micahsaul

So, about 10 years ago I made a terrible new years resolution. Despite it’s terribleness, it is the one resolution I have ever stayed true to. The resolution was this:
I, Micah Saul, being of sound body and mind, will never leave a book unfinished once started.
See the issue here? Even if the book is god-awful, unreadable, etc. I must finish it. It’s bit me in the ass a few times. There are three books that I have not yet followed through with this plan on. I will finish them eventually, because I have to, but it hasn’t happened yet:

The first is The Difference Engine, by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. By all rights, this book should be awesome. Gibson and Sterling writing a steampunk novel. Turns out, it’s unreadable. I’ve attempted it twice, and have never got past the first 25 pages.

Next comes Trickster makes this world: Mischief, Myth, and Art by Lewis Hyde. Again, should be awesome. Traces the trickster myth throughout history, from Apollo and Prometheus through to Legba and Brer Rabbit. But the logical leaps and ridiculous claims littering each page again make it unreadable.

And finally, we have Ulysses, by James Joyce. The greatest book of the 20th century. The masterwork of one of the English language’s greatest authors. And guess what. Completely incomprehensible. I am currently on my fouth attempt. And, I’ll admit, I’m getting it a little more than I did previously. Because I’m cheating. I’m reading The New Bloomsday Book with it, which is a line-by-line interpretation of the whole damn thing. I finish a chapter of Ulysses, then read a chapter of Bloomsday, back and forth, back and forth, ad infi-fucking-nitum.

Now, I’m a fiction guy. It’s what I read, it’s what I write. And difficult books don’t stop me, normally. Pynchon is my favorite damn author, for Christ’s sake. Gravity’s Rainbow is the best book I’ve ever read, and I remain one of three people I’ve known that finished that book. But Ulysses is still virtually unreadable.

All that said, it should probably come as no surprise that the other book I am currently reading is almost infinitely more readable and more enjoyable. Build Your Own Ruby on Rails Web Applications, by Patrick Lenz is the ideal starting point for people who, like me, have some basic understanding of programming but no actual experience, and want to get going with Ruby on Rails. From a crash course in OOP concepts and the MVC model (using examples from Knight Rider, no less) to building a non-trivial web app (in this case a clone of digg, called, a little too cleverly, shovell), the books guides you by the hand through the framework. The back of Thomas and Hansonn’s Agile Web Development With Rails has a little meter indicating required experience for using the book. It is almost entirely green, except for a tiny little sliver greyed out at the Beginner extreme. Lenz takes his reader through that grey area and firmly into the the green.

And that’s the difference between Lenz and Joyce. Actually, perhaps its the difference between modern fiction and technical writing. Technical writing is designed to help the reader find himself in the complex world of computers and engineering and technology. Modern fiction is designed to show the reader how lost he is in the complex world of persons, places, and things. I still love fiction, and despite what I said earlier, I do not hate Ulysses or Joyce, but the fact that I’m reading a programming guide for fun and a great work of fiction because I feel obligated to clearly shows a disconnect somewhere. Probably in me.

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