Manners

Just as author Tom Segev relates that Ben-Gurion increasingly harked back to the episodes that shaped him in his earlier life, so too are these episodes more vivid to us than later ones. This would be fine and even impressive as a literary gambit, having the reader feel about Ben-Gurion’s life the way Ben-Gurion himself did, but at least for this reader it was somewhat disappointing in that it’s the later events ⁠— founding and leading the State of Israel ⁠— that we are reading for. But again, this too may be a literary achievement, suggesting that for the subject of this biography, it was the younger man’s experiences that were important ⁠— and that by extension this is the case for all lives. But I’m not sure that’s accurate; surely the ambitious younger Ben-Gurion would have been overjoyed at the eventual achievements of his later self.

It’s a strange complaint to make, but I feel this book wasn’t long enough; each of the many episodes, particularly the later more historic ones, I felt could have withstood more detail.

I was pleased to learn of Ben-Gurion’s erratic behavior and attitude towards his family, and of his penchant for travel and mild but somewhat constant womanizing, and his growing intellectualism alongside faddishness. Segev concludes that Ben-Gurion’s philosophical disposition is basically that of Anglo-American liberal; all to the good. Almost. The implication is that this temperate poise made him the wise indispensable man, but also open him to more exciting dead-end intellectual enthusiasms.

Friendships, sex, religious relations, despair ⁠— the richness of the subject matter’s life encourages in the reader a life in politics as it’s a life in full.

Surely I’ve read The Man with the Golden Gun before, given that this mangy old paperback has been on my bookshelves since 2006? Perhaps, but I remember nothing.

Some scenes that seem somewhat vivid for now:

• The middle: James Bond meets kind-hearted Tiffy, the manageress of a Jamaican cathouse, before finding Scaramanga, who promptly does something totally awful
• The end: As Scaramanga’s temporary assistant, James Bond machinates and maneuvers around the underfunded hotel that the assassin is building
• The beginning: M ruminates over his decision to send Bond after Scaramanga

Right now the best part seems to me M’s internal monologue after a brainwashed James Bond, back in London after imprisonment in Russia, fails to assassinate him at his desk (a glass screen plummeting down from the ceiling to block the poison Bond has fired, foreshadowing the spirit of gadgetry to come in the movies).

In wake of this domestic excitement, as M calls it, he decides to send Bond after Scaramanga, who has killed some British agents, figuring the Double-O will either succeed in killing the fellow and thereby redeem himself, or conveniently die trying.

Chief of Staff Bill Tanner thinks this cold-hearted, as Scaramanga is so dangerous. M takes a solitary lunch at his club Blades, troubled presumably over both the event and his subsequent decision, but we are only privy to his thoughts once on the ride back to the office, when he reassures himself that his decision really was wise ⁠— indeed he almost can’t believe that his instant instinctual choice stands up so well to scrutiny. This is our glimpse at leadership. The rest of the novel ⁠— and the entire series ⁠— is our exploration of manliness.

In the movie we lose this brief inner turmoil from M, but we gain a more impressive (though not sufficiently so) Scaramanga in Christopher Lee, who is as suave as Fleming’s assassin is lunky; and we get fabulous Thailand instead of, yet again, Fleming’s Jamaica. To make a long story very short, we’re rather missing Nick Nack.

Nusseibeh’s central thesis (well, secondary thesis, the primary implicit one being that the Palestinian people should all along have appointed both his Dad and then him their oh-so-reluctant leaders) I too have felt almost in my bones: that Israelis and Palestinians are natural allies. Or, more accurately, that there’s a natural affinity which will enable us to be powerful allies if and when we ever get over our admittedly fundamental conflict.

If only the Palestinians had listened to Sari Nusseibeh’s father, or to Sari, how different and better things would be. The scion of a longstanding Jerusalem family, for generations entrusted with the key to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, shutting to and from the playing fields of Eton, yet, in what is probably the central moment of the book, arriving back from England at Ben-Gurion Airport and experiencing Israelis for the first time, and actually liking them ⁠— certainly more than the toffs he just left ⁠— and being taken for a coffee at Abu Ghosh by his Jewish taxi driver and seeing that Arabs can exist very nicely within the State of Israel.

Nusseibeh’s central thesis ⁠— well, secondary thesis, the first implicit one being that the Palestinian people should have made him their oh-so-reluctant leader ⁠— and one that I too have felt almost in my bones, is that Israelis and Palestinians are natural allies. Or, more accurately, have a natural affinity that will enable us to be powerful allies if and when we ever get over our admittedly fundamental conflict with each other.

