TagLiterature
Reading in the Digital Age
Writer Joseph Epstein argues compellingly on behalf of the novel.
Ancient Greek Philosophy and Modern Blockbuster Graphics
The amazing computer-generated effects you see in almost every blockbuster today are only possible thanks to ideas proposed over 2300 years ago.
ChatGPT: The Perfect Gadget for a Culture in Decline?
ChatGPT is an impersonal machine and can't generate meaningDr. Jeffrey Bilbro, professor of English at Grove City College and an editor at The Front Porch Republic, wrote an article for Plough on what he regards as the primary weakness of Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT. Bilbro comes to the issue from a literary background, which means he values the human element in language as a mode of communication. Literature is a “conversation,” requiring sentient minds. He sees ChatGPT as a soulless mechanism that will atrophy our ability to write and diminish our appreciation for good writing. Bilbro writes, LLMs are a technology suited to a decadent culture, one that chases easy profits rather than tackles the real challenges we face. It’s easier to make money rearranging words Read More ›
Math, Mind, and Matter
The surprising similarities between mathematics and literatureLast October, legendary American author Cormac McCarthy, who wrote Blood Meridian and The Road, released a pair of interconnected novels called The Passenger and Stella Maris. The books arrived after a sixteen-year silence from the desk of McCarthy. The books deal, per usual, with themes of mortality, fate, and the “God question,” and are predictably lyrical, vivid, and dark. But McCarthy plows new ground in these sibling novels. The books are about mathematicians. It’s fiction about math. The story revolves around the complex relationship between a brother and sister: Bobby and Alicia Western. Bobby is a deep-sea diver with some history in the field of mathematics, while Alicia is a once-in-a-generation math prodigy. Not Estranged, but Akin After reading these books myself, I marveled at McCarthy’s ability to Read More ›
Novelist Haruki Murakami: Writing Involves Trust
Writing powerful literature is a human endeavor written for a human audienceI just finished a book by the renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami called Novelist as a Vocation. Murakami is the author of 1Q84, Norwegian Wood, and Kafka on the Shore, among many others. As a young novelist myself, I wanted to learn a professional’s thoughts on the trade and also get a sense of his philosophy of writing, which in the age of AI, feels increasingly valuable. Most of the book was composed during or before 2015 but was just published last year, and is basically a compendium of essays on the novel-writing process, how Murakami got started, and the broader literary landscape. Connecting With Readers Murakami’s thoughts on his readership and audience particularly stood out to me. He confesses Read More ›
Revisiting Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451
How can we read and remember the past with the influx of digital noise and distraction?Which one was right, Brave New World or 1984? Are we living in a hedonistic mirage or a totalitarian face-stamping global regime? The conversation over prophetic twentieth-century texts often homes in on these two admirable books, but another classic dystopian novel pokes its head from behind the curtain, asking to be regarded: Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. It’s the riotous, mega-talented sci-fi writer’s most famous work (though I’d argue not quite his best) and follows the life of a fireman, Guy Montag, whose main job is not to squelch housefires but to burn books, and the houses that hold them. This fireman is a member of a brigade tasked with the destruction of literature. With the destruction of meaning. In the Read More ›
Escape from Spiderhead and the Question of Love
Is love more than a chemical reaction and are humans more than machines made of meat?Brave New World, a speculative work by British writer Aldous Huxley, explores a society where people are conditioned via drugs and genetic engineering to live stable, highly pleasurable, but totally meaningless lives. One pop of a pill, and negative feelings like sadness, anger, or envy vanish. In the brave new world, “everyone belongs to everyone else,” and pleasure supplants purpose. A Story for Our Age That book was written in 1932. Fast forward to the twenty-first century and another fictional work, albeit shorter, goes arguably even deeper than Huxley’s magnum opus. The short story Escape from Spiderhead by George Saunders is about a group of inmates being tested by mood-altering drugs in a facility nicknamed “Spiderhead” for its nebulous layout. Read More ›
It’s About Time
The cliche phrase "time is money" needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to OdellArtist and writer Jenny Odell, author of the new book Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock, was recently interviewed by Wired. Odell’s 2019 book is called How to Do Nothing. In the interview, Odell discussed how the invention of the clock has altered the way people think about time, labor, and productivity. The cliche phrase “time is money” needs to be subverted by better metaphors, according to Odell, ones that emphasize meaning instead of mere activity. When she was asked how she avoided productivity “burnout” in her own writing life, Odell responded, If you’re not thinking of time as money, the other thing that you could be trying to find is meaning. That’s ultimately what I want out Read More ›
Roald Dahl is Safe (For Now)
