[“IC easy reading club: current pick = "The Air Disaster" J.G. Ballard”,“IC easy reading club: current pick = "Exhalation" Ted Chiang”]
hot pick!
@“yeso”#p79954
I‘m thoroughly convinced that Ted Chiang is the best short story writer alive. Maybe one of the best ever.
I thought about picking something very new since last week was decades old, but I decided you can’t go wrong with Exhalation.
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How do you feel about the slowly emerging reveals of the reality presented here?
it's a little to slow for me tbh. I mean it's somewhat over-long given how abstract such much of the language is at least to my tastes
I'd also say - but maybe this was the point - that while initially regarding the beings described in the story as totally alien, as the repitition of familiar english technical terms unrolled, I started to think of them more as human-created.
And on yet another hand, it also reads like a form of rationalizing or self-comforting. It's real bad news the narrator uncovers after all.
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What, if anything, does this story tell us about humanity?
It makes me think about all the quaint, antiquated theories about human biology like the humours or whatever - but in reading this story rather than thinking of that old stuff as foolish, it seems kind of good-natured, optimistic and poetic. Which was a strange effect I was didn't foresee. I also agree with ted chiang that these egghead scientists need to leave well enough alone
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What do you make of the Reversalists?
I hope they figure it out
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How would you describe the narrator’s perspective at the end of this story?
somewhat over sentimental imo
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Favorite or most hated qualities or passages?
I liked the description of the robot brains
Oh Ted…
I read another of his stories, "Understand," last year, which isn't especially similar to this one except that it portrays a mind observing itself, and contains a passage which begins like this:
>a cascade of insights penetrated my consciousness in rapid succession . . . ^1
The first-person narration is used to great effect not only when the narrator walks you through their series of revelations about their brain's construction but especially in the context of the (maybe too) clever ending: you are giving the narrator's thoughts new life as you read them.^2
I guess this doesn't have anything to do with the perspective per se but I also enjoy Chiang's usual voice, how he introduces matters of fact about this reality without being too showy about it:
>It has long been said that air is the source of life.
. . .
It was generally hypothesized that the brain was divided into an engine located in the center of the head which performed the actual cognition, surrounded by an array of components in which memories were stored.^3
By whom? It has/was? Of course it has. I have a very particular literary fetish for when a pseudoscience or obviously constructed reality is explained not only matter of factly, but as though to doubt it were ridiculous (if those are even different); I don't know if that's a good way of describing what this story is doing but it scratched my itch very well.
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What, if anything, does this story tell us about humanity?
It seems honest about how afraid of death some people can be. This society has not had to contend with natural/eventual death at all, making it all the more horrifying for them. Confronted with the truth, they at first don't believe it, then accept it but strive in vain to find a solution to the problem (of these the Reversalists are the story's given example). The conflict here could be taken as a direct metaphor for the social and existential effects of climate change, although to put a name to it sounds tacky to me.
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How would you describe the narrator’s perspective at the end of this story?
I was feeling a little bit of the old fear o' dyin' that tends to strike when I least anticipate it, so I was glad for the narrator's entreaty for hope at the end, even as it verged on syrupy
^1 ^2 ^3 - favorite passages
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P.S. I didn't read the Ballard story in time to participate in discussion but the "cadaver" question got me wondering: did that have the same connotation in British English in the '70s as it does for North American speakers of English now?
For about one quarter of the story I was thoroughly convinced the beings in this story would turn out to be some human made thing personified. Idk, like submarines or something. I don‘t know enough about hydraulics but that’s what I kept thinking of - it‘s like that but air pressure articulating movement, not liquid. Ultimately I’m glad it wasn‘t that, or at least there wasn’t a big reveal that ended up being the point of the story. How‘d I feel about the slow reveal of this reality? That the rules of this reality don’t really matter beyond the story's own spiritual/philosophical conclusions.
Being conscious beings with knowledge of the inevitability of our own death is fundamentally human. When that reveal happens for the beings in the story they become instantly more relatable- and to me, more boring. This story seems to be a literalization of the whole 20th century science/philosophic/pseudo-spiritual idea that humans are the Universe manifest to observe Itself, an idea I first encountered from Carl Sagan. This puts the pursuit of knowledge on the highest pedestal, not just a practical exercise but a morally pure and good one as well. I have issues with this perspective, but I don't think this is the place to articulate them.
The Reversalists are in the story to be "those fools who won't accept the plain truth of the Universe [as we understand it]." Like, they're positioned as the ones who are rationalizing, but the narrator is doing that too, just in a way that I personally find more appealing. I love poetry!
The narrator at the end is blurring the lines between religion/spirituality/philosophy and science. Which I think can be pretty cool and interesting.
