Yesterday ****
3. Carlo Rovelli - Anaximander ****
4. Pascal Boyer - Minds Make Societies ****
5. Ingrid D. Rowland - Giordano Bruno - Philosopher, Heretic ****
6. Anne Applebaum - Twilight Of Democracy  ***½
7. Stephen Fry - Heroes ***
8. Richard Dawkins - Outgrowing God ***
9. Erik Martens - De Boerenkrijg in Brabant ***
10. Dan Sperber - Explaining Culture ***
11. Edward J. Watts - Hypatia ***
12. Michael S.A. Graziano - Rethinking Consciousness ***
13. Donald D. Hoffman - The Case Against Reality **
14. Gilbert Sinoué - Averroès ou Le Secrétaire du Diable **½

László Krazsnahorkai - Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming (Tuskar Rock, 2020) ***½

 Krazsnahorkai's writing is an experience by itself. His style is one of mesmerising intensity without punctuation and moments of relaxation which results in the almost physical breathlesness of the reader. In order to read his massive books best, you have to take the time, lots of time so that you can be sucked into his universe. 

"Baron Wenckheim's Homecoming" is not different. Different stories intertwine. The penniless Baron comes home to his hometown in Hungary, having fled Argentina because of gambling debts, only to be welcomed by the local community, led by the opportunistic mayor who assumes that the Baron's great wealth will revive the city. The family's former castle, now an orphanage, is emptied of its residents so that the Baron can live the fable they create around him. Meanwhile a world-renowned professor who lives in the woods is trying to push away his 19-year old daughter who claims that he owes her money. An aggressive motor gang intervenes with varying success. 

The novel of more than 550 pages tells the absurdity of our lives, the stupidity of people, their greed, their fake beliefs, their manipulative nature, ... The book is as much a joy to read as it is irritating. His chapter-long sentences drive the reader forward into the stream of consciousness of the characters, with all the interruptions that includes, of side-thoughts, of direct observations, of emotions, of sifting through this incredibly complex world that escapes rationality and refuses to be captured with logic and common sense, and as a result we cannot control it even if that's our most important wish. 

By being sucked into the minds of all these all-too-human characters you cannot but conclude that the world is incomprehensible and that all humans are mad. The only downside is that most characters are too exaggerated to remain captivating or persons to identify with. He has done better and with more impact - at least to me - in previous novels. 

 Krazsnahorkai pushes literary boundaries. His novels will not please many readers, but for those with the courage to submit to the author's control, a rewarding experience. 

Hugo Mercier - Not Born Yesterday (Princeton, 2020) ****

 Cognitive scientist Hugo Mercier theorises that the masses are less gullible than we think, and that the power to influence their thoughts are limited, and if their is impact, the process is slow. 

Having worked in communications and public affairs in my whole career, I can partly agree to that. There is a lot of intuitive thinking and group thinking (eg. I am anti-establishment, so I repeat by default some of the positions of my fellow group members: anti-vaxx, anti 5G, anti-government, anti-industry, against pharmaceuticals, etc. or I belong to an original population of this country, so I am against immigrants, muslims, leftists, pro-weapons, against the EU, etc.). On topics that are outside of group-thinking, it is much easier to change opinions and mass communication may have an effect on both opinions and behaviour. Especially on new topics, it is much easier to persuade people with rational arguments: for instance during the mad cow crisis, even at McDonald's we managed to build trust from 30% to 60% on the topic of food safety in the period of one year. 

Mercier is not convinced of this argument. He also questions the impact of advertising, which is of course ludicrous. He writes: "Targeted advertising can, it seems, have some limited effects, but these have only been proven on product purchases, with relevant data on the users' profiles, and the effects were tiny, adding a few dozen purchases after millions of people had seen the ads". Anybody who's been active in advertising will be able to tell you, sales figures in hand, what the impact can be of advertising, by creating immediate purchases, long term customer preference, market share, etc. If it wasn't effective, companies and governments wouldn't spend the actual annual amount of around 580 billion dollar on advertising (2019). Mercier can claim that masses are less gullible than we think, but he seems to think that advertisers are all idiots. Does he really believe that companies would invest that kind of money if it wasn't effective somehow? 

But I can agree with Mercier that people are less gullible than we think, and that many implicit thoughts and feelings just require some instance to make them explicit in order to gain confidence and become manifest, as in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. It takes time to gain trust and it takes a lot of effort to change people's opinions through open debate and repetition of the facts. 