I felt that many years ago in Chicago where the local shop was owned and run by Palestinians ⁠— sadly they’re now merely a slip of a 25+-year-old memory and I don’t remember the guys individually. It was somehow even more of a borderline potential tear-filled choking moment going in there than if it were other Jewish Israelis, because conflict. What one sees from here cannot be seen from there.

At any rate, it did make me wonder what Jerusalem was like before its Israelification. I wonder if current Jerusalem is like what northern Jaffa is to what Jaffa must have been, a stripped-back sterilized almost-husk. Not quite, Jerusalem is very much vivacious, but there are tracts of particulary the western side of the city that I felt seemed kind of emptier than is natural.

Although the simple thesis gets repeated interminably, nonetheless it’s a nice one: that Steve Jobs’s greatness stems muchly from his constant becoming, constant learning, constant trying to overcome himself (hence the title, which can be read as descriptive).

It’s great to be in his company, which you feel you are, as one of the authors was himself repeatedly so for decades.

One thing new to me was Pixar’s role in maturing Jobs; we don’t often read about who and what shaped the shaper.

Written aphoristically, long-time Kyoto resident travel writer Pico Iyer provided me with a new view of a major people: that the Japanese exemplify Oscar Wilde’s catechism that style is substance, surface depth. One telling anecdote from his pal the Dalai Lama: when speaking to Western audiences, they perk up at the philosophy and tune out for the rituals; with the Japanese it’s the opposite. There are many more such reflections. One reviewer says the book is profound, and I guess that is the case, yes.

This is a delicious book to pick up in spurts ⁠— BMW punchy as Emerson is Rolls-Royce bubbly ⁠— but I couldn’t say what it’s chiefly about, where it starts, where it ends, how it fits in with Nietzsche’s other books, nor whether I’ve even read it before (I do remember particular points but perhaps they’re also mentioned in the other books). As usual this 19th-century giant sounds as if he writes… this morning.

In what seems a common pattern, Jony Ive started early, eschewing the liberal education of say Oxbridge, instead selecting the most renowned college in the field in which he was already winning prizes: industrial design. And this great achiever of our times grew up under the happy and mighty influence of his father, an educator who rose to prominence due to character and a drive to bring design literacy to British education.

The bulk of this book about Ive constitutes one of the stronger, more detailed histories we have of Apple itself, told mainly from the perspective of the IDg, the internal design group he leads. We learn for instance that in order to meet Steve Jobs’ deadline for creating the iMac ⁠— the first product upon Jobs’ return and which revived the company ⁠— they needed to streamline the product process by making the files of the design software interoperable with those of the manufacturing software.

Someone says Ive is even less replaceable at Apple than Jobs. This isn’t quite fair because Jobs worked to make himself replaceable. Let’s hope Ive does as well.

The editor of Cult of Mac relates the origins and the methods of Jony Ive, one of the handful of people who influence life for almost all the rest of us. (I‘m writing this on an iPhone; the woman next to me is using an iPad, the third a MacBook). Many products are popular, but these aggressively push the edge of what’s possible and set a standard of excellence that raise our expectations generally.

We open with a foray into Sir Jony’s background, and the happy and mighty influence of his father, an educator who rose to prominence due to character and a drive to bring design literacy to British education.

In what seems a common pattern, this great achiever starts early, eschewing the liberal education of say Oxbridge, selecting instead the most renowned college in the field in which he is already winning prizes ⁠— industrial design.

We are then given a solid account of Ive’s pre-Apple career, showing that the prodigy continued to be a happy and successful team player. There were no big setbacks in his life, just stellar performance from a young age.

The bulk of the book is not just about Jony Ive, but rather constitutes one of the stronger, more detailed histories we have of Apple itself, mainly a history of the products from the perspective of the IDg, the internal design group long run by Ive.

To create the iMac ⁠— the first product upon Jobs’s return and which relaunched Apple on its unprecedented run ⁠— the company had to forge new processes. Specifically, they needed to streamline the product process, making the software used for design interoperable with that used for manufacturing.

There is also mention of how on the logistics side Tim Cook developed an integrated system in order to eliminate inventory ⁠— it hooked into retailers on one end (this was before Apple had its own stores) all the way to suppliers on the other.

And there is one important warning regarding process: Before Jobs returned, during Bad Apple if you will, there was “a well-structured process” that nonetheless led to uninspired and even ill-conceived products.

If there is one element of the product process that we can learn from this portrait of the artist, it is the importance of modelling. To a large extent, modelling is the process. Therefore the question of product excellence is largely a question of modelling excellence. For non-product fields of endeavor, this would probably correspond ta simulations and rehearsals.

