The Parasite

上周末下了两本不要钱的书：George Eliot 的 Daniel Deronda 和 Arthur Conan Doyle 的 The Parasite。后者是早就从 David Pirie 那里听说过的，一直没去找来瞧瞧。其实我一直想看看ACD医生的其他小说，为什么没有动手呢？也许是太忠于福尔摩斯而害怕这些＂竞争者＂改变了我的立场？

昨天看完了纸书之后开始在 Kindle 上看 The Parasite。这小说其实挺短的，即使被 Kindle 强迫着细细阅读，差不多三四个钟头也就看完了。越看越心惊肉跳。难怪 Doyle 医生老想把福尔摩斯除掉呢，他的千古名声都被绑在那上面了，而他的主意和能力和感受的范围其实远远超过了那套侦探小说。他真是一个绝佳的 thriller 作者，布局，悬念，节奏，气氛，设计得十分完美，把人抓得紧紧的，简直透不过气来。

我都觉得可惜，如果不是被福尔摩斯系列的光芒盖住了，这篇小说完全可以跟他的朋友 Robert Louis Stevenson 的＂化身博士＂媲美。题材内容 ... 嗯，我也不剧透了，反正，非常非常 psychological 。It has many elements and concerns that I have myself been fascinated with. 你可以说是悬幻，我觉得更象心理学的科幻类，正是我自己最喜欢最有兴趣的类型。创意很独特，还没见过其他人染指。我要把它偷为己用!

The Long Fall

Finished listening to the novel a couple of days ago.

This is the first in Walter Mosley's Leonid McGill private detective series. I am a bit relieved that he is still interested and motivated to write mysteries in the same vein as his Easy Rawlins series. By the end of the ER series I was a little worried that he was burned out on mysteries altogether. Thankfully not. The plotting, characterization, and mood are all fairly conventional, unlike his more experimental books in the past few years.

Mosley can be a little over-expository sometimes, a little too much sighing and philosophizing. This novel suffers from too many character introductions from the beginning to nearly the end; therefore too many back stories to interrupt the flow. But the prose is beautiful, which reminded me of his claim that practicing poetry is good for the novelist. Love the vulnerability and emotional intimacy of the characters.

History

Well, as I said before, I am extremely ignorant of history and should really shut the hell up about it. It is extremely dangerous to comment on someone's work based on skimming a few pages on Google Books and a little background stuff learned from Wikipedia. But, this is my blog and I can do whatever I want, so I might as well make a fool of myself here.

History is primarily about collecting facts. The rest is interpretation. It is both impossible and inevitable that historians should guess at the undercurrent of historical events --- Why? How? Why did things happen this way but not that way, in this moment but not that? Why did key figures (kings, emperors, generals) choose this road but not that road? What if?

From the little bit of stuff I skimmed, it seems that Ray Huang and his colleague/mentor Joseph Needham took an approach to studying Chinese history that is dispassionate and detached, quite the opposite of the traditionally moralistic tone that has dominated Chinese history since the days of 司马迁. Which is fine. The human history, especially a massive and massively complex one like Chinese history, is impossible to be thoroughly understood from all possible angles. One can use the macro-history or the micro-history approach to study it. Neither is righter than the other as long as the limitations are clearly drawn. There is no absolute truth.

Anyway, what the hell was I trying to say? Oh, yeah, it is extremely valuable to introduce an non-moralistic and macro approach to studying history. However, it seems to me that Huang and Needham might be a little too deterministic and a little too ambitious in trying to quantify and explain why things happened the way they did. I can't completely agree that the current history is completely inevitable and that China (or whatever) is this way because it has to be because its geography or scientific progress have forced it to go this way and none other was possible. Nor do I believe that it would have been drastically different if someone went back in time and stepped on a butterfly or shot Hitler dead.

OK, sorry, actually the puny amount of knowledge I have about history has been largely derived from the alternative history genre in science fiction. Anyway, my feeling is somewhere in between. On the one hand, it is obvious that geography, including connections and exchanges with neighboring civilizations, and agriculture and technology can play a key role in shaping history of a particular region or tribe. On the other hand, one must (well, there is no such thing as "must" in history, but that's what I believe) concede that random occurrences and coincidences have important effects in pushing the underlying tendencies in one direction or another. An innate propensity (deterministic elements such as geography or climate, or a family-centric hierarchical philosophy) is amplified or suppressed by fairly limited local circumstances, either spatial or temporal.

In my opinion (which of course nobody gives a ****), the most significant force in history is neither deterministic factors (ie, destiny) nor random events, but rather the cumulative weight of the past. A people with a history cannot one day wake up and make a U-turn from their long-held trajectory. If we really want to understand why something happens at a given time, we might have to take in account the few thousand years before it, as well as the fog, drizzle, and wind on that day. And we cannot predict what a people will do in the next year without considering where they and their ancestors have meandered on the road leading all the way to now. That's crazy, but somehow that is the way of human behavior.

