Time is just memory mixed with desire
It’s not the road, only the map.
- Tom Waits
Blake Crouch’s Recursion is one of those books that is best read in as close to one sitting as possible. A movie-book or book-movie experience, if you will. The set up is intriguing—the chapters are short and very plot driven. The action is spread across two time periods (2018 & 2013). In the latter, a NYC cop Barry Sutton is working on a case regarding a new psychological phenomenon called False Memory Syndrome (FMS)—people are beset with memories of a life they never lived (alongside but not replacing their own memories). The earlier time period story follows a neuroscientist named Helena Smith whose mother has Alzheimers and she’s working at breakneck speed to find a cure or at least something to halt the degenerative process. She seemingly lucks out in finding a entrepreneurial billionaire named Marcus Garvey who is willing to devote as much time and resources as it takes—including flying her to her own lab built on a decommissioned oil rig in international waters. Things are never what they seem.
I read this book when it first came out in 2019, but ironically enough (especially given the plot) I don’t remember it. I know I enjoyed the fast paced ride and recommended it to a friend of mine who was hosting a podcast about the concept of immortality. I remember recommending Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five as well. Recursion has a similar sort of unstuck in time-ness of that amazing novel which is also best read in as close to one sitting as possible.
I’m about one third of the way thru my Recursion re-read and it’s starting to get a bit time travel headachy but I’ll power thru and am sure I’ll finish ahead of the Speculative Fiction book club meeting this Wednesday. I may write more on for next weekend but I don’t want to write too much for fear of spoilers.
What else have I been reading?
True Grit by Charles Portis (re-read for me, but a crucial part of Portis Summer). Full post on this one coming later this summer.
Checkout 19 by Claire-Louise Bennett. The opening chapter has me enthralled as a reader who is very easily distracted by the possibilities of all the other books I might be reading, at any given time, but am not reading, a restlessness that leads me to check out too many books from my library and read five books at once without finishing four of them. The tricky thing is this distractibility wouldn’t be reduced with fewer books. I also agree with the observation that one needn’t read a book to spend a pleasurable time with it. That books as objects in and of themselves offer comfort and inspiration even without opening them.
Trauma of Everyday Life by Mark Epstein. I’ve started this book at least half a dozen times. I know because I’ve found pencil underlines, notes, and marks in it. Epstein is one of my favorite writers / thinkers on the subject of psychology and Buddhism. I may get thru this one this time, but I might not. I feel good about spending time here—with the wisdom of no escape. I find fascinating, his recurring meditations on western psychology (thru the works of Freud, Winnicott & others) held alongside the wisdom of the original teaching and storytelling of the Buddha.
The basic trauma as taught by the Buddha is that in the best course of events for everyone is to get old, get sick, and die. Our mortality, and our knowledge of our mortality causes us great suffering. Sen. Jonie Ernst was correct—even if she was a tad heartless, harsh and/or tone-deaf.
Just finished an early chapter concerning the notion that we need to develop the ego or a “good enough” ego in order to quell the primitive agony of existence. Infants don’t have enough of one and will cry unrelentingly until soothed. There is more good news in the remaining noble truths that Buddha taught, and that Epstein traces with his humble erudition.