Reviews and Comments

Barba Ensopada de Sangue (2012), de Daniel Galera, foi um dos melhores romances brasileiros que já li.

Como toda resenha alerta, não é o que o título sugere — talvez alguma história criminal violenta. É basicamente sobre solidão, família e relacionamentos.

Queria ler Daniel Galera faz tempo, pois nos primórdios da internet brasileira, no final dos anos 90, era leitor assíduo de um mailzine literário em que ele escrevia, o CardosOnLine.

Adorei principalmente porque sou mais ou menos da mesma geração e universo. Tudo é bem familiar: cenários, referências culturais, jeito de falar, baladas… Alguém que conheço ou até mesmo eu poderíamos ser personagens dessa história.

O livro é daqueles que prendem na poltrona mesmo não tendo suspense e tensão como guias principais, com fluidez e estilo únicos. Li numas quatro sentadas em dois dias.

Apesar de não ser tão central, há sim uma trama fascinante, sobre um mistério familiar que o personagem vai desencavando quando se isola em Garopaba (SC) após a perturbadora morte do pai e de adotar sua cadela.

O protagonista tem prosopagnosia, uma condição em que rostos não são reconhecidos (nem o próprio), o que o faz ver pessoas e o mundo de uma maneira peculiar.

Lembrei bastante do livro O Estrangeiro (1942), de Albert Camus. Apesar de os personagens e a história terem muitas diferenças, a atmosfera e a experiência me pareceram similares. Há uma distância com as outras pessoas, que abre um ponto de vista único.

É daqueles livros que a gente sente um forte impulso de conversar com a pessoa que escreveu ao final.

Há um porém que não chega a ser crítica. Como costumo preferir histórias de forte impacto existencial ou dimensões mitológicas, ficou um sabor nem tão profundo no fim, em comparação com outras coisas que venho consumindo. Talvez não seja algo transformador, ou que vá lembrar intensamente daqui a uns anos. Mas quem disse que precisa ser assim? Daria pra dizer que é algo mais pop, no bom sentido.

Já coloquei os outros livros de Galera na fila.

(publicado em sol2070.in/2023/11/tormenta-espadas-gelo-e-fogo-3)

"A Tormenta de Espadas" (2000) é o terceiro volume da série Crônicas de Gelo e Fogo, de George R.R. Martin, em que a série Game of Thrones (2011-19) se baseia.

A história original é sim melhor que a da tela. Mas também acho a adaptação da HBO imperdível. Já mencionei porque adoro:

• A mitologia de Game of Thrones e Terramar
• A Guerra dos Tronos (resenha)
• A Fúria dos Reis — Crônicas de Gelo e Fogo 2

Para quem é fã, vale a pena ler os livros após ver a série porque, além de os rostos e cenários surgirem espontaneamente na mente, a história se aprofunda, inclusive com elementos cruciais inéditos.

Apesar de o enredo básico ser o mesmo, os livros têm uma narrativa bastante diferente, em um formato para o qual antes não tinha muita paciência. Com descrições minuciosas, cada volume acaba somando em média 1000 páginas (na versão em inglês). Não há aquele ritmo videoclípico que se popularizou entre bestsellers. A imersão é lenta em direção a uma profundidade gigantesca.

Talvez esse seja um dos motivos por que os livros conquistaram tanta gente mesmo antes da adaptação. Li uma resenha em que essa série literária estava acabando com um casamento. A esposa reclamava que o parceiro parecia cada vez mais distante, meio que em outro mundo. Sinto esse efeito também.

Depois de uma sessão mais longa de leitura, a saga preenche tudo, ao ponto de outras preocupações reduzirem. É o tipo perfeito de escapismo, no bom sentido. Nunca senti isso com outras séries.

Costumo ler pelo menos uns três livros simultaneamente. Mas "A Tormenta de Espadas" me fazia pausar os outros por várias semanas, demandando dedicação exclusiva.

