The Renaissance: A Short History - Paul Johnson
Renaissance has unlike numerous other academic labels of history, remained etched in the public imagination. This single word elicits at once, the awe of viewing the entire spectrum of limits of human achievement and, the fervent hope of all good and great that is yet to come in its image. Its utterance immediately brings to life an age when knowledge was acquired for knowledge’s sake, patrons acquiesced to the primacy of the creator and not their baser desires and the creator was as free to choose the content and delivery of his ideas without fear of sanction from higher authorities. Renaissance means a lot many things in the mind of the general public and in this book of fewer than two hundred pages, Paul Johnson manages to reinforce and buttress with facts why it has an undying place in our collective imagination.
In The Renaissance: A Short History, Johnson outlines the achievements of this period by first considering literature, and the works of Dante, Boccaccio, Machiavelli and Chaucer before moving onto the visual arts which he further categorizes into sculpture, architecture and painting. Johnson acknowledges that this mode of presentation may be confusing since most renaissance artists crossed the boundaries between categories and the major studios of the day where they worked contributed in all the fields but the alternate chronological approach would be unenlightening. For a book of this size, Johnson could have very well written a catalogue of the primary figures in Renaissance, with their birth dates and their primary works. However, within each category he defines a starting point and from then on traces the advancements in techniques and modes of presentation achieved by the different masters and with each pushing the envelope a little further.
The book’s true brilliance lies in uncovering the underpinnings of the movement (if we may call it so). Johnson lays great emphasis on three things that were responsible for the creative outpouring of this age. Firstly, the patrons acceding to artists in all matters concerning art and to a great extent tolerating the individual quirks of artist gave the artist freedom to innovate for “each time they commissioned a master, they were striving to help him push forward the frontier of knowledge and skill a little further – or in some cases a lot further”. Second was the spirit of competition, especially in visual arts. Military and commercial rivalries between cities of Florence, Venice and Milan boiled over to the arts and overall led to greater number of commissions. Also, the rise of the cult of individual artist demanded every artist sets the mark a little higher in “a race within generations and between them”. Lastly, the preeminence of the church and the lack of significant opposition to the Vatican allowed the ecclesiastics to turn a blind eye towards the broadening of subject matter (Boccaccio’s Decameron) and mode of portrayal (nudes in painting). In fact, the Vatican itself became one of the primary commissioners of the Renaissance masters.
However, the hold of Renaissance on popular imagination is primarily due to the characters that populated this age and not so much because of the superlative works they produced. In Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Donatello and many others, we have men for whom the word genius was created. While Johnson never gives a biography of these great men, whose achievements he outlines with such skill and veneration, he nevertheless cannot resist mentioning some individual quirks. Coupled with the simple language used, this makes the book an extremely light and enjoyable read.
Social networking - still a lot to be done …
I use Orkut. And some amount of LinkedIn. And I am satisfied with neither. Being in India neither MySpace nor Facebook are very popular and hence I have explored only the surface of those. Hence it is possible that some of my comments/critiques are invalid just because I am unaware of what already exists. But still I believe the domain of social networking has to deliver a lot more value than it currently does to customers to become a solid business proposition.
Let’s start with what current social networking sites achieve. They put people who I know, but haven’t been in touch with (either because I moved out or they moved out or both moved out from wherever the common place we first met was), back in communication. For some people (not for me) they also allow people, who have never met but have similar leanings to find, interact and know each other. So once the initial set of people that I know or I-once-knew-and-now-found-again is exhausted my primary motivation to visit the site back would primarily be for two reasons: communicate with these friends and find some more new friends.
On the first count – of communication – social networking sites run into a whole bunch of competition. From the emails to telephone, junta today has a myriad ways to converse with each other. Is there a clear advantage of using the social networking mode of communication? I would say anyone wishing for a public asynchronous mode of communication would find the “social networking” way unique. By public, I mean everyone sees your conversations allowing people to be viewers without actually participating. Being asynchronous, you have the freedom to reply at your leisure without the fear of the thread getting broken.