Even an individual human is unable, in 100 years of his life, to veer too far from his life trajectory drawn before and immediately after his birth, how could a gigantic group of them, carrying enormous baggage of thousands of years through language, folklore, memes, morality, social structures, and value system --- known as collective unconsciousness --- do anything change drastically? Birds fly the same route year after year, generation after generation. Salmon swim to the same upstream place.

Nevertheless, accidents happen. One could be destined to live a long life thanks to his indestructible genes, but he might go out and get hit by a bus. A tribe might be great and stable, but the deterministic forces of geography and cultural characteristics cannot anticipate the rapid rise of a power who discovers a superweapon, or has such amoral advantage as carrying some resistance to smallpox or the plague, that crushes the great, stable, and virtuous tribe nevertheless. Historians are pretty good at delineating the past, but the future is anybody's guess.

One thing that bothers me is the role of history studies as a key tool in politics. Politicians frequently seek solutions to their current problems in history books, and historians write history books with the intention of advising and influencing current and future policies. I guess this tradition is good sometimes and bad other times. It helps the powerful rule effectively if they understand the patterns of people and events --- perhaps this is why Chinese politics is so sophisticated and labyrinthine. Nevertheless, it may be a mirage to hope that, because you know exactly what mistakes (?) were made to cause (?) the decline of the Ming Dynasty, somehow you can prevent your own dynasty's decline by avoiding these mistakes through policies and politics. A rationalized, macro-history view carries the risk of oversimplification, which may convince some that, if only we make our fellow tribesmen change and behave this way or that, we could avoid a repetition of another fall of the empire, the glory of the tribe will burn brightly forever, and somehow studying history can and should do all this. I think that's crap, but then what do I know?

***********

好吧，我也就是偶尔撒撒野，其实对这种学术话题既无知识也无兴趣。李约瑟这种学者我觉得副作用太大---虽然他不是故意的。真喜欢中国历史和文化，象 Robert van Gulik 那样最好，研究下古代闺房秘技，写写侦探小说，有益无害。

提醒

差点忘记了，Barb 向我推荐裘小龙的侦探小说，英文原著，红英之死。记一下提醒自己。

A Bitter Feast

随手拿起这本 SJ Rozan 的小说，又放不下了。里面的华人移民文化与社区的细节真实得不像话，tickle me to death，让我一时咕咕傻笑一时抓耳挠腮。例如Lydia Chin跟朋友在中餐馆吃饭，点的菜是“通心菜腐乳”，绝不是鬼佬会点的菜；她喝茶不喝咖啡，从云南普洱到英式红茶，随口形容香气与口味，从不露馅。而且不是那种炫耀卖弄“我做过好多研究调查”的口气，而是奢侈地一带而过。

更重要的还不是这些外物，而是描写各代移民的心理，把我都看傻了---不，把我亲眼所见所闻甚至亲身体会都自内而外地深刻形容了出来，惟妙惟肖。例如老派华人之间的客套，你夸我一句，我赶紧否认，你再接再厉地夸。例如那个敏感微妙的面子问题。例如，几十年前的移民，背井离乡而且因为女性移民极少而不得不独身，一方面孤独怀乡，但另一方面也让一些人感到独立和自由（注意不是吹嘘美国式自由而是讲白手起家闯天下的自由感）。还有秦妈妈这代父母与Lydia这些第二代华人的关系和观念。当然，每一本Lydia Chin故事都有大量细节，但是在这本小说里特别多，特别细腻。

引两段搞笑的(秦妈妈跟好朋友纪妈妈在背后议论各自女儿，Lydia当私家侦探Mary当警察):

Mary's mom and my mom have been best friends for 30 years; offspring one-upmanship is their favorite game.

...

Mary's no bigger than I am ... and she was even more of a tomboy when we were kids. Our mothers used to complain about it together, spitting out the shells of melon seeds on the sidewalk as they waited to walk us home after school, shaking their heads over our bruises and our skinned knees.

小说甚至讨论了复杂而道德模糊的偷渡移民的问题 --- 特别让我回想起90年代中期（小说写的时候）屡屡爆出蛇头偷渡船在海滩搁浅的新闻，电视上常播出被集体递解出境的中国偷渡客。仅仅十几年后，华人与美国的关系已经大变，而这些偷渡新闻也逐渐绝迹。这十几年里，纽约/美东地区福建移民急剧增长，福建人跟广东人老移民之间产生矛盾摩擦，这个走向也在书中敏锐地捕捉到。最恐怖的是，她还下手写老一代移民看新一代偷渡客的复杂眼光和微妙心理，丝丝入扣，绝对真实，绝无简单化浪漫化。

一个鬼佬，哪怕是个观察入微的纽约客，又怎么达到这个境界的呢？即使做过很多 research，读过无数篇社会学论文，也不能达到如此感情上的真实；即使是结交很多华人朋友细细盘问，也挖不出那么微妙的心理---更何况华人一般不爱跟洋人讨论牵扯到事关集体面子的深层感受。她从哪儿搞来的这些内幕啊？