Entre os três livros que já li, esse foi o que mais me pegou. Não que seja diferente, todos basicamente formam um único livro imenso. Talvez o motivo seja porque já faz um bom tempo que assisti a série, e agora a história escrita definitivamente tomou vida própria.

Diversos momentos ainda evocam comparações, em que a adaptação para a tela perde. Há reviravoltas e revelações cuja sentimento de exclamação efusiva fica, coisa exclusiva dos livros, que na tela não ficou bem resolvida.

Nesse volume, outros aspectos que ficaram de fora na TV e que adorei são os seguintes.

Aparece bem claro o conflito sociopolítico entre os "selvagens bárbaros", que são praticamente um povo originário anarquista, e a civilização autoritária dominante, autodestrutiva e xenófoba.

Também aparece com destaque uma dimensão maior, teológica. O "gelo e fogo" do título se referem a um embate cíclico entre bem e mal, entre o "Deus da Luz" R'hllor e as geladas trevas. Bem e mal podem soar batidos, mas esse é um dos mais envolventes retratos que já vi dessa dualidade. No quadro maior, reis caem ou ascendem, dragões ressurgem e guerras são travadas como sendo os aspectos da interação dessas forças.

No final, me resignei a ler os livros restantes quase lamentando, pois sequestram demais coração e mente.

(em português com links → sol2070.in/11/golpe-internet-cory-doctorow )

"The Internet Con" (2023) is the latest non-fiction book by Cory Doctorow, who also writes great speculative fiction.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to call it "con". People are held hostage, abused and only the perpetrators win.

Cory was the one who coined a term that is now common to understand a central aspect of this scam: "enshittification". This suggestive language ended up having a lot of appeal to what many people already feel. For example, using Instagram or Twitter sucks, but people continue because there isn't much choice. Once everyone is a hostage, it becomes a kind of extortion.

The book details the context, the history and the ins and outs of the scam, including many recent illustrations of the antics of companies like Apple or Google, or the complicity of governments in the domination of monopoly trusts which, not limited to technology, dominate all industry.

The style is the charismatic way in which the author has made a name for himself, managing to portray even the most technical and administrative parts of technology in an engaging way. (I can't forget a captivating short story from 2007, craphound.com/overclocked/Cory_Doctorow_-Overclocked-_When_Sysadmins_Ruled_the_Earth.html about an apocalypse in the information age, full of technical details and hacker nerdiness, whose protagonists are system administrators!)

Cory has worked for many years at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a crucial NGO in the field, and examples of this kind of activism are another attraction of the book.

The second half of the book is the presentation of solutions, which don't have much escape from government regulation, being the "boring but necessary" part.

Another central theme is also discussed, the interoperability potentially inherent in any computing device, but which is blocked by big tech as a way of forcing their domination. Ensuring our freedom to put our devices and software to use is one of the key technical points in destroying this prison.

In the final third, which clarifies common doubts about the essential measures, I felt that the discussion started to become superficial, as if there was a rush to conclude, given that it's a short book, at 192 pages. But nothing that compromises the book too much.

(original em português → sol2070.in/2023/10/pos-anarquismo-murray-bookchin )

"The Murray Bookchin Reader" (1999; available free from the Anarchist Library) brings together articles written between the 1960s and 1990s by this immensely influential thinker and activist for the anarchist, ecological and "new left" movements in general. The collection attempts to summarize Bookchin's thinking.

One of the marks that Murray Bookchin (1921~2006) left was the revitalization, in the 1960s, of anarchism and decentralism as solid alternatives to capitalism, free from the traps of socialism. At the same time, he was also one of the pioneers in thinking of ecology as a fundamental element for change, foreseeing our ecological emergency.

It wasn't the most fluid reading. Some of the articles seemed dated and sometimes gave the impression of a patchwork quilt. In those moments, I wanted to read a book by him dedicated to a single theme, rather than a collection of brushstrokes on everything. I should have started with "The Next Revolution" (2015) or "The Ecology of Freedom" (1982).