(The exception to this law of human endeavour can be found in some of the work of some of the greatest of artists. A Frank Lloyd Wright, say, when sketching Fallingwater in one afternoon while the client was heading over; or a Marlon Brando refusing to rehearse or even learn his lines. These are arguably singular performances coming after decades of mastering then remastering their respective crafts, and no doubt weeks of rumination and reflection on the project ⁠— ie, mental modelling?)

Steve Jobs figures prominently in the book, obviously. Perhaps most awe-inspiring is his decision upon returning to Apple to kill the Newton, despite it being well-loved by many and a burgeoning platform in itself. Jobs has famously said he’s most proud of what Apple has said No to rather than what it said Yes to; the Newton decision illustrates this cryptic, seemingly almost nihilistic statement. Because surely it’s easy to say Yes to exciting things, but how much harder is it to say No to something that people are already invested in. This decision-making is, obviously, among the most important responsibilities of the CEO.

Towards the end of the book, someone is quoted as saying that Ive is even less replaceable at Apple than Jobs. This isn’t quite fair because Jobs worked to make himself replaceable. Well, let’s hope Ive does as well.

I was brought to this most non-sci-fi of sci-fi novels by the Brighton Science Fiction Discussion Group. Narrated in character by its autistic protagonist, Speed of Light initially reminded me of Mr Robot. Yes, I did like it, but wasn’t sure if the thinness of the other characters is due to our narrator’s limitations or those of the author; I don’t know her other work so can’t say. A mostly unsentimental decency permeates – actually it’s an exploration of decency – which gives it an appreciable pre-cyberpunk, almost square feel.

“Speed of Dark” by Elizabeth Moon

This is the least sci-fi novel of any that we’ve read for the Sci-Fi Book Club or whatever it’s called, or any that has sci-fi written on the cover. Having a cure for autism isn’t really enough of a difference from our current world to justify the name. But whatever. I guess if it wasn’t classified as such it would seem very geeky?

I enjoyed and appreciated it, the device of the narrator being autistic. It reminded me near the beginning of Mr Robot, but is more old-fashioned in the sense that the protagonist/narrator ends up a completely good guy whereas Mr Robot is more cyperpunk in that he’s more of an anti-hero, and right now in the middle of season 2 I’m wondering if Ray is just as much a figment of Elliot’s imagination as his father and the ruthless owner of the illicit trading web site is none other than Elliot himself, and the one who gave him such a beating is, well, himself, again Fight Club style.

But that is not this novel. Here the combat is the much more civilized, stylized fencing. The choice seems so particular that once again I wonder/fear that the character fences because the author does. And we come away at the end with no sense who the other characters are, which is great in a way because our narrator has been autistic, but in the end, once he is no longer, then it wasn’t enough to suddenly break out into longer, less stacatto sentences; we should have had enough time to suddenly see Tom and Lucia, the fencing instructor couple and surrogate parents, and Marjory the love interest, in technicolor as it were.

Nonetheless, I like the unabashed Ayn Randian morality; this strong, anchored, decent impressive man has moved on up to the next step, almost a superhuman now in that he has access to the analystic obsessiveness of his pre-op life.

Perhaps these days it would be looked at from a transgender or whatever viewpoint; he has been given his true self by medical intervention.

The speed of dark idea is nice and cute and it makes me think of the Tao, and absence vs presence, the power of nothing, etc, but the speculations about it seem incomprehensible or nonsensical or meaningless to me. As someone who takes an interest in this, I didn’t get it. It is a nice conceit though. And it is a big question: is nothing actually something?

There are lovely touches, like his dream of riding light and being faster then waking up feeling happier than ever before.

The bad guys, Don and Mr Crenshaw, are kind of ridiculous, but the decency of everyone else keeps the worldview sane. Again, we don’t see them, as if the narrator is looking at his toes the whole time. So there should have been a more explosively colorful epilogue than the accomplished man sitting at his desk on a spaceship. We never see him interact with any of the old characters now that he’s normal, beyond the second visit to the rehab center by Tom. It’s like 2001 – no sentimentality, onward, upward, though this time it’s our character rather than humanity.

Mr Aldrin, the sympathetic supervisor, it’s good that the narrator doubts him but he does activate whatever network he has within the company and act subtly to make people aware of the enormity being committed. He is perhaps the most 3-dimensional character. Is that deliberate or just how it worked out for this reader?

So, did I like it? Yes? Does it shimmer as great literature, every nuance reflecting off every other to build this big metaphorific edifice? No, I don’t think so. Place is never mentioned but it does somehow feel very American, very somewhere between the northeast and the midwest or something. Not further west I don’t think. There’s something about it that just doesn’t feel British. Interesting that. Why could it not be in England?

Yes, there are hints that this is in a different world: it’s hotter, the maple trees have died, there’s an emphasis on public transport – that’s one thing American, that this is a sci-fi notion.