Monthly Archives: May 2013

Why Does the World Exist?: An Existential Detective Story by Jim Holt

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Journalist and former philosophy grad student Jim Holt sets out to answer that long-standing philosophical/scientific question: Why is there something rather than nothing? 

His principal method is to interview a number of well-known philosophers (Adolph Grunbaum, Richard Swinburne, John Leslie and Derek Parfit) and scientists (David Deutsch, Andre Linde, Alex Vilenkin, Steven Weinberg and Roger Penrose). He also talks to John Updike, who is surprisingly knowledgeable about both science and philosophy.

Nowadays, when people ask why the world exists they are generally asking why the Big Bang occurred. Unfortunately, nobody knows. The most common answers are that there was some kind of random quantum event that made it happen or that God made it happen. Some people think that our universe is just a small part of reality and that somehow the existence of a vast, possibly infinite, collection of other universes explains why ours is here and/or why ours is the way it is. The philosopher John Leslie thinks that our universe might exist because it’s good.

As soon as a particular cause or reason for our universe to exist is suggested, it is natural to ask why that cause or reason is the explanation, rather than some other cause or reason. Why are the laws of quantum mechanics in effect? Where did God come from? This is why the answer provided by a Buddhist monk at the very end of the book is my personal favorite: “As a Buddhist, he says, he believes that the universe had no beginning….The Buddhist doctrine of a beginning-less universe makes the most metaphysical sense”.

Perhaps the reality that exists (the super-universe, whatever ultimately caused the Big Bang) has always existed and always will. It simply is. It never came into existence, so no cause, reason or explanation is necessary or possible. Perhaps it’s cyclical. Perhaps it’s not. But it’s eternal, with no beginning or end.

This book is worth reading, but not as good as it might have been. Mr. Holt writes well and seems to accurately present the ideas of the thinkers he interviews. But his own thoughts on the subject, and other subjects, such as consciousness and death, aren’t especially interesting or profound. In particular, his attempt to prove the existence of an infinite yet mediocre universe is completely unconvincing. His travel writing — where he stayed, what he ate, his strolls through Oxford and Paris — is also a bit much. He doesn’t just bump into a philosophy professor at a local grocery store; it’s a “gourmet” grocery store. He has excellent taste in food and drink as well.  (9/8/12)

Revelations: Visions, Prophecy and Politics in the Book of Revelation by Elaine Pagels

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Revelations isn’t really a book about the Book of Revelation. Professor Pagels devotes her first chapter to that spooky entry in the New Testament, but then veers off into discussions of the history of the early church. Nevertheless, she argues that the Book of Revelation was written around 90 C.E. by an itinerant preacher known as John of Patmos (not, as some believe, John the Apostle). 

John of Patmos was a Jew who believed that Jesus was the Messiah. According to Professor Pagels, he wrote the book as a piece of anti-Roman propaganda, in response to the fact that Rome had colonized Judea and destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. The Romans are the villains in the Book of Revelation. The number 666 is probably a numerological translation of the full Latin name of the emperor Nero.

The author of the Book of Revelation borrowed from earlier prophesies in making up his particular story of the Beast, Armageddon, etc., for example, the prophesies of Isaiah, Jeremiah and Daniel. And there were many other writings that claimed to be divine revelations. Most of these differed from the Book of Revelation — they were usually concerned with how to be saved, not with the end of the world. 

Unlike its competitors, the Book of Revelation became an official part of the Bible when the New Testament was codified in 325 C.E. It appears to have been included for political reasons. It was useful to the men who were organizing the Catholic Church to have a story that could be used against their political enemies, i.e. the Christians that church leaders like Irenaeus and Athanasius considered to be heretics. The early leaders of the church were a quarrelsome, unprincipled bunch who did whatever was necessary to suppress opposing views.