I insisted on reading it because there are so few people like Bookchin, who fuses anarchism with ecology, offering a very practical model for change, pointing out the trap that is the default option when thinking about anti-capitalism (after decades of militancy, he abandoned socialism).

I disagree with him on some central points. But his rich contribution is undeniable.

In the 1990s, he also ended up abandoning anarchism. Or rather, perhaps he was abandoned, since a good proportion of "root anarchists" reject approaches such as direct democracy assemblies as being "too political". Since Bookchin didn't give up on mobilization and collective political engagement, he decided to abandon "official anarchism". On that point, I'm 100% with him.

One point on which I disagree is his passionate condemnation of deep ecology. He saw it as a kind of "mysticism" in relation to nature, and insisted that human beings are superior to other forms of life. He was obviously a convinced materialist.

I agree that the ecological movement getting mixed up with new age and self-help ideas - something very common today - is something that dilutes ecology to the point where the movement becomes innocuous. Not only is there no more confrontation with the destructive systems, but this can even strengthen them in the end.

But Bookchin's vigorous denial of transcendent principles in the "bigger nature" seems a bit over the top to me. No "mysticism" is required here, just as recognizing the "equality" between humans and other forms of life doesn't involve any irrationality either.

He also spares no criticism of what he calls "lifestyle anarchism", in which the individual aspects of freedom and expression are emphasized, rather than (self-)organization in solidarity. This uncomfortable characteristic has existed in anarchism since its beginnings, making the movement in many ways more like a brother to liberalism than to socialism.

In recent decades, this has gained strength, for example, among anarcho-primitivists. Now, there are even millionaires who declare themselves anarcho-capitalists ("Anarchy for the rich to do whatever they want. Government austerity for the poor.")...

Bookchin used a lot of his energy to denounce co-optations like these which, according to him, undermine anarchism, the ecological movement and the left in general from within.

Indeed. For example, I always remember that, on several historical occasions, it wasn't the capitalist system that crushed anarchists (including executions), but the socialist parties.

(texto original com links: sol2070.in/2023/10/O-livro-de-Ursula-Le-Guin-que-sempre-quis )

A primeira vez que ouvi falar de Ursula K. Le Guin foi buscando autores de ficção científica similares a Philip K. Dick, há algumas décadas, quando ele era meu autor favorito. Dick é mais famoso pela história que o clássico Blade Runner (1982) adapta para as telas. Suas histórias ainda conseguem explodir mentes, de tanta piração, mesmo diante da atual elevação do padrão de loucura.

Como meu primeiro livro de Ursula, adorei a A Mão Esquerda da Escuridão (1969), que costuma aparecer em primeiro lugar nas listas de fãs. Decepcionei-me um pouco apenas por não ser tanto como Dick, apesar de ambos encabeçarem a "Nova Onda" scifi dos anos 60 e 70. Também virei fã de Le Guin.

Se eu soubesse que ela havia escrito um livro não apenas em homenagem a P.K. Dick, mas também como se fosse uma história dele, teria lido antes de todos os outros. Trata-se de A Curva do Sonho (1972).

É sobre uma pessoa cujos sonhos têm o poder de alterar a realidade, em um futuro distópico não muito distante da atualidade. Antenada com os alertas ambientais dos anos 70, Ursula acertou bastante sobre a emergência atual.

Mas o cenário não se limita a distopias catastróficas. Há uma instigante alternância de mundos, incluindo até aquele tipo de utopia aparente que, na verdade, apodrece por dentro.

Histórias de universos paralelos se tornaram um clichê meio insuportável hoje. Não gosto particularmente porque antipatizo com a teoria por trás do conceito: a "interpretação de muitos mundos" (IMM).