One strategy that he does not suggest, but that in my opinion may be very effective, is to educate people about cognitive sciences - make it a mandatory class at school - to make them understand the processes behind their thinking and how thoughts are connected to feelings, intuitive responses and group-thinking. It is only by offering individuals mechanisms to understand bias, that they may be more open to challenge their own thinking instead of only other people's arguments. That, and of course a much more open culture of debate and citizen participation in political decision-making. 

Despite my comments, I would still highly recommend this book. It may be wrong on some points, but it gives an important perspective on our collective thinking. 

Donald D. Hoffman - The Case Against Reality (Allen Lane, 2019) **

 I am usually open to any new ideas that scientists come up with, as long as they are substantiated and demonstrated, but Donald D. Hoffman goes a step further, presenting a theory that is almost impossible to understand. 

His theory is simple: reality as we know it does not exist. What is 'out there' is nothing more than imagery that our mind creates in order to navigate our lives. Hoffman formally denies solipsism, the notion that only I exist and all the rest is a figment of my imagination, but he denies that anything exists as we know it when we close our eyes. 

Hoffman throws in a lot of arguments to substantiate his hypothesis, including correspondence with Francis Crick, explanation of Einstein's Theory of Relativity and quantum physics. 

He uses the analogy of people thinking that a folder on their computer screen actually exists as a folder, when it is just an icon without real content, made up of only "zeros and ones". So are all the forms and shapes and movements we observe icons that our mind creates in order to be able to deal with reality. 

Hoffman throws in many names, from philosophers over physicists to cognitive scientists, very often in a very defensive mode, as if his hypothesis is already under attack, trying to counter the arguments people might have against his views. In my opinion this weakens his statement. 

The crucial question that if many people who do not know each other see and measure and photograph and otherwise observe the same thing across cultures and across time, and all agree that this is the same thing with the same proportions and shape, how can this then be a figment of the imagination? Or how is it possible that scientific observations counter the prevailing culturally accepted false perceptions? Is it not the case that science counters and corrects the false beliefs of our imagination, such as determined by culture, religion, ideology? Or even more simply, how is it possible to play tennis, when two people may be seeing different realities? How do I know that the ball that I hit to your backhand will not be countered by a forehand hit by you (of course except for the value judgment whether the ball was on the line or out)? 

His arguments are many, but his evidence is limited to analogies, metaphors and a set of perceptual tests that in my opinion do not support his hypothesis. It is not because many tests demonstrate that subjects do not see reality as it is, and create their own reality in their minds, as a result of the many flaws of our perceptual system, that reality does not exist. 

Nevertheless, it is fun to read about far-fetched ideas. 

Mario Vargas Llosa - The Neighborhood (Faber & Faber, 2018) **

Really? OK - I am a little disappointed by this novel, maybe because I expect more from Mario Vargas Llosa. "The Neighborhood" reads like a fast written novel, maybe required by a publisher, but with no big ideas, no real plot, no artistic project ...

A businessman gets blackmailed by a magazine editor. His wife has a sexual relationship with his friend's wife. The magazine editor gets killed. Who did it? 

True, there is some criticism on the totalitarian regime in Peru, and there is some attacks on the hypocrisy of the wealthier classes and on the sensationalism of the tabloid press, and the uncomfortable symbiosis of power, wealth and journalism. 

Yet the characters are uninteresting, the sex is cheap, the writing too much done on automatic pilot. 

Quickly written, quickly read. A novel you expect from a beginner, but from Vargas Llosa?

Pascal Boyer - Minds Make Societies (Yale University Press, 2018) ****

 In stark contrast to pop-scientists such as Yuval Noah Harari, there are also real scientists who think and substantiate their thoughts with references and facts. Evolutionary psychologist Pascal Boyer is such a scientist, and in "Minds Make Societies", he tries to create a framework from which to evaluate how science can get a grasp on the complex and ever-changing nature of our societies, by integrating knowledge from a variety of scientific disciplines. 

He asks the critical questions:

1. What is the root of group conflict? 

2. What is information for?

3. Why are there religions? 

4. What is the natural family? 

5. How can societies be just? 

6. Can human minds understand societies? 

Boyer looks at the framework to reconcile different disciplines by giving examples of why this is needed to fully grasp the reality we observe. He is also cognizant of the need to identify our own biases and perspectives while doing so, and humble enough to recognise that we are only at the very beginning of understanding the processes that determine such a complex subject matter as societal evolution. 

