Things I don’t understand: Quantum Physics and the Israeli-Palestine conflict. Things I love: coming-of-age books about girls. This month I read four books on all of these things.
How to Teach Quantum Physics to Your Dog, by Chad Orzel
For some insane reason I decided to re-read this book. I think I was intent on recalling some of the everyday applications that quantum physics makes possible. You know, so that when someone says “quantum physics is ridiculous” I could say “yes, but then MRI scanners wouldn’t be possible if it didn’t actually work”. But here’s the basic problem. First, no sane person uses the phrase “quantum physics” to begin with. Second, nobody actually cares why MRI scanners work, they just want to know why there is a 4 month wait to get one.
The last time I read this book, I wrote this:
It’s hard to say if this book is truly something to be recommended to quantum physics newbies, however, as I read it with a pretty decent lay-person’s understanding of the concepts involved and am far beyond the “what the hell are you even talking about” stage. My impression is that this book would be a challenge for a person with a beginning interest in this area, unlike Orzel’s second book which I found to be remarkably accessible. That said, this is a book I will want to keep and reread.
In retrospect, it’s very easy to say if this book is something to recommend … it isn’t. I admittedly enjoy the mind-bending and inaccessible nonsense of things like “Schrodinger’s cat is both dead and alive” but I’m not really all that interested in details that require a graduate degree in Quantum Electrodynamics. I stand by my original claim, however, that Orzel’s second book, How To Teach Relativity to your Dog, is a worthwhile endeavor and does a terrific job at explaining things like why time slows down the faster you travel.
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith
I reserved this book because it is constantly being referenced as a “favourite childhood book” by characters in other books, much like The Velveteen Rabbit, which I read a while ago for the same reason. And guess what? It deserves it! It’s a very sweet book told from the perspective of a young girl named Francie growing up in a dirt-poor neighbourhood of (you guessed it) Brooklyn. I would call this a story of survival and resilience. Francie’s mother teaches her and her brother to nail a soup can to the floor of their closet and deposit a penny every time for every two they make selling scrap metal, saving to one day perhaps buy a small piece of land. But something seems to eventually happen requiring them to open the can and take use the money for something else. Like food. But then they nail down another soup can and start again. Francie learns to fight her way into the best school in the area by pretending to live in the catchment area and thereby manages to graduate, even though the family is in dire need of money she could otherwise earn if she was working.
Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time: Then your time on earth will be filed with glory.
Human Croquet, Kate Atkinson
Kate Atkinson writes sometimes confusing but always enjoyable books. This one is no exception, happily blending some strange scifi-esque time warps, a murder mystery, a disappearing / reappearing father, a coming-of-age story, crotchety old relatives. It’s full of intrigue. Maybe too full.
Human Croquet is a confusing title, until you get to the end where she provides a delightful pictogram… My summer garden party plans are starting to come together!
The Message, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi shares his thoughts about his reckoning with slavery and racism in the US through a series of three short essays. In the third essay, he spends an inordinate amount of time sharing regrets about an earlier paper he wrote called The Case for Reparations. It takes a while to get there, but ultimately it seems his regrets stem from his narrow, US-centric perspective. He begins to realize, while visiting Israel, that Palestinians in occupied territories are being similarly mistreated, facing theft of their lands, extreme racism, apartheid, genocide. Much of what he writes about his time in Israel is reminiscent of Apeirogon, which I wrote about here.
Interestingly, all of the negative 1/5 reviews I read on Goodreads predictably argue that speaking out against the actions of Israel is tantamount to antisemitism. How we got here, where criticism of current racist and genocidal actions against one group is proof of racism against another group, is baffling to me. Call me ignorant if you want, but I can’t think of anything that would justify the purposeful denial of food and aid to a group of people that is literally dying of starvation.
Anyhow … controversy aside, these are some of my favourite quotes from the book.
Football: A game that valorizes violence and then is horrified by its consequences.
I have been surrounded by people who, on some level, think of me as an exception that does not disprove their theories of white supremacy.*
Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. ~Israeli historian Benny Morris
*Replace “white supremacy” with “male dominance” and you have the bulk of my working career life.
Love your take on these books! (and for what you say in your section on Coates: Preach!).