These traits however limit the content and participants of the resulting conversations. If you think, an email thread with five people is a nightmare think of an Orkut conversation amongst three people. Any thread of thought that involves ten replies back & forth becomes a pain to continue since both the content and context tend to get lost – first due to message traffic and second due to time. In email, at least the thread retains the content to recreate the context. Lastly, anything remotely private is strictly taboo. All of this together succeeds in driving away a lot of communication traffic away from SN sites. Being a platform for sharing media (audio, photos, video) and publishing (blogs) also adds to the host of communication services but the inherent challenges remain. If a social network is to become an online hangout spot for a group of people, the richness of communication allowed will factor in it big time.
Second is the issue of finding new people. That people can meet online and become friends or even accomplices in some crime sounds a far-fetched notion to me. But I will grant that it is possible. But do any SN sites aid such discovery? Before that do these sites even aid discovery of people I might know? LinkedIn does to an extent (showing you people from your earlier organizations whom you might know) but even they are not too great at it. For example, a person whom five of my current connections are directly connected to and who shared an organization with me in a similar timeframe has greater chance of being a future connection than one whom none of my friends are connected to but who is currently in my ex-workplace. Simple distinctions such as these do not exist today in LinkedIn. Friend recommendations just don’t exist in Orkut.
Coming back to discovering new people; the only way it seems possible to me is to supply a platform to form communities and start conversations in those communities. Orkut again does something very similar and people do end up meeting some likeminded people. But my experience tells me that those experiences peter out very fast; the conversations just don’t stick. I would remember someone from a one hour flight discussion on merits (or otherwise) of Indian cricket but not someone from Orkut with whom I discussed Kirkgaard over a month. When one is dealing with people this stickiness counts and SNs have to try much harder to generate it.
My final rant is slightly more technical. I hate multiple personality disorder – especially when it comes to managing them simultaneously. I am perfectly alright, if my friend wants to play online social games and joins xyz.com; but I don’t see a reason why to converse with him I too have to join the same. I am more than happy with my current set. Identity management is one thing that is troubling all the major service providers on the net today and is the driving force behind a few of the M&A deals but it is something that SN sites have to figure out faster than others. Because seriously with the service they are currently providing its just not worth remembering one more login/pass combination.
Technorati Tags: socialnetworking, internet
Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth - Naguib Mafouz
In literary terms, there is very little innovation in this novel. The book essentially consists of a series of interviews conducted by Meriamun, who enraptured by the fallen city of Akhenaten decides to pursue the truth. Every interview goes over the basic plot - Akhenaten rebellion against Amun (the presiding god), the announcement of his new religion, his marriage to Nefertiti, their rule and shifting of the capital and finally his fall from power followed by Akhenaten’s death. The plot itself remains static and the different narratives do not fulfill the purpose of filling up gaps in this plot. Rather each narrative changes the setting and the dramatis personae; thus the causality that is implied by a linear historical narrative is fundamentally challenged. This more than anything else is the greatest achievement of Mafouz in this work.
I would not say, this is a great work of fiction. Mafouz himself has written much better. For the sheer beauty of his prose one need not look beyond Arabian Nights and Days: A Novel, while the aforementioned Cairo trilogy is a testament to his deep understanding of the Arab society. However, Akhenaten, Dweller in Truth, is not only a novel. It is also a subtle (but not damning, for the seeker of truth does not judge) attack on an establishment that chooses to see truth as it defines it.
Tracking dystopia
Recently, I have been wondering a fair bit about one of my favorite genres in literature and cinema: dystopia. More particularly, I am wondering what exactly can be called a dystopia.Webster defines dystopia as an imaginary place where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. Classic works in this genre, 1984 and We included, fall right within this definition. A couple of words/phrases in the above definition, I think, are more important than others and are worth a second look.
The first is imaginary. Technical definitions aside, the basic notion of dystopia is something that is “against the grain” of utopia. Now since, utopia itself is an imaginary construction it is easy to see where the “imaginary” of dystopia comes from. But then semantically isn’t real the antonym of imaginary which leads me to wonder why a dystopia has to be necessarily imaginary.