（说起来我一直心里有点抵触描写中国或华人的小说，因为总免不了有种“啊呀瞧瞧多么新奇多么exotic”的吆喝着兜售的口吻---不论华人还是洋人作者都忍不住会落入这种俗套。但是这个系列能让人直觉不是显摆卖弄的口气，很真，很诚恳，很实在。）

More on Kindle

玩了两天，觉得还挺值回投资的。最主要的优点是轻而薄，重量跟一般的 paperback 书差不多，而体积则小很多。本来我还以为要为之买只新手提包，看样子也不用了，除非配个体积较大的 Kindle 皮壳子。网上有很多免费电子书，可以直接从 Amazon 下载，也可以从古登堡计划的网站上当下 txt 文件之后直接复制在 Kindle 上阅读，来源甚广。

除了早已预料的不能前后翻来翻去，现在感到另一点跟阅读纸书不同的地方：在default setting 下，每页的字数比纸书要少很多，我不由自主地读得更仔细，眼光在字句上停留时间比较长；而读 paperback 纸书的时候，密密麻麻的一页一页，有时候迅速扫过一页，不知不觉跳过段落中的词和句。这个有点想看字体大，行间空隙大的 hardback 书，一眼之下吸收的细节词句比较清楚。

一辈子当两辈子使

人到中年，越来越觉得人生之有限，可以玩儿的时间看得到头，嫌不够多。难怪自古都想找长生不老药。Roy Walford 和其他搞 calorie restriction 的人相信限制热量摄取和保持低于标准程度的体重能让他们多活几年，结果人算不如天算，Walford 自己虽然坚持 calorie restriction，得了肌肉萎缩症而七十几岁就死了，不过还是有很多人鼓捣这个，少吃饭。对我没有可行性，不予考虑。

最近在 Jonah Lehrer 的 blog 上面看到一篇报道，讲人脑对时间的主观感受，特别是主观感受的长短差别，的生理根源。简略地概括，就是说有人研究表明人对时间长短的主观感受跟当时的记忆信息数量多少有直接关系。在固定一段客观时间里，记得的细节越多越生动，感觉这段时间越长；记得的细节越少，感觉时间越短。而人在惊吓过程中脑子的信号吸收过程特别有效，吸收一切环境和感官的信号细节，使人感觉时间被拉长了，而时间进程变慢了。

This is a deeply Proustian idea. It turns out that our sense of time is deeply entangled with memory, and that when we remember more – when we are sensitive to every madeleine and sip of limeflower tea – we can stretch time out, like a blanket.

这个理论是不是真的，天晓得，我觉得还没有足够的证据。当人觉得很闷很无聊的时候，似乎时间也过得很慢---至少当时如此，但是事后啥也不记得。总之我觉得对于时间的主观感受这件事，我们的研究工具和方法还远远不够精确，到底在量什么也没太搞清楚。

先把脑神经研究放一边，就讲记忆与经历。只是在不远的过去我才忽然意识到自己是一个非常非常怕死的人，从小就怕。为了尽量把“终点”推得越远越好，我一直下意识地往脑子里塞进去各种各样的新鲜信号。虽然不是个行动的巨人，但是在脑处理/记忆方面加以补偿，一旦空闲下来就感到恐慌，到处搜寻新东西新刺激灌进去。导致直接的结果是不停地找书看，简直是种 compulsion。想起最近出门旅游的时候---其实过去旅游也是这样---忍不住到处乱走，即使没看什么名胜古迹，只要周围是新鲜画面和街坊背景，就觉得很刺激很兴奋，走啊走，几乎要瘫掉都舍不得停下来，好像打了鸡血似的。寻求新鲜刺激，陌生的感官信号，让脑子里的 dopamine 哗哗哗开了水龙头似的暴流，记忆也因此生动鲜明，记录大量的细节。主观感受显得人生被“抻长”了，因为增加了记忆中的内容。

Dopamine 的释放强化记忆的形成与保存，这是经过试验证明的：给老鼠打了 cocaine 之后，它们脑子里 dopamine 暴流，对当时的环境的记忆也特别鲜明持久。所以涅，如果没有频繁的新鲜刺激，cocaine 对保存记忆细节的效果也类似，只不过比较麻烦的是用cocaine 留下的鲜明记忆也包括当时多么多么high，令人更容易上瘾（因为一看见相同环境就回忆起high的感觉），变成一个vicious cycle。

我这样还不算什么，有更加急吼吼地不停寻求感官和新鲜刺激的人们，想必他们是更加迫切地感受到/惧怕终点的迫近，余生之短暂，因此更加要把人生的记忆塞得爆棚，一辈子当两辈子三辈子用。有时候我也会羡慕那些心灵平静的人，岁月静好，没有恐慌感，但是似乎我没生成那样的人。