leeper@mtgzz.UUCP (m.r.leeper) (07/24/85)
THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE by Tracy Kidder
1982, $3.95, Avon.
A book review by Mark R. Leeper
This is one of those books that sat on my shelf for years before I
actually got around to reading it. I knew it was inevitable that I would
read it since it was a best seller about my own industry, but at the same
time I was never anxious to read a book that was so much like work. My
final impression is that the book contained some very perceptive
observations about life in the technical community, yet other parts seemed
off base.
The book is, as I am sure most computer people know, an account of the
development of a computer--the Eagle--by a team at Data General. Kidder
gives mostly a breezy narrative of how such a project runs, but takes
frequent detours to explain in layman's terms how a computer works or to
give biographical sketches of the *dramatis personae*. It was probably the
former that won it the 1982 Pulitzer Prize. The technical description isn't
great, but it probably made the Pulitzer Committee feel that they were
reading and understanding something of some complexity. In fact, Kidder
tends to shy away from technical details that he cannot render into simple
terms. So while we are told that the Eagle is being built to compete with
and to beat the VAX, we are never given any real comparison of the two
machines. That, presumably, would be tougher to explain than how memory
works.
The day-to-day drama of working on such a project does ring fairly true
without too much distortion of details for effect. I was bothered by the
dialogue, however. It often struck me as being less than credible. Too
many of the conversations are terminated by someone getting in a dramatic
last word. That makes for good reading, I suppose, but it is a writing
convention and not a realistic portrayal of the way people talk. I guess a
film that shows how people really behave would be dull and an author
deserves similar license to make his book enjoyable.
THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE is not the sort of weighty book one usually
associates with the Pulitzer Prize, but it does bring light to the work of
some people who rarely get attention outside of their own circles. There
are plenty of books describing what it is like to be a doctor, a policeman,
even a reporter. At least THE SOUL OF A NEW MACHINE had the originality to
show the technical community to readers outside of science fiction.
Mark R. Leeper
...ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper