...from a BookLover

Monday 1 October 2012

A thought experiment - and a teaser

Today I am cheating a little. As I am still reading "Beautiful creatures", I thought I would give you a teaser from a book I read some time ago.

"The end of Mr. Y" by Scarlett Thomas left me mind boggled. It really plays with strange and exceptional theories, and it is written as a huge thought experiment. It really left me wondering - what if all this was even remotely possible? What if it was possible to leap through other people's minds, experience their memories? That sure would change the way we view the world.

So, here is my teaser:

"   'And this is all for a magazine article? ' 
    'Yeah. I do it pretty intensively. For a month I'll live and breathe, say, Samuel Butler. Then I'll find some link from him to take me to the next piece. The column is called Free Association. I started with the Big Bang about three years ago.' 
               Burlem laughs. 'And what did that lead to?'
    'The properties of hydrogen, the speed of light, relativity, quantum mechanics, probability theory, Schrödinger's cat, the wavefunction, light, the luminiferous ether - which is my personal favourite - experiment, paradox...'
    'So you're a scientist? You understand all that stuff?'
     I laughed. 'God, no. Not at all. I wish I did. I probably should'nt have started with the Big Bang, but when you do, that's what you get. At some point I went from artificial intelligence to Butler, and now here I am with Lumas. While I'm working on him I'll probably decide on what link I'm going to follow through next so I can order all the books. I might do something about the history of photography, actually, following through from "The Daguerreotype". Or I might follow it through to the fourth dimension, and that Zollner book, although that takes me back to science again.'  " 

"The end of Mr. Y" by Scarlett Thomas

More teaser's:
Flukten fra virkeligheten
Should Be Reading

9 comments:

  1. Sounds like a awesome book! I don't know if your norwegian or just read norweagin blogs, anyhow I write in english to be sure you get it ;-) hehe

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    Replies
    1. Boka e veldig bra :) Veldig annerledes også. Eg hoppa rett videre til Thomas' andre bøker etter at eg hadde lest denne. Hehe, e nok godt norsk (med utenlandske venna) - men takk uansett! ;)

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    2. Hehe, ja akkurat, da kan jeg skrive på norsk neste gang! hehe, måtte le ;-)

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    3. Åja, så koselig - det ser eg fremover til :) Hehe, eg måtte nok le litt eg også ;)

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  2. Dette var virkelig en bok som jeg tror er totalt annerledes fra hva jeg vanligvis leser. En bok som er et slags tankeprosjekt høres veldig spesielt ut. Smakebiten var veldig interessant, det høres ut som litt av en oppgave skribenten har tatt på seg.

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    1. Ja, eg blei veldig overraska. Heile ideen bak boka e virkelig spennanes, synes eg: Hva hvis noen kunne surfe gjennom andres tankeverden? Hvordan ville det påvirke surferens hverdag? Ville de kunne påvirke andre menneskers handlinger? Ville det vært mulig å surfe slik uten å bli påvirka selv? Alt innpakka i en roman! Boka ga meg faktisk lyst til å sette meg ned med ei god vitenskapelig faktabok etterpå for å friske litt opp i gamle fysikk-kunnskapa :)

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  3. I like the title and the cover. THANKS for the teaser.

    My teaser is here:

    Elizabeth
    Silver's Reviews
    http://silversolara.blogspot.com/2012/10/teaser-tuesdays-102.html

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  4. NEW FOLLOWER.

    Forgot to say that in my other post.

    Elizabeth
    Silver's Reviews

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    Replies
    1. Thank you so much! :D

      And thanks for your teaser, too :)

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