Reviews and Comments

I heard of the Grasshopper mainly from hearing C. Thi Nguyen in various podcasts, as this is a book that he has based much of his understanding of games upon (I have still not read anything by Nguyen though).

The Grasshopper is a philosophy book on the topic of games. It preoccupies itself with trying to define what games is, but doesn't stop there. It expands into an argument about ethics and the meaning of existence as Suits explains that in Utopia the only thing we will preoccupy ourselves with is playing games.

Suits defines games (as far as my memory goes) as an activity done with a goal in mind and done with certain (inefficient) constraints set by specific rules. Thus mountain climbing is a game as the climber wants to reach the top of the mountain, but only by climbing it, not by using a helicoptre. There is more to it than that, and some of the finer details surely was lost on me.

Trying to define games is one thing — as an avid board gamer I am used to this discussion, sometimes to the end of parody (what is a war game? What is the difference between activities and games?) — but the Grasshopper points further towards trying to explain why games is important to us.

I sometimes dabble in computer games, but mainly enjoy board games. I like the mental challenge of it, but also the social interaction. Without the constraints given by the rules these games would not give either of these. If I could fulfil the goal of any game without any friction I wouldn't get to think about how to solve the puzzle of the game, nor interact with my fellow players during the game. Without the friction we wouldn't even have anything to talk about afterwards. It wouldn't be a game.

Suits talks a bit in the end of the book that playing games would be the only thing we do in Utopia. Playing games would be the only meaningful activity when we live in abundance and all our wishes and needs are gratified.

It follows from this (and this is probably Suits intention) that we should think about the role of constraints for our well being in our current non-utopian world too. Do we need constraints, and if yes, which? To challenge oneself through (unnecessary) constraints is a way to make things more interesting and to develop as a person. A game is not interesting because the player fulfils a goal, but because the player fulfils the goal in unexpected ways. This is how we learn and thrive.

I celebrate innovations that make life necessities easier, but I think we need to think about what we enjoy about the world around us as we thrundle towards utopia (we are not). When most of us doesn't need to farm our own food we have the opportunity to grow food for the love of the activity, in interesting and challenging ways (no fertilizer! vertically! in barren soil!).

The book is written as a socratic diagogue between the Grasshopper and a few other characters. This makes it an easy and fun read. It is still a mouthful to swallow and I think a couple of the finer details passed me by, especially in the second half of the book. It is probably a book I should and will read again.

Av Harstad har jeg tidligere lest Hässelby och den framifrå Blissard-boka. Denne har stått i bokhylla noen år etter at jeg kjøpte den på en eller annen reise hjem for noen år siden, uten å vite mer om den enn hvem som har skrevet den.

Det er en god fortelling, som strekker seg over mange år og med en rekke avsporinger og sidehistorier. Teksten tillater seg å bre ut seg ordentlig over sidene, og for det meste gjør den det uten å bli kjedelig. Det er en tjukk bok på over tusen sider, noe jeg ikke syntes var et problem. I stedet syntes jeg det var fint å følge de samme karakterene gjennom såpass mange boksider. Tekster er dessuten lett å lese og ofte morsom. De siste tre hundre sidene merket jeg likevel gikk tregere å lese, dels sammenfalt det med at jeg begynte å jobbe igen etter ferien, men også tror jeg at jeg begynte å bli litt lei av akkurat denne boka.

Filmen Apocalypse Now er et gjennomgående tema. Max og flere av vennene hans er opptatt av filmen og det viser seg dessuten at Max' onkel var stasjonert i Vietnam under en periode. Det er lenge siden jeg så den, men min mistanke er at boken følger strukturen i filmen, men det er bare en gjetting. Stemmer det synes jeg det er et morsomt grep.

Jeg rakk aldri å se filmen når den gikk på kino her. Så nå leste jeg boken i stedet. Jeg likte denne godt. Den var lett å lese, spennende og tidvis morsom.

Jeg likte hvordan handlingen i boken bygger på hvordan vitenskapen fungerer i praksis, selv om jeg ofte synes at overdrives som et salgsargument for denne typen av historier (er vel der som kalles hard sci-fi); kanskje mer i the Martian (som jeg ikke har lest) enn i denne. For er det ikke alltid slik at man skilter med at historien er vitenskaplig i det ene øyeblikket for så å finne opp ting som faktisk ikke finns. I denne boken finner forfatteren (blannt annet på) et vidundermateriale xenonit som har all verdens fantastiske egenskaper og som de bruker til nesten alt, men som aldri skulle kunne konstrueres. Det handler vel snarere om å etablere et system og følge det, og det gjør det i stor grad, selv om det ikke er alltid. Hadde jeg hatt større kunskaper om kemi og fysikk hadde jeg kanskje kunnet se flere hull.

Jeg likte også hvordan boka fokuserte på interaksjonen mellom hovedpersonene Ryland Grace og romvesenet Rocky. Relasjonen mellom dem og hvordan de lærte å kjenne hverandre og kommunisere med hverandre var morsom å være med på, selv om jeg har vanskelig for å tro at det skulle være så lett som dette.

En trop som jeg synes man møter litt vel ofte i undergangslitteraturen er tanken om at apokalypsen bare kan løses om en enkelt person får uinnskrenkt auktoritet og makt. Likt Liu Cixins Trekropparsproblemet synes jeg Stratt i denne boken fremstilles som en nødvendig person og jeg kan ane en viss beundring, selv når de gjør moralskt forkastelige grep. Der har jeg litt mer sansen for Kim Stanley Robinsons Framtidsministeriet der den auktoritære personen ikke har uinnskrenkt makt og man i større grad kan se hvordan den arbeider gjennom konsensus (men dette var heller ikke en bok om dette).

I really like walking.

For me walking is the ultimate freedom. I long for a time in my life when I walked more, when I had time to stroll. In the hustle of bustle of life with a job and family time margins are shorter and I mostly find myself grabbing the bike (which I love, but on other terms). Somehow in the stream of everyday life I find myself forgetting about how to walk, how easy it is and the pleasure of walking without a destination, something to do during the walk or headphones with a podcast or music.

I have read this book before. I liked it very much then, and I liked it a lot this time. It goes through how walking has been looked upon by philosophers, in writing and art; in different parts of the world and at different times. It has a very good chapter on how walking has been (and is) constrained in different ways for men and women. I love that the book ends with a visit to Las Vegas, a pedestrian island in a sea of car culture.

This is really a book about space and time. As Solnit writes in the end of the book: walking is freedom, but a freedom which is dependent on both that space and time is carved out for it.

I read this about twenty years ago, when it was new and I was more interested in comics. I probably read it around the same time as I read Art Spiegelman's Maus (which I should also reread, and which I know was an inspiration for Persepolis). I bought it in a second hand shop a couple of years ago meaning to reread it, but did never get to it. When it was reported that Marjane Satrapi had died a couple of weeks ago I felt that now it is time. With the current protests and war, getting a better grasp of Iranian history and society also felt more urgent.

The book tells the tale of the author from childhood until she leaves permanently for art studies in France in her mid-twenties. A large part of the book plays out in Austria where Satrapi was sent during the Iran-Iraq war at the age of fourteen.

I mostly remembered the book's first part which is centered around the Iranian revolution and how it impacted Satrapi's family. Satrapi's parents was leftists, and the other relatives was active in the struggle against the Shah in different capacities, but was largely powerless when the islamists captured the revolution. A relative who was very dear to Satrapi was executed by the islamic republic in the aftermath of the revolution.

What I had largely forgotten was the other themes of the book. Satrapi's exile in Austria as a very young teenager and her return to an Iran that had changed a lot while she was away with the Islamic republic getting a firmer grasp of Iranian society during the Iran-Iraq war. These two parts is each about a third of the full book (I think the original french was released in three parts). How Persepolis largely is a story of never really fitting in, about growing up and about the difficulty of becoming who you are when society tries to constrain you.

The strength of the book to me as a westerner, as someone who doesn't know much about Iran is that it makes the characters relatable. Not only the main character, but most of the people around her. Even under a dramatic situation (revolution, war, exile) they have many of the same problems that we do, or at least problems that we can understand. During my reading I felt that I got to know the characters. I really like the drawing style and think it contributes to this. The drawings are exactly as detailed as they need to be, but not more.

I haven't seen the animated movie, but should see if it can be viewed somewhere.

I think I really like walking memoirs.

I often find myself longing for long walks, probably as an escape.

I don't know how I stumbled into Craig Mods webpage, probably a link in the fediverse. I read a couple of the updates on his blog and liked what I read. Short insights from a guy my age living in Japan and very much into long walks. He had recently published a walking memoir and I took note to order it the next time I went to the book shop. An expected I will order it, then read it when I get it a couple of months later-situation. To my surprise they had it already. It is a very good bookshop!

As all good walking memoirs Things become other things isn't only about the walk. It is also a book about the places and the people that the author meets during the walk. Mod does this very well. He is an immigrant to Japan, an outside observer; relaying the particularities of the Kii peninsula of Japan; but also has lived in Japan for almost half his life, speaking the language and being very much familiar with the culture.

The book is based an a three-week walk that Craig Mod did in 2021 on the Kii peninsula; a rural part of Japan, where the population is largely older people as young people has moved away and unemployment and poverty is common. That the walk happened during the covid pandemic is mentioned some places, but isn't very important to the book. The Kii peninsula has been important to both Shinto and Buddhist beliefs, and the peninsula has several shrines, temples and holy places, and also pilgrim routes, along which the walk is largely conducted.

Things become other things is a book that is very much a book about the place where the author grew up. The whole book is written to a childhood friend: stories and memories are retold as things on the walk reminds the author of things from his past. In this way the book becomes a book about more than just walking and the people that he runs into, but also a vehicle for reflection. As the author reflects on his origin, we as readers can also reflect on where we come from.

Reflecting on the title of the book: Things become other things. It is referenced only once in the book when an elderly inn keeper admits that his daughter really isn't his daughter, but a young woman that needed a place to stay and new connections. What was becomes something different. In many ways this is the theme of the book. Mod largely tells about how he has changed during the years since his childhood in the US midwest, the changes that his home town has gone throgh since then and the changes that his surroundings on the walk has experienced (this isn't his first time walking in this area).

I can imagine myself rereading this book in a couple of years, and guess I will see new things then. Also I should really reread Rebecca Solnits Wanderlust.

And get out walking.