trb@drutx.UUCP (BuckleyTR) (04/02/85)
On the recommendations of posters on net.books, I bought three books
this weekend, and read two of them.
The first was "Tanner's Twelve Swingers" by Lawerence Block. This is
the third book in the Evan Tanner spy series that Chuq, I think it
was, called the "funniest book of the year." Well, frankly, I found
it mildly entertaining, but on the same level as a typical TV sit-com.
The book was written in a simple style, but was similar in escapest
approach to James Bond novels. This story has a twist - the
protagonist, Evan Tanner, never sleeps, due to a brain injury incurred
in the Korean War.
My problem with this book was that the characters were so poorly
developed. The unique aspect of Tanner is that he doesn't, in fact
can't, sleep. Yet this part of his character was just sort of thrown
in, almost like an afterthought. Every evening seems to end up with
everyone going to bed, him in front of the fireplace with a glass of
wine, and all of a sudden its morning! What did he do in those hours?
There could have been a concurrent story that went on in the night
hours. The other characters are never developed well, in fact, we
hardly know them, even by the end of the book.
The story line was thin (so was the book - it takes about an hour to
read), and it seemed designed for junk-food reading. However, I could
imagine how a good script-writer and director could make a wonderful
movie out of it.
This was written in 1967, and the Jove paperback is a 1985 re-release.
The other two in the series were written in 1966.
The second book I read was "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" by
Richard P. Feynman, and is new in hardback non-fiction. This book is
thoroughly entertaining, and seems to be everything the previous
poster said it was. My only complaint: Mr. Feynman is a brilliant
physicist, but not the world's greatest writer. I found the writing
style to be on a high-school level. If he had gotten a writer to
write the book with him, it would have taken an excellent book and
made it into a superb book!
I liked his method for picking up girls in a bar ("you mean you just
ASK them?"), and the safe-cracking chapter is perhaps the best of all.
The third book was "Marxism" by Thomas Sowell. I'll read that this
week, and comment on it. I have always liked Sowell's intellectual
honesty, so I'm looking forward to this one.
Tom Buckley
AT&T Information Systems
ihnp4!drutx!trb
(303) 538-3442swift@reed.UUCP (Theodore Swift) (04/05/85)
In response to the complaint that Feynman's writing style is a bit immature in his quasi-autobiography (I would call it more and autobiorgaphiclal collection of anecdotes) I have two "corrections" to make. I'm reading the book now and, while I agree that the style is somewhat simplistic, I think it 's because the stories were / are transcriptions of interviews, and as such, are written in the style of a spoken narrative. The book is co-authored by (I've forgotten his name) and I think he just sat down with Feynman and a tape deck. There seem to be constant reminders that this is as Richard would say something rather than how he would formally write it. Things like italicised "BRRRRRRRR" 's to describe machine noises strike me as things spoken rather than written. If you keep this in mink, the effect is not so distracting. I just hope that more of RPF's impressions and experiences get into print.