My favorite passage is this one, and I wish this question was explored more instead of the pivot towards contemplating mortality (although they are related)
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As I contemplated this vista, I wondered, where was my body? The conduits which displaced my vision and action around the room were in principle no different from those which connected my original eyes and hands to my brain. For the duration of this experiment, were these manipulators not essentially my hands? Were the magnifying lenses at the end of my periscope not essentially my eyes? I was an everted person, with my tiny, fragmented body situated at the center of my own distended brain. It was in this unlikely configuration that I began to explore myself.
1 Like
@“yeso”#p80266
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I’d also say - but maybe this was the point - that while initially regarding the beings described in the story as totally alien, as the repitition of familiar english technical terms unrolled, I started to think of them more as human-created.
@"RubySunrise"#p80316
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For about one quarter of the story I was thoroughly convinced the beings in this story would turn out to be some human made thing personified.
I find it fascinating that both of you came to this! I think it may highlight the difficulty of presenting a truly alien society. I find this especially interesting because I almost picked an Octavia Butler story and there's no one who presents alien societies quite like her. I'd describe them as the most _alien_ aliens ever written.
@"captain"#p80271
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I also enjoy Chiang’s usual voice, how he introduces matters of fact about this reality without being too showy about it:
This is something I've always loved about Chiang, too. I find the slow gradual reveal of this place and these beings so effortless and interesting. It reminds me of wading into the ocean in that at first it's a bit cold and maybe even unpleasant, but by the time you're waistdeep, you're ready to just dive fully in.
I also like the connections you all made between the scientific method and the narrator's own exploration of his own mind. The scene reminds me of how Isaac Newton performed surgery on his own eye to discover how it worked. So this sort of falls right in line with that.
It may be because I'm sort of a fatalist myself and have found a lot of comfort in Paul Kingsnorth's view on climate change (which is that now we must live with cataclysm because we missed our chance to do much about it), but I've always found a certain kind of peace in the ending here. I suppose because it maps with my own views towards the end of human civilization and even the potential end of humanity.
[upl-image-preview url=https://i.imgur.com/vKl6l6M.png]
for the robot homies....
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@“edward”#p79951 How do you feel about the slowly emerging reveals of the reality presented here?
I enjoyed piecing together the idea that the narrator belong to some kind of alien and completely unrecognizable form of life, and that they were subject to quite different sorts of constraints. I guess that was hard to miss once the narrator was dissembling and observing the mechanism of their own brain.
As much as I hate giving it to that pro life alien comic guy, you can sometimes have a good bit of a fun just explaining things in very descriptive language. The mechanism of a human brain and brain surgery would sound equally as bewildering and complex if you described it like this.
I was also fondly remembered one of my favorite creators of alien species and cultures, Iain M. Banks (rest in peace). I was reminded of some of his more creative alien species, such as the Issorilians, aka The Affront, from _Excession_, who:
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require a high pressure, low temperature environment, and breathe an atmosphere composed mostly of nitrogen and methane, plus other trace hydrocarbons. Source: some Culture wikia.
I very straightforwardly love stuff like this, and just thinking about the potential mechanisms of life out there in the infinite expanse.
I liked the use of human-adjacent biological terms like brains and lungs, especially by the end as I began to interpret this as a sort of diegetic translation of the narrator's text into English rather than a magic author transmutation of an alien language into direct meaning.
I think besides what is straightforwardly stated, I like what is sort of left unsaid. This seems to be a species of life which does not age or die, which is stated at least semi-directly, but what seems to have been left unsaid is that it also perhaps does not propagate. There is somewhat of a suggestion I thought that this species is a supremely pacifist one since the narrator is aghast at the idea of killing, and there is some implication that although killing is not unheard of, it took a widely accepted monumental existential crisis for killing to take place. Also seems that it wasn't murder--I don't see much implication that anyone was murdered on purpose. All that kind of reminds me of the central conflict in my favourite Ursula K LeGuin novel, of which I will spoiler tag so that if you don't know what I'm talking about you don't get that book spoilered: ||The Word for World is Forest.|| Anyway, go and read all of her science fiction novels immediately so you know what I'm talking about.
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What, if anything, does this story tell us about humanity?
That we'd be in a way better place if the realization of climate change resulted in brief social unrest and then seemingly universal acceptance, and then collaboration to preserve human culture as well as search for potential solutions.
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What do you make of the Reversalists?
I feel bad for the robot guys because their universe (which I am interpreting as constructed but never mind that) has a problem that doesn't seem to have known practical solutions (unlike us, who have a problem that is complex but which we literally have so many practical solutions we aren't pursuing).