How long until making revisions turns into full-blown censorship, and what impact will that have on the creative arts?Publishers decided last week to revise certain aspects of beloved author Roald Dahl’s books, like James and the Giant Peach and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. They said the decision was intended to make Dahl’s books more inclusive. The decision sparked controversy and outrage in the literary community, and now, Penguin Random House has changed their minds and will preserve the original texts. ABC reported: The updates to Dahl’s works under Penguin had meant to be more inclusive, progressive and more acceptable to today’s readers. Phrases like ‘mothers and fathers’ in Dahl’s ‘Matilda,’ first published in 1988, could have been replaced with ‘parents’ while some descriptions of ‘fat’ characters could have been edited or removed entirely. Description of women’s jobs Read More ›
Developing a Penchant for Pynchon
The bizarre novel on the impact of tech on society turns 50 this month50 years ago this month, writer Thomas Pynchon published the 1973 National Book Award Winner Gravity’s Rainbow, a 700-page novel/biopic on the absurdity and technocratic madness of modern life. While I haven’t personally read the book, I now plan to this year after reading an entertaining memorial review of the book over at Wired. Pynchon was famous for being un-famous—that is, for evading the limelight while making an indelible mark on the unfolding postmodern literary landscape. Along with tomes like Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, Pynchon’s book often seems devoid of a storyline with its cacophony of events, characters, and nebulous sub-plots. An Almanac of its Time But that might be kind of the point, according to this review Read More ›
What Can’t A.I. Do? Quite a Lot, Actually
NYT columnist David Brooks makes a list of uniquely human skills that students should develop in collegeIn an increasingly artificial world, how are we to remain human? New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an opinion article this week seeking to answer that question. Brooks notes some of the benefits of “machine learning,” but also lists some of the characteristics artificial intelligence will forever fail to embody. “A.I. will probably give us fantastic tools that will help us outsource a lot of our current mental work,” he writes. “At the same time, A.I. will force us humans to double down on those talents and skills that only humans possess.” Uniquely Human Traits What are some of these “talents and skills” that people should intentionally develop in the age of A.I.? Brooks says an incoming college student Read More ›
Will ChatGPT Replace Human Writers?
Some people think so. But maybe they’re mistaken about the purpose and nature of languageIn the wake of the notorious ChatGPT chatbot from OpenAI, many are asking, “What’s going to happen to people who make their living as writers?” We’re talking journalists, novelists, academics, etcetera. It’s a valid question given the dexterity of the new technology. OpenAI’s DALL-E image generator poses the same question to visual artists. If a machine can generate a skillfully crafted piece of text or an image, the need for human writers and artists turns opaque. That is if we actually think artificial and natural intelligence are comparable competitors. Cynics are claiming a doomsday for writers. Sean Thomas of the Spectator thinks doomsday is upon us. He wrote in a January 10th article, I’ve done writing of all kinds Read More ›
The Prophecies of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
Andrew Klavan explores the world of the Romantics in new book and finds special insight in Shelley’s classic horror storyAndrew Klavan, acclaimed novelist and host of the Andrew Klavan Show at the Daily Wire, wrote a book about his profound encounters with the Romantics of the 19th century, called The Truth and Beauty: How the Lives and Works of England’s Greatest Poets Point the Way to a Deeper Understanding of the Words of Jesus. The Romantics include literary figures like Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats. While it’s common to highlight the Romantics’ veneration of nature, they were also living in the throes of the Enlightenment, in which atheistic materialism was becoming a minority alternative to theism. Klavan writes, “The wonderful success of science at explaining the material world threatens to create in scientists a bias towards Read More ›
Tolkien’s for Sale
Commercializing the beloved epic fantasy comes at a costWhat happens when a beloved fantasy world, once respected and celebrated because it soared above the surrounding fray of decadent literature and art, becomes mainstream? What if the very work that was intended to transcend consumerism becomes the object of mass consumption? Harley J. Sims, writing for MercatorNet, believes Amazon has diluted the characteristic beauty and depth of The Lord of the Rings for the sake of mass consumption and appeal. I’ve shared my own thoughts on the new Rings of Power show in two separate pieces (here and here) for Mind Matters already, but just to recap: the show is interesting and entertaining enough to keep watching, but it’s missing something—a moral and imaginative ingredient Tolkien articulated beautifully in Read More ›
2: AI Can Write Novels and Screenplays Better than the Pros!
AI help, not hype: Software can automatically generate word sequences based on material fed in from existing scripts. But with what result?“AI rites reel gud!” Seriously, the idea is not new. Back in the 1940s, George Orwell (1903–1950) thought that a machine could write popular novels so long as no creative thinking was involved. Thus, in his 1984 police state world, one of the central characters has a job minding a machine that mass produces them. In the 1960s, some film experiments were done along these lines, using Westerns (cowboy stories). At the time, there were masses of formula-based film material to work with in this popular genre. But what does the product look and sound like? In 2016, Ars Technica was proud to sponsor “the first AI-written sci-fi script:” As explained in The Guardian, a recurrent neural network “was fed the Read More ›