Resumidamente, há aquelas experiências da física quântica em que um fóton às vezes se comporta como partícula e às vezes como onda. Uma interpretação (a de Copenhagen) é que o ato da observação, ou a consciência, determina o resultado da experiência. Assim, a consciência precederia a matéria, em termos de realidade.

Já na IMM, haveriam múltiplos universos paralelos, materialmente existentes. Em um deles, o fóton é onda, em outro, partícula, e em muitos outros, sabe-se lá o quê. Parece que essa explicação assume o papel do status quo, ficando na defensiva de um universo materialmente existente. A lisérgica possibilidade de a realidade ter uma natureza primordialmente mental desafia demais o padrão vigente, então é preciso uma explicação materialista-científica que dê sentido ao experimento quântico.

Gostei especialmente de A Curva do Sonho pois é uma das poucas histórias de ficção científica que parte dessa visão de que a realidade é feita de uma "substância" mental. Dick também era especialista nisso.

Esse é um dos grandes temas do livro: o que é a realidade? Não há respostas prontas, mas simplesmente transportar quem lê até um ponto de questionamento genuíno sobre a natureza do universo já é um feito e tanto.

Também versa profundamente sobre falsas utopias e "as boas intenções no mal". E há até "primeiro contato"!

Vale lembrar que é um produto cultural dos anos 70. As páginas transpiram com o clima da época. Acontecem coisas que hoje já saturam a ficção científica mas, na época, ainda não eram clichê. Até acho bem saboroso, mas pode deixar um gosto "pulp" demais para quem não estiver acostumado, exatamente como Philip K. Dick.

(em português, incluindo um artigo traduzido do livro → sol2070.in/2023/10/Princ%C3%ADpios-do-descentralismo)

"... we are in a period of excess centralization. It is demonstrable that in many functions this style is economically inefficient, technologically unnecessary and humanly damaging. Therefore we ought to adopt a political maxim: to decentralize where, how and how much is expedient." ... "It is not “anarchy.” (But of course most Anarchists, like the anarcho-syndicalists or the community-anarchists, have not been “anarchists” either, but decentralists.)" Paul Goodman (in 1964)

Ursula Le Guin was the one who led me to read Paul Goodman (1911 - 1972), referring to the American intellectual as the anarchist who most influenced her.

"Drawing the Line Once Again: Paul Goodman's Anarchist Writings" is a short book that brings together articles on topics related to anarchism. Perhaps it's not the best book to introduce the author. I felt that many of the articles were a bit dated: as they weren't originally intended as a book, they make frequent references and are even based on news stories from the time, for example.

But I really liked the sharp analysis and pragmatism. One example is the article "Some Prima Facie Objections to Decentralism", which I liked the most.

It's about a basic principle of anarchism, decentralization at (almost) all levels. Answering frequent questions from young people, Paul introduces how this could actually be implemented.

(em português → sol2070.in/2023/09/Fic%C3%A7%C3%A3o-sobre-IA-oldschool )

I read the novel "Galatea 2.2" (1995) because I had become a big fan of Richard Powers, for his book "The Overstory". It's about a writer who is asked to train a neural network -- in the "old-fashioned way", with 90s tech -- to pass a test by commenting on literary classics. Had she developed a genuine subjective awareness?

I'd give an 8. I was disappointed that it wasn't as strong as "The Overstory", but that was only my half-unconscious expectation. It's not science fiction like I'm used to, being much more "high literature" than I imagined, but it was a nice surprise. There is, for example, a very well-told love story. I was surprised at how involved I became, as this is a genre that usually doesn't appeal to me.

Much of the story is based on Powers' own biography. I liked it a lot, but the writer's egotrips can make those who read it expecting only scifi impatient.

Although it was written almost 30 years ago, the moving reflection on what is consciousness or life remains relevant today. And the technical details are believable, as the author has also worked as a programmer.

