It’s coming up on that time of the month again…
…more internet radio/Second Life “live” studio action at Virtually Speaking Science.
First up, tomorrow at either 5 or 6 EDT (will confirm with tomorrow’s reminder), I’ll be talking with Russ Rymer about his just released (today!) novel, Paris Twilight.
Listen live or later on Blog Talk Radio, (also podcast through iTunes, btw) or show up in the live(ish) studio audience in Second Life. (SLURL to come)
Full disclosure: Russ is a good friend, and I had the good fortune to follow the gestation of this story from his almost bashful telling me he’d just had what he thought would be the opening scene of the book come to him almost whole — all the while he was supposed to be writing a wholly different work of non-fiction. I got to read a late draft of the work more than a year later, and as will happen, that scene had found its rightful place very near the book’s end. I have to admit that made me grin, but that internalized bit of snark fell before my larger experience of the work.
Put it this way: I read the draft while starting out on my stint as a juror for the nonfiction category of the 2012 Pulitzers. I and my fellow jurors had spent quite a bit of time talking about what it meant to each of us to be a “Pulitzer” book. I know that awards always have problems, and there is an irreducible leaven of subjectivity, but we really wanted to come to some kind of collective understanding of what we each thought might make a book in the running for a “best of the year” designation. It wasn’t that hard to articulate actually. We all thought the subject had to matter — and we agreed that by “matter” we meant that the writer was able to make whatever they chose to write about really consequential for the reader, and not simply that the book was obviously a “big” one. We fell over each other to say that the work had to make us see its world through eyes made new in one way or another. And we absolutely felt that there had to be literary skill on display, that the writer had paid the craft dues to evoke some music in the language, the words and sentences and larger forms.*
That was my frame of mind as I opened Russ’s new work. And pretty damn quickly I started having that chill down my spine that announces what the body knows sometimes before the conscious mind: this was the real deal. I think that still; Russ’s novel is simply elegantly written at the fine grained level of sentences and passages — and its emotional power and intellectual thrill kept building as I kept reading.
Not to go all book-report on you (or to reveal any spoilers), the lead character in Paris Twilight is Matilde Anselm, professor of cardiac anesthesiology, who arrives in Paris in 1990 as part of an expert, ad hoc medical team brought together to perform a heart transplant at some imprecisely known date in the near future. The science hook that brings this book to my program lies with Russ’s beautiful rendering of the limits of the scientific understanding of the mechanisms of anaesthesiology — a frontier of knowledge that makes each operation a vertiginous, practically and (in Matilde’s case, for reasons we learn as the book unfolds) existentially fraught risk.
We’ll talk about that, about what it took as a practical matter to learn enough about the medicine involve to write with authority and grace about it, and more. Tune in.
Oh — and just to give Russ a little background: Paris Twilight is Russ’s first novel — but he’s a writer’s writer, with a long and excellent history of science and general non-fiction journalism and long form writing. He’s published a couple of books before this one (Genie: A Scientific Tragedy is probably the best known), he’s written for the usual suspects, and he’s had a stint as the editor of Mother Jones. That one sentence hardly does justice to a career spent trying to get at the heart of stories, but do check out the show (or podcast) to meet a truly fine writer.
For a very distant alert — on July 31, I’ll be talking to David Epstein about his new book, The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance. David’s a science-and-sports write — a senior editor at Sports Illustrated — and this is his first book. I’m still waiting for my preview copy, so I’m not going to anticipate its answers, but what appeals to me about this project (beyond having seen and admired some of David’s magazine work) is that it gets at the tired nature-nurture tangle with both new data and some real skepticism about a range of claims. This one will be fun. More details (and a precise time to tune in to come in a few weeks).
*To be complete — I felt, and I believe my colleagues agreed that there was something of a sliding scale on the writerly requirement here: great reporting on a compelling story could elevate workmanlike prose onto the short list, while for works with real literary-non-fiction aspirations a similar level of prose style would probably hold that kind of work back (again, in my mind). It’s perhaps better to say that there was at the very least a threshold of pleasure in the language below which I simply wouldn’t think of the book as the kind of exceptional work to be considered on whatever short list I kept in mind.
Image: Vincent van Gogh, View of Paris around Montmartre, 1886.
ranchandsyrup
Paris Twilight, eh? What will those crazy vampire kids do in Paris???
JoyfulA
I don’t know much about art, but I just fell in love with that van Gogh.
SiubhanDuinne
Wait, I thought we had settled a few threads back that it’s spelled “Rush,” not “Russ.”
SiubhanDuinne
And, to return to a state of unflippancy, the novel and the conversation both sound fascinating. As one who has spent more time under anesthesia than I might have preferred (but better than not being sufficiently anesthetized), this
gives me pause, but if the writing’s as beautiful as you say, I’ll just get past my personal issues and wallow in prose.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Anaesthesia is scary. I had a surgery 6 months ago, and they used twilight drugs and local for most of it, and only knocked me totally out for a short while. They were afraid to do more. Luckily I’m not squeamish. The cauterizing was disgusting.
I thought it would smell like a pork chop, but it smelled like burning fingernails and hair.
Mnemosyne
@JoyfulA:
If you’re ever in Chicago, it’s well worth a trip to the Art Institute to see some of the famous Impressionist paintings in person. Reproductions really can’t get across the impact of the brushstrokes (and I don’t know all that much about art myself).