The challenge of real scientific thought is that it is very difficult to translate into a narrative that gets understanding among larger groups of readers. Harari has all the answers and that possibly sells better than Boyer who has all the questions, but chances are that only the latter is in a scientifically credible position. 

Ingrid D. Rowland - Giordano Bruno - Philosopher, Heretic (University Of Chicago, 2008) ****

In the list of "thinkers who matter in the history of mankind", Italian monk and free-thinker Giordano Bruno requires a top spot, not only because of the quality of his thinking, but also because of the courage he showed to fight the system of belief to which he actually belonged. 

Eventually he was burned at the stake for heresy at the hands of the inquisition. 

Rowland recreates his life in vivid prose, extremely well documented and with lots of excerpts from the original texts by Bruno himself or other contemporaries. 

Bruno received a good education, with an interest in "natural philosophy" as it was called then: mathematics, astronomy. Quite rapidly after his formal education ended, he had to flee Naples. To a certain extent he reminds me of Voltaire, an eternal rebel, relishing in the quality of his own sharpness of thought, that pierces through the inconsistencies and irrational framework of thought of the establishment, but then going a step further and publicly mocking these, becoming the first victim of this insolent behaviour. 

Bruno becomes a wandering monk (in France, England, Germany) and teacher, first living in monasteries, then later at universities and at the courts of dukes and kings. He developed a technique to memorise events and texts, which he taught in schools, but he also turned this into a performance, reciting long texts by heart, to the pleasure of the artistocracy. 

He was invited to the court of Venice in 1592, and was arrested by the inquisition in 1593. His trial lasted seven years, after which he was burned at the stake for heresy. 

Bruno claimed that the earth was not the center of the universe. He claimed that the universe was infinite. He claimed that stars were nothing else than suns, each with their own solar system of planets. He even mentioned that it is not impossible that on some of these planets intelligent beings may live. He denounced the holy trinity and the many saints. 

In contrast to what many believe, Bruno was not convicted for his scientific beliefs, but rather for his religious positions. 

When sentenced he said "You may be more afraid to bring that sentence against me than I am to accept it". 

 

Louis de Bernières - The Autumn Of The Ace (Harvill Secker, 2020) *

 Can it be that an author's writing completely deteriorates with the passing of time? Or is it the loyal reader who becomes more critical and difficult over time? 

I enjoyed the following novels by de Bernières: 

1. The War of Don Emmanuel's Nether Parts (1990)
2. Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord (1991)
3. The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman (1992)
4. Captain Corelli's Mandolin (1994)
5. Red Dog (2001)
6. Birds Without Wings (2004)
7. A Partisan's Daughter (2008)

I thought they were funny, well written, interesting, original and often moving, with interesting characters, carefully crafted plots, creative and entertaining. Not "high" literature, but fun to read. 

In 2015, he published "The Dust That Falls From Dreams", which I found utterly boring. But OK, that may happen. So, full of enthusiasm I bought his latest novel, "The Autumn Of The Ace", which is as bad as the previous ones. The novel is situated in the same family and it has all the same problems as the previous ones: totally uninteresting characters, no plot, shallow human sentiments, no tension, no real development, dialogues for which a first year student of creative writing would get bad notes (use dialogues to illustrate the relationship between the speakers, not to share background information to the reader), etc, etc. 

I read 150 pages of the 310, and it might be that by some miracle the rest of the book is good, but the chances are slim. 

Disappointing and sad. 

Anne Applebaum - Twilight Of Democracy (Allen Lane, 2020) ***½

 I saw an interview with Anne Applebaum on CNN earlier this year, discussing the attitude of Republicans towards the importance of facts and the antics of Donald Trump. She is a Republican, but then one who has lived abroad, one who is well-read and open to different perspectives. In "The Twilight Of Democracy", she tells her personal story as an American expat living in Poland and the UK. In her direct environment, she notices the shift among her friends to consolidate power by changing the judiciary and the media, trends which are entirely anti-democratic but clearly supported by the new conservative fractions of nationalists and the extreme right. 

She asks the right questions about how a democratic society can protect itself from anti-democratic forces who manipulate the system so that they can take advantage of democracy. To her credit she does not have final answers. She denounces the lying and the liars, the stifling of rational debate, the lack of respect for people with different opinions, the brutal power politics and the deliberate undermining of the foundations of democracy. To her credit she rather loses friends than her principles. Her insider stories about meetings, dinners and parties with the political elite in Europe are interesting. 