This is a depressing book. Generations of innocent people have been scared and even scarred by a horror story that purports to describe a coming apocalypse, albeit one with a happy ending for a few true believers (us, not them). To borrow from Nietzsche: “What cruel and insatiable vanity must have flared in the soul of the man who thought this up”. (8/24/12)

Horseman, Pass By, by Larry McMurtry

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Horseman, Pass By was McMurtry’s first novel. It was the basis for Hud, the classic movie from 1963 about a small Texas cattle ranch facing a crisis. 

The screenplay didn’t change the setting or plot, but several improvements were made. Some unnecessary characters (a grandmother, some ranch hands) were eliminated. The role of Hud was greatly expanded (the horseman in the novel’s title refers to Hud’s father, not Hud). The black housekeeper Almea became the white housekeeper Alma. 

That last change was an improvement because it resulted in a more interesting, less predatory relationship between Hud and the housekeeper, a deeper relationship that doesn’t seem possible in the book, partly because of the way McMurtry writes what Almea says (“dese”, “dat”, “I needs to be leavin'” etc.).

This is one of those cases in which the film version is better than the original material.  (8/17/12)

Books: A Memoir by Larry McMurtry

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Larry McMurtry has written at least 40 books, mostly novels, but he apparently prefers reading, buying and selling books more than writing them. While writing all of those books and reading many more, he became an antiquarian or secondhand bookseller. He currently operates a giant bookstore in Archer City, Texas, that holds roughly 300,000 volumes.

There is apparently a difference between running a used or secondhand bookstore and running an antiquarian one. At one point, McMurtry refers to a “low-end” book as one costing less than $500. He is primarily interested in locating (“scouting”), buying and selling the ones that aren’t low-end (e.g. $50,000 for a first edition of The Seven Pillars of Wisdom).

Books tells the story of McMurtry’s life with books (and magazines too). But it is a strangely written book. 

The chapters are almost all one or two pages long. He rambles. He frequently refers to buying this or that book from this or that bookseller while occasionally noting that not many people will want to read a book about buying books: “I’m aware that this kind of prattle is exactly the kind of prattle I ought to be avoiding, lest this become a narrative that is of interest only to bookmen”. 

And 50 pages later: “Here I am, thirty-four chapters into a book that I hope will interest the general or common reader — and yet why should these readers be interested in the the fact that in 1958 or so I paid Ted Brown $7.50 for a nice copy of The Anatomy of Melancholy?”

I kept reading, because he is such a good writer and there are enough interesting stories and observations in the book to make it worthwhile. 

This is my favorite anecdote. McMurtry came upon an English edition of Moby Dick that had belonged to an English author named Charles Reade. Mr. Reade once had an assignment to edit Moby Dick for English readers, making it shorter and easier to sell. The copy that McMurtry found had proposed edits written in it: “Charles Reade was not a man to be intimidated by a mere American classic. He began his editorial work by drawing a bold line through ‘Call me Ishmael'”.

Aside from so many references to books and authors I’ve never heard of, the most striking thing in Books is its account of McMurtry’s amazing productivity. He casually mentions that he has read a certain 12-volume set of diaries several times, in addition to reading apparently vast numbers of other books, many more than once. He did this while writing his own 50 or so books and screenplays. While traveling around the country looking for books to buy and owning and operating his own store.

It’s true that he has had a partner in the book business. But I don’t understand how one person could do all of this. It’s like a story from another age. Maybe he skips a lot of pages when he reads? And never sleeps or takes a shower?  (7/28/12)

The Score by Richard Stark

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Published in 1964, this is the fifth in Donald Westlake’s series of hard-boiled crime novels. This time Parker agrees to join a dozen or so other thieves in taking as much as they can get from a small town in North Dakota. They plan to knock over a mining company, some banks, a loan company and some jewelry stores all in one night.

This is one of the best Parker novels I’ve read. It’s fast moving and relatively plausible, although Parker breaks some of his own rules, which leads to the usual complications. 

Parker only speaks when necessary and only says enough to get his point across:

“I don’t kill as the easy way out of something. If I kill, it’s because I don’t have any choice”.

“You mean self-defense”. 

“Wrong. I mean it’s the only way to get what I want”.  (7/8/12)