Light of Firflies

The Light of the Fireflies by Paul Pen
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

This had some plot twists but overall the family was horrible. I suppose their self-inflicted incarceration was justified, but the whole situation was just poor decision after poor decision.

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Originals

Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World by Adam M. Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This had some interesting insights but it dealt more on how to cultivate imagination and innovation in the work place, with only one section on how to increase creativity yourself. It had some good points but it was not what I was expecting.

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First, we need to think differently about values. Instead of assuming that others share our principles, or trying to convince them to adopt ours, we ought to present our values as a means of pursuing theirs. It’s hard to change other people’s ideals. It’s much easier to link our agendas to familiar values that people already hold.

many of us accept the defaults in our own lives.

Vuja de is the reverse—we face something familiar, but we see it with a fresh perspective that enables us to gain new insights into old problems.

Ill Will

Ill Will by Dan Chaon
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

There were so many things I enjoyed about this novel, and things I could do without. I love the way Chaon experimented with the placement of words on the page. He makes use of white space in totally new ways. He lays narratives side by side on the page to simulate thoughts going on the same time. This is fitting since the books themes are about perceptions and our ability/ desire to dissociate. Sometimes it is a protection like when you are experiencing trauma like abuse or violence. Sometimes we do it to escape with drugs, alcohol, social media. Or if we don’t want to see the truth, or to find the truth through hypnosis or other therapies. Of course the extreme is a sensory deprivation tank where any sense of self is eventually destroyed. As Chaon explores these themes, he goes on too long about drugs and perhaps too deep into some of the traumas, but this may be a case where the art and themes transcend some of the more unsavory elements.

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And the other thing about a dream, I thought: The way it collapses when you wake, the way it stops making logical sense and you can’t hold it in your conscious mind anymore. Because it doesn’t exist in language. There are images, layered upon one another, which communicate each to each. There is a face that is four faces at once. You are you but not you.

It made me think of the neurology class I took in college, the professor talking about eigengrau—intrinsic gray, brain gray. It was the color you “saw” when light was totally absent, a kind of visual noise, like snow static on a television.

And you realize that if there are ghosts, they are not the ghosts of the dead. The ghosts are the ones who sat in these little waiting rooms. The bereaved. They are the ones who can’t help but return, over and over—they remember every detail of that couch they sat on while they were weeping; they are the ones who can’t leave.

I’m Thinking of Ending Things

I'm Thinking of Ending Things by Iain Reid
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

One of those books where the less you know the better. I read it in two days and would recommend reading it in a short time span. The plot mostly holds up, even when read backwards, which is great. The overall mood is sad and a little creepy.

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We don’t just understand or recognize significance and validity through experience. We accept, reject, and discern through symbols. These are as important to our understanding of life, our understanding of existence and what has value, what’s worthwhile, as math and science.

‘The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me. Or, conversely, I myself am a question which is addressed to the world, and I must communicate my answer, for otherwise I am dependent upon the world’s answer.’ ”Karl Jung

Three Moments of an Explosion

Three Moments of an Explosion by China Miéville
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the book to read if you are not concerned with the laws of science as we now know them. That seems to be part of the point of these stories--the unexplainable. Sometimes the anomaly becomes part of the new reality such as in "Polynia" when icebergs float over London; sometimes they become a mystery that never gets solved and is hidden away such as in "After the Festival" when a traditional (weird) rite causes strange addicting behaviors; or " The Design" when a medical student discovers bones with etchings; some seem strangely prescient like "The Bastard Prompt" where an actress acting out symptoms for medical students suddenly goes off script and her made up illnesses suddenly start to appear in the public. There were some stories that I didn't "get" but the majority were so fantastic, I assume it is me that is the one deficient here. Regardless, by not limiting himself to known scientific laws, Miéville creates a strange, wonderful, eerie, and disturbing world. By reading them, I felt like an invisible door opened to a myriad of possibilities.

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When we bounce from song to nonsense to meme, we might be eavesdropping on arguments between images.