For liberals, like myself, her discourse appears obvious, and I often wondered why she called herself a republican, and now, I can only hope that she will have more credibility among her fellow republicans and be read. 

Erik Martens - De Boerenkrijg in Brabant (1798-1799) (De Krijger, 2005) **½

 At the end of the 18th century, the "Belgian" population organised the resistance against the French occupation, and farmers took up the few arms they had to fight the famous and all-powerful French army. 

This insurrection is called "de Boerenkrijg" - the revolt of the farmers. This revolt has become part of Belgian historical mythology, with its legends and heroes, and hard to assess what was actually true or what became a convenient patriotic narrative in the last two centuries. This was even more accentuated by the catholic church who supported the insurrection against the pagan French revolution. 

This book gives an inventory of reports at national or municipal level of events that took place during that period. Court documents, policy documents, political documents. It offers material by date and by place in the province of Brabant, where Brussels was originally located (not that Brussels was moved, but Brussels eventually became a separate political jurisdiction). 

The fight started because of the French war against the Austrians who were then ruling the "Netherlands", which included Belgium. The Austrians did not really put up a fight and were no match for the French. Both armies did not have the logistics we have today, so they survived by looting the local inhabitants. When these used weapons to respond, entire villages were killed and burned. 

Because the book is just an inventory, it does not make for easy reading. It's a case of "you can't see the wood for the trees", because chronology and geographical events do not follow a single narrative. It's a shocking moment in our history, and it possibly deserves a more powerful narrative. At least Martens managed to get all the ingredients together to write that story. 

Michael S.A. Graziano - Rethinking Consciousness (WW Norton, 2019) ***

 Understanding our human consciousness remains one of the toughest scientific nuts to crack. Graziano takes a very optimistic and mechanical view of our consciousness. He claims that in theory it would be possible to recreate consciousness with the right ingredients available: attention, attention schema, content. 

Graziano acknowledges that the hardest part to resolve is emotions. And that is possibly also the weakness of his approach and ambition, including uploading consciousness into a machine. Apart from the question how useful, wishful or interesting this would be, who would actually want this? 

His engineering approach to consciousness may lead to some interesting conceptual questions and challenges, but it brings us back to square one. "The single most important change that I can see - the watershed moment in the history of our species - is the moment people understand consciousness. Once we understand it from a pragmatic, engineering point of view, then a remarkable future becomes possible. In that future, mind is something precious, something to be nurtured, grown, and then saved, something that can be lifted from the original biological platform and migrated, duplicated, branched, maintained indefinitely, and even possibly merged with other minds". 

How horrifying! Does that mean that this mind is completely devoid of sensual pleasure, no bodily contacts, no cuddling of a grandchild, no intimacy, not even a hug, let alone sex, no enjoyment of music, literature, paintings? No enjoyment of food, smell, sports? What is a mind without a body? Who would want to be locked up in a computer or even in a robot? Would we not need a physical 'self' to be able to form this attention schema, to have a mental concept of ourselves? How can this be without a body? 

I may have more questions than answers after reading Graziano's book, but it's still worth reading, if only to challenge our current thinking and to project a vision of the future, even if it sounds horrifying. 

Marieke Lucas Rijneveld - De Avond Is Een Ongemak (Atlas Contact, 2018) ****

 I am not very interested in Dutch literature because of too many disappointments. If the world is my place, and my language one of the tiniest language groups in this world, what are the chances to have the best literature coming from this tiny language group? Like with all statistics, the chances are smaller than when you read English or Spanish novels. Quality is somehow the result of quantity, whether you like that or not. 

When Marieke Lucas Rijneveld won the International Booker Prize this year with The Discomfort of Evening, I had to review my position. The novel tells the story of a young girl whose brother has just died. This affects the whole family of very religious farmers, who each try to deal with this loss in their own way. The environment is full of tension, hypocrisy and lack of empathy, even if all characters in the novel are described with compassion. Her craving for love and physical contact is only responded by a rigid and suffocating environment. 

Not only the subject matter, but also the language and the stylistic power of the novel makes it worthwhile literature. The child absorbs information from her teachers, brother, sister and family, while misinterpreting this information or combining it in sometimes strange reasonings, even if plausible when seen through the eyes of a child. The paragraph below illustrates this well. 

In short, an emotionally compelling, well written and captivating novel.