They seem to view their problem like they're tasked with reversing entropy, and partly they're not wrong. We could literally reverse the entropy on our problem by, like, planting enough trees and blowing up oil and gas executives and shit, stuff that's been here for hundreds of millions of years, and we KNOW how amazing trees are.
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How would you describe the narrator’s perspective at the end of this story?
It's bleak, but I won't lie, it tugged at my heartstrings quite a lot. Syrupy, but let me tell you, I've got one hell of a sweet tooth.
I hope that they were wrong, and this was a historical passage unearthed in-universe. I also like thinking about this in the frame of them examining their world and universe through a comparatively incomplete scientific understanding of the world.
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Favorite or most hated qualities or passages?
IDK again I got one hell of a sweet tooth if others here thought it was flowery or overly sentimental. Just thinkin' about the robot buddies meetin' at the lung refill station for a chat...
@“edward”#p80476 it’s difficult for me to distinguish how genuine the feelings expressed at the end of the story are. If I had to guess I’d say it’s as genuinely a genuine (if “slender” in the words of the narrator) optimism, but I kind of find myself wanting to read it as hollow rationalizing. Not that I’m a particularly pessimistic person, but it’s that I’m suspicious of how fiction can quarantine messy and frightening ideas in rhetoric, and I suspect that’s what’s happening here. And I like the story so that’s my probably weird attitude.
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@“edward”#p80476 both of you came to this
Thinking about it now, I read the first half of the text but then listened to the recording for the second, so I think hearing a human voice rather than just having the printed words go in my brain via reading probably influenced my impression in this regard
I struggled a little bit with this one, probably because I don't read a lot of sci-fi, especially hard sci-fi (which I think this qualifies as). I did like its commitment to the world and all the weird sociological effects of a society of lifeforms so different from ourselves (people have already mentioned the lung-filling stations, which I will admit to being one of my favorite parts, also). The meticulousness with which Chiang sets up the self-guided brain study was intricate and interesting. I always admire writers with that level of detail and who process all the ramifications and backup plans that would be required for an activity that drastic (even in a universe where technology makes it at least feasible).
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@“yeso”#p80482 it’s difficult for me to distinguish how genuine the feelings expressed at the end of the story are.
I also was a bit confused by the ending. I couldn't tell exactly what it was trying to do. The “Contemplate the marvel that is existence, and rejoice that you are able to do so" bit struck me as either intentionally making fun of people who are just smiling and pontificating in the face of disaster (not unlike the situation we're in today with climate change) or some kind of hollow Carl Sagan-y optimism. That's how it landed with me anyway, but maybe I'm just in a bad headspace for this kind of thing right now for outside reasons.
Sorry if that comes across as a bit negative. I can definitely tell that this is a great story for certain kinds of readers and I liked some of the details and individual elements...it just didn't quite come together for me, maybe especially because of that ending. Thank you for choosing this, though, because I do like to read stuff outside of my comfort zone (which I'll admit is kind of limited).
Thanks @radicaledward for the pick!
@RubySunrise it's you're up for the next selection
Title: Sleeper
Author: Jo Walton
[Link](https://www.tor.com/2014/08/12/sleeper-jo-walton/)
Questions:
@“RubySunrise”#p80911
Jo Walton has been on my to-read list foe about ten years but I still haven't gotten around to her!
Excited to dig into this one.
[“IC easy reading club: current pick = "Exhalation" Ted Chiang”,“IC EZ reading club: current pick = "Sleeper" Jo Walton”]
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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What do you make of this projection of the future? Are there any particular details that stood out to you?
the remark about never ending student loans was like an icy dagger in my heart lol. The future was not too different from our present and tbh I'd expect the 2070s to be worse.
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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What does this story say about notions of truth? Did any of it resonate with you?
Biographies being subject to distortion and deliberate emphasis on some details over others is a real thing of course. It was interesting that the subject's own political aims were I suppose treated "faithfully" bc in this case the biogropher was attempting to re-instrumentalize them. So there is the AI simulation-reproduction, but also this sort of moral reproduction
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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 Do you think Essie’s plan will work?
Hard to say but no I don't think smuggling revolutionary communist ideals in the form of a 20th century BBC executive's biography is going to work. It makes sense thematically though I think
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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 If you could have a conversation with a simulated 20th century figure, who would you choose and why?
do they have to answer honestly? I yes then probably oswald or some CIA guy I want to know the truth. But if they're just going to lie then IDK, someone fun to hang out with
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What do you make of this projection of the future? Are there any particular details that stood out to you?
It's kind of funny, because I feel this was kind of a relatively contemporary yet also definitely a 2014 projection of the future at the same time. I still don't know what a cheek ring is supposed to be.
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What does this story say about notions of truth? Did any of it resonate with you?
