Robert Sharp

Pupil Barrister

Tag: Literature (Page 16 of 18)

Stephenson on Spam

2 January 2009 / / 1 Comment

One of the presents in my stocking from Santa was The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I’ve long thought that his epics, The Baroque Cycle and especially Cryptonomicon address some of the fundamental issues of our age, especially the impact of technology on culture. This passage from The Diamond Age, published in the mid-1990s, seems prescient of our computer culture, our obsession with gagetry (“guilty, your honour”) and the vogue for cosmetic surgery. It also made me laugh:

You could get a phantascopic system planted directly on your retinas, just as Bud’s sound system lived in his eardrums. You toild even get telaesthetics patched into your spinal column at various key vertebrae. But this was said to have its drawbacks: some concerns about long-term nerve damage, plus it was rumoured that hackers for big companies had figured out a way to get through the dedenses that were built into such systems, and run junk advertisements in your peripheral vision (or even spang in the fucking middle) all the time – even when your eyes were closed. Bud knew a guy like that who’d somehow gotten infected with a meme that ran advertisements for roach motels, in Hindi, superimposed on the bottom right-hand corner of his visual field, twenty-four hours a day, until the guy whacked himself.

(Hat-tip to Roger M for the book recommendation).

A Story for the Weekend

8 June 2008 / / 5 Comments

The Last Dance by Sophie Khadr:

There is a shelved alcove in the living room. Neither of them has ventured near the top shelf in years; it is an unspoken rule between them. That is the urn’s place, its curves reminiscent of the way their daughter’s body might have flowered given the opportunity. At ten, Cassie had been lithe and boyish with the beginnings of small, olive-like breasts. She loved to dance. Charlie remembers how she danced with her mother, their laughter bouncing around the room trying to keep pace with their feet.

The rest may be found at Flashquake. It has a surprising ending.
Flash fiction seems perfect for the digital age, where we are consuming art and entertainment in new ways an in smaller chunks. A powerful, rounded thought in your coffee break. A bittersweet moment when you wait for the bus.
Adam Maxwell runs his own Flash Fiction lounge, with a playbill theme not unlike my envelopes. Read his essay on the difference between microfiction and flash fiction.
My recent efforts are, of course, available too. I may post another soon, you never know.

The Voice of the People

5 June 2008 / / 1 Comment

Well, the voting is over, and the winners have been announced. I refer of course to Britain’s Got Talent and I’d Do Anything, where the victors were revealed to much fanfare. Congratulations George and Jodie.
But the march of reality TV is relentless. I spotted this listing from The Times new TV listings magazine, Seer (I’ve linked there before):

TV Choice – Do You Hear The People Sing? (BBC1, 7.30pm)
Music maestro Lord Andrew Lloyd-Webber launches a new talent quest, to discover a cast to feature in a remounting of the popular musical Les Miserables. Contestants of all ages will compete for the chance to play the various roles in the show, from child roles Gavroche and Cosette, to young lothario Marius and leading man Jean Valjean. Joining Lord Lloyd-Webber on the panel of judges will be Michael Ball and Bonnie Langford. Presebted by Tess Daly. This week: Bristol.

Elsewhere, Johann Hari says we should vote for the poet laureate.

Shakespeare the anti-semite

3 March 2008 / / 9 Comments

Another day, another clash of cultures story. This time, some Jewish school-girls have refused to answer questions in an English exam on Shakespeare because he was apparently anti-semitic. Seth Freedman makes some comments at Comment is Free. By his analysis, since the head teacher (a Rabbi at an Orthodox School) is condoning the girls’ boycott, its a slippery slope into all kinds of intolerance.
However, as with other examples of multicultural friction, liberal democracy looks robust, and does not seem to be at all threatened. No concessions whatsoever were made to the girls’ religious beliefs, and they failed their exams accordingly.
On a separate note, the boycott itself is surely silly and counter-productive. In a similar manner, one might refuse to study the Declaration of Independence on the basis that its authors were a bunch of slave owners. Regardless of whether Shakespeare was an anti-semite or not (and, given his portrayal of Shylock, he probably was), the man has had such a huge impact on the English language that to ignore him is hugely disadvantageous from an intellectual point of view. Critically analysing a text with reference to an artist’s life an opinions is a crucial tool, which these pupils are denying themselves. Likewise, critically analysing an artists output with regards to their times is important too. Was Shakespeare any more or less anti-semitic than his contemporaries, say? How do the views of the playwright compare to the views of the rest of his society? What role does the character of Shylock play in the history of Judaism? I fear that the quest of these girls to maintain some kind of intellectual purity might result in intellectual ignorance. And that outcome will not help them, their community, or their beliefs.

Bride of Funes

14 February 2008 / / 2 Comments

Today’s Metro reports on a woman who can remember every detail of her life. Like many things in the Metro, its recycled news, in this case at least a couple of years old. Nevertheless, its a captivating story, reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges Funes the Memorius:

We, in a glance, perceive three wine glasses on the table; Funes saw all the shoots, clusters, and grapes of the vine. He remembered the shapes of the clouds in the south at dawn on the 30th of April of 1882, and he could compare them in his recollection with the marbled grain in the design of a leather-bound book which he had seen only once, and with the lines in the spray which an oar raised in the Rio Negro on the eve of the battle of the Quebracho. These recollections were not simple; each visual image was linked to muscular sensations, thermal sensations, etc. He could reconstruct all his dreams, all his fancies. Two or three times he had reconstructed an entire day. He told me: “I have more memories in myself alone than all men have had since the world was a world.” And again: “My dreams are like your vigils.” And again, toward dawn: “My memory, sir, is like a garbage disposal.”

Forgetfulness is sometimes a blessing.

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