The other interesting phrase is people lead dehumanized and fearful lives. Again the genesis of this phrase comes utopia, where people apparently have no problems in life since in laws, government, and social conditions it is the ideal. I often wondered if there is one size that fits all i.e. if the notion of utopia is an absolute. If it is not then for the beings in the text itself it too cannot be so, however imaginary it might be. Either that or there is exactly one uber-character in the world. But isn’t that what totalitarian societies are all about. Where then is the utopia? Or was it dystopia? Or are they merely the two sides of the same coin?
My contention is the following: a work neither needs to be staged in an imaginary place nor have dehumanized characters to be called a dystopia. The Catcher in the Rye and Catch-22 while not set in imaginary or alternate worlds can be essentially called dystopias while everybody-lives-happily-thereafter texts could be classified as utopias. Life is after-all a two faced liar :).
As an aside an excellent chronology of dystopian (in the traditional sense) fiction and the events that affected it can be found here.
His Dark Materials trilogy - Philip Pullman
As demanded by a task of this magnitude, the trilogy is vast in both scope and scale spanning a number of parallel universes, numerous characters from forgotten races and a final confrontation with God himself in attendance. However, it is in the details that Pullman falters. The plot meanders as we start the second book, every page sees a new character coming in to complicate the already complicated plot. Older characters are conveniently forgotten only to be brought out of oblivion when the situation demands. As a book which argues in favour of the free spirit against the shackled existence under an authority, it pays too little attention to the players other than the main protagonists. Whatever, their world view might be Tolkein ended up inventing an entire history to give each of his characters a place and Lewis never complicated his plot enough to get too many in the first place.
The Golden Compass, Subtle Knife and Amber Spyglass are interesting fantasy novels with an even more interesting plot line but people expecting a classic of the magnitude of Lord of the Rings or even Harry Potter will probably be a little disappointed. For those interested in reading fantasy with a slightly different flavour from that of Lewis and Tolkein should definitely look at the Earthsea novels of Ursula K. Le Guin.
Online gaming - it’s not just about games any more
The recent technology survey by Economist has a article that points to the development of common standards in the world of online gaming that would lead to the creation of a platform. This would enable developers to create applications with all the advantages of a virtual 3-D world without worrying about the underlying mechanics of the platform.
The freeing of the applications from the platform will allow this platform to be used for more than just the next innovative video game. A recent Business Week article says IBM is using games like these as training platforms for management under various scenarios. In today’s world where the ability to get into a situation fast is a skill paramount for any aspiring manager such games will provide a easy way to build up their skills virtually without actually waiting to get a chance in the real world. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, if the platform for online 3-D rendering engines become standardized we would see a burst of creativity that would dwarf anything we have seen so far - including the browser.
Manchester United - The next season
Primary Squad
Goalkeepers: Edwin Van Der Sar, Ben Foster, Tomas Kuscack
Defenders: Gary Neville, Wes Brown, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Gerard Pique, Gabriel Heinze (??), Mikael Silvestre (??), Patrice Evra
Midfielders: Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs, Michael Carrick, Owen Hargreaves, Darren Fletcher (??), John O’Shea (??), Christiano Ronaldo, Nani, Anderson, Park Ji-Sung
Forwards: Wayne Rooney, Guiseppe Rossi, Alan Smith, Ole Gunnar Solsjkaer, Louis Saha
Formations
As in this season, I think SAF will work with the 4-4-2 or the 4-2-3-1 formations primarily. I see the later being utilized primarily in European competitions where retention of the ball is important in all areas of the pitch. Wide men in both formations will be switching flanks giving greater mobility to the side.