(em português → sol2070.in/2023/09/O-segredo-das-%C3%A1rvores)

I think "The Overstory" (2018), by Richard Powers, was the best fiction I've ever read. "I think" because I didn't stop to create a ranking, but I can't remember anything so powerful.

I finished a second reading with a more intense impression than the first. In recent years, this was one of the only books I wanted to re-read immediately after finishing -- the other was Jeff Vandermeer's "Southern Reach" trilogy.

They say that the perfect book is the one you finish with the feeling of not being the same person anymore. A critic said that about "The Overstory" and, yes, absolutely. The work -- which won the Pullitzer Prize for best fiction in 2019 -- manages to open up perception and empathy with other beings in this profound dimension of the interconnectedness of life.

It's a story that gradually interconnects the lives of nine people with trees. The main difference is that it positions these plants as a kind of central character, in an active and almost demiurgic way.

As the author says, we imagine that reality is what we perceive in front of us. The problem with this view is that it is limited to the time of human perception. Trees, on the other hand, move, "talk" and even store memories on a much slower scale, to the point of being almost invisible. Only in the last few decades have things like tree communication, cooperation and intelligence begun to be seriously studied.

An old scifi pulp story, mentioned in passing in the book, illustrates this human blindness. Earth is invaded by an advanced alien species that is not only tiny, but very fast. One human second is equivalent to one year of these aliens. They perceive people as gigantic statues. They try to study them and even communicate, but get no response. Concluding that there is no sentience there, they destroy everything to feed themselves.

There is another passage that demonstrates this central theme: life that is able to recognize itself in other forms of life. In the book, a lawyer mentions that the history of humanity could be summed up in the gradual expansion of rights to people who previously had none. In ancient times, children were not considered people. Then they were. Then women, black people, native peoples, non-binary, etc. In countries with advanced culture, such as New Zealand, sentience is now being legally extended to various animals.

This book manages to convey the experience that nature, and especially plants, go far beyond being mere resources. We are all sentient beings. "Overstory" is a botanical term that refers to the upper cover of a forest but, considering the words involved, it could also means "all-encompassing story".

Fortunately, the book fully transcends ecological pamphleteering. Powers is one of America's most renowned authors. "The Overstory" is so well written that it makes the bestseller books sound like kids' writing. As I read, I remembered that the last time I came across such literary beauty was "Underworld", by Don DeLillo, or "Gravity's Rainbow", by Thomas Pynchon -- two celebrated novelists to whom Powers is often compared. For me, this was an aesthetic explosion because I don't usually read high literature, preferring to be entertained by "cheaper" things.

In addition to the enchanting writing, this book also shines in meaning, painting ecology in cosmo-existential tones. It basically delivers the great transcendent-immanent experience that I always mention - when I comment about Spinoza, psychedelics, philosophy of consciousness etc. It often provokes tears, not for sad or beautiful unfoldings, but for emotions as vast as life.

When I read it for the first time, about three years ago, I liked it so much that I couldn't put it down and finished it in a few sittings. Now, in the second edition, many other aspects have opened up, such as the magic of the sentences, the depth of the characters, symbolism, new connections between apparently separate stories...

At one peak moment, literally, of the story, an activist camped out in civil disobedience on top of a giant sequoia with his new life partner, who is a kind of modern prophetess, amidst the rubble of the socio-environmental saga in which his existence has been turned upside down, admits with nostalgia something like: "I think the curve of my life has just reached its peak. Everything that comes after will never compare...". "The Overstory" manages to transfuse emotions like this directly into the heart.

It's a shame about the current decline of the Brazilian publishing market, which is lacking so many exceptional books like this one. The good news is that the producers of the acclaimed series "Game of Thrones", who say they love this book, are going to adapt it into a Netflix miniseries.

This will come after another fabulous adaptation they are finalizing, that of the scifi trilogy "The Three Body Problem". I think this is the best "first contact" story I've ever read, but that's for another post.