Shelf Life Book Reviews

She lives! And moreover, she reads! I’m sure that’s the sentiment most of you are feeling right about now. As I said earlier, several life factors have conspired against me to make it hard to read, much less update lately.

But at least I feel bad about abandoning my readers, few though they may be. If I were one of the 4% of people without a conscience–the kind described in today’s review–I wouldn’t give a flip at all.

One of these pairs of eyes would do horrible things to you and never regret it.

 Genre: nonfiction, psychology

Plot: Psychologist Martha Stout begins her chilling book by inviting readers to reflect on what it would be like to have no conscience. To be totally and completely incapable of guilt, remorse, and any personal connection to another human being. This is the world of the sociopath, who contrary to our naive assumptions, is not confined to the locked-up criminals of the world. As many as 4% of the population in the West is sociopathic, and the numbers in non-Western classes are climbing. Dr. Stout gives a broad, multi-faceted inquiry into the neruological, biological, psychological, and even spiritual ramifications of sociopathy, as well as the curious phenomenon the rest of us possess.

Structure: Each of the 12 chapters seems to cover a different aspect of sociopathy. The first and second chapters are mostly an introduction to the discussion surrounding sociopathy today, including a discussion on the history of conscience theory illustrated by some amalgamated examples. Chapters 4 and 5  provide another example of sociopathy in real life  which illustrates how most sociopaths are living among us undetected (with even more stories of this in chapters 6 and 7), though chapter 8 remedies this by giving a practical list of how-to recognize and deal with “the remorseless.” Chapter 9 focuses on the scientific aspects of sociopathy, and the opposite side of the coin, conscience: the hows and whys of these brain patterns are surveyed here. Chapter 10 takes an interesting detour from the rest of the book and illustrates how, even though some people may think it’s freeing to live without conscience, it’s actually quite miserable, as chapter 11 demonstrates with yet another example. Finally, chapter 12 tries to take a pan-religious survey on conscience and ends with a quasi-unitarian “we’re all human” call for warm fuzzies.

Execution: Martha Stout is one of those really talented scientists who is great at communicating to lay men, and this ability to deconstruct lofty scientific principles and theories down to a level understandable by most adults without being condescending is what makes her book so readable and interesting. I’m sure there are several journal articles out there about aspects spoken of in this book, but how many would actually engage the non-professional?

That being said, the book was a little sloppy though not in a way that was a hindrance. Rather, it’s more of an after-the-fact observation that the book could have been a little tighter and neater in its organization. The more serious offense to me was the universalist buffet of religiousity that comprised the final chapter. Although I applaud Stout for bringing this oft-neglected aspect into her scientific work, I disapproved heartily of how she lumped–rather simplistically and unfairly to all religions involved–everyone’s “golden rule” saying together. In fact, Jesus’ utterance “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” radically differs from similar but negated phrases like “do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” because Jesus is arguing for a positive, active duty of doing good rather than passively avoiding harming others.

I did enjoy the read; it was interesting, stimulating, and quite frankly scary. The last chapter was a bit of a sour note, but overall it was an enjoyable experience.

Theme: pscyhology

Read this if you’re like me (when I first picked it up) and thought “sociopath? Is that like a psychopath?”

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
The Myth of Sanity

If you liked this you might also like:
Your Brain on Music -Daniel Levitin
How We Decide – Jonah Lehrer
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks – Rebecca Skloot

Alas, alas! I haven’t updated in nearly a week!

Of course reading is one of my life’s great pleasures. But how often in our lives do we let smaller, lesser pleasures drive out the greater ones? I’m afraid this is what I’ve been guilty of lately.

First of all, many things have changed at my work, which used to be a great source of getting through several books in a week or two. Now I actually HAVE work to do, which means that most of my reading will now have to be done at home. Which is where I’ve really been failing at it lately. Netflix, quilting, cross-stitching, The Office, new manga, Phantom Hourglass, Japanese class — all of these things have been gobbling up my after-work time lately, leaving me just a half-hour or so before bed to do any reading. So in other words, I’ve been a slacker, and have chosen, for some inexplicable or capricious reason or another, not to do much reading lately.

But life’s all about ebb and flow. During these down times I usually try to post “old” reviews that I have stored up, but life was so crazy last week I didn’t even think about it. I’ll try to remedy that this week. Right now we’re about a month away from graduation on campus, and I know over the summer there will be plenty of downtime at work. And eventually, video games will be played, the latest TV show I’m interested in will run out of new episodes, but libraries never go out of style.

But since I’m a little more serious than your average reader, I may start taking some deliberate measures to do more reading. I’m going to start really listening to audiobooks more often, not just on long trips (I think this will be a great way to get through Shakespeare). I’m going to try to be more serious about making time for it at home, saying no to shiny new toys in favor of dusty but true ones. And, I may even start reclaiming some of my lunch hours to read at my desk, sandwich in one hand and book in the other.

Two weeks ago, I was going on a long road trip. And as I usually try to do, I planned on staving off dangerous road hypotism with audiobooks. I had heard a lot about Slumdog Millionaire, and it was even in my Netflix queue, so when I saw it available at my library, it sounded like a great choice.
The audiobook was fantastic. It was every bit as moving and profound as I expected. At times I thought my heart would burst from the tragedy, and yet I was uplifted by Ram Mohammed’s constant kindness, altruism, and hopeful outlook. The drama of the show was really well done as well, and it’s one of the only books I have ever read which I can say that the structure was absolutely perfect. The characters, the setting, the way the author wove in Indian culture – it was pretty darn perfect.

So needless to say, I was fairly excited when our Netflix envelope brought the movie to our home last night. Unfortunately, I was soon disappointed. There were many, many changes – not just ones that I can see justifying in the film version (such as making Salim and the main character brothers instead of good friends, cutting some of the stories), but ones that seemed absolutely pointless (changing the name of the show, Salim’s dark turn, changing the love interest). The thing that irritated me most was changing the main character’s name from Ram Mohammed Thomas (which is pretty significant in the story and what it reveals about Indian culture) to the rather plain and not at all significant Jamal Malik. In other words, it felt like a less-well-done take on the same idea, sort of like how I felt about The Illusionist after I saw The Prestige.

Did I enjoy it? Yes and no. On the one hand, it was a good film with good pacing, music, etc. The story was decent, and I would have liked it more if I had never known the complexities of the book. But that’s ultimately why I’m not a huge fan of the movie. In comparison with the rich, moving story of the book, the movie’s plot seems shallow and listless.

Overall I’d say if you enjoyed the movie, read the book! You’ll love it even more. But if you haven’t seen the movie, I’d say just read the book and not let the movie disappoint you.