China Rich Girlfriend (2015) by Kevin Kwan

Book Review
China Rich Girlfriend (2015)

by Kevin Kwan

  You can't really be sure what constitutes "literature" until about a century after the initial publication.  There are plenty of examples of novels that were either considered "light" and/or "popular" for decades after publication (or weren't considered at all) before ascending to a position in the contemporary canon.  Charles Dickens and Jane Austen are two great examples.  For examples closer to our time, Stephen King is often mentioned as a potential canon level figure lurking on the best-seller list. 

  So it is with an open mind that I have approached Kevin Kwan and his Crazy Rich Asians trilogy- China Rich Girlfriend is the second book in the trilogy.  They've been fun- especially as Audiobooks, because, and I'm sorry I keep mentioning this in the context of Audiobooks- I LOVE the accents. Of course, it's not as good as the first book, but I'm still going to listen to the third book.

The Hidden Spring (2021) by Mark Solms

Book Review

The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness

by Mark Solms

   This is a work of non-fiction written by a neuropsychologist but it tackles a question that intrigues across disciplines, "What, exactly, does it mean to be conscious?"  Solms has an answer, but it is complicated, so complicated that I am going to simply include the relevant paragraph from the review of this book that appeared in the Manchester Guardian:

Solms’s challenge, then, is to show that emotions are essential to humanity’s material existence: that a zombie couldn’t be wired so as to mindlessly handle all the crucial tasks our emotions let us navigate. This he attempts in the book’s densest chapters, an uphill climb from the free energy principle in neuroscience, via advanced information theory, to the role of the cortex in the generation of memory, featuring many phrases such as “we can now formalise a self-evidencing system’s dynamics in relation to precision optimisation”. To the best of my understanding, the gist is that feelings are a uniquely effective and efficient way for humans to monitor their countless changing biological needs, in extremely unpredictable environments, to set priorities for action and make the best choices so as to remain within various bounds – of hunger, cold and heat, physical danger, social isolation, etc – outside of which we can’t survive for long. Doing all that without feelings, and doing it as rapidly as survival requires, would take so many computational resources that it would lead to a “combinatorial explosion”, demanding levels of energy a human could never muster.  Manchester Guardian review written by Oliver Burkeman

  Is Solms right?  Is he wrong?  I'm 100% sure I have no idea, and I could barely follow the explanatory path outlined above.  My summary of the above, paragraph long summary is that emotions are the mechanism chosen by "evolution" to help human survive in a fast paced environment. 

Popisho (2021) by Leone Ross

British author Leone Ross

Book Review

Popisho (2021)

by Leone Ross

  It's a magically-realistic Caribbean idyll by way of Angela Carter for British author Leone Ross in her novel Popisho, a fictional island where everyone has their own magical power.  Other than that, it is a recognizable version of modernity, complete with a oligarchic political system that controls imports and exports for the entire community.  Xavier Redchoose, the island chef, with a perfect sense of taste, is the main protagonist, but he shares duties with Romanza, the son of the island's overbearing a governor, who is in love with another man, to the chagrin of his family.  There is also Sonteine, the governor's daughter, who is set to be married, as well as the Governor himself. 

  Stuffed with plot, character and incident, Popisho was alot to take in via Audiobook- I would recommend actually reading it, although the Audiobook accents were great.

Savage Theories (2017)by Pola Oloixarac

Book Review

Savage Theories (2017)

by Pola Oloixarac

  I thought I read Savage Theories because it was nominated for a Booker International Prize but I was wrong- it was not nominated for a Booker International Prize.  I loved Mona- the new novel by Oloixarac, but I listened to the Audiobook of Savage Theories, I think, simply because it was readily available from the library, another advantage of reading translated fiction- no one checks it out from the library because library patrons are vulgarians.   I am a fan of Oloixarac, she reminds me of Ottessa Moshfegh, or vice versa,  a woman who writes with wit and style about something other than motherhood, coming-of-age or the immigrant experience. Why should male writers have all the fun?  Why can't literature be fun. Again, Savage Theories, like Mona, reminded my of Laurent Binet, who is probably the most playful of all the contemporary writers of literary fiction

  Savage Theories is wild- it's got drugs, sex and heaps of Marxism, philosophy and Marxist philosophy.