If you’re ever in Los Angeles, they have at least one (and I think now two) original Van Goghs at the Getty Center.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
I had a friend whose family was basically immune to all known forms of anesthesia. It really, really sucked for her brother when he managed to fracture his arm in multiple places and they had to re-set it.
IowaOldLady
Sounds like a great read. I’m always looking for good books, so I’ll check this one out.
muddy
@Mnemosyne: There are some in St. Louis as well, or were when I went there.
Mnemosyne
@muddy:
Yes, but the Art Institute has “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” which no one tells you is frickin’ HUGE! It’s 7 feet tall and 10 feet wide, and he painted the whole thing using dots.
ETA: Sorry, forgot to say that “Grande Jatte” is Seurat, not Van Gogh. Still … ginormous!
Origuy
@Mnemosyne: Whenever I’m in Chicago, I make a point to go see La Grande Jatte.
The Indianapolis Museum of Art has a surprisingly good collection of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist paintings. Only one Van Gogh, but it’s a nice one. Landscape at Saint-Remy (Enclosed Field with Peasant)
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: Anesthesia is still a murky field, it seems to me. The one time I was under full anesthesia they told me it would be a “light anesthetic” and I’d be fine in 24 hours. A full week later I still felt unsafe to drive. And honestly for months I didn’t feel like myself at all. I don’t know what they used, although I will say the Anesthesiologist was kind of a jerk. He couldn’t put in the IV after boasting that he was a pro at it. Fled the pre-op room and I had to call over a nurse to do it who rolled her eyes at his inability to do something that basic.
Violet
Just heard something on the news about the healthcare law–something about companies having another year to implement some part of it without having to pay penalties. Just caught that much of it–not sure what it was. Anyone know anything about it?
muddy
@Mnemosyne: I’ve been, it’s incredible! In St. Louis I remember a Monet waterlily one, and it was huge too. Not quite as big, but close. They must have spent a fortuna on paint!
Roger Moore
@Mnemosyne:
The Norton Simon has half a dozen van Gough paintings and a couple of other works. Their Impressionist and post-Impressionist collection is very impressive. Simon may not have had as much money as Getty, but he had better taste.
muddy
@Violet: I had language difficulties for 3-4 weeks on a previous surgery where I was under longer, it was one of the issues I brought up this time. I would be talking along and saying nonsense words. Well, real words, but not the ones I was going for. It was pretty scary because I was afraid it was permanent.
muddy
FYWP double.
Hill Dweller
@Violet: They’re delaying the employee mandate for a year, but going ahead with the exchanges.
CBPP says it will have little effect on coverage in 2014 since it applies to companies with more than 50 employees, who are likely already providing coverage.
JPL
@Violet: Most businesses with fifty or more employees already provide insurance for their employees so it is a small percentage but here is the article…. link
of course the assholes are saying this is further proof that Obamacare doesn’t work.
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy:
@Mnemosyne:
@Violet:
In early 2001 I had quadruple bypass cardiac surgery and was under for 9-10 hours. A few months later I began several months of major oral surgery, I think six separate procedures, each putting me out for anywhere from 60-120 minutes. And at the end of 2002 I had two tumors removed from my parotid (salivary) glands, and that was I don’t know how long under general anesthesia. My short-term memory is shot. So is my short-term memory.
Violet
@Hill Dweller: @JPL: Thanks!
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: Isn’t there a known issue with brain function after heart surgery? Something about cutting off the blood supply or re-routing it or something? Sorry you’ve had to have so many surgery and that you’ve had continuing effects.
muddy
@SiubhanDuinne: Wow, that’s a big surgery. You must have a delightful scar!
nepat
Second Life still exists?
SiubhanDuinne
@muddy: Oh, so very many scars!!
@Violet: I’m fine now (I think) but I am absolutely convinced that all that anesthesia did a number on my vocabulary and general ability to recall certain words and names quickly. Part of it I’m sure is due to normal aging, but with me it happened so abruptly that I’m sure there’s a direct connection. However, since there isn’t — AFAIK — a true cure, I just laugh when it happens and in the meantime try to give myself a daily brain workout with half an hour of puzzle-solving every morning. Just to stay as mentally nimble as I can.
muddy
Someone posted this link in here recently, can’t remember who. It’s about loss of nouns. And it is nouns. I never forget verbs or adjectives. So weird.
Poicephalus
Nicely done.
That was 2+ plugs with a hucksterism score of zero.
And a VvG that I haven’t seen before.
C
Violet
@SiubhanDuinne: FWIWI, someone I know who has a PhD in Neuroscience told me that Luminosity is actually pretty good at helping memory. She doesn’t have any financial interest in it and we were talking about it in relation to a relative of mine.
S. cerevisiae
I’m another one who never realized the power of great paintings when you see them in person until I had a chance to see the National Gallery in DC. Now I love to go to galleries like the Art Institute of Chicago when I get a chance.
Prints are nice but there is nothing like the real thing with all the texture, I can’t really put it into words.
SiubhanDuinne
@Violet:
Thanks!
SiubhanDuinne
@S. cerevisiae:
I think you just did.
Mnemosyne
@SiubhanDuinne:
Building on what Violet said about Luminosity, my ADHD doctor had me do a similar (but more clinical) program called Cogmed that really helped. The current thinking about ADHD is that it’s a problem with working memory, so something like Cogmed could help with other memory issues.