half past nomad

Since I don’t have an actual blog update, I figured I could just mention two books I read recently:

Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions

“I call our world Flatland, not because we call it so, but to make its nature clearer to you, my happy readers, who are privileged to live in Space.”

Beggars in Spain

“A girl” Elizabeth Camden said. Ong hadn’t expected her to speak first. Her voice was another surprise: upper-class British. “Blonde. Green eyes. Tall. Slender.”

Ong smiled. “Appearance factors are the easiest to achieve, as I’m sure you already know. But all we can do about slenderness is give her a genetic disposition in that direction. How you feed the child will naturally -”

“Yes, yes” Roger Camden said, “that’s obvious. Now: intelligence. High intellgence. And a sense of daring.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Camden, personality factors are not yet understood well enough to allow genet – ”

“Just testing” Camden said, with a smile that Ong thought was supposed to be lighthearted.

Elizabeth Camden said, “Musical ability.”

“Again, Mrs. Camden, a disposition to be musical is all we can guarantee.”

“Good enough,” Camden said. “The full array of corrections for any potential gene-linked health problem, of course.”

“Of course.” Dr. Ong said. Neither client spoke. So far theirs was a fairly modest list, given Camden’s money; most of his clients had to be argued out of contradictory genetic tendancies, alteration overload, or unrealistic expetations. Ong waited. Tension prickled the room like heat.

“And” Camden said, “no need to sleep.”

Back to Flatland. I know the excerpt from Flatland is rather short, but the book is brilliant. It’s about a two-dimensional world, and the narrator is a triangle. A TRIANGLE!! Yes, I know what you’re thinking:

You: “AKDS I <3 TRAINGLES!!! OMG!!!”
Me: “OMG! ME TOO!!!”

But seriously, the narrator is a triangle (Do you understand the excerpt now?). And the king of Flatland is a square. The book is actually deep and akin to Animal Farm in that there are many subtle messages, despite the simple verbiage and setting of story.

-akds

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 10th, 2005 at 7:31 am and is filed under General Lee.