(Van Der Sar/Foster)
(Neville/Brown) (Ferdinand/Vidic/Pique/Brown/Heinze/Silvestre) (Heinze/Evra/Silvestre)
(Ronaldo/Nani/Park) (Carrick/Hargreaves/Fletcher/Scholes) (Giggs/Ronaldo/Anderson)
(Rooney/Rossi) (Smith/Saha/Ole)
(Van Der Sar/Foster)
(Neville/Brown) (Ferdinand/Vidic/Pique/Brown/Heinze/Silvestre) (Heinze/Evra/Silvestre)
(Hargreaves/Fletcher) (Scholes/Carrick)
(Ronaldo/Nani/Park) (Rooney/Anderson/Giggs) (Giggs/Ronaldo/Anderson)
(Rooney/Saha/Rossi)
The key decisions for SAF would not be the formations but the personnel employed primarily because certain players would not see themselves as mere squad players. I see 4 key areas:
1. Foster or Van Der Saar: Foster has had a outstanding season on loan. And Van Der Saar definitely looked slippery towards the later part in the season. Is Van Der Saar still the number one or is Foster capable enough to take over?
2. Anderson & Nani: Both of the new players were first team members in their old clubs. While they might have to still learn lots and adapt to the Premiership, they would not be content in sitting on the bench most of the time. Where and how to bring them in will decide how effective they are.
3. Giggs & Scholes: When to play them and when to rest them? If Nani and Anderson gel well with the team, does the superior experience of these guys merit them a place in the team. All the while considering that they probably don’t have the legs to play all matches in the entire season.
4. Hit-man: Rooney needs space to operate and is not an ideal hit man. How reliable is Saha? Or is Rossi capable enough to endure the physical nature of the Premiership?
Are we all selfish?
The assumption of a rationality underlies amongst other things the entire discipline of economics. Agency theory which extends the notion of rationality into selfishness forms the bulwark of most of what is taught to students in management schools all over the world.
However, as this recent article in Scientific American points out the basic assumption of rationality might be under question. Using a game that is a modified version of the well known Prisoner’s Dilemma called The Traveller’s Dilemma Prof. Kaushik Basu tries to understand this basic assumption. The game itself is very simple with inductive logic at the heart of it: X and Y are asked to value an item with X paying x and Y paying y with a payoffs of (x,y) if x = y, (x+2, x-2) if x<y and (y-2, y+2) if y<x with m <= x, y <= M. If we assume both X and Y to be selfish entities then each would say m as the value. This is how: if x=y=M they get M each but if x = M-1 and y= M , then X gets M+1. Thus X would go down one notch. Y will reason also reason as such and will push each others values down to the lowest possible m. If one has realized something very similar lies at the heart of argument that competition drives the prices down.
H owever experimental evidence as the author states runs contrary to the expectations. With M = 100 and m = 2, he found people quoting much more in the 90s than the optimal number. The idea basically is this: if X quotes 90 and is fairly sure that Y will quote somewhere around the number say 88, X would still be better off getting 86 rather than when he got 2. The question therefore is how sure is “fairly sure”. This would explain even in markets with almost all attributes of perfect competition why one can still see collusion between the players. Or why people daily make choices that would not be rational on any accounts.
Management academics such as Henry Mintzberg and Sumantra Ghosal, have pointed out that focusing solely on Agency theory, which in turn goes back to rationality as a basic assumption, to understand human traits and predict reactions as is followed in various b-schools is responsible for many of the corporate excesses of the Enron type. Experimental results such as above lead further credence to the growing belief that assigning the label of competitor-out-to-get-you to everyone as in the famous Porter model is not necessarily the best way of thinking about business. It is just one way of thinking about it because maybe human beings are not entirely rational.
Milan again :)
Two years earlier with a heavy heart I wrote this.
Today’s Champions League final between AC Milan and Liverpool was anything but like the 2005 one. And not only because it was Milan who finally won. But because in no point of the game did we see the classy Milan of 2005 who in the first half made Liverpool look like schoolboys (they did show some of that stuff against Man U though … and how I hated them for that) and because at no point did Liverpool look like a side that would snatch away victory because they wanted to. But then this is two years later.
The funny thing is that both teams started out (and continued through most of the match) as if they were playing the game a day after that fated day in May, 2005. Liverpool were wary of allowing Milan the space in middle to exploit and started out with three central midfielders in Xabi, Mascherano and Gerrard. Milan on the other hand seemed too busy looking over their shoulders if Liverpool were on the warpath like the last time. Like a chess match where both players expect the other to make the first bold move this became a cagey affair.