I felt very conflicted with the way that this story portrayed, not truth, but its own truth. The line right near the end where it's noted that Essie could find no evidence of him having been a Soviet sleeper agent simultaneously addressed the one thing I was thinking about the whole time I was reading the story, while also I think speaking on a meta level on the impact of its own premise, in a way I'm not sure I enjoyed. I didn't feel I could trust Essie as a reliable narrator... nor did I feel like there was much indication she could be meaningfully unreliable. Biased, obviously, but I really came away not certain about what it was meaning to communicate about the whole endeavor of simulated consciousness. It feels almost... perverse, the way in which the biographer infers things about a person based on no evidence (not _faulty_ or _insufficient_ evidence, but none), and then seems to be able to implant them via the power of suggestion to the simulated consciousness.
I took the story on its own terms and took a subjective view, sure, but I found what that revealed to be distasteful. Even if contemporary biographies using existing forms of recording as well as narrative presentation also aren't The Truth, whatever Essie seems to be doing feels a lot more like invention. Twisting the truth still requires something someone thought to be true, at least. The 3rd person narration explicitly says what is being presented is what Essie _needed to be true._ I don't know if I can sympathize with that.
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Do you think Essie’s plan will work?
I'm not sure that enough about the social and economic reality was really communicated for me to make that call. Given how I answered the first question though, I would say no, as it would be the simplest thing to say that the biographer clearly fabricated this. I'm also not really sure what exactly one historical figure from the previous century being a sleeper agent changes in terms of a broad communication of revolutionary ideals. What was so important about this one guy that, if given the chance to become a sleeper agent, they would be an effective propagandist? Are people in this projection of the future so incurious (or is the state so censorious) that they wouldn't like, you know, read some Marx or something? From the perspective of a layman I think if one were to have a chat with a simulated consciousness about how tough it was to be a closeted gay man in the mid-late 20th century and they started talking about how it was basically like alienation of people from the products of their labor and other fundamental human experiences, I think that would just be confusing. I don't know. Does the simulation even have, like, tact?
Here's how I would maybe summarize my thoughts on this--what is the strategic difference between Essie basically brainwashing this simulation to "admit" to having been a Soviet sleeper agent & just being frank with the simulated consciousness that there was no evidence this was the case, but that if it is willing it will become a sleeper agent as a simulated biography? It's kind of like the story can't be clear on whether or not the truth matters or not.
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What’s the point of the short scene between Essie and her publisher?
That he's a bit of a vain scumbag, I guess?
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If you could have a conversation with a simulated 20th century figure, who would you choose and why?
Well, if I have to answer based on how simulated consciousnesses are presented here, I really don't know if I would ever want to do that if it was being presented as a simulated version of a real person. I'd speak with a simulated consciousness not pretending to be a real person, or the projection of that person as crafted by someone living + an AI or whatever.
It's better as a fantasy question than a sci fi, imo, as in, "if you could have a conversation with a 20th century figure using a phone that connected to the afterlife," I'd probably have more ideas. James Baldwin maybe?
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@“Gaagaagiins”#p81025 it’s noted that Essie could find no evidence of him having been a Soviet sleeper agent
I took this passage to be her re-affirming the official narrative for outward appearances while knowing that he was in fact an agent. I could be misreading though
did anyone listen to the NPR podcast “S Town”? It‘s kind of relevant to the question of biographers inflecting a particular narrative about a dead subject. The podcast (I really hated it) starts as a true crime story but then pivots into outing the central figure after he died and really without any indication that he wanted to be out or to be regarded as gay, and at least to me seemed like a turn that was pushed by the NPR mega dweeb narrating the show. So it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing the show focused on that topic, but the fact that there was no indication the subject wanted to present himself that way or really defined himself as gay or whatever
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@“RubySunrise”#p80911 What’s the point of the short scene between Essie and her publisher?
I forgot that I made a connection, about this, actually.
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“I’ve never understood why the record of how they moved is so important,” Stanley says, and Essie realises this is a genuine question and relaxes as she answers it.
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“A lot more of the mind is embodied in the whole body than anybody realised,” she explains. “A record of the whole body in motion is essential, or we don’t get anything anywhere near authentic. People are a gestalt.”
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…
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He limps into the study and switches on a computer. Essie knows all about his limp, which was caused by an injury during birth, which made him lame all his life. It is why he did not fight in the Spanish Civil War and spent the World War II in the BBC and not on the battlefield.
So, at the very least, one of the more evocative questions that Stanley asks about Essie's process, which maybe is meant to suggest the general public's and even her publisher's lack of depth on the subject of these simulations, is given some substantial answering. How Corley moved did in fact shape his life in profound ways.