Pippo Inzaghi’s freakish half time goal seemed to have injected some fluidity into the match but with Gerrard probably cursing himself still for the most important miss of his career. If he he had put the ball past Dida, who knows what would have happened. What ultimately happened was that Super Pippo (Sir Alex once described him as “born offside”) latched onto a Kaka through ball before superbly rounding off the Reina and rolling the ball into the goal. As a result, Dirk Kuyt’s goal at the 88th minute remained only a consolation.
In 2005, I wrote:
The saddest part about the whole episode was that Paolo Maldini will probably not see another final to make up for this loss
How wrong was I and how glad am I that I was wrong. One of the true greats of the game, Maldini richly deserves his fifth European cup medal. And now that it is confirmed that he is staying for the next year, I will be wary of making similar conclusions again. But then probably this game showed why fans and pundits alike will always put a Zidane or a Maradona ahead of a Maldini in the lists of greatest ever.
In Concert Performance - Nikolai Dezhnev
Though often described a anti-Soviet-Communism satire, the scope of In Concert Performance far exceeds this narrow definition. It is at once, a treatise on humanist philosophy, a discussion on the nature of good and evil and a magical story of love-at-first-sight. And if it has to be read in one way, I would read it as a damning account of how mindless bureaucracy not only inhibits but butchers free spirits. And this is not true only for the Communist Russia. He does not absolve either the Department of Light or Dark of any blame. The story of Lukary, the protagonist of the story, reminded me of Stanislav Petrov who in 1983 decided that the US missile attack his computer terminal showed was a machine error and not a real attack. Had he been just a cog in the system, he would have been instrumental in starting the third world war. But his decision was made on human instincts. And for it he was/is forgotten and shunted into the shadows not only by his own countrymen but also in the other side. Breaking the chain of command is a crime whichever side you are on. Cold War must had many such heroes, and being a physicist and international diplomat Dezhnev probably knew more about them than us.
The beginning of the novel, when the author is setting all the pieces on the board before letting the story unfold were wonderful. They are written with intensity and force, in a manner that does not let the reader wait to catch his breath while introducing him to a smörgåsbord of characters from from this world and the one beyond. The novel effortlessly flits from the Russia of 90s to the Spanish Inquisition and the Dezhnev seems as adept in portraying the futility of pursuing a Theory of Everything as he is in describing the Anna’s emotions as she sees Lukary for the first time. However, somewhere in the middle Dezhnev’s focus shifts from the story he is telling, what happens to Anna and Lukary’s love, to fairly long winded discussions on the nature of existence, good and evil and such. Of course they are interesting to read but they lead nowhere in the resolution of the main plot which then shifts a gear and moves into Russia of 1932. The novel then suddenly reads like The Day of the Jackal (another one of my favorites, but where does it fit in here) before moving back to 1990s trying to close the narrative.
While both Bulgakov and Dezhnev dealt with essentially the same topics: good vs. evil, nature of time, Russian identity, the notion of sanity in an insane world, to the extent that even many of literary devices used were also the same, where one succeeded the other failed. Dezhnev took his eye (or rather his pen, typewriter, keyboard or whatever he was using) off his characters. The beauty of The Master and Margarita lies in the fact that Bulgakov always moves forward with the story at a breathless pace and that with all the fantasy involved, it always remains a human story. At the end you might not be sure where you are but you had hell of a journey that you can identify with. The same sadly cannot be said of In Concert Performance however which only in its opening chapters matches the brilliance of the Bulgakov’s work and where too many Deux ex machinis make it feel like hiss agent was really on his back to deliver the book to his publishers.
Lest my words be construed as an indication that one should not read this work I shall only cut-and-fit what Roger Ebert wrote while reviewing Darren Aronofsky’s The Fountain: In Concert Performance “overreaches on every level” with a “big subject, big canvas” and “big ambitions” while trying to “cram just about everything” into a novel; this is definitely not a recipe for smooth reading “but I’d much rather watch somebody shoot for the moon when the stakes are sky-high than sit back while they play it safe.”
Technorati Tags: russian literature, literature, satire, books
